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© Action Press - Rex Tutankhamun's ornate sarcophagus
Experts say they're '90 percent' sure they've uncovered a chamber in King Tut's tomb containing the final resting place of Nefertiti. If true, archaeologists say it would be one of the biggest discoveries of the century.
Egypt's antiquities minister said on Saturday experts were '90 percent' sure they had uncovered a hidden chamber in Tutankhamun's tomb that might contain the remains of Queen Nefertiti.
Nicholas Reeves, a British archeologist at the University of Arizona, said during the news conference that data would be sent to Japan for further study.
Experts have long speculated that Nefertiti was in fact the mother of Ancient Egyptian ruler Tutankhamun, better known as King Tut. Nefertiti, whose much-touted beauty was captured in a famous bust currently on display in a Berlin museum, died in the 14th century B.C.
'The biggest discovery ever made'
Reeves published evidence back in August pointing to the discovery of so-called "ghost doors" in King Tut's tomb, found after detailed scans were made of the tomb's walls.In the report, he claimed there was a chamber adjoined to the north of the tomb containing the resting place of Nefertiti.
Speaking to "The Economist," Reeves said that if it were indeed true that the tomb contained the queen's burial chamber, it would be "potentially the biggest archeological discovery ever made.
"Some archaeologists believe King Tut's mother was a woman known only as the "Younger Lady," whose mummy was was discovered in the Valley of the Kings back in 1898. Others, including Reeves, continue to maintain that Nefertiti was the boy-king's mother.
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Unity High School Khan Academy Blended Learning Program
Oakland Unity High School (OUHS) in Oakland, Calif. introduced a rotation blended learning program using Khan Academy, a free, online resource for math and science videos, with its Algebra 1 and Algebra Readiness students in September 2011.
- Serves incoming high school freshman
- Rotation blended learning using Khan Academy
Oakland Unity High School is a high expectation school with a safe environment, rigorous curriculum, and intensive supports that are responsive to the individual needs of students and allow them to achieve academic success and positive social and cultural development. Approximately 95 percent of students are Latino or African-American and 85 percent receive free or reduced lunch at OUHS.
In the summer of 2010, the school conducted a diagnostic test with all incoming freshman to evaluate basic algebra and arithmetic skills. Most students needed to retake an Algebra Readiness or Algebra 1 course. The number of students scoring below basic (approximately score of 40 percent) decreased from 77 percent to 28 percent. The number scoring above proficient (approximately score of 60 percent) increased from 9 percent to 32 percent.
In September 2011, the school implemented a rotation blended learning model with a Khan Academy learning lab for all students enrolled in an Algebra Readiness or Algebra 1 course to close a “learning and confidence” gap with its students. Students work in an online environment during the Learning Lab to work on content that directly supports instruction in their math course. Instructors collaborate on a weekly basis to ensure that course curriculum is aligned and sequenced.
This year’s Algebra Readiness and Algebra 1 students scored consistently higher on solving equations, absolute value and the first semester final exams. That margin grew substantially for the most rigorous test on systems of equations (from 37 percent to 74 percent). This suggested that improved habits through the Khan Academy approach were creating real improvements among students. This evidence of superior performance was reinforced by the increased portion of scores above 80 percent on all of the tests.
Many Khan Academy features increased the quality and quantity of practice work among the OUHS students:
- Most exercises are not multiple-choice, which eliminates guessing
- Questions are randomly generated, which eliminates copying
- The short video clips engaged students and allowed them to replay the material until they understood it; and
- The online environment and Khan Academy’s overall design appeals to the students, resulting in significant engagement time.
Students completed the Khan Academy exercises, finished written homework, paid attention in class and gained confidence to approach challenging problems. We truly believe that the Khan Academy approach met student’s learning needs in order to deliver real learning in math proficiency.
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ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Decommissioning & Environmental Sciences
The mission of the Decommissioning and Environmental Sciences (DES) Division is to promote the development and use of those skills and technologies associated with the use of nuclear energy and the optimal management and stewardship of the environment, sustainable development, decommissioning, remediation, reutilization, and long-term surveillance and maintenance of nuclear-related installations, and sites. The target audience for this effort is the membership of the Division, the Society, and the public at large.
Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space (NETS 2023)
May 7–11, 2023
Idaho Falls, ID|Snake River Event Center
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
Latest Magazine Issues
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
Fusion Science and Technology
IAEA launches comic book contest for teens
The International Atomic Energy Agency is inviting teens aged 14 to 18 to submit original comic book pages depicting a space-based nuclear science experiment on agricultural seeds that the agency is conducting with the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). The contest is offering prizes, including publication of the winning designs on the IAEA website, for the champion and finalists. The deadline for April 16.
Technical Session|Sponsored by FCWMD
Wednesday, June 15, 2022|10:15AM–12:00PM PDT|Santa Monica
Tejaswini Vaidya (Univ. Idaho)
Christina Leggett (Booz Allen Hamilton/ARPA-E)
Treatment and conditioning are used to convert radioactive, mixed, and hazardous wastes from various waste processing or used nuclear fuel reprocessing activities into inert waste forms for transportation, storage, and final disposal. The treated and conditioned wastes must ultimately be disposed of in a suitable disposal facility. Multiple disposal options are currently being considered for the most highly radioactive wastes, including geologic repositories and deep borehole disposal. This session discusses advances made in waste form development, reprocessing facility off-gas capture technologies, and disposal facility design and optimization.
To access paper attachments, you must be logged in and registered for the meeting.
Register NowLog In
Iron Phosphate Glass Waste Forms to Immobilize Dehalogenated Salt Wastes
Matthew Page (Clemson Univ.), Adam Gootgeld (Clemson Univ.), Ming Tang (Clemson Univ.)
Advanced Long-Term Environmental Monitoring Systems (ALTEMIS) for Consent-Based Siting of Nuclear Facilities
Haruko Wainwright (MIT), Carol Eddy-Dilek (SRNL)
Adsorption of Radioactive Iodine Using Aged Nanocarbon-Coated Ceramic Substrate
Chaithanya Balumuru (Univ. Idaho), Krishnan Raja (Univ. Idaho), Piyush Sabharwall (INL), Vivek Utgikar (Univ. Idaho)
Features, Events, and Processes Prioritization for Deep Borehole Disposal Concepts in Crystalline Rock and Shale
Ethan Bates (Deep Isolation), John Midgley (Deep Isolation)
Effects of Storage on Methyl Iodide Adsorption by Mordenite Sorbent
Heinrik Goettsche (Univ. Idaho), Raja Krishnan (Univ. Idaho), Vivek Utgikar (Univ. Idaho)
To join the conversation, you must be logged in and registered for the meeting.
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When it comes to big bucks, the Mississippi River Delta and Ouachita National Forest are in a horse race. Rich bottomland, miles of floodplain agriculture and ample cover along the Mississippi River Delta turn out big-bodied bucks. The average three-year-old ranges from 220 to 240 pounds. Right behind the river delta is the Ouachita National Forest, where bucks in the 200-pound range, with a mean dressed weight of 150 pounds, are common. The average three-year-old will weigh between 180 and 210 pounds. The overall population of 1.1 million deer is in good shape, according to state deer project co-leader Dave Urbston, with an estimated harvest of 180,000 to 185,000 last year. A major ice storm last winter should improve habitat in a number of areas, including the Ozark and Ouachita national forests. The storm tore up pine thickets, thereby creating openings in the canopy and allowing for the growth of browse and hardwoods. The storm also created new deadfalls in which deer can hide. "The Ouachita is primarily shortleaf pine but has some good stands of hardwoods," Urbston says. "I believe it will get better there because the ice storm tore the hell out of the pine trees. We have some fertility problems in the Ozark National Forest and we're bringing the buck-to-doe ratio into balance in the Gulf Coastal Plain, but overall it looks pretty good." Permits are issued because of high demand for hunts in wildlife management areas. Another top region is Zone 3 in the northeast, a major agricultural area where the Mississippi River and other major tributaries are known more for ducks than deer. Sparse cover along the river provides patchwork habitat for big deer.
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Subacute thyroiditis is an uncommon disorder. It refers to inflammation of the thyroid gland. Usually an acute upper respiratory tract infection (URI), such as a common cold, flu, and even COVID can triggers it.
What Are The Symptoms of Subacute Thyroiditis?
Symptoms of Subacute Thyroiditis occur in two phases:
Phase 1: Symptoms of Hyperthyroidism
- Pain in the thyroid area. At times, pain also radiates to jaw or the ear.
- Excessive perspiration
- Intolerance to heat
- Excessive weight loss despite good appetite
A few (6-12) weeks later, these symptoms subside on their own and symptoms of hypothyroidism develop.
Phase : 2 Symptoms of hypothyroidism
- Fatigue, sluggishness
- Weight gain
- Intolerance to cold
- Depressed mood
How Long Does It Take To Recover From Subacute Thyroiditis?
Recovery time from from subacute thyroiditis is about 3-6 months in most cases. However, some individuals – about 5% – may continue to experience symptoms of hypothyroidism for longer duration. A few may even develop permanent hypothyroidism. That’s why it is important to continue to monitor your thyroid functions periodically.
What Causes Subacute Thyroiditis?
The cause of subacute thyroiditis is viral, usually an upper respiratory tract infection (URI.) Consequently, there is structural damage to the thyroid gland. It’s like a tornado hitting a trailer park.
Normally, the thyroid gland stores a large amount of thyroid hormones and releases them in small quantities over a period of time.
With the destruction of the gland caused by the tornado of subacute thyroiditis, the large quantities of the stored thyroid hormones get into the blood circulation. This causes the phase of hyperthyroidism.
The thyroid hormones remain in circulation for a few weeks (6-12 weeks) and so does the phase of hyperthyroidism.
After the tornado goes away, the thyroid gland starts to repair itself, but it takes a while.
During this period, there is shortage of thyroid hormones, which gives rise to the phase of hypothyroidism. This phase typically last a few weeks (6-12 weeks).
Eventually, in most cases, the thyroid gland restores back to normal, although some patients may become hypothyroid permanently.
Can COVID-19 Cause Subacute Thyroiditis?
Subacute Thyroiditis can develop during and after the illness of COVID-19. Researchers from all the world have described such cases. For example, physians from Singapore report a patient who in the hospital with COVID. One day, patient developed anterior neck pain and rapid heart beat. Thyroid function test showed hyperthyroidism. The attending physicians treated him with prednisone. Patient recovered rapidly.1
In another publication, endocrinologists from Italy reported four cases. These patients developed Subacute Thyroiditis 16 to 36 days after the resolution of COVID. Main symptoms were neck pain, palpitations, fever and asthenia. Three patients received prednisone while one received Ibuprofen. Symptoms resolved within a few days of treatment. Six weeks later, all patients continued to be asymptomatic.2
Can COVID Vaccines Cause Subacute Thyroiditis?
Endocrinologists from Hacettepe University School of Medicine, Turkey report three cases of Subacute Thyroiditis triggered by the inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine (CoronaVac®). All the patients were females and healthcare workers. They presented with anterior neck pain and fatigue, four to seven days after they received the COVID vaccine. The researchers confirmed the diagnosis of Subacute Thyroiditis by the laboratory testing. The authors concluded these cases to be ASIA syndrome -Autoimmune/inflammatory Syndrome Induced by Adjuvants in the vaccines. 3
How to Diagnose Subacute Thyroiditis?
Diagnosis of subacute thyroiditis is a tricky one. Patients usually consult their family physicians, who often do not think about the possibility of subacute thyroiditis. They usually treat patients’ symptoms with a variety of medicines. When patients don’t get better, both patients and physicians feel quite frustrated. Usually, it takes an endocrinologist to diagnose Subacute Thyroiditis accurately.
Diagnostic Tests include:
- Free T4, FreeT3, which are elevated.
- Anti-Thyroid Antibody tests to differentiate from Graves’ disease.
- Thyroid Radioiodine uptake and scan to differentiate from Graves’ disease.
Anti-Thyroid antibody tests
Your endocrinologist will order either a TSI – Thyroid Stimulating Immunoglobulins or TRAB – Thyrotropin Receptor Antibody test. Typically these antibodies are elevated in Graves’ disease but not in Subacute Thyroiditis.
Thyroid Radioiodine uptake and scan
Thyroid Radioiodine uptake and scan is the most useful tool in deciding whether hyperthyroidism is due to subacute thyroiditis or Graves’ disease. In subacute thyroiditis, there is minimal radioiodine uptake. On the other hand, it is elevated in Graves’ disease.
The Thyroid Radioiodine uptake and scan should not be done if a patient is pregnant or breast-feeding.
Caution: Don’t rely on TSH, a test typically ordered by non-endocrinologists, because it lags behind about 6 weeks. Therefore, the results of TSH may be telling the story what happened 6 weeks ago, which may be quite misleading. Even otherwise TSH is a misleading test for thyroid function.
Treatment of Subacute Thyroiditis
In the majority of cases, subacute thyroiditis is a self-limiting disease. Therefore, you don’t need any specific treatment. However, close monitoring is essential.
For pain in the thyroid area, you can take a NSAIDs (Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs) – such as ibuprofen, naproxen. However, if pain is severe, your endocrinologist will likely prescribe a short course of prednisone.
You can manage symptoms of hyperthyroidism with a Beta-Blocker such as atenolol or propranolol.
Magnesium glycinate can work well to control rapid heart rate, anxiety and insomnia.
Symptoms of hypothyroidism may require a short course of thyroid hormone replacement with T4 and T3.
Patient education and close monitoring of the thyroid functions are the most important component of the treatment.
Subacute Thyroiditis presents with the worrisome symptoms of anterior neck pain, palpitations, anxiety and weight loss. After a few weeks patients develop symptoms of hypothyroidism – sluggishness, weight gain, and depressed mood. An endocrinologist can quickly make the diagnosis and reassure the patient. Prognosis is excellent in the vast majority of patients. A few individuals may develop permanent hypothyroidism. Physician should be vigilant to the possibility of Subacute Thyroiditis in COVID patients as well as following a COVID vaccination.
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The numerous initiatives created over the last 20 years using Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) have transformed the lives of many people living in poorer countries. However, at the same time, they have also greatly increased the economic power and wealth of the owners and shareholders of large global technology corporations. In 2017, Oxfam reported that eight men owned the same wealth as the poorest half of humanity; five of these men made most of their wealth directly from the technology sector.3 Of course, such technologies can reduce inequalities, but the hidden, ugly secret of “digital development” is that instead of improving the lives of the poorest and most marginalised, such technologies have actually dramatically increased inequality at all scales, from the global to the local.
Few people and organisations emphasise this, focusing instead on the glass being half-full rather than half-empty. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and countless others have thus recently praised the achievement that 51.2% of the world’s population were using the Internet by the end of 2018.4 However, this means that 48.8% are still not using it. If the Internet brings benefits, then just under half of the world’s people are being structurally disadvantaged. Yet, this need not be. If we have the will to do so, we can indeed work together with people with disabilities, children at risk of living and working on the streets, refugees, women and girls in patriarchal societies, ethnic minorities, and those living in geographically isolated areas to help empower them through the design and use of relevant technologies.
The evidence on increasing inequality is incontrovertible. Active mobile-broadband subscriptions (see chart) have grown throughout the world over the last decade. Those who focus their attention on economic growth as the means to reduce absolute poverty see this as positive. But, look more closely. The difference between the developed and least developed countries in 2007 was only around 20 subscriptions per 100 people. By 2018, the difference had risen to around 80. As is so often the case, increasing economic growth has therefore also increased inequalities in access and thus benefits.
This can also be seen spatially in the map of broadband affordability (see map). This shows all too clearly that the costs of using broadband as a percentage of average income are usually very much higher in economically poor countries and for poor people than they are for those living in the economically richer countries of, for example, North America and Europe. This, too, is well known, but the scale of it is not always sufficiently appreciated. As the map shows, broadband subscriptions in much of Africa cost more than a quarter of average income, and in several countries they are more than half the average income. Not only are such costs high, but also the quality of connectivity is usually much slower and unreliable in poorer countries. The benefits people can gain from using the latest generation of mobile devices connected to 4G, or now even 5G networks, are vastly greater than for those only using basic phones on 2G networks, or even none at all.
Why is this important? These well-known observations have not yet sufficiently translated into actions. It is generally believed that access to technologies will somehow beneficially trickle down to the “next billion”. Still, that would leave the poorest and most marginalised even further behind. As old technologies become more widely accessible, newer ones will continue to privilege the richest and most powerful. Notions of “smart cities” thus marginalise those living in rural areas and in what might disparagingly be called “stupid villages”.
Moral grounds should suffice to convince people that such increasing inequalities resulting from the spread of digital technologies are indeed wrong. However, such arguments seem insufficient to convince those advocating the use of digital technologies in development because of their contribution to economic growth. ICTs are rarely mentioned in international fora relating to SDG10 on reducing inequalities, and interestingly none of the targets for this goal make any references to digital technologies.
The failure to address digital inequalities is more than a moral imperative; the socio-political and economic implications are also serious. ICTs undoubtedly enable governments and companies that wish to surveil their citizens and customers to do so more easily, and so those “off the grid” may well be at an advantage in avoiding such surveillance. However, increasing inequalities resulting from the appropriation of ever newer and more expensive technologies by the middle classes are already leading to rising social tensions. As poor and marginalised people come to see their richer digital neighbours enjoying the benefits of these technologies, their failure to acquire them and gain equivalent benefits become significant potential sources of conflict and violence. Moreover, declining rates of increase in Internet use over the last decade are worrying investors in digital corporations that are failing to deliver on their anticipated growth rates. The inability to expand markets at the necessary pace is itself one of the factors contributing to a global slowdown in the digital economy.
So, what needs to change? Three fundamental things must be done to reverse these increasing digital inequalities. All of them are remarkably easy to do with the will to act. First and foremost, governments and international organisations, such as UN agencies and the OECD, need a fundamental change in approach away from encouraging the use of digital technologies and innovation in support of economic growth to one focusing on their appropriate use by the poorest and most marginalised. The private sector will deliver on growth in its own interest; governments should, at least theoretically, support all of their citizens. Second, we need to understand that digital technologies in themselves have no power to effect change. Such an instrumental view of technology has been hugely damaging because it hides the interests underlying their design and production. Unless new technologies are created with marginalised people to serve their specific interests and empowerment, then inequalities will continue to grow. Finally, we all need to change our use of language to reflect such a radically different approach. Instead of calling the poorest and most marginalised the “last billion”, we should call them the “first billion” because they are the most important. We should stop propagating the myth of “bridging the digital divide” when that divide is becoming increasingly wide and impossible to “bridge”. We should focus instead on working with and in the interests of the poor.5
Yes, co-creating digital technologies with and for marginalised communities can indeed contribute to their empowerment and reduce inequalities, but only if we all really have the will to make that happen.
3. Oxfam (2017) An economy for the 99%, Oxford: Oxfam, www.oxfam.org/en/research/economy-99; see also Oxfam (2019) Public good or private wealth, Oxford: Oxfam, www.oxfam.org/en/research/public-good-or-private-wealth
4. ITU (2018) New ITU statistics show more than half the world is now using the Internet, https://news.itu.int/itu-statistics-leaving-no-one-offline/
5. For a much more detailed account of what needs to be done, see: Unwin, T. (2017) Reclaiming Information and Communication Technologies for Development, Oxford: Oxford University Press
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About Apollo Missions"That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind...” nnOn 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong made the historic first steps on the Moon. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the lunar landing, this book takes a look back on the innovative program that made one of humanity’s greatest achievements possible. nnThe project was a shining example of what can be achieved when humanity works towards a common goal. In less than ten years, Project Apollo developed the technologies and spacecraft that would take humans to the Moon. Discover the missions that paved the way for Apollo 11’s historic journey, the astronauts who followed in Neil Armstrong’s first footsteps, and the brave crews that risked their lives in the name of exploration and space science. Beyond the Moon missions, Apollo technologies were instrumental in launching and maintaining the International Space Station. With NASA now setting its sights on sending astronauts back to the Moon in the 2020s, Apollo’s legacy is alive and well.
The number of issues included in a magazine subscription (frequency) is subject to change without notice. Additional double issues may be published, which count as 2 issues. Applicable sales tax will be added. Offer void in Vermont. Magazine covers are used for illustrative purposes only and you may not receive a copy of the particular issue depicted. Your subscription will include the most recent issue once your subscription begins. Magazine covers are the property of the publisher. This site is not officially affiliated with, associated with, or endorsed by Apollo Missions or the publisher.
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Cross Site Scripting – More Than Just Alert Boxes
But let’s start at the beginning. There are 3 types of cross-site scripting vulnerabilities:
- Stored – a less common type of cross-site scripting that occurs when data submitted by the attacker is stored within the application. Attacks again stored cross-site scripting vulnerabilities usually include two requests: first the attacker posting some crafted data containing the malicious code, and then the victim unknowingly executing the code. These are usually more serious vulnerabilities.
So now that we know the different types of cross-site scripting vulnerabilities, what is the real risk of them?
- Virtual Defacement – This involves injecting malicious data into a page of a web application to feed misleading information to users. I’ve seen cases where it displays a page saying “You’ve been hacked!”. Attacks can also inject elaborate content and navigation into the site.
- Trojan Functionality – The attacker may go beyond virtual defacement and inject working Trojan functionality into the application, trying to trick users into preforming some kind of action. This might include a fake page to enter credit card information.
- Session Hijacking – An attacker can steal valid session tokens and log into the application as that user. We saw this in the StrongWebmail example.
So cross-site scripting is more than just an alert box on the screen. Serious risks come with all types of cross-site scripting vulnerabilities. Later we’ll talk about interesting places to look for these vulnerabilities besides open parameters.
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Hypertensive crisis - a condition that is caused by high blood pressure.
Therefore, assistance with hypertensive crisis should be provided urgently.
What are the causes of the crisis, and how to properly provide first aid to a patient with hypertensive crisis?
Causes of hypertensive crisis
Crises develop in the disease of arterial hypertension. Quite often, hypertensive crisis can occur with the withdrawal of drugs that lower blood pressure. This condition can be called withdrawal syndrome.
The risk factors for the emergence of hypertensive crises include:
- Weather conditions - this refers to weather-dependent people-
- Large intake of salt in food-
- Heavy physical activity-
- Abolition of antihypertensive drugs-
- heart diseases-
- Hormonal disorders in the adolescent or climacteric syndrome.
Symptoms of hypertensive crisis
A clear sign of a hypertensive crisis is high blood pressure. It can lead to a heart attack, pulmonary edema, aortic aneurysm or acute renal or coronary insufficiency.
The development of the crisis is manifested by frequent palpitations, tremors, agitation and anxiety. The patient is restless, he does not have enough air, there is a cold sticky sweat.
If there is a disturbance of the cerebral circulation, vomiting, impaired vision and dizziness occur.
How to help with hypertensive crisis
- Call an ambulance.
- At the first signs of a crisis, put the patient in a chair and place a pillow under your head.
- Give him a sedative, such as "Corvalol" or "Valocordinum".
- Measure blood pressure.
For relief of hypertensive crisis applyThe following drugs: Nifedipine, Clonidine, Diazoxide, Captopril, Labetalol, and others. Do not take medication yourself, wait for an emergency doctor.
Prophylaxis of hypertensive crises
- With hypertension, watch your pressure. Measure it several times a day.
- Stress should be avoided.
- You do not need to drink alcoholic beverages. It is important to stop smoking.
- Obese people are more likely to suffer from hypertensive crises, so you should control your weight.
- In food, do not eat too salty foods.
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Though we still do not know the actual cause of diseases like Alzheimer’s that cause dementia, we should heed the results of such research. Vitamin D deficiencies can mostly be addressed easily.
Getting enough sunlight is important. A stroll outdoors can provide both exercise to boost your circulation and sunlight to give you Vitamin D. People who remain indoors due to disability, age or apathy may not be receiving enough sunlight. Asking a doctor to provide Vitamin D supplements may help in these conditions. So be sure you and your loved ones get the required dose of Vitamin D, through sunshine or a supplement.
Experimental Gerontology, Volume 41, Issue 8, August 2006
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For an urban heat island map during a warm summer see this dataset.
This map shows the results of an ‘UrbClim’ simulation for the mean temperature at midnight during the summer of 2011 (May to September) at a resolution of 250m. This summer has been selected as a typical summer for a West-European city.
On average, the night-time temperature is approximately 4°C higher in the city centre. During some hot nights, even larger effects are observed.
UrbClim is an urban climate model designed to model and study the urban heat island effect (UHI) at a spatial resolution of a few hundred meters. This project was carried out by VITO as part of an EU-funded RAMSES programme on the urban impacts of climate change.
For more information about the model, please see the Technical Information and Interpretation report. Please direct any enquiries to Hans Hooyberghs ([email protected]) or Koen De Ridder ([email protected]).
You must be logged in to request access to this dataset.
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Tuesday: June 23, 2020
2 Kings 19:10 Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.
What are the origins of mistrust and doubt? I hadn’t intentionally ever thought about this question but, upon reading the content of Sennacherib’s letter to King Hezekiah, I did a bit of pondering. The one idea that came to mind was ‘the reception of contrasting information’. Whether this is auditory, visual or experential; when any new information contrasts or contradicts what we already know about a person, place or thing, we find ourselves doubting or mistrusting
That was the card Sennacherib pulled out by writing in his letter “the God whom you trust may be deceiving you”. However, unlike Adam and Eve who fell for the information presented by the serpent, Hezekiah returned to the presence of God with this letter and reminded himself of who the Lord was. He did not allow the new information to override or alter what He already knew.
Beloved, while they may appear as simple contrasts, seemingly harmless statements like those presented by Sennacherib are the origins or mistrust and doubt. Let us, therefore, delicately manage the information we receive, particularly if there is a suggestion or the prospect for overriding pre-existing information. Lest we lose our way
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A crash course in UML state machines: Part 2
To read Part 1, go to "The over simplification of the event-action paradigm"
To read Part 3, go to "Designing a UML state machine"
Though the traditional FSMs are an excellent tool for tackling smaller problems, it's also generally known that they tend to become unmanageable, even for moderately involved systems. Due to the phenomenon known as state explosion, the complexity of a traditional FSM tends to grow much faster than the complexity of the reactive system it describes.
This happens because the traditional state machine formalism inflicts repetitions. For example, if you try to represent the behavior of the Visual Basic calculator (introduced in Part 1 in this series) with a traditional FSM, you'll immediately notice that many events (e.g., the Clear event) are handled identically in many states. A conventional FSM, however, has no means of capturing such a commonality and requires repeating the same actions and transitions in many states. What's missing in the traditional state machines is the mechanism for factoring out the common behavior in order to share it across many states.
The formalism of statecharts, invented by David Harel in the 1980s, addresses exactly this shortcoming of the conventional FSMs.1 Statecharts provide a very efficient way of sharing behavior so that the complexity of a statechart no longer explodes but tends to faithfully represent the complexity of the reactive system it describes. Obviously, formalism like this is a godsend to embedded systems programmers (or any programmers working with event-driven systems) because it makes the state machine approach truly applicable to real-life problems.
UML state machines, known also as UML statecharts,2 are object-based variants of Harel statecharts and incorporate several concepts defined in ROOMcharts, a variant of the statechart defined in the Real-time Object-Oriented Modeling (ROOM) language.3 UML statecharts are extended state machines with characteristics of both Mealy and Moore automata. In statecharts, actions generally depend on both the state of the system and the triggering event, as in a Mealy automaton. Additionally, UML statecharts provide optional entry and exit actions, which are associated with states rather than transitions, as in a Moore automaton.
Reuse of behavior in reactive systems
All reactive systems seem to reuse behavior in a similar way. For example, the characteristic look and feel of all GUIs results from the same pattern, which the Windows guru Charles Petzold calls the "Ultimate Hook".4 The pattern is brilliantly simple: A GUI system dispatches every event first to the application (e.g., Windows calls a specific function inside the application, passing the event as an argument). If not handled by the application, the event flows back to the system. This establishes a hierarchical order of event processing.
The application, which is conceptually at a lower level of the hierarchy, has the first shot at every event; thus the application can choose to react in any way it likes. At the same time, all unhandled events flow back to the higher level (i.e., to the GUI system), where they are processed according to the standard look and feel. This is an example of programming by difference because the application programmer needs to code only the differences from the standard system behavior.
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What are corns and calluses on the feet?
Corns and calluses are one of the most common foot conditions that we see and treat at Entire Podiatry. Corns and calluses are a thickening of the outer layer of skin, which occurs in response to friction, pressure or rubbing on the foot. This thickening is known medically as hyperkeratosis.
A small corn or callus on your feet may not cause any symptoms. However a large, bulky corn or callus can cause foot pain and difficulty walking.
It can be difficult to know for sure what are corns and calluses and how to tell these apart from other skin conditions such as warts, scar tissue, a foreign body or an ulcer. Your podiatrist will assess your lesion and provide an accurate diagnosis and conduct appropriate treatment.
Corns are usually hard and circular, with a waxy or translucent centre. At the centre of a corn is a dense knot of skin called a core, which is located over the area of greatest friction or pressure. Corns may become painful or ulcerated in response to persistent friction, pressure or rubbing.
Corns usually develop on top of or between the toes or on the soles of the feet at areas that carry a lot of pressure.
Unlike a corn, the thickened skin of a callus is evenly distributed. There is no dense central core. Calluses usually occur on the soles of the feet, however they can also form on other parts of the body that are exposed to long-term friction. For example, calluses are often found on the hands of manual labourers and guitar players.
On the soles of the feet, calluses typically develop near the base of the toes, where there may be friction from the inside of shoes. Calluses are often related to walking problems or foot abnormalities that place unusual stresses on parts of the foot during walking.
The symptoms of callus and corns are as follows –
- The callus may look like a raised hardened area of skin
- The skin may be discoloured and have a glassy yellowish appearance
- A corn between your toes may have a hardened and yellow appearance, or it may feel soft, wet and white.
- You may experience pain or discomfort when walking or standing or when wearing particular shoes
- You may notice a feeling of walking on a rock or a foreign body beneath your foot
What causes corns and calluses on your feet?
Corns and calluses develop as part of the skin’s normal defence against friction and pressure on the foot. This friction or pressure can be caused by:
- Footwear which causes rubbing or pressure on part of the foot. For example, narrow, tight or ill-fitting shoes.
- Conditions which may alter the mechanics of the foot, placing excessive pressure on certain areas of the foot. For example, people with feet that roll inwards (flat feet), may experience increased pressure on the ball of the foot beneath the big toe, and the inside of the heel. A podiatry assessment will identify any abnormalities that may need correction in order to relieve excess pressure/friction on the foot.
- Previous surgery or trauma can alter structural alignment of the foot, causing excessive pressure on certain parts of the foot.
- Bony prominences on the foot (such as those caused by bunions, hammertoe or arthritis) may be more prone to rubbing/friction.
Callus on the bottom of the feet
There are many causes of callus on the bottom of the feet.
Inappropriate footwear can contribute to callus formation on the bottom of the feet. High heel shoes may place excessive pressure at the ball of the foot causing callus to build-up here. Any shoe that is quite firm and hard can also lead to callus development. If shoes are too tight or too small they can rub against the toes against the shoes creating corns.
People who spend long amounts of time on their feet or exercise frequently may also develop calluses underneath their feet.
There may also be mechanical causes for corns and callus on the balls of the feet. This means the way that your feet work and move can cause particular parts of your feet to be overloaded. For example, if you have a bunion this places more pressure under the ball of your foot in line with the second toe joint. Hammer or claw toes also place more pressure here and frequently lead to development of callus under the ball of the foot.
Occasionally calluses can develop around the arch of the foot. Calluses on the arch of the foot are less common than calluses on the bottom the foot as typically the arch is non-weightbearing, meaning that the skin of the arch is usually not in contact with the shoe or the ground. However, if you have a lowered arch or a ‘flat foot’ then the skin of your arch may rub against the shoe or press against the ground when walking causing a callus to develop. A condition called adult acquired flat foot is where the posterior tibial tendon does not work as well and subsequently the bones collapse in the arch. Painful calluses may develop on the bottom of the foot where there is increased areas of pressure. Shoes that do not fit well and are too tight across the middle of your foot may rub the foot in this area leading to a callus.
Corns and calluses on toes
Corns and calluses can develop around your toes.
Calluses on the side of your big toe can be painful and may indicate a biomechanical issue within your feet. For example, if you have a pronated or ‘flat foot’ this can change the way pressure is carried through the feet and can lead to excessive pressure and callus formation beneath and on the side of the big toe.
If you suffer from arthritis or a bunion at the big toe you may have restricted motion at this joint, known as hallux limitus. If the big toe cannot move sufficiently when walking the foot is then forced to roll off the side of the toe and this subsequently pinches the skin on the outside of the toe and creates a callus in this area.
Calluses and corns can also develop on the other toes. Toe ‘deformities’ such as claw toes, hammer toes or toes that have been affected by surgery can cause calluses and corns on your toes.
Firm, dry corns that form on the upper surfaces of the toes are called hard corns. Hard corns develop from the top of the toes rubbing on the shoes. Corns can also develop between the toes where the skin is damp from sweat or where the toes are tightly squeezed against each other. These are usually pliable, moist corns called ‘soft’ corns which develop from friction and rubbing between toes. The pressure of these corns or calluses may cause them to become inflamed, which can result in pain, swelling and redness.
The little toe is also prone to developing callus as this toe often get squished and squeezed under the 4th toe. This causes the toe to get ‘pinched’ causing a long thin line of hard callused skin beneath the toe.
Calluses on heels
Calluses frequently develop on the heels. The heels are particularly prone to developing callus as the skin here is generally thicker than other places beneath the feet. As the callus builds up cracks may form. These cracks, also known as fissures, can be very painful and are prone to developing an infection.
Causes of cracked heels
Heel callus and fissures are commonly seen in our clinics as the Queensland climate lends itself to open-shoes. Open shoes cause the skin to dry out more which makes the skin less flexible and supple and less able to withstand the stress we put through our skin when walking or standing.
Large amounts of force going through your feet can cause cracked heels. This can occur if you stand or walk for long periods. Being overweight will also place more force through your feet.
Medical conditions such as diabetes or an underactive thyroid can also cause to the skin to dry out which can lead to cracked heels. Skin conditions such as eczema or psoriasis may also predispose to cracked heels.
Why see Entire Podiatry to treat cracked heels?
Not only can cracked heels be a painful condition, if there are left untreated they are very prone to infection. If the cracks are deep they can start to bleed and become very difficult to heal without treatment. Once the hard skin is removed, the healthy skin beneath is able to heal and close any cracks that are present. At Entire Podiatry we treat cracked and callused heels by focusing on the following:
- Address the cause of the problem
- Remove the hard skin hygienically and painlessly
- Advise on what creams could be used to moisturise the area
- Advice on footwear and prevention
- Orthotic prescription if the mechanics of the feet could be contributing the callus formation.
Callus on the side of the foot
Callus on the side of the foot is usually the result of either poor footwear or your ‘biomechanics’, which is the way that your feet work.
Shoes that are too tight tend to squeeze the feet and can put pressure on the side of the foot causing the skin to thicken and callus. The shape of your foot may contributing to your callus formation. For example if you have a ‘cavus’ or a high arched foot you may carry more pressure on the outside of the foot and corns and callus may develop here. If you have a foot with bony prominences or bony ‘lumps’ then callus may also develop over these areas.
Sore calluses on feet
Corns and callus may sometimes be painless and may only be a cosmetic concern. However, if left untreated the callus thickens and the corns grow deeper and the pain usually worsens.
Painful calluses on the feet is often described as the feeling of walking on stones. The pain can get so severe you are unable to place any weight or pressure on this part of your foot.
If the callus is causing foot pain you may find yourself compensating in your gait i.e. you may walk differently in order to prevent the painful part of your foot carrying any weight. These compensatory changes can lead to pain and discomfort higher up the body, such as discomfort in the knees and hips due to limping.
Some people are more prone to developing excessive calluses on their feet known as hyperkeratosis. There is often a genetic component to this and heavy callus build-up often runs in the family.
Best treatment for corns and calluses
However tempting it may be, it is bad to pick calluses! Never try to shave or cut a corn or callus on your own, especially if you have diabetes or poor circulation. This procedure should always be performed by a podiatrist, in order to prevent damage to healthy tissues which can result in pain, infection and scarring.
After your podiatry visit your feet will be feeling soft and smooth and free of corns and callus. You may be wondering what to do about calluses on the feet so you can keep your feet soft like this for longer. There are a few simple foot care tips that you can do yourself at home in between visits to take care of calluses and slow down how quickly they build up.
Moisturising the feet regularly will keep the skin soft and supple and can slow down the rate of the callus build up. Any moisturising cream will do the trick, however a heel balm tends to penetrate deeper into the callused skin and has longer lasting effects. If you find your feet are very dry then we recommend you apply the cream at night and cover your feet with a sock or even some cling wrap and then a sock. This can help the cream get deeper in the feet and prevent it from wiping off. If you have a corn between the toes then moisturising cream will not help and may worsen the problem. The cream should only be applied to the top and bottom of the feet and not in between the toes.
Soaking the feet in warm soapy water for a few minutes each day can soften corns and calluses. You may be able to safely remove some of the callused skin at home using a pumice stone or an emery board. This works particularly well for callus around the heels. The skin may be easier to buff away after you have soaked your feet.
If you have a corn or callus that is particularly painful then modifying your footwear or using silicon protectors/pads may relieve pressure on the affected area. Your podiatrist will be able to give you specific advice on the best option for you.
You may have seen treatments offered over-the-counter at chemists which claim to be able to remove your corns. These products contain a chemical called salicylic acid which ‘eats’ away at the corn. However this acid does not differentiate between a corn and healthy skin and will begin to burn whatever it comes in contact with.
The chemicals contained in these products are very strong and if used incorrectly there is a risk that healthy skin surrounding the corn may also be affected or the acid may burn away too much skin. This can cause an ulcer or a wound to develop. This is especially dangerous for people with either diabetes or impaired circulation to the feet as any injury or ulcer on the foot has a high risk of infection and may take a long time to heal.
What does a podiatrist do for calluses
In most cases, corn and calluses treatment is simple and painless and respond well to conservative care. The first step we take is to confirm that your problem is definitely a corn or callus. Following assessment by your podiatrist, treatment options may include:
- Shaving away some of the thickened tough skin to relieve pain and pressure in the affected area. Treating corns and callus on the feet may be required on a regular basis depending on the rate at which the hard skin builds-up.
- Advice on appropriate footwear and foot care.
- Modifying footwear or using silicon protectors/pads to relieve pressure on the affected area.
- If the corns are callus are related to the mechanics of your feet, we may also recommend orthotics or shoe inserts. Orthotics can change the way the weight is spread through the foot during walking and redistribute the forces that cause friction and pressure inside your shoes. This can reduce how quickly the corns or callus return and can reduce the pain or corn and calluses.
- We will offer you advice for your ongoing care to keep your feet healthy and happy.
Surgical removal of the callus is not typically a treatment option as the hard skin can usually be removed without surgery. However, in rare cases, foot surgery may be necessary to correct the cause of the callus (e.g. correcting a bunion or claw toes) if the corns and calluses are not relieved by conservative care options.
If corns and callus are left untreated a discoloured area (brown, red or black) may develop under a large corn or callus. This discoloration is caused by a small amount of bleeding in the space between thick and normal skin. In severe cases, the thick and normal skin may separate, exposing the area to possible infection, especially in people with diabetes.
If you would like to learn more about how to treat foot corns and calluses from our Entire Podiatry team, click here.
If you need help right now give us a call on 1800 4368 473 or alternatively use our contact form.
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Vitamin D Benefits from Sun Exposure Outshine Cancer RiskOK, so we have gotten everyone to accept the dogma of the need for sunscreen. We have people scared of sending their children out of the house without a thick coating of zinc on them. Melanoma rates are reduced by using sunscreen (as I have read the evidence). But now we see that perhaps we are creating problems while trying to avoid others.
UPTON, N.Y., Jan. 8 -- Overall health benefits from increased sun exposure may outweigh the risk of skin cancer, researchers here said.
Skin cancer rates rise with proximity to the equator among light-skinned populations, but the opposite is true for prognosis of many other cancer types, reported Richard B. Setlow, Ph.D., of Brookhaven National Laboratory, and colleagues, online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Although milk, cod liver oil, and supplements can supply vitamin D, solar radiation is still a main source for humans even at high latitudes, they said.
Vitamin D seems to protect against cancers including breast, colon, kidney, and ovarian cancers. Studies have also linked vitamin D or sun exposure to benefits in overall mortality, prostate cancer, multiple sclerosis, bone health, as well as the occurrence of cardiovascular events in hypertensive patients. (See Related Articles below.)
A population-wide increase in sun exposure improves vitamin D status, but is controversial because it has been blamed for the high and increasing incidence rates of melanoma, they said.
"These issues have health consequences far beyond those of cancer because a number of diseases are associated with inadequate vitamin D levels or low sun exposure: neurological, cardiovascular, metabolic, immune, and bone diseases," they said.
This kind of thing drives people crazy. They get the message that they should take anti-oxidants as they may prevent heart disease, but then hear that vitamin E raises mortality. They are told for years that it is important for women to take estrogens after menopause, and then we find out they are harmful. Coffee is bad, then good, then bad, then good for you. Nobody knows? I like it. Alcohol reduces heart disease but may raise breast cancer rates.
Who is to blame for all of this? Clearly the access to information we have through the internet and television is partly to blame. The evening news crows out that xyz may increase cancer rates or that zyx may prevent heart disease - with very little effort to see if the study "published in the New England Journal of Medicine" is consistent with previous studies. Their job is not to do science, it is to sell advertisements. People want to hear news about healthcare. So we are left with a bunch of mixed messages people need to fend off.
The problem is, nobody knows where to go for the truth (if it exists) or at least advice as to how to interpret these studies. Even we physicians are confused in this way. Perhaps this is what our good friends at MedPage are trying to accomplish. Perhaps they are trying to gather all information to make an informed decision.
Well, if you do go to MedPage, just avoid those idiot bloggers.
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Testing and grades measure a student's progress. State, district, teacher look at how a student is doing in different ways.
- The elementary report card communicates student learning. The district’s system makes sure that report cards are consistent within the district. A key feature of the report card is that students are graded separately on life skills like effort and cooperation from what they learn in academic subjects like math and writing.
- In Lake Washington School District, information about student learning and the performance of the school district is gathered from a variety of sources, including district and state assessments, and from the classroom teacher. Each piece provides a “snapshot” of how well a child is doing.
- Every spring, the state tests all students in grades 3-8 and 10 to make sure their learning is on track. The results from this testing are important to us all.
- Office of the State Public Instructional report on Thoreau Elementary. Washington State Report Card.
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So, you want to understand the complex encryption procedure incorporated by whatsapp that has sent governments around the world in frenzy. The magical wand which once waved will encrypt your messages in such a way that nobody except the authorised recipient can decipher not even whatsapp.
Mantra of cryptography – “INTERNET IS ALWAYS INSECURE”
Have a look at following terms
Private Key cryptography
Public Key cryptography
Elliptical curve cryptography (ECC)
Curve 25519 key pair
I am leaving, understanding such complex concept isn’t my cup of tea. I am not a computer person you see !
If, that’s what you were thinking then this series of blogs is meant exactly for you. We must first understand actual Concept of Encryption and what it aims to achieve.
As of now, Forget everything and just read this simple story first.
Many years back, once upon a time there were two friends Alice and Bob.
They had a common enemy named Eve who was known to be evil, intelligent and shrewd.
Alice and Bob exchanged a lot of business information which shouldn’t be accessible to third person, else it might jeopardize their business.
So what options do they have !!
Since, they stayed in different villages and motorised vehicle wasn’t invented back then, daily exchange of information wasn’t feasible. So, they decided to walk down and meet up every Saturday, in person, to exchange information. The information was regarding the details of the new product they were going to launch in next few days.
But, They were busy guys, this “meeting in person” thing wasn’t working. So, they hired horse riders to deliver messages for them. But what if the riders reads the message or worse, gets captured by Eve.
To avoid this hassle. Alice and Bob decide to hold a secret meeting. There they agreed to scramble their information in such a way that it would look like gibberish to third person. They encrypted their information by replacing each alphabet with a corresponding number. For eg, 1 means A, 2 means B, 3 means C and so on.
This is just a simple example, actually a more complicated methodology was adopted by them for encryption. The basic concept remained the same, they basically replaced readable alphabets with something else. How this scrambling has been done was written in another notebook called private-key. This private key is a shared secret between the two parties that can be used to maintain a private information link.
Both Alice and Bob kept a copy of private key in their personal custody. There was no way Eve could access it (hopefully) !
Eve had gone on a holiday to Hawai and the horse-rider successfully exchanged messages between Alice and Bob.
They didn’t need to meet up at all. Horse-rider will keep delivering messages and they can decrypt and read messages easily.
Bob feels, how smart he has been. Every Saturday he goes to local bar to enjoy his hot sausages and chilled beer. Life has never been so good for Bob until one day he finds out that his business information is being used by Eve.
Actually, Eve was stealing all encrypted messages from the horse-rider while he halted for taking rest. Eve was able to decrypt Alice & Bob’s encrypted message after working on it for 3 months. After all Bob is a human and yes there were people who were smarter than him. So, after 3 months of hard work, trying various permutation and combination Eve was able to figure out how encryption was done. Once he knew the encryption process, just by reversing the steps he was able to decrypt it. So now, Eve had a replica of private-key of Alice and Bob with him. He has been reading the encrypted messages merrily and enhancing his own business at the cost of Alice and Bob.
Alice and Bob were devastated, their business was badly hit. It was time for some counter measures. Alice suggested to change the horse-riders with more loyal and efficient ones. However, Bob was not convinced that merely changing horse riders would solve their purpose.
They, then decided to change encrypting method and hence the private-key every month.
At first it looks like just a minor upgrade to the information security policy of Alice and Bob.
Well, it wasn’t a minor upgrade. Bob and Alice arrived at this formula after having many brain-storming sessions.
What I did not tell you was that Bob had served for 2 years in King’s Military Intelligence and had good terms with them. He was able to find out how Eve obtained his messages and how much time it took him to re-construct private-key for deciphering their messages.
What did they achieve ??
Now even if, horse-rider voluntarily / involuntarily handed encrypted messages to Eve. Eve could only decrypt messages of one month at max. Because Alice and Bob would change the private key every month.
But, wait a minute . . . .
Can Eve actually decrypt any of the messages and use it to his advantage?
The answer is no.
Here’s the master stroke of Alice and Bob.
Lets understand it with an example.
On 01 Jan : Alice and Bob change their private key.
On 02 Jan : Horse-riders delivers encrypted message to Alice and Bob.
On 03 Jan : Eve gets a copy of encrypted message, somehow.
Now, Eve starts to work on understanding the encryption method used so that he is able to decrypt it.
If you are as smart as Bob, you would remember that encryption method is so complex that it takes 03 months for Eve to break it.
So, On 03 Apr, Eve is able to break the encryption.
On 01 Feb, 01 Mar and 01 Apr, Alice and Bob have already changed the private key. So, even though Eve has broken the encryption its of no use to him. He is able to decrypt messages sent in the month of January only in April. By then, the messages would have lost all its significance and is nothing more than a piece of Junk. ( Bob & Alice would have launched their product in market by then)
Problem Solved. Alice and Bob lived happily ever after.
Welcome back to 21st century. Now Replace
Bob with – yourself
Alice with – your friend
Horse-rider with – your carrier service like whatsapp / gmail / yahoomail etc
Eve with – Attacker / Hackers waiting to exploit your personal information.
Bottom-line – No encryption method is fool-proof neither of Bob nor of whatsapp. But they achieve their purpose. They use encryption algorithms which are so strong that breaking it takes so much time that the message is rendered useless by then. For Bob’s encryption to break it took 3 months, with advancement in technology, for whatsapp it can take 3000 years.
And that’s the basic concept of encryption.
Oh, I forgot to mention. The Encryption method used by Alice and Bob is known as Private-key Cryptography or symmetric-key cryptography in today’s world. AES and DES fall in this category.
Wondering what is Public Key Cryptography !! Lets read another story here.
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As our bodies grow older, they slow down and tend to want to move as little as possible. After all, we've spent our lives keeping up with the rat race, rushing between appointments, caring for children, and working at our careers. Isn't it time for a break, time for some rest?
It's easy to think that resting our bodies will help them avoid injury or sickness, but the opposite is actually true. Our bodies need to keep moving in order to prevent degeneration. Exercise lowers your risk for obesity, heart disease, diabetes, colon cancer, high blood pressure, and other problems. In fact, one aging expert wrote, “Biologically you can reverse the aging process by 15 to 25 years.”
Certain test results also show that continual activity can reverse the affects of age-related brain decline. Aerobic exercise can improve task coordination, planning, goal maintenance, working memory, and the ability to switch between tasks. Results also showed that regular moderate levels of exercise (activity that leaves you breathless) can increase the speed and sharpness of thought, the volume of brain tissues, and the efficiency of brain function.
Staying active becomes more important as you grow older. While you may not be able to run several miles or be as active as you once were, there are some simple ways to keep your body moving. (Be sure to consult a doctor before beginning any sort of exercise routine.)
Start low and build. If your body isn't used to regular activity, don't overwhelm it with sudden, intense activity. Start small with ten minutes of walking a day, fifteen minutes spent gardening, a walk around your block or at the mall, or other light activities.
If something hurts, stop. There's no need to push through any sort of pain or irritation in your body. If you begin feeling discomfort, take a break or wait until later to continue your activity.
Be comfortable. Wear comfortable clothing and especially comfortable shoes. Make sure you feel comfortable at all times during your exercising.
Stay hydrated. One of the most important things to remember is to stay hydrated. Keep a bottle of water nearby and take regular breaks to re-hydrate your body. Don't ever go through long periods of activity without stopping for water.
Choose activities you enjoy. Activity and exercise doesn't have to be a dreaded routine. Find something active you enjoy doing (a swim class at the local YMCA, gardening, walking around the mall, etc.) and find someone to exercise with you. When you enjoy your time being active, you're more likely to keep up with it.
By staying active and exercising regularly (even a few times a week), you should notice increased flexibility and ease of motion. Also, the activity could help eliminate some of your medication and give you increased energy to try other things during this stage of your life.
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The word “empathy” first appeared in English in 1909 when it was translated by Edward Bradford Titchener from the German Einfühlung, an old concept that had been gaining new meaning and increased relevance from the 1870s onward. While today we often treat “empathy” as a synonym for “sympathy,” if not—and more commonly—as an improvement on it, empathy at the turn of the century was used to describe a unique combination of cognitive effort and bodily feeling thought to characterize aesthetic experience. Such experience was not limited to contemplating works of art, however; for several of its earliest theorists, empathy named our aesthetic experiences of other people. It would seem to some that a radical break had been made between sympathy, seen as a primarily moral (and moralizing) activity, and a more scientific, physico-psychological process for which the human brain was hardwired. Yet the empathy of the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries may also be seen as sharing key features with sympathy, particularly as the latter was conceptualized by eighteenth-century moral philosophy and Romantic and Victorian aesthetics.
Empathy is a hot topic these days, on the lips of cognitive scientists, philosophers, literary critics, and U.S. Presidents alike. But what is it? Consider the opening paragraph of the opening essay of a 2011 collection entitled The Social Neuroscience of Empathy. In “These Things Called Empathy: Eight Related but Distinct Phenomena,” C. Daniel Batson writes:
Students of empathy can seem a cantankerous lot. Although they typically agree that empathy is important, they often disagree about why it is important, about what effects it has, about where it comes from, and even about what it is. The term empathy is currently applied to more than a half-dozen phenomena. These phenomena are related to one another, but they are not elements, aspects, facets, or components of a single thing that is empathy, as one might say that an attitude has cognitive, affective, and behavioral components. Rather, each is a conceptually distinct, stand-alone psychological state. Further, each of those states has been called by names other than empathy. Opportunities for disagreement abound. (3, original emphasis)
As Batson goes on to suggest, empathy can be difficult to define because it is often invoked “to provide an answer to two quite different questions” (3). The first is this one: how do we know what others think and feel? And the second: how can we explain the impulse to respond to the feelings of others? The first is principally a question of knowledge. It asks how we are able to infer the contents of other minds, or how and to what extent we project those contents from our own. The second, centered on motivation and behavior, is primarily ethical. It seeks to understand as well as “promote prosocial action” (4).
The empathy of the moment has accrued a number of unique (and contradictory) meanings and associations, from benevolent, altruistic care to the biochemical and physiological responses of our minds and bodies as we mimic or mirror the feelings of others—as, for example, in the “primitive empathy” of motor mimicry, an automatic or reactive bodily response that (some say) is carried out unselfconsciously, without intention or will (Bavelas et. al.). We might well wonder, then, what relation empathy has to sympathy, a concept with which it is sometimes aligned, sometimes treated synonymously, and sometimes contrasted. It might seem intuitively correct to assume a wide distance between the two, if one takes as a starting point such recent titles as “The Empathetic Brain” and “Imitation, Empathy and Mirror Neurons.” Empathy is without a doubt the preferred term for describing brain phenomena that, it would appear, only the most cutting-edge technology has made visible. Yet empathy in the late-nineteenth-century, Darwinian era looks surprisingly like the empathy of today. There was, of course, no talk of mirror neurons then, but the material body and the interworking of its parts had become vital to those whose interest in loosening the grip of morality on our understanding of human experience had directed their attention to muscles and nerves. Indeed, we find family resemblances when we look back farther still. When, in 1987, the psychology professors Nancy Eisenberg and Paul A. Miller distinguished empathy from sympathy—defining empathy as a vicarious “emotional matching” occurring in the apprehension of another’s affective state and sympathy as involving “sorrow or concern for another’s welfare”—they opened their essay with references to David Hume and Immanuel Kant (92). Hume is among the first in a long line of thinkers who stress the emotional origins of moral behavior; Kant stands with those for whom cognition is key. If it is true that “psychologists generally have been less concerned than philosophers with delineating the ontological nature of morality,” the status of the emotions and the thinking mind, as well as the ostensible divide between them, has continued to occupy students of empathy and sympathy since the Scottish Enlightenment (Eisenberg and Miller 91).
Empathy is the decidedly younger term, at least in English. Moreover, though “empathy” is favored over “sympathy” in modern discourse (for reasons we will explore), it rose to prominence and accrued new meaning in a field—psychological aesthetics—which for many of us no doubt remains unfamiliar.When the British psychologist Edward Bradford Titchener translated the German Einfühlung into the English “empathy” in 1909, he drew upon a number of recent writings dedicated in part to revising and refining the term’s aesthetic and moral implications. Einfühlung had been used by the German Romantics to describe aesthetic experience, particularly the experience of “feeling into” the natural world, but had become the object of serious philosophical scrutiny only in the later nineteenth century through the work of German philosophers like Robert Vischer and Theodor Lipps. The remainder of this essay considers why the introduction of that new term was important, what it meant, and how it differed from (or was continuous with) existing understandings of sympathy. It argues that while empathy and sympathy may sometimes be conceived differently, and necessarily so, a brief look at the history of these terms reveals that both share common merits. Finally, it suggests that empathy should be thought of less as an improvement over a sympathy understood as old-fashioned, pitying condescension than an innovation in theorizing a relation with which the first philosophers of sympathy were also concerned, that between the thinking mind, emotion, and aesthetic form. Such issues had preoccupied writers in the eighteenth century, when the fields of psychology and aesthetics were in their infancy. Empathy does not supplant a naïve, outmoded sympathy but seeks to answer different questions or to answer old ones in new ways.
Indeed, empathy, or rather sympathy, had been understood in aesthetic terms at least since Adam Smith, Hume, and their eighteenth-century contemporaries began the rigorous study of moral feeling, into which aesthetic experience fell. The highly physicalized empathy of the early twentieth century in many ways represents a continuation of, rather than a radical break from, a sympathy that in Smith and Hume’s day was not without its own bodily discourse of taste and appetites, or its embroilment in debates concerning the nature of attraction and repulsion. Even the architectural, geometrical emphasis that, as we shall see, characterized empathy for writers like Vernon Lee was not without precedent. In Beauty & Ugliness (1912; first published in two-part essay form in 1897), a work attributed to both Lee and Clementina (“Kit”) Anstruther-Thomson, Lee contends that to articulate properly the aesthetic process one must connect an analytic vocabulary to an affective one: “visible qualities” like “red, blue, tall, long, triangular, [and] square,” she writes, “tell us of no aesthetic peculiarities”; “[f]or those we must go to the names of our moods: pleasant, unpleasant, harmonious, jarring, unified, etc.” (271, original emphasis). Lee, following Lipps’s lead, goes on to describe in brilliant detail how we empathize with triangles and squares. But in A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), Hume too had had a good deal to say about the relationship between shape and color, ideation, and emotional response, as when he describes how we “revolve in our mind the ideas of circles, squares, parallelograms, [and] triangles of different sizes and proportions,” or describes a man looking at a kind of color wheel missing a particular shade of blue (18.104.22.168). “Let all the different shades of that colour, except that single one, be placed before him, descending gradually from the deepest to the lightest,” Hume writes; “it is plain, that he will perceive a blank, where that shade is wanting. . . . Now I ask, whether it is possible for him, from his own imagination, to supply this deficiency, and raise up to himself the idea of that particular shade, though it had never been conveyed to him by his senses?” (22.214.171.124). Hume answers in the affirmative, drawing a parallel between color perception and sympathy with others. Both require imagination for filling in the gaps, yet neither is simply “subjective.” Our sympathetic responses are modified and corrected in the same way as are our judgments of color, line, and size. Both become objective in accordance with general rules.
Empathy’s significance to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century theories of the visual and plastic arts may thus be seen as an extension of (if also distinctive from) that early connection between sympathetic responsiveness, judgment, and aesthetic form. In Empathy, Form, and Space: Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873-1893 (1994), Harry Francis Mallgrave and Eleftherios Ikonomou describe the crucial twenty-year period during which Einfühlung acquired that modern significance as an important background for understanding the aesthetic transformations that would epitomize early-twentieth-century art. The formal experimentation of Futurism, Cubism, and Neoplasticism, they suggest, “was not without intellectual pedigree,” specifically in the shift away from “the erstwhile philosophical and physiological problem of how we perceive form and space” toward “the fledgling psychological problem of how we come to appreciate or take delight in the characteristics of form and space,” and the “analogous problem of how we might artistically exploit pure form and space as artistic entities in themselves” (1-2). The emphasis on pleasure is important. Though the intellectual tradition they trace leads them all the way back to Kant’s conception of “purposiveness” (Zweckmäßigkeit), which they define as “the sense of internal harmony that we presume to exist in the world” and thus “the heuristic rule or standard by which we relate to the forms of nature and art,” the final decades of the nineteenth century were marked by a profound attention to bodily response (Mallgrave and Ikonomou 6). Translating Einfühlung as “in-feeling,” Mallgrave and Ikonomou are keen to emphasize the physiological basis of, for instance, Robert Vischer’s “muscular” empathy, which links aesthetic appreciation to the rhythmic experiences of the body’s “self-motions,” or his conviction that certain “loud” colors “might actually provoke an auditory response” (23). As Vischer puts it, “[w]e move in and with the forms” (101). Whether carried far away in observing “fleeting clouds,” or mentally attempting to “scale [the] fir tree and reach up within it,” we “caress [form’s] spatial discontinuities”; by moving in this way “in the imagination,” we reproduce the kinetic motion of our internal organs and project it into other, even stationary, objects (101). This experience of a rhythmic continuity between self and other, outside and in, defines empathy in Vischer’s view. By objectifying the self in external, spatial forms, projecting it into and becoming analogous with them, subject merges with object. Self and world unite.
Mallgrave and Ikonomou underscore how radical this proposal can seem once we recognize the pervasiveness of empathy in our unconscious, everyday activities. For Vischer’s conception of empathy involves “a pervasive attitude, an openness that we maintain with the world,” which in turn suggests (as Hume had done) that the self is a fiction, a form borne of imagination and maintained “only by force of habit” (Mallgrave and Ikonomou 25). One of empathy’s most pleasurable rewards, then, might be in the letting go (or loosening up) of that fiction. External objects lose their distinctiveness from the self when my feeling and my “mental representation” of a given object “become one” (25). This has important implications for the artist whose attempts at intensifying expressions of form do not attempt to copy nature but reveal the richly affective and energic processes “concealed therein”: art might strive “to objectify the human condition in a sensuous and harmoniously refined form,” translating “the instability of emotional life and the chaotic disorder of nature into a free, beautiful objectivity” (26). As Titchener explained in his Lectures on the Experimental Psychology of the Thought-Processes (1909), an author’s “choice and arrangement of words” could produce “attitudinal feels”: visceral pressures, muscular “tonicity,” and altered breathing and facial expressions felt by authors and readers alike (181). This collection of responses he calls “empathy,” yet it is not simply that aesthetic experience leads to physiological effects. For even ordinary, run-of-the-mill thinking and understanding involve similar exertions, in a kind of “motor empathy” in which one “act[s] the feeling out, though as a rule in imaginal and not sensational terms” (185). “Not only do I see” such abstract concepts as “gravity and modesty and pride and courtesy and stateliness,” Titchener explains; “I feel or act them in the mind’s muscles” (21).
Such an empathy seems to have come a long way from sympathy as it is commonly understood, especially if by that word we mean something closer to the sentimental pitying often associated with Victorian morality (as we saw at the beginning of this essay, sympathy retains for many contemporary theorists an association with pity that empathy does not). Suzanne Keen reminds us in Empathy and the Novel (2007) that Victorian novelists like George Eliot were explicit in “articulat[ing] a project for the cultivation of the sympathetic imagination,” whereby novel readers “might learn, by extending themselves into the experiences, motives, and emotions of fictional characters, to sympathize with real others in their everyday lives” (38). Sympathy was urged as an urgent ethical response to the increasingly urban, disconnected, and morally uncertain world of full-blown capitalism. For some, though, that possibility came with messages fraught with danger, as from those who worried that novel reading corrupted readers (especially girls) by causing them to think and feel things they ought not, as well as from those who, from a different angle, considered sympathy a poor, overly personal substitute for large-scale social reform. Such concerns were as old as the novel itself, as was the sneaking suspicion that sympathy provided a cover for less than noble desires. As one Madame Riccoboni wryly remarked in 1769, “[o]ne would readily create unfortunates in order to taste the sweetness of feeling sorry for them” (qtd. in Boltanski 101). Yet Keen’s use of the terms “empathy” and “sympathy” more or less interchangeably marks an effort to rescue sympathy from the bad press it received not so much then as now, once empathy, having shed the moralistic overtones that had accrued to sympathy, was judged the more modern and better of the two. As I have written elsewhere, after 1909 (if not before it), sympathy seemed to belong to the Victorians, empathy to us (“Thinking” 418).
How this came to pass over the course of the nineteenth century is a story too long and complex to cover fully here. Yet in some ways the shift is easy to explain. As Neil Vickers writes, “in eighteenth-century Britain, ‘proto-psychology’ and ‘proto-aesthetics’ laboured under a common burden”: that of having to “prove their worth in moral terms” (4). The first “psychologists” we might say—admittedly, by stretching the term—were the “moral doctors” described by Karl Philipp Moritz in 1782 as the physicians of heart and head (qtd. in Vickers 5). The shift from moral medicine to morality-free scientific rigor (if it ever, finally, took place) was neither quick nor unambivalent. As Vickers reminds us, Samuel Taylor Coleridge apologized for using the term “psychological” in series of lectures he gave on Shakespeare in 1811-12 (the “patient” was Hamlet). Yet serious examination of the mind—studied attention to the relay between perception, cognition, and affective response—was beginning to lead many thinkers toward more neutral, less patently moral explanations for human behavior. And as psychology (along with many other branches of science) became increasingly professionalized as the century progressed, so a new psychological aesthetics developed in tandem with other scientific developments, and, as Carolyn Burdett explains, “physiology and psychology converged” ( “Introduction” 1).By the latter half of the nineteenth century, Burdett argues, evolutionary theory offered new ways “to understand such psycho-physiological phenomena” as reflex actions and spontaneous emotional response, thus “linking even the most seemingly sovereign of human experiences, such as the feeling of love for another person or the love of God, to vestigial instinctive behaviors which had once conferred evolutionary advantage” (1). As emotion fell under the powerful sway of physiology, so too did aesthetic response. If love was in some fundamental way biochemical, perhaps a sensation borne of the nervous system, the same might be true for experiences of the beautiful, including the sympathetic facility—now becoming “empathetic”—to have aesthetic experiences with, and of, others. As Lipps argued in “Empathy, Inner Imitation and Sense-Feelings” (1903), when in empathy with another person I experience “a spatial extension of the ego,” I assume “the place of that figure. I am transported into it. As far as my consciousness is concerned, I am totally identical with it” (qtd. in Jahoda 155). That, he continues, “is aesthetic imitation, and it is at the same time aesthetic Einfühlung” (155). For Lipps, “aesthetic enjoyment is objectivated self-enjoyment” in that it enabled a formal experience of self (Pinotti 94). For Lee, following from Lipps while carving out her own theory of “anthropomorphic aesthetics,” empathy involved emotional memory: physical motions, grown abstract through continual repetition, are sensations that in empathy we feel, thrillingly, to have been revived (Beauty 1).
For many such writers, empathy necessarily involved a cognitive component, though how strong, and how dominant, varied. As Burdett notes, Lee and Anstruther-Thomson’s Beauty & Ugliness offered “an empirically-based account of aesthetic experience” in which bodily sensation precedes and leads to emotion: “we fear because we tremble,” not the other way around (“Vernon Lee” 3). But Lee balked at entirely severing morality from aesthetic experience. Inspired, Burdett argues, by a proposition central to Darwin’s 1871 Descent of Man—that “female aesthetic choice” shapes and even dictates (hetero-)sexual selection—Lee was at once receptive to arguments for the primacy of sensation and resistant to any mechanistic understanding of aesthetic response (11). From Vischer she took the idea that we imaginatively experience our own bodies via those external objects into which our emotions are projected; from Lipps’s Spatial Aesthetics and Optical Illusion (1897), she took the notion that the seeming vitality of objects, including the erectness and “balance” of a Doric column, is among those “ideas of movement” and dynamism produced by empathy (Burdett “Vernon Lee” 20, original emphasis). Such ideas are “made out of the accumulated and synthesized, ‘abstracted’ memory store of our experiences of sensory motor activity, out of imagined similar movements, and out of an unconscious knowledge of primordial dynamism as such” (Burdett 20). They are, for Lee, “tantamount to life,” for beauty confirms us to ourselves: “forms and shapes,” she believed, “are how we keep feeling that we are alive” (Burdett 20).
If by 1932 empathy had become a widely accepted term amongst psychologists, sympathy had in certain circles suffered a decline, at least in popular perception. It is worth remembering, however, that the moral and social theories of Smith and Hume are thick with references to the mental activities, perceptual and imaginative acuities, and ethical conundrums that, in the parlance of our own day, can seem to belong exclusively to empathy as well as the moment. Projection and mirroring, the role of inference, fiction, and the imagination in inhabiting other minds—these were central to the broad eighteenth-century attempt to reconceive how feeling fundamentally affected nearly every aspect of human life. Though their aims and conclusions sometimes differ, Smith’s insistence that our sympathies arise not simply by viewing another’s emotional expression firsthand, but from reflecting upon “the situation which excites it,” isn’t so far from the “in-feeling” that interested Lipps, Lee, and the rest (12). It too involves an experience of form, in what Smith calls the “going along with” others: imaginatively re-creating their mental movements, crafting narrative accounts so as to understand (and simulate) their attitudes, feelings, and thoughts (83). As with Lee’s “abstracted” memories, feelings in Smith’s sympathetic process must first be abstracted—turned into the stuff of story—to be imaginatively passed on and shared. His denial that feelings could pass from one body to the next in the contagious fashion Hume described, and his resistance to the idea that our sympathies arose in response to bodily feeling of any kind, turned sympathy into a mental process. It also made emotion thoroughly social. No man can “think of his own character,” Smith wrote in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), without imagining how he appears to the minds of others; lacking that mental “mirror,” even the self is an “object which he cannot easily see, [and] which naturally he does not look at” (110). Smith illustrates the point by describing a man living in total isolation: on a good day, he might “view his own temper and character with that sort of satisfaction with which we consider a well-contrived machine”; on a bad day, he is but “a very awkward and clumsy contrivance” (192-93). Selfhood is so unthinkable on the social margins that only a minimal subjectivity is possible outside it. A man who cannot “suppose the idea of some other being, who is the natural judge of the person who feels,” is also incapable of having a self (193). Physiological accounts of empathy thus share with Smithian sympathy a crucial insight: that we project our feeling into other forms in order to experience ourselves.
Indeed, it is also worth remembering in closing that empathy and sympathy were overlapping terms even for those who initially sought to clarify empathy’s aesthetic dimensions or to distinguish it from the moral sentiments associated with sympathy. In his commentary on Doric columns, for instance, Lipps had written that while the arrangement of materials constituted its “technical” creation, only a “combination of aesthetic relations for our imagination constitutes a work of art”: “the essential of the work of art,” he continues, “is an imaginary world unified and self-contained” (qtd. in Lee “Recent” 434). It may be difficult to see how any ordinary morality could function in this “self-contained,” “imaginary world.” Yet in “Recent Aesthetics,” published in 1904 in the Quarterly Review, Vernon Lee cites this same passage, declaring that
[t]his phenomenon of aesthetic “Einfühlung” is . . . analogous to that of moral sympathy. Just as when we “put ourselves in the place” or more vulgarly “in the skin” of a fellow creature, we are, in fact, attributing to him the feelings we should have in similar circumstances, so, in looking at the Doric column . . . we are attributing to the lines and surfaces, to the spatial forms, those dynamic experiences which we should have were we to put our bodies into similar conditions. (434)
As sympathy with “the grief of our neighours” can constitute “a similar grief in our own experiences,” so too an “aesthetic attribution of our own dynamic modes to visible forms implies the realisation in our consciousness of the various conflicting strains and pressures, of the resistance and the yielding which constitute any given dynamic and volitional experiences of our own” (434). The Doric column’s valiant effort to defy gravity revives in us a sense of the human condition. Its is “a little drama we have experienced millions of times” (434).
Certainly, one must be wary of overstating the similarities between eighteenth- and nineteenth-century conceptions of sympathy and a fin de siècle empathy bearing the undeniable stamp of its post-Darwinian making. At present, though, the pendulum often swings too far in the opposite direction, making empathy seem inarguably superior to its old-fashioned cousin. In Upheavals of Thought: the Intelligence of Emotions (2003), Martha Nussbaum offers a corrective, asserting the continuing relevance of a sympathy that, unlike empathy, always entails an ethical stance: “a malevolent person who imagines the situation of the other and takes pleasure in her distress may be empathetic,” she writes, “but will surely not be judged sympathetic. Sympathy, by comparison, includes a judgment that the other person’s distress is bad” (302). There are no doubt plenty of good reasons why a recent study citing evidence for the altruistic behavior of rats toward their distressed fellows should refer to such behavior as empathetic rather than sympathetic (the moral question, surely, is number one). But Nussbaum’s distinction may nevertheless give us reason to pause before jettisoning sympathy altogether in explaining more human endeavors. We will do well, as historians and scholars of a long and lengthening nineteenth century, to continue scrutinizing the empathy/sympathy relation as well as its ostensible divide.
HOW TO CITE THIS BRANCH ENTRY (MLA format)
published March 2012
Greiner, Rae. “1909: The Introduction of the Word ‘Empathy’ into English.” BRANCH: Britain, Representation and Nineteenth-Century History. Ed. Dino Franco Felluga. Extension of Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net. Web. [Here, add your last date of access to BRANCH].
Bartal, Inbal Ben-Ami, Jean Decety, and Peggy Mason.“Empathy and Pro-Social Behavior in Rats.” Science 334.6061 (2011): 1427-30. Web. 12 Dec. 2011.
Batson, C. Daniel. “These Things Called Empathy: Eight Related but Distinct Phenomena.” The Social Neuroscience of Empathy. Ed. Jean Decety and William Ickes. Cambridge: MIT P, 2011. 3-13. Print.
Bavelas, Janet Beavin, Alex Black, Charles R. Lemery, and Jennifer Mullett. “Motor Mimicry as Primitive Empathy.” Empathy and its Development. Ed. Nancy Eisenberg and Janet Strayer. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1987. 317-38. Print.
Boltanski, Luc. Distant Suffering: Morality, Media, and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. Print.
Burdett, Carolyn. “Introduction: Psychology/Aesthetics in the Nineteenth Century.” 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century 12 (2011): 1-6. Web. 7 Nov. 2011.
—. “‘The Subjective Inside Us Can Turn into the Objective Outside’: Vernon Lee’s Psychological Aesthetics.” 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century 12 (2011): 1-31. Web. 7 Nov. 2011.
Eisenberg, Nancy, and Paul A. Miller. “The Relation of Empathy to Prosocial and Related Behaviors.” Psychological Bulletin 101.1 (1987): 91-119. Psycarticles. Web. 4 Jan. 2012.
Greiner, Rae. Sympathetic Realism in Nineteenth-Century British Fiction. Baltimore: the Johns Hopkins UP, 2012. Print.
—. “Thinking of Me Thinking of You: Sympathy v. Empathy in the Realist Novel.” Victorian Studies 53.3 (2011): 417-26. Print.
Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. Ed. David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.
Iacoboni, Marco. “Imitation, Empathy and Mirror Neurons.” Annual Review of Psychology 60 (2009): 653-70. Annual Reviews. Web. 15 Sept. 2011.
Jahoda, Gustav. “Theodor Lipps and the Shift from ‘Sympathy’ to ‘Empathy.’” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 41.2 (2005): 151-63. Academic Search Premier. Web. 4 Nov. 2011.
Keen, Suzanne. Empathy and the Novel. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. Print.
Lee, Vernon. “Recent Aesthetics.” Quarterly Review 199.398 (1904): 420-43. Vol. 199 (London: John Murray, 1904). Google Book Search. Web. 3 Jan. 2012.
Lee, Vernon, and Clementina Anstruther-Thomson. Beauty & Ugliness and Other Studies in Psychological Aesthetics. London: John Lane, 1912. Print.
Mallgrave, Harry Francis, and Eleftherios Ikonomou, eds. Empathy, Form, and Space: Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873-1893. Santa Monica: Getty Center, 1994. Print.
—. Introduction. Empathy, Form, and Space: Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873-1893. Mallgrave and Ikonomou 1-85.
Nussbaum, Martha. Upheavals of Thought: the Intelligence of the Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003. Print.
Pinotti, Andrea. “Empathy.” Handbook of Phenomenological Aesthetics. Ed. Hans Rainer Sepp and Lester Embree. Heidelberg: Springer, 2010. 93-98. Google Book Search. Web. 8 Jan. 2012.
Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Glasgow ed. Ed. D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982. Print.
Titchener, Edward Bradford. Lectures on the Experimental Psychology of the Thought-Processes. New York: Macmillan, 1909. Google Book Search. Web. 1 Dec. 2011.
Vickers, Neil. “Coleridge on ‘Psychology’ and ‘Aesthetics.’”19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century 12 (2011): 1-14. Web. 7 Nov. 2011.
de Vignemont, Frederique, and Tania Singer. “The Empathetic Brain: How, When and Why?” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 10.10 (2006): 435-41. Science Direct. Web. 15 Sept. 2011.
Vischer, Robert. “On the Optical Sense of Form: a Contribution to Aesthetics.” Mallgrave and Ikonomou 89-123.
For instance, see de Vignemont and Singer’s “The Empathetic Brain: How, When and Why?” and Iacoboni’s “Imitation, Empathy, and Mirror Neurons.”
Though no one was talking of “mirror neurons” in the late nineteenth century, neurons had been named in 1891 by Heinrich Wilhelm Gottfried von Waldeyer-Hartz; three years later, Franz Nissl successfully stained them with dahlia violet. My thanks to the anonymous reader of this essay who clarified this point.
I cover some of this ground in my forthcoming book on sympathy and realism, forthcoming from the Johns Hopkins University Press in 2012. For a more thorough account, Keen’s work is a good place to start.
Vickers’s essay is part of a special issue of 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century devoted to nineteenth-century psychology and aesthetics.
Lee found Lipps’s account of empathy overly abstract: “[o]ne might almost believe that it is the dislike of admitting the participation of the body in the phenomenon of aesthetic Empathy which has impelled Lipps to make aesthetics more and more abstract, a priori, and metaphysical” (Beauty 60). From Lipps’s study “has come,” she writes, “if not the theory, at least the empirical and the logical demonstration of the process to which Professor Lipps has given the convenient but misleading name Einfühlung” (60).
As Gardner Murphy wrote that year in An Historical Introduction to Modern Psychology, “the term Einfühlung (‘empathy’) has in fact come into general psychological use” (qtd. in Jahoda 162).
According to Jahoda, Lipps treated empathy and sympathy interchangeably except in the case of “negative Einfühlung,” which Jahoda calls “rather an elusive concept” (158).
See Bartal et.al., “Empathy and Pro-Social Behavior in Rats.”
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We’re just over halfway through American Heart Month, and while the holiday of the heart has passed, we’re still focused on keeping that important organ healthy.
With that in mind, we came across an interesting new study from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Stanford University. Their research indicates a causal link between pollution and heart problems in both fish and humans.
The study was started with the intent of showing the impact of the BP oil spill in 2010. Since it began, the study has shown many detrimental effects of the spill on the regions’ animal and human life.
Though it doesn’t take a team of scientists to figure out pollution is bad for you, this new research delves into the details of how toxic chemicals and heart cells interact. While the study was specifically conducted on fish, parallels exist between water pollution effects on animal life and air pollution effects on human hearts.
One of the main compounds in crude oil that causes scientists concern is polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Found in both crude oil and air pollution, PAHs tend to remain present in toxic quantities for years after a spill or other pollution has been cleaned. PAHs are also known to negatively impact the functions of cardiac cells.
Components of crude oil also may interfere with the heart cell membranes, especially in the potassium channels. This interference can increase the amount of time it takes the heart to restart the contraction and relaxation cycle after heart beats. It’s the time increase that has scientists particularly worried.
According to Barbara Block, Stanford professor of marine sciences and co-author of the study, “The ability of a heart cell to beat depends on its capacity to move essential ions like potassium and calcium into and out of the cells quickly.”
“We have discovered that crude oil interferes with this vital signaling process essential for our heart cells to function properly.”
This study, though its central focus is marine life, gives us important insight on how pollution can impact not just our environment’s health, but our own.
Image from Cheryl Casey / Shutterstock.com
February 17th, 2014
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There were lots of different types of New York row houses, including those constructed in the Queen Anne style. Much like the Victorian Queen Anne style single-family homes, these rowhouses became fashionable in the 1880s and 1890s. They are characterized by their asymmetrical forms, front-facing gables, and use of contrasting materials, colors, and textures. Victorian Queen Anne New York Style Row Houses often have ornamental spindles, brackets, and other eccentric and fanciful details with Classical, Renaissance precedents and Romanesque Revival influences. They have a "whimsical juxtaposition" of window pane sizes, often pairing double-hung windows with a small paned upper sash. Three-sided projecting bay windows and and multi-paneled wooded doors are also typical features of QUeen Anne New York Row Houses. In the Summit University neighborhood of Saint Paul, there are excellent examples of the Victorian Queen Anne Style of New York Row House.
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The commercial landscape for genetic testing has come a long way from testing only for certain inherited genes directly linked to disease, such as BRCA genes whose mutations heighten risk for breast cancer. Myriad Genetics made its name with BRCA testing, but in 2017 the company also began marketing a different type of test, one that turns up multiple genetic variants found throughout a woman’s genome that together may point toward her risk of breast cancer. Earlier this year Ambry Genetics began marketing a similar test to estimate a man’s risk of prostate cancer.
These tests generate polygenic risk scores, gathering multiple genetic variants that together are used to predict someone’s chance of developing a disease. But what are these scores, and how much faith should people put in them?
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Joseph Priestly: Kitchen Sink Scientist
- by KitchenPantryScientist
We kicked off a new experiment today in honor of upcoming Earth Day. Details and an Earth Day experiment “round-up” coming soon!
Joseph Priestly was an amateur scientist who started out doing experiments in his kitchen sink. Eventually, he was credited with being among the first scientists to isolate oxygen. He noticed that in a sealed container, fire burned something away that animals needed to survive (oxygen) and that plants could replace this mysterious element. This research inspired him to become one of the earliest natural philosophers to hypothesize about the science of ecosystems.
What sparked Priestly’s creative genius? Steven Johnson, the author of “The Invention of Air” guesses it might be the fact that he played with spiders in jars as a kid and always wondered why they couldn’t survive for long after the lid was sealed. It also didn’t hurt that Joseph Priestly had friends like Benjamin Franklin to toss his ideas around with. In addition, he wrote a number of books, advised Thomas Jefferson and was a founder of the Unitarian church.
Finally, if you like soda, you have Priestly to thank for the invention of soda water.
What inspires you to be creative?
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Recently on Twitter, I posted a tweet in a moment of frustration but also deep questioning, hoping against all hope, that the ‘sunshine and jellybean’ type posts which Twitter EDU is somewhat known for, might step to the side for a moment so that my unperfect question could be posed. To my surprise, I quickly found I was not alone in my wondering, and, I got a massive amount of comments that were thoughtful, inspired, and most of all, really helpful.
How do you “trust students to take control of their own learning” when some learners set the bar so ridiculously low? Serious question. Some kids want to do amazing things. Others are satisfied with the minimum possible effort. How do you coach more out of them? #mypchat #agency— Sonya terBorg (@terSonya) November 26, 2018
Here are some of the responses that really got me thinking:
Finding the Sweet Spot
This image from Maggie has definitely been a huge help when talking with students about their work.
It’s about having a conversation. Putting agency w/Ss to think about how challenging something might be;hence, placing motivation/ power with them. It is a tool we continually reference as a conversation starter in my classroom. Can easily be adapted! pic.twitter.com/TaQWiPzV5P— Margaret(Maggie) Lewis (@msmargaretlewis) November 28, 2018
It actually reminded me of some posts on questions that I have used with students in the past when trying to create their own inquiries. Ask Great Questions speaks to the depth and quality of questions we can ask with students. And Questioning Conceptually which drives home the idea of developing questions worth inquiring into via a number of thinking routines – in particular, the Visible Thinking routine Question Sorts This routine is used by our grade 4 CNU teachers to help students choose ideas worth inquiring into and would transfer to any aged audience – especially middle school.
Drive mentions autonomy, mastery and purpose. These all come into play. I find getting the balance right can be a challenge.— Dalton Flanagan (@desertclimber) November 28, 2018
Autonomy. Mastery. Purpose. These things are somewhat out of whack for me and my kids (I think). Most of all purpose. “Why do you want to do this?” or “How might you share your learning” are really difficult questions for some kids to answer. What I am finding though, is “Show it on the TV screens around the school” is becoming a really popular response. They want their peers to see their work – simple. They want that feedback. Other kids are looking to go further. Just this morning I got this email from one of my 8th Graders:
How cool is this kid? I love stuff like this! Motivated by other students to rally his advisory group to action. I can’t wait to support him on this. Celebrating those who ARE motivated and keeping trying with those who are not as per this suggestion:
Great discussion thanks. I have come across lot of demotivated Ss, my aim was to contanstly provide platform to showcase their work & appreciate, they will catch up one day. What do we do if one of our own children is motivated other is not? Keep trying @MYPChat #MYPChat— arif minhal (@arifminhal) November 26, 2018
Time is a massive factor. Fortunately, we have a lot of teachers all working together and we are each allocated students to mentor. This tweet stood out to me:
And how do you battle time constraints of supporting these students to find what they might be interested in while adequately spending time with those who just ‘get on with it’ without you. The could use the time, too, but are often the last to get to….— Tiffany Eaton (@votefortiff) November 27, 2018
Thinking about this I put together the following spreadsheet of questions. I am able to check in with 2 or 3 students during the X-block hour that I am working with my group. I have modeled these questions from this Kath Murdoch blog post: Getting Personal.https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Having students respond to the question, “How do you know what success will look like? is proving to also be helpful. It puts the ownership of the project back in the hands of the students and reinforces that they are not doing this for me or for a rubric or even for a grade, but for a purpose of their own choosing. Which is challenging but also empowering for some. Working hand in hand with TIME, is it’s friend…
Today on Twitter, Tania Mansfield posted the following:https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The word TRUST kept jumping out at me as this is something we talked about earlier in the year as being vital in building a cohesive team as per the Lencioni Trust Pyramid (in which an absence of trust is a leading cause of dysfunction within a team).
So I responded to Tania’s tweet:
Trust. I am finding this is key to most things – learner agency being one of them. Trusting in the process, in the student, in myself.— Sonya terBorg (@terSonya) December 1, 2018
To which Tania replied to the original thread on student agency in MYP:
2/2 Trust is a culture to be developed and nurtured in EY and carried up through the years, so when you come across these wonderful learners in the MYP they have this culture of trust within who they are. Give them time…. #cultureoftrust #kidsdeserveit— тαηια мαηѕƒιєℓ∂ (@hktans) December 1, 2018
This made me think of what happened when I did just what Tania suggests we do in her tweet:
2/2 they both showed up, asked for the help they needed, tried some new ideas out, changed their plan a little. I am guilty of missing the forest for the trees sometimes and get too bogged down by setbacks that I forget to celebrate the wins #mypchat #agency— Sonya terBorg (@terSonya) November 26, 2018
Do I think there is a ‘secret’ to Agency? Probably. The secret is going to be different for different kids though – and that is the secret within itself. My tweet is not indicative of ALL students – just the one or two I worked with on that day. Their purpose is becoming more clear, we are spending more time with each other, I am showing them I can be trusted to support them should they choose to take greater risks in the challenges they set themselves. It is an ever changing game or dance between the two of us. Learning about each other and what we are capable of, who we are, what we can do or can’t do….yet.
I don’t have all the answers but thanks to this one Tweet, I do have a lot more than I began with. What’s up your sleeve when it comes to growing a culture of student agency in the Middle School? Another educator, Mary Wade has recently posted in light of my tweet: Strategies to trust students to own their learning when they seem uninterested. It is full of great ideas and is definitely worth reading to further your thinking on this topic. Mary concludes her post with an Alfie Kohn quote that I love:
“Working with people to help them do a job better, learn more effectively, or acquire good values takes time, thought, effort, and courage.”Alfie Kohn
I am grateful to those educators who engaged with my tweet. Your time, thought, effort, and courage was very much appreciated.
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Academic Books & Book Chapters
The Orphan in Eighteenth-Century Law and Literature: Estate, Blood, and Body
Cheryl L Nixon
Cheryl Nixon's book is the first to connect the eighteenth-century fictional orphan and factual orphan, emphasizing the legal concepts of estate, blood, and body. Examining novels by authors such as Eliza Haywood, Tobias Smollett, and Elizabeth Inchbald, and referencing never-before analyzed case records, Nixon reconstructs the narratives of real orphans in the British parliamentary, equity, and common law courts and compares them to the narratives of fictional orphans. The orphan's uncertain economic, familial, and bodily status creates opportunities to "plot" his or her future according to new ideologies of the social individual. Nixon demonstrates that the orphan encourages both fact and fiction to re-imagine structures of estate (property and inheritance), blood (familial origins and marriage), and body (gender and class mobility). Whereas studies of the orphan typically emphasize the poor urban foundling, Nixon focuses on the orphaned heir or heiress and his or her need to be situated in a domestic space. Arguing that the eighteenth century constructs the "valued" orphan, Nixon shows how the wealthy orphan became associated with new understandings of the individual. New archival research encompassing print and manuscript records from Parliament, Chancery, Exchequer, and King's Bench demonstrate the law's interest in the propertied orphan. The novel uses this figure to question the formulaic structures of narrative sub-genres such as the picaresque and romance and ultimately encourage the hybridization of such plots. As Nixon traces the orphan's contribution to the developing novel and developing ideology of the individual, she shows how the orphan creates factual and fictional understandings of class, family, and gender.
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U.S. food security, forest health, and the ability of farmers to respond to climate change are all at risk if President’s Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture brings climate change skepticism to the agency, agricultural researchers and environmental law experts say.
That concern takes root not only in Trump’s own statements scoffing at climate policy, but also in the words and actions of his nominee for Agriculture secretary — former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, who in 2007 resorted to prayer as a strategy to deal with a severe drought Georgia was enduring.
This article was originally published at Climate Central
“Snowstorms, hurricanes, and tornadoes have been around since the beginning of time, but now they want us to accept that all of it is the result of climate change,” Perdue, whose Senate confirmation hearing has not yet been scheduled, wrote in a 2014 National Review column. “It’s become a running joke among the public, and liberals have lost all credibility when it comes to climate science because their arguments have become so ridiculous and so obviously disconnected from reality.”
In fact, the science of human-caused climate change is far from a running joke.
Established climate science shows that greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels are quickly warming the planet, leading to melting polar ice caps, rising seas and more frequent extreme weather. Sixteen of the world’s 17 hottest years on record have all occurred since 2000 — a level of global warming leading to more frequent, more intense and more deadly heat waves and extreme drought.
Though climate models are less certain about the role of global warming in hurricanes and tornadoes, they suggest that hurricane intensity will increase as the atmosphere warms. Major hurricanes are already becoming more common in the Atlantic, and landfalling typhoons have become more intense in the Pacific, threatening millions of lives in coastal cities.
Responding to climate change is a key mission of the USDA, which is America’s chief supporter of agriculture research, forestry and rural development. The agency funds millions of dollars of research at land grant universities across the country such as Cornell, Clemson and Texas A&M to help farmers learn the risks they face from a world that has been largely warmed by pollution from carbon emissions.
The agriculture industry is responsible for about 10 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change. If confirmed, the decisions Perdue will make will influence whether farms shrink their carbon footprint and how farms and forests are managed to respond to climate-related disasters.
The USDA’s climate programs extend far beyond farms. As America’s largest forest manager, Perdue will determine the direction of the science conducted by the U.S. Forest Service and whether some of America’s most carbon-dense and diverse forests are clear cut for timber harvesting or managed to sustain and blunt the impacts of climate change.
“Just about every activity that the USDA regulates is likely to impact climate policy,” said Mark Squillace, a natural resources law professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder. “Forests and soils store vast amounts of carbon. When forests are logged or when they burn, much of that stored carbon is released into the atmosphere. Crop farming also contributes to climate change by releasing large quantities of nitrous oxides, much of it from fertilizers, and animal farming contributes vast amounts of methane especially from ruminant animals.”
If the USDA dismisses the threat of climate change, “then there is reason for grave concern,” said Michael P. Hoffman, executive director of the Cornell University Institute for Climate Smart Solutions, which focuses on sustainable agriculture.
“Those who grow our food in the U.S. are facing more extreme weather, more flooding and drought, more high temperature stress — in general more risk due to more variability, more uncertainty,” Hoffmann said. “It will be a travesty if USDA cuts back on its support of climate change research and education.”
Allison Chatrchyan, a sustainable agriculture researcher at Cornell University, said the losses both farmers and the university’s research could sustain if the USDA cuts back on climate funding could be significant. At particular risk are the USDA’s 10 regional climate hubs, she said.
The Obama administration established the hubs in 2014 to coordinate with land grant universities to help private farmers, ranchers and forest managers adapt to climate change. Through the universities, the hubs help farmers understand how global warming will alter weather patterns and affect their crops and irrigation methods.
“It is unlikely Cornell will get additional funding to work with the hub,” Chatrchyan said. “The hub has told us they will be looking to university partners to carry this work if the hubs are disbanded.”
The USDA also provides scientists at land grant universities with small research grants. At Cornell, researchers are using $6 million in USDA grant money to study how climate change is affecting food security, corn crops, trees and grasses in urban areas, the spread of invasive mussels in New York lakes, the spread of mosquitoes and much more.
Chatrchyan said that if the USDA shuts off that funding, it would be a huge setback for farmers and the research that supports them.
“We have regions of the country and the world that are going to be less able to produce food because of more extreme drought and higher temps and more pests and disease pressure,” she said. “We have to be innovative. We have to be helping farmers. We can’t step back from that.”
The USDA manages 193 million acres of national forest and grasslands, including the rainforests of Oregon, Washington and Alaska. Those forests act as large “carbon sinks” because they store more carbon from the atmosphere in tree trunks, roots and soil than any other type of forest in the country. Altogether, America’s national forests offset and store about 14 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions each year, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
The agency also works with state and local agencies to help manage nearly 500 million acres of local and city forests across the country.
“The U.S. Forest Service is heading in a direction both cognizant of problems posed by climate change in terms of wildfire and bark beetle infestation, and adaptation, resilience and carbon sinks,” said Jack Tuholske, director of the Vermont Law School water and justice program. “The tone of the administration one week on the ground, they want to go back to the old days when public lands were viewed as commodity producers for private gain.”
Tuholske is referring to statements made by some of Trump’s other cabinet nominees during their confirmation hearings in January. Interior Secretary nominee Ryan Zinke, whose Interior Department is in charge of more federal land than any other, spoke of forests and fossil fuels the agency manages as “assets” to be harvested or extracted.
For decades, the U.S. Forest Service managed national forests mainly for commodity production in the form of timber harvesting, an approach that began to change in the Obama administration, which saw forests as important for their ecological value, Tuholske said.
“The U.S. Forest Service is like a big ship slowly turning,” he said. “It took them 30 years to reach this new vision of the forest as something more than logs on a stump.”
The stakes are high for USDA-managed forests because the way they are managed can help reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire, promote biological diversity and store atmospheric carbon in temperate rainforests, such as those in western Washington state and the panhandle of Alaska.
“Federal lands managed by the USDA are increasingly a cost center for the effects of climate change on the United States,” said said Jayni Hein, policy director for the Institute for Policy Integrity at the NYU School of Law. “With more severe droughts and a warming climate, an increasing share of the U.S. Forest Service budget is directed at fighting wildfires. The new administration must keep its eyes open and focused on this growing, costly threat.”
Firefighting made up 16 percent of the U.S. Forest Service’s budget in 1995, but as climate change led to longer and more severe fire seasons, the share of the agency’s budget dedicated to fighting fires ballooned to 50 percent by 2015 — roughly $1.2 billion.
Fire seasons now average 78 days longer each year than in 1970, according to the Forest Service.
The wildfire threat will not be reduced by efforts in Congress or in the Trump administration to increase logging, said Dominick DellaSala, chief scientist at the Geos Institute, a climate change think tank.
“As climate change results in more extreme fire weather in places, throwing more money at the problem won’t result in a fire-fix as climate increasingly becomes the top-down driver of fire behavior,” he said.
DellaSala said it’s also important that the USDA manage and preserve forests — especially Alaska’s rain forests — as carbon sinks in order for the U.S. to uphold the Paris Climate Agreement. The pact calls for countries to cut climate pollution to prevent global warming from exceeding 2°C (3.6°F), a level considered dangerous by the United Nations.
The Obama administration angered conservationists last year when it approved a plan to log some old-growth rainforest in southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, which is America’s largest and one of its most pristine national forests.
“Any additional logging that could come under a Trump administration or congressional efforts to give away large portions of the Tongass to the state of Alaska would make matters even worse,” DellaSala said. “I worry about how forest plans will be revised in this administration, which has signaled its intent to roll back the clock to unsustainable logging levels.”
It’s unclear how far Perdue’s USDA could go to roll back forest protections because many of them are mandated by law and regulatory changes require a time-consuming process to implement.
The law that governs how the USDA manages national forests mandates that forests be managed sustainably — not just for timber harvesting, Hein said.
“This requires attention to both the impact of climate change on our national forests and the preservation of these forests as carbon sinks,” she said.
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It was the scourge of children in the 19th century, and doctors thought it had been almost eradicated.
Why is this happening? It’s partly down to deficiency in Vitamin D. This nifty little nutrient works with calcium to help keep bones strong and healthy. We get most of it through sunlight on our skin, but it’s also found in food.
Sadly, the rise of our indoors culture means kids don’t play out as much as they used to, so they’re not getting as much sunlight (something that many of us grown-ups are guilty of too). And all too often we’re not eating the right things to get enough Vitamin D from our diet. Because of the evidence that this is becoming more of a problem, the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (or SACN for short) is currently looking at the risks of this for the nation’s health. Their committee’s scheduled to publish draft recommendations in April.
In the meantime, oily fish like salmon and sardines, eggs, fortified fat spreads and breakfast cereals and powdered milk are just a few of the foods that contain Vitamin D. But here are my top tips for getting kids enjoying foods that can make every day a D-day:
- Hook, line and sinker: If you’re making a fish pie, don’t just go for white fish. Add some salmon or another oily variety – much easier to get into a dish like this without them noticing. You’ll be boosting the amount of calcium in the meal at the same time, so it’s a win-win. Try our fish pie recipes for older children here and for little ones here
- Eggs-periment with omelettes. They’re really cheap to make – try peppers, mushrooms and tuna in there
- Crack it: add eggs to your salads, sandwiches or have them as part of a hearty breakfast. Glaze the top of your mashed potato with egg if you’re making shepherds pie, cottage pie or fish pie to make a golden, crunchy topping
- Read the label: see if your breakfast cereal’s fortified with vitamin D and other nutrients like iron. But be careful – many breakfast cereals are also loaded with the sweet stuff, so go for varieties that are lower in sugar.
Some of us are at a higher risk of not getting enough Vitamin D, and if you’re in one of these groups it’s recommended you take a supplement too. Don’t forget, if you qualify for and are taking part in the Healthy Start scheme, you can get these for free.
Laura’s one of our nutritionists. Email Laura.
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Victoria, I hate to see a question go unanswered, and though the topic is outside my area of experise, I would recommend reading some of the books available about Cecil. There are a lot of them out there, and surely some of them address your question. Try searching on the RHS Bibliography under the subject "Cecil, William" for a list of recent books.http://www.rhs.ac.uk/bibl/dataset.asp
I'll help out a bit.Different noblemen viewed Cecil differently. That's the short answer.Not EVERYONE was suspected of disloyalty to the crown. However, there were some distinct groups of nobles who were as suspect of Cecil as Cecil was of them. Early in the reign there were some northern earls who felt excluded from the court and launched a rebellion. They were also Catholic so Cecil had been watching them for a bit and in turn they disliked Cecil because he had the ear of the monarch not they. Much of the time, animosity surrounding Cecil was simple political jealousy. Cecil however also had his 'out of favor' moments with Elizabeth.Cecil was a bit of a dour sober man and seems to have been very committed to protecting and serving Elizabeth in the manner he thought best - as opposed to the manner SHE thought best. This meant that sometimes Cecil's friendship was the most advantageous political coin of the realm - and sometimes not.
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http://queryblog.tudorhistory.org/2009/01/question-from-victoria-regard-for.html
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en
| 0.992314 | 295 | 2.609375 | 3 |
It’s spring, 1890. The days are longer, stronger. The men are out—Portuguese, most of them, first and second generation. They’re pounding poles into the shallow Truro flats to hang their weir nets. The nets are fragile, intricate things, but they’ll bring in the catch this season. The fish swim north, then into the bay, then into the nets, mingle in the trap. Each morning the men come out in boats and gather the catch with dip nets.
On a clear day, you can see all 12 Truro weirs, lining the crook of the bay. Each one stretches 2,500 feet out, a line of poles cascading toward Provincetown. Each one has its own fish house on shore, a place to sort, gut, clean. The men cut ice from the ponds in the winter, then haul it out in blocks, pack it in salt marsh hay. When the fish come in, the men ice them down, pack them into barrels, and ship them up to Boston on the train.
One net can yield 330 barrels of mackerel in a single catch, 40 tons of pollock. There are hermit crabs and sea crabs and spider crabs, goosefish and butter fish and bonita. There are bluebacks, tuna, whiting, hake—scup, fluke, and black sea bass. The men keep the nets up from April through September. It takes seven men to work a weir with all the trips in and out, all the hauling and the cleaning, the salting and the packing—hard work, but good work too.
Fast-forward 120 years, and the weirs have mostly disappeared. The poles are gone from Truro, but there are still a few in Stage Harbor, out of Chatham. Families like the Eldredges still pound the poles into the flats each spring, take them down come fall.
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<urn:uuid:457e422d-f249-4300-9a4a-93b5a7679522>
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CC-MAIN-2014-10
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http://capecodlife.com/life/stories/2012/05/a-simple-sustainable-taste-from-the-past/
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999652921/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060732-00082-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.94195 | 403 | 2.96875 | 3 |
This book describes and defines what ‘Japan style’ is. It explores specific achievements in Japanese art and architecture, but also offers an in-depth analysis of the whole of Japanese culture, its vision of the world and of humankind.
‘Japan style’ is something recognizable to everyone: a beautifully arranged flower, an elegant piece of calligraphy or a simple rock garden, but it is also something that is very difficult to define.
This book gives the reader the tools to fully understand Japanese art and culture. As Gian Carlo Calza says, the path to understanding and appreciating Japanese culture is slow and long, and in order to develop the right sensibility on the journey, it is imperative that the reader acquires the necessary means. With this in mind, the author reveals and shares his experience in and knowledge of Japanese culture, defining the essence of Japanese style.
The book is divided into three main sections. In the first one (‘Irregular Beauty’), the author delineates the different aspects of Japanese culture and draws interesting connections between art, architecture, religion, philosophy and mythology. For example, he explains the aesthetics of the tea ceremony and its relationship to Zen philosophy as well as other subjects such as the function of the void in mythology, Buddhism and the arts.
The second part of the book (‘A Feeling of Nature’) follows a chronological path from ancient times to the present explaining more specifically how to interpret the different forms of Japanese art (literature, painting, sculpture, etc.).
The third part of the book (‘Art Masters’) contains short monographs on Japanese masters in the history of Japanese art and culture: Zeami Moto, the creator of “No” theatre; Hokusai, the master of woodblock printing; Yasunai Kawabata and Mishima Yukio, the writers; and the graphic designer, Tanaka Ikko.
Calza’s groundbreaking and insightful text is accompanied by 150 colour images of a great variety of examples from Japanese art and culture.
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<urn:uuid:8aeb6e3b-6459-447b-8b42-70e23c324bfe>
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CC-MAIN-2020-24
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https://pallasathenekiado.hu/konyvesbolt/japan-style/?add-to-cart=2326
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en
| 0.929256 | 421 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Loud noise affects hearing loss differently
LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Dr. Rick Friedman with the House Ear Institute is trying to understand why loud noises affect people differently. So they're studying mice because how noise affects mice ears is very close to what happens in human ears.
"We know that there's a genetic component to noise-induced hearing loss. There are people who have been exposed to terrible noise levels who don't have hearing loss or tinnitus at all. There are others who get it out of proportion to the average," said Friedman.
Ear-ringing, or tinnitus, is one of the first signs of hearing loss. Dr. Friedman says the theory is that loud noises damage nerve fibers responsible for hearing. The brain goes into overdrive trying to make up for this loss. It's like a "phantom limb": the brain thinks it's there even though the nerves are lost. So tinnitus may be the brain making up for lost hearing.
"Hearing aids seem to be the best thing in the world for tinnitus," said Friedman. "Unfortunately some patients, they don't have enough hearing loss to warrant hearing aids, so they're in a tough position.
"It's hard to treat noise-induced hearing loss. Prevention is really the treatment," said Friedman.
Prescription custom earplugs can suppress a lot of noise or a little as necessary.
health, health care, healthy living, denise dador
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25 min ago
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<urn:uuid:6528da40-e7b6-4420-a07b-b7217937f708>
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CC-MAIN-2013-48
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http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/health/your_health&id=8636467
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en
| 0.941392 | 489 | 2.734375 | 3 |
And the most effective discovering I left for last. Children learn self-confidence at preschool. My preschool youngsters were taught to yell "I TIN DO IT!" whenever they were able to achieve something brand-new or something hard. You can not place a rate on this self-confidence. They are tested beyond what moms and dads can put in front of them. They have educators that have been educated as well as they are around their peers.
Within your homeschool program some of the standard skills you will wish to cover consist of: Scriptures, good manners, or character education. Alphabet, letter sounds, and also rhyming. Number recognition, counting, shapes, and beforeafter numbers, handwriting, art as well as songs. In addition, you should likewise cover these skills at this age: Athletics as well as motion, Local community and also the world, Nature as well as what she sees.
To conclude, the very best sort of tool to pick will certainly depend upon the specific demands of the youngster in concern. This is generally due to the reason that the different kinds of learning devices for youngsters (preschool kids) that are offered are indicated for a variety of instances.
For preschool, children are anticipated to understand the standard shapes, acknowledge them and recognize how they create component of various other products. They may also be anticipated to be able to attract the forms - not flawlessly, however definitely recognizably. There are many methods to encourage and assist your kid to discover about shapes. Since shapes are all around us, it is simple to play 'Locate the Forming' at home, in the automobile, in the shop as well as elsewhere. Select one shape at once to focus on, instead of looking for all the various shapes.
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<urn:uuid:0a0844cf-64c2-4fef-9362-a7a7ccebab16>
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CC-MAIN-2020-24
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https://ajkcouncil.com/xdcvkm8427/aPfLey8438/
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-24/segments/1590347387155.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20200525001747-20200525031747-00525.warc.gz
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en
| 0.984314 | 354 | 2.703125 | 3 |
- PHOTO COURTESY OF CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND WILDLIFE
- FREE TO ROAM: Two young tule elk bulls emerge from a trailer on the Carrizo Plain Ecological Reserve in SLO County, where 12 elk were realeased as part of a larger repopulation effort.
Ask a Californian what comes to mind when you say “Central Valley,” and most will probably give you an answer that includes farms, orchards, farms, an occasional feedlot, and more farms. You may also get something about air conditioners, or high-speed rail, or oil. What you likely won’t hear is a mention of wildlife and marshlands.
Nearly 200 years ago, the Central Valley—which some say is among the world’s most altered pieces of land—was a dramatically different place. An entire ecosystem thrived among oak woodlands, marshes, sloughs, streams, and grasslands. The same conditions that made wildlife happy also attracted farmers who drained the marshes, tilled the soil, and built fences. Cities followed.
The land is now one of the most productive farming regions in the world. Over time, wildlife populations began to dwindle—especially the tule elk, a subspecies of elk found only in California. Agriculture’s spread brought habitat loss, and the elk became a popular sight in the crosshairs of hungry gold miners. At one point in the mid- to late-1800s, tule elk were so scarce some thought they’d gone extinct.
Now, thanks to a series of repopulation efforts, tule elk are alive and well. Most recently, in April, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), with the help of other wildlife organizations, underwent the laborious process of capturing 36 elk at the San Luis National Wildlife Reserve Complex in Los Banos. The elk were captured using net guns deployed from helicopters, then loaded up in livestock trailers and taken to three locations where they were released to join existing herds. Six bulls and six cows were released at the Carrizo Plains Ecological Reserve in southeastern San Luis Obispo County, said Joe Hobbs, CDFW senior wildlife specialist.
Hobbs said these efforts have come a long way; there were only 500 elk among three different herds when these particular relocation efforts began in 1975. Today, there are 4,300 in 22 herds.
But the process hasn’t been simple; reintroducing elk into the human landscape that once displaced them can be tricky.
“They were slowly increased and did what elk do, and there were complaints about damage,” Hobbs said. In particular, bulls would take down fence posts during rutting season, and herds would sometimes wander onto an alfalfa or vegetable field to graze. These episodes, however, have been limited, and wildlife officials have been quick to repair damages.
All this was possible thanks to a rancher who pioneered the very environmental transformation that threatened the species’ survival.
The cattle baron Henry Miller, who ran cattle and farmed on vast swaths of land throughout the San Joaquin Valley—a sub area of the Central Valley—was one of the biggest landowners of his day. In the 1870s, at a time when the elk where thought to be extinct, Miller came across a small group feeding in a marshland that work crews were planning to drain. Miller ordered their protection and began moving them to makeshift preserve areas. At the time, cowboys would chase them down on horseback and rope them with lassos, Hobbs said. The process yielded mixed results, leading at times to more deaths than relocations, and no shortage of farm intrusions, but it was the beginning of concentrated efforts to ensure the elk’s survival.
The methods of capturing the elk, and scientific knowledge of them, have come a long way since then. Now, recovery efforts have intersected with a larger project of wildland conservation throughout the San Joaquin Valley, where conservationists are working to piece together publicly and privately owned lands and employ management techniques hospitable to native species. The elk are just one of many members of the community that these efforts seek to protect. Because they can roam across such a large area, contiguous tracts of land help the elk thrive. In the meantime, these relocation efforts, known as translocation, are necessary to expand the herd’s genetic diversity, allowing for better reproductive success rates, said Dan York, associate director of the Wildlands Conservancy, which manages the Wind Wolves Preserve in Kern County, one of sites for tule elk relocation.
In the future, tule elk repopulation and relocation may be buoyed by the ongoing conservation efforts. York says so far, the efforts have made a difference.
“It so happened that this fairly significant lands conservation approach was what helped their recovery,” York said.
Contact staff writer Jono Kinkade at [email protected].
-- Melody DeMeritt - former city council member, Morro Bay
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<urn:uuid:7c3b27d6-790b-4664-a93f-c9f03bc18b44>
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CC-MAIN-2017-39
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https://m.newtimesslo.com/sanluisobispo/current-repopulation-efforts-are-helping-the-tule-elk-population-jump-by-leaps-and-bounds/Content?oid=2944596
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en
| 0.959826 | 1,093 | 3.46875 | 3 |
Repeated closures of Irish mussel shellfisheries have been necessary since the mid-late 1990s. These closures were due to toxic events and reports of mussel consumers falling ill with symptoms unlike any others previously reported for shellfish poisons. Additionally there were no reports of known shellfish toxins (eg. PSP, DSP) present in the mussels. Subsequent tests on mussels and toxic extracts determined the presence of a novel compound, Azaspiracid, as the cause of the toxic effect.
The most well documented of these cases is the 1997 Arranmore incident where locals were affected with severe nausea, vomiting, cramps, headaches, and diarrhoea after consuming mussels containing azaspiracid. Poisoning cases have since been reported in the Netherlands, France, England and Spain, partly as a result of importing Irish mussels.
You are asked to determine the properties of this toxin, the causative organism, the risk shellfish toxicity poses to humans and the environment and to outline a method of approaching such a shellfish toxicity event.
In your assessment you should do the following:
1. Describe the substance: e.g. what is it.
2. Describe its physico-chemical properties.
3. Describe its pathway from causative organism to human (route of contamination).
4. Describe its toxicology.
When assessing the toxicity of a substance you will have to consider the following: properties of the substance, acute/chronic toxicity, lethal/sublethal toxicity, potential to bioconcentrate, potential to be passed on food chains, media in which the substance will be dispersed (e.g. water, air, soil), quantity, potential hazard to human health.
5. State if you think this is a serious human/environmental problem. Include considerations of immediate – acute and lethal – toxicity, as well as potential chronic and sublethal effects.
6. Describe if there should be any immediate measures imposed. Include pros and cons and evaluate using an evidence-based approach.
7. Describe if there should be any longterm measures imposed, and if current regulations are enough to address this toxicity issue.
Shellfish is regarded a “super food” as it is a highly nutritive has a high level of poly unsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) especially omega 3. Azaspiracids (AZA) are polyether marine toxins that are found in various shellfish species and can cause severe gastrointestinal human intoxications. The first outbreak of human illness was in Netherlands because of the consumption of contaminated shellfish originating from Killary Harbour, Ireland. People who consumed were reported by severe nausea, vomiting, cramps, headaches, and diarrhoea. Oysters were the only shellfish that accumulated azaspiracids at levels that were comparable with mussels.
High content of toxins are found in these species due to their grazing mechanism. Shellfish feed them by filtering suspended algae and food particles present in the water through their body and gills, where food particles are absorbed by the organism and they have a potential to concentrate both bacterial pathogens and phychotoxins at the dangerous toxins levels. However when this shellfish are consumed by humans it shows several toxic syndrome related to shellfish including severe nausea, vomiting, cramps, headaches, it targets liver, lungs etc. The highest levels of total azaspiracids (microg/g, µg/g) recorded to-date were in mussels (4.2), oysters (2.45), scallops (0.40), cockles (0.20), and clams (0.61).
Azaspiracids (AZA): Author K. J. James; M. J. Fidalgo S ez; A. Furey; M. Lehane- Any of several organic compounds with a complex polycyclic structure that is responsible for the toxicity of some mussels. Azaspiracid poisoning (AZP) is a recently discovered toxic syndrome that was identified following severe gastrointestinal illness from the consumption of contaminated mussels (Mytilus edulis). The toxins, azaspiracids, are polyethers with unprecedented structural features. Studies toward total toxin synthesis revealed that the initial published structures were incorrect and they have now been revised. These toxins accumulate in bivalve molluscs that feed on toxic microalgae of the genus Protoperidinium. The first identified AZA in shellfish from Ireland, azaspiracid contamination of several types of bivalve shellfish species has now been confirmed throughout the western coastline of Europe.
Physical chemical properties of AZA:
AZA1 was initially reported as colourless and ououdrless amourphous solid , having the chemical formula C47H71NO12 and a molecular weight of 841.5 g/mol .
Later it was reported as colourless oil .Other studies reported the toxin to be a.
No UV absorption maxima were found above 210 nm wavelength and the refractive index of AZA1 was determined to be [α]20-21 (c 0.10, MeOH) .AZA is assumed to be a stable compound.
At physiological pH, AZA1 exists as a zwitterion (i.e., contains both a positive and negative charge but is electrically neutral),
This overall neutral but potentially.Ionic character may result in enhanced possibilities for interaction of AZA with its biological target.
Little information is available about the stability of AZAs. During the production of a tissue
reference material, certain techniques were tested to stabilise the tissue material for long-term storage.
During a heat treatment study the toxins were observed to degrade when heated over 90 °C
However, the use of gamma irradiation, which is often used to stabilise tissue reference materials, had little effect on AZA analog stability when contained in mussel matrix. The toxins were observed to undergo rapid degradation when irradiated as a pure compound in solution.
AZAs .stored in methanol were shown to slowly form methyl esters of the toxin
These esters were only observed in methanol extracts stored at room temperature or higher for prolonged periods (i.e., several months).
Toxilogy of AZA:
Toxicological studies have indicated that azaspiracids can induce widespread organ damage in mice and that they are probably more dangerous than previously known classes of shellfish toxins. It is a unique toxin group that targets the liver, lung, pancreas, thymus, spine and digestive tract.
They pose a treat to humans, when it is eaten, the Biotoxins created during algal blooms are taken up by shellfish (mussels, oysters), leading to these human foods acquiring the toxicity and poisoning humans. Examples include paralytic, neurotoxic, and diarrhoetic shellfish poisoning
Many reaserch have been done to study the toxic effect of AZA. All information regarding AZA toxicology has been obtained from controlled in vitro and in vivo experiments.
In vitro toxicology:
Mouse bioassay and intraperitoneal injection:
Mouse or rat bioassays were the first methods used to determine the toxic effects of AZA. Mice exposed to AZA by intraperitoneal injection react in a different manner than those exposed to other shellfish toxins. After dosing of AZA to male mice, he became sluggish, sat still in the corners and showed progressive paralysis and laboured breathing. No diarrhoea was observed. At low doses the animals died two to three days after dosing. The minimal lethal dose for mice was reported to be 150 µg/kg.I P injection of a lethal dose (>150 µg/kg) caused swelling of the stomach and liver, parallels with reduction in size/weight of the thymus and spleen.
The lethal dose cause excessive damage to the spine, thymus, pancreas, extensive tissue injury in the stomach. Studies also conducted in the mice with sub lethal dose mice died after 4 hrs, there were damage to the epithelial cells on the surface of the finger like villi.
Toxicological studies showed that repeated administration of AZAs caused prolonged damage in the intestine and induced lung tumors in mice (Ito et al. 2002)
An interesting study done by McCaron et al, that they found the level of AZA3 increases significantly when heating in absence of water for a short duration. They also found that the AZA3 increase in the level of concentration even in a very low temperature, However the concentration of AZA1 and AZA2 remain unchanged.This work was informative for shellish processing and analysis of shellfish products.
The original observation that AZAs can cause cytotoxicity was performed by Flanagan et al.
Using HepG2 hepatoblastoma cells and human bladder carcinoma cells (ECV-304) exposed to crude mussel extracts. Additional studies have since confirmed these findings, in a time- and concentration dependent manner, for a variety of other cell types from various mammalian sources.
Intracellular signaling molecules:
Many AZA analogs have been shown to cause a variety of effects on intracellular signalling
molecules. In mammalian cells, cytosolic calcium is an important secondary messenger for a variety of pathways, including cell death. Human lymphocytes exposed to AZA1 (200 nM) were shown to elevate cytosolic calcium levels by ca. 50% above basal. This response was shown to be sensitive to extracellular calcium, PKC (protein kinase C) activation, PP inhibition, and cAMP (cyclic adenosine monophosphate) elevation. Differences in the effects of the
various AZA analogs may be a function of solubility and/or purity as it would be highly unusual for a class of structurally related compounds (with only single methyl and/or hydroxyl substitutions) to elicit completely different mechanisms of action rather than, more commonly,various degrees of affinity and efficacy. Although these studies were unable to identify a specific mechanism of action, the modulation of cytosolic calcium and cAMP may be influenced by modulation of a membrane protein.
The ARfD panel recommends the minimum permissible level of AZA1 in shellfish is 30 µg AZA1 eq/kg shellfish meet this means that the dose should not exceed 12 µg eq/60 kg person , the panel also recommends that the use of validated LC-MS/MS methods as it is more structured way of reporting the toxins in the shellfish.
Much progress has been made in the areas of AZA toxicology and associated human health issues. Much progress has been made in the field of AZA 1 research and its application to protect the health of sea food consumers. Various shellfish monitoring programs , implementation of safe regulatory limits of consumption of shellfish have been imposed for the safety of humans . The strict regulatory control of azaspiracids in shellfish now requires frequent testing of shellfish using highly specific and sensitive methods involving liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry i.e. LCMS.
The measures imposed should be:
1. Reducing eutrophication should be the key concern while considering the future policies, because it does not only pose a problem to ecosystem but a treat to humans also.
2. Sampling of shellfish should be done regularly.
3. Analysis of sample like measurement of the toxicity in the shellfish should be done is regular basis.
4. Evalution of the result of the sampling should be dome in a proper way.
5. Some pamphlets or booklets should be distributed to the people to spread awareness about the harmful effect cause by this toxic shellfish.
6. Consumers should purchase only inspected shellfish from reliable licensed retailers.
7. Retailers are required to maintain the certification records for their shellfish stock.
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<urn:uuid:b50cf339-09b7-448c-8c52-7aeba80fb6b7>
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CC-MAIN-2020-16
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http://www.coursework-writing-advice.com/biochemistry-sample/
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371700247.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20200407085717-20200407120217-00398.warc.gz
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en
| 0.946204 | 2,471 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Antonin Dvorak - 1841—1904
( Originally Published 1935 )
Symphony No. 5, in E minor ("From the New World"), Opus 95
I. Adagio; Allegro molto
III. Scherzo: Molto vivace
IV. Finale: Allegro con fuoco
The famous "New World" symphony was one of the creative results of Dvorak's visit to America, where he taught composition at the National Conservatory of Music, 1892 to 1895. As a peasant with little education but extraordinary musical impressionability and creative power, and one profoundly attached to his own soil, Dvorak's utilized Czech melodies in his scores, and his own melodic ideas were in the vein of Czech folk-music. Thus he became the principal exponent of the Czech national school of composition, just as Greg in Norway headed a national school, and as a whole group of brilliant Russians, from Glint to Rimsky-KorsakoIf and Mussorgsky, founded their native school, which derived its inspiration largely from Russian folk-melody. Much might be said here about the folk-element in art music. Many believe that unless the roots of a composer's art are deep in the soil of his folk-melody, he cannot be significantly creative.
But we are now discussing Dvorak. Dvorak's instinct as a composer caused him to examine American folksongs, especially those of the negroes and Indians, with a view to incorporating their melodic essence, or spirit, in an American symphony. The appearance of the "New World" symphony, which is a charming and highly original score, precipitated long and academic discussion. The discussion is principally a thing of the past. The symphony remains. Whether it de-serves the title of "New World" symphony, whether Dvorak did or did not use melodic ideas peculiar to America (though not folk-music of the present white Americans) , is no longer of first importance. Dvorak himself denied that he had used Negro or American folk-tunes in his score, but there is one theme which is unmistakably derived from the Negro spiritual "Swing low, sweet chariot." It is given to a solo flute, against a background of strings, in the first movement. While the quotation is not precise, some notes of the original phrase being omitted, the source and the close resemblance are unquestionable. Harry T. Burleigh, the Negro choir singer of St. George's Church in New York, was a student at the National Conservatory of Music when Dvorak was teaching there, and he sang for the composer many Negro spirituals. "Swing low" was one of Dvorak's favorites. Most of the melodies in the symphony appear to be Dvofak's, though the song of the English horn in the , slow movement can well have originated in a Negro spiritual. It is in that vein, and it has a typical melancholy and pathos. As for the general character of the music, its pervading sentiment, or, as it might be put, temperament, it is after all that of a simple Czech, homesick for his native land. Yet the symphony comes fairly by the title "New World," not merely because of Dvorak's purpose in writing it, and the influence of music he found here, but because of the precipitating effect that the New World had upon his creative nature. "A greeting to the New 'World" might better have been a more precise indication of the nature of the composition. Certain it is that the feelings which stirred Dvorak's heart when he was here, and the effect of the new environment, inspired what is by far his greatest work in the symphonic form.
The symphony is in four movements, each with a few introductory measures. Themes are carried over, .and thus accumulate, as the composer progresses. In the broad introduction the French horns anticipate a motive to be heard later. This motive, which appears in its complete form when the pace has quickened, is a basic element of the whole symphony. Another motive, which spans the space between this first theme and that of "Swing low, sweet chariot," is played first, by flutes and oboes, and was believed by Mr. Burleigh to be derived from slave songs.' Following this the solo flute is heard with the fragment of "Swing low, sweet chariot," which is then taken up by the strings. Thereafter all the material is developed according to symphonic usage. The noble harmonies of wood and brass which open the second movement prelude the song of the English horn already referred to. It is said that in this movement Dvorak had thought of certain parts of Longfellow's poem "Hiawatha," a subject which he considered making into an opera. The middle part of the movement is more animated, and it is not hard to think of a summer night on the prairie. Dvorak's scherzo, very piquant and brilliant, with a delightful melody in the manner of a peasant dance for its middle section, is decidedly Slavic. The opening theme of the last movement, crashed out by trumpets, with chords of the full orchestra, has a finely stark and barbaric outline. Is this an Indian influence? History does not tell us. This finale has a broad sweep and splendor, a fine glow of romantic feeling—a salutation to the New World.
Whether Americans could ever follow successfully in Dvorak's footsteps and create an important art from the folk-music of other peoples than themselves is a question still to be answered in the affirmative.
Of December 20 and 21, 1930, and other program books of that organization, said that "There is a subsidiary theme in G minor in the first movement with a flatted seventh, and I feel sure the Doctor [Dvoiak] caught this peculiarity of most of the slave songs from some that I sang to him; for he used to stop me and ask me if that was the way the slaves sang."
When Dvorak composed the "New World" symphony the American Edward MacDowell was already at work upon his "Indian Suite." Years after Dvorak and MacDowell too had disappeared, MacDowell's most gifted American pupil, Henry F. Gilbert, produced certain scores which were pronounced by Philip Hale, H. T. Parker and others to have authentic and distinctive American flavor. These scores utilzed Negro spirituals and other folk-music. And now, after a Gilbert did the spade-work and died., it is positively fashionable to write in jazz style. But the course that American music will take in the future is not easily predictable.
Dvorak, the starving son of a village butcher, had taken his viola under his arm, played at fairs, country weddings, and the like, wandered the highways and byways of Bohemia, harkened to the music of the gypsies and poured the accumulation, plus his own immense melodic fertility, into his scores. Why, he asked, could not Americans do the same? For many reasons. We have not developed a deep consciousness of our soil. Our transplantation here is recent. We cannot tell Europeans, as Will Rogers did, that while his people did not come over on the Mayflower, they met the boat! We have not, unfortunately, Dvorak's feeling for nature. The machine age has come upon us. Oscar Thompson, when he was music reviewer for the New York "Evening Post," asked in the course of a certain article what had become of the great American music we all expected to hear—music which should proclaim the beauty and romance of the new vast land, the sweep of mountain and prairie, the mystery of virgin forests, the glory of the stars. He answered himself. He said that the stars twinkled from electric fixtures in the roofs of road-houses and cabarets, and not from the night skies that overhang mountain and prairie. For we have gone urban and not rural in our development, and away from Dvorak's vision, not toward it. We have run to factories and hotels. Our most indigenous music is jazz, a town product. Even the simple lays of Negro minstrelsy are things of the past.
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Today I thought I would write about the various kinds of joins available to programmers using SQL. It's a bit of a beginners blog, really. But an important one if you're not familiar with the details of how joins work.
Most databases using SQL support three kinds of joins:
- Inner Join
- Left Join
- Right Join
I'll talk a little about each one.
The inner join is the most efficient join. It pulls two tables together based on key values. Only records that actually contain the same key value in both tables are pulled into the result set. For instance, if I have a customers table and a customer with a customerid of 1, and a purchases table with 10 purchases for customer id 1, then doing an Inner Join on the customers and purchases table using the customerid would return 10 records. If I have a customer id of 2, but no purchases records, then doing an Inner Join on the two tables would return 0 records.
Left Join is in some SQL syntax called Left Outer Join. It takes all of the records from the table on the left and joins it with all matching records on the table to the right, filling the field values with Null if there is no matching record. So, for example, a left join statement like...
Select * from customers left join purchases on customers.customerid = puchases.cusomterid where customers.customerid = 1
...would return at least one record for customer 1, even if the customer had no purchases. If the customer did have purchases, all of those purchase records would be returned.
Right Join is in some SQL syntax called Right Outer Join. It takes all of the records from the table on the right and joins it with all matching records on the table to the left, filling the field values with Null if there is no matching record. Right Joins aren't used very often since they aren't as intuitive as left joins. So, for example, a right join statement like...
Select * from purchases right join customers on customers.customerid = puchases.cusomterid where customers.customerid = 1
...would accomplish the same thing as the Left Join example above.
As stated early, the Inner Join gives you the best performance, since only matching records are joined. This allows efficient use of the table indexes. Right and Left joins join all records regardless of whether or not they match, and so the indexes don't help as much. There's also the issue of Nulls, which different databases handle differently, and different programming languages handle differently. Nulls are messy and require extra code to deal with in VB.Net, so I would suggest avoiding Right and Left joins unless you just absolutely need them. Don't use them as a short cut.
NOTE: Always join on columns that are indexed! Joining on unindexed columns for tables with large amounts of records is horribly inefficient and slow.
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According to Hindu mythology, Svaha represents the star Zeta Tauri, which is the tip of one of the horns of the constellation
, Taurus the Bull. Svaha was desperately in love with the god of fire, Agni.
Unfortunately, Agni was infatuated with the seven Krttika, who were married to the seven Rishis.
Svaha then disguised herself as the Krttika and conquered Agni's love. Six times, Svaha made love to Agni, who believed that he had conquered the attractive wives of the seven Rishis.
Svaha could mimic only six of the Krttika since the seventh sister, Arundhati, was too devoted to her husband to be imitated. After a while, Svaha gave birth to a child that she named Skanda. With his birth, rumors began to spread that six of the Rishis' wives were his mother.
The seven Rishis divorced their wives. Arundhati was the only one that remained with
her husband as the star Alcor. The other six Krttika went away to become the Pleiades.
Shop Windows to the Universe Science Store!
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You might also be interested in:
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Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of love and beauty. She was known to the Romans as Venus. There were actually two different Aphrodites, one was the daughter of Uranus, the other the daughter of Zeus and...more
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In the Northern Hemisphere sky is the constellation Cepheus, king of Ethiopia, and that of his wife Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia claimed that she and her daughter Andromeda were more beautiful than the sea nymphs,...more
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| 0.977944 | 661 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Encyclopedia.
fa·mil·i·al par·ox·ys·mal pol·y·ser·o·si·tis[MIM*249100]
periodic peritonitis, periodic polyserositis
peritonitis(per?it-on-it'is) [ peritoneum + -itis]
Peritonitis is caused by infection of the abdominal cavity without obvious organ rupture (primary peritonitis), by perforation (rupture) of one of the internal organs (secondary peritonitis), or by instillation of a chemical irritant into the abdominal cavity (chemical peritonitis).
Primary peritonitis occurs in patients with cirrhosis and ascites, in some patients with tuberculosis (esp. those with AIDS), and in patients who use the peritoneum for dialysis. Cirrhotic patients develop peritonitis from infection of the peritoneal contents by microorganisms such as Streptococcus pneumoniae, enterococci, or Escherichia coli. Patients who use the peritoneum for dialysis (chronic ambulatory peritoneal dialysis patients) sometimes contaminate their dialysate with hand-borne microbes such as staphylococci or streptococci. Dialysis patients may also develop peritonitis after the infusion of irritating substances (e.g., antibiotics like vancomycin) into the peritoneal cavity during treatment for these infections.
Common causes of secondary peritonitis are ruptured appendix, perforated ulcer, abdominal trauma, and Crohn's disease. The gases, acids, fecal material, and bacteria in the ruptured organs spill into and inflame the peritoneum.
Primary peritonitis is marked by moderate to mild abdominal pain, fever, change in bowel habits, and malaise. Dialysis patients may notice clouding of their discharged dialysate. Fever, weight loss, inanition, and other systemic symptoms are common in tuberculous peritonitis.
Secondary peritonitis is marked by intense, constant abdominal pain that worsens on body movement. It is often associated with nausea, loss of appetite, and fever or hypothermia. On examination the abdomen is typically distended and quiet, and the patient holds very still in order to limit discomfort.
In patients with organ rupture, a plain x-ray examination of the abdomen may reveal air trapped beneath the diaphragm. Ultrasonography or abdominal computed tomography is used to visualize intraperitoneal fluid, abscesses, and diseased organs. Paracentesis or peritoneal lavage are also helpful in the diagnosis of some cases.
Primary peritonitis may respond to the administration of antibiotics or antitubercular drugs, but the prognosis is guarded. Secondary peritonitis is treated with surgical drainage, repair or removal of the ruptured viscus, fluid resuscitation, and antibiotics. The prognosis depends on the patient's underlying condition, the rapidity of the diagnosis and of subsequent medical intervention, and the skill of the surgeon.
acute diffuse peritonitisDiffuse peritonitis.
benign paroxysmal peritonitis
circumscribed peritonitisLocalized peritonitis.
generalized peritonitisDiffuse peritonitis.
periodic peritonitisFamilial Mediterranean fever.
Patient discussion about periodic peritonitis
Q. Can Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF) cause a heart enlargement? A friend of mine is suffering from FMF. its usually doesn't bother him that much and when it dose the symptoms are stomach ache and fever. he has no heart symptoms and takes no medications. his physician told him that because of the FMF he might suffer from a heart enlargement, and that he should take some oral medications daily to prevent it. how can it be?
although FMF on its own can't cause heart enlargement, FMF can cause amyloidosis because of the recurrent inflammation. this may lead to enlargement of the heart which is a severe disease.
the good side is that taking medication can decrease the chance of the cardiac enlargement.
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Method: Make mathematical hypotheses to determine probability of an event.
The four properties of probability:
1. Event occurs.
P (x occurs) + P (x does not occur) =
2. Occurrence at different times; when
x and y occur at different times.
P (either x or y occurs) = P(x occurs)
+ P(y occurs)
3. X and y are independent. Y is not
more likely to happen when A happens than when A does not happen.
P(x and y both occur) = P (x occurs)
* P (y occurs)
4. Other influxes. When x occurs, y has
to occur, too.
P (x occurs) <= P (y occurs)
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Thursday’s Drought Monitor had little good news for many states in the western half of the United States. Despite some improvement seen in the northern Corn Belt, much of the nation’s heartland reported worsening drought conditions.
Searing heat exacerbated the already dry conditions in Kansas and the southern Plains. In Kansas, one ag specialist told “NBC Nightly News” this year’s wheat crop is the worst he has seen in his 52 years.
Currently 53 percent of Kansas, 49 percent of Oklahoma, and 46 percent of Texas are in extreme or worse drought. USDA Meteorologist Brad Rippey explained that devastatingly dry, dusty and windy conditions in April have fueled concerns in these areas of a “New Dust Bowl.”
He wrote in a Drought Monitor news update, “The ‘Terrible Teens’ drought, which for many parts of the southern Great Plains began in the fall of 2010 and has lasted for more than 3½ years, continues to take a severe toll on rangeland, pastures, and winter wheat. “
In Texas, drought has forced Wichita Falls officials to turn to toilets for tap water on fears the city will run out of water within two years.
Further to the west, farmers and residents in California are also facing severe water woes of their own. Currently more than 76 percent of California is in extreme or exceptional drought.
With reservoirs running dangerous low, a new plan considered by state officials takes an “audacious” approach to bringing water to help thirsty farm. The plan uses pumps to reverse the flow of the California Aqueduct to send water uphill. Read more here.
Looking ahead, the Climate Prediction Center’s Monthly Drought Outlook shows the drought persisting or intensifying drought stretching from Kansas to the California coast. With El Nino likely to develop sometime during the second-half of the year, long-term drought relief is still months away.
“Where the drought is so bad, temperatures are going to be hot because the atmosphere to going to continue to bake. We expect the drought to build even more so into the Plains as we go through the summer months,” Cantore explained to “NBC Nightly News” in a report here.
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Popular encyclopaedias define the eastern limit of Europe being a 'line normally accepted [that] runs along Ural Mtns.' But the Urals are no Himalayas or even Alps: they are a low range of hills that has never acted as a barrier to 'Asia' or a limit to 'Europe', and throughout history communities on both sides have shared common identities and history. Without natural barriers, attempts have been made to impose artificial ones, most of which have been notable for their ultimate failure. The eastern grasslands of the great central Eurasian steppe stretch virtually unbroken from the Balkans through to Mongolia. Hence, the gates of Asia have been wide open to the movements of peoples since earliest antiquity - there is no boundary, along Europe's longest 'border' with Asia.
This book traces the common history on either side, in particular how different peoples from the steppe formed a part of European identity. In earliest history Scythians and Sarmatians shaped European destiny and created an art style that still resonates today. In late antiquity Huns erupted from the borders of China to put the last nail into the coffin of the dying Roman Empire, and from beyond the Urals came Avars, Finns, Magyars and Bulgars to create nations that remain an integral part of Europe. In the Middle Ages a steppe people, the Khazars, created the world's only Jewish Empire with ramifications still affecting Jewish identity, followed soon by another steppe people, the Mongols, conquering an empire from the Pacific to the Mediterranean. Mongol units fought alongside Alexander Nevsky in his Baltic war against the Teutonic Knights in the thirteenth century, while in the following century Russian mercenaries were used as guard units in Yuan China. Indeed, Europe's largest nation, Russia, was formed from the fusion of Eurasian nomadic and European sedentary elements: for centuries the ethnic, religious and cultural domination of Eastern Europe as a whole and Russia in particular hung in the balance between Moscow and the Tatars: Russia might have become either Tatar and Muslim or Slavic and Orthodox. There was no historical inevitability that it became the latter, merely historical circumstance.
From legends of Amazons and the sword of Excalibur to the emergence of Russia, modern Europe's super-power, the open steppe has continually shaped Europe's destiny. The gates are still as wide open as they ever were.
This is the fourth of four volumes by Warwick Ball examining the spread of cultures from the east into Europe, in a series entitled Asia in Europe and the Making of the West. Also available: Out of Arabia: Phoenicians, Arabs and the Discovery of Europe, Towards One World - Ancient Persia and the West and Sultans of Rome: The Turkish World Expansion.
A Near Eastern archaeologist and author who has spent over twenty-five years carrying out excavations, architectural studies and monumental restoration throughout the Middle East and adjacent regions, having lived, worked and travelled in most countries between the Mediterranean and China. He is currently director of Eastern Approaches, a special-interest cultural tours company specialising in the East. Author of many books and articles on the history and archaeology of the region, his book, Rome in the East: the Transformation of an Empire, was winner of the James Henry Breasted History Prize and was Choice Outstanding Academic Book in 2000. He is also the author of the much acclaimed Syria: A Historical and Architectural Guide.
Born in Australia, Warwick Ball now lives in Scotland.
216 x 138mm; 240pp., maps, 48 pages of colour plates, paperback
ISBN 978 1 907318 12 2
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What do wetlands do for to you?
February 2 marks the anniversary of the signing of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands (1971). This year’s theme is Wetlands, Biodiversity and Climate Change, with the slogan “Caring for wetlands: an answer to climate change."
"The role of wetlands in mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change must be central in all future debates about the way forward."
Mr Anada Tiéga
Secretary General, Ramsar Convention on Wetlands
World Wetlands Day 2010: Message from the Secretary General:
“Wetlands play a key role in combating the emission of greenhouse gases - the primary driver of climate change. Although wetlands cover only six per cent of the Earth’s land surface they store about 35% of global terrestrial carbon.”
Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity
Message on the occasion of World Wetlands Day:
(Blue) saltwater tidal marsh wetlands may be the way to go - "Unlike many freshwater wetlands, saltwater tidal marshes release only negligible amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas; therefore, the carbon storage benefits of tidal salt marshes are not reduced by methane production. In addition, as sea levels rise, tidal marsh plains continue to build up to match the rise in water level, if suspended sediments are adequate, continually pulling carbon dioxide out of the air in the process."
Dr. Lynne Trulio, White Paper on Carbon Sequestration and Tidal Salt Marsh Restoration, Dec. 20, 2007
Ramsar Convention on Wetlands:
Focus on caring for wetlands as an answer to climate change (Philippine Information Agency):
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Results 1 to 1 of 1
06-15-2012, 16:37 #1
As Wildfires Rage in U.S. West, Scientists Predict Worse Blazes in Future
When lightning struck Saturday in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies, 15 miles northwest of Fort Collins, conditions could hardly have been better for the wildfire that ensued.
A dry winter and warm spring had left Roosevelt National Forest tinder dry, and strong, erratic winds whipping up from the southeast carried the flames easily through the pine trees.
"The snowpack we had this year was below average -- around 70 percent of average towards the end of February, followed by one of the driest, warmest Marches on record," said Tim Mathews, a fire meteorologist with the Rocky Mountain Coordination Center.
That trend continued through much of the spring, setting the stage for the current fire, he added.
By yesterday, the blaze had affected some 46,600 acres of land, damaging 100 structures and resulting in at least one fatality, a 62-year old woman named Linda Steadman.
Despite their severity, the High Park fire, as it has been named, and another, even more extensive fire in New Mexico are probably just the first blush of the year's fire season. Officials are bracing for more such blazes, particularly in the western parts of Rockies, where, they say, conditions are even drier.
Continued @ http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...retool_Twitter
Fair use disclaimer
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One of the mysteries of the English language finally explained.
- ‘From hip to shoulder he was covered with blood from the spur, an’ although he could scarcely raise a trot you could see he was still as game as Ned Kelly.’
- ‘We know that by the time of the first world war, there was a saying among the Diggers in the trenches, ‘Oh he was as game as Ned Kelly’.’
- ‘But today his name is used everywhere by Australians of all kinds, who praise a man's courage by saying: ‘He's as game as Ned Kelly.’’
- ‘‘Good on you Ned’ is a compliment, ‘as game as Ned Kelly’ an old saying.’
Top tips for CV writingRead more
In this article we explore how to impress employers with a spot-on CV.
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| 0.978345 | 192 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Although the United States Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services establishes recommended Dietary Guidelines for Americans related to sodium consumption; the federal Government does not regulate sodium content in manufactured foods. Similarly, there is not a state or local jurisdiction that imposes state-wide or jurisdictional limits on sodium levels in manufactured foods or prepared foods. However, some state and local jurisdictions have enacted legislation or policy to reduce sodium content in prepared or manufactured foods served in specific settings, such as schools or prisons. There are also initiatives that seek to gain voluntary reductions of sodium by manufacturers in food processing and restaurateurs in food preparation.
For more information, visit the CDC Salt website.
- National Salt
- The New York City (NYC) Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is coordinating a national effort to reduce sodium use. The National Salt Reduction Initiative calls for a voluntary goal to reduce salt levels in packaged and restaurant foods by 25% over the next 5 years.
- On January 10, 2010, the New York Times ran an article discussing NYC Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s campaign to reduce New Yorkers’ salt intake by asking the restaurant industry to voluntarily comply to reduce sodium levels. The article also acknowledges city officials believe it would be difficult to legislate sodium reduction.
- National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL)
The NCSL has various resources on sodium reduction, such as a legis-brief titled, “Reducing Sodium to Improve Health”.
- State-Level Action
- Felix Ortiz of the New York State Assembly introduced a multi-sponsor bill on March 5, 2010 that prohibits the use of salt by restaurants in the preparation of food. The bill allows for courts to impose civil penalties of not more than $1,000 for each violation.
- The Alabama State Board of Education enacted policy in July 2005 that establishes criteria for sodium levels in single serving snacks in school settings [PDF-53KB]. Both cafeterias and vending machines offering single serving snacks must limit sodium content to less than 360 mg.
- In January 2009, Vermont enacted nutrition and fitness policy guidelines [PDF-195KB] for schools that established standards related to sodium. Sodium in foods served as part of the breakfast and lunch programs must have less than 230 mg per serving unless the item is low-fat, fat free, vegetables with sauce, and soups.
Disclaimer: Information available on this website that was not developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not necessarily represent any CDC policy, position, or endorsement of that information or of its sources. The information contained on this website is not legal advice; if you have questions about a specific law or its application you should consult your legal counsel.
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| 0.932099 | 557 | 3.25 | 3 |
According to a recent Global Burden of Disease Study, more than 334 million people worldwide may suffer from this common chronic disease. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that asthma afflicts an estimated 25 million people, about 8 percent of the population.
It hits children even harder, about 10 percent of them have this respiratory malady that hinders breathing. Asthma accounts for a quarter of all emergency room visits and more than 500,000 hospitalizations in the United States each year.
According to an estimate, asthma kills about 3,500 Americans annually and peculiar thing is that most of these deaths are preventable with proper treatment. It also contributes to another 7,000 deaths.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, the financial tab is steep. The United States put estimated $56 billion every year for medical care. All these rising numbers are alarming so among certain populations.
Asthma is increasingly damaging to economies and public health which has been recognized by researchers and policymakers. In recent years, the United Nations has spotlighted the disease several times, citing it as a growing threat to global health and economic development.
The Global Asthma Network, formed to improve asthma care internationally, has published two reports about the disease, most recently in 2014. In 2013 the World Health Organization (WHO) called for a global action plan and international monitoring of asthma and other non-communicable diseases.
At the very first instance, it is essential to recognize the causes to fight asthma effectively. Scientists have established that the disease stems from some combination of genetic inheritance and environmental factors such as air pollution, chemical substances and indoor and outdoor allergens like smoke and pollen. But many of the things are still unknown.
According to the WHO’s most recent fact sheet, “The fundamental cause of asthma are not completely understood.” Science is still many years away from solving the mystery of the biological causes of this disease.
Andrew T. De Wan, an associate professor in the Department of Chronic Disease Epidemiology, said, “Asthma is what we in the field of genetic epidemiology classify as a complex trait.”
“Genetic characteristics inherited from your parents make about a 50 percent contribution to the risk of developing asthma, but there is also a large component that is not inherited—all sorts of environmental influences.”
Previously, researchers have postulated associations between asthma and more than 400 genes, a huge pool of possibilities. But that’s just the start of this disease’s complexity. For detecting asthma’s foundations, researchers must identify the specific mutations within them that point to the disease along with causative genes.
Further, the genes that may affect risk for asthma seem to connect or interact in myriad combinations, and these are not necessarily consistent. The combinations that lead to asthma seem to vary from person to person and group to group.
All of these possible genetic combinations may further be influenced or not, by their response in accordance with the environment they individually or collectively face. A cluster of genetic characteristics that leads to asthma in one person might or not affect others, possibly either because of other genetic factors or of differences in the individuals’ environments.
To worsen things further, a study published recently in JAMA (The Journal of the American Medical Association), found that a third of 600 adults diagnosed with asthma didn’t actually have the disease, which casts some doubt on statistics about asthma.
De Wan works to cut through this welter, winnowing out the genes or gene combinations that probably don’t lead to asthma and verifying those that look promising.
He said, “A lot of my research is focused on dealing with this mixed bag of results to get a better biological understanding of asthma.”
Much of this is done through large-scale statistical analysis of genetic data, looking at big populations for mutations linked to the disease. A recent study that De Wan co-authored, for instance, surveyed the scientific literature to find genes that have been associated with asthma.
De Wan and his colleagues identified 251 of them and then tried to replicate those findings through a genetic analysis of an independent population. (They recently updated their search and mention the current count of genes reportedly associated with asthma is now over 400.)
In their statistical analysis, De Wan and his colleagues got minor hits on several genes and also identified one previously unassociated gene (RAD50), but they were unable to replicate any links to asthma in the vast majority of reported genes.
De Wan noted, “That doesn’t necessarily mean these genes aren’t implicated in the disease, but the caveat in our paper is that there may be many false positives in our initial literature search. That’s one reason genetic epidemiologists require that results be replicated.”
Though many findings of genetic contributions to asthma may seem inconsistent and ambiguous, the picture is slowly coming into better focus as more studies connect the same genes, such as ADAM33 and ORMDL3, to the disease.
De Wan added, “I think the true number of genes that contribute in some way to the risk of developing asthma is well over 100.”
Further, he stated, “To detect the small effects of these genetic variants on asthma, we need much larger sample sizes, and we’re now getting to that point. We’re trying to understand which inherited genetic variants are contributing to an individual’s risk of develop- ing asthma by looking in large populations, and these big data sets will give us the statistical power to find what is really a needle in a haystack.”
The analysis entails sequencing the genomes of thousands of people and then looking for mutations, and combinations of mutations, common to people with asthma. If De Wan and others can identify the ones that contribute to asthma, they may be able to predict who will develop the disease. Once that’s possible, so is prevention.
De Wan said, “If we can understand the biological processes that cause asthma, we can develop better treatments for it and intervene at a pharmaceutical level to prevent or lessen the symptoms.”
In near future genetic markers could help identify which individuals will respond and which will not to certain drugs and treatments, to open the way to effective targeted therapies.
Genetic knowledge might also make it possible to predict which environmental factors should be avoided by people with a certain combination of mutations.
De Wan said, “The goal is to reduce the overall severity of asthma and it’s public health costs.”
Andrew De Wan and Yasmmyn Salinas extract genomic DNA from saliva samples collected as part of FAstGen, a study of genetic variants contributing to asthma susceptibility in families that have multiple children with asthma. The DNA samples are currently being sequenced to reveal all of the genetic variants in the protein-coding regions of the genome.
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Also known as
Finger millet, African millet, Red millet, Nachani, Nachni.
Ragi is an annual plant widely grown as a cereal in the arid areas of Africa and Asia. In India, ragi is mostly grown and consumed in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Goa. As a crop and after harvesting, ragi keeps extremely well and is seldom attacked by pests. This eliminates the need for chemical fertilisers and pesticides making it a safe food. It is also a cost-effective source of protein, iron, calcium and fibre, which makes it the preferred food of many communities. Notably, it is a rare source of the amino acid methionine.
The whole grain of ragi may be ground into flour or decorticated before grinding to produce either a fine particle product or flour, which is then used in various traditional foods. The flour may be ground coarsely or finely, depending on individual preference and recipe requirement.
How to select
• Ragi flour is commonly available in grocery stores in various pack sizes.
• The ragi flour should be clean, dust free and without any infestations or foul odour.
• Ragi flour is usually made into chappatis or rotis and served with vegetables. It is the favoured food of those with gluten sensitivity.
• Porridge is perhaps the most common way of consuming ragi flour. A past of ragi flour in water is cooked till done, and then enhanced with buttermilk and salt, or milk and sugar.
• Ragi porridge or a thick consistency can be had with fruits, dry fruits and nuts as a healthy breakfast.
• Ragi flour can be made into delicious dosas that can be served with coconut chutney, sambhar etc., or just eaten plain with a dollop of butter or ghee. You can add chopped onions, grated carrot, green chillies, ginger, coriander, etc. to the roti to enhance its flavour.
• Ragi flour is made into flatbreads, including thick, leavened dosa and thinner, unleavened pancakes.
• You can make kheer by combing cooked ragi flour with milk and sugar or jaggery, and garnishing with elaichi, almond slivers and chopped cashews.
• Flour from malted ragi grains can be mixed with milk or yoghurt and had with sugar or salt.
• In Karnataka, ragi flour is generally consumed in the form of ragi balls (ragi mudde). The mudde, which is prepared by cooking the ragi flour with water to achieve dough like consistency, is rolled into balls of desired size and served with ghee, rasam, sambhar, dal or other accompaniments.
• In Maharashtra, bhakri, a type of flat bread is prepared using finger millet (ragi) flour.
• In Goa, ragi is very popular and satva, pole (dosa), bhakri, ambil (a sour porridge) made of ragi are very common.
How to store
• Store ragi flour in an airtight container and keep it in a cool and dry place.
• Ragi is wonderful cereal packed with nutrients.
• It contains about 6.7 per cent of good quality protein.
• Ragi is rich in methonine, which is an amino acid lacking in most of the other cereals.
• Ragi is also found to have liberal amount of calcium.
• It has been traditionally used as a weaning food for infants. Porridge is easy to prepare, and can be enhanced with some pre-soaked and ground nuts if your child is comfortable digesting it.
• Since ragi does not contain gluten, it is a wonderful grain alternative for people who are gluten-sensitive.
• An excellent source of calcium and fibre, it also helps lower cholesterol levels in the blood; this leads to less plaque formation, prevents the blocking of blood vessels, and hence reduces the risk of hypertension and stroke.
• It helps in weight control, and has a low glycemic index suitable for diabetics.
• High fibre diets also help in reducing the risk of certain forms of cancer, improving gastro-intestinal function, and so on.
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Sometimes the atmosphere is darkened within an organization with what I will refer to as “politics,” the jockeying for position that goes on anywhere there is a hierarchy.
It may be as simple as a new department chair or school principal coming on board. One person can in fact impact the entire climate of a school. Or it may be that two or more people who got along before are now feuding. The climate of a school or department can turn tense and hostile, disintegrating into pettiness, complaint sessions, and personal attacks.
Although the situation may seem hopeless, there is actually a series of strategies that can be used to address school atmosphere gone rancid.
10 Commandments of School Politics
Stay out of It
The first most obvious course of action is simply to stay out of the politics and jockeying for position. If the principal and the department chair are feuding, for example, simply refuse to get involved, take sides, or even comment, if you can avoid it. You are not under any obligation to get involved, and there usually is little reward for doing so.
Focus on Your Work and Projects
Stay focused on your job rather than the politics—creating curriculum, delivering instruction, assessing student work, meeting with and advising students, and so forth. This will send two messages, that you are serious about you work and that political maneuvering doesn’t interest or affect you.
Avoid Personal Attacks. Don’t Allow Them, Either
If you are pulled into a conflict—someone approaches you directly, for example, wanting an opinion or support, or you are working on a project or committee with two people or groups who are fighting, don’t attack people personally. One of the features of a dysfunctional work environment is the reluctance of dealing with people directly and instead going behind their back to complain. Stay neutral, focusing on students and the work and immediate tasks rather than on personalities when they come up. If someone is saying negative things about you, it’s best to address that person directly and privately, asking that the behavior stop. Often people who say negative things behind people’s back are “muted” when someone addressing them directly.
One notable feature of dysfunctional workplace environment is its focus on the negative in the environment and the people within it. Look for ways to build the school and community rather than tearing others down. Focus on the positive and finding solutions to problems rather than complaining, such as considering ways to purchase new computers and copy machines rather than fighting over these resources.
A huge time and energy drain is obsessing over minute details and issues that simply do not matter in the larger picture. Often it is these petty issues that negative and controlling personalities tend to focus on. Avoid getting drawn into a complaint session on how clean the break room table is kept, for example, and discuss possible solutions—if the break room table is even really an issue—or politely excuse yourself from the conversation.
Focus on Larger Issues
One way to avoid petty infighting is by going in the opposing direction and spending time on larger issues. If you have no interest in whose parking space is whose, for example, change the subject with the concern of the parking lot comes up and discuss instead getting more student textbooks or computer programs.
Rather than complaining constantly about the parking lot, or the ancient copy machine, the dirty classroom floors, or any of the myriad “issues” than can come up, focus on proposing solutions that may affect positive change to these concerns. Perhaps suggest a brainstorming session to come up with solutions; if the complaining party refuses to participate, it’s likely that the individual values complaining more than fixing the problem.
Because negative people tend to congregate with other negative people and affect school atmosphere, it is necessary to build a support network of likeminded people to safeguard against this. Seek out the company of colleagues who also seem focused on doing their jobs and keeping the atmosphere positive. Consider having lunch together once a week or a month during which time ways to improve the school atmosphere can be discussed. Also consider enlarging the group of people by one or two—if enough people are actively working to keep a negative political at bay, then it probably will stay at bay.
It’s not unreasonable or paranoid to expect retaliation from parties who would like to draw you into a battle of wills when you simply will not get involved. When confronted about your lack of interest or loyalty, empathize, reassure the confrontational party of your commitment to the school, but remain firm that your commitment is just that—to the school and the students, not to your peers, however much you might like them.
Look for an Exit as Necessary
If the school atmosphere has disintegrated to the point where it becomes difficult to focus or work, it may be time to move on. Channel your energy into brushing up your resume and teacher’s portfolio or building a professional website. Approach trusted colleagues and supervisors for references. Scout the internet for both onsite and online opportunities—increasingly there are online opportunities for instructors. If you have accrued personal leave days in your contract, this may be a time to use them to job hunt and go on interviews. Try to stay professional and avoid retaliation through quitting without notice, for example, in order to retain good will and professional connections.
Without a doubt, a negative atmosphere affects everyone in it. A negative atmosphere can also be so difficult to address that sometimes leaving is really the only feasible way. However, other strategies involving avoiding personal attacks and focusing on the positive should help in moving the school back into a more functional situation.
What are some methods you use to address a negative work atmosphere?
P.S. If you enjoyed this article, please help spread it by clicking one of those sharing buttons below. And if you are interested in more, you should follow our Facebook page where we share more about creative, non-boring ways to teach English.
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see also: deliberative democracy
|Deliberation is "the kind of reasoning and talking we do when a difficult decision has to be made, a great deal is at stake, and there are competing options or approaches we might take. It means to weigh possible actions carefully by examining what is most valuable to us." -The Kettering Foundation||"Deliberation refers either to a particular sort of discussion - one that involves the careful and serious weighing of reasons for and against some proposition-or to an interior process by which an individual weighs reasons for and against courses of action." - J.D. Fearon|
Sadly, what passes for debate in politics today is at best, arguing and at worst mutual smear campaigns, which makes it difficult for citizens to participate and even to understand what the real issues are. Open Politics supports public deliberation as as a means to democracy and good government. It does so by encouraging the examination of issues, positions arguments, discouraging rhetoric and facilitiating consensus building to achieve contructive collaborative decisions.
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Management and Adaptation to Biodiversity Change
Coordinator: Philippe Le Prestre
Research goals: To identify tools to adaptively manage biodiversity and ecosystem services in human-dominated landscapes; to reveal socioeconomic drivers of biodiversity loss; to evaluate market and non-market values of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services; to better understand the role of local communities in biodiversity decision making and management; to generate scientifically sound, socially relevant and politically feasible strategies for biodiversity management and governance.
This research axis emphasizes the socioeconomic dimensions of biodiversity science. Our understanding of the socioeconomic causes and consequences of biodiversity change is still rudimentary in a number of ways. The evaluation of the market and non-market value of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services has only recently emerged as a major field of study. Researchers are discovering new relationships between the economy and biodiversity. The importance of local and indigenous communities in biodiversity management is becoming increasingly recognized on a global scale.
Research in this axis will also explore ways of linking science to policy and governance of Québec’s biodiversity. Collaborating institutions include the Montréal based Secretariat for the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Ouranos consortium, and the Institute Hydro-Québec – Environment, Development and Society at the Université Laval.
Axis 3 Themes:
Theme 3.1 focuses on the management of biodiversity and ecosystem services within human-transformed landscapes. Often ecosystems are managed so as to maximize one or two services, thus leading to reduced biodiversity. If multiple services are considered, the maintenance of biodiversity will likely be facilitated. The objective of this theme is to demonstrate how land use can influence the distribution of biodiversity, and consequently, the ecosystem services of that territory. Research in this theme also studies biodiversity planning and management by local and indigenous communities, including the role of perception and representation of biodiversity in conservation and decision-making.
This theme focuses on how decisions with biodiversity at stake are made. Economic instruments for valuing and managing biodiversity are key in this regard, but not the only ones. Research in this theme includes the analysis of literature-derived data on the socioeconomic causes of biodiversity loss. In particular, this work builds on the recent discovery that distribution of socioeconomic power may affect biodiversity loss.
Projects in this theme will foster research on the market and non-market valuation of Québec’s biodiversity and ecosystem goods and services. A specific research project will seek to develop tools for businesses to account for their impacts and dependence on biodiversity.
Theme leader: Louis Guay
This theme focuses on the governance of biodiversity across social and ecological scales (from global to local), as well as the implementation and evaluation of biodiversity management policy at local to international levels. It also explores links between governance of biodiversity and the governance of other environmental topics, particularly climate change.
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Redneck, What is a Redneck, Redneck definition, Redneck origin, Redneck history, Redneck term, Redneck
meaning, Redneck slang, Redneck jokes, Redneck Comedy, Redneck humor, Redneck woman, Redneck women
A slang term, often applied
to the rural white southerner who is politically conservative, racist, and religious fundamentalist. This term is generally
considered offensive. It originated in reference to agricultural workers, alluding to how the back of a person's neck will
be burned by the sun if he works long hours in the fields.
1) Used as a disparaging
term for a member of the white rural laboring class, especially in the southern United States.
2) A white person regarded
as having a provincial, conservative, often bigoted attitude.
3) A poor white person in
the southern United States.
Redneck refers to a stereotype
of usually rural, Caucasian (i.e. white) people of lower socio-economic status in the United
States and Canada.
Originally limited to the Appalachians, and later the South, the Ozarks, the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains, this stereotype
is now widespread throughout North America. Southern comedian Jeff Foxworthy defines "redneck"
as "a glorious lack of sophistication," stating "that we are all guilty of [it] at one time or another."
A contributing source of
the term redneck comes from The West Virginia Coal Miners March or the Battle of Blair Mountain when coal miners wore red
bandanas around their necks to identify themselves as seeking the opportunity to unionize.
REDNECK in Modern Usage
Redneck has two general
uses: first, as a pejorative used by outsiders, and, second, as a term used by members within that group. To outsiders, it
is generally a term for white people of Southern or Appalachian rural poor backgrounds — or more loosely, rural poor
to working-class people of rural extraction. (Appalachia also includes large parts of Pennsylvania,
New York, Ohio and other
states.) In the West Coast, there are regionally specialized versions of the term, namely “Okie” and “Arkie”
for poor rural white migrants from respectively Oklahoma and Arkansas, displaced by the Dust bowl (drought conditions and
severe land erosion) in the Great Plains and economic conditions across the Southern US into the farming valleys of California.
Within that group, however, it is used to describe the more downscale members. Rednecks span from the poor to the working
Generally, there is a continuum
from the stereotypical redneck (a derisive term) to the country person; yet there are differences. In contrast to country
people, stereotypical rednecks tend not to attend church, or do so infrequently. They also tend to use alcohol and gamble
more than their church-going neighbors. Further, "politically apathetic" may describe some members of this group. Until the
late 1970s they tended toward populism and were solidly behind the Democratic party, but have supported Republicans since
the Carter presidency. Many celebrities like Jeff Foxworthy and Larry The Cable Guy embrace the redneck label. It is used
both as a term of pride and as a derogatory epithet, sometimes to paint country people and/or their lifestyle as being lower
Although the stereotype
of poor white Southerners and Appalachians in the early twentieth century, as portrayed in popular media, was exaggerated and even
grotesque, the problem of poverty was very real. The national mobilization of troops in World War I (1917-18) invited comparisons
between the South and Appalachia and the rest of the country. Southern and Appalachian whites
had less money, less education, and poorer health than white Americans in general. Only Southern blacks had more handicaps.
In the 1920s and 1930s matters became worse when the boll weevil and the dust bowl devastated the South's agricultural base
and its economy. The Great Depression was a difficult era for the already disadvantaged in the South and Appalachia.
In an echo of the Whiskey Rebellion, rednecks escalated their production and bootlegging of moonshine whiskey. To deliver
it and avoid law-enforcement and tax agents, cars were "souped-up" to create a more maneuverable and faster vehicle. Many
of the original drivers of stock car racing were former bootleggers and "ridge-runners."
Federal programs such as
the New Deal era Tennessee Valley Authority and the later Appalachian Regional Commission encouraged development and created
jobs for disenfranchised rural southerners and Appalachians. World War II (1941-45) began
the great economic revival for the South and for Appalachia. In and out of the armed forces,
unskilled Southern and Appalachian whites, and many African Americans as well, were trained for industrial and commercial
work they had never dreamed of attempting, much less mastering. Military camps grew like mushrooms, especially in Florida, Georgia and Texas, and big industrial plants began to appear across the once rural landscape. Soon,
blue-collar families from every nook and cranny of the South and Appalachia found their way to white-collar life in metropolitan
areas like Atlanta. By the 1960s blacks had begun to share
in this progress, but not all rural Southerners and Appalachians were beneficiaries of this
Writer Edward Abbey, as
well as the original Earth First! under Dave Foreman, proudly adopted the term redneck to describe themselves. This reflected
the word's possible historical origin among striking coal miners to describe white rural working-class radicalism. "In Defense
of the Redneck" was a popular essay by Ed Abbey. One popular early Earth First! bumper sticker was "Rednecks for Wilderness."
Murray Bookchin, an urban leftist and social ecologist, objected strongly to the Earth First! use of the term as "at the very
Author Jim Goad's 1997 book,
The Redneck Manifesto, explores the socioeconomic history of low-income Americans. According to Goad, rednecks are traditionally
pro-labor and anti-establishment and have an anti-hierarchical religious orientation. Goad argues that elites (and a special
distrust of liberals whom belonged to the liberal elite from the Northeast states and the US west coast) manipulate low-income people (blacks and whites especially) through
classism and racism to keep them in conflict with each other and distracted from their
exploitation by elites.
U.S. Representative Charles B.
Rangel caused controversy on February 13, 2005, by referring to Bill Clinton as a redneck in response to Hillary Clinton's
refusal to support his views on the Amadou Diallo case. See also What is a Redneck? Definition and History and What is a Hillbilly? Definition and History.
Sources are listed below.
Reading: The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks, and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats. Description: Culture
maverick Jim Goad presents a thoroughly reasoned, darkly funny, and rampagingly angry defense of America's most maligned social group -- the cultural clan variously referred to
as rednecks, hillbillies, white trash, crackers, and trailer trash. As The Redneck Manifesto boldly points out and brilliantly
demonstrates, America's dirty little secret
isn't racism but classism. While pouncing incessantly on racial themes, most major media are silent about America's widening class rifts, a problem that negatively
affects more people of all colors than does racism. With an unmatched ability for rubbing salt in cultural wounds, Jim Goad
deftly dismantles most popular American notions about race and culture and takes a sledgehammer to our delicate glass-blown
popular conceptions of government, religion, media, and history. Continued below...
In a book that is destined
to be praised, reviled, cited, denounced, loved, and hated -- perhaps by the same reader -- culture maverick Jim Goad presents
a thoroughly reasoned, darkly funny, and rampagingly angry defense of America's most maligned social group -- the cultural
clan variously referred to as rednecks, hillbillies, white trash, crackers, and trailer trash (provided they're white trailer
trash, of course).
As The Redneck Manifesto
boldly points out and brilliantly demonstrates, America's dirty little secret isn't
racism, but classism. While pouncing incessantly on racial themes, most major media are silent about America's widening class rifts, a problem which negatively affects more people
of all colors than does racism. In a nation obsessed with race, this book switches the focus firmly back toward class, and
it warns in a voice loud and clear that America
will never learn the true meaning of tolerance until it learns to embrace the redneck.
Until this book, no one
has so fully explained why white trash exists in America.
Tracing the unique historical diaspora of America's white poor, The Redneck
Manifesto offers evidence that mass forceful deportations of white slaves and convict laborers from the British Isles formed
the bulk of America's white underclass.
Tracing the history of these people, the book probes the hidden cultural meanings behind jokes about inbreeding and bestiality.
It gets its hands dirty with blue-collar frustration, recreational desperation, and religious salvation. It discusses the
value of Elvis, Bigfoot, and space aliens as objects of spiritual veneration. It offers solid logical defenses of tax protest,
gun ownership, and antigovernment "hate speech." And it lists surprising reasons for why rednecks and blacks have more in
common with each other than either group does with white liberals.
With an unmatched ability
for rubbing salt in cultural wounds, Jim Goad deftly dismantles most popular American notions about race and culture and takes
a sledgehammer to our delicate glass-blown popular conceptions of government, religion, media, and history. His own socioeconomic
background leads him to prefer crackers over slackers, hillbillies over hipsters, and white trash over white cash. He is certain
that the trailer park holds more honest people than the House of Representatives, and he knows from personal experience that
truck drivers are more trustworthy than lawyers.
You've not read another
book like The Redneck Manifesto because there are no other books like it. It's the sort of book that comes along once in a
lifetime, which will be too often for some people. It's a rude awakening for a spazzed-out nation. A fire under the ass of
a culturally confused country. A literary laxative for a constipated public. It's destined to prick the conscience of a nation
which enjoys feeling guilty, but which doesn't like to do anything about it. You'll laugh, and then you'll hate yourself for
laughing. Your mind will be pried open but it'll only hurt a little while. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable
edition of this title.
the Author: Jim Goad himself a proud member of The White Trash Nation, was the creator
and chief writer for ANSWER Me!, a controversial "zine" that he used to publish in Los
Angeles. He does not presently live in a trailer park but is thinking about it. The Redneck Manifesto
is his first book.
NEW! Highly Recommended Viewing: Hillbilly:
The Real Story (2008) (The History
Channel). Description: Join host Billy Ray Cyrus on a journey into the
hollers and runs of Appalachia to discover the proud legacy of the region's mountain folk. Learn how hillbillies,
long misunderstood and maligned as isolated and backward, actually have a 300-year history of achievement and success that
has contributed significantly to our national identity. In this two-hour special you'll meet outcast immigrants, war heroes,
isolated backwoodsmen, hard working miners, fast moving moon shiners, religious warriors, musicians and statesmen. You
will also learn about the dramatic history and origin of the real Redneck as well as the history and founders of NASCAR. Continued below...
of their contributions, which include establishing the first labor unions, battling the British, and spawning some of the
most popular aspects of American culture today, like NASCAR and country music. And you'll see them in a whole new light. “The numerous candid interviews highlight this outstanding addition. Great gift,
must have, welcome addition to the American collection..."
Sources: Abbey, Edward.
"In Defense of the Redneck", from Abbey's Road: Take the Other. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1979; Goad, Jim. The Redneck Manifesto:
How Hillbillies, Hicks, and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997; Webb, James H. Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America. New York:
Broadway Books, 2004; Weston, Ruth D. "The Redneck Hero in the Postmodern World", South
Carolina Review, Spring 1993; Wilson, Charles
R. and William Ferris, eds. Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, 1989; Blizzard, William C. When Miners March Gay, WV,: Appalachian Community Press, 2005; Ross Ballard
When Miner March - The Battle of Blair Mountain audiobook; Corbin, David, ed. The West Virginia Mine Wars: An Anthology. 2nd
ed. Martinsburg, W.Va.: Appalachian
Editions, 1998; Lee, Howard B. Bloodletting in Appalachia: The Story of West Virginia's Four Major Mine Wars and Other Thrilling
Incidents of Its Coal Fields. Morgantown, W.Va.: West Virginia University
Press, 1969; Savage, Lon. Thunder in the Mountains: The West Virginia
Mine War, 1920-21. Pittsburgh: University
of Pittsburgh Press, 1990; Shogan, Robert. The Battle
of Blair Mountain: The Story of America's Largest Union Uprising. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2004.
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Anaconda Company, former American mining company, for much of the 20th century one of the largest mining companies in the world. Originally producing copper, it later moved into other metals, including aluminum, silver, and uranium, as well as numerous related operations. In 1977 it became a subsidiary of the Atlantic Richfield Company.
In 1880 Marcus Daly, an Irish immigrant, and a group of California investors including George Hearst, father of publisher William Randolph Hearst, formed the Anaconda Gold and Silver Mining Company to operate a mine near Butte, Montana. In 1882 the mine struck a rich vein of copper, and Daly built Anaconda’s first copper smelter to process the ore. The company reincorporated as the Anaconda Mining Company in 1891 and as the Anaconda Copper Mining Company in 1895; during that time it built and acquired a number of works, including smelters but also coal mines and sawmills to support the copper operation. In 1899 the company, along with other mining companies in the area, was purchased by a holding company called the Amalgamated Copper Company, which had been set up by officers of the Standard Oil Trust. Amalgamated allowed its companies to operate independently, and over the following decade Anaconda succeeded in taking over all the companies held by the trust. By 1915, when Amalgamated ceased to exist, Anaconda had become the world’s largest copper producer. The company added other metals to its operations, and in recognition of its diversifying interests it was renamed the Anaconda Company in 1955.
In 1914 Anaconda started buying into foreign mining companies. By 1929 the company owned all of Chile Copper Company, whose Chuquicamata mine was the world’s most productive. In 1971 Chile’s newly elected socialist president, Salvador Allende, expropriated Anaconda’s Chilean copper mines under powers granted by an amendment to Chile’s constitution. The Allende government was overthrown in 1973, and the new military government agreed to pay Anaconda more than $250 million for its expropriated mines.
Losses from the Chilean takeover, however, seriously weakened the company’s financial position, which was also troubled by the falling price of copper in world markets. In 1977 the company was bought by the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO), a petroleum company seeking to diversify its holdings, and Anaconda ceased to exist as a unified operation. During the 1980s, with copper prices staying low, ARCO closed numerous mines and processing plants once run by Anaconda, and finally the company sold its metals operations to a number of buyers.
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How Linux Works, 2nd Edition
What Every Superuser Should Know
Unlike some operating systems, Linux doesn't try to hide the important bits from you—it gives you full control of your computer. But to truly master Linux, you need to understand its internals, like how the system boots, how networking works, and what the kernel actually does.
In this completely revised second edition of the perennial best seller How Linux Works, author Brian Ward makes the concepts behind Linux internals accessible to anyone curious about the inner workings of the operating system. Inside, you'll find the kind of knowledge that normally comes from years of experience doing things the hard way.
Share How Linux Works, 2nd Edition
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Creative Play and Scientific Inquiry, Part 2: A Mandate to Make Learning MeaningfulMarch 13, 2008 | Anthony Cody
So our kindergartners miss out on creative play. Our elementary school students lose opportunities to explore science by reading what interests them instead of the carefully selected readers we provide. Our middle school students spend their science-class time memorizing rather than investigating. And our high school students simply walk away because they no longer care what is on the test, having become disengaged years before.
At the same time, we expand the capacity at our prisons, already filled with people who lack self-control. We incarcerate more than 1 percent of the total population and more than 10 percent of young African American men. It may seem strange to make this juxtaposition, but I believe that the ability of our young children to play, explore, and satisfy their curiosity is far more than child's play: It is a matter of life and death.
I only hope the reexamination of the whole standardized-testing project that awaits us after the demise of the No Child Left Behind Act -- and I do believe its days are numbered -- will yield some deeper questions about the nature of education. This shift does not mean we will ignore the ability to read. It means we seek to inspire students by having them read material they are interested in reading. It doesn't mean we do not teach math skills. It means we must be creative in developing a true interest for math in our students, so they develop their skills by solving real problems. It doesn't mean we make science easier. It means we challenge students to design and perform real experiments, rather than simply memorize facts.
For me, there are a couple of questions: How can we teach our students the most profound lesson of all -- to be responsible for their own knowledge? How can we teach them to have an awareness of and curiosity about the world around them? We need to evoke the scientist, the writer, the solver of mathematical conundrums, the historian, the musician, the dancer, and the athlete that resides within each student. Our students are waiting to be challenged by their own curiosity, by their own creativity, and by the thrill that comes from expressing their own unique humanity. My mission as a teacher is to get them to that point, not just to prepare them for a test.
Please share your thoughts.
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NOTES RELEVANT TO THE CONCEPT OF REACHING AN EXTRASOLAR PLANET VIA SUPERLUMINAL SPACEFLIGHT
NOTE 1: SPACEFLIGHT HAZARDS THROUGH THE INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM
Passage through a medium containing antimatter by a spaceship hull made from normal matter will, over time, degrade the strength of the hull. This is because of the relatively high energy annihilation gamma rays that will be created by the interaction with the antimatter. The high energy of these gamma rays will be even further increased by the Doppler shift caused by the extreme speeds interstellar spaceships must achieve. These gamma rays cause the formation within the hull of ionizing particles in a cascade shower.
Their ionization weakens the matter.
Although the interstellar medium is at most tenuous, its present state is the result of stellar evolutionary processes. Even if there were originally equal amounts of matter and anti-matter in the Galaxy, It appears likely that it is now enriched in antimatter relative to normal matter. This enrichment is because antimatter is hypothesized to be a source of antigravity, in much the same way that matter appears to be a source of gravity. But antigravity is a repulsive force, rather than an attractive force. The repulsive nature of antigravity means that interstellar antimatter is unlikely to disappear through coalescence into objects such as stars. The relationship of cosmic antimatter to dark matter, if any, is unknown.
The degradation will take place because of the high energy annihilation gamma radiation emitted as the normal matter in the hulls interacts with the antimatter interstellar atoms. Their high energy gives them very large penetrating power. They will penetrate deeply into the hulls of the spaceships. Such degradation, given the long exposure times that are likely, will cause leaks to occur and, if not prevented, may cause failure of the mission.
It is possible to reduce the likelihood of this hull degradation. One way would be to continually illuminate the exterior surface of each hull, and its surrounding space, with ultraviolet light. This will photoionize all of the incoming atoms, both normal matter and antimatter. Repulsion of the incoming antimatter ions is accomplished by surrounding each hull with a screen of wires. Each screen should be given a negative electrostatic charge, negative with respect to the hull.
NOTE 2: MISSION DURATION
Time dilation amounts to travel into the future. We describe here a possible way to avoid what could be called the “relativity barrier.’ The relativity barrier occurs at speeds that approach the speed of light. The relativity barrier causes profound changes in moving masses, including among other things, increase in mass and a slowing of the passage of time. Gravity and speeds close to luminar are the only known circumstances affecting the passage of time.
Aside from Earth, there is no human-habitable planet orbiting about our star, which we call the Sun. However, many extrasolar planets are now known to exist. More are being added to the list all the time. Some of them may possibly be human - habitable. This blog and its supplements describe a concept for travel to a hypothetical habitable extrasolar planet, within a time of one human generation.
Superluminal spaceships may use the rocket principle for propulsion. In this principle, exhaust gas is vented out through a port in the rear of the spaceship and the spaceship recoils in the opposite or forward direction. We here suggest that the exhaust “gas” be light itself. We suggest that the gamma radiation wavelength band be the kind of light used. The mutual annihilation of matter and antimatter gives rise to unique gamma ray wavelengths. These gammas come out isotropically, with most of these gamma quanta causing the spaceship to recoil, in reponse to the other gammas, which come out the port in the back of the spaceship. Such exhaust will move at the local speed of light.
NOTE 3.1: INTERSTELLAR ROCKETS
As discussed above, we use the same principle to propel the spaceship. The principle is that of a radiation rocket. A propellant is ejected from the rear of the spaceship and the spaceship recoils in the opposite direction. The recoil speed is limited to the speed of the propellant. The propellant speed, in this interstellar situation, is the speed of light in the space environment. In the interstellar situation the propellant is electromagnetic radiation. The propellant radiation is annihilation gamma radiation. Annihilation is known to be the most efficient process for energy generation and release. In our spaceship, the annihilation takes place in a reaction chamber, where a large flux of gamma rays is formed when streams of ionized, magnetically guided and focused matter and antimatter fuel collide with each other and disappear. To the maximum feasible extent, propellant gas of gamma ray quanta is ejected. The ejection speed is at the local speed of light, because gamma radiation is high energy light.
The walls of the reaction chamber will become heated, thereby reducing the efficiency from 100%. This heat will be useful, however; It may be used to power the various subsystems on the spaceship, such as life support.
Steering of the spaceship may be accomplished by movement of the ejection port in the reaction chamber walls. The reaction chamber’s walls may be modular, in order to facilitate the steering function.
NOTE 4: SOME PROPERTIES OF ANTIMATTER
It is speculated that antimatter causes antigravity fields around itself. If antigravity actually does exist, it is repulsive in character, but otherwise similar to gravity. It is expected to resemble gravity, which has an inverse-square dependence on distance. Its repulsive nature makes it unlikely to permit the formation of extended objects, such as antistars, antiplanets, or antigalaxies. Therefore, we should not expect to detect such objects, save by the annihilation gamma radiation emitted wherever they touch matter atoms.
A possibility is to take advantage of the dilation of time that relativity theory has shown us exists as one approaches the speed of light.
NOTE 4.1: AVOIDING RELATIVITY’S EFFECTS
It is suggested that, to avoid the relativity barrier, the travelers should locally increase the speed of light. Such an increase would permit them to travel faster than the barrier would normally allow.
This results from the fact that it is known that light is deflected as it passes nearby large cosmic objects. The deflection may be explained as a retardation of that portion of the light closest to the object, while the more distant light continues onwards at its normal speed. The retardation is caused by the attraction of the light toward the mass. The light is slowed down as it passes closely by the mass. The attraction is the result of the curvature of the local space-time towards the mass. Space-time is the medium for light. In other words, the deflection is caused by gravity. It therefore seems not unreasonable to expect that antigravity, the inverse of gravity, may cause light to accelerate its speed. It is, of course, completely unknown what effect antigravity fields have on human bodies, save for the contraction of time noted above.
In the concept, the spaceship exposes a quantity of antimatter produced in, and carried on board the spaceship. It is speculated that antimatter is a source of (repulsive) antigravity, and that antigravity accelerates light, while gravity decelerates light.
NOTE 5: GRAVITY AND ANTIGRAVITY
The continuum of points in interstellar space-time is generally smooth. The exceptions to smoothness are at locations in space or time that are found at the presence of matter, antimatter, or, equivalently, by light. Around such locations, the continuum is bent or “warped.” The sense of the curvature may be toward the particle or ray. Alternatively, it may be repulsive. This means that an antibody traveling nearby will be repelled away from the force center (i.e., the center of curvature) Where it is attractive, the curvature is commonly called gravity. Curvature in the opposite sense is herein referred to as antigravity.
It is known that mass deflects the direction of light. It is speculated that the deflection is done by pulling back on the passing light, decelerating it, relative to the remainder of the light, the part of the light exposed to the most intense part of the gravity field. The most notable feature of gravity is its sign: it seems to exist only as an attractive force everywhere.
Antigravity, which we have never encountered, is believed to arise from antimatter. It curves the continuum in the opposite sense from gravity. It is repulsive between anti-masses. On the other hand, antigravity is expected to accelerate light exposed to intense antigravity, thereby increasing its speed. It will therefore oppositely deflect any light passing nearby a hypothetical anti-mass. Such natural bodies are unlikely to exist, because of the repulsive nature of the curvature or center of “force.” This is because they are not formed as stars are formed, by an attractive force (i.e., gravity), but instead their individual particles remain free. It is unclear as to the relationship, if any, between such antimatter particles and dark matter.
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The amount of bad literature about Native peoples is disgusting. If this is surprising, read a few entries from the American Indians in Children’s Literature blog at https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/. This is because the literature is dominated by non-Natives who do not present accurate or appropriate information. These authors and publishers seem to have the notion that Indians are “history,” and limited to exiting on a few reservations. The publisher, Oyate, responds: “We are still alive. We are still here. … Our stories belong to us.” To combat the common perceptions, Oyate has had to be so much more than just a publisher.
The Sisseton Wahpeton Sioux Tribe tribe from the Lake Traverse Reservation was federally recognized in 1867. During their 2002 tribal general elections, they approved a measure changing the name to Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate. Oyate means “The People.” Oyate’s mission is to review literature and advocate for Native Americans to be portrayed with historical accuracy, cultural appropriateness, and without anti-Indian bias and stereotypes. They also support the struggles for sovereignty and self-determination of First Nations in Canada, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Indigenous peoples throughout Latin America. Oyate has read and reviewed thousands of books, videos, maps, music, and other literature for and about American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, First Nations and Indigenous peoples. They also emphasize children’s literature in order to inform Native American children of their identities so they feel good about who they are and feel safe to celebrate who they are and teach the next generation through story sharing.
In addition to reviewing literature, Oyate conducts workshops on “Teaching Respect for Native Peoples.” This teaches children, youth, and educators how to evaluate children’s material for honest portrayals of Indian peoples and how to select and where to find authentic and respectful materials. Oyate also runs a small resource center and reference library for this purpose.
Oyate’s bookstore sells art, audio books, and literature about community wisdom keepers, contemporary issues, education, food and cooking, health and healing, history, women, land and environment, and law and politics and more. Over 90% of their funding comes directly from the purchase of books from the store. Literature is written and illustrated by Native people across North America in hopes of encouraging many more Native writers and artists.
One text of particular note is How to Tell the Difference: A Guide for Evaluating Children’s Books for Anti-Indian Bias by Doris Seale, Beverly Slapin and Rosemary Gonzales, published in 2000. Since then, Oyate has continued to compile and clarify criteria to help us discern honest portrayals of Native peoples in children’s books containing retellings of traditional Indian stories, as well as contemporary stories and representations of Native peoples.
Oyate’s mission is so transparent, however, that many resources they offer are freely available on their website. There are sections on books to avoid, living stories, and additional criteria.
By Treasa Bane
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Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008 is United Nations Day. This date represents the 63rd anniversary of the date the United Nations Charter became effective. Each U.S. President since Harry Truman has issued a proclamation on United Nations Day asking citizens to reflect on the importance of the United Nations to the national interest of the United States and to individuals. United Nations Day 2008 is dedicated to raising awareness of U.N. Millenium Development Goal 7 - Environmental Sustainability as an Essential Tool for Poverty Alleviation. On this day, I encourage all readers of this page to take action to recognize the vital work of the United Nations with respect to the development of international law, in addition to its other important work.
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We have a Maths Mastery Specialist who has been part of NCETM project since 2015. This approach strongly links with the National Curriculum which was introduced in 2014. The Maths Mastery Specialist has trained all staff at Downs View to become experts in this way of teaching mathematics. He has provided outreach to train other leaders and teachers so that they will lead groups of teachers in their local area, to successfully implement mastery across all schools.
Why are we using this approach?
Mastery of Maths means a deep, long-term, secure and adaptable understanding of the subject of Maths.
This way of learning is something that we want pupils to acquire, so a ‘mastery Maths curriculum’ aims to help pupils, over time, acquire mastery of the subject.
There are a number of elements which will help children develop mastery of Maths;
fluency (rapid and accurate recall and application of facts and concepts)
a growing confidence to reason mathematically
the ability to apply Maths to solve problems and to test hypotheses
Mastery of Maths, which will build gradually as a child goes through school, is a tool for life, and immeasurably more valuable than the short term ability to answer questions in tests or exams.
We will take longer over each mathematical topic (shape, measure, addition etc.) so that early understanding is cemented deeply within each child.
Some Key features of this approach
There will be a significant amount of time devoted to developing basic number concepts. This is to build up children’s fluency as number awareness will affect their success in other areas of mathematics. Children who are successful with number are much more confident mathematicians. Please see here for the Maths Mastery Plan and Progression
Teaching for Mastery
A mastery approach to teaching and learning has been designed to support the aims and objectives of the National Curriculum.
A mastery approach:
has number at its heart. A large proportion of time is spent reinforcing number to build competency
ensures students have the opportunity to stay together as they work through the curriculum as a whole group.
sets challenges to extend pupils, ensuring that a depth and breadth of each key concept is gained.
provide plenty of time to build reasoning and problem solving elements into the curriculum.
Concrete – Pictorial – Abstract
All students, when introduced to a key new concept within Maths, will have the opportunity to build competency in this topic by taking the approach Concrete – Pictorial – Abstract, described below.
Concrete – children will have the opportunity to use concrete objects and manipulatives to help them understand what they are doing.
Pictorial – children will then build on this concrete approach by using pictorial representations. These representations can then be used to reason and solve problems.
Abstract – with the foundations firmly laid, children will be able to move to an abstract approach using numbers and key concepts with confidence.
Main Goal- Everyone Can Succeed
As a school we believe that all students can succeed in Mathematics. We do not believe that there are children who can do Maths and those that can’t. A positive mindset for mathematics and strong subject knowledge are key to children’s success in mathematics.
Our calculation policy has also been updated to explain the language used and approaches used which is below and can be downloaded here Calculation Policy
At Downs View we are committed to foster children’s deep, long-term and adaptable understanding of the subject of maths. As a school we believe that all pupils can succeed in mathematics.
In our curriculum a significant amount of time is devoted to developing key number concepts each year. This is to build fluency, as number sense will affect pupil’s success in other areas of mathematics
We believe pupils must be given time to fully understand, explore and apply ideas – rather than accelerate through new concepts. This approach enables learners to truly grasp a concept, and the challenge comes from investigating it in new, alternative and more complex ways.
Children are encouraged to physically represent mathematical concepts. Objects and pictures are used to demonstrate and visualise abstract ideas, alongside numbers and symbols.
Mathematical concepts are explored in a variety of representations and problem-solving contexts to give pupils richer and deeper learning experiences.
Pupils will be able to represent a concept in multiple ways, use the sufficient mathematical language to communicate related ideas and can independently apply the concept to new problems in unfamiliar situations.
Pupils will have a positive mindset for mathematics and strong subject knowledge so that they can be successful in Mathematics and use this in real life situations.
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|Environmental Water Reserve|
Environmental Water Releases 2014
The Thomson, Latrobe and Macalister rivers will receive a boost this autumn when managed environmental water is released into each of the river systems. More information about 2014 releases.
Over the next ten years the Government aims to provide an average of 18,000 megalitres of additional environmental flows to improve the health of the Thomson River. This water is to be recovered through metropolitan water savings. The Government will ensure that improving environmental flows in the Thomson River will not reduce the current reliability of supply for irrigators.
The Thomson River has an environmental water reserve allocation of 10,000 megalitres (ML) guaranteed in the Victorian Government’s Our Water Our Future action plan during 2006/07. This environmental water reserve is the share of water set aside to protect and enhance the environmental values of the Thomson River and to ensure its future sustainability and the sustainability of associated activities which depend on it. The Environmental Water Reserve for the Thomson River is held as the Bulk Entitlement (Thomson River – Environment) Order 2005.
Management of the Environmental Water Reserve
The WGCMA as the Environmental Water Reserve Manager has worked closely with Melbourne Water, Southern Rural Water and the Department of Sustainability and Environment to develop an Environmental Operating Strategy and an Annual Watering Plan for the Thomson River.
Baseline monitoring has been undertaken to determine the ecological condition of the Thomson River. The monitoring program includes targeted scientific monitoring to identify ecological responses to the flow regime.
It is important to note that many of the ecological objectives that the environmental releases are aiming to achieve are reliant on biological processes. It is unlikely that a significant change in native fish and macroinvertebrate populations and the condition of riparian vegetation will be seen for at least ten years. Shorter term changes in channel form will be monitored in response to the delivery of the high flow fresh above Cowwarr Weir. A ten year monitoring program has been developed and monitoring will be progressive and responsive over time.
In light of this the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) E-water CRC and the WGCMA have invested considerable effort in developing a monitoring and evaluation program for the Thomson River. The Victorian Environmental Flows Monitoring and Assessment Program (VEFMAP) has been developed to assess the ecological outcomes of the delivery of environmental flows to eight priority rivers across Victoria, including the Thomson River. This mechanism that will be used by the West Gippsland CMA to report to the Department of Sustainability & Environment on the results of the environmental release monitoring. As resource manager for the Thomson basin the West Gippsland CMA is also required to report annually on all of the bulk entitlements held in the Thomson basin.
Key Links:Environmental Operating Strategy
WGCMA Environmental Water and River Health Officer
|Last Updated on Wednesday, 07 May 2014 10:42|
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When large new urban areas are laid out, there is a great temptation to apply a rectilinear grid pattern, which certainly simplifies the task of surveying. When the railroads were expanding westwards in the USA during the late 19th Century, they established many new towns along the way, on land that had been granted to the railroad. Not only were all of these towns platted on a rigid grid, in some cases the same exact plan was applied to many different towns.
While the use of grids and straight streets is most commonly associated with the US West, straight streets have been used in cities around the world at least since Roman times.
The disadvantages of straight streets are that they reduce the sense of enclosure, are boring, and make destinations seem farther away than they are - they discourage pedestrians. (See Christopher Alexander on this point.) While we can certainly have straight streets if we want them, I think that at least some districts should be laid out with streets that bend. This also allows more flexibility, since not every back yard has to be precisely the same depth. The intersection of crooked streets always makes for a more interesting space than a rectilinear intersection.
There are certainly some cost savings and simplifications associated with straight streets and right angles, but the are probably not large. It is also possible to maintain buildings with right angles, simply by stepping each building backwards or forwards with respect to its neighbor. This is actually commonly applied in US condominium development. It allows streets that are not straight while retaining the simplicity of rectilinear floor plans.
The City Museum in Lisbon includes a fascinating exhibit of the plans developed by the Marquis de Pombal for the reconstruction of Lisbon, most of which was utterly destroyed in the 1755 earthquake. The Baixa is a flat area that starts at the river and runs slightly uphill. It has always been the heart of the city, and had developed in the usual tangle of streets centered around the cathedral and market square. Pombal's reconstruction plans began with a deformed grid. The various stages of the plan shown how it gradually became more and more rectilinear, until the final plan was reached, which can still be seen on the ground today. It is a perfect rectilinear grid. While this is a fine urban area, I would very much like to have seen it before the reconstruction - I suspect that it would have been a more interesting area. I am certain that Pombal was in part driven by exigencies - central Lisbon had to be rebuilt, and quickly. It was faster and cheaper to apply the grid rigorously. I am told that Pombal was the first to apply the principles of specialization to the construction of buildings - one stone contractor was given all the lintels, another the columns, and so forth.
Another Pombaline town is Vila Real, in the extreme southeast of the country. This town was also built on a rigid grid, but the scale is much smaller, and the straight streets here are really deadly - this is an extremely boring town, especially when compared with the Spanish Ayamonte, just across the river, which has taller buildings, narrower streets, and some breaks in the straight streets..
One final note - it is possible to preserve a grid pattern but close off the street vistas by the simple trick of closing off one block in every few. The vistas are comparatively short and the enclosure remains complete. This technique is not often applied but is worth consideration.
City Design Home
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Cholera is a bacterial infection in your small intestine, caused by Vibrio cholerae. Cholera infection is acquired by consuming contaminated food and water. Although this vibrio infection is often mild or without symptoms, sometimes it results in death.
Vibrio cholerae’s toxin causes a sudden onset of severe watery diarrhea, winding up with severe dehydration. Other cholera symptoms you may experience beyond diarrhea, and many a consequence of dehydration, involve:
- dry skin
- no tears
- dry mouth
- extreme thirst
- rapid heart rate
- muscle cramps
- low urine output
- abdominal cramps
- nausea & vomiting
- low blood pressure
- “fishy” odored bowls
- glassy, sunken eyes
- rice in stool appearance
Cholera often occurs in poor sanitation, crowding, war and famine environments. Cholera endemic areas include India, Asia, Africa, the Mediterranean, Mexico, South and Central America.
About 90% of those exposed to vibrio cholerae don’t get sick. But for those experiencing cholera’s severe symptoms, their loss of large amount of fluid in a short time can turn dehydration deadly within hours.
Your health preserving treatment for vibrio cholerae is to immediately replace vital electrolytes and fluid lost during those severe diarrhea episodes. Large amounts of water mixed with a prepackaged oral rehydration mixture of sugar and salts is used to treat cholera. Don’t travel to high risk areas without it!
For severe cases, intravenous fluid replacement might be required. Should you develop severe diarrhea and dehydration in countries where cholera occurs, expeditiously seek attention from a health professional. With prompt re-hydration, fewer than 1% of cholera infected individuals die.
And taking antibiotics may shorten the time and severity of your Vibrio cholerae illness. Rehydration first, deal with acquiring the proper cholera antibiotic later.
Contaminated surface water and wells are the primary source of a vibrio cholerae infection. A couple of additional factors to consider:
- malnutrition & cholera are connected
- type O blood ~ unknown reason twice as likely
- compromised immune system more susceptible
- raw or undercooked shellfish (oyster, crabs) are sources
- vibrio cholerae bacteria can lie dormant in water for long periods
- cholera is not likely to spread from casual contact with an infected person
- cholera bacterium may live in brackish rivers & coastal waters environments
- uncooked or unpeeled fruits, vegetables, grains can harbor vibrio cholerae bacteria
- cholera has been contracted after eating raw or undercooked shellfish from the Gulf of Mexico
- reduced or nonexistent stomach acid higher risk ~ H. pylori infection, taking antacids or other ulcer treatment drugs
You can substantially reduce your risk for contracting cholera by following these consumption recommendations:
- no salads
- don’t purchase from street vendors
- no undercooked, raw fish or shellfish
- peel all fruit yourself before consuming
- tea & coffee made with boiled water only
- thoroughly cook food & eat while still hot
- carbonated, bottled beverages with no ice
- don’t bring perishable seafood back to the U.S.
- only drink boiled water or if treated with chlorine or iodine
If you can’t boil it, cook it or peel it, then to safeguard your health don’t eat it.
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Lighthouses might not be the first thing you think of when talking about California, Oregon, Washington, or Alaska, but the west coast of the U.S.A. has some beautiful, historic lighthouses. The story of their construction and service is linked to the territory and early statehood days of these coastal states, the maritime history, and the Lighthouse Board.
Today, we’ll take an overview glance at the lighthouses in this region and their unique piece in maritime and national history.
The geography and ecosystems along the California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaskan coasts vary greatly. From beaches and perfect harbors to rocky cliffs and icebergs, the west coast boasts a beautiful variety of coastal views…which – as we’ve learned – means that there are different styles of lighthouses built to serve the navigational needs at each location.
How about a little history review to explain the navigational history along these coasts? The first known European to sail to California and explore its Channel Islands and coast was Juan Cabrillo (1542); he was followed by other Spanish explorers who eventually mapped the California coastline and probably sailed farther north. Supply ships and later trading vessels cruised the California coast as the Spanish established missions and a colony. Farther north, Russians and English established trading posts. American merchants started venturing to California in the early 19th Century, bringing trade items to exchange for hides and tallow from the California Ranchos.
The California Gold Rush (started in 1849) brought thousands of Americans, foreigners, and adventurers to the newly acquired U.S. Territory and, shortly thereafter, state. The increasing maritime traffic along the west coast prompted the construction of aids to navigation – lighthouses – in the early 1850’s. Why is that significant? Read on…
Remember the U.S. Lighthouse Board established in 1852? They sent surveyors and engineers to the west coast to choose lighthouse locations. It was a significant and early project for the new organization. And it played into the design of the first eight west coast lighthouses!
See, the Board want to be economical, modern, and efficient. They designed a “classic” lighthouse that they believed could be built just about anywhere that didn’t need a tall tower. After-all, why re-invent the lighthouse every single time one had to be built? So…if you look at floorplans or photos of the first eight lighthouses built on the West Coast in the early 1850’s, you’ll notice they all look very, very similar. And then, if you look at the style of lighthouses constructed in New England in the same time period, you’ll see the continued similarities. It’s an easy way to guess a lighthouse date!
As time went on and other lighthouses were built on the west coast, other styles were constructed so you’ll find more “looks” that just the “1850’s cookie cutter” New England style floor plan.
Famous West Coast Lighthouses
Old Point Loma Lighthouse – constructed in 1854 on the high cliffs at the entrance to San Diego Bay, this lighthouse was in operation until the 1890’s when a new structure was built at the base of the cliff to avoid the fog and be more effective. One of the first eight lighthouses, it follows the basic “classic” design and pattern from the Lighthouse Board. The sandstone structure was painted in the 1880’s to keep the wind and elements from eroding the rock. During World War II, the lighthouse was used by the U.S. Army as a communication base and was even camouflaged! It’s now part of Cabrillo National Monument and is restored to its 1880’s appearance.
Point Bonita Lighthouse – entering service in 1855 – stands at the entrance to San Francisco Bay. Equipped with a fog cannon, this post soon caused desparation. One gunner tasked with firing the fog cannon at regular intervals for three days and three nights in a dense San Francisco fog! By 1857, the fog cannon got replaced with a different warning system. In 1877, the lighthouse was moved to a new location for better visibility. It’s now protected by Golden Gate National Recreation Area and can be visited.
Heceta Head Lighthouse, north of Florence, Oregon, was built in 1894. It’s the lighthouse with the most powerful lens in Oregon. Constructed in a remote location and known for its lonely beauty, Heceta Head Light Station is restored and is a bed and breakfast. (We know you always wanted to stay at a lighthouse!)
Scotch Cap Lighthouse near Unimak Pass, Alaska, (far western islands) was one of the most isolated lighthouses in the United States. So remote and lonely that families were not permitted to live there with the keepers; instead the keepers got one year of shore leave every four years. The lighthouse went into service in 1903. In April 1946, an earthquake and tidal wave destroyed the lighthouse and drowned the five keepers at the station. The Coast Guard later erected another structure.
A Story To Remember
Sometimes lighthouse construction costs more than the time and materials. St. George’s Reef Light Station was built on the dangerous reef, six miles off the California coast. In 1865, a passenger ship ran aground on the reef, prompting the need for an aid to navigation. However, it took almost twenty years to get the necessary funds and plans for construction
In 1887, work crews and engineers began building a stone structure on the exposed rocks, eventually making a pier 144 feet above the waves. The sea wasn’t kind, destroying the workmen’s quarters, and, on another occasion, sweeping an unlucky workman off the reef.
Location and building challenges made St. George’s Reef Lighthouse the most costly lighthouse constructed in its era. The price tag: $704,633.78. Fortunately, the construction was well-done; the light still stands and is still active. (At least one keeper died trying to reach his post). Check out more details here.
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Laser dentistry is an effective and precise way of performing various dental procedures. Laser dentistry has the potential to improve various dental procedures, but all depends on the personnel skill of the dentist i.e. his ability and skill to control the exposure of laser on the gum as well as the teeth surface, and control over power output. Special care is required as the laser should not damage the surrounding tissues.
WHAT ARE BENEFITS OF LASER DENTISTRY?
it does not damage the surrounding tissues
some laser dentistry procedures are done without anaesthesia
chances of bacterial infection are less because the area on which work is done is exposed to a high light beam
The procedures which use soft tissues laser do not require stitches
There is very less bleeding because high light beam results in the clotting of blood which reduces blood loss.
Wounds heal up faster and there is regeneration of tissues.
HOW DOES THE DENTIST USE THE TECHNIQUE OF LASER DENTISTRY?
The dentists use the hydroponics technique which uses the combination of laser energy as well as a spray of water that help in performing various procedures on gums, teeth and teeth bones more easily. The laser energy is absorbed by molecules of water present in the tooth tissues. The laser energy causes an explosion because the water molecules expand which in turn moves apart from the tooth particle.
DOES LASER DENTISTRY HELP IN CURING GUM DISEASES?
Yes, laser dentistry helps to treat gum diseases by first targeting and then vaporizing the gum tissues. Laser dentistry is very much better than the traditional procedures that cut the tissues using scalpels. The laser is used to vaporize only diseased tissues which leave the tissues healthy and free of diseases.
HOW MUCH RECOVERY TIME IS REQUIRED AFTER LASER GUM TREATMENT?
The laser automatically forms clots/it seals the blood vessels as well the nerve ending. One can return back to work immediately after the treatment and there is no downtime. Hence it is very convenient and comfortable for the patient as there is no recovery time.
IS LASER USED FOR ALL DENTISTRY?
Lasers reflect light with the help of a mirror hence it gets difficult /impossible to remove the silver filling i.e. amalgam filling as there are chances of fracture of a mirror. The conventional drill removes the amalgam filling in the first instance. Then the laser is used to remove decay and the cavity that allows the placement of tooth colour filling. Combination of conventional drill and laser is used for extensive works such as preparation of a crown.
The cost factor depends on the personnel skill of the dentist i.e. how efficiently and skillfully the light energy is used, the location of the dental clinic as well as individual requirement. In some cases, laser therapy has proved to be much cheaper than gum surgeries. Some insurance companies also cover laser therapy, but this should be checked before going for the treatment.
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KERR, ROBERT A.
KERR, ROBERT A. (1842–1912). Robert A. Kerr, political leader, state legislator, and civic leader in Bastrop, Texas, was probably born in December 1842 in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of a white father, known as Major A. Kerr, and a black mother. He went to Port Lavaca with his father around 1855. He was taught by his father and his father's sister and may have worked as a free black barber in San Antonio before the Civil War. Sources suggest that he left San Antonio after allegations that he assisted slaves in escape attempts. During the Civil War he reportedly worked for his father as a shipping clerk in the Port Lavaca area. Kerr probably moved to Victoria before 1872, when Texas Republicans named him an alternate delegate to the Republican national convention. He also served as an election judge for San Patricio, Refugio, Calhoun, and Victoria counties. By 1880 he had moved to Bastrop County. He won election to a seat in the Texas House of Representatives for the Seventeenth Legislature, which met in 1881. There he served on the Military Affairs Committee and criticized the convict lease system. He proposed an unsuccessful amendment to a bill designed to compensate slaves who had lost arms or legs while assisting their masters in military service. Although Kerr won his legislative seat as a member of the Greenback party, he returned to the Republican party in 1882 but failed to win reelection. He was chosen an alternate delegate by Republicans for the 1892 national convention. He served for a time on the Bastrop County School Board, where he helped establish a high school for black students. He worked as a barber and also served as an assistant bookkeeper in the Halser Store in Bastrop. He and his wife, Sarah, were the parents of an adopted son. Kerr died on January 12, 1912, and was buried in the Fairview Cemetery, Bastrop.
J. Mason Brewer, Negro Legislators of Texas and Their Descendants (Dallas: Mathis, 1935; 2d ed., Austin: Jenkins, 1970). Bill Moore, Bastrop County, 1691–1900 (Wichita Falls: Nortex, 1977). Merline Pitre, Through Many Dangers, Toils and Snares: The Black Leadership of Texas, 1868–1900 (Austin: Eakin, 1985). Lawrence D. Rice, The Negro in Texas, 1874–1900 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1971).
The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.Paul M. Lucko, "KERR, ROBERT A.," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fkeqk), accessed May 24, 2013. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
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In his article “Behind the Counter”, Eric Schlosser argues that the fast food industry is behind the country’s trend toward unsupportable earnings. Beginning with the story of a 16-year-old girl named Elisa, he illustrates what a typical work day looks like for her.
Although busy, it is not portrayed as unnaturally stressful or more demanding than other jobs. However, as his discussion continues, Schlosser illustrates why the industry initially capitalized on adolescent workers and how this has shaped highly questionable hiring ethics within it and other industries in America.
The primary focus of Schlosser’s argument is that the fast food industry has driven an environment in which capital and production is all and people are interchangeable. Initially offering the expanding baby boomer population with flexible jobs that met their school needs, fast food is now actively exploiting less advantaged members of the population in ways that provides them with few, if any, alternatives.
“Roughly 90 percent of the nation’s fast food workers are paid an hourly wage, provided no benefits and scheduled to work only as needed … Managers try to make sure that each worker is employed less than forty hours a week, thereby avoiding any overtime payments” (Schlosser 426).
Because the industry continues to perfect the factory assembly-line systems that were prevalent at the height of the Industrial age, it is increasingly unnecessary to retain skilled employees or to engage in any training at all.
Throughout his article, Schlosser charges the fast food chains with deliberately short-changing their employees’ already minimal wages through practices such as requiring restaurants be busy before they start their shifts, paying in food instead of paid hours or requiring employees to clean on their own time.
This practice has been well-documented in industries outside of the fast food industry as well, lending support to Schlosser’s claim. Steven Greenhouse documents numerous cases in his article “Forced to Work Off the Clock, Some Fight Back.” In this article, several individuals employed in low-skilled or no-skilled occupations speak out about their companies’ policies regarding requiring employees to work for no pay.
The strategies listed by these individuals echo those listed in Schlosser’s article. While Schlosser offers some support for his claims, Greenhouse interviews the director of the wage and hour division of the U.S. Labor Department, giving the claims made in the argument a great deal of credibility.
The Labor Department has taken many corporations to court on behalf of employees who have been cheated out of their fair wages. “It is one of the more common violations of the Labor Standards Act,” said Alfred Robinson of the Labor Department in Greenhouse’s article. Although the ethnicity of most of the individuals cited in Greenhouse’s article is not specified, one is specifically identified as being an immigrant worker and the quote attributed to him reflects his English as second language status.
It can easily be inferred from the information presented by the very well-referenced article by Greenhouse that the issues discussed by Schlosser are valid concerns for the mostly immigrant workforce currently manning the kitchens and counters of America’s fast food restaurants.
Practices engaged in by companies that attempt to argue that they are in full compliance with the law while blaming individual managers for coercing employees to work without pay are bad enough when the employees have a sense of their American rights, laws and legal recourses.
How much worse must the situation be when the individuals involved may not realize they’re being cheated, don’t know they have rights or that there are laws to protect them or have no idea what to do other than simply accept a deplorable situation?
Greenhouse, Steven. “Forced to Work Off the Clock, Some Fight Back.” SKN Worldwide. (2004).
Schlosser, Eric. “Behind the Counter.” The Blair Reader. 7th Ed.
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Plastic is the major component of marine litter – ranges between 60 and 80% depending on location
Coastal Watch urges the government to introduce producer responsibility schemes for single-use plastic products
Hong Kong is home to a broad diversity of coastal habitats, with around 6,000 marine species having been recorded in our waters. But unfortunately our incredibly rich marine environment is under constant attack from marine litter. In June 2014, WWF-Hong Kong launched the ground-breaking Coastal Watch project with six strategic partners – Eco Marine, Ecovision’s Hong Kong Cleanup, Green Council, Eco-Education and Resources Centre, Ocean Park Conservation Foundation Hong Kong and Plastic Free Seas. The aim of this two-year project was to continue the public engagement and action-oriented momentum which began after the plastic pellet spill disaster of August 2012. Coastal Watch achieved this goal in a number of ways: through cleaning up several coastal sites across Hong Kong and by performing marine litter and ecological surveys to trace the source of marine litter. Ultimately, the rich data collected by the Coastal Watch project will help the government formulate effective long-term solutions to our persistent marine litter problem.
Two years later, Coastal Watch has met and exceeded its initial goals. The project team has finished performing all their coastline, coastal waters and underwater ecological and marine litter surveys, and a new report entitled Coastal Watch – Turning the Tide Against Marine Litter has just been released. The report examines survey data covering the 34 project sites and the results reveal a disturbing fact: plastic debris makes up between 60 and 80 per cent of marine litter found along our shorelines, on the sea surface and on the seabed, and undoubtedly poses a serious threat to Hong Kong’s marine environment.
Over the duration of Coastal Watch, more than 2,000 volunteers, including team scientists and representatives of a number of fishing groups, conducted a total of 130 site actions – performing marine litter and ecological surveys and clean-up activities at a variety of coastal sites with unique ecological value, including mangroves, mudflats, sandy beaches, rocky shores and coral communities. The project mobilized and educated the public by training volunteers to be “citizen scientists”, raising their concern about the marine environment and encouraging them to get involved in marine conservation efforts.
The survey data from the project’s second year was collected between July 2015 and July 2016, gathered at 34 project sites with considerable ecological value (please refer to the report’s p.19 and Press Release’s Appendix for further details). The marine litter collected was classified into five main types: ecological, land-based macro-debris, land-based micro-debris, coastal floating litter and underwater litter.
Hong Kong has a rich marine biodiversity
During the ecological surveys, data on land-based species and the underwater coral coverage was collected by Coastal Watch’s team scientists and volunteers. The average number of species recorded in each habitat type was as follows: 29 in mangrove environments, 36 in mudflats, 26 in rocky shores and 12 in sandy shores. The average amount of coral coverage in the underwater sites was six per cent. Altogether, around 6,000 marine species have been recorded in Hong Kong waters, according to a previously-conducted University of Hong Kong study. The number of marine species per unit area in Hong Kong is actually – and surprisingly – several hundred times higher than in many other regions of the world, underlining the exceptional marine biodiversity of our waters.
The marine litter surveys and Hong Kong’s first-ever investigation of underwater debris
When conducting the marine litter surveys, in order to accurately quantify the amount of litter, suitable sampling areas (whether transect lines or belt transects) and a suitable sampling duration needed to be designed. These designs were dependent on the characteristics of the different surveys and habitats.
During the land-based macro-debris survey, an average of 391.4 pieces of marine litter were collected in each five-metre belt transect. In total, plastic constituted 64.6 per cent of the litter gathered from the land-based sites: mangroves, mudflats, sandy beaches and rocky shores. The predominant types of plastic litter collected were single-use disposable items like polystyrene fragments, plastic packaging and film fragments, and polystyrene food boxes and cups. During the land-based micro-debris surveys, an average of 89.3 pieces of marine litter were collected in each one square metre area, with plastic constituting 75.6 per cent of this litter. Most of the plastic items found were polystyrene fragments – mainly broken pieces of polystyrene boxes and other disposable packaging.
The Coastal Watch team carried out floating litter clean-up activities and surveys in collaboration with fishing communities around Hong Kong. An average of 517.6 pieces of marine litter were collected at sea every two hours, with the proportion of plastic litter collected being as high as 83.7 per cent. The top ten types of litter collected were all plastics and the primary components were similar to those of the land-based debris surveys, i.e. polystyrene and packaging fragments. Disposable plastic items were also frequently recovered, including polystyrene food boxes and cups, bottles, shopping bags and polystyrene boxes, mainly originating from domestic and recreational waste, as well as large polystyrene containers from the city’s markets. Due to their light weight and neutral or positive buoyancy, many types of disposable plastic float and spread widely across the sea. Polystyrene boxes and cups, and fish boxes thrown out by the fishing industry also break easily, falling apart into thousands of tiny pieces which are very difficult to remove from the marine environment.
Litter in underwater environments has not been widely studied in Hong Kong. But during the Coastal Watch project, our team along with our partners and volunteers conducted several underwater surveys, recovering an average of 30 pieces of marine litter along each 100 metre transect. Plastic debris was again the most common material, comprising 65.5 per cent of all litter encountered. Abandoned fishing nets and items, and disposable plastic packaging were some of the most common kinds of underwater litter. Abandoned fishing nets (also known as ghost nets) are particularly problematic in the marine environment, as they can entangle marine life, such as fish and crab, causing injury, illness, suffocation, starvation and eventually death.
Plastic debris is a huge threat to marine ecosystems
The surveys results reveal a consistent thread: plastic debris makes up most of the marine litter found along our shorelines, on the sea surface and on the seabed. This underlines the fact that plastic marine litter is a serious problem in Hong Kong and poses a serious threat to Hong Kong’s marine environment, including places that are seldom visited by people. The entanglement of sea creatures is one problem, while the fish bite marks that have been found on different types of marine debris is another – the fact that fish are consuming plastic directly affects the health of the fish and the integrity of the food chain. If pollutants related to this litter enter the food chain, fisheries resources and eventually human health will be affected.
Not only does the enormous amount of litter piled on our coasts affect the scenery at our beaches and coastlines, persistent rubbish is clearly creating a multitude of threats to both the marine ecology and to human beings. Last but not least, the fact that the plastic litter’s primary origins are domestic and recreational waste implies that we are the root of the problem: our unsustainable, disposable lifestyles are creating long-lasting effects on the marine environment.
Hong Kong has a serious and pressing marine litter problem
It is clear that Hong Kong’s current attempts to solve this problem are not working. More assertive and proactive approaches must be urgently adopted, including reducing waste generation, preventing waste from entering the sea and effectively cleaning up the marine environment. These actions will require close cooperation between the government, green groups and all of society across several key areas: policy and legislation, research, innovation, education, facilities support, stakeholder engagement and enforcement. In view of the fact that disposable products like plastic bottles, meal boxes and cutlery dominate the marine litter on our shores, Coastal Watch urges the government to implement effective producer responsibility schemes which will persuade manufacturers, retailers and the citizens alike to share responsibility for the collection, recycling, treatment and end-of-life disposal of products, like plastic drink bottles for example. As consumers ourselves, we should all work towards becoming part of the solution. Every one of us can start making things better today, by following the “3Rs” principles – REDUCE, REUSE and RECYCLE. This will cut down on the generation of unnecessary waste and, most importantly, keep garbage out of the sea.
Mr Patrick Yeung, the Coastal Watch Project Manager, adds, “The Coastal Watch project has proved that the general Hong Kong community wants to restore the marine environment. We believe that by working together this is certainly possible. Besides the existing policies, promotion and education work being performed by the government, new technology should also be explored which will more effectively intercept and collect marine litter. Additionally, clean-ups in ecologically important areas other than marine parks and marine reserves should be prioritized, and stakeholders engaged in formulating and implementing targeted, effective solutions. By partnering with our neighbours – particularly Macau and Guangdong Province – we can lead the way and conduct research, innovate, improve our waste facilities and implement the policies necessary to tackle marine litter at source and help solve this pernicious global problem.”
Launched in August, Coastal Watch’s final “Knock Plastic Out of the Ocean” campaign is encouraging everyone across Hong Kong to say “no” to single-use plastic items. The campaign has now collected more than 12,000 pledges from citizens and organizations. This high level of engagement is sending a loud and clear message, urging the government to introduce a producer responsibility scheme for single-use plastic products, and encouraging the business sector to uphold their responsibilities by using environmentally-friendly alternatives to plastic. The collected signatures and a petition letter will soon be submitted to the Environment Bureau in the hopes that the government will address the marine waste problem, reduce waste at source and catalyse the search for solutions.
Starting from 29 October, a retrospective exhibition on the project called “Coastal Watch – Turning the Tide Against Marine Litter” will be held at the Hong Kong Maritime Museum, featuring highlights of the project’s two successful years.
Download the full report of “Coastal Watch – Turning the Tide Against Marine Litter” survey report: https://coastalwatch.hk/download/cowmarinelitterreport-eng/
“Knock Plastic out of the Ocean” pledge campaign: coastalwatch.hk/en/plasticpledge
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Washington, DC — A major study published today in Nature Nanotechnology suggests some forms of carbon nanotubes – a poster child for the “nanotechnology revolution” – could be as harmful as asbestos if inhaled in sufficient quantities.
The study used established methods to see if specific types of nanotubes have the potential to cause mesothelioma — a cancer of the lung lining that can take 30-40 years to appear following exposure. The results show that long, thin multi-walled carbon nanotubes that look like asbestos fibers, behave like asbestos fibers.
Discovered nearly 20 years ago, carbon nanotubes have been described as the wonder material of the 21st Century. Light as plastic and stronger that steel, they are being developed for use in new drugs, energy-efficient batteries and futuristic electronics. But since their discovery, questions have been raised about whether some of these nanoscale materials may cause harm and undermine a nascent market for all types of carbon nanotubes, including multi- and single-walled carbon nanotubes. Leading forecasting firms say sales of all nanotubes could reach $2 billion annually within the next four to seven years, according to an article in the U.S. publication Chemical & Engineering News.
“This study is exactly the kind of strategic, highly focused research needed to ensure the safe and responsible development of nanotechnology,” says Andrew Maynard, Chief Science Advisor to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies and a co-author on the paper. “It looks at a specific nanoscale material expected to have widespread commercial applications and asks specific questions about a specific health hazard. Even though scientists have been raising concerns about the safety of long, thin carbon nanotubes for over a decade, none of the research needs in the current U.S. federal nanotechnology environment, health and safety risk research strategy address this question.”
Widespread exposure to asbestos has been described as the worst occupational health disaster in U.S. history and the cost of asbestos-related disease is expected to exceed $200 billion, according to major U.S. think tank RAND Corporation.
Anthony Seaton, MD, a co-author on the paper and a professor emeritus at the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom, says, “The toll of asbestos-related cancer, first noticed in the 1950s and 1960s, is likely to continue for several more decades even though usage reduced rapidly some 25 years ago. While there are reasons to suppose that nanotubes can be used safely, this will depend on appropriate steps being taken to prevent them from being inhaled in the places they are manufactured, used and ultimately disposed of. Such steps should be based on research into exposure and risk prevention, leading to regulation of their use. Following this study, the results of which were foreseen by the Royal Society in the U.K. in 2004, we can no longer delay investing in such research.”
Researchers, led by Professor Kenneth Donaldson at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, examined the potential for long and short carbon nanotubes, long and short asbestos fibers, and carbon black to cause pathological responses known to be precursors of mesothelioma. Material was injected into the abdominal cavity of mice — a sensitive predictor of long fiber response in the lung lining.
“The results were clear,” says Donaldson. “Long, thin carbon nanotubes showed the same effects as long, thin asbestos fibers.”
Asbestos fibers are harmful because they are thin enough to penetrate deep into the lungs, but sufficiently long to confound the lungs’ built-in clearance mechanisms for getting rid of particles.
Donaldson stresses there are still pieces of the puzzle to fill in. “We still don’t know whether carbon nanotubes will become airborne and be inhaled, or whether, if they do reach the lungs, they can work their way to the sensitive outer lining. But if they do get there in sufficient quantity, there is a chance that some people will develop cancer—perhaps decades after breathing the stuff,” states Donaldson.
There is a silver lining to this research. According to Donaldson, “Short or curly carbon nanotubes did not behave like asbestos, and by knowing the possible dangers of long, thin carbon nanotubes, we can work to control them. It’s a good news story, not a bad one. It shows that carbon nanotubes and their products could be made to be safe.”
But Donaldson added that the present study only tested for fiber-like behavior and did not exonerate carbon nanotubes from damaging the lungs in other ways. “More research is still needed if we are to understand how to use these materials as safely as possible,” he notes.
Carbon nanotubes are atom-thick sheets of graphite formed into cylinders. They may be formed from a single layer of graphite or they may consist of multiple concentric layers of graphite, resulting in multi-walled carbon nanotubes. While the diameter of a nanotube can vary from a few nanometers up to tens of nanometers, they can be hundreds or even thousands of nanometers long. Carbon nanotubes come in many forms, with different shapes, different atomic arrangements, and varying amounts and types of added chemicals—all of which affect their properties and might influence their impact on human health and the environment.
“This is a wakeup call for nanotechnology in general and carbon nanotubes in particular,” says Maynard. “As a society, we cannot afford not to exploit this incredible material, but neither can we afford to get it wrong—as we did with asbestos.”
Do carbon nanotubes behave like asbestos? *Press Briefing*
Please note a press briefing will take place at the Science Media Centre (SMC), 19 Albemarle Street, London W1S 4BS, UNDER STRICT EMBARGO at 6:00 AM US Eastern time (EST) on Tuesday, May 20th.
The topic is a Nature Nanotechnology paper to be published online on May 20, 2008, with a 1:00 PM US Eastern time (EST) embargo.
Ken Donald, Anthony Seaton and Andrew Maynard will speak about their research and its implications followed by questions from journalists.
Ken Donaldson (MRC/University of Edinburgh, UK)
Tel: +44 131 242 6580; E-mail: [email protected]
Andrew Maynard (Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars)
Tel: +1 (202) 664-3316; E-mail: [email protected]
For further enquiries, please contact SMC Simon Levey on +44 20 7670 2928.
For international reporters, there will be a dial in facility for the May 20th press briefing at 6:00 AM EST. The details are:
UK: 0845 359 0170
International: +44 20 3003 2666
A PDF of the paper can be found in the Nature Nanotechnology section of http://press.nature.com
After 1:00 PM EST on Tuesday, May 20th, the paper can be found on the journal's website: http://www.nature.com/nnano
Nanotechnology is the ability to measure, see, manipulate and manufacture things usually between 1 and 100 nanometers. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter; a human hair is roughly 100,000 nanometers wide. In 2007, nanotechnology was incorporated into more than $88 billion in manufactured goods. Lux Research projects that figure will grow to $2.6 trillion by 2014, or about 15% of total global output.
The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (www.nanotechproject.org) is an initiative launched by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and The Pew Charitable Trusts in 2005. It is dedicated to helping business, government and the public anticipate and manage possible health and environmental implications of nanotechnology.
The University of Edinburgh/MRC Centre for Inflammation Research (CIR) was established in 1999 to bring together a critical mass of internationally outstanding researchers in inflammation harnessing the skills of both basic and clinical scientists. Within a grouping of over 120 researchers, there is a strong clinical influence based around respiratory medicine, renal medicine and histopathology (www.cir.med.ed.ac.uk/).
Nature Nanotechnology, published by Nature Publishing Group, was launched in October 2006. The journal covers all areas of nanoscience and nanotechnology, including chemistry, physics, materials science, the life sciences and engineering, and also the application of nanotechnology in a wide range of industrial sectors.
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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In Buddhist texts
Shakra (शक्र is the ruler of the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven according to Buddhist cosmology. His full title is Śakro devānām indraḥ (शक्रो देवानामिन्द्रः; Pāli: Sakko devānaṃ indo), "Śakra, Lord of the Devas".
The name Śakra "powerful" as an epithet of Indra is found in several verses of the Rigveda. In Buddhist texts, Śakra's myth and character are very different from those of the Vedic Indra. According to G.P. Malalasekara, "Sakka and Indra are independent conceptions. None of the personal characteristics of Sakka resemble those of Indra. Some epithets are identical but are evidently borrowed, though they are differently explained."
The Trāyastriṃśa heaven that Śakra rules is located on the top of Mount Sumeru (cf. Meru), imagined to be the polar center of the physical world, around which the Sun and Moon revolve. Trāyastriṃśa is the highest of the heavens in direct contact with Earth. Like the other deities of this heaven, Śakra is long-lived but mortal. When one Śakra dies, his place is taken by another deity who becomes the new Śakra. Buddhist stories about Śakra (past or present) are found in the Jātaka stories and in several suttas, particularly in the Saṃyutta Nikāya.
Śakra is married to Sujā, daughter of the chief of the Asuras, Vemacitrin (Pāli Vepacitti). Despite this relationship, a state of war generally exists between the thirty-three gods and the Asuras, which Śakra manages to resolve with minimal violence and no loss of life.
Śakra is mentioned in many Buddhist sūtras, and is often shown consulting the Buddha on questions of morality. Together with Brahmā, he is considered a protector of the Buddhist religion.
Shakra (शक्र) is mentioned in Mahabharata (I.57.18),(I.59.15), (I.60.35), (I.90.69), (1.95),(III.170.61),(IX.42.32),
Adi Parva, Mahabharata/ Book I Chapter 57 mentions Uparichara Vasu, who conquered kingdom of Chedi and his sons planted kingdoms and towns. Shakra (शक्र) is mentioned in Mahabharata verse (I.57.18). ....The slayer of Vritra (Indra) also gave the king, for his gratification, a bamboo pole for protecting the honest and the peaceful. After the expiry of a year, the king planted it in the ground for the purpose of worshipping the giver thereof, viz., Sakra. From that time forth, O monarch, all kings, following Vasu's example, began to plant a pole for the celebration of Indra's worship.
Adi Parva, Mahabharata/Book I Chapter 59 gives genealogy of Danavas, Gandharvas, Apsaras, Yakshas, Rakshasas. Shakra (शक्र) is mentioned in Mahabharata (I.59.15).....Aditi have sprung the twelve Adityas who are the lords of the universe. They are Dhata, Mitra, Aryaman, Shakra, Varuna, Ansha, Bhaga, Vivaswan, Pusha, Savita, Tvashta, and Vishnu.
Adi Parva, Mahabharata/Book I Chapter 60 gives genealogy of all the principal creatures. Shakra (शक्र) is mentioned in Mahabharata (I.60.35), ....And, O king, the sons of Aditi are twelve with Indra heading them all. And the youngest of them all was Vishnu upon whom the worlds depend. (I.60.40),.... The learned Sukra is Bhrigu's son. And the learned Sukra becoming a planet and engaged according to the command of the Self-existent in pouring and withholding rain, and in dispensing and remitting calamities, traverses, for sustaining the lives of all the creatures in the three worlds, through the skies. And the learned Sukra, of great intelligence and wisdom, of rigid vows, leading the life of a Brahmacharin, divided himself in twain by power of asceticism, and became the spiritual guide of both the Daityas and the gods. And after Sukra was thus employed by Brahman in seeking the welfare (of the gods and the Asuras).
Adi Parva, Mahabharata/Book I Chapter 90 gives History and family tree of Puru, Bharatas and Pandavas commencing from Daksha. Shakra (शक्र) is mentioned in Mahabharata (I.90.69). ... Therefore, he solicited Kunti to have offspring raised for him. So she raised up offspring. By Dharma she had Yudhishthira; by Maruta, Bhima: and by Sakra, Arjuna. And Pandu.
Vana Parva, Mahabharata/Book III Chapter 170 describes that Arjuna while returning, saw unearthly city, that impregnable (city) was inhabited by the Paulamas and Kalakas....wonderful city of the Daityas. Shakra (शक्र) is mentioned in Mahabharata (III.170.61). ....And having slain those mighty Asuras, and destroyed Hiranyapura, and having also killed the Nivata-Kavachas, he came unto Shakra.
Shalya Parva, Mahabharata/Book IX Chapter 42 - Description of River Saraswati. Shakra (शक्र) is mentioned in Mahabharata (IX.42.32)....The water of that river, O Shakra, hath been made sacred by the Munis! Formerly the presence of that river at its site was concealed. ....Thus addressed, Shakra, at these words of Brahma, O Janamejaya, performed in that abode of Sarasvati diverse sacrifices.
- तस्याः शक्रस्य पूजार्थं भूमौ भूमिपतिस तदा, परवेशं कारयाम आस गते संवत्सरे तदा (I.57.18)
- धाता मित्रॊ ऽरयमा शक्रॊ वरुणश चांश एव च, भगॊ विवस्वान पूषा च सविता दशमस तथा (I.59.15); एकादशस तथा तवष्टा विष्णुर दवादश उच्यते, जघन्यजः स सर्वेषाम आदित्यानां गुणाधिकः
- दवादशैवादितेः पुत्राः शक्र मुख्या नराधिप, तेषाम अवरजॊ विष्णुर यत्र लॊकाः परतिष्ठिताः (I.60.35)
- 40 बरह्मणॊ हृदयं भित्त्वा निःसृतॊ भगवान भृगुः, भृगॊः पुत्रः कविर विद्वाञ शुक्रः कवि सुतॊ गरहः
- सा तत्र पुत्रान उत्पादयाम आस धर्माद युधिष्ठिरं मारुताद भीमसेनं शक्राद अर्जुनम इति (I.90.69)
- हिरण्यपुरम आरुज्य निहत्य च महासुरान, निवातकवचांश चैव ततॊ ऽहं शक्रम आगमम (III.170.61)
- तच्छिरॊ नमुचेश छिन्नं पृष्ठतः शक्रम अन्वयात, हे मित्रहन पाप इति बरुवाणं शक्रम अन्तिकात (IX.42.32)
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ALASKA VOLCANO OBSERVATORY WEEKLY UPDATE
U.S. Geological Survey
Friday, September 15, 2023, 1:07 PM AKDT (Friday, September 15, 2023, 21:07 UTC)
Eruptive activity at Shishaldin Volcano was generally at a lower level than previous weeks with no observations of ash-producing explosions. The most recent significant explosive event occurred on September 5. Elevated surface temperatures could be observed all week with minor steam emissions frequently observed in web camera views. Seismicity has remained elevated with small exposions and seismic tremor observed most days this past week. On Wednesday evening at 18:00 AKDT (Thursday 02:00 UTC), seismicity began to increase substantially over the next several hours. This culminated in lava fountaining in the summit crater around 02:00 AKDT on Thursday (10:00 UTC) that was observed in web camera views. Clouds obscured satellite views of this eruptive activity and there were no observations of ash emissions. Seismicity has subsequently returned to a moderately elevated level. Satellite-based radar observations showed that this lava fountaining led to the growth of a cone in the summit crater, significantly refilling the crater. Elevated surface temperatures continue to be observed, consistent with cooling lava.
Collapse of accumulated lava near the summit crater can occur without warning and generate hot mass flows on the upper flanks and small volcanic ash clouds. This type of activity remains a proximal hazard as the deposits collapse occasionally without warning and generate hot flows on the upper flanks and small clouds of volcanic ash.
Shishaldin has had nine periods of explosive eruptive activity resulting in significant ash emissions since July 12. It is unknown how long this eruptive period will last. Previous eruptions of Shishaldin Volcano have lasted weeks to months with repeated cycles of activity similar to those seen since July 12. Before the current activity, the 2019–2020 eruption of Shishaldin was the first to result in lava flows outside the crater area since 1976. Minor eruptions in 2004 and 2014 erupted lava confined to the summit crater. Previous eruptions of Shishaldin have produced ash clouds like those seen during the current eruption, most recently in January 2020. Routine evaluations of satellite, seismic, and infrasound data provide warning of unrest associated with the production of ash clouds. In addition, ashfall forecast models are kept up to date on the public activity page (https://avo.alaska.edu/activity/Shishaldin.php).
Local seismic and infrasound sensors, web cameras, and a geodetic network monitor Shishaldin Volcano. In addition to the local monitoring network, AVO uses nearby geophysical networks, regional infrasound and lightning data, and satellite observations to detect eruptions.
Shishaldin volcano, located near the center of Unimak Island in the eastern Aleutian Islands, is a spectacular symmetric cone with a base diameter of approximately 10 miles (16 km). A 660 ft-wide (200 m) funnel-shaped summit crater typically emits a steam plume and occasional small amounts of ash. Shishaldin is one of the most active volcanoes in the Aleutian volcanic arc, with at least 54 episodes of unrest including over 24 confirmed eruptions since 1775. Most eruptions are relatively small, although the April-May 1999 event generated an ash column that reached 45,000 ft. above sea level.
Slow eruption of lava is continuing at Great Sitkin Volcano. Weakly elevated surface temperatures were observed in satellite images and earthquake activity remained slightly elevated this week. Satellite-based radar observations showed continued growth of the eastern slopes of the summit dome.
The current lava flow at Great Sitkin Volcano began erupting in July 2021. No explosive events have occurred since a single event in May 2021.
The volcano is monitored by local seismic, geodetic, and infrasound sensors, web cameras, regional infrasound and lightning networks, and satellite data.
Great Sitkin Volcano is a basaltic andesite volcano that occupies most of the northern half of Great Sitkin Island, a member of the Andreanof Islands group in the central Aleutian Islands. It is located 26 miles (43 km) east of the community of Adak. The volcano is a composite structure consisting of an older dissected volcano and a younger parasitic cone with a ~1 mile (1.5 km)-diameter summit crater. A steep-sided lava dome, emplaced during the 1974 eruption, occupies the center of the crater. That eruption produced at least one ash cloud that likely exceeded an altitude of 25,000 ft (7.6 km) above sea level. A poorly documented eruption occurred in 1945, also producing a lava dome that was partially destroyed in the 1974 eruption. Within the past 280 years a large explosive eruption produced pyroclastic flows that partially filled the Glacier Creek valley on the southwest flank.
Earthquake activity beneath Trident Volcano continued over the past week, with volcanic-tectonic earthquakes noted most days and a few deep, low-frequency earthquakes observed throughout the week. Occasional earthquakes indicative of sub-surface fluid motion were also observed. New observations of minor ground deformation have been reported over the past week and are consistent with possible magma migration to shallower levels. Views of the volcano in satellite and webcam data were partly to mostly clear and showed nothing indicative of volcanic unrest.
The current period of unrest began with a swarm of earthquakes on August 24, 2022. Earthquake depths at the beginning of the swarm were mainly deep, around 16 miles (25 km) below sea level and became progressively shallower to around 3 miles (5 km) over the following four days. Since late August 2022, most earthquakes have occurred within the shallow crust, with depths less than 4 miles (6 km) below sea level; however, an increasing number of earthquakes have been occurring deeper (greater than 9 miles or 15 km depth).
Starting in May 2023 an increase in low-frequency earthquakes and tremor has been observed—in addition to the regular earthquakes—near Trident Volcano. Such low-frequency events are often associated with the movement of magma or volcano-related fluids within the ground.
Ground uplift at Trident Volcano has also been detected in satellite radar data. Snow cover prohibits winter observations, which limits our ability to provide precise timing, but data from June 3, 2023, indicates that about 2 in (5 cm) of ground uplift has occurred since October 6, 2022. Uplift is most significant on the volcano’s south flank.
Increases in seismic activity have been detected previously at Trident Volcano and other similar volcanoes and did not result in eruptions. We expect additional shallow seismicity and other signs of unrest, such as gas emissions, elevated surface temperatures, and ground movement, to precede any future eruption if one were to occur.
Trident Volcano is monitored by local seismic sensors, web cameras, regional infrasound and lightning networks, and satellite data.
Trident is one of the Katmai group of volcanoes located within Katmai National Park and Preserve on the Alaska Peninsula. Trident consists of a complex of four cones and numerous lava domes, all andesite and dacite in composition, that reach as high as 6,115 ft. (1,864 m) above sea level. An eruption beginning in 1953 constructed the newest cone, Southwest Trident, and four lava flows on the flank of the older complex. This eruption continued through 1974 and produced ash (an initial plume rose to 30,000 ft. or 9 km above sea level), bombs, and lava at various times. Fumaroles remain active on the summit of Southwest Trident and on the southeast flank of the oldest, central cone. Trident is located 92 miles (148 km) southeast of King Salmon and 273 miles (440 km) southwest of Anchorage.
Matt Haney, Scientist-in-Charge, USGS [email protected] (907) 786-7497
David Fee, Coordinating Scientist, UAFGI [email protected] (907) 378-5460
The Alaska Volcano Observatory is a cooperative program of the U.S. Geological Survey, the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, and the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys.
This website is supported by the U.S. Geological Survey under Cooperative Agreement Grant G22AC00137
Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute their endorsement by the U.S. Geological Survey.
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Developments in Ground Bonding Networks
Editor’s Note: In this article, the words “ground,” “grounded” or “grounding” are used interchangeably with “earth,” “earthed,” or “earthing.”
EMC1 for Systems and Installations
As the quantity and variety of electronic equipment used in systems and installations continues to grow, EMC is becoming an increasingly important issue. Almost all my work on systems and installations since 1990 has been involved with items of equipment interfering with the correct operation of other items on the same site.
In 1990, variable speed motor drives using insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) and power field-effect transistors (PowerFETs) for high-speed power switching were very new, as were private mobile radio systems, and they both caused many problems with legacy electronic equipment. Since then, EMC standards and regulations in most countries have considerably improved the emissions and immunity of equipment, but at the same time, variable speed motor drives have constantly improved – by switching faster. Faster switching makes them more efficient, smaller and less costly, with the result that they are being used much more widely. Unfortunately, switching faster causes increased noise emissions at higher frequencies, increasing the possibilities for interfering with other equipment (see Figure 1).
The systems and installations concerned are not just land-based, because all new marine and submarine vessels now use electric motor drive technologies exclusively. They still have huge marine diesel engines, but they drive huge electricity generators rather than being directly connected to propellers. Electric automobiles are already proven in use and a growing industry, of course, and all-electric aircraft are on the drawing board.
Another big technological leap in switching power converters is happening right now: replacing IGBTs and PowerFETs with high electron mobility transitors (HEMTs), usually based on Gallium Nitride, GaN, and with silicon carbide (SiC) PowerFETs, which can switch efficiently at ten times (or more) higher rates, reducing size and cost even more.
This is all good news for improving power efficiency, saving on energy bills while also helping to save the planet by reducing emissions of CO2. But it comes with the big EMC penalty of higher levels of noise emissions at higher frequencies, as Figure 1 illustrates.
Many higher-power switching converters such as variable-speed motor drives are supplied with installation instructions concerning EMC, which are usually quite good. However, my experience (and the experience of others in the EMC world) is that salespeople compete on price by ignoring the EMC installation requirements of new motor drive systems to help win contracts with customers who do not realize the EMI risks.
No one wants to invest in the construction of a new industrial plant, scientific research facility, offshore oil/gas platform, railway system, entertainment complex, data center, military vessel, cruise ship, or whatever, only to find that it cannot function properly due to self-generated EMI! The financial losses can be quite awesome, but even they can be exceeded by the cost of modifying the plant, platform, vessel, etc., to get it to function as intended.
As with all other EMC/EMI issues, it is much more cost-effective and financially less risky to design good EMC in from the beginning of any modern construction project.
Tim Williams and I co-wrote a book on EMC for Systems and Installations in 2000 . It describes buildings and sites, but its material is easily extended to cover vehicles of all/any types, land, marine, subsea, air (fixed wing or rotorcraft), space, etc.
Among many other issues, this book covers the design and construction of the various kinds of (so-called) “earthing/grounding” systems/networks used in large systems and installations, including:
- Bonding networks (BNs)
- Isolated bonding networks (IBNs)
- Common bonding networks (CBNs)
- Meshed bonding networks (MESH-BNs)
- Meshed isolated bonding networks (MESH-IBNs)
- Meshed common bonding networks (MESH-CBNs)
This two-part article provides some background on these “grounding networks” that is not given in the book. It shows how and why, over the last few decades, they have had to develop from their original single-point-grounding schemes for safety, to meshed structures for cost-effectively managing EMC to minimize the costs of lost production and downtime due to EMI, including lightning.
The Protective Equipotential Bonding System
Metal and other conductive structures in buildings and vehicles, including all wiring and cables, can suffer from fault currents caused by insulation failures in their power supply equipment and distribution networks, and from surge transient currents caused by lightning.
As fault or surge transient currents flow through the impedances of these metal structures and other conductors, they create heat and potential differences that could cause burns and electric shock hazards
In flammable or explosive atmospheres, high temperatures could cause fires or explosions, as can the arcs or sparks that can be created when potential differences appear across gaps.
In IEC safety standards terminology, a protective equipotential bonding system is the total conductive structure created by interconnecting all of the “touchable” metal parts that could cause electric shocks to people due to insulation failures or the indirect effects of lightning2 (see Figure 2).
“Touchable” means metal/conductive parts that are within the simultaneous reach of any parts of a person’s body. This includes, for example, equipment cabinets or other conductive structures on either side of a walkway that are close enough to be touched by the fingertips of a person’s left and right hands at the same time.
“Equipotential” is usually considered to mean – for dry environments – that the maximum continuous potential difference is no more than 25VAC rms at the 50Hz or 60Hz mains power frequency, or no more than 60VDC. Higher maximum values may be permitted for short-term potential differences and/or lightning-induced surge transients.
It is important to understand that the above values are general, and the actual values considered safe enough can vary from one standard to another, and from one country to another, and are usually specified at much lower values where environments can be wet or humid or skin could be sweaty, because human skin resistance is lower in such situations.3
It is often forgotten that “touchable” also includes the shells of mating connectors, and shielded cables that extend for many metres effectively extend a person’s reach by the length of the cable! A good friend of mine fell from a very tall ladder when he disconnected an audio cable from a ceiling-mounted amplifier in a theatre and – because one hand was on the amplifier and the other on the disconnected cable’s metal connector – got a severe electric shock. The fall broke his leg, and at that he was very lucky.
The maximum potential differences permitted for “equipotentiality” are achieved by ensuring sufficiently low impedances throughout a protective equipotential bonding system. The series impedance (Z) of a long conductor (well below its first quarter-wavelength resonance) is:
Z = √[R2 + (2πf L)2]
R = series resistance in Ohms
L = series inductance in Henries
f = frequency in Hertz
For 50Hz and 60Hz, the impedance of most practical conductive structures is dominated by the R term in the above equation. However, most of the energy in lightning surge transients lies in the region of the spectrum up to 1MHz, and above a few kHz most conductor’s Zs are dominated by the 2πf L term. So, the series impedances of ordinary conductors (e.g. those used for bonding items of equipment in protective equipotential bonding systems) become predominantly inductive above a few kHz, which is important for lightning protection (and for EMC, see later).
Mains power supplies are always protected by overcurrent protection devices, such as fuses. In the event of an insulation failure to the protective equipotential bonding system the resulting fault currents are so much higher than the normal mains currents that the overcurrent protection operates to remove the power from the conductor with the faulty insulation, generally within 1 second.
Metal structures and conductors in correctly designed, constructed and maintained protective equipotential bonding systems have low-enough resistances not to cause electric shocks. This almost always means that all their constituent parts have sufficient conductor mass and cross-sectional-area (CSA) to ensure that, in the time it takes the overcurrent protection to operate and stop current flowing from the faulty part or conductor, none of their parts will become heated up by enough to burn people’s skin. Usually, the worst-case rise in temperature might just feel to the hand like a slight increase above ambient temperature.4
Indirect lightning surge transient currents could be as high as 10s of kA, but their durations are so short, at a few microseconds, that their heating effect in properly constructed protective equipotential bonding systems is also negligible. However, this is not necessarily the case for Lightning Protection Systems (LPSs).
Where flammable or potentially explosive atmospheres may be present some or all of the time, there are additional requirements for “equipotential bonding” to reduce the maximum potential differences between different metal parts. This is not to reduce electric shock risks, but to reduce the risk of sparking causing fire and explosion hazards. These are not covered here, but they are very well specified in the relevant standards.
For buildings on land, it is usual to connect this interconnected bonding structure to ground electrodes (conductors buried in the soil under and/or around the building) thereby creating a “grounded protective equipotential bonding system.” 5
It is important to understand that grounding (i.e., connecting to ground electrodes) is not always necessary, or desirable to protect against electric shock hazards. For example, even vehicles with on-board 230V AC mains distributions don’t need grounding (in the strict sense of the word) to be safe. And trying to provide them with direct connections to ground electrodes would not be very successful!
In fact, the only reason for connecting a protective equipotential bonding system to the soil under and/or around a building is so that if people are stepping into or out of a building at the same moment as a nearby lightning strike to ground, or to the building, the surge transient voltage that is created between the building and its surroundings (e.g., sidewalks, roads, steps, stairs, gantries, etc.) is not so high as to cause them injury due to electric shock.6
In all non-medical equipment that complies with IEC safety standards for 230VAC rms mains supplies, the mains leads and the mains power converters are both insulated and galvanically isolated to withstand overvoltages caused by lightning surge transients up to at least 3kV rms, 4.24kV peak, repeated for many years. (Medical equipment safety standards generally require higher withstand voltages.)
A long, long time ago, electrical and electronic equipment was just a box on the end of a mains lead. For such equipment, the protective equipotential bonding system, grounded or not according to whether it was fixed or mobile, was sufficient.
However, signal/data cables connecting different items of equipment within an installation can be long, which exposes them to much larger potential differences. When such cables started to be used more often to interconnect items of equipment that were further apart, the cost, size and weight of insulating and isolating them to the same levels as used for mains cables was considered to be too high. So, bonding networks (BNs) were developed.
Unreliability of electronics due to the effects of lightning (within 5km or so!) is, for example, the reason why Ethernet transmitters and receivers always use data-isolating transformers – so that people could easily install Ethernets in legacy buildings which had protective equipotential bonding structures like those shown in Figure 2 (long wires from each piece of metal all the way back to a main bonding or grounding bar). These types of legacy installations suffered from high impedances above a few kHz, making them unable to control the lightning surge transient voltages that could occur between two items of equipment connected by a signal/data cable.7
Bonding Networks (BNs)
This is IEC-speak for a part of a protective equipotential bonding system that uses additional cross-bonding of its conductors and other metalwork to reduce its overall impedance, so that the amplitudes of the high voltage surge transients that can arise between items of equipment that are located far apart, caused by lightning, are low enough to permit the use of affordable insulation/isolation on signal and data cables (typically, half of the peak voltage required for the insulation of mains supplies, and without the mains supply’s requirement for galvanic isolation.)
To achieve a low enough inductive impedance up to 1MHz requires the lengths of the bonding conductors to be less than a metre. This can’t be achieved by relying on the protective conductors in the equipment’s mains leads, because the main bonding (or grounding) bars these conductors eventually connect to are often ten or more metres away, even in a small building like a domestic house. In an office block or industrial plant, the distances can be several tens of metres.
We sometimes see the impedance of conductors at the frequencies associated with lightning events referred to as the “surge impedance.” This is a time-domain concept based on the surge test waveforms created by “combination wave generators” such as those specified by IEC 61000-4-5. Surge impedances are not relevant for EMC at frequencies above a few MHz.
Cross-bonding conductors and other metalwork has a strong effect on reducing the inductive impedances in a BN. To get the best protection for the lowest costs, the cross-bonding conductors should follow the routes (ideally, be strapped to) the signal/data conductors themselves, as shown in Figure 3.
IEC 61000-5-2 calls cross-bonding conductors that follow the routes of the signal/data cables “protective earthing conductors” (PECs), and describes how existing structural metalwork, often called “natural metalwork,” may be used to reduce the costs of implementing them. For example, in industrial and commercial applications, cables are usually supported by metal cable trays and conduits, which can be converted to very effective PECs merely by electrically bonding them together and to the chassis/frames of the different items of equipment whose cables they carry.8
Usually, a BN comprises a single room in a building where there are signal/data cables that need protecting because of the electronic equipment contained in that room. Where there are two or more individual BNs they are interconnected, at least by individual connections to the main bonding bar, as shown in Figure 3. (If the main bonding bar is used to connect the BNs directly to ground electrodes buried in the soil under and/or around the building, it is called a “main grounding bar.”)
A question that always arises is whether the cross-bonding conductors have to be rated to carry the full fault currents that can arise due to insulation failures in the 50 or 60Hz mains power supplies and distribution networks. The answer is that, in cases in which a protective equipotential bonding system complies with modern safety requirements (and is maintained so as to ensure continual compliance) so that during such faults, it does not overheat sufficiently to suffer damage including to any insulation, then cross-bonding will not have to be rated to carry mains fault currents. Even cable shields electrically bonded at both ends (the only way to make them shield properly at RF, see , ) should not be damaged by a mains fault in a correctly-bonded protective safety system.
However, many legacy protective equipotential bonding systems might not meet modern safety requirements without extensive and costly modifications, and some owners or users of older buildings are known to use a “there is no evidence of a problem” approach to avoid such costs.
When asked to work for such an owner or user, I strongly recommend turning down the work unless you are allowed (and paid!) to do a “proper job” safety-wise. Never underestimate the ability of legal counsel to pin the blame for a costly or lethal fire or electrocution on anyone other than their client, even going against common sense that “everyone knows.”9
Over time, systems have grown larger, variable speed drives have become larger and more common, and systems-of systems are now being created, meaning that signal/data cables have to span two or more BNs (e.g., computer networks, lighting control systems, air-conditioning systems, etc.). These BNs therefore have to be cross-bonded together to create larger BNs, ultimately cross-bonding the whole building and creating a common bonding network, or CBN.
But CBNs can be costly to retrofit to legacy buildings or vehicles, so the BN concept was developed to create the IBN – isolated bonding network. We’ll discuss that in Part 2 of this article.
- EMC = Electromagnetic Compatibility, the engineering discipline of ensuring that: a) electromagnetic emissions are low enough for radio/telecommunications and other electronic equipment to function as intended without suffering from unacceptable electromagnetic interference (EMI); and that, b) the electromagnetic immunity of equipment is sufficient for it to function as intended in the electromagnetic environment expected to be present where it is used. Note: EMC standards and legislation are not concerned with any safety issues, despite the fact that EMI can be a cause of functional safety risks. For a number of articles on this topic, visit https://www.emcstandards.co.uk/emiemc-risk-management.
- Protection from the direct effects of lightning to buildings themselves and the people and equipment within them, is provided by a Lightning Protection System (LPS), e.g. as specified in the four parts of IEC 62305. An LPS is a different structure from a Protective Equipotential Bonding System, although the two structures are usually connected together at one or more points. LPSs generally are designed to withstand surge transient currents of the order of 100kA – 200kA and are not covered any further in this article, but see Chapter 9 in for information on Part 4 of IEC 62305, which deals with protecting electronic equipment rather than people and is relevant for the design of Protective Equipotential Bonding Systems.
- 25VAC rms and 60VDC are both far higher than what would be understood as “equipotential” by electronic engineers, showing one of the dangers of misusing safety terminology in other applications. To help avoid costly confusion in projects, I always recommend only using the word “equipotential” for issues relating to personnel safety from electric shock, and never for anything to do with electrical or electronic circuits, or EMC.
- However, there are some power supply systems for which this might not be true, and for which the temperature rise in the protective equipotential bonding system might need to be controlled to prevent burns, such as in installations that use large superconducting magnets. Large grid-storage batteries are another modern concern.
- Regular readers of my blogs , or people who have attended my training courses are used to me banging on about the very costly confusion caused by the misuse of the words ground, grounded, grounding, etc. Strictly speaking, they should only ever be used for conductors that connect directly to the body of the planet by being buried in the soil. But people use them indiscriminately, e.g., they talk about “grounding” an electrical circuit in a cellphone; or about “safety grounding systems” in cars and aircraft, when none of these examples has anything to do with the soil, or any need to be grounded (in the strict sense) for either correct circuit operation or safety. I’m not the only one who complains about the misuse of terminology associated with “ground.” Check out “The Ground Myth” by Dr. Bruce Archambeault of IBM, especially slide 37 for a good laugh.
- This reminds us to be careful when stepping into or out of vehicles during thunderstorms! The best method is to jump in, or out, with both feet at once, keeping both hands and arms tight in against our sides. However, I should mention that an alternative method – simply trusting to luck that lightning won’t strike the vehicle or near to it while getting in or out – is preferred by most people. Can’t think why!
- Telephone landlines are a special case because they do pick up lethal kV surge transients from lightning due to their very long lengths exposed outside of buildings. Telephone systems providers learned very early on to provide suitable protection, at the point where their landline entered/exited a building, because killing off your customers and/or setting fire to their houses is not good business sense.
- I really wish they hadn’t called them protective earthing conductors, because their protective function works just as well whether they eventually connect to earth electrodes or not. They should really have been called “protective bonding conductors” (PBCs), or “supplementary bonding conductors” (SBCs). IEC 61000-5-2 is a truly excellent document in every way – a total game-changer in the 1990s (that most system integrators and installers still don’t seem to know about) – except that it uses the words “earthed” and “earthing” when it really means “bonded” and “bonding.” See my little rant earlier about the costly confusions still being caused by this age-old mistake.
- It seems that even Ohm’s Law can be a matter for juries (who are almost always non-technical people) to decide upon!
- EMC for Systems and Installations, Tim Williams and Keith Armstrong, Newnes 2000, 0-7506-4167-3.
The practical material in the book is also available in a series of articles in 2000, two free guidebooks posted here and here, and the up-to-date training course.
- Keith’s blog
- IEC 61000-5-2:1997, “Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) – Part 5: Installation and mitigation guidelines – Section 2: Earthing and cabling,” from the BSI and IEC web shops.
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This activity investigates how you might make squares and pentominoes from Polydron.
If you had 36 cubes, what different cuboids could you make?
How can you put five cereal packets together to make different
shapes if you must put them face-to-face?
Lolla bought a balloon at the circus. She gave the clown six
coins to pay for it.
What could Lolla have paid for the balloon?
Which of your answers seems a reasonable amount to pay for a
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Below is an excerpt from “Silla Korea and the Silk Road: Golden Threads Golden Age”:
Ayaha-gu Ikeda Shrine
Ayaha-gu Ikeda Shrine located in Ikeda City, Osaka Prefecture, Japan, enshrines Ayaha and Kureta, two sisters who came from Koguryo in 306 CE, planted mulberry trees and raised silkworms. They spread the cultivation of silkworm and weaving techniques in Japan.
Ayaha-gu Ikeda Shrine Brief History. [Souvenir booklet from the shrine. No additional biblio- graphical data available.]
Silk weaving in Japan
The Hata, one of the most famous [Korean] peninsular families to make Japan their home in the ancient period, “presented thread and silk cloth as tribute, and when the emperor donned the clothes they were soft and warm to the skin.” The name Hata appears on a tapestry made for Prince Shotoku now kept at Horyu-ji, suggesting that the Hata might have specialized in weaving techniques.
William Wayne Farris, Sacred Texts and Buried Treasures: Issues in the Historical Archaeology of Ancient Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1998), 97.
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Translation of Sahih Muslim, Book 11:
The Book Pertaining to the Rules of Inheritance (Kitab Al-Farai`d)
Inheritance is the entry of living persons into possession of dead persons' property and exists in some form wherever the institution of private property is recognised as the basis of the social and economic system. The actual forms of inheritance and the laws governing it, however, differ according to the ideals of different societies.
The law of inheritance in Islam is based upon five main considerations:
To break up the concentration of wealth in individuals and spread it out in society.
To respect the property right of ownership of an individual earned through honest means.
To hammer in the consciousness of man the fact that man is not the absolute master of wealth he produces but he is its trustee and is not, therefore, authorised to pass it on to others as he likes.
To consolidate the family system which is the social unit of an Islamic society.
To give incentive to work and encourage economic activity as sanctioned by Islam.
In the pre-Islamic world and even in modern societies the law of inheritance has so many evils in it, which may be summed up in the following points:
Women had been completely denied the share of inheritance. They were rather regarded as part of the property of the deceased and, therefore, their right to property by inheritance was out of question.
In pre-Islamic Arabia and other countries where there had been tribal societies not only women were deprived of the right of inheritance but even weak and sick persons and minor children were given no share in it, as the common principle of inheritance was that he alone is entitled to inherit who wields the sword.
Then in certain societies there had been existing the law of primogeniture and it exists even today in some of the so-called civilised parts of the world which entitles only the eldest son to inherit the whole of the father's property or to get the lion's share.
Islam introduced so many reforms in the laws of inheritance which can be succinctly summed up as follows.
It defined and determined in clear-cut terms the share of each inheritor and imposed limits on the right of the property-owner to dispose of his property according to his whim and caprice.
It made the female, who had been prevously thought a chattel, the co-sharer with the male and thus not only restored her dignity, but safeguarded her social and economic rights.
It laid the rules for the break-up of the concentrated wealth in the society and helped in its proper and equitable distribution amongst a large number of persons.
It gave a death-blow to the law of primogeniture and thus provided the democratic basis for the division of the property of the deceased.
The above are some of the distinguishing features of the Islamic law of inheritance. While laying down the rules for the distribution of the estate of the deceased, the first principle to be observed is that the property both movable and immovable can be distributed after meeting the following obligations:
clearing off the debts incurred by the deceased;
payment of bequest, if any, to the extent of one-third of the total assets. It may be remembered that the Mahr of the wife, if it had not been paid, is included in the debt. Moreover, it is not lawful to make a bequest in favour of a person who is entitled to a share in the inheritance.
Four persons cannot get inheritance:
(a) a fugitive slave who has fled away from his master,
(b) one who has murdered one's predecessor intentionally or unintentionaly
(c) one who professes a religion other than Islam,
(d) one living in Dar-ul-Harb cannot inherit the property of one living in Dar-ul-Islam and vice versa.
According to Islam, the heirs have been divided into three classes.
(A) Dhaw-u'l-Fara'id are those persons who have a right to definite shares in assets left by the deceased. These sharers are twelve in number; four males: father, grandfather, uterine brothers and husband; and eight females: wife, single daughter, son's daughter, mother, grandmother, full sister, consanguine sister, uterine sister.
Father's share is one-sixth when the deceased leaves a son or a son's son, but if the deceased is not survived by a son or grandson his father will, in addition to this share (one-sixth), also get a share of being 'Asaba.
The grandfather's share is like that of father's share but in three conditions:
According to Imam Bukhiri and Imam Muslim, the presence of father deprives even the brothers of their share in the inheritance. but this is not the case with the grandfather. Imam Abu Hanifa is of the opinion that the presence of grandfather deprives the brother of his share in the inheritance.
If the father of the deceased is alive, then the share of the mother is of what is left from the share of the wife of the deceased. The presence of grandfather does not reduce the share of the mother of the deceased.
The grandmother of the deceased has no share in the presence of the father of the deceased but she has a share in the presence of the grandfather.
The third set of sharers are uterine brothers and sisters. They are entitled to one-sixth if their number is one, and one-third if they are more than one.
The husband's share is one-half of the property of the deceased wife if she has no children, but in case of children it is one-fourth.
The wife is entitled to one-fourth if the husband dies childless; otherwise it is one-eighth.
Real daughter: one-half when alone, and two-thirds if more than one. If the deceased is survived by a male child also. the daughters are then treated as Asaba and the male child would get double of what falls to the lot of daughters. The granddaughters stand on the same level as daughters. But in case the deceased is survived by one real daughter and one or more than one granddaughter they would get one-sixth. The granddaughter is not entitled to any share if the deceased is survived by a son, but if he is survived by grandsons and granddaughters, they would be treated as 'Asaba and the male grandchild would get double of what goes to the female grandchild.
Full sister gets one-half if she is alone, and two-thirds if they are more than one.
Consanguine sister is entitled to one-half if one, and two thirds if more.
Mother is entitled to one-sixth when she has a child or grandchild, and in case of being childless she gets one-third of the share.
If the deceased is survived either by paternal grandmother or maternal grand- mother or even by both, they are entitled to one-sixth. The grandmother (maternal) is deprived of her share if the mother of the deceased is alive; and if father is alive the paternal grandmother is deprived of this share.
(B) When the heirs of the first group have received the respective shares, the residue of the assets falls to the share of those relatives who are called Asaba which, according to the Shari'ah, implies those relatives in whose line of relationship no female enters. This is the second group of inheritors.
There is no fixed share of the 'Asabat. If the deceased is not survived by any Dhaw-u'l-Fara'id, the whole of the property falls to their share; and If Dhaw-u'I. Fara'id are there to get their due share, the residue will be taken by the Asabat. The following are the 'Asabat:
Son: He is the first to get the residue in order of succession. The daughters are entitled to half of the share as given to the son. The grandsons are not entitled to any share in the presence of the son. If the son is not living, then the grandson is entitled to a share in the inheritance. If there are more than one son, the inheritance will be distributed equally amongst them.
The father, grandfather and the great-grandfather are included in the category of Dhaw-u'l-Fara'id. If, however, the deceased is not survived by category of a son, grandson of great-grandson, then the father will fall under the category of 'Asaba, and, in the absence of the father, the grandfather assumes that position.
If the deceased is not survived by son, or grandson or father or grandfather, i. e. none amongst the 'Asabat, then the brother, and in the absence of brother his son, and in the absence of son, his grandson will be entitled to share in the inheritance as 'Asaba and the female would also join them in share claiming half of the share as compared with male.
If unfortunately the deceased is survived by none of the above-mentioned relatives amongst the 'Asabat, then consanguine brother will be entitled to share in the inheritance and he will be preferred to full brother's son.
Then comes the turn of full paternal uncle.
(C) The last category of inheritors are known ad Dhaw-u'l Arham, i. e. relations connected through females, but it is in extremely rare cases that they get any share in the inheritance. The following relatives come under this category.
The son of the daughter and daughter of the daughter.
The son of the daughter of the son, and daughter of the daughter of the son and their children.
Maternal grandfather, maternal grandfather of the father, the grandfather of the mother, maternal grandfather of the mother, the grandmother of the mother, the children of the sisters, the sisters of the father and those of the mother, etc.
Chapter 1: GIVE THE INHERITANCE TO THOSE ENTITLED TO IT
Book 011, Number 3928:
Usama b. Zaid reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: A Muslim is not entitled to inherit from a non-Muslim, and a non-Muslim is not entitled to inherit from a Muslim.
Book 011, Number 3929:
Ibn Abbas (Allah be pleased with them) reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: Give the shares to those who are entitled to them, and what remains over goes to the nearest male heir.
Book 011, Number 3930:
Ibn 'Abbas (Allah be pleased with them) reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: Give the shares to those who are entitled to them, and what is left from those wno are entitled to it goes to the nearest male heir.
Book 011, Number 3931:
Tawus reported on the authority of his father Ibn Abbas (Allah be pleased with them) narrating that Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: Distribute the property amongst Ahl al-Fara'id, according to the Book of Allah, and what is left out of them goes to the nearest male heir.
Chapter 2: THE LAW OF INHERITANCE IN REGARD TO AL-KALALA (THE PERSON WHO DIES LEAVING NO CHILD OR PARENT)
Book 011, Number 3932:
Jabir b. 'Abdullah (Allah be pleased with them) reported: I fell sick and there came to me on foot Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) and Abu Bakr for inquiring after my health. I fainted. He (the Holy Prophet) performed ablution and then sprinkled over me the water of his ablution. I felt some relief and said: Allah's Messenger, how should I decide about my property? He said nothing to me in response until this verse pertaining to the law of inheritance was revealed:" They ask you for a decision; say: Allah gives you a decision concerning the person who has neither parents nor children" (iv. 177).
Book 011, Number 3933:
Jabir b. 'Abdullah (Allah be pleased with him) reported: Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) and Abi Bakr (Allah be pleased with him) visited me on foot in Banu Salama, and found me unconscious. He (the Holy Prophet) called for water and performed ablution and sprinkled out of it (the water) over me. I felt relieved. I said: Allah's Messenger, what should I do with my property? And this verse was revealed:" Allah enjoins you concerning your children: for the male is equal of the portion of two females."
Book 011, Number 3934:
Jabir b. 'Abdullah (Allah be pleased with them) reported: While I had been ill Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) visited me and Abu akr (Allah be pleased with him) was with him, and they both came walking on foot. He (the Holy Prophet) found me unconscious. Allahs Messenger (may peace be upon him) performed ablution and then sprinkled over me the water of his ablution. I felt relieved regained my consciousness) and found Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) there. I said: Allah's Messenger, what should I do with my property? He gave me no reply until the verse (iv. 177) relating to the law of inheritance was revealed.
Book 011, Number 3935:
Jabir b. Abdullah (Allah be pleased with him) reported: Whilo I was ill Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) came to me and found me unconscious. He (the Holy Prophet) performed ablution, and sprinkled over me the water of his ablution. I regained my consciousness and said: Allah's Messenger, my case of inheritance is that of Kalala. Then the verse pertaining to the inheritance ( of Kalala) was revealed. I (one of the narrators) said: I said to Muhammad b. Munkadir: (Do you mean this verse)" They ask you; say: Allah gives you decision in regard to Kalala" (iv. 177)? He said: Yes, it was thus revealed.
Book 011, Number 3936:
This hadith is transmitted on the authority of Shu'ba but with a slight variation of words.
Book 011, Number 3937:
Abu Talha reported: 'Umar b. al-Khattab (Allah be pleased with him) delivered a sermon on Friday and made a mention of Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) and he also made a mention of Abu Bakr (Allah be pleased with him) and then said: I do not leave behind me any problem more difficult than that of Kalala. I did not refer to Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) more repeatedly than in case of the problem of Kalala, and he (the Holy Prophet) never showed more annoyance to me than in regard to this problem, so much so that he struck my chest with his fingers and said: 'Umar, does the verse revealed in summer season, at the end of Sura al-Nisa' not suffice you? Hadrat 'Umar (then) said: If I live I would give such verdict about (Kalala) that everyone would be able to decide whether he reads the Qur'an or he does not.
Book 011, Number 3938:
This hadith has been narrated on the authority of Qatada with the same chain of transmitters.
Chapter 3: THE LAST VERSE REVEALED WAS THAT PERTAINING TO KALALA
Book 011, Number 3939:
Al-Bara' (Allah be pleased with him) reported that the last verse revealed in the Holy Qur'an is:" They ask thee for a religious verdict; say: Allah gives you a religious verdict about Kalala (the person who has neither parents nor children)" (iv 177).
Book 011, Number 3940:
Abu Ishaq said that he heard al-Bara' b. 'Azib (Allah be pleased with him say: The last verse revealed (in the Holy Quran) is that pertaining to Kalala, and the last sura revealed is Sura al-Bara'at.
Book 011, Number 3941:
Abu Ishaq said that he heard al-Bara' b. 'Azib (Allah be pleased with him) say: The last complete sura revealed (in the Holy Qur'an) is Sura Tauba (i e. al-Bara'at, ix.), and the last verse revealed is that pertaining to Kalala.
Book 011, Number 3942:
Aba Ishaq reported this hadith on the authority of al-Bara' (Allah be pleased with him) with a slight variation of words, viz. the last sura that was revealed complete.
Book 011, Number 3943:
Al-Bara' (Allah be pleased with him) reported that the last verse revealed was:" They ask of thee religious verdict.." (iv. 177).
Chapter 4: HE WHO LEAVES BEHIND PROPERTY, THAT IS FOR THE HEIRS
Book 011, Number 3944:
Abu Huraira (Allah be pleased with him) reported that when the body of a dead person having burden of debt upon him was brought to Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) he would ask whether he had left property enough to clear off his debt, and if the property left had been sufficient for that (purpose), he observed funeral prayer for him, otherwise he said (to his companions): You observe prayer for your companion. But when Allah opened the gateways of victory for him, he said: I am nearer to the believers than themselves, so if anyone dies leaving a debt, its payment is my responsibility, and if anyone leaves a property, it goes to his heirs.
Book 011, Number 3945:
This hadith has been narrated on the authority of al-Zuhri through another chain of transmitters.
Book 011, Number 3946:
Abn Huraira (Allah be pleased with him) reported Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) having said this: By Him in Whose Hand is the life of Muhammad, there is no believer on the earth with whom I am not the nearest among all the people. He who amongst you (dies) and leaves a debt, I am there to pay it, and he who amongst you (dies) leaving behind children I am there to look after them. And he who amongst You leaves behind property, that is for the inheritor whoever he is.
Book 011, Number 3947:
Hammam b. Munabbih reported: This is what Abu Huraira (Allah be pleased with him) narratted to us from Allah's Messenger (may peace he upon him). And he narrated many ahadith, and one was this: Allali's Messenger (may peace be upon him said: I am, according to the Book of Allah, the Exalted and Majestic, nearest to the believers of all the human beings. So whoever amongst you dies in debt or leaves behind destitute children, you should call me (for help) ), for I am his guardian. And who amongst you leaves property, his inheritor is entitled to get it, whoever he is.
Book 011, Number 3948:
Abu Huraira (Allah be pleased with him) reported Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) as saying: He who leaves property, that is for the inheritors; and he who leaves behind destitute children, then it is my responsibility (to look after them). This hadith has been narrated on the authority of Shu'ba with the same chain of transmitters.
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Volume 23, Number 8—August 2017
Density-Dependent Prevalence of Francisella tularensis in Fluctuating Vole Populations, Northwestern Spain
Emerging infectious zoonotic diseases are increasing worldwide, and most zoonoses are linked to wildlife (1,2). Thus, quantifying disease prevalence in potential wildlife hosts is critical to understanding the outbreak dynamics of zoonoses (3). Tularemia, which is caused by Francisella tularensis, is a problematic zoonotic disease worldwide, but its ecology remains poorly understood. This pathogen is classified by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a class A bio-threat agent (F. tularensis subsp. holarctica in Europe) because only a few bacteria are needed to induce tularemia in humans or susceptible animal species (>250 hosts described) (4). However, the relative epidemiologic roles (i.e., reservoir, spillover, and amplification agents) for different hosts are uncertain.
A major hotspot for tularemia in Europe is northwestern Spain (Castilla and León region), where the largest recent outbreaks of the disease have been recorded (>1,000 officially confirmed human cases during 1997–1998 and 2007–2008) (5). In intensive farmlands in Europe, rodents and lagomorphs are the main putative mammalian hosts (5,6), but most studies addressing the epidemiologic roles of these species have been correlative or used opportunistic sampling.
A recent study suggests that common voles (Microtus arvalis) are a key agent for human tularemia in northwestern Spain because of a spatial and temporal coincidence between human tularemia cases and increases in number of voles (5). Voles periodically fluctuate in density and can reach high numbers during specific periods in farming areas (5). Dead voles infected with F. tularensis subsp. holarctica have been reported in northwestern Spain during massive decreases in vole populations (7). If, as hypothesized (5), common voles are a key amplifying and spillover agent for tularemia in intensive farming areas in northwestern Spain, we should expect an increased prevalence of tularemia in voles as their numbers increase. Thus, it is crucial to empirically evaluate whether such a density-dependent pattern occurs in natural populations.
We obtained samples from live voles periodically collected during population increases (2013–2015) in northwestern Spain. Our goal was to determine how prevalence of F. tularensis in common voles varies with population density.
We complied with all necessary licenses and permits for conducting this study. During 2013–2015, a common vole population fluctuation, which peaked in 2014, was observed in agricultural areas of Castilla and León, Spain (8). This increase in vole numbers was moderate (in terms of peak density) compared with previous increases when tularemia outbreaks among humans were reported (1997–1998 and 2007–2008) by the National Network of Epidemiologic Surveillance of Spain (5,8). In 2014, no outbreak of tularemia was reported. However, there was a higher-than-average number of identified cases of tularemia (n = 95) among humans in the area (the regional average is 3 [range 0–11] cases/y, excluding outbreak years) (5).
To monitor vole abundance during the complete population fluctuation, we sampled 80 km2 of farmland in Palencia Province, Spain (42°1′N, 4°42′W), where human tularemia cases have been reported (5,8). We live-trapped voles seasonally (every 4 months) during March 2013–March 2015. Our vole trapping effort was constant (840 traps set for 24 h/seasonal sampling), and our sampling design was spatially stratified (we obtained random samples from 8 alfalfas fields, 8 grain fields, and 8 fallow fields at each seasonal sampling). Vole abundance was estimated as the number of captures/100 traps/24 h in each season. Trapping was extractive, and animals were brought alive to our laboratory in rodent cages provided with food, water, and bedding immediately after their capture. Voles were euthanized by using CO2. Carcasses were individually frozen at −30°C.
We extracted DNA from a homogenized mixture of liver and spleen (≈25 mg). DNA was extracted by using standard procedures (QIAamp DNA Mini Kit; QIAGEN, Valencia, CA, USA). A phylogenetically informative region of the lipoprotein A (lpnA) gene (231 bp) was amplified by conventional PCR and hybridized with specific probes by reverse-line blotting as described (9). We tested positive samples by using a real-time multitarget TaqMan PCR and tul4 and ISFtu2 assays (10). Negative controls for PCR and DNA extraction were included in each group of samples processed. We used R 3.2.4 software (https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-announce/2016/000597.html) for statistical analyses.
We tested 243 live voles and found an average prevalence of F. tularensis of 20.16%. Prevalence greatly varied between samplings (range 0%–33%) and was strongly related to vole abundance (generalized linear model, χ2= 21.64, df = 1, p<0.001) with a direct and positive density-dependent association (Figure). The predicted odds of tularemia infection increased by 1.037 (95% CI 1.021–1.056) when vole density increased by +1 captured vole/100 traps/24 h (range during the study 1–60 voles/100 traps/24 h). During the vole population peak in July 2014, a total of 34 (33%) of 102 sampled live voles were infected with F. tularensis.
We report a direct and positive density-dependent association between prevalence of F. tularensis in common voles and their abundance in agricultural landscapes. These findings are consistent with vole-to-vole transmission and amplification of the bacterium as vole density increases. Voles experimentally infected with F. tularensis die within a few days after rapid acute infection and generally show high bacterial loads in organs (11). Thus, transmission between voles might involve direct contact, cannibalism, or contamination of the environment. In our study, all voles tested were alive and free of obvious signs of disease when captured, which implied that prevalence could be higher than what we estimated if moribund voles were less trappable and underrepresented in trapped animals.
The role that exogenous sources (i.e., other animals, environmental sources) might play in modulating infection prevalence among vole populations still needs to be clarified. Notwithstanding and irrespective of the precise mechanism(s) of transmission, our results support the hypothesis that exponential growth of common vole populations is crucial for amplification of tularemia transmission in farmlands, and that increases in vole populations are linked to periodic emergence of human cases of tularemia in Spain (5). Vole density can reach >1,000 voles/hectare (i.e., >300 tularemia-infected voles/hectare) during outbreaks, potentially leading to contamination of the environment and other wildlife, including harvestable species, such as crayfish and hares, which have higher contact rates with humans than voles (5).
Tularemia is probably not completely enzootic in vole populations because we did not detect F. tularensis at low densities of voles, which suggests involvement of animal or environmental reservoirs. A key unknown facet of the ecologic cycle of F. tularensis is where does it persist between epizootic periods (5,6). There is no evidence for F. tularensis replication in arthropods. However, ticks might be a reservoir of this pathogen because they have life-long infections. Thus, mammalian populations are probably needed to amplify tularemia in the environment (11).
Characteristic spatial and social behaviors of voles, including increased contact rates, aggression, and wounding, during massive population increases readily account for amplification of disease transmission rates and spread (5,12). Although reservoir and vector hosts of F. tularensis at variable densities can play major roles in the ecologic cycle of tularemia in different ecosystems, there appears to be a common link between tularemia outbreaks and rodent population fluctuations across Europe (5,6,11,13).
Common voles are useful for surveillance of tularemia, and strategic prevention programs should incorporate their temporal fluctuations in planned preventive actions. Because vole numbers seem to modulate the risk for disease exposure in humans, monitoring vole population dynamics can help anticipate and increase awareness of the risk for tularemia in rural areas of Spain.
Ms. Rodríguez-Pastor is a biologist and doctoral candidate in the Department of Agroforestry Sciences, University of Valladolid, Palencia, Spain. Her primary research interests are ecology of zoonoses and disease dynamics in animal populations.
J.J.L.L., F.M., and R.R.P. held official licenses for trapping wildlife in Spain. Capture permits were provided by the Dirección General del Medio Natural, Junta de Castilla y León.
This study was supported by projects ECOVOLE (grant CGL2012-35348), ECOTULA (grant CGL2015-66962-C2-1-R), and RESERTULA (grant CLG2015-66962-C2-2-R), which were funded by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad MINECO/FEDER, Spain. R.R.P. was supported by a PhD studentship from the University of Valladolid (co-funded by Banco Santander).
- Karesh WB, Dobson A, Lloyd-Smith JO, Lubroth J, Dixon MA, Bennett M, et al. Ecology of zoonoses: natural and unnatural histories. Lancet. 2012;380:1936–45.
- Han BA, Schmidt JP, Bowden SE, Drake JM. Rodent reservoirs of future zoonotic diseases. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015;112:7039–44.
- Walton L, Marion G, Davidson RS, White PCL, Smith LA, Gavier-Widen D, et al. The ecology of wildlife disease surveillance: demographic and prevalence fluctuations undermine surveillance. J Appl Ecol. 2016;53:1460–9.
- World Health Organization. Guidelines on tularaemia. Geneva: The Organization; 2007 [cited 2017 May 3]. http://www.who.int/iris/handle/10665/43793
- Luque-Larena JJ, Mougeot F, Roig DV, Lambin X, Rodríguez-Pastor R, Rodríguez-Valín E, et al. Tularemia outbreaks and common vole (Microtus arvalis) irruptive population dynamics in northwestern Spain, 1997–2014. Vector Borne Zoonotic Dis. 2015;15:568–70.
- Gyuranecz M, Reiczigel J, Krisztalovics K, Monse L, Szabóné GK, Szilágyi A, et al. Factors influencing emergence of tularemia, Hungary, 1984-2010.Emerg Infect Dis. 2012;18:1379–81.
- Vidal D, Alzaga V, Luque-Larena JJ, Mateo R, Arroyo L, Viñuela J. Possible interaction between a rodenticide treatment and a pathogen in common vole (Microtus arvalis) during a population peak. Sci Total Environ. 2009;408:267–71.
- Luque-Larena JJ, Mougeot F, Viñuela J, Jareño D, Arroyo L, Lambin X, et al. Recent large-scale range expansion and outbreaks of the common vole (Microtus arvalis) in NW Spain. Basic Appl Ecol. 2013;14:432–41.
- Escudero R, Toledo A, Gil H, Kovácsová K, Rodríguez-Vargas M, Jado I, et al. Molecular method for discrimination between Francisella tularensis and Francisella-like endosymbionts. J Clin Microbiol. 2008;46:3139–43.
- Versage JL, Severin DD, Chu MC, Petersen JM. Development of a multitarget real-time TaqMan PCR assay for enhanced detection of Francisella tularensis in complex specimens. J Clin Microbiol. 2003;41:5492–9.
- Rossow H, Forbes KM, Tarkka E, Kinnunen PM, Hemmilä H, Huitu O, et al. Experimental Infection of voles with Francisella tularensis indicates their amplification role in tularemia outbreaks. PLoS One. 2014;9:e108864.
- Ostfeld RS, Mills JN. Social behavior, demography, and rodent-borne pathogens. In: Wolff JO, Sherman PW, editors. Rodent societies: an ecological and evolutionary perspective. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 2007. p. 478–86.
- Rossow H, Ollgren J, Hytönen J, Rissanen H, Huitu O, Henttonen H, et al. Incidence and seroprevalence of tularaemia in Finland, 1995 to 2013: regional epidemics with cyclic pattern. Euro Surveill. 2015;20:21209.
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Senior author Francesca Dominici, professor of biostatistics and associate dean of information technology at Harvard School of Public Health and colleagues at the Boston University School of Public Health found, on average, zip codes with 10-decibel higher aircraft noise had a 3.5 percent higher cardiovascular hospital admission rate.
"It was surprising to find that living close to an airport, and therefore being exposed to aircraft noise, can adversely affect your cardiovascular health, even beyond exposure to air pollution and traffic noise," Dominici said in a statement.
Dominici and colleagues analyzed the relationship between noise from 89 U.S. airports and cardiovascular-related hospitalizations among approximately 6 million study participants in 2009 using data from Medicare, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Census.
In their analysis, the researchers factored in socioeconomic status, demographic factors, air pollution and roadway proximity.
The study, published in the British Medical Journal, found the highest levels of aircraft noise had the strongest association with cardiovascular disease hospitalizations. Overall, 2.3 percent of hospitalizations for cardiovascular disease among older people living near airports were attributable to aircraft noise, the study said.
The researchers speculated that since any loud noise is a stressor and the stress reaction and an increase in blood pressure -- risk factors for heart disease -- might account for the increase cardiovascular disease for older adult living near an airport.
Ray Liotta sues skin care company over use of likeness
Aaron Carter is still in love with Hilary Duff
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A tractor clutch kit is a set of components designed to engage and disengage the tractor’s power transmission system, allowing the tractor to start, stop, and change gears smoothly. The clutch plays a crucial role in the operation of a tractor and its various functions include:
Engaging and Disengaging Power: The primary function of a tractor clutch is to engage or disengage the engine’s power from the transmission. When the clutch is engaged (pedal released), power is transmitted from the engine to the transmission, allowing the tractor to move. When the clutch is disengaged (pedal pressed), power transmission is interrupted, allowing the tractor to stop or change gears.
Smooth Gear Changes: Clutches enable smooth gear changes by disconnecting the power flow momentarily when shifting gears. This prevents gear grinding and damage to the transmission components.
Controlled Acceleration and Deceleration: The clutch allows the tractor operator to control acceleration and deceleration by modulating the power transfer. Partially engaging the clutch allows for gradual acceleration, while fully disengaging it leads to deceleration and stopping.
Power Take-Off (PTO) Control: Many tractors have a PTO system for driving various implements such as mowers, balers, and generators. The clutch can be used to engage or disengage the PTO, allowing the operator to control when the implement is powered.
Reducing Wear and Tear: Proper use of the clutch helps reduce wear and tear on the tractor’s transmission components, including gears and bearings. Engaging the clutch smoothly during gear changes minimizes stress on these parts.
Safety: The clutch pedal serves as a safety feature. In an emergency or dangerous situation, pressing the clutch pedal disengages the power from the wheels, allowing the tractor to coast to a stop without the engine’s power.
Controlled Maneuverability: The clutch is essential for precise maneuverability when operating attachments or implements that require fine control, such as loaders or backhoes.
Synchronization with Load: When towing or pulling heavy loads, the clutch allows the operator to synchronize the tractor’s power delivery with the load’s requirements. This prevents excessive strain on the engine and transmission.
For more detailed information about the functions of the tractor clutch kit, please click to visit: https://www.syclutch.com/news/tractor-clutch-kit-function.html
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Posted 2 February 2009
Over the next few weeks, groups across the UK will be raising awareness of the huge negative impact our universities, colleges and schools are having on the climate.
Universities, colleges and schools emit 12.3 million tonnes of CO2 every year, not including the millions more emitted by people travelling to and from these institutions.
Harper Adams is ready to play its part, with an impressive line-up of events organised by the students’ Environmental Conservational and Sustainability Society for the week of March 2-6. The ECSS students are passionate about improving our world, and want to help Harper Adams become a greener place.
'Go Green Week' activities include:
Monday - Transport
* Free breakfast for staff and students who cycle in to college
* "Ditch the car" campaign
* Bike Maintenance & Road Safety advice
* Lunchtime bike trail
Tuesday - Energy
* Advice on how to save energy & cut energy costs
* "Switch it off" campaign
Wednesday - Food
* Advice on growing your own fruit and veg
* Bike powered smoothie maker – have a go!
* Green Curry lunches and dinners
* "Love Food, Hate Waste" campaign
* Promotion of Fair Trade and Local Food Sourcing
* “Green” cake competition
Thursday - The 3 Rs - Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
* Second hand book stall
* Waste Demonstration
Friday - Sustainability
* Renewable Technologies Walking Tour
* Sustainable Developments information
Help your University College be 'green' and support 'Go Green Week'. For more information contact Karen Hughes on 01952 815330
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- When you place thin-lined rectangle outside of an object, the line can be even thinner or not be printed at all.
This is because Illustrator clips (cuts) the size of entire object by rounding off decimal places when making EPS saving.
Choose either solution 1 or solution 2 below to fix the problem.
1. Place dummy object outside of the image, and make EPS saving.
2. Select slightly bigger page size at printer driver output (Go to [File] -> [Print]).
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A P R I L 1 9 9 8
The Biological Basis of Morality
by Edward O. Wilson
CENTURIES of debate on the origin of ethics come down to this: Either ethical principles, such as justice and human rights, are independent of human experience, or they are human
inventions. The distinction is more than an exercise for academic philosophers.
The choice between these two understandings makes all the difference in the way
we view ourselves as a species. It measures the authority of religion, and it
determines the conduct of moral reasoning.
Every thoughtful person has an opinion on which premise is correct. But the
split is not, as popularly supposed, between religious believers and
secularists. It is between transcendentalists, who think that moral guidelines
exist outside the human mind, and empiricists, who think them contrivances of
the mind. In simplest terms, the options are as follows: I believe in the
independence of moral values, whether from God or not, and I believe
that moral values come from human beings alone, whether or not God
Theologians and philosophers have almost always focused on transcendentalism as the means to validate ethics. They seek the grail of natural law, which comprises freestanding principles of moral conduct immune to doubt and compromise. Christian theologians, following Saint Thomas Aquinas's reasoning in Summa Theologiae, by and large consider natural law to be an expression of God's will. In this view, human beings have an obligation to discover the law by diligent reasoning and to weave it into the routine of their daily lives. Secular philosophers of a transcendental bent may seem to be radically different from theologians, but they are actually quite similar, at least in moral reasoning. They tend to view natural law as a set of principles so powerful, whatever their origin, as to be self-evident to any rational person. In short, transcendental views are fundamentally the same whether God is invoked or not.
For example, when Thomas Jefferson, following John Locke, derived the doctrine of natural rights from natural law, he was more concerned with the power of transcendental statements than with their origin, divine or secular. In the Declaration of Independence he blended secular and religious presumptions in one transcendentalist sentence, thus deftly covering all bets: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." That assertion became the cardinal premise of America's civil religion, the righteous sword wielded by Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr., and it endures as the central ethic binding together the diverse peoples of the United States.
So compelling are such fruits of natural-law theory, especially when the Deity is also invoked, that they may seem to place the transcendentalist assumption beyond question. But to its noble successes must be added appalling failures. It has been perverted many times in the past—used, for example, to argue passionately for colonial conquest, slavery, and genocide. Nor was any great war ever fought without each side thinking its cause transcendentally sacred in some manner or other.
So perhaps we need to take empiricism more seriously. In the empiricist view, ethics is conduct favored consistently enough throughout a society to be expressed as a code of principles. It reaches its precise form in each culture according to historical circumstance. The codes, whether adjudged good or evil by outsiders, play an important role in determining which cultures flourish and which decline.
The crux of the empiricist view is its emphasis on objective knowledge. Because the success of an ethical code depends on how wisely it interprets moral sentiments, those who frame one should know how the brain works, and how the mind develops. The success of ethics also depends on how accurately a society can predict the consequences of particular actions as opposed to others, especially in cases of moral ambiguity.
The empiricist argument holds that if we explore the biological roots of moral behavior, and explain their material origins and biases, we should be able to fashion a wise and enduring ethical consensus. The current expansion of scientific inquiry into the deeper processes of human thought makes this venture feasible.
The choice between transcendentalism and empiricism will be the coming century's version of the struggle for men's souls. Moral reasoning will either remain centered in idioms of theology and philosophy, where it is now, or shift toward science-based material analysis. Where it settles will depend on which world view is proved correct, or at least which is more widely perceived to be correct.
Ethicists, scholars who specialize in moral reasoning, tend not to declare themselves on the foundations of ethics, or to admit fallibility. Rarely do we see an argument that opens with the simple statement This is my starting point, and it could be wrong. Ethicists instead favor a fretful passage from the particular to the ambiguous, or the reverse—vagueness into hard cases. I suspect that almost all are transcendentalists at heart, but they rarely say so in simple declarative sentences. One cannot blame them very much; explaining the ineffable is difficult.
I am an empiricist. On religion I lean toward deism, but consider its proof largely a problem in astrophysics. The existence of a God who created the universe (as envisioned by deism) is possible, and the question may eventually be settled, perhaps by forms of material evidence not yet imagined. Or the matter may be forever beyond human reach. In contrast, and of far greater importance to humanity, the idea of a biological God, one who directs organic evolution and intervenes in human affairs (as envisioned by theism), is increasingly contravened by biology and the brain sciences.
The same evidence, I believe, favors a purely material origin of ethics, and it meets the criterion of consilience: causal explanations of brain activity and evolution, while imperfect, already cover most facts known about behavior we term "moral." Although this conception is relativistic (in other words, dependent on personal viewpoint), it can, if evolved carefully, lead more directly and safely to stable moral codes than can transcendentalism, which is also, when one thinks about it, ultimately relativistic.
Of course, lest I forget, I may be wrong.
THE argument of the empiricist has roots that go back to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and, in the beginning of the modern era, to David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-1740). The first clear evolutionary elaboration of it was by Charles Darwin, in The Descent of Man (1871).
Again, religious transcendentalism is bolstered by secular transcendentalism, to which it is fundamentally similar. Immanuel Kant, judged by history the greatest of secular philosophers, addressed moral reasoning very much as a theologian. Human beings, he argued, are independent moral agents with a wholly free will, capable of obeying or breaking moral law: "There is in man a power of self-determination, independent of any coercion through sensuous impulses." Our minds are subject to a categorical imperative, Kant said, of what our actions ought to be. The imperative is a good in itself alone, apart from all other considerations, and it can be recognized by this rule: "Act only on that maxim you wish will become a universal law." Most important, and transcendental, ought has no place in nature. Nature, Kant said, is a system of cause and effect, whereas moral choice is a matter of free will, absent cause and effect. In making moral choices, in rising above mere instinct, human beings transcend the realm of nature and enter a realm of freedom that belongs exclusively to them as rational creatures.
Now, this formulation has a comforting feel to it, but it makes no sense at all in terms of either material or imaginable entities, which is why Kant, even apart from his tortured prose, is so hard to understand. Sometimes a concept is baffling not because it is profound but because it is wrong. This idea does not accord, we know now, with the evidence of how the brain works.
In Principia Ethica (1903), G. E. Moore, the founder of modern ethical philosophy, essentially agreed with Kant. In his view, moral reasoning cannot dip into psychology and the social sciences in order to locate ethical principles, because those disciplines yield only a causal picture and fail to illuminate the basis of moral justification. So to reach the normative ought by way of the factual is is to commit a basic error of logic, which Moore called the naturalistic fallacy. John Rawls, in A Theory of Justice (1971), once again traveled the transcendental road. He offered the very plausible suggestion that justice be defined as fairness, which is to be accepted as an intrinsic good. It is the imperative we would follow if we had no starting information about our own future status in life. But in making such a suggestion Rawls ventured no thought on where the human brain comes from or how it works. He offered no evidence that justice-as-fairness is consistent with human nature, hence practicable as a blanket premise. Probably it is, but how can we know except by blind trial and error?
Had Kant, Moore, and Rawls known modern biology and experimental psychology, they might well not have reasoned as they did. Yet as this century closes, transcendentalism remains firm in the hearts not just of religious believers but also of countless scholars in the social sciences and the humanities who, like Moore and Rawls, have chosen to insulate their thinking from the natural sciences.
Many philosophers will respond by saying, Ethicists don't need that kind of information. You really can't pass from is to ought. You can't describe a genetic predisposition and suppose that because it is part of human nature, it is somehow transformed into an ethical precept. We must put moral reasoning in a special category, and use transcendental guidelines as required.
No, we do not have to put moral reasoning in a special category and use transcendental premises, because the posing of the naturalistic fallacy is itself a fallacy. For if ought is not is, what is? To translate is into ought makes sense if we attend to the objective meaning of ethical precepts. They are very unlikely to be ethereal messages awaiting revelation, or independent truths vibrating in a nonmaterial dimension of the mind. They are more likely to be products of the brain and the culture. From the consilient perspective of the natural sciences, they are no more than principles of the social contract hardened into rules and dictates—the behavioral codes that members of a society fervently wish others to follow and are themselves willing to accept for the common good. Precepts are the extreme on a scale of agreements that range from casual assent, to public sentiment, to law, to that part of the canon considered sacred and unalterable. The scale applied to adultery might read as follows:
Let's not go further; it doesn't feel right, and it may lead to trouble. (Maybe we ought not.)
Adultery not only causes feelings of guilt but is generally disapproved of by society. (We probably ought not.)
Adultery isn't just disapproved of; it's against the law. (We almost certainly ought not.)
God commands that we avoid this mortal sin. (We absolutely ought not.)
In transcendental thinking, the chain of causation runs downward from the given ought in religion or natural law through jurisprudence to education and finally to individual choice. The argument from transcendentalism takes the following general form: The order of nature contains supreme principles, either divine or intrinsic, and we will be wise to learn about them and find the means to conform to them. Thus John Rawls opens A Theory of Justice with a proposition he regards as irrevocable: "In a just society the liberties of equal citizenship are taken as settled; the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests." As many critiques have made clear, that premise can lead to unhappy consequences when applied to the real world, including a tightening of social control and a decline in personal initiative. A very different premise, therefore, is suggested by Robert Nozick in Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974): "Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do." Rawls would point us toward egalitarianism regulated by the state, Nozick toward libertarianism in a minimalist state.
The empiricist view, in contrast, searching for an origin of ethical reasoning that can be objectively studied, reverses the chain of causation. The individual is seen as predisposed biologically to make certain choices. Through cultural evolution some of the choices are hardened into precepts, then into laws, and, if the predisposition or coercion is strong enough, into a belief in the command of God or the natural order of the universe. The general empiricist principle takes this form: Strong innate feeling and historical experience cause certain actions to be preferred; we have experienced them, and have weighed their consequences, and agree to conform with codes that express them. Let us take an oath upon the codes, invest our personal honor in them, and suffer punishment for their violation. The empiricist view concedes that moral codes are devised to conform to some drives of human nature and to suppress others. Ought is the translation not of human nature but of the public will, which can be made increasingly wise and stable through an understanding of the needs and pitfalls of human nature. The empiricist view recognizes that the strength of commitment can wane as a result of new knowledge and experience, with the result that certain rules may be desacralized, old laws rescinded, and formerly prohibited behavior set free. It also recognizes that for the same reason new moral codes may need to be devised, with the potential of being made sacred in time.
IF the empiricist world view is correct, ought is just shorthand for one kind of factual statement, a word that denotes what society first chose (or was coerced) to do, and then codified. The naturalistic fallacy is thereby reduced to the naturalistic problem. The solution of the problem is not difficult: ought is the product of a material process. The solution points the way to an objective grasp of the origin of ethics.
A few investigators are now embarked on just such a foundational inquiry. Most agree that ethical codes have arisen by evolution through the interplay of biology and culture. In a sense these investigators are reviving the idea of moral sentiments that was developed in the eighteenth century by the British empiricists Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, and Adam Smith.
What have been thought of as moral sentiments are now taken to mean moral instincts (as defined by the modern behavioral sciences), subject to judgment according to their consequences. Such sentiments are thus derived from epigenetic rules—hereditary biases in mental development, usually conditioned by emotion, that influence concepts and decisions made from them. The primary origin of moral instincts is the dynamic relation between cooperation and defection. The essential ingredient for the molding of the instincts during genetic evolution in any species is intelligence high enough to judge and manipulate the tension generated by the dynamism. That level of intelligence allows the building of complex mental scenarios well into the future. It occurs, so far as is known, only in human beings and perhaps their closest relatives among the higher apes.
A way of envisioning the hypothetical earliest stages of moral evolution is provided by game theory, particularly the solutions to the famous Prisoner's Dilemma. Consider the following typical scenario of the dilemma. Two gang members have been arrested for murder and are being questioned separately. The evidence against them is strong but not irrefutable. The first gang member believes that if he turns state's witness, he will be granted immunity and his partner will be sentenced to life in prison. But he is also aware that his partner has the same option, and that if both of them exercise it, neither will be granted immunity. That is the dilemma. Will the two gang members independently defect, so that both take the hard fall? They will not, because they agreed in advance to remain silent if caught. By doing so, both hope to be convicted on a lesser charge or escape punishment altogether. Criminal gangs have turned this principle of calculation into an ethical precept: Never rat on another member; always be a stand-up guy. Honor does exist among thieves. The gang is a society of sorts; its code is the same as that of a captive soldier in wartime, obliged to give only name, rank, and serial number.
In one form or another, comparable dilemmas that are solvable by cooperation occur constantly and everywhere in daily life. The payoff is variously money, status, power, sex, access, comfort, or health. Most of these proximate rewards are converted into the universal bottom line of Darwinian genetic fitness: greater longevity and a secure, growing family.
And so it has most likely always been. Imagine a Paleolithic band of five hunters. One considers breaking away from the others to look for an antelope on his own. If successful, he will gain a large quantity of meat and hide—five times as much as if he stays with the band and they are successful. But he knows from experience that his chances of success are very low, much less than the chances of the band of five working together. In addition, whether successful alone or not, he will suffer animosity from the others for lessening their prospects. By custom the band members remain together and share equitably the animals they kill. So the hunter stays. He also observes good manners in doing so, especially if he is the one who makes the kill. Boastful pride is condemned, because it rips the delicate web of reciprocity.
Now suppose that human propensities to cooperate or defect are heritable: some people are innately more cooperative, others less so. In this respect moral aptitude would simply be like almost all other mental traits studied to date. Among traits with documented heritability, those closest to moral aptitude are empathy with the distress of others and certain processes of attachment between infants and their caregivers. To the heritability of moral aptitude add the abundant evidence of history that cooperative individuals generally survive longer and leave more offspring. Following that reasoning, in the course of evolutionary history genes predisposing people toward cooperative behavior would have come to predominate in the human population as a whole.
Such a process repeated through thousands of generations inevitably gave rise to moral sentiments. With the exception of psychopaths (if any truly exist), every person vividly experiences these instincts variously as conscience, self-respect, remorse, empathy, shame, humility, and moral outrage. They bias cultural evolution toward the conventions that express the universal moral codes of honor, patriotism, altruism, justice, compassion, mercy, and redemption.
The dark side of the inborn propensity to moral behavior is xenophobia. Because personal familiarity and common interest are vital in social transactions, moral sentiments evolved to be selective. People give trust to strangers with effort, and true compassion is a commodity in chronically short supply. Tribes cooperate only through carefully defined treaties and other conventions. They are quick to imagine themselves the victims of conspiracies by competing groups, and they are prone to dehumanize and murder their rivals during periods of severe conflict. They cement their own group loyalties by means of sacred symbols and ceremonies. Their mythologies are filled with epic victories over menacing enemies.
The complementary instincts of morality and tribalism are easily manipulated. Civilization has made them more so. Beginning about 10,000 years ago, a tick in geological time, when the agricultural revolution started in the Middle East, in China, and in Mesoamerica, populations increased tenfold in density over those of hunter-gatherer societies. Families settled on small plots of land, villages proliferated, and labor was finely divided as a growing minority of the populace specialized as craftsmen, traders, and soldiers. The rising agricultural societies became increasingly hierarchical. As chiefdoms and then states thrived on agricultural surpluses, hereditary rulers and priestly castes took power. The old ethical codes were transformed into coercive regulations, always to the advantage of the ruling classes. About this time the idea of law-giving gods originated. Their commands lent the ethical codes overpowering authority—once again, no surprise, in the interests of the rulers.
Because of the technical difficulty of analyzing such phenomena in an objective manner, and because people resist biological explanations of their higher cortical functions in the first place, very little progress has been made in the biological exploration of the moral sentiments. Even so, it is astonishing that the study of ethics has advanced so little since the nineteenth century. The most distinguishing and vital qualities of the human species remain a blank space on the scientific map. I doubt that discussions of ethics should rest upon the freestanding assumptions of contemporary philosophers who have evidently never given thought to the evolutionary origin and material functioning of the human brain. In no other domain of the humanities is a union with the natural sciences more urgently needed.
When the ethical dimension of human nature is at last fully opened to such exploration, the innate epigenetic rules of moral reasoning will probably not prove to be aggregated into simple instincts such as bonding, cooperativeness, and altruism. Instead the rules will most probably turn out to be an ensemble of many algorithms, whose interlocking activities guide the mind across a landscape of nuanced moods and choices.
Such a prestructured mental world may at first seem too complicated to have been created by autonomous genetic evolution alone. But all the evidence of biology suggests that just this process was enough to spawn the millions of species of life surrounding us. Each kind of animal is furthermore guided through its life cycle by unique and often elaborate sets of instinctual algorithms, many of which are beginning to yield to genetic and neurobiological analyses. With all these examples before us, we may reasonably conclude that human behavior originated the same way.
MEANWHILE, the mélanges of moral reasoning employed by modern societies are, to put the matter simply, a mess. They are chimeras, composed of odd parts stuck together. Paleolithic egalitarian and tribalistic instincts are still firmly installed. As part of the genetic foundation of human nature, they cannot be replaced. In some cases, such as quick hostility to strangers and competing groups, they have become generally ill adapted and persistently dangerous. Above the fundamental instincts rise superstructures of arguments and rules that accommodate the novel institutions created by cultural evolution. These accommodations, which reflect the attempt to maintain order and further tribal interests, have been too volatile to track by genetic evolution; they are not yet in the genes.
Little wonder, then, that ethics is the most publicly contested of all philosophical enterprises. Or that political science, which at its foundation is primarily the study of applied ethics, is so frequently problematic. Neither is informed by anything that would be recognizable as authentic theory in the natural sciences. Both ethics and political science lack a foundation of verifiable knowledge of human nature sufficient to produce cause-and-effect predictions and sound judgments based on them. Surely closer attention must be paid to the deep springs of ethical behavior. The greatest void in knowledge for such a venture is the biology of moral sentiments. In time this subject can be understood, I believe, by paying attention to the following topics:
* The definition of moral sentiments, first by precise descriptions from experimental psychology and then by analysis of the underlying neural and endocrine responses.
* The genetics of moral sentiments, most easily approached through measurements of the heritability of the psychological and physiological processes of ethical behavior, and eventually, with difficulty, through identification of the prescribing genes.
* The development of moral sentiments as products of the interactions of genes and the environment. Research is most effective when conducted at two levels: the histories of ethical systems as part of the emergence of different cultures, and the cognitive development of individuals living in a variety of cultures. Such investigations are already well along in anthropology and psychology. In the future they will be augmented by contributions from biology.
* The deep history of moral sentiments—why they exist in the first place. Presumably they contributed to survival and reproductive success during the long periods of prehistoric time in which they genetically evolved.
From a convergence of these several approaches the true origin and meaning of ethical behavior may come into focus. If so, a more certain measure can then be taken of the strength and flexibility of the epigenetic rules composing the various moral sentiments. From that knowledge it should be possible to adapt ancient moral sentiments more wisely to the swiftly changing conditions of modern life into which, willy-nilly and largely in ignorance, we have plunged.
Then new answers might be found to the truly important questions of moral reasoning. How can the moral instincts be ranked? Which are best subdued and to what degree? Which should be validated by law and symbol? How can precepts be left open to appeal under extraordinary circumstances? In the new understanding can be located the most effective means for reaching consensus. No one can guess the exact form that agreements will take from one culture to the next. The process, however, can be predicted with assurance. It will be democratic, weakening the clash of rival religions and ideologies. History is moving decisively in that direction, and people are by nature too bright and too contentious to abide anything else. And the pace can be confidently predicted: change will come slowly, across generations, because old beliefs die hard, even when they are demonstrably false.
THE same reasoning that aligns ethical philosophy with science can also inform the study of religion. Religions are analogous to organisms. They have a life cycle. They are born, they grow, they compete, they reproduce, and, in the fullness of time, most die. In each of these phases religions reflect the human organisms that nourish them. They express a primary rule of human existence: Whatever is necessary to sustain life is also ultimately biological.
Successful religions typically begin as cults, which then increase in power and inclusiveness until they achieve tolerance outside the circle of believers. At the core of each religion is a creation myth, which explains how the world began and how the chosen people—those subscribing to the belief system—arrived at its center. Often a mystery, a set of secret instructions and formulas, is available to members who have worked their way to a higher state of enlightenment. The medieval Jewish cabala, the trigradal system of Freemasonry, and the carvings on Australian aboriginal spirit sticks are examples of such arcana. Power radiates from the center, gathering converts and binding followers to the group. Sacred places are designated, where the gods can be importuned, rites observed, and miracles witnessed.
The devotees of the religion compete as a tribe with those of other religions. They harshly resist the dismissal of their beliefs by rivals. They venerate self-sacrifice in defense of the religion.
The tribalistic roots of religion are similar to those of moral reasoning and may be identical. Religious rites, such as burial ceremonies, are very old. It appears that in the late Paleolithic period in Europe and the Middle East bodies were sometimes placed in shallow graves, accompanied by ocher or blossoms; one can easily imagine such ceremonies performed to invoke spirits and gods. But, as theoretical deduction and the evidence suggest, the primitive elements of moral behavior are far older than Paleolithic ritual. Religion arose on a foundation of ethics, and it has probably always been used in one manner or another to justify moral codes.
The formidable influence of the religious drive is based on far more, however, than just the validation of morals. A great subterranean river of the mind, it gathers strength from a broad spread of tributary emotions. Foremost among them is the survival instinct. "Fear," as the Roman poet Lucretius said, "was the first thing on earth to make the gods." Our conscious minds hunger for a permanent existence. If we cannot have everlasting life of the body, then absorption into some immortal whole will serve. Anything will serve, as long as it gives the individual meaning and somehow stretches into eternity that swift passage of the mind and spirit lamented by Saint Augustine as the short day of time.
The understanding and control of life is another source of religious power. Doctrine draws on the same creative springs as science and the arts, its aim being the extraction of order from the mysteries and tumult of the material world. To explain the meaning of life it spins mythic narratives of the tribal history, populating the cosmos with protective spirits and gods. The existence of the supernatural, if accepted, testifies to the existence of that other world so desperately desired.
Religion is also mightily empowered by its principal ally, tribalism. The shamans and priests implore us, in somber cadence, Trust in the sacred rituals, become part of the immortal force, you are one of us. As your life unfolds, each step has mystic significance that we who love you will mark with a solemn rite of passage, the last to be performed when you enter that second world, free of pain and fear.
If the religious mythos did not exist in a culture, it would quickly be invented, and in fact it has been invented everywhere, thousands of times through history. Such inevitability is the mark of instinctual behavior in any species, which is guided toward certain states by emotion-driven rules of mental development. To call religion instinctive is not to suppose that any particular part of its mythos is untrue—only that its sources run deeper than ordinary habit and are in fact hereditary, urged into existence through biases in mental development that are encoded in the genes.
Such biases are a predictable consequence of the brain's genetic evolution. The logic applies to religious behavior, with the added twist of tribalism. There is a hereditary selective advantage to membership in a powerful group united by devout belief and purpose. Even when individuals subordinate themselves and risk death in a common cause, their genes are more likely to be transmitted to the next generation than are those of competing groups who lack comparable resolve.
The mathematical models of population genetics suggest the following rule in the evolutionary origin of such altruism: If the reduction in survival and reproduction of individuals owing to genes for altruism is more than offset by the increased probability of survival of the group owing to the altruism, then altruism genes will rise in frequency throughout the entire population of competing groups. To put it as concisely as possible: the individual pays, his genes and tribe gain, altruism spreads.
LET me now suggest a still deeper significance of the empiricist theory of the origin of ethics and religion. If empiricism were disproved, and transcendentalism compellingly upheld, the discovery would be quite simply the most consequential in human history. That is the burden laid upon biology as it draws close to the humanities.
The matter is still far from resolved. But empiricism, as I have argued, is well supported thus far in the case of ethics. The objective evidence for or against it in religion is weaker, but at least still consistent with biology. For example, the emotions that accompany religious ecstasy clearly have a neurobiological source. At least one form of brain disorder is associated with hyperreligiosity, in which cosmic significance is given to almost everything, including trivial everyday events. One can imagine the biological construction of a mind with religious beliefs, although that alone would not disprove the logic of transcendentalism, or prove the beliefs themselves to be untrue.
Equally important, much if not all religious behavior could have arisen from evolution by natural selection. The theory fits—crudely. The behavior includes at least some aspects of belief in gods. Propitiation and sacrifice, which are near-universals of religious practice, are acts of submission to a dominant being. They reflect one kind of dominance hierarchy, which is a general trait of organized mammalian societies. Like human beings, animals use elaborate signals to advertise and maintain their rank in the hierarchy. The details vary among species but also have consistent similarities across the board, as the following two examples will illustrate.
In packs of wolves the dominant animal walks erect and "proud," stiff-legged and deliberate, with head, tail, and ears up, and stares freely and casually at others. In the presence of rivals the dominant animal bristles its pelt while curling its lips to show teeth, and it takes first choice in food and space. A subordinate uses opposite signals. It turns away from the dominant individual while lowering its head, ears, and tail, and it keeps its fur sleek and its teeth covered. It grovels and slinks, and yields food and space when challenged.
In a troop of rhesus monkeys the alpha male is remarkably similar in mannerisms to a dominant wolf. He keeps his head and tail up, and walks in a deliberate, "regal" manner while casually staring at others. He climbs objects to maintain height above his rivals. When challenged he stares hard at the opponent with mouth open—signaling aggression, not surprise—and sometimes slaps the ground with open palms to signal his readiness to attack. The male or female subordinate affects a furtive walk, holding its head and tail down, turning away from the alpha and other higher-ranked individuals. It keeps its mouth shut except for a fear grimace, and when challenged makes a cringing retreat. It yields space and food and, in the case of males, estrous females.
My point is this: Behavioral scientists from another planet would notice immediately the parallels between animal dominance behavior on the one hand and human obeisance to religious and civil authority on the other. They would point out that the most elaborate rites of obeisance are directed at the gods, the hyperdominant if invisible members of the human group. And they would conclude, correctly, that in baseline social behavior, not just in anatomy, Homo sapiens has only recently diverged in evolution from a nonhuman primate stock.
Countless studies of animal species, whose instinctive behavior is unobscured by cultural elaboration, have shown that membership in dominance orders pays off in survival and lifetime reproductive success. That is true not just for the dominant individuals but for the subordinates as well. Membership in either class gives animals better protection against enemies and better access to food, shelter, and mates than does solitary existence. Furthermore, subordination in the group is not necessarily permanent. Dominant individuals weaken and die, and as a result some of the underlings advance in rank and appropriate more resources.
Modern human beings are unlikely to have erased the old mammalian genetic programs and devised other means of distributing power. All the evidence suggests that they have not. True to their primate heritage, people are easily seduced by confident, charismatic leaders, especially males. That predisposition is strong in religious organizations. Cults form around such leaders. Their power grows if they can persuasively claim special access to the supremely dominant, typically male figure of God. As cults evolve into religions, the image of the Supreme Being is reinforced by myth and liturgy. In time the authority of the founders and their successors is graven in sacred texts. Unruly subordinates, known as "blasphemers," are squashed.
The symbol-forming human mind, however, never remains satisfied with raw, apish feeling in any emotional realm. It strives to build cultures that are maximally rewarding in every dimension. Ritual and prayer permit religious believers to be in direct touch with the Supreme Being; consolation from coreligionists softens otherwise unbearable grief; the unexplainable is explained; and an oceanic sense of communion with the larger whole is made possible.
Communion is the key, and hope rising from it is eternal; out of the dark night of the soul arises the prospect of a spiritual journey to the light. For a special few the journey can be taken in this life. The mind reflects in certain ways in order to reach ever higher levels of enlightenment, until finally, when no further progress is possible, it enters a mystical union with the whole. Within the great religions such enlightenment is expressed by Hindu samadhi, Buddhist Zen satori, Sufi fana, and Pentecostal Christian rebirth. Something like it is also experienced by hallucinating preliterate shamans. What all these celebrants evidently feel (as I felt once, to some degree, as a reborn evangelical) is hard to put in words, but Willa Cather came as close as possible in a single sentence. In My Antonia her fictional narrator says, "That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great."
Of course that is happiness—to find the godhead, or to enter the wholeness of nature, or otherwise to grasp and hold on to something ineffable, beautiful, and eternal. Millions seek it. They feel otherwise lost, adrift in a life without ultimate meaning. They enter established religions, succumb to cults, dabble in New Age nostrums. They push The Celestine Prophecy and other junk attempts at enlightenment onto the best-seller lists.
Perhaps, as I believe, these phenomena can all eventually be explained as functions of brain circuitry and deep genetic history. But this is not a subject that even the most hardened empiricist should presume to trivialize. The idea of mystical union is an authentic part of the human spirit. It has occupied humanity for millennia, and it raises questions of utmost seriousness for transcendentalists and scientists alike. What road, we ask, was traveled, what destination reached, by the mystics of history?
FOR many, the urge to believe in transcendental existence and immortality is overpowering. Transcendentalism, especially when reinforced by religious faith, is psychically full and rich; it feels somehow right. By comparison, empiricism seems sterile and inadequate. In the quest for ultimate meaning the transcendentalist route is much easier to follow. That is why, even as empiricism is winning the mind, transcendentalism continues to win the heart. Science has always defeated religious dogma point by point when differences between the two were meticulously assessed. But to no avail. In the United States 16 million people belong to the Southern Baptist denomination, the largest favoring a literal interpretation of the Christian Bible, but the American Humanist Association, the leading organization devoted to secular and deistic humanism, has only 5,000 members.
Still, if history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth. The human mind evolved to believe in gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology. Acceptance of the supernatural conveyed a great advantage throughout prehistory, when the brain was evolving. Thus it is in sharp contrast to the science of biology, which was developed as a product of the modern age and is not underwritten by genetic algorithms. The uncomfortable truth is that the two beliefs are not factually compatible. As a result, those who hunger for both intellectual and religious truth face disquieting choices.
Meanwhile, theology tries to resolve the dilemma by evolving, sciencelike, toward abstraction. The gods of our ancestors were divine human beings. The Egyptians represented them as Egyptian (often with body parts of Nilotic animals), and the Greeks represented them as Greek. The great contribution of the Hebrews was to combine the entire pantheon into a single person, Yahweh (a patriarch appropriate to desert tribes), and to intellectualize his existence. No graven images were allowed. In the process, they rendered the divine presence less tangible. And so in biblical accounts it came to pass that no one, not even Moses approaching Yahweh in the burning bush, could look upon his face. In time the Jews were prohibited from even pronouncing his true full name. Nevertheless, the idea of a theistic God, omniscient, omnipotent, and closely involved in human affairs, has persisted to this day as the dominant religious image of Western culture.
During the Enlightenment a growing number of liberal Judeo-Christian theologians, wishing to accommodate theism to a more rationalist view of the material world, moved away from God as a literal person. Baruch Spinoza, the pre-eminent Jewish philosopher of the seventeenth century, visualized the deity as a transcendent substance present everywhere in the universe. Deus sive natura, "God or nature," he declared, they are interchangeable. For his philosophical pains he was banished from his synagogue under a comprehensive anathema, combining all the curses in the book. The risk of heresy notwithstanding, the depersonalization of God has continued steadily into the modern era. For Paul Tillich, one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the twentieth century, the assertion of the existence of God-as-person is not false; it is just meaningless. Among many of the most liberal contemporary thinkers the denial of a concrete divinity takes the form of "process theology." Everything in this most extreme of ontologies is part of a seamless and endlessly complex web of unfolding relationships. God is manifest in everything.
Scientists, the roving scouts of the empiricist movement, are not immune to the idea of God. Those who favor it often lean toward some form of process theology. They ask this question: When the real world of space, time, and matter is well enough known, will that knowledge reveal the Creator's presence? Their hopes are vested in the theoretical physicists who pursue the final theory, the Theory of Everything, T.O.E., a system of interlocking equations that describe all that can be learned of the forces of the physical universe. T.O.E. is a "beautiful" theory, as Steven Weinberg has called it in his important book Dreams of a Final Theory—beautiful because it will be elegant, expressing the possibility of unending complexity with minimal laws; and symmetrical, because it will hold invariant through all space and time; and inevitable, meaning that once it is stated, no part can be changed without invalidating the whole. All surviving subtheories can be fitted into it permanently, in the manner described by Einstein in his own contribution, the General Theory of Relativity. "The chief attraction of the theory," Einstein said, "lies in its logical completeness. If a single one of the conclusions drawn from it proves wrong, it must be given up; to modify it without destroying the whole structure seems to be impossible."
The prospect of a final theory by the most mathematical of scientists might seem to signal the approach of a new religious awakening. Stephen Hawking, yielding to the temptation in A Brief History of Time (1988), declared that this scientific achievement "would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we would know the mind of God."
THE essence of humanity's spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. Can we find a way to erase the dilemma, to resolve the contradictions between the transcendentalist and empiricist world views?
Unfortunately, in my view, the answer is no. Furthermore, the choice between the two is unlikely to remain arbitrary forever. The assumptions underlying these world views are being tested with increasing severity by cumulative verifiable knowledge about how the universe works, from atom to brain to galaxy. In addition, the harsh lessons of history have taught us that one code of ethics is not always as good—or at least not as durable—as another. The same is true of religions. Some cosmologies are factually less correct than others, and some ethical precepts are less workable.
Human nature is biologically based, and it is relevant to ethics and religion. The evidence shows that because of its influence, people can readily be educated to only a narrow range of ethical precepts. They flourish within certain belief systems and wither in others. We need to know exactly why.
To that end I will be so presumptuous as to suggest how the conflict between the world views will most likely be settled. The idea of a genetic, evolutionary origin of moral and religious beliefs will continue to be tested by biological studies of complex human behavior. To the extent that the sensory and nervous systems appear to have evolved by natural selection, or at least some other purely material process, the empiricist interpretation will be supported. It will be further supported by verification of gene-culture coevolution, the essential process postulated by scientists to underlie human nature by linking changes in genes to changes in culture.
Now consider the alternative. To the extent that ethical and religious phenomena do not appear to have evolved in a manner congenial to biology, and especially to the extent that such complex behavior cannot be linked to physical events in the sensory and nervous systems, the empiricist position will have to be abandoned and a transcendentalist explanation accepted.
For centuries the writ of empiricism has been spreading into the ancient domain of transcendentalist belief, slowly at the start but quickening in the scientific age. The spirits our ancestors knew intimately fled first the rocks and trees and then the distant mountains. Now they are in the stars, where their final extinction is possible. But we cannot live without them. People need a sacred narrative. They must have a sense of larger purpose, in one form or another, however intellectualized. They will refuse to yield to the despair of animal mortality. They will continue to plead, in company with the psalmist, Now Lord, what is my comfort? They will find a way to keep the ancestral spirits alive.
If the sacred narrative cannot be in the form of a religious cosmology, it will be taken from the material history of the universe and the human species. That trend is in no way debasing. The true evolutionary epic, retold as poetry, is as intrinsically ennobling as any religious epic. Material reality discovered by science already possesses more content and grandeur than all religious cosmologies combined. The continuity of the human line has been traced through a period of deep history a thousand times as old as that conceived by the Western religions. Its study has brought new revelations of great moral importance. It has made us realize that Homo sapiens is far more than an assortment of tribes and races. We are a single gene pool from which individuals are drawn in each generation and into which they are dissolved the next generation, forever united as a species by heritage and a common future. Such are the conceptions, based on fact, from which new intimations of immortality can be drawn and a new mythos evolved.
Which world view prevails, religious transcendentalism or scientific empiricism, will make a great difference in the way humanity claims the future. While the matter is under advisement, an accommodation can be reached if the following overriding facts are realized. Ethics and religion are still too complex for present-day science to explain in depth. They are, however, far more a product of autonomous evolution than has hitherto been conceded by most theologians. Science faces in ethics and religion its most interesting and possibly most humbling challenge, while religion must somehow find the way to incorporate the discoveries of science in order to retain credibility. Religion will possess strength to the extent that it codifies and puts into enduring, poetic form the highest values of humanity consistent with empirical knowledge. That is the only way to provide compelling moral leadership. Blind faith, no matter how passionately expressed, will not suffice. Science, for its part, will test relentlessly every assumption about the human condition and in time uncover the bedrock of moral and religious sentiments.
The eventual result of the competition between the two world views, I believe, will be the secularization of the human epic and of religion itself. However the process plays out, it demands open discussion and unwavering intellectual rigor in an atmosphere of mutual respect.
Edward O. Wilson is the Pellegrino University Research Professor and Honorary Curator in Entomology at Harvard University. His article in this issue is drawn from his book Consilience, to be published this month by Knopf.
Illustrations by Robert Goldstrom
Copyright © 1998 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved.
The Atlantic Monthly; April 1998; The Biological Basis of Morality; Volume 281, No. 4; pages 53 - 70.
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A range of factors continue to place Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander gay men, other men who have sex with men, sistergirls and transgender people at particular risk of infection, including:
- barriers to accessing some health services, including testing services, for reasons of actual or perceived homophobia, racism, discrimination and cultural insensitivity
- high levels of population mobility, including movement between communities and between urban, rural and remote settings
- low levels of HIV awareness, including prevention, treatment and care options
- lack of acceptance of homosexuality and transgender status ithin some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities
- alcohol and other drug use
- where there is a culture of violence towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander gay men and sistergirls.
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http://www.health.gov.au/internet/publications/publishing.nsf/Content/ohp-national-strategies-2010-atsi-bbv-l~ohp-national-strategies-2010-atsi-bbv-l-5~ohp-national-strategies-2010-atsi-bbv-l-5.4
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en
| 0.925773 | 149 | 3.21875 | 3 |
In the early stages of multiple myeloma, patients have few or no symptoms of the condition, which may only be suspected or diagnosed by chance as a result of routine blood or urine testing. Diagnosis may also be suspected if certain symptoms are present.
Some of the tests involved in diagnosing multiple myeloma include:
- A detailed medical history and examination of clinical symptoms. Specific symptoms that are looked for include signs of anemia, bleeding, infection and bone pain.
- Routine blood tests are carried out to check hemoglobin levels, the red blood cell count and white blood cell count, which may all be decreased in multiple myeloma. The erythrocyte sedimentation rate may be raised due to the presence of abnormally high protein levels and blood calcium may also be raised. Blood tests also provide information about liver and kidney function.
- Myeloma cells produce large amounts of an abnormal protein that can affect the kidneys and a urine test can be used to measure the levels of protein in the urine as well as to indicate kidney function. The abnormal proteins are called monoclonal light chains or Bence Jones protein.
- Imaging studies include X-ray, CT (computed tomography) scan, MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scan, PET (positron emission tomography) scan and bone scan. These scans are performed to look for evidence of the cancer within affected bones.
- Bone marrow biopsy – This is a test used to confirm a diagnosis of multiple myeloma. A special hollow needle is inserted into one of the bones (usually the pelvis) and a sample of the bone marrow is taken. The procedure is brief and carried out under local anesthetic. The sample is examined in the laboratory for the presence of cancerous plasma cells.
The international staging system (ISS) for diagnosing myeloma was outlined by the International Myeloma Working Group in 2005 and includes the following criteria:
- Stage I – A β2-microglobulin level of less than 3.5 mg/L, an albumin level equal to or more than 3.5 g/dL.
- Stage II
- A β2-microglobulin level less than 3.5 mg/L, albumin level less than 3.5 g/dL
- A β2-microglobulin equal to or more than 3.5 mg/L, an albumin level less than 5.5 g/dL
- Stage III – A β2-microglobulin level of 5.5 mg/L or more.
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<urn:uuid:e9be2ff0-a846-4411-84eb-84db719e2ebe>
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https://www.news-medical.net/health/Multiple-Myeloma-Diagnosis.aspx
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en
| 0.909568 | 532 | 3.015625 | 3 |
What are uterine fibroids?
Uterine fibroids are tumors made of abnormal muscle cells that grow slowly within the wall of the uterus or attach to the inside or outside of the uterine wall. They are very common and almost always are benign (not cancerous). Cancerous fibroids are extremely rare, less than 0.5%, and are usually detected by very rapid growth. A uterine fibroid can range in size from a small pea to the size of a grapefruit or larger. Other terms used for a uterine fibroid are leiomyoma or myoma of the uterus.
The different types of fibroids are:
Subserous — grow on the outside of the uterus
Intramural — grow within the muscle lining of the uterus.
Submucous — grow on the inside of the uterus.
Pedunculated — grow on the uterus by forming stalks to attach.
How do they occur?
The cause of uterine fibroids is not known. Estrogen is required for their stimulation and growth. They are more prevalent in women who are between puberty and menopause. It also appears that women may inherit the tendency to develop fibroids.
What are the symptoms?
Often there are no symptoms and typically found on a pelvic exam. When there are symptoms they may be:
- painful menstrual period
- heavy menstrual bleeding
- more frequent or uncomfortable urination
- painful intercourse
- pelvic pain or pressure
How are they diagnosed?
Uterine fibroids are usually found during routine pelvic exams. An ultrasound scan can be used to help show the area, measure the size, and follow the growth of fibroids. Other ways in which fibroids can be detected are through:
- Laparoscopy (outpatient surgery using a thin metal rod with a camera attached to the end to view the outside of the uterus through an incision in the umbilicus)
- Hysteroscopy (outpatient surgery using a thin metal rod with a camera attached to the end to view the inside of the uterus)
- Hysterosalpingogram (procedure done by injecting dye into the uterus and viewing with x-rays)
- Endometrial Biopsy (in-office procedure that samples the lining of the uterus)
How are they treated?
Most fibroids do not need treatment. However, if you are having symptoms from the fibroids, treatment is based on:
- the amount of blood loss and pain during menstrual periods
- the rate of growth of the fibroid
- the absence or presence of cancer
- your age, physical condition, and desire for more children
For fibroids that require treatment, Dr. Hardy may suggest a myomectomy. A myomectomy is a procedure done to remove the fibroids without removing the uterus. There are several ways a myomectomy may be done.
- Hysteroscopy: Dr. Hardy guides the hysteroscope, which is a thin tube with a tiny camera, through the cervix and into the uterus. He uses a laser or electrocautery to remove fibroids that are inside the uterus.
- Laparoscopy: Dr. Hardy makes a small cut in your abdomen and inserts a scope into it. Another tool used to remove the fibroids is inserted through another cut in your abdomen.
- Abdominal myomectomy: Dr. Hardy makes a larger cut in your abdomen to reach the uterus and remove the fibroids.
- Hysterectomy: Dr. Hardy can either perform this procedure vaginally or abdominally depending on the size of the uterus. This is a procedure that removes your entire uterus.
Before you have a myomectomy or hysterectomy, you might be given a medicine for 2 to 3 months to shrink the fibroid. This will make the operation easier to perform. If you are close to menopause, Dr. Hardy may prescribe this medicine for you to take until you are in menopause, so that you may not need surgery. This is especially important if surgery is particularly risky for you because of one or more medical problems you may have.
An alternative to these procedures is using and Intrauterine Device (IUD) or endometrial ablation that is done in the office. These can be done when the main symptom is heavy vaginal bleeding that may or may not cause increased cramps.
How long will the effects last?
Small fibroids that don't grow usually have no lasting effects. If you have symptoms caused by growing or enlarged fibroids, the symptoms will probably continue until the growths are removed surgically, or until they begin to shrink and disappear after menopause.
How can I take care of myself?
Call the office for an appointment if:
- Pain or heavy bleeding continues to be a problem.
- You notice your symptoms are getting worse.
- Take acetaminophen or ibuprofen for cramps and body aches. Do not take aspirin because it may increase the bleeding.
- Rest in bed when symptoms are worst.
- Eat foods high in iron and take iron pills (if it was recommended by Dr. Hardy or the Nurse Practitioner) if you bleed heavily during your periods.
- Put a heating pad at a low setting on your abdomen to help relieve cramps or pain
- Follow the recommendations for treatment with medicine and keep your follow-up visits to see if the fibroid is growing.
What can be done to help prevent uterine fibroids?
No sure way is known to prevent fibroids from developing or recurring.
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<urn:uuid:6c8f64ea-b937-475f-9ac9-fdb88b15ee08>
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CC-MAIN-2020-05
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http://www.atlanticobgyn.com/common-female-concerns/34/uterine-fibroids/
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| 0.930665 | 1,183 | 3.390625 | 3 |
Depending on your profession, you may find that you need to protect your eyes and face at all times. If you neglect to do so, you’re taking a big risk with your health and overall well-being.
While you rely on your employer to help you choose the right type of eye and face protection, you shouldn’t stop there. You also need to learn more on your own, as it’s imperative that you always do whatever you can to remain safe.
Safety goggles, for example, are used to protect the eyes, the eye sockets and the immediate area around the eyes. Not only can goggles protect you from chemical hazards, but they can do the same in the event of flying debris.
Some professions call for the use of a face shield, as these are meant to protect the entire face from a variety of hazards, such as extreme heat, splashing of molten metal and debris.
In many industries, face shields are known as a secondary protector. This means it must be worn along with some type of primary protection, such as safety goggles
If you neglect to choose the right type of eye and face protection, you could find yourself dealing with a serious eye or face injury at some point.
Don’t ignore any injury to this part of your body, as immediate medical attention is a must. Once you understand your injuries and what type of treatment you require, you can then learn more about your legal rights, such as the ability to file a claim for ‘ benefits.
Source: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, “Eye and Face Protection eTool,” accessed Sep. 29, 2017
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<urn:uuid:3c590630-8f43-48b0-995e-5bf6a7b1c3b2>
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CC-MAIN-2023-40
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https://www.mpl-s.com/blog/2017/09/choose-the-right-type-of-eye-and-face-protection/
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en
| 0.953701 | 338 | 2.59375 | 3 |
India has huge livestock population, in terms of trade it stands insignificant in the world trade of livestock products. However, it is to be noted that India has tremendous potential to produce and export various livestock products. The high potential of the domestic market coupled with marketing opportunities abroad due to the GATT provisions now render India to an enviable position to cater to the huge global market of livestock products, particularly dairy products. Earlier, the past trends in milk production and domestic consumption had indicated a possible exportable surplus of a modest level of 1,00,000 MTs of dairy products by the turn of the century.
There is no denying the fact that the adoption of several liberal policy measures by the Government in more recent times and the application of scientific production techniques have boosted India’s livestock production. However, the point that merits consideration is how did the structure of livestock production and exports of India changed over time and what future prospects India holds in the export trade of livestock products in the light of the rapidly changing world market conditions and in view of the various trade policy measures adopted by the various developed and developing nations.
Meat Production: India has also been showing a continuous increase in its total meat production. This is mainly because of considerable rise in non-vegetarian population over time. In India, various species of livestock such as cattle buffalo, sheep and goats, pigs and poultry birds are used for meat production.
As for the export trade of livestock products, there are also many issues that require fuller attention and discussion. For instance, is our livestock sector protected, what is its comparative advantage, what is its export potential, what are the tariff and non-tariff barriers to livestock exports, what should be the strategy for promoting export of live animals, livestock products, and livestock based manufacture.
There has been considerable increase in livestock exports of India after the late eighties, chiefly because of liberalization of trade and several trade policy changes coupled with surge in international prices of many livestock based products that gave real boost to Indian livestock exports. The upswing in livestock exports of India in due course of time has also filtered into significant increase in her share not only in Asia but also in World export trade. At the same time, for some of the livestock based commodities and for live animals, the share of India in Asia as well as in the World export trade has come down over time, e.g., bovine, sheep and goats among various live animals, and poultry meat, meat dried, salted and smoked and also canned meat among various meat and meat products.
Nevertheless, share of India in fresh, chilled and frozen meat export is noticed to have grown considerably not only in Asia but in the World too. Among various fresh, chilled and frozen meat, India’s export has grown more sharply in the case of fresh sheep meat, both in Asia and in the World trade of the same. This holds true both in quantity and value terms. Among various milk and milk products, dry milk, butter and ghee and to some extent condensed and evaporated milk export trade of India have grown significantly, both in Asia and in the World. In fact, the results of this study clearly indicate a marginal presence of India in World trade of majority of the livestock products. It is only in the case of bovine meat and also sheep and goat meat that India has shown a considerable share in the global trade of the same, particularly in quantity terms. In fact, India continues to remain as one of the leading bovine meat exporter not only in Asia but also in the World.
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CC-MAIN-2023-14
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https://uttarakhand.pscnotes.com/dmpq/economy-dmpq/dmpq-highlight-the-export-potential-of-indias-livestock-sector/?amp=1
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en
| 0.965211 | 725 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Gaining a clear understanding of the body's great lymphatic system unveils the pathophysiology of many diseases and a clear road to health. Microbes, viruses, inflammation, and bacteria all play a part in the progression of disease. However, the lymphatic system, when combined with the microbiome could expose clues that will allow us to live a life of vitality that is free from suffering.
The human body is comprised of roughly 37.2 trillion cells. Other than the cells, we have two major interstitial fluids - lymph and blood. In this article we’ll discuss the role of the lymphatic system, 5 herbs to improve lymphatic health, the role of bacteria in the lymphatic system, as well as 6 tips to help your body detoxify by moving lymphatic fluid.
The Lymphatic System is the Body’s Sewage System
All living systems, from cells to multicellular organisms carry out two critical functions - they consume (and assimilate) nutrition and (break down and) eliminate waste. Alongside waste from the consumption of food, the by-products of our 37.2 trillion cells need to be eliminated. The lymphatic system is the sewage system of the body.
Everything from living plants to manufacturing plants takes in raw materials and eliminate waste that is toxic. When we’re talking about detoxification, then our focus is on the elimination side of life. The vast majority of waste is acidic in nature with a pH of under 7.
Balancing the Yin and Yang of Health
There are two essential life-giving processes in the body that can be likened to yin and yang. These are:
- Yin - Consuming nutrition, alkaline, feminine, blood
- Yang - Eliminating waste, acidic, masculine, lymph
Both processes contain an element of assimilation. The yin side works with utilizing nutrition to build tissues while the yang side deals with breaking down waste.
Maintaining the pH of Health
The body works tirelessly, with the aid of our microbiota to maintain homeostasis. This includes keeping the pH of our blood within a tight range of 7.35 to 7.45. Just 7% of the body's fluids is blood, however, a slight alteration in pH can signal disease and lead to death. The body's lymphatic system plays a critical role in keeping the body's base pH in check by alkalizing the nitrogenous by-products of metabolism.
Lymphatic Fluid is a Lipid-Based Fluid
Nature has the entire process of regeneration and elimination covered. It pushes biological and toxic waste toward the lymphatic system, which in turn is filled with immune cells and bacteria. The main mucosal constituent of the lymphatic fluid that cleanses the system is a natural lipid-based antacid that protects the body from the damaging effects of corrosive acids.
Lymph Nodes Contain Immune Cells
The lymphatic system is a network of vessels that reach out to every organ in the body. Waste material is pushed towards the lymphatic system where it is met with immune cells and bacteria that can break down toxic materials. The body has between 501 and 700 lymph nodes. Lymph nodes are essential for filtering out waste products in the body.
Lymph nodes or lymph glands play an essential role in the adaptive immune system. They are connected to the great lymphatic system by lymphatic vessels. The lymph nodes are filled with B and T lymphocytes that work to defend the body by breaking down foreign particles and fighting infection.
The Lymphatic System & Movement
Unlike the blood, lymph fluid has no central pump. This means that we rely on the motion from our muscles for the lymph fluid to move. Lymph fluids can also be moved by a process called “lymphatic drainage massage”. Interrupted lymphatic flow can lead to a build-up of toxins in the system. Moving the lymphatic fluids through exercise or lymphatic massage can improve the circulation of lymph fluid, leading to optimal excretion of waste material.
Here are 6 ways to move the fluid in the lymphatic system:
- Gua sha
- Dry brushing
- Altering the diet to remove processed foods
- Lymphatic drainage massage
Raw Plant-Based Nutrition
To activate the lymphatic system we must consume an abundance of raw plant-based nutrition. Berries, melons, citrus fruits, and grapes are all fantastic foods for cleansing the lymphatic system.
We should eat food to nourish the 37.2 trillion cells in our bodies. Studies have shown that the bacterial component of our cells is 100 times more than human cells.
What we eat alters the types of bacteria that reside in our gut, which in turn changes the types of waste that is produced. Consuming an abundance of raw plant-based foods will encourage the natural healing bacteria to proliferate and the lymphatic system to perform optimally.
The Role of Bacteria
Bacteria play a critical role in health, including working to maintain homeostasis in our bodies. Microbes help both the yin and the yang components of life. They break down nutrients, help catalyze essential chemical reactions and also break down toxic waste.
Back in the 1800’s Louis Pasteur, a French biologist and microbiologist invented germ theory. Germ Theory is the currently accepted theory of disease that states that pathogens or "germs" can lead to disease. This lead to the widespread use of antibacterial agents and antibiotics. More recently, since 2007, the Human Microbiome Project has exposed how beneficial bacteria can be to human health.
5 Herbs to Improve Lymphatic Health
Some herbs have the ability to increase lymphatic flow and drainage. Here are some examples of lymphatic system boosting herbs:
- Red clover
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<urn:uuid:d34f1b61-f8b5-4864-bbf9-2338e32b9aff>
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CC-MAIN-2020-10
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https://blog.bioticsresearch.com/9-reasons-the-lymphatic-system-is-the-key-to-health
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en
| 0.914603 | 1,191 | 2.875 | 3 |
Kids and Sports: Preventing Dental Injury With Mouthguards
There's nothing quite like watching your son or daughter compete on the athletic field. It's a mixture of anticipation, pride — and occasionally, anxiety. Despite all the protective gear and training, kids are sometimes injured playing the sports they love. In fact, when it comes to dental injuries, teens are the most susceptible of any age group. Here's what you should know about preventing sports-related dental injuries in kids.
Of course you know that football and hockey players should always wear mouthguards, both at games and during practice. But don't forget about kids who play soccer, do gymnastics, wrestle or play basketball. According to the American Dental Association (ADA) these athletes — along with participants in about 20 other sports — also need to wear this important piece of protective gear. In fact, the ADA states that not wearing a mouthguard makes an athlete 60 times more likely to sustain dental injury!
In selecting a mouthguard, there are three basic options to choose from: the “off-the-shelf” type, the so-called “boil and bite” protector, and the custom-fitted mouthguard that we can fabricate. Let's look briefly at all three.
The first type, available at many sporting goods stores, comes in a limited range of sizes, and an unknown range of quality. It's the least expensive option, offering a minimal level of protection that's probably better than nothing.
The second type, although popular, is also limited in its protection. This one is designed to be immersed in hot water, and then formed in the mouth using finger, tongue and bite pressure. If it can be made to fit adequately, it's probably better than the first type — though it often lacks proper extensions, and fails to cover the back teeth. Also, upon impact, the rubber-like material will distort and not offer as much protection as you would like to have.
The third is a piece of quality sports equipment that's custom-made for your child's mouth (or your own). To fabricate this mouthguard, we first make a model of the individual's teeth, and then mold the protector to fit just right. Made from tough, high-quality material, it's designed to cover all teeth, back and front, without being excessively bulky. It can even be made to accommodate growing teeth and jaws. And, it's reasonable in cost.
To paraphrase the ADA's recommendation, the best mouthguard is the one you wear. A comfortable, correctly-fitted mouthguard is easy to wear — and it can help prevent dental injury, giving you one less thing to worry about. Now, if you could just get you child to keep her eye on the ball.
If you have questions about mouthguards or sports-related dental injuries, please contact us or schedule an appointment for a consultation. You can learn more in the Dear Doctor magazine articles “Athletic Mouthguards” and “An Introduction to Sports Injuries & Dentistry.”
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| 0.958648 | 631 | 2.8125 | 3 |
A colposcopy (kol-POS-kuh-pee) is a method of examining the cervix, vagina, and vulva with a surgical instrument called a colposcope. The procedure is usually performed if the results of your Pap smear (the screening test used to identify abnormal cervical cells) are unusual. A colposcope is a large, electric microscope with a bright light that enables your doctor to see your cervix clearly.
If your doctor spots any abnormal areas, he or she will take a tissue sample (biopsy). The procedure to retrieve a tissue sample from inside the cervix is called endocervical curettage (ECC). The samples are sent to a lab for examination by a pathologist.
You may feel nervous if your doctor orders a colposcopy, but understanding the test and knowing what to expect can ease your anxiety. The test is generally quick and painless.
Your doctor may suggest a colposcopy if your Pap smear results are abnormal, if you experience bleeding after intercourse, or if you have an abnormal growth on your reproductive organs. A colposcopy can be used to diagnose:
- pre-cancer or cancer of the cervix, vagina, or vulva
- genital warts
- inflammation of the cervix (cervicitis)
There is little to do in the way of preparation for this test. However, here are a few things you should keep in mind:
- Ask your doctor to explain the test in detail.
- Tell your doctor if you think you may be pregnant.
- Schedule the test for a time when you are not menstruating heavily. Light bleeding at the beginning or end of your period is usually fine, but check with your physician.
- Do not douche, use tampons, or have sexual intercourse for 24-48 hours prior to the exam.
- Some doctors recommend a mild over-the-counter pain reliever before the test. Discuss this with your doctor prior to the test day.
- For comfort, empty your bladder and bowels before the test.
A colposcopy is usually performed in a doctor’s office and takes 10 to 20 minutes. It requires no anesthetic. Here’s what you can expect:
- You’ll lie on your back on a table with your feet in stirrups, just like during a pelvic exam or Pap smear.
- Your doctor will position the colposcope a few inches away from your vulva and place a speculum in your vagina. The speculum holds the walls of your vagina open so that your doctor can see your cervix.
- Your cervix and vagina will be swabbed with cotton and a solution of vinegar to clear away mucus and to highlight abnormal cells.
- The colposcope does not touch you. Your doctor may take photographs and biopsy any areas that appear suspicious.
Some women find the insertion of the speculum uncomfortable and some report a stinging sensation from the vinegar solution. If you feel anxious during the test, concentrate on taking slow, deep breaths to help relax your body.
If you are having a biopsy, how the procedure feels will depend on the location being tested.
You may feel some pressure or cramping, but a cervical biopsy is generally painless.
Most of the vagina has very little sensation, so you won’t feel pain during a biopsy. The lower part of the vagina has more sensation and your doctor may use a local anesthetic before proceeding.
The risks following a colposcopy and biopsy are minimal, but rare complications include:
- bleeding that is very heavy or lasts longer than two weeks
- fever or chills
- signs of infection, such as heavy, yellow-colored, or bad-smelling discharge from your vagina
- pelvic pain
If you experience any of these symptoms, call your doctor immediately.
A colposcopy and biopsy will not make it more difficult for you to become pregnant.
After a colposcopy, you may have dark vaginal discharge for up to three days and some bleeding for up to a week. Your vagina may be sore and you may experience mild cramping.
If no biopsy was taken, you may resume normal activity right away. If you had a biopsy, avoid the use of tampons, douches, vaginal creams, and vaginal intercourse for a week. You may shower or bathe right away. Any concerns should be discussed with your doctor.
Regardless of the results, it is important to continue regular gynecological exams and Pap smears as your doctor recommends.
Ask your doctor when you can expect the test results and follow up if you don’t receive the information in a timely manner. The results will help determine if you need additional tests or treatment.
If the results show no abnormalities, your doctor may recommend additional testing to see why your Pap smear was abnormal, or may suggest a follow-up exam.
Abnormal Biopsy Results
Your doctor may be able to remove all the abnormal cells during the test so that no further treatment is necessary. A pathologist will examine the tissue samples from the biopsy, looking for abnormalities.
Abnormal biopsy results may help to diagnose cancer and other treatable conditions. Your doctor will make recommendations based on the results of colposcopy and biopsy. Schedule time with your doctor to have all your questions answered and don’t hesitate to seek a second opinion.
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en
| 0.91968 | 1,131 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Project INDICATE is a knowledge writing model that empowers doctors in underserved communities by connecting them with specialized healthcare experts. It helps frontline clinicians furnish better look after patients with complex ailments.
The ECHO(r) model facilitates case-based learning and provides support to participants through a hub-and-spoke knowledge-sharing strategy. Its success lies in bringing best practices in medical care to underserved populations through major care service providers. In addition to diabetes, this software also supports primary look after other complex chronic conditions. That enables services to learn about new systems, improve top quality of attention, and reduce the duty on their community.
In organizations that have been typically underserved simply by health care, the ECHO version exponentially increases the workforce’s capacity to apply best practice techniques. Its telementoring model minimizes the need for high priced supervision.
Using a video-based platform, the ECHO(r) program delivers training to participants within a facilitated, guided practice setting. Specialized mentors coming from a “hub” site carry out virtual clinics with community providers. The sessions include a didactic production, clinical circumstance discussion, and recommendations for treatment. Those unable to be present at the treatments may participate via Focus.
Since it set about in the year 2003, Project ECHO has extended across the America and more than 34 countries. Its objective is to feel one billion lives by simply 2025.
Also to providing treatment, Job ECHO as well educates clinicians on the most beneficial treatment options with respect to chronic http://projectechonevada.com/the-importance-of-data-room-provider/ diseases and mental health problems. It facilitates primary maintain cancers, diabetes, and substance work with disorders.
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| 0.926034 | 356 | 3 | 3 |
Importance of clay-H2 interactions for large-scale underground hydrogen storage
International Journal of Hydrogen Energy
School of Engineering
Underground hydrogen storage is considered an option for large-scale green hydrogen storage. Among different geological storage types, depleted oil/gas fields and saline aquifers stand out. In these cases, hydrogen will be prevented from leaking back to the surface by a tight caprock seal. It is therefore essential to understand hydrogen interactions with shale-type caprocks. To this end, natural pure montmorillonite clay was exposed to hydrogen gas at different pressures (0–50 bar) and temperatures (77, 195, 303 K) to acquire data on its adsorption capacity related to UHS and caprock saturation. Montmorillonite was chosen because of its large specific surface area enabling quantification of the adsorption process. Hydrogen adsorption was successfully fitted with a Langmuir isotherm model and yielded small partition coefficients indicating that hydrogen does not preferentially adsorb to the clay surface. Adsorption on montmorillonite goes back to weak physisorption as inferred from minor negative changes in the enthalpy of reaction (−790 J/mol), derived from an Excel Solver approach to the van't Hoff equation. Based on own as well as literature values, adsorption capacities, which were originally reported as mol/kg or wt%, are recast as hydrogen volume adsorbed per specific surface area (μL/m2). The acquired range is surprisingly narrow, with values ranging from 3 to 6 μL/m2, and indicates the normalised volume of hydrogen that can be expected to remain in the shale-type caprock after injected hydrogen migrated upwards through the porous reservoir. This ‘residual’ caprock saturation with hydrogen can be further restrained by considering the geothermal gradient and its effect on the molar volume of hydrogen. The experimental results presented here recommend injecting hydrogen deeper rather than shallower as pressure and temperature work in favour of increased storage volumes and decreased hydrogen loss through clay adsorption in the caprock.
Wolff-Boenisch, D., Abid, H. R., Tucek, J. E., Keshavarz, A., & Iglauer, S. (2023). Importance of clay-H2 interactions for large-scale underground hydrogen storage. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 48(37), 13934-13942.
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https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworks2022-2026/2247/
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| 0.897539 | 608 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Home > Preview
The flashcards below were created by user
on FreezingBlue Flashcards.
Describe this figure
- Model of viral infection w/ varicella-zoster (chicken pox)
- The infection is initiated either in the conjunctiva of the eye or in the mucosa of the upper respiratory tract
- moves quickly to regional lymph nodes, where it can infect T cells
- 4 to 6 days later, infected T cells move into the blood causing a primary viremia.
- It moves to the liver, spleen and other organs, causing a second round of infection and then back into the blood causing secondary viremia (skin lesions appear)
- moves into sensory ganglia in the peripheral nervous system, where it becomes latent
What is an acute infection?
- Best understood infections and involve the rapid production of viron's followed by rapid resolution and elimination of the infection by host defenses
- Some are asymptomatic
- main problem is the incubation period; by the time they show symptoms the virus has already been transmitted. two examples: common cold and influenza.
What is a latent infection?
- Is known as a persistent infection (chronic infection is also persistent)
- caused when host defenses are either modulated or completely bypassed
- virions are produced for months or even years
- Cytotoxic T cells (CD8+) are key in getting rid of these infections (adaptive immune response).
- no large scale production of virions
- reduced or absent immune response
- persistence of an intact viral genome so infections can reoccur
- can be re-actived years after entry into host
Explain slow infections
- Lethal- associated usually w/ brain infections
- Signs may not be seen until years after the primary infection
- Once S/S appears (difficulties w/ brain function and motor skills), death usually follows very quickly
What is antigenic drift?
- Involves small changes in viron structure Results from mutations
- Occurs after infection has began
What is antigenic shift?
- Major changes in viron structure
- due to acquisition of new genes
- this through co-infection or recombination
viruses cause significant disease
Define non-virulent, attenuated
At one point it was virulent, but now its not. They cause little or no disease.
What are the three types of vaccines?
- Live attenuated vaccine: made of intact virions rendered non-infectious
- Inactivated or killed vaccine: composed of killed or dead virions
- Subunit vaccine: composed of immunogenic parts of virions
What are passive and active immunization?
- Passive immunization: a performed antiviral product, such as antibody, is administered
- Active immunization: antigen is administered & causes the onset of the immune response
What are some methods to measure virulence?
- LD50= how much virus is required to kill 50% of a subject population
- ID50= how much virus is required to infect 50% of a subject population
- PD50= how much virus is required to paralyze 50% of a subject population
produce virions and kill host cells rapidly (cytopathology)
produce virions but do not cause cytopathology
Spread of viruses in an infected body
What would you like to do?
Home > Flashcards > Print Preview
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| 0.925688 | 717 | 3.5625 | 4 |
The promise of the data revolution is being fulfilled. This report summarizes the lessons from the case studies on how data leads to impact. View full report
The Political Economy of Data
Data form the bedrock of evidence-based decision-making, both public and private. To fulfill their purpose, data systems need political, technical, and financial support by governments committed to open data.
Data quality leads to trust in the source and more use of data. To meet the growing demand for data, new investments are needed in systems and processes that yield high quality data.
To understand complex relationships, data must be sufficiently disaggregated to represent all relevant groups. Disaggregation by gender, age, ethnicity, and location are most important.
Data Transparency and Openness
Data produced through public funds should be made available to the public as “open by default.” Safeguards for security and to protect individual privacy are the exception.
Data are for people. Data should be used to increase understanding and help people manage risks and make the best choices from the available options.
Poor countries suffer from low capacity and low investments in their national statistical systems. It is a global responsibility to highlight these problems and agree on collective actions.
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<urn:uuid:eb425b3a-4f51-42fd-a9da-18720449977d>
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CC-MAIN-2023-40
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https://dataimpacts.org/
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| 0.936674 | 263 | 2.890625 | 3 |
An Extraordinary Atlantic Life: Sebastián Nicolás Calvo de la Puerta y O’Farrill, Marqués de Casa-Calvo
by Gilbert C. Din
Sebastián Calvo de la Puerta was an interim governor of Louisiana for two years (1799-1801) during an era that most historians have ignored. Born into a Spanish family that settled in Havana in the sixteenth century and became very wealthy because of sugar, Sebastián chose a military career and gradually rose to the rank of general. In addition to Casa-Calvo's career in Louisiana, the study explores Spanish settlement in Cuba, Cuba’s importance in the Spanish empire, Spain’s economic and military decline, the French invasion of Spain (1808-1813), and Sebastián’s last years in Paris. Despite the fact that Casa-Calvo left virtually no personal papers or even a picture of himself, Gilbert Din has provided a remarkable biography of a man who lived An Extraordinary Atlantic Life.
Gilbert C. Din holds AB and MA degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, and a doctorate from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in Spain, all in history. He specializes in the Spanish period (1763-1803) of colonial Louisiana and has published a number of books and many articles about its history. Among the awards he has won are two Kemper Williams Prizes for The Canary Islanders of Louisiana (1988) and Spaniards, Planters, and Slaves: The Spanish Regulation of Slavery in Louisiana (1999).
Softcover, 363 pp., ©2016
Release date: September 6, 2016
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CC-MAIN-2020-24
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https://ulpress.org/products/an-extraordinary-atlantic-life-sebastian-nicolas-calvo-de-la-puerta-y-o-farrill-marques-de-casa-calvo
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en
| 0.92334 | 349 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Detecting changes in deer numbers in space and time
Durham University - Gauthier, Irvine & Stephens
The highlands are an iconic feature of Scotland. The open moorland and mountain landscapes are valued and enjoyed by both residents and visitors, while these areas also provide the resources for a range of activities such as hill farming, deer stalking, game birds, forestry and fishing, which help to support the rural economy. In recent years, a number of drivers of change have affected deer management in the uplands.
These fall into three into three broad areas. First, there has been an increasing policy emphasis on managing grazing impacts through reducing deer densities, especially for priority habitats. Second, culling and fencing associated with increased woodland planting has affected deer numbers and distribution. Third, trends in recreation coupled with the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 have led to increasing numbers of people accessing rural areas to walk in the mountains. These changes have led, in some cases, to conflicts between the legitimate objectives of landowners and the public benefits that highland landscapes provide. An improved understanding of the nature of such conflicts might aid their management. Here, we focus on an example of where recreational land use might be impacting on the economics of deer stalking. Specifically, we report on a pilot study to identify whether available management information can be used to access trends in the abundance, culling levels, distribution and habitat preferences of red deer (Cervus elaphus L.), in order to determine whether further research into the drivers of change might be warranted.
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<urn:uuid:3c9777c0-7ed8-4d64-98a3-8a974cb275fa>
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https://bds.org.uk/index.php/research/current-research-projects/13-current-projects/142-detecting-changes-in-deer-numbers
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| 0.939624 | 311 | 3.03125 | 3 |
November 13, 2017 -
A concept paper published in ChemPhysChem proposes a new biometrics-based authentication approach for unlocking mobile and wearable devices that relies on analyzing skin secretions, or sweat, to build an amino acid profile that is unique to the device’s owner, according to a report in Phys.org.
Skin secretions contain many small molecules that can each be targeted for authentication analysis. The profile would be stored within the device and used for identification purposes each time an attempt to unlock is made.
The author, Jan Halámek, an assistant professor of chemistry at the University at Albany, explains that they “… are developing a new form of security that could completely change the authentication process for electronic devices. Using sweat as an identifier cannot be easily mimicked/hacked by potential intruders. It’s close to full-proof.”
A profile would be developed during an intial monitoring period where the device would continuously measure its owner’s sweat levels throughout the day. Factors such as age, biological sex, race and physiological state of the individual would also play a role. Once the profile is developed, the owner would be identified once holding the device/wearing it.
This approach to authentication could help people who may be unable to move their fingers in a specific position to open the device or have a caretaker who is unlocking their device without permission.
Halámek says he has tested the analysis in his lab with success and is now looking to collaborate with an engineer to help with implementation.
Co-authors on the paper are Vladimir Privman, a professor at Clarkson University, and University of Albany graduate student Juliana Agudelo.
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| 0.960997 | 348 | 2.84375 | 3 |
What Does Science Say So Far About Cannabis And Asthma?
Smoking anything has inherent risk, but with the multitude of ways to consume, is cannabis for asthma treatment becoming a viable reality?
Chronic inflammation of the lungs causes asthma. This means that the airways become more narrow, leading to wheezing, chest tightness, difficulty breathing, and coughing. It affects people of all ages and according to the NIH (National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute), there are 25 million Americans living with this disease. Out of this number, about 7 million are children. Asthma kills an estimated 3000 people per year.
Cannabis for asthma treatment – could this be the solution?
There is no cure for asthma at the moment, and that is why scientists and doctors are trying to establish the best possible treatment for the patients, to minimize the occurrence and frequency of the flare-ups.
Cannabis for asthma treatment has acquired a growing interest because cannabis has good efficacy to treat different inflammatory diseases, due to its anti-inflammatory properties. The question then becomes: is it suitable for asthma and other respiratory conditions, such as COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease)? Both are related to the chronic inflammation. The answer to this is actually complex and contradicting.
Conventional treatments for asthma include long-term treatment and quick-relief medicines. The first group that helps reduce airway inflammation and prevents symptoms, include corticosteroids. In these treatments, an inhaler administers the medicine directly to the lungs. The quick-relief medicine refers to the medicine that immediately manages the symptoms, stopping the dangerous flare-ups. These don’t reduce inflammation over the long term, just open the airways. Both types of drugs have adverse side effects, so there is a keen interest in seeking natural remedies that would minimize these adverse effects.
Can Cannabis Relieve Airway Inflammation?
Since cannabis can be inhaled in many different ways (water pipes, joints, vaping etc.), there is a possibility of using cannabis for asthma treatment (and others) by delivering cannabinoids directly to the lungs. Although there have been studies indicating that cannabis smoke does not harm lung tissue, inhaling the combustive by-products of anything has inherent risk. This means that smoking is not the best method to take cannabis medicine if you have lung disease. Vaping or using an inhaler are better options.
THC is known to effectively dilate airways in the lungs and inhibit coughing. This happens even when patients are smoking cannabis; it is the exact opposite of the constriction that happens when people smoke cigarettes. CBD is known to be a strong anti-inflammatory medicine. As mentioned, there are is a caveat. Combusting any material has health risks, including cancer, tissue inflammation, and irritation of muscousal membranes in the throat. This is what we know about all types of smoke. It theoretically puts asthma and COPD patients at health risk over the long term.
Here’s the Catch:
Here comes the contradiction: a study published in JAMA followed moderate cannabis smokers for twenty years. The shocking result was that the cannabis smokers actually had improved lung function and none of the damage that one would expect from exposure to smoke.
Other studies, however, have found that while the risk for lung damage, such as emphysema, are not raised, there is a definite impairment in large airway functioning in terms of airflow obstruction and hyperinflation, following smoking of cannabis. So, in the end, it’s not really worth the risk when there are so many other options available in the cannabis for asthma treatment.
Cannabis technology continues to improve every year. Patients with lung disease can easily access cannabinoid inhalers and nebulizers that will eliminate the need to smoke. As will vape pens and vaporizers.
In summary, asthma and COPD are difficult conditions to treat. Cannabis for asthma treatment (and COPD) can target the inflammation in lung tissue directly has a corticosteroid inhaler. Ultimately, it’s controversial to treat lung disease by smoking. Therefore we need more research to prove the benefits of cannabis for asthma treatment.
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CC-MAIN-2020-29
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https://www.rxleaf.com/cannabis-science-approved-asthma-treatment/
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en
| 0.946666 | 855 | 2.578125 | 3 |
John Goodenough ’44 B.A., a professor at the University of Texas-Austin, received the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work developing the lithium-ion battery — an honor he shares with Stanley Whittingham of the State University of New York-Binghamton and Akira Yoshino of Meijo University.
As a youngster, Goodenough explored the outdoors in the rural town of Woodbridge, Connecticut, and by the time he left his Episcopalian boarding school for Yale, he was supporting himself independently.
In an interview with Chemical & Engineering News, Goodenough described working “21 hours a week for 21 meals� during his undergraduate days and garnering meals from friends’ families during holiday breaks. He said he was not a strong reader, but was skilled at math, and considered going to medical school.
After Pearl Harbor, Goodenough enlisted, but on the advice of his Yale math professor volunteered for a post in meteorology. Like many Yale alumni who served during WWII, Goodenough was able to complete his degree in just two and a half years, graduating with honors, and a math degree, in 1944. His Yale math professor helped Goodenough find a spot in a prestigious Ph.D. program — studying physics at the University of Chicago. The man running the program was Enrico Remi, Nobel Prize-winning creator of the world’s first nuclear reactor. Remi required that Goodenough complete a 32-hour qualifying exam to join the program. He had to take it twice.
Goodenough was drawn to materials science and went on to do decades of research on magnetism at MIT’s Lincoln Lab. In his 50s, Goodenough left MIT for Oxford, where he began his groundbreaking research in batteries. There, in 1979, he developed the first rechargeable lithium-ion battery. From that point forward, he focused his life’s work on making the lithium-ion battery safer and more efficient. His innovative research led directly to the commercial batteries used today in cell phones, laptops, and electric and hybrid vehicles.
Inspiring Yale scientists
Goodenough has inspired generations of scientists, including Rong Fan, Yale associate professor of biomedical engineering. Fan says he remembers reading articles in inorganic chemical journals by Goodenough in the mid-1990s while he was studying in China. “They showed a very elegant, softer chemistry approach to discovering new materials,� Fan says. “I’ve admired him for a decade and he inspired me to work in science.� Fan initially studied applied chemistry before shifting his focus to materials science.
Three years ago, Fan realized a lifelong dream of meeting Goodenough when he went to UT-Austin to give a seminar in the materials program. To his surprise, Goodenough was in the audience. “Even though it was outside his field, he asked terrific questions,� Fan says. Later, the two scientists met in Goodenough’s office, and Fan says Goodenough shared his fond memories of his time at Yale.
On a call with reporters following his Nobel win, Goodenough noted that he’s passionate about the technology he’s developed being used for good. “We need to get burning fossil fuels off the highways and freeways of the world and focus on global warming,� Goodenough said. He noted, too, that battery storage is essential for a renewable energy future. “If you’re going to have renewable energy … you need a battery where you can store it.�
At age 97, Goodenough is the oldest-ever winner of a Nobel Prize. When asked what he’s most proud of, he told reporters: “All my friends. I’ve had an interesting career,� he added, “I don’t know whether it’s chance or grace.�
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https://edublog.news/2019/10/09/nobel-laureate-john-goodenough-ae44-inspires-next-generation-of-scientists/
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| 0.97043 | 861 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Many mothers think that babies less than a year old shouldn’t consume much of anything except milk and commercial baby food, but a new study featured on NBCNews.com says that fish--something that’s often thought to be a common allergen among children-- may actually increase immunity against asthma.
The study, led by Jessica Kiefte-de Jong of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, suggests that parents should try feeding their young children small amounts of fish, but the timing needs to be right.
"Introduction of fish between six and 12 months but not fish consumption afterward is associated with a lower prevalence of wheezing," the research team reported on the scientific journal Pediatrics. "A window of exposure between the age of six and 12 months might exist in which fish might be associated with a reduced risk of asthma."
These conclusions were based on the health and diet information of 7,210 children taken between 2002 and 2006. Kiefte-de Jong discovered that 1,281 children ate fish between zero and six months, 5,498 ate fish between six and twelve months, and 431 avoided fish altogether until after age one.
Researchers checked the children’s data once turned four and found that there is a 36 percent less risk of wheezing forthose who ate fish before reaching their first year as compared to those who did so after. Around 40 to 45 percent of children who consumed fish from ages zero to six months and after they turned one reported incidents of breathing difficulty. This shows that the protective time window only holds from six to twelve months.
Although the study gives another healthy alternative to common baby food products, it’s still best to consult with your child’s pediatrician before introducing fish or other viands to your baby. This way, you’ll be sure that the food that you prepare for your little one is both safe and healthy.
(Photo by jencu via Flickr Creative Commons)
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<urn:uuid:2a06f82a-bcdf-4aa8-831c-c3fc5dfdf81d>
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CC-MAIN-2014-10
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http://www.femalenetwork.com/health-wellness/fish-may-help-young-children-avoid-asthma
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en
| 0.967567 | 403 | 2.9375 | 3 |
A research nurse is a nurse who studies new and existing medicine and medical technology in order to educate health care facilities, patients and the public on ways to improve their medical practice, design effective treatment plans, lead healthier lives and provide positive overall results in the patient health care field.
Research nurses may research new medical equipment, drugs, diseases, treatments and medical practices by researching publications, clinical trails, medical journals, case studies and a host of other valuable information related to the topic they are researching.
As stated earlier research nurses may use clinical trials and case studies in order to gather valuable patient data, which may be used to find a cure for a disease, identify issues with current medical procedures, medications and/or medical devices and test the safety of new procedures on both healthy individuals and unhealthy patients.
Studies may entail using healthy volunteers to test the overall safety or possible side affects of a drug or use unhealthy patients in order to determine whether a new procedure is able to improve their health and reduce their ailments.
The information research nurses gather from these studies helps them improve overall health care as well as find better cures or alternatives for common diseases such as cancer, diabetes, tuberculosis, influenza, HIV and depression as well as less common diseases.
Because of the nature of this type of work research nurses must be very clear when involving patients and volunteers in lab experiments and clinical trials and individuals should be fully aware of any known possible side affects a particular medication or treatment plan may produce.
Research nurses may work with physicians, doctors, nurses and other health care professionals in order to improve their understanding of a particular illness or disease and to help them come up with better alternatives for their patients in order to improve all around patient care.
Research nurses may also work for a number of different research centers which can include pharmaceutical companies, research centers, universities, the government and a number of other health care related organizations within the public and private health care sectors.
Organizations that are looking to hire research nurses may require registered nurses to hold a BSN degree and have previous research experience before hiring these nurses to work in the research field.
While previous experience may not always be required having research experience can be extremely helpful for finding a job within this field as companies prefer to hire individuals that require less training and understand how research and clinical trails work.
As the nursing industry continues to expand so do its standards, so it’s a good idea to do your research and find out what type of education background and experience these organizations are looking for in order to gear your training towards the field you are interested in working in.
When used effectively research nursing can be extremely valuable for moving the health care industry forward, advancing medicine and improving the lives of the patients who rely on having the best medical practices and technology available.
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| 0.947326 | 562 | 3.1875 | 3 |
|Type of record:||Monument|
|Name:||Earthworks of post medieval water meadow|
Three closely-spaced, parallel drainage ditches, perhaps the remnants of a post medieval floated water meadow, are visible as earthworks on aerial photographs. They are located on low-lying ground, approximately 30m to the south of the now canalised Hagon Beck, a tributary of the River Bure. Areas of floated water meadow have been identified further downstream (NHER 38498), and the alignment of the ditches to Hagon Beck results in a herringbone pattern typical of such features. Alternatively, they might be associated with the medieval moat and medieval to post medieval enclosures immediately to their south and west (NHER 6747), or they could simply be post medieval or modern drainage features.
Images - none
|Grid Reference:||TG 2227 3665|
|Parish:||ROUGHTON, NORTH NORFOLK, NORFOLK|
March 2004, Norfolk NMP
Three closely-spaced, parallel ditches are visible as earthworks on aerial photographs from 1946 (S1), centred at TG 2227 3666. At the time of the photograph one of the ditches appears to have been in use as a drain. The proximity of the ditches to Hagon Beck, and their alignment in relation to this watercourse, is reminiscent of the herringbone pattern typical of post-medieval floated water meadows. Other water meadows have been recorded in the area (NHER 38498), and the ditches seem more closely spaced than the surrounding drainage features. They could, however, be associated with the medieval to post-medieval enclosures to their south and west (NHER 6747). They are not visible as a group on any subsequent aerial photographs and were presumably levelled some time after 1946.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 31 March 2004
- DITCH (Unknown date)
- DRAINAGE DITCH (Unknown date)
- DITCH (Medieval to 19th Century - 1066 AD to 1900 AD)
- DRAINAGE DITCH (Post Medieval to 21st Century - 1540 AD to 2100 AD)
- WATER MEADOW (Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)
Associated Finds - none
Protected Status - none
Sources and further reading
|<S1>||Vertical Aerial Photograph: RAF. 1946. RAF 106G/UK/1430 4436-7 16-APR-1946 (NMR). |
Related records - none
Find out more...
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<urn:uuid:536b6d58-8e7c-437c-91dd-2fc24ed3294e>
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CC-MAIN-2020-05
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http://www.heritage.norfolk.gov.uk/record-details?MNF43683
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| 0.920728 | 552 | 2.703125 | 3 |
RSPB First Book of Birds. Whether watching through your window or out and about, birds are everywhere! Learn how to tell wrens from pigeons with this enchanting introduction to 35 of them our most common birds. Through beautiful full-page illustrations accompanied by key information about each bird, this book is designed to encourage young children’s interest in the outside world and wildlife.
RSPB First Book of Birds provides a first look at the outside world for young nature spotters. Use the spotters guide at the back of the book to help you find each one.
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<urn:uuid:9555c787-2ff8-428e-a9ce-858478f12c30>
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CC-MAIN-2023-40
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https://www.irishgardenbirds.ie/product/rspb-first-book-of-birds/
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| 0.936333 | 121 | 3.40625 | 3 |
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