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Various types of loads are considered for design of bridge structures. These loads and their combinations decides the safety of the bridge construction during its use under all circumstances. The design loads should be considered properly for perfect design of bridge. Different design loads acting on bridges are explained below.
- Types of Loads for Design of Bridge Structures
- 1. Dead Load
- 2. Live Load
- 3. Impact Loads
- 4. Wind Loads
- 5. Longitudinal Forces
- 6. Centrifugal Forces
- 7. Buoyancy Effect
- 8. Forces by Water Current
- 9. Thermal Stresses
- 10. Seismic Loads
- 11. Deformation and Horizontal Effects
- 12. Erection Stresses
Types of Loads for Design of Bridge Structures
Various design loads to be considered in the design of bridges are:
- Dead load
- Live load
- Impact load
- Wind load
- Longitudinal forces
- Centrifugal forces
- Buoyancy effect
- Effect of water current
- Thermal effects
- Deformation and horizontal effects
- Erection stresses
- Seismic loads
1. Dead Load
The dead load is nothing but a self-weight of the bridge elements. The different elements of bridge are deck slab, wearing coat, railings, parapet, stiffeners and other utilities. It is the first design load to be calculated in the design of bridge.
2. Live Load
The live load on the bridge, is moving load on the bridge throughout its length. The moving loads are vehicles, Pedestrians etc. but it is difficult to select one vehicle or a group of vehicles to design a safe bridge.
So, IRC recommended some imaginary vehicles as live loads which will give safe results against the any type of vehicle moving on the bridge. The vehicle loadings are categorized in to three types and they are
- IRC class AA loading
- IRC class A loading
- IRC class B loading
IRC Class AA Loading
This type of loading is considered for the design of new bridge especially heavy loading bridges like bridges on highways, in cities, industrial areas etc. In class AA loading generally two types of vehicles considered, and they are
- Tracked type
- Wheeled type
IRC Class A Loading
This type of loading is used in the design of all permanent bridges. It is considered as standard live load of bridge. When we design a bridge using class AA type loading, then it must be checked for class A loading also.
IRC Class B Loading
This type of loading is used to design temporary bridges like Timber Bridge etc. It is considered as light loading. Both IRC class A and Class B are shown in below figure.
3. Impact Loads
The Impact load on bridge is due to sudden loads which are caused when the vehicle is moving on the bridge. When the wheel is in movement, the live load will change periodically from one wheel to another which results the impact load on bridge.
To consider impact loads on bridges, an impact factor is used. Impact factor is a multiplying factor which depends upon many factors such as weight of vehicle, span of bridge, velocity of vehicle etc. The impact factors for different IRC loadings are given below.
For IRC Class AA Loading and 70R Loading
|Span||Vehicle type||Impact factor|
|Less than 9 meters||Tracked vehicle||25% up to 5m and linearly reducing to 10% from 5 m to 9 m.|
|Wheeled vehicle||25% up to 9 m|
|Greater than 9 meters||Tracked vehicle (RCC bridge)||10% up to 40 m|
|Wheeled vehicle (RCC bridge)||25% up to 12m|
|Tracked vehicle (steel bridge)||10% for all spans|
|Wheeled vehicle (steel bridge)||25% up to 23 m|
If the length exceeds in any of the above limits, the impact factor should be considered from the graph given by IRC which is shown below.
For IRC class A and class B loadings
Impact factor If = A/(B+L)
Where L = span in meters
A and B are constants
Apart from the super structure impact factor is also considered for substructures
- For bed blocks, If = 0.5
- For substructure up to the depth of 3 meters If = 0.5 to 0
- For substructure greater than 3 m depth If = 0
4. Wind Loads
Wind load also an important factor in the bridge design. For short span bridges, wind load can be negligible. But for medium span bridges, wind load should be considered for substructure design. For long span bridges, wind load is considered in the design of super structure.
5. Longitudinal Forces
The longitudinal forces are caused by braking or accelerating of vehicle on the bridge. When the vehicle stops suddenly or accelerates suddenly it induces longitudinal forces on the bridge structure especially on the substructure. So, IRC recommends 20% of live load should be considered as longitudinal force on the bridges.
6. Centrifugal Forces
If bridge is to be built on horizontal curves, then the movement of vehicle along curves will cause centrifugal force on to the super structure. Hence, in this case design should be done for centrifugal forces also.
Centrifugal force can be calculated by C (kN/m) = (WV2)/(12.7R)
W = live load (kN)
V = Design speed (kmph)
R = Radius of curve (m)
7. Buoyancy Effect
Buoyancy effect is considered for substructures of large bridges submerged under deep water bodies. Is the depth of submergence is less it can be negligible.
8. Forces by Water Current
When the bridge is to be constructed across a river, some part of the substructure is under submergence of water. The water current induces horizontal forces on submerged portion. The forces caused by water currents are maximum at the top of water level and zero at the bottom water level or at the bed level.
The pressure by water current is P = KW [V2/2g]
Where P = pressure (kN/m2)
K = constant (value depending upon shape of pier)
W = unit weight of water
V = water current velocity (m/s)
G = acceleration due to gravity (m/s2)
9. Thermal Stresses
Thermal stresses are caused due to temperature. When the temperature is very high or very low they induce stresses in the bridge elements especially at bearings and deck joints. These stresses are tensile in nature so, concrete cannot withstand against this and cracks are formed.
To resist this, additional steel reinforcement perpendicular to main reinforcement should be provided. Expansion joints are also provided.
10. Seismic Loads
When the bridge is to be built in seismic zone or earthquake zone, earthquake loads must be considered. They induce both vertical and horizontal forces during earthquake. The amount of forces exerted is mainly depends on the self-weight of the structure. If weight of structure is more, larger forces will be exerted.
11. Deformation and Horizontal Effects
Deformation stresses are occurred due to change is material properties either internally or externally. The change may be creep, shrinkage of concrete etc. similarly horizontal forces will develop due to temperature changes, braking of vehicles, earthquakes etc. Hence, these are also be considered as design loads in bridge design.
12. Erection Stresses
Erection stress are induced by the construction equipment during the bridge construction. These can be resisted by providing suitable supports for the members.
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During the mid-20th century, strong economic growth was broadly shared, as incomes increased and children could expect a better quality of life than their parents, though significant disparities across demographic groups remained. In recent decades, wealth, income, and earnings inequality have been rising and mobility declining, and demographic disparities persist. Better understanding these trends and their implications for economic growth will inform evidence-backed policies that improve growth and mobility for people across incomes, regions, and demographic groups.
Explore Content in Inequality & Mobility995
Experts on the issue
Stanford UniversityLearn More
University of ChicagoLearn More
Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyLearn More
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Ohio State UniversityLearn More
Explore the Equitable Growth network of experts around the country and get answers to today's most pressing questions!
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In real estate, the net operating income, or NOI, represents the annual revenue (or income) generated by an investment property after annual operating expenses. The NOI is used by real estate investors to calculate a property’s capitalization (cap) rate, which helps determine its annual yield (or rate of return) and provides a simple basis for comparing the relative value of similar properties in a given market.
To finish the calculation, simply subtract operating expenses from gross operating income, arriving at net operating income (NOI)
What do you need to calculate NOI?
Gross Potential Income
This is the sum of the annual rent paid by tenants in any commercial property. A multifamily property with 4 apartments, each renting for $1,000 per month would generate an annual gross potential income of $48,000. This assumes 100% occupancy, which is not always the case. Accounting for vacancy and missed rent payments comes next.
Vacancy and Credit Loss
Regardless of the type of commercial real estate, there is always the potential for vacancies and missed rent payments. This is slightly trickier to calculate, because it depends on demand, tenants’ credit, and unforeseen reasons to keep a unit vacant such as a need for renovations. Anticipated vacancy and credit loss is estimated as a percentage of net operating income.
Comparable properties in the area are the best resource for determining vacancy and credit loss. Property managers go to great lengths to minimize these losses, which is why rental applications often include a credit report, and regular updates are made to properties to keep occupancy high.
Properties earn the majority of their income through rental payments. Other income can be earned from sources related to the operations of the property, such as parking spaces, vending machines, and laundry services. Typically, this income will only represent a small fraction of the rental income earned by the property.
These include all of the expenses incurred by “operating” the property. Expenses typical of many commercial real estate assets include:
- Maintenance and repairs
- Leasing and management costs
- Utilities not paid by tenants
- Property taxes
Note that net operating income does not include any costs associated with principal and interest payments on any debt, as these are considered financing costs, not operating costs. Operating expenses can change from year to year, especially when it comes to maintenance and repairs. Property managers differentiate themselves on the basis of their active management strategy for reducing expenses and increasing rental income.
An Example of Net Operating Income
Consider a real estate company is going to make an investment in a large mixed-use development which includes apartments and event space. The property generates annual rental income of $500,000 from the apartments. Similar properties in the area have experienced vacancy and credit loss of 5% annually, which amounts to $25,000. Other income is generated by a parking garage that charges hourly, and event space that can be rented. These generate an annual income of $30,000. Major expenses include maintenance of the buildings, property taxes, and management costs, amounting to $100,000. This means that the NOI for the property is $405,000 (see footnote for calculation).
1. (500,000 - 25,000 + 30,000 - 100,000) = $405,000
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| 0.953078 | 676 | 2.53125 | 3 |
While Americans debated the aesthetic ramifications of their first planned offshore wind farm for the last nine years, it seems the Chinese had already jumped ahead in the industry. A recent Climate Wire article highlights China’s first endeavor into offshore wind, the 102-megawatt Donghai Bridge Wind Farm, and its future plans for the sector. What becomes clear throughout the piece is that China has moved from simply a manufacturing giant to a technological innovator:
“‘What the U.S. doesn’t realize,’ said Peggy Liu, founder and chairwoman of the Joint U.S.-China Collaboration on Clean Energy, is that China ‘is going from manufacturing hub to the clean-tech laboratory of the world.’”
The Donghai wind farm is notable not simply in that it beat America to the punch, but that the majority of parts and design came from China. On top of decreasing reliance on foreign firms is the innovative nature of the foundations used on the project, a departure from Europe’s typical deepwater installations.
The success of Chinese offshore wind farms could have long term ramifications for the American economy. China is on track to meet its has ambitious plans to produce 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2020, with 514MW expected to be installed along the coastline in the next three to four years, according to an Azure-WWF report. These ambitious production goals will create a robust market which will drive demand and thus Chinese RD&D and large scale production. The Donghai project may simply be the nation’s first move towards dominance of the wind turbine market:
“Anthony Fullelove, project manager for North Brown Hill Wind Farm, based in Sydney, Australia, expects that his country, as well as Europe and the United States, will see a sharp increase in turbines sourced from China — as the technology rises to meet global standards and prices drop — to make wind farms viable especially in a generation sector without a carbon price.”
China will seek to prove through its ambitious goals that creating markets can drive not just manufacturing by hi-tech RD&D. The United States government must take similar steps to grow demand for turbines to ensure that they don’t miss out on what promises to be a high growth industry.
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en
| 0.94946 | 467 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Cancer in Pets: The Importance of Early Detection
Cancer is an unfortunate part of life for many people, and the same is true for our pets. Cancer is the main cause of death in close to 50% of all dogs and more than 30% of cats, according to the Veterinary Cancer Society. Dogs experience cancer at the same rate as humans, in fact, and can be difficult to detect until the cancer has progressed.
While cancer is a scary topic for most of us who love our pets, it is important to know the signs and ways you can catch the disease early. The good news is that we have come a long way in diagnosing and treating cancer in pets and can give hope to those pet parents affected.
Cancer is the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells of the body. It is a complex disease that actually presents differently, depending on the type and location of the cancer. In a way, cancer is an umbrella for many diseases, from melanoma to leukemia. Some of the more common forms of cancer include:
- Lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph nodes
- Mast cell tumor
- Osteosarcoma, or bone cancer
- Hemangiosarcoma, cancer of the blood vessels
- Melanoma, an aggressive skin cancer
- Mammary gland carcinoma, typically affecting unspayed females
- Leukemia (cats)
Cancer is caused by several factors which include genetics, hormones, diet, exposure to carcinogens, among other factors. Knowing how your pet’s breed and lifestyle contributes to cancer risk can help you be aware of the signs and make good changes to reduce the risk.
Even when the cause is genetics, having an understanding of your pet’s propensity to develop cancer can give you better insight into what to watch for. This will also allow you to keep your pet as healthy as possible, reducing other factors that can contribute to cancer.
Symptoms of Cancer in Pets
Knowing what to look for can help in a better outlook for treatment. Here are some warning signs that are commonly seen in pet companions.
- Abnormal swelling that persists
- Weight loss
- Loss of appetite
- Offensive odor
- Difficulty urinating, defecating, and/or breathing
- Sores that do not heal
- Unexplained bleeding
Please follow up with your veterinarian if your pet displays any of these symptoms.
Early Detection for a Better Outcome
Early detection is one of the best indicators of a better prognosis when a pet is diagnosed with cancer. A big part of this is being proactive when you notice any changes in your pet’s health. At Berks, we rely on advanced diagnostics to determine whether cancer is present. Some of the tools we use at our hospital include ultrasound, X-rays, genetic testing, and lab work.
Our hope is that, through the use of diagnostic testing and new treatments for cancer, we can overcome this terrible disease that affects so many of our furry loved ones. If you would like more information on cancer in pets and our oncological capabilities, please call Berks Animal Emergency and Referral Center team.
For a personal personal account of one pet’s journey with cancer, we shared the story of Parker and his family.
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Engineering Properties of Aggregates
Aggregates are used in concrete to provide economy in the cost of concrete. Aggregates act as filler only. These do not react with cement and water.
But there are properties or characteristics of aggregate which influence the properties of resulting concrete mix. These are as follow.
- Size & Shape
- Surface Texture
- Specific Gravity
- Bulk Density
- Porosity & Absorption
- Bulking of Sand
- Fineness Modulus of Aggregate
- Surface Index of Aggregate
- Deleterious Material
- Crushing Value of Aggregate
- Impact Value of Aggregate
- Abrasion Value of Aggregate
Aggregates consisting of materials that can react with alkalies in cement and cause excessive expansion, cracking and deterioration of concrete mix should never be used. Therefore it is required to test aggregates to know whether there is presence of any such constituents in aggregate or not.
2. Size & Shape
The size and shape of the aggregate particles greatly influence the quantity of cement required in concrete mix and hence ultimately economy of concrete. For the preparation of economical concrete mix on should use largest coarse aggregates feasible for the structure. IS-456 suggests following recommendation to decide the maximum size of coarse aggregate to be used in P.C.C & R.C.C mix.
Maximum size of aggregate should be less than
- One-fourth of the minimum dimension of the concrete member.
- One-fifth of the minimum dimension of the reinforced concrete member.
- The minimum clear spacing between reinforced bars or 5 mm less than the minimum cover between the reinforced bars and form, whichever is smaller for heavily reinforced concrete members such as the ribs of the main bars.
Remember that the size & shape of aggregate particles influence the properties of freshly mixed concrete more as compared to those of hardened concrete.
Also read: How to Classify Aggregates Based on Size
Also read: How to Classify Aggregates Based on Shape
3. Surface Texture
The development of hard bond strength between aggregate particles and cement paste depends upon the surface texture, surface roughness and surface porosity of the aggregate particles.
If the surface is rough but porous, maximum bond strength develops. In porous surface aggregates, the bond strength increases due to setting of cement paste in the pores.
4. Specific Gravity
The ratio of weight of oven dried aggregates maintained for 24 hours at a temperature of 100 to 1100C, to the weight of equal volume of water displaced by saturated dry surface aggregate is known as specific gravity of aggregates.
Specific gravities are primarily of two types.
- Apparent specific gravity
- Bulk specific gravity
Specific gravity is a mean to decide the suitability of the aggregate. Low specific gravity generally indicates porous, weak and absorptive materials, whereas high specific gravity indicates materials of good quality. Specific gravity of major aggregates falls within the range of 2.6 to 2.9.
Specific gravity values are also used while designing concrete mix.
Also read: Specific Gravity & Water Absorption Test of Aggregates
5. Bulk Density
It is defined as the weight of the aggregate required to fill a container of unit volume. It is generally expressed in kg/litre.
Bulk density of aggregates depends upon the following 3 factors.
- Degree of compaction
- Grading of aggregates
- Shape of aggregate particles
The empty spaces between the aggregate particles are known as voids. The volume of void equals the difference between the gross volume of the aggregate mass and the volume occupied by the particles alone.
Also read: Bulk Density & Void Test of Aggregate
7. Porosity & Absorption
The minute holes formed in rocks during solidification of the molten magma, due to air bubbles, are known as pores. Rocks containing pores are called porous rocks.
Water absorption may be defined as the difference between the weight of very dry aggregates and the weight of the saturated aggregates with surface dry conditions.
Depending upon the amount of moisture content in aggregates, it can exist in any of the 4 conditions.
- Very dry aggregate ( having no moisture)
- Dry aggregate (contain some moisture in its pores)
- Saturated surface dry aggregate (pores completely filled with moisture but no moisture on surface)
- Moist or wet aggregates (pores are filled with moisture and also having moisture on surface)
8. Bulking of Sand
It can be defined as in increase in the bulk volume of the quantity of sand (i.e. fine aggregate) in a moist condition over the volume of the same quantity of dry or completely saturated sand. The ratio of the volume of moist sand due to the volume of sand when dry, is called bulking factor.
Fine sands bulk more than coarse sand
When water is added to dry and loose sand, a thin film of water is formed around the sand particles. Interlocking of air in between the sand particles and the film of water tends to push the particles apart due to surface tension and thus increase the volume. But in case of fully saturated sand the water films are broken and the volume becomes equal to that of dry sand.
Also read: Bulking of Sand – What, Why & How
9. Fineness Modulus
Fineness modulus is an empirical factor obtained by adding the cumulative percentages of aggregate retained on each of the standard sieves ranging from 80 mm to 150 micron and dividing this sum by 100.
Fineness modulus is generally used to get an idea of how coarse or fine the aggregate is. More fineness modulus value indicates that the aggregate is coarser and small value of fineness modulus indicates that the aggregate is finer.
Also read: Fineness Modulus of Aggregate – What, Why & How
10. Specific Surface of Aggregate
The surface area per unit weight of the material is termed as specific surface. This is an indirect measure of the aggregate grading. Specific surface increases with the reduction in the size of aggregate particle. The specific surface area of the fine aggregate is very much more than that of coarse aggregate.
Also read: How to Calculate Total Surface Index of Aggregate
11. Deleterious Materials
Aggregates should not contain any harmful material in such a quantity so as to affect the strength and durability of the concrete. Such harmful materials are called deleterious materials. Deleterious materials may cause one of the following effects
- To interfere hydration of cement
- To prevent development of proper bond
- To reduce strength and durability
- To modify setting times
Deleterious materials generally found in aggregates, may be grouped as under
- Organic impurities
- Clay , silt & dust
- Salt contamination
Also read: Determination of Light Weight Pieces in Aggregates
12. Crushing Value
The aggregates crushing value gives a relative measure of resistance of an aggregate to crushing under gradually applied compressive load. The aggregate crushing strength value is a useful factor to know the behavior of aggregates when subjected to compressive loads.
Also read: Crushing Value Test of Aggregates
13. Impact Value
The aggregate impact value gives a relative measure of the resistance of an aggregate to sudden shock or impact. The impact value of an aggregate is sometime used as an alternative to its crushing value.
Also read: Impact Value Test of Aggregates
14. Abrasion Value of Aggregates
The abrasion value gives a relative measure of resistance of an aggregate to wear when it is rotated in a cylinder along with some abrasive charge.
Also read: Abrasion Value Test of Aggregates
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| 0.908986 | 1,586 | 3.265625 | 3 |
So, how do you come up with one?
Top level headings should be centered on the page, using upper and lower case. Second level headings should be flush left, italicized, using upper and lower case. A table is labeled Table and given a number e.
The table label and caption or title appear above the table, capitalized like a title, flush left. Sources and notes appear below the table, flush left. Photos, graphs, charts or diagrams should be labeled Figure usually abbreviate Fig.
The label, title, and source if any appear underneath the figure, flush left, in a continuous block of text rather than one element per line.
Unless your teacher tells you otherwise, tables and illustrations appear at the end of the paper.
Each table begins on a separate page with the label Table 1 etc. Double-space and type the table title flush left italicized using uppercase and lowercase letters. Figures Captions appear on the last numbered page of the paper.
In this case the label Figure 1 etc. The caption uses regular sentence capitalization. The figures themselves follow, one per page. Order of Major Sections Each of these sections if present begins on a new page:The lesson plan for this presentation is found on our website in Third grade, Unit 6 on Research Writing.
This lesson plan features a version of the presentation that includes teacher notes for guiding the activities outlined in the slide. Whether you choose to brainstorm, discuss with classmates, read topic prompts, sample papers, magazines, journals, blogs, or books – there are more than a dozen ways to get it right.
Research Paper Topic by Category. Third grade is the first year that a new writing standard — called simply “a range of writing” — is introduced in the Common Core Standards.
It’s part of the effort to get students writing more — and more often. Third Grade Research Rough Draft Template Report Template (Click). 1. Select "Click Here." 2. Highlight the rough draft template. 3. Under Edit, select "Copy." 4. Open a new google document. ‘Research Report 3 & 4’ is a report writing worksheet that can be used to help 3rd and 4th graders record their findings at the end of their research.
Giving them this worksheet will help them understand what questions they will be expected to answer during their research/5. Third Grade Research Rough Draft Template Report Template (Click).
1. Select "Click Here." 2. Highlight the rough draft template. 3. Under Edit, select "Copy." 4. Open a new google document.
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| 0.857137 | 540 | 3.78125 | 4 |
Obstructive sleep apnoea and obesity
The global obesity epidemic continues to gain momentum, and South Africa is one of those countries with an extremely high prevalence of obesity. The reported association between obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) and obesity has resulted in a parallel increase in the incidence of OSA. Obesity and OSA interact by inducing systemic inflammation, metabolic aberrations and endocrine abnormalities, all of which predispose patients to atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease. OSA is associated with a pro-inflammatory state, and increased serum C-reactive protein concentrations. Cardiovascular complications of OSA include myocardial infarction, stroke, congestive heart failure, hypertension and cardiac arrhythmias. The complications of OSA and obesity result in reduced quality of life, significant morbidity, and increased mortality, for untreated patients. OSA causes symptoms such as snoring, apnoea, excessive daytime sleepiness, and morning headaches, but 80-90% of patients are never diagnosed, or treated for their condition. Recognition of these symptoms, and referral of patients for a polysomnogram (home- or laboratory-based), expedites the diagnosis and therapy of OSA. While continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) remains the mainstay of therapy, dietary measures are important, and should be implemented. Loss of weight can lead to significant reductions in the apnoea-hypopnoea index (AHI) of patients with OSA, and obese patients with OSA should aim for a 10% reduction in body weight.
Keywords: obstructive sleep apnoea and obesity
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Rodfe Sedek Synagogue, Mexico City
Haim F. Ghiuzeli
The Rodfe Sedek synagogue in Mexico City was established in 1931. It has since served the community of Jewish immigrants from the city of Aleppo, in northern Syria, and their descendants. During the first years of the 20th century, the Jews from Aleppo used to worship in a private house transformed in a synagogue – Sinagoga Ketana (Bet Haknesset HaKatan) located in Calles de Jesús María in Mexico City. In 1938 the Jewish immigrants from Aleppo set up Sociedad de beneficencia Sedaká u Marpé, a separate Jewish community in Mexico City that since 1984 has been known as Comunidad Maguen David. The opening of the Orthodox Rodfe Sedek synagogue was possible thanks to the efforts of Rabbi Mordejay Attie, whose determination and dedication were of the greatest importance for raising the necessary funds. Known also as Knis de Cordoba, the Rodfe Sedek synagogue is situated at 238 Cordoba Street in the Roma quarter of Mexico City. At the time this neighborhood was home to the largest concentration of Jews from Aleppo in Mexico City. The first mikveh (ritual bath) in Mexico was established within the Rodfe Sedek synagogue. In 1982 a funeral house was built in the courtyard of the synagogue.
The famous Central Synagogue of Aleppo (burnt down in 1947) provided the main inspiration for the architecture of Rodfe Sedek Synagogue. The main entrance is through a large wooden door decorated with a Star of David leading to a small lobby. The main hall is situated at the first hall and has an almost square shaped floor plan. The design is dominated by the repeated pattern of diagonal lines mounting rhythmically towards a pointed arch. The motif can be found on many parts of the building – ceilings, windows, and doors – inside and outside alike as well as on various pieces of furniture.
To reach the Holy Ark – Heichal – one has to climb three steps, the Torah scrolls are being kept inside a large wooden room that lies behind the doors of the Holy Ark separated from the main prayer hall by a marble balustrade. The wooden tevah stands at the center of the prayer hall. There are two women’s galleries; the one located a the west end of the prayer hall has eight rows of benches and is lighted up by a large stained glass window featuring a Star of David, the other gallery is located in the north wing of the building.
The decoration of the synagogue makes use of Hebrew inscriptions of biblical verses, among them one above the Holy Ark, of traditional Jewish symbols like the menorah and the Magen David (Star of David), and of geometrical motifs and depictions of elements of natural flora. Color stained glass windows filter the sunlight helping to create an atmosphere of reverence and spirituality.
The Rodfe Sedek synagogue has served the members of the Aleppo Jews in Mexico for generations not only as a prayer house, but also as an important gathering place and the premises of many religious, social, cultural, educational and communal activities. However, the synagogue’s centrality as a prayer and meetinghouse for the members of the Maguen David Community of the Aleppo Jews has diminished since the 1960’s following the moving of a majority of worshipers from the Roma quarter to other districts in Mexico City, although its spiritual importance has remained unchanged. Today only a small number of people pray in the Rodfe Sedek synagogue while the study of the Torah continues uninterrupted in the local Beth Midrash.
Addresses and links:
Cordoba No. 238
C.P. 11550 Mexico City, DF
Phone: 011 525 574 8854
Comunidad Maguen David, A.C.
Lafontaine No. 229
C. P. 11550 Mexico City, D.F.
Phone: 011 525 203 9964
Fax: 011 525 255 1739
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Acne and pimples are characteristic of the period of puberty, and many think that this phenomenon is related to insufficient facial hygiene. Which, of course, may not be true, but they most often appear on extremely oily and sensitive skin. To be able to get rid of them, it is necessary to understand how and why acne appears, and of course you need to know how to care for a person who is prone to these phenomena.
During puberty, hormonal changes occur in our body, which in some people can lead to excessive secretion of fat, which then causes the appearance of acne and pimples. However, this problem can occur at any age, even in babies, but also in adults. Based on when acne appears and how serious the problem is, as well as the causes that caused it, they can be classified into several groups.
Many believe in the misconceptions about how and why acne occurs, such as the fact that people who have oily skin do not take enough care of personal hygiene, or that chocolate is the main culprit for this phenomenon.
In fact, the real reason is the excessive secretion of fat-producing glands due to hormonal imbalance, then a lot depends on genetics whether you will be prone to acne or not, and of course, if you do not take care of your diet or use medications such as. steroids, etc., are more likely to have this phenomenon.
Oily skin can also occur if you are exposed to frequent stress if you are a smoker if you do not use adequate facial cleansers and other skincare products. Pimples and acne will not only damage the appearance of your skin, but also your self-confidence, and they can also leave permanent consequences such as dark spots and scars. It is very important to know how to prevent their occurrence, and if they already appear, how to nurture a person who is prone to this occurrence.
Facial cleansers that can help fight acne
Acne is actually an inflammatory disease for which bacteria, hormones, various inflammations, seborrhea, or oily skin can be responsible, which is a consequence of using preparations that are not adequate for your skin type.
Another misconception related to facial cleansing is that it is believed that frequent washing will prevent the appearance of pimples and acne, however, facial cleansers can be aggressive and their excessive use can worsen the condition of your skin. If you are prone to an acne problem, the best advice is to use mild facial cleansers that are gentle on your skin but will clean it thoroughly.
When washing, it is recommended to use warm water and clean the face twice a day, in the morning to remove excess dead cells and sebum that form during the night, and at bedtime to remove makeup and dirt that has accumulated during the day.
The best cleansers for oily skin should be mild and have a soothing effect, provide protection and not clog pores, and one such product that we can recommend is Neostrata cleansing lotion – Clarifying Facial Cleanser foam gel that does not contain soap and has a strong antibacterial effect.
If you have mature skin with visible signs of aging and yet prone to acne, a good choice would be Exuviance Clarifying Facial Cleanser, whose ingredients have soothing effects with additional antiaging effects that improve skin texture and provide it with optimal pH value.
The best face creams if your skin is prone to acne and pimples
The problem with acne can range from a mild to a very serious problem and can appear on various parts of the body such as the face, neck, shoulders, back, or chest. Depending on the severity of the problem, as well as the location where they appear, there are preparations that are used for their treatment, such as cream for oily skin, skin that is prone to acne, and various cleansing tonics and other preparations.
The most important thing is to start treating acne and pimples on time in order to avoid large and permanent damage to the skin. Treatments that use products with active substances, such as e.g. Spot Treatment Acne Gel, which provides a triple effect, and contains active ingredients that penetrate the pores and deeply treat skin problems.
The best face creams that will help you fight this problem should have an antibacterial effect, protection from UV radiation, as well as affect the preservation of skin acidity. One such cream is the tinted medical cream Dr. Wolff Anefug Simplex recommended for people with oily skin.
Oily skin also needs hydration to boost its protective functions, and the best face creams you can afford for your skin are:
Neostrata Sheer Hydration SPF 35 is a hydrating cream for oily skin that has a high protection factor, neoglucosamine and botanical extract, for gentle skin exfoliation and stimulating cell renewal, reducing acne blemishes and the effects of aging, while having the effect of tightening and rejuvenating the skin;
Exuviance Sheer Refining Fluind SPF 35 is a mild day cream for oily skin and acne-prone skin, with anti-aging effects that will keep your skin firm and taut;
Exuviance Night Renewal HydraGel is a night anti-age cream for oily facial skin, which contains an AHA / PHA complex for skin renewal and regeneration, without oil. It removes the signs of aging, reduces enlarged pores, improves skin texture, and its herbal extracts reduce fat secretion without drying out the skin.
If you are prone to do-it-yourself procedures, it is better to stop this bad habit, because you can encourage the spread of bacteria and worsen the condition of the skin, so entrust the squeezing of acne and pimples to experts who will solve your problem with professional treatments in sterile conditions.
In addition to treatment, it is very important to take care of your diet, to have regular physical activities that affect your overall health, and thus the largest organ in our body, which is the skin.
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A stoma is an artificial opening made by surgery that leads from the surface of the skin to a hollow organ, often in the abdomen for the purpose of diverting feces and/or urine outside the body. Colitis, Crohn’s disease, colorectal and bladder cancer are often the cause of stoma. There are many types of stoma bags used to collect the waste, depending on the type of stoma the person has.
Different types of stomas include those that come from the large or small intestine or those coming from the kidneys to drain urine. Even if the stoma is temporary to give the bowel time to heal, the patient must usually keep it comfortable for a minimum of three months. One way to increase comfort of the stoma, protect the skin and increase wear time is with Convatec Stomahesive Paste.
Convatec Stomahesive Paste is hyrocolloid-based paste that is used as a skin barrier. It works to fill in areas of the skin’s surface that are uneven for better and extended use of the ostomy system. The paste is used with skin barrier/wafers as a way to protect the skin around the stoma. It is not adhesive, but a type of filler that creates a flat surface that resists leakage. The wearer can either apply the Convatec Stomahesive Paste directly to the skin barrier or to the skin.
Application to Skin Barrier/Wafer
After preparing the skin barrier according to package directions under “Use Accompanying the Wafer”, apply a thin bead of the Stomahesive Paste around the opening on the skin barrier on the adhesive side only. Center it over the stoma and apply even, gentle pressure. This will create a seal by forcing the paste across the skin barrier and around the stoma.
Application to Skin
After preparing the skin barrier as instructed, apply the paste directly to the skin surrounding the stoma. Be sure to cover the entire area of skin between the barrier and the stoma. Create a level surface for the barrier/wafer by applying the Convatec Stomahesive Paste on any area that is uneven from scars, folds or other uneven surfaces. Wet the finger prior to application to prevent the paste from sticking to the fingers. Center the barrier over the stoma and apply gentle, even pressure.
Removal of the Convatec Stomahesive Paste
After the paste has been left in place for 48 hours, it can be removed by gently pulling the skin barrier off of the skin’s surface. There are also remover wipes available that will aid in the removal of the paste. All of the existing paste does not have to be removed in order to prepare it for the next application. This will reduce the incidence of irritation occurring to the skin.
Convatec Stomahesive Paste fills in uneven areas of skin to prevent leakage and resist breakdown of the surrounding skin. It improves a snug fit; increases wear time of the ostomy system, and are appropriate for use in all types of wearers. The easy-to-use paste offers a number of advantages that will improve your time with a stoma.
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The folks working with the fantabulous Cassini Saturn probe just released a very cool image indicating a very cool discovery: a moonlet embedded in Saturn's G ring.
Saturn's G ring is the second outermost ring (one more ring, E, is outside G, but very wide and diffuse). It's about 8000 km (5000 miles) wide, orbiting Saturn about 165,000 km (100,000 miles) out from the planet. It's mostly dust, which was a mystery: there was no moon associated with it to replenish the dust, the only ring like it around Saturn without such a source. These new images (click to emringen) clearly show there is a moon there indeed, though it hardly qualifies with such a grandiose name: it's only about 500 meters (600 yards) across.
These images were taken over about ten minutes, with each image being a 46 second exposure. The camera was tracking on the ring, so the stars appear as streaks. The moonlet can be seen to be embedded in the ring, and moving with it. That makes it clearly part of the G ring, and the obvious long-sought source of dust.
Incidentally, the left image is in visible light, the middle in red, and the right in near-infrared. Taking images at different wavelengths (colors) like that gives astronomers insight in the composition of the ring material -- ice and dust reflect light very differently, so looking at the relative brightnesses of the ring in different wavelengths can distinguish what material is in it.
This is a very cool thing: scientists predicted the moonlet was present because they had studied other rings and knew there had to be something in there making the dust particles, so they went looking for it, and bang! They found it.
That's science. Observation, hypothesis, test, result. A billion kilometers from Earth, and science still works. That's one of the many reasons I like it so much. That, plus it's simply so cool.
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
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Indspire supports communities to improve educational outcomes through the documentation and evaluation of their innovative practices. This community-led process is supported by an Indspire-funded Indigenous scholar, who works with programs on the ground to provide training on data collection and evaluation methodology.
Click on each to get more info
Little Red Spirit, Aboriginal Head Start Program
Little Red Spirit, Aboriginal Head Start is a community-based early childhood education program for Indigenous children between the ages of 3 and 6. Programming is based on six key components: culture and language, education, health promotion, nutrition, social support, and parental involvement. In addition to interviews with parents, teachers and program staff, the evaluation methodology includes an experimental design that assesses the academic outcomes (math, reading, writing, and school attendance) of former Little Red Spirit students currently attending Grades 1-6 at Dufferin School in Winnipeg. The findings of this evaluation reveal that former Little Red Spirit students exhibited higher attendance levels and more favourable teacher-rated math, reading, and writing assessments compared to a grade-matched group of peers who had not attended the program. Furthermore, current Little Red Spirit participants also demonstrated a high degree of positive change with regard to their academic and social development skills since joining the program.
For more info, please contact us:
[email protected] | 1.855.INDSPIRE (463.7747) x230
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Don’t Get Caught Watching The Paint Dry
In the classic movie Hoosiers (1986), “Shooter” Flatch, the assistant basketball coach calls “Timeout!” In the huddle, he tells the team “This is the last shot that we got….We’re going to run the Picket Fence….Don’t get caught watching the paint dry!” As classrooms across the United States enter the final days of the school year, I am reminded of this scene from the movie. ‘This is the last shot that we got’ with each of our students. Are we going to have Field Day, Movie Day, Pajama Day, Beach Day, Popcorn Day, and Free Day? Are we going to coast until the final bell rings or are there more intentional ways to end the school year?
In recent years, I have seen several positive ways to spend the final weeks of the school year. Students come to school thirsty for learning. I understand that there are more discipline referrals at the end of the year and that some students are trying to get suspended from school so they can start the summer break early. What if we made the end of the school year more fun than watching the paint dry?
20 Ways To Spend The Final Weeks Of The School Year
1. STEAM Day
2. Scavenger Hunt with GPS or QR Codes/Review Key Skills
3. Mystery Reader Day
4. Jump Rope For Heart
5. International Day
6. Music Day
7. Design a Doodle 4 Google
8. Mystery Skype
9. Leadership Theme Day
10. Lunch with Parents Day
11. Math Theme Day
12. Digital Citizenship Day
13. MakerSpace Day
14. Buddy Readers
15. LEGOS Day
16. Make a Class YouTube video.
17. Poetry Slam
18. Adopt a University (By Class)
19. Career Day
20. Imagination Station
Ask students to design the dream classroom. You may be surprised by what you get.
Employers are searching the globe for employees with the 5 Cs: Creativity, Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Communication, and Contribution. Take a timeout with your co-workers. Analyze the final weeks of the school year and ask, “Will these lessons and activities help students become College and Career Ready?" Students have earned the right to a break at the end of the school year. However, a break does not mean we should stop teaching life lessons and skills. What key skills do students need to know in order to succeed at the next level? How can we incorporate these skills into the final weeks of the school year?
Review sessions don’t need to be drill and kill. There are multiple ways to prepare students to take the winning shot in life! Some schools rely on “Tradition” at the end of the school year. The students attend school for the final 14 days knowing that they will not have to think, design, collaborate, or participate. Tradition dictates that we have Field Day, even though several students are not athletes. We have free choice day where students can do whatver they choose. In elementary schools we ask students to help clean the desks with shaving cream, according to tradition. The students who need the most academic support - Those who won’t be going on a summer trip to Disney World, Europe, a mission trip, a summer camp, or to the Grand Canyon - check out early and may not get the enrichment they need entering the summer months. What are you doing during the last weeks of the school year? Share your ideas with educators on ASCD EDge. ‘Don’t Get Caught Watching the Paint Dry.’
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Browse By Subject
You are here: Home / About NISC /
U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (USAID)
USAID is the principal U.S. agency extending assistance to developing countries, and works in four major topical areas: 1, economic growth and agricultural development; 2, population, health, and nutrition; 3, environment; and 4, democracy and governance. USAID has responsibility for ensuring that U.S. development of assistance programs do not lead to the introduction of invasive species in other nations. It is well positioned to use its programs to support projects to eradicate and control invasive species where they are already established in developing countries, especially when food, water, and health security are at risk.
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Social media seems to be a major part of the teenage years. Getting an electronic device and downloading social media apps appear to be a major rite of passage once your child is old enough to open an account and set up a profile. While this seems like the norm, you might ask yourself how social media affects relationships in your teen’s life and how safe your teen is going to be in the online environment. Read on for more information about the pros and cons of social media use and how you can help your teen to navigate through this whole new world.
A review published in Adolescent Research Review showed the correlation between teens’ social media usage and their overall well-being depends on a vast gamut of factors, thus proving how complicated the relationship is between adolescents and social media.
As with most activities that teens participate in, social media has its pros and cons.
One advantage of social media involved the freedom of expression and the space to develop one’s identity — two factors that go hand in hand with the adolescent years. In fact, in the studies mentioned, the participants also used social media as a vehicle for expressing their opinions about their favorite causes, politics, and other topics.
Also, for some individuals, social media offered a different way to socialize for teens who were introverted. On a social media platform, a teen can engage with others when face-to-face conversations might be difficult.
Conversely, teens also come across the negative aspects of social media, and for some, these features can have a bad impact on their emotions and self-esteem. For instance, some teens worry about FOMO, or the “fear of missing out,” which leads to feelings of paranoia and isolation.
Then, there’s also the risk of cyberbullying. In both these instances, a periodic check-in on your teen’s social media accounts can help catch a problem before it gets worse. Cyberbullying and any form of harassment or intimidation can be reported to law enforcement as well as to the social media company for a violation of its terms and conditions.
For many teens, social media offers a way to stay in touch with relatives and stay current with any important family events. Likewise, this connection with family also provides another layer of protection for teens who frequently use social media. For instance, if your child posts something that receives negative and potentially harmful feedback — and you’re not aware of it just yet — a relative who comes across the post can give you a heads-up.
Likewise, when looking specifically at how social media affects relationships, you might consider the amount of time your teens spend on their devices. If their social media usage gets in the way of interacting with everyone at home, then you might need to set some limits on screen time. For example, you can prohibit their phone during meals, or you can set an alarm that reminds your teen that it’s time to log off. Starting these practices early on can protect a teen’s well-being and his or her relationship with the family.
When looking at how social media affects relationships, you can see both a positive and negative impact on friendships and interactions with peers. With a healthy balance between social media use and in-person contact, teens can thrive. For example, if a friend moves to another city, your teen can more easily keep in touch with this person. Likewise, friendships have formed over distance and on social media as well. Plus, it’s quite common for study groups, schools, and teen organizations to post information on a social media platform to notify members of upcoming meetings and events. All in all, social media has proven to be an effective means of mass communication.
However, going back to the frequency of usage, one downfall involves spending too much time logged in and not enough time nurturing the actual in-person relationships. Therefore, it’s helpful to remind your teen to get out and meet up with friends more often as opposed to staying on social media.
Basically, vigilance is key to determining how social media affects relationships. Keeping an eye on your teen’s behavior and social media use will help you to catch any potential issues. Plus, you know your teen’s personality and any potential triggers, so communicating with your youngster about which platforms to utilize and which ones to avoid also goes a long way. You can also help your teen to customize the newsfeed and notifications both on the site itself and on the app. Taking these measures will help ensure that your teen gains more of the advantages and fewer of the drawbacks of careful social media use.
- Why toddlers throw things: What to do to stop them from breaking objects and driving you mad
- Are baby walkers safe? 5 dangerous reasons you shouldn’t add one to your registry
- Can babies have nightmares? What you need to know
- How old do you have to be to wear makeup? What every parent needs to know about this rite of passage
- When should your child learn how to ride a bike?
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• decadence •
de-kê-dênts, dee-kay-dêns • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun, mass
Meaning: 1. Decay, rot, a state of deterioration, degeneration, or decline. 2. Self-indulgence, self-gratification, self-pampering.
Notes: Today's is another Good Word coming from one of those adjectives ending on the suffix -ent that is often confused with -ant. The adjective descendent is even spelled differently from the noun descendant if you follow publishing standards. Just remember to spell the ending -ence, and you should have no problem with it.
In Play: We seldom apply this word to fruit or other vegetation any more; it is far more often used metaphorically: "I think the collapse of the financial markets reflects just how decadent our corporate society has become." Since the metaphor usually applies to societies and organizations where self-indulgence is often the cause of decadence, today's Good Word is now associated with self-indulgence itself: "That dessert called 'Chocolate Decadence' is well-named; I feel guilty of decadence when I eat it."
Word History: Today's Good Word is another purloined from French, a language that started out as Latin. French inherited the word from Medieval Latin decadentia "decay, deterioration", a noun derived from the Vulgar (street) Latin verb decadere "to rot, decay". This verb contains the prefix de- "from" + cadere "to fall, die". The ultimate root here, cad-, is visible in a host of English words borrowed from the various Romance (Latin descendent) languages: cadaver, cadence, and cascade are among the most obvious. However, the word for what might befall you, chance, is also a French rendition of Latin cadentia "falling". (We have not fallen into such decadence as to miss our chance to thank Don Andreatta for suggesting today's very Good Word.)
Come visit our website at <http://www.alphadictionary.com> for more Good Words and other language resources!
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Bouncing Back Faster with GIS
Communities around the world are facing increasing challenges from natural and man-made disasters. Resilient communities bounce back faster. Leaders of these communities anticipate future trends and enact policies that support rapid response during times of need. Whether they face challenges like drought or flooding, economic collapse, or a health epidemic, resilient communities are using GIS technology to prepare ahead of time, operate effectively during events, and recover quickly.
"The planet is slowly going to keep warming for a long time to come. So we’re going to have to stop looking at these disasters as something to wait for; we've got to start looking at these disasters as something to prepare for, to anticipate, to start building new infrastructure, to start having new plans, to recalibrate the baseline that we're working off of."
—President Barack Obama
In line with President Obama's Climate Action Plan, governments, nonprofits, and businesses are using geospatial analysis to help people see how they can prepare for and respond to climate-driven events including droughts, intense storms, flooding, and wildfires. Organizations are also using GIS to find ways to generate more clean energy, develop sustainable urban and transportation plans, and increase energy efficiency. GIS, combined with strong leadership, is helping protect the health of people, the economy, and natural resources.
See Climate Resilience Resources →
Resilient communities have policies and procedures in place to ensure the safety of citizens. GIS helps governments inform the public of risks in their areas so they can see how threats could impact them. Apps enable people to create virtual neighborhood watches. When crime or disaster strikes, GIS is key to knowing where to send personnel including police, fire, and other law enforcement officials.
See Public Safety Resilience Resources →
GIS is changing the way people respond to disasters. Before floods, fires, and storms happen, GIS can show leaders where to take preventive measures. Health officials and hospital administrators use location analytics to understand the best places for clinics and hospitals. After an event, GIS helps response organizations see where need is greatest and where to quickly deploy teams and deliver aid. Citizen-generated apps help people see where they can donate time and resources.
See Disaster Resilience Resources →
The economy is constantly in flux and increasingly tied to global events. During the recent economic recovery, resilient communities used GIS to understand the changing landscape and help areas hardest hit by the downturn. Moving forward, economic development departments use innovative approaches to help local business owners find the best ways to market their products and the right places to set up shop.
See Economic Resilience Resources →
Transportation and Infrastructure
Transportation officials use GIS to find the best ways to lessen commute times and reduce carbon emissions. GIS analysis shows existing transportation infrastructure, areas of high demand, air quality, and opportunities for improvement. In a map, it becomes clear how a city can support growing populations with multimodal options that effectively move people, promote economic development, and clear the air. GIS applications can also connect citizens with others who, for example, want to carpool or simply show them the best paths for biking, walking, or taking public transit to work instead of driving.
See Transportation and Infrastructure Resilience Resources →
Health and Social Services
Resilient communities use GIS to prepare. They use maps to understand the best places to build clinics and hospitals that serve changing and aging populations as well as how to prepare for potential outbreaks. During extreme weather events like heat waves, governments use GIS to determine community needs such as where to set up cooling stations.
See Health & Social Services Resilience Resources →
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en
| 0.933611 | 757 | 3.234375 | 3 |
|slovenčina, slovenský jazyk|
|Pronunciation||[ˈslɔʋentʂina], [ˈslɔʋenskiː ˈjazik]|
|Native to||Slovakia, Hungary, Carpathian Ruthenia and Vojvodina|
|Speakers||Native: 5 million (2011–2021)|
L2: 2 million
|Latin (Slovak alphabet)|
Official language in
Serbia (in Vojvodina)
|Regulated by||Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic|
The Slovak-speaking world:
regions where Slovak is the language of the majority
regions where Slovak is the language of a significant minority
Slovak (/ˈsloʊvæk, -vɑːk/ SLOH-va(h)k; endonym: slovenčina [ˈslɔʋentʂina] or slovenský jazyk [ˈslɔʋenskiː ˈjazik]) is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group, written in Latin script. It is part of the Indo-European language family, and is one of the Slavic languages, which are part of the larger Balto-Slavic branch. Spoken by approximately 5 million people as a native language, primarily ethnic Slovaks, it serves as the official language of Slovakia and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union.
Slovak is closely related to Czech, to the point of very high mutual intelligibility, as well as Polish. Like other Slavic languages, Slovak is a fusional language with a complex system of morphology and relatively flexible word order. Its vocabulary has been extensively influenced by Latin and German and other Slavic languages.
The Czech–Slovak group developed within West Slavic in the high medieval period, and the standardization of Czech and Slovak within the Czech–Slovak dialect continuum emerged in the early modern period. In the later mid-19th century, the modern Slovak alphabet and written standard became codified by Ľudovít Štúr and reformed by Martin Hattala. The Moravian dialects spoken in the western part of the country along the border with the Czech Republic are also sometimes classified as Slovak, although some of their western variants are closer to Czech; they nonetheless form the bridge dialects between the two languages.
Slovak speakers are also found in the Slovak diaspora in the United States, the Czech Republic, Argentina, Serbia, Ireland, Romania, Poland, Canada, Hungary, Germany, Croatia, Israel, the United Kingdom, Australia, Austria, Ukraine, Norway, and other countries to a lesser extent.
Main article: Slovak phonology
Slovak contains 15 vowel phonemes (11 monophthongs and four diphthongs) and 29 consonants.
|Diphthongs||(ɪu) ɪe ɪɐ ʊɔ|
The phoneme /æ/ is marginal and often merges with /e/; the two are normally only distinguished in higher registers.
Vowel length is phonemic in Slovak and both short and long vowels have the same quality. In addition, Slovak employs a "rhythmic law" which forbids two long vowels from following one another. In such cases the second vowel is shortened. For example, adding the locative plural ending -ách to the root vín- creates vínach, not *vínách.
Slovak has final devoicing; when a voiced consonant (b, d, ď, g, dz, dž, z, ž, h) is at the end of a word before a pause, it is devoiced to its voiceless counterpart (p, t, ť, k, c, č, s, š, ch, respectively). For example, pohyb is pronounced /pɔɦip/ and prípad is pronounced /priːpat/.
Consonant clusters containing both voiced and voiceless elements are entirely voiced if the last consonant is a voiced one, or voiceless if the last consonant is voiceless. For example, otázka is pronounced /ɔtaːska/ and vzchopiť sa is pronounced /fsxɔpitsːa/. This rule applies also over the word boundary. For example, prísť domov [priːzɟ dɔmɔw] (to come home) and viac jahôd [ʋɪɐdz jaɦʊɔt] (more strawberries). The voiced counterpart of "ch" /x/ is [ɣ], and the unvoiced counterpart of "h" /ɦ/ is /x/.
Main articles: Slovak orthography and Slovak braille
Slovak uses the Latin script with small modifications that include the four diacritics (ˇ, ´, ¨, ˆ) placed above certain letters (a-á,ä; c-č; d-ď; dz-dž; e-é; i-í; l-ľ,ĺ; n-ň; o-ó,ô; r-ŕ; s-š; t-ť; u-ú; y-ý; z-ž)
The primary principle of Slovak spelling is the phonemic principle. The secondary principle is the morphological principle: forms derived from the same stem are written in the same way even if they are pronounced differently. An example of this principle is the assimilation rule (see below). The tertiary principle is the etymological principle, which can be seen in the use of i after certain consonants and of y after other consonants, although both i and y are usually pronounced the same way.
Finally, the rarely applied grammatical principle is present when, for example, the basic singular form and plural form of masculine adjectives are written differently with no difference in pronunciation (e.g. pekný = nice – singular versus pekní = nice – plural). Such spellings are most often remnants of differences in pronunciation that were present in Proto-Slavic (in Polish, where the vowel merger didn't occur, piękny and piękni and in Czech pěkný and pěkní are pronounced differently).
Most loanwords from foreign languages are respelt using Slovak principles either immediately or later. For example, "weekend" is spelled víkend, "software" – softvér, "gay" – gej (both not exclusively)[clarification needed], and "quality" is spelled kvalita. Personal and geographical names from other languages using Latin alphabets keep their original spelling unless a fully Slovak form of the name exists (e.g. Londýn for "London").
Slovak features some heterophonic homographs (words with identical spelling but different pronunciation and meaning), the most common examples being krásne /ˈkraːsnɛ/ (beautiful) versus krásne /ˈkraːsɲɛ/ (beautifully).
The main features of Slovak syntax are as follows:
Some examples include the following:
Word order in Slovak is relatively free, since strong inflection enables the identification of grammatical roles (subject, object, predicate, etc.) regardless of word placement. This relatively free word order allows the use of word order to convey topic and emphasis.
Some examples are as follows:
The unmarked order is subject–verb–object. Variation in word order is generally possible, but word order is not completely free. In the above example, the noun phrase ten veľký muž cannot be split up, so that the following combinations are not possible:
And the following sentence is stylistically infelicitous:
The regular variants are as follows:
Slovak, like every major Slavic language other than Bulgarian and Macedonian, does not have articles. The demonstrative pronoun ten (fem: tá, neuter: to) may be used in front of the noun in situations where definiteness must be made explicit.
Main article: Slovak declension
Slovak nouns are inflected for case and number. There are six cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, locative, and instrumental. The vocative is purely optional and most of the time unmarked. It is used mainly in spoken language and in some fixed expressions: mama mum (nominative) vs. mami mum! (vocative), tato, oco dad (N) vs. tati, oci dad! (V), pán Mr., sir vs. pane sir (when addressing someone e.g. in the street). There are two numbers: singular and plural. Nouns have inherent gender. There are three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Adjectives and pronouns must agree with nouns in case, number, and gender.
The numerals 0–10 have unique forms, with numerals 1–4 requiring specific gendered representations. Numerals 11–19 are formed by adding násť to the end of each numeral. The suffix dsať is used to create numerals 20, 30 and 40; for numerals 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90, desiat is used. Compound numerals (21, 1054) are combinations of these words formed in the same order as their mathematical symbol is written (e.g. 21 = dvadsaťjeden, literally "twenty-one").
The numerals are as follows:
|1||jeden (number, masculine), jedno (neuter), jedna (feminine)||11||jedenásť||10||desať|
|2||dva (number, masculine inanimate), dve (neuter, feminine), dvaja (masculine animate)||12||dvanásť||20||dvadsať|
|3||tri (number, neuter, masculine inanimate, feminine), traja (masculine animate)||13||trinásť||30||tridsať|
|4||štyri (number, neuter, masculine inanimate, feminine), štyria (masculine animate)||14||štrnásť||40||štyridsať|
Some higher numbers: (200) dvesto, (300) tristo, (900) deväťsto, (1,000) tisíc, (1,100) tisícsto, (2,000) dvetisíc, (100,000) stotisíc, (200,000) dvestotisíc, (1,000,000) milión, (1,000,000,000) miliarda.
Counted nouns have two forms. The most common form is the plural genitive (e.g. päť domov = five houses or stodva žien = one hundred two women), while the plural form of the noun when counting the amounts of 2–4, etc., is usually the nominative form without counting (e.g. dva domy = two houses or dve ženy = two women) but gender rules do apply in many cases.
Verbs have three major conjugations. Three persons and two numbers (singular and plural) are distinguished. Subject personal pronouns are omitted unless they are emphatic.
Several conjugation paradigms exist as follows:
|volať, to call||Singular||Plural||Past tense (masculine – feminine – neuter)|
|1st person||volám||voláme||volal – volala – volalo|
|bývať, to live, dwell, but not exist||Singular||Plural||Past tense|
|1st person||bývam||bývame||býval – bývala – bývalo|
|vracať, to return or (mostly in slang) to vomit||Singular||Plural||Past tense|
|1st person||vraciam||vraciame||vracal – vracala – vracalo|
|robiť, to do, work||Singular||Plural||Past tense|
|1st person||robím||robíme||robil – robila – robilo|
|vrátiť, to return||Singular||Plural||Past tense|
|1st person||vrátim||vrátime||vrátil – vrátila – vrátilo|
|kupovať, to buy||Singular||Plural||Past tense|
|1st person||kupujem||kupujeme||kupoval – kupovala – kupovalo|
|zabudnúť, to forget||Singular||Plural||Past tense|
|1st person||zabudnem||zabudneme||zabudol – zabudla – zabudlo|
|vidieť, to see||Singular||Plural||Past tense|
|1st person||vidím||vidíme||videl – videla – videlo|
|minúť, to spend, miss||Singular||Plural||Past tense|
|1st person||miniem||minieme||minul – minula – minulo|
|niesť, to carry||Singular||Plural||Past tense|
|1st person||nesiem||nesieme||niesol – niesla – nieslo|
|stučnieť, to carry (be fat)||Singular||Plural||Past tense|
|1st person||stučniem||stučnieme||stučnel – stučnela – stučnelo|
|byť, to be||jesť, to eat||vedieť, to know|
|Past tense||bol, bola, bolo||jedol, jedla, jedlo||vedel, vedela, vedelo|
Adverbs are formed by replacing the adjectival ending with the ending -o or -e / -y. Sometimes both -o and -e are possible. Examples include the following:
The comparative of adverbs is formed by replacing the adjectival ending with a comparative/superlative ending -(ej)ší or -(ej)šie, whence the superlative is formed with the prefix naj-. Examples include the following:
Each preposition is associated with one or more grammatical cases. The noun governed by a preposition must agree with the preposition in the given context. The preposition od always calls for the genitive case, but some prepositions such as po can call for different cases depending on the intended sense of the preposition.
Main article: History of the Slovak language
Slovak is a descendant of Proto-Slavic, itself a descendant of Proto-Indo-European. It is closely related to the other West Slavic languages, primarily to Czech and Polish. Czech also influenced the language in its later development. The highest number of borrowings in the old Slovak vocabulary come from Latin, German, Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Greek (in that order). Recently, it is also influenced by English.
Although most dialects of Czech and Slovak are mutually intelligible (see Comparison of Slovak and Czech), eastern Slovak dialects are less intelligible to speakers of Czech and closer to Polish and East Slavic, and contact between speakers of Czech and speakers of the eastern dialects is limited.
Since the dissolution of Czechoslovakia it has been permitted to use Czech in TV broadcasting and during court proceedings (Administration Procedure Act 99/1963 Zb.). From 1999 to August 2009, the Minority Language Act 184/1999 Z.z., in its section (§) 6, contained the variously interpreted unclear provision saying that "When applying this act, it holds that the use of the Czech language fulfills the requirement of fundamental intelligibility with the state language"; the state language is Slovak and the Minority Language Act basically refers to municipalities with more than 20% ethnic minority population (no such Czech municipalities are found in Slovakia). Since 1 September 2009 (due to an amendment to the State Language Act 270/1995 Z.z.) a language "fundamentally intelligible with the state language" (i.e. the Czech language) may be used in contact with state offices and bodies by its native speakers, and documents written in it and issued by bodies in the Czech Republic are officially accepted. Regardless of its official status, Czech is used commonly both in Slovak mass media and in daily communication by Czech natives as an equal language.
Czech and Slovak have a long history of interaction and mutual influence well before the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918, a state which existed until 1993. Literary Slovak shares significant orthographic features with Czech, as well as technical and professional terminology dating from the Czechoslovak period, but phonetic, grammatical, and vocabulary differences do exist.
Slavic language varieties are relatively closely related, and have had a large degree of mutual influence, due to the complicated ethnopolitical history of their historic ranges. This is reflected in the many features Slovak shares with neighboring language varieties. Standard Slovak shares high degrees of mutual intelligibility with many Slavic varieties. Despite this closeness to other Slavic varieties, significant variation exists among Slovak dialects. In particular, eastern varieties differ significantly from the standard language, which is based on central and western varieties.
Eastern Slovak dialects have the greatest degree of mutual intelligibility with Polish of all the Slovak dialects, followed by Rusyn, but both Eastern Slovak and Rusyn lack familiar technical terminology and upper register expressions. Polish and Sorbian also differ quite considerably from Czech and Slovak in upper registers, but non-technical and lower register speech is readily intelligible. Some mutual intelligibility occurs with spoken Rusyn, Ukrainian, and even Russian (in this order), although their orthographies are based on the Cyrillic script.
|to buy||kupovať||kupovat||kupować||куповати (kupovaty)||купувати (kupuvaty)||купляць (kuplać)||kupovati||купува (kupuva)||kupovati|
|Welcome||Vitajte||Vítejte||Witajcie||Вітайте (vitajte)||Вітаю (vitaju)||Вітаю (vitaju)||Dobrodošli||добре дошли (dobre došli)||Dobrodošli|
|morning||ráno||ráno/jitro||rano/ranek||рано (rano)||рано/ранок (rano/ranok)||рана/ранак (rana/ranak)||jutro||утро (utro)||jutro|
|Thank you||Ďakujem||Děkuji||Dziękuję||Дякую (diakuju)||Дякую (diakuju)||Дзякуй (dziakuj)||Hvala||благодаря (blagodarja)||Hvala|
|How are you?||Ako sa máš?||Jak se máš?||Jak się masz?
(colloquially "jak leci?")
|Як ся маєш/маш?
(jak sia maješ/maš?)
|Як справи? (jak spravy?)||Як справы? (jak spravy?)||Kako si?||Как си? (Kak si?)||Kako se imaš?/Kako si?|
|Як ся маєш?
(jak sia maješ?)
Servus is commonly used as a greeting or upon parting in Slovak-speaking regions and some German-speaking regions, particularly Austria. Papa is also commonly used upon parting in these regions. Both servus and papa are used in colloquial, informal conversation.
Hungarians and Slovaks have had a language interaction ever since the settlement of Hungarians in the Carpathian area. Hungarians also adopted many words from various Slavic languages related to agriculture and administration, and a number of Hungarian loanwords are found in Slovak. Some examples are as follows:
There are many Slovak dialects, which are divided into the following four basic groups:
The fourth group of dialects is often not considered a separate group, but a subgroup of Central and Western Slovak dialects (see e.g. Štolc, 1968), but it is currently undergoing changes due to contact with surrounding languages (Serbo-Croatian, Romanian, and Hungarian) and long-time geographical separation from Slovakia (see the studies in Zborník Spolku vojvodinských slovakistov, e.g. Dudok, 1993).
The dialect groups differ mostly in phonology, vocabulary, and tonal inflection. Syntactic differences are minor. Central Slovak forms the basis of the present-day standard language. Not all dialects are fully mutually intelligible. It may be difficult for an inhabitant of the western Slovakia to understand a dialect from eastern Slovakia and the other way around.
The dialects are fragmented geographically, separated by numerous mountain ranges. The first three groups already existed in the 10th century. All of them are spoken by the Slovaks outside Slovakia, and central and western dialects form the basis of the lowland dialects (see above).
The western dialects contain features common with the Moravian dialects in the Czech Republic, the southern central dialects contain a few features common with South Slavic languages, and the eastern dialects a few features common with Polish and the East Slavonic languages (cf. Štolc, 1994). Lowland dialects share some words and areal features with the languages surrounding them (Serbo-Croatian, Hungarian, and Romanian).
Standard Slovak (spisovná slovenčina) is defined by an Act of Parliament on the State Language of the Slovak Republic (language law). According to this law, Ministry of Culture approves and publishes the codified form of Slovak based on the judgment of specialised Slovak linguistic institutes and specialists in the area of the state language. This is traditionally Ľudovit Štúr Institute of Linguistics, which is part of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. In practice, Ministry of Culture publishes a document that specifies authoritative reference books for standard Slovak usage, which is called 'kodifikačná príručka' (codification handbook). Current regulation was published on 15 March 2021. There are four such publications:
The following languages have been given special protection under the European Charter [in Hungary]: Armenian, Beas, Bulgarian, Croatian, German, Greek, Polish, Romani, Romanian, Ruthenian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian and Ukrainian.
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| 0.800992 | 6,332 | 3.71875 | 4 |
The waves wash across the smooth pebbles on Zlatni Rat; the currents shape its tip to create a unique phenomenon. Diving into the depths off Zlatni Rat may not seem a demanding enterprise; the seabed is unstable and there are no algae or other fixed sea organisms, except for the odd blotched picarel or striped bream.
The seabed beyond the pebbles is a more stable and better ground for algae and offers more abundant sea life. Divers can spot the odd sea urchin. The females have adorned themselves with rock and algae, and pieces of sea urchin shell. An axillary wrasse hides under the rock. A spindle snail searches the seabed rich in organic waste. The timid myxicola has dark, feather-like tentacles, which it uses to catch prey. The strong current is ideal for filtrators, such as the file shell.
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| 0.909315 | 190 | 2.859375 | 3 |
SYMBOLS OF POWER AND NATURE: THE ORPHEUS MOSAICS OF FOURTH CENTURY BRITAIN AND THEIR ARCHITECTURAL CONTEXTS
The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of studying
mosaics within the social/architectural context. As Preston Blier (1987: 1)
has pointed out, architecture is invariably anthropocentric, being bound up
with human activity, experience, and expression. Mosaics, as integral features of architectural design, must also be seen as socially constructed. The
approach to be employed here will involve the identification and location
of those sites possessing Orpheus mosaics, and an analysis of the nature of
representation. A part of this analysis will consider similar representations
in other contexts and media, in order to provide new insight into’ the possible significance of Orpheus within fourth century Britain. The final part
of the discussion will concentrate on the social/architectural contexts of
the pavements, and an attempt will be made to explain the evidence in the
light of this.
THE DATA —-
Before carrying out any kind of analysis it is necessary to identify and
locate representations of Orpheus on floor mosaics, and to place them
within some kind of chronological framework. It will be useful to divide the 106
… ! i
G 0 ‘–
. , ‘\ II
Figure B.1. Rooms with mosaics at Withington villa
(corresponding mosaics in Figure B. 2) (after L ysons 1B17).
40 feet SYMBOLS OF POWER AND NATURE: ORPHEUS MOSAICS 107
Figure 8.2. The mosaics at Withington villa (after Lysons 1817). 108 S. SCOTT
pavements into two groups: definite examples, and possible examples.
Within the first category there are eight pavements: Barton Farm (Buckman and Newmarch 1850); Withington (Lysons 1817) (Figures 8.1 and 8.2);
Woodchester (Lysons 1817); Newton St. Loe (Nichols 1838); Littlecote
Park (Hoare 1819) (Figure 8.3); Winterton (Stead 1976) (Figure 8.4); Horkstow (Hinks 1933), and Brading (Price 1881) (Figure 8.5). Within the
second category there are a further seven pavements: Dyer Street
(Beecham 1886); Whatley;} Wellow;2 Pit Meads (Hoare 1819); two pavements from Caerwent (Toynbee 1964: 266), and some fragments from
Bishopstone.3 The distribution of these pavements is summarised in Figure
8.6. The main aspects of the data are summarised in Figure 8.7.
In considering art forms in the archaeological record it is necessary to consider not only what is represented, but also how it is represented. As Boas
notes (1955: 13):
It is essential to bear in mind the twofold source of artistic effect,
the one based on form alone, the other on idea associated with
form. Otherwise the theory of art will be one-sided.
With regard to Romano-British Orpheus mosaics, it will be important to
assess the ‘meaning’ of Orpheus in the light of classical mythology, while
also paying attention to the formal relationships within the mosaics, and
the effect of form on meaning.
In mythology, Orpheus was the greatest singer and musician conceived
by the Greeks. He was the son of the Muse Calliope, by either a King of
Thrace or Apollo. Apollo gave him a lute with which he was able to charm
wild beasts and make rocks and trees move. Jesnick (1989: 10) has noted
that the character of the Orpheus image is defined by its difference from
other scenes in the animal genre:
for the singer achieves by his art what otherwise takes great
physical courage and skill. Men have only a tenuous hold over the
captured beasts, who, always seeking to escape, eventually kill, or
are killed. Orpheus stills this endless cycle.
The animals traditionally found on the Orpheus scene are those which
exhibit types of behaviour which make them difficult to handle or capture.
The animals represent both the negative and the bountiful aspects of SYMBOLS OF POWER AND NATIJRE: ORPHEUS MOSAICS 109
Figure 8.3. Mosaics at Littlecote Park (after Venue 1730). 110 S.SCOlT
Figure 8.4. Mosaic at Winterton (after W. Fowler 1796).
nature, which Orpheus is able to control and hold in balance. The lion and
the leopard are those animals most frequently represented in the RomanoBritish pavements, as is the case throughout the empire.
The majority of the Romano-British Orpheus mosaics employ the following scheme (Figure 8.8):
Orpheus is usually found at the centre of the pavement, surrounded by
animals and birds. The central position of Orpheus emphasises his power,
while the surrounding concentric circles reflect the nature of this power; SYMBOL’) OF POWER AND NATURE: ORPHEUS MOSAlCS III
.. ::: .
– ••••• ‘o ••••
Figure 8.5. Mosaic at Brading (after Price 1881).
the animals are ‘contained’ by his charms. Another important feature of this
design is that it can be viewed from any angle and still be understood. It is
also possible to comprehend the central figure as someone possessing power
without having to understand who he is, or the mythological background.
If we are to further understand the significance of Orpheus within
Romano-British mosaics, it will be useful to assess the evidence for similar
forms of representation in other contexts and media.
REPRESENTATIONS IN OTHER CONTEXTS —-
There are a number of representations in Britain which share physical attributes with Orpheus i.e. they are wearing similar clothing and are accompanied by animals. For example, at London (Merrifield 1986); Chedworth
(Toynbee 1962: 156); Bisley (Clifford 1938); Upton St. Leonards (Rawes
1977); Box (Toynbee 1964: 179); Wilsford (Toynbee 1964: 179); Nettleton 112 S.SCOTI
(Wedlake 1982); Thruxton (Ingram 1849), and Lydney (Wheeler 1932).
1bree sculptures from London, tenned ‘hunter gods’, of mid-fourth
century date, are dressed in short tunics, a cap similar to that worn by
Orpheus, and carry a short sword. At least two of the examples are accompanied by a dog and a deer. Merrifield (1986: 87) suggests that these
figures probably came from a substantial Roman building which might
have been a temple complex, the meeting place of a religious guild, or a
residence with private shrines. Merrifield (ibid.: 89) proposes that these
figures, and others with similar characteristics from the sites mentioned
above, are the result of highly sophisticated and constructive religious
thought. In support of such an argument are the parallels between the
hunter god and Apollo and Orpheus. There is a relief from Ribchester,
identified by its inscription as Apollo Maponus, in which the composite
deity is represented with a quiver on his back, a lyre by his side, and apparently wearing a cap. It is likely that Apollo acquired this head-dress by a
double association; with Orpheus through their common attribute, the
lyre, and with Mithras through his solar connections (Merrifield ibid.).
Hunter gods from the north and south-west have also been identified with
Silvanus, god of the woodlands and wildlife.
To summarise, it seems that there was a cult figure in late Roman
London, almost certainly under official patronage (ibid.: 87), who appears
to be a conflation of Apollo, an oriental mystery god, and a native deity
representing nature. It suggests someone in authority in London with a
strong interest in comparative religion and the initiative to develop a new
syncretic cult. This cult seems to have been popular in southern and
central south-western England. Returning to the Orpheus mosaics, it can
perhaps be suggested that his popularity, particularly in the central southwest, had something to do with his conflation with the hunter god
identified above (Henig 1986: 17). In addition to the shared physical
similarities, there are also the shared connections with power and nature.
It is interesting at this point to consider the interpretation of the Littlecote pavement proposed by Walters (1982). Walters has suggested that
Orpheus acts as a link between Apollo, of whom he was a priest, and
Dionysus, the principal deity of the cult alluded to in the mosaic. Weare
meant to see Apollo and his priest Orpheus. The same dual personality can
be attributed to each of the four surrounding female figures. Walters
(ibid.) suggests that the figures are semi-detached for reasons of allegorical
narrative. They are seasons, but they are also goddesses representing the
cycle of life, death, and resurrection. All of the animals, Dionysiac in fonn, SYMBOLS OF POWER AND NATURE: ORPHEUS MOSAICS
2. Cirencester (2)
4. littJecote Park
5. Newton 51. Loe
12. Pit Meads
Figure 8.6. Distribution map of Orpheus mosaics.
were also intended to convey the same theme.
In order to pursue these ideas further, the mosaics have to be placed
within the social/ architectural context of their construction and use.
THE HIsTORICAL CONTEXT —-
The early fourth century saw a ‘flowering’ of villas in Britain, particularly in
the south-west. A number of factors were responsible for this move to the 114
Table 8.1. Summary of the evidence for Romano-British Orpheus mosaics.
DEFINITE Description Date
Barton Farm Concentric circles coins c.293
Withington Concentric circles c.325-50
Woodchester Concentric circles c.300-25
Newton St. Loe Concentric circles c.325-50
Littlecote Park Radial (circular) c.360
Radial (circular) c.350
Radial (circular) c.350
Medallion 4th century
Concentric circles 4th century
Square (concentric) c.350-60
Uncertain 4th century
Circular (?) 4th century
Rectangular panels ?
Fragments 4th century
countryside, one of the most important being the problem of inflation in
the third century, and the debasement of the silver coinage from Caracalla
onward. At this time the state preferred to collect taxes in kind, and the
larger landowners were obviously the best equipped to deal with the SYMBOLS OF POWER AND NA1lJRE: ORPHEUS MOSAICS
__ ORPHEUS __
Figure 8.7. Orpheus representations schematically interpreted.
problem of taxation. As a result of this, a rigidly ordered society was being
created, induced by the state’s need to gather as much revenue as possible,
and by the tendency of the territorial magnate to increase his estate by
taking over the land of those who were not rich enough to survive in the
It is clear that, by the fourth century, the villas had become the primary
centres for status display. As Millett (1990: 197) notes, those clients and
others who required services from the powerful would come to them for
an audience, and in all probability this would have been at their rural residences. The incentive for public display in the towns had disappeared by the
early fourth century, and the later Romano-British villas should be seen as
a re-direction of the surplusses of society towards personalised rather than
communal display (ibid.).
Scott (1990: 169) has suggested that general trends in villa design, such as
symmetrical facades, wings, courtyards, and enclosures, are related to the
changing social situation noted above. She points out that these features
first made their appearance in villa design in the second century, at about
the same time as the establishment of a market economy, with the scale
and degree of formalisation of these design elements reaching a peak in
the fourth century. Scott (ibid.: 170) suggests that these architectural
features express a duality of purpose. On the one hand they represent a
sophisticated attempt at entry into the Romanised world of markets and
‘civilisation’, and on the other, they are an attempt to distance the household from an environment thought to be potentially hostile. This hostile
environment was not just the perceived physical threat of barbarians.
There was, Scott (ibid.) suggests, a more insidious threat: vulnerability to 116 S.SCOTI
market forces and therefore poverty, inflation, taxation, and the need to
accept strangers over the threshold.
An analysis of those villas possessing Orpheus mosaics can, I suggest,
contribute a great deal to the argument outlined above. In particular, it will
serve to hlghlight a number of changes that were taking place throughout
the fourth century in terms of the manipulation of architecture within
Concerning the villas and mosaics constructed in the earlier part of the
fourth century, it does seem that the sites fit in with Scott’s argument. The
architecture obviously aims to impress, while also allowing the villa owner
to control access to and within his home. Woodchester (Figure 8.9), for
example, possesses three courtyards, and symmetry was obviously a major
consideration in its design (Clarke 1982). Clarke (ibid.) notes that the site
of the villa rises slightly towards the inner courtyard and room 1, and these
features must have formed a and architectural climax.
Additionally, room 1 was vast; nearly 50 ft. (15m) square, with its floor
entirely covered with the Orpheus pavement. As to the superstructure,
Clarke (ibid.) suggests that a domed roof would be consistent with the concentric design of the pavement and the presence of columns, but the walls
seem insufficiently buttressed, especially to the south. Another possibility is
that the columns supported a gallery, and if so, this would have enabled
the pavement to have been appreciated to best advantage. As yet, however,
there is no evidence for a staircase. Both of the possibilities outlined above
would have enhanced the impact of the Orpheus pavement. An important
point to note is that room 1 most probably had four entrances, one in the
centre of each wall. It would almost certainly have been the first room that
was entered by guests. I suggest, therefore, that it would probably have
been used for reception purposes; a form of reception hall where the
patron could meet his clients, and perhaps also the location for large scale
banquets. On entering the corridor (room 2), the visitor would have been
on a visual axis with room 1, with Orpheus, and possibly a central
fountain,4 in view. Once in the room, the visitor may have been able to
view the other corridors leading away to further wealth and splendour.
Those guests who were on a sufficiently intimate footing with the owner
may have been invited to experience this wealth beyond. The ‘depth’ to
which a guest was able to penetrate the building, and the route that he
took, emphasised the nature of his relationship with the owner.
Ellis (1991: 127) has noted that in late antique houses, statues of gods
and mythological heroes were often employed to glorify the owner. Mosaics 10
[Q … I Dyn.m” ‘p’o, I’
Likely main entrance
Figure 8.8. Viewing patterns at Woodchester villa.
‘-l 118 S. Scurr
were often used for the same purpose, for example, in North Africa many
home owners commissioned pavements with hunt scenes, in which the
owner himself was portrayed as the hero of the hunt. It is not unlikely that
the owner of the villa at Woodchester chose Orpheus for similar reasons.
Orpheus was able to control nature in its strongest and wildest forms without the use of physical force, and would therefore have been an appropriate choice for a room in which the owner would have conducted business,
and entertained friends and/or strangers, and generally aimed to impress.
The villa owner was associating himself with godly powers. As Ellis (1991:
126) notes, such interpretations might seem farfetched were it not for
Ammianus’s description of the flattering comparisons made to senators in
Rome. Additionally, Diocletian attempted to raise the office of emperor to
a transcendent plane, as did Constantius 2 in fourth century Rome (ibid.:
129). If the emperors could be seen as gods, then it is not unlikely that a
villa owner could associate himself with a mythical hero.
It seems that other less wealthy villa owners in the area were sufficiently
impressed by the Orpheus pavement at Woodchester to commission such
pavements for themselves. Although they may not have possessed such cons.iderable means, they certainly had similar ambitions and aspirations.
Based on the chronology outlined in Table 8.1, it could be suggested that
’emulation’ (Miller 1982) was taking place. The owner of the villa at Woodchester could be seen as a form of ‘local emperor’. In order to improve
their position within the social hierarchy, other villa owners in the area, at
Barton Farm, Withington, and Newton St. Loe, for example, may have
adopted this powerful symbol.
The villa at Littlecote represents, I think, a further development of these
ideas. The room possessing the mosaic is, in fact, separate from the main
villa building. It also lacks heating, and would probably have been cold and
damp given its situation by a river. Walters (1982) has suggested that this
hall would have been used for ceremonial purposes, perhaps the meetings
of an unrecognised sect or fraternity in fourth century Britain. I would
suggest, however, that this hall may instead have been a reception hall.
Such chambers have been identified by Ellis (1988) in Roman and provincial houses, and they consist of large apsidal rooms, preceded by a
vestibule, that can be entered through the main door of the house onto the
street. The location of the halls next to the street would have ensured the
maximum amount of privacy for the family. The aristocrat presumably
appeared in the apse surrounded by his retainers (Ellis 1988: 569). Bek
(1983: 91) has noted that in imperial palace architecture the apse was en-SYMBOL<; OF POWER AND NATURE: ORPHEUS MOSAICS 119
visaged as a backdrop for the emperor. This idea of the apse as a backdrop
for persons or events, rather than sculptures or furniture, may be relevant
in the case of Littlecote. The ‘hall’ possesses both a vestibule and apses,
and was also separate from the main villa building. It may have been here
that the owner met his clients, perhaps appearing in the apse at the far
end. The villa owner kept his public and private life separate, and perhaps
only a privileged few would have been admitted to the main building. The
mosaic itself, with its complex religious images, would have emphasised the
formality of the architecture and the superiority of the villa owner. Those
visitors who lacked the necessary education would have been excluded
from the significance of the design, and their social distance from the villa
owner would have been further emphasised.
It is interesting to note that the villas at Horkstow and Whatley have
similar large halls, and both date to around the mid-fourth century, or
slightly later. Like Littlecote, the Horkstow pavement is complex in its
imagery, and combines Orpheus with a number of other mythological subjects.
These developments in domestic architecture coincide with the developments in religious thinking discussed briefly above. Looking back to the
evidence for the ‘hunter god’, it is possible to suggest that the elite of midfourth century Britain felt it necessary to promote religious ideas in which
various gods and deities were conflated, and in which the emphasis was on
power over nature. This pattern fits in with changes that were occuring
elsewhere in the empire. As Henig (1986: 194) suggests:
we must not ignore the deepening religious response of the fourth
century Roman (and provincial) aristocracies in the fourth century,
pagan as well as Christian. For the emperor Julian, Homer, Vergil
and other Greek and Roman authors were writers of ‘holy writ’.
The pagan resistance was undoubtedly widespread, but its core in the
west was the Roman senate which, after Rome had ceased to be the capital
of the Roman empire, assumed once more in Roman history a conspicuous
role (Bloch 1963: 194). Notable evidence for such a revival in Britain
occurs in the form of the Mildenhall Treasure (Painter 1977) and the Corbridge Lanx (Haverfield 1914), both of which appear to date from around
the reign of Julian (355-363), and whose pagan character can hardly be
disputed. By commissioning pavements with complex pagan images, the
owners of the villas at Littlecote and Horkstow may have been associating
themselves with these religious elites elsewhere in the empire, while also 120 S. SCOTf
asserting their own individuality through their inventive syncretism.
Ellis (1988: 573) proposes that the architectural developments may be
associated with two historical trends: the concentration of wealth and
power in the hands of a few aristocrats, and a change in the form of
personal patronage. According to Sidonius (ibid.: 575), mid-fifth century
Gaul appears to have been dominated by a villa-based aristocracy, with
more autocratic relations between patron and client. The government was
investing more power in local aristocrats, and in 371 landlords were made
legally responsible for the collection of taxes. The only way that the poor
could resist demands from officials and aristocrats was by resorting to
someone with more power, even if they risked losing their liberty in the
process (ibid.: 576). The construction of a hall such as that at Littlecote
would have helped the villa owner to assert and maintain his authority. The
patron could have appeared ‘godlike’ in the apse, surrounded by complex
and impressive decor. The separation of the room from the main villa
would have distanced the owner from the ‘domestic’ scene, stressing the
contrast with those visitors whose main concern would have been domestic
issues and survival in the changing world. The ‘rules’ that governed meetings between patron and client, and the repetition of such ‘rituals’, would
have meant that these social relations were constantly reinforced through
In summary, it has been suggested that the Orpheus pavements of the first
half of the fourth century represent overt statements of power on the part
of the villa owners. The nature of the designs would probably have enabled
visitors or residents of the villa, from all social backgrounds, to comprehend the central figure as a figure possessing power. The Orpheus
pavements are commonly found in reception or dining rooms at this time,
and would almost certainly have been the rooms seen first by guests.
Guests may have obtained glimpses of the rooms beyond, and according to
their degree of intimacy with the owner may have been invited ‘deeper’
within the villa. The divisions between the ‘public’ and ‘private’ areas of the
villas seem to have become more clear cut after the mid fourth century. In
some cases visitors may not have been allowed to penetrate the villa at all,
and were received instead in a separate hall, or audience chamber. The
power of the villa owners may have become more autocratic by this time,
and the architecture would have removed them from the domestic setting SYMBOlS OF POWER AND NATURE: ORPHEUS MOSAICS 121
into an almost religious context. The complexity of the designs would have
emphasised the social differences between patron and client, and these differences would have been reaffirmed through the everyday use of the
One other point to note is that the villa owners themselves may have had
apprehensions regarding their own security, both in this life and the next.
The increasing concern with complex religious ideas may have been an
attempt on their part not only to assert their superiority within the social
order, but also to associate themselves with various deities and to obtain
their protection. The conflation of numerous gods may have increased
their feelings of security in a period when empire wide problems were
making their future seem increasingly uncertain.
1. V.C.H. Somerset I, 1906,317.
2. V.C.H. Somerset I, 1906,312-314.
3. B. Walters – Paper presented at the 25th Symposium on Roman Mosaics, 7th Dec. 1991.
4. Research carried out by the Woodward brothers for a reconstruction of the pavement
suggested water staining around the centre of the pavement, which may have been caused by a
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Staging of Convivial Ceremony from Rome to Byzantium. Analecta
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Coward. R. and]. Ellis 1977. Language and Materialism. R.K.P.
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Wilts. and Salisbury meeting. 241-245.
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Painter. K. S. 1977. The Mildenhall Treasure: Roman Silver from East Anglia.
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Preston Blier, S. 1987. The Anatomy oj Architecture. Cambridge: Cambridge
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The Equation of Exchange
Those who maintain that money has been an important source of economic disturbance emphasize that money enters into all transactions. When people purchase goods, they are selling money, and when merchants sell goods, they are buying money. The Circular Flow diagram illustrates that all purchases and sales involve money. The flow of goods, services, and resources moving clockwise is matched by a flow of money circulating counterclockwise.
The flow of money resembles the flow of a river. The amount of water past a point on the bank depends on the amount of water in a cross-section of the river multiplied by the velocity at which that cross section flows. In a similar way, spending in the circular flow can be found as:
(1) Amount of Money x Velocity of Circulation = Total Spending
Equation 1 is called the equation of exchange and is always true by definition. If an economy had $5.00 of money, and each dollar was spent four times a month, total monthly spending must be $20.00.1
The equation of exchange is a foundation on which the quantity theory of money is built. The quantity theory of money is a theory of the price level. It argues that inflation is caused by rapid increases in the quantity or money in circulation, and that deflation is caused by decreases or very slow increases in the quantity of money in circulation.
The equation of exchange and the quantity theory are not identical. The equation of exchange holds by definition. We get the quantity theory only by adding certain assumptions about what is cause and what is effect. The process of making assumptions began in the 16th century with the argument that the inflow of gold and silver from the Americas was causing inflation in Europe. The conquistadors who followed Columbus to the Americas sent back to Spain large amounts of gold and silver that they obtained from plundering the Aztec and Incan empires and from mining. As this metal was coined, the amount of money in circulation rose, and at the same time prices began a slow, century-long rise.
Intellectuals such as John Locke and David Hume refined the quantity theory, but the best early statement comes from an English banker, Henry Thornton, in 1802. In the early 20th century the American economist Irving Fisher popularized the equation of exchange in its mathematical form (though in his version, Fisher separated currency from checking account money, a distinction that no one makes any more). After some years of neglect, basic ideas of the quantity theory saw new life in the 1950s and 1960s under the name monetarism and re-entered mainstream economics.
To make the quantity theory work as a theory of price level, one must clearly distinguish between what happens in the long run or in equilibrium, and what can happen in the short run or in the adjustment process. The quantity theory in its original form ignores all adjustment problems, which is a legitimate way to proceed if only the long run is of interest.
Writing in 1802, Henry Thornton clearly states the central tenet of what the quantity theory suggests for equilibrium. An increase in the amount of money, he says, will neither be held idle nor greatly increase the amount of production. Thus
"There remains...no other mode of accounting for the uses to which the additional supply of it can be turned, than that of supposing it to be occupied in carrying on the sales of the same, or nearly the same, quantity of articles as before, at an advanced price the cost of goods being made to bear the same, or nearly the same, proportion to their former cost, which the total quantity of paper at the one period bears to the total quantity at the other."2
Thornton implies that total spending is made up of two parts, a price part and a quantity part. One hundred dollars of spending can buy either 25 units of output at $4.00 each, or 50 units of output at $2.00 each. In terms of the equation of exchange, this is usually written as:
(2) MV = Spending = PT
where P is a price level and T is the number of transactions.
If the amount of money in circulation doubles, the quantity theory predicts that, once in equilibrium, the price level will also double (or close to it), and that if the amount of money in circulation is cut in half, the price level will be (about) one half its former value after all adjustments have taken place. An alternative way of viewing this is to recognize that as prices go up, the value of money goes down, or since it takes more dollars to buy things, money is worth less (not worthless, however) than it used to be. The quantity theory states that an increase in the amount of money relative to goods decreases its value, and a decrease in the amount of money relative to goods will increase its value. Money is thus like any other commodity: increases in supply decrease marginal value.
Next we take a closer look at the assumptions the quantity theory is built on.
1 Note that total spending excludes barter transactions--trading one commodity for another with no money involved. If barter were included, the equation of exchange would not be true.
2 An Enquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of Great Britain, 1802, reprinted by August M. Kelley, 1965, p. 241.
Copyright Robert Schenk
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Molecular Systematics and Phylogeography of Mollusks
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Written by Darrell Deneke, former SDSU Extension IPM Coordinator.
Fall is a good time to assess your range and pasture condition as we go into the winter season. This is especially important when it comes to your weed management strategies. Identifying the weeds of concern can take place in the fall and control plans for the next growing season can be determined. A good weed inventory in the fall will tell ranchers what the predominant weed species are in the pasture.
When scouting your pastures check for the type of weeds present. Many perennials and biennials will have new growth in the fall especially with adequate fall moisture. Perennials may have new shoots or seedlings from seed banks or, like biennials, the rosettes may be found. Annual weeds may have remnants of mature growth or in the case of later emerging annuals lush growth and new seed formation will be present. Some weed species can be grazed in the fall, but be sure the weed species present does not represent toxicity risks for livestock. The other management concern is to make sure the weeds are not allowed to go to seed and further increase the soil seed bank.
Fall is also a good time to assess the range and pasture grass conditions. Overstocking will contribute to stressing grass species and give weed species a competitive edge thus increasing trouble spots in a pasture. This is a good time to consider adjusting your grazing management plan to increase the overall competitiveness of your forage mix. The best weed control program for pastures and range is a competitive healthy grass stand.
When conducting your weed inventory identify the weed species in abundance and develop a pasture map that shows where the weeds are located and the general weed population size using a rating system of few, many, or scattered. Also, note if the weeds are broadleaf, woody or grass species. Accurately identifying the weed species will make planning control options much easier.
Consider an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approach to your weed management plans. Look at all options available; herbicides, mowing or clipping, grazing management, biological control and other cultural and mechanical controls. If weed populations are noted in the inventory as being scattered in areas, a plan for spot treatment is a good way of cutting costs and reducing the amount of herbicide to the land.
Annual weeds are normally treated in the late spring and early summer with mid-June being the target for many pasture weeds. Perennial and biennial weed species can be treated in late spring and early fall with good results. Fall is a great time to spray some perennial and biennial weeds as the plants are translocating sugars and starches to their roots to prepare for winter. This will aid the herbicide treatment getting to the root system and give more effective results. If there are perennial brushy weed species present, specific herbicide products will need to be considered. Always remember to be aware of desirable forbs and broadleaf plants in the pasture and range and note them in your inventory as well. Try to avoid contact with the herbicide treatment so you can maintain them as part of your healthy pasture and rangeland plant community.
For pasture and range weed management information refer to the SDSU Extension Noxious Weed publication.
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In a telecommunications network, a switch is a device that channels incoming data from any of multiple input ports to the specific output port that will take the data toward its intended destination. In the traditional circuit-switched telephone network, one or more switches are used to set up a dedicated though temporary connection or circuit for an exchange between two or more parties. On an Ethernet local area network (LAN), a switch determines from the physical device (Media Access Control or MAC) address in each incoming message frame which output port to forward it to and out of. In a wide area packet-switched network such as the Internet, a switch determines from the IP address in each packet which output port to use for the next part of its trip to the intended destination.
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In the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) communications model, a switch performs the Layer 2 or Data-link layer function. That is, it simply looks at each packet or data unit and determines from a physical address (the "MAC address") which device a data unit is intended for and switches it out toward that device. However, in wide area networks such as the Internet, the destination address requires a look-up in a routing table by a device known as a router. Some newer switches also perform routing functions (Layer 3 or the Network layer functions in OSI) and are sometimes called IP switches.
On larger networks, the trip from one switch point to another in the network is called a hop. The time a switch takes to figure out where to forward a data unit is called its latency. The price paid for having the flexibility that switches provide in a network is this latency. Switches are found at the backbone and gateway levels of a network where one network connects with another and at the subnetwork level where data is being forwarded close to its destination or origin. The former are often known as core switches and the latter as desktop switches.
In the simplest networks, a switch is not required for messages that are sent and received within the network. For example, a local area network may be organized in a token ring or bus arrangement in which each possible destination inspects each message and reads any message with its address.
Circuit-Switching version Packet-Switching
A network's paths can be used exclusively for a certain duration by two or more parties and then switched for use to another set of parties. This type of "switching" is known as circuit-switching and is really a dedicated and continuously connected path for its duration. Today, an ordinary voice phone call generally uses circuit-switching.
Most data today is sent, using digital signals, over networks that use packet-switching. Using packet-switching, all network users can share the same paths at the same time and the particular route a data unit travels can be varied as conditions change. In packet-switching, a message is divided into packets, which are units of a certain number of bytes. The network addresses of the sender and of the destination are added to the packet. Each network point looks at the packet to see where to send it next. Packets in the same message may travel different routes and may not arrive in the same order that they were sent. At the destination, the packets in a message are collected and reassembled into the original message.
Getting started with switches
To learn more about switches, here are additional resources
Advanced routing and switching considerations: Routing and switching, the core functions of any network, are becoming more intelligent, with even low-end products now including features once only available to enterprise data centers. Learn the routing and switching considerations that every solution provider should know before offering their services.
Application switch testing: An easy RFP guide: Application switches do a lot more load balancing these days. So network professionals doing application switch testing must consider everything from DPI to basic transport, according to a new Tolly Group RFP guide.
Testing LAN switch interoperability: A series of best practices: Ensuring LAN switch interoperability is crucial when extending existing LANs or building new ones. The Tolly Group compiled a list of functions that must be tested to ensure true interoperability.
Learn more about Telecom Routing and Switching
Smart grid technology primer: Utilities, vendors and telecom providers are focused on smart grid technology to improve energy transmission, distribution and management using infrastructure like 4G wireless.
Evolved Packet Core primer: Learn about the Evolved Packet Core for LTE and how it converges voice and data for 4G wireless networks.
Advanced BGP network design for stability and security: Working with Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) in an IP network can challenge even the best network engineers. Yet mastering it will yield a more stable and secure network.
BGP essentials: The protocol that makes the Internet work: Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is the routing protocol that literally makes the Internet work, yet its complexity makes it essential to know how to troubleshoot problems quickly.
Route maps and routing policy: Route maps and how to configure them for routing policies is explained. This chapter also discusses redistribution, quality of service, and route tagging
Get an overview of the Brocade VDX 8770 data center-class switch series, equipped for highly virtualized environments.
This product overview focuses on the Cisco Nexus 9500 family of switches, which is designed for enterprises and highly virtualized data centers. Then get more info about the models, features and pricing of the Cisco Nexus 7700 switch series.
Learn about the Dell E-series of data center-class switches.
Learn more about the features of the HP FlexFabric 12500 data center class switch. Then take a look at an overview of the HP FlexFabric 12900 series, a line of data center-class switch fabrics for highly virtualized environments.
Get a breakdown of the Juniper EX9200 data center-class switch features.
After you've reviewed each of the products above, take a look at our comparison of the top data center-class switches.
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“…the first essential component of social justice is adequate food for all mankind.”
Norman Borlaug, in his 1970 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech
I used to love to listen to Dr. Baxter Black* on the radio. I admired his sense of humor and his human insight. Then I read an article he wrote.
“What is Sustainable Ag?” appeared in the March 2013 issue of Western Farmer-Stockman magazine. I am writing this as a response to my friend Al, who clipped the article for me. Al is a wise man and an experienced farmer. He wrote: “I thought this was a good article on sustainable agriculture. I hope you find it interesting.”
Indeed, it is interesting—not for what it contains, but for what Dr. Black left out. First, let me summarize the article.
Dr. Black writes that most agriculturalists think that “sustainable farming” is a joke, and derides those who want to return to pre-1950 farming methods. He makes fun of “hobby farmers” who have a garden and a few animals since they don’t produce enough food to feed their families for even two weeks.
Black then rightly recaps the history after World War II, when world population soared and people worried about food shortages. Mega-corporations and scientists were able to increase food production remarkably, despite the creep of cities taking over productive agricultural land. He doesn’t mention the “green revolution” of Dr. Norman Borlaug and others, which is credited with saving over a billion lives by developing highly productive strains of crops.
This modern, industrial model of agriculture is sustainable according to Black, because it can sustain so many people. Great grandpa’s old-fashioned ways of producing food are laughable in today’s context, he writes. He would prefer the term “subsistence-level farming”.
Although I understand Al’s and Dr. Black’s viewpoint, I cannot agree. My concern is that, along with its good, the “green revolution” has had several dreadful unintended consequences.
Growing highly productive plants and animals requires the use of many chemicals that are made from limited resources, and are toxic. The chemicals include fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides and herbicides. They are all derived from fossil fuels, and all transported with fossil fuel. Unfortunately, supplies of carbon-based fuels are limited. We have probably already maximized the production of petroleum and soon will see its decline—and a rapid increase in prices.
We are starting to realize the subtle toxicity of many of the agricultural chemicals. The wonder insecticide of my childhood, DDT (which I was told was entirely safe) turned out to be an ecological disaster and now is banned in most countries. An amazing group of insecticides, neonicatinoids, is probably responsible for the die-off of our honeybees—‘colony collapse disorder’. Since bees pollinate so many crops, this is an agricultural disaster.
We now realize that many agricultural chemicals have endocrine effects, even in minuscule concentrations. Just a pinch in all the water in an Olympic swimming pool can cause harm! Insecticide residues may decrease sperm counts. One common agrichemical, atrazine, has been shown to cause feminization of male frogs and has been implicated in reproductive cancers.
The seeds of highly productive plant strains must be bought from corporations that control their prices. In the past, seed grain was carefully preserved from the prior crop, but now farmers need cash—or credit—in order to buy seeds. This expense, along with the cost of the chemicals, has broken many farmers. In a good year they can make a living, but in a bad year their suicide rate climbs.
Finally, modern agriculture depletes our soil. The use of chemicals exhausts many components that help plants grow.
There is a subtle chicken-and-egg situation here. Modern agriculture has increased food supply, which allowed our population to swell. Borlaug outwitted Malthus, who predicted that human population would be limited by starvation from lack of food.
Here is the quandary: does modern agriculture only provide a short-term gain? As we deplete petroleum and as crop growing conditions worsen from climate change and drought, can the amazing technology of modern agriculture be sustained? Indeed, some scientists have a terrible vision of severe food shortages with bloodshed and more deaths than Borlaug’s green revolution saved.
In his Nobel Prize speech quoted above, Borlaug also said: “Most people still fail to comprehend the magnitude and menace of the Population Monster.” Only time will tell if Dr. Black is correct about sustainable agriculture, or if he should go back to being a humorist.
Richard Grossman MD became concerned about human population while in high school, over 50 years ago. He chose the path of obstetrics and gynecology to help women, and he is an abortion provider for women who need that option for an unplanned pregnancy. Because it is possible to reach more people through media, he has been writing a column for the Durango Herald – “Population Matters!” – for over 18 years. It may be the longest regularly appearing column focused on population issues in the world. If you would like to receive it monthly via email, please contact Dr. Grossman at [email protected] Richard has been an unwaivering supporter of the Population Press since 1994. This article first appeared in the Durango (Colorado) Herald. Reprinted with permission.
*Dr. Baxter Black, DVM, is a former animal veterinarian turned poet-entertainer. According to the Washington Post, “He could make a dead man sit up and laugh.” Everything about Baxter is cowboy. He doesn’t own a television or a cell phone, admires his parents and wants to be remembered “as someone who didn’t embarrass his friends.”
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Why Forest School?
Simply put: Forest School nurtures happy, independent, confident children who are eager to learn more.
Research suggests that young children learn best from experience, by using their senses actively rather than passively, and it’s via these experiences that the learning remains with us unto adulthood. Providing varied outdoor experiences can help with this development. Free, unstructured play gives children space and independence and a chance to imagine and learn social skills, while adult-guided activities such as tool use build new skills, vocabulary and the ability to manage risk, creating a positive self-identity and laying foundations to be a successful lifelong learner.
The Aishling Forest School ethos of outdoor educational learning aims to maximize social, emotional and developmental potential by allowing learners to manage risk, have more independence, in guiding their own learning, achieve goals, be active and play and learn through direct experience with nature. Within this context, Forest School leaders assess each learner’s interest and learning styles and engage with them to facilitate their full learning ability.
Our Forest School is also a compassion-scaffolded program, where leaders guide and mentor learners towards the continuation of being respectful, mindful, aware and empathetic towards all of nature’s living beings.
Forest School learners are encouraged to see, feel, taste, smell and hear nature. Outside the confines of four walls, without the distractions of electronic devices and excessive supervision, learners can move, explore and discover at their own pace, connecting to the natural world- a place not created by man, that had deep spiritual meaning for our ancestors.
© 2019 CEED. All rights reserved. Website design by the ArtWORKS team at Spirit of Huntington Art Center.
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By Shira Schoenberg
Jacob ran to Haran to escape from his brother Esau. He reached a well and asked some shepherds there if they knew Laban. They answered that Labans daughter Rachel was approaching at that moment. Jacob kissed Rachel and told her that he was Rebekahs son, and Rachels relative. She invited him to her house, and he began to work for Laban. After a month, Laban asked Jacob what his wages were to be. By then, Jacob loved Rachel and answered that he would work seven years to marry Rachel. After Jacob fulfilled his commitment, Laban made a feast at which he was to give his daughter to Jacob, but instead of giving him Rachel, Laban gave Jacob his oldest daughter, Leah. Jacob confronted Laban, who agreed to give him Rachel one week later, provided Jacob would work for him an additional seven years. Jacob agreed, and married Rachel whom he loved more than Leah.
Leah quickly gave birth to four sons, while Rachel was barren. Rachel became jealous of her sister. She then gave Jacob her maid Bilhah as a concubine. When Bilhah gave birth to two sons, Dan and Naphtali, Rachel saw them as her own children. After Leah had seven children, Rachel finally conceived. She named her son Joseph, noting that God "has taken away (in Hebrew asaph) my disgrace" and praying that God would "add (yoseph) another son for me" (Genesis 30:23,24).
After Joseph was born, Jacob told Rachel and Leah that God had commanded him to return to his homeland of Canaan. They responded that he should do what God told him and they would follow. Jacob prepared to leave and, while Laban was out shearing sheep, Rachel stole Labans idols without Jacobs knowledge. It is not written explicitly why she stole them. Some commentators say it was to prevent Laban from worshipping idols, while others say that the idols actually had some magical power and Rachel did not want them revealing to Laban the way that Jacob traveled. Jacob did not tell Laban that he was leaving. When, three days later, Laban discovered that Jacob was gone and chased after him, he blamed Jacob for stealing his idols. Laban searched the tents of Jacob and his wives, but Rachel hid the idols in a camel cushion and Laban could not find them. Laban left the next morning and Rachel continued to travel with Jacob.
The next time Rachel is mentioned is when Jacob met with his estranged brother Esau. Jacob formed a receiving line of his wives and children, putting Rachel and Joseph last, so they could escape if necessary.
They traveled to Beth-El and from there began a journey to Ephrath. Rachel was pregnant again and, on the way, suffered a hard labor and died in childbirth. In her last breath, she named her son Ben-oni ("son of my suffering") but Jacob called the child Benjamin ("son of the right hand" or "son of the south"). Jacob buried Rachel on the road where she died and set up a monument. Early descriptions of the tomb claim that it consisted of 11 stones placed by Jacobs sons and one bigger stone placed by Jacob himself.
According to Midrash, Jacob buried Rachel on the road so that the Jews would pass her grave as they traveled into exile and she would be able to pray for them. This is supported by the words of the prophet Jeremiah who wrote, at the start of the Babylonian exile, "A cry is heard in Ramah…Rachel weeping for her children" (Jeremiah 31:15).
There is some controversy over where exactly the tomb of Rachel is located. According to Genesis, she was buried "on the road to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem" (Genesis 35:19). Samuel I writes that she was buried in the inheritance of the tribe of Benjamin (Samuel I 10:2), a statement that is contradictory to the description in Genesis. The tomb is now generally assumed to be in a spot near Bethlehem, and is covered by a structure built by Sir Moses Montefiore in 1841. During the Jordanian occupation, the area around the tomb was a Muslim cemetery. After the Six-Day War, the structure around the tomb was renovated and it has become a place of mass pilgrimage for Jews. Jews visit it year-round, but specifically on Rosh Chodesh (the new moon and the first of the Hebrew month), the month of Elul and the anniversary of Rachels death on the 14th of Heshvan.
Sources: Chasidah, Yishai. Encyclopedia of Biblical Personalities.
"Rachel". Shaar press: Brooklyn, 1994.
Photo © Jack Hazut. No reproduction allowed without written permission from Jack Hazut and AICE.
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Ever wonder how a company can have a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 1,000? The answer is fairly straightforward.
Remember that the P/E ratio is a simple fraction -- the company's stock price divided by its earnings per share (EPS). As long as there are no earnings (such as with start-ups, or companies temporarily or permanently in trouble), the bottom of the fraction is zero and a P/E can't be calculated. But, as soon as a tiny bit of profit occurs, the fraction suddenly comes alive. With a bigger number on top (the stock price) and a very small bottom number (the EPS), the P/E is large.
Imagine a rapidly growing igloo construction start-up, called IceBoxes (ticker: BRRRR). For its first five years, it reports losses and has no P/E ratio. In year six, it finally generates a profit of $0.01 per share. With its stock price at $20, its P/E is a whopping 2,000 (20 divided by $0.01).
The following year, if its EPS is $0.05 (up 400%!) and its stock price remains $20, its P/E will be 400. If its stock price hits $35 when its EPS is $0.40, the P/E will be 88.
Keep in mind that the P/E is just one way to measure a company's value -- and it isn't even necessarily the best way. Some Fools think keeping an eye on cash flow is the true measure a company's value and potential. (Read one Fool's opinion in What's a High P/E?)
You can learn more about different kinds of companies and how to evaluate them in our how-to guides and online seminars. And for stock recommendations delivered to your mailbox each month, check out our new newsletters.
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No one hates dust and air pollution more than a farmer, yet if you read the urban newspapers in the agricultural heart of California it would be easy to assume farmers are the most blatant air polluters in what has become one of the poorest air quality regions of the nation.
Father Fred and son Larry Starrh of Starrh and Starrh Ranches, a 12,000-acre diversified family farming operation in Kern County, Calif., know farmers are easy targets in the raging debate over air pollution in the eight-county San Joaquin Valley
“We understand the public's perception of farming because we are so visible,” said Fred Starrh. With tractors cultivating and planting and engines pumping water in full view of the thousands of cars and trucks daily traveling two of the state's busiest highways, Highway 99 and Interstate 5, Starrh said farming is a “natural target” in the debate over air pollution.
The bulls-eye on agriculture is unfair, according to the Starrhs.
“We have 60 irrigation engines on the 12,000 acres we farm yet people don't think about the 60 cars and trucks per acre in Bakersfield when they talk about air pollution in the valley,” said Larry Starrh.
Farmers contend the rapidly expanding population and the every increasing numbers of cars and trucks on valley roads are also major factors in the valley's unwanted status as a non-attainment area for federal air quality standards.
Overlook cars, trucks
“People look right past the thousands cars and trucks on the valley roads to see our tractors and diesel engines running in the fields and think that we are somehow responsible for most of the pollution,” noted Fred Starrh. “We know what we do on our farm, and we don't believe farmers are solely responsible for the valley's air quality problems.”
The Starrhs know farmers are outnumbered in any urban-agricultural rock throwing contest over who is the chief polluter. “All we can do is tell our story about how we are doing our part in reducing pollution in the valley,” said Fred Starrh. “And, all we ask is that a reasonableness standard be used in adopting air pollution regulations for agriculture.”
“We hate dust just as much if not more than anyone else, and that is why we have used an oil-sand material to pave 33 miles of roads on our farm,” he said. The oil-sand material is readily available for the Starrhs because they farm near major oil production areas and the oil-sand product sold by oil companies is a by-product for them. Most farmers either run water trucks or oil roads or use other dust suppressant products farmers run to keep dust down not only on roads, but equipment yards as well.
Not only is farm road dust a public relations nightmare, it is also bad for crops. One example of that is that dust flares spider mites, pest of many crops. Dust also damages equipment.
“It has been a gradual thing in paving the roads,” said Starrh. And, it started long before the air pollution debate heated up. “We tried to do three or four miles every year until we got it all paved, and we also go back over the roads again after a period of years.”
Paving a dirt road removes a ton of PM10 particles from the air each year, according to John Beyer, state air quality coordinator for the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service. “We figure in a case like the Starrhs where they have paved roads along side fields, they have reduced dust by 83 percent. The only reason it is not 100 percent is because tractors use those roads to turn around after each field pass. There is a small amount of dirt that accumulates on the road in the normal farming operations. Nevertheless, the efforts made by the Starrhs and other farmers in reducing dust has been significant,” said Beyer.
NRCS offers matching funds to help growers reduce dust and other emissions. NRCS offers up to $30 per acre as an incentive to reduce dust from fields; $20 toward the cost of chipping annual orchard prunings rather than burning them; $50 to chip rather than burn removed orchards and 50 percent of the cost of oiling farm roads.
“Four years ago we had 192 applications for cost sharing in these programs. This year we had 750 applications for the $2 million we have available for these programs in the non-attainment areas of California,” said Beyer.
However, only one in four applicants will be funded this year because there is not enough money to go around, said Beyer. These funds are part of the new farm bill's extensive conservation title, and Beyer is hopeful funding will continue for the air pollution control efforts over the life of the five-year farm bill.
“The three to fourfold increase in the number of applications we have received for cost sharing for air pollution abatement efforts from farmers certainly reflects an increasing interest in growers in doing their part to reduce air pollution,” said Beyer.
The NRCS dust control program is in addition to $3.5 million to cost share with farmers to replace older diesel irrigation engines with less polluting, EPA-certified stationary engines.
These programs target the eight-county non-attainment area encompassing Kern, Tulare, Kings, Fresno, Madera, Merced, Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties along with farming areas in San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
The Starrhs have utilized state and federal matching fund programs to oil roads and replace engines, particularly the state-funded Carl Moyer program which has for several years provided funds to replace older engines.
This program has replaced 2,500 of the estimated 4,700 engines operating in the valley.
However, the Starrhs did not apply for matching funds in their latest project of drilling deep irrigation wells and install drip irrigation to mitigate growing uncertainty of surface water deliveries. These wells are equipped with EPA-certified engines to meet non-road exhaust emissions standards.
Even though there are many engines running in the valley, many of them may meet federal emission standards and as such are not major contributors to the valley's growing pollution problems, noted Fred Starrh.
Cotton drip irrigation
Starrh and Starrh's well drilling is leading them into a new project for their farm, drip irrigated cotton. Drip is obviously nothing new, but the Starrhs are one of the few SJV producers who have installed drip exclusively for cotton. Many valley producers have installed drip for high value crops and as part of rotation grow cotton using the low volume irrigation system.
“We figure we will grow cotton for 15 years straight with drip,” said Starrh. “We have had cotton on one field for 10 years and had the highest we ever had last year.
“With the newer varieties and the high wilt resistance we see today we think we can grow cotton constantly in the same field,” said Larry Starrh.
Drip irrigated cotton should use less water than sprinkler irrigated cotton, said Fred Starrh. Well water is 50 percent cheaper than surface water and there is less labor involved with drip because there are no hand lines to move.
“We think we can save about $150 per acre with drip and it costs us $1,000 per acre to install the drip, so using a 10-year pay out, we should be able to save $50 per acre each year on cotton,” said Fred Starrh.
“With costs going up like they are and with low cotton prices, things like drip and well water may be the only way we can stay in cotton,” he said.
And, with drip there is less cultivation because irrigation water is confined to the plant row. “We are not planting any herbicide resistant cotton this year on the drip irrigated field, but if you use GMO cotton you may not have to cultivate at all,” said Starrh. “As it is, we are using Staple herbicide for early season weed control on the non-GMO cotton we have on drip, and that is reducing tillage,” said Larry Starrh.
“We dislike intensely being the target in this air pollution debate,” said Fred Starrh. “All we can do is try to tell our story that farmers are doing their part in reducing air pollution.
“Air pollution affects us just like it does everyone else,” said Starrh, citing studies done several years ago that show ozone decreases crop yields.
One of the point men in the air pollution debate is Roger Isom, vice president and director of technical services for California Cotton Ginners and Growers Associations in Fresno, Calif.
“The struggle agriculture has is the public perception it has that agriculture is not doing anything to alleviate air pollution,” said Isom.
“Agriculture is doing not just a little bit, but a whole lot to reduce air pollution.”
He cited the state Carl Moyer engine replacement program as an example. Over half the stationary engines in the non-attainment area have been replaced.
“We think this has a bigger impact on reducing engine emissions than just a one for one engine swap. We contend these Carl Moyer engine replacements are larger engines and therefore have a more significant impact on reducing emissions overall,” said Isom.
It is so significant that agriculture contends farmers should not have to file a air quality report and get permits for these engines. However, environmental groups are challenging that.
In debate center
As much as farmers may not like it, they will continue to be in the eye of the air pollution debate as rules get tougher on them as well as on other industries and homeowners in the valley.
As part an effort to reduce PM10 emissions, Isom said new air quality district rules will go into effect Jan. 1 which will require that farmers adopt at least five conservation management practices to reduce emissions and file these plans with the local NRCS office.
Two must involve field operations and harvesting; two involving unpaved and equipment yards and a fifth to reduce burning of agricultural residue.
“We think farmers are doing enough now to be covered with these five mandated management practices,” Isom said. “Water and oiling unpaved roads; switching from two-row to five- or six-row cotton pickers; growing Roundup Ready cotton to reduce cultivations and things like that would count toward these five management plans,” said Isom.
Hearings are under way on implementing the plan, and Isom is hopeful it will be a matter of farmers validating what they are doing rather than more onerous regulations.
Farmers are not the only ones who will be affected by new air quality rules going into effect on Jan. 1. “These new air quality standards will affect everything from fireplaces in homes to cotton gins,” said Isom
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Among the many vitamins, vitamin K is considered as the “forgotten vitamin.” The reason is because its useful qualities are often overlooked. Experts claim that it is just as important as other vitamins and nutrients. However, before you rush out to find yourself a supplement or a source of vitamin K, you need to first learn more about this nutrient. Just like with vitamin B and D, there are several kinds of vitamin K, and not all of them are recommendable for intake.
Types of vitamin K
So what type of vitamin K should you get? The first type is vitamin K1. Also known as phylloquinone, it is naturally found in plants and green vegetables. The second type is vitamin K2 or menaquinone. It is produced by bacteria inside the intestinal tract. The third is vitamin K3 or menadione. Most experts advise against using the third kind of vitamin K because it is synthetic and can only be obtained through injection. Most experts would recommend taking vitamin K1 and vitamin K2. Research also shows that vitamin K when combined with vitamin D yield positive results for the body.
Vitamin K sources
As mentioned before, vitamin K1 comes from green leafy vegetables. Collard greens, spinach, salad greens and kale are some examples of veggies with the most amount of K1. Other choices include broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, olive oil, asparagus, okra, green beans and lentils. On the other hand, K2 is found in fermented foods, like the Japanese fermented soy product natto. Other options include fermented cheese. Cultured foods often have the most vitamin K but these are often absent from the diets of many Americans.
Absorption of vitamin K
Even though these foods are readily available on the market, you have to address first the issue of absorbability. In order to reap the benefits of vitamin K1 or K2, it needs to be absorbed by your body and it cannot do so, by merely digesting these foods. You see, K1 and K2 are both fat-soluble nutrients. This means that they require fats for your system to absorb it effectively. There are many sources of healthy fats, particularly omega-3s.
Dosage for vitamin K
There is no specific dosage for vitamin K. However, some experts recommend taking between 45 mcg and 185 mcg for adults. If you must use supplementation to get your vitamin K fix, you should consult your physician first to find out the proper dose you should be taking. Pregnant and nursing mothers should not take in vitamin K supplements higher than the recommended daily amount of 65 mcg. People who are susceptible to blood clotting and those who have experienced cardiac arrest and stroke should not drink it before speaking with a physician.
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A cylindrical hole six inches long has been drilled straight through the
center of a solid sphere - just as shown in the illustration.
The question is what is the volume remaining in the sphere?
*Martin Gardner has found the
earliest reference for this problem in Samuel I. Jones's Mathematical
Nuts, self-published, Nashville, 1932.
To print out PDF Print
'n' Play version of this puzzle, please download the latest version of the
ensure the best Internet Experience, please download
the latest version of the
Macromedia Flash Player
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Your breath is a good indicator of your overall oral health. But even though you’re careful enough to take excellent care of your teeth, tongue, and gums, you can still have bad breath. One of the most common times we might have bad breath is when we first wake up in the morning.
Something You Ate: Your bad breath could have been caused by something you ate for breakfast. Even if you brush your teeth before eating breakfast, you’ve gone eight hours without brushing – which is ample time for more bacteria to start growing in your mouth. They’ll feed on any bits of food they can find, such as shards from the popcorn you had at the movies last night. Avoid eating anything that is too heavily flavored before going to sleep; if it has garlic, onions, or is spicy, say no.
A Dry Mouth: If your mouth gets too dry, you won’t have enough saliva. Saliva will help clean your mouth out even when you’re not expecting it to, so do everything you can to encourage salivation. The thing is, your saliva will recede while you’re sleeping, which means it’s another contributing factor to why you wake up with unpleasant breath.
Not Brushing or Flossing: Be sure that you brush your teeth and then floss them every day. Otherwise, you run the risk of developing periodontal disease.
Medicine: Sometimes it might not even be a habit that’s to blame for your breath. Winter is a prime time to come down with the flu or to be sick in general. If you take medicine because you’re ill or to medicate another condition you have, then you should keep an eye out for both dry mouth and stinky breath because of the chemicals reacting with your body.
How to Stop It
Brushing: Pick up a brand new toothbrush, especially if your current one needs to be replaced. As we mentioned above, brushing your teeth can help.
Rinsing: We suggest a quick rinse with some water to help hydrate your mouth again, and in case that isn’t enough, be sure to use some mouthwash in the morning, too.
STOP BAD BREATH WITH ANNAPOLIS DENTAL CARE
Whether it’s regular check-up you need or a tooth extracted, Annapolis Dental Care has the expertise and compassion to work with you on improving your oral health. Your comfort and health are our top priorities, and so we go above and beyond to please our patients and to provide the highest quality care. To set up an appointment today, please give us a call at 410-571-5014 or visit us online. For more oral health tips for you and your family follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and YouTube!
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Lexington Brewing & Distilling Co.
Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale
At any moment, there are more barrels of bourbon aging on a shelf in Kentucky then there are people in the state. Bourbon is an American whiskey that is made from corn and can trace its origins to immigrant settlers. Technically, bourbon can be made anywhere in America but it is often associated with the South and especially with Kentucky where 95% of the world’s bourbon is now produced. Bourbon whiskey has been an iconic symbol of the “Bluegrass State” ever since the state was founded in 1792.
Conflicting stories tell the tale of how bourbon first got its name but it likely started with the House of Bourbon, a royal dynasty that ruled France on-and-off between the 16th and 19th centuries and also took over the throne of Spain starting in the 19th century. Bourbon County, KY and Bourbon Street in New Orleans both took their name from this French monarchy during the era when the French still controlled the Louisiana Territory. Bourbon County was established in 1785 and was named after the House of Bourbon as a tribute to French King Louis XVI for his assistance during America’s Revolutionary War. It is located in northern Kentucky and is now a part of the Lexington-Fayette metropolitan area. Bourbon County’s county seat is the city of Paris, KY.
Bourbon County was originally very large and also home to many whiskey makers. In the late 1700s, the new state of Kentucky proved to be a great place to grow crops and this inevitably brought many new settlers to the region including a large number of immigrants from Scotland and Northern Ireland. Corn grew especially well in the region and when combined with the whiskey-making skills of the Scottish and Scots-Irish settlers, a new blend of liquor was born. Around the same time, whiskey was becoming the most popular alcoholic drink in America and the many navigable waterways leading out of Kentucky allowed the state’s more-than 500 distilleries to send their libations across much of the country.
As far as the name goes, two ideas are often tossed around. The bourbon whiskey originally produced in Bourbon County had the words “Old Bourbon” stamped on the side of the barrels and this may have been used to distinguish the unique whiskey, ultimately causing it to pick up its name. On the other hand, whiskey from Kentucky also became a popular drink on Bourbon Street in New Orleans and it may have instead been named after the famous street in the French Quarter. No one knows for sure.
There are a few things that make bourbon distinct from other whiskeys and federal guidelines have even been established to ensure proper labeling. Bourbon whiskey must be:
1. Produced in the United States
2. Made from a grain mixture that is at least 51% corn
3. Aged in new, charred oak containers
4. Distilled to no more than 160 (U.S.) proof (80% alcohol by volume)
5. Entered into the barrel for aging at no more than 125 proof (62.5% alcohol by volume)
6. Bottled (like other whiskeys) at 80 proof or more (40% alcohol by volume)
Some distillers claim it is the naturally limestone-filtered, iron-free water in Kentucky that makes their bourbon whiskey so unique. Some also claim that this is why the beer is so darn good too. Aging beer in old bourbon barrels gives the brew a unique color and flavor but it is also a high-risk practice as it requires extra money, time and space. If done properly, the brews often develop a strong but subtle flavor and a high alcohol content.
Today, Kentucky bourbon whiskey is popular all around the world and so is Lexington Brewing & Distilling Company’s Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale, a beer that is now distributed to 31 U.S. States as well as seven other countries. It took a while to perfect, but Lexington Brewing & Distilling Company now creates one of the world’s most famous bourbon barrel-aged brews by combining the art of masterful beer-making and the legacy of Kentucky bourbon.
From the Brewer: Award-winning Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale is a unique sipping beer with the distinctive nose of well-crafted bourbon. Our Kentucky Irish Red Ale is aged for at least six weeks in freshly decanted bourbon barrels from some of Kentucky’s finest distilleries. Subtle yet familiar flavors of vanilla and oak are imparted to this special ale as it rests in the charred barrels. ABV 8.2%, IBU 19
Mark & Deidre Lyons - Co-Owners
Barrels of bourbon at Lexington Brewing & Distilling Co.
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Thursday, May 19, 2011
Museum of Science & Industry -II - Caryatids
Caryatids at Museum of Science and Industry..
What are Caryatids?
A caryatid is a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting an entablature on her head.
Address: 57th St. at Lake Shore Drive
Year Built: 1891-1893, Reconstructed 1929-30, Interior renovation 1930-41..
Architects: Charles Atwood, Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, Shaw, Naess & Murphy
Date Designated a Chicago Landmark: November 1, 1995..
Museum of Science and Industry...
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Neutralizing Toxins With Diet May Impact Fertility
A recent report in the Journal Metallomics, researches describe the important role of the trace element, selenium, in the production of healthy eggs leading to pregnancy. Selenium, a trace element, is an essential micronutrient that is found in protein-rich food including red meat, seafood, mushrooms and nuts. Brazilian nuts are the richest source of selenium with high levels also found, in descending order, kidney, tuna, crab and lobster. Although toxic in large doses, it is essential for numerous biological process, such as immune response, thyroid hormone production and metabolism, and as an antioxidant, helping to detoxify damaging chemicals in the cells. There are 25 known human genes that encode for proteins that incorporate selenium (selenoproteins). It is the antioxidant function of these selenoproteins that research found to play a role in the development of reproductively competent eggs.
In the normal course of living, all cells generate metabolic by-products. One of these by-products includes a class of substances called Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS). The cells have developed numerous strategies to neutralize or scavenge these ROS’s. Oxidative stress refers to the situation when these strategies fail and the cell cannot keep the level of ROS’s in check. This in turn leads to the damage of critical components of the cell and interferes with normal cellular function. Thus oxidative stress participates in the physiologic process of ageing and when the cell is overwhelmed, may eventually even trigger programed cell death (known as apoptosis).
Within the ovary, the functional unit of the growing egg, called the follicle, consists of the egg and its surrounding supporting cells (granulosa cells). As it turns out, steroid producing cells, such as these granulosa cells, produce ROS’s at a rate ten times greater than a normal cell. Each month, only one of many follicles that begin to mature each month is selected to ovulate. Using state of the art techniques, researches have demonstrated that selenium and selenoproteins are at found in markedly increased levels in large, healthy ovarian follicles. They also demonstrated that the gene expression of a specific selenoprotein (GPX1) was significantly higher in follicles that yielded a subsequent pregnancy. Researchers speculate that the selenoproteins play a critical role as antioxidants during the late stages of follicle development, helping to lead to a healthy environment for the developing egg. Previous reports have demonstrated a significant decrease in the expression of the GPX1 gene with dietary restriction of selenium. While the researches postulate that it may be possible to enhance ovarian function by selenium supplementation, too much selenium is toxic and further work is still needed to sort out this out.
Ceko, M. J., Hummitzsch, K., Hatzirodos, N., Bonner, W. M., Aitken, J. B., Russell, D. L., Lane, M., Rodgers, R. J., and Harris, H. H. X-Ray fluorescence imaging and other analyses identify selenium and GPX1 as important in female reproductive function. Metallomics. 11-3-2014.
Empowering Fertility: An educational blog for patients & healthcare professionals that empowers individuals to take charge of their fertility. Visit us at http://empoweringfertility.com.
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Auckland Temperatures | Auckland Sunshine Hours | Auckland Rainy Days | Climate of Auckland
Auckland enjoys warm, rather dry summers and mild, wet winters.
The climate is comfortable all year round except in the summer months when a combination of heat and humidity can lead to some rather sticky days and nights.
Frosts in winter are very rare.
Similar Latitude Cities
Auckland sits on a latitude of 36.5 degrees South. Cities on similar latitudes in the Northern hemisphere include Malaga, Spain and Monterey, California. Auckland is cooler in summer than these northern hemisphere cities because of the moderating effects of the surrounding Pacific Ocean.
Climate Data for Auckland
Sunshine (per day)
|Av. No. Days
with at least
Rough and ready climate comparison
Auckland enjoys greater year round warmth than NZ’s other largest cities – Christchurch and Wellington. Christchurch is cooler than Auckland and enjoys fewer rainy days. Wellington is also cooler than Auckland and, although wetter than Christchurch, has more dry days than Auckland. The driest areas in the country are in the east – Blenheim and Napier, for example.
The main weather hazard faced by Aucklanders is the strength of the sun – particularly in summer.
- In high summer, the sunshine in New Zealand is really strong. You’ll burn more easily in New Zealand than anywhere in the Mediterranean.
- There are three reasons why the sun in the Southern Hemisphere is so strong.
- There is less ozone to block the UV rays that cause sunburn.
- Earth’s orbit takes it closer to the sun during the southern summer than during the northern summer.
- There is less pollution in the southern hemisphere to block the UV rays.
- The sun’s burning strength is measured by the UV index. The highest possible UV index at sea-level is about 20. This can occur at midday in equatorial regions. Any reading higher than 10 is extreme in terms of skin-damage.
- The UV Index in the Mediterranean in high-summer reaches 9 or 10.
- The people in Florida are fried on a just a few days each summer when the index reaches 12.
- In New Zealand the summer index often exceeds 12.
Return to the New Zealand Climate Guide.
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An allowance — a certain amount of money given on a regular basis — is a great way to get kids to learn about the value of money while also learning basic money management skills. Its also a great way to teach responsibility and discipline.
Here we provide information on giving an allowance to your child. Also, along with giving an allowance, to help encourage saving money, see our budgeting section for some helpful lessons.
HOW OLD SHOULD KIDS BE TO GET AN ALLOWANCE?
Start as early as you and your child are comfortable. Kids often develop a very early fascination with money, so they will be very excited to have some money of their own. Kindergarten age is a good time to start — though some parents begin earlier if the child is ready.
HOW MUCH ALLOWANCE TO GIVE?
How much money should kids get? This depends on your own family budget restrictions and personal situation. One suggestion might be $1 for every year of age. So a five year old would get five dollars, and a ten year old would get ten dollars a week. Or start with a certain dollar amount, and increase it by $1 each year. Though, we would suggest giving an amount that is comfortable with you, based on your own child’s spending habits, and your budget. The main point is to give a certain amount on a regular basis.
If your child is older, you might also start by asking your child how much money they wish to receive each week. If they don’t know how much, you could ask them to see how much they might spend each week (which is also a good way to get them to think about budgeting). Then adjust that amount to something more appropriate if necessary.
HOW OFTEN SHOULD AN ALLOWANCE BE PAID?
Allowances do not have to always be paid weekly. Some parents pay their kids at the same time they get their own paycheck, which may be every other week. Others give a monthly allowance to encourage better budgeting skills. Though, we suggest a minimum of once per week.
BASIC MONEY MANAGEMENT SKILLS
Allowances help teach basic money management and economic principles. For example, some parents find that their children often ask too often to buy something when they are out shopping. By giving a allowance, then instead of getting pressure to buy something, you can let the kids decide to buy, if they have an allowance. ”You get an allowance, so its up to you to use your own money.” This way they can begin to learn the concept that money is a limited resource.
CHORES AND ALLOWANCE
Should your child only make an allowance if they do chores? This is one approach that might seem appealing, but it is often considered a mistake.
Having a chore-allowance relationship is not recommended, since it takes away from the money skills that children might otherwise learn. Chores should be considered a family responsibility that should not be associated with money. Also, kids may not do their chores if they only have to give up a small allowance. The purpose of an allowance is to teach money skills, and this may be lost if it is strictly tied to chores, and if the allowance is not regular and consistent.
As a compromise, you may pay a base allowance, and let your child make additional money if they complete additional chores for the week.
Of course, don’t let your children buy everything they want immediately if they have the money. An important concept to teach is the concept of saving. By saving money, we can buy something more expensive tomorrow, if we save our money today. However, at the same time the money given as an allowance is now your child’s, so you must let them decide how they spend it — its part of the learning process.
Though, you can still give guidance. For example, when you are shopping, and your child asks to buy something, always ask them if they are sure if that is what they want, and that they could save their money to buy something better.
Along with the allowance, you can establish some restrictions. For example, you should require the child to set aside a certain amount to save. So if the allowance is $3, for example, then perhaps $1 should be placed in a piggy bank for saving, while $2 can be used for spending. You can even set aside a percent for donating as well.
To encourage even longer-term savings, you may want to give your child additional money to allocate to long-term savings. Long-term savings money should then be deposited to a bank account or other financial institution. Long-term savings could be for college or other long-term goals.
For help with budgeting for different items or spending categories, it may be easier to help your child budget his or her money by setting up a special allowance. For example, for clothing you could give a clothing allowance in addition to the normal allowance. Money for the clothing allowance is only to be spent on clothing.
Some parents find it difficult to always be carrying around their child’s money when shopping. In that case, it may be easier to start a kids bank. With a kids bank, the weekly allowance is ‘deposited’ into a simulated bank account. Then, your child can write a check when making a ‘withdrawal’, and you can directly give them the money.
An extra benefit of this approach is that your child can learn basic checking skills, and practice math. See our checking category for blank checks and a check register to use for setting up a kids bank.
TRIAL AND ERROR
Remember, kids will learn by trial and error. Don’t be too afraid that your children will not spend their money wisely. Its much better that they make mistakes now, when they are young, rather than later in life — that’s what an allowance is for.
Money skills are unfortunately not taught extensively in school, so its up to you to help your kids learn about money and the value of savings!
Earning and Spending Money – Learn about earning and spending money. Learn different ways that people make money. Practice and understand budgeting and taxes.
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Magnesium is an essential mineral that's necessary for good health, including proper mental functioning. Although some research links magnesium deficiency to depression, there is no established recommended magnesium dosage for depression treatment. It is important to consult your physician before taking magnesium or other dietary supplements to treat depression.
Dosage for Preventing Magnesium Deficiency
Dietary magnesium is necessary in order to prevent magnesium deficiency, which may cause a number of symptoms, including anxiety, insomnia, irritability and possibly depression. In addition to low dietary magnesium intake, other factors that may contribute to magnesium deficiency include prolonged stress, excessive sweating, heavy menstrual periods and getting too much salt, alcohol, coffee or soda. Magnesium deficiency is not uncommon in the United States, and it occurs more frequently among women, African Americans and the elderly, according to MedlinePlus. Per the Recommended Dietary Allowance, or RDA, men need 400 to 420 mg of dietary magnesium per day, while women need 310 to 320 mg daily. Magnesium intake from dietary supplements should not exceed 350 mg/day, however.
Experimental Dosage for Depression
According to review published in "Medical Hypotheses" in 2006 and 2010, magnesium deficiency is a major cause of depression. Magnesium supplementation may thus function as an effective treatment for depression. A 2008 clinical trial referenced in the review showed that magnesium was as effective as a tricyclic antidepressant in treating depression in diabetics, and animal studies also show orally-administered magnesium produced strong antidepressant effects. Additionally, case histories indicate rapid recovery from major depression using a magnesium dosage of 125 to 310 mg with each meal and at bedtime. It is important to note, however, that these experimental dosages for depression treatment are higher than those considered safe by health authorities, and you should not attempt to self-treat depression by taking such high doses of magnesium.
Magnesium Supplement Risks
According to MedlinePlus, magnesium doses of less than 350 mg/day are safe for most adults. However, taking large doses may cause magnesium levels to build up in the body, resulting in serious side effects such as low blood pressure, confusion, irregular heartbeat, coma and death. It may also be unsafe to take magnesium supplements if you are taking certain medications or for people with certain health conditions. According to MedlinePlus, taking magnesium supplements is dangerous if you have kidney problems or kidney failure, as healthy kidneys are necessary to properly metabolize magnesium. Magnesium may also cause moderate drug interactions with the following types of medications: antibiotics, bisphosphates, calcium channel blockers, muscle relaxants and diuretics. Additionally, magnesium supplements may interact with other dietary supplements including calcium, boron, vitamin D, malic acid and zinc.
Foods with Magnesium
According to the National Institutes of Health, the best way to get extra magnesium is to eat a variety of whole grains, legumes, and dark, leafy vegetables. Certain types of fish and nuts also provide magnesium. According to the NIH, a 3-oz. serving of cooked halibut provides 90 mg of magnesium, or 20 percent of the Daily Value for magnesium set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Other foods that are especially high in magnesium, each providing 20 percent of the DV, include a 1-oz. serving of dry roasted almonds, cashews, or mixed nuts; a 1/2-cup serving of cooked soybeans; and 1/2 cup of cooked spinach. Baked potatoes, peanut butter, fortified oatmeal, yogurt, and brown, long-grained rice are some other common foods that are good dietary sources of magnesium.
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Vector control technology and its relationship to the environment and wildlife.
This paper is one of a number on the effects on wildlife of contamination of the environment by pesticides that were presented at a conference in England in July 1965 and are noticed in more detail elsewhere [RAE A 55 1062-1089]. The following is based partly on the author's summary. Whereas ecological biological and some chemical measures used against insect pests cause long-lasting or permanent changes in the environment, most pesticides cause only temporary or semi-permanent changes. The extent to which wildlife is affected by insecticides is determined by many factors, some of which are briefly discussed with reference to programmes employed against arthropod vectors of diseases of man and domestic animals in the United States, Africa and Asia. In the United States, where insecticides are widely used against vectors, the effect of some programmes for mosquito control on other animals were studied on a limited scale in California [cf. B 53 51, etc.]. In laboratory feeding trials carried out in the course of work in collaboration with J. O. Keith on the toxicity of five highly effective larvicides to mallard (Anas platyrhynchos), fenitrothion (Sumithion), azinphos-methyl (Guthion) and SD 7438 [toluene-a, a-dithiol bis(O, O-dimethyl phosphorodithioate)] did not harm the birds, whereas parathion and fenthion were highly toxic. Birds in outdoor pens that were given food containing 25 parts parathion or fenthion per million, which is the maximum contamination likely to occur in natural food from larvicidal treatments, ate less than birds given uncontaminated food and lost in weight, whereas birds receiving diets containing the other three larvicides gained. Birds quickly recovered when transferred from a fenthion diet to an uncontaminated one, and no mortality occurred until they had fed on the fenthion diet continuously for 28 days. Birds that died while on a diet containing parathion contained no or virtually no residues. Neither parathion nor fenthion harmed pinioned birds on ponds treated with them six times in three months at 4-5 times the rate used for mosquito control. Some data from current studies on residues and biological effects of parathion applied to duck marshes at normal and exaggerated rates [cf. 55 29] are included.
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Your brain does a lot of amazing things, but it doesn’t do them alone. In fact, it does a lot of what it does with the help of hormones. Thanks to their function as chemical regulators of the body, hormones can impact growth, emotions, and even cognitive functions like memory and forgetfulness.
There’s been a lot of research on how forgetfulness can be influenced by hormonal shifts during pregnancy, menopause, and premenopause. But you don’t need to be postpartum, going through menopause, or even aging for your hormone levels to be unbalanced.
Whether you’re in your 20s, 30s, 40s, or beyond, forgetfulness can be alarming when you notice it happening more and more. Maybe you even have bouts of brain fog. Or you have difficulty concentrating or find it takes longer to recall a memory or find the solution to a simple problem you’ve solved before.
So how do you know which hormones are to blame? Read on for a list of some of the most common offenders and how too high or too low levels of these hormones can result in forgetfulness.
Thyroid hormones impact learning and memory
Your thyroid hormones have a direct connection to your central nervous system and with that, brain development. This group of hormones, which includes thyroxine (T4) triiodothyronine (T3), and thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) affect intellectual development and neurological functioning. This development starts early on as a fetus, yet continues to be important in adulthood.
When the body stops creating and releasing the correct amounts of thyroid hormones into the bloodstream, this is clinically referred to as hypothyroidism. Research published in Genes, Brain and Behavior has found that when someone is dealing with hypothyroidism there may likely be cognitive side effects such as learning and memory impairment. This is because T4 directly influences acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter as well as the hippocampus - the part of the brain responsible for learning and memory. When there is less T4 circulating in the body, acetylcholine and the hippocampus don’t operate as efficiently as they should - resulting in the inability to properly store and retrieve information needed in the brain.
Testosterone taps into your brain when doing cognitive tasks
When using spatial cognition - things like navigating a new or recently visited area - testosterone activates areas in the brain to help with that. It can affect learning, reasoning, and comprehension - including something as simple (or frustrating, if you can’t remember) as where you put your keys.
While often referred to as a “male hormone”, testosterone is an androgen hormone that people of all genders have. Testosterone is produced either in the testicles or ovaries depending on which reproductive organs you have. (People of all genders also produce small amounts of testosterone via the adrenal glands.)
Research has supported that when testosterone levels aren’t balanced, memory recall can become unbalanced with it. A trial published in Psychoneuroendocrinology found when a group of healthy women were given a single dose of testosterone, their recall memory slightly improved.
Another trial published in Neurology found that in a six-week trial of 25 healthy men, those who received testosterone injections had significant improvements in memory, including recalling a walking route, block construction using spatial cognitive skills, as well as verbal memory in remembering a short story previously told to them. The group that received testosterone performed higher in these cognitive tasks than those who received a placebo.
Estrogen levels can dictate visual and place memory
Estrogen can increase blood flow to the brain and have anti-inflammatory, neuroprotective effects as well as impact brain tissue development. This in part is because estrogen receptors are located in brain regions like the hippocampus, amygdala, and cerebral cortex, which all are involved in cognition. Just like testosterone, people of all genders need and make estrogen. Again, this happens in the ovaries or testicles, and it also comes from a series of reactions that converts circulating testosterone to estrogen.
If there isn’t enough estrogen in the body, forgetfulness may become a frequent side effect. Research published in Endocrinology found that when a group of rats was given estrogen a rapid improvement in cognition was observed, enhancing both visual memory (determining old and new objects) and place memory (understanding the difference between new and old locations).
Cortisol spikes can lead to forgetfulness
There’s a fine line when it comes to cortisol and memory. The stress hormone is needed —and useful— when it comes to learning, but having too much cortisol in your system can negatively affect memory retrieval. Cortisol belongs to a class of hormones called glucocorticoids (GC), and when these hormone levels are too high there is a link to cognitive aging.
During a trial published in Behavioral Neuroscience, researchers looked at a group of 157 college students who watched a brief film. An increase of GC hormones was found to help verbal memory consolidation - turning short-term memory into a long-lasting one by discussing what they saw in the film. However, GC levels that are too high for too long can take a previously consolidated memory and make it difficult to recall.
Getting to the bottom of your forgetfulness
If you think your forgetfulness could be due to a hormonal imbalance, there can be great value to having your hormone levels tested via a quick blood draw through your healthcare provider or an at-home service like Base. Hormone levels are extremely unique and personal, yet if you find you have an excess or deficiency in any of the above hormones there are some lifestyle steps you can take to improve them.
For example, if your thyroid hormones are low, certain supplements like iron, selenium, and zinc can help restore and successfully convert T3 and T4 hormones. (In some instances, a healthcare provider may even recommend an iodine supplement.) Eating probiotic-rich foods like yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, and kombucha can also help with this conversion as well as stabilize thyroid hormones by limiting bad bacteria in the gut.
Testosterone levels can be balanced by eating a healthy, well-balanced diet. Research in the Journal of the International Society of Sports and Nutrition found that both overeating and yo-yo dieting can fluctuate testosterone levels. Even logging more sleep can help restore low testosterone, per research published in JAMA.
Estrogen can also be increased through your diet by eating foods high in phytoestrogens. These are plant-based compounds that attach to estrogen receptor cells in the body. For this reason, filling your kitchen with items like plums, pears, beans, sprouts, cabbage, and spinach can increase the amount of estrogen circulating in your body.
As for cortisol, you may be well aware of the stress-busting techniques you can implement daily such as exercising and practicing mindfulness or meditation. However, some additional tweaks, like decreasing your caffeine consumption can also go a long way in making sure your cortisol levels don’t continually spike for too long.
With so many hormones at play when it comes to memory, forgetfulness, and learning, the slightest shift or dip in any of the above levels can make an impact. By understanding what your personal hormone levels look like with an at-home test like Base you can take the dietary and supplemental steps you need to keep your body and brain balanced.
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The Internet of Things Needs a Lingua Franca
With the proliferation of smart speakers, voice interaction with home devices is becoming increasingly common. On the horizon are voice interactions with an ever greater number of smart environments—cities, offices, classrooms, factories, and healthcare settings.
Voice interaction with devices is simple and natural from the user’s perspective; behind the scenes it relies on a complex stack of technologies, from microphones to cloud servers back to devices and speakers. Everything has to work together seamlessly. Because of the complexity of each individual interaction, along with the huge variety of possible devices, the connections between the components have to be uniform. What if turning on the lights in a house, a car, and an office all required a completely different set of interfaces? This would make the developer’s job very difficult and slow down the adoption of voice interactions.
In theory, this uniformity could be achieved if one company made every smart device and everyone used its technology. But it’s hard to imagine that a proprietary approach could ever cover all the options. A much more realistic approach would be for device components to be based on standards that have been agreed upon among device manufacturers, smart speaker vendors, and mobile device manufacturers.
There’s some progress here, but there’s also a lot of work to do.
The W3C Web of Things (WoT) Working Group has published some specifications for standardizing interfaces for smart devices. In May 2019 it published two documents on WoT standards: (1) the WoT Thing Description document, which specifies how to describe metadata and interfaces that apply to physical objects like smart devices; and (2) the WoT Architecture document, which describes the abstract architecture for the W3C WoT, including scripting for device control.
These documents are important steps toward standardizing the interactions among things, but they don’t cover human interaction with things. There are a few ideas in progress here. One proposal from the W3C Voice Interaction Community Group describes a standardized representation of semantic information (JSON Representation of Semantic Information). This would define a uniform interface connecting natural language systems to back-end application servers. It was published in February 2019 and is an early draft that needs to be expanded and tested.
Standardization efforts are also needed in other areas of human-computer interaction, including dialogue authoring languages and voice user interface guidelines. What’s available for these?
VoiceXML is a dialogue authoring language that was first developed in the early 2000s. It is still pretty sophisticated compared to most authoring tools. VoiceXML provides useful built-in capabilities such as slot-filling, tapered prompts, and barge-in. It remains the standard authoring language for IVR applications, but current virtual assistants use their own proprietary authoring formats, possibly because the developers of the proprietary systems weren’t aware of VoiceXML or wanted to use JSON instead of XML. But even if VoiceXML isn’t used directly, it remains a rich source of dialogue management concepts that could be used in other systems. Another very recent proposal for dialogue management is from the W3C Conversational Interfaces Community Group. In April 2019, this group published Dialogue Manager Programming Language (DMPL), a draft of a declarative dialogue authoring language. Like JSON, this draft needs to be expanded and tested.
As for user interface guidelines, how users interact directly with systems, hard-and-fast standards can be difficult to define. For example, a good voice user interface (VUI) guideline is “keep system prompts short.” “Short” is a subjective concept, though (is 10 words short enough?), and prompts can’t be so short that a user won’t understand them. This principle has to be more of a guideline than a standard. In any case, since the VUI is where the user meets the system—and many users probably equate the interface with the entire system—user interface guidelines are critical for application success. The Association for Conversational Interaction Design (ACIXD) has done a comprehensive job of collecting guidelines for designing VUIs, guidelines based on both human factors research and many years of hard-won experience with VUI implementations. These guidelines are available on the ACIXD website.
Voice interaction with the Internet of Things will be pervasive and transformative as smart devices and smart environments become more ubiquitous. Establishing voice interaction standards for all the components of smart environments is critical for accelerating this process and expanding the range of applications. x
Deborah Dahl, Ph.D., is principal at speech and language consulting firm Conversational Technologies and chair of the World Wide Web Consortium’s Multimodal Interaction Working Group. She can be reached at [email protected].
Jim Larson talked to Dr. Deborah Dahl, Principal, Conversational Technologies about the increasing importance and capabilities of natural language processing, speech recognition, and
18 Sep 2019
Conversational Technologies Principal Deborah Dahl lays out a plan for making more virtual assistants more effective in this clip from her keynote at SpeechTEK 2019.
28 Jun 2019
A common format for natural language tools would make everyone's life easier
20 May 2019
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We now resume our Big Picture discussion of ways to use argument and evidence. Remember, Step 5 was “Generate your own questions that warrant research and debate.” In Step 6, we move dramatically further down this road: “Generate your own questions, then research and build arguments supported with evidence and explanation.”
The good news is that you can look back at Step 5 for tips on how to teach students to generate questions. However, the rest of Step 6 is going to require A LOT more scaffolding. For example, what does it mean to “research”? Are we talking about Googling everything? Can students conduct interviews? (meaning both: Do you expect them to? and Do they know how?) Will they be expected to find books on the subject? Does your school have a library? Do your students know how to USE a library? If you want them to rely on Internet research, do they know how to search effectively for information, and what do they know about the bias and reliability of what they might find? Do they know how and why to cite sources? Do they know what plagiarism is, why it’s such a problem, and how to avoid it?… etc. So you can see that the notion of “research” raises a whole host of questions. Check out the TLC “Research Paper Guide” page for support as you dive into research writing with your students.
Once students FIND resources, they have to know how to pull useful, relevant information out of them. Ironically, SKIMMING is a skill we often overlook. We assume students can pull out key words and key ideas. We need to teach them how to do that. My advice is to start small, pulling information out of paragraphs, then essays, then chapters. You’ll want to remind students of the lessons learned when we practiced finding RELEVANT evidence for arguments. And students need to know how to use text features such as headings, the table of contents, the bibliography, and the index.
We also need to teach students how to collect and organize evidence, to synthesize information to build arguments. Again, I recommend starting small, with multiple short documents. In other words, teach them the DBQ (Document-Based Question) approach. Check out the TLC “History Writing: DBQ Essays” page. DBQs are not just for history teachers. In fact, I like to think of them as research papers with training wheels. Teachers provide the materials, so students don’t have to do the research, but they do have to do everything else associated with research writing. One advantage to practicing this approach is that using common materials makes it easier to conduct whole-class mini-lessons on the needed skills.
Although this brief entry doesn’t capture all of the complexity of supporting students in research writing, it’s a start. We’ll dig into various aspects of the process more in future posts.
*This entry is adapted from The Literacy Cookbook, which is available for pre-order HERE.
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Learning Assistance Coordinator
Our Learning Assistance Coordinator (LAC) - Counsellor is Mrs. D. Jahrig. Ms. Jahrig allows students the opportunity to reach their full potential by helping teachers implement accomodations and modifications within their classroom. A few examples are listed below:
What is an Adapted Program? (i.e. accommodations)
A program is considered adapted when a student is doing the same grade level as the rest of the class, and is following the same program of studies as the rest of the class, but does it a bit differently because thay have their own learning style.
Some adaptations may include
- having extra time to write an exam
- having someone read the test questions for the student (reader)
- having someone write downt he answers for the student (scribe)
- using a tape recorder
- using a computer
- using textbooks on tape
- not having to do as many questions as others in the class
- receiving extra time to finish assignments
- using another student’s or the teacher’s notes
- not having marks taken off for spelling mistakes
- using a calculator; and/or
- any other ways that can accommodate the way you learn
The list above describes changes in the way things are done, not in what is being taught. Changes like these make it ‘fair’ for the student because he/she learns differently. They do not give the student an unfair advantage over the other students. Being on an adapted program does not affect your letter grades
What is a Modified Program?
A program is considered modified when students are not working on the same grade level program of studies and covering the same outcomes; however, they are working on a program that is not at grade level.
Some students with Learning Disabilities and/or Attention Deficit Disorder may not be able to do the same work as the others in their class, even with adaptations. In that case, changes need to be made about what is to be taught. All of the changes are written down in the IPP.
When using a modified program, a student will not receive letter grades. Instead, he/she will receive comments about how well they are doing.
Students on a Modified Program can also receive accommodations.
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IC 2178 - Galaxy in Gemini
IC 2178 is a Galaxy in the Gemini constellation. IC 2178 is situated north of the celestial equator and, as such, it is more easily visible from the northern hemisphere.
See also IC 2178 rise and set times.
Given its B magnitude of 15.7, IC 2178 is visible only through long exposure photography.
Photometric information of IC 2178
The following table lists the magnitude of IC 2178 in different bands of the electomagnetic spectrum (when available), from the B band (445nm wavelength, corresponding to the Blue color), to the V band ( 551nm wavelength, corresponding to Green/Yellow color), to the J, H, K bands (corresponding to 1220nm, 1630nm, 2190nm wavelengths respectively, which are colors not visible to the human eye).
For more information about photometry in astronomy, check the photometric system article on Wikipedia.
The surface brightess reported below is an indication of the brightness per unit of angular area of IC 2178.
Apparent size of IC 2178The following table reports IC 2178 apparent angular size. The green area displayed on top of the DSS2 image of IC 2178 is a visual representation of it.
Digitized Sky Survey image of IC 2178
The image below is a photograph of IC 2178 from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 (DSS2 - see the credits section) taken in the red channel. The area of sky represented in the image is 0.5x0.5 degrees (30x30 arcmins).
Celestial coordinates and finder chart of IC 2178
Celestial coordinates for the J2000 equinox of IC 2178 are provided in the following table:
The simplified sky charts below show the position of IC 2178 in the sky. The first chart has a field of view of 60° while the second one has a field of view of 10°.
Rise ans set times of IC 2178 from your location
Today's IC 2178 - Galaxy in Gemini rise, transit and set times from Greenwich, United Kingdom are the following (all times relative to the local timezone Europe/London):
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Choosing to take Shelter is necessary in many emergencies.
Taking appropriate shelter is critical in times of disaster. Sheltering is appropriate when conditions require that you seek protection in your home, place of employment or other location when disaster strikes. Sheltering outside the hazard area could include staying with friends and relatives, seeking commercial lodging or staying in a mass care facility operated by disaster relief groups.
To effectively shelter, you must first consider the hazard and then choose a place in your home or other building that is safe for that hazard. For example, for a tornado, a room should be selected that is in a basement or an interior room on the lowest level away from corners, windows, doors and outside walls.
The safest locations to seek shelter vary by hazard. Be Informed bout the sheltering suggestions for each hazard.
There may be situations, depending on your circumstances and the nature of the disaster, when it's simply best to stay where you are and avoid any uncertainty outside by “sheltering in place.
The length of time you are required to shelter may be short, such as during a tornado warning, or long, such as during a winter storm or a pandemic. It is important that you stay in shelter until local authorities say it is safe to leave. Additionally, you should take turns listening to radio broadcasts and maintain a 24-hour safety watch.
During extended periods of sheltering, you will need to manage water and food supplies to ensure you and your family have the required supplies and quantities.
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ALOFONO DEFINICION PDF
Disciplina que estudia y describe los sonidos (alófonos). ¿Que es la lingüística? Ciencia Ramas de la Lingüística Ejemplos: Ivette Lugo Varela. La fricativa bilabial sorda es un tipo de consonante fricativa que aparece en varias lenguas del Odoodee, pagai, [ɸɑgɑi], ‘coco’. Español de Andalucía, los viejos, [lɔ ɸjɛhɔ], ‘los viejos’, Alófono de /b/ tras aspiración. Turkmeno, fabrik. facebook prodajem suzavac u spreju dell’agnello simone infortunio willow creek golf club woodlands texas cours stati.
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Deifnicion for the Liberal Arts Phone: What is a diphthong in Spanish? When the vocal chords do not vibrate to voice a sound, it is called an unvoiced letter sorda. When used separately, the two pronouns changed over time to become the following: The strong vowels are a, e, o. The tongue lightly touches between the teeth to form the fricative, like in the word cada. When the [d] is in any other position, it is fricativa, interdental, sonora.
Normally, a syllable is based on one vowel sound. Finally, when preceding a ch, the n moves back in the mouth to become nasal, palatalizada, sonora.
The tongue does not block the air for the stop, but rather allows some air to pass. This also happens when the n is followed by a hard g like in the words vengo or tengan.
Lima | Peru
Consider the word group la humilla in which the non-stressed definite article and the first syllable form a diphthong, breaking this group in three syllables: Then, identify these consonants b, d, g, v using the points of articulation listed above. Ahora, te toca a ti. This n is therefore nasal, dental, sonora. Here are some examples: The following changes occurred: Important topic of day.
Well-organized, great way to collaborate.
Another example is devinicion verb tuve where the v is not labiodental as it is in English. Now that the three descriptors have been mentioned, it is time to look at individual words and sounds. This is similar to the sefinicion in the single word causa where the two syllables are cau-sa. Stops indicate that there is a break in the air flow, fricatives indicate that there is air passing through a narrow opening, and nasals indicate the air comes through the nose.
Yet another sound is produced when the n precedes the letters b, v, or p, or consonantes bilabiales using both lips. Do the letters b, d, g, and v have different pronunciations in different words? To hear these definicioj, try saying the following words, paying attention to where your tongue is: Ahora te toca a ti.
Think of the word donde in which the tongue presses against the upper teeth for each [d]. If the [g] is in any other position, it is fricativa, velar, sonora.
Lima | Peru – PDF Free Download
Spanish vowels have been traditionally divided into two groups: After, check the answers on the last. For example, the Spanish word caos has two syllables, ca-os. The evolution from Latin is the cause of this spelling change. Why does the n in some Spanish words sound like the ng in the English word thing but not in all words? After, check the answers on the last page of this guide. This means that when a strong and a weak vowel are side by side, the strong vowel is emphasized more in the syllable.
The g sound comes from the throat closing slightly with the vocal chords vibrating in Spanish called una consonante oclusiva, velar, sonora with the preceding n approximating this consonant. How will it help my students to know this?
If followed by an f, the n approximates the next sound again and becomes nasal, bilabiodental, sonora. Try dividing the following words into syllables, and then check your answers with the last page.
Think of the word veinte for an example.
When the n is followed by a d or a t the pronunciation is dentalmeaning that the tongue touches the back slofono the upper front teeth. When two strong vowels stand side by side in a word unseparated by consonants, they each constitute a syllable. The pronunciation of the n moves up in the mouth, against the teeth in alofomo of the articulation of the next letter. Say the following words aloud. Slofono used separately, the two pronouns changed over time to become the following:.
Then, identify the sound for each n paying close attention to the point of articulation. Alofoho approximating the next consonant, the n becomes nasal, bilabial, sonora, or in other words, just like the letter m, as in the expression un beso, phonetically [um beso]. For example, the Spanish word comemos has three syllables based on the three vowels, and the word can be separated syllabically this way: The [g] is made with the tongue in the back of the mouth at the velum, or soft palate.
Count the number of syllables you hear, then check the syllable division at the end of this guide.
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When Hillary Clinton stumbled and coughed through public appearances during her 2016 presidential run, she faced critics who said that she might not be well enough to perform the top job in the country. To quell rumors about her medical condition, her doctor revealed that a CT scan of her lungs showed that she just had pneumonia.
But what if the scan had shown faked cancerous nodules, placed there by malware exploiting vulnerabilities in widely used CT and MRI scanning equipment? Researchers in Israel say they have developed such malware to draw attention to serious security weaknesses in critical medical imaging equipment used for diagnosing conditions and the networks that transmit those images — vulnerabilities that could have potentially life-altering consequences if unaddressed.
The malware they created would let attackers automatically add realistic, malignant-seeming growths to CT or MRI scans before radiologists and doctors examine them. Or it could remove real cancerous nodules and lesions without detection, leading to misdiagnosis and possibly a failure to treat patients who need critical and timely care.
Yisroel Mirsky, Yuval Elovici and two others at the Ben-Gurion University Cyber Security Research Center in Israel who created the malware say that attackers could target a presidential candidate or other politicians to trick them into believing they have a serious illness and cause them to withdraw from a race to seek treatment.
The research isn’t theoretical. In a blind study the researchers conducted involving real CT lung scans, 70 of which were altered by their malware, they were able to trick three skilled radiologists into misdiagnosing conditions nearly every time. In the case of scans with fabricated cancerous nodules, the radiologists diagnosed cancer 99 percent of the time. In cases where the malware removed real cancerous nodules from scans, the radiologists said those patients were healthy 94 percent of the time.
Even after the radiologists were told that the scans had been altered by malware and were given a second set of 20 scans, half of which were modified, they still were tricked into believing the scans with fake nodules were real 60 percent of the time, leading them to misdiagnoses involving those patients. In the case of scans where the malware removed cancerous nodules, doctors did not detect this 87 percent of the time, concluding that very sick patients were healthy.
The researchers ran their test against a lung-cancer screening software tool that radiologists often use to confirm their diagnoses and were able to trick it into misdiagnosing the scans with false tumors every time.
“I was quite shocked,” said Nancy Boniel, a radiologist in Canada who participated in the study. “I felt like the carpet was pulled out from under me, and I was left without the tools necessary to move forward.”
The study focused on lung cancer scans only. But the attack would work for brain tumors, heart disease, blood clots, spinal injuries, bone fractures, ligament injuries and arthritis, Mirsky said.
Attackers could choose to modify random scans to create chaos and mistrust in hospital equipment, or they could target specific patients, searching for scans tagged with a specific patient’s name or ID number. In doing this, they could prevent patients who have a disease from receiving critical care or cause others who aren’t ill to receive unwarranted biopsies, tests and treatment. The attackers could even alter follow-up scans after treatment begins to falsely show tumors spreading or shrinking. Or they could alter scans for patients in drug and medical research trials to sabotage the results.
The vulnerabilities that would allow someone to alter scans reside in the equipment and networks hospitals use to transmit and store CT and MRI images. These images are sent to radiology workstations and back-end databases through what’s known as a picture archiving and communication system (PACS). Mirsky said the attack works because hospitals don’t digitally sign the scans to prevent them from being altered without detection and don’t use encryption on their PACS networks, allowing an intruder on the network to see the scans and alter them.
Although one hospital network they examined in Israel did try to use encryption on its PACS network, the hospital configured the encryption incorrectly and as a result the images were still not encrypted.
Fotios Chantzis, a principal information-security engineer with the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota who did not participate in the study but confirmed that the attack is possible, said that PACS networks are generally not encrypted. That’s in part because many hospitals still operate under the assumption that what’s on their internal network is inaccessible from outside — even though “the era where the local hospital network was a safe, walled garden is long gone,” he said.
To develop their malware, the Israeli researchers used machine learning to train their code to rapidly assess scans passing through a PACS network and to adjust and scale fabricated tumors to conform to a patient’s unique anatomy and dimensions to make them more realistic. The entire attack can be fully automated so that once the malware is installed on a hospital’s PACS network, it will operate independently of the researchers to find and alter scans, even searching for a specific patient’s name.
To get the malware onto a PACS network, attackers would need either physical access to the network — to connect a malicious device directly to the network cables — or they could plant malware remotely from the Internet. The researchers found that many PACS networks are either directly connected to the Internet or accessible through hospital machines that are connected to the Internet.
To prevent someone from altering CT and MRI scans, Mirsky says, ideally hospitals would enable end-to-end encryption across their PACS network and digitally sign all images while also making sure that radiology and doctor workstations are set up to verify those signatures and flag any images that aren’t properly signed.
“It’s going to require changes that go well beyond devices, but changes with regards to the network infrastructure,” Schwartz said. “This is where engaging and involving with other authorities and trying to bring the entire community together becomes really important.”
Christian Dameff, an emergency room physician with the University of California at San Diego School of Medicine and a security researcher who has exposed vulnerabilities with the 911 emergency calling system, notes that in the case of a cancer diagnosis, some backstops would prevent a patient from receiving unwarranted treatment based only on a maliciously modified CT scan. But that doesn’t mean the attack would be harmless.
The radiologists in the BGU study recommended follow-up treatment and referrals to a specialist for all of the patients with scans that showed cancerous lung nodules. They recommended immediate tissue biopsies or other surgery for at least a third of them.
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“Fascist.” It’s just about the foulest insult in the political thesaurus, and lately Donald Trump’s been hearing it about himself from people as different as George Clooney, a former president of Mexico, comedian Louis C.K, and Anne Frank’s stepsister. But apart from Hitler himself, which is who people have in mind, what, really, does the word fascist mean? Robert O. Paxton is a history professor emeritus at Columbia University and author of the book “The Anatomy of Fascism.” He explains whether Trump is a textbook-definition fascist, or just seems to play one on television.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THIS INTERVIEW ON THE 'PATT MORRISON ASKS' PODCAST>>
What’s happening now, that the term fascism is surfacing in American politics?
Well, there’s language and there’s style and manner that has echoes of the fascism of Europe in the 1920s and the ‘30s.
What are they?
There’s the claim that the United States is in decline and needs a strong leader. And that was at the heart of what Mussolini and Hitler promised. They offered a recipe for revival: nationalism, aggressive foreign policy, attacks on the enemies inside and out without much regard for due process, an obsession with decline and with enemies like Jews or socialists, foreigners – those are echoes of that today.
As you said in the book, one of the preconditions, the soil, that has to be fertile for a fascist movement or leader is to flourish is a “faltering liberal order.” Is that the case in the United States?
Our country was in terrible disarray at the end of the George W. Bush presidency. One unnecessary war, two failed wars, a severe economic recession, almost a depression. And much of what’s happened since then has been recovery.
But there are people in this country whose diagnosis is different, who are very upset with things that have happened. I think there was also an unavowed unease that there was a black man in the White House; no one wants to say that but it certainly sounds like some people are upset by that.
The former president of Mexico, Vicente Fox, used the word “fascist” to describe [Trump]. Do you see characteristics in Donald Trump that match up with your checklist?
Blaming our troubles on the internal enemy as well as the external enemy – well, that goes wider than fascism; it is present in classical fascism. First of all you depersonalize them, and then you attach negative images to them, and then you prescribe measures that are illegal, brutal -- and this is very much what Hitler did with Jews and with Slavs and Mussolini did with socialists. That’s one of the echoes.
Clearly both Hitler and Mussolini had a game plan and had studied politics and knew political philosophy enough to mount successful movements. Do you think Donald Trump is aware of what he’s doing insofar as it matches up with these conditions you speak of?
I’ve been saying that Trump is an impulsive person and that these kinds of diagnoses and the labeling of enemies and so forth stem from an aggressive personality. And it doesn’t come from studying. And so Hitler and Mussolini were very skilled opportunists and I think Trump is also a skilled opportunist, but I think he’s also less conscious politically than Hitler and Mussolini. My impression -- and I know there’s a lot who disagree with it -- is that he’s a blustery, egocentric blowhard. And this comes naturally to him and it has worked. He has an instinct for fears and anger out in the public and he matches up with them perfectly.
I don’t think of Trump as a man who’s studied much of anything. He’s very spontaneous; he has a genius for sensing the mood of a crowd and I think to some degree Hitler and Mussolini had those qualities also. I do not think he’s learned this from a book.
You write that fascism is a 20th-century phenomenon and we don’t really think of it as fitting on a political spectrum of left and right.
In Germany, the two parties that were growing in 1932 were the Nazi party and the Communist party, and Hitler offered himself as the one force that could stop the Communists. So Hitler and Mussolini took countries that were terribly divided and offered them a middle way, a way that could transcend the disputes between left and right. I don’t hear that kind of language here so much. I mean, we have problems but I don’t think we have a Communist revolution in the wings.
The closest to perhaps a fascist figure in this country, an elected figure that I can think of, is Huey Long, who had been the governor of Louisiana.
Yes, Huey Long was certainly considered a fascist, and this was in the 1930s, and Huey Long, I think, would have rejected the label. He had a kind of welfare anti-capitalist plan for Louisiana. He wanted to tax the rich; there was a bit of Robin Hood about Huey Lon, and the atmosphere of the 1930s, people were attacking him as fascist. Well, we had real fascists. We had George Lincoln Rockwell, we had Father Coughlin, a prominent radio broadcaster in the suburbs of Detroit, who was violently anti-Semitic. These people were openly sympathetic to Hitler.
Does it surprise you that the established political parties, especially the Republicans, have recoiled from Donald Trump’s candidacy?
Not at all. I think that what has happened to politics is that the party, the traditional political parties, Democratic and Republican both, have suddenly found themselves divested of the power they used to have to name candidates. Back in the old days, you had the smoke-filled room and the party grandees chose the candidate. People might grumble about it but there was patronage and rewards of various sorts to patch over those grumblings. And then in the 1960s and ‘70s, it was thought necessary to give citizens more of a role, and so you have the caucuses, you have open primaries and so forth.
And now, with a new layer of change, we have social media, with everybody Tweeting each other or emailing each other or sending messages back and forth, the instant political cycle and huge public involvement in the process. And both parties’ outsiders have seized the opportunity. In trump’s case he’s pulled away, ahead of the kind of people who the Republican establishment would like to see nominated. They’re terrified he’s going to divide the party and is not a viable candidate because he has so many liabilities. Maybe they’re wrong about that, and if they decide they’re wrong, they’ll flock to him.
In your book, you point out that fascism rested “not upon the truth of its doctrine but upon the leader’s mystical union with the historic destiny of his people.” That’s a pretty resonant phrase to attach to anyone.
I think Donald Trump falls far short of what Hitler was able to do when he mesmerized these crowds, though he’s certainly better at it than anybody else. But I think my message there was that in some ways, we don’t understand fascism best by having a kind of checklist of programs, because [Hitler and Mussolini] changed quite a few of those. And then, it’s the manner, it’s the kind of style, the aggressive style, the assertion of strength and the image presented of somebody who’s not going to be bothered by little things like the rule of law or political correctness or being polite, and will actually get things done.
Hitler radiated that kind of force in a country that hadn’t been able to deal with the loss of the war and then the Depression. So my thought there was that you understand fascism as a visceral appeal based on style and image, and it’d be hard to see what Trump’s program is exactly. He’s laid out some points but that’s not the heart of his real appeal. The heart of his appeal is the image of somebody who will do things. And it’s awfully tempting when somebody comes along and says, I’m a tough guy, I’ll fix it.
Professor Paxton, I think those people in the audiences, those people who have voted for Trump would be horrified to think that anybody would think of them as fascists, or as voting for a fascist.
Indeed they would. One of the reasons fascism is hard to understand and hard to write about historically and in a scholarly way is that it’s been used as an epithet so much. Almost everybody has been called a fascist.
Well, any kid whose parents take away his smart phone will call them fascist!
Absolutely. It’s the worst epithet we can think of. So I tried to give it some concrete meaning, and I think it has concrete meaning. A label like fascism should be useful to claim things. The trouble with fascism as a label is that it generates so much heat and not necessarily so very much light, so we must remember there are ways in which Trump is not like the fascists.
This thing about the strong state, and everybody regimented, and wearing uniforms, the shirts the same color, arms out the same way – this is not the style of Americans. That would be a huge turnoff.
I think there are many ways in which Trump differs from the fascists. They wanted to regiment everybody and they wanted to have a strong state, whereas nobody in the Republican party wants anything but less regulation. So I don’t think the label works terribly well and I’m not a great fan of these labels anyway. I understand perfectly that no one would want to hear him called fascist, but then he should stop using these images, retweeting Mussolini and so forth.
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Climate change remains a low-priority issue for Americans who identify as Republican or lean toward the Republican Party. At the same time, Republicans express openness to certain policy proposals to deal with climate change. And there are differences in views within the GOP, with moderates and younger adults generally offering higher levels of support for action to address climate change than conservatives and older adults.
Few Republicans and Republican-leaning independents express deep concern about addressing climate change: Only 10% call it a top personal concern, compared with a much larger share of Democrats and Democratic leaners (49%), according to a recent Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults. In last year’s presidential election, just 11% of those who supported Donald Trump said climate change was very important to their vote. By contrast, a majority of Joe Biden’s supporters (68%) described climate change as a very important issue.
Pew Research Center conducted this study to understand how Americans view climate, energy and environmental issues. We surveyed 13,749 U.S. adults from April 20 to 29, 2021.
The survey was conducted on Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP) and included an oversample of adults ages 18 to 24 from the Ipsos Knowledge Panel. A total of 912 Generation Z adults, born after 1996, were included in the sample.
Respondents on both panels are recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology. Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and its methodology.
Republicans by and large do not see a strong link between human activity and climate change: Just 17% say human activities – such as burning fossil fuels – contribute a great deal to climate change. About four-in-ten (42%) say human activity contributes some to climate change, while 28% say it contributes not too much and 12% say not at all.
Amid warnings from scientists and climate activists about climate impacts, there has been little increase in the share of Republicans who see climate change as a threat to the country over the last decade, in contrast to rising levels of concern among Democrats.
Republicans express a degree of skepticism toward climate scientists. Greater shares say climate scientists have too much, rather than too little, influence on policy debates (44% to 27%). And 62% of Republicans say climate scientists understand the best ways to address climate change either not too well or not at all well.
Still, Republicans are supportive of certain policy proposals to deal with climate change, even as it remains a low priority issue for most. And within the GOP, younger Republicans and those who describe their political views as moderate express relatively greater levels of concern – and support for action – regarding climate change.
Gen Z and Millennial Republican adults (born after 1996 and 1981-1996, respectively) are more likely than older adults in the GOP to say a range of actors – including large businesses as well as ordinary Americans – are doing too little to help reduce the effects of climate change. For instance, majorities of Gen Z and Millennial Republicans (57% and 59%, respectively) say large businesses and corporations are doing too little to help reduce the effects of climate change, compared with smaller shares of Gen X (50%) and Baby Boomer and older Republicans (43%). There’s also a wide divide among Republicans by ideology on this question, with moderates more likely than conservatives to criticize groups for not doing enough on climate change.
When it comes to policy proposals aimed at reducing the effects of climate change, large majorities of Republicans favor planting about a trillion trees around the world to absorb carbon emissions (88%) and providing a tax credit to encourage businesses to develop technology to capture and store carbon emissions (73%). Both proposals have received support from Republican members of Congress.
There is less widespread GOP support for other climate policies, such as tougher restrictions on power plant emissions, taxing corporations based on the carbon emissions they produce and tougher fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks. Still, about half or more of Republicans say they favor these proposals. Moderate Republicans are much more likely than conservatives to express support for these policies. For example, 67% of moderates compared with 41% of conservatives favor taxing corporations based on the amount of carbon emissions they produce.
Republicans place economic considerations at the top of the list when asked about the factors they view as important in proposals to deal with climate change. About two-thirds of Republicans (65%) say increasing job and economic growth is a very important consideration to them in proposals to reduce the effects of climate change, and 61% say the same about keeping consumer costs low.
Republicans place higher importance on these two economic components of climate proposals than they do on other factors, such as protecting the quality of the environment for future generations (46% very important) and making sure climate proposals help lower-income communities (27% very important). While some differences exist within the GOP on this question, economic considerations are among the top factors Republicans of all generational and ideological groups emphasize in proposals to reduce the effects of climate change.
And while Biden has tied action on climate change to job growth, Republicans have doubts about the economic impact of climate efforts: 59% of Republicans think Biden’s plan to rebuild the country’s infrastructure in ways that are aimed at reducing climate change will hurt the U.S. economy.
Note: Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and its methodology.
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Women occupy more powerful positions, but closing ‘wage gap’ remains elusive
An old battle for a new generation
By Merdies Hayes OW Staff Writer | 8/21/2015, midnight
A joint resolution of Congress in 1971 signified one of those rare moments when both liberals and conservatives, persons of different races and religions and, most telling, members of both sexes were in uniform agreement: “... the women of the United States have been treated as second-class citizens and have not been entitled to full rights and privileges, public or private, legal or institutional, which are available to male citizens of the United States.”
That quote helped to usher in Women’s Equality Day which since 1972 has been recognized by a presidential proclamation each year on Aug. 26. It is a famous date in American history—stretching back 95 years when women were granted the right to vote by virtue of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution—but it wasn’t until 1972 that Women’s Equality Day was fully recognized as a turning point in the battle for social progress for American women.
Occupying new seats of power
More than 40 years ago, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was proposed as an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would guarantee women equal rights under the law. It wasn’t a new idea. The amendment was first proposed in 1923 following years of struggle to secure for women the right to vote. The 15th Amendment reportedly guaranteed the right to vote regardless of race (many state legislatures would devise methods to circumvent this language, particularly in relation to African Americans), but finally having the right to cast a ballot meant that [most] American women saw opportunities for advancement not only at the ballot box but in a variety of arenas previously limited only to men.
American women today occupy some of the most prestigious positions in the land. From political powerbrokers, leaders in law and medicine, military commanders and mega-celebrities, some women are realizing the hard-earned promises that the early suffragists and feminists campaigned for so vigorously. In 2015, a woman is a front-runner and, some may consider, the odds-on favorite to be the next president of the United States. There are more women serving in the United States Congress (77 women in the House of Representatives, 20 in the Senate at the start of the 113th Congress) than ever before. Three women occupy seats on the U.S. Supreme Court. African American women can look to the Los Angeles District Attorney, the California Attorney General and the United States Attorney General as evidence of the advancements which have taken place, specifically after passage of landmark civil rights legislation decades ago. This past weekend, a woman was among the officiating crew and another was serving as an assistant coach during a National Football League pre-season game.
Why the ERA failed
However, women still lag far behind men in terms of wages, job security, property ownership and right of personal decision, all of which fall under the famous precepts of “... life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The proposed ERA of the 1970s was supposed to remedy some of the inequities women have faced since the founding of the nation, but the struggle for true equality remains elusive. Even after serving [and dying] in foreign wars, holding families together during great financial calamities, doing a “man’s work” in factories to help ensure the “world’s highest standard of living,” and even orbiting the earth, some American women today often occupy second-class status in terms of socio-economic achievement and prosperity. Today, full-time women workers generally make only 78 cents for every dollar earned by men, representing a gender pay gap of 22 percent, according to a report issued in March by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR).
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From one of the world’s largest ruff aviaries perched atop Burnaby mountain, SFU researcher David Lank has come across a crucial discovery that genetics — not environmental factors — drive courtship and mating practices in these unique birds.
Lank, an SFU research associate and adjunct professor of biological sciences, has spent three decades studying the unique mating patterns of the male ruff bird, a type of sandpiper originally from Finland. These birds, bred by Lank in the aviaries at SFU, are the only known ruffs in North America.
Lank was originally drawn to these birds because of the mating patterns specific to their species. The males are unique in that they belong to one of three distinct groups, each with their own behavioural patterns in regards to mating. However, unlike most animals, these differences in mating are not a result of their environment, nor a result of different stages of development. Instead, they are a result of genetic variants in the three types of the male ruff birds.
The three types of ruff birds are the territorial, the wingman, and the female mimics. The territorial make up 85 per cent of the population, acting as most birds do when trying to mate; they display their plumage to attract the females, and hope to mate with those that approach their selected territory.
The wingmen function as their namesake states. They join one of the territorial males, forming a competitive yet helpful alliance to attract the females. However, once a female ruff approaches, the alliance transforms into a rivalry of who can mate with the female first.
Lastly, the female mimics are similar to female ruffs in appearance. They are smaller than the other males, and only form one per cent of the populous. Unable to attract females themselves, they lie in wait by the other males, and try to jump on an approaching female.
This discovery made about the ruff birds is important because, according to Lank, “major differences in personality [are] attributable to a gene.” In other words, behavioural patterns can be determined before these birds are even born.
He explained to SFU News, “Ruffs lack developmental plasticity, which means they do not change their mating behavior with social circumstances, or learn from experience.” This has proven very informative to researchers as it proves that behaviour is not always a learned trait, and it is now scientifically proven to be something these ruff birds inherit.
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SCIP is a diachronic survey of the very smallest of the Aegean islands, offering contributions to the long-term history and archaeology of the Cyclades, to the maritime history of the Mediterranean, and to comparative island archaeology. While all target islands are presently uninhabited, such places would have played a variety of roles at different points in the past. In the initial colonization of the Aegean Basin, tiny islands provided important “stepping stones” on the way to more sizable landforms. Small islands also served as cemeteries, maritime strongholds, sanctuaries, hideaways for pirates, or “goat islands.” Yet only a handful of such places in the Aegean have ever been studied archaeologically. SCIP aims to document the landscapes of several of these islands using multi-disciplinary survey techniques, and to situate them in their wider regional context, from the earliest evidence of human presence until the present.
Background and Goals
The earliest human activity known in the Cyclades is from the Middle Paleolithic period. Permanent populations appeared in the Neolithic, and activity increased considerably in the Early Bronze Age. The prehistory of the Cyclades is well documented, and the historical periods of Classical, medieval, and later times have received a good deal of scholarly attention as well. The smallest islands of the Cyclades, however, have been largely under-theorized. Some provided crucial stopover points between Anatolia and the Greek mainland, others between the northern Aegean and Crete. More habitual movements within this resource-poor region were equally important, as communities relied on a variety of microenvironments to sustain themselves.
There is a long tradition of island archaeology in the Aegean. We have good examples of regional overviews involving multi-island theaters, detailed surveys within islands, and even comprehensive surveys of entire islands (for example, Antikythera and Keros). SCIP aims to expand this tradition through a comparative survey of several small islands side-by-side.
A broader concern is to develop an archaeology of uninhabited spaces and in-between places. Most of these islands are too small to sustain permanent populations. This is precisely what made them attractive, however, for a number of the uses to which they were put. Goat islands (tragonisia) kept animals contained and away from rustlers. Cemeteries separated the world of the dead from the living and created a physical crossing from the latter to the former (e.g., Delos and Rhenia). Strongholds, stopovers, pirate hideaways, and refuges were deliberately marginal, though their in-between locations made them strategic (especially in the Venetian period). Survey archaeology has traditionally aimed to identify and document the history of human settlement across a continuous landscape. This project proposes an archaeology of non-settlement and incidental use, distributed across minuscule but resonant places of human activity, which will also be a meaningful methodological and theoretical contribution to island archaeology outside of the Aegean.
Methods and Scope
About 100 islands throughout the Cyclades have been identified and analyzed using WorldView-3 satellite imagery, obtained through a DigitalGlobe Foundation Imagery Grant. All are presently uninhabited and the vast majority are under 1 sq km in size (avg. size 0.43 sq km). Based on this initial analysis and background research, we selected the northern and central Cyclades to do a detailed study. This includes the islets around and between Paros and Antiparos; Serifos, Sifnos, and Kythnos; and Mykonos, Syros, Tinos, and Andros. The first group, surveyed in 2019, comprises of the small islands in the vicinity of Paros, a major hub of settlement, also famous for its marble production. In 2020, the project expanded to include the islets in the Bay of Naousa (Paros) and north and south of Antiparos. In 2021, we turned to the the Western Cyclades and Syros.
Each individual island was the subject of a thorough, efficient survey, usually taking one or two days. In practical terms, this means traveling by boat to each islet to conduct a thorough and efficient archaeological prospection.
Fieldwalkers carefully inspected the ground surface for archaeologically significant materials, counting and collecting artifacts. The team also documented archaeological features, including buildings, quarries, cisterns, and fortifications. The team also records detailed notes on the geology, soil, geomorphology, and landforms of each island. This program works in tandem with our remote sensing work, allowing us to identify soil, vegetation, and archaeological signatures on the ground that will help us study such landscapes elsewhere.
A further component of this project is explicitly sensory. Panoramic photos are taken and annotated on each island, in order to document visual relationships between places. This on-the-ground documentation can then be compared to more top-down methods of spatial analysis. In order to better understand the seascapes or islandscapes through which past people would have moved, routes through the islands are carefully mapped, and approaches to specific islands recorded with a variety of media.
The 2019 Field Season
In 2019 SCIP surveyed 10 small islands surrounding Paros and Antiparos, using Piso Livadi as a home port. The work of the project began at Dryonisi, across from the town of Dryos, Paros, in the vicinity of which prehistoric and other antiquities have been recorded.
The next target area was the Panteronisia island group between Paros and Antiparos, a popular destination for boaters. This group includes the islands of Panteronisi, Tigani, and Glaropounta. The number of finds here was much lower than on other islands, though Tigani does have an impressive sandstone quarry.
The final phase of the field season focused on the island group northeast of Paros, including Evriokastro, Gaidouronisi, and Filizi. While Evriokastro and Filizi were previously documented in surveys by Rubensohn, Schilardi, and Vionis, the more detailed work carried out by SCIP led to new discoveries.
In sum, several new sites were documented for the first time, and our understanding of previously known sites was refined. More detailed information about the nature of activity in all of these islands will come from further study.
The 2020 Field Season
In July of 2020, SCIP carried out a short, three-week field season with team members based in Greece (the COVID-19 pandemic made international travel largely impossible). The project began with the survey of Strongylo, located south of the islands of Antiparos and Despotiko. As the largest island in the survey area, this took some time, though it yielded a wide range of diachronic results.
Week 2 focused on the islets north of Antiparos, including Aghios Spiridon, Firo, Diplo, and Magrines, as well as a revisitation of Saliagos, well known for its Neolithic remains.
In the final week of the field season we returned to Paros to survey the islets of the Bay of Naousa, many of which were inhabited as part of the 1770-1774 Russian occupation of the area, which left a substantial material signature on these islets.
The 2021 Field Season
The team began the 2021 field season of SCIP on Kythnos, which we used as a base to carry out two weeks of fieldwork on several islets around Kythnos (Aghios Loukas, Aghios Ioannis Eleimon, Zogaki, Kalo Livadi and Piperi) and Serifos (Serifopoula and Vous). All of these yielded a range of material, some more than others. The more remote islands of Serifopoula and Piperi had exceptionally interesting finds, in spite of their remoteness, suggesting that these were important waypoints in wider Aegean networks.
For the third week of the project we moved to Platys Gialos, on Sifnos, from which we carried out a survey of Kitriani (or Kypriani), best known for the church of Panaghia Kypriani and as a historical haunt for pirates.
The final phase of the project consisted of fieldwork and study on several islets surrounding Syros. Near the port of Ermoupoli, we surveyed Didimi (sometimes called Gaidouronisi or Pharos, for the famous lighthouse on top), Strongylo, and Aspro. On the western side of Syros, we worked on the small islets in the Bay of Foinikas (Schoinonisi, Strongylo, Diakoftis, Psathonisi, and Alatonisi) and to the north of Kini (Delfini and Varvarousa).
The 2022 Field Season
In 2022 the Small Cycladic Islands Project carried out archaeological surface surveys on several islands in the Milos-Kimolos Group. These include the islets of Mikri Akradia and Paximadi, near Milos, and Aghios Efstathios, Prasonisi, and Manolonisi, near Kimolos. In addition to these very small islets, the project also carried out a comprehensive survey of Polyaigos, the largest uninhabited island in the Aegean (c. 18 sq km). This field season was the start of a new three-year program of fieldwork.
The islets surveyed in 2022 revealed an eclectic history of human activity from prehistory to the present. Findings on the small islands surveyed around Milos and Kimolos followed patterns previously documented by SCIP on other small islands around the Cyclades: a variety of long-term and incidental occupation that was not consistent across different islands or time periods. Evidence for intense occupation on Polyaigos was documented in many parts of the island, from prehistory to the very recent past.
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The CDC has recommended that all children over the age of two wear face masks when in public or around individuals that they don’t live with. But face masks can be a tough adjustment for children. They may spark fear about the unseen virus that they are hearing about. If you’re looking for help explaining to your child why they need to wear a mask or are struggling to help your child get used to one, keep reading for a few tips.
Wait Until You’re Calm to Talk
If your area has recently increased COVID-19 restrictions or you’re choosing to explain the virus to your child because a loved one is ill, wait until you’ve had time to process the news yourself.
Experts warn that talking to your child while your own anxiety levels are still high may mean passing that anxiety on to your little one. This can cause unnecessary fear, or cause your child to have trouble coping with other challenges, like having to wear a mask.
Wait until you can speak calmly and evenly with your child to begin having the important talk with them.
Keep It Simple
When it comes to explaining difficult, confusing situations to children, the best thing you can do is keep things simple. If your child is young, they likely don’t need to know all of the details about the virus, where it started and where it is spreading. Unless a close family member is sick, they won’t need to know the side effects of the virus.
Instead, keep things simple, at least at first, to give them a chance to process the news. Once you’ve finished explaining, ask them if they have any questions. Don’t shy away from tough questions that you can’t necessarily answer. Instead, be honest, open and positive.
When explaining what the virus is, make sure that your kids understand that wearing a mask is an important measure in keeping themselves and others healthy.
Choose a Mask That Fits Their Face
Before you have the talk about wearing masks, it’s a good idea to find some masks that will fit your child’s face well. A mask that’s too large won’t stay on and will be distracting as they play and go about their day.
Kids’ KN95 masks from Green Supply, designed to offer maximum protection while fitting a child’s face, are a great choice.
Practice Wearing Masks at Home
After you finish your explanation about the virus and show your child their mask, go ahead and practice wearing them at home. For young children, you might let them put a mask on their favorite stuffed animal, while you and they also wear your masks. Play as you would normally, while gently reminding your child to keep their mask on if they remove it.
Older children may not need the playtime to adjust to their mask, but can still benefit from wearing them at home. Wearing a face mask for the first time is a foreign feeling for kids and adults alike. But wearing them in the comfort of your home can help you adjust before you have to go outside and wear them for longer periods of time.
Always Carry Extra Masks
Accidents happen. Even with practice, your child might remove their mask or damage it while playing. Trying to flatten a wrinkled mask or tie torn elastic will only make the mask harder for your child to wear. It’s always a good idea to pack a few extra masks any time you go out, just in case.
Helping Your Kids Adjust to Wearing Masks
Explaining the virus and the need to wear a mask to your children can be difficult and confusing. With a little pre-planning and a gentle, honest approach, you can help your child adjust to this tough change without fear or anxiety.
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Grapes are a favorite fruit snack and are versatile in their many uses, from jam to wine. Grapes will grow in a wide range of climate zones, from areas that experience cold winter temperatures such as Montana to warmer areas such as Texas and Southern California. If you determine your climate zone, your choice of grape varieties will be easier. For example, the Frontenac grape is winter hardy as far north as Wisconsin and Montana. The Marquis seedless grape thrives in areas with warmer winters, from USDA zones 5 through 8.
Test your soil in a sunny area that never has standing water. Use an inexpensive soil test kit, available at nurseries. Because grapes need slightly acidic soil, if your test results show that your soil has a higher pH than 5.5 or lower than 5.0, you must amend it to correct the pH.
Dig a planting hole in spring that is twice as large as the root ball of your bare-root grapevine. Mix one part any type of organic compost to every four parts of topsoil and then refill the hole about half full. Make planting holes about 8 feet apart if you are planting more than one grapevine. If your soil is clay, add about one gallon of sand mixed with peat moss.
Take your grapevine out of its pot or bag and then set it into the planting hole, spreading the roots evenly over the soil at the bottom of the hole. Then fill in with additional soil/compost, making sure all roots are well-covered, but leaving the main stem above the soil surface.
Insert a plant stake into the ground a few inches from your vine to help support it and then tie the vine to the stake with nursery tape or cloth strips.
Water your newly planted grapevine well by running a hose at its base at a slow drip for up to one hour. Keep young vines well-watered, but don't over-water older vines.
Fertilize your grapevine once each year in spring. You can use well-rotted animal manure, organic compost you spread on the ground as mulch, or 10 oz of a fertilizer having an N-P-K ratio of 10-20-20.
Prune grapevines when they are dormant in winter. Grapes should be pruned severely--you need to remove up to 90 percent of the previous season's growth. Pruning grapevines is an art and pruning methods vary from variety to variety. Refer to Resources for detailed pruning instructions.
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Pointer types (C# Programming Guide)
In an unsafe context, a type may be a pointer type, a value type, or a reference type. A pointer type declaration takes one of the following forms:
type* identifier; void* identifier; //allowed but not recommended
Any of the following types may be a pointer type:
Any enum type.
Any pointer type.
Any user-defined struct type that contains fields of unmanaged types only.
Pointer types do not inherit from object and no conversions exist between pointer types and object. Also, boxing and unboxing do not support pointers. However, you can convert between different pointer types and between pointer types and integral types.
When you declare multiple pointers in the same declaration, the * is written together with the underlying type only, not as a prefix to each pointer name. For example:
int* p1, p2, p3; // Ok int *p1, *p2, *p3; // Invalid in C#
A pointer cannot point to a reference or to a struct that contains references because an object reference can be garbage collected even if a pointer is pointing to it. The GC does not keep track of whether an object is being pointed to by any pointer types.
The value of the pointer variable of type myType* is the address of a variable of type myType. The following are examples of pointer type declarations:
p is a pointer to an integer
p is a pointer to pointer to an integer
p is a single-dimensional array of pointers to integers
p is a pointer to a char
p is a pointer to an unknown type
The pointer indirection operator * can be used to access the contents at the location pointed to by the pointer variable. For example, consider the following declaration:
The expression *myVariable denotes the int variable found at the address contained in myVariable.
You cannot apply the indirection operator to a pointer of type void*. However, you can use a cast to convert a void pointer to any other pointer type, and vice versa.
A pointer can be null. Applying the indirection operator to a null pointer causes an implementation-defined behavior.
Be aware that passing pointers between methods can cause undefined behavior. Examples are returning a pointer to a local variable through an Out or Ref parameter or as the function result. If the pointer was set in a fixed block, the variable to which it points may no longer be fixed.
The following table lists the operators and statements that can operate on pointers in an unsafe context:
Performs pointer indirection.
Accesses a member of a struct through a pointer.
Indexed a pointer.
Obtains the address of a variable.
++ and --
Increments and decrements pointers.
+ and -
Performs pointer arithmetic.
==, !=, <, >, <=, and >=
Allocates memory on the stack.
Temporarily fixes a variable so that its address may be found.
For more information, see the C# Language Specification. The language specification is the definitive source for C# syntax and usage.
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Your privacy is important to us.
Our activity, Discovering Our Past, builds on this work, and uses archaeology as a means for pupils to learn about the past while also gaining new skills. The pupils work alongside a team of archaeologists from the Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork (CAF) at Queen’s University Belfast, some of whom were involved in the “Time Team” excavation.
This activity has been designed for Key Stage 2 (P5-7) and Key Stage 3 pupils, and each session lasts for two hours. The starting times are 10.00am and 12.30pm. It takes place in May.Make an enquiry
For more information about our 'Discovering Our Past: an introduction to archaeology' programme, please complete the form below.
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YUNNAN, Southwest China — As the wedding party steps out into Lijiang’s old town square, curious tourists flock to the group, dazzled by their traditional Naxi attire. Many question whether the pomp and ceremony is a performance.
In fact, the Saturday afternoon spectacle is the real wedding of groom He Libao, 29, and bride Duan Jing, 21, both members of the Naxi, one of China’s 56 official ethnic groups. The Naxi population numbers around 300,000; most live in Lijiang, while the rest reside throughout Yunnan province and in neighboring Sichuan province and Tibet Autonomous Region.
Though traditional wedding ceremonies are still common in remote villages, the custom has faded in the city of Lijiang since the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912), when cultural influences from the Han ethnic majority began to overwhelm the area. But now, a local wedding planning company called Xihe is reviving interest in the tradition — partly at the behest of tourists.
“Tradition is like a siege,” Wang Dejiong, a Naxi folk culture researcher, tells Sixth Tone. “People outside want to get in, while people inside want to get out.”
Click here to see the 360° video.
Most Naxi people follow the Dongba faith, which teaches that humans and nature are brothers. Before the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, at important events such as weddings, the Naxi would invite a dongba — or shaman — to perform chants. Highly respected as accomplished scholars of Naxi culture, dongba pass down their duties within families from generation to generation.
Xihe organizes around two weddings every week, including the recent Saturday ceremony, which kicks off at the Yulong Bridge, where young couples would court in the old days. Groups of Naxi boys and girls sing in praise of the bride and groom. The newlyweds then release fish into the river to show their respect for nature.
After the fish are released, the bride is carried through the center of the old town in a fringed bridal chair — followed by a wedding party of close to 50 people — to a traditional Naxi house with three wings enclosing a courtyard.
In the courtyard, a dongba presides over the “soul-binding” ceremony — the most important part of the wedding. The dongba ties the couple’s hands together and announces that they can never again be separated. Afterward, dozens of young and old dance hand in hand, wishing the newlyweds happiness and prosperity.
The ceremony does not include vows, as Naxi people are shy about expressing love verbally. “We believe actions speak louder than words,” the groom explains.
“Our souls are bound together,” the bride says after the ceremony. “If I ever got a divorce, I’d feel like I lost my soul.”
The ceremony venue is also the headquarters of wedding company Xihe, founded by Naxi woman He Yumiao — who is not related to He Libao. The company’s name means “joyful crane” in the Naxi language; Naxi people worship cranes and consider the sacred birds to be a symbol of a blessed marriage, as cranes are faithful to their mates. Once one dies, it is said that the other will starve itself and die for love.
Since its establishment in 2008, Xihe has arranged traditional Naxi wedding ceremonies for more than 1,000 couples in Lijiang. Wedding packages start at 6,999 yuan (around $1,050), and the ceremony lasts about one and a half hours.
He Yumiao, now 38, was born and raised in a Naxi household with three generations living under one roof. “I was so used to my own culture — all I wanted was to escape from it,” she tells Sixth Tone.
After graduating from high school, He Yumiao moved from Lijiang to Kunming, Yunnan’s provincial capital, in 1997 and worked at the city’s Naxi minority village tourist site as a performer. It was there that she wore traditional Naxi attire for the first time. Every day, she answered questions from tourists hailing from all over the world who were interested in the Naxi way of life. “It was overwhelming to see that they cared about my culture, which I took for granted every day,” she says.
A couple years later, He Yumiao moved back home to Lijiang and became a tour guide in the old town. In 2006, she met a Singaporean couple who had come to the city on their honeymoon. They were enamored with the local culture and asked whether she could arrange a traditional Naxi wedding for them. At the time, she knew didn’t know much about the ceremony — nor were there many examples in the city that she could follow — but she was determined to try. With the help of elderly locals, she organized a Naxi wedding in just a few days at Lijiang’s Black Dragon Pond Park.
It was then that He Yumiao decided to devote herself to preserving the Naxi wedding tradition. “I finally found where my heart belongs,” she says. “Folk customs are critical to an ethnic group, and a wedding celebration is of the utmost importance because it reflects the values of the [Naxi] culture.”
Naxi couple Li Jixing, 35, and He Dong, 38, stumbled upon the Singaporean couple’s wedding ceremony while they were strolling in the park, discussing their own wedding plans. Though they had heard elders speak of traditional ceremonies, it was the first time they had witnessed one for themselves. “I had never seen such a happy and glorious wedding in all my life,” Li tells Sixth Tone. The couple watched the entire ceremony and asked He Yumiao to arrange a similar one for them. “We always wanted a traditional wedding, but we couldn’t find a wedding company that offered such a service,” He Dong, Li’s husband, says.
The couple held their wedding ceremony in 2007 in their courtyard at home. Because He Yumiao’s business hadn’t officially launched yet, the ceremony was simple and brief. “But at least we had a ceremony,” He Dong says; otherwise, they would simply have had a banquet with family and friends like most couples of their generation.
After He Yumiao launched Xihe, she didn’t book her first wedding until six months later, when a transnational couple from Scotland and central China’s Hubei province asked her to arrange a wedding ceremony in Lijiang that brought together Naxi and Western customs. Photos of the ceremony posted online brought her many new customers.
But for the first five years of running her business, He Yumiao was frustrated that most of her clients were tourists, while many Naxi people paid little attention to their own traditions. “Locals would rather pay thousands of yuan to have a Western wedding at a church,” she says.
She credits tourists for helping to turn the tide. “The tourists have made Naxi weddings trendy and fashionable, which piqued locals’ interests,” she says. Now, half of her clients are locals, as more and more Naxi young people have begun to take pride in their traditions.
An old woman carries a quilt and pillow as part of the bridal procession during a traditional Naxi wedding ceremony in Lijiang, Yunnan province, Aug. 5, 2017. Daniel Holmes/Sixth Tone
Yet the romance of the Dongba ceremony continues to draw many outsiders. Yang Cailing and her husband are both Han but have lived in Lijiang for the last decade. Though they had a Western wedding in 2012, Yang always felt something was missing. She decided she wanted a second wedding after finding out that the Naxi language had no word for divorce.
“At first, [my husband] was against the idea because he thought it would be like a performance for tourists in the old town of Lijiang,” Yang laughs. Meanwhile, she hoped the ceremony would spice up married life, which had begun to feel dull after a few years. The 31-year-old persuaded her husband to have a Dongba ceremony in January, and one month later, she found out she was pregnant with their second child.
He Yumiao started her company mainly out of curiosity, but she has since developed a deep sense of cultural responsibility. “We are probably the last generation of Naxi people to be raised in our local culture,” she says. “If I didn’t do something to save our wedding ceremony traditions, who would?”
But cultural researcher Wang still has doubts about the tradition’s prospects. “Naxi minorities are sinicized and tend to worship anything foreign,” he says. “It’s hard to revive the tradition, but at least [He Yumiao] is doing something.”
Editor: Qian Jinghua.
(Header image: Duan Jing sits in a traditional Naxi bridal chair during her wedding ceremony in Lijiang, Yunnan province, Aug. 5, 2017. Daniel Holmes/Sixth Tone)
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Transforming Child and Adolescent Mental Health
According to Dr. Mark D. Weist, “Child and adolescent mental health is the most significant unmet health need in the United States, with around one in five youth presenting more challenging emotional/behavioral problems and only a small percentage of these youth receiving effective services.”
His presentation will review problems in child and adolescent mental health and innovative strategies to promote and improve youth mental health, with an emphasis on the role of schools in this work. Improving and expanding effective school mental health programs is increasingly recognized as a critically important societal agenda related to their role in reducing academic and non-academic barriers to learning, improving student behavior and school adjustment, and promoting academic achievement and life success.
Weist has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Virginia Tech. He was on the faculty of the University of Maryland School of Medicine for 19 years where he helped found and direct the Center for School Mental Health, one of two national centers providing leadership to the advancement of school mental health policies and programs in the United States.
He has led a number of federally funded research grants, advised national research and policy oriented committees, testified before Congress, and presented to the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. He helped found the International Alliance for Child and Adolescent Mental Health in Schools.
Weist has published and presented widely in the school mental health field and in the areas of trauma, violence and youth, evidence-based practice and cognitive behavioral therapy. Weist, along with colleagues in North and South Carolina, including faculty from Appalachian, established the Carolina Network for School Mental Health (carolinanetwork.org). The network’s primary function is to facilitate productive school mental health collaborations within and between states, including clinical activities, empirical endeavors, grant writing, policy development, and dissemination of evidence-based practice.
Admission is free and the public is invited to attend. The program is sponsored by Appalachian’s Department of Psychology and the Carolina Network for School Mental Health, with funding from a University Forum Committee External Scholars Grant.
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It was March 10, 1987, and Larry Kramer was preparing himself to give the speech that would move people to action, the speech that would be heard across America, the speech that would found a grassroots political action group. Larry had had enough of the deaths, he had had enough of the NIH and FDA, and he had had enough of the false hope. Larry Kramer now became known as one of the legendary kings of the LGBTQ+ community for his combative fight for the gay community. This speech became known as the speech that made the public move towards a better future, to open the eyes of those who chose to look away while people were dying.
Larry Kramer was born in Connecticut on June 25, 1935, into a Jewish family. He attended Yale University in 1953 and graduated class of 1957. Kramer made his career in the world of film making. For more than a decade he wrote and produced films that won Academy Award nominations, one of which was for his screenplay of the film version of D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love. Kramer had a very successful career in the movie industry and was a very good writer.1 But in June of 1981, the first cases of AIDS were reported in the United States. This disease spread in certain populations, like among gay and bisexual men, and among racial and ethnic minorities. Larry Kramer stated,” I started making a list of how many people I knew and it was hundreds. People don’t comprehend that. People really were dying like flies.” In the same year, Kramer hosted a meeting in his apartment that would later become the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. Although, Kramer was nothing close to a pacifist. He was kicked out of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in 1983 because of his confrontational style.2 Larry Kramer never kept silent. He always called out health workers and peers for their ignorance towards the disease and for there not being enough information on safe sex. Larry Kramer gave a speech on March 10, 1987, at the Lesbian and Gay community services center in New York City. “1987 We have little to be proud of this Gay Pride week.” He then called out the NIH for having money they never spent for research that could help cure AIDS or just give the correct medications to stall death a bit longer until it could be controlled. He also called them out for the horrible facilities they had for AIDS patients, which looked more like a prison where the patients lay there getting worse and worse waiting for their death. Six years and no change.3
He also made sure to call out his own gay and lesbian community for not having the urge to make a change. They saw what was going on in their own community, but were just ignoring it. They watched their friends die and still pretended that the government was going to help them. Kramer saw that there was no sense of urgency among them when people were dying every day. AIDS was a plague. Americans, a son, a brother, a sister, a friend were dying every day and the government was not working fast enough to save them. The speech demanded that the public and the gay community go talk to school boards to get them to teach sex education in school. His speech was the fire that the nation needed. What Kramer truly wanted was to bring awareness of the disease and to lower the prices of the drug AZT so that it could be available to the victims dying of the AIDS disease. Kramer truly wanted change, so he asked interested parties to join him to form a political activist group. Thus ACT UP! was born. With this organization, Kramer got his voice heard and made sure others’ voices were heard as well. His tactics were to go directly to the government and have no shame while doing it. Kramer once dumped the ashes of a young friend onto the South Lawn of the White House. He made this move very symbolic, as he was claiming that it was the governments’ fault for his friend’s death, for not having the proper medications available nor the proper care.4 He also helped wrap Senator Jesse Helms’ home in a condom to promote safe sex, and to promote the need for schools to be teaching young teens about the importance of safe sex. Another great tactic was the constant nagging and shaming of the NIH and FDA as he already had in his speech he kept the momentum going until a true change started to happen.5
Larry Kramer has been an influential voice, not only for the LGBTQ+ community but also for the fight against the AIDS epidemic that swept the nation in the 1980s and 1990s. Because of Kramer and that one speech in New York City on March 10, 1987, Kramer helped turn the tide of the epidemic. He not only blamed the government and powerful organizations like the FDA and NIH, but he also made sure to let his own community know that if you pretended as if the disease didn’t exist because you didn’t have it, you were doing as much damage as the ones who would rather see you die than live. Because of his actions and words and organization, AIDS research began to be a top priority for scientists to find cures or to find better medications. He helped “putting medical treatment in the hands of patients, changing medicine in this country, and getting drugs to more people faster.”6 ACT UP used any action that could generate a public view for its cause. This made the organization gain a lot of news coverage, which brought a new age of AIDS awareness. He led the way to protest in a militant style. He gave inspiration to the gay liberation movement and other small groups that were raised that used similar actions to achieve success. Larry Kramer is still and forever will be a gay legend in the LGBTQ+ community that will forever be admired and cherished for his amazing work and courage.7
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- Green party
a liberal political party esp. in Germany focusing on environmental issues.
* * *IntroductionIrish Comhaontás Glaspolitical party founded in 1981 to promote an environmental agenda in the Republic of Ireland.HistoryThe Ecology Party of Ireland, the forerunner of the current Green Party, was formed in December 1981 in Dublin with about 40 members. A convention in March 1982 established the party's basic principles, and in November the party fielded seven candidates in the general election, winning an average of 1 percent of the vote in the constituencies contested. The following year the party was renamed Green Alliance/Comhaontás Glas. It first won representation in local elections in 1985, when it took a seat on the Killarney Urban District Council. A small minority of the Alliance, who eschewed the electoral process in favour of activism, left the party in 1986. In 1988 Green Alliance changed its name again to its current designation to make clear that it was a political party, and in 1989 it achieved its first major success when Roger Garland was elected to the Dáil (lower house of Parliament) for South Dublin. Thirteen councillors were elected in the next set of local elections in 1991, most of them in Dublin. The Greens formed a coalition, the Civic Alliance, with the Labour Party and other parties to run the Dublin city council, and a Green Party member later served a year as lord mayor. Its biggest success came in elections for the European Parliament in 1994, when it won two seats and its Dublin candidate topped the poll, collecting almost 15 percent of the vote. This apparent breakthrough has not, however, carried over to national elections. The party increased its Dáil representation to two seats in 1997, and in 2002 it captured six seats with nearly 4 percent of the national vote, though it remained well short of achieving significant power. In the 2007 elections the Green Party again won six seats and subsequently joined the coalition government headed by Fianna Fáil; it was the first time the Greens had been in government.Policy and structureThe party's central concerns have been environmental protection through the conservation of scarce resources and the decentralization of power. The Greens also have opposed Ireland's membership in the European Union, mainly because of perceived threats to the country's traditional neutrality.The Ecology Party was organized as a conventional party, based on local branches. In accordance with party doctrine that decisions should be made at the lowest effective level and that individual participation should be maximized, these local branches became autonomous groups in the Green Alliance and Green Party. These groups send delegates to a National Council for some decisions. There is also an annual convention that all members may attend. All members may also attend selection conventions for their constituencies. Policy is made by expert groups subject to approval by the National Council.At the end of the 1990s, support for the party was still largely confined to Dublin and its environs and tended to be greater among the young and more affluent.Michael MarshAdditional ReadingDavid Farrell provides a good overview of the early years in his contribution to F. Muller-Rommel (ed.), New Politics in Western Europe (1989).
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SANTA MONICA, Calif., Dec. 9 (UPI) -- Despite increased public and media attention to seasonal influenza vaccines, U.S. adults are being vaccinated at a similar rate to years past.
A Rand Corp. study found that as by the middle of November, about 32 percent of all U.S. adults and 37 percent of adults recommended to receive a flu vaccination had been inoculated against seasonal influenza.
The researchers also found 17 percent of all adults and 19 percent of those recommended for vaccination intended to receive the seasonal flu vaccine by the end of the vaccination season.
"It does not appear that the increased public discussion of the role of influenza vaccines has had a significant impact on the public's behavior," lead author Katherine Harris, a senior economist at Rand, said in a statement. "Most of the results from our latest survey look much like those from last year."
Health officials recommend the seasonal flu vaccine for about 70 percent of American adults, including people at least 50 years of age, those with high-risk medical conditions, healthcare workers and those who care for children less than 5 years of age. There are different recommendations for the H1N1 flu vaccine.
However, one difference in the seasonal flu vaccine this year was that adults began getting the seasonal flu vaccine earlier.
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Study confirms mitochondrial deficits in children with autism
Children with autism experience deficits in a type of immune cell that protects the body from infection. Called granulocytes, the cells exhibit one-third the capacity to fight infection and protect the body from invasion compared with the same cells in children who are developing normally.
The cells, which circulate in the bloodstream, are less able to deliver crucial infection-fighting oxidative responses to combat invading pathogens because of dysfunction in their tiny energy-generating organelles, the mitochondria.
The study is published online in the journal Pediatrics.
“Granulocytes fight cellular invaders like bacteria and viruses by producing highly reactive oxidants, toxic chemicals that kill microorganisms. Our findings show that in children with severe autism the level of that response was both lower and slower," said Eleonora Napoli, lead study author and project scientist in the Department of Molecular Biosciences in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. "The granulocytes generated less highly reactive oxidants and took longer to produce them."
The researchers also found that the mitochondria in the granulocytes of children with autism consumed far less oxygen than those of the typically developing children — another sign of decreased mitochondrial function.
Mitochondria are the main intracellular source of oxygen free radicals, which are very reactive and can harm cellular structures and DNA. Cells can repair typical levels of oxidative damage. However, in the children with autism the cells produced more free radicals and were less able to repair the damage, and as a result experienced more oxidative stress. The free radical levels in the blood cells of children with autism were 1 ½ times greater than those without the disorder.
The study was conducted using blood samples of children enrolled in the Childhood Risk of Autism and the Environment (CHARGE) Study and included 10 children with severe autism age 2 to 5 and 10 age-, race- and sex-matched children who were developing typically.
In an earlier study the research team found decreased mitochondrial fortitude in another type of immune cell, the lymphocytes. Together, the findings suggest that deficiencies in the cells’ ability to fuel brain neurons might lead to some of the cognitive impairments associated with autism. Higher levels of free radicals also might contribute to autism severity.
“The response found among granulocytes mirrors earlier results obtained with lymphocytes from children with severe autism, underscoring the cross-talk between energy metabolism and response to oxidative damage,” said Cecilia Giulivi, professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and the study’s senior author.
“It also suggests that the immune response seems to be modulated by a nuclear factor named NRF2,” that controls antioxidant response to environmental factors and may hold clues to the gene-environment interaction in autism, Giulivi said.
Other study authors include Sarah Wong and Irva Hertz-Picciotto of UC Davis.
The study was funded by grants from the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI), and National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences grants ES011269, ES015359 and ES020392.
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House recommends national Jewish history month
The non-binding resolution sponsored by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Pembroke Pines, urges Bush to designate by executive order the month of January each year as American Jewish History month, similar to the way February has been designated Black History Month.
More than 250 members of the House joined in co-sponsoring the resolution, led by Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., chairman of the House International Relations Committee. Local Reps. Mark Foley, R-Jupiter, Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, E. Clay Shaw Jr., R-Fort Lauderdale, and Robert Wexler, D-Delray Beach, were among the co-sponsors.
Wasserman Schultz introduced the resolution late Wednesday after receiving a commitment from House Speaker Dennis Hastert that he would contact Bush and urge him to issue the order.
Congress last year adopted a resolution recognizing this year as the 350th anniversary of American Jewish life and suggested that a month recognizing the contribution of Jews to America be established.
"American Jewish History Month would honor the contributions of American Jews to society," Wasserman Schultz said in introducing the resolution. "Similar to Black History Month in February and Women's History Month in March, American Jewish History Month would present educators with the opportunity and tools to teach diversity and cultural awareness."
Wasserman Schultz noted that "ignorance about Jews and our history, culture and contributions to American society remains widespread in the United States. This ignorance leads to hatred and bigotry, and one way to stop it is through education. As we all know, education leads to understanding."
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Eating Fruits and Vegetables Associated with Reduced Risk of COPD
Eating Fruits and Vegetables Reduces Chances of COPD in Smokers and Ex-smokers
Background: Oxidative stress due to smoking cigarettes is a recognized as a major factor in the development of COPD. Antioxidants in fruits and vegetables may protect the lung from damage and thereby prevent, or at least reduce the risk, of someone “getting” COPD.
Study: Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, analyzed information in over 44,ooo men living in Sweden who had no history of having COPD at the start of the study. Fruit and vegetable consumption was assessed with a questionnaire. Subjects were followed for an average of 13 years. The study was published on-line in the journal Thorax in 2017.
Results: During the study period, 1,918 men were diagnosed with COPD. There was a strong inverse (opposite effect) association between total consumption of fruits and vegetables and COPD. Each serving per day of eating fruits and vegetables reduced the risk of COPD by 8% in current smokers and by 4% in former smokers.
Conclusions: The findings indicate that high consumption of fruits and vegetables reduced the risk of COPD in both smokers and ex-smokers.
Fruits and vegetables
My Comments: There is emerging evidence that diet can play an important role in the development of COPD. For example, a “heart healthy” diet – fruits, vegetables, whole grains, cereals, and fish – is associated with a lower risk of impaired lung function and COPD compared with a “Western diet” – high consumption of white bread, processed meats, high fat dairy products, sugar, and chips.
In general, there are many health benefits of eating fruits and vegetables. These foods contain various anti-oxidants and have anti-inflammatory properties that are healthy for our bodies. This new study provides further evidence that a diet rich in fruits and vegetables can reduce the risk of developing COPD if you still smoke and if you have already quit.
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Alabama Beachgoers May Have Killed Hundreds of Protected Birds, Experts Say
Posted August 7, 2018 7:56 p.m. EDT
Beachgoers in Alabama who descended on the breeding ground of a threatened seabird species this summer scared adults away from their nests and used the eggs to decorate the sand, most likely killing hundreds of chicks, wildlife experts say.
The exact number of least tern birds that died in Mobile Bay is unknown, but it was “a tragic loss of a colony that size,” said Katie Barnes, a senior biologist at Birmingham Audubon who oversees the protection, monitoring and surveying of Alabama’s coastal bird species.
Least terns, which are protected by the federal government under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, often lay their eggs on wide-open beachfronts, digging shallow nests beneath the sandy surface. The diminutive birds — adults weigh just 1.5 ounces — are considered a threatened species for several reasons, including beach recreation, Barnes said.
“They’re very sacred to us because they are so sensitive,” she said.
Although the least tern population in Alabama is not endangered, as populations in other locations are, the birds there have still struggled with habitat loss and sea level rise.
“The population was doing so poorly elsewhere, this was basically one last shot for a large number of adults,” Barnes said.
Andrew Haffenden, a seasonal steward for Birmingham Audubon, lives on Dauphin Island, about 3 miles from the small shoal in Mobile Bay where the birds were nesting.
He said he saw a volleyball net appear on the shoal earlier this summer, and on July 4, he saw 17 boats around it.
“I said, ‘We really need to get out there,'” Haffenden recalled.
After acquiring a boat, he and another member of the group visited the island on July 10 and discovered about 700 breeding pairs and more than 100 chicks that were too young to fly — making it the largest least tern colony in the state, according to Roger Clay, a wildlife biologist at the Alabama Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries.
“It’s certainly bigger than what we’ve seen in recent years,” he said, adding that a typical least tern colony would number around 50-150 birds.
They also found the volleyball net and 26 eggs placed in a circle by visitors to the island, surrounding a dome of sand “like jewels in the crown” and left to bake in the sun, Haffenden said.
Least tern parents will sit on their young to shade them from the sun. Each nest usually has two eggs.
“I always refer to them as the world’s best parents,” Barnes said, adding that the birds are tiny but fierce and will defend their young mightily.
But if the parents or the nests are disrupted, the chicks will overheat and die.
Some of the eggs that were used to decorate the sand had cracks or depressions indicating that they had been in the process of hatching, Haffenden said.
Not all of the eggs were tampered with, Barnes said, but the activity on the beach scared the adult birds, preventing the eggs from receiving shade.
When Birmingham Audubon returned to the shoal later last month, the group counted nearly 70 fledglings, about 3 weeks old. On Aug. 2, around 15 more were counted. But those numbers were nowhere near what they should have been, Barnes said.
“We only confirmed an estimated 85 fledglings out of 1,400 birds,” she said. “I mean, that’s an astronomical loss for reproductive output for the species.”
Killing migratory birds results in a penalty of $15,000 and up to six months in jail, but new guidance from the Trump administration says that killing a migratory bird either accidentally or incidentally is not a crime. This interpretation of the law would also absolve companies, not just individuals.
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act is enforced by the Fish and Wildlife Service. A spokeswoman for the agency said it and the Justice Department were investigating what happened in Alabama.
To protect the birds, Birmingham Audubon did not report its findings to the public until after the least terns had completed their nesting cycle.
Least terns typically start nesting in May, Barnes said, “so by July, there should be chicks everywhere.”
Barnes said the birds most likely gathered at this particular beach because they had poor breeding results elsewhere.
On July 11, Birmingham Audubon fenced off the whole area and put up protective signs. The volleyball net has been removed.
Since then, the group has not observed human footprints or any boats pulling up to the shoal, Barnes said. But the species still needs help to thrive.
“It takes a community to protect our birds,” she said.
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We think of Easter as a joyful time as we read of the women finding the tomb empty and announcing it to the disciples. We imagine that all the men and women who had known and loved and followed and learned from Jesus would be joyful on that Day of Resurrection? Mary Magdalene fully expected Jesus’ body to be in that tomb. When she discovered it otherwise it wasn’t joy that she expressed, she was devastated. Her statement is one of horror, loss, confusion. Why was Mary in tears?
John 20: 1-18
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10Then the disciples returned to their homes.
11But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” 18Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
To get a handle on what John wishes us to know of the Easter event we really have to begin late on the evening of Friday, after Jesus’ death on the cross and after his body had been released by the authorities to Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus. These two secret followers of Jesus entomb Jesus’ body. Maybe John just didn’t think it important to mention but in his story there were no women present when they sealed the tomb. It crosses my mind that Mary Magdalene, who plays such an important role in his rendition, would not have been able to have found the tomb owned by Joseph’s family had she not already been there. The narratives of the other Gospels tell their own story of the entombment. Luke tells us that unnamed women were present and Mary Magdalene is specifically named in Matthew and in Mark.
When we come to the Easter morning narratives Luke is consistent and doesn’t mention by name any of those who went to the tomb on that early morning. Mark identifies two other women, James’ mother, Mary and Salome who accompany Mary Magdalene. Matthew’s story is unique. His recollection was that it was toward the dawn and another unspecified Mary accompanied Mary Magdalene to the sepulcher and then he includes his novel explanation of how the tomb was found to be open. There was an earthquake and a heaven descended angel rolled the stone away. But in John’s Gospel, Mary Magdalene goes alone to the tomb, before the break of day. On finding it empty she runs back to the place where Jesus’ followers were staying and then returns again this time in the company of Peter and another disciple. Mary Magdalene ran a marathon that morning.
So John’s Easter story actually begins before Easter Sunday. That may leave some of us confused. The description in the text goes: Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark… For Jews, (and, of course, Jesus and all of his first followers were Jewish) a day is reckoned from evening to morning, and not from morning to evening as we do it today. Since it was still dark when Mary went to the tomb, it was not yet morning, not yet Sunday, not yet the first day of the week, not yet the Day of Resurrection. Mary’s great desire to touch Jesus, at least one last time, overcame her fear of violating the Sabbath. After finding the slab of stone that sealed the tomb moved away and discovering Jesus’ body missing she immediately ran back to where she knew the disciples to be and made this report “They have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him.”
We think of Easter as a joyful time as we read of the women finding the tomb empty and announcing it to the disciples. We imagine that all the men and women who had known and loved and followed and learned from Jesus would be joyful on that Day of Resurrection? Mary Magdalene fully expected Jesus’ body to be in that tomb. When she discovered it otherwise it wasn’t joy that she expressed, she was devastated. Her statement is one of horror, loss, confusion. Why was Mary in tears? Isn’t she supposed to be full of hope? Despite Jesus speaking during his earthly life about his impending murder and subsequent resurrection it hadn’t occurred to Mary that Jesus would have risen from the dead. For Mary Magdalene Easter didn’t begin as a joyful celebration. In the missing body of her deceased Lord something very precious had been taken from her – the grave of one she dearly loved had evidently been desecrated, the body she desperately wanted to touch at least one more time had been taken away and she knew neither the persons responsible nor where or how they may have dealt with his body. I’m reminded of a young woman whose first child was delivered unexpectedly stillborn. I remember being with her in the hospital as she cradled the body of that infant in her arms. She was allowed to hold onto that tiny form until she was ready to give him up. It seems that Mary Magdalene wanted to hold on to her special relationship with Jesus for a long as she could.
After the two disciples leave, evidently satisfied in their own minds by the condition in which they found the linen grave wrappings, we find her outside the tomb in tears, still in shock and dismay. She stands there weeping all the more and through her tears John tells us that she actually saw two angels and not recognizing them as such repeats her horror, loss and confusion to them. Then she sees Jesus – but does not recognize him but takes him to be the cemetery caretaker. He asks her why she was weeping. And once again she shares her tale of woe. He turns her sorrow into joy by speaking her name. Hearing his voice saying her name convinces her that she is in the presence of her Lord.
But now hear Christ’s words to her: “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father”. If we take the picture John gives us in a literal way what we have would have been absolutely scandalous to John’s readers; un-chaperoned, a man and a woman are in a secluded place physically embracing. No, that would never be what John intended. If not that was Jesus telling Mary: “Don’t hold me. Don’t confine me. I have more work that needs to be done.” “I need to appear to the other disciples, to give the Holy Spirit and send out the disciples, to appear to Thomas, and ascend to the Father.”
She was overjoyed to discover that everything she had experienced of his suffering and death was for her like a bad dream – here he was again. Holding on to him was to hold onto her special relationship with Jesus.
In one of John Wayne’s westerns a young woman stops a suitor from kissing her and her reason was that for the first time in her young life she was in love and she said: “I’ve never felt this way before and I don’t want it to end”. In Blue Like Jazz Don Miller writes of his spiritual experience: “some of the magic I was feeling” he wrote “began to fade. Early on” he shares “I made the mistake of wanting spiritual feelings to endure and remain romantic. Like a new couple expecting to always feel in love, I operated my faith thinking God and I were going to walk around smelling flowers. When this didn’t happen”, he writes, “I became confused.”
Jesus said to Mary, “Don’t hang on to me.” I’m going to suggest that she had to let go of the temporary and temporal relationship she had had with the now deceased Jesus in order for that relationship to grow into something far greater and far more satisfying. The risen Jesus standing before Mary is not the Jesus who will stay forever. Neither she nor we can “hold on” to him. The permanent presence of Christ will be through the Holy Spirit and will come after Jesus’ ascension. The ascension is necessary for us to have the same relationship with God as Jesus has with God — a relationship mediated through the Christ’s Spirit.
Fred Craddock in his Preaching through the Christian Year, writes: “…even for disciples like Mary, Easter does not return her and Jesus to the past; Easter opens up a new future. The earthly ministry is over; now the ministry of the exalted, glorified, ever-abiding Christ begins. “Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you” (16:7). Therefore, Jesus says to Mary Magdalene, “Do not hold on to me” (v. 17). Rather, she is to go and announce his resurrection and his ascension to the presence of God, from whose presence the Holy Spirit will come to lead, comfort, and empower the church.”
Resurrection is not a return to the past, but a movement to the future. Neither Mary Magdalene nor we can hold on to the past after resurrection. We look to the even greater future that God has in store for us through the power of the Holy Spirit. But Count it all joy, brothers and sisters. For Mary, and for Peter and John, and for the rest of the disciples, and for later Christians including you and me, the empty tomb is the cause of our great rejoicing. Because the body of the Lord has not been stolen (cf. Mt 27:64; 28:13-15). They have not taken away our Lord. He is present with us, Emmanuel, and behold, he is even present with us to the end of the ages (Mt 1:23; 28:20).
What do our gospel texts tell us happened to the body? Nothing. The canonical Gospels explain nothing: not biologically, not visually, not audibly. This Resurrection is not to be explained scientifically or chemically. Jesus’ body has of its own simply vanished, right out of the windings of the linen burial cloth. An empty tomb proves nothing. Only later does Jesus appear, and only later does he express his affection and tenderness and hunger and even, yes, he permits Thomas to probe his wounds. The Resurrected Jesus is not a ghost. He remains a person, recognizable to his friends, but not immediately so. The wounds of his murder remain in and on his body even after his resurrection. Just as Mary Magdalene discovered, he is the same, but different.
Jesus’ resurrection says more than a dead man lives again. It is categorically different from his raising of Lazarus, who was destined to die even after Jesus’ raised him up from death. Resurrection is more than dead men walking: it points to the breaking in of God’s rule over all that alienates creation from its creator. Paul writes of this in Romans 6: Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life (Rom 6:4) And so, the resurrected Jesus responds to our doubts about his presence among us every day of our lives with this question: Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen! (Lk 24:5).
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Wildlife officials mine valuable data — once they capture the birds.
CROW WING COUNTY, MINN.
If we had been on a mosquito hunt, motoring across a darkened lake in north-central Minnesota, rather than a search for loons, our success would have been guaranteed.
This was about 10:30 Tuesday night, and Steve Houdek, a biological technician with the U.S. Geological Survey in La Crosse, Wis., was piloting a 16-foot aluminum boat, while two of his colleagues, biological technician Luke Fara and research wildlife biologist Kevin Kenow, crowded in the boat’s bow, with Kenow pointing a high-powered spotlight into the black night.
So far the beacon had illuminated only countless flying bugs, including the biting kind.
Also in the boat were Department of Natural Resources non-game wildlife program supervisor Carrol Henderson, and me.
The goal: To capture a nesting pair of adult loons and their lone chick, and bring them to shore, where blood and feather samples would be drawn, and special “geolocators’’ attached to a leg of each adult would be removed, so migration, diet and other information the gadgets had recorded could be downloaded.
Apprehending at least half of the 42 northern Minnesota loons fitted with the recording devices last year is an important part of a study to determine whether loons that nest in Minnesota but winter along the coast of Louisiana and other Southern states were harmed by the 2010 Gulf oil spill.
Impressively, the tiny electronic devices will give researchers a treasure trove of information, while the blood and feather samples will indicate the presence of contaminants, if any.
But no information can be gleaned unless the birds are captured, and so far this summer, Kenow and his crew have been beset by bad luck.
“If a loon pair has one or two chicks, our capturing success rate is about 95 percent,’’ Kenow said. “But when the chicks have been lost, as has occurred with some of our study birds this summer, capturing adults is more difficult. The chicks help keep the adults on the surface. Without them, the adults dive.’’
On one study lake this summer, a wind storm wiped out 11 nesting platforms, as well as the chicks being raised on them.
So capturing loons on the three Crow Wing County lakes that Kenow’s crew would visit Tuesday night was important.
Aiding their effort in locating the birds was an iPod and speaker, over which various loon calls could be played, including the wail, the yodel, the hoot or other variations of the haunting song that is unique to Minnesota’s state bird.
“There’s one adult,’’ Henderson said as Kenow’s roving spotlight illuminated a target bird. “And there’s the other, and the chick.’’
As Henderson spoke, stars flickered overhead and a half-moon glowed against the black sky.
Beneath these, Houdek guided the boat slowly, but directly, toward an adult loon. Bedazzled by the light, the bird allowed the boat near it, and in a flash, Kenow scooped it into an oversized fishing net.
Then he and Fara secured the bird so it couldn’t harm itself or them, before placing it in a large plastic container, its top punctured with air holes.
Soon the second adult loon also was captured, and then the chick, a bird of perhaps 6 weeks whose size rivaled that of an adult blue-winged teal.
|Los Angeles - LP: P. Maholm||7||FINAL|
|Pittsburgh - WP: V. Worley||12|
|San Francisco - WP: G. Kontos||9||FINAL|
|Philadelphia - LP: J. Manship||6|
|Texas - LP: N. Tepesch||1||FINAL|
|NY Yankees - WP: J. Francis||2|
|Boston - LP: J. Peavy||3||FINAL|
|Toronto - WP: J. Happ||7|
|Miami - WP: J. Turner||6||FINAL|
|Atlanta - LP: M. Minor||5|
|San Diego - LP: E. Stults||0||FINAL|
|Chicago Cubs - WP: K. Hendricks||6|
|Cincinnati - LP: S. LeCure||3||FINAL|
|Milwaukee - WP: F. Rodriguez||4|
|Cleveland - WP: D. Salazar||8||FINAL|
|Minnesota - LP: Y. Pino||2|
|Kansas City - WP: B. Chen||7||FINAL|
|Chicago WSox - LP: S. Carroll||1|
|Tampa Bay - WP: J. Odorizzi||7||FINAL|
|St. Louis - LP: A. Wainwright||2|
|Washington - WP: C. Stammen||7||FINAL|
|Colorado - LP: B. Brown||4|
|Detroit - LP: P. Coke||4||FINAL|
|Arizona - WP: E. De La Rosa||5|
|Houston - WP: D. Downs||3||FINAL|
|Oakland - LP: F. Abad||2|
|Baltimore - WP: M. Gonzalez||4||FINAL|
|LA Angels - LP: M. Morin||2|
|NY Mets - WP: J. deGrom||3||FINAL|
|Seattle - LP: E. Ramirez||1|
|Calgary||7/24/14 8:00 PM|
|Winnipeg||7/25/14 9:00 PM|
|Ottawa||7/26/14 6:00 PM|
|Toronto||7/26/14 9:00 PM|
|Winnipeg||7/31/14 6:00 PM|
Poll: Should the lake where the albino muskie was caught remain a mystery?
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en
| 0.893082 | 1,315 | 2.703125 | 3 |
The 20th-century saw modern man make numerous momentous steps forward thanks to his senses of innovation and exploration.
It also witnessed significant progress in gazing backwards to understand our place in history.
Next week marks the 90th anniversary of one of the latter types of milestone, arguably the most dramatic in the science of archaeology.
On the afternoon of Sunday, November the 26th 1922, Howard Carter gazed through a small hole in the door of the tomb now listed as KV62 in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor in Egypt.
By flickering candlelight, he told his patron, Lord Carnarvon, that he could see "wonderful things". There were so many precious objects, in fact, that it took a decade just to clear the tomb.
In that time, Carter's achievements made his name famous along with that of the previously obscure young pharaoh, Tutankhamun, whose remains had lain for millennia beneath a golden death mask.
His discovery also helped fuel a lasting worldwide passion for all things Egyptian in a manner which not even Napoleon's expedition of 120 years before had managed and underlined the financial value of ancient artefacts.
That museums clamoured to acquire works of historical significance, beauty and appeal to increase reputations wasn't necessarily new. However, for the first time, there was a huge popular demand to view such material, a demand which hasn't abated in the near century since, as those who queued to see a selection of the riches intended for King Tut's afterlife at London's O2 Arena in 2007 will attest.
Outside dusty galleries, Hollywood and pop music were also quick to capitalise. Over the years, Boris Karloff, Steven Spielberg and even Rolf Harris have all tapped into the rich seam of fascination and imagination which Carter created.
Whilst packed audiences on his speaking tours demonstrated to him just how interested the public had become, Carter could not have known that his efforts would appeal to gangsters and terrorists too.
Families living around the Valley of the Kings, for instance, had long pilfered tombs for items to sell to tourists but mobsters now globalised the trade, generating billions of dollars each year.
They ensnared private collectors and unscrupulous institutions who didn't care from where or how objects were acquired. They took their lead from freelances like Giovanni Batista Belzoni, an 18th-century Italian strongman, who broke into tombs on behalf of British diplomats using explosives and battering rams.
The latter-day illegal tomb raiders, also used mechanical diggers to smash apart historic sites in search of sellable trinkets and used material as collateral in drug deals. Great swathes of land, formerly part of ancient or classical civilisations in the Americas, Europe and the Far East have been destroyed.
Those with bigger and more dastardly and dramatic goals even than crime gangs have taken advantage. In 1999, two years before he helped bring down the World Trade Centre, Mohamed Atta, himself an Egyptian, is alleged to have tried to sell artefacts looted in Afghanistan to a German university in order to get the money to buy a plane.
His is one attempt which shows how thieves have used political upheaval and war in order to cherry-pick antiquities from museums and places of interest. The 'Arab Spring' continues to prompt grave concerns about spoliation with museums not spared from attack. Syria currently alarms the archaeological community in much the same way that Libya, Egypt and Iraq all have in recent years.
Such damage is not without its consequences, though. Just as investigation by myself and others have helped win the restitution of Holocaust era art to the families from which it had been taken by the Nazis, institutions around the world have been forced to repatriate hundreds of ancient items. They include the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, which last year returned 40 illegally excavated objects to Italy, among them a seven-foot-tall statue of the Greek goddess, Aphrodite.
Another of the by-products of the interest in Tutankhamun has been the awakening of a consciousness and connection between objects in display cases around the world and those countries in which they had been found.
Dr Zahi Hawass, an egyptologist who styles himself as his country's 'Indiana Jones', has pressed foreign governments, museums and collectors to hand back even those treasures taken and maintained with the best of intentions. The British Museum has long resisted his attempts to return the Rosetta Stone.
As well as understanding the national pride associated with getting back Egypt's illustrious patrimony, he knows the potential commercial value it represents in luring tourists to North Africa.
It is a more illicit worth which has resulted in two attempts to stem the black market in antiquities. Earlier this year, a team of specialists at Glasgow University was awarded a £1 million grant to determine the extent and methods of the criminal trade in artefacts (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/scotland-blog/2012/feb/13/glasgow-team-gets-1m-grant-to-study-illegal-trade-in-antiquities).
Just this week, it was also reported that the International Council of Museums (ICOM) is setting up a new intelligence group to monitor illegal antiquities trafficking.
Both measures provide structure and the promise of greater knowledge of a topic which, by its very nature, has been clandestine, lucrative and often dangerous.
Using that insight to allow better conservation and understanding of what our ancestors left behind is surely the sort of future which Howard Carter would have wanted for his legacy.
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| 0.970713 | 1,162 | 2.984375 | 3 |
Like other programming models, there are some patterns in selecting the right parallel solution when it comes to designing a parallel application. This is what this book is about. The solutions may be obvious, but patterns aften are.
Content and opinions
The global content of the book is nothing new. What is really great is the progression thoughout the book (the table of contents is perhaps obvious but it is easy to miswrite it). The decision one has to make to write a parallel application really follow the book’s flow.
Before the actual patterns, two chapters are spent explaining what is meant by parallel programming and the associated patterns. The implication on the OS and the environment are clear and simple. There isn’t much to say about these chapters, as it is pretty much basic knownledge.
The first interesting chapter is the third one. It starts the pattern show with how to achieve concurrency in one’s application. Data, task parallel? Then, how do data and task interact? Once this is done, the fourth chapter comes in. How can one use the preceding findings inside one’s algorithm? Pipeline, divide and conquer, … the usual solutions are thoroughly explained.
Once the interactions are set, they can be used to choose the best tool: one program or several (SPMD or MPMD)? Master/Worker, fork/join, … There are several ways of setting up the application to use the patterns of chapter four (what is called the structure space inside the book). Then, the final chapter is dedicated to the implementation of those structures. Threads or processes? It also depends on the parallel tool that one can use (MPI or OpenMP, for instance), and also how they can interact through synchronization and communication.
At this point, the last step is achived and the program may be written without additional thought about how parallelism can be achieved.
Of course, since the book was first published, additional parallel patterns were “found” (more exactly described), but the ones from the book are the most used ones. Nothing impedes you from using additional ones insode your own parallel workflow.
Ralph Johnson (from the Gang of Four) gave a talk about parallel patterns, and this book. It can be found there: http://media.cs.uiuc.edu/Apresos/seminars/UPCRC/2008-09-19/UPCRC__2008-09-19_02-58-PM_files/flash_index.htm Now that parallelism is the only way to go to really speed up programs, I hope the book will become more popular.
If you don’t like to read and if you have some sense of fun, you can view this Intel video. Enjoy 😉
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| 0.945746 | 575 | 2.984375 | 3 |
Selfishness is placing concern with oneself or one's own interests above the well-being or interests of others.
Selfishness is the opposite of altruism or selflessness; and has also been contrasted (as by C. S. Lewis) with self-centredness
The implications of selfishness have inspired divergent views within religious, philosophical, psychological, economic and evolutionary contexts.
Aristotle joined what he saw as the majority of his countrymen in condemning for selfishness those who sought only to profit themselves; but approved the self-love of the man of reason who sought to gain for himself the greatest share of what deserved social praise.
Seneca proposed a cultivation of the self within a wider community - a care for the self which he opposed to mere selfishness in a theme that would later be taken up by Foucault.
Selfishness was viewed in the Western Christian tradition as a central vice – as standing at the roots of the Seven deadly sins in the form of pride.
Francis Bacon carried forward this tradition when he characterised “Wisdom for a man's self.. s the wisdom of rats”.
With the emergence of a commercial society, Bernard Mandeville proposed the paradox that social and economic advance depended on private vices – on what he called the sordidness of selfishness.
Adam Smith with the concept of the invisible hand saw the economic system as usefully channelling selfish self-interest to wider ends; while Locke based society upon the solitary individual, arguably opening the door for later thinkers like Ayn Rand to argue for selfishness as a social virtue and the root of social progress.
Roman Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain opposed the latter view by way of the Aristotelian argument that framing the fundamental question of politics as a choice between altruism and selfishness is a basic and harmful mistake of modern states. Rather, cooperation ought to be the norm: human beings are by nature social animals, and so individual persons can only find their full good in and through pursuing the good of the community.
Lack of empathy has been seen as one of the roots of selfishness, extending as far as the cold manipulation of the psychopath.
The contrast between self-affirmation and selfishness has become a conflictual arena in which the respective claims of individual/community is often played out – between parents and children or men and women, for example.
Psychoanalysts favor the development of a genuine sense of self, and may even speak of a healthy selfishness, as opposed to the self-occlusion of what Anna Freud called 'emotional surrender'.
Main article: game theory
Given two actors, oneself and someone else, there are four types of possible behavior directly impacting the welfare of the actors: selfishness, altruism, spite, and cooperation. Selfishness is harming someone else in order to help oneself; altruism is harming oneself in order to help someone else; spite is harming oneself in order to harm someone else; cooperation is helping someone else and also helping oneself.
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| 0.954315 | 654 | 3.234375 | 3 |
It has long been understood that environmental and socio-economic factors – including income disparity, family poverty, and air pollution – increase a person’s risk of developing psychotic-like experiences, such as subtle hallucinations and delusions that can become precursors to a schizophrenia diagnosis later in life. Research has long focused on young adults but now, thanks to data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, researchers at the University of Rochester have found these risk factors can be observed in pre-adolescent children.
“These findings could have a major impact on public health initiatives to reduce the risk of psychotic-like experiences,” said Abhishek Saxena, a graduate student in the department of Psychology at the University of Rochester and first author of the study recently published in Frontiers in Psychiatry. “Past research has largely focused on the biological factors that lead to development of schizophrenia spectrum disorders, but we now know that social and environmental factors can also play a large role in the risk and development of schizophrenia. And this research shows these factors impact people starting at a very young age.”
Researchers looked at data collected from 8,000 kids enrolled in the ABCD study. They found that the more urban of an environment a child lived in – proximity to roads, houses with lead paint risks, families in poverty, and income disparity – the greater number of psychotic-like experiences they had over a year’s time. These findings are in line with past research conducted in young adults, but have not been found like this in pre-adolescences.
|David Dodell-Feder, Ph.D.|
“It is disconcerting that the association between these exposures and psychotic-like experiences are already present in late childhood,” said David Dodell-Feder, Ph.D., assistant professor of Psychology and Neuroscience and lead author of this study. “The fact that the impact of these exposures may occur as early as pre-adolescence highlights the importance of early prevention.”
This research was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health.
The University of Rochester Medical Center is one of 21 research sites across the country collecting data for the National Institutes of Health ABCD Study. Since 2017, 340 children from the greater Rochester area have been participating in the 10-year study. In all, the study is following 11,750 children through early adulthood looking at how biological development, behaviors, and experiences impact brain maturation and other aspects of their lives, including academic achievement, social development, and overall health.
Source/Credit: University of Rochester Medical Center
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| 0.957292 | 541 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Shiretoko, proposed by Japan as a best practice, is interesting as a case study for the following aspects: establishment of Shiretoko WNH Site Regional Liaison Committee, bottom-up approach, scientific council, self-management measures, involvement of local communities / stakeholders.
Summary provided by State Party
One of the most important new measures implemented in the Shiretoko WNH area is a system for coordination among the wide range of sectors involved. First, the Shiretoko WNH Site Regional Liaison Committee was established to discuss the proper management of the site. The committee is composed of officers from a wide range of administrative authorities and various stakeholders such as fisheries cooperative associations, the tourism sector, and NGOs. Secondly, Shiretoko WNH Site Scientific Council was established to provide scientific advice on the management activities. The council has several Working Groups. For example, the Marine Working Group composed of natural and social scientists, and representatives of administrative authorities, of fisheries cooperative associations, and of NGOs.
These organizations and their interrelationships have helped to ensure participation and to build consensus between the wide-ranging sectors including experts and local communities, supporting the legitimacy of the management plans and rules. This is the core institutional framework for the integrated management which we call “the Shiretoko Approach”.
This approach was succeeded in other 3 WNH sites in Japan, and especially in the Ogasawara Islands, this system worked effectively in dealing with difficulty of alien species and other topics.
One-off Initiative for the recognition of best practices
The World Heritage Capacity Building Strategy, adopted by the World Heritage Committee in 2011, responds to the identified needs of a diverse and growing audience for capacity building for World Heritage conservation and management activities. Development of resource materials such as best practice case studies and communication tools are among the activities foreseen by the strategy to improve these capacities.
An example of an innovative capacity building initiative is the recently concluded Recognition of Best Practice in World Heritage Management. This initiative, requested by the World Heritage Committee and carried out within the framework of the 40th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention in 2012, solicited applications from World Heritage properties which had demonstrated new and creative ways of managing their sites. Twenty-three submissions were received and evaluated by a 10-member international selection committee which included the representatives of the Convention’s Advisory Bodies, ICCROM, ICOMOS and IUCN. The Historic Town of Vigan in the Philippines was chosen as a best practice achieved with relatively limited resources, a good integration of the local community in many aspects of the sustainable conservation and management of the property and with an interesting multi-faceted approach to the protection of the site.
Management practices recognized as being successful and sustainable can include everything from involving local people in site management, to creating innovative policies and regulating tourism. There are sites that include students from local schools in the management of the site (Slovenia), train local inhabitants as tour guides (Peru), or even put up nylon fences to protect villagers from straying tigers from the Sundarbans National Park (India). Sharing these practices helps other sites find solutions that work.
This initiative provides incentives for States Parties and site managers to reflect on their management practices and explore improvement possibilities.
Consult more best practice examples
- Acropolis, Athens
- Archaeological Ensemble of Mérida
- Boyana Church
- Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia
- Cueva de las Manos, Río Pinturas
- Fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa
- Gros Morne National Park
- Historic and Architectural Complex of the Kazan Kremlin
- Historic Areas of Istanbul
- Historic Centre of Oaxaca and Archaeological Site of Monte Albán
- Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto (Kyoto, Uji and Otsu Cities)
- Historic Town of Vigan
- Jiuzhaigou Valley Scenic and Historic Interest Area
- Land of Frankincense
- Le Morne Cultural Landscape
- Medieval City of Rhodes
- Mogao Caves
- Old Havana and its Fortification System
- SGang Gwaay
- Sacred City of Caral-Supe
- San Marino Historic Centre and Mount Titano
- Škocjan Caves
- Sundarbans National Park
- Teide National Park
- Wet Tropics of Queensland
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en
| 0.932857 | 906 | 2.53125 | 3 |
- "This was Japan's final stand. Our final stand. We had all we needed, and we were keeping it."
- —A member of the battle, 5 years later.
Japan's Last Stand was an event that happened one month after the Nuclear Bombings in the Americas, and two weeks before the UABM formation. Japan was sending a supply boat to an aircraft carrier, just in case the nearby Communist China decided to act. Upon reaching a refuel station on a very small island near the carrier, Chinese ambushed the Japanese, and before long, as hundreds of supply vessels were marooned, Japanese soldiers poured in.
The resistance was tough, and the battle went on for about two days, until the Japanese finally prevailed. They had shown their strength.
This event played much importance in the Joint Committee of Unaligned Nations, urging Japan to join the UABM. Eventually, they did, and another month after most Japanese citizens moved into Celeste, the UABM Space Station, Japan was bombed, increasing the size of the Continental Wasteland.
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| 0.98481 | 218 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Neurodegenerative Diseases: Next-Generation Drugs for Four Major Disorders
Author: Mark C. Via
Neurodegenerative diseases are drawing immense interest from the pharmaceutical industry and have inspired heavy competition in the race to introduce the next generation of improved drugs. Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis are analyzed in this report, which:
- Reviews their symptoms and pathology, presumed causes, methods of diagnosis, epidemiology
- Examines existing drug therapies for each disorder
- Surveys the R&D picture for each disease
- Tabulates the approximately 150 compounds in clinical development
- Discusses particularly noteworthy drug candidates.
Neurodegenerative diseases are caused by the loss or dysfunction of neurons in the brain or spinal cord. These diseases are especially devastating because the affected cells typically cannot regenerate following damage or death. Neurodegenerative Diseases: Next-Generation Drugs for Four Major Disorders deals with chronic neurodegenerative diseases by focusing on four of the most comprehensively studied such conditions: Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), Huntington’s disease (HD), and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
To the pharmaceutical industry, perhaps the most important defining characteristic of these four diseases is the inadequacy of the standard of care. Existing treatments tend to address symptoms as opposed to modify disease course. Several relatively new drugs are available for AD, but they have only modest effects. There is a larger formulary on hand for PD, but treatments are plagued by the issues of side effects and diminishing returns. The landscape is even bleaker for HD and ALS, with only a single, moderately effective drug for each of these conditions. We examine the existing drug therapies for each of these diseases, grouping and discussing treatments according to their mechanism of action.
AD and PD present huge potential markets, with 5 million and 1 million US patients, respectively. HD and ALS are uncommon in comparison, with only about 30,000 US patients apiece, but all four diseases disproportionately affect the elderly, who comprise a steadily increasing share of the population in the developed world. Without an outright cure, most therapies would likely require long-term administration. These factors suggest that a company which can deliver an improved compound for one of these neurodegenerative disorders will earn a rich return on its investment.
Developing effective drugs for these diseases continues to be challenging. AD research has been stung by the recent setbacks of several novel compounds in Phase III trials. PD is an active field, but the greatest progress has been with next-generation versions of drugs that are already available. In HD and ALS, the late-stage clinical candidates are most often non-specific drugs that were originally developed for other indications.
Neurodegenerative Diseases: Next-Generation Drugs for Four Major Disorders surveys the investigational drugs in the pipeline for AD, PD, HD, and ALS. We list clinical-stage compounds, providing details about noteworthy candidates, and examine additional preclinical and research programs. The efforts of more than 115 companies working to develop treatments for these disorders are described.
About the Author
Mark C. Via, an editor at CTB International Publishing, has more than 14 years of experience writing and editing for pharmaceutical trade publications. He holds a BA in history from Williams College. Mr. Via has authored previous Cambridge Healthtech reports, including Monoclonal Antibodies: Pipeline Analysis and Competitive Assessment (www.insightpharmareports.com/reports/2007/88_Monoclonal_Antibodies/overview.asp).
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en
| 0.936875 | 747 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Now, I’m using Microsoft word to write these articles. These word processor programs are very useful when you writing something down. Sometimes, we heard someone was very familiar with these programs, such as word, can remember many short-cuts. Though I use this program frequently, I can’t remember many short-cuts. I can remember some short-cuts, such as “Ctrl+Z”, which means UNDO.
The UNDO command is widely use in today’s program. You can see it almost everywhere. Besides the word processor program, you can find it in photoshop, in flash, or even in games. Eh, in games, this command isn’t called UNDO, it use another name SAVE.
I think you should be familiar with this command. But, have you ever implemented this command in your application? Maybe, your application doesn’t need this kind of command, but you won’t deny the importance of this command. So, it’s worth to consider how to implement this command.
In the GoF book, there is a pattern, which has much to do with this command, called Memento. The intent is as follows.
Without violating encapsulation, capture and externalize an object’s internal state so that the object can be restored to this state later.
–By GOF BOOK
In my opinion, without practice, the definition is nothing. So, let’s write some code to implement this pattern.
This little program will mimic the game command SAVA. Generally, we need to store some basic information about the role, such as the blood, the experience and so on. Do it the easy way, we will only store the blood and the experience, nothing more.
Our demo will be looks like follows.
This is a little game with no rules, just fight And you can save the characters state, including blood and experience, with the save button. Of course, you can load the states you’ve just saved. One more thing, the experience here can’t help you level up; you can take a look at the source code for its effect.
The class diagram is as follows.
The SaveManager class is used for manage the save state, and all the state of Character will be put into the CharacterState. When we want to save the character’s state, we just need to call the SaveManager.save, and pass the character’s state into it. Then, when we want to load it, call the load method of SaveManager.
This is a basic application of this pattern. If you want to implement the UNDO and REDO commands, you may need a memento stack. How to use the stack depends on you program.
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<urn:uuid:f04f5d6e-de26-42c4-99ef-4e1f3a157c78>
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en
| 0.937836 | 583 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Well-Informed Citizens are the Most Powerful Force in our Constitutional Republic
Adoption of U.S. Constitution at first Constitutional Convention To Be Done By 9 States,
rather than by unanimous vote of 13 as under Articles of Confederation
Such an Alteration could occur again during a Second Constitutional Convention (Con-Con)
The ratification of the conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the establishment of this constitution between the States so ratifying the same.
Done in Convention, by the unanimous consent of the states present, the seventeenth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, and of the independence of the United States the twelfth. In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our Names.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, president, And Deputy from Virginia.
Monday, September 17th, 1787.
The States of New-Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Mr. Hamilton from New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North-Carolina, South-Carolina and Georgia:
That the preceding Constitution be laid before the United States in Congress assembled, and that it is the opinion of this Convention, that it should afterwards be submitted to a Convention of Delegates, chosen in each State by the People thereof, under the Recommendation of its legislature, for their Assent and Ratification; and that each Convention assenting to, and ratifying the Same, should give Notice thereof to the United States in Congress assembled.
Resolved, That it is the Opinion of this Convention, that as soon as the Conventions of nine States shall have ratified this Constitution, the United States in Congress assembled should fix a Day on which Electors should be appointed by the States which shall have ratified the same, and a Day on which the Electors should assemble to vote for the President, and the TIme and Place for commencing Proceedings under this Constitution. That after such Publication the Electors should be appointed, and the Senators and Representatives elected: That the Electors should meet on the Day fixed for the Election of the President, and should transmit their Votes certified, signed, sealed and directed, as the Constitution requires, to the Secretary of the United States in Congress assembled, that the Senators and Representatives should convene at the Time and Place assigned; that the Senators should appoint a President of the Senate, for the sole Purpose of receiving, opening and counting the Votes for President; and, that after he shall be chosen, the Congress, together with the President, should, without Delay, proceed to execute this Constitution.
By the Unanimous Order of the Convention,
GEORGE WASHINGTON, President
WILLIAM JACKSON, Secretary
John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman
Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King
William Samuel Johnson, Roger Sherman
William Livingston, David Brearley, William Paterson, Jonathan Dayton
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Miffin, Robert Morris, George Clymer, Thomas Fitzsimons, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris
George Read, Gunning Bedford, Junior, John Dickinson, Richard Bassett, Jacob Broom
James M'Henry, Daniel of St. Tho. Jenifer, Daniel Carrol
John Blair, James Madison, Junior
William Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight, Hugh Williamson
John Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Charles Pinckney, Pierce Butler
William Few, Abraham Baldwin
attest, William Jackson, Secretary
Vol. 11, No. 05
March 6, 1995
Table of Contents More on Constitutional Convention
by Don Fotheringham
Beware Mike Leavitt's "Conference of the States"
Utah Governor Mike Leavitt seems to think the United States Constitution is obsolete. He has teamed up with Governor Ben Nelson of Nebraska to set in motion the mechanism for making fundamental changes to our constitutional structure. A good deal of groundwork has already been laid for what the two governors have labeled a "Conference of the States," clearly one of the most startling and revolutionary developments of our time.
Governors Leavitt and Nelson are supported (if not led) by the Council of State Governments and the National Governors' Association, in cooperation with two other organizations, the National Conference of State Legislatures and the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. Through these organizations elaborate plans have been devised in which these quasi-official groups have designated themselves "convenors" of a major conference to be held later this year, most likely in Philadelphia. This extraordinary affair is intended to emulate the historic convention of 1787 that drafted the U.S. Constitution. But lest there be any real opposition to the smooth-running movement, the governors and their "convenors" carefully avoid referring to the Conference as a constitutional convention (con-con).
For the past 200 years, efforts to call a federal convention have been firmly opposed by legal scholars and citizens alike. Although a con-con is a legal mechanism established by the Constitution, it is an amendatory process that cannot be limited or controlled.
In spite of assurances by Governor Leavitt that the Conference of the States will not be a con-con, he openly advocated one in his first position paper and in public statements. The Salt Lake Tribune for April 25, 1994 reported:
On Thursday, the governor unveiled a proposal to gather support for an amendment to the U.S, Constitution giving states authority equal to the federal government's. He took his plan for an informal states' conference and a possible constitutional convention to the Western States Summit in Phoenix. The proposal is a manifesto that urges states to organize against their "subordinate status" under the current federal system.
Leavitt's speech was not well received by the audience. Here is the reaction of one state representative, Utah's Met Johnson, as quoted by the Salt Lake Tribune: "Mike got all wild and weird on us with this constitutional convention speech in Phoenix. The Constitution isn't broken; we don't want to open it up .... This is about the federal government regulating us into oblivion, and when he talked about that constitutional convention stuff, he made a lot of Westerners really angry."
While a lot of Westerners were indeed angry and concerned, apparently no one at the intergovernmental level objected to the governor's con-con plan, which is to be presented to an unsuspecting public, not as a con-con, but as a Conference of the States. After the Western States Summit meeting, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that "Leavitt also said he has rewritten his position paper, deleting any reference to a constitutional convention, which he said had been misconstrued."
Although Mike Leavitt has toned down his speeches, his carefully written plan still comprises every ingredient needed to harness the powers of a federal convention. The choice of language makes the Conference seem harmless to many state legislators who have been quick to pass "Resolutions of Participation" that are being introduced in one state after another.
A constitutional convention is a meeting authorized by the several states and comprised of delegates appointed by their legislatures for the purpose of considering and adopting amendments to the federal Constitution. To avoid being presumptive concerning the role of this new convocation, we hereby quote from the "Action Plan" of the governors:
A Conference of the States would enable State representatives to consider, refine and adopt proposals for structural change in our federal system.
So isn't that the essence of a federal convention? Essence or not, the organizers are quick to deny they are hosting a constitutional convention, or even laying the groundwork for one. We agree that their conference is certainly not being called pursuant to Article V of the Constitution, which, in addition to defining the procedure that authorizes Congress to initiate amendments, establishes an alternate route (circumventing Congress) for state-initiated amendments. Yet, neither was the Convention of 1787 called according to the established rules of the day. The original 13 states ignored the amendment process established in the Articles of Confederation. The delegates who attended the 1787 convention were vested with power by their state legislatures, power that extended far beyond their constitutional mandate.
Power of a Free People
Records of the 1787 Convention are clear about the consolidated authority of the states and the power the states vested in their delegates. New Jersey's William Patterson objected to the course the Convention was taking and said:
We are met here as the deputies of 13 independent, sovereign states, for federal purposes. Can we consolidate their sovereignty and form one nation, and annihilate the sovereignties of our states who have sent us here for other purposes?
Annihilation of state sovereignty, of course, did not occur; but other purposes most certainly did. The main point is that the 1787 Convention possessed that power, and the delegates exercised it. Is the consolidation of that power being attempted again in 1995 by Governor Leavitt and his Conference of the States? A realistic assessment indicates that a convention-empowered conference is exactly what is envisioned. But while the product of the Convention of 1787 turned out to be the most nearly perfect form of government yet devised, the result this time could be disastrous.
But what about the fact that Article V of the Constitution requires that two-thirds of the states apply for a convention in order for one to be called? The Conference of the States seeks only a majority of 51 percent. Again, the organizers of the planned Conference have obviously done their homework. History shows that a quorum of 51 percent was the minimum needed some 200 years ago to consider, propose, and adopt amendments to the federal system. Thus, our Founders met in Philadelphia and opened the Convention on May 25, 1787 with only seven (a simple majority) of the 13 states represented. That is precisely the minimum percentage wanted by the governors and convenors in the process that is now under way.
The name of the summit to be held this year in Philadelphia -- whether it is called a conference, convention, convocation, assembly, discussion, deliberation, or whatever -- is of no consequence. But the process by which it is being set in motion, the formal appointment of its delegates, and the legal instruments that authorize it, amount to far more than a friendly meeting of state leaders. The organizers have latched onto a principle that is not well known by our citizenry: the consolidation and mobilization of the power inherent in a free people. Congress reaffirmed this principle in an extensive joint resolution in 1935: "The government of the United States is not a concession to the people from some one higher up. It is the creation and the creature of the people themselves, as absolute sovereigns." This concentration of collective right, formally assembled, portends the most serious of consequences.
Those inherent powers of the people when consolidated are superior in every respect to government. In 1911 Senator Weldon Heyburn of Idaho sounded a warning while debating the matter on the floor of the Senate: "When the people of the United States meet in a constitutional convention there is no power to limit their action. They are greater than the Constitution, and they can repeal the provision that limits the right of amendment. They can repeal every section of it because they are the peers of the people who made it."
"It is not a constitutional convention," Governor Leavitt now insists. But his assurance inspires little confidence after one reads the position papers of the intergovernmental groups he belongs to. In order to demonstrate the audacious nature of their "Action Plan for Balanced Competition in the Federal System," we print here their own summary of the grand scheme, with bracketed numbers and bold type added for emphasis:
[1.] We propose a process that would consolidate and focus state power. This process would culminate in an historic event called a Conference of the States.
[2.] In each state legislature, a Resolution of Participation in a Conference of the States will be filed during the 1995 legislative session. The resolution authorizes the appointment of a bi-partisan, five-person delegation of legislators and the governor from each state to attend.
[3.] When a significant majority of the states have passed Resolutions of Participation, a legal entity called the Conference of the States, Inc., will be formed by the delegates from each state, acting as incorporators. The incorporators will also organize and establish rules, assuring that each state delegation receives one vote.
[4.] The actual Conference of the States would then be held, perhaps in a city with historic significance such as Philadelphia or Annapolis. At the Conference, delegations would consider, refine and vote on ways of correcting the imbalance in the federal system. Any item receiving the support of the state delegations would become part of a new instrument of American democracy called a States' Petition. The States' Petition would be, in effect, the action plan emerging from the Conference of the States. It would constitute the highest form of formal communication between the states and Congress. A States' Petition gains its authority from the sheer power of the process the states follow to initiate it. It is a procedure outside the traditional constitutional process, and it would have no force of law or binding authority. But it must not be ignored or taken lightly because it symbolizes to the states a test of their relevance. Ignoring the petitions would signal to the states an intolerable arrogance on the part of Congress.
[5.] The States' Petition would then be taken back to the states for approval by each state legislature. If the Petition included constitutional amendments, those amendments would require approval by a super-majority of state legislatures to continue as a part of the States' Petition.
[6.] Armed with the final States' Petition, the representatives of each state would then gather in Washington to present the Petition and formally request that Congress respond.
A reading of the bold type tells it all: This whole effort, labeled a "conference," is in reality a call for a constitutional convention. The "Action Plan" does indeed circumvent the constitutional process of Article V, but it very cleverly incorporates every ingredient necessary for a free people to change their form of government. Although in defiance of existing constitutional procedures, the organizers apply a process based on the principle embodied in Paragraph 1: A free people are sovereign, and when acting through their state they can consolidate that power and reform their government. This principle was inherent in the founding of our nation and is obviously well understood by the designers of this dangerous plan.
Disclaimers woven carefully into the Action Plan, such as the assurance in Paragraph 4 that "it would have no force of law," are unwoven by the fact that a majority of the states are required to pass formal legislation, as in Paragraph 2, authorizing the meeting and appointing official delegates to attend the affair. There would be no need for legal instruments from the states if a delegation of legislators wanted to attend a conference that "would have no force of law."
We could sympathize with enthusiastic public servants who seek only to build the attendance of their meetings. But in this program there will be no meeting at all until (or unless) a majority attends, as required in Paragraph 3. But if there were no pervasive reason for a majority to be there, the conference date could be set now, immediately. There would be no need to wait until 26 states are locked in. If only 49 percent attended, who would really care?
But the organizers do care, and it is of crucial importance to them because that majority will certify the power they seek in their convention, just as stated by South Carolina delegate Charles Pinckney at the Constitutional Convention of 1787: "The assent of a given number of the States shall be sufficient to invest them and to bind the Union as fully as if they had been confirmed by the Legislatures of all the States."
Paragraph 3 embodies another important precedent set by the first Convention: The establishment of a one-state, one-vote rule.
In Paragraph 4 we find the convening of a deliberative body, the core element of a convention, authorized to consider, refine, and vote on ways of "correcting" the federal system. System corrections are made only at the convention level. Here the organizers are referring to the process of making fundamental, structural, constitutional changes in the federal system. As Paragraph 4 states, virtually all of the position papers of this movement refer to "correcting the imbalance in the federal system."
Violations by the federal government require nothing more than enforcement. States can assist in this enforcement by refusing to accept federal funding of unconstitutional programs and by refusing to implement unconstitutional unfunded mandates. But structural problems in the federal system, if they exist, can be corrected only by amendment, and, of course, that is what the Conference of the States is all about. In essence, the organizers' plan adheres to the Article V convention role of "proposing amendments." But their creation of a "new instrument," which they call a "States' Petition," is nothing more than the final document produced by the convention (that is, the "conference"). They modestly grant that their petition is "the highest form of formal communication between the states and Congress." Yet if the scheme is actually carried out and amendments are adopted, it would be far more than a mere "communication." It would be the highest form of sovereign power that could be exercised by the states over Congress and over the entire federal government.
Document of Amendments
What the organizers call a States' Petition will in reality be the instrument that contains the amendments to be added to the Constitution. It is difficult to find any reason for contriving a new term for this document except to imply that "there ain't nobody here but just us petitioners." Paragraph 5, in essence, defines the ratification process. The certified document of amendments (or their States' Petition) is to be sent to the states for approval by a super-majority. If acting under Article V they would need the approval of three-fourths of the states. But then, inasmuch as this whole promotion relies on brass and audacity, the organizers would likely settle for whatever number of states seem inclined to ratify. In the previous constitution (the Articles of Confederation) a ratification of amendments was required by all 13 of the states. A precedent was set, however, when the Convention lowered the necessary ratification from 13 to nine states (three-fourths of the states).
Madison's notes on the 1787 Convention express the consternation of at least one delegate who opposed reducing the number of states needed for ratification:
Mr. [Elbridge] Gerry urged the indecency and pernicious tendency of dissolving in so slight a manner, the solemn obligations of the articles of confederation. If nine out of thirteen can dissolve the compact, six out of nine will be just as able to dissolve the new one hereafter.
Perhaps the organizers hope that those state legislators who, for the past 20 years, have steadfastly refused to call a convention, may not recognize the serious implications of this new effort. One way to obfuscate its convention-like process would be for the con-con advocates to use a lot of newly contrived terms -- terms which appear harmless to starry-eyed state legislators, but which are clear to the intergovernmental cabal pushing through the process.
Right now it is critically important to the Conference task force to get the Resolutions of Participation passed in at least 26 states as quickly as possible. It looks very much like a high-pressure power game because the resolutions are being thrown through statehouses like hardballs. Most are being passed on voice votes, are given little or no committee hearing, and are being steamrolled through the voting chambers.
The bodies of all the Resolutions of Participation are the same for all states; they typically begin with the following statement of purpose:
Calling for a Conference of the States to be promoted and convened by the Council of State Governments for the purpose of restoring balance in the federal system and supporting [name of state]'s participation in such a Conference.
Do the American people understand that their sovereign powers are set to be consolidated in an instrument that authorizes a private intergovernmental group to tinker with our federal system? And are the governors and state legislators so flattered by the national attention beckoned by this summit that they will vote for a Resolution of Participation without challenging it? Has no American official asked why he should vote for a measure that empowers a private group to serve as convenors of any kind of official meeting? Has no one questioned the provision that the Conference must be legally incorporated? Will 7,400 state legislators (or even half of that number) vote in favor of a measure that includes a clause stipulating that "at least twenty-six legislatures adopt this resolution without amendment"?
A vested interest in this measure runs rather conspicuously in the legislative leaders who have appointed themselves a seat at the Conference before the bills have even been introduced. Little do they comprehend the price our nation will pay if those short-sighted state legislators -- and their pride-smitten governors -- think they can fill the seats of Washington, Madison, or Hamilton at Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
Paragraph 6 is pure fluff. There is no need for a formal ceremony to present ratified amendments to Congress. A long-established rule holds that an amendment goes into effect on the day it is ratified by the legislature of the last necessary state. Two-hundred and fifty delegates need not appear in Washington and cower before Congress to obtain its acceptance of constitutional amendments that originate through the consolidated force of the states.
Considerable ingenuity has gone into selling this affair to the states. Those who want structural change in our system have positioned themselves so that they appear to be rallying around the banner of the Tenth Amendment. A virtual explosion of articles, editorials, and voices in praise of the Tenth Amendment have emanated from every clime and every persuasion. Establishment writers from George Will to David Broder have addressed the subject like tried and true "conservatives." Even President Clinton has joined in with the Tenth Amendment chorus.
Either by seizing the moment or by creating it, the Conference promoters have obtained an all-American launching pad for their upcoming extravaganza. To many Western leaders the Tenth Amendment means getting the federal government out of their pockets and off their backs, as well it should. But in the East and North, where welfare-state programs abound, the Tenth Amendment is often used as an argument for having the federal government pay for its unconstitutional mandates. In the South it often means the restoration of states' rights. Such multi-purpose meanings of the Tenth Amendment are facilitated by repetitious reference to a patently false notion that "imbalance" in the state-federal relationship is a terminal illness that afflicts our nation.
At a recent meeting of the Council of State Governments, Governor Mike Leavitt declared:
Balance will only be restored in the way intended by Madison, Jefferson, and Hamilton when states take the initiative. As state leaders, with our allies in local governments, we must step up to our constitutional obligation and compete for power in the federal system. States have a place at the constitutional table. It is a proper role -- in fact the obligation and stewardship -- of states to be jealous and protective of their role and to fight for balance.
Surely Mr. Leavitt realizes that state and federal powers are purposely out of balance -- and that the balance is tilted heavily in favor of the states -- because our Founding Fathers planned it that way. The profound work of the Convention of 1787 gave only a few specified powers to the federal government, meaning that infinitely innumerable rights, powers, and privileges of the people remained at the state level. The United States Constitution, in its purest form, exemplifies the greatest imbalance in the history of human governance. Before the Constitution was ratified, Madison affirmed this planned imbalance in the state-federal relationship in The Federalist Papers, #45:
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.
The Conference of the States meets every requirement for a constitutional convention even though it has not been called pursuant to Article V of the Constitution. It would have the legal force of a free people if its proposals were adopted. It would make no difference whether Congress approved or not, since the whole people are superior to all institutions of government and have authority over them.
But should the Conference of the States actually get under way and take on the Constitution, it is hard to know what this constitutional powerhouse would actually do. After initially coming out for a strong state role, Leavitt backed off from that position, as noted in the April 25, 1994 Salt Lake Tribune: "Explaining that he had 'migrated ideologically' from a position of state primacy, Leavitt said he now can 'more fully appreciate the need for a federal government role' in areas such as environment, air quality, public lands and rivers."
Now that the wheels are set in motion for hundreds of state legislators to convene for the stated purpose of correcting the federal "imbalance," which cause will Leavitt embrace? Will he champion an increase or a decrease in federal powers? Please bear in mind that all federal powers are enumerated in the Constitution: Congress has 26 powers, the President has six, and the Supreme Court has only three.
So if the Conference takes powers from Washington, which of the enumerated (constitutional) powers will it take? Will the states take power over interstate commerce, the postal service, or the roads that connect the postal system? Will they take from Congress the power to coin money and regulate its value? Will the states deprive the federal government of the power to borrow money or to collect taxes? Is it likely that the states will take over the power to declare war and to raise and support armies? Will the states conduct foreign affairs, take command of the military forces, or assume the veto powers of the President?
These are vital questions, because -- beyond these areas -- the federal government has precious few powers. If the Conference is intent on making longterm structural change in the state-federal relationship, then it must either reduce or increase federal powers.
Although Governor Leavitt offers only vague ideas on "restoring balance" and the kind of changes he envisions for the Constitution, it is not difficult to understand the kind of structural changes advocated by the Council of State Governments. In 1989, for example, it endorsed amending the Tenth Amendment as follows: "Whether a power is one reserved to the states or to the people shall be decided by the Courts."
This incredible proposal, the transfer of state power to the federal court system, should sound an alarm to any legislator contemplating a Conference of the States hosted by the Council of State Governments or by anyone else at this perilous time in our history.
Judging by the motivation of various state leaders, the Conference organizers really don't want to assume any of the proper functions of the federal system. Logically then, they must want to formalize the unauthorized powers -- that is, they must want to certify, the unconstitutional powers of government, both state and federal. They need a convention to do that. They need Resolutions of Participation and state-certified delegates to do that. They need the powers (pretended or otherwise) of a sovereign people to do that.
On the other hand, if the true goal of the organizers is to strip the federal government of its unauthorized powers, then a convention-empowered Conference of the States is not necessary. Accordingly, the resolutions being passed in the states have one main purpose and one only: to amend the Constitution to legalize that which is now unconstitutional; to usurp the undelegated powers of the people and delegate them to government.
The real motivation behind the Conference of the States is the very opposite of the avowed purpose, otherwise no high powered convocation would be needed. The states could announce their assertion of the Tenth Amendment in a telephone conference call, and divest themselves of federal usurpations by engaging only in those state-federal activities for which there is constitutional authority. The states, whether they meet or not, already possess the power to cast aside the unconstitutional shackles of the federal government. All the states need do to escape federal oppression is to send the federal checks back to Washington with the following explanation:
We respectfully return checks paid out of the federal treasury for activities that the federal government has no constitutional authority to engage in or to impose upon the states as set forth in the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.
Delegates from many states are signing on with the Conference because the federal government has mandated programs without providing the funding. Their intentions are quite clear: They want amendments that will force Uncle Sam to pay for their programs relating to welfare, the environment, health care, highways, land management, public school subsidies, poverty programs, housing, senior citizens, downtown parking, etc. Other than that, of course, they want the federal government to leave the states alone. Never mind that the mandates themselves should be eliminated.
If held, the Conference would likely adopt amendments that would make legal that which is now unconstitutional. Many states would probably agree to increase the power of the federal government by insisting that the federal government fund the programs it mandates.
Governor Mike Leavitt obviously realizes he made a tactical error in openly calling for a constitutional convention last year. But his ostensible retreat from that unpopular proposal, his mollification of those governors who want federal money for their own welfare-state programs, and his "ideological migration" in support of a greater role for the federal government, exemplify the consummate politician.
But these are not the Governor's first "migrations." In 1993 and 1994 he was one of eight state executives who participated in the National Education Goals Panel which helped compose the infamous Goals 2000. This is the program which has radically accelerated the unconstitutional federalization of American education. Was the governor ignorant of his role in violation of the Tenth Amendment when he handed our children over to the feds? Is he really the anguished tribune of the Tenth Amendment, or is he instead a political opportunist, duly flattered and urged on by the intergovernmental crowd that has long sought radical changes in our form of government? The Utah governor has found a warm and willing reception among those who, since the 1960s, have worked to abolish the states and to establish in their place a federally managed regional government.
Leavitt exults that public sentiment is growing for the big summit at Philadelphia, but we disagree. On the contrary, media sentiment is growing. Or perhaps better stated, the managers of mass media see a perfect forum of pigeons preparing the way for their agenda. Editors and writers who have spent their lives scoffing at the Constitution are playing this game with all they can muster. The pages of our liberal papers are brim with flag-waving commentary on the "rebirth of America," and the "new role" of the states as masters of the federal monster. Cartoonists are outdoing themselves with the big foot of Uncle Sam shown as being thwarted by a sword-swinging little state. But the question persists: Why have the champions of big government suddenly discovered the Tenth Amendment?
We offer this answer: Because the call for the convention-empowered Conference conveniently sidesteps Article V, and the only final judge of the Conference's actions will be the people themselves. If the American people can be carried away in a false euphoria over this enormous fraud, they will ratify amendments that will tear apart the very fabric of republican government.
For the most part, Americans do not comprehend the constitutional role of their government or their responsibilities regarding it. Polls taken in recent years indicate an appalling ignorance of our system among the great majority of Americans. According to a national survey sponsored by the Hearst Corporation in 1987 (the bicentennial year of the U.S. Constitution), 45 percent of the respondents mistakenly believed that the Marxist principle, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need," is found in the U.S. Constitution, 49 percent mistakenly believed that the President can "suspend the Constitution in time of war or national emergency," and 75 percent mistakenly believed that the Constitution guarantees "a free public education through high school."
The Conference of the States is most emphatically not a proposal of the people; it is a highly sophisticated, well-financed production that is being sold to state officials on a false premise and a deceitful promise.
Our immediate concern centers on the Resolutions of Participation being rushed through the statehouses of America. Every effort must be made to block them. Our nation's best informed citizens need to voice their opposition loudly and clearly. Governors and legislators who understand the Constitution and know it is not flawed must be willing to speak out in opposition to this elaborate plan to alter it.. We must not permit the calling of a state-authorized Conference imbued with federal convention powers at this point in our history.
Vol. 11, No. 12
June 12, 1995
Table of Contents More on Constitutional Convention
Victories in the Con-Con Fight
by Robert W. Lee
On May 19, 1994, Utah Governor Mike Leavitt publicly unveiled his controversial proposal to convene a Conference of the States for the purpose of promoting "fundamental, structural change" to restore a proper balance between the federal government and the states. Two days earlier, in a memorandum addressed to interested parties, Leavitt and his deputy for policy, LaVarr Webb, claimed that the Conference of the States process would be "powerful" because it "relies upon precedents established by the Founding Fathers at the time of our nation's birth."
Describing our current national government as "outdated and old-fashioned," they asserted that "the problem we confront today regarding balance in the federal system is similar to what the Founding Fathers of this country faced more than 200 years ago with regard to the Articles of Confederation." The duo declared that it is "vitally important to see how the Founding Fathers solved the problems of the weak Confederation," since some of what occurred then "can help guide us today in restoring balance in the federal system."
History reveals that the Founders called a meeting of the states, which became the constitutional convention, which, though convened for the purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, scrapped the Articles in favor of an entirely new document.
Less Than a Con-Con?
In their May 17th memo, Leavitt and Webb expressed the hope that a process "less disruptive than calling a constitutional convention" can be achieved, but held out the possibility that if "Congress refused to consider or pass the amendments" that emerge from a Conference of the States, "the states would have the option themselves of calling a constitutional convention to consider the amendments."
The governor's proposal drew prompt criticism from conservatives concerned about its potential for instigating a constitutional convention. Leavitt "solved" the problem with a semantic adjustment, dropping all references to a con-con while keeping the original blueprint intact. A revised version of the plan, carrying his name alone, was printed in July 1994 by Utah's two largest daily newspapers. The revision dropped the reference to "calling a constitutional convention to consider the amendments," and asserted instead that "the states would have the final option of taking constitutional action themselves." In addition, the reference to reliance "upon precedents established by the Founding Fathers at our nation's birth" became reliance "upon principles established at the time of our nation's birth...." (Emphasis added.) The switch from "precedents" to "principles" was viewed by some as an attempt to divert attention from the only precedent for a Conference of the States, which resulted in the only constitutional convention held to date in our country's history.
The potential for a con-con was still there, to be sure. It was merely camouflaged in a way that misled many to believe that it had been abandoned. By January of this year, the Conference of the States had been endorsed by most governors, as well as by such prestigious organizations as the National Governors Association, the Council of State Governments, the Advisory Council on Intergovernmental Relations, and the National Conference of State Legislatures. Quick approval by at least a simple majority of states (26 of the 50) required to convene the Conference appeared to be a sure thing, and talk within pro-Conference circles shifted from whether the conference would be held to what its outcome would be.
The first step after a majority of states signed on was to be an organizing session in July, followed by the Conference itself in late October during which concrete proposals (including constitutional amendments) would be approved.
First to pass a "Resolution of Participation," on January 16, 1995, was Governor Leavitt's own state of Utah. To assure that he would have the honor of being first to sign the measure, the legislature passed it on the first day of the session (January 16th) without hearings or debate. The vote was 75 to 0 in the House and 27 to I in the Senate. Two days later, Arkansas followed suit, also without hearings. On January 20th, Virginia gave its blessing (without hearings), as did Delaware (without hearings) on January 26th and Kentucky (without hearings) the next day. On February 2nd, resolutions were passed with similar haste and lack of scrutiny in Idaho, Missouri, and Iowa. Ohio, Arizona, Wyoming, and South Dakota soon came aboard, and by mid-February the tally stood at 12 to 0 in favor of a Conference of the States. The juggernaut was rolling, and did indeed appear to be unstoppable.
But then the well-oiled Conference machine ran into a brick wall. Whereas early votes approving Resolutions of Participation had been taken in an informational vacuum, a grassroots opposition movement led by the John Birch Society and its nationwide network of educational activists began to materialize. The Birch Society had first drawn its members' attention to the threat posed by the Conference of the States in its January Bulletin, where Don Fotheringham, the Society's point man on the issue, warned that the Leavitt plan was "potentially more dangerous than legitimate calls for a con-con. The governor, it seems, has concocted a whole new strategy for making radical changes to our form of government -- a strategy that conflicts with the amendment procedures provided by Article V in the U.S. Constitution." While acknowledging that the current federal-state balance "tilts to the far left in favor of federal power" and "is in dire need of correction," Fotheringham stressed that "no legislative or structural alterations can properly be obtained by any joint activity of state executives."
To date, the most useful educational tool exposing flaws in the Conference of the States has been Fotheringham's article, "Con-Con Call," which appeared in the February 6th issue of THE NEW AMERICAN.
Once that article began to circulate widely, demands for legislative hearings increased and many lawmakers were made aware of the ominous implications of the proposed Conference for the first time.
The Grassroots Grow
Serious grassroots opposition to the Conference of the States initially surfaced in Colorado. The Senate approved the resolution in mid-February, but by a surprisingly close vote of 21 to 14. The measure had been expected to pass with minimal opposition. Spurred by Birch Society activists and other concerned citizens, the House Judiciary Committee scheduled hearings.
On February 16th, the John Birch Society's Don Fotheringham testified against the Conference. Fotheringham recollects that during his testimony he told the committee that our country's Founders "understood their sovereignty. They exercised it in liberating themselves from England, in issuing the Declaration of Independence, in establishing the Articles of Confederation, and in ordaining the U.S. Constitution. They understood the power that resides in a free people, the power to create a government, and the power to disband one." Fotheringham testified that Resolutions of Participation in the Conference "would consolidate those same powers, no matter what the meeting may be called." In passing such a resolution, he advised the lawmakers, "You establish a delegation that is no longer accountable to the legislature of Colorado. The process of appointing delegates to meet with a majority of the other states to conduct federal business releases them from all accountability to this body. That is because, in a federal setting, such delegates are accountable only to the people. That is the legal, the peaceful, process by which the revolutionary force of a sovereign people is consolidated."
Commenting on attempts to add mollifying amendments to the resolution, supposedly to make it con-con safe, Fotheringham described such efforts as worthless, since "no amendment could be written that would have more power than the forces consolidated by this process. Delegates of the people are superior to Article V. They are superior to the Constitution. They are the creators of constitutions, presidents, courts, and congresses."*
* In a number of states, one or the other (or both) of two amendments have been appended to the resolution in the attempt to appease critics. They read: "Adoption of the Resolution does not constitute an application by the Legislature of [State] for the calling of a federal Constitutional Convention within the meaning of Article V of the United States Constitution"; and, "The Conference of the States may not be convened as a federal Constitutional Convention under Article V of the United States Constitution."
At the conclusion of the day's testimony, Senate Majority Leader Tim Foster, who had spoken in favor of the resolution, urged the committee to postpone a vote until a majority of other states had passed their resolutions. That way, Colorado could avoid defeating the measure and thereby slowing momentum for the Conference. No vote was taken, and the resolution died when the legislature adjourned for the year on May 8th.
On April 2, 1995, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that Governor Leavitt's policy director, LaVarr Webb, had "traveled to Sacramento in March to help guide California's formal 'Resolution of Participation' to passage. There, in a legislative committee room, Webb stared down dozens of angry conservatives worried about undermining the Constitution. The California lawmakers killed the resolution" by a vote of four to one. Tribune reporter Laurie Sullivan quoted Governor Leavitt as saying: "They had 80-some-odd people turn out to the hearing. They were booing and demonstrating. LaVarr was basically the only [supporter] there."
According to Sullivan, "In a span of just weeks, the John Birch Society has heaved the conference locomotive offtrack." For his part, Webb told a reporter for Salt Lake City's Deseret News that "there is a lot of opposition from the real extreme right-wing wackos," whom he described as "irrational" and unwilling to "listen to reason."
As we write, Resolutions of Participation have passed both houses of legislatures in 14 states, but have been scuttled in 20 others, including:
Representative Dean Mock was instrumental in keeping his colleagues up to date regarding the ominous implications of the Conference of the States. Two slightly differing resolutions languished with little support in either the House or Senate. They died when the legislature adjourned for the year on April 30th.
Don Fotheringham testified against the Conference on March 29th, but the state's House Government Affairs Committee approved the resolution that day by a narrow six to five vote. On April 18th, however, the full House voted down the resolution by a margin of 57 to 27. Babs Wilson, a parish chairwoman of the Republican Party, played a key role in generating opposition to the resolution.
After identical Conference resolutions were introduced in the Senate and House, local John Birch Society members Ben and Betsy Boyce arranged for Don Fotheringham to testify during hearings held in the Senate on February 28th and in the House the next day. Summarizing his "Con-Con Call" article from THE NEW AMERICAN, Fotheringham urged the Maryland lawmakers to read the article and carefully consider what a Conference of the States would actually entail. When he indicated to committee Chairman (and Senate Majority Leader) Clarence Blount that he was nearing the end of his testimony, the chairman asked him to instead "please go on," which he did. No vote was taken that day.
During the next day's hearings before the House Commerce and Government Matters Committee, Colorado State Senator Duke made a strong case against the resolution, explaining the uncertainty of the ratification process even were the Conference to comply with Article V and submit its action plan (States' Petition) to the states.
In testimony Fotheringham cited Utah's experience during the debate over repeal of prohibition. Utah was a "dry" state, due in large part to the influence of its heavily Mormon population, and all members of the legislature had agreed to vote against the 21st Amendment. When Congress and the liquor lobby realized that the legislature of Utah and many other states had no intention of ratifying the 21st Amendment, Congress exercised its Article V option to circumvent the legislatures by authorizing state ratifying conventions instead. Congress and special interests then influenced the delegate selection process to assure that even "dry" states would pass the anti-prohibition amendment. It was by that strategy that Utah, ironically, became the 36th and decisive state to legalize the sale of liquor, despite overwhelming opposition from the state legislature.
Maryland's Senate committee opted to postpone a vote on the Conference matter. But on March 13th, the House committee rejected the resolution by a lop-sided tally of 16 to 4, thereby laying it to rest for the year.
Montana. Hearings were held in the Montana House on March 14th. Again, Don Fotheringham was there, as were Montana Governor Marc Racico and Governor Leavitt. It was the first time that Fotheringham and Leavitt had faced each other during a hearing. The governors were allowed to speak both first and last. In between, Fotheringham focused on the enormous power that could be wielded by the Conference due to the Resolutions of Participation process. He explained why the action plan produced by the Conference would not necessarily come back to the state legislatures for ratification, and made clear that the John Birch Society was not accusing Conference sponsors of attempting to hold an Article V convention per se, but rather of consolidating the forces that would amount to such a convention.
As Fotheringham has pointed out on other occasions, delegates to the Conference of the States would already have the con-con power, so there would be no need to announce to the world that it was a con-con. If and when 26 legislature-approved Resolutions of Participation are secured, the delegates to the Conference "can do whatever they please, whether they call it a constitutional convention or not." The resolutions, Fotheringham stresses, are the problem. "They energize the concept. When you meet in a federal setting with other states to do federal business, you are a con-con whether you call it one or not."
The hearing was thorough, both sides were given ample opportunity to make their case, and the event was extensively covered by both the print and electronic media. The House committee opted not to vote that day, but later rejected the resolution (March 14th) by a vote of six to five.
New Mexico. On March 7th, Fotheringham arrived at the state capitol in Santa Fe to give testimony at hearings which, according to the day's printed agenda, were to be held on the House side. It soon became apparent that a proverbial "fast one" was being attempted, since the House hearings were merely for the purpose of appropriating expense money for Conference delegates. Some sleuthing by Fotheringham and John Birch Society members Lee Gonzales and Gary Krieger eventually determined that the Conference, under another name, was being scrutinized by the Senate Rules Committee. The three arrived at the hearing room as Senate Minority Whip Timothy Jennings was about to call for a vote. Jennings mistakenly assumed that Fotheringham was representing Mike Leavitt, and told him, "Governor Leavitt offered to come here today, but I told him I didn't think it would be necessary and that we had everything all worked out here." After allowing brief statements by Fotheringham, Gonzales, and Krieger, the committee passed the resolution unanimously. It was subsequently approved by the full Senate and sent to the House Judiciary Committee.
The bill was placed on the House calendar for March 15th. By law, the legislature would adjourn by noon on March 18th. No hearings were held on the 15th, nor at any other time. Over the next four days, however, a number of key legislators availed themselves of the opportunity to study the issue more thoroghly. At the last moment, only three minutes prior to adjournment, the House Speaker called up the Conference resolution for a vote. He claimed that there was no longer a con-con problem, since the measure had been amended to preclude one. Thanks to some last-minute floor work by State Representative Lorenzo Larranaga, however, it quickly became apparent as the voting lights flashed that a major upset was in the making. The resolution went down to defeat, 42 to 21.
Other states in which the Resolution of Participation has either been voted down, or the legislature has adjourned without passing it, include Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Kansas, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and West Virginia.
The Conference of the States will not be held in 1995 as planned. Governor Leavitt and other spokesmen admit that burgeoning grassroots opposition has forced them to cancel the July organizing meeting and to postpone the confab itself that was originally scheduled for October 22nd-25th in Philadelphia.
On April 21st, the Conference of the States steering committee, chaired by Governor Leavitt, met in Florida to figure out how to reverse the misfortune that has befallen the Conference cause. Earlier, Leavitt had indicated that he might be willing to forego the Resolutions of Participation, which would solve the problem, but the steering committee (with his support) not only decided to keep the Resolutions as part of the process, but increase the effort to achieve passage by a majority of state legislatures next year. Leavitt himself questioned whether or not it would be possible to attract governors and other state leaders to the Conference if the Resolutions were abandoned, since it would be perceived as a defeat, and there would be a risk of losing top-level delegations because they would have lost a sense of urgency.
The steering committee also decided to launch a massive effort to establish a fund-raising and lobbying entity to help spread the pro-Conference message to state lawmakers prior to legislative action next year. According to a March 25th report by the Salt Lake Tribune's Laurie Sullivan, the "American Legislative Exchange Council [ALEC] and the State Legislative Leaders Foundation will join the Council of State Governments, the National Governors Association, and the National Conference of State Legislators as official conference conveners." ALEC has for many years advocated a constitutional convention, if necessary, to achieve approval of a balanced budget amendment. The Washington-based Heritage Foundation, which periodically lends its aura of conservatism to questionable causes (it backed GATT and NAFTA, and is presently urging that NATO be expanded to include "former" communist countries that the U.S. would be obligated to defend), is, according to Governor Leavitt, one of the entities "drafting scholarly position papers stating the conference could not, would not become a constitutional convention."
As noted earlier, the Conference resolution has passed in 14 states, but has been rejected by vote or inaction in 20. As we write, the count since mid-February stands at two for and 20 against the Resolutions of Participation. It is an impressive turn-around, but is also merely the first skirmish in what could prove to be a long, drawn-out conflict. Those who would defend the Constitution by opposing the Conference must guard against complacency, and redouble their efforts in coming months, lest they risk the fate of the hare that raced the tortoise in Aesop's instructive fable.
Plans are presently underway for a "federalism summit" this autumn which, Conference promoters hope, will attract the support of at least 26 states. If that magic number is reached, Governor Leavitt has said that the "summit" will be transformed into a "convening meeting" at which governors and legislators will make plans for a future Conference of the States. Otherwise, the event will simply proceed as a "summit," and may include not only governors and legislative leaders, but "perhaps even mayors, city councilmen, members of the courts -- both state and national ...." It will, Leavitt predicts, "be an important watershed event in and of itself..." As for the Conference of the States, he speculates that "it will happen, and it will happen sometime, but it doesn't have to happen immediately."
Opening Statement of CHAIRMAN CHARLES T. CANADY
Constitution Subcommittee Hearing on H.J. Res. 84:
"Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States to provide a procedure by which the States may propose constitutional amendments"
March 25, 1998
2237 Rayburn House Office Building 10:00 a.m.
Good morning. In a letter to a friend, Thomas Jefferson once wrote:
I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered, and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, there was significant debate over the procedure for amending the Constitution. Article V of the United States Constitution provides that amendments to the Constitution can be proposed in two ways, by Congress or by constitutional convention. After an amendment is proposed by either method, it must be ratified by the state legislatures or state conventions in three-fourths of the states (currently 38) to become part of the Constitution.
Under the first method, Congress can propose amendments to the Constitution by a vote of two-thirds in both the Senate and the House. This is the method of proposing constitutional amendments that has in fact been used. Since the First Congress through the present day, a total of 10,980 proposals have been introduced to amend the Constitution. Thirty-three of these were proposed by Congress to the states, and 27 have been ratified.
The second method of proposing amendments is triggered upon the applications or petitions of two-thirds of the state legislatures. Under this method, after Congress receives the applications, Article V provides that Congress shall call a constitutional convention to propose constitutional amendments.
The convention method has never been formally used, although there have been some efforts that have come close to the requisite two-thirds of the states. For example, 32 of the necessary 34 state legislatures have passed resolutions petitioning Congress to call a convention to propose an amendment requiring a balanced federal budget. History shows that the Framers likely intended the convention process to be a viable method of amending the Constitution. In The Federalist No. 43, James Madison wrote of Article V's amendment process that it "equally enables the general and the State governments to originate the amendment of errors, as they may be pointed out by the experience on one side, or on the other."
However, the process by which States may apply for a constitutional convention under Article V is unclear, and there is disagreement over what shape such a convention would take if it were called. As a result of this uncertainty, many commentators have warned of the dangers of a "runaway convention" that would exceed its mandate and not necessarily reflect the true spirit of the Constitution and the wishes of the people. The specter of a "runaway convention" seems to have been accepted by many as a convincing political argument.
Some scholars counter with a different perspective, which is that the mere threat of a convention can prod the federal government into action on the specific issue or amendment that initially drove the effort for a convention. Even though no convention has been called, these commentators reason, the existence of the option can have a "prodding" effect.
House Joint Resolution 84 proposes an amendment to the Constitution to provide a procedure by which the states may propose constitutional amendments. Also called the "States' Initiative," the resolution is sponsored by Rep. Tom Bliley (R-Va.), and has eight House cosponsors. I wish to thank Chairman Bliley for his leadership in introducing this measure and I look forward to continuing the important discussion in Congress over the balance of powers within our constitutional system.
Statement of The Honorable Tom Bliley, M.C.
Before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution
on H.J.Res. 84
Wednesday, March 25, 1998
I want to thank you for holding this hearing today on H.J Res. 84. This legislation I have sponsored with Congressman Virgil Goode of Rocky Mount, Virginia and 7 others symbolizes what we call in Virginia the States' Initiative.
When the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution in Philadelphia in 1787, they drew upon life's experiences and history to perfect the ideas and ideals the Constitution embraces. After they finished writing the Constitution, the Founding Fathers were wise enough to know they could not foresee the future. As a result, Article V provides for a mechanism to amend the Constitution.
We all know the Constitution is not perfect, even after 27 amendments. The Constitution has, although, protected the individual liberties all Americans have enjoyed for over two hundred years.
As the proud holder of the seat first held by James Madison, my first objective is to never do any harm to the Constitution. However, the Founding Fathers acknowledged a need to amend the Constitution. The States' Initiative is a direct descendant of Madison's writings.
In Federalist Paper 43, James Madison wrote, "useful alterations will be suggested by experience. The Constitution moreover equally enables the general and the state governments to originate the amendment of errors as they may be pointed out by the experience on one side or on the other".
At present, Article V provides for two ways to amend the Constitution.
The first involves the presentation of an amendment by Congress to the states for ratification.
The second is by Constitutional Convention, convened at the request of the state legislatures.
Even with both methods available, to date, all amendments to the Constitution have been enacted following passage by the Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states.
Some have asserted that the second method has not been as effective as intended by the Framers.
On the Op/Ed pages of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, my local newspaper, Edward Grimsley wrote about the dilemma which would be remedied by the States' Initiative. Edward Grimsley wrote, "In the hands of the people the amending process could produce some truly wonderful results."
By allowing the States an effective mechanism to amend the Constitution, more power can be returned to the people. After all, "We the People" are the first 3 words of the Constitution.
Why is the States' Initiative necessary? Persuasive arguments have been made that a Constitutional Convention might alter the Constitution more expansively than intended by proponents of a specific proposed amendment. This is known as the fear of a "run-away" convention.
The States Iniative implements a more effective method by which states could take the initiative in the process by which the Constitution is amended. This bill allows the states to initiate the amending process that is devoid of the perils of a "run-away" Constitutional Convention.
Another problem with a Constitutional Convention is that even if it isn't a "run-away" convention (that is, even if the Constitutional Convention met to adopt only one amendment), the mere fact that the states met could have a far-reaching jurisprudential impact. Would the Supreme Court view a Constitutional Convention which kept the pre-existing Constitution as an implicit ratification of prior Supreme Court rulings? This would cause those on the left (who oppose certain Rehnquist Court rulings) and those on the right (who oppose certain Warren Court rulings) a considerable amount of trouble.
To restore the Framers' design, that is a design where the states could initiate the amendment process, our proposal would allow a Constitutional amendment to be presented to Congress after two-thirds of the states indicated approval of an identical amendment via their state legislatures.
If two-thirds of each house of Congress does not agree to disapprove of the proposed amendment, it would be submitted to the states for ratification.
Upon ratification by three-fourths of the states legislatures, the amendment would become part of the Constitution.
I urge your support for this common sense legislation that returns as an option, the power to amend the Constitution to the states, as the Framers intended. While I am not beholden to the exact ratios specified in my amendment, I believe they stand as a good starting point for a discussion of providing states with the power that the Framers envisioned.
The States Initiative is supported by Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA), Rep. Floyd Spence (R-SC), Rep. Bob Stump (R-AZ), Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), Rep. Paul Gillmor (R-OH), Rep. Merrill Cook (R-UT), and Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ). It also is supported by Governor Mike Leavitt of Utah (R), Governor Don Sundquist of Tennessee (R), Governor George Voinovich of Ohio (R), and George Allen, former Governor of Virginia (R) who will testify today in support of the States' Initiative.
H.J. Res. 84 also has the support of the Arizona State Senate President Brenda Burns (R), Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives Jo Ann Davidson (R) and Ohio State Senate President Richard Finan (R). The Western Governors Association also has endorsed the States' Initiative.
I urge my fellow colleagues to support this common sense legislation that returns as an option, the power to amend the Constitution to the States, as the Founding Fathers intended.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE GEORGE ALLEN
BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION
OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ON FEDERALISM AND THE STATES' INITIATIVE
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 1998
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I appreciate the opportunity to be here today. I have fond memories of this committee, on which I had the pleasure of serving on when I was in the House.
And it is indeed a privilege to join my good friend, Chairman Tom Bliley, an outstanding leader in the fight for a balanced federal system. He is to be commended for introducing H.J.Res. 84, which embodies the concept that we in Virginia have been calling the States' Initiative. This constitutional amendment is a necessary structural change if we are to reinvigorate our federalist system and restore the balance between the federal government and the States.
As a former Governor of Virginia, I approach this subject of federal-state relations with a perspective very similar to that of two of my early and esteemed predecessors -- Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson. Like them -- and like many Governors who have served since their time, not only in Virginia but around the
country -- I have a healthy distrust of centralized power, especially power centralized in Washington.
Our country was founded on notions of individualistic liberty and limited government, and with the expectation that people would be free to chart their own course and control their own destiny through self-government based in their local communities and their states.
The Founders pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to achieve freedom and independence from an oppressive monarchy in England. With that hard-fought victory won, they were not about to surrender their liberties to an all-powerful central government -- this one, on the north banks of the Potomac.
Instead, they took pains to guard against centralized power through an elaborate constitutional system of checks and balances. For the federal government, power was divided among three branches of government and the legislative powers further split between the House and Senate.
At least as important, if not more so, was the shared sovereignty between the States and the federal government. As Patrick Henry concluded, "If there be a real check intended to be left on Congress, it must be left in the State Governments."
The power of the federal government was to be limited and enumerated, with all remaining powers reserved by the 10th Amendment to the States and to the people. The onus was on the States to jealously guard their freedoms.
Almost from the beginning of our country's history, however, the federal government began to encroach upon the authority and freedoms intended for the States. As early as 1825, Thomas Jefferson observed:
"I see, as you do, and with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides with which the federal branch of our government is advancing towards the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the States, and the consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic, and that, too, by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power. Take together the decisions of the Federal Court, the doctrines of the President, and the misconstructions of the constitutional compact acted on by the legislature of the federal branch, and it is but too evident that the three ruling branches of that department are in combination to strip their colleagues, the State authorities, of the powers reserved by them, and to exercise themselves all functions foreign and domestic."
Today, there is virtually no area of public responsibility or private activity in which federal bureaucrats do not assert the power to override the will of the people in the States, through federal mandates, edicts and rulings.
The Framers intended the States to be jealous guardians of their responsibilities and power, but, historically, the States have faced a dilemma in resisting the growth of federal power at their expense. On the one hand, questions regarding the scope of the federal government's jurisdiction are resolved by federal courts, which generally have favored more expansive interpretations of federal power. On the other hand, the States' recourse to the constitutional amendment process has been impeded by Congress' virtual monopoly over the initiation of constitutional amendments.
Use of the Article V "convention" method of amendment, intended by our Founders to allow direct State action, has never been used because of fear that a constitutional convention called by the States would become a "runaway" assemblage that would seek to rewrite our entire national charter.
So the power has gravitated almost inexorably to Washington, and we have paid a heavy price. While there are winners and losers from issue to issue, the truth is that all of our citizens enjoy less freedom and less opportunity for self-government as a result. Instead of decisions being made in our States and our local communities -- where citizens can make their voices and views heard -- more and more of the decisions that affect our lives are being made by unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats here in Washington, D.C.
This condition breeds a sense of powerlessness and unconnected distance among our citizens with their government. That feeling of powerlessness in turn breeds apathy and cynicism about the political process. And that apathy and cynicism about the political process can shake the very foundations of our free society and the rule of law on which it is based. They may threaten a society in which, for the first time in the long history of mankind, people were to be regarded as the masters, and government as the servants -- not the other way around.
The most insightful framers of the Constitution feared this centralization of power and the resulting loss of freedom and self-determination by the American people. In vain, they fashioned the Tenth amendment as a "parchment barrier," to borrow James Madison's term. But Madison foresaw what we now know from experience: that the Tenth Amendment alone could not restrain federal power. The people in the States must have the means to defend their own ideals and prerogatives. A new, workable avenue for the States and the people to change their Constitution must be crafted. And since fears of a "runaway" constitutional convention have rendered impractical the State's existing constitutional means of self-defense.
That was the conclusion reached in Virginia by the Governor's Council on Self-Determination and Federalism, which I established by Executive Order in Virginia in 1994. I would like to submit for the record the report of the Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments. This distinguished panel included, among others, State Senator (now Congressman) Virgil Goode, former Congressman Caldwell Butler, Judge Robert Bork, and Professor Nelson Lund, from whom you will hear shortly.
It was the conclusion reached by the five leading State government organizations at the bipartisan Federalism Summit in Cincinnati in 1995.
It was the conclusion reached by 30 Republican Governors who convened in historic Williamsburg in 1994. At that eventful meeting, we adopted a statement known as the Williamsburg Resolve, making clear our determination to reclaim the States' prerogatives and to restore the constitutional checks and balances that stand guard in defense of our liberties.
Joined in Williamsburg by the newly elected leadership of the House and Senate, we charted a new course in relations between the federal and State governments. Certainly, some of the results have been heartening.
Almost immediately, the 104th Congress adopted the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act. That legislation has produced a new awareness of and accountability for intergovernmental mandates.
The sweeping welfare reform legislation signed into law the following year marked a turning point, devolving unprecedented authority back to the States to design and run their own welfare systems.
WHO'S WHO IN THE COS PUSH
A tenth state has quietly endorsed a plan that could threaten the Constitution.
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“From a scientific viewpoint, the only real contender for the seat of the mind, or even the soul, is the brain,” says Michael C. Corballis in his new book The Recursive Mind: The origins of Human Language, Thought, and Civilization.
Corballis is an evolutionary biologist, and, as he mentions repeatedly, an atheist. So when he says that the brain is the “only real contender” for the soul what he actually appears to mean is that there is no real contention at all. You don’t need to assume outside forces to explain human beings. You just need to look at the holy atavistic trinity of evolutionary psyche—primitive cultures, great apes, and autistics. Using the deviations of chimps, rain-forest dwellers, and Rain Man, science can triangulate normality through entirely material means. There is no need to postulate a soul, or God, or transcendence, or miracles.
The refusal of miracles is particularly important for Corballis, and it leads him to some surprising places. Specifically, it causes him to reject the idea that what makes humans into humans is language. Other writers, like Noam Chomsky, have argued that Homo sapiens became the Homo sapiens we know and (more or less) love when they learned to talk.
Chomsky believes the ability to understand language is innate, and that that ability has to precede the use of language itself. This creates a difficulty, though. Joe Hominid, in Chomsky’s view, would have gained no advantage just because deep in his skull he was suddenly able to talk to Jane Hominid. Eventually, of course, the Hominids would learn to converse and this would help them collaborate in the hunting and tracking of mammoths and/or tubers. Until they actually had language, though, the ability to speak would have done nothing for them.
Since, in Chomsky’s view, there was a lag between ability for language and actual language, natural selection is taken out of the picture. Instead, Chomsky suggests that the ability to use language was a bolt from the developmental blue. Or, in Corballis’ paraphrase, it was the result of, “some single and singular event causing a rewiring, perhaps a fortuitous mutation, in the brain.” Corballis notes drily that Chomsky’s “account, although not driven by religious doctrine, does smack of the miraculous.”
Corballis’ goal, then, is to get rid of the miracle. And he decides that the best way to do this is by unseating language as the key to humanity. For Corballis, In the beginning was the Word, should be replaced by, In the beginning was recursion.
Recursive thinking, for Corballis, is the ability to think about thinking. He identifies several recursive processes as characteristic of human beings. First, he points to mental time travel—the ability to imagine past events within current consciousness. This is the basis both of memory and of fiction, which for Corballis is a kind of memory of the future. Corballis also singles out theory of mind—the ability to imagine the state of mind of others (and therefore to imagine them imagining your state of mind and you imagining their state of mind imagining your state of mind imagining their state of mind, and so on.) Corballis argues that theory of mind allows for the development of language. In order to talk to somebody, you have to have a sense that there is a somebody, a consciousness, out there to talk to. Recursion allows humans to share each other thoughts, and it is the sharing of thoughts which allows for language, rather than language which allows for the sharing of thoughts.
It’s an intriguing thesis, and to defend it, Corballis comes up with—well, with not much, at least as far as I can tell. He shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that songbird patterns can be explained without assuming that songbirds have recursive thinking. He demonstrates that primates other than humans appear to have only a rudimentary theory of mind—though it’s hard to tell exactly how rudimentary, since their language is rudimentary too, so we can’t ask them. He notes that those with certain kinds of autism seem to have trouble with recursive thinking and with language. He puts great emphasis on the so-called mirror neurons in monkeys, which appear to be activated when the monkey sees another monkey acting in the same way as the monkey, and also seem to have something to do with language. So the mirror-neurons may link recursion and language—unless, of course, you turn to Corballis’ notes, where he admits that many researchers think the whole mirror-neuron/language connection is a load of monkey pooh.
John Horgan, writing in The Undiscovered Mind, suggested that Corballis’ difficulty in shoring up his theories is not his fault. Rather, it’s endemic to his discipline.
Evolutionary psychology is in many respects a strangely inconsequential exercise, especially given the evangelical fervor with which it is touted by its adherents. Evolutionists can take any set of psychological and social data and show how they can be explained in Darwinian terms. But they cannot perform experiments that will establish that their view is right and the alternative view is wrong—or vice versa.
The specific problem in Corballis’ book is that he cannot experimentally separate recursion and language. How does he know that language didn’t allow us to engage in recursive thinking rather than the other way around? His efforts to nail down this point—by, for example, referring to a remote tribe which some people think may have non-recursive language, or by pointing to autistic people who have difficulty with some kinds of recursive thought but can still learn language—are inconclusive. In fact, after reading this book, I’ve come away impressed not with how much evolutionary psychologists know, but how little. One sheepish note buried in the back of the book even admits that primatologists aren’t sure whether gorillas incessantly vocalize or hardly vocalize at all. If we can’t tell how often gorillas howl, how are we supposed to figure out how human speech is related to human consciousness?
It’s not that Corballis doesn’t have any good ideas. His argument that language developed first as gestures rather than speech, for example, seems both clever and perfectly plausible. And seeing recursion as the essential human trait is entirely reasonable… and even (perhaps despite Corballis’ best efforts) has theological precedent. Reinhold Niebuhr, for example, argued that what made humans human was their capacity for “self-transcendence.” Human beings can look at themselves looking at themselves; they know they’re going to live and that (less cheerily) they’re going to die. “Man’s melancholy over the prospect of death is the proof of his partial transcendence over the natural process which ends in death,” Niebuhr writes in his essay “Humour and Faith.” Recursion, our ability to see ourselves being ourselves, is, for Niebuhr, both our triumph and our tragedy.
Corballis doesn’t see it as a triumph or a tragedy, though. Nor does he phrase recursion in terms of self-transcendence. That sort of theological language is…well, too theological. Instead, Corballis prefers to discuss material things; why humans stood upright, where the Neanderthals went, how different languages indicate tense. All of which is certainly interesting, but misses the main point.
That point being that humans actually are fairly miraculous. I actually find Corballis’ argument for gradual change under evolutionary pressure more convincing than Chomsky’s theory of sudden mutation. And yet, Chomsky’s bolt from the blue is a metaphoric truth, even if it isn’t a factual one. Humans are really, really different than our closest relatives—more different than can be accounted for on the basis of evolution or genes. There’s a rupture there that defies fully material explanation.
Which is where language, followed or preceded by recursion, comes in. Language is both social, existing between individuals, and private, existing within the core of our identities. “I think therefore I am” is a piece of language. If it can’t be said, it doesn’t exist, and then where are we?
Perhaps even more importantly, language is a material thing; it’s a technology. But it’s also inseparable from ourselves. We create it and it creates us, recursively. Language retools us. We were apes—we still are apes—but we’re apes that are constantly remaking ourselves in the image of words such as “human being.” Evolutionary psychologists can natter on (as Corballis does) about how women are biologically programmed to be nurturers and men are biologically programmed for science. But the more they natter, the more they show that the nattering is what matters, not the programming. What our ancestors did is a lot less important than what they said.
And if the saying is the thing, it’s possible that Corballis is looking for the soul in the wrong place. Perhaps it’s not in the brain, after all. Maybe it’s where the Bible says it is—in that non-space between and within us known as the Word.
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This article needs additional citations for verification. (July 2018)
In radio resource management for wireless and cellular networks, channel allocation schemes allocate bandwidth and communication channels to base stations, access points and terminal equipment. The objective is to achieve maximum system spectral efficiency in bit/s/Hz/site by means of frequency reuse, but still assure a certain grade of service by avoiding co-channel interference and adjacent channel interference among nearby cells or networks that share the bandwidth.
Channel-allocation schemes follow one of two types of strategy:
- Fixed: FCA, fixed channel allocation: manually assigned by the network operator
- DCA, dynamic channel allocation
- DFS, dynamic frequency selection
- Spread spectrum
Static Channel Allocation
In Fixed Channel Allocation or Fixed Channel Assignment (FCA) each cell is given a predetermined set of frequency channels. FCA requires manual frequency planning, which is an arduous task in time-division multiple access (TDMA) and frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) based systems since such systems are highly sensitive to co-channel interference from nearby cells that are reusing the same channel. Another drawback with TDMA and FDMA systems with FCA is that the number of channels in the cell remains constant irrespective of the number of customers in that cell. This results in traffic congestion and some calls being lost when traffic gets heavy in some cells, and idle capacity in other cells.
If FCA is combined with conventional FDMA and perhaps or TDMA, a fixed number of voice channels can be transferred over the cell. A new call can only be connected by an unused channel. If all the channel are occupied than the new call is blocked in this system. There are however several dynamic radio-resource management schemes that can be combined with FCA. A simple form is traffic-adaptive handover threshold, implying that calls from cell phones situated in the overlap between two adjacent cells can be forced to make the handover to the cell with the lowest load for the moment. If FCA is combined with spread spectrum, the maximum number of channels is not fixed in theory, but in practice a maximum limit is applied, since too many calls would cause too high co-channel interference level, causing the quality to be problematic. Spread spectrum allows cell breathing to be applied, by allowing an overloaded cell to borrow capacity (maximum number of simultaneous calls in the cell) from a nearby cell that is sharing the same frequency.
Dynamic Frequency Selection
Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) is a mechanism specified for wireless networks with non-centrally controlled access points, such as wireless LAN (commonly Wi-Fi). It is designed to prevent interference with other usages of the frequency band, such as military radar, satellite communication, and weather radar. The access points would automatically select frequency channels with low interference levels. In case of wireless LAN standard, DFS was standardized in 2003 as part of IEEE 802.11h. Actual frequency band for DFS vary by jurisdiction. It is often enforced for the frequency bands used by Terminal Doppler Weather Radar and C-Band satellite communication. The misconfiguration of DFS had caused significant disruption in weather radar operation during early deployments of 5 GHz Wi-Fi in a number of countries in the world. For example, DFS is also mandated in the 5470-5725 MHz U-NII band for radar avoidance in United States.
Dynamic Channel Allocation
A more efficient way of channel allocation would be Dynamic Channel Allocation or Dynamic Channel Assignment (DCA) in which voice channel are not allocated to cell permanently, instead for every call request base station request channel from MSC. The channel is allocated following an algorithm which accounts the following criteria:
- Future blocking probability in neighboring cells and Reuse distance
- Usage frequency of the candidate channel
- Average blocking probability of the overall system
- Instantaneous channel occupancy distribution
It requires the MSC to collect real time data on channel occupancy, traffic distribution and Received Signal Strength Indications (RSSI). DCA schemes are suggested for TDMA/FDMA based cellular systems such as GSM, but are currently not used in any products. OFDMA systems, such as the downlink of 4G cellular systems, can be considered as carrying out DCA for each individual sub-carrier as well as each timeslot.
DCA can be further classified into centralized and distributed. Some of the centralized DCA schemes are:
- First available (FA): the first available channel satisfying reuse distance requirement is assigned to the call
- Locally optimized dynamic assignment (LODA): cost function is based on the future blocking probability in the neighboring cells
- Selection with maximum usage on the reuse ring (RING): a candidate channel is selected which is in use in the most cells in the co-channel set
DCA and DFS eliminate the tedious manual frequency planning work. DCA also handles bursty cell traffic and utilizes the cellular radio resources more efficiently. DCA allows the number of channels in a cell to vary with the traffic load, hence increasing channel capacity with little costs.
Spread spectrum can be considered as an alternative to complex DCA algorithms. Spread spectrum avoids cochannel interference between adjacent cells, since the probability that users in nearby cells use the same spreading code is insignificant. Thus the frequency channel allocation problem is relaxed in cellular networks based on a combination of spread spectrum and FDMA, for example IS95 and 3G systems. Spread spectrum also facilitate that centrally controlled base stations dynamically borrow resources from each other depending on the traffic load, simply by increasing the maximum allowed number of simultaneous users in one cell (the maximum allowed interference level from the users in the cell), and decreasing it in an adjacent cell. Users in the overlap between the base station coverage area can be transferred between the cells (called cell-breathing), or the traffic can be regulated by admission control and traffic-shaping.
However, spread spectrum gives lower spectral efficiency than non-spread spectrum techniques, if the channel allocation in the latter case is optimized by a good DCA scheme. Especially OFDM modulation is an interesting alternative to spread spectrum because of its ability to combat multipath propagation for wideband channels without complex equalization. OFDM can be extended with OFDMA for uplink multiple access among users in the same cell. For avoidance of inter-cell interference, FDMA with DCA or DFS is once again of interest. One example of this concept is the above-mentioned IEEE 802.11h standard. OFDM and OFDMA with DCA is often studied as an alternative for 4G wireless systems.
DCA on a packet-by-packet basis
In packet based data communication services, the communication is bursty and the traffic load rapidly changing. For high system spectrum efficiency, DCA should be performed on a packet-by-packet basis. Examples of algorithms for packet-by-packet DCA are Dynamic Packet Assignment (DPA), Dynamic Single Frequency Networks (DSFN) and Packet and resource plan scheduling (PARPS).
- Guowang Miao, Jens Zander, Ki Won Sung, and Ben Slimane, Fundamentals of Mobile Data Networks, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 1107143217, 2016.
- Touw, Ron (Nov 16, 2016). "Radar Detection and DFS on MikroTik" (PDF). Radar Detect and DFS on MikroTik. MikroTik. Retrieved 4 December 2019 – via YouTube.
Decision ERC/DEC/(99)23 adds 5250-5350MHz and 5470-5725MHz with more Tx power but with the added caveat that DFS was required to protect legacy users (Military Radar and Satellite uplinks)
- Spain, Chris (July 10, 2014). "Winning Back the Weather Radio Channels Adds Capacity to 5GHz Wi-Fi Spectrum - Cisco Blogs". Cisco Blogs. Cisco. Retrieved 4 December 2019.
The FCC ruling is re-opening the Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) band (channels 120, 124, 128) with new test requirements for DFS protection.
- Saltikoff, Elena (2016). "The Threat to Weather Radars by Wireless Technology". Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 97 (7): 1159–1167. doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-15-00048.1. ISSN 0003-0007.
Since 2006, interference to C-band radars from RLAN is increasingly experienced by most OPERA members. ... The South African weather services initially tried to implement specific software filtering to improve the situation but then decided in 2011 to move its meteorological radar network to S band.
- Tristant, Philippe (16–18 September 2009). "RLAN 5 GHz interference to weather radars in Europe" (PDF). International Telecommunication Union. Retrieved 4 December 2019.
More than 12 European countries experienced such interference cases (other cases have now been reported in number of countries in the world). Definitively harmful interference (in Hungary, the radar was declared as non-operational for more than 1 month)
- "5GHz agreement". Ntia.doc.gov. 2003-01-31. Retrieved 2012-08-29.
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Natural Health News — Preventing flu could be as simple as adding a daily drink of broccoli sprout juice, according to new research.
Brassica vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, kale and cabbage are particularly rich in a plant chemical called sulforaphane (SFN).
Young broccoli sprouts have a particularly high level of SFN compared to other foods and a homogenate (or puree) of broccoli sprouts has previously been shown, in the lab, to limit the influenza virus’s ability to replicate as well as increasing natural killer (NK) cell activity, thus boosting immunity.
This small randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled human study took place during the flu season of 2012-2013.
It was designed to investigate the effects of broccoli sprouts on immune cell activity, especially NK cell activity, in blood of non-smoking, healthy subjects deliberately infected with a live attenuated influenza virus (LAIV).
» Brassicas contain an immune enhancing substance called sulforaphane (SFN). Young broccoli sprouts contain very high amounts of SFN.
» In a new study a daily ‘shake’ of broccoli sprouts over days seemed to protect people infected with the influenza virus for longer than a comparable ‘shake’ of alfalfa sprouts.
» This study ads to previous data showing that that SFNs have a protective effect on the lungs.
The participants were divided into two groups. Over a four day period each of which was given a daily 200g ‘shake’ containing 111 g of pureed broccoli sprouts (reported to contain 100 µmol of sulforaphane) or alfalfa sprouts (said to contain “minimal” amounts of sulforaphane).
Protection for longer
Subjects were instructed to abstain from the consumption of other vegetables in the Brassicaceae family and from anti-inflammatory drugs during the study period. Blood samples were collected before and during the study in order to determine NK cell activity while nasal swabs were used to determine the viral load of each participant.
Through the 21 days of the test both the broccoli and alfalfa seemed to aid immunity and lower viral load, but the broccoli sprouts continued to exert a protective effect for longer. At day 21 those who took the broccoli sprout shake still had signs of a strengthened immune response to the flu.
Previous research in animals has found that an antioxidant in broccoli called sulforaphane (SFN) increases activity of proteins called Phase II enzymes that are important in protecting the lung against oxidative damage. Researcher speculate that this effect may be helpful supporting lung health in those who have asthma.
Please subscribe me to your newsletter mailing list. I have read the
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In 2017, about 10,000 children age 14 and younger will be newly diagnosed with cancer in the United States. More than a thousand of those children are expected to die from the disease. Death due to cancer has declined by nearly 70 percent for children over the past four decades, but it remains the leading cause of death from disease among children. Furthermore, about 70,000 people between the ages of 15 and 39 are diagnosed with cancer each year. That’s about 5 percent of cancer diagnoses in the United States.
How cancer affects a child and their psychological response to having the disease varies with age. Childhood cancer is associated with many physical, psychosocial, and behavioral symptoms. Some can be attributed to the disease itself or its treatments, and some can be reactions to medical procedures or living with an uncertain future. Treatment can interfere with a child’s normal development, activities, and social interactions. A child may have a physical impairment because of cancer, have repeated school absences, or lose contact with friends because they need to stay isolated to protect from infection. Preschool, school-age, and teenage children respond differently than adults to stress and information.
More children are surviving cancer because of improvements in treatment. They are, however, at risk for late effects from their cancer treatment. These include another cancer diagnosis, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory problems. Caring for survivors should include a risk-based strategy of screening and management for late effects. Ideally, monitoring is combined with education to reduce or prevent behavior that may contribute to risk.
The Pediatric Psycho-Oncology Laboratory, part of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK), focuses on the psychosocial and behavioral aspects of cancer in children, adolescents, and young adults. Our mission is to engage in cutting-edge, developmentally focused clinical research with these patients and survivors, as well as their families and healthcare providers.
The lab’s current and proposed research includes:
- a National Institutes of Health (NIH) proposal on breast cancer surveillance for childhood cancer survivors who had chest radiation
- screening measures to identify patients and families at an increased psychosocial risk at the time of diagnosis, as well as during and after treatment, and provide multidisciplinary psychosocial therapeutic support
- interventions to improve adaptive skills, resilience, and communication within families and between families and medical teams
- studies on the surveillance of late effects, overall psychosocial functioning, and a variety of health behaviors as part of the NIH-funded Childhood Cancer Survivor Study
- consortium studies of treatment for patients and survivors of pediatric brain tumors, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and sickle cell, which also includes social-emotional and behavioral analysis, along with attention to issues related to quality of life and parent and family functioning
- an NIH-funded project on exercise and diet in childhood cancer survivors who are overweight or obese
Prior research conducted by members of the laboratory includes:
- an NIH-funded grant for health behaviors of adolescent cancer survivors
- a study funded by the American Cancer Society (ACS) of the identity development of adolescent and young adult cancer survivors
- an NIH-funded intervention study promoting mammography among young adult survivors of childhood cancers whose treatment included chest radiation
- an ACS-funded study of the long-term follow-up on quality of life and neuropsychological functioning of children treated for malignant glioma
- a foundation-funded grant to develop and evaluate a psychosocial treatment program for children with cancer and blood disorders
- several foundation-funded grants on the neuropsychological functioning of childhood cancer patients
- a foundation-funded grant to coordinate the development of novel psychosocial clinical and research programming
- a communication skills program focused on pediatric palliative care for nurse practitioners in pediatric oncology
- an NIH-funded trial of parent supportive cognitive intervention in the period before a transplant
- the adaptation of meaning-centered psychotherapy for adolescents and young adults
- a foundation-funded study of psychosocial and medical late effects of retinoblastoma survivors
An additional goal of the research laboratory is to build a training program for advanced doctoral students in psychology. This program will improve students’ clinical research skills as emerging professionals. To this end, pediatric psychologist Marie Barnett joined our faculty on September 1, 2017. We have also developed a psychology externship program that provides clinical and research training to advanced doctoral students in psychology. Our first extern started the year-long program in July 2017. We expect to secure funding for a pediatric psychology fellowship program in the near future.
Our current team meets twice a week to provide updates on papers, protocols, and grant preparation. We also discuss relevant literature and provide in-depth feedback to trainees regarding their work.
Added Value to the Department and the Institution
We aim to bring the latest science, theory, and methods regarding pediatric, adolescent, and young adult psycho-oncology to a range of projects at MSK. This lab enhances MSK’s responsiveness to the NIH’s requests for applications and other announcements that address psychosocial and behavioral issues in pediatric, adolescent, and young adult cancer patients, survivors, and their families. It also improves collaboration within MSK, giving us opportunities to participate in new and ongoing work.
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The front cover of Richard Holmes’ book The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science shows the beautiful painting ‘A Philosopher giving that Lecture on the Orrery in which a Lamp is put in place of the Sun‘ by Joseph Wright of Derby, 1766. Quite apart from the impact of the lighting, the expressions on the faces and the spread of generations depicted, the title of the painting is important- a philosopher– and in Richard Holmes’ book we explore the shift from ‘philosopher’ to ‘scientist’ in the nineteenth century. The term ‘scientist’ itself is of fairly recent origin, coined as part of this transition between 1830-1834, and initially rejected because of its analogy with ‘atheist’ but rapidly taken up in common usage.
Holmes argues that the bifurcation between science and romanticism took place only in the mid 19th century, and was preceded by a period in which what we now call ‘science’ was part of a broader fascination with theology, poetry, painting and literature. In this multiple biography, not unlike Jenny Uglow’s The Lunar Men (which I’m also looking forward to reading), Holmes uses Sir Joseph Banks as a type of bookend to encapsulate a number of other interwoven biographies. The book opens with Joseph Banks in the South Seas, the young, libertine ethnographer who literally ‘goes native’ during his voyage of exploration. It closes with Banks’ death in London, where he is the bedrock of the Royal Society and a one-man communication hub between the ‘philosophers’ he championed and mentored across the globe. Between these bookends are other biographies: particularly those of William and Caroline Hershel the astronomers and Humphrey Davy the chemist and inventor, who each have two distinct chapters, as if Holmes himself is orbiting them. Mungo Park the African explorer is here too, reaching into the darkness and emptiness of Africa as it was known then; as are the balloonists in England and France who had the first glimpse of the earth from on high, just as momentous and re-orienting as the photographs of the earth taken from space 150 years later. This is not just a ‘great man’ approach: there is also the more troubling diversion into the experiments into galvanism (news of which travelled all the way to Port Phillip) and attempts to create life itself as displayed in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
These ‘philosophers’ were not set apart from artists and poets: instead they were friends with them, and in many cases were themselves poets and writers- especially Humphrey Davy who, for me, is the luminous presence of the book. Holmes’ incorporation of women philosopher/scientists – Caroline Hershel, the indefatigable assistant to her brother and astronomer in her own right, Mary Shelley and Mary Somerville – does not feel forced, while acknowledging the societal structures that privileged their male colleagues.
Holmes is a wonderful biographer. His footnotes at the end of the book are spare but painstaking, reflecting the depth of archival research he has undertaken. They are supplemented by the occasional note at the bottom of the page, denoted by a trefoil, that provides glimpses of the biographer at work and in thought. His note, for example, attached to a glancing reference to a ribbon that Davy enclosed in a letter:
In 1795 Pitt had levied a tax on hair powder, to help raise funds for military campaigns abroad. The ribbon fell out of Beddoe’s letter as I unfolded it in the Truro archive, and I let out a republican whoop! that almost led to my ejection. (p. 252)
This is not just a series of scientific biographies: it is an argument about Romanticism and science, and the nature of human intellect and endeavour. It is a deeply rewarding read.
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Step 1 : Introduction to the question “Boston cream pie is the official state dessert of where?“
…In 1856, at Boston’s Parker House Hotel, French chef Monsieur Augustine Francois Anezin created the Boston cream pie. In 1996, Massachusetts declared the Boston cream pie as their official dessert. The traditional Boston cream pie is a yellow cake filled with custard or cream and topped with chocolate glaze. Although it is called a Boston cream pie, it is in fact a cake, and not a pie. The dessert acquired its name when cakes and pies were cooked in the same pans, and the words were used interchangeably.
Step 2 : Answer to the question “Boston cream pie is the official state dessert of where?“
Please let us know as comment, if the answer is not correct!
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A pedestrian lane is an interim or temporary pedestrian facility that may be appropriate on roads with low to moderate speeds and volumes. A pedestrian lane is a designated space on the roadway for exclusive use of pedestrians. The lane may be on one or both sides of the roadway and can fill gaps between important destinations in a community.
Note: The following guidance features expanded content and minor differences from that in the FHWA Small Town and Rural Multimodal Networks document. Please refer to FHWA's website for the formal presentation of this facility type.
Provides a stable surface off of the roadway for pedestrians to use when sidewalks or sidepaths are deemed impractical or otherwise not desired.
Can provide visual indication of prioritized connection to community amenity.
Requires minimal roadside infrastructure and no impacts to stormwater management if existing pavement is used.
A pedestrian lane may be considered to operate similarly to a sidewalk. Consult state and local vehicle code for implications in a situation where pedestrians are walking along a roadway with no sidewalk or shoulder available.
Duck, NC – Population 400
ITRE Bike and Ped Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
Pedestrian lanes provide interim or temporary pedestrian accommodation on roadways lacking sidewalks. They are not intended to be an alternative to sidewalks and often will fill short gaps between other higher quality facilities. As part of the planning process, agencies should explore issues and the potential challenges a pedestrian lane may face, including:
• Detectability by people with vision disabilities
• Undesired use by bicyclists
• Accessible cross-slope requirements
• Maintenance strategies, such as sweeping and snow removal
Figure 3-11. Pedestrian lanes provide an exclusive space for pedestrians to walk outside of the travel area.
Pedestrian lanes should be designed to support and promote side-by-side walking within the lane. Because of the lack of physical separation, additional width beyond this should be included for added comfort.
- 8 ft (2.4 m) width is preferred
- 5 ft (1.5 m) width is the minimum to allow for side-by-side walking and maneuverability by users of mobility devices.
Pedestrian lanes are intended for use by pedestrians and must meet accessibility guidelines for a pedestrian access route. This includes:
- The grade of pedestrian access routes shall not exceed the general grade established for the adjacent street or highway.
- The cross slope of pedestrian access routes shall be 2 percent maximum.
- The surface of pedestrian access routes shall be firm, stable, and slip resistant.
- Use a double white line for extra emphasis and to discourage motor vehicle encroachment.
- If additional comfort is desired, mark a buffer to increase separation between pedestrians and motor vehicles.
- Use a PED ONLY legend marking to designate exclusive pedestrian use of the lane.
- For additional conspicuity, use a pedestrian symbol to communicate exclusive pedestrian use.
- Markings should be visible to “approaching traffic for all available departures” (MUTCD 2009, p. 415).
Pedestrian Warning Sign (W11-2) paired with an “ON ROADWAY” legend plaque may be used to indicate to drivers to expect pedestrians within the paved road surface.
Figure 3-13. A W11-2 warning sign may be paired with a legend plaque to inform road users that shared use by pedestrians and/or bicyclists might occur.
Configure pedestrian lanes with treatments to provide for a safe, clear, and accessible passage at street crossings.
- Define the corner at intersections with a double solid white line to reduce motor vehicle encroachment into the pedestrian areas. Use flexible delineators where a more robust treatment is desired.
- Place stop lines or yield lines outside of the crosswalk area.
- Crosswalks may be marked to clearly delineate the crossing paths of pedestrians.
- Provide detectable warnings in advance crosswalks, even in the absence of a curb ramp transition.
A pedestrian lane is an on-roadway facility intended for use by pedestrians and must meet accessibility guidelines for walkways. Any deficiencies in meeting ADA guidelines during implementation as a restriping project should be identified in the ADA transition plan and be corrected in the next resurfacing.
Pedestrian lanes are a interim facility, and a full sidewalk construction should be planned for future implementation.
Sufficient space to provide a pedestrian lane may already exist or may be created through configuration changes, including removing or consolidating on-street parking, or narrowing of travel lanes. Implementing pedestrian lanes may share some strategies with the implementation of bike lanes. For more information on potential implementation strategies, refer to the FHWA Resurfacing Guide 2016.
Pedestrian Lane Case Study
Detroit is a hub of activity during the summer months. Kane’s Marina is one of a limited locations to access the lake. In addition to the boat ramp and docks, Kane’s has a store, a tavern, and a recreational vehicle (RV) park. As the only access to Kane’s Marina, Clester Road is a busy collector street during the boating, moorage, and RV season. This road funnels a lot of vehicle traffic—RVs, boats, trailers, trucks, cars—as well as heavy foot and bicycle traffic to and from Kane’s Marina and the neighborhood and downtown Detroit.
The high volume of vehicles coupled with an identified speeding problem created safety concerns because of the large amount of bicycle and foot traffic that also use Clester Road. The City eventually installed two speed bumps, which appeared to slow traffic down somewhat but prior to the installation of the pedestrian lane, there was no accommodation for people walking or on bikes.
With the award of a Special City Allotment Grant in the 2013-14 grant cycle, the City of Detroit was able to resurface Clester Road and install the pedestrian lane. Adding the pedestrian lane on Clester Road fits in with the long-range plans for a bicycle and pedestrian trail from Lyons and Mehama to Idanha. Additionally the City of Detroit in conjunction with the US Forest Service is developing a city park that will also serve as the gateway center for the Cascading Rivers Scenic Bikeway which runs from Detroit to Estacada.
A rural destination community, especially in the summer, Detroit has a population of 210 year round residents, with the summer population swelling to several thousand. The watersports of the Detroit Lakes and surrounding Federal lands draw hundreds of thousands of visitors to the region each summer.
Key Design Elements
As part of a resurfacing project, the pedestrian lane was added to Clester Road. Speed bumps were included to encourage slower motor vehicle speeds.
Role in the Network
Clester Road connects Kane’s Marina with neighborhoods and Detroit’s downtown. In the future it will connect the city’s major park and a scenic bikeway’s gateway facility with access to the lake and the amenities of Kane’s Marina.
Funding for the project was catalyzed by receipt of an Oregon DOT Special City Allotment (SCA) grant. The City of Detroit invested city system development fees and alternative transportation reserve funding to complete the funding for the project.
For more information, refer to the City of Detroit.
Federal Highway Administration. Incorporating On-Road Bicycle Networks into Resurfacing Projects. 2016.
Federal Highway Administration. Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). 2009.
Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT). Update of Florida Crash Reduction Factors and Countermeasures to improve the Development of District Safety Improvement Projects. 2005.
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Documents recently made public by the UK government reveal the cost of poverty reduction in the Millennium Villages Project, a self-described "solution to extreme poverty" in African villages created by Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs. The project costs at least US$12,000 per household that it lifts from poverty—about 34 times the annual incomes of those households. This highlights once again the importance of independent and transparent evaluation of development projects.
The project has called this number a distortion of the truth. Such behavior is sad, since the $12,000 figure comes straight from the project’s own documents about a new Millennium Village site in Ghana. The business plan for that site, based on the project’s experience at 14 previous sites, states the full cost (page 13):
“The total direct costs of the project are expected to be $27.1 million, which is approximately £17 million.”
The following page states the “poverty reduction” goal at this site:
“The Millennium Village aims to achieve substantial poverty reduction for up to 2,250 households (around 11,000 people).”
This is perfectly clear: For each household the project says it can lift out of poverty at this site, the cost is $12,000—or more (it’s “up to” 2,250 households).
Why does the project call a verbatim quotation of its own documents a “distortion”? Because the project says it will affect, to some degree large or small, 6,000 households (about 30,000 people). Even those other 3,750 households that remain in extreme poverty at the end of the project will receive amenities like clean water. So is it a distortion to point out the extraordinary cost of poverty reduction via this project? It is not, for many reasons.
- The statement is true: The project foresees a cost of at least $12,000 per household that it believes it can lift out of poverty.
- The project is an anti-poverty project. For many years, the project has told its funders that it is a “solution to extreme poverty”, that lifts families out of poverty “in five years’ time”, and that it accomplishes this by sparking “self-sustaining economic growth” that lastingly releases villages from a “poverty trap”. It should therefore be judged by its ability to reduce poverty. If the project has now morphed into a charity to deliver clean water for a few years, leaving people drinking clean water in extreme poverty, this would constitute an admission of failure of its founding principle as a project to quickly achieve permanent poverty reduction.
- Perhaps the project believes that only part of the $12,000 spent to reduce poverty in each household was meant to reduce poverty, and other parts of the $12,000 were meant to do other things, like provide clean water. This means that the project could have caused more reduction of poverty, but chose to allocate resources in a way that caused less poverty reduction. Providing people with clean water is kind and generous, of course, and I admire the many charities that do it. But charity is not development. It would certainly be strange for a poverty reduction project to choose to cause less poverty reduction than it could have caused.
- The continued existence of the non-poverty effects of the project, after the short-term burst of external aid stops, depends critically on the degree of local economic development. Anyone spending large sums of outside money can temporarily deliver amenities. But if people do not have enough income to pay the continuing costs of clean water, it will soon be dirty again.
The project’s enormous expenditures matter because much more could have been done for poverty with other uses of the same money, if the project had never existed. Spending $12,000 per household lifted out of poverty means spending about 34 times the annual income of the people to be lifted from poverty.* The same $12,000 in a bank account at 5% interest would yield $600, every year, year after year, forever. That interest, given to the households as cash, would cause their incomes to nearly triple, permanently and certainly.** I stress: this effect on income would be permanent.
But what about the non-income effects of the project, like effects on health and education? Cash transfers have those effects too. When rural Africans have more money, they spend it on things that improve health and education. A comprehensive study by the UK’s Department for International Development documents this fact, in Africa and in poor communities around the world. And those effects are from comparatively small cash transfers. Transfers large enough to triple household income would have huge effects on health and education.
Can the Millennium Villages Project permanently triple the incomes of many people, or even any people, at the sites where it works? We can’t even say whether or not that has happened temporarily, much less permanently, because the project has never released any data about what has happened to the incomes of the people it experiments on. The project has been collecting income data for the past seven years. But it hasn’t released any data about how incomes have changed over time. It has chosen to release other data on changes in non-income social indicators, but not the income data.
The Millennium Villages Project is probably causing short-term improvements in things like access to clean water and skilled birth attendance at the sites it works in. My co-author and I showed this in a paper (available here, peer-reviewed version here), while we revealed that the project typically says those short-term effects are roughly twice as large as they really are. But causing short-term improvement of some kind with charity does not make a development project successful. A successful development project does more with the money than an alternative project can—otherwise diverting money to the former makes everyone worse off than if that project didn’t exist. And that has ethical dimensions.
The project’s public obfuscation of basic facts about its work underscores once again the importance of independent evaluation in development. It is especially salient given that the project claims to base its evaluation on “peer-reviewed science” produced by professors at Columbia University. Compliance with the standards set by the International Aid Transparency Initiative is critical to proper, independent impact evaluation and learning.
Update: The project has issued a statement that the above post contains “errors” that must be “corrected”. I refer readers to the unchanged post above, which transparently documents its sources: the project’s own documents, released by an outside agency. The project’s other claims, such as the claim that it’s wrong to include overhead costs in the cost of a project, or that a “solution to extreme poverty” should not be judged by its poverty effects, require little comment. I’ll stop at saying that such claims highlight the inability of most employees to objectively evaluate their own employers, just as all of us are unable to objectively evaluate our own employers. Internal, opaque evaluations that selectively release confidential data cannot substitute for independence and transparency.
* Most of the new intervention site in Ghana is located in the Upper East Region. In the most recent survey data available, the annual income of the average household in Upper East region of Ghana is US$347 per year—that is, 616 Ghanaian cedis per year, from page 107 here, converted at today’s exchange rate of 0.563 dollars/cedi. $12,000 per household is over 34 times household annual income of $347. Today’s exchange rate is the right one to use; it’s the one that tells you how much could be done in Ghana this year with the amount of dollars to be spent this year.
** I’ve been asked how the $12,000 figure squares with the project’s claim that it spends $160 per year per person. The answer is that the numbers reflect exactly the same large expenditure, but one focuses on spending, the other focuses on poverty impact. The $160 figure represents 1) on-site spending only, not the full project cost, 2) spending every year, during the first 5 years only, and 3) spending per man, woman, and child, no matter to what large or small degree the project helps that person. You can get from one number to the other like this: Start with $160/person/year. Add 20% to include off-site expenditures like project overhead, travel, and in-kind contributions from corporate partners (the 20% estimate comes from the business plan): That’s $192/person/year. Since the average household contains 5 people, that’s $960/household/year, and multiply by five for a total expenditure of $4,800/household over the intensive first five years of the project. Add 25% more to include expenditures outside of the intensive 5-year period, such as start-up costs and expenditures during the less-intensive, second five-year ‘consolidation’ period: total $6,000/household. That’s what the project spends to “meet the Millennium Development Goals.” The first Millennium Development Goal is to cut poverty in half, so if half of the targeted households leave poverty, that means the cost is $6,000/(0.5)=$12,000 per household that is lifted out of poverty. This assumes that the project actually can lift half of the households out of poverty, a claim for which it has published no evidence in its eight years of operation.
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September 23, 2008
Tacita Dean’s entry when asked by Hans Ulrich Obrist to design a formula for this century
The popular Swiss art critic Hans Ulrich Obrist recently asked many famous (and not so famous) artists to devise a formula for this current century. These graphical representations have been collected in a book entitled Formulas For Now and within it you’ll find submissions from people like Damien Hirst, Yoko Ono, and Richard Dawkins.
Click this link to see an image gallery of some of the submissions.
September 19, 2008
“Wilma” was named after the character on “The Flintstones”, history’s most famous Neanderthal family
Okay, she’s obviously no Kate Moss but Wilma has already won over the hearts of the scientific community as for the first time a reconstruction of a Neanderthal’s face has been completed based on DNA evidence. National Geographic explains:
Artists and scientists created Wilma (shown in a photo released yesterday) using analysis of DNA from 43,000-year-old bones that had been cannibalized. Announced in October 2007, the findings had suggested that at least some Neanderthals would have had red hair, pale skin, and possibly freckles.
Created for an October 2008 National Geographic magazine article, Wilma has a skeleton made from replicas of pelvis and skull bones from Neanderthal females. Copies of male Neanderthal bones—resized to female dimensions—filled in the gaps.
September 18, 2008
Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi simply can’t help himself when it comes to beautiful women. On this occasion, the subject of his all too obvious glancing is the newly-crowned Miss Italy Miriam Leone.
Many of his supporters certainly do forgive him, with the exception of his long suffering wife, Veronica:
Mr Berlusconi was appearing on the current affairs show, Porta a Porta, and found himself discussing the issues of the day with Miss Leone, a 23-year-old student who possesses a pair of enviably long legs.
But his admiring glance is likely to provoke the ire of Veronica, Mr Berlusconi’s long-suffering wife of more than 20 years.
She took the unusual step of contacting Left-leaning newspaper La Repubblica following reports that the politician had approached several women at a party and told them: “If I wasn’t married, I would marry you straight away.”
In her letter, she wrote: “These were declarations that I see as damaging to my dignity and cannot be treated as just joke. That is why I am asking for a public apology as I have not receievd one in private.”
Read the rest of this entry »
September 16, 2008
GZA rocks the crowd at the Fillmore in New York City, September 12, 2008
The juggernaut known as capitalism becomes a steamroller when combined with the corporate entertainment history. All forms of artistic expression that break the barrier between the unknown and the popular are quickly co-opted by the industry, packaged, marketed, and force-fed to the willing masses.
Hip Hop hasn’t escaped this truism. Born in the South Bronx, the DJ and rapper formed two of the four parts of the hip hop culture rising at the time (the other two being breakdancing and graffiti). Similar to punk and to rock’n’roll in the 1950s, hip hop was rebellion in musical form. From the deconstruction of the popular music of the day in which singing was overdubbed and manipulated, and instruments were numerous and played with by sound producers, hip hop stripped it bare by having a DJ with a turntable and an MC with a mic. Read the rest of this entry »
September 13, 2008
Paul Cezanne, Still Life with an Open Drawer (1877-1879)
The wonderful Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) is considered a bridge between 19th century Impressionism and 20th century Cubism.
click here to see a larger version of this image
September 13, 2008
Savita Bhabhi is the Queen Vixen of the Subcontinent
Westerners who have never traveled to India were given a sample of how strict the country’s public obscenity laws are when an Indian judge handed out arrest warrants for Richard Gere and Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty after Gere publicly kissed her at an HIV/AIDS awareness event. As a testament to India’s social conservatism, crowds torched effigies of Richard Gere in several cities. As it stands now, India’s Supreme Court has suspended the case pending jurisdictional issues relating to the case.
The Subcontinent hasn’t always been this conservative when it comes to matters sexual. One need only look to ancient history and the Kama Sutra written in the Sanskrit language to see that they didn’t always have such negative responses to portrayals of romantic or sexual themes in public.
Now a cartoon woman is shaking up India’s conservative mores. She goes by the name of Savita Bhabhi (where ‘Bhabhi’ means sister-in-law in Hindi) and stars as a bored housewife who has sexual adventures with all sorts of characters that come into her life ranging from a bra salesman to a cricket player. The cartoon is currently under review by Indian cyberpolice for fears that it might break the draconian indecency laws in the country.
The Independent UK takes a close look at this explosive cartoon in Cyber Sutra: India’s online eroticism. Here’s an excerpt:
Savita Bhabhi is a busty and artfully drawn Indian housewife who loves her husband, Ashok Patel, but gets bored during the long days she spends alone at home while he is busy at the office. The full colour cartoons detail her fun-filled adventures with everyone from the door-to-door lingerie salesman (“Can you help me please… The hook is stuck.”) to two energetic young men who lose their cricket ball in her garden and a hunky cousin visiting from the US. In every episode, Savita’s bountiful charms and washboard-flat abdomen ensure she always snares her target.
click here to read the rest of the article
September 13, 2008
With a resurgent Russia now standing up the USA, is it time to dust off the Cold War Memorabilia? Listen to this Cold War classic while you ponder that question :)
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Cloud Height Instruments
Ceilometers are stand-alone instruments designed to measure cloud and aerosol height profiles using a laser based LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) technique. The light emitting component is a low power diode laser with the output power limited to an eye-safe level. They determine cloud base heights, penetration depths, mixing layer height and vertical visibilities. Within their operating range they reliably detect multiple cloud layers and cirrus clouds.
They are most commonly used as part of an AWOS system at airports where cloud height and vertical visibilities are essential to the safe operation of the air traffic systems.
The other significant use is as a networked system across a country or territory where atmospheric aerosols and cloud migration is of interest to the local meteorological community. Such studies are used for monitoring airborne pollutant origination and migration as well as its dispersal and distribution.
Biral can offer two different types of ceilometer – one for general aviation use at airports and helidecks (7.5km / 25,000 feet range) and a higher range unit for meteorological and atmospheric aerosol research (15km / 50,000 feet range), such as volcanic ash cloud monitoring.
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A research project has revealed koalas can recover from chlamydia in around half the time previously thought.
While examining 167 cases, scientists found chlamydia in koalas could be treated by antibiotics just as effectively in 14 to 28 days, rather than the usual 45-day treatment.
The study was led by a University of the Sunshine Coast researcher and conducted at the Endeavour Veterinary Ecology in Toorbul, Queensland.
PhD researcher Amy Robbins told 9News this means koalas could be released back into the wild more quickly, and a larger number could be treated for the disease.
"That is going to mean the resources can be spread further," she said.
The next step will be cutting the treatment window to just 14 days.
"We're trialling to see if we could just use a 14-day course and if that has similar treatment outcomes," she said.
"We are also looking at some of the drivers of chlamydial disease progression."
The strain of chlamydia that affects koalas is not the same as the one found in humans, although it is sexually transmitted.
The infection, considered by some experts to have reached epidemic levels, causes blindness, severe bladder infections, infertility and death in koalas.
In some areas of Australia, koala populations have dropped by 80 per cent over the last two decades.
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Adaptability of State to a New Ci Challenges – with Focus on Cyber Warfare Domain
(Volume 19, No.1-2, 2018.)
: The article presents the current state of the field of regulation of cyber security in the Republic of Slovenia, since the presentation of what cyber security is at all, through the general presentation of individual elements of the Critical Infrastructure Act in the Republic of Slovenia, to the presentation of selected elements of the cyber security strategy in the
Republic of Slovenia, which inevitably critical infrastructure. Information security and organizations that ensure the operation of services that fall within the scope of critical infrastructure are a new and essential element of every society and, as such, an exceptionally sensitive topic for the attitude of organizations to service users, on the other hand, a technology-sensitive topic for security issues, which are a key element in assessing the effective and successful handling of critical infrastructure in the country.
KEYWORDS: critical infrastructure, cyber security, law, Republic of Slovenia
Technology is a tool that in many ways shapes and defines our actions in personal or business life. Technology has evolved as an important part of critical infrastructure through development as it is a key element for each country and citizen from the point of view of organizations that map the development trends of technology into operation, products and services. With the presentation of the importance of information technology, which, together with communication technology, is placed in the top of the importance of protecting and protecting it, the critical infrastructure of the country has been complemented by a set of organizations that we are pursuing and needed in this context. Because the world is surrounded by diverse challenges as well as threats, the world of information and communication is all the more exposed to situations that a normal individual can instantly turn to the opposite position from the position that an organization or state wants. Knowledge and management of situations that in the world of the Internet essentially mean an intangible picture of the transmission of information and data can at some point be extremely critical and also point out the life threats of individuals or a larger group. For this purpose, the contribution is also aimed at presenting the key information security positions, which should not remain somewhat behind but something that must be, but it is an area that must be managed and developed with the most precise protection technique, on the one hand, of such an intangible nature, on the other hand, because technology nowadays in many ways creates our actions and actions and generates decisions that often have a key effect on the success and effects of our lives.
2. What is Cyber security?
Cyber security is generally defined as (Digital Slovenia, 2017):
a) a set of activities and other measures, both technical and non-technical, intended to protect computers, computer networks, hardware and software, and information provided by them contains and treats, which includes software and data as well as other elements cyber space, against all threats, including threats to national security;
b) the degree of protection that the activities and measures can provide;
c) pooled areas of professional effort, including research and development in the field implement and improve measures and raise the quality of these measures.
According to SI-CERT data, 2060 incidents were reported in Slovenia in 2014, which is almost a 6.4 % increase compared to 2008 (Digital Slovenia, 2017).
The growing trend with regard to the above-mentioned malnutrition of the cyber-security system is of concern (Digital Slovenia, 2017).
The SI-CERT (Slovenian Computer Emergency Response Team) is the national response center for dealing with incidents in the field security of electronic networks and information, which has been operating within the Arnes public institute since 1995. It coordinates incident incidents, technical advising on intrusions, computer infections and other abuses, and issuing warnings for network managers and the general public on current threats in electronic networks (Digital Slovenia, 2017).
Despite the fact that cyberattacks are occurring with greater frequency and intensity around the world, many either go unreported or are under-reported, leaving the public with a false sense of security about the threat they pose and the lives and property they impact. While governments, businesses and individuals are all being targeted on an exponential basis, infrastructure has become a target of choice among both individual and state-sponsored cyber-attackers, who are targeting security systems that were previously thought of as impenetrable. This has served to demonstrate just how vulnerable cities, states and countries have become, and the growing importance of achieving global risk agility in the face of such threats (intpolicydigest.org
3. Law and Regulation in the Republic of Slovenia (Uradni list RS, 2017)
The purpose of the Critical Infrastructure Law (2017) is to systematically regulate the continuity of the critical infrastructure. Its protection covers all activities that contribute to the continuity and integrity of its operation.
The Law includes different categories of critical infrastructure: water, food and energy supplies, health care, the financial sector, transport, environmental protection and the information and communication systems and networks sector are defined for the critical infrastructure sectors.
Sector holders are ministries responsible for the areas of work to which critical infrastructure belongs, and the Bank of Slovenia.
The law determines the systemic foundation of the critical infrastructure area from its identification and determination to its protection, which is reflected in the main solutions of the law.
The objectives of the law are, in particular, to regulate (also) the area of critical infrastructure of national importance, that is, the "national" critical infrastructure, and by means of a normative measure, it contributes to raising the level of resilience of Slovenian society against modern security threats and risks.
In order to ensure the continuity and full operation of critical infrastructure, all bodies and organizations are required to respect the same general principles and guidelines.
Appropriate relationships are established between bodies and organizations operating in the areas of critical infrastructure sectors, in particular in terms of sharing their responsibilities and responsibilities and tasks in protecting critical infrastructure.
The Role of Government
The government is the highest state body that defines, directs and coordinates the policy in the field of critical infrastructure.
Regardless of the ownership structure of the critical infrastructure, the operators and owners of critical infrastructure are first and foremost responsible, and also interested in the business of ensuring critical operation of the continuous operation of the critical infrastructure.
Supervision over the implementation of the provisions of the law will be carried out centrally through the inspectorate responsible for defense, but this does not exclude the possibility that in accordance with existing regulations and established working methods for inspectorate, the said inspector will also attract other inspection bodies with real competences in the area of the critical infrastructure sector under which surveillance is carried out.
The measures for the protection of critical infrastructure are divided into permanent and additional.
Additional measures are carried out in the event of an emergency, crisis, or increased threat to critical infrastructure, if permanent, even if they are graduated, are insufficient.
Additional measures for the protection of critical infrastructure that are adopted by the Critical Infrastructure Sector institutions themselves or proposed for adoption by the Government are not mandatory, as they can be accepted or proposed by the institutions only if they deem it necessary.
The law also defines, inter alia, obligations regarding information, reporting and provision of decision support in connection with the provision of the continuous operation of critical infrastructure.
4. Principles of Critical Infrastructure Protection (Uradni list RS, 2017)
a) The principle of an integrated approach requiring that all critical authorities and organizations are involved in the protection of critical infrastructure before and during interruptions in the operation or interruption of critical infrastructure operation, and taking into account the different types of hazards derives from the risk assessment and takes into account the interdependence of the critical infrastructure sectors and their interaction.
b) The principle of responsibility for which Critical Infrastructure Managers are directly responsible for the operation of Critical Infrastructure and all competent authorities and organizations to strengthen Critical Infrastructure Protection.
c) The principle of protection against different types of hazards, which requires that all competent authorities and organizations take into account different types of natural and technological threats in ensuring the critical operation of the critical infrastructure.
d) The principle of the ongoing planning of critical infrastructure protection, which requires that the planning of critical infrastructure protection is supported by a continuous process of assessing the risks to the operation of critical infrastructure and assessing the appropriateness of the measures for its protection.
e) The principle of data and information exchange and data protection, which requires regular, timely and trusted exchange of data and information from all competent authorities and organizations, while protecting data related to critical infrastructure, in accordance with the regulations governing the protection of classified information or business secret.
5. Cyber Security Strategy in the Republic of Slovenia (Digital Slovenia, 2017)
With this strategy, Slovenia delfine measures to establish a national cybernetic system security that will be able to respond rapidly to security threats and will provide effective protection information and communication infrastructure and information systems, which will be provided with the continuous operation of both the public and the private sector, and in particular the key functions of the state and companies in all security conditions.
Ensuring the safety of cyberspace will be balanced between the interests of ensuring security and economic viability and human rights, and fundamental freedoms.
5.1 Goal of strengthening and systemic regulation (Digital Slovenia, 2017)
In order to achieve the goal of strengthening and systemic regulation of the national cybernetic system security measures are taken:
- the establishment of a central coordination of the national cyber security system;
- staffing and technological strengthening of organs at the operational level of the cybernetic system security together with the establishment of SIGOV-CERT;
- regular participation in international exercises in the field of cyber security and carrying out national exercises;
- gradually upgrading the network of HKOM national authorities with equipment duly certified by the parties’ Slovenian authorities as safe and suitable for use;
- establishment of competent certification of the security and functionality of information equipment in existing and newly established bodies.
5.2. Goal of citizen’s safety (Digital Slovenia, 2017)
In order to achieve the goal of citizens' safety in the cyberspace, measures are implemented:
- the regular implementation of awareness-raising programs in the field of cyber security;
- introduction of content from the field of cyber security into the education and training system.
5.3 Goal of cyber security in the economy (Digital Slovenia, 2017)
In order to achieve the objective of cyber security in the economy, measures are implemented:
- promoting the development and introduction of new technologies in the field of cyber security;
- the regular implementation of awareness-raising programs in the field of cyber security for economic subjects.
5.4 Goal of ensuring the operation of critical infrastructure in the ICT sector (Digital Slovenia, 2017)
To achieve the goal of ensuring the operation of critical infrastructure in the information and communication sector support is implemented:
Regular assessment of the risks to the operation of the critical infrastructure of the information and communication sector support, planning appropriate measures to protect and update the assessment risks in this field.
5.5 Goal of providing cyber security in the field of public security (Digital Slovenia, 2017)
To achieve the goal of providing cyber security in the field of public security and repression cybercrime measures are implemented:
- Implementation of appropriate cybernetic capabilities to protect information and communication police systems;
- regular training in cyber security for law enforcement agencies involved in development cybernetic capacities in the field of public security and in the suppression of cybercrime;
- regular updating of legislation and procedures in line with the development of information and communication technologies.
5.6 Goal of developing defense cyber capacities (Digital Slovenia, 2017)
In order to achieve the goal of developing defense cyber capacities, a measure is implemented:
development of appropriate cybernetic capabilities for defense of defense communications and information systems.
5.7 Goal of ensuring the safe operation and availability of key information communication systems (Digital Slovenia, 2017)
To achieve the goal of ensuring the safe operation and availability of key information communication systems in case of major natural and other disasters, a measure shall be implemented:
Ensuring the conditions for the smooth operation of key information and communication systems at major natural and other disasters.
5.8 Goal of strengthening national cyber security (Digital Slovenia, 2017)
To achieve the objective of strengthening national cyber security with international cooperation is carried out action:
Providing conditions for the participation of Slovenian experts in relevant international work bodies and associations in the field of cyber security.
Our lives are often in the hands of someone who we are not and will never have the opportunity to meet. Virtual reality, robotics, the virtual world are just a few elements that are no longer so coincidental with our everyday life. Our day-to-day decisions, the operation we perform through seemingly secure Internet environments, can be overcome in a severe distress or problem in case of poor protection of the individual or the state. Critical infrastructure, in terms of technology, information and communications development, is far more than just another area that the state must protect as a puncture of its eye. Precisely because of the extreme dimensions, where boundaries, laws and rules often lose significance precisely because of the virtually of the technology process, defining frameworks within strategies is all the more decisive for the possibility of protecting each individual. Interestingly, the more we see the novelty that enriches our lives, the more fear we fear of situations that are more or less unknown to us - precisely because of the space of the dimension that the world of communication and information offers. In order to create a safe environment, it is therefore important to draw attention to such contributions and to remind us of situations and opportunities that operate within the state, and represent the elements of safe and bold behavior of organizations in the specific framework of the country's infrastructure.
1. Digital Slovenia. (2017). Cyber Security Strategy. Republic of Slovenia.
2. International Policy Digest. (2018). Cyberwarfare against Critical Infrastructure. Received May 12 2018 from https://intpolicydigest.org/2018/03/25/cyberwarfare-against-critical-infrastructure/.
3. Uradni list RS. (2017). Zakon o kritični infrastrukturi. Republic of Slovenia.
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Subreddit is known to be a forum that is dedicated to a certain topic that can be found in Reddit. This is a type of podcast that usually has a lot of subscribers. There are different people who love listening to it or commenting on it. The subreddits are composed of various topics that you may think about.
There are some topics that may get voted up because people are just so interested in it. Some are voted down because people may think that the topic is boring. The voting will be done by people depending on their preference. For example, one topic is about sex; people may vote it up or down depending on how interested they are in that certain topic.
A subreddit is simply a subsidiary thread on the Reddit website. It is Reddit-specific assistance that allows discussion on specific topics and efficiently maintains discussions on that focus. Members of a subreddit post content that gets voted up or down by relevance and by user preference. A subreddit can be identified by its name. A Subreddit name starts with “r/” before the title of the subreddit. For instance, r/funny focuses its conversation on things that are funny. R/jokes focus on jokes. To create a subreddit, you must be a member of Reddit for at least 30 days, and other stuff might be required, such as a total number of karma you have.
A subreddit is simply a forum dedicated to a specific topic on the Reddit website. A registered member of Reddit can subscribe to many subreddit. This will help the user have a variety of content on their FrontPage. Members can also create subreddit. To create a subreddit, you must meet certain criteria:
Your Reddit account must be at least 30 days old, and you must have acquired some positive karma on the platform. Default subreddit use to be a thing in the past before it was removed by the admin on May 31, 2017. Default subreddits were subscriptions that registered users were automatically subscribed when they create an account on Reddit. Revenge and toxic related questions
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In honor of the cavalry regiments that contributed officers, men and experience to the formation of the 17th Cavalry Regiment, the regimental shield shares much from the coats of arm of those units. Orange is from the lst Cavalry and was the official color that has historically represented dragoons. The color green was taken from the 3d Cavalry. Their uniforms contained green facings in honor of the 3d Cavalry's first engagement at Vera Cruz, and its contribution throughout the campaign of 1847 to the capture of Mexico City. The Regiment chose the unicorn from the 6th Cavalry Regiment, which represents the knightly virtues and, in the rampant position, a symbol of fighting aggressiveness, combined with speed and activity. The demihorse, in honor of cavalry mounts, was taken from the shield of the 8th Cavalry Regiment. The diagonal line, being the traditional military symbol of cavalry, came from the 14th Cavalry.
14 May 1917, the Regiment received orders for a change of station due to disturbances along the border of Arizona. By 17 May, the Regiment loaded up on trains and travelled from El Paso to arrive at Douglas, Arizona, on the mid-afternoon of 18 May. The Regiment established itself at "Camp Harry J. Jones", Douglas, Arizona, with outposts near Naco, Arizona (30 miles west along the border), west of town near the C & A Copper Smelter, Forrest, Arizona, and Slaughter's Ranch (13 miles east).
Trouble began in the copper mining districts of Arizona as the Union (IWW) became unmanageable. On 5 July 1917 a provisional squadron, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel White, marched north to Globe, Arizona, for strike duty. Later that month, forest fires in Mormon Canyon (Turkey Creek) grew beyond the control of the forest rangers, prompting another call for assistance by the civil leaders; a detail of fifty men under 2nd Lieutenant Arthur S. Harrington was deployed to assist them. The Regiment would remain in the Southwest until the end of the war. After the armistice was signed, the Regiment was under orders to move to Hawaii.
On 5 April 1919, the 17th Cavalry set sail from San Francisco on the U.S.A.T. Sherman, bound for Honolulu and Schofield Barracks. The massive demobilization following the end of World War I, would leave the 17th Cavalry manning the garrison at Fort Shafter and Schofield Barracks until the fall of 1920. Still, the problem remained of covering approximately one hundred miles of rugged coast line with one regiment of cavalry to effectively repel any attempted landing of troops from transports and hold them off until the arrival of reinforcements. With the exception of the sector in and around the city of Honolulu and Pearl Harbor, the entire coast line of the island was left to the 17th Cavalry Regiment. The Regiment developed an intricate system of shielded lights and telephone lines for command and control as well as reporting, with camps placed in locations that provided excellent cover and concealment from the air or sea.
Reorganization in 1921 resulted in a reduction of the number of cavalry regiments from seventeen to fourteen, this included inactivation of the 17th Cavalry. Lack of funds, reduced personnel authorization, and serious doubts that "the mounted combat of large bodies of cavalry is probably a thing of the past" contributed to the decision as well as a new regimental organization that was designed to reduce overhead, increase firepower, and retain mobility. Many old, famous cavalry units came dangerously close to being lost to the Army because of organizational changes, but a new policy of retaining surplus units on the rolls of the Army in an inactive status was established, preserving unit designations and histories for future use rather than disbanding or redesignating them.
The regiment left Schofield Barracks by truck for Honolulu on September 16 and embarked on the U.S.A.T. Buford for Monterey, California. The officers and enlisted men were transferred to the 11th Cavalry on September 26, and the 17th Cavalry was placed on the inactive list.
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United Kingdom approves antiviral use for flu
The department approved the use of antivirals after receiving Health Protection Agency advice on the increasing levels of circulating flu. Dame Sally Davies, England's chief medical officer, made the announcement after flu-like illness among children aged five to 14 rose to 31.2 cases per 100,000 people in the week ending December 9, GP Online reports.
"The most recent surveillance data indicate that there is now a substantial likelihood that people, including children in schools, presenting with an influenza-like illness are infected with an influenza virus," Davies said, according to GP Online.
Davies said that general practitioners were able to prescribe antiviral medicines for flu treatment at the expense of NHS in accordance with prescription guidelines. At-risk people eligible for free antivirals include pregnant women. She said that GPs could use clinical discretion to prescribe antivirals to patients outside the list who could be at risk for flu complications.
Davies added that the increase in flu activity demonstrated the need for increased flu vaccine uptake. Davies encouraged health professionals to get vaccinated themselves, GP Online reports.
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http://vaccinenewsdaily.com/stories/510533763-newsinator-united-kingdom-approves-antiviral-use-for-flu
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| 0.953969 | 227 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Three teachers show how they...
- Education Professionals
Designed to stimulate debate in KS3/4 citizenship lessons, this programme explores the key political and environmental issues that continue to surround Antarctica.
It looks at the value of scientific research, examining its increasing detrimental impact on the natural environment of the continent. The issue of tourism in Antarctica is also discussed, in addition to the threat that mining could pose to the environment, particularly if the ice continues to melt.
Each example is illustrated with a case study that ties in with the KS3 citizenship curriculum under Unit 21: people and the environment.
Part of the series: The Big Debate
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http://www.schoolsworld.tv/node/1875?terms=64,87
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| 0.932853 | 135 | 3.5 | 4 |
Depression is a condition that reportedly affects I in 10 Americans
at one point or another, but the incidence of depression is actually higher
in some states than others. Certain ethnicities also report higher
depression rates than do others.
Over 80% of the people that have symptoms
of clinical depression are not receiving any
specific treatment for their depression.
The number of patients diagnosed
with depression increases by
approximately 20% per year.
Depression by State
U.S. States with the highest rates of adults meeting the criteria for depression.
States with higher rates of depression also have high rates of:
Obesity Heart Disease Stroke Sleep Disorders Lack of Education Less Access
to Medical Insurance
Individuals that are more likely to suffer from depression:
Unemployed Recently Divorced
Depression is most prevalent
in people ages 45-64
From 2.8% for those 18-24
to a peak of 4.6% for
those 45-64 years.
African-American • • • • 4%
Hispanics • • • • 4%
Others . . . .4.3%
Caucasians • • • 3.1%
have higher rates
Women are twice as likely
to have depression and
symptoms of depression
as men of the same age.
I in 10 women experiences
symptoms of depression in the
weeks after having a baby.
60•80% of all depression cases can be
effectively treated with brief,
structured forms of psychotherapy
and antidepressant medications.
People currently diagnosed----------------------------------------$22,960
People having symptoms but ------------------- $14,365
not diagnosed as depressed
People without any signs ---------------- $11,365
An estimated 121 million people around the world currently suffer from some form of depression.
France, Netherlands and the US: over 30%
Major Depressive Episode (MDE) reported:
<20% 120-30% 30-36% >36%
Courtesy of: Healthline
Connect to Better Health
http://wwww healthline. comi
The holidays are a great time to tell your brand story. From Black Friday trends and Mobile Shopping guides to the Best and Worst Times to Book Travel and Thanksgiving etiquette, the Visually team will help you craft your brand's unique stories and raise your social profile during the noisy holiday season.
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CC-MAIN-2014-10
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| 0.882396 | 494 | 2.671875 | 3 |
By Jane E. Herman
Several times in this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Shemot (Exodus 1:1-6:1), Moses, destined to be among history’s greatest leaders, displays what the Reverend Adam Hamilton, the broadminded senior pastor of United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, described as “a deep and courageous compassion for the marginalized and the oppressed.” Reverend Hamilton shared these words in his sermon at the Presidential Inaugural Prayer Service on the occasion of Barack Obama’s second inauguration in 2013.
Indeed, in Moses’ first appearance as an adult, it is compassion for his own people, slaves in Egypt, that prompts him to strike and kill an Egyptian taskmaster:
“[W]hen Moses had grown up, he went out to his kinsfolk and witnessed their labors. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsmen. He turned this way and that and, seeing no one about, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.” (Exodus 2:11-12)
The next day, seeing two Hebrew slaves fighting, he again displays kindheartedness, this time toward the trampled one, asking the other: “Why do you strike your fellow?” (Exodus 2:13). In this encounter, he learns that his deed of the previous day is known, and he flees to Midian.
Having barely arrived there, he watered the flocks of Jethro after shepherds chased the latter’s daughters from the troughs (Exodus 2:17). Moses remains in Midian, marries Zipporah, one of Jethro’s daughters and for a time, lives the life of a shepherd.
In the Midrash Exodus Rabbah 2:2, we again see Moses display uninhibited compassion, this time toward an animal. Tending his flock, he followed a kid that ran from the group. When the lamb stopped at a pond in a shady spot to drink, Moses said, “I did not know you ran away because you were thirsty,” before carrying the weary lamb back to the others. In response to Moses’ action, God said: “You are compassionate in tending to flocks belonging to humans. I swear you will similarly shepherd my flock Israel.”
When Moses encounters God at the Burning Bush, the Eternal tells him:
“I have marked well the plight of My people in Egypt and have heeded their outcry because of their taskmasters; yes, I am mindful of their sufferings…. Now the cry of the Israelites has reached Me; moreover, I have seen how the Egyptians oppress them.” (Exodus 3:7, 9)
God, echoing the midrash and perhaps, too, the compassionate behavior the Eternal repeatedly sees Moses exhibit, concludes by telling the shepherd, “I will send you to Pharaoh, and you shall free My people, the Israelites, from Egypt.” (Exodus 3:10)
As Jewish tradition teaches, it is incumbent upon us to partner with God to repair our fractured world. The notion that God seeks out humanity, writes Abraham Joshua Heschel in “God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism,” “signifies not a quality inherent in the people but a relationship between the people and God.” In this parashah, we see such a relationship between Moses and God (and also the tensions between them) clearly, but we see even more. God, in observing Moses’ repeated acts of compassion, seems to twist the idea of “b’tzelem Elohim” (in the image of the Divine) by acting “b’tzelem Moshe” (in the image of Moses), the Eternal’s partner, to begin alleviating the oppression and cruelty so long inflicted upon the Children of Israel—and to make them all God’s own.
In this new secular year, may we strengthen our acquaintance with the Holy One and together with the Eternal, continue (or perhaps inaugurate) our own efforts to infuse compassion for those on the edges into even one small corner of our blighted world.
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https://jcca.org/news-and-views/parashat-shemot-whos-acting-in-the-image-of-whom/
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| 0.952703 | 896 | 2.796875 | 3 |
In most Indian villages it was considered a burden if a baby girl was born to a family. A lot of these girls did not receive proper education and were married before the age of 18.
The Indian village Piplantri, however, has a special and incredibly beautiful tradition when a girl is born: Instead of consuming unnecessary items that are considered “cute” in our Western society, these people plant 111 trees in honor of the birth of the child.
Former village leader Shyam Sundar started this amazing custom in order to honor his daughter who passed away at a young age.
The trees become a symbol for the baby girl
It’s a beautiful tradition that fosters a deep appreciation for females in the village
The practice of planting trees when a child is born works to ensure that the local environment will be able to support the ever growing population
The villagers work just as hard to protect the trees from termites, by planting aloe vera
Paliwal’s tradition has created a truly sustainable future for community members
Over the course of the past six years, a quarter of a million trees have been planted in Piplantri
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en
| 0.972878 | 237 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Daniela Schiller, (born Oct. 26, 1972, Rishon LeẔiyyon, Israel), Israeli-born cognitive neuroscientist best known for her research in the area of memory reconsolidation, or the process of re-storing memories after they have been retrieved.
Schiller, the youngest of four children, was raised in Rishon LeẔiyyon, Israel, near Tel Aviv–Yafo. As a teenager she spent a summer on a kibbutz (Israeli collective settlement). In 1991 Schiller joined the Israeli army, serving in the entertainment and education division as a producer of shows for active-duty soldiers. She completed her service in 1993 and subsequently became a producer of lectures and concerts on art, history, and science for the general public while also serving as a drummer for the Israeli rock band the Rebellion Movement.
Schiller earned both a bachelor’s degree in psychology and philosophy (1996) and a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience (2004) from Tel Aviv University. In 2004 she began working as a postdoctoral fellow at New York University, where she led a groundbreaking study that focused on memory reconsolidation. The study participants were repeatedly exposed to a neutral visual stimulus paired with a mild electric shock—a technique known as Pavlovian conditioning, or classical conditioning—which eventually resulted in the subjects’ experiencing fear after being exposed only to the visual stimulus. However, Schiller discovered that she was able to alter that emotional response, replacing the emotion of fear through the presentation of new information during reconsolidation, when memories are relatively unstable and therefore malleable. By introducing nonfearful information (e.g., the absence of electric shock) to participants upon presentation of the stimulus and the subsequent reactivation of fearful memories—a process known as extinction training—the memory was reconsolidated in a way that was no longer associated with fear. This breakthrough discovery presented a noninvasive method of blocking fearful memories in the absence of pharmacological interventions, which often produce a wide range of side effects. It thereby potentially afforded both a safer and a less-costly method of treatment for a variety of psychological disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.
Schiller’s work was published in numerous scholarly journals, including The Journal of Neuroscience and the Journal of Psychiatric Research; she served as a contributing author for several books, such as The Human Amygdala (2009). Schiller was the recipient of multiple awards, including the New York Academy of Sciences Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists (2010) for her research on how to rewire the brain to eradicate fear as a response to memory. In 2010 she became a professor at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, where she also directed the cognitive and affective neuroscience laboratory. She thereafter began utilizing magnetic resonance imaging to scan the human brain during memory consolidation and reconsolidation to identify the neurological links between fear and memory. Schiller has performed as a drummer for the Amygdaloids, an American rock band composed of New York University professors.
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CC-MAIN-2014-10
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http://www.britannica.com/print/topic/1780782
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en
| 0.965134 | 631 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Hitting the Paris Agreement goal of keeping average global warming well below 1.5°C will depend on a “frank and open discussion on equity” that drives negotiators toward faster, deeper emission cuts and away from “conventional development paths,” argues Dr. Alison Doig, Head of Policy at Christian Aid, in a blog post published late last week.
Doig opens her post by recalling the day she invited a group of 11-year-olds to calculate their carbon footprints—and realized their answers said a lot about their socio-economic backgrounds. “In short, the wealthiest kids generated more emissions than the poorest, and at the same time held more power to address this,” she writes. “A similar trend occurs when we look at climate action internationally,” with the Civil Society Equity Review attributing more than half of global greenhouse gas emissions to the 10% wealthiest individuals—who overwhelming live in wealthy countries.
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By contrast, “the carbon footprint of the poorest 10% can barely be traced,” Doig notes. Which means the “wealthy countries which committed in the UN Climate Convention to ‘take the lead in combatting climate change’ need to recognize the implications of their position of privilege for the scale of action they need to take, both at home and globally.”
Doig acknowledges that climate negotiators’ complicated history with the word “equity” dates back to the Kyoto Protocol, adding that the term is “far less well defined” in the Paris deal. But “in reality, the biggest opponents of a constructive discussion of equity are wealthy nations, which want to evade or minimize their own obligations,” she writes. “They know that equity means changing the way they run their own economies. It also means letting go of some of their global power; sharing their financial and technological wherewithal with poorer nations to help them develop in a climate-smart way.”
So far, the Equity Review found that rich countries are accepting less than one-quarter of their fair share of the responsibility to deliver a 1.5°C limit. “Poorer nations can also go further in taking alternative low-carbon pathways, but to make that choice, they need the wealthy countries to partner with them, sharing finance and clean technologies,” Doig adds. “There is a huge opportunity to work together to keep us all in a climate-safe world.”
Even with the United States, in particular, refusing to uphold its responsibilities under the Paris Agreement, “it is time for a mature discussion on climate justice, urgency, and equity,” she concludes. “For those of us in wealthy countries, this means admitting both our historic responsibility for causing climate change, and recognizing our economic capacity to support the national and global transitions that are needed. Wealthy countries partnering with poorer countries to support the international zero-carbon transition is not charity—it is a necessity and a responsibility. A climate outcome is neither ambitious nor fair if it fails to avert catastrophe.”
Leave a Reply
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<urn:uuid:e78315c8-1e0b-461d-848a-80baff8af62f>
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CC-MAIN-2023-14
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https://www.theenergymix.com/2019/03/17/doig-international-equity-is-the-key-to-faster-deeper-carbon-cuts/
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en
| 0.949827 | 682 | 2.625 | 3 |
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