text
stringlengths 263
344k
| id
stringlengths 47
47
| dump
stringclasses 23
values | url
stringlengths 16
862
| file_path
stringlengths 125
155
| language
stringclasses 1
value | language_score
float64 0.65
1
| token_count
int64 57
81.9k
| score
float64 2.52
4.78
| int_score
int64 3
5
|
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
As the name suggests, Remote Desktop is simply the ability to work remotely on a desktop computer. It means connecting to and accessing a device from afar via a different device, such as a laptop or smartphone. This is different than simply screen sharing because remote desktop connections allow you to interact with the remote device.
For example, you can establish a remote connection from your phone to your laptop and control it, watch videos and transfer files. You can connect from one computer to another halfway across the world and still use all of its functions and applications as if you were sitting in front of it.
To get connected, there needs to be a security barrier. In the case of AnyDesk, the remote device—the device that will be controlled from afar—will either receive a session request upon connecting that a person on that end needs to accept manually, or you can set up a password for your own devices so no action needs to be taken on the remote end.
Simply being able to access a Remote Desktop isn’t enough to ensure smooth performance. You need additional features, from indispensable components like top-level security to specific functions that make the experience more immersive, like the ability to print out remote documents locally.
All Remote Desktop sessions must be encrypted and have the highest security standards, ensuring unauthorized parties can’t decrypt connections or access remote devices. When using a remote desktop tool, you should always beware of online scammers and know how to avoid being tricked.
One of the most exciting things about Remote Desktop access is that it’s very versatile. Whenever users need to access a device, whether it’s from the other side of the room or halfway around the world, they use Remote Desktop Software.
Let’s start small. Imagine you are on your computer, and you need to transfer a file to your phone. You don’t have a USB cable with you right now, so you just use a remote desktop tool in order to transfer the file to your phone with a simple remote connection. It’s like reaching through your phone screen and grabbing the file.
Now let’s look at a more ambitious use case: Remote Support. Let’s say your family member needs help with a problem on their computer, but you’re not there to help. If both parties have downloaded AnyDesk, you can simply connect to their computer and solve the problem yourself. In both of these cases, you can simply download AnyDesk for free. Take a look at our blog to find out more about the free AnyDesk version.
However, companies—especially their IT departments—can also benefit from remote desktop software. Administration tasks become a lot easier when you can access multiple devices at once, like rolling out software on all devices or managing devices from one central point.
Other employees can use a remote desktop solution to work from home. That way, they can use a simple laptop and connect to high-performance computers at work without latency. It’s a solution that’s quick and easy to set up for remote work, whether you work for a company, use it for personal projects or are a student.
Businesses should ask themselves the following questions: What tool are you currently using to enable Remote Work opportunities for your employees? Is IT Support in your company running smoothly? Are you even able to access remote devices?
But not just businesses can profit from integrating a Remote Desktop solution. Even in private life a proper Remote Desktop tool can help, especially when it comes to giving technical support to family members living far away.
Now that you’ve learned more about what Remote Desktop is, why don’t you try it yourself? Discover interesting use cases in our blog and consider the different ways you could use this technology in your own life. We offer one of the most affordable Remote Desktop tools out there, and you can always customize our solution to your specific needs! Take a look at our licensing options.
With so many solutions out there and each with its own set of features, it’s not easy to choose the right one for your business. Luckily, with our Remote Desktop Buyer’s Guide, we help you identify the most essential factors to consider when selecting a Remote Desktop Solution for your business.
Sign up for news, tips and more | <urn:uuid:565f2678-4bdf-4260-983b-fd17ddd5cd7c> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://blog.anydesk.com/what-is-remote-desktop/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510179.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20230926075508-20230926105508-00141.warc.gz | en | 0.933092 | 881 | 2.5625 | 3 |
The Leading eBooks Store Online
for Kindle Fire, Apple, Android, Nook, Kobo, PC, Mac, BlackBerry ...
Key Concepts in Ethnography
- Covers and summarises the basic and related issues in ethnography that are covered nowhere else in a single text
- It is an outstanding teaching and research resource which examines topics like 'sampling' and 'generalising' as well as embracing new fields such as virtual, visual and multi-sighted ethnography.
- Time-honoured themes such as key informants, access, participant observation and rapport are here as well as key contemporary issues such as reflexivity, writing and ethics.
- Each concept is presented comprehensively yet critically, with relevant examples.
This is not quite an encyclopaedia but far more than a dictionary. It is comprehensive yet brief. It is small and neat, easy to hold and flick through. It is what students and researchers have been waiting for.
240 pages; ISBN 9781446243442
, or download in or | <urn:uuid:da2d3372-6479-4116-8519-b05485507cd4> | CC-MAIN-2014-23 | http://www.ebooks.com/635499/key-concepts-in-ethnography/o-reilly-karen/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-23/segments/1406510267865.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20140728011747-00483-ip-10-146-231-18.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922389 | 212 | 3.265625 | 3 |
by Andrea Laine, EMGV
A few years ago I decided to begin composting, again. I had tried twice before in different places I had lived. Neither of those first two attempts were successful. There must be something to the saying: ‘Third time’s a charm,’ because I have fallen in love with composting.
Composting is the act of creating compost in your own backyard. Compost is decayed organic matter that once fully broken down makes an outstanding soil amendment for all kinds of plants, shrubs and trees.
Benefits of Composting
Compost improves the physical properties of the soil: its color, texture, structure, depth, and water capacity. Compost also supplies the soil with essential nutrients, mainly nitrogen and carbon. Nitrogen supports foliage growth and green color; It easily leaches from soil so it is important to replenish it. Carbon improves soil aeration, and water drainage and retention.
Composting is easier than I imagined it would be and helpful in so many ways. It is an excellent way to recycle yard trimmings and natural kitchen scraps year round. I no longer feel guilty about fruits or vegetables going bad before I have a chance to eat them; What does not feed me will feed my compost pile and, ultimately, my garden.
Home-made compost saves money. With a little effort and consistent attention, the pile builds up and breaks down quickly. Thus, I almost always have compost when I want it. Each spring I treat perennials and shrubs by working a shovelful in to the top few inches of soil under the plant canopy.
Siting and Building a Compost Pile
There are two ways to start backyard composting. You can purchase a commercially-manufactured bin or build your own enclosure. I have tried both types and much prefer the DIY approach as it is easier to maintain, especially when it comes to balancing moisture and aeration levels which are important components to a productive pile. A 4×4 cubic-foot enclosure is ideal. The sides must not be solid so air can pass through and around the pile.
Choose the right site for your composting. The first time I tried composting I placed my pile at the rear of a long, narrow acre. Its distant location, behind a shrub border no less, turned out to be inconvenient and, therefore largely ignored. My current pile is just behind a detached garage, out of sight yet still easy to access.
It takes about three to six months to produce finished compost using the “hot pile” method. The “cold pile” method will take about a year or longer. The difference being the temperature and moisture of the pile. Compost is ready to use when it is dark brown, has a light and crumbly texture similar to potting soil, and has a pleasant, earthy scent.
Feeding a Compost Pile
Ideally, begin with a layer of twigs and small branches to provide some structure and ventilation at the bottom of the pile. On top of that, add a layer of dead leaves and then a handful of soil to initiate microorganisms.
Contributions to the compost pile are commonly characterized as “browns” and “greens.” Browns are sugar-rich carbon sources that provide energy to microorganisms. Greens are protein-rich nitrogen sources that provide moisture to microorganisms. Composting works because microorganisms in the pile (such as bacteria, fungi, algae, protozoa and nematodes) feed on this brown and green matter, converting it to what we recognize as soil.
Materials I often add to my compost pile include: coffee grinds and tea bags, dryer lint and floor sweepings, fruit and vegetable peelings, stems from herbs, flower stalks and dead blossoms, egg shells, and twigs that litter the ground. Since Durham County has a very good curb recycling program, I route my newspapers, cardboard and other paper scraps to the recycling bin. The nitrogen content of paper is low and would slow the pile’s decomposition rate, so it is best not to compost paper. Avoid pine needles, too; their waxy coating resists decay. I err on the side of caution and do not add weeds to my compost.
Tips for Composting Success
- Piles three to five feet high stay hot best.
- Smaller pieces compost faster; Take the time to cut deposits into two-inch pieces.
- Turn the pile weekly to aerate it and hasten breakdown of material. If it is too difficult to turn, at least poke holes in it. I use a pitch fork, but there is such a tool as a composting fork that may be easier/better.
- Add a handful of soil every now and then to initiate microorganisms.
- Occasionally, I add water to the bucket of household waste before dumping it on the pile; approximately 40 to 60 percent moisture is needed in the pile. (Water in the bucket also helps to fully empty its contents.)
- Rinse eggshells and set them aside. Once fully dry, crush them to hasten their breakdown.
- Pour a layer of dead leaves or rotting twigs (‘browns’) over fresh vegetable trimmings (‘greens’) to dissuade critters from entering the pile.
- Strive for a ratio mix of 2:1 “brown” to “greens.”
- Animal manure may contain composting-resistant herbicides. See NC State Extension publication Herbicide Carryover in Hay, Manure, Compost & Grass Clippings: Caution to Hay Producers, Livestock Owners, Farmers & Home Gardeners if you add manure to your pile.
I love having a compost pile for its utility in providing nutritious soil for my garden and a place for the recycling of vegetable trimmings, egg shells, and other organic household waste that would otherwise end up in a landfill somewhere. I can, and do, compost year-round. During cold weather the pile is unlikely to get hot enough to break down new additions. No worries though; Being North Carolinians, we know that warm weather will soon return.
References and Resources
How to build a compost bin: http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/publications/Detail.aspx?PublicationID=347
The do and don’ts of adding matter to a compost pile: https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/backyard-composting-of-yard-garden-and-food-discards
A list of Extension publications on home composting: https://composting.ces.ncsu.edu/home-composting/
Soil and the carbon cycle: http://nmsp.cals.cornell.edu/publications/factsheets/factsheet91.pdf | <urn:uuid:1b9fd27c-0c0b-4313-8ed9-a1190189fe93> | CC-MAIN-2020-34 | https://durhammastergardeners.com/2018/01/25/consider-composting/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-34/segments/1596439735939.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20200805094821-20200805124821-00466.warc.gz | en | 0.932705 | 1,438 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Who We Are
The Nauhaus Institute (NHI) is an open source research organization dedicated to developing, sharing, and popularizing affordable carbon neutral building and living solutions. Our approach incorporates hyper-efficient designs, local / low embodied energy materials, self-sufficient mechanical and electrical systems, on-site food production, outdoor living, and smart growth development solutions.
What Is “Carbon Neutrality” And Why Should You Care?
The overwhelming majority of international climate scientists now believe that the earth’s climate is changing rapidly due primarily to our pernicious habit of burning fossil fuels (oil and coal) that release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It’s unclear exactly what the consequences of this trend will mean, but a good summary of a survey of existing predictive climatic computer modeling is, “It ain’t gonna be good.” In any case, waiting around to find out is like hanging out in the tiger’s cage to see if it’s hungry. The good news is that though the problem is complex, the solution is simple: stop burning fossil fuels. The energy required to run buildings is responsible for about 50% of our carbon footprint while transportation makes up another 15 to 30% of that impact. Therefore, creating a “carbon neutral” built environment would solve human induced climate change.
NHI was born from one simple thought: What would happen if we considered our present climate change crisis as an opportunity to make life better? Reducing carbon emissions can lower the life-cycle costs of buildings while making them healthier and more durable. Carbon neutral buildings encourage self-sufficiency for individuals and groups, a renewed daily connection to the outdoors, a less-hectic pedestrian-centric urban environment, have built-in support for local economies, and allow for cost savings in municipal infrastructures. Put simply, the specter of climate change can empower us to move our collective happiness up the to-do list of social priorities.
We’re not rocket scientists, which is fine because this isn’t rocket science. Carbon neutral design is basically an Easter egg hunt. Find the carbon and then reduce or eliminate it. In that vein, NHI started by defining the aspects of buildings that have associated carbon emissions: health and comfort, energy efficiency, materials selection, durability, size, infrastructure, affordability (seen from another angle this is social justice), and beauty (yes, beauty!). We then set out to reduce the carbon footprint associated with each of these elements in a given building project. In general, our response has been to develop a "whole systems" building design and construction approach that combines the best of modern building science with the advantages of traditional building materials and techniques.
The result creates interesting juxtapositions like intricate German energy modeling married to site-made earthen materials; and cutting-edge technologies such as photovoltaics and energy recovery ventilation combined with luxurious outdoor spaces and edible landscapes. In summary, we are working to help revamp our modern built environment and create beautiful, healthy, livable spaces that grapple with climate change while improving the quality of your daily life.
We start with established high performance building science practices including passive solar design, a super-insulated and airtight building envelope, interior thermal mass, high performance windows and doors, and careful construction detailing. This integrated design approach can create buildings that are up to 90% more energy efficient than present code mandates, creating a healthy, comfortable indoor environment that requires little heating or cooling energy.
This substantial decrease in energy use allows renewable energy systems to be downsized. The consequent reduction in price brings self-sufficient power production and even carbon neutrality within reach. This "state of the art" building science is combined with site-harvested materials, rainwater harvesting, greywater irrigation, extensive outdoor living spaces, a lush edible landscape, small scale animal husbandry, and wildlife habitat to make sustainable homesteads a possibility even in densely populated urban neighborhoods.
Don't panic! Our approach doesn't require that everyone become a small scale farmer. The concept is to merge the improvement of building performance mandated by our present climate crisis with a return to productive use of our urban landscapes.
The average suburban lawn could produce an abundance of food. Why not plant a beautiful edible landscape. Then, rather than paying someone to mow your lawn, let them harvest your edibles. They'll keep the surplus to eat and sell. The result: you feed yourself and create jobs by replacing a boring lawn with a varied landscape full of the sights, smells, sounds, feelings, and tastes of the changing seasons.
Successes, Failures, and the Future
To date NHI has built a single house. We call it the Nauhaus Prototype. It has been an incredible success. In fact, it’s most certainly one of the most energy efficient buildings utilizing “natural building” materials and methods in the world. You can learn a lot more about the project here and here, as well as by perusing the rest of this website. To get a feel for what it's like to live there, check out "Living in the Nauhaus" posts on our blog.
Our goal, however, was to create a repeatable, affordable model that could be disseminated both conventionally through a business model and virally through open source platforms. Okay, that hasn’t panned out. We had some unfortunate real world problems with money, trust, love, and war. We also perhaps have to face that our product isn’t yet cost competitive. Regardless of how necessary and wonderful we know our baby to be, it costs more upfront and in our world that’s where the rubber meets the road. This is nothing that a $2,000,000 grant couldn’t fix, but we also haven’t been able to successfully make that argument to the suits.
So, where does that leave us? We are regrouping and continuing to constantly research and collate. If anyone wants to fund us, then great. If not, we’re in this for the long haul and anticipate our next incarnation to be a design/build company that will crack the affordable carbon neutral nut for small scale projects. | <urn:uuid:d02e8ff4-7047-44b2-9138-e3c50235bf44> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thenauhaus.com/index.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697552127/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094552-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938143 | 1,285 | 2.75 | 3 |
Against all odds, the rare Devils Hole pupfish keeps on swimming
Have you ever felt stuck in a bad situation that you couldn't get out of, through no fault of your own, and all you could do is just make the best of it?
Such is the life of the Devils Hole pupfish.
This small, iridescent blue-or-green fish swims in the hot waters of an inhospitable fishbowl made of rock in a Nevada section of Death Valley National Park, where it somehow got trapped thousands of years ago.
The deep cavern that is this fish's only home is surrounded by a chain-link fence, razor wire, and other security measures designed to protect this incredibly rare endangered species.
In 2013, its population hit a low of only 35 fish. But over the last couple of years, the Devils Hole pupfish has bounced back, thrilling and somewhat baffling wildlife managers who still are trying to figure out how this tough little fish manages to make a go of it.
Last year, in the spring, they counted 175 observable fish. This spring, the count was the same, which means that the population has been holding steady.
A wild population of just 175 fish doesn't sound like a lot. But this is the best the Devils Hole pupfish has been doing in about two decades.
"Times are good now with Devils Hole pupfish, compared to how they've been in the past," says Jenny Gumm, a fish biologist with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Exactly how the pupfish have recovered to this point is a bit of a mystery.
"The question that I receive and my colleagues receive is, 'Why?' And you know, we're trying to answer that," says Kevin Wilson, an aquatic ecologist at the National Park Service.
A fish that's able to cope
Wilson first learned of this iconic fish as a kid back in the 1970s, when he tagged along with his geologist mom on a field trip that stopped by Devils Hole.
"I just remember as a young lad just laying down on this wooden observation deck, looking down into this immense hole in the ground and was fascinated," says Wilson.
At the bottom of the hole is the pool where the fish swim. No one knows how deep it is — scuba divers have explored to a depth of over 400 feet.
The pupfish, which are only about an inch long, have no natural predators. Without fear, they'll curiously swim up to inspect divers or anything else that enters their isolated world.
The fish tend to hang out near the top of the pool, swimming around in the shallow water that covers a rocky ledge. There, they feed on algae and spawn.
The water isn't exactly cozy. "It's 93 degrees fahrenheit all the time," says Wilson, and its oxygen levels are low.
Plus, for about four months in winter, the pool remains entirely in shadow, which is not good for the tiny plants that the fish eat.
"It's not a great place to live if you're a fish, that's for sure," says Gumm.
The reduced amount of food in winter is thought to be why spring counts of this fish have historically been lower than counts done in the fall. Last fall, researchers observed 263 fish. The next count will come in September.
"I'm hoping that we cross the threshold of 300," says Wilson.
Earthquakes and flash floods
Part of this fish's recent revival may be due to some dramatic events that have shaken up life in Devils Hole.
In July of 2021, a rare flash flood poured in an enormous amount of muddy water.
"The volume of water that went into the habitat was just so much," says Gumm, who worried the fish would die from a change in water chemistry — or even just the sheer violence of the flood and its churning debris.
It was the first time Gumm felt like these fish really might go extinct on her watch. She recalls going to the hole just after the flood.
"Walking into it, we just weren't sure what was going to be there," she recalls. "And the water looked like chocolate milk. You couldn't see any fish."
She mentally prepared for the worst. But then she saw a few fish, and then a few more the next day.
It turns out that the flood may ultimately have helped the species, by bringing new nutrients into their environment.
And a couple of days after that flood, the fish got hit by another unusual whammy.
A magnitude 8.2 earthquake struck Alaska. Even though the epicenter was more than 2,000 miles away, it created a mini-tsunami inside Devils Hole.
Video cameras caught the water sloshing around. All that sloshing may have helpfully redistributed materials brought in by the flooding.
Another mini-tsunami happened last year, when a magnitude 7.6 earthquake in Mexico caused 4-foot waves inside Devils Hole.
Wilson says that these kinds of disturbance events can clean off the precious rocky shelf that the fish depend on, benefiting the fish by basically hitting the reset button for the whole system.
Video from one earthquake shows pupfish streaming past the camera, as if the fish knew what was happening and where to go to be safe, says Gumm.
"They've been living here for a lot longer than we really comprehend," she says, with the best estimates suggesting they've been in the hole for about ten thousand years.
"They are used to it. And they know what to do."
'It's had a huge impact'
The fish have gotten some help from humans. Wilson says they're now fed supplemental food, since at one point they looked emaciated.
"It was somewhat controversial to start feeding the fish," says Wilson.
The pupfish also enjoy the extra shelter of some plant material that wildlife managers attached to their rocky ledge, to give them increased shade and more options for hiding — because the older fish aren't above eating the young'uns.
"I think society has a duty to protect species that humankind has negatively impacted," says Wilson. He points out that groundwater pumping lowered the water level in Devils Hole, and the top of the pool is about six or eight inches below the historical pre-pumping level.
The Devils Hole pupfish is famous in conservation circles. It was one of the first species to be listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. After nearby development threatened to siphon water away from its lonely refuge, lawsuits aimed at saving it went all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court.
"It's had a huge impact on water conservation and water rights throughout the western United States," says Steve Beissinger, a conservation biologist with the University of California, Berkeley.
Over the decades, several efforts have been made to set up a captive population of these fish in a separate tank, as a back-up insurance policy in case the wild fish met an untimely end. Past attempts all failed for various reasons, such as mechanical issues.
"The approach that we take now for the refuge population is a much larger scale," says Gumm, who manages a fish conservation facility located near Devils Hole. There, its unique ecosystem has essentially been recreated in a 100,000-gallon tank.
"Most of it is actually underground, simulating that cave environment of Devils Hole," she says.
The fish's all-important rocky shelf was faithfully copied by the tank's designers. "They actually went out and 3-D scanned the shallow shelf of Devils Hole and carved it out of styrofoam," she says. "It is an exact replica of the habitat at Devils Hole."
The refuge tank has a population of about 300, created from eggs taken from the wild. An additional 100 or so fish live in smaller tanks that are kept for breeding.
Climate change could make Devils Hole even hotter, and that's a concern for the future. Still, Beissinger thinks the fish could keep on keeping on, as long as they continue to get help.
"You can never relax with a small population like that," he says.
Not everyone thinks that so much time and money should go into safeguarding these fish. Once someone told Wilson that "they should just drown those fish."
Drown the fish?
"I had to shake my head," he recalls. "You know, it's tough, and it's about water."
But love them or hate them, Beissinger thinks everyone should at least respect the tenacity of these beleaguered fish.
"It's certainly, in many ways, an inspiring story of survival," says Beissinger. "You've got to admire that, something that can cling on and adapt to such a difficult environment — with nowhere to go."
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | <urn:uuid:f3380cea-277f-440d-a738-47070dfac78f> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://www.wlrh.org/2023-07-07/against-all-odds-the-rare-devils-hole-pupfish-keeps-on-swimming | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510941.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20231001205332-20231001235332-00624.warc.gz | en | 0.975437 | 1,846 | 2.765625 | 3 |
The extensively revised edition of the best-selling Focus Groups as Qualitative
Research continues to provide an excellent guide for researchers across the
disciplines. Reflecting the many changes that have occurred in the study of
focus groups in recent years, the book begins with an updated introduction
offering a discussion of current social science approaches to focus groups.
Expanded coverage on the comparison of focus groups to individual interviews
follows, and there is more material on the strengths and weaknesses of focus
groups. The section on self-contained focus groups has also been expanded.
Subsequent chapters have been revised to include examples from social scientists
who have established their own practices and methodological research on focus
groups. In conclusion, the author offers future directions and references that
take into account the explosive growth of focus groups as a research tool for
all social scientists. | <urn:uuid:df31a9f4-f0f8-45b4-83f8-fc5409831fb8> | CC-MAIN-2014-23 | http://srmo.sagepub.com/view/focus-groups-as-qualitative-research/SAGE.xml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-23/segments/1406510274979.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20140728011754-00088-ip-10-146-231-18.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952907 | 175 | 2.546875 | 3 |
It’s a frequent question posed by new Abbotsford residents: Why does this city use blue bags for recycling rather than the more common blue boxes for paper, carboard and other items?
Tracy Kyle, Abbotsford’s director of water and solid waste, said the blue bag system is easier for homeowners, because all recyclables go into one bag.
The bin system puts more responsibility on the homeowner to sort recyclables.
In Surrey, for example, residents must sort recyclables into blue boxes, as well as blue and yellow bags for newspapers and mixed papers.
Abbotsford and Mission’s recycling is collected en masse and hand-sorted on a conveyer belt at the Abbotsford-Mission Recycling Depot.
Approximately 17,000 metric tonnes of recyclables are diverted from the landfill each year.
The blue bags are also recycled.
They’re the same material that sandwich bags and other plastics are made of, which are also recyclable.
Kyle says the blue bag system also does a better job of keeping discarded newspapers dry.
“If it comes in all wet, it’s not worth as much. This keeps the value of the paper high.”
For more about local recycling, visit acsrecycling.ca. | <urn:uuid:0a11c1a2-0d76-4bc6-ab36-3c6ebd919da2> | CC-MAIN-2020-29 | https://www.abbynews.com/community/curbside-blue-bags-explained/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-29/segments/1593655921988.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20200711032932-20200711062932-00348.warc.gz | en | 0.932629 | 276 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Golden barb - Puntius semifasciolatus
Scientific name: Puntius semifasciolatus
Common name: Golden barb
Usual size in fish tanks: 6 - 7 cm (2.36 - 2.76 inch)
Recommended pH range for the species: 6 - 8
Recommended water hardness (dGH): 4 - 18°N (71.43 - 321.43ppm)
0°C 32°F30°C 86°F
Recommended temperature: 21 - 26 °C (69.8 - 78.8°F)
The way how these fish reproduce: Spawning
Where the species comes from: East Asia
Temperament to its own species: peaceful
Temperament toward other fish species: peaceful
Usual place in the tank: Middle levels
Food and feeding
Golden barb will accept quality flake and pellet foods, offer them a treat of blood worms and brine shrimp.
Puntius semifasciolatus originate from Asia, South West China.
Males tend to be slimmer than the females and display more coloration.
Golden Barbs, like most Barbs, will spawn early in the morning. They will scatter their eggs around the plants, usually 100 in a batch. Remove the parents after spawning, they will try to eat the eggs, these will be yellowish in coloration and should hatch after 1-2 days. When the fry are free swimming, newly hatched brine shrimp should be given to them for food.
Expected lifespan is 5-7 years.
Puntius semifasciolatus need to be kept in a group as they are a shoaling fish. The may nip at long finned tank mates; otherwise they are a good addition to the community tank.
Bought by aqua-fish.net from jjphoto.dk. | <urn:uuid:9436b7f0-0201-4958-988e-63069936abbc> | CC-MAIN-2020-05 | https://en.aqua-fish.net/fish/golden-barb1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-05/segments/1579251690379.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20200126195918-20200126225918-00121.warc.gz | en | 0.880871 | 388 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Honoring the life and career of Tejano artist, Selena.
In the early 90’s the name “Selena” was synonymous with Tejano music as Selena Quintanilla burst into superstardom. The youngest member of a family band with her siblings, similar to Michael Jackson, Selena became the lead singer for Selena y Los Dinos – before bursting onto the international music scene. In hindsight it’s easy to pinpoint Selena as a groundbreaking legend in Latin music, but in the 80’s as she came up, pushback was commonplace for a young woman trying to perform Tejano music in Texas.
What is Tejano music? The genre grew out of a fusion of R&B stylings paired with folk and blues music along the border of Texas and Mexico. According to Masterclass “Tejano music draws from norteño, a style of music from Northern Mexico, and the brass music of German and Czech immigrants who settled in Texas during the 19th century.” Selena is often considered ‘the Queen of Tejano Music.”
In 1992, Selena released Entre a Mi Mundo – which peaked at number one on the US Billboard, Mexican Albums Chart for eight straight months. In 1994, she would go on to win a Grammy for Best Mexican/American Album and was the first Tejano artist to do so. Selena became known for making Tejano music marketable and introducing it to a global audience.
Tragically in 1995 Selena Quintanilla was murdered by Yolanda Saldívar, a friend of Selena’s who managed her fan club. Selena was just 23 years old and at the height of her career when she was shot and killed.
Selena was mourned far and wide, some likened it to the day “John Lennon was killed.” According to Esquire – “At a public viewing of Selena’s casket, as many as 50,000 mourners converged… from as far as California and Mexico to drape the casket with thousands of white roses. On April 12, 1995, George W. Bush, then the governor of Texas, declared Selena’s birthday, April 16, as Selena Day in the state of Texas.”
The world was shocked and appalled by the death of the young superstar. Her legacy is undeniable in 2021 as Spanish-speaking music is mainstream in America and across the globe. In 1997, a film depicting Selena – titled Selena was released starring a little known actress at the time by the name of Jennifer Lopez. Selena’s role was so important that Jennifer Lopez was paid $1 million for the role, making her the first Latina-actress to be paid seven figures.
The 2020 Super Bowl Halftime Show starred headliners Shakira and Jennifer Lopez, along with appearances by Bad Bunny, J Balvin, and Emme Muñiz. Later in 2020 – J Balvin would go on to be featured in an international ad campaign for McDonald’s titled the “J Balvin Meal.” Spanish speaking music is in major motion pictures, it’s used for the largest ad campaigns, and sporting events in the world – all because Selena broke through.
Selena was killed in 1995 – yet in 2021 her music is being streamed millions of times on Spotify and Apple Music. Amor Prohibido has well over 142 million streams on Spotify, and her hits El Chico Del Apartamento 512 and Si Una Vez are not far behind around 90 million.
With the death of Selena, the world was robbed of her evolution. Imagine if the world lost Michael Jackson, Madonna, or Beyonce at 23 years old – the world had so much more to gain from her. Selena was never fortunate enough to see the world she helped build, but we all are.
So today we give roses to Selena – an undeniable superstar who was taken from the world far before her time. | <urn:uuid:ac4537d6-7a4f-4bc1-96c1-7ce5cf9e57e2> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://www.wbls.com/wbls-news/giving-roses-remembering-selena-quintanilla | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233511717.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20231005012006-20231005042006-00113.warc.gz | en | 0.969158 | 849 | 2.609375 | 3 |
In Hinduism, puja is a common way of worshipping Gods. It is the most famous way of worship that is practiced in every Hindu house till date. People do puja on daily basis and also during some auspicious ceremony or function. A puja can be a complicated or simple ritual depending on the way it is done.
Puja allows Hindu people to revere Gods and Goddesses. It is an old belief in Hinduism that god is watching every action of human being and worshipping him keeps the person on the right track. Through worship they show how much they revere and respect God and win his heart to be protected in the times of trouble and difficulty. There are many god and Goddesses who are worshipped in Hinduism. All Gods have different powers and protect a human being at different times of his life.
There are several forms of puja's that are performed in Hinduism like general puja in which Gods are worshipped to honor them. This type of puja can be performed on daily basis in the temples or within a person's heart.
Shanty Puja In this form of puja a havan is performed in the house. The main aim of this puja is reduce the worries and tensions that are hovering over a person's life. Shanty puja helps in decreasing the negative energies and helps a person gain back his confidence and live his life peacefully. This form of puja can also be performed on the demise of a person in a household to make his soul rest in peace.
Graha Puja is usually done before entering in a new house so that a person can lead a happy and healthy life in his new house. This puja helps in bringing positive energy inside the house and allows people moving in to commence a new life and stay happily in it.
Event puja is a puja that is performed during different events happening in a person's life. This puja can be carried every year to honor the person on the date of his death. It can also be performed to celebrate some happiness or achievement every year.
Tithi puja as the name suggests is performed on a particular tithi or date. The date can be of any importance to a person and can be performed at different times of the year. | <urn:uuid:d334d640-eff8-4347-bfd0-102e3f9cff0d> | CC-MAIN-2017-39 | http://vastuguru.in/hawan.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-39/segments/1505818689661.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20170923123156-20170923143156-00195.warc.gz | en | 0.975547 | 464 | 2.546875 | 3 |
silvicolous[sil vik′ə ləs]
living or growing in woodlands
Origin of silvicolous; from Classical Latin silvicola, inhabiting woods (; from silva, forest + colere, to cultivate, inhabit) + -ous
Growing in or inhabiting woodlands.
Origin of silvicolousFrom Latin silvicola, inhabitant of the forest : silva, forest + -cola, -colous.
(comparative more silvicolous, superlative most silvicolous)
- growing in woodlands. | <urn:uuid:5e52d29d-9b81-4615-ad8c-712bfd8639b4> | CC-MAIN-2014-15 | http://www.yourdictionary.com/silvicolous | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-15/segments/1397609532128.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20140416005212-00283-ip-10-147-4-33.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.730604 | 129 | 2.578125 | 3 |
The French religious reformer John Calvin created a strict version of Protestantism, which originally arose in opposition to the Catholic Church. He is known for his belief in predestination (meaning God has already chosen who will and will not be saved) and his view of the state as enforcer of church laws.
As a result of his election on November 3, 1992, Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado became the first Native American to serve in the U.S. Senate in more than sixty years.
The French novelist, essayist, and playwright Albert Camus was the literary spokesman for his generation. His obsession with the philosophical problems of the meaning of life and man's search for value made him well loved by readers, resulting in his award of the Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of forty-four.
Al "Scarface" Capone was an American gangster who rose to power during the Prohibition era (1920–33), when the United States banned the production and sale of liquor. His vicious career illustrated the power and influence of organized crime in the United States.
Truman Capote is one of the most famous and controversial writers in contemporary American literature. He is best known for In Cold Blood, a nonfiction novel about the murder of an American family.
Filmmaker Frank Capra was Hollywood's top director in the 1930s. He created several immensely popular movies that captured the mood of the Depression-era United States, and he earned more Academy Award nominations than any of his contemporaries.
Lázaro Cárdenas was a Mexican revolutionary leader and president. During his administration he carried out major land reforms that benefited the Mexican people and brought the country's oil industry back under Mexican control, thus restoring the people's faith in the revolution.
Stokely Carmichael was a civil rights activist during the turbulent 1960s. He soared to fame by popularizing the phrase "Black Power." Carmichael championed civil rights for African Americans in a rapidly changing world.
The Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie was the leader of the American steel industry from 1873 to 1901. He donated large sums of his fortune to educational, cultural, and scientific institutions.
The English church official Lewis Carroll was the author of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, famous adventure stories for children that adults also enjoy. He was also a noted mathematician and photographer.
Johnny Carson has been called the "King of Late Night Television." He became a pioneer in television as host of The Tonight Show for thirty years. His interviewing and comic techniques won over a huge audience and produced numerous imitators.
Kit Carson (1809–1868) was a frontiersman, western guide, and trapper. He first gained fame as a distinguished guide for explorers in the western frontier, when America had a love affair with the untamed land west of the Mississippi River.
Rachel Carson was an American biologist and writer whose book Silent Spring awakened the public to the dangers of pollution and its impact on the environment. Because of her work, she is considered a pioneer in the modern environmental movement.
Jimmy Carter was a state senator, governor, and the first U.S. president to be elected from the deep South in 132 years, serving one term (1977–81).
George Washington Carver started his life as a slave and worked his way to becoming a respected and world-renowned agricultural chemist. He helped develop agricultural techniques used around the world.
Pablo Casals was regarded as one of the greatest cello players and composers (writers of music) of the twentieth century. He was also an active protester against oppressive governments (those that misuse their power and mistreat citizens), including that of the Spanish tyrant Francisco Franco (1892–1975).
American painter Mary Cassatt is considered a member of the French impressionists, a nineteenth-century style that emphasized impressions of scenes or objects. Best known for her series of paintings of a mother and child, she also portrayed fashionable society.
Ballroom dancers Vernon and Irene Castle led the craze for ragtime and Broadway routines adopted as social dances in the years before World War I (1914–18).
Fidel Castro is the Cuban prime minister and first secretary of the Communist party of Cuba. A lawyer by training, Castro led the Cuban Revolution and transformed the island into the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere.
The American author Willa Cather is noted for her strong and thoughtful descriptions of prairie life in the last years of the midwestern frontier. Her poetic style was greatly different from other kinds of writing at the time.
Catherine of Aragon was to represent a political union between a strong and powerful Spain and the upand-coming England. Instead she became a model of excellence during a stormy period in European history.
The Russian empress Catherine II, known as Catherine the Great, reigned from 1762 to 1796. She expanded the Russian Empire, improved administration, and energetically pursued the policy of Westernization (the process of changing to western ideas and traditions).
The English physicist and chemist Henry Cavendish determined the value of the universal constant of gravitation, made noteworthy electrical studies, and is credited with the discovery of hydrogen and the composition of water.
Anders Celsius was an astronomer who invented the Celsius temperature scale, the most widely used in the world today. Celsius was primarily an astronomer and did not even start working on his temperature scale until shortly before his death.
Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes is one of the greatest novelists of the Spanish language. His masterpiece, Don Quixote, is one of the most important and influential books in the history of the novel.
The French painter Paul Cézanne was one of the most important figures in the development of modern painting, in particular abstract art and cubism, a Reproduced by permission of Art Resource. style of painting in which geometric shapes are used.
Russian painter Marc Chagall was one of the great masters of the School of Paris. He was also praised as an influence on surrealism, a twentieth-century artistic movement that expressed the subconscious in wild imagery.
Wilt Chamberlain is considered one of the world's all-time greatest professional basketball players. | <urn:uuid:87b13caa-dfa1-444f-9c70-4f15c946b8ab> | CC-MAIN-2017-43 | http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ca-Ch/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-43/segments/1508187823350.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20171019160040-20171019180040-00470.warc.gz | en | 0.975722 | 1,275 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Brief history of Belgrade Archdiocese
As a diocese, Belgrade was first mentioned in the fourth century, when the following dioceses existed on territory of Serbia: Semendrija (Smederevo), Viminacium (Kostolac), Naissus (Niš), Ramesijana (Bela Palanka), which were under jurisdiction of the Mitropolitanate of Sirmium (Sremska Mitrovica). The provinces of Pannonia, Dalmatia, Moesia (today’s Serbia and Bulgaria), Dacia (today’s Montenegro), Dardania and Prevalitanija (today’s Kosovo and Metohija and Macedonia) and Macedonia (today’s northern Greece) also belonged to the Mitropolitanate of Sirmium.
Due to flood of barbarian tribes, administrative and ecclesiastical head office of prefecture of Illyricum, which consisted of the above mentioned provinces, was moved from Sirmium to Thessaloniki in the 5th century. At the beginning of the 7th century, Thessaloniki was a papal vicariate too. In ecclesiastical terms, this prefecture was within Rome’s jurisdiction until the middle of the 8th century.
Due to Slavs and Avars’ arrival in the 7th century, both Byzantine administrative and ecclesiastical authorities were destroyed in the Balkans.
During the 8th and 9th century, Roman and Byzantine missionaries acted among Slavs. At the time, the Patriarchate of Constantinople began christianization of Serbs and Bulgarians. Byzantium, Bulgaria and Hungary fought for the Balkans between 7th and 9th century. There is information in Vatican’s archive about existence of the Diocese of Belgrade during Bulgarians’ rule over Belgrade in the 10th century. After the Great Schism in 1054, Catholic diocese and Orthodox eparchy, that was under jurisdiction of Ohrid Archbishopric, existed alongside.
Belgrade Diocese was under jurisdiction of archbishop of Kalocsa since the end of the 12th century. Kalocsa was the center of church administration in Hungary.
By the 15th century, territory of the Diocese consisted of: Mačva, where several parishes existed, Belgrade, Smederevo and Golubac.
Organization chart of the Belgrade Archdiocese from 1935 reveals that time intervals of bishops’ services in period from 4th to 17th century were long. If we take into consideration that Belgrade was often destroyed in the Middle Ages, we can conclude that bishops retreated to Hungary in uncertain times and carried out their function from there so that they could be called titular bishops.
In medieval Serbian state, there were many Roman Catholic parishes. Valjevo, Crnča, Plana, Kovači, Livađa, Zaplanje, Koporići, Ostraće, Belasica, Brvenik, Gradac, Rogozno, Novi Pazar, Pljevlja, Prokuplje, Brskovo, Rudnik, Novo Brdo, Janjevo, Priština, Trepča, Prizren, Peć and Skopje – which were mining and trading towns where Saxon miners lived, as well as Dalmatian, Venetian, miners from Dubrovnik and other Italian merchants.
Jurisdiction over Catholic population in Serbia was conducted by Archbishop of Bar, bearing the title “Primus of Serbia”. In the 15th century, this title belonged to bishop of Kotor and during Ottoman rule it was assumed by Bishop of Dubrovnik. “Primus of Serbia” is still a part of titularity of Archbishop of Bar.
There are sources which say that there were two churches and a Franciscan monastery in Belgrade in the 15th and 16th century. During Ottoman rule, as in other parts of “Turkish Europe”, dioceses weren’t officially abolished, but bishops didn’t act in their home dioceses, but in neighboring Hungary, and later in Habsburg monarchy. Apostolic administrators conducted pastoral responsibility instead of bishops.
During Austrian rule over today’s central Serbia – from 1687 to 1699 and from 1718 to 1739 – Diocese of Belgrade was re-established, and between 1720 and 1739 it bore the name of Diocese of Belgrade-Smederevo.
There are only titular bishops and apostolic administrators starting from 1739, and this lasted until 1924.
In 1851, Pope Pius IX appointed Bishop of Đakovo ,Josip Juraj Štrosmajer, as an Apostolic Vicar for whole Principality, i.e. the Kingdom of Serbia, where 10,000 Catholics lived. However, there was a conflict between Štrosmajer and Austro-Hungarian authorities regarding appointment of priests and building churches. With the development of economic ties between Serbia and Austria-Hungary and the construction of railway Belgrade-Niš-Vranje in the 1880s, experts and workers who were Catholic, mostly Germans, French and Italians, came to Serbia. In 1883 Štrosmajer sent father Tondini to Serbia who served in Kragujevac, where 600 Catholics were employed in Kragujevac based factory. Besides father Tondini, pastoral duty was performed by father Marbo. In 1884, Tondini blessed a chapel in Niš, which was inhabited by over 1,000 Catholics, and in 1885 he opened a Catholic Church in the same city. Serbian government looked benevolently on this, and as a proof, there are priests’ reports that tell us about their helpfulness and generosity of King Milan.
In addition to pastoral work, father Tondini prepared for conclusion of a concordat between Serbia and the Holy See. However, the Austro-Hungarian Empire opposed this, since it wanted Serbia to depend on their empire ecclesiastically too. At the request of Austro-Hungaria, Tondini left Serbia. There were three parishes in the Kingdom of Serbia at the time: Belgrade, Niš and Kragujevac. The first church was built in 1887 in Niš. At that time, more than 5,000 Catholics lived in Belgrade, but there was only one chapel, and it was in a building of Austro-Hungarian mission.
In 1914, Concordat was signed between the Kingdom of Serbia and the Holy See according to which Archdiocese of Belgrade was established. Suffragan Diocese of Skopje fell under jurisdiction of the Archdiocese. The first Archbishop, Rafael Rodić, took up his service in 1924. After Rafael Rodić, Belgrade archdiocese was led by Josip Ujčić (1936-1964), Gabriel Bukatko (1964-1980), Alojzije Turk (1980-1986), Franc Perko (1986-2001) and now it is led by current Archbishop Stanislav Hočevar, who was appointed as the Archbishop of Belgrade on 31 March 2001.
The area of today’s Archdiocese is about 50,000 km2 and it encompasses whole Serbia without Vojvodina and Sandžak, and has about 40,000 believers.
Pope John Paul II formed the Metropolitanate of Belgrade in 1986, which includes Diocese of Zrenjanin and Subotica.
The Bishops’ Conference of Yugoslavia was formed in 1997, and it consisted of six bishops: Bishops of Zrenjanin, Subotica, Bar, Kotor, Prizren apostolic administrator and apostolic administrator of Belgrade, who is also the president of the very conference.
The Bishops’ Conference in its current form was established in 2001 as the International Bishops’ Conference of Saints Cyril and Methodius, and it consists of the diocese of Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia.
The archdiocese is divided into 16 parishes, six parishes in Belgrade, with parishes in Valjevo, Šabac, Bor, Zaječar, Niš, Kraljevo, Kragujevac, Kruševac, Smederevo and Ravna Reka. There is a chapel in Kruševac within Kragujevac based parish and a chapel in Užice and Vrnjačka Banja within Ravna Reka.
In addition to diocesan priests, monks of the following religious communities operate in the Archdiocese of Belgrade: Franciscan Province of Bosnia Srebrena, Congregation of the Mission of Slovenian Province, Jesuits of Croatian Province and the Salesians of Slovenian Province. There are also nuns: Sisters of Mercy, Daughters of Charity, Little Sisters of Jesus and community of Sisters Servants of the Immaculate Virgin Mary.
Two lay movements operate in the Archdiocese as well: the Focolare Movement and the Neocatechumenal Way. | <urn:uuid:4689215f-7b9b-4122-bcc6-3fa6b0b84663> | CC-MAIN-2020-29 | http://kc.org.rs/en/istorijat/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-29/segments/1593655884012.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20200704042252-20200704072252-00005.warc.gz | en | 0.970471 | 1,938 | 3.546875 | 4 |
Was it a floating house? A great fish? Were the people on board spiritual beings or messengers from the creator? When local natives first saw Henry Hudson’s Half Moon sail by, they probably didn’t guess that its appearance signaled the beginning of the end of their way of life. The conference “Before Hudson: 8,000 Years of Native American History and Culture,” which is being hosted by Historic Huguenot Street on May 1-2 in New Paltz, takes a look at these pre-colonial glory days.
Hudson’s original mission, of course, was to find a passage to the Orient. Unknowingly, when he sailed up his namesake river, he encountered people whose ancestors had relocated from Asia thousands of years before. Today they are known by several names and often collectively called Delaware or Lenape (Len-AH-PAY, which means “common person” or “human being”) Indians. These tribes lived in loosely confederated but autonomous villages which stretched from the Hudson Valley south to Manhattan and Long Island, into western portions of Connecticut, across New Jersey, and into parts of Pennsylvania and Delaware. They went by the names of their villages. “Esopus,” for example, comes from a word meaning “stream” or “brook” and refers to a group that lived in the environs of the Esopus River in Ulster County.
“I don’t want to say that they never got into skirmishes, but they did seem to have had a fairly peaceful existence and would intermarry and trade,” says conference speaker Dr. David Oestreicher, author of Lenape: The First Inhabitants (SUNY Press) and curator of an Ellis Island exhibit on the tribe which runs through January 2010. “Basically, there was sexual division of labor. Women did the gardening; they grew squash, beans, pumpkins, tobacco, and gathered wild plant foods. Men would hunt and fish. The Europeans were perplexed by that. The explorers described how the women were stuck with all the chores and that the men were lazy. Back in Europe, farming was man’s work and more large scale. Hunting was more for nobility.”
When Dutch settlers, followed by the English and others, began arriving in the Valley soon after Hudson’s journey, they gravitated to the same spots as the natives, who had already picked prime locations for their base camps. On Huguenot Street, archeological digs near the stone houses built by French settlers in the late 17th century have turned up native storage pits for corn and beans as well as “some really large hearths with bear remains,” says Dr. Joe Diamond, a professor of anthropology at SUNY New Paltz who will speak at the conference. “From about 7,000 B.C., people were probably visiting the site during the spring and fall to get off the flood plain and move the crops so they didn’t get washed away. It’s called ‘centrally based wandering,’ moving your base camp to another location when resources become available. So in spring they might have headed for the river to fish, and in fall they’d look for walnuts, acorns, and chestnuts.”
A touching find from the excavations — and one that will be on display at the conference — was a dog burial dating from around 1300. “It was done by somebody who really loved their old dog,” says Diamond. “The dog was arthritic and had dental problems, but was carefully laid out in a pit.” Esopus gravesites have also been identified, though not excavated, on Huguenot Street. “They also practiced secondary burial,” says Diamond. “If someone died in a base camp in one location, you might go back several months later, open the grave, ritually clean up the bones and wrap them in fresh deer or bear skin to take back and bury with the family in another place.”
Sadly, the number of burials spiked after the Europeans arrived. By the 1630s smallpox ravaged the natives, the first of many epidemics to which the tribes had no immunity.
News of abundant beavers in the Hudson Valley led to more incoming ships and the establishment of a fur trade. The natives traded pelts for coveted European goods like metal and cloth. Tribes fought with each over trading rights with the Dutch (and later the English), and competition arose over trapping territories. “It was hard to keep their ways,” says Oestreicher. “It was difficult not to be a part of the trade. The different colonists made alliances with Indians and armed them with guns in exchange for furs. To survive you needed to be part of this trade.”
In 1643 a group of Mohawks (who lived to the north), in allegiance with the Dutch, attacked a group of Wappinger Indians. The Wappinger then fled south and were massacred by the Dutch. All hell broke loose after that. The Lenape tribes banded together in what became an ongoing war with the Dutch, both sides raiding each other and taking hostages. Conflict with the Esopus led to the Dutch building a stockade in Kingston. Tribes also built fortresses in self-defense: Diamond’s next archeological dig on Huguenot Street, slated for this summer, will investigate remains of a native stockade.
As the Europeans encroached on their land and competed with them for natural resources, the tribes began to get squeezed out. By 1700, the native population was a fraction of its original size. Pressure to sell land was intense. The Lenape tribes began to retreat to more remote areas, eventually making their way to settlements in Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Ontario.
It was at one such settlement in Oklahoma that Oestreicher began his research in the 1970s and met Touching Leaves Woman, one of the very few remaining speakers of the Lenape language. Incredibly, she related tales — passed down through generations of ancestors — of events which took place at the time of Hudson’s arrival in the New World. She even recounted the story of her people boarding the Half Moon and trying alcohol for the first time. Readers of this column might recall that this incident is also fully recounted in the journal of the ship’s first mate, Robert Juet. “These were stories handed down that the native people never forgot, they made such an impact,” says Oestreicher. “Touching Leaves Woman told me that when she would come back east to visit, she would hear the voices of the ancestors, glad she had returned. It would give her chills. Just to hear about it still gives me chills, too.”
Before Hudson: 8,000 Years of Native American History and Culture
May 1-2 at Historic Huguenot Street
18 Broadhead Ave., New Paltz
845-255-1660; www.huguenotstreet.org or www.ucqc.org | <urn:uuid:6fa257a5-ffa6-4ae3-9390-e9697e3d4086> | CC-MAIN-2023-23 | https://hvmag.com/life-style/native-land/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224649343.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20230603201228-20230603231228-00630.warc.gz | en | 0.980837 | 1,501 | 3.5625 | 4 |
In a world of instant messaging and texting, everyone is trying to say more with less. We abbreviate, we truncate, we punctuate—all to get our message across using the fewest characters.
In my own texting, I’ve begun to notice that I use ellipses excessively. “While I’m thinking about it … can you please check that link.” “Parent-teacher conference … 10 a.m. … Wednesday.”
I’ve even caught myself misusing the ellipsis at work. Wait a minute, did I just write “Meeting canceled … Stacey was a no-show … Rescheduled for Friday” in an email to my boss?
My overuse of this punctuation mark in my personal writing has made me curious about the rules for the use of ellipses in formal writing. Here’s what I’ve found. (Inspired by last week’s Google Doodle celebrating Charles Dickens’s 200th birthday, the examples below are taken from A Christmas Carol
. No Tiny Tim quotes, I promise.)
• Ellipses are three spaced dots (….) generally used to indicate omission of one or more words, lines, paragraphs, or data from quoted material. For instance:
“Marley was dead, to begin with. … Old Marley was dead as a door-nail.” (This example has three dots for the ellipsis and one for the period at the end of the first sentence.)
• In general, ellipses are not needed when the first part of the sentence is deleted. For instance, Scrooge “seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in spite of himself.”
• Ellipses are not necessary at the beginning and end of the quotation if what you’re quoting is a complete sentence from the original. For instance: “Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead.”
• Please note that some style guides call for spaces between the dots (. . .), others call for spaces around the dots ( … ), and still others call for spaces around and between the dots ( . . . ).
• Ellipses are also called suspension points when they indicate an interruption in thought. They may be used to “suggest faltering or fragmented speech accompanied by confusion or insecurity.”
This is how I’ve been using them in text messages and on chat. Although this is technically a correct way to use ellipses, I’ve gone too far. As Grammar Girl
“It is allowable to use ellipses to indicate pauses or breaks in the writer's train of thought as you see so frequently done in e-mail, especially where a break is meant to feel uncertain. Nevertheless (and this is a BIG nevertheless) most people who use ellipses in e-mail overdo it—a lot.”
The Chicago Manual of Style
weighs in with, “Interruptions or abrupt changes in thought are usually indicated by em dashes
.” For instance (back to Dickens):
“The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already—it had not been light all day—and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air.”
Laura Hale Brockway is the author of the writing and editing blog Impertinent Remarks.
• Additional punctuation should be used on either side of the ellipsis if it helps the reader make sense of the sentence or better shows what was left out.
For instance: “Business! … The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
• The sentence in which the ellipsis is used should be a grammatically complete expression and punctuated as such. For example: “When Scrooge awoke the next morning, he exclaimed ... ‘the shadows of the things that would have been, may be dispelled. They will be. I know they will be.’”
• However, an ellipsis and no period can be used at the end of a sentence fragment to indicate that it is purposefully incomplete. For instance,
“And so ends my excessive use of the ellipsis … “ | <urn:uuid:fe4e37b9-0f24-4cc8-b116-089137d1dbe8> | CC-MAIN-2014-23 | http://prdaily.com/writingandeditingEU/Articles/If_the_ellipsis_has_invaded_your_copy_read_this_10839.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-23/segments/1405997869884.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20140722025749-00052-ip-10-33-131-23.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938529 | 932 | 2.625 | 3 |
Europe and the Eastern Other:Europe and the Eastern Other critically evaluates and supports the argument for adopting an intercultural or comparative approach in western political theory. Hassan Bashir examines the encounters between Europeans and their eastern others before the European Enlightenment and illustrates that the West’s cultural others have played a foundational role in developing a distinct western cultural self-understanding. This analysis includes records of eyewitness accounts of European visitors in Eastern lands during the medieval and early modern periods, including William of Rubruck’s account of the Mongol lands in mid-thirteenth century, observations of the first Jesuit mission in the court of Mughal Indian emperor Akbar the Great, and circumstances in late Ming China as recorded in the journals of Jesuit missionary and scholar Matteo Ricci. This work illustrates the dynamism and complexity involved in an inter-cultural encounter and highlights the fact that cultural self-understanding is often deeply rooted in how we understand our cultural others.
Back to top
Rent Europe and the Eastern Other 1st edition today, or search our site for Hassan textbooks. Every textbook comes with a 21-day "Any Reason" guarantee. Published by Lexington Books. | <urn:uuid:67649d07-3588-476c-a0fe-b139f0dba85f> | CC-MAIN-2014-23 | http://www.chegg.com/etextbooks/europe-and-the-eastern-other-1st-edition-9780739138052-0739138057 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-23/segments/1404776416489.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20140707234016-00050-ip-10-180-212-248.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930483 | 236 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Somnolence : a very sleepy state.
Anesthesia is a procedure that is administered to control pain, heart rate, blood pressure and other vital parameters during a surgical procedure. It is temporary state which allows the patient to recover and gain control of his coordination a few hours after a surgical procedure.
Anesthesia is an exact procedure which requires theoretical and practical expertise. Any kind of dosage variation can be fatal to the patient. During general anesthesia, patients are advised to abstain from eating and drinking 12 hours before the procedure as it may lead to aspiration associated complications during the procedure. Thorough examination of the patient history is done to evaluate for drug sensitivity and allergic patterns with respect to the type of anesthesia administered. Anesthetics such as inhalants or IV forms are given depending upon the type of surgical procedure.
General anesthesia is administered during complicated procedures such as cardio thoracic surgery, oncogenic or organ specific surgery. In this procedure, the patient goes into a stage of total unconsciousness with administration of anesthetic gases and intravenous anesthetics such as halothane, Sevoflurane, Enflurane, Desflurane, Isoflurane, Propofol, etomidate and thiopental. Some anesthetics such as Propofol are hypnotic in nature. It has been widely used because of its nature to bring back the patient to conscious state a few hours after the surgical procedure. In addition to the inhalant and intravenous forms of anesthesia which are administered, neuromuscular blockage is also required as it helps in respiratory ventilation along with intubation. Most of these neuromuscular blockade agents are derived from curare compounds which is a skeletal muscle relaxant.
Local anesthetics are either administered as a combination with general anesthetics are as a post-operative anesthetic agent. Most of the local anesthetics are amides and esters. Some of the local anesthetic amides include lidocaine, prilocaine, ropivacaine and etidocaine. The ester forms of these anesthetics include tetracaine, procaine, cocaine and benzocaine. Local anesthetic drugs are given directly in the region where the surgical procedure has to take place. Most dental procedures involve the administration of local anesthetics. The patient is conscious and experiences numbness only in the region where the procedure is being done.
This form of anesthesia is given to block pain in a larger area of the body where the procedure is done. Patient is sedated in most cases. Regional anesthetic drugs usually work on the principle of nerve block caused in the peripheral region. This includes a procedure called spinal anesthesia where the drug is administered in a specific area of the spine to numb the corresponding region of the body. Regional anesthesia is administered at a specific location to numb the region for surgical intervention. Local anesthetics are administered either in the topical or injectable form to desensitize the area of surgical intervention.
Risk factors of anesthesia
Malignant hyperthermia is one of the rare yet life threatening complications of anesthesia. This adverse reaction is caused when succinyl choline (muscle relaxant) is administered. In this reaction, the muscle fibers of the body tend to dissociate from each other. Spinal and epidural anesthetic procedures have headaches as side effects due to the leakage of cerebrospinal fluid from region of injection. Nausea, vomiting and nerve damages are some of the predominant side effects of anesthetic procedures. These are controlled by administration of IV medications. In some patients, the insertion of endotracheal tube during procedures such as bronchoscopy may lead to sore throat for a few days. Apart from all the presumptive risk factors and side effects of anesthetic drugs, some have toxic effects on liver and kidneys. In such conditions, patients are examined for tolerance and toxicity before administering anesthetic gases such as halothane.
The body needs a specific amount of Oxygen to function normally and when this amount is lowered the body experiences hypoxia. Hypoxia literally means lack of oxygen for effective ventilation.
Hypoxemia refers to a state of abnormally low level of Oxygen in the blood.
Anoxia refers to the condition of absence of Oxygen supply to an organ or tissue
Anoxemia refers to the condition where the blood stream contains below normal amount of Oxygen.
Hypoxia is primarily classified into:
Generalized hypoxia: affects the entire body, may occur in normal healthy people when they scale high altitudes.
Local hypoxia: affects one particular region of the body.
When the level of oxygen in the blood reduces, it leads to the condition. People suffering from conditions like ischemia or blockage/constriction of blood vessels may suffer from hypoxia. In general when people travel from low to high altitudes, they may face this problem as the oxygen level depletes with altitude.
Any condition wherein the body is deprived of oxygen can lead to hypoxia. Major causes that lead to the condition include:
Types of hypoxia
Hypemic hypoxia: Obstruction in the ability of the blood to deliver oxygen, caused by carbon monoxide poisoning.
Anemic Anoxia: Occurs due to a decrease in the hemoglobin or RBC making it too little for the blood to carry oxygen. Anemia may be the result of iron deficiency, hemorrhage or shortened life span of RBC owing to an autoimmune disease.
Histotoxic: When the required amount of oxygen reaches the body part, however it does not utilize it because of its reduced ability, it is called as histotoxic hypoxia. Cyanide poisoning, for example, incapacitates a cellular enzyme essential for oxygen utilization. Other causes include: Alcohol, narcotics, acetone, formaldehyde and some anesthetic agents.
Hypoxic: Also called as Hypoxemic Anoxia: When the body does not receive the required amount of oxygen it leads to low partial pressure of oxygen in the blood thus leading to hypoxic hypoxia. The oxygen pressure of the blood which gets supplied to other body tissues is too low to push and flood the hemoglobin with oxygen. High altitude has lower density of air and lower pressure of oxygen than at sea level. Altitude Sickness occurs because the partial pressure of oxygen decreases with altitude. Hypoxemia is the direct result of lower oxygen in the high altitude which translates to lower level oxygen in the blood.
Stagnant: Obstruction of blood that carries oxygen. It can be due to exposure to cold, diseases which stifle blood circulation to the extremities or ergot poisoning.
Pulse Oximetry, a non invasive test is useful to diagnose Hypoxia. A blood test like serum lactate test can show elevated levels of lactic acid - the result of starvation of oxygen in tissues. The normal level of lactic acid is less than 2 mmol/L. However an increase in lactic acid alone does not indicate hypoxia and some form of Anoxia does not increase the lactic acid concentration. Symptoms may be dangerous on the onset and may include the following:
Some types of Hypoxia cannot be prevented. Treatment depends on the severity of the condition and the appearance of the clinical symptoms. Treatment may include the following:
Memories of persons vary depending on the individual's state of mind and the content of the information. There are 2 basic types of memory - Implicit which refers to the unconscious level occurring in basal ganglia and the Explicit that refers to the conscious level (occurring in medial temporal structures). Episodic memory refers to the record of events (episodes) and the relationship with the person. Short term memory is synonymous with working memory. This is a specialized term referring to information about the current task. Commonly also referred to as amnesia, memory loss can be described as a degree of forgetfulness or failure to recall past events which is above the normal level. At times, memory loss is limited to an inability to recall events that are recent, but sometimes it could also be for events from the past or both.
Types of memory loss
Depending upon its cause, memory loss could be sudden or gradual, and permanent or temporary. A transient global amnesia is rare and is a complete but temporary memory loss. In anterograde amnesia on the other hand, the individual cannot recall recent events occurring after a trauma but can recall events of distant past. Retrograde amnesia is when the individual cannot recollect events preceding or leading up to the trauma. But he/she can recall all subsequent events. A transient global amnesia is rare and is a complete but temporary memory loss.
Causes for short term memory loss
Short term memory loss is a symptom of many possible causes including disease, dyslexia, depression, injury or chronic drug and alcohol abuse. Other possible causes for amnesia can be Alzheimer's disease, brain tumor, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, meningitis, Parkinson's disease, Pick disease, epilepsy, stroke and West Nile virus. A stroke is construed as one of the most serious reasons for a short term memory loss.
Research findings have established that the structural differences in cortical neurons depend on gonadal hormones in laboratory animals. Other studies on women show that their cognitive tasks changed throughout the menstrual cycle based on the fluctuating estrogen levels.
A head trauma can sometimes result in short term memory loss and this can happen even when concussion is not sustained. Psychiatric disorders such as dissociative fugue, dissociative identity disorder and other types of amnesia can cause short term memory loss. Severe psychological stress can push a person beyond his/her coping abilities can cause memory loss among other mental disturbances. Research reveals that stress hormones kill or inhibit the growth of brain cells adversely affecting memory. The more prolonged the depression, the more extensive the damage. Hormonal imbalance can play havoc and lead to short term memory loss. During menopause, memory loss symptoms are often seen in women.
Treating memory issues
Mental exercises, herbal supplements, certain drugs as well as a healthier lifestyle can all help in treating short term memory loss. If the memory loss is chronic and it interferes with everyday life then it is essential to consult the doctor to identify the cause and eliminate the serious condition.
Enter your health or medical queries in our Artificial Intelligence powered Application here. Our Natural Language Navigational engine knows that words form only the outer superficial layer. The real meaning of the words are deduced from the collection of words, their proximity to each other and the context.
Diseases, Symptoms, Tests and Treatment arranged in alphabetical order:
Bibliography / Reference
Collection of Pages - Last revised Date: January 27, 2020 | <urn:uuid:bb5307dd-54d3-48b8-bdd4-d9802499652d> | CC-MAIN-2020-05 | https://athena.targetwoman.com/somnolence | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-05/segments/1579251773463.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20200128030221-20200128060221-00443.warc.gz | en | 0.930325 | 2,219 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Freedom suits are legal petitions filed by slaves for freedom.
A number of such suits were brought in the United States and its territories before the American Civil War, including during the colonial period. Most were filed during the nineteenth century. After the American Revolution, most northern states had abolished slavery, and the United States Congress prohibited it in some newly established territories. Slave states and territories had slave laws that created "just subjection." They also had laws that provided for slaves to sue on the basis of "wrongful enslavement."
Free states and territories generally held that slaveholders forfeited their rights to "property" by bringing slaves into the state for extended travel or residency. As people began migrating and traveling more frequently, residency changes provided grounds for some slaves to sue for freedom. Courts in Missouri, Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi freed numerous slaves on the grounds of their having been held illegally in free states. Other grounds were that the person was freeborn and illegally held in slavery, or that the person was illegally held because of having been descended from a freeborn woman in the maternal line under the partus sequitur ventrem doctrine. Even manumitted slaves could find need to sue for freedom.
By 1846, several hundred such cases had been tried in state courts across the country. Slaves had gained freedom in 57 percent of the 575 freedom suits decided in state appellate courts. The largest corpus of freedom suits available to researchers today is in St. Louis, Missouri, where 301 files dating from 1814–1860 are among St. Louis Circuit Court Records discovered in the 1990s. Slightly less than half the slaves in these cases gained freedom.
The first freedom suit in St. Louis was filed in 1805 by Marguerite Scypion, an African-Natchez woman. Briefly, she filed based on maternal descent from her Natchez grandmother. As the Spanish had ended Indian slavery in 1769, Scypion held that her mother, Marie-Jean Scypion, should have been freed at the time based on her Natchez ancestry, and that Marguerite herself was illegally held as a slave from birth. Having had an earlier ruling in her favor overturned on appeal, in 1826 Marguerite Scypion renewed her suit for freedom, filing against her current master Jean Pierre Chouteau, who headed one of the most prominent fur trading families in the city. She gained freedom for herself and all her mother's descendants in 1836, in a decision upheld by the US Supreme Court.
As the city was the "Gateway to the West", and Missouri was admitted as a slave state (bordered by free states), the St. Louis courts heard many freedom suits. If the court held there was a basis for the suit, it appointed counsel for slave plaintiffs. Many leading attorneys in St. Louis worked on slave suits. In 1824, the Missouri courts established the precedent known as "once free, always free", freeing slaves in Missouri based on their having been held by their masters illegally in free states or territories. This held for decades until 1852 and the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, which ruled that Scott should have filed for freedom while in a free state.
United States slavery case law began during its colonial period. In North America, different laws prevailed in the colonies ruled by the English, Spanish and French. The freedom suits originated at the colonial, county, territorial and state court levels, and several important nineteenth-century cases were appealed to the United States Supreme Court. In part because men could more easily escape from slavery, a relatively high proportion of freedom suits were brought by women, on behalf of themselves and their children. In a paradox noted by the scholar Edlie Wong in her book Neither Fugitive nor Free (2009), slave states had statutes that provided for slaves to sue for "wrongful enslavement", based on slave laws that established "just subjection".
With the development in the early nineteenth century of free states and territories, tensions began to grow between them and the slave states. Generally the free jurisdictions passed laws that slaveholders forfeited their rights to "property" by bringing slaves into the state for extended travel or residency. During the period before the Civil War, as thousands of people migrated west, slave law developed based on the challenges of such travel-related conditions. While the following states allowed slavery, the courts of Missouri, Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi respected the laws of free jurisdictions; and juries freed numerous slaves on the grounds of their having been held illegally in free states.
The St. Louis Circuit Court heard numerous freedom suits; the city's function as the "Gateway to the West" and its connection to major continental rivers meant that it was a center of travel for decades between free and slave territories. Army officers and others settled in Missouri after having held their slaves in free territories; others traveled through the city on their way to free territories. The nearby city of Alton in Illinois became a center of abolitionist activities, and St. Louis developed its own network of people who supported slaves seeking freedom. Prominent attorneys were among those appointed as counsel by the court to argue for slaves' seeking freedom. For instance, Hamilton Gamble, a future governor of the state, and Isaac McGirk, brother of a future State Supreme Court justice, were appointed in 1825 to represent Marguerite Scypion. Slaves also recruited their own help; for instance, Polly Wash (see below) enlisted Edward Bates, a judge and the future Attorney General in President Abraham Lincoln's cabinet, to argue in her daughter's freedom suit.
As sectional tensions rose, state court decisions began to go against travel cases, culminating in the Dred Scott v. Sandford (1852) case in Missouri. The State Supreme Court ruled against Scott, saying that he should have sued for freedom while held in a free territory. It was the end of the "once free, always free" precedent that the Missouri court had previously applied. Appealed to the US Supreme Court, the case met a more stringent ruling in 1857, with Chief Justice Roger Taney determining that Congress did not have the constitutional power to regulate slavery, as it was protected under the constitution; that the Missouri Compromise, by which Congress established boundaries for slavery, was unconstitutional; and that slaves and free people of color had no legal standing in the federal courts, as ethnic Africans were not included in the original conception of citizens of the new United States.
In the 1990s, researchers studying the St. Louis Circuit Court Records found 301 freedom suit files dating from 1814 to 1860. St. Louis, Missouri has the largest extant corpus of freedom suit case files available to researchers in the United States. The Missouri History Museum research center maintains an online searchable database of the freedom suits and other cases from this period, including scanned images of the original documents.
Selected notable cases in America
- 1656, Elizabeth Key of Virginia filed the first freedom suit by a woman of African descent and won as a free woman of color. The mixed-race child of an enslaved black mother and the white planter Thomas Key, she sued for her freedom and that of her infant son, John Grinstead, on the basis that her father was a free English subject, she was a baptized Christian, and she had served ten years past the term of her indenture. In English common law, children of English subjects took the status of the father (partuus sequitur patrem). But, at this time Africans were not considered English subjects, as they were foreigners. England had no provision for foreigners to become subjects. In the early years of the colony, the law was unsettled about the status of children born to an English subject and a foreigner. Taunya Lovell Banks's analysis of this case suggests it turned more on the issue of "subjecthood" than about citizenship or race.
- To settle the issue, in 1662 Virginia passed a law incorporating the Roman principle of partus sequitur ventrem, referred to as partus, which held that a child inherited the status of its mother, "bond or free". All children of enslaved women were thus born into slavery, regardless of their fathers. The law hardened the racial caste of slavery, as most of the "bondswomen" were ethnic Africans and therefore considered foreigners. The principle was adopted by other English colonies, and later incorporated into slavery law in the United States.
- 1781, Brom and Bett v. Ashley, County Court, Great Barrington, Massachusetts. This case set a state precedent based on the ruling that slavery was irreconcilable with the new state constitution of 1780, which was based on equality of persons, although it did not specifically address slavery. This county court case was cited in the appeal of the more well-known case of Quock Walker v. Jennison (1783), heard at the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which effectively ended slavery in Massachusetts.
- 1806, Houlder Hudgins v. Jackey Wright, Richmond, Virginia. Jackey Wright sued for freedom for her and her two children, based on descent from women recognized as Indian in the community; Virginia had prohibited Indian slavery since 1705 (or 1691). George Wythe as Chancellor had ruled for their freedom based on their appearance as white and Hudgins' failure to prove that they were slaves; secondly, he ruled on the basis of a presumption of freedom according to the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights. Houlder Hudgins appealed. The justices of the Court of Appeal, all slaveholders, held that the appellant had not proved any evidence of African maternal ancestry among the appellees, that they appeared white, and that the community considered their grandmother and great-grandmother to be Indians. They held that Virginia's Bill of Rights applied only to "free citizens and aliens", and could not be used to overturn "rights of property" in slaves. They ruled that the Wrights were free based on their recognized Indian maternal ancestry, or descent from free women.
- 1805–1836, Marguerite Scypion v. Pierre Chouteau, Sr., St. Louis, Missouri. Marguerite, a descendant of Marie Jean Scypion, an enslaved woman of African-Natchez descent, sued her first master Joseph Tayon in 1805. Her suit was based on her maternal descent from a Natchez maternal grandmother. She held that her mother was illegally held after Spain abolished Indian slavery in its territories in 1769, so her daughters, including Marguerite, should have been considered free at birth and not born into slavery. This was the first freedom suit filed in St. Louis. Although the jury ruled in Scypion's favor, a higher territorial court overturned the decision.
- After passage in 1824 of a state law related to slaves' right to file for freedom, in 1825 Scypion and her two sisters filed new petitions against their masters, then Jean Pierre Chouteau and two Tayon daughters. For such suits, the law gave slaves the standing of a free poor person, "with limited rights and privileges." The cases were combined under Marguerite Scypion's name. After their attorney successfully gained two changes of venue away from St. Louis for the trial, a unanimous jury in Jefferson County in 1836 decided in favor of the descendants of Marie Jean Scypion and ended Indian slavery in Missouri. The decision survived appeals to the State Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court in 1838.
- 1824, Winny v. Whitesides (1824), St. Louis, is the first freedom suit taken to the newly established Missouri state supreme court. Winny had lived as a slave with her masters in the free state of Illinois for years; she filed for freedom after they moved to Missouri. The case marked the beginning of the "once free, always free" era in Missouri. The Missouri Supreme Court ruled that if a slave had been taken into an area that prohibited slavery, that slave was free – even if returned to a slave state, such as Missouri. Missouri established a precedent of enforcing the laws of neighboring free states and territories related to forfeiture of illegally held slaves. "Courts in Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi also upheld the freedom of slaves who had lived in a free state or territory." The precedent prevailed in Missouri until 1852, when the state Supreme Court ruled against it in Dred Scott v. Sanford, against a political background of increasing sectional tensions over slavery.
- 1830, Charlotte Dupuy v. Henry Clay, Washington, DC. In 1829 Charlotte Dupuy sued Henry Clay, the retiring Secretary of State, for her freedom and that of her two children based on a promise by a previous master. The case received wide attention in the press. Dupuy gained a court ruling that she remain in the city until her case was heard. She earned wages from Clay's successor, Martin Van Buren, while living at Decatur House for 18 months. The case was notable for these circumstances. After the court ruled against Dupuy in 1830, Clay kept her and her daughter enslaved for another decade; he freed her son four years after that. The Decatur House has had exhibits on urban slavery and Dupuy's case. The story of the Dupuy family is also featured at the Isaac Scott Hathaway Museum of Lexington, Kentucky.
- 1834, Rachel v. Walker, St. Louis, Missouri. Surviving appeal to the State Supreme Court, the ruling held that "if an officer of the United States Army takes a slave to a territory where slavery is prohibited, he forfeits his property." Officers had tried to argue that they could not control their assignments and should not have to forfeit their property. At one time, the US Army paid officers a stipend for servants. No substantive freedom suits based on prior travel or residency in free territories reached the Missouri Supreme Court from 1837–1852, making it appear that the issue was settled in favor of freedom for slaves thus affected.
- 1835 Marie Louise v. Marot (1836) was heard by the Louisiana state district court and appealed to the Louisiana Supreme Court. The Court held that a slave who is taken to a territory prohibitive of slavery cannot be again reduced to slavery on returning to a territory allowing of slavery. Presiding Judge George Mathews, Jr. stated that "[b]eing free for one moment...it was not in the power of her former owner to reduce her again to slavery." The precedent was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1856 landmark Dred Scott v. Sandford case.
- 1836, Commonwealth v. Aves vi, 18 Pick. 193 Boston, Massachusetts. When New Orleans resident Mary Slater visited her father Thoma Aves in Boston, she brought her slave girl Med. In Boston, Slater fell ill and asked her father to care for Med. The Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society and others sought a writ of habeas corpus against Aves, contending that Med became free by Slater's having brought her voluntarily into the free state. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled that Med was free, and made her a ward of the court. The Massachusetts decision was considered notable for ruling that a slave whom a master voluntarily brought into a free state became free from the first moment of arrival; freedom did not require the master's establishing residency. The decision angered Southerners.
- 1841, United States v. The Amistad, a group of slaves being transported on a ship near Cuba (then a Spanish territory) mutinied against the crew. The surviving crew members took the slaves to Connecticut. The court rules that since the slaves were taken from Africa in violation of a treaty the Spanish had signed, the slaves were to be immediately freed.
- 1844 Polly Wash v. David D. Mitchell, St. Louis, Missouri. Polly Berry (filing as Polly Wash) was the mother of Lucy Ann Berry, and sued for her daughter's freedom in 1842. By 1844 Wash had secured her own freedom, based on having been held illegally as a slave in the free state of Illinois. When her daughter's case was heard later that year, the jury voted in favor of Wash (and Berry), freeing the girl. Nearly 50 years later, the then-married Lucy Delaney published her memoir, the only first-person account of a freedom suit.
- 1852 Scott v. Emerson. The legal scholar Edlie Wong has noted that the case was shaped by Harriet and Dred Scott's desire to achieve freedom and to protect their two young daughters Eliza and Lizzie, who were of salable age and at great risk in slave markets by the time it was settled. By the 1850s, southern juries were less willing to grant freedom to slaves based on their residence in free states. In 1852 the Missouri state supreme court ruled that Scott's residence in a free state did not entitle him to freedom after he returned to Missouri. Its ruling that he should have sued for freedom while in a free state, was a de facto end to the precedent of "once free, always free" in the state.
- 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford, the US Supreme Court decision was more severe, finding that slaves had no legal status in federal courts as citizens, and that Congress had no constitutional right to prohibit slavery in any state or territory. While the case has been often discussed in terms of Dred Scott's individual rights, the couple were seeking freedom for both of them and especially to protect their two daughters. The scholar Edlie Wong has assessed the case as a "history of litigation profoundly shaped by gender and kinship."
Freedom suits in Britain
- Somersett's Case, a freedom suit in England in 1772, which effectively abolished slavery in England
- Joseph Knight (slave), petitioner in a freedom suit in Scotland in the 18th century
- Wong (2009), p. 153
- Ariela J. Gross, "Litigating Whiteness: Trials of Racial Determination in the Nineteenth-Century South," 108 Yale Law Journal 109 (1998) http://weblaw.usc.edu/assets/docs/Litigating_Whiteness.pdf
- William E. Foley, "Slave Freedom Suits before Dred Scott: The Case of Marie Jean Scypion's Descendants", Missouri Historical Review, 79, no. 1 (October 1984), p. 1, at The State Historical Society of Missouri, accessed 18 February 2011
- "Freedom Suits Case Files, 1814–1860", St. Louis Circuit Court Records Project, a collaboration between the Missouri State Archives, the St. Louis Circuit Court Clerk's Office, the American Culture Studies Program, Washington University, and the Missouri Historical Society (St. Louis, MO), 2004, accessed 4 January 2011 and 5 November 2012
- Paul Finkelman, John F. A. Sanford, Dred Scott, Dred Scott v. Sandford: A Brief History with Documents, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997, p. 20, accessed 17 February 2011
- Greene, Lorenzo Johnstone. The Negro in Colonial New England, p. 126
- Taunya Lovell Banks, "Dangerous Woman: Elizabeth Key's Freedom Suit – Subjecthood and Racialized Identity in Seventeenth Century Colonial Virginia", 41 Akron Law Review 799 (2008), Digital Commons Law, University of Maryland Law School, accessed 21 Apr 2009
- Zilversmit, Arthur (October 1968). "Quok Walker, Mumbet, and the Abolition of Slavery in Massachusetts". The William and Mary Quarterly. Third (Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture) 25 (44): 614–624. JSTOR 1916801.
- Robert M. Cover, Justice Accused: Antislavery and the Judicial Process, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1975, p. 51
- Hudgins v. Wright (1806), Race and Racism in American Law, Dayton Law School, University of Dayton
- Ariela J. Gross (2008), What Blood Won't Tell: A History of Race on Trial in America, pp. 23–24 ISBN 978-0-674-03130-2
- "Freedom Suits", African-American Life in St. Louis, 1804–1865, from the Records of the St. Louis Courts, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, National Park Service, accessed 11 January 2011
- Wong, p. 130
- "Timeline of Missouri's African American History", Missouri Digital Heritage, Missouri State Archives, accessed 18 February 2011
- "Before Dred Scott: Freedom Suits in Antebellum Missouri", Missouri Digital History, Missouri State Archives, accessed 1 February 2011
- Wong (2009), p. 135
- History: "African American History: Residents: Charlotte Dupuy", Decatur House, National Trust for Historic Preservation, accessed 1 January 2011
- "Aaron and Charlotte Dupuy", Isaac Scott Hathaway Museum of Lexington, Kentucky
- Paul Finkleman, An Imperfect Union: Slavery, Federalism, and Comity, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., 2000, p. 222, accessed 26 February 2011
- "Champion of Civil Rights: Judge John Minor Wisdom". Southern Biography Series: LSU Press, 2009, p 24. http://books.google.com/books?id=atfIkRdwQ9kC&pg=PA24&dq=%22louisiana%22+%22george+mathews%22&hl=en#v=onepage&q=%20%22george%20mathews%22&f=false Retrieved December 4, 2012.
- Commonwealth v. Aves (1836), JRank, retrieved 11-26-10
- Wong (2009), p. 138
- Eric Gardner, " 'You have no business to whip me': the freedom suits of Polly Wash and Lucy Ann Delaney", African American Review, Spring 2007, accessed 4 January 2011
- Wong (2009), p. 127
- Wong (2009), pp. 130–135
- Wong (2009), p. 130
- Edlie L. Wong, Neither Fugitive nor Free: Atlantic Slavery, Freedom Suits, and the Legal Culture of Travel, New York University Press, 2009
- Jeannine Delombard, Slavery On Trial: Law, Abolitionism, and Print Culture, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007
- "Freedom Suits", African-American Life in St. Louis, 1804–1865, from the Records of the St. Louis Courts, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, National Park Service.
- "St. Louis Circuit Court Records", A collection of images and transcripts of 19th century Circuit Court Cases in St. Louis, particularly freedom suits. A partnership of Washington University and Missouri History Museum, funded by an IMLS grant | <urn:uuid:f7a29ea2-594c-4411-8866-d6fbbef8c561> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_suit | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678683543/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024443-00075-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962286 | 4,723 | 4.09375 | 4 |
April 13, 2010
Aborigines Aim To Save The Wallaby
Australian Aborigines Tuesday declared a large area of land -- 2,240 square miles -- a conservation site to help protect the endangered black-footed rock wallaby.
The area, known as the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara, would be managed by its traditional owners for conservation, said the leaders of the region.Environment Minister Peter Garrett said the wallaby, or "warru", would be well protected. "The ranges in the north provide a safe haven for one of the few remaining colonies of black-footed rock wallaby, with experts estimating only about 100 of the mammals are left," Garrett told AFP.
The reserve connects to other indigenous protected areas to form an immense corridor for conservation which reaches from South Australia to Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
The declaration will also provide employment for the indigenous people, said community leader and ranger Kenneth Ken. These aborigines are highly disadvantaged people with much shorter life expectancies than other Australians.
Ken added that along with the warru, the mallee fowl and great desert skink also need to be looked out for. "We are starting land management because these might be dying out and we need to teach our kids," he said.
Rangers in the South Australian conservation area will manage weed and feral animal control, fencing, maintain cultural heritage areas and survey plants, animals and threatened species. | <urn:uuid:fd5d1bb6-17c2-4a60-b938-53cb936fe9d7> | CC-MAIN-2017-39 | http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1849104/aborigines_aim_to_save_the_wallaby/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-39/segments/1505818693363.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20170925201601-20170925221601-00031.warc.gz | en | 0.947773 | 301 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Every year, approximately 500,000 animals suffer and die for cosmetics testing alone, around the world.
Animals used for cosmetics testing are rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, rats and mice. Dogs and monkeys are used to test other types of chemicals.
Tests include having substances rubbed into their eyes, applied on their shaved bare skin or force-fed down their throats often causing swelling, inflammation and ulceration of the skin and eyes, convulsions, bleeding from the nose or mouth, severe pain, and even death.
Pain relief is not provided as it may interfere with the test and at the end of a test, the animals can be killed, normally by asphyxiation, neck-breaking or decapitation.
Animal testing for cosmetics has been banned in New Zealand, but the sale and import of products tested on animals are still allowed. Most big brands in the supermarket are still affiliated with animal testing!
This may be the most important pledge you will ever sign for the animals. It is about demanding a shift away from animal testing with your purchasing powers.
Sign our Cruelty Free Pledge today and say no to testing cosmetics and household products on animals.
After signing the pledge you will receive helpful information to be able to make ethical purchasing decisions and save innocent lives. | <urn:uuid:caa15e90-e64c-4ecd-8e8f-fb901aa3d849> | CC-MAIN-2023-14 | https://nzavs.org.nz/cruelty-free-pledge | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296949958.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20230401094611-20230401124611-00626.warc.gz | en | 0.938768 | 264 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Murad IV was born #onthisday in history 26/27th of July in 1612 A.D. and died in 8th February 1640 A.D.
He was a Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1623-1640 A.D. which was known for both restoring the authority of the state and for the brutality of his methods. Murad IV was born in the Imperial City of Istanbul, and the Son of Ahmed I 1603-1617 A.D. and the ethnic Greek Kosem Sultan.
He was brought to power by a palace conspiracy 1623 A.D. where he succeeded his uncle Mustafa I (1617-18, 1622-23.) Murad IV was only 11 when he took the throne. Throughout his reign, which was most notable for the Ottoman-Safavid War (1623-39 A.D.), of which the outcome would permanently split Caucasus between the two imperial powers of that century, it was the foundation that lay the borders of Turkey-Iran-Iraq. | <urn:uuid:c163e193-f4bb-4660-abf1-8b05f737e8b6> | CC-MAIN-2017-43 | https://groovy-historian.com/2017/07/26/26th-july-1612-a-d-the-birth-of-murad-iv-ottoman-sultan-onthisday/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-43/segments/1508187822851.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20171018085500-20171018105500-00163.warc.gz | en | 0.991463 | 214 | 2.953125 | 3 |
A philosophical movement
is either the appearance or increased popularity of a specific school of philosophy
, or a fairly broad but identifiable sea-change in philosophical thought on a particular subject. Major philosophical movements are often characterized with reference to the nation
, or historical era in which they arose.
Talk of a philosophical movement can often function as a shorthand for talk of the views of a great number of different philosophers (and others associated with philosophy, such as historians, artists, scientists and political figures). On the other hand, most philosophical movements in history consisted in a great number of individual thinkers who disagreed in various ways; it is often inaccurate and something of a caricature to treat any movement as consisting in followers of uniform opinion. More often the defining ideas of any philosophical movement are templates on which individual thinkers develop their own particular ideas.
Like specific doctrines and theories, movements are often given names with "ism" suffixes. What makes a movement identifiable and interesting as distinct from a specific theory is simply that a movement consists in a large flourishing of intellectual work on one or more ideas, in a fairly specifiable time and place. Following is short list of major philosophical movements, in rough chronological order:
The Ancient World
The Modern World
- The Renaissance itself, which aimed to revive Classical Greek and Roman ideas
- Rationalism, dominant on continental Europe following Descartes
- Empiricism, dominant in Britain following Hobbes
- The Enlightenment which drew attention to the importance of science and reason to human life
- French materialism
- German idealism, fifty years from Kant's major work through the death of Hegel
- Continental Philosophy
- Utilitarianism -- Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill
- Existentialism -- Søren Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre
- Phenomenology Sartre, Heidegger
- Logicism -- Gottlob Frege
- Logical Positivism (with the Vienna Circle, Logical Atomism (Russell), and Ideal Language Philosophy (Wittgenstein))
- Analytic Philosophy -- Gottlob Frege, W. V. O. Quine
- Modernism (more a movement in the arts, but worth noting for its connection with below)
The Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Romanticism are broader cultural "movements" that happened to characterised by fairly distinctive philosophical concerns.
Movements in Eastern Philosophy
See Eastern philosophy for a list of Asian philosophical movements. | <urn:uuid:1e0b7569-bddf-46ef-9baa-1197cf9c4d5c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fact-index.com/p/ph/philosophical_movement.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706762669/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121922-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.897564 | 503 | 3.71875 | 4 |
* Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.Countries are challenging the conventional wisdom that confronting climate change undermines economic growth
In a bid to protect future prosperity from serious climate change impacts, Latin American countries are attempting to balance climate action with economic growth, through domestic policy and at the UN climate talks.
Latin American countries are challenging the conventional wisdom that confronting climate change undermines economic growth by arguing that climate action provides an opportunity to leapfrog traditional development, while delivering low carbon, sustainable development.
Following the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change’s principal conclusion that taking action now to reduce emissions is cheaper than dealing with climate impacts later, these countries strongly back an ambitious global regime to avoid these future costs. The Inter-American Development Bank says these costs could reach $100 billion annually in the region by 2050, even under a 2-degree Celsius average global temperature increase.
Examples from Brazil, Mexico and the Dominican Republic suggest that climate policies do not necessarily undermine economic growth, while an example from Ecuador reveals how climate-related policies run the risk of being sidelined by the need to use natural resources.
Brazil has established a national greenhouse gas reduction target of roughly 36 percent of projected emissions by 2020. Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions fell nearly 39 percent, with a 76 percent drop in cumulative emissions from deforestation, between 2005 and 2010.
Brazil attributes the dramatic improvements in forestry protection to a raft of policies implemented in 2004. However, research also points out that decreasing prices for agricultural products also led to a reduction in deforestation.
As Viola suggests, reducing emissions does not necessarily mean compromising economic growth. From 2005-09 Brazil dramatically reduced its carbon emissions while maintaining economic growth at 3.5 percent annually.
Mexico was the first developing country to create a comprehensive climate change law in 2012 with targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2020 and 50 percent by 2050. The law also states that 35 percent of energy should come from renewable sources by 2024.
Investments in renewable energy in Mexico grew from $352 million in 2011 to $1.9 billion in 2012, highlighting the opportunity to combine clean energy and job creation.
The Dominican Republic recently presented a voluntary pledge to reduce 25 percent of absolute 2010 emissions by 2030. The plan, protected by law, is projected to add 100,000 permanent jobs while expanding the Dominican Republic’s renewable energy capacity and integrating low-carbon development in the tourism sector.
Climate-related policies can be undermined by the need to use natural resources for economic growth. Ecuador’s Yasuní-ITT Initiative seeks compensation for roughly half the estimated value of certain untapped oil deposits, in order to leave these resources untouched. The funds are earmarked to protect national parks and promote renewable energy.
However, the plan has so far raised less than $500 million, leading President Correa to announce a re-evaluation of the initiative and its limits on oil extraction.
Latin American countries are fast growing economies with growing middle classes with substantial development and infrastructure goals. They can take advantage of the opportunities and competitive advantages arising in a future carbon constrained world through the early introduction of climate policies for carbon-efficient economies.
The region will be required to almost double its installed power capacity to roughly 600 gigawatts by 2030, yet the Inter-American Development Bank says Latin America can meet its future energy needs through renewable sources including solar and wind, which are sufficient to cover its projected 2050 electricity needs 22 times over.
Investments in sustainable development in the region are increasing, delivering climate-resilient economies while avoiding emissions. This drive has led to the introduction of cross-ministerial policies, but climate policy across the region suffers from weak implementation.
Trade-offs between climate action and economic interests are inevitable. However, these trade-offs appear less significant than the major economic costs associated with climate impacts.
Climate policy is becoming a fixture on Latin American political agendas, including the recognition of vulnerability to climate impacts and that early action on reducing emissions will avoid greater costs later.
Latin American countries are attempting to promote a new narrative that early climate action is compatible with low-carbon, sustainable prosperity. Successful experiences in Latin America can also positively feed into the UN climate change negotiations and help push for higher ambition and strengthen the discourse that climate change action is compatible with economic growth.
Gilberto Arias is a former Ambassador from Panama to the UK, a former principal negotiator for Panama at the UNFCCC and a participant with the Energeia network on progressive climate action policies. Guy Edwards, who is based in Ecuador, is a research fellow at Brown University’s Center for Environmental Studies and works with the Latin American Platform on Climate and the Climate and Development Knowledge Network. This article first appeared on Intercambio Climatico. | <urn:uuid:c1da25b0-ce87-4c1f-bd22-471cec3c11eb> | CC-MAIN-2017-34 | http://news.trust.org/item/20130806105353-j5b79/?source=hpeditorial | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886102993.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20170817073135-20170817093135-00579.warc.gz | en | 0.938893 | 981 | 2.96875 | 3 |
This demonstration fits nicely into a unit on volcanism or density. It will help students realize that there are differences in the densities of gases, and help them understand how this can affect the behavior of gases.
In August of 1986 a lethal cloud of carbon dioxide gas erupted from the depths of Lake Nyos in Africa, killing over 1,700 people in a valley below. Tremendous amounts of the gas, dissolved in the cold, deep waters of the lake, were released as the water came to the surface. As the water rose, decreasing pressure caused bubbles to form just as they do when a bottle of cola is opened. Since carbon dioxide is more dense than air, the invisible gas descended into the populated valley, causing the deaths.
To view a convenient list of all the resources that have been posted on this "Earth Science Guy" blog site, CLICK HERE. | <urn:uuid:ca32ade1-9cdb-4039-8647-f15ee4ff7298> | CC-MAIN-2020-29 | http://www.earthscienceguy.com/2011/09/simple-effective-gas-density.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-29/segments/1593655908294.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20200710113143-20200710143143-00158.warc.gz | en | 0.953652 | 178 | 4.125 | 4 |
On May 20th 2017 the Gardens reached its 200th birthday and celebrated this momentous occasion with many activities in the Gardens for all to enjoy. A major time-line exhibition charting the development of the Gardens is on show in the Kibble Palace and remaining for the rest of 2017. You can visit and see how the plant collections developed and read about the famous people who featured in its history.
It was in 1817 that Thomas Hopkirk, a distinguished Glasgow botanist, founded the Botanic Gardens with the support of a number of local dignitaries and the University of Glasgow. The Gardens were originally laid out at the western end of Sauchiehall Street (then on the edge of the city). The Royal Botanical Institution of Glasgow owned and ran the Gardens and agreed to provide the University of Glasgow with teaching aids, including a supply of plants for medical and botanical classes. Stewart Murray, the first curator, laid out the grounds and Hopkirk donated three thousand plants as the nucleus of the collection. In 1821 William Jackson Hooker, one of the most eminent botanists in the world at the time, was appointed Professor of Botany at the University of Glasgow. During the twenty years the Gardens were under his guidance they went from strength to strength so that in 1825 the collections numbered 12,000. In 1841 Hooker was appointed Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
David Douglas who was born at Scone near Perth had taken up a post at Glasgow Botanic Gardens in 1820. Professor Hooker took a great liking to Douglas and the two men made a number of botanical trips together to the Scottish Highlands while Hooker was writing his book “Flora Scotica”. It was on Hooker’s recommendation that the Horticultural Society (not yet ‘Royal’) employed Douglas in 1823 as an explorer. From North America in 1826 he sent home seeds of Pseudotsuga menziesii – the Douglas Fir.
The Gardens flourished to such an extent that in 1839 a new site, to the west of the city on the banks of the River Kelvin, was purchased to house the rapidly expanding collections and in 1842 opened on their present site. The public were admitted only at weekends and had each to pay a fee of a penny.
The Kibble Palace which now houses a forest of tree ferns was originally a private conservatory located at Coulport on Loch Long and moved to its present site in 1873, first used as a concert hall and meeting place, hosting celebrated speakers such as Gladstone and Disraeli.
Glasgow Corporation took over the Gardens in 1891, agreeing that they should continue as a Botanic Garden and maintain links with the University. To celebrate the anniversary the City Council has refurbished the railings and main gates and a new outdoor classroom has opened funded by the Friends of the Botanics. | <urn:uuid:abdd4eae-545f-471f-921a-6bb13a6f5dd9> | CC-MAIN-2017-39 | https://wellingtonchurch.co.uk/2017/07/11/glasgow-botanic-gardens-celebrating-200-years-of-flourishing-growth/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-39/segments/1505818687281.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20170920123428-20170920143428-00416.warc.gz | en | 0.975049 | 599 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Study Finds Climate Link To ‘Atmospheric River’ Storms
Posted by Heidi Schwartz
A new NASA-led study of “atmospheric river” storms from the Pacific Ocean may help scientists better predict major winter snowfalls that hit West Coast mountains and lead to heavy spring runoff and sometimes flooding. Atmospheric rivers—short-lived wind tunnels that carry water vapor from tropical oceans to mid-latitude land areas—are prolific producers of rain and snow on California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. The finding, published in the journal Water Resources Research, has major implications for water management in the West, where Sierra runoff is used for drinking water, agriculture and hydropower.
The research team studied how two of the most common atmospheric circulation patterns in the Northern Hemisphere interact with atmospheric rivers. They found when those patterns line up in a certain way, they create a virtual freeway that leads the moisture-laden winds straight to the Sierras.
Bin Guan of the Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering, a collaboration between NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, CA, and the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), led a team of scientists from NASA, UCLA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on this research.
A moderate-sized atmospheric river carries as much water as the Mississippi River dumps into the Gulf of Mexico in an average week. When the river comes ashore and stalls over higher terrain, the water falls as snow or rain.
“Atmospheric rivers are the bridge between climate and West Coast snow,” said Guan. “If scientists can predict these atmospheric patterns with reasonable lead times, we’ll have a better understanding of water availability and flooding in the region.” The benefit of improving flood prediction alone would be significant. A single California atmospheric-river storm in 1999 caused 15 deaths and $570 million in damage.
Guan’s team used data from the JPL-developed Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite, along with NOAA satellite data and snowpack data from the California Department of Water Resources. They looked at the extremely snowy winter of 2010-2011, when 20 atmospheric rivers made landfall.
AIRS was built and is managed by JPL for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Aqua is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. | <urn:uuid:01a9b34a-3765-498e-b992-3bae77597260> | CC-MAIN-2014-23 | http://businessfacilities.com/study-finds-climate-link-atmospheric-river-storms/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-23/segments/1406510260734.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20140728011740-00242-ip-10-146-231-18.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905525 | 520 | 3.203125 | 3 |
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- adj. Inclined or given to praying frequently; devout.
- adj. Typical or indicative of prayer, as a mannerism, gesture, or facial expression.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- adj. Given to prayer; praying much or often; devotional.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Praying much; devout.
- Devotional; given to prayer; occupied with prayer: as, a prayerful spirit.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adj. disposed to pray or appearing to pray
From prayer + -ful. (Wiktionary) | <urn:uuid:04be8b10-88e0-4454-af1b-4994eb664b8a> | CC-MAIN-2013-48 | http://www.wordnik.com/words/prayerful | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-48/segments/1386164888618/warc/CC-MAIN-20131204134808-00090-ip-10-33-133-15.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.775907 | 156 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Bob Marley was born in 1945 in the small Jamaican village of Nine Mile to mixed parents – his mother was Afro-Jamaican and his father white. Marley was passionate about music from a very early age, even dropping out of school at the age of 14 to pursue his dream of becoming a recording artist. After struggling for several years, a break came shortly after he founded the Wailers in the early 1960s. The band did not achieve immediate success, but did allow Marley to tour and record a number of singles. By 1973, the Wailers were signed to Island Records and touring with the likes of Sly and the Family Stone. Although the Wailers were to break up shortly thereafter, Bob Marley only continued to build momentum. 1974 saw the release of Natty Dread, featuring the classic, “No Woman, No Cry.” As his fan base continued to grow, so did Marley’s creativity and mastery as a songwriter. Exodus, which went on to be called ‘Album of the Century’ by Time Magazine, showcased timeless songs such as “Waiting in Vain,” “Jamming,” and “One Love.” Marley’s ascent to higher and higher levels of stardom showed no signs of slowing down, but tragedy was soon to follow. While touring in support of his Uprising album, Marley’s health rapidly deteriorated due to the spread of cancer to his brain and lungs. On the way back to his native soil of Jamaica, Marley died at just 36 years old. He was survived by eleven children, most of which – most notably Ziggy Marley and Damian Marley – have carried their father’s torch as active musicians.
Despite the tragedy of his shortened life, Marley achieved so much and touched so many lives that his peaceful, loving, and revolutionary spirit is still a part of popular culture all over the world. Bob Marley was fearless in his mission to promote peace in his lifetime. He performed the Smile Jamaica concert in 1976 just two days after surviving an assassination attempt in which gunmen wounded him, his wife, and his manager. 2 years later, Marley returned to Jamaica for another politically tense event, the One Love Peace Concert. Marley was the final act of the event, which closed by Marley bringing two of Jamaica’s most bitter political rivals out on stage to shake hands before a massive audience. This is the kind of togetherness that Bob Marley was able to inspire in his lifetime, and that he continues to inspire many years after his death. | <urn:uuid:5858aca8-c750-41f4-9d54-1734b51233e6> | CC-MAIN-2017-39 | http://earthtones.org/portfolio/bob-marley/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-39/segments/1505818686077.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20170919235817-20170920015817-00253.warc.gz | en | 0.98867 | 539 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Anti colonial writer and human rights activist Anton de Kom (1898-1945) was a
son of a former slave from Surinam. In the 30's he lived in Surinam, a colony of the Netherlands. He protested against it and was sent to jail. February 7, 1933, became 'Black Tuesday' when a
large crowd gathered in Paramaribo to demand his release. Police opened fire and resulting in 30 wounded and 2 deaths. De Kom was sent back to the Netherlands, and wrote the historical novel
"We Slaves Of Surinam", he lived in
Amsterdam on Reestraat 6 (nowadays a restaurant) and during World War II he became a resistance fighter. He was captured and died of tuberculosis in a German camp in 1945. He was
rewarded posthumus with the Dutch Cross of Resistance. In Surinam he is seen as a hero.
Anton de Kom statue (2006) by Jikke van Loon, is located on Anton de Kom Square in Amsterdam South-East (Bijlmer). The artist cut the statue out of a gele kabbes tree
(Fava Armogosa) from the Surinamese inland that was shipped to the Netherlands. The statue caused controversy, because he's naked and was created by a white artist. | <urn:uuid:ec8ec2cb-9793-4639-ba54-90d59718918b> | CC-MAIN-2020-34 | https://www.mlk50.nl/50-statues/anton-de-kom/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-34/segments/1596439739347.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20200814160701-20200814190701-00260.warc.gz | en | 0.982272 | 275 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Task 1: Read each of the scenarios. Explain how one or
both fit into one of the three theories illustrated by the
experiments. Be specific using at least two (2) psychological terms
(underline/boldface them), the psychologist and his experiment
(underline/boldface them), and the evidence that supports or
refutes what the experiment theorized. Be sure to illustrate the
scenario and the specific parts of the scenarios as they fit into
your explanation so I can see your full understanding.
Task 2: Compare the experiments of Asch, Milgram, and Zimbardo. Pick two of the three psychologists and discuss similarities or differences with their experiments. In this task, you must have at least two (2) terms (underline/boldface them). Use contextual clues so I can see that you understand the meaning. Remember you can use terms from any past modules or current modules but at least one of those cannot be shown in the earlier task.
In the country of Rayland the economic depression hit them hard. They struggled with finding money to support government projects like building schools, hospitals, and highways. The government officials elected held meetings to try to solve this issue. Many countrymen were poor and struggled to find work or even a way to feed their families. An up and coming government elect began taking control of the meetings. He insisted they kept the money close to the government, what little they had. In the western interior there was a diamond source and on the western coast there was an oil reserve, Mr. Goalash (the up and coming government official) suggested taking the mine and the oil fields into government control. Setting a low wage and moving countrymen of their choosing to the areas to work. They all agreed what a great idea it was. A few years went by and the government officials continued to make the decisions and agree with Mr. Goalash. When he said it was best to increase the military forces, they said yes. When there were rumors of rape and brutal force at the mines and oil fields, they turned a blind eye. Money poured in from the profits but surprisingly the people remained poor except for those in favor of Mr. Goalash. One gentlemen asked about possibly investigating the military atrocities. A couple of officials went to the military base and questioned the military but not the locals. The military all agreed that there was no problem. The government officials believed the military in their opinion that it was the people working and wanting more money and control.
Scenario 2: George and his classmates were working on a go-cart for the annual Go Green Go Cart competition. As they worked on the frame and the engine there was a lot of different ideas and opinions. Gradually they came up with a plan and began to build. The majority of the group loved the new design. It was risky and top heavy but they convinced the rest of the group of the rightness of the design. As they worked they began to run out of money. To cut corners they did not cover the gas pedal with a broad rubber piece. It was a skinny rod similar to a 90 angled hook. On the day of the competition the team was ready. They gave George the red shirt to recognize him as the leader and go to guy when making decisions. As they went out for test runs things seemed ok. The driver, Marcus, mentioned his shoe lace almost got caught on the gas and he struggled to get his foot moved to the break to slow down on the last curve. George punched him hard and said “Shut up, you are so wrong!” Marcus rubbed his arm and said "Ouch that hurt." George turned to his other teammate Seth and said "Are you listening to this guy or me!" Seth immediately said, "You George and punched Marcus as well." Marcus got back in the go-cart. On the next run, the shoelace and the skinny rod pedal caused the same issue. Marcus could not stop or slow down as he hit the last curve. The go-cart broke through the tire rimmed barrier and into the crowd. Luckily the people got out of the way and Marcus was able to avoid hitting the light pole in the parking lot. He ran up into the grassy knoll and flipped the cart. Marcus wiggled out bruised but not majorly injured. He walked up to George and punched him in the face. As the crowd watched the jeered and cheered Marcus. His teammates sided with George and went after Marcus. The crowd changed their favor and began to accept the irrational behaviors of the team. Teachers came running over to stop the fight. The crowd tried to stop the teachers as they felt a kinship towards their fellow classmates and the teachers were the enemies. But when the principal and assistant principals joined in with the teachers, they immediately cowered to the authority of them.
1. The first scenario fits perfectly well into the theory of conformity that was measured by Soloman Asch. Wherein he posted that the mass opinions is a major precursor and a driver of conformist opinions. This shown by how all the officials under the governor were of the same Opinion driven probably by the unanimous voting that was prevalent.
The milgram experiment also comes into picture that shows that conformity under authority persists, due to the presence of an authoritative figure. For instance, not going against the will of Mr. Goalash.
Zimbardo experiment holds account here as well. It shows that the wretched environment play an impact on the behavior of the people involves in it as opposed to their disposition. This can be noticed in the aggravated culture that was adopted by the military and the violence they inflicted upon the commoners by the blind eye that was turned towards their behavior and the freedom given to them.
2. The second scenario conforms to all the three experiments as well, it shows the authority conformity that has been depicted in the last lines.
It shows the group conformity that has been depicted by the team mates siding with the majority opinion despite knowing the flaws.
And it also shows the Milgram experiment by the violence inflicted in the situational conflict of conformity that was not dispositional necessarily
Get Answers For Free
Most questions answered within 1 hours. | <urn:uuid:aa69eb79-4e3b-4507-95d0-9648734f65da> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://justaaa.com/psychology/330967-task-1-read-each-of-the-scenarios-explain-how-one | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233511364.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20231004084230-20231004114230-00580.warc.gz | en | 0.98073 | 1,274 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Welcome to the cyberhome of the project Pioneers of Island Melanesia. The aim of this three-year (2002–2005) project was to investigate the deep prehistory of Island Melanesia, from the time of first settlement some 40.000 years ago until the arrival of speakers of Austronesian languages less than 4.000 years ago. Sadly, these pages are not up to date with results and publications but will still give an idea of the focus of the project.
The project combines the insights of linguistics, genetics, archaeology, and biological anthropology, all fields in which the understanding of the prehistory in this part of the world has developed significantly in the last few years. Researchers from institutions in The Netherlands, Germany, Great Britain and Sweden are working together to increase the body of data, and to formulate a unitary model of the first inhabitants of Island Melanesia. | <urn:uuid:6985a153-3033-48f2-bcd4-1fde07df7fd2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eastpapuan.ling.su.se/Pioneers-intro.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704752145/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114552-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938752 | 182 | 2.5625 | 3 |
What would you like to do?
Que dia es hoy means: What day is today?
When somebody asks you "Que dia es hoy? (which day of the week is today), the correct answer will be - Hoy es _____ (Today is ...) Example : A: que dia es hoy ? B: hoy es ju…eves(today is thursday)
It means" What day is it today" You can answer saying " Hoy es Miercoles" And that for example means " Today is Wednesday"
They are asking you "What day is it today?" You should answer with the current day. The format is: "Hoy es ____ de ________." Example: "Hoy es tres de septiembre." (Today is …September 3.)
What day is today? You answer with the day of the week. Hoy es [day of the week]. Here are the days of the week in Spanish: Sunday - domingo Monday - lunes Tuesday - …martes Wednesday - miércoles Thursday - jueves Friday - viernes Saturday - sábado Note: In Spanish, day and month names are not capitalized.
You would respond with "es" and whatever day it is in Spanish.
It means "What day is today?"
That would be what day is it today? It would answered...."Hoy es el 10 de Enero."
qué día es hoy: kay dee-uh ess oy
Que dia es hoy literally means, what day is today? :)
You would respond "Hoy es... (day of the week)" Lunes: Monday Martes: Tuesday Miércoles: Wednesday Jueves: Thursday Viernes: Friday Sábado: Saturday Domingo: Sunday For exa…mple: Hoy es lunes. (Today is Monday.) *The days of the week are not capitalized in Spanish.
"¿Que día es hoy?" means "what day is it today?". You would answer with the appropriate day - lunes, martes, miércoles, jueves, viernes, sábado, domingo.
The first phrase is "What day is today", the second is "what date is today".
As written, it would be "Like this? What day is today? What time is it?" Even that is an approximation. The problem is the missing accent marks, as well as a missing "usted". … "¿Cómo está usted? ¿Qué día es hoy? ¿Qué hora es?" means "How are you? What day is today? What time is it?"
'What day is today' And tomorrow?
que dia es hoy = What day is today? | <urn:uuid:c185ec39-0de9-452f-9409-d5369f8b8fe6> | CC-MAIN-2017-47 | http://www.answers.com/Q/Que_dia_es_hoy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-47/segments/1510934806086.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20171120164823-20171120184823-00175.warc.gz | en | 0.871549 | 601 | 2.625 | 3 |
Everyday my daughter goes online and reads posts from American and Canadian friends who are heading off to jobs at summer camp, going on vacation, or savouring the end of their high school careers. It is not the highlight of her day as she bunkers down and studies for the baccalaureate exams.
The French bac is a series of maybe 12 oral and written exams given in three or four languages at the end of a student’s junior and senior years. Their entire high school career depends on the results of these exams and will play a large role in each student’s future. And since the essay exams are often four hour tests in which a student responds to one or two questions, a lot can go wrong very quickly.
For students going to the US, there is less pressure. They simply need to pass their bac. Those going to England or Canada have been given a minimum grade required by their university. 14 or 15 points maybe required, which is difficult, but not impossible. For students continuing on in France, it is much more complicated and they won’t even know all of their options before mid-July.
Understanding the bac could almost require a degree of its own. There are three different baccalaureates. Science, Social-Economics and Literature. Some of these bacs are more prestigious than others. Each subject of the bac is assigned a value, called a coefficient. The coeff may have a different value for the same exam, depending on which bac you are taking. For example, French is coeff 2 for SE students, but 3 for L students. The results of a test with a coeff 7 are much more important than the results of an exam with a coeff 4. The coeff determines the importance of a exam in calculating the students final grade, because at the end of all those exams, that’s what you get, one final grade. No pressure there.
And if all that is not complicated enough, each bac also has a series of specialties and optional exams that allow students to earn extra points, with subjects like Ancient Greek, or Music. There is also an Option Internationale for all baccalaureate candidates striving for that extra challenge. With the OI, students may find themselves studying from a French language text book for an English language history exam.
As this blog posts, every French high school senior in the country has just finished their first* their major épreuve, the Philosophy exam; 4 hours, 1 question, ready, set, GO…. Each bac (S, SE, or L) has a different set of questions to choose from. Questions like; Does art change our perception of reality? Are politics a science or an art? Is communication the only use of language? Can we know the truth? Why protect the weak?
The entire country spends the next three days discussing the questions and expounding for hours over all the possible replies. It tops the news of the day, takes over business meetings and dominates dinner conversation. Bringing all of France together in an annual exercise of deep thought. As soon as the questions are made public today, I’ll be heading to the Flore to eavesdrop on philosophers like Bernard-Henri Lévy and hear how they would have answered. But if I didn’t have to stay close to home, THE place to head would have to be the Café des Philosophes in the Marais.
EAVESDROPPING AFTER THE BAC PHILO/ Café des Philosophes
28 rue Vieille du Temple / (M) St Paul / 01 48 87 49 64
* except the OI students who already had a few oral exams last week.
UPDATE/ This year’s questions…
Sujets Philosophie Bac S 2012
1/ Avons-nous le devoir de chercher la vérité ? Is searching for the truth our responsibility?
2/ Serions-nous plus libres sans l’Etat ? Would we be freer without government?
3/ Commentary on a text by Rousseau (Emilie)
Sujets Philosophie Bac L 2012
1/ Que gagne-t-on en travaillant ? What does one earn through work?
2/ Toute croyance est-elle contraire à la raison ? Is all faith contrary to logic?
3/ Commentary on a text by Spinoza (Traité théologico-politique)
Sujets Philosophie Bac ES 2012
1/ Peut-il exister des désirs naturels ? Can natural desires exist?
2/ Travailler, est-ce seulement être utile ? To work, is it uniquely about being useful?
3/ Commentary on a text by Berkeley (Devoir et obéissance) | <urn:uuid:1c1652b3-b4bb-4e08-83fa-d07e15728576> | CC-MAIN-2020-34 | http://findingnoon.com/?p=894&replytocom=633 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-34/segments/1596439738950.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20200812225607-20200813015607-00576.warc.gz | en | 0.91412 | 1,020 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Each chapter focuses on a particular topic and includes an introduction, a detailed explanation of the available methods, applications of the methods to one or two simple models that are followed throughout the book, real-life examples of the methods from literature, and finally a section detailing implementation of the methods using the R programming language. The consistent use of R makes this book immediately and directly applicable to scientists seeking to develop models quickly and effectively, and the selected examples ensure broad appeal to scientists in various disciplines. Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.
Want to Read saving….
Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions.
Enlarge cover. Error rating book.
Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. David Makowski. James W. Each chapter focuses on a particular topic and includes an introduction, a detailed explanation of the available methods, applications of the m This second edition of Working with Dynamic Crop Models is meant for self-learning by researchers or for use in graduate level courses devoted to methods for working with dynamic models in crop, agricultural, and related sciences.
Get A Copy. Kindle Edition , pages. More Details Other Editions 1. Friend Reviews. During hands-on examples, participants learned how to use the yggdrasil package and user interface to connect two models written in Python and C from package installation to model transformation and execution. Anyone interested in walking through the hackathon materials on their own can do so using the documentation on GitHub. The potential to add significant value to the rapid advances in plant breeding technologies associated with statistical whole genome prediction methods is a new frontier for crop physiology and modelling.
Yield advance by genetic improvement continues to require prediction of phenotype based on genotype, and this remains challenging for complex traits despite recent advances in genotyping and phenotyping.
ISBN 13: 9780123970084
But does this biological reality come with a degree of complexity that restricts applicability in crop improvement? Simple, high speed, parsimonious models are required for dealing with the thousands of genotypes and environment combinations in modern breeding programs. In contrast, it is often considered that greater model complexity is needed to evaluate potential of putative variation in specific traits in target environments as knowledge on their underpinning biology advances.
Is this a contradiction leading to divergent futures? Here it is argued that biological reality and parsimony do not need to be separable. It is further asserted that the structure needed for the next generation of crop models to be most effective perhaps requires both jointly, along with the capacity to evolve in crop growth and development process algorithms.
Specific examples in modelling photosynthesis from biochemical scale and canopy development from plant scale are used to highlight the concepts presented. His research underpins the development of mathematical models of crop growth, development and yield that enable simulation of consequences of genetic and management manipulation of crops in specific target environments.
Benes works in generative methods for geometry synthesis, and his main focus is in procedural, inverse procedural modeling, and simulation of natural phenomena. Longyun Guo works on the mathematical modeling of secondary metabolism in plants. He obtained his B. John Morgan.
See a Problem?
A dynamic model of lignin biosynthesis was developed by integrating different types of information, which contributes to deeper understanding of underlying regulatory mechanisms, and help to provide a rational design for lignin biosynthesis manipulation. Chris works on bringing genetic information into crop growth models. He is completing his Ph. Melanie J.
Catalogue en ligne
Mao Li is a mathematician who specializes in plant science. Her research focuses on quantitative data analysis, development of mathematical methods such as persistent homology based approaches, and computational algorithms to quantify plant morphology, below and above ground, from microbe to the globe. Stephen Steve P. Long is an environmental plant physiologist who studies how to improve photosynthesis—the process of turning sunlight and carbon dioxide into the sugars that drive yield—to increase the yield of food and biofuel crops. Steve has added to our understanding of the long-term impacts of climate change, such as rising levels of carbon dioxide and ozone on crops.
- Associated Data.
- Winning Basketball Fundamentals.
- Beneficial Effects of Endotoxins!
- The 17th Golden Age of Science Fiction Megapack: Featuring Alan E. Nourse (Golden Age of SF Megapack, Book 17)!
- Social Work and Migration (Contemporary Social Work Studies).
- The Fate of Holocaust Memories: Transmission and Family Dialogues?
- Radiation Effects on Polymers.
During his time at the University of Nebraska, he has collaborated with statisticians, engineers, biochemists, and applied plant breeders resulting in 43 peer-reviewed papers over the past four years. | <urn:uuid:3b230566-2f4c-47b6-a46f-b043208ceaee> | CC-MAIN-2020-10 | https://finaseqisi.tk/working-with-dynamic-crop-models.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-10/segments/1581875145981.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20200224193815-20200224223815-00152.warc.gz | en | 0.920291 | 992 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Perhaps no branch of human culture reflects with greater exactitude the progress or decadence of man than architecture. In the progress of architecture from the most primitive types of human habitation of magnificent temples and palaces, we can discover the ceaseless effort of man to express his social and religious environment and his attitude towards life. In the development of architecture, we can also detect the aesthetic taste which actuated man to combine beauty with utility. The progress of Indian architecture from the primitive to the sophisticated was no exception to this historical process.
The earliest phase of Indian architecture may be seen from the remains of the ancient cities of the Indus Valley culture datable to c. 3000 B.C. From the excavated remains at Mohenjo-daro in Sindh and Harappa in Punjab, it is evident that the Indian cities at that early period were scientifically laid out. There were broad roads and smaller lanes with shops and booths. The houses were probably of the story or more. The roofs were of stamped clay. practically every house had a bathroom which was always placed on the street side of the building for the convenient disposal of water. There was adequate arrangement for drainage. A brick-lined channel flowed down every street and into this main drain ran smaller tributary drains from the houses on either side. An important feather of the drainage system was the provision of large brick culverts with corbelled roofs built on the outskirts of the city to carry away storm water. The houses were also provided with brick-lined wells.
Drainage System at Mojenjo-daro
At Harappa, the remains of one of the structures has twelve parallel walls. We are unable to determine the exact significance of this structure but it might have been a gigantic storehouse. At Mohenjo-daro, some buildings have cup-like depressions at street corners. These depressions probably served as receptacles for large jars.
One of the most important constructions at Mohenjo-daro is the large bath built entirely of burnt bricks which could be entered at either end by means of a staircase. The broad walk at the top of the bath rested on cells filled with clay. There were walls with openings which provided access to a cloistered walk running round the bath. The eight bathrooms, to the north of the bath were provided with stairways probably leading to an upper story. The exact significance of this great bath and smaller baths has not yet been discovered, but it probable that bathing was a ritual with the people of Mohenjo-daro.
The history of Indian architecture between the Indus Valley period, which came to an end some time in the 2nd millennium B. C., and the 4th century B.C. is very meager. We have to depend entirely on literature to fill this gap. From Vedic evidence, it seems possible that the idea of the fortified town was adopted by the Vedic Aryans from their Dasa enemies, though so far it has not been possible to connect these Dasas with the Indus Valley people.
The Vedic house was not a very elaborate affair and the people lived mostly in thatches houses with several rooms. The house was often provided with a central hall and several other rooms which were used for storing and living purposes.
In the epics and Buddhist literature, references are made to will-built cities and sumptuous palaces. These cities and palaces seem to have followed the same plan as that of the city of Pataliputra which, according to Megasthenes (4th century B.C.), occupied a narrow parallelogram and was provided with stupendous palisades with loopholes for archers. There was a deep moat around it. The rampart had as many as sixty-four gates. The royal palace was was a spacious building, the main part of which consisted of a series of hypostyle halls.
Ashokan Pillar, Sarnath
The architecture of the Asokan period (c. 273-237 B.C.) gains in magnificence, as for the first time stone was employed instead of wood. The great art of the Asokan period is mainly represented by the monolithic pillars on which edicts were engraved. The famous capital of the Sarnath pillar consists of four adorned lions which originally supported the Wheel of Law resting on the abacus bearing in relief an elephant, a horse, a bull and a lion. In other extant examples, the crowning member consisted of a bull or wheel. The pillars were highly polished. There are also excavated halls of the Asokan period in the Barabar hills. Of these, the Sudama cave consists of a circular chamber and an ante-chamber with side entrances. The remains of Asoka’s palace at Pataliputra show that it was planned on the model of pillared halls of the Achaemenid kings of Persepolis.
Indian architecture between 200 B.C. and 20 A.D. continued to maintain the progress made in the Asokan period. The improvement in the cave architecture may be seen in the old vihara at Bhaja near Poona datable to 2nd century B.C. It is remarkable for its unique relieves, one of them being identified by Dr. Coomaraswamy as Indra riding his Airavata. Bedsa and other caves near Poona of the same period consist of a nave, apse and aisle, the apse containing a solid stupa and the aisle continuing round the apse, thus providing the circumambulation path.
The Chaitya hall at Karle, which may be dated to the 1st century B.C., is a magnificent example of cave architecture. Its horseshoe windows, great pillars and finely carved relieves win our admiration.
The remains of the railings and gateways of the Bharhut stupa may be dated back to c. 150 B.C. The railing pillars and the gateways are decorated with the figures of the guardian Yakshas and Yakshis, Nagarajas, birth-stories of the Buddha called Jatakas, floral, animal and other motifs. The Buddha himself does not appear and the chief events in his life a represented by symbols.
There was a special type of temple connected with the Bodhi-tree at the Gaya. On the strength of certain reliefs raging from eh 2nd century B.C. to the 2nd century A.D., it could be said that this temple was made of a gallery with vaulted roof and Chaitya windows of the usual type supported by pillars and with the ground plan like a Maltese cross.
The Sanchi stupas are of different periods. The core of the stupa No. 1 was probably built in the Mauryan age. The stupas Nos. 2 and 3 are of Sungan origin and the gateways of the Nos. 1 and 3 belong to the Satavahana period (72-25 B.C.) The reliefs on No. 2 are related to the Bharhut style, but there are some reliefs which exhibit greater knowledge of spatial relation which is attributed to the hypothetical influence of Bactrian Hellenistic art, but its more natural explanation would be the stylistic advance of Indian art.
The reliefs of the Great Gateway are marvels of decorative story-telling. The principal themes are drawn from the life of the Buddha and from the Jatakas. The bigger compositions were attempted on torana architraves.
The excavations at Taxila and elsewhere have provided us with material relating to the development of architecture between 78 and 302 A.D. The architectural style in the monasteries is fundamentally Indian, but numerous motifs, for instance, the Corinthian capital, pediments, entablatures, moldings, etc., are of debased classical order. A typical Gandharan monastery consists mainly of two structures, the stupa and the monastery with the aggregate of other building.
Among the great monuments of the Deccan during this period may be mentioned the Great Stupa at Amaravati which, though originally built in the 2nd century B.C., was provided with sculptured casing slabs and railings in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. On the drum of the stupa were four projecting offsets facing each of the entrances and each displaying five pillars called Aryaka Kahambhas. The stupa was surrounded by a rail. The subject-matter of decoration are rosettes, garland-carrying erotes, Jataka stories, walled and moated cities, palace buildings, toranas, stupas, etc. The technical proficiency of the Amaravati reliefs makes them the most fascinating and expressive of the rasa of Indian sculpture.
There is little doubt that Indian architecture and sculpture attained their zenith in the Gupta period and are best represented in temple architecture, of which a few examples are given here.
The famous Dhamekh stupa at Saranath near Banaras datable to the 6th century A.D. is characterized by exquisitely carved ornaments, geometrical and floral. The Ajanta monolithic Caves Nos. XVI, XVII and XIX are distinguished for the beauty of their pillars and their facade decorations. The Chaitya windows with their double row of cornices in Cave No. XIX at once attract our attention. A good example of the apsidal temples of the Gupta period is the one at Ter. Among flat-roofed shrines, a prominent place must be given to the flat-roofed temples at Sanchi and Bhumara. The Siva temple at Bhumara consists of a flat roof and decorated windows. It was provided with a variety of richly carved sculptures. The famous Mahabodhi temple at Bodh Gaya, in spite of its restoration, probably maintains its form of the early Gupta period. it consists of a high straight-edged pyramidal tower of nine stories. | <urn:uuid:a53d5193-1292-414b-aa00-681fe39fe451> | CC-MAIN-2017-30 | https://dkshamli.wordpress.com/category/indias-culture/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-30/segments/1500549427749.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20170727062229-20170727082229-00061.warc.gz | en | 0.970284 | 2,088 | 3.8125 | 4 |
Jade Teta ND, CSCS
Walking and high-intensity exercise like intervals and weight training are synergistic in their actions. This is not a calorie phenomena but rather a hormonal one. In order for the body to recover properly, age well, build muscle and burn fat, it needs the correct balance of stress producing hormones (cortisol, adrenaline, noradrenaline) compared to growth promoting hormones (testosterone and human growth hormone (HGH)). During an exercise session the desirable effect is to raise all of these hormones together to maximize fat loss. It has been shown that cortisol added to elevated growth hormone drastically increases the fat burning potential of growth hormone by itself. Studies demonstrating this were published in 2000 out of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (Vol. 85 # 2) and in the March 2004 issue of the American Journal of Physiology, Endocrinology and Metabolism (Vol. 286). So, during intense workouts it is useful to workout at intensities high enough to elicit this beneficial hormonal response.
However, in the days and hours following an intense workout, it is most beneficial to maximize the levels of growth hormones while minimizing the levels of stress hormones. This is where walking comes in. Walking lowers cortisol levels. A 2007 article published in the Journal of Physiological Anthropology (Vol. 26 #2) showed that walking reliably and predictably lowers cortisol levels. This effect was magnified when the walking took place in a nature setting; what the Japanese call Shinrin-yoku. It is important to note that walking should be done at a leisurely pace. It is easy to turn walking into an “aerobic zone” workout which is not as beneficial. This is because moderate intensity aerobic exercise raises cortisol rather than lowers it and never reaches a high enough intensity to generate the growth promoting hormones. It is very easy to tip the scales towards stress production if aerobic exercise is all you do. This will lead to muscle loss just as readily as fat loss. Moderate intensity aerobics burns calories, but provides little hormonal advantage.
A workout program for optimal fat burning and slowed aging would combine high-intensity exercise like weight lifting, sprinting, and interval training with low intensity activity like leisure walking. We like to tell our clients that walking should not even be considered exercise but rather necessity. Leisure walking is done slowly at a relaxed pace allowing full and easy conversation (a speed of 3.5 or less on a typical treadmill) and should be done as much as feasible everyday. Adding 2-3 intense weight lifting sessions and 2-3 intense interval exercise sessions sprinkled throughout the week along with this walking is a great plan for body composition and healthy aging. Intense workouts should be kept short (less than 40 minutes) while leisure walking can be as long as you like. Shoot for at least 30 to 60 minutes a day or 5,000 to 10,000 steps. These can be all at once or spread throughout the day. | <urn:uuid:6281cfd2-57d3-410c-b71b-fa897347acc2> | CC-MAIN-2017-26 | http://www.metaboliceffect.com/walking-intense-training-synergistic-for-fat-loss/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-26/segments/1498128323588.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20170628083538-20170628103538-00620.warc.gz | en | 0.934983 | 605 | 2.53125 | 3 |
|English:||Setting in Motion the Wheel of the Dharma,
The Discourse That Sets Turning the Wheel of Truth,
The First Turning of the Wheel,
The Four Noble Truths Sutra
|Sanskrit:||Dharmacakra Pravartana Sūtra|
|Glossary of Buddhism|
|Part of a series on|
The Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (Pali; Sanskrit: Dharmacakra Pravartana Sūtra; English: The Setting in Motion of the Wheel of Dharma) is a Buddhist text that is considered to be a record of the first teaching given by the Buddha after he attained enlightenment. According to tradition, the Buddha gave this teaching in Sarnath, India, to the five ascetics (his former companions with whom he had spent six years practicing austerities). The main topic of this sutta is the Four Noble Truths, which are the central teachings of Buddhism that provide a unifying theme, or conceptual framework, for all of Buddhist thought. This sutta also introduces the Buddhist concepts of the middle way, impermanence, and dependent origination.
- 1 Context and structure of the teaching
- 2 Historical context
- 3 Sanskrit and Pali versions of the text
- 4 Translations into English
- 5 Commentaries in English
- 6 Etymology of the term Dhammacakkappavattana
- 7 See also
- 8 Notes
- 9 References
- 10 Web references
- 11 Sources
- 12 External links
Context and structure of the teaching
The Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta is said to be the first teaching given by the Buddha after he attained enlightenment. It is taught that the Buddha attained enlightenment while sitting under the Bodhi tree by the river Neranjara, in Bodhgaya, India, and afterwards, he remained silent for forty-nine days. The Buddha then journeyed from Bodhgaya to Sarnath, a small town near the sacred city of Varanasi in central India. There he met his five former companions, the ascetics with whom he had shared six years of hardship. His former companions were at first suspicious of the Buddha, thinking he had given up his search for the truth when he renounced their ascetic ways. But upon seeing the radiance of the Buddha, they requested him to teach what he had learned. Thereupon the Buddha gave the teaching that was later recorded as the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, which introduces the fundamental concepts of Buddhist thought, such as the middle way and the four noble truths.
The five ascetics
The Buddha addressed his first teaching, or discourse, to his five former companions, who are commonly referred to as the five ascetics. In this discourse, the Buddha addresses the ascetics as bhikkhus, a term which is normally translated as a Buddhist monk. However, Ajahn Sucitto explains that in this context bhikkhus means “alms-mendicants,” those who live on the free-will offerings of others.
Ajahn Sucitto explains:
- The five bhikkhus at Deer Park were named Kondañña, Vappa, Bhaddiya, Mahanāma, and Assaji. Kondañña was the eldest. Many years previously, as a novice brahmin, he had been invited to the palace of the raja Suddhodana along with seven of his peers to see the baby Siddhattha Gotama [the future Buddha] and give predictions as to his destiny. They all agreed that this baby would be either a great emperor or a Buddha; perhaps this was why he was named Siddhattha, which means “Accomplishes the Goal.” Interestingly, it was Kondañña alone who reckoned that Siddhattha was destined for Buddhahood. Four of the brahmins who had been present at the palace later told their sons to keep their eyes on Siddhattha, as he was destined for greatness. These sons grew up to become the other four of the Group of Five.
The middle way
These five ascetics had renounced worldly life and, at the time of this meeting, they had been practicing severe austerities for many years in order to further their spiritual path and realize the ultimate truth. Therefore, the Buddha began his teaching by addressing their current situation. He affirmed their belief that indulging in sense pleasures would not lead to true freedom. He then stated that their practices of severe austerity, denial of the sense pleasures, would also not lead to the truth. Thus, the Buddha begins the teaching by asserting the position of the middle way, of avoiding extremes of self-indulgence or self-denial. The Buddha asserted that neither of these paths would lead to ultimate truth.
Ajahn Sucitto explains:
- But in the case of the Group of Five, the Buddha was addressing “those who had gone forth.” They were samanas, “strivers”: they needed no recommendation that truth was worth seeking or that they had to apply themselves to it. They just needed to have the means clarified. So here the Buddha addresses them with some advice on the cultivation of right means as an expression and experience of enlightenment itself. And he begins with affirming the view that the ascetics would already have adopted—that chasing after and getting hooked on sense-pleasure is unworthy and useless. He starts where they already are—where every path should start. Then he balances that out by negating the ascetic view: saying that getting caught up with self-mortification was also useless. He thereby cuts away the ground and leaves them dangling in the middle, saying that it is in this “no position” that peace is to be found.
After rejecting the two extremes of self-indulgence and self-denial, the Buddha then asserts that the "middle way" is to follow the noble eightfold path—right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.
The four noble truths
After presenting the middle way of the noble eightfold path, the Buddha then explains the four noble truths—the truth of suffering, its cause, its end, and the path to that end. Ajahn Sucitto explains:
- The four noble truths are about “suffering,” how it arises, how it ceases, and a way to bring around that ceasing. These occupy the center of the Buddha’s teaching, because they already are central to human experience. Everyone knows the feeling of lack or loss or conflict in their lives: this is what the Buddha called dukkha, often translated as “suffering,” but covering a whole range of meanings and nuances.
The Buddha asserted that dukkha, or suffering, can be transcended by following the noble eightfold path.
No-self and dependent origination
In this sutta, after presenting the four noble truths, the Buddha then states: "My release is assured. This is the last birth. There is no further becoming.” Here the Buddha is asserting that he has realized selflessness or no-self (Pali: anatta)—the Buddhist view that what we call the "self" does not exist as a singular, independent, permanent entity, but is rather an ongoing process. Therefore, through complete understanding of the four noble truths, the Buddha has removed the causes and conditions for an ordinary rebirth (rebirth in samsara). This phrase can also be understood as an expression of dependent origination.
Realization of impermanence
This sutta then states that while listening to the Buddha's teaching, the eldest of the five ascetics, Kondañña, has the following realization: “Whatever has the characteristic to arise, all that ceases.” This is an essential formulation of the Buddhist view of impermanence (Pali: anicca). The realization of impermanence is considered an important stage on the path to enlightenment. Ajahn Sucitto explains: "... in the Buddha’s discourses, this realization of impermanence represents the first major breakthrough of stream-entry."
The wheel of dharma is set in motion
The sutta then states:
- When the wheel of Dhamma had been set rolling by the Blessed One, the devas of the earth raised the cry: “At Vāranāsi, in the Deer Park at Isipatana, the incomparable wheel of Dhamma has been set rolling by the Blessed One—and it can’t be stopped by any samana or brahmin or deva or māra or brahma or anyone whomsoever in the world.”
Ajahn Sucitto explains:
- This section of the sutta describes the effect the Buddha’s turning of the wheel of truth had on various celestial realms. The text is noncommittal; it simply states that various divine beings, or devas, [...] hear the teaching and start proclaiming it to each other.
In Ajahn Sucitto's commentary on this sutta, he describes the various realms where the Buddha's teachings were proclaimed.
Light in the world
The sutta concludes with the following passage:
- So in that instant, at that very moment, the word traveled up to the realm of the high divinities. This ten-thousandfold world system trembled and shook and resounded, and a great measureless radiance, surpassing the shining glory of the devas, was made manifest in the world.
- Then the Blessed One uttered the pronouncement: “It is Kondañña who has seen deeply! Kondañña who has seen deeply.” And so it was that the name of Venerable Kondañña became “Kondañña the deep seer.”
Ajahn Sucitto explains the first part of this passage as follows:
- In The Discourse That Sets Turning the Wheel of Truth, the Buddha’s teachings were set rolling and produced a great light. It’s a light that is said to have radiated through the ten-thousandfold world system: from the twenty brahma realms of the highest divinities all the way down through the eight hells. Even down there, according to the accounts, it was a great moment too. In those places of utter gloom, there was an illumination by which the poor wretches could see that there were other beings in the same predicament. By the standards of those places, this was a burst of light. For a moment, some sense of not being alone in the mess lessened the intensity of it. Others have been here, and are here, now. It’s good to remember this. This light has this broad focus and also is long lasting. It continues to shine today. Once again, if we translate cosmological events into events in consciousness, the light that we’ve seen glowing throughout the discourse is the light of wisdom.
Ajahn Sucitto explains the second part of this passage ("It is Kondañña who has seen deeply!") as follows:
- At this time, the Buddha himself makes no mention of all the shining and shaking going on; more to the point, he was more concerned that the Dhamma he had taught had triggered a realization in Kondañña’s mind. If this could be communicated to one person, then there was no reason why it couldn’t be communicated to another. A big wheel of light—encompassing ethics, meditation, and wisdom—had started shining. This was a beginning, and it encouraged the Buddha to continue and develop his teaching.
Modern scholars agree that the teachings of the Buddha were passed down in an oral tradition for approximately a few hundred years after the passing of the Buddha; the first written recordings of these teachings were made hundreds of years after the Buddha's passing. Geshe Tashi Tsering explains:
- The sutras we have now in the Buddhist canon come from actual discourses of the Buddha that were memorized by the Buddha’s disciples and passed down in an oral lineage. Only centuries later were they written down, retaining much of the convention of the oral tradition. The repetition of phrases and even paragraphs was designed for easy memorization, and the whole style was developed to facilitate ritual recitation. As such sutras can be difficult reading, but their content, the actual words of the Buddha, are an infallible map out of the suffering that currently traps us.
Contemporary scholar Richard Gombrich remarks:
- Of course we do not really know what the Buddha said in his first sermon ... and it has even been convincingly demonstrated[a] that the language of the text as we have it is in the main a set of formulae, expressions which are by no means self-explanatory but refer to already established doctrines. Nevertheless, the compilers of the Canon put in the first sermon what they knew to be the very essence of the Buddha's Enlightenment.
Sanskrit and Pali versions of the text
Differences between Sanskrit and Pali versions
- In Tibetan monasteries, as in most traditions within Mahayana Buddhism, the sutras (the discourses of the Buddha) and the shastras (the canonical commentaries) that are studied originate from the Sanskrit-language canon. In this case, however, we are using the sutra translated from the Pali language.[b] Although it differs slightly in style and structure from the Sanskrit, the differences are minor, and in the West this is the better-known version.
- Theravada tradition
In the Pali Canon, this sutta is contained in the Sutta Pitaka's Saṃyutta Nikāya, chapter 56 ("Saccasamyutta" or "Connected Discourses on the Truths"), sutta number 11. (Thus, an abbreviated reference to this sutta is "SN 56:11").[c] A similar account can be found in the Pali Canon's Vinaya Pitaka's Mahākhandhaka.
- Mahayana tradition
In the Chinese Buddhist canon there are numerous editions of this sutra from a variety of different schools in ancient India, including the Sarvāstivāda, Dharmaguptaka, and Mahīśāsaka schools, as well as an edition translated as early as 170 CE by An Shigao.
Translations into English
There are multiple translations of the Pali version of this sutta. For example, see:
- Bhikkhu Bodhi (trans.), Setting in Motion the Wheel of the Dhamma
- Ñanamoli Thera (trans.) (1993). Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta: Setting Rolling the Wheel of Truth. Available on-line at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn56/sn56.011.nymo.html.
- Piyadassi Thera (trans.) (1999). Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta: Setting in Motion the Wheel of Truth. Available on-line at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn56/sn56.011.piya.html.
- Thanissaro Bhikkhu (trans.) (1993). Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta: Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion. Available on-line at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn56/sn56.011.than.html.
- Resources for researching the Buddha's First Sutta - contains links to seven different translations of the Pali text by notable Theravada translators
- Thich Nhat Hahn (trans.) (1999). "Discourse on Turning the Wheel of the Dharma: Dhamma Cakka Pavattana Sutta". Included in The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching, p. 257.
- Ven. Dr. Rewata Dhamma (trans.) (1997). "The First Discourse of the Buddha: Turning the Wheel of Dhamma". Included in The First Discourse of the Buddha, Wisdom, pp. 17-20.
- Walpola Rahula (trans.) (2007). "Setting in Motion the Wheel of Truth". Included in What the Buddha Taught, Kindle Location 2055.
- The Tibetan ‘Missing Translator’s Colophon’ Version of the Dharma Wheel Discourse (chos kyi ‘khor lo’i mdo ‘gyur byang med pa): A New Translation into English by Erick Tsiknopoulos (2013) This is a translation of one of two versions of the Dharma Wheel Sutra in Tibetan, known as the 'Missing Translator's Colophon' version (Tib: 'gyur byang med pa). It is has a correlate in Chinese, translated into English by Lapiz Lazuli Texts and listed below.
- Lapis Lazuli Texts: Saṃyuktāgama 379. Turning the Dharma Wheel. This is a translation from the Chinese canon; the Chinese version is based on the Sarvastivadin Sanskrit version of the text (Dharmacakra Pravartana Sutra).
- Thich Nhat Hahn has produced a notable rendering of the fist teaching of the Buddha in his biography of the Buddha entitled Old Path White Clouds. Thich Nhat Hahn relied on multiple sources for this rendering. This rendering is also included in Thich Nhat Hahn's book Path of Compassion: Stories from the Buddha's Life. See Turning the Wheel of Dharma
The 26th chapter of the Lalitavistara Sutra contains a Mahayana version of the first turning that closely parallels the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta. The following English translations of this text are available:
- The Play in Full: Lalitavistara (2013), translated by the Dharmachakra Translation Committee. Translated from Tibetan into English and checked against the Sanskrit version.[web 2]
- Voice of the Buddha: The Beauty of Compassion (1983), translated by Gwendolyn Bays, Dharma Publishing (two-volume set). This translation has been made from French into English and then checked with the original in Tibetan and Sanskrit.
Commentaries in English
- Ajahn Sucitto (2010), Turning the Wheel of Truth: Commentary on the Buddha's First Teaching, Shambhala
- Bhikkhu Pesala, An Exposition of the Dhammacakka Sutta
- Mahasi Sayadaw (1996–2012), Discourse on the Wheel of Dharma
- Ven. Dr. Rewata Dhamma (1997), The First Discourse of the Buddha, Wisdom, ISBN 0-86171-104-1.
Etymology of the term Dhammacakkappavattana
Dhamma (Pāli) or dharma (Sanskrit) can mean a variety of things depending on its context;[e] in this context, it refers to the Buddha's teachings or his "truth" that leads to one's liberation from suffering. Cakka (Pāli) or cakra (Sanskrit) can be translated as "wheel." The dhammacakka, which can be translated as "Dhamma-Wheel," is a Buddhist symbol referring to Buddha's teaching of the path to enlightenment. Pavattana (Pāli) can be translated as "turning" or "rolling" or "setting in motion."
Alternate translations of title
English translations of this sutta's full title include:
- "Setting in Motion the Wheel of the Dhamma" (Bodhi, 2000, pp. 1843–7)
- "Setting in Motion the Wheel of Truth" (Piyadassi, 1999)
- "Setting Rolling the Wheel of Truth" (Ñanamoli, 1993)
- "Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion" (Thanissaro, 1993) (Geshe Tashi Tsering, 2005)
- "The Discourse That Sets Turning the Wheel of Truth" (Ajahn Sucitto, 2010)
- "Turning the Wheel of Dhamma" (Dhamma, 1997).
- "The Four Noble Truths Sutra" (Geshe Tashi Tsering, 2005)
- Four Noble Truths
- Middle Way
- Noble Eightfold Path
- Three marks of existence
- In Gombrich (2002, p. 61), Gombrich includes an end note here citing "Norman 1982" (see "#Sources" below).
- Geshe Tashi Tsering references the Pali version of this sutta (translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi) in his commentary on the four noble truths.
- In the Pali Text Society redaction of the Pali Canon, this sutta is found in the Samyutta Nikaya's fifth volume's page 420; and, thus, an alternate referent for this text is "S v.420."
- The early Buddhist schools in India called their collections the Āgamas, rather than the Nikāyas.
- For instance, in the context of the objects of mindfulness, dhamma refers to "mental objects" (see, Satipatthana Sutta).
- Ajahn Sucitto 2010, pp. 10-12.
- Dhamma 1997, pp. 22-24.
- Geshe Tashi Tsering 2005, Kindle Locations 163-169.
- Gethin 1998, p. 25.
- Thich Nhat Hanh 1991, Kindle Locations 1822-1884.
- Thich Nhat Hanh 1999, pp. 6-8.
- Ajahn Sucitto 2010, p. 18.
- Ajahn Sucitto 2010, pp. 21-22.
- Ajahn Sucitto 2010, pp. 33-34.
- Ajahn Sucitto 2010, p. 171.
- Ajahn Sucitto 2010, p. 184.
- Ajahn Sucitto 2010, p. 193.
- Ajahn Sucitto 2010, pp. 215-216.
- Ajahn Sucitto 2010, pp. 216-217.
- Geshe Tashi Tsering 2005, Kindle Locations 170-174.
- Gombrich 2002, p. 61.
- Geshe Tashi Tsering 2005, Kindle Locations 242-245.
- Thich Nhat Hanh 1999, p. 257.
- Dhamma 1997, pp. 17-20.
- Walpola Rahula 2007, Kindle Location 2055.
- Thich Nhat Hanh 1991, Kindle Location 7566.
- Thich Nhat Hanh 2012, p. 81.
- Geshe Tashi Tsering 2005, Kindle Location 174.
- Anandajoti (2010), "Introduction," retrieved 18 May 2010 from http://www.ancient-buddhist-texts.net/English-Texts/Earliest-Discourses/index.htm.
- A Play in Full: Lalitavistara (2013), translated by the Dharmachakra Translation Committee
- Anandajoti Bhikkhu (trans.) (2010). The Earliest Recorded Discourses of the Buddha (from Lalitavistara, Mahākhandhaka & Mahāvastu). Kuala Lumpur: Sukhi Hotu. Also available on-line at http://www.ancient-buddhist-texts.net/English-Texts/Earliest-Discourses/index.htm.
- Ajahn Sumedho (2002), The Four Noble Truths, Amaravati Publications
- Ajahn Sucitto (2010), Turning the Wheel of Truth: Commentary on the Buddha's First Teaching, Shambhala
- Bhikkhu Bodhi (translator) (2000), The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the Samyutta Nikaya, Boston: Wisdom Publications, ISBN 0-86171-331-1
- Dhamma, Ven. Dr. Rewata (1997), The First Discourse of the Buddha, Wisdom, ISBN 0-86171-104-1
- Gombrich, Richard (1988, repr. 2002). Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-07585-8.
- Geshe Tashi Tsering (2005), The Four Noble Truths: The Foundation of Buddhist Thought, Volume I, Wisdom, Kindle Edition
- Gethin, Rupert (1998), Foundations of Buddhism, Oxford University Press
- Goldstein, Joseph (2002), One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism, HarperCollins
- Harvey, Peter (1990), Introduction to Buddhism, Cambridge University Press
- Norman, K.R. (1982). "THe Four Noble Truths: a problem of Pali syntax" in L.A. Hercus et al. (ed.), Indological and Buddhist Studies: Volume in Honour of Professor J.W. de Jong on his Sixtieth Birthday. Canberra, pp. 377–91.
- Thich Nhat Hanh (1991), Old Path White Clouds, Parallax Press
- Thich Nhat Hanh (1999), The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching, Three River Press
- Thich Nhat Hanh (2012), Path of Compassion: Stories from the Buddha's Life, Parallax Press
- Walpola Rahula (2007), What the Buddha Taught, Grove Press, Kindle Edition
|Wikisource has original text related to this article:|
- Saṃyutta Nikāya 56.11 Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta: Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu with links to alternative translations.
- Saṃyukta Āgama version translated into English
- Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta read aloud (talking book) by Guy Armstrong
- Romanized Pāli version with English translation
- Resources for researching the Buddha's First Sutta - contains links to seven different translations by notable Theravada translators
- Word-by-word semantic analysis with translation on the side | <urn:uuid:30eb1558-7779-4b2b-aaf5-70f1810c3359> | CC-MAIN-2014-41 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhammacakkappavattana_Sutta | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-41/segments/1410657136494.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20140914011216-00268-ip-10-234-18-248.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911368 | 5,589 | 3.25 | 3 |
Greetings, Engineers! The 9th episode in our series of developer diaries has been released. Today we introduce you to Greg, our programmer who worked on the revised building for Medieval Engineers.
Revised building is the unification of building between Medieval Engineers and Space Engineers. This is to allow the use of planets in Medieval Engineers. We needed to do this because the old building system was locked to a fixed grid. This grid was no longer useful because of the curvature of the planet, meaning that buildings needed to rotate to align with the planet’s surface. The additional benefit is that it enables players to build freely, aligning castles with the natural features of the world.
There are now 3 ways of building, they are similar to the old system but have some exceptions.
– The first is the possibility to aim and place a block in the same way as in old Dynamic Mode, but now the player doesn’t have to switch to it. If a large block is touching a voxel (ex. ground), it will create a local coordinate system aligning with the placed block.
– Secondly, when you are targeting the ground close enough to your position, it will start snapping your block to the closest building’s coordinate system.
– Finally, the 3rd way of building is simply snapping to existing grids, this is basically not changed.
Small grids can be placed with any transformation in dynamic mode without switching between modes.
What does this mean for performance?
You will no longer need to create dynamic grids just to orient your buildings slightly differently. By making them static, the performance will be significantly less impacted.
Modding & Scenarios
Modders will be able to define how people can place their blocks, they will be able to define if a block can only be placed in the ground, only be placed in air (dynamic mode), only be placed on top of another block, or any combination there-of.
Scenario and world designers can now create their scenarios more easily. You can copy-paste your new blueprints in any orientation into the ground, this will allow you to create more interesting looking environments. | <urn:uuid:495a1fe3-dcab-4775-ab2c-29c03ed126ba> | CC-MAIN-2020-24 | http://www.medievalengineers.com/developer-diaries-episode-9/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-24/segments/1590347401004.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20200528232803-20200529022803-00128.warc.gz | en | 0.948306 | 444 | 2.609375 | 3 |
If citizenship gives us rights, can it also make demands of us? What would it mean to acquiesce to these demands, if so, and what to refuse them? Such questions about the ethics and requirements of engaged citizenship were central to the founding of the University of Virginia and increasingly serve as a rallying cry for the importance of the liberal arts tradition. But what is engaged citizenship and what does it require of us? In this class, we will consider varying frameworks for the ethics of engaged citizenship—education, self-reflection, presence (or showing up)—to struggle with the relationship of the self to society within the University community and beyond. Why do we increasingly know more about certain aspects of our food supply and so little about others? What are the implications of this visibility and invisibility for our behavior towards each other? Does citizenship require us to confront those who we perceive as challenging our values, and, if so, can that ever be anything other than a coercive and oppressive act? Is citizenship a communal agreement or an individual one? Does it bind us together or separate us? When is violence justified, if ever? Under what circumstances should we bend or discard our citizenly duty? Through class excursions, readings, journaling activities, viewings, and course presentations we will experiment with the ethical implications of the various positions we take—including inaction—when we respond to the world around and inside of us. | <urn:uuid:f13e1b5a-56bf-4b30-b150-3d79be7deb4d> | CC-MAIN-2020-05 | https://gened.as.virginia.edu/egmt-1540-what-engaged-citizenship?width=800&height=600&inline=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-05/segments/1579251694908.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20200127051112-20200127081112-00017.warc.gz | en | 0.943353 | 284 | 2.984375 | 3 |
We’re never keen to promote sibling rivalry (well, not often), but a myriad of research suggests that those born the eldest have quite a few reasons to feel smug. Before we hear the cries of outrage from the youngest and middle children, it turns out science mostly supports the eldest’s bragging rights. Take a look at the five reasons why there is something to be said about being the oldest one of the bunch.
Older siblings might be smarter
You may hear the phrase ‘they got all the brains’ bandied about when it comes to the eldest, and it truer than you might think as research suggests that eldest children have higher IQs on average than their younger siblings. In a 2007 study of 250,000 Norwegian young adults, firstborn men had an average IQ 2.3 points higher than their younger brothers, according to the Huffington Post. Researchers believe the difference is due to the environment rather than genetics. Eldest children often “teach” their younger siblings, which can help them to better retain information, according to the authors.So don’t feel bad. Having a smarter, older sibling actually means you’ll reap intellectual benefits.
They also might be more responsible
As they got a head start in life, research suggests that this gives the eldest sibling ample time to learn (and take on) more responsibility at an earlier age. According to Jeffrey Kluger, author of The Sibling Effect: What the Bonds Among Brothers and Sisters Reveal About Us, eldest siblings tend to be the ones that focus the most on family loyalty and traditional achievement, so they are frequently seen as the responsible one.
Or more successful
Quite a few studies have shown that the eldest child performs better in school, and this extends to the professional world as well. According to psychologist and New York University adjunct professor Ben Dattner, first-borns strive to emulate and please their parents, and often dominate and care for their younger siblings. The study also found that parents tend to delegate responsibility to firstborns, who identify with their parents and with authority. Therefore, relative to their younger siblings, first-born children tend to be more extroverted and confident, more conformist and conservative, more conscientious and academically inclined, and more dominant and authoritarian in a professional role.
The eldest isn’t a rule-breaker
The oldest child is generally seen as the more obedient one, and it’s probably down to the fact that they tend to stick to the status quo (the ‘wild child’ honour usually goes to the middle sibling). Belgian psychologists Vassilis Saroglou and Laure Fiasse wrote in a 2003 paper published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences that, “Firstborns tend to be responsible, competitive and conventional, whereas later borns have to ‘distinguish’ themselves and create a particular niche by being playful, cooperative, and especially, rebellious.” Otherwise known as the ‘creative one.’
And finally, they may be more conscientious
A 2015 study found that kids born first were “more conscientious, more agreeable and less neurotic” than the crazy kids who followed after. So really, you first-borns out there are actually just big softies.
Feel free not to blame us if you get into a row with said eldest sibling later. It’s science that says so, after all. | <urn:uuid:74048baa-01b9-4005-882e-630191e21484> | CC-MAIN-2017-39 | http://image.ie/family/article/5-science-backed-reasons-eldest-children-might-best/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-39/segments/1505818686034.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20170919202211-20170919222211-00668.warc.gz | en | 0.968086 | 708 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Excerpt from Term Paper:
Computed tomography, more commonly understand as a COMPUTERTOMOGRAFIE or COMPUTERTOMOGRAFIE scan, can be an Xray technique which is used to produce extremely detailed images of bodily organs located in various parts of the body, such as the head, chest, and abdomen. Doctors use the pictures produced through this procedure to aid diagnose and treat diseases. Other terms for the technique are also called digital tomography or perhaps computerized central tomography (CAT). While conventional X-ray exams produce two-dimensional images, CT scans uses an X-ray-sensing unit that rotates about your body and a large computer to create cross-sectional images of the inside of your human body. This paper will addresses vital educational information together with a brief background, uses for calculated tomography, as well as the effects it may have on the patient.
Uk engineer, Godfrey Hounsfield of EMI Laboratories, England and Allan Cormack of Tufts University in Massachusetts invented computed tomography. Their function led to installing the initial clinical COMPUTERTOMOGRAFIE scanners involving the years 1974-1976. The original systems were limited to only taking photos of the brain, but rapidly “whole body” systems with larger sufferer openings started to be offered. The use of Cat Reads was in vast use from 1980. These day there are about six, 000 CT scanners mounted in the United States and about 30, 500 installed globally.
The first CT scanner developed by Hounsfield in his lab took many hours to acquire the raw data for a sole scan or “slice” and took times to reconstruct a single picture from this raw data. This really is a far cry from your efficient image resolution of the most recent multi-slice COMPUTERTOMOGRAFIE systems that now have the capability to collect up to 4 “slices of data” in about 350 milliseconds and after that reconstruct a matrix photo from an incredible number of data factors in less than an additional. For example , a complete chest graphic can be searched in five to ten seconds making use of the most advanced multi-slice CT system.
During it is brief record, advancements pertaining to computerized tomography have made superb improvements in speed, patient comfort, and resolution. As scan occasions have obtained faster, more anatomy may be scanned quicker and more effectively. The extreme rate of scanning services allows the elimination of artifacts via patient motion such as regular breathing. Quicker scanning helps you to eliminate artifacts from patient motion such as breathing or perhaps peristalsis. CT exams are actually now quicker and more individual friendly than previously. Tremendous research and development has been designed to provide exceptional image top quality for a analysis guarantee from the lowest possible xray dose.
Rewards for Calculated Tomography
Calculated tomography has become a powerful application for more than thirty years and the benefits of a CaT check out include many. It is also a noninvasive approach to “see” one’s internal organs and tissues. “Advances with helical and subsequent multidetector technology possess offered increasing and varied opportunities” (Frush, 2003) in which doctors use CaT scans to identify many circumstances, such as tumors, infections, blood vessels clots, and broken bones. (MayoClinic. com, 2003). The cat scan also helps in diagnosing a lot of diseases that might otherwise need surgery. For instance , doctors can use a CaT check to guide catheters to an backache in the body and after that drain pus from the attacked area.
Computed tomograpy can be used for numerous reasons and include:
Diagnose muscle tissue and bone disorders, such as osteoporosis
Bone tissue disorders are easier to find than with traditional x-ray technology. Many hairline fractures may possibly now be detected that recently were forgotten, thus perhaps causing decrease of bone place since it continued to be untreated.
Concentrate on the location of the tumor, infection or bloodstream clot
Guide procedures including surgery, biopsy and radiotherapy
Detect and monitor conditions such as cancer or heart disease, and screen the advancement of a disease
Detect inner injuries and internal blood loss
Revolutionized the surgical methods to the posterior-ethmoid sinuses since the introduction of computed tomography
There are many revolutionary advances in neuro-scientific sinus surgical procedures. When the launch of computer-aided image advice in 93, the endoscopic view as well as the CT perspective have been usa to provide a three-dimensional triplanar point of view to the medical anatomy, hence allowing computer-aided imaging to become an invaluable element of crucial anatomic regions including the sphenoid sinus (Wagner Conti, 1991).
They will state, “that the sphenoid sinus, positioned in the indented position in the skull foundation and between a host of essential neurologic structures, may be responsive to image-guided surgery in both main and revision surgical cases. Laterally, the sphenoid sinus is outfitted by the commodious sinus, which will houses the oculomotor neurological, the trochlear nerve, the ophthalmic division of the cranial nerve, as well as the internal carotid artery. “
Usually, the sphenoid sinusitis was utilized by two principal strategies being bicoronal craniotomy or possibly a through the nose entry also known as transnasal entry. Both equally approaches might produce various risks and usually expected post-operative complications such as human brain retraction and possibly permanent anosmia. However , with the use of computer tomography, “the physiology of the paranasal sinuses creates a complex 3d structure that deserves the accurate space representation provided by computer-aided image-guided endoscopic sinus surgery to avoid surgical pitfalls” (Wagner Conti, 1991).
Computed tomography exams can be carried out even if the affected person already contains a pacemaker or cardioverter defibrillator that has been incorporated in the torso to help regulate the heart beat. Also, in the event the patient is usually pregnant or perhaps thinks that they can might be, their doctor needs to be informed because it might turn into suggested to postpone the method or choose an alternative exam that doesn’t require radiation. Various procedures are also used on healthier people. Many people who are healthful will undertake whole-body Kitty scans to detect cancer and other medical conditions in the first stages, just before any symptoms develop. Early on detection is vital to a healthier life.
Cancers screening has additionally benefited from the use of CaT scans. Wagner and Conti (1991) claim that lesions might not appear on classic scans including an MRI, and lesions of barbaridad pathology may also appear related. The excellent image quality, however , helps to ensure that the experience will probably be sought which MRI will see increasing use. ” The information produced by the CaT check is more exact thus showing that the biochemical function with the brain may be provided by positron emission tomography and sole photon release tomography. Exhausts from radioactive tracers may be used to construct a picture of where the tracers are concentrated in living muscle. Through the suitable tracer, thorough information about the site of essential biochemical procedures may be obtained. These the image technologies, used to complement one another, will produce information about cancer in its living, dynamic point out, and go with the pathological analysis of processed tissue specimens (Wagner and Conti, 1991).
How can Computer Tomography Work?
Imaginis. com (2000) explains that “computed tomography is based on the x-ray primary: as x-rays pass through the entire body they are soaked up or fragile at different levels creating a matrix or profile of x-ray beams of different durability. This xray profile is definitely registered on film, thus creating an image. In the case of Kitten, the film is substituted by a clown shaped metal detector which actions the x-ray profile. “
The Feline scan is conducted in a hospital or an outpatient clinic. The duration of the Xray imaging may well last regarding 45 minutes to a hour. There are numerous levels of preparation that must be produced in order to get ready for the check, depending upon the patient’s demands. The search within itself might last up to many minutes. The person may not have any material zippers, snaps, and switches on their clothing that would affect the Kitten scan. A hospital gown will be donned if the person’s clothing will not comply with the CaT gear. The patient will lie on a narrow stand that goes in or perhaps out of the opening of the gantry or entrance area. The person is to never move during this period and should turn into as comfy as possible for the duration of the procedure; however , the table can be raised, lowered or perhaps tilted without the concern. Straps and cushions are provided to aid the patient live in position. During a head Kitty, the table may be fitted with a special support that holds the brain when imaging occurs (Mayo Clinic, 2000).
The stand is positioned in order that the organ to be scanned is based on the center with the gantry. A tube for the entrance beams X-rays throughout the patient’s human body and in special sensors that evaluate the image made. The gantry then revolves around the affected person to obtain various images by different sides. The Xray tube moves around the physique, while the stand slowly techniques through the starting. While the desk is moving, there is a selection of motion happening. The patient may well realize that some may need to hold your breathing to avoid cloudy the images. The patient will begin to hear clicking and whirring noises and with each rotation, there are many images of slim slices of your body getting conducted. The technologist
A digital oscilloscope
Electronics, Modern tools A digital oscilloscope is a complicated electronic lab instrument frequently used to capture, method, displays and analyse the waveform of electronic indicators. The device pulls a graph ...
An evaluation of dampness in masonry surfaces in
Pages: 2 Rising damp in masonry surfaces results in significant issues the buildings, specifically historical properties. Upward movement of drinking water by capillary action is called rising of damp. It ...
Mitosis and meiosis essay
Among meiosis and mitosis there are plenty of unique comparison such that mitosis has 4 stages and meiosis offers eight. Or possibly a similarity exactly where they have no fresh ...
A study on lawrence venuti s translation theory
Lawrence Venuti is actually a distinguished translator, translation theorist and expert of deconstruction whose functions are a part of two choices of testimonies by Dino Buzzati. Venuti is the person ...
Are the intellectual benefits of bilingualism
Bilingualism Are the intellectual effects of bilingualism restricted to dialect? Because of the recent embrace globalisation and population actions, cultures via all around the world will be coming into contact ...
4new ico making spend product more lucrative
Blockchain, Waste 4NEW ICO: Making waste merchandise more lucrative Guide You might wonder! What is the motive of this interesting platform known as 4NEW? Stay tuned for more. The 4NEW ...
Alan turing the father of modern informatics
Resource, Personality Joe Turing was socially awkward, but his intellectual prowess allowed him to change the world for the better, leaving behind the design intended for the modern working day ...
Agricultural waste materials
Waste Gardening waste produced as a result of different agricultural procedures. It includes manure and other toxins from facilities, poultry properties and slaughterhouses, harvest squander, fertilizer run- off from fields. ...
Investigation of the occurrence and genetic
Pages: 2 Wild animals happen to be obviously very important to tick routine service and long lasting persistence of pathogens typically serving being a blood food resource and reservoirs or ...
Izumo healthy proteins understanding the molecular
Invitro Fertilization, In Vitro Fertilization, Biology, Cell Biology Excerpt coming from Term Conventional paper: The failure of human hamster fusion in the presence of anti-human izumo antibody plainly showed that ... | <urn:uuid:9ca0ef63-7d72-43cb-a1c7-59446d748cf6> | CC-MAIN-2020-10 | https://newszou.com/computed-tomography-term-daily-news/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-10/segments/1581875146066.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20200225110721-20200225140721-00091.warc.gz | en | 0.938204 | 2,531 | 3.125 | 3 |
Digital cartography for geoheritage: turning an analogue geotourist map into digital
Keywords: geoheritage, geopark, geotourist map, Android, webcartography
Abstract. Geoheritage is the collective noun for the spectacular phenomena of geological and geomorphological landmarks that have to be preserved but also exploited by tourism in sustainable ways. The demonstration and preservation of these landmarks – the geosites – are often done in a geopark, an open area where they can be visited, and interesting facts can be learned of them through information boards. To provide visitors with an overall information of the geopark we need to create a geotourist map. This genre combines the characteristics of traditional tourist maps and geoscientific maps. Its purpose is to help tourists to navigate on the field and provide them with simplified geological content. Our mapping area is the eastern part of the Bakony–Balaton UNESCO Global Geopark in Hungary. An increasing number of tourist use their electronic devices to navigate on the field. Because of the growing need for smart maps we have decided to create two digital editions of our paper map. An OpenLayers-based version is ideal for planning: webpage visitors can easily find hiking trails and roads to the geosites. We have also decided to create the first geopark-thematized Android app in Hungary. It contains major information about geopark events, concepts of geoheritage, visitable geosites and tour guides. The most important feature is the geotourist map that is similar to the web version. With the help of geotourist maps, we are able to provide relevant geospatial information to hikers and visitors in an aesthetic way. These maps also help to raise awareness among people for geological and geomorphological heritage. | <urn:uuid:ce69c2af-a1de-4aa1-b655-3e477b645f5d> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://ica-proc.copernicus.org/articles/2/96/2019/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233506669.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20230924191454-20230924221454-00748.warc.gz | en | 0.912677 | 367 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Despite accurate forecasts and timely warnings, Friday night’s tornado outbreak was December’s deadliest on record. Researchers of many stripes, from engineers and forecasters to social scientists, now face the burning question: Why?
But the evidence suggests the timing of the tornadoes, coming in the dark of night, their exceptional intensity and the population density of the region hit were all key factors in the catastrophe — which advanced warning could not overcome.
The storms shouldn’t have been a surprise. From long-range outlooks to immediate warnings, there was ample notice that trouble was brewing. In the predawn hours Thursday, more than 36 hours before the first twisters developed, the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center placed the hardest-hit areas under a level 3 out of 5 risk of severe weather, later upgraded to level 4. The center noted that “several tornadoes, some strong, will be possible.”
Most of the four-state zone ravaged by the tornadic storm, from northeast Arkansas to western Kentucky, was covered by a tornado watch at 3 p.m. Central Friday, hours before it even formed. At 6:22 p.m., a Weather Service discussion noted the formation of what computer models had projected as a potential long-lived tornado producer. The center warned that “sustained, strong tornadoes are possible in the next few hours” over the quad-state area.
As the rotating storm began causing mayhem, strongly worded Weather Service tornado warnings gave downstream residents advance notice, often on the order of 30 minutes. Weathercasters and meteorologists on social media amplified these messages, stressing the unusual danger of the setup.
For tornado researchers, watching a near-certain calamity unfold was a sobering experience.
“When you have a violent, long-tracked tornado traveling at highway speeds overnight, in December … it’s quite literally a recipe for disaster,” wrote Stephen Strader, an assistant professor and director of the geography program at Villanova University, in an email. “It overwhelms the systems we put in place to protect people.”
Ultimately, even the best warnings can’t eliminate the inherent danger of an outbreak as widespread and intense as Friday’s, Strader noted.
“Adequate warning does not always ensure that people will take shelter, can take shelter, or know the quality of their shelter (home),” Strader wrote. “When this fails, all we can do is hope the structures they are in are sturdy enough to withstand the tornado. Unfortunately, many are not.”
The outbreak’s timing made it particularly perilous: It intensified and peaked after dark. For anyone at risk who might have doubted that a truly catastrophic tornado was approaching in December, the darkness made it much harder to confirm the threat with their own eyes.
A landmark 2008 paper led by Walker Ashley from Northern Illinois University found that nighttime tornado deaths were not declining as rapidly as daytime deaths, thus heightening the relative after-dark threat. In fact, overnight tornadoes were 2.5 times more likely to kill than twisters during the daytime.
Strader is now working with Ashley and colleagues on an update to that paper, which had found that nighttime tornadoes — about 26 percent of the total from 1985 to 2005 — accounted for more than 42 percent of tornado deaths in that period.
Strader estimates that some 40,000 people were under the path of the quad-state tornadic storm’s radar-indicated rotation (or mesocyclone). The associated tornado path would be somewhat narrower.
Taking the NOAA MRMS rotation track data and estimating the number of people under its path... Yikes...#tnwx #QuadStateTornado #tornadoes #Wxtwitter #disaster #MayfieldTornado pic.twitter.com/XPD1VObc2i— Stephen M. Strader (@StephenMStrader) December 11, 2021
Much of the area hit by the quad-state tornadic storm lies within the service area of the National Weather Service office in Paducah, Ky. The area was a standout in a national survey on how people across the country receive, comprehend and respond to tornado warnings.
The results, published in a 2020 paper and on a dedicated website, found that the average respondent in the Paducah area scored higher than the national average on a basic test of what tornado watches and warnings denote. That performance placed the area in the top five among more than 100 Weather Service areas.
Responding to a tornado threat when away from home
Even with knowledge at hand, people are often constrained when a tornado approaches simply by their current location. There’s been much attention paid to how people respond at home when a warning is issued — finding a small interior room, for example, or leaving a manufactured home — but less attention paid to what happens in a workplace or a store.
An increasing number of schools and businesses in the South have begun to shut down on springtime afternoons and evenings when an especially intense severe weather threat is predicted. However, the custom has been slower to spread to other times of day and other times of the year.
In both the Amazon warehouse in Illinois and the Mayfield, Ky., candle factory, where many people died, there were reportedly designated tornado shelters or shelter areas accessed by a number of employees. Yet multiple people still perished at those workplaces. That’s not a complete shock, given the obvious destruction, but it’s still a gnawing challenge for those who study tornado response.
“We’re often thinking about trying to reach individuals who have control of their settings,” said Kim Klockow-McClain, a meteorologist and social science researcher at the University of Oklahoma and the National Severe Storms Laboratory. “We think of them at home. That’s a static view of vulnerability.”
“When people go to work or to a business, it’s situational vulnerability — the situation you find yourself in when a tornado occurs.”
Klockow-McClain is part of a multi-institutional study of how businesses approach the severe weather threat when armed with the kind of probabilistic tornado warnings now being developed by the Weather Service. According to the authors, it’s the first time research on the new warning paradigm has been extended from the residential to the commercial setting.
In two recent papers on the project, the team reported that entities surveyed in North Texas seem to grasp the value of probabilistic information: “Our results suggest that when probabilities are added to the warnings, response mirrors the threat and allows businesses to make better informed decisions on when and how to respond.”
Despite his dismay over the toll of the December outbreak, Strader is encouraged by a community’s ability “to rally around each other” and bounce back.
“From a science standpoint, this presents an opportunity to learn and improve survivability with future events,” Strader wrote. “The coming months will reveal details [on the outbreak] stretching from meteorology to climate change to engineering to emergency management. Time will tell.”
Complete coverage: Tornadoes hit several states, killing dozens
President Biden arrived in Kentucky on Wednesday to survey the swaths of damage in areas hardest hit by a string of tornadoes that killed at least 74 people there and 14 in other states.
Live updates: Biden arrives in Kentucky, hardest-hit state after devastating tornado outbreak
Victims: What we know about some of the lives lost in Kentucky
Photos and video: See the damage left by the tornadoes
The storm’s path: Satellite images show leveled buildings
The candle factory: ‘Everyone was trapped’: A candle factory survivor tells her story
Climate: Researchers ponder why Friday’s tornadoes led to so many deaths, despite ample warning | <urn:uuid:a6d80b29-6826-4af4-9a36-014d9783fd5c> | CC-MAIN-2023-23 | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/12/13/tornado-warnings/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224656675.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20230609100535-20230609130535-00751.warc.gz | en | 0.950758 | 1,646 | 2.875 | 3 |
The graph above is an economic history of the world, after 1 AD, from a research letter written by Michael Cembalest, chairman of market and investment strategy at JP Morgan. I posted it yesterday with this summary: "Everything to the left of 1800 is an approximation of population
distribution around the world and everything to the right of 1800 is a
demonstration of productivity divergences around the world."
But that's not exactly right. The Industrial Revolution that occurred in Western Europe around 1800 did dramatically raise productivity and personal income far above what any country had seen in the previous millennia. But in fact, GDP per capita -- an approximation for productivity and income -- started to diverge centuries before the steam engine.
What follows is a deeper -- but still shallow -- dive into 2000 years of economic history, this time through the lens of GDP per capita around the world. This metric helps us identify where growth in wealth occurred, as opposed to just growth in population (e.g.: India and China had thee-quarters of world GDP in 1 AD because they had three-quarters of the world's population).
The first graph is a good picture of what we call the Malthusian Trap. For the vast majority of human history, the most important determinant of wages was births and deaths. With too many births, income fell. After a plague, a roughly stable supply of food and goods shared among a smaller number of people made everybody richer. That is, until births rose, and incomes fell again.
But between 1000 and 1500 wages in Western Europe started to inch up thanks to moderate technologies and agrarian organization, such as three-field rotation and horse harnesses.
... and if you take graph the GDP/capita data between Jesus and Napoleon, you can see even better a real divergence between Western Europe and the rest of the world.
But the thing about the graph above is that the X-axis plays a game of hopscotch. We have data (or an approximation of data) for 1 AD, then another 1000 years later, and another 500 years later, followed by 100-year increments.
So what happens when we zoom back in to the year 1500, when century-by-century data becomes available, and play out the story until the 20th century? You get a really good look at the massive power of the Industrial Revolution, which makes all income growth before about 1800 look pathetic.
There are enough theories about why the Industrial Revolution happened in northern Europe between 1700 and 1800 to fill a million blog posts. Two well-known recent additions are Guns, Germs and Steel, which focuses on the peculiar and advantageous geography of norther Europe and its natural resources, and A Farewell to Alms, which provides the quirky but often persuasive explanation that the Malthusian Trap ironically populated England with workers whose upper-class values made them biologically better adapted to invent and use modern technology.
Our last graph is the full 2000 year sweep of the world through GDP/capita (mind the X-axis, of course). The industrial revolution didn't happen everywhere at the same time, but it did have the same effect everywhere: massively rising GDP/person.
The Japanese and Chinese stories are the most dramatic. Japan, which was behind Eastern Europe before World War I, nearly caught the United States by the end of the 20th century. China, which fell behind Africa in the middle of the 20th century, is now perhaps the most massive success story in industrialization history. | <urn:uuid:bca84c46-fb19-4b63-becb-97bd3933d0f1> | CC-MAIN-2017-30 | https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/the-economic-history-of-the-last-2000-years-part-ii/258762/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-30/segments/1500549424564.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20170723142634-20170723162634-00693.warc.gz | en | 0.951566 | 717 | 2.96875 | 3 |
The construction of the Atigh Jame Mosque dates back to the Saffarid dynasty and it is known as the most ancient mosque in Shiraz city. There are two other mosques, one in Tehran and another in Isfahan, both of which have the same name as this mosque, namely Atigh. The excavations in the archeological sites of this mosque indicate that, even before the construction of the mosque, this site used to be a temple; but as a result of the restrictions in the possibility of further excavations, it is not clear that the temple belonged to which dynasty.
Atigh Jame Mosque is special for containing the “Khodaye-Khaneh” structure (the house of God in Persian), which is located in the middle of the mosque. [Khodaye-Khaneh or Dar-o’Moshaf, in Persian architecture, is a square construction used for announcing Adhan (the Islamic call of worship) and for other worshipping acts.]
Khodaye-Khaneh looks a lot like Kaaba in Mecca and it was named as Khodaye-Khaneh because copies of the Holy Quran written by Imam Ali, Imam Hassan, Imam al-Sadeq, one of Rashidun Caliphs and some of the companies of the prophet were found there, some of which are nowadays kept in Pars museum. Other parts of Atigh Jame Mosque consist of the Nodbeh wall with its beautiful tiles, Davazdah Imam door including Muqarnas and four epigraphs of the Safavid dynasty, and the beautiful vault of Morvarid.
The ancient people have strange beliefs about the mosque, for instance, they believed that the walking stick of Moses which turned into a dragon, was under the Khodaye-Khaneh building or they believed in the descension of Jesus in Atigh Jame Mosque accompanied by two heavenly angels both of which were never proved to be right.
Atigh Jame Mosque is surrounded by many tourist attractions such as the holy shrine of Shah Cheragh, Nasir al-Mulk Mosque, Qavam, and Zinat Al-Molk House, Khan school, and Vakil Mosque. | <urn:uuid:2fa50077-3ed7-405c-8008-869da63adf95> | CC-MAIN-2023-23 | https://binsinamed.com/fa/tourism/atigh-mosque/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224649348.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20230603233121-20230604023121-00417.warc.gz | en | 0.96854 | 457 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Photo: Royal Saskatchewan Museum
T. rex itself couldn't make it, but he sends his regards. And poop.
The Royal Saskatchewan Museum is sending a replica of its prized fossilized dinosaur poop (or "coprolite," in polite company) to the Smithsonian Institution:
According to the RSM, the T. rex coprolite was "deposited" over 65 million years ago in what is now southwest Saskatchewan. The original fossil will remain in Eastend.
Scientists say much can be learned about dinosaurs by examining their droppings. This particular coprolite contains bone fragments, confirming that the T. rex was indeed a meat eater.
Furthermore, the bone chips are shattered and still angular, not worn down by stomach acid, suggesting that the meat didn't spend much time in the dinosaur's stomach. | <urn:uuid:a4219fc3-07a6-476c-9e28-ffd2af24c14c> | CC-MAIN-2017-30 | http://www.neatorama.com/2013/06/12/T-rex-Poop/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-30/segments/1500549425144.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20170725102459-20170725122459-00262.warc.gz | en | 0.963324 | 170 | 2.875 | 3 |
Welcome to the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture Research Repository
What would you like to view today?
Plant breeding successes in African rural development.
Review StatusPeer Review
MetadataShow full item record
This article reviews improvements in important southern African food crops, and it describes the social and economic effects of those improved crops. Author Rodomiro Ortiz, the acting Deputy-Director General of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), says that the development and distribution of high-yielding cassava cultivars led to a 50 percent increase in average yield and a 10 percent increase in per capita output throughout Africa. Meanwhile, Ortiz says that improved maize cultivars led to about a 45 percent increase in on-farm yield gains in western and central Africa. Ortiz contends that 100 million more people in sub-Saharan Africa are able to meet their daily food requirements because of IITA-led research-for-development efforts in cassava and maize. However, Ortiz asserts that the full impact of crop improvement programs "can only be judged over a relatively long period." In addition to cassava and maize, Ortiz discusses several IITA-led improvements in yams, cooking bananas and plantains, cowpeas, and soybeans. | <urn:uuid:e0d6b1cd-d5c7-4ff6-abc8-8c9a1c3b5259> | CC-MAIN-2023-50 | https://biblio1.iita.org/handle/20.500.12478/6722 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100550.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20231205073336-20231205103336-00110.warc.gz | en | 0.913215 | 253 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Climate change and energy costs were among Rossi Stamp’s key targets in designing a window profile that cuts energy use. The result: Thinframe profiles that also cut the cost of manufacturing through a simpler process.
“Today climate change is constantly developing (see the last heavy snowfalls, hurricanes, the high percentage of humidity due to the strong temperature changes, et cetera),” says Francesca Pandolfi, Export Manager at Rossi Stamp. “For these reasons, buildings have to be adapted for our security.”
With windows, about 30% of heat loss usually takes places through the frame, Pandolfi says. “Thinframe performs better than steel or other metals, offering better insulation with foam material. That means there’s less expense due to the heat saving, less CO2 release into the environment.”
In addition, the profiles are reinforced with localised glass fibre to give the desired strength. That eliminates the need for metals, and without steel, there’s no risk of corrosion, says Pandolfi.
“In that way, we can make the finished product in a single step,” she says. “We are adding the insulation directly during the extrusion process. That can cut manufacturing costs by up to 20%.”
Thinframe also complies with European Union regulations, including the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD). | <urn:uuid:01bba691-043a-4704-a69c-3e9f1e352512> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://www.inovynawards.com/projects/awards-2016/thinframe-energy-smarter-pvc-window-frames-with-glass-fibre-reinforcement/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510994.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20231002100910-20231002130910-00624.warc.gz | en | 0.940006 | 292 | 2.953125 | 3 |
04 November, 2017
For most college students, the main goal of higher education is earning a degree that will lead to a successful and satisfying career.
The years spent working on a program of study can be fun and include life-changing experiences. And many college classes provide students with interesting information that they may not have even thought about before.
Still, the most important thing for most students is what those years of hard work and studying can bring them once they graduate.
But Jennifer Simons argues that there are many valuable things people can learn before they even attend their first college class. Simons is the director of undergraduate admissions and recruitment at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.
Simons says the college application process can teach young people a lot about supporting themselves and making connections with others.
In the United States, the process starts in the final two years of high school, when students are about 16 or 17 years old. This is the time when young people are forced to consider what happens after they leave high school. They face questions like, ‘Where do you want to go to college?' and ‘What will you study?'
There are so many choices available to students that these questions can seem very difficult to answer, Simons says. So she suggests that young people try to get a better understanding of themselves before making any decisions.
Simons says that young people should start keeping a journal, or written record, of their ideas well before they start thinking about college. They should ask themselves questions, like ‘Who am I?', ‘What do I want out of life?', and ‘What are my strengths and weaknesses?' Students should then try to write down answers to these and other questions once a day, or even weekly. Also, Simons adds, they should try to take note of meaningful events that teach them something about the world or themselves.
The answers to these general questions, she says, will likely give students a better understanding of how to answer more specific questions. They will have a better idea about where they might want to spend four years of their lives while working toward a college degree, for example. It can also give young people ideas of what to talk about in writing samples that most college applications require.
In addition, she says, students who know their own strengths will better understand how to ask people they know to write letters of recommendation for them.
Simons says the more young people know about themselves, they more likely they are to make decisions that will make them happy. This includes more than just decisions about college.
"If you understand who you are," she told VOA, "you are less likely to fall prey to somebody else's vision for what you should be or where you should go."
Something else students can take from the application process, Simons notes, relates to how busy the process makes them. High schoolers already have their studies, personal relationships and possibly jobs to worry about. The application process requires them to find schools that interest them, find out how to request admission and prepare application materials.
Simons argues that balancing responsibilities is one of the most important skills anyone can learn.
She said, "I think that you really are laying the groundwork for becoming an adult by learning how to prioritize your time."
However, Simons admits that learning time management can be very difficult for young people. So learning to ask for help when you need it is another equally important lesson. School counselors, older students, and friends and family members who have attended college can all be important resources.
But with asking for help also comes thanking people once you have received it, Simons says. A simple thing young people can learn to do is sending a letter or an email thanking those who helped them get into their school of choice.
Relationship-building like this is important outside the college application process. Simons suggests that students should make such efforts with teachers, classmates and anyone they meet. This can help them in the future as they look for jobs or continue their education.
One final lesson students can take from the application process is accepting that their control of the situation is limited, Simons says. She points out that every college and university in the United States receives hundreds, if not thousands of applications every year. Competition is fierce, so not everyone is going to get into their first or even second choice of school.
"There are many places where you could be happy," she said. "I think that is human to ... feel like, ‘Oh, this is the perfect fit.' And that happens in relationships, too. But, there's more than one place where you could be satisfied ... and that's a good thing to know, that nothing is the only option."
Simons says that accepting defeat and learning how to move past it is probably the most important lesson of all.
I'm Pete Musto. And I'm Dorothy Gundy.
Pete Musto reported this for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor.
We want to hear from you. If you are a current or former college student, what did you learn from the process of applying to your school? Write to us in the Comments Section or on 51VOA.COM.
Words in This Story
degree – n. an official document and title that is given to someone who has successfully completed a series of classes at a college or university
graduate – v. to earn a degree or diploma from a school, college, or university
application – n. a formal and usually written request for something (such as a job, admission to a school, or a loan
specific – adj. special or particular
recommendation – n. the act of saying that someone or something is good and deserves to be chosen
fall prey to – idm. to be harmed or affected in a bad way by (someone or something
vision – n. something that you imagine
prioritize – v. to organize things so that the most important thing is done or dealt with first
time management – n. the act or process of deciding how to best use one's time
counselor(s) – n. a person who provides advice as a job | <urn:uuid:409140ca-3621-42f7-931c-a5a87a99008f> | CC-MAIN-2023-50 | https://www.51voa.com/VOA_Special_English/college-admissions-advice-learning-from-the-process-77129.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100677.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20231207153748-20231207183748-00818.warc.gz | en | 0.973812 | 1,269 | 3.3125 | 3 |
Method of Lighting Wireless Vacuum Tubes Devoid of Any Electrodes Placed In An Alternating Electrostatic Field.
In 1891, just before becoming an American citizen, Nikola Tesla was asked to lecture before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers at the Columbia University in New York. He performed experiments with alternating currents of very high frequency and left an audience of America’s greatest engineers spell-bound as he demonstrated a new theory of light. This lecture would be the first public demonstration of transmitting wireless energy, making Tesla the true father of radio and wireless power.
Throughout his investigations of alternating currents of very high frequency phenomena, Tesla satisfied himself with the conclusion that light bulbs using carbon filaments were inferior, and that an electric field of sufficient intensity could be made to fill a room and light electrodeless vacuum tubes. This was done by connecting two large sheets of zinc to the terminal of the circuit with the sheets being spread apart about fifteen feet away from each other (as shown above). The sheets served as condensers, and both received the charge of electricity from the wires connecting the sheets to the transformer, creating an electric field between the two. Tesla would then introduce vacuum tubes and place them between the zinc sheets–illuminating the tubes and lighting the room. He waved the vacuum tubes around like a Jedi showcasing the first light sabers, and the tubes continued to glow as long as they remained in the electric field.
He accomplished this by upping the speed of his dynamo, transforming his alternating currents into a continuous flow of static currents. This allowed him to pass a large amount of energy from sheet to sheet, or even through his body, without any harm. To help better explain this, direct currents carry an electric charge along a conductor which travel in one single direction, like a straight line, while the charge in AC alternate back and forth in waveform. Static currents, on the other hand, are stationary with no movement. Tesla would speed up his AC so fast that they would transform into a static current, allowing him to create a static field of electricity capable of lighting his wireless bulbs.
The electrical wizard went on to show the absolute harmlessness of his electric system by passing thousands of volts of electricity through his body–lighting light bulbs and shooting sparks out of his finger tips.
These amazing demonstrations would set Tesla apart from the rest of the scientific world, and the inventor would be showered with awards and invitations from all around the world begging him to share his work.
“I love you,” You paused easing the aching pain in his chest momentarily, until you bent down, wrapping your arms around him placing a kiss on his lips. “But I can’t forgive you.” You spoke, abruptly taking a step back.
Gerald looked up at your tear stained face. You stared down at the figure of a man, whom you thought loved you as much as you did him. You took a deep breath, attempting to pull yourself together. You gave him one last look before picking up your purse and phone.
As you shut the door around you, Gerald’s world completely crumpled around him. He felt broken, he was unable to comprehend what was happening. All he knew was that he just let the best thing in life walk out the door.
You got in the drivers seat of your Tesla and set your things beside you. Everything that had just happened replaying in your head like a broken record, or a movie that you were unable to turn off.
Images of Gerald and the other girl flashing in your mind. Two whole years tossed down the drain, and for what? Because Gerald couldn’t wait three days to see you? None of this making any sense in your head, you started the car and began to drive leaving behind what could’ve been.
"I'm sick of you taking the cats side in everything!" winteriron or ironpanther pretty please (I always need more Tony on my dash) :-)
I’m going with Winteriron because I haven’t written that today. And last prompt for me before I go to bed. (I’ve done like half a dozen today, which way to go me but also omg my writing brain is sleepy.)
This turned out much longer than I anticipated, as well as kind of took on a life of it’s own. I didn’t have much planned when I started it, but I’m pretty happy with how it turned out! Hope you enjoy.
“I’m sick of you taking the cat’s side in everything!”
“What?” Tony asked, looking up from where he’d been murmuring and pressing kisses into Tesla’s fur.
Bucky scowled at him, looking honestly grumpy and upset. Tony set Tesla down on the floor and walked over.
It’s the birthday of Nikola Tesla (Никола Тесла), who was born in 1856 in Smiljan, Croatia. Tesla’s first technical job was at the Budapest Telephone Exchange, where he made several improvements to the equipment and rose to become chief electrician. His next job, in 1882, was for Continental Edison Co in France. Two years later, he was at the company’s Manhattan office, working to redesign and improve Thomas Edison’s DC generators and associated equipment. With financial backing, Tesla set up his own company, which developed a revolutionary AC induction motor and transformer. Those inventions and others, licensed by George Westinghouse, helped AC defeat DC in the so-called War of the Currents, which was all but over by the early 1890s. Tesla’s research interests shifted focus to the generation and uses of wireless electrical power. Thanks to the royalties he earned from his 300 patents, Tesla could finance extensive research projects at labs in Colorado and New York. Those high-voltage, high-frequency experiments did not result in profitable devices – at least not in Tesla’s lifetime. He died alone of coronary thrombosis on 7 January 1943 in room 3327 of the New Yorker Hotel. | <urn:uuid:9b48c95f-c2f7-46a7-bb6d-61000516a337> | CC-MAIN-2017-39 | https://www.tumblr.com/search/tesla's%20set | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-39/segments/1505818689028.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20170922164513-20170922184513-00116.warc.gz | en | 0.974308 | 1,278 | 3.53125 | 4 |
Throughout most of evolutionary history, sex was just sex. Among vertebrates, fish were the first to do it, going back some 400 million years. While it might be fun for fish and all the other species that evolved to reproduce sexually, for most species, sex still is just sex. But for our own peculiar species of primate, sex is about something more. Sex is about babymaking. Contemplating sex and where we come from has played a fundamental role in human mating, partnering and raising children, and in forming families, communities and alliances, and more. Recognising this fundamental difference between us and the rest of Earth’s sexual beings overturns conventional evolutionary thinking, which has long understood human sex, reproduction and kinship as fundamentally the same for us as for any other mammal.
All sexually reproducing animals have a powerful ‘sex drive’. If they didn’t, they would quickly become extinct. Among most animals, this drive demands immediate attention. It’s the yowls of the tomcats in the alley who detect a female in heat, the bawling bull who smells a receptive cow. It can’t be ignored. But it’s not a ‘baby drive’ – at least it isn’t experienced as one. We know the two are intimately related, but the tomcat doesn’t. He just wants to find that female in heat. Sex can certainly make for high drama among manipulative social mammals, especially primates. Among many monkeys and apes, the alpha male often sires the most offspring during his tenure because he is granted the least fettered access to fertile females, and can foil the sexual devices of subordinates. But with our inventions of virgin worship, marriage, castration, contraception, fertility technology and genetic engineering, the human primate experiences sex in an entirely different way from any other animal, enmeshed in all kinds of cultural and emotional networks and significance.
Stories about what make humans unique glorify dexterous fingers, inventive minds and our habit of sharing complex ideas through intricate verbal cues. Our ancestors’ fabled intellects gave rise to art, technology and dynamic, large-scale politics. But there is an oft-overlooked plot in the human saga. It stars the ancient hominins who realised that they’re related to some people and not others, and that sexual intercourse might have something to do with that. The effects of this realisation are profound, and deserve some credit for our species’ widespread success on the planet.
Pop culture is obsessed with sex, and science is no different. And for good reason: sex is fundamental to how and whether so much animal evolution happens. In conventional evolutionary science, ‘favoured’ genes cause themselves to be passed from one generation to the next, because they are responsible for traits that confer reproductive advantages in a particular environment. This is natural selection. When it comes to sex and reproduction, science takes a particular interest in sexual selection: that is, the evolution of traits involving mate choice and mating behaviours. Within this frame, scientists have tried to trace the origins of human mating, marriage and kinship to evolutionary ‘strategies’ that, conscious or not, were responsible for our survival and continued evolution rather than our extinction.
In other words, if you follow this mainstream or ‘Darwinian’ logic, there must be genes that underpin mating behaviours, which in turn cause animals (including the human animal) to be successful in reproducing, and thus those genes (and their associated behaviours) are perpetuated in populations. If that’s how simply things actually happen in nature, there will be genes ‘for’ mate preference, genes ‘for’ pair-bonding, genes ‘for’ polygamy and so on.
We share many genes even with fruit flies, but we share far more with non-human primates. We share an especially large proportion of our genome with our closest relatives – chimpanzees and bonobos – so, if their mating behaviour is genetically driven, then we’ll learn a lot about ourselves by studying these apes. Although no one has actually identified genes for infanticide or for avoiding incest, for most evolutionary scientists, answers to questions such as why is infanticide so common among chimps and some monkeys, or why is the incest taboo so common in human societies, ought to be applicable interchangeably to all of us primates. Thus, evolutionary psychology and evolutionary theory more broadly has a clear theoretical box for human sexuality: the model of animal mating.
Back in 1997, the psychologist Steven Pinker wrote in How the Mind Works: ‘The human mating system is not like any other animal’s. But that does not mean it escapes the laws governing mating systems, which have been documented in hundreds of species.’ In Mutants (2004), the evolutionary developmental biologist Armand Leroi summed up this hardline argument with: ‘the psychologies of pheasants and Fijians are really much the same’. The idea here, the ‘law’ that governs mating, is that sexual selection is assumed to drive reproductive behaviour in similar ways in all kinds of creatures. Conventional theory describes the characteristics we use to choose our mates, be it the resplendent tail of the peacock or a man’s full beard, as indicators of good genes, that is, genetic predisposition for strength or good health, and thus we’re choosing not just a full beard, but a collection of favourable genes to pass on to our children. This strips away any uniqueness in our reproductive behaviour; we’re just like any other animal.There have been many human mating behaviours that have been anointed by hyper-Darwinians as ‘natural’ to the species, often by analogy with other primates – and often revealing as much about the preconceptions of their inventors as about any sound science. Thus we are told that men are genetically programmed to be dominant, women are programmed to seek the alpha male, monogamy is innate for women, polygamy is innate for men, and many other examples. Male violence is regularly interpreted as a programmatic legacy from human evolution, and violent stepfathers who hurt their partners’ children are understood to be acting out of the same impulses as male chimpanzees who kill infants in a troop. Thus the standard trope of ‘Demonic Males’ and choosy females.
These potent images are worth unpacking because they reveal the disorienting feedback loops between seeing ourselves as just like other animals, while interpreting other animals as being just like us.
According to conventional evolutionary theory, dominant male chimps and some other primates kill infants in the troops they join because they know that these babies aren’t theirs. This makes sense to mainstream evolutionary theory because every organism’s purpose in life is to survive to reproduce, but even better is when my genes outcompete yours. I win, you lose. Thus, a dominant male kills unrelated infants because this increases the chances that his genes, inside his babies, will outcompete, or outnumber, his rivals’. Survival of the fittest, indeed.
In eliminating the distinctions between human sexual behaviour and that of other primates, a murky anthropomorphism creeps in. The journalist Nicholas Wade wrote in The New York Times that male chimps and baboons ‘are prone to kill any infant they believe could not be theirs, so females try to blur paternity by mating with as many individuals as possible before each conception’. This suggests that non-human primates could know that semen transforms into a baby and that the act of sex, broadly, makes an infant. Further, it implies that they have a sense of relatedness, and that it extends to fathers. If not, then it’s deliberately narrating animal sex and violence like a scene from Game of Thrones, for our entertainment. And it works (it’s sensational and relatable) because a more scientifically grounded alternative – male baboons, gorillas and chimps might kill infants, but they’re less likely to kill ones clinging to females with whom they’ve mated because sexual relations between primates builds affiliation – isn’t nearly as scintillating.
It’s not just journalism that falls into this trap: scientists aren’t all that deft at escaping the temptations of anthropomorphising reproductive strategies either. Writing about male-male competition and the caretaking of infants by the male marmoset monkeys who sire them, the primatologist Sarah Hrdy quipped in Mothers and Others (2009) that ‘in the absence of DNA testing, it is impossible [for the monkey] to know who the father is’. But really, it’s the absence of the awareness that sex makes babies (which we’re calling reproductive consciousness) that makes it impossible for a monkey to know who the father is, or to have the concept of ‘father’ or paternity in the first place. Something else is driving marmoset fathers to care for their own biological offspring and not others.
So evolutionary speculation about the origin of human mating strategies not only rests on science’s tendency to ‘zoomorphise’ us. It also entangles science in a dizzying web of anthropomorphic assumptions about other animals.
Yet as the cognitive scientist and anthropologist Daniel Povinelli writes in ‘Behind the Ape’s Appearance’ (2004): ‘if chimpanzees do not reason about unobservable entities, then we would frequently need distinctly different explanations for human and chimpanzee behaviour – even in situations where the behaviour looks almost identical’. Chimpanzees deftly navigate a world with gravity without thinking about gravity, or rationalising about it and making rules. In an equally naïve way, they deftly navigate a world with paternity without thinking of the consequences of sexual intercourse. But with our fundamentally similar ape ways, humans navigate a world where males are known to be intrinsic to babymaking, where males and females can have descendants and siblings, where beliefs about relatedness shape society and politics, and where relatives can inherit immaterial and material wealth to a degree and complexity that is unparalleled in the animal kingdom.
When a dominant chimpanzee kills an unrelated infant, one set of explanations is needed. And it’s not enough to map those directly, with no recognition of the utterly distinct human experience of reproduction and family, on to human domestic violence.
Human horniness is tethered to beliefs, to knowledge, to conscious calculation, to past and to future
Influential ideas about the evolution of human pair-bonding also dismiss our distinctiveness. In Primeval Kinship (2010), the primatologist Bernard Chapais wrote a book-length hypothesis for the evolution of human pair-bonding, matrilineal and patrilineal descent groups, and exogamous (anti-inbreeding) marriage patterns. Like many other scientists, Chapais interprets the very peculiar mating habits and family structures of humans as outcomes of standard processes of natural and sexual selection that favour particular mating strategies for animals with particular niches and needs. Human mating strategies can, as far as Chapais and many others are concerned, be understood without any reference to our peculiar self-consciousness about them.
Our species’ habit of pair-bonding, for example, is widely considered an adaptation to having particularly costly babies. They’re so big (read: hungry) and so slow to grow to independence, that allomothering – infant care from other than the mother – not only from a baby’s grandmother, maternal aunts and sisters, but also from the baby’s brothers, father and his kin, enabled us to continue and maybe even thrive under these conditions. And that’s not a bad explanation as a starting point. It helps to explain why other primates, such as owl and marmoset monkeys, have invested fathers. Owl monkey fathers don’t ‘know’ who their offspring are in the sense that humans ‘know’. But natural selection has favoured (or at least, not frowned upon) owl monkey fathers who care for their offspring – they have a reproductive advantage and, insofar as this behaviour is heritable, whether biologically or because it’s learned, it will be reproduced in further generations. On the surface, this looks akin to human behaviour, minus all the elaborate consequences of human paternity.
It seems reasonable to assume that at the proximate level of attraction and arousal we are close to other animals. But talk of ‘animal instincts’ is for dark and steamy trysts, not wedding vows. Human horniness is tethered to beliefs, to knowledge, to conscious calculation, to past and to future. What is more, humans arrange marriages – sometimes from birth – greatly shaping human sexual behaviour over a lifetime. And new genetic studies show that marriage is a very ancient human behaviour indeed. Because our species is inextricably steeped in sociocultural context, you could argue that all human marriage is somehow arranged. This is a whole new approach to mate choice on the evolutionary scene. Like other social animals, we do compete for mates and we are choosy, but it’s not just because we want to have sex with them, it’s also because we want to make babies with them, to merge families with theirs, to make a future together. Reproductive consciousness isn’t just an aftermath to human mating. It has shaped it profoundly.
In his book Why Is Sex Fun? (1997), Jared Diamond writes that human sexuality is unusual because we often have sex for recreation rather than procreation. But the popular emphasis on orgasms and acrobatics misses the mark. Animals have sex for a smorgasbord of immediate reasons, including pleasure, yet no species knowingly has sex for procreation except us. So it’s not just our Kama Sutra-ness but it’s also our reproductive consciousness that sets humans apart. Sex isn’t something that just happens to human beings. It’s the fact that we know what can happen when we do it that might be one of the turning points in making humans unique inhabitants of the planet. Because of reproductive consciousness, humans know that they are related to one another: grandparents, parents, siblings and children. And this knowledge – sex equals babies, and babies equals kinship – marks one of the turning points of the history of life.
So how did we work it out in the first place?
As far as we know, there is no animal that spends time dwelling on what it cannot perceive with its senses other than the human animal. Understanding where babies come from can’t simply be observed. It requires grasping that a rather routine activity today will have long-term consequences in the future – connecting a long-ago act to the baby mice, kittens, baby gorillas or newborn whales and elephants born 20 days, two months, eight months, or almost two years later. Among the few of us, including bonobos, that copulate while pregnant – which can shrink the time between cause and effect – being able to link the business and substance of sex to pregnancy and its outcome would still take the kind of wild imagination that only humans are thought to possess. That, plus language, helps us to think these sorts of abstract creations and to communicate them. Once we’re a few years old, humans begin to explain the unobservable. Soon thereafter, we’re weaving and repeating stories about where babies come from. And it’s not much longer until we’re seasoned gossips about tribe members.
Abstract conceptual ability, what Povinelli refers to as a mind primed to think about ‘ghosts, gravity, and God’, is among the few exceptional human traits that primatologists, who are ever narrowing the divide between us and our closest non-human relatives, can embrace. To quote Povinelli: ‘The mental lives of humans and chimpanzees are similar, in that both species form innumerable (and in many cases, identical) concepts about observable things, but, at the same time, are radically different, in that humans form additional concepts about inherently unobservable things.’ As far as we understand non-human cognition today, there is little to suggest that other animals hold beliefs, material or spiritual, about pregnancy or babymaking, or that they understand that anyone is related to babies, especially males. Without a vivid imagination for the past and the future and the mysterious connections between them, such an understanding couldn’t exist.
We don’t know when our human ancestors first began to reason abstractly in a deeply imaginative way, and we certainly don’t know when any first moments of a-ha occurred, when anyone grasped that man + woman + whatever else they might imagine = baby. Scenarios for the origins of reproductive consciousness play out in fantastic works such as Jean M Auel’s The Clan of the Cave Bear (1980) and its sequel The Valley of Horses (1982) but, outside of speculative fiction, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever know what happened with any certainty. However, there are traces of the cognitive development of humans that afford interesting clues.
Surely the control of fire offered an opportunity for hominins to observe how organic matter can transform, and to transfer those rules to sex and babies. The best evidence for fire control doesn’t appear until 800,000 years ago at a Homo erectus site in Israel, which is half a million years before anything evolved that we’d call Homo sapiens. Perhaps it was cooking – we like to think of this as the ‘bun in the oven’ hypothesis – although bread itself is of course only a few thousand years old. Foraging for eggs would have revealed to ancient hominins how amorphous fluid transforms into baby birds – an observation begging to be transferred to baby humans. The earliest ostrich eggshells with a definite human use, ingeniously used as containers to carry and store water, don’t appear until the later Middle Stone Age of Africa around 60,000 years ago. Abstract thinking itself emerged long before this.
If reproductive consciousness is as old as the earliest archaeological evidence for our unique ability to think about the future, the past and present, and to link far out causes and effects together, then it might have originated as far back as 1.75 million years ago when Homo erectus began deliberately shaping stones in the form of tear-dropped hand-axes. But ultimately we can’t know for sure what erectus brains could think about sex and kinship. If reproductive consciousness is possible only with our species-specific brains, then it could have dawned on the first of our species, Homo sapiens, which means it could still be very ancient, going back some 200,000-300,000 years. Given that it’s likely that sapiens took some time to fire up its brain to modern capacity, then it’s possible that reproductive consciousness originated within the past 100,000 years when the archaeological record starts to boast the products of sophisticated abstract thinking with those engraved eggshells, and also in etched rocks, carved stones and painted caves.
Reproductive consciousness is a powerful context for boosting male-female cooperation, even beyond mates
Whenever the cognitive ability arose, reproductive consciousness is almost certainly as old as 100,000 years, and so the cultural byproducts of it must be ancient too. Dowries, engagement rings and marriages are influenced by our unique cognition and culture, even if such traits have long been seen by evolutionary biologists as the bipedal ape’s versions of what bush crickets, bower birds and wolves do.
Let’s start with the consequences that might run very deep in our past. Humans around the world form pair-bonds within larger communities. We are generally not promiscuous, like chimpanzees and bonobos, despite the tremendous opportunity around us. Sure, we cheat, but most partnered humans are as reproductively faithful as physically isolated gorillas and gibbons, even with far greater opportunities to sleep around. And while many diverse cultures promote or tolerate polygamy, monogamy is far more common in reality, even within putatively polygamous societies. This human tendency to bond in pairs could have evolved, as Bernard Chapais and others have hypothesised, because of a long series of ecological shifts in the past several million years of our evolutionary history, including selection for allomothering males. Whether it’s an alternative or a complement to this idea, reproductive consciousness likely also played a role in the evolution of people’s ability and desire to form exclusive sexual partnerships within a larger community.
Beliefs about relatedness and about babymaking could have factored into mate choice and competition for a long time, in a particularly human kind of sexual selection. Reproductive consciousness would have increased attraction to and competition for mates, male or female, who are observed to be good community members and good parents, or who have potential to be. It would have increased competition for mates or for families with resources they’re willing to share. Reproductive consciousness is a powerful context for boosting male-female cooperation, even beyond mates and into adult brother-sister relationships – effectively a uniquely human phenomenon. The understanding of paternity would also have boosted brother-brother bonds. Although chimpanzee males cooperate, brothers are not intentionally befriended. Humans take nepotism far beyond where other primates go because we know about relatedness, and we encode it with meaning and value.
A very rich example can be found in incest taboos that are, like pair-bonding, widespread in human societies, enough to be virtually universal. The standard evolutionary interpretation of human incest taboos runs like this: human incest taboos and animal inbreeding avoidance are general evolutionary strategies for preventing very rare, debilitating genetic traits in offspring. Many animal species practise matrilocality and patrilocality. That is, females or males remain in their natal group, and the opposite sex (sometimes both sexes) leaves their natal group as they reach reproductive age. This exogamy is common among non-human primates and other animals, and results in ‘inbreeding avoidance’. However, we’ve learned from genetic studies that the risks from inbreeding have been overblown; it doesn’t lead to harmful traits nearly as often as this view has led us to believe. Other species have mating strategies that don’t avoid incest: banded mongoose females, for example, breed readily with their brothers and fathers.
It’s possible that human incest taboos are rooted in some biological factors underpinning aversion and attraction, which seem to urge us to mate outside our familiar immediate family. However, such taboos can be just as robustly interpreted as a product of our reproductive consciousness, which in turn has influenced cultural norms. Reproductive consciousness enables a calculation of relationships and reciprocity that is impossible for other animals. Socially enforced incest taboos keep fathers from monopolising daughters who would do better, for the family, if they married and reproduced with someone outside the family instead. Incest taboos force individuals to marry into someone else’s family, which results in benefits to their parents and siblings through alliance-building. And such social norms themselves have a profound effect on reproduction, not just of individuals but also of culture. Rather than simply mapping animal models onto human reproduction, when we take into account the distinctive human achievement of reproductive consciousness, we can interpret incest taboos as operating to control sexuality in order to optimise social, political and economic outcomes, even at the expense of optimising genetic ones.
This is not to say that incest taboos are entirely cultural phenomena. Despite not being coded in DNA, a socially mandated incest taboo can lead to differential reproductive success for individuals who practise it, thus becoming an influence on human biology, not just a product of it. Incest taboos discourage instant gratification to favour the long-view and all its spoils. And so culture in turn is able to affect biological evolution.
Reproductive consciousness is just one element in the invention of human culture – a whole cluster of behaviours, knowledge, values and beliefs that unhooks human destiny from the standard evolutionary model of other species. We humans do many things that undermine our evolutionary interests. We practise religious celibacy, contraception, abortion, suicide bombing. We adopt infants who aren’t our kin, we go to war, we kill our siblings. A lot of this we do voluntarily, and none of it perpetuates our own genes. In fact, it actively does not.
Reproductive consciousness transforms human beings and families into human lineages, inextricably intertwined with other bloodlines, passing along and exchanging genes just like any other animal, but also transmitting immaterial and material culture across and down through the generations, which in turn affects the fates of the genes going forward as well. Understanding that sex makes babies has allowed us to create social norms and expectations about when and with whom we reproduce that biologically driven behaviour alone could never have done. But our understanding that sex makes babies has done much more than shape human destiny. It has changed the entire planet through our manipulation of other species to our own ends.
At the end of the last Ice Age, some 10,000-12,000 years ago, people began the transition from foraging to farming. This shift defines the beginning of the Neolithic and forms the foundations for the Anthropocene, the present age of visible human impact on the Earth’s ecosystems that might soon become an official geologic epoch. Archaeologists still argue about why this change happened where and when it did. Either farming offered advantages that foraging did not, or foraging became unsustainable, and people had no choice but to adopt a new way of life. Perhaps it was some of both. Whatever the cause, the transition was slow and patchy, taking hundreds or even thousands of years.
Domestication is essentially predation with forethought and evolutionary intent. Early farmers were the first to replace natural selection with artificial selection. They had to decide which seeds to plant (if in fact to plant them at all), which animals to cull from wild herds that lived nearby, to corral animals for meat, wool, hides, milk, blood and so on. By all professional accounts, cultivation – that is tending animals and plants without choosing to breed subsets for specific traits – preceded domestication, but even without practising artificial selection, cultivators, like their hunter-gatherer ancestors, possessed a wealth of knowledge about nature. Farmers must have known that pollination and mating were prerequisites for the next generation of plants and animals, and this must have made them better at gardening and animal husbandry. Palaeolithic peoples had sophisticated symbolic language and extensive knowledge of animal and plant behaviours. This would certainly have included an understanding of sex and reproduction.
Domestication of goats, sheep or cows reflects an understanding of the role of sex in producing animals with desired characteristics, such as docility, herd behaviour and fatty milk. Farmers realised that parent animals with these traits would be likely to produce offspring with the same traits, and this would have informed their decisions about which animals they would allow to reproduce. At some point people also understood that selective pollination could drive a food crop in a particular direction as well – seeds that all ripen at the same time, seeds that stay on the plant until the farmer wants to harvest them, seeds that taste better, and so forth. Whether early farmers understood that pollination was essentially plant sex is unknown, but domestication – purposeful, human-driven artificial selection rather than simply taking advantage of what natural selection or chance delivered – was a fundamental part of the transition to agriculture, and that couldn’t have happened without reproductive consciousness.
The transition to agriculture brought the beginning of settled life, the growth of villages and towns, and eventually cities, with dramatic population growth and ensuing environmental, epidemiological, cultural and political consequences. Without reproductive consciousness, human history would have been utterly different.
Now, it’s true that humans aren’t the only animals that farm. Ants farm aphids, damselfish farm algae, leafcutter ants grow fungi on the leaves they collect. However, as far as we know, they aren’t consciously breeding selected fungi or aphids specifically to engineer the traits of future generations. This isn’t domestication, and it’s not farming as we know it. Domestication requires reproductive consciousness and, without it, the ecological leviathan of agricultural and industrial human society would not have been possible.
Someone left a cuneiform note in the Sumerian city of Eridu in Iraq, describing how the penis, specifically the god Enki’s, is a creative force
Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that early agricultural civilisations have a wealth of stories and myths about fertility. More than 2,000 years ago, inscriptions on an Egyptian wall reveal the life-creating abilities of the penis. Hieroglyphs tell of how the male god Atum masturbated the universe into existence. A thousand years before that, someone left a cuneiform note in the Sumerian city of Eridu in Iraq, describing how the penis, specifically the god Enki’s, is a creative force, with Enki’s bearing the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. The Code of Hammurabi, as translated into English, suggests that Babylonian men were very aware that they help to create offspring via sexual intercourse.
In the Bible, when God told Adam and Eve to ‘be fruitful and multiply’, he was transferring creative power to their capable loins. Later in the script, the Ten Commandments demand that we honour our father and mother, that we not commit adultery, and that we do not covet our neighbour’s wife. From a similar time, in The Twelve Tables (450 BCE), the earliest coded Roman law that has survived recorded history, appears to demonstrate a fairly sound empirical understanding of reproduction. For example, in Table IV.5 it says: ‘A child born after 10 months since the father’s death will not be admitted into a legal inheritance.’ Tracking gestation length to legitimise human children was part of the law by then, despite it predating any scientific understanding of reproduction by 2,000 years.
The fundamental arithmetic of human reproduction might be ancient knowledge, but an accurate understanding of the detailed logistics of conception and embryonic development were more elusive. We have a great deal of evidence from ethnographic sources that, while the male role in reproduction seems to be universally acknowledged, the precise details of this vary widely from culture to culture. Among lowlands peoples in the Amazon Basin, there has been a widespread belief that multiple men can contribute to producing a single child, their semen building up or anointing the foetus during pregnancy. At the turn of the 20th century, anthropologists such as Bronislaw Malinowski in The Father in Primitive Psychology (1927), and Douglas Lockwood in I, the Aboriginal (1962), recorded the stories of peoples of the South Pacific and Australia who believed that penetrating intercourse opens up a woman or makes ‘the road’ for conception.
However, Malinowski had a narrow view of these belief systems. He was set on explaining the origins of puzzling societies where there was a matrilineal pattern of ancestry within a patriarchal power structure. This, he argued, was because these cultures lacked an understanding of paternity, of how babies are made. Of the peoples of the Trobriand Islands, part of Papua New Guinea, he wrote that they ‘have a well-established institution of marriage, but are quite ignorant of the man’s share in the begetting of children, the “father” has for the Trobriander a purely social definition: he is the man married to the mother, who lives in the same house with her and forms part of the household’. To Malinowski, ‘the idea that it is solely and exclusively the mother who builds up the child’s body, while the male does not in any way contribute to its production, is the most important factor of the social organisation of the Trobrianders’. So, in a patriarchy without paternity, if the mother cannot carry the status, her brother does, and these ideas had intellectual impacts far and wide. It is now popularly assumed that there were people – at least as recently as 100 years ago – who didn’t know where babies come from. This is probably incorrect.
Malinowski was fixated on his informants’ ‘absence of any idea of the fertilising value of semen’, using it to generalise that they ignored the male’s role. Yet they had already told him that sex with men is what primes a woman’s fertility. So, regardless of the details, sex and men are still helping women to make baby Trobrianders. He also records a belief that spiritual action is, to quote his informants, ‘the real cause of child-birth’. But this is not so odd, nor incompatible with reproductive consciousness. After all, many Americans, in polite or unfamiliar company or in earshot of children, won’t talk about sex; God makes babies. Perhaps the problem was, in part, Malinowski’s own fixation on semen. He quotes one informant’s apparently incorrect explanation for reproduction to be: ‘The mother feeds the infant in her body. Then, when it comes out, she feeds it with her milk’; and ‘The mother makes the child out of her flesh.’ Yet if we wanted to be purely materialistic, this could be considered more correct than the genome-centric view of babymaking. Egg and sperm and the genomes they carry are next to nothing compared with the food, flesh and milk that build a baby. Babies are certainly more mother’s blood and milk than they are egg or sperm, but a person’s intellect might be questioned if they said so today.
Until we can make synthetic babies from scratch in vats, we are stuck with much of the old apparatus of parenting
In the Western world, theories about the relative contributions of man and woman to the making of a baby have also been the subject of much speculation and debate. ‘Preformation’, the pre-Enlightenment idea that we were formed as we look now from the start and merely grow up, imagined something like every woman containing an infinitely stacked Russian doll of her future progeny. Once sperm were first seen by Anton van Leeuwenhoek under his microscope in 1677, a similar concept was transferred to males, reinforcing the image of the womb as a vessel that welcomes impregnation from a man. Around 1870, explanations of conception drew much closer to what we have today. What the anthropologists Steven Beckerman and Paul Valentine call the ‘One Sperm, One Fertilisation Doctrine’ had its origins in 19th-century Austria when Gregor Mendel obtained experimental evidence that a single pollen grain introduced into an ovule produced a well-developed seed.
Recently, The New York Times reported that scientists were on the verge of making ‘people without biological parents’. This describes hypothetical, synthetic human genomes grown inside embryos in vitro. But unless scientists are also synthesising eggs and sperm (both of which contribute more than DNA to offspring), and wombs, and women too, then they haven’t removed parents from their required role in reproduction. The same is true of cloning living or recently extinct species. Any synthetic human genome will be constrained by what works for Homo sapiens and what has worked for more than 3.7 billion years. A synthetic genome is part of a larger process that is influenced by the humans who built it and the agents they used in the laboratory, as well as the woman who carries the pregnancy to term, and all who influence her biology while she is pregnant, and while her own mother was pregnant with her, and all the biological influences from the child’s caregivers. Until we can make synthetic babies from scratch in vats, we are stuck with much of the old apparatus of parenting.
By contrast, scientists have successfully removed some other old-timey necessities from human reproduction. In-vitro fertilisation removes sexual intercourse from the equation, and it also removes seminal fluid because sperm is plucked and washed prior to meeting an egg. But even now, our beliefs are evolving about the necessity of seminal fluid since it’s been recently discovered that its absence likely influences the biology of the placenta and the progeny, particularly the metabolic traits of the offspring.
As ever, our cultural and scientific beliefs are evolving about the necessity of intercourse for making babies. The ‘seminal-priming’ hypothesis suggests that exposure to semen improves fertility for women and couples who, for example, are at risk of developing a pre-eclamptic pregnancy which risks foetal and maternal survival. So although some reproduction is now feasible without sex or semen, it seems not all of it is. And, while all our new-style means for babymaking can affect culturally prescribed kinship, the relationships that arise with a new baby are generally based on knowledge of the provenance of the egg and the sperm, which boil it all back down to that familiar fundamental equation of man + woman + wild imagination = baby. No matter how much we tinker with the specifics, reproductive consciousness remains a constant of human identity, from the Trobriand Islands and ancient Egypt to modern-day New York.
Just as we don’t know when our ancestors acquired language, we don’t know when reproductive consciousness arose. But we do know that each is ancient, and was present worldwide when European explorers first encountered and reported on isolated indigenous peoples. Because we are human, our ability to explain the unobservable, to understand that men help to make babies and that we are related to one another, has profoundly affected the social structures we’ve devised, the rules about who can have sex with whom, and formed a basis for wide-ranging cooperation on large-scale projects. It has driven our relationship with the plants and animals we’ve domesticated for food and labour, and this in turn has altered the land on which we live. If it didn’t spark the Anthropocene, reproductive consciousness has certainly deeply affected its trajectory. Knowledge is evolutionary power.
Acknowledging the centrality of reproductive consciousness to so much of our past as well as our present gives us a novel way to reframe how we explain much of human behaviour. Culture is something truly extraordinary about our species, and it is intellectually presumptuous to dismiss its role in human evolution. Evolutionary theory doesn’t explain virginity, the use of contraception, or ‘until death us do part’ as convincingly as the simple fact that culture is powerful, and culture is informed by reproductive consciousness, and a whole suite of institutions and conventions built out of it.
There are scientists hard at work on fitting culture into the framework of human evolution. In Not By Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution (2005), the anthropologists Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd suggest that we have evolved unique tribal social instincts, on top of our ancient primate social instincts ‘that allow us to interact cooperatively with a larger, symbolically marked set of people, or tribe. The tribal social instincts result from the gene-culture co-evolution of tribal-scale societies.’ And they suggest that this is why ‘humans are able to make common cause with a sizeable, culturally defined set of distantly related individuals, a form of social organisation that is absent in other primates’. But one aspect of human sociality is desperately missing from these sorts of conversations – reproductive consciousness.
When the creative power of our own bodies dawned on our ancestors, we seized a powerful role in our own behaviour
Our argument is not that culture is more powerful than biology, or vice versa. We simply wish to acknowledge that it belongs alongside biology in our evolutionary reconstruction of sex, sexuality, reproduction and kinship. If culture has been a factor in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years of hominin tool-making, then it has most likely also been there for the babymaking. Perhaps it’s just been easier to elevate and to contrast our material culture against all other species’ than it has to incorporate the importance of our immaterial culture. But what’s more material than the manufacture of flesh and blood offspring?
Early on in anthropology, studies of procreative beliefs and kinship such as Malinowski’s were explicitly concerned with understanding human evolution and imagining the lives of our ancestors. However, this style of research fell far from fashion as cultural anthropologists sought to distance themselves from research on human evolution. And rightly so: living peoples are not relics of the Stone Age and are not identical with our extinct ancestors.
Now that the dust has settled somewhat, however, scholars are reviving the connection between uniquely human kinship and its importance for the understanding of our ancient past. Putting it simply, humans have families in ways that no other animals do. In Early Human Kinship (2011), the anthropologist Wendy James encourages thinkers from science and the humanities to come together ‘on the very important question of how evolutionary theory could or should take account of the ordered character of human organisation, specifically … how we try to manage patterns of male-female and parent-child relations, and thus the purposeful outcomes of our own reproduction’.
Just how far back to push that purposeful impact we make on ourselves might never be known. But when the creative power of our own bodies dawned on our ancestors, we seized a powerful role in our own behaviour, and sometimes a powerful role over our descendants, future tribe members, fellow humans, and kindreds of all kinds on Mother Earth. Or putting it in truly human terms: kindred of all kinds on Mother and Father Earth. | <urn:uuid:f7553720-22ed-485a-b4b7-414c01ac63c3> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://aeon.co/essays/i-think-i-know-where-babies-come-from-therefore-i-am-human | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370496669.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20200330054217-20200330084217-00012.warc.gz | en | 0.946966 | 8,746 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Personal Fitness Trainer & Health Coach
Here's A Guide To Upper Back Pain Causes
Incorrect posture, misuse of muscles, or injuries are the most common causes of pain in the Upper Back Pain Causes. To treat the condition, you may try some at-home therapies, such as taking it easy and doing some light exercises, or you might go to a physical therapist.
The upper back encompasses the body region between the neck's nape and the rib cage's bottom. The thoracic spine comprises the twelve bones that make up the upper back, which medical professionals call the thoracic region.
At the bottom of the neck is where the first bone of the upper back begins, and the last bone of the backstops is right below the ribcage. Pain in the upper back might originate from any point between these bones.
Most persons who suffer from upper back pain report it as a sense of burning or tugging in one specific spot, which may be the site of the injury or strain.
Discomfort In The Upper Back
According to research published in the journal Occupational Medicine, even though it is more uncommon than lower back pain or neck discomfort, one in ten men and one in five women could experience upper back pain.
Pain in the upper back is often known as thoracic spine pain or TSP by medical professionals. The following are some of the most common causes:
Insufficient Exercise For The Muscles And Bad Posture
Back discomfort can be caused by either low usage of the muscles or improper use of the muscles.
Continuous resistance training and exercise may condition a person's muscles to become more robust or resistant to fatigue.
Additionally, the opposite is also true. Humans can let their muscles atrophy over time if they do not use them appropriately.
Deconditioning some muscles, such as those found in the back, may be accomplished simply by maintaining an inappropriate sitting position for an extended period while working at a desk. Something that a person might achieve while at work.
It's possible that reclining on a chair while working at a desk can cause your muscles to weaken. The gradual deterioration of muscular strength over time can cause discomfort in the surrounding region due to the muscles' increased susceptibility to tension and irritation.
When a person slouches, pressure from gravity and the body's weight pulls on the spine, the neck, the discs, and the ligaments. It can cause serious health problems. If left unchecked, this pressure might result in discomfort and other consequences.
In most circumstances, it is feasible to condition the muscles to become more robust and durable. The first step in this procedure is adjusting one's sitting position and taking frequent breaks away from one's desk to move about and stretch.
May improve Back strength by exercising the back, and having a standing desk can also be helpful in this regard.
However, conditioning the muscle requires patience, and anybody who suffers from persistent upper back discomfort due to weak muscles may benefit from consulting a physical therapist to develop an exercise plan tailored to their particular requirements.
Another typical contributor to upper back discomfort is the overuse of the muscles in the back. It is usually the result of doing the same actions repeatedly for an extended period. One possible effect of this is:
A pitcher in baseball is a good illustration of how this may happen since they repeat the same motion every time they throw the ball, which can cause wear and tear on their shoulder over time. There is a possibility that other repeated activities will cause discomfort. Muscle irritation, stiffness, or muscle strain might develop in a person who performs the same action repeatedly throughout the day or who lifts something higher than their head regularly, for example. If individuals ignore these warning signals, the discomfort may become chronic.
The first step in treating muscular overuse is often to have the patient rest the affected area while also applying heat or cold packs to the site to stimulate blood flow to the muscle tissues. It could be beneficial to look for ways to prevent repetitive motion whenever feasible or to take rests between tasks.
A physical therapist may recommend activities to increase mobility and muscular endurance in the affected region.
Back pain can be brought on by a severe injury as well. It may be the outcome of a variety of circumstances, including the following:
In some cases, the injury is immediately apparent, and the discomfort starts soon after. On other occasions, the pain might not start until much later or the following day.
Traumatic injuries may be quite severe, and the problems that might arise from injuries, such as cracked vertebrae, put a person at risk for long-term difficulties. These implications can include ongoing pain, nerve damage, and even paralysis.
If you want to prevent experiencing discomfort for an extended period, it is essential to have any suspected back issues checked out by a medical professional.
When someone has an injury to their muscles, their primary care physician may recommend that they see a physiologist or physical therapist for assistance in the healing process. Surgery could be necessary for severe injuries.
A Bulging Or Herniated Disc
The vertebrae in your spine are separated by discs, which prevents them from rubbing against one another. Although herniated discs in the upper back are not as prevalent as those in the lower back, they can occur occasionally. The fibrous, pliable cushions found between each vertebra are called discs. The condition known as a herniated disc occurs when a portion of the cushioning material between the vertebrae breaks through and presses on the spinal column.
Even a very light amount of pressure can cause substantial discomfort in the center of the back and other symptoms, such as tingling or weakness in the arms or legs.
Most people with herniated discs will heal without surgery and can get better by simply resting or using anti-inflammatory medicine.
Compression Of A Nerve
A herniated disc can protrude far enough that it pushes on a nerve in the area. A pinched nerve in the center of the back can lead to the following symptoms.
When a herniated disc is the source of a pinched nerve, the therapy for the pinched nerve is the same as the treatment for the ruptured disc. In most situations, surgery is not necessary to treat a pinched nerve; nevertheless, spinal steroid injections may be recommended by doctors in some circumstances.
In some instances, the muscles are not the cause of back pain; rather, the problem lies in the bones and joints of the back.
As a person ages, there is a possibility that the cartilage that cushions and protects the bones will deteriorate. Osteoarthritis is the medical name for this condition. According to research by the National Institute on Aging in the United States, this type of arthritis is the most prevalent among those 60 years of age or older.
If left untreated, osteoarthritis can eventually cause the cartilage that typically separates bones to deteriorate to the point where they can rub against one another. Additionally, this can put pressure on the nerves in the spine, resulting in tingling or numbness in the limbs, especially the arms and legs.
Anyone who has symptoms consistent with osteoarthritis should get a diagnosis and a treatment plan from their primary care physician as soon as possible. Pain management and maintaining normal joint function are often the primary foci of treatment.
Physicians refer to problems in the back's connective tissue, the fascia, as another potential source of back pain.
Myofascial pain can start after an accident or from overuse of a muscle group, but chronic myofascial pain can linger for a significant time after the initial injury.
Myofascial pain persists in some patients for reasons that are not well understood. Doctors may offer physical therapy and myofascial release therapy as pain relief treatments to enable a person to work the fascia and lessen the pain.
An Infection Of The Spine
A spinal infection can sometimes only be effectively treated with surgical procedures.
Pain in the upper back might occasionally be the result of an infection. A collection of pus and bacteria can form a spinal epidural abscess between the spinal cord and the spine's bones.
The abscess has the potential to expand and become painful as it does so. A timely diagnosis is essential, and medical professionals will begin treatment for a spinal cord spot as soon as possible to prevent more severe problems.
Antibiotics might be of assistance, but surgery would likely require draining the abscess and bringing the risk of complications under control.
According to a study published in BioMed Research International, the death rate of persons with a spinal epidural abscess may often range from 2% to 25% Trusted Source because it may take too long to detect their ailment.
Cancer Of The Lungs
In extremely unusual instances, back discomfort might be caused by lung cancer.
One example of this may be seen in a case study published in the Journal of the Advanced Practitioner in Oncology. According to the survey findings, problems can potentially cause the disease to spread to the bones in around 30–40 percent of persons with non-small cell lung cancer.
Several disorders can damage the spine or the muscles that can potentially cause upper back discomfort. These are the following:
The treatment for each ailment is unique and will have a different level of success depending on the severity of the condition.
Avoiding Discomfort In The Upper Back
It's conceivable that it's not feasible to avoid all things that might cause upper back discomfort, but there are some simple actions that individuals can take to help them avoid some of the more prevalent things that can cause it. These are the following:
Avoiding Discomfort In The Upper Back
The majority of occurrences of back pain are attributable to lifestyle-related factors, such as underused or overworked muscles due to recurrent actions. In situations like these, adjusting your lifestyle, such as engaging in more frequent exercise and stretching, could help reduce discomfort.
Overuse or underuse of muscles due to repetitive motions is to blame for most back pain cases. Changing your lifestyle, such as exercising or stretching more frequently, can help alleviate pain in some instances.
People should contact a doctor for an accurate diagnosis whenever they have experienced an accident or have ongoing back discomfort. Anyone unsure how to get started should discuss their pain management and therapy choices with their primary care physician. A person may be given particular workout recommendations or sent to a physical therapist by these professionals. | <urn:uuid:b4337f28-a52e-4299-9230-4a9b22ca7f38> | CC-MAIN-2023-14 | https://www.hipdips.co/article/upper-back-pain-causes-1660154692038 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296948609.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20230327060940-20230327090940-00142.warc.gz | en | 0.943135 | 2,181 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Reaping powerful ideas from a luminary
by Sam Dinkin
Professor David Criswell is Director of the Institute for Space Systems Operations at the University of Houston.
For over 30 years, Dr. Criswell has been an advocate for lunar solar power. He has also devised many amazing planetary and solar engineering wonders such as the “Criswell structure”: a sun-encircling sphere with great canyons so that tens of trillions of Earths’ worth of people can have a balcony with sunlight (1020 people vs. about 1010 this century). Or if we prefer, vast estates that are each the surface area of a 1,000 planet Earths for every person alive today.
See also the backgrounder on Lunar solar power.
Sam Dinkin: How is lunar solar power (LSP) different from Earth solar or orbital solar power generation?
David Criswell: The Moon has no atmosphere, rain, or clouds to block sunlight as does the Earth. Doing the construction on the Moon is far less expensive than sending raw or processed materials to deep space for later use. There are fewer manufacturing operations. You do not have to build the platform.
Dinkin: What is the minimum money scale for a viable lunar solar power (LSP) project that would cost the same as Earth generated power?
Criswell: When LSP approaches 100 gigawatts electricity (GWe) of capacity and has delivered in excess of 500 GWe years (GWe-y) of energy the LSP energy will drop below the cost of electric energy from conventional systems. This will likely require the order of $400 to $500 billion.
This is a bit over one year of the Department of Defense’s (DoD) budget or about three years of global expenditures on exploration and development of oil and natural gas to maintain about 85 million barrels of oil per day production. A 20-terawatt-electricity (TWe) LSP is the equivalent of 1,000 million barrels of oil per day.
Dinkin: Does that include lobbying, regulatory, legal, fundraising, and marketing? Insurance? What does it include?
Criswell: The estimates are for engineering and operations costs and some interest to bring the demo to commercial scale.
Dinkin: When will the price of electricity start to drop if you were given the money today?
Criswell: Approximately 15 years after the start of an Apollo-priority program the cost of electricity would drop beneath $0.10/kilowatt electricity hour (kWe-h). By 2040 the cost would be a fraction of a cent per kWe-h.
Dinkin: Why wouldn’t the owners of the solar power production charge the monopoly price, i.e., just a hair less than the cost of Earth’s electricity sources?
Criswell: Following the demonstration phase more than one organization can be licensed to construct and operate lunar power bases. They can compete to sell electric energy to any rectenna on Earth or in space. They will have strong incentives to compete in the rapid installation of capacity.
Dinkin: If they formed a cartel like OPEC, how much could they make?
|By 2040 the cost would be a fraction of a cent per kWe-h.|
Criswell: I attend the Houston Chapter meetings of the International Association of Energy Economists. Last Thursday Professor J. Smith of SMU gave an excellent talk on recent unpublished research on the Net Present Value (NPV) of OPEC versus the averaged selling price of oil through 2050. The NPV refers to the net profit, and not the capitalization, of OPEC that is required to extract their oil and natural gas over the next 20 or 50 years. He estimated [the NPV to be] a minimum of about $2.5 trillion and maximum of $3.3 trillion.
When the LSP system delivers 20 TWe and the energy is sold at $0.01/kWe-h then the profit is approximately $1.6 trillion/year. Thus, LSP would replicate all future OPEC NPV in two to three years.
Dinkin: That is fantastic. That is a huge source of clean power beckoning. Are you saddened by all of the deaths related to pollution and wars when we could have lunar solar today if we had stayed on the Moon with a 15-person research base in the 70s?
Criswell: Of course. The daily global lost of life due to the lack of low-cost energy is the order of the deaths from the Indonesian tsunami.
Dinkin: Suppose I want to invest. Who do I apply to in order to get a license to broadcast? Land to set up shop on the Moon?
Criswell: I believe that each nation is free to set its own uses of the electromagnetic spectrum. In fact, mutual interference must be considered. Due to the extraordinarily high value of the narrow bandwidth necessary for space power, it can displace other uses, especially those that can migrate to fibers. However, there are harmonics to consider. So, this is a work in progress.
The “Outer Space Treaty” appears to set one international basis for the use of the Moon, on a non-interference basis, by parties to the treaty. That seems adequate for a start. Of course, the law will evolve.
Dinkin: Doesn’t the Outer Space Treaty prevent any ownership interest in the Moon? “Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”
|The daily global lost of life due to the lack of low-cost energy is the order of the deaths from the Indonesian tsunami.|
Criswell: As I understand the treaty, a signatory nation or its designated organizations can occupy an area on the Moon, extract resources (physical and intangible) on a non-interference basis, and use them on the Moon or send them off the Moon. When the signatory nation or its designated organizations stop using the installations and territory then they can sell the installations but cannot sell the territory. They simply leave.
This understanding was from the NASA General Council that was provided to the Lunar Energy Enterprise Task Force in 1988.
Dinkin: Are there any drawbacks to LSP? If we adopted LSP as you advocate, aren’t we putting energy security in one basket?
Criswell: What are the other options? As far as I can tell, the other options provide far less security and actually drive regional and global insecurity. Fossil power systems are certainly subject to local (Iraq) and global (CO2, ash, mercury, etc.) problems.
The sun is the ultimate necessary power source for a truly prosperous (large-scale) human society. The other power options do not, to me, appear adequate to provide 10 billion, or more people, with more than 2 kWe/person.
Thus, priority will be given to making the LSP System robust. Also, LSP is a distributed and highly redundant system. It would be very difficulty to wipe out large portions. Also, it is very hard to sneak to the Moon.
Dinkin: The Outer Space Treaty outlaws weapons on the Moon. “The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military maneuvers on celestial bodies shall be forbidden.” Isn’t this inconsistent with defending a resource valued in trillions of dollars?
Criswell: Installations on the Moon and in orbit to secure the LSP system would directly provide security to everyone on Earth. That type of defensive operation seems appropriate and prudent.
Dinkin: Here’s a scenario: a terrorist group hijacks the regular shuttle to the Moon. They kill the operators at the Moon base, then steal local mining equipment and use it to wreck the capital equipment. Does it matter that we can see what they are doing if there is no security apparatus to stop them?
Criswell: The LSP bases are spread over tens of thousands of square kilometers and composed of hundreds of thousands of individual stand-alone power plots. The control system will also be widely distributed. It would be somewhat like taking down the Internet.
Any rational program, government or private, would provide security for the planet’s most vital economic resource.
Dinkin: DoD is testing a microwave crowd control weapon. How can the broadcaster be prevented from being weaponized?
Criswell: The control system on the Moon can be slaved to individual receivers (rectennas farms) on Earth. The distributed control system can be designed (using hardware and software) to not allow concentration of the beams above approved levels on Earth. There can be many, many off switches. | <urn:uuid:4cb9bea3-0539-4f05-b9bb-8aed47421a87> | CC-MAIN-2014-35 | http://www.thespacereview.com/article/355/1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-35/segments/1408500833461.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20140820021353-00441-ip-10-180-136-8.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933966 | 1,847 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Originally Published: eSchoolNews
Regardless of one’s political views, there seems to be consensus on one political reality: America is dangerously polarized. According to Michelle Luhtala, Library Department Chair at New Canaan High School in Connecticut, in a recent edWebinar, “The future of democracy presents a case for the critical need for school librarians in every school.”
School librarians are essential to help students gain equitable access to high-quality inquiry instructional experiences for all learners–not just for the future of education but also for democracy.
Luhtala suggests that political belief polarization may emerge because of people’s conflicting confirmation and desirability biases, leading them to interpret new evidence as a confirmation of one’s own beliefs and theories.
Two-thirds of U.S. adults get their news from social media, and 42 percent think that the news they’re getting is 100 percent accurate. Fifty-eight percent of college students get their news from social media; however, they read news differently if they’re consuming it for their recreational life than if they’re re-consuming it for their academic life.
In contrast, educators observe that school-age students read the news the same way as they do for their social life for their classes. They come into the process saying, “I already know what I’m going to say. I just need to find the resources and write it.” These biases defeat the purpose of inquiry-based learning and distort interpretations of news and fact-based research.
According to Luhtala, “We have a problem or at least the perception of the problem that democracy is in jeopardy.” The internet is both the world’s best fact-checker and the world’s best bias-confirmer, often at the same time. So, when we see the news, we have to read it with our brains and not our hearts, and we have to teach our students to do the same.
Democracy dies in darkness, so critical thinking is essential for democracy.
As educators, it is incumbent upon us to teach critical thinking to even our youngest students.
School librarians and classroom teachers are responsible for teaching skills that ensure students distinguish news reporting from editorials and letters to the editor, be critical viewers of websites, and use resources ethically.
Call to action
Critical thinking is a crucial component of democracy. It is imperative that educators promote inquiry, teach critical thinking, cultivate news literacy, protect privacy, and embrace best practices. We need to teach students to internalize the inquiry process where they’re questioning everything and being critical and rational about their news consumption.
Besides classroom teachers, school librarians have the responsibility, capacity, and training to teach inquiry-based learning. The challenge is that school librarians’ positions are being reduced or eliminated. Hence, school leaders need to understand the critical role that librarians have in ensuring future participation in the democratic process.
The internet, online learning environments, and edtech software are not replacements for highly qualified, certified school librarians. These skilled educators need to be supported, valued, and retained to ensure that democracy is saved. | <urn:uuid:3e8e902d-e0fd-422b-ac1d-6ddce085c5c1> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://eileenbelastock.com/2020/09/07/school-librarians-can-save-democracy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510888.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20231001105617-20231001135617-00027.warc.gz | en | 0.951425 | 674 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Essay Question: Outline the use of marijuana and identify the acute and chronic harmful biological and psychological effects of marijuana on individuals.
The use of marijuana is widespread by all classes, races, and cultures. Marijuana has been used for a multitude of purposes over thousands of years, and is still, today, is being used for many of the same purposes. (Hawks 1982) It is some of the possible outcomes of the usage of marijuana, and a brief history of marijuana that will be discussed in this paper. The outcomes associated with the use and abuse of marijuana is the major focus of this paper, and will be discussed and will be divided up in two groups. These groups include Medicinal/therapeutic users, and recreational users. Recreational users will then be divided into 2 groups; acute (experimental) users, and chronic (habitual) users. The topic of marijuana use is very broad and has an intricate effect on society as a whole, however, for the purpose of this paper, the literature review is based on a very narrow fraction of the topic of marijuana, namely, the harmful biological and psychological effects of the drug.
Marijuana is a naturally occurring plant with several species. Cannabis indica and cannabis sativa are the two most common types of marijuana in the developed world. These two species can be prepared for the use of people in a number of ways. The plant may be dried and used for intoxication, or as resin can be collected from the plant by compressing the plant into a brick. Also by drying the plant and boiling it in alcohol and filtering the matter to make hash oil is a way of preparing the plant for human consumption. The potency of the marijuana substances depends on the climatic conditions, soil nutrients of the environment in which the plant is grown (Listin 1998)
(Marijuana can be administered in many ways (Hawks 1982). These ways include inhaling the fumes by smoking the plant, or by eating the plant baked into biscuits. The levels of Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active chemical in marijuana consumed from the different methods of administering varies, and hence, so does the effect of the administered amount.
THC is lipid soluble and is stored readily in fatty tissues in the body. As a consequence, traces of THC can be detected in the urine up to 2 – 3 months after marijuana use. The reason for the extended period of time that THC stays in the body is that unlike alcohol, which is excreted through the kidneys, THC very slowly seeps out of the fat cells. Therefore, a trace of THC in the urine of a person is not necessarily an indication of recent marijuana use (Hall, Solowij and Lemon 1994).
Medical/therapeutic use of marijuana is largely concealed because of the known fact that marijuana is an illegal drug in Australia and most countries. However, history shows that marijuana has been used for medicinal purposes for over 3000 years. Medical uses of marijuana include pain management, as an antispasmoic, as an antimeric and for constipation, and epilepsy. (Mathre 1997)
The recreational use of marijuana is one area where harmful biological and psychological effects occur. Recreational can be divided into the 2 above-mentioned groups; experimental and habitual. According to the National Drug Strategy (1994) experimental use of marijuana is statistically the most prevalent in Australia, with an estimate of 80% of marijuana users being experimental users. Regular users of marijuana are those who use marijuana on a weekly basis, the prevalence of regular users is 15% of users in Australia. Chronic habitual users are those users who have used marijuana on a daily basis for a number of years. Prevalence of habitual users is 5% of the total amount of marijuana smokers in Australia. The main focus of this paper is on the 2 last mentioned groups classified as ‘chronic’ users.
The effect of marijuana is varied from individual to individual. This is because of the variables in route of administration, the mood of the user, the environment in which marijuana is smoked, the amount smoked, the body’s ability to absorb, previous use, and the potency of the drug (U. S. Department of Health and Human Services 1995).
The human body has | <urn:uuid:98bfb06e-0860-49a3-9bd7-34dfa7c164cf> | CC-MAIN-2020-05 | https://pennsylvaniaangerclass.com/effects-of-marijuana/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-05/segments/1579250601040.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20200120224950-20200121013950-00555.warc.gz | en | 0.942781 | 871 | 2.671875 | 3 |
In 1990, President George Bush designated May as “Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.” May was chosen to commemorate the immigration of the first Japanese immigrants to the United States in 1843. Many colleges and universities typically celebrate this heritage month in April while students are still on campus. OMA, along with AAPIA, have worked together closely to provide campus wide activities.
Black History Month was created to celebrate and honor the many achievements and contributions made by African Americans to the economic, cultural, spiritual and political development of the United States. In 1926, the events were held the second week of February because of its proximity to the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, two individuals who had dramatically affected the lives of African Americans. OMA works with RAACE to bring in speakers and films to help educate the UI and surrounding communities about the role of Black History in all of our lives.
At the end of March, many communities across the country celebrate the life and legacy of Mexican-American labor activist and community organizer, Cesar Chavez. The University of Idaho, the Campus Assistant Migrant Program and the Office of Multicultural Affairs honor this leader with an annual celebration as well. This celebration is an excellent example of student initiative, and benefits from a rich history of student involvement. Many student organizations have worked to bring this celebration to campus and have marked the occasion with dinners, speakers, educational displays and
a wide variety of festivities.
The date commemorates the victory of Mexican forces over the French at the battle of La Puebla on May 5, 1862. The celebration on the University of Idaho campus is an opportunity for student groups to collaborate to present an educational and festive event for all of the community.
To celebrate your arrival, OMA holds an annual Multicultural Freshman Barbecue the Saturday before fall semester begins. This is a great opportunity for you to meet other first-year students, your PACE mentor, student leaders, UI staff and faculty, and learn about the Office of Multicultural Affairs.
Dia de los Muertos is a traditional Mexican holiday, which is recognized on November 1. The holiday dates back several centuries and is actually celebrated over numerous days in Mexico. This holiday honors one’s ancestors and loved ones. Students and community members create altars and take part in a silent parade across campus in tribute to those they wish to recognize. The altars are displayed on campus to educate the UI community to this Mexican tradition and to honor those represented by the altars.
The University of Idaho and Washington State University come together to celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. through a series of events. The events coincide with Dr. King’s national holiday in January. Celebrations often include renowned speakers, marches, rallies, films and a wide range of educational as well as celebratory activities.
Began in the 1960's as a week to commemorate Mexico’s independence, U.S. citizenship, and Puerto Rican Independence Day. Its purpose is to teach us all about the contributions of the Hispanic community throughout history. OMA, OELA, Gamma Alpha Omega, CAMPOS and Sigma Lambda Beta kick off the month with the 16th of September Celebration.
This is no ordinary retreat! At this event, all participants are highly motivated and ready to assume leadership roles on the UI campus. Each fall, approximately 30 outstanding multicultural students come together for a weekend of sharing, learning, and meeting new friends. Academic success at the UI is vital and extracurricular involvement and leadership experiences are always assets when it comes time to seek employment. Get involved!
The United States has recognized the need for American Indian Day and Native American Week celebrations for almost 100 years. In November 1990, President George Bush declared the first Native American Heritage Month to honor and recognize the contributions of the indigenous people of what is now the United States. OMA works with NASA, AISES, AIBL and the American Indian Studies Program to bring educational events to the UI campus.
The Native American Student Association (NASA) in conjunction with the University of Idaho hosts the Tutxinmepu (a Nez Perce word meaning “the place where the deer loses its spots”) Pow Wow every fall. Dancers and drummers come from all around the continental U.S. and Canada to participate in our Pow Wow. Every year NASA holds a Miss Tutxinmepu Contest. The winner serves as a goodwill ambassador for the University of Idaho.
UNITY, with the support of it's member organizations, puts together a yearly banquet that allows organizations a chance to honor their members with various prizes and awards. | <urn:uuid:1e085b17-5b24-4756-9e4c-c05c2c199429> | CC-MAIN-2013-48 | http://www.uidaho.edu/studentaffairs/oma/programs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-48/segments/1386163052641/warc/CC-MAIN-20131204131732-00048-ip-10-33-133-15.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953656 | 951 | 3.125 | 3 |
Origins of the Name Matthew
If you’re curious about the origins of the name Matthew, you’ve come to the right place. This section will explore the various influences that have shaped the name over time, including its Hebrew roots, Greek influence, and English adaptation.
Matthew has its roots in the Hebrew name “מַתִּתְיָהוּ” (Mattityahu), which means “gift of Yahweh.” The name is derived from the Hebrew words “mattan” meaning “gift” and “yah” referring to the Hebrew God. In the New Testament, Matthew is also known as Levi and was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus.
The Hebrew name “Mattityahu” was transliterated into Greek as “Ματταθίας” (Mattathias), which was then shortened to “Ματθαῖος” (Matthaios). This was Latinised as Matthaeus, which eventually became Matthew in English. The popularity of the name is due to Matthew the Apostle, who is one of the twelve apostles of Jesus in Christian tradition.
The name Matthew has been in use in England since the Norman Conquest, introduced by the Normans as “Mathieu” from Old French. The English adaptation of the name has remained popular throughout the centuries and is still commonly used today.
In addition to its traditional spelling, the name Matthew has also been adapted into various other forms, including Matty, Mattea, Mato, and Matti. Whether you prefer the classic spelling or a more unique variation, the name Matthew has a rich history and meaning that has stood the test of time.
Matthew in Different Languages
In Italy, the name Matthew is commonly translated as Matteo or Teo. Matteo is the more popular of the two, and it is derived from the Latin name Matthaeus. It is pronounced as MAH-teh-o. Teo, on the other hand, is a shortened version of Matteo and is pronounced as TAY-o.
In Spain, the name Matthew is translated as Mateo. It is a popular name in Spanish-speaking countries, and it is pronounced as MAH-teh-o.
In Portugal, the name Matthew is translated as Mateus. It is a popular name in Portuguese-speaking countries, and it is pronounced as MAH-teh-oosh.
In Germany, the name Matthew is translated as Matthias. It is a common name in German-speaking countries, and it is pronounced as ma-TEE-as.
In Ireland, the name Matthew is translated as Maitiú. It is a popular name in Ireland, and it is pronounced as MAH-tyoo.
Other variations of the name Matthew in different languages include Matheus (Brazilian Portuguese), Mateja (Slovenian), Matija (Croatian), and Maciej (Polish).
Overall, the name Matthew has a strong presence in many different cultures and languages. Its meaning of “gift of Yahweh” is significant in many religious contexts, and its popularity has endured throughout history.
Meaning of Matthew
Matthew is a name with a rich history and deep meaning. The name has its origins in the Hebrew name Mattityahu, which means “gift of Yahweh” or “gift of God.”
In the Bible, Matthew is the name of one of Jesus’ twelve apostles. Matthew, also known as Levi, was a tax collector before he became a disciple of Jesus. The name Matthew is often interpreted as a reminder that we are all gifts from God, and that we should use our gifts to serve others and spread love and kindness in the world.
Today, the name Matthew is still popular and carries with it a strong sense of meaning. Many people choose the name Matthew for their children as a way to honor their faith and to remind themselves of the importance of giving and serving others. The name Matthew is also associated with strength and resilience, and is often chosen for boys who are seen as leaders and protectors.
Overall, the name Matthew is a powerful reminder of the importance of faith, service, and strength. Whether you choose the name for its biblical significance or its modern connotations, it is a name that is sure to inspire and uplift those who bear it.
Popularity of Matthew
Matthew is a popular name that has been around for centuries. It has been a popular name in many countries, including the United States, Australia, Canada, and Ireland. Here is a breakdown of Matthew’s popularity in each of these countries.
Matthew in the United States
Matthew is a very popular name in the United States. It has been in the top 100 names for boys since 1960 and has been in the top 20 since 1972. In 2020, it was ranked the 21st most popular name for boys. The name has been popular among parents of all ethnicities and races.
Matthew in Australia
Matthew is also a popular name in Australia. It has been in the top 100 names for boys since the 1950s and has been in the top 20 since the 1970s. In 2020, it was ranked the 24th most popular name for boys. The name has been popular among parents of all backgrounds.
Matthew in Canada
Matthew is a very popular name in Canada. It has been in the top 100 names for boys since the 1950s and has been in the top 20 since the 1970s. In 2020, it was ranked the 23rd most popular name for boys. The name has been popular among parents of all ethnicities and races.
Matthew in Ireland
Matthew is also a popular name in Ireland. It has been in the top 100 names for boys since the 1960s and has been in the top 20 since the 1980s. In 2020, it was ranked the 17th most popular name for boys. The name has been popular among parents of all backgrounds.
Overall, Matthew is a popular name that has been around for centuries. It has been a popular name in many countries, including the United States, Australia, Canada, and Ireland. The name has been popular among parents of all ethnicities and races.
Famous People Named Matthew
If you’re looking for inspiration for your baby’s name, why not consider naming them after one of the many famous Matthews out there? From Hollywood to music to literature, there are plenty of notable people who share this popular name.
Matthew in Hollywood
Matthew McConaughey is probably one of the most famous people called Matthew. He’s an Academy Award-winning actor who has starred in a variety of films, including “Dallas Buyers Club,” “Interstellar,” and “True Detective.” Other notable actors with this name include Matthew Broderick, best known for his role in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” and Matthew Perry, who played Chandler Bing in the hit TV show “Friends.”
Matthew in Music
In the music world, there are several famous Matthews to choose from. Matt Damon is the lead singer of the alternative rock band, Blur. Other notable musicians include Matt Bellamy, the lead vocalist and guitarist of the British band Muse, and Matt Healy, the lead singer of the indie rock band The 1975.
Matthew in Literature
There are also plenty of famous Matthews in the world of literature. Matthew Arnold was a 19th-century poet and cultural critic, known for his works such as “Dover Beach” and “Culture and Anarchy.” Matthew Lewis was a British writer and dramatist who is best known for his Gothic novel, “The Monk.” Another notable author is Matthew Pearl, who has written several historical fiction novels, including “The Dante Club” and “The Last Bookaneer.”
Overall, there are many famous people named Matthew to choose from, each with their own unique accomplishments and contributions to their respective fields. Whether you’re a fan of Hollywood, music, or literature, there’s sure to be a Matthew out there who inspires you.
Variations and Nicknames of Matthew
If you’re considering naming your child Matthew, there are a variety of variations and nicknames to choose from. Here are some of the most popular ones:
- Matt: This is the most common shortened version of Matthew and is often used as a nickname.
- Matty: Another popular nickname for Matthew, often used by friends and family.
- Mattie: A less common nickname for Matthew, but still a viable option.
Matthew is a name that has been adapted by many cultures around the world, resulting in a wide variety of variations and nicknames. Here are a few examples:
- Máté: This Hungarian variation of Matthew is a popular choice in Hungary and other Eastern European countries.
- Matei: A Romanian variation of Matthew that has become increasingly popular in recent years.
- Matevž: This Slovenian variation of Matthew is a unique and uncommon choice.
- Matīss: This Latvian variation of Matthew is a popular choice in Latvia and other Baltic countries.
If you’re looking for sibling names that go well with Matthew, here are a few options:
- Michael: A classic name that pairs well with Matthew.
- Sarah: A timeless name that complements Matthew nicely.
- Emily: Another popular name that goes well with Matthew.
- Daniel: A strong and classic name that pairs well with Matthew.
Overall, Matthew is a versatile name with many variations and nicknames to choose from. Whether you prefer a shortened version or a cultural variation, there’s sure to be a variation of Matthew that suits your style.
Matthew in Literature and Media
Matthew in the Bible
Matthew is a prominent name in the Bible, with one of the twelve apostles being named Matthew. He was also known as Levi and was a tax collector before being called by Jesus to become his disciple. Matthew is credited with writing the first gospel in the New Testament, which is also named after him. The Gospel of Matthew is considered one of the most important books in the Bible, as it provides an account of the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Matthew in Movies
Matthew has been a popular name in the entertainment industry, with many famous actors and directors bearing the name. Matthew McConaughey, Matthew Broderick, and Matthew Perry are just a few examples of successful actors with this name. Matthew Damon, commonly known as Matt Damon, is another famous actor who has starred in numerous blockbuster movies.
Matthew in Books
Matthew is also a popular name in literature, with several books featuring characters named Matthew. One notable example is the protagonist of the novel “The Book of Matthew” by Timothy J. Stoner. The book follows the life of a man named Matthew who is struggling to find his purpose in life. Another example is the character Matthew Cuthbert in the classic novel “Anne of Green Gables” by L.M. Montgomery. Matthew is portrayed as a kind and gentle man who helps raise the orphan Anne.
In conclusion, Matthew is a name with a rich history and a strong presence in literature and media. From the first gospel in the New Testament to famous actors and literary characters, this name has made its mark in the English language and beyond. | <urn:uuid:cb5b0ecc-8c14-462e-97a4-b245bcc7fa71> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://www.nameoftheyear.com/matthew-name-meaning/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510284.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20230927071345-20230927101345-00150.warc.gz | en | 0.974283 | 2,465 | 3.625 | 4 |
Whilst I am a fan of using vintage, second hand and upcycled pieces in your home not only because they look good but also because it is a far ‘greener’ way to furnish your home. The style though is not for everyone, but this does not mean your home interior cannot go ‘green’.
Sustainably designed products use renewable resources, have a reduced carbon footprint and are manufactured in an environmentally conscious way. The intention of sustainable design is to make sure there are no negative impacts on the environment by using sensitive, skilful design. This means not using any non-renewable resources, impacting on the environment minimally, and connecting people with the natural environment.
A key example of a sustainably designed home product is the Dirk Vander Kooij’s Chubby Chair. The chubby chair is made from recycled refrigerators and e-waste and created by a repurposed and reprogrammed industrial robot producing precise 3D models whilst generating very little waste.
Some examples of household products not only made sustainably, but also for the purpose of creating a ‘greener’ home are:
The ‘Nest’ learning thermostat. Simply this thermostat learns your households’ behaviour and adjusts all temperature settings to your usage pattern.
‘Replenish’ cleaning product. The bottle is reused and you just by filling up with water and a ‘pod’ of concentrate is replaced on the bottom of the bottle. This keeps billions of pounds worth of waste out of the environment.
The ‘Luci’ light was designed by MPowered to tackle what they perceive as “light poverty”. The light is a solar-powered and rechargeable LED lantern, which is inflated like a balloon to use and folded into a handkerchief when not needed. If the lights solar cells are exposed to the suns’ rays for 8 hours it powers the light for 12 and unlike its kerosene counterparts produces no harmful emissions.
Although not technically a household product ‘Levis’ have launched type 511; a cycle commuter range of jeans. I like the 511 a lot and believe we can get away with including them in this list because of the encouragement it gives to commuters to travel in a ‘greener’ way from HOME to office! Features of the range include a strap for the cycle lock, a nano sphere protective coating that repels water and dirt, interior cuffs and reflective strips.
Whatever your thoughts on recycled design or sustainable design the belief held by many, including me is that the future has to be sustainable if there is to be any future at all. | <urn:uuid:14a71479-216b-4005-be00-8e6ef2001417> | CC-MAIN-2017-39 | https://popsicleinteriors.com/2014/02/22/recycling-interiors/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-39/segments/1505818688158.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20170922022225-20170922042225-00395.warc.gz | en | 0.950472 | 557 | 2.578125 | 3 |
The number of gonorrhea cases in Washington has jumped more than 30 percent in the past year. Five counties have even reached outbreak levels.
But Clark County appears to be bucking the trend.
Did you know?
• Gonorrhea rates have been on the rise in Washington since 2010. But despite the increase, Washington’s rates are still well below the national average.
• In 2011, the rate of gonorrhea cases per 100,000 Washington residents was 40.7. The national rate that year was 104.2, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"The numbers are up, but not in Clark County," said Dr. Alan Melnick, Clark County Public Health administrator/health officer. "We're actually a little behind compared to 2012."
As of Oct. 19, Clark County health care providers had reported 100 cases of the sexually transmitted disease to the county health department this year. During that same time period last year, the county had recorded 128 cases, Melnick said.
By the end of 2012, Clark County providers had reported 151 cases of gonorrhea. Melnick doesn't expect the county will exceed that number this year.
Statewide, health departments recorded 3,137 cases of gonorrhea through September. During the same nine-month time period in 2012, counties recorded 2,350 cases, according to the Washington State Department of Health.
Five Washington counties — Spokane, Yakima, Thurston, Kitsap and Benton — have experienced more dramatic increases, reaching outbreak levels, according to the state health department.
Gonorrhea is one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases, second only to chlamydia. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates about 820,000 people in the U.S. get new gonorrhea infections each year but less than half of the infections are reported to the CDC. Young adults and teenagers have the highest rates of infection, according to the CDC.
Gonorrhea is a bacterial infection that grows easily in the warm, moist areas of the reproductive tract in women and in the urethra in men and women. The bacteria can also grow in the mouth, throat, eyes and anus, according to the CDC.
The disease is transmitted by having vaginal, anal or oral sex with someone who has the disease. Gonorrhea can also be passed from an untreated mother to her baby during delivery, according to the CDC.
Most men show symptoms of infection, but most women won't get any symptoms until they've developed complications from the disease, Melnick said. A person with gonorrhea is contagious even if they're not showing symptoms, he said.
Symptoms in men include inflammation of the urethra, burning sensation when urinating, discharge and pain in the penis. Initial symptoms in women can include pain when urinating or increased vaginal discharge. Untreated gonorrhea in women can spread to the uterus and fallopian tubes and lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, which causes severe abdominal pain and fever, Melnick said.
Left untreated, gonorrhea can spread to the joints, causing arthritis, and the heart, causing inflammation. A person can also develop meningitis from untreated gonorrhea, Melnick said.
Gonorrhea is treated with an antibiotic. The bacteria has become resistant to some commonly used antibiotics. But in Clark County, where infected people are treated with two types of antibiotics, Melnick hasn't seen any cases of antibiotic resistance.
Public health response
Gonorrhea is a notifiable condition, which means health care providers are required to report diagnoses to their local health departments.
When Clark County Public Health receives a gonorrhea diagnosis, the staff responds like it would to any other communicable disease.
Staff begins by interviewing the infected person. Health officials want to make sure the person has been treated and the individual's sexual partners have been notified and treated as well, Melnick said.
"Even without symptoms, we make sure their partners get treated," he said.
In some cases, if the partners refuse to be screened, the health department will issue the medication without testing, just to try to prevent the disease from spreading more, Melnick said.
Health officials also educate patients and partners about preventing gonorrhea infections. Consistent and proper use of condoms is effective, as is abstinence and mutual monogamy, Melnick said.
"Prevention is always a good thing," he said. "This disease can have really bad complications. We take this really seriously." | <urn:uuid:59e00c67-73b2-46bd-a299-b6c60dfc43a5> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/nov/11/theres-nothing-sexy-about-gonorrhea-number-of-case/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011267211/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305092107-00009-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961006 | 928 | 2.59375 | 3 |
So another question, for argument's sake, let's say the central mirror is obstructing 20% of the aperture in the Onesky, that would effectively render it 102mm of light gathering.
No, that's not correct. In terms of light gathering, which determines the ability to see faint objects, the central mirror has a very small effect. That's because the light gathered -- or blocked -- scales as the square of the diameter. So a central obstruction of 20% actually only blocks 0.2 x 0.2 = 0.04 = 4% of the incoming light. In other words, negligible. A bigger issue in this regard is that mirrors reflect only about 90% of the incoming light. But taking all this into account, a 130-mm Newtonian still gathers about as much light as a 120-mm refractor.
Would the images be similar to those of a 102mm refractor with the same focal length? I know exit pupil would decrease, I'm mostly interested in resolving power. I've read some different resources that say that resolution would be the same, but contrast would be better in a refractor.
That's correct. The distinction between resolution is subtle but important. For observing objects with very high contrast, such as craters on the Moon or splitting double stars, aperture is all that matters. Planetary features all have low to very low inherent contrast, so any extra loss of contrast is a big deal.
A first-rate 130-mm Newtonian is roughly equivalent to a first-rate 102-mm refractor for planetary observing, but superior to the refractor for all other purposes.
And sort of an add-on question. My, albeit, limited understanding was that you could push a scope to roughtly double its aperture in mm as far as magnification goes. With that said, the 130mm onesky should be able to support ~260x magnification, a 4.7 eyepiece comes in at around ~138x. But based on results from the previous night, trying to push much harder would just be a failplan. Sure, image would get bigger, but also grainier. I would say that rather than 2:1 magnification to aperture ratio, 1:1 would be a better plan of attack. Or am I missing something?
The 2:1 rule applies only to high-contrast targets. For planets, something like 1.5:1 is a better bet, even with absolutely first-rate optics.
The OneSky has good optics -- very good for the price -- but certainly not as good as a Newt can get. More to the point, it's limited by its mechanics -- the crude focuser and decent but not great mount. In practice, I wouldn't enjoy using a OneSky much above 150X, maybe 200X in a pinch. | <urn:uuid:4a3c89eb-5b62-42ab-b0b2-80fee063db4b> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/463109-onesky-newtonian-astronomers-without-borders/page-74 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370518622.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20200403190006-20200403220006-00300.warc.gz | en | 0.964269 | 575 | 2.859375 | 3 |
It's almost winter and Double-crested cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) have returned to Lake Ralphine. They can be seen swimming low in the water then suddenly diving out of sight, only to return, often with a fish caught in their beak, which they flip about and swallow. Once they're done fishing, they fly up into this California black oak (Quercus kelloggii) or a Western cottonwood (Populus fremontii) that's nearby and spread their wings to dry and just generally hang out. Although the oak looks dead it isn't, not yet, anyway. It may be that being chosen by these large birds could eventually be the death of the tree. During breeding season Cormorants nest in colonies and the large amounts of....uh...poop that falls from the nests and from the adult birds makes the soil too toxic for the tree that the birds are nesting in, eventually killing it, forcing the birds to choose a new nesting site.
The Cormorants that spend the winter at Lake Ralphine aren't nesting but they certainly are loitering and congregating in one place, this California black oak.
Fairfax County Public Schools
All About Birds
BirdWeb (Seattle Audubon Society)
United States Environmental Protection Agency
United States Fish & Wildlife Service | <urn:uuid:e17e5938-8755-4628-83c2-0018e33b002e> | CC-MAIN-2013-48 | http://debdrex-drawing.blogspot.com/2010/12/its-almost-winter-and-double-crested.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-48/segments/1386163994706/warc/CC-MAIN-20131204133314-00095-ip-10-33-133-15.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953248 | 277 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Lungs are basically a gas exchanger. To breath you need a large surface area (75 m² for a human, according Wikipedia) to exchange this gas, for a human. If you supposed that the greater is the animal is, the more surface he needs, its sails need to be monstrous. Especially an animal the size of a Spinosaurus or Dimetrodon.
The other issue is the movement. An animal with a very large sail couldn't move easily by standard means (I mean legs). It can't be a carnivore because of this, as it couldn't run after a prey.
In this case I see three maybe plausible solution:
a very peaceful and massive grass eater with a giant sail (more or less, like a stegosaurus). It doesn't need to move fast nor think, so it reduces the oxygen consumption
a swordfish like reptile, living in the desert, sailing on the sand with its sail. The wind provides it with speed so that it could hunt. The surface of the sail allows it to capture the dew to drink. As it doesn't move by itself, it doesn't need much oxygen and could even have a really giant sail.
an hippopotamus like animals, living in symbiosis with a single leave fern or tree providing the hippopotamus energy, sun protection and vital gas when the hippo provides mobility and nutriments to the giant sail like leave. In this case the hippo could even sail on a river and even an ocean, navigating like a boat with its leave-sail.
To recap: I think this kind of animal isn't really possible for a known life form on Earth, but with some kind of exotic cases it may be plausible. You could think about moving trees or maybe chlorophyll fed butterflies, too.
Short answer: it's plausible, but you'll want to look into the details of cutaneous respiration. You'll need to address the three constraints of ventilation, diffusion, and convection, as well as finding a way to keep the surface responsible for diffusion moist.
An insect modeled on a Dimetrodon, with the sale covered in structures like very tiny alveoli, seems like your best bet. I think that with some creativity, this could be made believable.
Technically book lungs are external lungs and can be found in numerous existing creatures such as spiders, crabs and other crustaceans.
There is a size-limit in how big a creature could get while possessing book lungs, however.
Pretty vulnerable place to have an organ like that I would think, but possible. Lots of sea worms have exposed gills on their backs yet survive.
It's unlikely to have evolved on earth, because creatures with lungs here usually (always?) have rib cages protecting them. But there is no physical reason I think of that that organ couldn't be anywhere on the body. It's essential to life so I'd expect it to be protected in some way.
The sail could also work a different way instead of lungs. Lungs are not the only gas exchange system that has evolved on earth or even the most common. It could collect oxygen from the air by absorbing it through special pores or something. It would take some fancy physical mechanics to circulate the gases, but it's perfectly doable. | <urn:uuid:658a498a-e6fe-4c2e-a2c2-a468353a3b8d> | CC-MAIN-2020-29 | https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/79128/would-an-animal-with-a-sail-like-respiratory-system-be-possible?noredirect=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-29/segments/1593655937797.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20200711192914-20200711222914-00193.warc.gz | en | 0.967814 | 680 | 3.546875 | 4 |
How many of us want to be employed when we graduate? Hopefully all of us. That’s why we’re all in college and why we’re paying thousands of dollars to be here. By being at Western, we are investing in our future. But where along the road of education have we been educated about how to actually invest monetarily?
We don’t remember having a class in high school that brought up topics such as investing, loans, 401k plans, insurance or how to do our taxes. In fact, according to a study done by EverFi and Higher One [on Moneymattersoncampus].org, 17 states mandate financial literacy to graduate high school, however only 40 percent of students from these states actually said they took a financial literacy course.
There were plenty of classes about high-level math, almost entirely inapplicable to anything outside academia, but the numbers that mattered never made an appearance in the classroom. That being said, even if they would have taught us that stuff in high school, none of us would likely even remember it by now.
Western offers Finance 215 and 216, which cover things such as basic budgeting and investing, but how many students actually take it? Western is a liberal arts college, meaning students are able to choose any classes they want within the variety of requirements. But is personal finance important enough that it should be required by all majors?
Now, this isn’t to say there aren’t a wide variety of students who are knowledgeable on these topics. Perhaps their parents taught them, or they’re a business major and have a well-rounded education in investment and taxes. But this isn’t the case for the majority of students, and having the ability to manage one’s finances is applicable to everyone.
If you’re going to go into the “real world” and you’re going to get a “real job” you need to know how to handle your money. The plethora of bills we acquire and interest we accrue while going to school can be incredibly daunting. Between student loans, rent and any meager income we’re getting from our jobs, we’re bombarded with dealing with money and many of us don’t know how to handle it.
Part of being at a university and getting a liberal arts education is that you get to choose to what you learn. Perhaps it’s also the university’s job to prepare us for the world of employment while we are here. It isn’t a complaint toward our institution, but maybe it could be valid to require students to take a class that will prepare them for the requirements of being an adult: dealing with money and not losing it all.
The editorial board is composed of Anna Jentoft, Dylan Green, Brandon Stone and Stephanie Villiers. | <urn:uuid:9ace1d84-7c15-437f-aa0d-cd5d507b321a> | CC-MAIN-2017-34 | http://www.westernfrontonline.com/2015/04/28/opinion-money-on-my-mind/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886123312.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20170823171414-20170823191414-00513.warc.gz | en | 0.972802 | 592 | 2.515625 | 3 |
ASPCA: It’s Okay to Give Pets as Gifts. Really.Just in time for the busiest gift-giving season of the year, new ASPCA research finds pets given as gifts are just as likely to be loved and treasured
NEW YORK—The ASPCA® (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals®) today released findings from its latest research study, which busts a major myth about giving pets as gifts, potentially saving more homeless animals’ lives in the process.
It has been a long-held belief by many in the animal world that shelters should not allow adoptions by those looking to give the pet as a gift during the holidays or otherwise. The overwhelming concern was that the pet would be at a higher risk of being returned to the shelter. But in its latest research study, the ASPCA found that 96 percent of people who received pets as gifts thought it either increased or had no impact on their love or attachment to that pet. Additionally, 86 percent of the pets referred to in the study are still in the home.
Furthermore, the survey revealed no difference in the recipient’s attachment to that pet based on whether the gift was a surprise or known in advance. This new data adds to previous research studies conducted in the 1990s and 2000 (Patronek, 1996; Scarlett, 1999; New, 1999; New 2000), which found that pets acquired as gifts are less likely to be relinquished than pets acquired by an individual adopter.
“This has been a very controversial topic for the public and the sheltering world alike, but we're hoping to put an end to this misconception before the holiday season,” said Dr. Emily Weiss, Vice President of Shelter Research & Development for the ASPCA. “Keeping all their normal application protocols and processes in place, shelters should feel confident enough in the supporting data to give it a try in their facilities. These are exciting findings that can help open new adoption options for shelters, allowing more animals to be placed in loving homes.”
Americans have a long tradition of giving pets – usually puppies or kittens – as gifts for special occasions such as birthdays, holidays or graduation, but debate over how this practice could impact the animal’s welfare has drummed up considerable controversy. While some shelters have been allowing the adoption of pets as gifts for years, the stigma remains in the public consciousness, driving some customers away from shelters and unfortunately toward inhumane sources including pet stores, online or backyard breeders.
If you’re thinking about bringing a pet into a friend or loved one’s home – or your own – this holiday season, please make pet adoption your first option. You can find adoptable pets in your area by visiting www.aspca.org/adopt and searching for the shelter or rescue group nearest you. | <urn:uuid:5835d820-dab5-4d71-8663-b168cc107eb8> | CC-MAIN-2023-14 | https://www.aspca.org/about-us/press-releases/aspca-its-okay-give-pets-gifts-really | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296945248.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20230324051147-20230324081147-00777.warc.gz | en | 0.962057 | 583 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Little dogs often have special dietary and nutritional needs that other dogs don’t require, so it’s essential for dog owners to know if little dogs are allergic to foods such as poultry. Though they are small, little dogs may need more calories per pound than larger dogs due to their higher metabolic rate in their youth and potential health problems as they age. As a result, it’s essential to be aware of any food issues with your little dog in order to avoid long-term problems.
Are little dogs allergic to poultry? Little dogs can be allergic to poultry, among other proteins. In general, dogs require a range of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. Dogs need grains, fruits, vegetables, and meat for a balanced diet, which is why commercial dog foods are popular among dog owners. However, pet owners should be aware of potential allergies to poultry and poultry-based products in case their little dogs develop allergic symptoms.
Little dogs are fun, wonderful companions. However, they vary greatly from other dogs in the care that they require—especially when it comes to their diet. Therefore, it’s essential for dog owners to be familiar with potential food allergies to proteins such as poultry in dog food, and how these allergies present as symptoms. This way, any potential allergic reaction can be addressed for the health, safety, and comfort of your little dog.
What We Mean by Little Dogs
In general, a little dog is considered to weigh less than 22 pounds or measure in height under 16 inches. Within the overall category of little dogs are breeds that are much lighter and shorter or a little heavier and taller.
Some of the most common breeds of little dogs are:
- Yorkshire terrier
- Shih Tzu
- French bulldog
Certain breeds of little dogs may have specific nutritional concerns. Therefore, it’s important to consult your veterinarian for advice about nutritional risks based on the breed, age, or existing health conditions of your dog.
What We Mean by Allergic
Like humans, dogs are at risk of having abnormal reactions to food. However, food allergies present themselves differently when it comes to dogs. An allergy in terms of diet describes an immunologic reaction to food allergens and requires previous exposure to the allergen for symptoms to present themselves. In dogs, the allergy is usually expressed through the skin and seen most often as itching.
Dogs can present food allergy symptoms before they are even a year old, but allergies can develop at any time. Some symptoms of food allergies in dogs may include:
- Non-seasonal itching involving the whole body
- Non-seasonal itching focused on the ears and feet
- Chronic or recurring ear and skin infections
- Vomiting, diarrhea, excessive gas
Food allergies actually take time to develop, which is why they can be difficult to diagnose. For example, a dog may have been eating food with allergens for quite some time before symptoms present themselves.
Dogs with food allergies are usually allergic to proteins from animal and/or plant-based ingredients in their diet. When these proteins are broken down into molecules, the dog’s immune system misidentifies them as potential threats. Beef, wheat, dairy, and chicken are the most common products that create food allergies in dogs.
What We Mean by Poultry
When it comes to pet food, poultry can mean fresh meat (as in fresh poultry, deboned poultry, freshly prepared poultry) or pre-prepared, dry meat meal (poultry meal, dried poultry, dehydrated poultry). If an ingredient in dog food is listed simply as “poultry,” then it generally refers to the fresh form.
Poultry does provide a good quality, relatively low-cost source of protein that is tasty to most dogs. The category of poultry can include products from domestic fowls such as chicken, duck, or turkey. However, since many dog food companies don’t specify which animal species “poultry” in general comes from, many canine nutritionists find it too ambiguous.
Using such a general term can allow the manufacturer to change the recipe among batches, which makes it difficult to identify specific food allergens for dogs. In addition, the quality of poultry used in pet foods can vary considerably.
Little Dogs, Allergies, and Poultry
The most common allergy symptom that your little dog may display in response to chicken as a food allergen is itchy skin. Pet owners may notice their dog licking and scratching his head, neck, ears, and limbs. Such excessive licking and scratching can lead to lesions or even hair/fur loss. In addition, your dog’s eyes may become irritated, and he may get frequent ear infections or experience digestive issues.
Unfortunately, many food allergy symptoms in little dogs present in the same manner as respiratory or insect bite allergies. This can make it challenging to narrow down the cause of the allergic reaction. However, there are some methods to figuring out if your little dog is suffering from a poultry allergy.
For example, food allergies occur at any time of the year, unlike seasonal or environmental allergies. In addition, medications such as antihistamines and corticosteroids used to treat other types of allergies are ineffective when it comes to food allergies.
If you suspect your little dog has a food allergy, and poultry, in particular, your vet may implement an elimination diet which would include removing poultry and any products containing poultry from your dog’s diet.
Along with other dietary instructions, the elimination diet can illustrate whether poultry is the cause of the allergic reaction in your little dog if allergy symptoms return once poultry is re-introduced. If there is no improvement in symptoms, the process should be repeated for a different ingredient.
Diet Changes to Avoid Poultry Allergy
If it’s confirmed that your little dog is allergic to poultry, you can make changes to her diet. You can feed her foods that were well-tolerated during the elimination diet trial period and eliminate what wasn’t tolerated well.
Unfortunately, over time, dogs tend to become allergic to foods that they eat regularly. To avoid this, some professionals recommend varying a dog’s diet every two to three months in order to prevent a food allergy from developing. Another option is to consider commercially made hypoallergenic dog food, which generally doesn’t contain additives, artificial flavorings, or colorings.
Some pet owners decide to prepare homemade meals for their little dogs in order to be in control of what goes into their food. However, especially with little dogs, it’s essential to consult a pet nutritionist or veterinarian to ensure you are providing a balanced and healthy diet.
Consult Your Personal Veterinarian
As with any care that you provide your canine, supplying safe and nutritious food is an essential part of being a pet owner. Most people associate their veterinarians with medical care for their animals. However, your dog’s individual vet can be a great resource for advice about feeding and allergies as well. Your veterinarian can recommend food products, brands, and other information to ensure the safe feeding and best diet for your dog, which can reduce your stress level as a pet owner.
There are many online sources that offer advice and demonstrations as to how to safely feed your dog. However, dogs vary widely when it comes to their age and breed requirements, specific dietary needs, allergies, and what is best for them as individuals. For these reasons, your dog’s veterinarian is a far better resource for consultation and expertise. The only person who potentially knows your dog as well as you do would be your vet.
If you suspect that your little dog has any food allergies, it’s important to make a visit to the vet as soon as possible to identify the problem. By consulting your personal veterinarian, you can be certain that you are providing the best care for your pet, especially when it comes to their dietary needs and safety. | <urn:uuid:d727c353-7a3a-4564-a45f-3ea51542e79e> | CC-MAIN-2023-23 | https://littlewanderingdogs.com/category/health-safety/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224649293.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20230603133129-20230603163129-00359.warc.gz | en | 0.958579 | 1,657 | 2.671875 | 3 |
These are findings from research using new computer imaging technology that is being exhibited at the 2015 Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition by researchers from the Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of Glasgow.
They developed these techniques to better understand why people form such strong first impressions about others’ attractiveness, health, trustworthiness and emotions simply from looking at their faces and what information in the face drives these impressions. For example, factors relating to health, wealth and industrialization are important for cross-cultural differences in the types of faces people find most attractive. These findings suggest that cultural differences in how people respond to faces are systematic, and are not simply arbitrary.
Dr Lisa DeBruine, from the University of Glasgow, said: “Darwin was right when he argued that there is no universal standard of beauty. Our work shows that people in different parts of the world are attracted to different types of faces. But our work also shows it is possible to study and, to some extent, both predict and understand these differences.”
The ‘Face Facts’ exhibit also showcases a 3D facial imaging system from Dimensional Imaging (DI4D™), which allows the researchers to identify the specific combinations of facial movements that communicate different emotions, personality traits and mental states. Using this new method, called ‘Generative Face Grammar’, the team shows that the eyes are used more often to communicate emotion in East Asian cultures, whereas the whole face is used in Western cultures.
You can learn more about the research, experience demonstrations of the technology and even transform your own face at facefacts.scot and you can follow @facefacts2015 on Twitter to get new #facefacts. | <urn:uuid:b0c64aa4-f6da-4b0c-9b81-93d2521f4054> | CC-MAIN-2020-24 | https://royalsociety.org/news/2015/06/technology-helps-us-understand-how-we-read-faces/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-24/segments/1590348521325.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20200606222233-20200607012233-00298.warc.gz | en | 0.943014 | 345 | 3.640625 | 4 |
This laboratory aims to implement a custom filter designer on the PIC32 microcontroller for the purpose of real time signal transformation. The project gets its premise out of the frequent requirement for arbitrary digital signal filters in a laboratory setting. For a video of our lab demo please see Project Demo
A user is given the ability to draw a transfer function on a touchscreen interfaced with the PIC, a custom interpolation and interpretation algorithm is used to understand the essential pass and stop bands of the users transfer function. These bands are used as the argument to either a Parks- McClellan or Fourier Transform algorithm which creates the discrete time impulse response coefficients corresponding to the drawn frequency response. With discrete time finite impulse response (FIR) filter coefficients a real time convolution is taken with an analog to digital converter sampled input signal and then output to a 12-bit digital to analog converter. In this way, a user can design their filter and see it implemented in real time. Pictured blow is a figure of the entire system, with input from a signal generator and output to an oscilloscope off-screen.
High Level Design
The source for this project idea was Bruce Land, who thought that it would be a good idea to make a project that allowed users to specify arbitrary filter transfer functions that could be used for digital signal processing. The creators of this project also believed that this would be a fun and challenging project, and decided to undertake it.
A high level block diagram that describes the logical structure of the project is shown below.
Essentially, the logical flow of the program is as follows. First, the user decides whether or not they would like to use the Parks-McClellan algorithm or the Frequency Sampling Algorithm to design their FIR filter. After that, they can set the sampling rate and maximum amplitude of the transfer function plot that will be displayed on the touch screen. Next, they draw the desired transfer function on the touch screen. At this point, the chosen algorithm will begin to run in order to generate the filter coefficients corresponding to the drawn frequency response. Once the coefficients have been generated, the input signal will be convolved in real time to produce the output.
Hardware & Software Tradeoffs
The main tradeoff in this project between hardware and software is the debate between digital and analog filtering. Theoretically, all signals can be filtered in hardware. However, this requires the user to know a priori exactly what type of frequencies need to be filtered. The choice to filter in software, which is more computationally intensive, allows for greater flexibility for the user to determine exactly how they want to filter their input. Thus, in terms of hardware and software tradeoffs, computational speed and execution time is sacrificed for greater modularity.
As will all the labs in this course, the PIC32 acts as the logical backbone for the entire system. A signal is input to the PIC through a 10-bit analog to digital converter (ADC) internal to the PIC32. The filtered signal is then output as a 12-bit number to the MCP4822 digital to analog converter (DAC) over a serial peripheral interface (SPI). The DAC outputs an analog signal representation the filtered input. During the creation of this project a sinusoidal input from a signal generator is used as the input to the system, and an oscilloscope is used to measure the DAC output. A schematic of the whole system is in the Appendix following the report.
ADC & DAC
The system used three ADC channels. Namely, AN5 (port pin RB3) and AN11 (port pin RB13) to read the Y and X axis of the touchscreen respectively, as well as AN0 (port pin RA0) for the signal input. AN0 is not set at the ADC channel until it is time for convolution to take place inside the state machine. The ADC input and DAC output occur at the Nyquist rate of whatever input frequency the user selects from a list. They are contained within timer 2 and timer 3 match interrupts respectively. These timers are turned on at the same place the ADC channel is set to AN0. In this way interrupts only take cycles time away from the executing program when it is absolutely necessary.
The user drawn transfer function occurs on a resistive touchscreen, the PiTFT from adafruit. The touchscreen used in this lab is a standard 320×240 resolution resistive touchscreen. A simple SPI interface is used to write data to the screen. Two resistive sheets are located on top of a TFT display. When a touch is applied to the screen, the sheets touch and a voltage divider is created which is measurable through the PIC32s ADC. To determine a touch coordinate, power is applied to one sheet and voltage is read off the other, the location of the touch will result in larger or smaller division of the voltage divider and result in varying output voltages. The process is then flipped, the other sheet is powered and the ADC is used to measure the divided voltage off the other. An image of a generic resistive touchscreen is shown below.
A significant delay on the order of 10 ms is used in between switching which sheet is powered in order to allow outputs to stabilize. This effectively reduces the touch points per time resolution to under 50 times per second. This however is of little concern because at the end of the day, a human will never be touching the screen that fast.
The actual coordinate of the touch is represented as two 10-bit numbers, following directly from their ADC measurements in either direction. Some scaling is necessary to get this back to a pixel location, however to speed computation values relating touch points to screen positions are often hard coded as their ADC instead of pixel value. Due to manufacturing defects and the nature of the two resistive sheet geometry of the touchscreen, high and low ends of the 10-bit spectrum are impossible to obtain when determining touch location. For this reason an additional check and consideration has to be made to make sure a touch point is in the physically viable range of the screen.
An external button is used to initiate an external rising edge interrupt on pin 16 (RB7) of the PIC32. This interrupt is used to stop convolution and return program execution to its start state. As will be examined more, convolving the ADC input with an FIR filter is a real time process and is therefore best interfaced with through an interrupt service routine. An external button is used to trigger the interrupt because of its ease of implementation is software and speed with respect to the touchscreen display. The button is tied to ground via a capacitor in order to ensure that the input to the PIC32 does not float and to reject noise from programming or the sinusoidal input, located close in proximity to the button on the white board.
This project is primarily a software intensive digital signal processing exercise. It is divided into three major design components; the touchscreen and drawing the filter transfer function; Parks McClellan and Fourier Transform algorithms and determining FIR filter coefficients; and the real time convolution with signal output. Each component is addressed individually but first it is worth investigating the software structure. The executing program is scheduled according to the Protothreads cooperative scheduler. This project uses two such threads, one to handle touchscreen reading and data parsing, and another to facilitate a state machine.
The state machine operates linearly; first collecting user data, like what sort of transform and particular parameters the user would like to use, and then moves to drawing and processing the transfer function, and final computing filter coefficients and outputting the signal. State machine is shown below.
As evident in the above image, most of the transitions from state to state occur according to specific areas of the screen being touched. Although the error and transform mode flags also play a role in traversing the machine. Here is a walkthrough of each state and the basic progression through the program.
Here the user selects their desired transform type, Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) or Fast Wavelet Transform (FWT). It was a reach for the project to encompass a wavelet transformation, and it remains unimplemented. Touching the half of the screen corresponding to the user’s desired transform will advance the state. Pictured below is the TFT display for this selection screen.
Much like the previous state this allows the user to select between two different Fourier transforms, a standard FFT, or a more complex but also optimized Parks McClellan implementation. Much more on both types of transforms later. Again, simply touching the half of the screen corresponding to the desired algorithm will advance the state. Here however, pressing a back button located in the top left corner of the screen will return the user to STATE_START. Below is an image of the TFT display at this state.
This state has the user select two values, the maximum frequency and amplitude to be used in the transformation. The frequency selection will scale the ADC read period to twice the selection, the Nyquist rate for the particular input. In practice frequencies can be processed up to 40 kHz. The amplitude selection will set the maximum amplitude on the transfer function that the user eventually draws. The user has to be mindful of the amplitude of their input because although the program gives them the ability to amplify up to 5x the input, clipping will occur after a 3.3V output.
By touching the number according to the desired frequency and amplitude selection the parameter is stored in memory. The text on screen will also turn blue, indicating a selection. If the user wishes to change their selection they simply need to press another number. The original selection turns white and the new selection turns blue. This is meant to be as intuitive as possible for the user.
By pressing the back button in the top left of the screen the user can return to the FFT_SELECT_STATE at any time. The top right of the screen houses a forward button that advances the user to the next state. If less than two values, one frequency and on amplitude value, are selected, the state throws an error indicating such and loops back onto itself.
PM_INSTRUCTION & FFT_INSTRUCTION
Upon pressing the forward button from the AMP_FREQ state, the user is presented with a series of instructions on how to draw the transfer function on the next screen. Instructions are unique depending on which state is pressed. Pressing the screen again continues the user to the next state. The instructions specific to the Parks McClellan transform are shown below.
This state starts be rotating the screen by 90 degrees counter clockwise, giving the user more screen real estate along the x-axis (frequency). They are then tasked to draw a transfer function. The x-axis is scaled from zero to pi along a 320 pixel range, as any transfer function is, and is drawn with dashed lines at intervals of one tenth pi. The y-axis is scaled to take up exactly 200 pixels on the screen according to the max amplitude selection, and a dashed line is draw from every integer of that selection.
The user can then simply draw whatever plot they would like across the screen. Every coordinate input that is detected on the touchscreen is replayed by drawing a circle. There will inevitably be gaps when drawing because of the computation involved in plotting to the screen and the naturally required delay in the screen. This is fixed a little later down the line. An example of a transfer function drawing is shown below.
A Refresh button in the top middle of the screen resets the state, this resets the state and allows the user to draw their function again. Again a back button will return the user to the previous state, in this case AMP_FREQ, and a forward button will advance the user to an animated state, PROCESS_INPUT, which cleans up their transfer function and gets it ready for filtering.
This state fixes the drawn transfer function by eliminating errors, filling gaps, and checking for potential errors in the plot. Please see the Transfer Function Interpretation section below for a complete walkthrough. If an error is not detected the state machine will continue to filter computation automatically. If an error is detected, the state machine will return to FFT_DRAW_STATE where the user can fix what was incorrect.
PM_COMPUTE & FFT_COMPUTE
These states generate the FIR filter coefficients. A filter mode flag set in code determines which algorithm to use. Please see the Filter Design section and its subsections below for more information.
Upon displaying ever coefficient, the state machine automatically advances to the OUPUT state. First is enables timers and interrupts to handle ADC input and DAC output, without these nothing would pass through the system. It is here that DAC and ADC interrupts are enabled and the ADC channel is updated from that of the touchscreen to the input signal channel. At the end of this state the system has all of the FIR coefficients necessary for real time convolution. After execution it defaults to advance to the OUTPUT state.
This is the final state in the state machine, it is here that the real time convolution between the input signal and the FIR coefficients occurs. No matter the origin of those coefficients, be it Fourier or Parks McClellan, the state operates the same. It first fills up a buffer with input signals of length equal to the filter. Pairwise multiplication and summation occurs between the input and FIR values in real time. By real time it means that the time it takes to compute the convolution takes less time than the Nyquist rate period, and can therefore simulate real time.
The minimum value of the convolution is always maintained and added to the output DAC value if it ever dips below zero. This aims to act as the DC offset of the input signal. Instead of sampling the input for an arbitrary known amount of time and taking a time average to find the offset, this method is much more compact and dynamic.
Mostly a dummy state, just displayed text and allows the user to return to the transformation selection state by pressing a back button.
Transfer Function Interpretation
A user draws their desired transfer function by a series of points along the curve of their desired transfer function. Any time a pixel value is read as an input to the screen it is stored in a 320 element array, which acts as an injective mapping between x-axis pixels and y-axis transfer function values. An element of this array can only be drawn to if it has not been previously, thus this ensures that whatever is draw is a function. Granted this function may be an awful looking 320 element piecewise function. Another dilemma arises when swiping across the screen. If there is an acceleration in the xy plane, as is the case when drawing at a constant velocity then changing directions, the touch screen may misinterpret a data point and accept a fault point as valid. An example of this is shown below where an extraneous value is plotted right when the user leaves the transfer functions pass band and enters a transition region.
In order to correct these errors, fill in gaps, and understanding what is drawn by the user we must assume errors are not purposeful and that gaps contain no additional information. A five element medium average filter is used to remove error points by setting them to the value of their neighbors. Every non zero element in the 320 element array is set to the median of the surrounding two values. This does a fantastic job to smooth out touchscreen outliers. The next step used is a linear interpolation between each nonzero point to the next nonzero point. This fills in the gaps in the bode plot and gives the user a more complete picture of their transfer function. Floating point math is used to calculate slope to ensure than even for slopes within unity magnitude around zero will be mapped and plotted correctly.
A four element moving average is then used to smooth out jagged values and artifacts from interpolation that are undesirable. The slight frequency delay caused by the moving average is negligible compared to the 320 element domain of the screen and so is not a huge concern. After each of these steps the transfer function is redrawn and a blocking delay is used to give the user time to see the changes. In standard Fourier Transform mode this is where the story ends but for Parks McClellan few additional steps are needed.
For Parks McClellan all of the bands in the transfer function are determined explicitly. This is done through an iterative process similar to the one described above with the aid of a discrete derivative. After median filtering, linear interpolation, and moving average filtering, a discrete derivative is used to find the change in amplitude on the transfer function per 4 pixel x-value change. If this derivative term is within a threshold, which through repeated experimentation is 3 pixels, then it is kept in the transfer function, else it is thrown out. This relies on the fact that each band wills be relatively linear (if not zero in slope) but distinct from the other bands by a significant amplitude margin.
This pass will usually determine the bands fairly well, but due to the aforementioned touchscreen artifacts there are occasionally measured bands in the transition regions. To fix this problem the entire process is repeated one more time. On top of this, because of Parks McClellan stipulations (more on these later), transition regions must be greater than one tenth of pi in length, and not pass/stop band can begin after .8pi. If an error is caught the user simply touches the screen to reset the function and are instructed to redraw. These checks are not only in place to ensure that the Parks McClellan math will be performed successfully, but the often catch faulty registration of pass and stop bands.
Once the process has been carried out twice and errors have been checked for, the algorithm is complete. In practice it is fairly robust and stable against absurd input and abnormal touchscreen errors.
Stepping through the entire 320 element array one more time, the pass/stop band endpoints are determined via a discrete derivative and are then averaged to determine the amplitude value within each band domain. All of the bands are then scaled according the amplitude specified by the user. Below is an image of the transfer function after the entire algorithm has been run. Blue dots indicate the function, red dots indicate the return from the discrete derivate plotted along the function, and the green dots indicate band regions. To see all of this, below are two images of the same function. The first one is the function unfiltered, the second is of the filtered function, which is ready for filter computation.
With the transfer function known the next set is to develop finite impulse response filter coefficients.
Parks-McClellan Filter Design Algorithm
The Parks-McClellan FIR filter design algorithm is an industry standard algorithm for creating the optimal filter given a desired magnitude for the frequency response. It creates filters that are optimal in the L-infinity sense – that is, it minimizes the maximal error present within the pass and stop bands regions of the filter. This type of filter is called equiripple, since it will exhibit a rippling phenomenon in the bands, where the error of each ripple has constant magnitude and alternates in sign with each ripple (Ref 1). This project implements a limited form of the Parks-McClellan algorithm, which works for optimal design of low and high pass filters. An attempt was made to implement the most general form of Parks-McClellan, which works for completely arbitrary frequency responses, but due to the additional complexity of the algorithm this was not possible to complete within the given time frame. The details of the algorithm are mathematically intense and a completely rigorous description will not be provided in the report. Instead, a more general overview of the major steps will be given.
The first step of the algorithm is to take as an input to the function the desired magnitude of the frequency response that the user has drawn. This limited form of the Parks-McClellan algorithm assumes that there are only two “bands” in the frequency response – that is, two flat regions that indicate wither a pass or stop region. In this way, low and high pass filters with arbitrary cutoff frequencies can be specified. Thus, the function requires an input that indicates the start and end frequencies of each band, and the magnitude of the frequency response at each of these frequencies. This input format is similar to the Mathworks firpm function (Ref 2). Additionally, the desired filter length is required as an input. This implementation assumes a default filter length of 35, which, from thorough testing, seems to be long enough to generate low and high pass filters with a transition band that is at least .1*Pi wide. The steeper the transition region the longer the filter must be to achieve the steeper cutoff.
Once the bands have been specified in the way described, the algorithm can proceed. The first step is to initially assign the set of “extremal frequencies,” or frequencies at which the generated frequency response is supposed to have a maximal error (the peaks and valleys of the ripples). To initially assign this set, it is assumed that the frequencies are evenly distributed within the pass and stop band. The number of extremal frequencies is given by the following equation, where M is the overall filter length:
Thus, in the case where M is 35, the number of extremal frequencies is 19. After evenly distributing these 19 frequencies within the pass and stop band, the next step is to compute the value of delta, which is one of the solutions to a system of polynomial equations that has undergone a cosine transformation. Essentially, the linear system states that the frequency response that the user has specified can be approximated as a polynomial with degree n and a fixed error delta at each of the extremal frequencies. Thus, the goal of solving this system is to determine n+2 unknowns, which are the n+1 polynomial coefficients and the value of delta. To do this, n+2 data points are needed – namely, the extremal frequencies! Thus, this linear system can be easily solved by plugging in the extremal frequencies into the general form of the cosine transformed polynomial (again, refer to the previously mentioned document for a mathematically rigorous treatment of this subject). The full solution to the system will provide the filter coefficients as well as delta, but computing all of these is unnecessary for each iteration of the algorithm; only the value of delta is needed at each iteration. A simple, closed form solution to delta exists that allows one to solve for this value specifically without solving the entire system (Ref 3):
(This implementation assumes a constant weighting function, otherwise the above equation for delta would be slightly different.) The function Ad is the desired value of the magnitude of the frequency response at the specified extremal frequency. w represents the set of extremal frequencies. This equation is far more computationally efficient that solving the system at each iteration of the algorithm.
Although computing the value of delta will tell one what the error at each of the extremal frequencies is, there is no guarantee that after just a single iteration that this error is optimal in the minimax sense. Thus, the next step is to compute the full error function over the entire range of discrete frequencies, from 0 to Pi. This could technically be accomplished by solving the full linear system and then using the resulting polynomial to evaluate the generate frequency response at every point, and subtracting it from the desired user input, but again, this would be computationally inefficient. Instead, lagrange interpolation (Ref 4) using the n+2 extremal frequencies, and the amplitude of the frequency response at each of these points (which is just the desired amplitude plus or minus delta) is used to compute the error function over a set of 16*n data points. The error function is simply defined as the difference between the discretely computed values of the frequency response as generated by lagrange interpolation and the desired magnitude of the frequency response. (According to the Jones paper (Ref 5), interpolation should only be performed using n+1 of the extremal frequencies, but this yielded bizarre results, so all n+2 frequencies were used.)
Once the error function is computed, the next step is to determine the local maxima and minima of the error function, keeping in mind that all of these extrema must lie inside the bands, and not in the transition regions. These new extrema will become the new set of extremal frequencies. If the location of the extremal frequencies doesn’t change, then the process is stopped. If the set of extremal frequencies does change, then the process is repeated over again with the new set (Ref 6). In this implementation, the number of iterations is limited to 10.
Once the algorithm has converged, the final step is to actually solve the aforementioned linear system. While this is computationally inefficient, it only needs to be performed a single time due to the existence of a closed form solution for delta (Ref 7). To solve this system, an efficient LU decomposition implementation created by Philip Wallstedt (Ref 8) is used. (Permission was obtained via email.) Solving this system, as mentioned previously, will give the desired filter coefficients. However, notice that solving this system only yields n+1 values, when the desired filter length is M (2*n+1 values). In order to generate a length M filter, the last n values returned by solving the system (excluding delta) are reversed, and appended to the front of the original list of n+1 coefficients. All of the values are then divided by 2, except for the centermost value in the list (Ref 9). This final action must be performed in order to make the filter coefficients symmetric, which results in a Type 1, linear phase, FIR filter (Ref 10).
Frequency Sampling FIR Filter Design
In addition to the limited Parks-McClellan algorithm, a frequency sampling method for FIR filter design was also implemented. The basic idea behind frequency sampling filter design is this: given a desired magnitude for a frequency response, sample the frequency response at evenly spaced intervals, use a linear phase assumption, and then perform an inverse FFT to obtain the filter coefficients. This idea to use frequency sampling was originally inspired by a lecture from Professor Delchamps at Cornell University (Ref 11). Implementation details and MATLAB code were found on DSP Stack Exchange (by user Matt L), which was then converted into C code for the Pic32 (Ref 12). In this implementation, a length 64 filter is generated. The Microchip library was used to implement the inverse FFT (Ref 13). Sample code on how to perform the FFT using this library was obtained with permission from Tahmid Mahbub (Ref 14). Confusingly, it appears that the inverse FFT in the Microchip library is accomplished by using the FFT function (Ref 15). Using the FFT function in place of the inverse FFT seemed to work during testing, so this anomaly within the library was not questioned. In general, this method is more flexible than the limited Parks-McClellan algorithm that was implemented, but does not produce necessarily optimal filters.
Overall, the code was quite successful. The following tests show the results when an input signal of a given frequency is read into the Pic32 by an ADC, convolved with the filter coefficients generated by one of the two methods specified above, and the result output to an oscilloscope. In all tests, the input signal is sampled at 20 kHz, and the range of allowed amplitudes for the transfer function is from 0 to 1.
Test 1: Parks-McClellan Low Pass Filter
Test 2: Parks McClellan High Pass
Source: Automatic Signal Transformer and Custom Filter Designer | <urn:uuid:924fea1a-ab36-42bd-b99c-0cd2a06fd6a9> | CC-MAIN-2023-23 | https://pic-microcontroller.com/automatic-signal-transformer-and-custom-filter-designer/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224655027.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20230608135911-20230608165911-00397.warc.gz | en | 0.922043 | 5,760 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Radio frequency (RF) circuits are electronic devices that use RF signals to transfer information between different devices. An RF circuit has two primary functions: receiving signals from an antenna and transmitting them to another device. In this article, we explore what an RF circuit is and how it works. We discuss the main parts of an RF circuit, its different applications, and some common types you may come across if you’re interested in designing your own circuits.
What is an RF Circuit?
An RF circuit (radio frequency circuit) is an electronic device that uses RF signals to transfer information between different devices. An RF circuit has two primary functions: receiving signals from an antenna and transmitting them to another device. RF circuits are commonly found in wireless communication devices. For example, cell phones and WiFi routers use RF circuits to send signals between devices. RF circuits usually operate at very high frequencies. This means that their signals are traveling very fast (usually between 300 MHz – 30 GHz). This is why you can only hear static when you hold a device nearby an RF circuit.
How Does RF Circuit Work?
The RF chip architecture includes two parts: the receiving channel and the transmitting channel. The transmitter is the part of the circuit that creates the electromagnetic wave. The receiver is the part of the circuit that transforms that wave back into an electrical signal. A signal is first received by the antenna, which is then sent through the transmitter to be transformed into an electromagnetic wave. Finally, the signal travels through the receiver, where it is transformed back into an electrical signal. The receiver is often connected to a device (like a speaker) so that the information can be heard or displayed.
The receiving circuit is composed of antenna, antenna switch, filter, low noise amplifier, receiver demodulator, etc.
First, the receiver transforms that electromagnetic wave into an electrical current. Then, the electrical current travels through the filter, and amplifier to create a feedback signal. Next, the feedback signal is then sent to a demodulator that transforms that signal into baseband information such as RXI-P, RXI-N, RXQ-P, RXQ-N. Finally, it is sent to the logic audio circuit for further processing.
The primary function of an RF transmitter is to transform your information into an electromagnetic wave so that it can be sent to another device through an antenna. An RF transmitter uses electricity to create electromagnetic waves.
RF transmitter Structure
The fundamental components of an RF transmitter are voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), amplifier, phase detector, and modulator. The oscillator produces an alternating current at a certain frequency, which is determined by the number of oscillations per second. This is known as the carrier frequency. The amplifier amplifies the signal so that it can be sent through the antenna. The modulator is used to control the amplitude, frequency, and phase of the carrier wave, which allows for the transmission of data.
When connected to an antenna, the radio frequency (RF) transmitter produces an electromagnetic signal in range of the electromagnetic spectrum. It works by generating a carrier wave at the desired frequency and then modulating it with an input signal, such as speech or music. The carrier wave is then amplified and sent out through the antenna. The antenna broadcasts the carrier wave, and the signal is picked up by the receiver. The receiver then demodulates the signal and extracts the data from it. This process is known as modulation and demodulation.
RF Circuit and Their Importance
An RF circuit is any electrical circuit that is designed to operate at radio frequencies. RF circuits are used in many consumer and industrial products, such as remote controls. RF circuits are also used in wireless networks, such as WiFi networks. A diagram of an RF circuit is called a circuit diagram or a schematic diagram. An RF circuit diagram shows the electrical components used in the circuit as well as their connections. Before designing an RF circuit, engineers must first understand the characteristics of radio frequencies, including impedance and the propagation of radio waves. Engineers must also understand the design tools that are used to design RF circuits, such as circuit analysis and circuit simulator programs. RF circuits are designed to operate at high frequencies, and so they must be properly shielded to prevent interference with nearby circuits. RF circuits also require proper grounding to prevent interference with other electrical systems in buildings.
Common Applications of RF Circuits
RF circuits are commonly found in wireless communication devices like radios and cell phones. The circuits are usually used to share information between devices in a short distance. For example, a WiFi router may use an RF circuit to send and receive information to nearby computers. RF circuits may also be used in long-distance communication by bouncing off a satellite. For example, ham radio operators use RF circuits to send and receive information while they are in space. These are the common systems or devices that use RF circuits.
– Wireless communication systems:
- radio receivers and transmitters
- satellite communication
- radios and cell phones
- broadcast television systems
– Radar systems:
- antenna systems
- remote sensing systems
- distance monitoring
– Automotive applications:
- Navigation systems
- GPS and navigation systems
- automotive collision avoidance systems
– Security systems:
- smoke alarms
Smart home systems:
- surveillance cameras
- household gas meters
- electricity meters
An RF circuit is an electronic device that uses RF signals to transfer information between different devices. An RF circuit has two primary functions: receiving signals from an antenna and transmitting them to another device. This communication is usually done on a long-distance scale, since RF circuits use high frequencies to transmit information. If you’re interested in designing your own circuits, it’s important to understand how they work. This article has explored what an RF circuit is and how it works. | <urn:uuid:47fbacea-2218-428a-9b74-1037533336db> | CC-MAIN-2023-14 | https://reversepcb.com/what-is-an-rf-circuit-and-how-does-it-work/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296943809.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20230322082826-20230322112826-00231.warc.gz | en | 0.93863 | 1,195 | 4.28125 | 4 |
Description of Medieval History Through Literature by Rebecca Manor
This period in history is so exciting and it is my hope that this full-color guide will open up new worlds to you and your students! The suggested grade levels are 5th - 8th grade and the guide is structured to allow for you to personalize it to each student. It is formatted in 35 weekly lessons with reading assignments, mapping activities, research and discussion topics, hands-on and craft suggestions, vocabulary lists and much more. Knowing that each student is different, I have tried to set it up to allow you to personalize the study to your student's unique needs. For example, a 5th or 6th grader would be able to use the research topics to discuss new ideas and historical events while an 8th grader would be encouraged to write short research essays. For students who are more tactile learners, there's hand-on activities to encourage the development of those skills. One thing that I try to emphasize in the guide is the fact that it is a guide and it's supposed to make your job easier, not harder! It's chock full of ideas and activities but they're not all required. The focus should be the literature, not checking off every single activity. The activities are there to enrich your study, so pick and choose according to the educational needs and interests of your students. Have fun with it!"
The Middle Ages. The term probably conjures up images of brave knights and fair ladies, feasts and tournaments, castles and cathedrals. These are the elements of this time period that captures our imagination. In this course students will learn about King Richard, King Arthur, Saladin, Queen Eleanor, Joan of Arc, Shahrazad and others. They will learn about Martin Luther who revealed a new way to approach God and about John Wycliffe who organized the Bible. Students will read about the life of Columbus, whose discovery of North America changed the world forever. The Middle Ages was a very busy time full of change. Brilliant minds lived between the years 400 and 1522, the years that are covered in this study. By reading some of the best literature on the subject, students will be encouraged to discuss new ideas and social changes. Links to websites, hands-on activities, discussion questions, mapping activities and much more will bring the Middle Ages to life. Set up in 35 weekly lessons, this study guide provides everything you need to complete an exciting literature based history course. | <urn:uuid:dbd93e8d-2778-49fa-9b3e-f6dff772be6d> | CC-MAIN-2014-35 | http://www.mardel.com/Medieval-HistoryThrough-Literature-2474609.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-35/segments/1409535921872.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20140909040047-00305-ip-10-180-136-8.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951798 | 499 | 3.9375 | 4 |
What you’ll do
Students will use our library’s HIV/AIDS poster collection as a starting point to explore public health campaign techniques, the history of HIV and AIDS, and contemporary sexual health issues. After analysing historical campaigns, they'll be challenged to design their own poster or create a storyboard for a short film.
One of the session leaders will be a sexual health worker, allowing students to explore any questions they may have in a safe and informed way within a neutral environment.
Who can come
We have developed this half-day study session for groups of students aged 14 to 19, studying GCSEs or post-16 qualifications at school or sixth-form college. You can bring 10 to 20 students, accompanied by staff at a ratio of 1:10.
Due to the small scale of our free programme, schools in the Greater London area have priority until 12 December. From this date booking is extended to schools outside Greater London. | <urn:uuid:6d20e385-04b5-48ec-9a76-2bb211381453> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://preview.wellcomecollection.org/events/W40IWR4AACEAm1YS | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370505550.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20200401065031-20200401095031-00413.warc.gz | en | 0.94036 | 196 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Google Lens is quite prevalent on our Smartphones. Still, many of us don’t use it regularly. Generally, we open the standalone app to search for what we see or translate a text. But, the app’s image recognition technology can offer much more when you point a camera at something. Among some other exciting roles, it can be a handy mathematical problem solver.
If you’re a student or a parent who teaches their kids, you’d be glad to know that Google Lens can help you solve those complex quadratic equations you can’t seem to solve. Up until now, you might have taken the help of the obvious to solve complicated and tricky questions. You’d write the equation in the Google search bar, and the search engine would deliver the end solution to it.
But, what you need is a step-by-step guide that can help you solve a problem. Also, let’s admit that typing a complex equation is a pain because it’s much more than just punching in the numbers. Here’s when Google Lens comes to the scene to explain the concepts by breaking down the problem in more straightforward steps and help you in your homework.
Read more: How to Disable Side Panel in Google Chrome
Solve Math Problems Using Google Lens
Google introduced ‘Homework’ mode into the Google Lens back in August 2020. It’s another initiative to help students with their STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) questions. You have to take a picture of your homework question, and Google Lens will fetch a detailed solution on the same. Here’s how you can solve math problems using Google Lens.
Step 1: Open Google Lens on your smartphone. You can open the Google Lens app or invoke the tool right inside the Chrome browser by clicking the camera icon available in the search bar. It will open the app, and you can get started from here.
Step 2: In the Google Lens app, tap on “Search with your camera.” The app shows a ‘Search’ filter by default. Click on the Homework tab instead to get started.
Step 3: Now, point your camera at the math problem you want to solve. Make sure the equation is right inside the viewfinder’s frame so that the Google Lens can recognize it.
Step 4: Tap on the shutter button to click the picture of the equation. Once clicked, Google Lens will start scanning and detecting and then come up with a sheet that includes several options. You can copy the text and send it to your computer via Chrome or edit the math equation.
Step 5: Using the ‘Search’ will take you to Google Search, where you can look beyond the steps. Alternatively, you can slide the sheet up and see everything in one place.
Step 6: Once you slide the sheet up, you’d see Google Lens offers several steps to solve the given problem and pulls in closely connected results to gain extra insights and learn even better. It breaks down the results into different rows and offers more profound insights.
Step 7: You can also look inside the ‘Find solutions on the web’ section to get help from other renowned math solvers like Tiger Algebra, Symbolab, etc. Below this section is the typical search results that you’d otherwise find when searching for any query.
It is worth mentioning that the search engine giant already lets you solve mathematical problems. You have to write “Solve [equation/problem]” to get the job done. But, Google Lens cuts down the typing work.
You have to snap the picture from your notebook, and the Google Lens will take care of the rest. This makes it quite handy and a go-to tool for students. They may not have to carry any extra guidebook for the same and look for similar examples as Google Lens can be your help book.
Read more: How to Enable Dark Mode on Google Search
Google Lens has already been helping students with their homework related to science and technology. Students turn to Google Lens to understand concepts across biology and chemistry. Google claims it has added nearly 100 STEM concepts intending to offer a breakdown of complex problems. With now being a math problem solver, Google Lens has become a one-stop destination for students. | <urn:uuid:b5f76024-27ab-4697-b09a-ed6f304e6510> | CC-MAIN-2023-14 | https://techyorker.com/how-to-solve-math-problems-using-google-lens/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296950030.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20230401125552-20230401155552-00739.warc.gz | en | 0.921136 | 900 | 3.0625 | 3 |
What is a Neuropsychologist?
Neuropsychologists are professionals who have specialist knowledge in the assessment, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of people who have cognitive or behavioural difficulties which may be related to a brain injury or disease. Often these include patients with a history of any of the following problems:
- Head injury
- Failure to achieve developmental milestones
- Learning or attention deficits
- Exposure to drugs, alcohol, or maternal illness in utero
- Exposure to chemicals, toxins, or heavy metals
- Parkinson disease
- Seizure disorders
- Substance abuse
- Psychiatric disorders
Referrals are typically made by physicians who wish to clarify diagnoses and also obtain information or recommendations critical to a patient’s treatment or rehabilitation. Referrals also typically come from people (or their family) who are concerned about aspects of their cognitive function (often memory) and want to know the cause.
Neuropsychological tests are a series of measures that identify cognitive impairment and functioning in individuals. They provide quantifiable data about the following aspects of cognition:
- Reasoning and problem-solving ability
- Ability to understand and express language
- Working memory and attention
- Short-term and long-term memory
- Processing speed
- Visual-spatial organization
- Visual-motor coordination
- Planning, synthesizing, and organizing abilities
Neuropsychologists are skilled in integrating and interpreting neuropsychological data with data from neurologic and other medical sources, as well as psychosocial, cultural and behavioural data.
In New Zealand, the term “Neuropsychologist” is protected under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act (2003), and is used by those who have satisfied the New Zealand Psychologists Board that they have completed the necessary specialty training (both academic and practice hours). | <urn:uuid:d9942c0b-ad8c-4dad-bbd2-6008fa21a1d9> | CC-MAIN-2020-24 | https://aucklandpsychology.co.nz/specialist-services/neuropsychology/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-24/segments/1590347425148.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20200602130925-20200602160925-00271.warc.gz | en | 0.932751 | 374 | 3.15625 | 3 |
The next time you see fruit flies swarming your over-ripe fruit, you might view them a little differently after reading this.
It turns out those tiny fruit flies might be big myth busters about sleep and the “food coma” phenomenon, and their post-meal behaviors are helping us understand ours.
Just about anyone who’s enjoyed a big meal has experienced feeling drowsy and lethargic afterward – the food coma effect. One popular myth is that eating turkey makes people sleepy because it contains the amino acid tryptophan, but other meats, seeds and nuts actually have higher levels of tryptophan.
So, what really causes sleepiness after a big meal, and what do fruit flies have to do with it?
Recent scientific research using fruit flies revealed that certain types of food promoted sleep in these insects, and like humans, the more they ate, the longer they slept.
William Ja, Ph.D. and associate professor at Scripps Research Institute in Florida, led a team of researchers to develop a system to visually track the food consumption and animal motion to record behavior of fruit flies. They observed that after a meal, the flies slept for a period of 20 to 40 minutes, and those that ate larger portions slept for longer periods of time before returning to a “normal state of wakefulness.”
The research team tried to determine if certain nutrients affected the sleepiness by giving them foods that contained protein, salt and sugar. Only protein and salt affected sleep after eating in this study. It appears another myth is busted: carbohydrates and sugar do not induce food coma and sleep.
The Scripps team and collaborators in the study didn’t stop there. They wanted to determine how -- and which -- brain circuits and cells are associated with post-meal sleepiness. Based on a previous study that showed certain neurons are involved in meal-size regulation, the Scripps scientists showed that the same system of neurons also plays a role in post-meal naps.
Interestingly, they also observed that the fruit fly’s internal clock reduced post-meal drowsiness around dusk, which indicated that this sleepiness can be regulated in flies and humans by other factors or mechanisms in the body.
This and related studies certainly provide valuable data on the relationship between food and sleep and a basis to discovering why sleeping after meals might be beneficial and important for animals and humans.
With further studies, scientists want to answer: Does sleeping after a meal aid digestion? Given what we know about sleep promoting learning and memory, could post-meal sleep help animals form better memories about a food source, making it easier for them to find similar food in the future?
One thing is more certain – fruit flies are more interesting than most of us thought! | <urn:uuid:9b10639b-eae4-4fb1-a91e-e5edaa15dbdd> | CC-MAIN-2020-24 | https://agilitybed.com/blogs/bedtime-stories/what-do-food-coma-fruit-flies-and-sleep-have-in-common | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-24/segments/1590347423915.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20200602064854-20200602094854-00255.warc.gz | en | 0.956554 | 572 | 3.453125 | 3 |
Education is a fundamental aspect of economic development and central to the realisation of human potential. Both Palestinians living under Israeli occupation and Palestinian citizens of Israel, however, experience regular violations of this right, as a result of a series of measures and policies, including underfunding, physical destruction of educational institutions, and prevention of access to schooling for Palestinian children through restrictions on freedom of movement.
The Israeli Ministry of Education took over most schools in Palestine following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Israel created three separate school systems based on ethnicity and religiosity: schools for religious Jews, secular Jews, and Palestinians.1 Since then, the quality of schools across systems has been noticeably different, with Palestinian schools faring the worst.
In 1994, Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem gained some control of their own school system through the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Yet ultimate control of the Palestinian education system continued to rest with Israel. This has created a situation where a dual education system exists, with Palestinian schools providing a lower level of education than Jewish-Israeli schools.2
For Palestinians living in the occupied territories, Israel violates their right to education primarily through restrictions on freedom of movement, which places physical barriers on receiving an education and gives students little to no choice concerning which schools they attend.3 Palestinian children are frequently barred from attending school, and educational life becomes precarious rather than guaranteed.
Inside Israel, Palestinian children’s right to education is not fulfilled due to Israeli discrimination and systematic inequality. Palestinian children who are citizens of Israel attend schools that are understaffed, poorly built, under-resourced and overcrowded.4
Palestinian Bedouin in the Negev have particularly suffered from Israeli policies on education. There were no secondary schools for Negev Bedouin until 1969, and before then, many students had to travel long distances to attend school or simply did not attend at all.5 Today, there are still less educational services for Negev Bedouin than for other Palestinians.
The education system in Gaza is particularly desolate due to Israeli military attacks, the ongoing blockade on Gaza, and a lack of funding. The 2014 war on Gaza particularly hurt the education sector, leaving 258 schools significantly damaged and 26 schools damaged beyond repair.6 Israel has even been found to specifically target schools for destruction.7
For Palestinian refugees, receiving education means reliance on non-governmental organisations like UNRWA, whose schooling facilities are often overcrowded and underfunded. Further funding cuts which have been announced will certainly exacerbate this.8 | <urn:uuid:13d20621-da40-49a4-9ff7-c25582561d99> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.makan.org.uk/right-to-education-overview/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371810617.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20200408041431-20200408071931-00062.warc.gz | en | 0.946264 | 518 | 3.53125 | 4 |
Evidence-Informed Public Health
What is Evidence-Informed Public Health?
The process of distilling and disseminating the best available evidence from research, context and experience, and using that evidence to inform and improve public health practice and policy.
Put simply, it means finding, using and sharing what works in public health.
STEPS in Evidence-Informed Public Health
Click on the diagram below for more information and helpful links to help you understand how to complete each step of the process. Find links to recommended methods and tools from our Registry that are applicable to each step.
A model for evidence-informed decision making in public health
Evidence-informed decision making in public health considers the valuable evidence from a variety of sources:
- community health issues and local context
- existing public health resources
- community and political climate
- the best available research findings
Decision makers must rely on their public health expertise to integrate all relevant factors into any conclusions or recommendations.
For more information about evidence-informed decision making refer to our factsheet.
Check out the Learning Centre for our suite of online modules and other resources to support your Evidence-Informed Public Health skills. | <urn:uuid:fe247d46-27a7-4256-9e8e-6221480cb179> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.nccmt.ca/eiph/index-eng.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011017001/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091657-00017-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904414 | 241 | 3.640625 | 4 |
Inside: Irritable Bowel Syndrome doesn’t just affect adults. Learn more about kids and IBS: how to spot it, what to do, and why going gluten-free isn’t necessarily the answer!
Thank you to Rachel Pauls Food for sponsoring this post!
I’ve always had a sensitive stomach, even as a kid. I remember my mom taking me to the pediatrician, who wasn’t sure how to explain my recurring tummy pain. In college and my early 20s, stress and worry (and a not-so-nutritious diet) added fuel to the fire.
A doctor eventually told me I had Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). And though I was happy to finally have a name for it, I didn’t yet know how to feel better.
Kids Can Have IBS, Too
IBS may be thought of as a grown-up condition, but it actually affects up to 20 percent of kids too. It’s marked by symptoms like gas, bloating, diarrhea, and constipation that really impact quality of life.
Nobody’s sure what exactly causes IBS in kids, but stress seems to aggravate it. Genetics and the balance between good and bad bacteria in the gut may play a role too.
What Are FODMAPs?
What helps a lot of people with IBS is a low-FODMAP diet, which limits certain kinds of carbohydrates—namely ones that tend to be poorly digested by some people such as those found in wheat, beans, dairy, certain fruits and vegetables, and some sugar substitutes.
“FODMAP” stand for the classes of carbohydrates:
For people with IBS, one or more of these classes worsen symptoms like gas and bloating.
What Foods Are High in FODMAPs?
Examples of high-FODMAP foods are:
- chicory root
- ice cream
- apple juice
To figure out which FODMAPs are provoking symptoms, you eliminate all high-FODMAPs foods for a few weeks, then slowly reintroduce them, one class at a time. (Get a free FODMAP Guide and a FODMAPs food list.)
|You might also like: Is This Ingredient Giving You Gas?|
Is it Celiac or IBS?
Trouble is, some parents may confuse their child’s IBS symptoms with celiac disease (which is much less common, affecting only one percent of the population) and cut out gluten. While cutting out wheat may be helpful for some kids with IBS, many gluten-free foods and drinks are actually high in the other FODMAPs.
In a study published in The Journal of Pediatrics, researchers analyzed kid-friendly foods and drinks that were assumed to be low in FODMAPs including breads, snacks, cereal, and dairy alternatives.
They found that many were actually high in FODMAPs, including gluten-free bread, muffins, and cereal. For instance, the gluten-free bread and cereal they tested were both high in fructose (a monosaccharide and the “M” in FODMAPs).
What To Do
The best way to figure out if your child is suffering from IBS (or celiac disease) is to see your pediatrician, who can refer you to a specialist if needed.
IBS may be diagnosed if a child has abdominal pain and discomfort once per week for at least two months, without another disease or injury that could explain the pain. Kids may have constipation or diarrhea, and symptoms often improve after having a bowel movement. You can read more about IBS and kids, including how it’s diagnosed and what tests may be given, here.
If you or your child has IBS and you’re interested in trying the low-FODMAP diet, grab the free FODMAP Guide and a FODMAPs food list at Rachel Pauls Food, where you can also find low-FODMAPs recipes and check out her low-FODMAPs bars and jerky. | <urn:uuid:b65544a3-eb20-4974-9b48-16b72cf79325> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://www.realmomnutrition.com/the-surprising-truth-about-kids-and-ibs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510671.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20230930082033-20230930112033-00328.warc.gz | en | 0.952695 | 912 | 2.53125 | 3 |
By Victoria Turk
Hong Kong’s plans to burn a huge stockpile of seized ivory began today, with 1.2 tons of the stash incinerated in a ceremonial start to the project.
With a total of 29.6 metric tons, the incineration—which will take place in batches of three tons over about a year—is the largest destruction of ivory so far, following on from similar acts in countries including China, the US, and France.
When the city announced its plans in January, it stated the reasons for disposing of the ivory—seized after ending up in the city through illegal trade—as the “management burden” and “security risk” of the forfeited stockpile. But the obvious major reason for destroying the goods is to prevent the risk of any of the seized goods making it back onto the market and take a clear stand against the the practice.
For that reason, the ceremony is really more important than the act itself. As Motherboard’s Derek Mead has pointed out previously, destroying stockpiles won’t immediately deter poachers or kill the market for ivory; it’s about sending a message.
That’s particularly important for Hong Kong, where Brian Adams, a Hong Kong-based consultant for WildAid told me that the market for ivory remains disconcertingly strong despite what should be a dwindling supply of legal products (there’s a legal market for ivory products from before it was banned in 1989).
“Hong Kong is really a hub of the ivory trade, and some of the information that we’re looking at right now shows that the projected supply of ivory that is traded within Hong Kong legally should be running quite low by now. However, that amount of ivory is actually not declining at the rate that has been predicted,” he said.
WildAid is looking into suggestions that Hong Kong’s legal ivory trade may therefore be covering an illegal trade. The problem is, of course, that it’s impossible to know from looking at a piece of ivory when it dates back to, and any certification is forgeable. The trade within Hong Kong can also impact that in other countries; CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wildlife Fauna and Flora) has recognised the city as an “important transit place” for the global trade of ivory.
While the destruction of the stockpile has been hailed as a powerful statement that illegal trade won’t be tolerated and that ivory should not be considered a valuable product, some campaigners want to see all trade of ivory banned. As long as there’s a legal market, they argue, illegal trade will continue. Ahead of the incineration, the Wall Street Journal yesterday reported that three companies committed to no longer selling ivory, which is certainly a step in the right direction—but until all trade is legislated against, there will be a market.
You might think that the destruction of so much ivory could lead to an increase in demand, but Adams explained that’s not the case, as the stockpile has long been off the market. He likened it to the illegal drugs trade. “When heroin is seized and pulled off the streets, it’s not reintroduced to the market,” he said. “It also doesn’t impact the supply or demand by its destruction because it’s already been removed from the market.”
Overall, these acts are expected to decrease demand, again because of the awareness raised. They follow a successful model in China to reduce the trade of shark fin. Despite the popularity of shark fin in Asia, an awareness campaign around the endangered species saw consumption drop by 50 to 70 percent.
WildAid is expecting to see a similar positive impact on the ivory trade after the high profile crushes and burns around the world very soon. “Usually with these campaigns we see some very serious effects around two years,” he said. Reducing the value of ivory in consumers' eyes should then reduce the appeal to traders—and ultimately, of course, cut down on poaching in the first place.
As John Scanlon, secretary-general of CITES put it at today’s event, when it comes to the illegal ivory trade, “the return on the 'investment' will most likely be imprisonment, heavy fines, and seized assets.” | <urn:uuid:85f21ab1-a9cc-4f95-9eec-cb7c09f0e419> | CC-MAIN-2017-34 | http://www.noanimalpoaching.org/animal-poaching-news-2014-2015/hong-kong-is-burning-illegal-ivory-but-the-legal-trade-is-holding-strong | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886102993.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20170817073135-20170817093135-00395.warc.gz | en | 0.955867 | 905 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Inspiring active play for children's health By Drew Johnson
Childhood is a phase of life brimming with energy and enthusiasm. It’s an age characterized by exploration, play and physical activity. However, in this digital era, electronic devices can often overshadow traditional play, hindering children’s physical development. To combat this issue, a delightful and engaging approach is to promote exercise through play, which effectively intertwines the benefits of physical activity with the joy of childhood fun.
Exercise is vital for a child’s overall health, enhancing growth, strengthening muscles, refining motor skills and promoting mental well-being. It has also been linked to improved academic performance and self-esteem. The World Health Organization suggests that children aged 5 to 17 should get at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous-intensity physical activity daily. Encouraging exercise through play can help achieve these recommendations while offering an enjoyable experience to your child. Play-based exercises can be facilitated both indoors and outdoors, involving a variety of activities such as hide and seek, tag, hopscotch, or even structured sports. These games not only support physical fitness but also stimulate cognitive, emotional and social development.
Outdoor play presents numerous opportunities for enjoyable exercise. Encouraging your child to participate in classic games like tag or capture the flag provides them with a cardiovascular workout while promoting teamwork and strategic thinking. Nature walks and bike rides offer a change of scenery and can stimulate curiosity about the environment. Even gardening can be a source of physical activity and a lesson about nature and responsibility. Outdoor playgrounds are another excellent avenue, where climbing, swinging and sliding aid in muscle development and coordination.
Indoor play can be just as beneficial if the weather or other circumstances don’t allow for outside activities. Create a mini-obstacle course using household items, fostering an adventurous spirit and facilitating coordination and problem-solving skills. Games like “Simon Says” or “Musical Chairs” encourage movement while promoting listening skills and quick decision-making. Dance parties can also be a fun way to get your child moving, fostering creativity and rhythm.
While encouraging exercise through play, it’s important to focus on fun rather than competition. Making the activity enjoyable increases the likelihood that the child will continue to engage in physical activity as they grow older. Additionally, it’s crucial to lead by example; children are more likely to follow an active lifestyle if they see their parents or guardians enjoying physical activities.
Involvement in the choice of activity is another crucial aspect. Offer your child a range of games or sports to choose from, catering to their interests and abilities. This autonomy can significantly increase their motivation to participate. Combining play and exercise also paves the way for teaching vital life skills. Games involving teams can develop cooperation and communication skills, while solo games can enhance self-confidence and determination. Additionally, introducing the concepts of friendly competition, winning and losing can help children cope with similar situations in the future.
However, while incorporating exercise into play, remember to ensure safety. All activities should be age-appropriate and conducted in a secure environment. Use safety equipment when necessary, like helmets for bike riding or knee pads for rollerblading. It’s also essential to maintain a balanced approach. Remember that rest and recovery are equally important in a child’s routine. Provide ample time for calm activities such as reading, drawing, or other creative pursuits.
An active childhood sets the foundation for a healthy and happy adulthood. Encouraging exercise through play, while ensuring safety and balance, can truly make fitness an enjoyable part of your child’s life. It is a practical and fun-filled strategy to ensure your child’s health and happiness, ensuring they are well-equipped to face the future.
As a parent or caregiver, it can seem like a daunting task to introduce and maintain an exercise routine for your child, particularly with the allure of screen time and other sedentary activities. However, by making it a playful and enjoyable experience, children are more likely to participate willingly and actively.
To effectively encourage exercise through play, it’s vital to be creative and innovative. Parents can transform mundane chores into fun games. For instance, tidying up can become a race to see who can pick up the most toys in a set time. Even a grocery shopping trip can be made into an activity involving walking and carrying items, while teaching about food groups and healthy choices.
Additionally, technology need not be the enemy of physical activity. There are numerous interactive video games that require physical movement, combining children’s interest in digital platforms with exercise. These games often incorporate dancing, sports and other active pursuits, seamlessly merging screen time with physical activity. Consider involving your child in age-appropriate exercises that you do as well. Yoga, for example, can be introduced with simple poses, creating a shared experience that encourages mindfulness along with physical activity.
Lastly, it’s essential to praise and positively reinforce your child’s engagement in these play-based activities. Recognition of their efforts can go a long way in motivating them to continue. Celebrate their achievements, no matter how small, to instill a sense of accomplishment and positivity toward exercise.
By adopting these strategies, parents can effectively integrate exercise into their child’s daily routine, fostering an enduring appreciation for physical activity. The key lies in making it enjoyable and participatory, effectively ensuring that exercise through play becomes a cherished part of their childhood and beyond. | <urn:uuid:c4246471-83f0-40d4-8bf2-31eb1da0f066> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://www.cdalivinglocal.com/post/fun-in-motion-inspiring-active-play-for-children-s-health | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510575.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20230930014147-20230930044147-00419.warc.gz | en | 0.942893 | 1,132 | 3.296875 | 3 |
Physical pain is never pleasant or welcomed. Nevertheless, it’s necessary for your well-being—pain is your body telling you something isn’t right and needs your attention.
That fully applies to tooth pain. Not all tooth pain is the same—the intensity, location and duration could all be telling you one of a number of things that could be wrong. In a way, pain has its own “language” that can give us vital clues as to what’s truly causing it.
Here are 3 types of tooth pain and what they might be telling you about an underlying dental problem.
Sensitivity to hot or cold. If you’ve ever had a sharp, momentary pain after consuming something hot like coffee or cold like ice cream, this could indicate several causative possibilities. You might have a small area of tooth decay or a loose filling. You might also have an exposed root due to gum recession, which is much more sensitive to temperature or pressure changes. The latter is also a sign of periodontal (gum) disease.
Acute or constant pain. If you’re feeling a severe and continuing pain from one particular area of your teeth (even if you can’t tell exactly which one), this could mean the pulp, the tooth’s innermost layer, has become infected with decay. The pain is emanating from nerves within the pulp coming under attack from the decay. To save the tooth, you may need a root canal treatment to remove the decayed tissue and seal the tooth from further infection. You should see your dentist as soon as possible, even if the pain suddenly stops—that only means the nerves have died, but the decay is still there and threatening your tooth.
Severe gum pain. If there’s an extremely painful spot on your gums especially sensitive to touch, then you may have an abscess. This is a localized area of infection that develops in the gums either as the result of periodontal (gum) disease, or an infection spreading from the tooth pulp into the gum tissues. You’ll need to see a dentist immediately for both pain relief and appropriate treatment (including a possible root canal) to heal the abscessed tissue.
If you would like more information on tooth pain and how to treat it, please contact us or schedule an appointment for a consultation. You can also learn more about this topic by reading the Dear Doctor magazine article “Tooth Pain? Don’t Wait!” | <urn:uuid:f3bb5941-09c8-48b9-8e34-8e5d9ff02743> | CC-MAIN-2020-34 | http://www.raulmontalvodds.com/blog/post/3-types-of-tooth-pain-and-what-they-might-be-telling-you.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-34/segments/1596439735851.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20200804014340-20200804044340-00401.warc.gz | en | 0.954321 | 517 | 2.921875 | 3 |
4. Read the paragraph and answer the question. (1) A few weeks after our family moved into that large mysterious house, I decided to look around the attic to see if the previous owners had left anything interesting. (2) As I crept up the narrow, creaky stairs, I became more curious. (3) Hidden in a corner near the back of the attic was an ancient wooden box. (4) Inside was a worn, wrinkled map with a faded “X” marking the north end of a lake. (5) Beginning on that day, our house seemed much less spooky and far more interesting. Which revision should be made to the paragraph? A. Add a comma after large in sentence 1. B. Remove the comma after narrow in sentence 2. C. Add a comma after ancient in sentence 3. D. Remove the comma after worn in sentence 4. 5. Read the paragraph and answer the question. (1) As the head of postal services, Benjamin Franklin established a profitable mail delivery system in colonial America. (2) The adventurous Franklin traveled some 1,600 miles between postal offices to mark all possible direct routes. (3) He had riders transport mail day and night for faster more productive delivery. (4) He also created a simpler and more standard rating system so postmasters could consistently calculate the price of postage. Where should a comma be added? A. after profitable in sentence 1 B. after possible in sentence 2 C. after faster in sentence 3 D. after simpler in sentence 4 6. Which choice correctly combines the two sentences using coordinate adjectives. I ate the spicy chicken sandwich for lunch. The chicken sandwich was delicious. A. I ate the spicy and delicious chicken sandwich for lunch B. I ate the spicy, delicious chicken sandwich for lunch. C. I ate the spicy delicious, chicken sandwich for lunch D. I ate the spicy delicious chicken sandwich for lunch.
7. How could the following sentence be changed to use coordinate adjectives correctly? Margaret always orders a large, hot, delicious pizza before the football game. A. Move large after delicious and separate them with a comma. B. Move hot before large and remove delicious from the sentence C. Remove large from the sentence and move hot after delicious D. Move large after delicious and do not separate with a comma. 8. Using the changes you selected in the previous question, rewrite the sentence from number 7 so that it uses coordinate adjectives correctly. ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 9. Which choice correctly combines the two sentences using coordinate adjectives. Bethany’s strong perfume permeated the air Bethany’s fragrant perfume permeated the air. A. Bethany’s strong, fragrant perfume permeated the air B. Bethany’s perfume was strong and fragrant. C. Bethany’s strong fragrant perfume permeated the air. D. Bethany’s strong, fragrant, perfume permeated the air 10. Read the paragraph and answer the question. (1) Heathrow Airport in London is one of the world’s busiest most crowded international airports. (2) Traveling through the airport can be hectic and confusing. (3) Workers do their best to assist the many global travelers. (4) These helpful and friendly employees help to direct people from all over the world. Where should a comma be added? A. after busiest in sentence 1 B. after hectic in sentence 2 C. after many in sentence 3 D. after helpful in sentence 4 | <urn:uuid:708c7da2-8601-450c-a493-3cffde52021c> | CC-MAIN-2023-50 | https://edform.com/worksheets/coordinate-adjective-quiz-KAYYEZ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100779.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20231208212357-20231209002357-00043.warc.gz | en | 0.924352 | 724 | 2.765625 | 3 |
What dogs and cats shouldn’t eat.
It can be difficult to keep your dog on the dietary straight and narrow. Many dogs enjoy eating the inappropriate or unusual things.
The basics include don’t eat anything which isn’t food! Eating feces can cause infestation (or reinfestation) with a variety of worms, in addition to creating some stinky breath! Batteries, string or rope, or plants can all be real hazards! Batteries can degrade with stomach acids and release toxins, string or rope can create an obstruction in the intestines requiring surgery, and many plants are toxic in their own right.
NO over-the-counter medications. As humans we think nothing of popping a Tylenol or Advil if we feel achy or sore – even a child’s dose of these medications can KILL a cat instantly and cause liver and kidney damage to dogs that is severe and potentially FATAL. Please call your Veterinarian if you feel your pet is in discomfort for a SAFE medication.
Human foods are often toxic or can cause some severe gastrointestinal consequences.
- Garlic and onions are known to cause a breakdown of red blood cells, which means oxygen won’t be able to get to the tissues.
- Raisins and grapes cause an “idiopathic renal toxicity,” which means the kidneys can shut down due to mechanism which not fully-understood.
- Avocados tend to cause mild stomach upset – except for the pit, which can cause an intestinal obstruction and require surgical removal.
- Undercooked meats, eggs, and bones can cause bacterial and parasitic illness in dogs – just like in people! There is also a concern about bones splintering and breaking, potentially causing your pet to choke.
- Alcohol can cause affect dogs and lead to coma and death at smaller doses than in most humans.
- Citrus can cause significant central nervous system depression if the essential oils (found in the stems, peels, fruit, and seeds) are eaten in significant enough quantities.
- Coconut oils are may cause stomach upset and the water should not be given due to its elevation in potassium
- Nuts can cause vomiting, diarrhea, and a disease called pancreatitis due to the high level of fats and oils. Macadamia nuts can cause weakness, depression, vomiting, tremors, and hyperthermia with signs lasting from 12 hour to 2 days.
- Dairy is not ideally on a cat or dog diet, as they do not have the enzymes that break down dairy. Milk and dairy will usually cause diarrhea or some other digestive upset.
- Xylitol is an artificial sweetener which is in a variety of foods, gums, candies, and even hygiene products like toothpaste. Xylitol – even in very small amounts – causes liver failure, with initial signs of toxicosis including vomiting, lethargy, and loss of coordination.
- Yeast doughs can rise even after being ingested, causing gas to be released into your pet’s digestive tract. This can lead to a life-threatening condition caused gastric dilation and volvulus, which is also very painful.
- Salt and Salty Foods including cold cuts and snack foods can lead to sodium poisoning – beyond the excessive thirst and urination it promotes.
- Mushrooms, wild mushrooms growing outside are not fit for animal or human consumption. Make sure your dog isn’t munching on anything growing wild in the yard.
If you have any concern over something your pet has ingested please call your veterinarian or the Pet Poison Control number: 1-800-213-6600. | <urn:uuid:75d91473-fd5c-48d4-bca0-4ce93aefea2a> | CC-MAIN-2017-43 | http://www.vetcentercity.com/what-not-to-feed-your-pet/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-43/segments/1508187823350.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20171019160040-20171019180040-00213.warc.gz | en | 0.931781 | 756 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Asiatic and Oriental lilies are true lilies, and grow long, strap-like leaves and wide blooms. These plants do best with spring planting, quick-draining soil and full sun, and live for many years with the same bulbs. It's a good idea to prune and deadhead Asiatic lilies during the growing season, to keep them blooming, and then cut them back in fall for their winter dormancy.
Deadhead your lily when the plant is in bloom. Cut the flowers when they open and take them indoors to a vase, or maintain them on the plant and cut them when they fade. Make the cuts at the base of the flower stem, where they join the plant. Cutting the flowers before they go to seed allows the plant to put energy into new blooming and more flowers.
Prune the foliage of the plant during the growing season as well. Cut off brown or yellow foliage at its base to help the plant conserve energy. Plants that receive frequent pruning are healthier and feature more new growth.
Cut the lilies back in fall, after the first frost of the year, when the foliage is dead and comes off easily with pulling. If it doesn't, cut it to 1 to 2 inches long. In warmer areas like United States Department of Agriculture Plant Hardiness Zones 10 and 11, where frost falls late in the year, force the lilies into their dormancy by cutting foliage down to 1 to 2 inches in October or November. The lilies require this resting period for the next year's bloom. | <urn:uuid:d96aad6e-b60d-4695-9868-8678c7fa712f> | CC-MAIN-2020-05 | https://www.hunker.com/12473412/how-do-you-cut-back-asiatic-lilies | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-05/segments/1579250594333.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20200119064802-20200119092802-00020.warc.gz | en | 0.950838 | 322 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Nov. 22, 2017
How It Grows
PropagationIf seeds are used for planting, they should be selected from desirable clones not exposed to cross-pollination by inferior types. They should be cleaned, dried, and dusted with a fungicide. It should also be realized that the seeds in an individual fruit develop unevenly and only those that are fully developed when the fruit is ripe will germinate satisfactorily. Germination rates may be only 50% or as low as 5%. Seedlings should be transferred from flats to containers when 2 to 3 in (5-7.5 cm) high.
Air-layering (in summer) and side-veneer, cleft, or modified crown grafting are feasible but not popular because it is so much easier to raise the tree from cuttings. Cuttings of branches 1/4 to 1/2 in (6-12.5 mm) thick and 8 to 10 in (20-25 cm) long, with 2 or 3 leaves attached, hormone-treated and set in sand or other suitable media under constant or intermittent mist, will root in 60 days. They are then transplanted to nursery rows or containers and held in shade for 6 months or a year before being set out in the field. Some fruits will be borne a year after planting but a good crop cannot be expected until the 3rd or 4th year. The tree will continue bearing well for about 15 years. There is a lapse of only 22 days between flowering and complete fruit maturity.
Grafting is generally practiced only when cuttings of a desired clone are scarce or if a nematode-resistant rootstock is available on which to graft a preferred cultivar; or when top-working a tree that bears fruits of low quality.
CultureThe Barbados cherry tree will grow and fruit fairly well with little care. For best performance, Puerto Rican agronomists have recommended a fertilizer formula of 8-8-13 twice annually for the first 4 years at the rate of 1/2 to 1 lb (0.22-0.45 kg). Older trees should have 3 to 5 lbs (1.35-2.25 kg) per tree. In addition, organic material should be worked into the planting hole and also supplied in amounts of 10 to 20 lbs (4.5-9 kg) per tree. Under Florida conditions, a 10-10-10 formula is given in February, 1 lb (0.22 kg) for each year of growth. In May, July and September, a 4-7-5-3 formula is recommended, 1 lb (0.22 kg) for each year of age up to the 10th year. Thereafter, a 6-4-6-3 mixture is given-5 lbs (2.25 kg) per tree in late winter and 10 lbs (4.5 kg) per tree for each of the summer feedings. On limestone soils, sprays of minor elements-copper, zinc, and sometimes manganese-will enhance growth and productivity. Young trees need regular irrigation until well established; older trees require watering only during droughts. Mature plants will bear better if thinned out by judicious pruning after the late crop and then fertilized once more. | <urn:uuid:db1ab3d1-8433-4542-920d-6e6cd3aafbec> | CC-MAIN-2017-47 | http://www.acerolajuice.com/how.php?MENU=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-47/segments/1510934806569.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20171122103526-20171122123526-00357.warc.gz | en | 0.939147 | 675 | 2.859375 | 3 |
As of mid-April 2020, there have been nearly 2 million confirmed cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and more than 100 000 people have died.1 This historic pandemic has upended daily life globally and forced rationing in some of the world’s most high-income countries. To stem escalation of COVID-19, the World Health Organization has called for the deferral of elective surgery to divert personnel and equipment to patients with COVID-19. Thus, in the near term, surgical care is largely restricted to patients with the most severe illnesses and patients who are symptomatic and hospitalized (with any condition). Surgeons will also provide surgical and critical care for patients with COVID-19, a life-threatening virus that gives some affected individuals severe dyspnea or the need for a ventilator and thus isolates them from loved ones within days or weeks of onset. The experience in China and Italy warns other countries that the upcoming months will bring immeasurable pain to patients, families, and clinicians. | <urn:uuid:192f6ab9-af46-4f95-aa52-6e945948c99f> | CC-MAIN-2023-14 | https://edhub.ama-assn.org/jn-learning/module/2765182 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296949035.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20230329213541-20230330003541-00280.warc.gz | en | 0.956051 | 215 | 2.625 | 3 |
By its very mechanism, mRNA technology cannot alter our DNA, but an entirely different technology can, such as CRISPR which is a candidate to make mankind resistant chromosomally. Furthermore, the role of an mRNA vaccine is ONLY to trigger natural immune system response to create necessary antibodies and memory T cells. The vaccine itself does NOT remain, destroyed within a few hours. The vaccinated cells are also killed by our immune system. What remains is only our enhanced immune system that remembers Covid (the actual memory length is still being improved), just like the effect of a regular vaccine. For these reasons, mRNA technology (unlike CRISPR) is not on a slippery slope to Transhumanism.
Since the residue of mRNA Vaccine treatment is simply a better trained but still naturally functioning immune system, taking the vaccine is NOT a transhumanist action (because no new capability is added). Replacing your cornea to avoid glaucoma or replacing your prostate to avoid cancer is also NOT a transhumanist action since the function of the new organ remains the same. Please read the longer answer for the full explanation.
The answer has 4 parts:
- clarifying how mRNA is never designed to alter DNA
- brief description of the application of natural law reasoning to improve health using medical technology
- answering your 2nd question by first establishing the red line separating the allowed vs. disallowed (such as transhumanism) and then explaining the morality of using mRNA for an individual
- answering your 1st question by first explaining the morality of the technology development of mRNA and then addressing the concern of slippery slope toward transhumanism by previewing the future use of the mRNA technology
How the mRNA vaccine works
Very short summary
The mRNA vaccine works by giving synthetically constructed instruction to our cells (based on real virus genetic sequencing) to make copies for a part of the virus.
After our cells make copies of the protein, they destroy the genetic material from the vaccine. Our bodies recognize that the protein should not be there and build T-lymphocytes and B-lymphocytes that will remember how to fight the virus that causes COVID-19 if we are infected in the future.
(Source: Understanding How COVID-19 Vaccines Work)
mRNA vaccine does NOT modify DNA
By design, an mRNA vaccine is supposed to work only within the cytoplasm of the cell, never entering the area where the DNA resides (the nucleus).
There can be unintentional (but extremely rare) exceptions, but is still not dangerous:
... One is where genetic elements, known as retro-transposons, hijack cellular mRNA, convert it into DNA and insert that DNA back into your genetic material.
This has occurred sporadically throughout evolution, producing some ancient copies of mRNAs scattered throughout our genome, to form so-called pseudogenes.
However, there is a vanishingly small chance of a naturally occurring retro-transposon becoming active in a cell that has just received a mRNA vaccine. ...
Even if a retro-transposon were to become active or a virus such as HIV were present, the chances of it finding the COVID vaccine mRNA, among the tens of thousands of natural mRNAs, is extremely unlikely. That’s because vaccine mRNA is degraded within several hours of entering the body.
Even if vaccine mRNA did become a pseudogene, it would not produce the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but just one of the viral products, the harmless spike protein.
Source: June 2021 article Can the Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccines affect my genetic code?
Natural Law application to medical technology
Natural law morality reasoning is built on
- what is natural (original design)
- final end (proper operation of perfect nature)
- intention (goal of action, which needs to be aligned to target the 'final end').
What is the "natural" in this case? The "natural" is the perfect natural human. I emphasize perfect to distinguish it from disability (such as born with one eye, or with Down syndrome) or disease (from common flu to covid to cancer).
A perfect natural human has the best physique & mind possible that Adam and Eve would have had prior to the Fall (except for death), who has the potential to
- have musical intelligence like Mozart
- win several Olympic gold medals (without performance enhancing drugs)
- discover scientific theories like Einstein
- make inventions like Thomas Edison
- never be sick, but will STILL die a natural death (through natural degeneration)
I will approach both questions in terms of whether the technology will reasonably align with a natural final end (prevent sickness) with as little non-natural side effect as possible.
Answering your second question
- If mRNA vaccines are not transhumanist in nature, when it is injecting your body with a synthetic mechanism to prevent (not treat) a disease, how is it less transhumanist than replacing your cornea to avoid glaucoma or replacing your prostate to avoid cancer?
I answer in two parts:
- Definition of transhumanism and what types of actions are allowed under natural law
- Whether the taking of an mRNA vaccine is allowed under natural law
Definition of transhumanism and what is allowed under natural law
Let's use a working definition of Transhumanism as "using technology to permanently add abilities that a perfect natural human will never have".
First let's consider scenarios that are allowed by natural law to highlight certain distinctions:
As long as medical technologies (including mRNA vaccines) are used to prevent sickness and to prolong the life of a person naturally born, I think the actions are still allowed under natural law because these technologies are helping humans to be closer to a perfect but natural human (who should not be sick and who should live to a natural old age). No technologies we know of today can prevent death (when there is, we'll revisit this point).
When the cure of a disability / disease results in enhancing a human's ability beyond what a perfect human could ever be (i.e. titanium leg is stronger, cochlear implant can be more sensitive, artificial heart gives more stamina, tooth implant lasts longer), this is still allowed under natural law because
- the enhancement is accidental (i.e. the titanium leg, cochlear implant, artificial heart or tooth implant was not given by intentionally ripping out a healthy leg/ear/heart/tooth).
- the design (intention) is to not to add, but merely to replace, the function of the original organ.
Even proactive replacements of organs are allowed if the case can be reasonably made that the original organ will fail prematurely without intervention, such as in the examples you mentioned: replacing your cornea to avoid glaucoma or replacing your prostate to avoid cancer. The key criteria is the same as in the previous scenario: not to intentionally ripping out healthy organ, not to intentionally add function.
Non-permanent enhancements attached to the body such as the use of night vision goggles by a soldier (to enhance vision) or a bio-neural interface of a fighter jet pilot (to enhance brain) or even semi permanent implants (which can be surgically removed) such as biometric chip (to facilitate security), are also okay under natural law because they are considered tools (by definition, non-permanent) that humans for millennia have used starting from stone age axe and hunting bow.
In contrast, a transhumanist wants to intentionally add a new permanent ability to a healthy individual beyond the potential of a natural perfect human described above. Hypothetical examples: genetic enhancement that produce humans like X-men, implanting a computer in the brain to enhance cognitive function, adding a third arm genetically / biologically. Permanent intentional non-accidental addition is the red line separating allowed vs. disallowed action under natural law.
Whether the taking of an mRNA vaccine is allowed under natural law
The concern is because the mRNA vaccine is synthetic, proactively done (as in scenario #3) and potentially enhances our immune system beyond the usual (as in scenario #2, see Immune Response From mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines Is More Robust Than Natural Infection).
As is usual in natural law, the scope of morality is the single action evaluated on a case by case basis. The scope here is whether the individual's decision to take the shot of an mRNA vaccine is allowed. I think it is allowed because the intention is to prevent sickness and the course of action aligns with a final end that is natural (i.e. consistent with the natural functioning of the immune system; the enhancement itself is accidental).
Whether the vaccine is synthetic (mRNA) or natural is irrelevant in this case, since the end result in BOTH cases is the SAME: that our natural immune system is being "trained" to fight future real-virus infection. It is similar to the training data for a neural net model in a machine learning system. The only difference is that the mRNA vaccine (which is synthetically generated, and which disappears within a few hours) uses our body to create the actual training data. Neither the mRNA vaccine nor the partial-virus copies (the training data) modifies the DNA or cross the germline since both operate only within the cytoplasm area.
CONCLUSION: the taking mRNA vaccine lies within scenario #3 (proactive prevention of the failure of a natural function), similar to proactive cornea/prostrate replacement when there is a reasonable chance that the immune system / cornea / prostrate would be endangered in the future if we do not take action. This is similar to vaccinating kids with polio / smallpox vaccine. All of these are NOT considered transhumanist actions.
Answering your first question
Now we are ready to address your first question, which deals with the technology development rather than the moral situation of taking the vaccine:
- If mRNA vaccines look like they're useful, an obvious better vector than a shot for stopping a disease would be to make mankind resistant chromosomally, does the mRNA vaccine represent a staging area for the efficacy of such a treatment and therefore represent a first step in a slippery slope that we should reject?
As described in the first section above, we need to keep in mind that the mRNA technology so far:
- is not designed for the intentional modification of the DNA (only staying in the cytoplasm, not in the nucleus)
- is only used to bolster the natural human immune system for a natural end (prevent sickness)
Intention-wise (as far as natural law is concerned) it is thus the same with the older vaccine technologies that we have been using such as polio & flu (inactivated), smallpox (virus vector), measles (live-attenuated), hepatitis B (protein subunit) (see the article linked above).
How about the future use of mRNA? A Jan 2021 interview with Derrick Rossi (co-founder of Moderna) discussing future use of the mRNA technology within 15 years shows the following application:
- creating vaccines for other diseases such as flu
- treatment for diseases such as cystic fibrosis, cancer and HIV
- make advances in anti-aging research
A more extensive March 2021 article from Wired magazine previews more potential use of mRNA technology: The mRNA vaccine revolution is just beginning.
From those articles we can see how the projected path of mRNA development in the next 15 years is still limited to fighting diseases and prolonging life.
While there are signs that mRNA could add unnatural functionality (mice injected with mRNA encoded for the protein that makes fireflies light up causes the mice to have a glowing spot one hour later), the addition is temporary, and is usually only for diagnostic / experiment (see this paper In a possible step forward for gene therapy, Stanford researchers made mice glow like fireflies). As long as the mRNA use is intended for gene therapy it is still allowed by natural law.
A more relevant technology that a transhumanist would use is CRISPR, a tool to edit DNA for permanent effect. If one uses CRISPR to edit unborn fetus's DNA, it is possibly against natural law, but still depends on the intention of use. It is probably okay if it is to prevent future sickness (which makes it to fall under scenario #3).
CONCLUSION: Given the projection of the use of the mRNA technology in the next 15 years and given the inherent limit of its applicability (temporary effect), mRNA technology is NOT likely to be on a slippery slope to transhumanism, compared to CRISPR which certainly IS. | <urn:uuid:19c5b4cf-aaa8-4f06-a3e4-688cdc315712> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/84234/according-to-catholic-bioethics-are-mrna-vaccines-a-transhumanist-slippery-slope | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510810.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20231001073649-20231001103649-00759.warc.gz | en | 0.934831 | 2,630 | 3.171875 | 3 |
What is the spirit of the law?
Question: "What is the spirit of the law?"
Answer: The “spirit of the law” is often contrasted to the “letter of the law.” In that context, the spirit of the law has to do with the deeper meaning or reason for the law, whereas the letter of the law refers to exact wording, literally applied, without regard for any deeper meaning. Children are good at emphasizing the letter of the law to the exclusion of the spirit of it. The following example may help:
A child comes home from school and is told, “Do not watch TV until you finish your homework.” A few minutes later, his mother finds him watching cartoons on his tablet, with his homework untouched. The child protests that his mom only told him not to watch TV—she never said anything about watching cartoons on a tablet. In this example, the child has kept the letter of the law, but he has violated the spirit of the law. If the mother had said, “Finish your homework before you watch cartoons,” then perhaps the child would have watched a baseball game instead—once again keeping the letter of the law. She could have been even more specific: “Do not watch any kind of show on any electronic device until you finish your homework,” but then the child might decide to go outside and play, leaving his unfinished homework inside. The frustrated mom could have said, “Don’t do anything until you finish your homework,” but the child, taking it literally, could then claim to be unable to open his book bag to get his homework. Obviously, focusing on the letter of the law can be a tactic to negate the intent or spirit of the law.
Leviticus 19:14 says, “Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind.” Here the letter of the law forbids exactly two things: cursing the deaf and tripping up the blind. However, no law can explicitly cover every possible situation. The spirit of the law in Leviticus 19:14 forbids taking advantage of the disabilities of another, no matter what those disabilities are. The letter of the law may be narrow, but the spirit of the law encompasses something far broader—and is therefore more difficult to obey. It is possible to go through life without ever cursing a deaf man or tripping a blind man, but it is far more difficult to never take advantage of someone else’s weakness.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus interprets the Mosaic Law according to the spirit of the law, not the letter. The law forbade murder, but Jesus said that anger or mockery makes one guilty of murder, because the same attitudes that produce murder first produce anger and contempt (see Matthew 5:21–22). The law forbade adultery, but Jesus said a lustful look is adultery in the heart. A man who never touches a woman other than his wife but who indulges in sexual fantasies is obeying the letter of the law, but not the spirit of it (see Matthew 5:27–28). And, according to Jesus, obeying the letter of the law but not its spirit is not an option.
When Jesus was asked about the most important commandment, He invoked the spirit of the law: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37–40). Every Old Testament law and every standard of behavior for the Christian can be summed up in these two commands because they embody the spirit of the law; that is, the two greatest commandments express the ultimate point of all the other laws.
In Luke 10 a teacher of the law, “wishing to justify himself,” asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” (verse 29). It might be possible to keep the command to “love your neighbor as yourself” if neighbor is defined narrowly enough. Jesus’ response is the story of the Good Samaritan, in which He demonstrates that your neighbor is anyone you come into contact with. In fact, the real question is not “who is my neighbor?” but “who will I be a neighbor to?” The spirit of the law requires that we be neighborly in a proactive manner, looking for people who need help. Ultimately, none of us are able to keep this law perfectly, in letter or in spirit, and we are therefore convicted as sinners in need of a Savior.
People who focus on the letter of the law often point to their compliance as a means to justify themselves, even as they flagrantly violate the law’s intent; however, God will judge according to the spirit of the law, not just the letter.
Recommended Resource: The End of the Law: Mosaic Covenant in Pauline Theology by Jason Meyer
More insights from your Bible study - Get Started with Logos Bible Software for Free!
What does it mean that love is the fulfillment of the law in Romans 13:8?
What is the greatest commandment?
What is the new commandment?
What did Jesus mean when He said, “If you love me keep my commandments”?
What is the law of liberty?
Miscellaneous Bible Questions
What is the spirit of the law? | <urn:uuid:a69127b6-ff8a-49df-8c55-c95b6106be44> | CC-MAIN-2020-05 | https://www.gotquestions.org/spirit-of-the-law.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-05/segments/1579250592565.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20200118110141-20200118134141-00462.warc.gz | en | 0.96753 | 1,147 | 3.140625 | 3 |
Whether it is buying a lottery ticket, placing a bet on the horses or playing video games, gambling involves putting something of value at risk on an uncertain event, in return for a potential reward. It is a form of recreation that can be entertaining, but it should always be seen as an expense, not a way to make money. It is also important to recognize that there is a danger of compulsive gambling, which can be very difficult to overcome.
It can be helpful to seek help for underlying mood disorders, which can both trigger gambling problems and be made worse by them. Treatment can include medication and psychotherapy. Cognitive-behavioral therapy focuses on changing unhealthy gambling behaviors and thoughts, including rationalizations and false beliefs. It can teach you how to manage cravings and deal with the financial, work, and relationship problems that result from problem gambling.
The key to avoiding gambling addiction is to prevent it before it starts. A few simple steps can make all the difference: | <urn:uuid:9e096cea-d953-4731-b05c-c1cd611e6140> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://friendsofswitzerland.org/how-to-avoid-gambling-addiction/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233511053.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20231003024646-20231003054646-00005.warc.gz | en | 0.961976 | 197 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) affect 1 in 110 children; and 1 in 70 boys according to Autism Speaks. Individuals with ASD may have difficulties with social situations, communication, and verbal interaction. They may also be hypersensitive to bright lights, loud sound, touch, odors, or taste which can lead to negative dental experiences if ignored. Here are a few tips for successful dental visits if your child is affected by ASD.
Consistency is key for developing a long term dental relationship. End each visit on a positive note and build upon the success of every office visit.
It may take several visits in order to complete one dental exam. Work with the dentist to find positive solutions for difficult situations.
Communication is the cornerstone of a successful first visit. The dentist wants the visit to be a positive one too. Be sure to share medical history and behavioral issues with the dental team.
Think about alternatives to drills and shots. Dental lasers are quieter than noisy drills and safer for ASD patients. Dr. Amy Luedemann-Lazar treats autistic children at her practice in Katy, Texas. She says, “I can do almost any procedure without using shots. I use dental lasers for filllings, crowns, pulpotomies, frenectomies, gingivectomies and even some extractions. Lasers make children much more relaxed and happy to come to the dentist.”
Find a Dentist
Finding the right dentist for your child can be a long and tedious process. Look for a dentist that works successfully with ASD patients. Find a doctor who is interested in developing a relationship with your child. The Autism Speaks Resource Guide can help find a dentist in your area. | <urn:uuid:4f4d8b8d-305d-4fe2-9b32-6129a7c22503> | CC-MAIN-2017-39 | http://blog.biolase.com/waterlase/better-dental-visits-for-your-autistic-child | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-39/segments/1505818687766.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20170921115822-20170921135822-00171.warc.gz | en | 0.92551 | 353 | 3.09375 | 3 |
TIG welding is a course of involving the becoming a member of of two metals by the tactic of heating along with an arc between a non-consumable tungsten electrode and the focused steel. TIG welding course of can also be recognized to scale back the distortion within the welding joint primarily due to the utilization of the concentrated warmth supply. For this welding course of, particular gear like a TIG Welding Machine is required, which is a summarized engineered number of inverter-based TIG machines, these days, getting compliance with new industrial requirements? These welding machines are often fabricated with the highest quality supplies and are used to weld aluminum, copper, stainless-steel, and titanium. Though a brand new expertise product HTS-2000 is taking the Nation by storm now with 50,000 happy prospects worldwide. are fairly widespread among the many prospects for offering higher accuracy in dimension and in addition capability to ship most efficiency for a protracted time frame. Simpler and stronger than utilizing an aluminum TIG welder machine for welding aluminum HTS-2000 additionally offers unparalleled efficiency higher than Stick or TIG welding utility. Our supplies out carry out welding for ease, expense and energy, to see extra please go to our web site Soldering of aluminum Aluminum base alloys or aluminum could be soldered nearly by the identical course of just like these, that are used for different metals. Response soldering and abrasion are extra generally used with aluminum solder than with another metals. Nevertheless, soldering of aluminum wants particular fluxes. Aluminum soldering is though fairly easy however related to quite a few important points that require additional tight management. As well as, care must be taken whereas selecting the alloys because the potential galvanic corrosion could occur primarily because of the dissimilarity of aluminum with different totally different standard solders. Subsequently, the types of gauges, aluminum alloys, and tempers typically broadly spotlight the various soldering outcomes, and the method relating to the acceptance or rejection of warmth by aluminum on the time of soldering course of should be rigorously studied beforehand. HTS-2000 is far stronger than any solder even stronger than welding and our supplies out carry out welding for ease, expense and energy, to see extra please go to our web site Uplift Your Idea about Varied Aluminum Welding Merchandise The utilization of aluminum tooling is now changing into widespread day-to-day. At current, varied purposes of aluminum welding merchandise are quickly rising primarily because of its value effectiveness, energy, and light-weight. Nevertheless, even those that have intensive expertise and data in welding, these folks additionally discover welding aluminum a bit difficult. For this, it’s worthwhile to select the suitable wire and the right welding approach for higher and efficient restore. Repairing with aluminum Normally, the aluminum restore rods are a lot more durable than delicate metal, which minimizes the distortion of mum or dad materials on the time of welding course of. Moreover, such kind of high-strength aluminum brazing rod means that you can fabricate or restore aluminum stronger than another welding machines together with the TIG welding machine. To do that repairing course of, you possibly can comply with new restore expertise HTS-2000 along with a warmth supply, oxy-acetylene, turbo tip, and the repairing materials. You possibly can simply performthis repairing approach properly on forged aluminum, copper, pot steel, magnesium, and all different porous white metals. As repairing with aluminum welding sticks or different aluminum brazing merchandise work on low temperature with none fumes or fluxes and in addition are wonderful corrosion resistance, subsequently, you possibly can simply use HTS-2000 for repairing oil-impregnated or corroded areas, that are tough to repair with any welding machines. Our supplies out carry out welding for ease, expense and energy, to see extra please go to our web site Different repairing strategies With the developments in metallurgy, HTS-2000 is developed to be the quickest, best, and strongest brazing rod that efficiently joins all types of aluminum alloys, together with these, which aren’t repaired by high-temperature brazing. Being comprised of 9 alloys, it’s a distinctive low-heat brazing fluxless stand-alone rod, particularly for nonferrous metals. Furthermore, in contrast to different merchandise, it doesn’t require any particular or metal cleansing brushes. In the course of the repairing course of with this rod, it’s usually drawn over the heated aluminum and thus it penetrates simply by the aluminum oxide floor, creating a powerful molecular bond with none electrochemical corrosion. Likewise, this rod efficiently joins in protected or regular environments, that are evaluated as extremely sturdy, corrosion resistant, everlasting, and stronger by varied examinations. Our supplies out carry out welding for ease, expense and energy, to see extra please go to our web site In distinction, for all different ferrous or onerous floor alloys like metal, copper, brass, nickel, forged iron, and many others. the repairing or fabrication is principally accomplished through the use of specifically designed in flux HTS-528 rods. It’s the strongest brazing thin-flowing rod that successfully used for close-fit becoming a member of in addition to repairing of greater than 50 totally different sorts of metal and a number of other different dissimilar metals. The 528 rod is simply the proper to be used in high-heat purposes, akin to high-stress areas or a forged iron manifold, together with repairing cracks in blocks, becoming a member of of forged iron ears, or changing sheet steel of rusty ground of your automotive. Our supplies out carry out welding for ease, expense and energy, to see extra please go to our web site Little additional about welding of aluminum Aluminum is a mushy, light-weight, low energy steel that may simply be forged, welded, shaped, machined, or cast. Aluminum or aluminum alloys thus could be readily repaired or joined by brazing, soldering, and even welding course of like carbon-arc, metal-arc, and many others. Nevertheless, in lots of cases, aluminum welding requires standard strategies along with different specialised gear. Our supplies HTS-2000 and HTS-528 out carry out welding for ease, expense and energy, to see extra please go to our web site. | <urn:uuid:654e3784-db69-47ef-a840-41dbd8bd94ce> | CC-MAIN-2020-05 | http://www.homesdecorate.us/storage-garage/tig-welding-of-aluminum.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-05/segments/1579250614880.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20200124011048-20200124040048-00425.warc.gz | en | 0.931436 | 1,295 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Human Rights in Ireland welcomes this guest post on the marriage equality referendum and children’s rights from Prof. Ursula Kilkelly. Ursula is Dean of UCC School of Law and an international expert in rights of the child.
Debate on the proposed constitutional amendment introducing marriage equality into Irish law has been dominated by its potential impact on children. Claims have been made that children have a right to a mother and a father which will be violated by granting same sex couples the right to marry. It has been argued that the extension of marriage to same sex couples will redefine the family under the Constitution with consequences for children’s interests and rights, especially in the creation of families through surrogacy, donor assisted human reproduction (DAHR) and adoption. This post responds to these assertions while arguing that in fact the adoption of marriage equality will strengthen children’s rights in Ireland.
Marriage grants no right to have children, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, and confers no entitlement to create a family through adoption, surrogacy or DAHR. Indeed, family law matters concerning children are determined by what is in the best interests of the child and this will not change with marriage equality. Adoption law requires that the welfare of the child is the paramount consideration and Irish law was recently strengthened so that the child’s best interests are paramount in guardianship, custody and access matters. In addition, the Children and Family Relationships Act 2015 requires the courts to have regard to a range of factors or circumstances relevant to the child and his/her family when making decisions in this area, in a measure that will mean an even greater focus on the child’s interests in such decision-making. Although the 2015 Act includes some measures designed to protect information as to the child’s identity when born through DAHR, comprehensive legislation governing surrogacy and assisted reproduction is long overdue. This is clearly necessary to protect the rights of all children born in this way, whether their parents are married or unmarried, heterosexual or same sex couples. Despite its importance, the need for a comprehensive regulatory and legislative regime for surrogacy and D/AHR exists independently of any constitutional proposal for marriage equality.
International human rights law recognises the importance of parents to children and their development. However, no right to a mother and a father has been recognised either by International or by Irish law. Rather, what international law protects is a child’s right to respect for family life and family relationships. This is particularly evident from the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights given effect in Irish law in the European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003. This makes clear that family life – the existence of close personal ties which can be based on biological and/or social relationships – is worthy of legal protection under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)– adopted by Ireland and 192 other states – reflects the importance of the family to children noting in its Preamble that a child ‘should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding’. The CRC refers interchangeably to ‘parents’ and ‘legal guardians’ and makes no reference to ‘marriage’ or ‘married parents’; it does not mention ‘fathers’ at all and refers to ‘mothers’ only in the context of pre and postnatal care. Importantly, the terms ‘family’ and ‘family environment’ are repeatedly mentioned throughout the Convention and, in provisions like Article 5, the CRC adopts an inclusive approach to the family, incorporating a range of family forms including the extended family community. The CRC acknowledges that some children cannot be cared for by their birth or biological parents for a multitude of legitimate reasons (which have nothing to do with the children themselves) and it is implicit in the Convention that no one particular family type can fulfil children’s needs.
The CRC recognises the right of the child as far as possible to know and be cared for by his/her parents, while also providing for the right of the child to maintain contact with them. However, the CRC cannot be used to assert that every child has an absolute right to be raised by his/her birth, biological or genetic parents. Again, the emphasis here is on providing protection for the child’s family relationships, rather than entitling the child to be reared only by his/her biological mother and father. The child’s right to identity (of which genetic identity is just one part) although important, is distinct and separate from the question of who provides the child with family care. What is important to children’s well-being – and frequently to children themselves – is not simply who their biological or birth parents are, but the quality of the care, support and security that they receive in their families in the here and now. Research increasingly shows that the quality of children’s relationships with their carers is what affects children’s lives and life chances.
We know that for various reasons marriage often (although clearly not always) provides the stability that children need to develop and grow with confidence. Its legal protections set it apart from other forms of relationship recognition and registration, including civil partnership which in Ireland ignores children altogether. Civil marriage is an important commitment, undertaken by those who desire formal, public endorsement of their relationship and it confers important legal protections to the parties. While it has been deemed legitimate in certain circumstances to treat a married couple different from an unmarried couple, it is not permissible to discriminate against children on the basis of their parents’ marital status. Although the unjust concept of ‘illegitimacy’ has been abolished, children in non-marital families – including but not limited to children whose parents are a same sex couple – continue to experience inferior treatment under the law. Although the Children and Family Relationships Act 2015 makes it easier for guardians to be appointed to children in such situations, it remains the case that their relationship with their parents does not attract the same legal protection as children born to married parents. It follows therefore that rather than undermine children’s interests and rights, the adoption of marriage equality would represent further progress to equalise the position of all children. In particular, it would offer children the benefit of the legal protections that marriage affords regardless of whether it preceded or succeeded their arrival into the relationship. For children, none of these things matter.
Despite the changing nature of the Irish family, we continue to idolise marriage as if it were the only family form in existence and the only way to provide children with the love and security that they need. The irony is that notwithstanding the pledge of the Irish Constitution, Ireland has never fulfilled its promise to protect the family and our dismal record in the protection of the rights of children is known worldwide. If Ireland were a truly child-friendly state we would ensure by law that all children are entitled without discrimination to respect for their family relationships. We would put in place a legal regime that respects and protects children equally regardless of their different circumstances and the diversity of their families and that protects children’s rights regardless of how they were conceived and to whom. And we would permit those who wish to do so to marry and separately, set the bar high for everyone – regardless of gender or sexual orientation – with the legal responsibility to support, protect and nurture children. | <urn:uuid:21756616-ba71-4a0a-9c89-97ba39d0ea3d> | CC-MAIN-2017-34 | http://humanrights.ie/children-and-the-law/childrens-rights-and-marriage-equality/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886117911.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20170823074634-20170823094634-00480.warc.gz | en | 0.963712 | 1,520 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Ankle Sprains Children and Teenagers
By: Robert H. Sheinberg, D.P.M., D.A.B.F.A.S., F.A.C.F.A.S.
Why are injuries common in children?
- Competitive Sports are becoming a greater part of the lives of young families. There are more kids competing in multiple sports. Many young athletes are improperly conditioned and may have structural abnormalities that predispose them to injury. The growing portion of the bone (growth plate) is susceptible to stress and trauma. Their immature skeletal system is more predisposed to injury than the adult.
What are the most common injuries?
- Ankle, knee and wrist growth plate injuries are the most common. During sports a tremendous amount of stress goes through these joints. This is especially true in soccer and basketball.
How do injuries occur?
- Injuries may occur from falls (skateboard, rollerblades), direct trauma (getting kicked), twisting motions (turning the foot under the ankle, twisting the knee), repetitive motion (tendonitis) and overuse (stress fractures).
What makes injuries in children and teenagers different from adults?
- Fractures and sprains in children result from relatively simple injuries, rather than complex mechanical forces that usually cause adult injuries. Injuries may involve specific growth regions (growth plates) of bone, causing disturbances of bone growth. Bone growth problems may not manifest themselves immediately.
- Ligaments are looser in children than in adults. Also, they are more resistant to stress than growth plates. Therefore, ligament injuries occur less often in kids than do growth plate injuries.
- Bone remodeling in a growing child may in some cases realign a fracture that looks slightly out of place making absolute anatomic reduction less important in children than adults. However, exact reduction should be attempted whenever possible when treating a child or teenager with a broken bone.
How does a parent know if the injury is a medical emergency?
- A significant amount of swelling is seen and pain is severe.
- The extremity looks visually distorted or out of place compared to the uninjured side.
- A fracture may be associated with a break in the skin. Bone may be sticking out (open fracture).
- Immediate swelling and the inability to move the injured area. There will be extreme difficulty weightbearing or using the extremity.
Will my child need surgery?
In almost all cases fractures and sprains in children and teenagers are treated conservatively with casts, boots and braces. Certain injuries are medical emergencies and will need operative intervention. These may include:
- Significant displacement of the fracture-that cannot be put into proper position with manipulation and casting.
- Open Fractures (bone sticking out through the skin).
- Compartment Syndrome (severe swelling).
- Dislocations that cannot be reduced and/or cause nerve and arterial injuries.
What is the best treatment available?
- Treatment involves a thorough history of the injury and physical examination of the injured area. Predisposing factors must be identified. X rays and occasionally MRIs and CT scans are taken to reveal the extent of the injury. Most minor injuries may be treated with rest, ice, compression, and elevation. More significant injuries may require a weightbearing or non-weightbearing cast or brace. Severe injuries may require surgery if conservative care does not or will not achieve an acceptable result. Delayed healing or non-healing (nonunion) of fractures is rare.
- Prognosis is usually excellent if the fractured bone or growth plate is anatomically positioned.
Do children heal quickly?
- The younger the child, the more rapid the healing time of the fracture or sprain.
Are there any long-term concerns?
- Growth plate injuries may cause disturbance of bone growth. Fractures of the leg may cause limb-length discrepancies and joint malalignment. Untreated wrist injuries can cause premature arthritis. The child is followed with exams and x-rays until skeletal maturity. The tendency to cease follow up care may result in subsequent presentation of significant growth deformities. Fractures into the foot, ankle, wrist or knee joint may cause arthritis in that joint at a later time. This occurs most often if the joint fracture heals in poor alignment.
How do we know if my child is ready to resume sports?
- We check the injury frequently and inform you if the injury has healed enough to resume sports. You will also notice that your child will have minimal disturbance of gait (no limping). Pain free use of the hand, arm or leg are usually present. Stiffness and swelling are usually minimal. Always check for pinpoint tenderness as this is indicative of incomplete healing. Children often try to get back into sports too quickly after an injury. A gradual, guarded and sensible return to sports should be the rule.
- Physical therapy may be necessary to restore full motion of the joint, restore muscle strength and balance.
How do we avoid injuries?
- Certain children may be predisposed to injuries. Poorly aligned extremities (i.e. flat feet, extremely high-arched feet, bowlegs, knock-knees, in-toe or out-toe) should be evaluated prior to engaging in sports so that a child is not put at risk. Daily stretching of tight muscles to allow full range of motion at all lower extremity joints lessens the risk of injuries. Also, target training of any weak muscle groups is necessary to assure that all muscles groups are working together. Proper shoe gear is important and if necessary, custom-molded in-shoe orthotics may be necessary to realign the feet and lower extremity. They will stabilize the foot and leg to allow for more activity and less chance of injury. Braces and splints may be necessary to protect areas that are at high risk for injury. | <urn:uuid:93d0c598-af8e-49a3-a32d-8ab359bc460d> | CC-MAIN-2017-43 | http://www.southfloridasportsmedicine.com/ankle-sprains-children-and-teenagers.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-43/segments/1508187822851.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20171018085500-20171018105500-00711.warc.gz | en | 0.920158 | 1,215 | 3.140625 | 3 |
When investing on stocks, potential traders will find themselves having to deal with a volatile market. Stock prices are determined by supply and demand. Unfortunately, there is no clear formula on how stock prices will behave. There are different factors that can determine whether the prices of stock will go up or down. Knowing these factors is important when trading on the stock market. Here now are the forces that cause price movement of stocks.
At the basic level, fundamental factors refer to a combination of two things: an earnings base and a valuation multiple. Anyone who owns a common stock can be entitled to earnings and earnings per share. By buying a stock, you purchase a proportional share of an entire future stream of earnings. The valuation multiple refer to the price you are willing to pay for future stream of earnings.
A portion of these earnings can be distributed as dividends while the remaining will be retained by the company on your behalf for reinvestment. Robert Janitzek reveals that future earnings serve as a function of both the current level of earnings and the experienced growth in the earnings base.
Technical factors are the external forces that alter the supply and demand for a company’s stock. It includes the following: 1) inflation; 2) economic strength of market and peers; 3) substitutes; 4) incidental transactions; 5) demographics; 6) trends; and 7) liquidity
Market sentiment is the psychology of market participants, individually, and collectively. It is often subjective, biased, and obstinate. It can be easy to make a solid judgment about the future growth prospects of a stock and this can be confirmed by the future. Robert Peter Janitzek reveals that, the market will dwell on a single piece of news, which keeps the stocks artificially high or low. This factor is being explored by behavioral finance, which assumes that markets are apparently inefficient most of the time and it can be explained by psychology and other social sciences.
The application of social science to finance was fully legitimized by Daniel Kahneman, a 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize winner in Economics. Many of the ideas in behavioral finance confirms observable suspicions: investors tend to overemphasize data that easily comes to mind; investors react with greater pain to losses with pleasure to equivalent gains; and that investors tend to persist in a mistake. Investors also claim that they are able to capitalize on the theory of behavioral finance. | <urn:uuid:86b81f6d-5d04-4ecb-9477-5432eb2c58fb> | CC-MAIN-2020-24 | http://robertjanitzektrading.com/3-forces-that-cause-movement-in-stock-prices/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-24/segments/1590347413406.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20200531120339-20200531150339-00553.warc.gz | en | 0.943518 | 476 | 2.75 | 3 |
Consequences of a child’s premature birth can follow them into the preschool years. Skill development remains important.
OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY AND PHYSICAL THERAPY
Mild delays in gross motor skills make it difficult for children to keep up with peers as academic and physical demands increase. These children may demonstrate poor safety awareness during motor activities, appear clumsy with frequent falls and display immature running, jumping, and balance skills.
SPEECH AND LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL SKILLS
kids may get behind in age-appropriate social skills, speech intelligibility or vocabulary organization and understanding of contingent behavior, i.e. consequences.
The multi-disciplinary team of pediatric therapists at Child and Family Development in Charlotte offers an array of services for children from infancy into young adulthood. | <urn:uuid:692486f3-b5ca-481f-a71f-6eff7953b8dc> | CC-MAIN-2020-05 | https://www.childandfamilydevelopment.com/blog/prematurity-and-its-impact-on-the-preschool-years/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-05/segments/1579250606226.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20200121222429-20200122011429-00556.warc.gz | en | 0.911944 | 167 | 2.546875 | 3 |
The Push for ASHP Technology
May 18, 2017
Wide Range of Professional Building Services, Air Source Heat Pump Installation & Maintenance, Essex
Climate change and how to tackle or halt it, is a concern for most countries around the world and governments have introduced laws and guidelines to ensure this is achieved. Most people realise the seriousness of the current situation, and scientists now say that the pristine white landscape that is Antarctica, is turning green. Over the last 50 years the rate of plant growth and amount of moss in this area, has increased significantly, according to research. Moss in particular has experienced a rate of growth four to five times higher than it was pre-1950. Processes such as glacier retreat are also a problem, allowing more areas of ice-free land to emerge. The Antarctic Peninsular has warmed up rapidly in the 20th century, by around half a degree per decade.
These factors make it essential that measures such as the introduction, wherever possible, of renewable energy is practised. Governments and the population as a whole are urged to raise awareness about the issue of carbon emissions, and the need for green technology. One of these innovative technologies is the Air Source Heat Pump [ASHP], which has become extremely popular with many home owners.
These systems utilise outside air in order to provide heating and hot water, and are especially desirable to homes which are off grid. In fact new build properties are now required to show an intention in the planning stage, to incorporate a minimum amount of green technology into their design before planning permission is granted. ASHP’s are an ideal addition here, as they fulfil the criteria, and also save the home owner money. They are also eligible for the Renewable Heat Incentive [RHI] a government scheme which can benefit those who install systems such as air source heat pumps.
Multi Building Services Ltd, are experts in the installation and maintenance of Air Source Heat Pumps, and cater to the heating needs of many homes and businesses. Call us on 01245 861 351. | <urn:uuid:65cb5676-9c86-46cd-a1d0-f5defe38078f> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.multibuildingservicesltd.co.uk/2017/05/18/the-push-for-ashp-technology/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371606067.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20200405150416-20200405180916-00191.warc.gz | en | 0.962116 | 414 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Ollie The Otter To Be At Childseat Checkpoint
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA),. research on the effectiveness of child safety seats has found them to reduce fatal injury by 71 percent for infants younger than a year old, and by 54 percent for toddlers one to four years old. Officials say many parents and others who transport children do not understand the potential deadly results from not using a child seat or booster seat at all or using one that is not properly used or secured in a vehicle. Research also shows that high visibility enforcement, accompanied by education is most effective in raising occupant restraint use. | <urn:uuid:d219d781-8953-4284-bd43-77d24438953e> | CC-MAIN-2017-43 | http://jimherrin.blogspot.com/2011/03/ollie-otter-to-be-at-childseat.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-43/segments/1508187825141.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20171022041437-20171022061437-00135.warc.gz | en | 0.954528 | 134 | 2.5625 | 3 |
What was wrong with Hubble's mirror, and how was it fixed?
Almost straight after deployment, Hubble’s optics were found to be flawed. But the telescope eventually recovered its reputation.
Barbara Mikulski, the Democratic senator for Hubble’s home state of Maryland, was livid. In time, she would become one of the space telescope’s staunchest proponents, but in July 1990 her stinging words spoke instead of a “techno-turkey” and a waste of taxpayers’ money.
Future US vice president Al Gore agreed that Hubble had turned from a scientific marvel into tangible proof of NASA’s quality-control failings.
Late-night television talk-show hosts were even more scathing; David Letterman compiled a list of top 10 Hubble excuses.
Read more about Hubble's history:
- 'How we serviced Hubble': Mike Massimino reveals all
- Podcast: 30 years of the Hubble Space Telescope
- How Hubble changed our view of the Universe
But what happened to twist this white knight of astronomy into a white elephant of ridicule?
All new spacecraft suffer teething troubles and Hubble was no exception, with sporadic communication dropouts, drifting star trackers and snagged coaxial cables.
More serious were extreme temperature variations as the telescope moved from direct sunlight into orbital darkness and materials in its solar array booms began to warp.
Its orientation system worsened the problem, causing the arrays to wobble. And since the booms only stabilised just prior to sunset, Hubble could point itself accurately for barely a fraction of each orbit.
Computer workarounds were devised and in May 1990 it photographed a double star in the Carina constellation. The pictures were praised for their crystalline clarity.
But it proved a false dawn. In late June, Hubble failed a focusing test. Its mirrors had been carefully ground to focus incoming light from celestial objects, but the images were smeared by a halo-like fog.
The cause was spherical aberration in its primary mirror. Perkin-Elmer – the optics contractor about whom NASA harboured such misgivings a decade earlier – had removed too much glass and polished it too flat.
The flaw was tiny, two-fiftieths as broad as a human hair, but that was more than enough to keep Hubble from delivering the razor-sharp imagery that NASA had promised the public and its political masters.
More like this
The mood, remembered program scientist Ed Weiler, was like falling from the summit of Mount Everest to the floor of Death Valley.
Even NASA’s newest class of astronauts were not immune to the frenzy of media questions. The agency launched an investigation, headed by Jet Propulsion Laboratory director Lew Allen.
His report, published in November, blamed an optical device called a reflective null corrector, which was supposed to determine the figure of Hubble’s mirror.
But the location of the null corrector’s lens had been incorrectly measured and it guided the polishing machine to shape a perfectly smooth mirror with the wrong curvature.
If further proof was needed, the curvature flaw in the mirror exactly matched the flaw in the null corrector. A second null corrector had identified the mistake but was overruled.
Technicians had simply assumed that both mirror and null corrector were perfect and rejected data from other independent tests which indicated otherwise.
Allen harshly criticised Perkin-Elmer’s quality-control practices and NASA for failing to address them.
Spherical aberration proved very bad news for the WFPC and FOC instruments, which suffered poor spatial resolution and an impaired ability to see distant objects.
Hubble’s spectrographs were less severely affected because they needed less focused light, but the wobbling solar arrays virtually crippled the HSP.
However, there was a silver lining. While the incontrovertible fact remained that the mirror was flawed, it was in fact flawed very precisely.
By knowing its exact shape, appropriate steps could be taken to fix it and, in 1991, Ball Aerospace began building a set of corrective optics.
Still, even this compromised Hubble was far more capable than any ground-based observatory.
Pictures of the Orion Nebula resolved small-scale structures to an unprecedented standard, although the fuzziness of spherical aberration meant that surface features on the dwarf planet Pluto were blurred and the energetic core of the symbiotic star R Aquarii was indistinct.
Computer algorithms and microwave image-processing techniques were put to work to deduct the halo effect and restore the pictures.
By early 1992, thousands of observations of hundreds of celestial objects had been made and a quarter of all papers presented to the American Astronomical Society used Hubble results.
The telescope revealed that the Large Magellanic Cloud – one of our nearest galactic neighbours – resides 169,000 lightyears away.
Data from 27 Cepheid variable stars allowed astronomers to tentatively peg the age of the Universe close to 15 billion years.
Hubble recorded the most distant galaxy ever seen (10 billion lightyears away) and, though hamstrung by spherical aberration, it could still see luminous ‘knots’ of gas and dust at its primordial core with a resolution 10 times finer than ground-based instruments on Earth.
Tightly concentrated stars in active galactic nuclei and enormous plasma ‘jets’ yielded tantalising evidence for black holes, which were suspected but still hypothetical at the time.
Data from 1992 hinted that a black hole 2.6 billion times more massive than the Sun sat at the heart of the elliptical galaxy M87.
And close observations of X-shaped ‘lanes’ of gas and dust in the Whirlpool Galaxy afforded a glimpse around one of these mysterious monsters.
Closer to home, Hubble verified the presence of ozone in Mars’s atmosphere and photographed a hood-like cloud over its north pole.
Observations of Jupiter revealed powerful aurorae in ultraviolet light for the first time and directly measured the atmosphere of its volcanic moon Io, revealing sulphur dioxide ‘frost’ on its surface.
The telescope tracked an equatorial white spot on Saturn and analysed albedo variations on the surfaces of Pluto and its large companion, Charon.
Hubble studied star-forming regions in the Tarantula Nebula and found one of the central stars in the galaxy NGC 2440 was the hottest ever recorded – over 200,000ºC.
Shell-like rings of gas encircled the famous Supernova 1987A and the telescope watched the process of ‘starbirth’ in numerous globular clusters.
It acquired spectroscopic data for the young supergiant star Melnick 42 and observed the rare element boron in HD 140283 – the aptly-named ‘Methuselah Star’ – which is thought to have formed not long after the Big Bang, right at the dawn of time.
So, after a rocky start, Hubble came out victorious in the end.
The fallout from Hubble
For NASA, the discovery of Hubble’s flawed optics was a bitter blow after the Challenger disaster and another knock to its operational reputation.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center had a bad press in 1990. Just 4 years after Challenger – the failure of whose solid rocket boosters also came under Marshall’s remit – it now endured the wrath of the public and politicians alike over Hubble.
In July, The New York Times wrote that if Kodak-Itek’s pricier bid for the mirror had been picked, its two independent checks of polishing quality would have caught the spherical aberration.
It was another unwanted problem facing a beleaguered NASA.
For much of 1990, the Shuttle fleet was grounded by fuel leaks. Plans to build Space Station Freedom were over budget, behind schedule and forever sitting on a knife-edge of cancellation.
And the Space Exploration Initiative to return humans to the Moon and onward to Mars looked set to die with a whimper.
By 1991, Freedom came within one congressional vote of cancellation. A year later, the Moon-Mars plan breathed its last.
And the astronauts charged with fixing Hubble were told by NASA Administrator Dan Goldin that their flight was critical; if they failed, so too would the political will for the station.
In 1993, NASA’s Mars Observer failed as it neared the Red Planet and rumour abounded that Hubble’s new WFPC-2 instrument might be faulty.
President Bill Clinton informed Goldin that if the repair failed, NASA would be restructured.
Some engineers hoped to celebrate New Year 1994 in Acapulco, but if things went badly with Hubble they joked darkly that it might turn out to be their place of permanent exile.
Hubble's repair mission
Hubble was always intended to be maintained. Keeping it functional and up to date with technological change enabled NASA to sell it to Congress.
Servicing it required the Shuttle’s flexibility, its robot arm, its astronauts and ingenious teams on Earth to work with the synergy of a ballet and fix anything that needed fixing.
The Shuttle had proved its mettle as a highly capable spacecraft, but correcting the space telescope’s flawed optics would stretch that capability to its limits.
Kathy Sullivan and Bruce McCandless knew the telescope was a priceless national asset and helped to build the tools to service it.
Even the tiniest potential problem had to be addressed: from the correct size of wrenches, bolts and fasteners to knowing exactly how a space-suited astronaut wearing gloves with the dexterity of a welder’s mittens could reach an intricate electrical system or hard-to-access equipment bay.
McCandless, Sullivan and the engineers who they worked with were determined that the words “Hey, guys, this tool doesn’t fit” would never be spoken on a Hubble servicing mission.
Since the flaw in the telescope’s primary mirror was well understood, it was recognised that a set of carefully designed corrective optics – Hubble’s $50 million ‘spectacles’, the media jokingly named them – should be enough to rejuvenate its vision.
Ball Aerospace built the Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement (COSTAR), whose mechanical arms would deploy 10 coin-sized mirrors into Hubble’s focal plane to refocus light from the primary mirror before it reached the instruments.
Hubble servicing flights would demand at least 4 spacewalks, twice as many as had ever been done by the Shuttle.
At 6 hours apiece, each spacewalk would put astronauts in a hostile environment of near-total vacuum, huge temperature extremes and lethal radiation.
And astronauts inside the Shuttle would face long hours of intense concentration to orchestrate the repairs, prepare spacesuits and control the robot arm.
In 1991, NASA decided to forgo an early servicing flight and stick with original plans for an all-out repair to fix the optics on Shuttle mission STS-61 in 1993.
Former chief astronaut John Young recommended ‘end-to-end’ training for the crew at various NASA establishments, including the Shuttle simulator at the Johnson Space Center in Texas and integrated spacewalking/robotics practice in the neutral buoyancy simulator at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama.
This training would be far-reaching in scope, laying the groundwork not just to fix Hubble but also prepare astronauts to build a space station.
The crew would use replica robot arms, clamber over a full-sized, high-fidelity mockup of the telescope, submerge themselves underwater in spacesuits and test-drive the evolving technology of virtual reality.
In 1992, astronaut Story Musgrave was assigned to STS-61. With four spaceflights under his belt, a long-time association with Hubble and a veteran of the first Shuttle spacewalk, he was an obvious pick.
Years later, he quipped that training for this mission was so intense that his only moments of peace came while sitting in the dentist’s chair.
For the highly competitive astronaut corps, a seat on STS-61 was a plum assignment, coveted by all. One day in mid-1992, NASA’s director of flight crew operations Don Puddy was chatting to astronaut Jeff Hoffman.
“Well,” said Hoffman, “I’d sure like to fly this Hubble mission.” Puddy smiled. “Yeah, you and the rest of the office!”
But Hoffman had a trump card up his sleeve. NASA wanted the crew – 4 spacewalkers, robot arm operator, commander and pilot – to be experienced astronauts.
At the time, there were very few seasoned spacewalkers in the office. Hoffman was one of them – and an astronomer to boot.
That summer, he and spacewalk veterans Kathy Thornton and Tom Akers got the nod. By December, commander Dick Covey, pilot Ken Bowersox and European Space Agency robot arm expert Claude Nicollier joined them.
With 16 previous Shuttle flights between them, they were the most experienced crew yet assembled.
STS-61 would last 11 days with a record-setting five spacewalks. Backup spacewalker Greg Harbaugh trained with them, in case one of the crew became incapacitated, as almost happened when Musgrave suffered frostbitten fingers during an altitude chamber test.
And although NASA concluded the mission was achievable, all fingers remained crossed on 2 December 1993 when Shuttle Endeavour roared into the night in hot pursuit of Hubble.
2 days later, they reached the telescope and Nicollier grabbed it with the robot arm and anchored it in the payload bay.
Working in two alternating teams, Hoffman and Musgrave, and Thornton and Akers spacewalked for five consecutive days, spending 35 hours outside the Shuttle and using 200 tools, from ratchets and sockets to portable work-lamps and articulating foot restraints.
Fixing Hubble did not demand immense physical strength, but did need finesse and technical coordination. Years later, Covey recalled those adrenaline-charged days with justifiable pride.
“There wasn’t anybody that was chilling down on the middeck,” he told an interviewer. “Everybody was up top, working.”
On the first spacewalk, Hoffman and Musgrave replaced two rate sensing units, whose gyroscopes – half of which had failed – helped Hubble track astronomical targets.
Next day, Thornton and Akers replaced the twin solar arrays. The first rolled smoothly into its storage canister, but a bent strut on the other prevented it from doing likewise and the spacewalkers had little option but to cast it overboard.
Hoffman and Musgrave, on the third spacewalk, exchanged the WFPC instrument for the new WFPC 2, originally a ground-based spare but later upgraded with an optical corrector. They also installed two magnetometers.
Thornton and Akers plucked out the HSP instrument and slotted COSTAR into its place. And on the fifth day, Hoffman and Musgrave replaced overheating solar array drive electronics.
It took several more weeks before WFPC 2 was optically aligned, COSTAR fully deployed and the first images beamed back to Earth. On New Year’s Day 1994, Hoffman was at home when the telephone rang.
“Jeff, hi,” came the greeting. “Do you have any champagne left?”
“Yeah, I have a half-bottle in the refrigerator.”
“Well, crack it open. We’ve just had the first pictures back from Hubble. It works!”
Never a straightforward mission
Upgrading Hubble called for some of the most complex spacewalks ever planned. Inevitably, these missions rarely went according to schedule
All five servicing missions between 1993 and 2009 endured their fair share of difficulty. On STS-61, astronauts struggled to close Hubble’s equipment bay doors, their latches having become warped by uneven solar heating.
And on the second servicing flight, STS-82 in February 1997, the telescope’s solar arrays unexpectedly ‘windmilled’ a quarter turn.
Although this carried safety implications for the crew, it was triggered by air venting from the Shuttle’s airlock and the spacewalks proceeded without incident.
A third servicing mission was brought forward to December 1999, following a spate of hardware failures, which crippled two-thirds of Hubble’s gyroscopes.
Flight controllers shut the telescope down for its own protection and NASA launched a ‘call-up’ Shuttle, STS-103, which replaced the gyroscopes but encountered its own problems, from stubborn valve covers to visibility issues while fitting Hubble’s new computer.
The fourth mission, STS-109 in March 2002, was delayed when further Hubble failures added more work to an overflowing jobs list.
Tasked with replacing the telescope’s electronic heart, the crew battled stiff connectors and bolts, as well as spacesuit troubles in the form of water leaks and a failed telemetry sensor. It was not the first time the suits had caused trouble.
On STS-61, the communications link from Thornton’s suit briefly hiccuped and Akers had to serve as her relay.
And on the final Hubble visit, STS-125 in May 2009, a stubborn-to-remove handrail, stripped screws and troublesome power tools provided a stark reminder – if one was ever needed – that spaceflight is never routine.
Ben Evans is a science and space writer. This article originally appeared in Hubble: 30 Years of Discovery, a new special edition magazine available now. | <urn:uuid:dc022ab2-b9df-4489-bfde-5470a32095b0> | CC-MAIN-2023-23 | https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-missions/what-was-wrong-with-hubble-mirror-how-was-it-fixed/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224655446.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20230609064417-20230609094417-00151.warc.gz | en | 0.954058 | 3,701 | 2.890625 | 3 |
The triumph of the human spirit is used throughout literature, art, pop culture and even religion in reference to the incorporeal aspects of man that help him overcome his adversities and reach his goals. It tends to incorporate various faculties that human beings have, such as the intellect, emotions and creativity of a person.Continue Reading
The human spirit also tends to be used in relation to the idea of human beings' sense of will that enables them to do extraordinary things, even under the worst of circumstances. In this way, religions use the idea of the human spirit to represent the source of mankind's sense of free will. The Bible also tends to describe the human spirit in a more metaphysical sense, where the human spirit is the source of a human's being.
The idea is based around the notion that human beings face pain and suffering throughout their lives. However, the human will to succeed, to persevere against all odds, allows people to accomplish their goals or survive in circumstances that would otherwise defeat or kill them. Even today, writers tend to equate the idea of the human spirit being triumphant in times of natural disasters, where people help one another to survive and recover from the devastation caused by overwhelming circumstances.Learn more about Fine Art | <urn:uuid:45cce3ed-75d3-409b-b5dd-5be9c8441048> | CC-MAIN-2017-34 | https://www.reference.com/art-literature/triumph-human-spirit-3d609f742d17496c | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886109525.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20170821191703-20170821211703-00093.warc.gz | en | 0.956251 | 248 | 2.921875 | 3 |
The software development process starts with requirements analysis. This is followed by software architecture, taking into consideration the chosen tech stacks and the composition of the team. The goal is to build software that is functional, efficient, and flexible to meet the needs of the users. During the process, it is essential to consider the budget, timeline, and technical expertise of the team.
Information about the field
There are several different ways to develop software, and all require different types of skills. Software development can take a few hours or months, depending on the type of project. If the project is simple and straightforward, it can be completed in less time. If the project is more complicated, it may take many months. Software development can be more efficient when the process is performed as a team. It is very important that the team be organized, otherwise it may fail.
The process of software development involves ideation, design, development, deployment, and maintenance. The different steps are arranged into phases, called the Software Development Lifecycle. The first step in this process is requirement gathering, which involves gathering detailed information from users about the product or service they are looking for. It is imperative that the software be of high quality and perform well on the target platform.
There are hundreds of different software certifications available to developers. Some are more specialized than others, but they all require the same basic skills. A software developer must be able to understand how to write code that satisfies business needs. Developers who pursue certifications should learn to apply those skills in practice, not just in theory.
Among the most popular software certifications is ITIL, a certification that teaches the principles of IT service lifecycle management. This certification is a good choice for new programmers who are looking to expand their skill set and learn new technology. The course covers all aspects of the lifecycle of an IT service. It also introduces the ITIL framework, which outlines the processes, roles, and functions required of a software engineer. After completing the course, developers can sit for the certification exam, which is about 60 minutes long and has 40 questions.
Those who want to build software solutions for businesses need to consider ITIL certifications. These certifications are designed to give software developers the skills and knowledge to lead projects and work efficiently. While many organizations offer these certifications, it is often beneficial to have experience in the field prior to taking the exam. In addition, these certifications boost a developer’s resume and give them greater job security. For example, the Amazon Web Services Associate certification is ideal for software engineers who want to work on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform. It covers fundamentals of AWS programming, software lifecycle management, and user support. To complete the certification, the applicant must have at least three years of experience in software development.
If you’re considering a career in software development, it’s important to note that education requirements for this field differ widely. Most software developers hold at least a bachelor’s degree in a related field. However, some employers prefer candidates who have more relevant work experience and a graduate degree.
In addition to a formal education, software engineers must take on additional training. This training can come in the form of online learning or attending coding bootcamps. A quality software degree program should also emphasize professionalism and ethical behavior, as well as strong communication skills. Ideally, the program should provide both theoretical and practical knowledge of software engineering.
Software engineers are responsible for developing software solutions for business problems. They must have the ability to work independently as well as with others. They also need to understand all phases of software development lifecycle and how to build software systems.
Software developers can work in a number of different industries. Jobs in the field are typically highly paid, and they can make use of technology every day. As a result, they are in high demand. Employment opportunities for software developers are expected to grow by 22 percent between 2020 and 2030. This is faster than the average growth for all occupations. In addition, there is a strong demand for skilled programmers who will design and maintain software used in artificial intelligence.
Although software developers are primarily technical, they also use creative thinking skills to develop programs that meet the demands of the market. Salary levels for software developers vary greatly, depending on the geographic area, industry, years of experience, and credentials. Overall, a career in this field can be very rewarding and satisfying.
Software engineers are in high demand, as nearly every industry relies on technology to grow at a rapid pace. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the job market for software engineers, analysts, and testers is projected to grow by 25 percent. While most software engineers have an academic background in software engineering, some employers are willing to hire individuals without formal academic training.
Leave a Reply | <urn:uuid:de052a90-3b8b-4d87-81ba-69cb1144c425> | CC-MAIN-2023-14 | https://newsviral.org/what-does-it-take-to-be-a-software-developer/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296943747.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20230321225117-20230322015117-00582.warc.gz | en | 0.953003 | 988 | 3.0625 | 3 |
If we page back in history, it is evident that the price of oil tends to undergo a significant correction approximately every four years. It is not so much these historic occurrences that are of interest, but the behaviour of the oil market during these price fluctuations.
Historically, it appears that market action drives the oil price lower than the marginal cost of production. This forces some supply curtailment and allows the price to recover. In the last five major corrections, the price declined on average by 48%, but subsequently recovered by an average increase of 95%!
The chart below shows the ICE Brent oil price with the corrections highlighted in green. The primary driver of the recovery in prices has been OPEC production cuts, led by Saudi Arabia. This was particularly relevant in recent history, between 2011 and 2013, when Saudi Arabia adjusted its production to compensate for Libyan production fluctuations, thus supporting the crude oil price. This historic response changed recently when Saudi Arabian influence led an OPEC decision to maintain production despite the drop in crude oil prices. The Saudi Arabians and their Middle Eastern OPEC counterparts have stood firmly in favour of this decision, in the face of a strong increase in non-OPEC oil production.
Saudi Arabia was previously the global swing producer and was capable of controlling prices by adjusting production, supported by the cooperation of its fellow OPEC producers. Through the mechanism of raising or lowering production, something OPEC did with enough cooperative compliance to make a difference to global benchmark prices, OPEC was able to keep oil prices stable. Incidentally, this strategy effectively supported the Saudi Arabian domestic budget funding requirements and those of a number of its lower-cost producing counterparts.
In spite of the buoyant prices, some higher-cost producing members have been ‘underwater’ for several years. However, while OPEC stabilised the oil price by ‘opening and closing its output valves’, the resultant high level of oil prices provided an incentive for the US onshore shale gas industry to develop. The hydraulic fracturing (fracking) technology now in use has been refined in recent years and has been deployed widely in the US in light of the high return on investment available until recently. Tongue-in-cheek, one could regard this as OPEC’s blind spot, which has suddenly crept into reality, forcing OPEC to react.
To their credit, the major OPEC members started to tell markets late last year that they should get used to lower oil prices and that OPEC was no longer going to manipulate pricing by adjusting volumes. OPEC remained true to this strategy when it tabled a decision to maintain output at 30 million daily barrels, at the scheduled OPEC meeting in November 2014. It should be emphasised that this change in strategy amounted to a paradigm shift in the way OPEC thinks about global oil markets. OPEC’s decision to allow prices to find a much lower equilibrium level is equivalent to laying down the gauntlet to US onshore shale oil producers. These producers’ production costs, in US dollars, range from a low end in the mid-thirties to highest costs in the mid-seventies.
At oil prices of above US$90 per barrel, the decision to invest in shale oil extraction by US investors was easy. Not so, with the current West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil price at a US dollar price in the mid-forties. We can be reasonably certain that some of the US shale oil production will be reduced in coming months at the current low price and the incentive to deploy capital for expansion is unlikely to result in new projects in the near future. An indication of the impact of such investment decision-making is given in the chart below, which shows a decline in the oil rig count in the Bakken region of North Dakota and for the US as a whole.
Additionally, non-OPEC oil supply has been rising for some time, adding significant new supply capacity to the global market. It is apparent from US statistics that per capita oil consumption has been declining for almost a decade, due to a tendency to drive fewer kilometres in increasingly fuel-efficient vehicles, by an aging population. These two factors may be marginal, but are both likely to continue to place pressure on oil prices in future. An offsetting trend on the demand side is the low consumption in emerging markets, and the growth in vehicle ownership in these countries.
Many questions are raised given the dynamics that have led to the new reality in oil markets. Not least the potential for petrol prices to decline. The global oil supply picture changed structurally with the introduction of a relatively low cost source of new production (US shale oil). This growing source of non-conventional oil has not only increased global oil supply, but has also lowered the marginal cost of oil production and therefore lowered price support for oil. This source of oil has added well over two million barrels of oil per day into global markets (c.2% of global supply). Because regulations largely disallow export of crude oil from the US, the additional shale oil production has directly resulted in lower imports by the US. Bear in mind that total global oil production is around 93 million barrels per day and this growing source has and will continue to have market consequences.
With this significant addition of production capacity in the world market, which is relatively easy to start up and shut off, two developments have emerged. Firstly, lower oil prices in the short to medium term and secondly, a longer-term oil price that is capped by the marginal US shale oil producer’s production costs. Therefore the oil price recovery this time round is expected to be muted relative to the historic rebounds mentioned above.
For South African consumers the fuel price reductions are welcome and are likely to hold fuel prices structurally lower for some time, allowing an uptick in discretionary spend in other consumer goods and services. | <urn:uuid:c5af155e-0094-4aa5-9fcd-9e7270b18ba5> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://nww.nedgroupinvestments.co.za/content/NGISingleSiteContent/Local/Individual-Investor.render.json?path=/content/NGISingleSiteContent/Local/Individual-Investor/learn-more/insights/q1-2015/oil-_-the-big-drop | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370497171.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20200330150913-20200330180913-00373.warc.gz | en | 0.965397 | 1,174 | 2.75 | 3 |
Some colors go together like chalk and cheese. But, with a little research, some practice and the use of your ‘eye’, you can find complementary colors.
Red and green will always go together. It’s the law. But, red and orange are a big no-no. they just do not work together.
Look at our 25 stunning examples to set you on the right path.
Pssst – If you are looking for more information behind color theory, see our How to Use Complementary Colors in Photography article.
Red and Green
I often hear that red and green is not a pleasing combination. To those who think that I would like to show some Christmas decorations. Or a strawberry.
Red and green is a common pair in nature. Take a look at red flowers on green grass, apples in a foliage, tropical birds or even a ladybug on a leaf.
You should be careful when red dominates the image. This is a strong color, so make sure you want to turn the intensity of your photo up to eleven.
When you let green take the lion’s share of the image, red becomes a perfect anchor to your point of interest. Our eyes are naturally drawn to bright warm colors.
So don’t be afraid to use a spot of red to mark the focus of the viewer’s attention.
Yellow and Purple
Yellow is the most visible color from a distance. It is often used to highlight an accent, to present an emergency and cautionary signal.
If you need to grab attention fast, use a splash of yellow. It works well with its complementary color, purple.
This combination usually feels modern and playful. Perfect for experiments with color blocking and fashion photography!
Sometimes photographers tend to overdo it a bit. Keep this combination in subdued, darker, less saturated tones.
Unless, of course, you’re not going for a fantasy effect with the feeling of a mysterious land.
Orange and Blue
Amber and teal. A fantastic combination, the most notable one between complementary pairs.
They have significant emotional weight. This is because both are strongly associated with opposing concepts.
Warmth and cold, earth and sky, land and sea, fire and ice. They are very close to ambient light. And tend to harmonize well with human skin.
This is a powerful combination. But try to use it with care and thought. Sometimes photographers use these two colors without a clear purpose.
Because of that, an image can look over-processed and too artificial.
Check out our article How to Make the Most of Contrasting Colors: Orange and Blue for more details.
Green and Magenta
Green is everywhere in nature. Usually, photographers use it in analogous color harmonies. They’ll mix green tones with yellows, teals, and blues.
But it can be combined with its complementary magenta for an interesting result.
Rich, saturated magenta looks gorgeous with darker shades of green. And also with more watery greens, such as sage or mint green.
These more neutral greens take the background role while magenta steps forward. It also works with colors analogous to magenta (like different shades of violet and pink).
Red and Cyan
Cyan is a lighter shade of blue. It’s close to teal, turquoise, electric blue, aquamarine, and other shades of blue-green. In combination with red, it creates a very intense neon palette.
It could be a powerful combination if you need a fresh, modern and energetic look.
The important thing to remember here is that red tends to appear as the most saturated color on camera sensors. It’s very easy to blow out. You have to be careful with saturation.
I prefer to change red for the less intense pink in combination with cyan.
This way photos still look captivation and engaging but at the same time a bit more subtle.
Blue and Yellow
This is a lighter variation of orange and teal. I especially love the combination of a blue background and a bright yellow object. It always reminds me of sunshine and The Simpsons.
Images like this always have a happy and cheerful atmosphere. And this combination is great when you want one object to “pop” against a smooth background.
Keep the colors clear and simple. No need for more subdued and darker shades. Don’t be afraid to keep it bright and colorful! | <urn:uuid:9beeb9be-9290-4dcb-9ec3-8cf4c182cee0> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://expertphotography.com/complementary-colors-examples/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370524604.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20200404165658-20200404195658-00157.warc.gz | en | 0.916586 | 923 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Subsets and Splits