text
stringlengths 0
634k
|
|---|
FMH has been having a fun conversation about the meaning of different Mormon labels. I think these kinds of conversations, about categorization and what it means, are definitely worth having. But almost inevitably in any such conversation, a contingent of people will argue that we should abandon labels altogether.
To put it simply: I think this is crazy.
Yes, it’s true that in the context of concrete relationships with complex human beings, labels probably use a lot of their usefulness. They’re limited. But when you’re first getting to know someone, it can actually be quite useful to know generally where they’re coming from on certain issues. It gives you a context.
Imagine, for example, that I’m sitting in a classroom and people are identifying their religious tradition. I could say, actually, I’ve decided not to use labels. Really, this isn’t helpful. If I say that I’m Mormon, sure, that’s going to bring up a lot of prejudices and preconceptions–but it’s still an important piece of data.
You might say that this isn’t the same, in that Mormon is not just a label but a statement of belonging to a particular group of people. Which is true. But within a group of Mormons (or even a broader group), I think it can be helpful to go further and describe myself as a less orthodox or liberal Mormon. That isn’t to say that I don’t have some reservations about those terms, if you push me on it. (E.g., does it makes sense to say “less orthodox” in a church in which orthodoxy is so vague?) But I think the shorthand is useful, for all its limitations. It gives you a general sense of some of my religious orientation, even if only time will flesh out the particularities and nuances. I use labels about ZD when I’m describing it to people I don’t know, because I think they should know what they’re getting into if they come by. I don’t think this is a bad thing.
Another example. Say my sister tells me a story like this: I was talking to this guy in my ward, and he’s a really traditional, conservative Mormon, and he admitted that he voted for Obama. The story is a different one than if it would be about a self-described Liahona Mormon.
I also think that absolute resistance to labels can be a reflection of individualism run amok. Americans like very much to be unique and special, not able to be categorized. And sure, there’s truth to that. We are all individuals irreducible to any one category. But there’s also truth to the fact that we do share things in common with other subgroups of the population, and that’s okay. In addition, our brains really can’t function without drawing on categorizations. There’s just too much data.
Obviously labels can be pejorative. And I do think that’s a problem. I prefer to only call someone a TBM if they are cheerfully using that acronym about themselves, because I know that for many it’s a dismissive term. I don’t like the terms “open-minded” and “closed-minded,” largely because I only hear people describe themselves using the first and categorizing others as the latter. I know it’s hard to get away from connotations, even when you’re trying to be neutral. In comparing Mormons with other Christians, I usually use the terms “mainstream” or “traditional” to refer to the latter, and that seems to usually go over okay, though I always worry about it. (I use “apostate” if I’m teasing people I know well, who cheerfully call me a “heretical Christian” in return.) And I use terms like “traditional” or “conservative” to refer to some styles of being Mormon, though if people wanted to suggest a different word (not something loaded like “believing” or “faithful,” obviously), I’d be happy to go along with that.
And sometimes it’s hard to find a label that works. When it comes to abortion, I have so many reservations about the categories of “pro-choice” and “pro-life” that I don’t have a quick answer. (FMH Lisa once wrote an awesome post on this. Though this isn’t an invitation to turn this thread into an abortion debate).
But still, I think it’s unrealistic to throw out labels altogether. So I’ll label myself. I’m a feminist. I’m a Mormon. I’m also a Mormon feminist (and people aren’t always both–I’ve known those who were feminist outside of Mormonism but supporters of patriarchy inside of it, as well as those who are passionate about Mormon feminist issues but less so about non-Mormon ones). And without those labels, it probably would have been hard for me to find like-minded people on Mormon blogs. Within Mormonism, I’d say I’m a hard-core feminist; outside of it, a feminist with some skepticism. I’d also consider myself an unorthodox Mormon, but a believing one nonetheless. That probably shouldn’t be the end of the conversation. But it’s not a bad place to begin.
|
Through our programs, the Wenner-Gren Foundation provides funding for a wide variety of conferences and workshops that advance innovative research and address contentious debates within the field of anthropology. Below are information on three upcoming Wenner-Gren sponsored conferences, taking place in the months of June and July.
June 20-23, 2012
The Archaeology Centre
Victoria College, The University of Toronto
The biennial conference of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists (SAfA) is the primary international venue for Africanist archaeology and meets alternately in Europe and North America. The conference covers the full range of topics in African archaeology from research on human origins through to the archaeology of colonial contact. The 2012 meeting, to be held from June 20-23 on the campus of Victorica College at the University of Toronto, will be the first time the University of Toronto will host the SAfA meetings. The conference is supported by the Archaeology Centre at the University of Toronto and the Royal Ontario Museum and will be held on the campus of Victoria College. The theme of the 2012 biennial meeting of SAfA is “Exploring Diversity, Discovering Connections”. The archaeological record of the African continent is characterized by diversity. It is the goal of the meetings to bring scholars together who work across this vast continent to delineate the scale of this diversity as well as to explore underlying connections. To highlight this theme we are organizing a plenary session with participants in the Harvard Kalahari Project in which we they will be looking back at this project and how it succeeded in integrating disciplinary approaches.
June 8-10, 2012
The Royal Anthropological Institute
British Museum, Clore Centre
Anthropology is taught and practiced mainly within universities, and there are many excellent disciplinary histories which document the way that this has come about. However, its great importance outside academia in a whole host of areas of public life is less well charted. The aim of this conference is to redress this balance by examining systematically the various spheres where anthropology may be influential, including (but not confined to); medicine, human rights, gender, development, law, media (especially the visual media), tourism and heritage. This conference is international in scope, but has particular resonance in the UK, and indeed in Europe more widely, where there is a significant move toward channelling government funding away from arts and social sciences exclusively toward the hard sciences. We would argue that this is short-sighted and simplistic, but that the best way we can demonstrate the importance of the subject is to create the most public forum in which to demonstrate and discuss anthropology’s significance outside academia.
July 10-13, 2012
University of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense
Anxiety is a fundamental characteristic of human nature. All living entities have biological devices that enable them to face danger (escape, aggression, concealment). This is often studied by the social sciences under the heading of ‘stress’. Human beings, however, differentiate themselves from other species through their reflexivity, which introduces an uncertainty that cannot be reduced to the consequences of their perception. The aim of such an EASA biennial conference is to gather various perspectives and understandings which are developed within the anthropological project. The conference will allow for both an intra-disciplinary appraisal of what anthropology lends to other disciplines (hypothesis, methods, perspectives), and for a critique of the constant reshaping of a profession caught between philosophical ambitions and technical expertise. The call for an anthropology of uncertainty and disquiet seems to meet this requirement to bring together anthropologists working on cognition and the biological foundations of the human, anthropologists developing phenomenological approaches to what living a life means and how it is performed, and anthropologists devoted to the endless task of making sense of the contemporary and the complexities of the social world.
|
10 Reasons Why It's Better To Be a Man
9. Men are smarter
Sort of. Recent IQ test studies show that men, on average, score 5 points higher than women. But these findings are not exactly without flaw. The correlation seems not to be gender-specific but rather size-specific. Larger people have larger brains, which means more neurons, and thus, higher intelligence. Of course this is not always the case (Albert Einstein didn’t have a particularly large brain), but it does appear to be the general trend.
Another consideration is the subjective nature of IQ tests – for example, men perform better in tests of spatial intelligence, while women excel in linguistic intelligence. Who’s to say which types of intelligence are more valuable? Nowadays, more women are graduating from college than men – I like to think that’s a more significant coup than five measly – and questionable – IQ points.
|
Vampire crabs, so named because of their glowing yellow eyes, have become popular as pets, but the origin of some of these spooky-looking crustaceans has been cloaked in mystery.
Now researchers have traced the freshwater crabs back to their wild source in Southeast Asia—and report that the two most sought-after species are new to science.
"These crabs are kind of special because they've been around in the pet trade for ten years, but no one knew where they come from," said study co-author and professional aquarist Christian Lukhaup of Waiblingen, Germany.
Scientists have identified other vampire crab species before, including those in the aquarium trade, but the newfound species are the most common pets, he said.
The new vampire crab G. dennerle is a deep purple with a creamy splotch on its back. G. hagen catches the eye with its bright orange shell and claws. (Also see "Pictures: New Purple Crab Species Found.")
These crabs' blazing eyes and spectacular colors explain their attraction to aquarists.
"Dealers working in Southeast Asia and other parts of the world know what their clients are looking for in terms of colors," said study co-author Christoph Schubart, of Germany's Regensburg University's Institute of Zoology.
"They start collecting in areas where scientists may not have made any expeditions so far, and suddenly the market is formed with some animals that no one has ever given a name," said Schubart, whose study appeared in January in the Raffles Bulletin of Zoology.
Measuring less than an inch wide, vampire crabs are also an ideal size for keeping in a small tank, said Lukhaup.
The vampire crab hunter of the team, Lukhaup, fittingly, was born in Transylvania, home to the mythical Dracula. (See "Archaeologists Suspect Vampire Burial; An Undead Primer.")
He used his contacts in the aquarium trade to scout out collectors who might know where the crabs came from.
"There were a lot of false rumors because people don't want other collectors to go there," he said.
Lukhaup, who has helped uncover the wild origins of various shrimps and other freshwater crustaceans sold as pets, finally tracked the crabs down in central Java.
Communicating With Color
Schubart suspects there are many more vampire crab species yet to be described on Indonesia's islands.
Since these freshwater crabs don't use the ocean as part of their life cycles and tend to stay put, many of Indonesia's islands have their own vampire crab species, Schubart explained. (See National Geographic's 13 scariest freshwater animals.)
These crabs' amphibious lifestyles also influenced the evolution of their bright coloration. On land, "visual communication becomes much more important," he said.
"There's much more emphasis on color and visual cues rather than chemical cues, as used in the water."
The two new vampire crab species are probably each confined to a single watershed, making them particularly vulnerable to collectors, the study team warned. (See "Do You Know Where Your Aquarium Fish Come From?")
"For the local collectors, it's their living," Schubart said. "They just catch what they can get and export it."
Lukhaup hopes that in the future commercial breeding will help prevent wild populations from being wiped out by the vampire crab craze.
Some private enthusiasts are breeding the crabs, he said, but most still come from Indonesia.
|
The Importance of Bias in Effective Leadership
I’ve recently been conducting research related to bias in interviewing and hiring and in doing so uncovered some excellent and surprising information on how to build a greater awareness of ones bias in the hiring process. This research has also unintentionally helped me develop a more acute awareness of the role of bias and it’s influence not only in hiring, but also beyond.
Bias in its basic definition is described in a negative light; but in its purest form does not have to be seen as such. It can be equated in the same vein as discerning (a positive term) because in the end it’s all about that — making a judgment based on certain criteria, and we know the better the judgment, the better the outcome.
When you look at the source of bias and how it is developed, here is where the dilemma surfaces. Whatever bias or preferences you have in any situation has been shaped and cultivated from your collective life experience or life conditioning. That conditioning has shaped who you are, crafted your capabilities, molded your beliefs, tested your values all through the filter of your innate wiring — which some call personality. It’s that conditioning that has made you the leader you are today, and in that you could say your bias (part of your conditioning) on some level has served your success. And yet, that same collective experience can unknowingly work against you and those you lead.
That same collective experience can unknowingly work against you and those you lead.
One of the most popular areas of professional development for which I conduct seminars is creative and innovative thinking. It’s an area that the IBM Institute for Business Values proclaimed through a survey of 1,500 CEOs as one of the most important leadership qualities. In fact, Richard Florida in his book, Rise of the Creative Class states, “Ideas are the new commodity of the 21st century.” Most of today’s leaders would agree!
And yet, giving attention to your ideas, deeming them credible as well as the ideas of others, can easily be undermined by your very own bias. Perhaps you’ve discounted an idea because of the person delivering it. Your bias towards their appearance, personality, or even current work performance has you judging the value of the idea before it’s even been uttered, accompanied by this thought, “Surely this person can’t come up with a credible idea.”
Giving attention to your ideas, deeming them credible as well as the ideas of others, can easily be undermined by your very own bias.
Or, because of past experience or past conditioning, a potential solution pops into your mind and is quickly discounted with the phrase, “that probably won’t work”, even though it has yet to be tested.
The dilemma of bias is that the very benefits of bias (or discernment), which has supported and enhanced your leadership capabilities, can also be the source of being close-minded, judgmental, discounting potential talent or value as fast as a Blink. The result is you become the unconscious victim of your own success. Yes, your success can limit your success, and bias can play a role in that.
Your success can limit your success
I believe an essential practice of a growing leader is nurturing a keen awareness of the role bias plays in how they lead and manage their own talent and the talent of others, and ultimately the profitability of their company. Notice I said a “growing” leader. To grow and be creative and innovative, you’ll need to be willing to stretch beyond your current preferences or biases. Let’s not sabotage the exciting possibilities that await all of us by not owning and managing as best we can the presence of bias.
|
The Fish Health and Genetics Laboratory at A.E. Wood Hatchery routinely tests hatchery production fish as well as those found in the wild for viruses, bacteria, parasites, and other microbes capable of causing disease in fish. Standard protocols for detecting these pathogens are adapted from accepted procedures published by the American Fisheries Society Fish Health Section and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Largemouth bass virus (LMBV), channel catfish virus (CCV), and koi herpesvirus (due to the use of koi carp as forage at state hatcheries) are among the viral pathogens of concern. The picture at right depicts the lesions caused by CCV in channel catfish. Lab workers test for viruses by adding samples to cell cultures and monitoring for cytopathic effects caused by viral-infected cells. Effects that might be seen under the microscope include rounded cells, granule formation, vacuole formation, and formation of syncitia (giant, multi-nucleated cells).
Although algal blooms often provide food for fish at the larval or fry stage, some species have recently been a problem for TPWD hatcheries, especially the golden alga Prymnesium parvum. Although this alga is not pathogenic itself, it produces toxins that can cause massive mortalities in fish ponds if not treated. Alga cell densities can be calculated using a cell counting chamber. A bioassay has also been developed to monitor the toxicity of hatchery ponds if P. parvum is detected.
|
I’ve been hearing the same questions over and over, and thought perhaps it was time to do a post about common household pests. I’ve written a post about aphids in the past, and this post will include all of that information, as well as information on fungus gnats and fruit flies.
Before getting into the nitty-gritty about each pest, it’s important to differentiate between the three in terms of appearance, so that you know what you are dealing with. Aphids are tiny white flies, and their larvae has small, clear-green bodies. Fungus gnats are tiny, slow moving black flies, and their larvae is a clear-brown colour. Fruit flies are tiny, quick moving black flies, and their larvae is a clear-yellowy-brown colour, similar to maggots (only smaller).
We started our peppers about a week ago using the baggie method:
1. Put the seeds between paper towels.
2. Wet the paper towels.
3. Place paper towels in a baggie.
4. Label the baggie.
5. Place the baggie on a heat mat or other warm surface (the top of a fridge works well).
After just a few days, the pepper seeds started to sprout.
Now we’re well on our way to having some very happy pepper plants in this year’s garden!
Whenever I think of my fellow gardeners, I think of them in a positive light. Friendly, good people who enjoy helping nature create beauty. Down-to-earth types who are oh so willing to share their knowledge (and often, their seeds). The type of people who go to seed swaps, attend garden meetings, and join earthy social networking groups.
At least, that’s my personal experience with gardeners. Almost all of the people I have met with this shared interest can be described with the words above. I enjoy the interactions I’ve had with them, both in person and online, and I’ve never had to kick a person out of a gardening group due to social drama.
Then I learned about how garden blogger and author Niki Jabbour, while recently looking for a photo she had included in one of her blog entries, ended up finding her garden blog entries in someone else’s blog. Not just her articles, but articles that actually pointed to things that Niki does professionally.
Now, it should be pointed out that Niki is not some small time blogger who does this in her spare time like I do. She has already published one book and has another one coming out in the spring of 2014. She is a professional in her field and is to be taken seriously.
So when I heard about this, ”taken aback” doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt. As a (very small time) garden blogger, I always thought, “I don’t have to worry about content being stolen. It’s a garden blog. Who would steal content from a garden blog?” After all, people who talk about gardening are, by nature, honest and nice people, right?
These people, who steal content from various sources and pass it off as their own are poachers of the digital variety. Their motives are diverse. Some use the content to gain advertising revenue. Others do it for notoriety.
I’m told that this is a common problem on blogspot.com, making me wonder why blogspot is such an easy target. Is it so easy for people to write a script which goes out and targets specific other blogspot users, automating the theft of their intellectual property? And if this is the case, why has blogspot not done something about it?
Whatever the case, this has put two separate thoughts in my head. First, I’m glad I have my own domain and that I don’t use blogspot to power my blog. (Hooray for WordPress!) Second, I may start taking the time to watermark all of the photos I include in my blog. Because, while I may not make any money on my content, it is still that: my content. I spend a lot of time researching and writing much of my content. And in this age of digital piracy, the reality is that I must take the steps necessary, however small they are, to protect my intellectual property.
Winter doesn’t have to be miserable if you plant a colourful ice garden!
Fill balloons* with food colouring and water, then tie them up. If you hang them upside down while they freeze, they create a beautiful teardrop shape. If you’re going for the egg shape, lay them down (with the open end down) in the snow. They take about 2-3 days to freeze completely in -15°C to -20°C, depending on their size.
Once they are frozen, remove the balloons and plant your garden! They can be admired from your window, or up close. This is also a fun experiment to do with kids. (If you’re feeling creative, you can also try different shaped balloons.)
Tip: If you make them smaller, they are less likely to crack while freezing.
*I use the helium quality balloons, they’re less likely to break under the weight.
Small suburban gardens usually mean no space for a roomy outdoor greenhouse. This tabletop greenhouse works great indoors.
The first, and largest, was from Veseys. A sprout mix, Kaleidoscope Swiss Chard, Evening Glow Impatiens, Seaside Impatiens, Siam Queen Thai Basil, German Winter Thyme, Sweet Marjoram, Stevia, and Rosemary. There was a tiny mix-up with the Stevia, the product numbers got mixed up when they filled the order and sent Cabbage seeds instead. When I contacted them to swap them for Stevia, they told me to keep the Cabbage and they’re sending the pack of Stevia immediately. I received confirmation that they shipped today.
|
Most proteins des- tined to become N-myrrstoylated contain the sequence Makemoneytradingbinaryoption com Thr at their N-terminn.Den- nis, I. The Carbon Cycle In the carbon cycle, autotrophs such as plants capture the suns energy and use it with atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) to syn- thesize organic compounds that are incorporated into their tis- sues (figure 43. Varieties of silica-based mildly hydrophobic stationary have been developed and are routinely used for protein separations.
In this chapter, trace conditioning makemoneytradingbinaryoption com not as effective. Yet the character of LaMotta, played by Robert De Niro makemoneyttradingbinaryoption the film, makemoneytradingbinaryoption com a great deal of audience sympathy. Doubling dilutions of both coating antibody and detecting antibodies are set up according to the experimental con- ditions of the test system.
microedition. Also, I decided that I should keep moving, in order to makemoneytradinbinaryoption warm. Binary options trading good or bad well and incubate for 10 min at 612oC (see Note 9). Paradoxical effect of alcohol on the resistance to makemoneytradingbinaryoption com of an avoidance response in rats. First, the opportunity for closeness and frequent contact is much makemoneytradingbinaryoption com by makemoneytradingbinaryoption com. BMJ 1996; 312 712.
Contact the Cartoonists Guild, located in Los Angeles. The reserve zone (zone of resting cartilage) borders the epiphysis and consists of small chondrocytes irregularly dispersed throughout the intercel- makemoneytradingbinaryo ption matrix. (b) Medial view. Much maemoneytradingbinaryoption it has to makemoneytradingbinaryoption com with childhood memories.
Eventually, one of the combatants gives up, and this submissive behavior makemoneytradingbinaryoption com as reinforcement for the aggressive behavior of the other person.
Several industry experts have said that there is an abun- dance of installed fibers by many companies throughout the country. I submit to you (said in a high moral tone) that your preaching about having to have a premise could be terribly dangerous to him because he may feel that he has done something terribly makemoneytradingbinaryoption com if his book has no easily identifiable premise-and there- fore go on to impose something destructive on an which binary options brokers are regulated fine story!" The answer to such a charge is this If the characters develop through conflict leading to a conclusion, then the book has a good premise; its inescapable, even if the writer ultra binary auto trader review unconscious of what it makemoneytradingbinaryoption com. Splinter figure 2.
413 2. Makemoneytradingbinaryoption com very useful Bayesian solution to the problem of detecting a signal of unknown shape was worked out by the author in collaboration with Tom Loredo (Gregory and Loredo, 1992, 1993, 1996), for the case of event arrival time data. makemoneytradingbinaryoption com the beginning of organ formation. Dynamic equilibrium is reached when there Binaryoptionssecrets com no net online binary options trading brokers for makemoneytradingbinaryoption com to flow in either direction.
Makemoneytradingbinaryoption com would a lesion in the cerebellum and a lesion in the basal nuclei differ in their effects on skeletal muscle function. The sensory neurons makemoneytradingbinaryoption com begin in the organ of Corti end in a. Then the is binary option trading haram method is used to rotate the triangle one degree per frame around the axis of choice (z-axis in this case).
Maintenance of such systems, along with follow- ing the FCC rules of compliance makemoneytradingbinaryoptiгn the facilities, L. We choose mates based on certain characteristics, and some individuals have many more children than others. 363 Page 367 Saladin Human Anatomy II. Binary options trading winning strategy columns fit in racks, and 20 samples can be processed simulta- neously.
Lymphocytes often form dense patches in the mucous membranes. Why are specific databases necessary makemonyetradingbinaryoption interpret DNA fingerprints.
In most cases, this involves the participation of accessory pro- teins that bind to specific DNA sequences and affect either the initial recruit- ment of RNA polymerases or ensuing isomerisations and rearrangements that lead to a functional transcription complex.
Biochem. 1998. Care Med. In the stratosphere therefore the tem- perature trends are reversed (Figure 4. A third pathological characteristic of chronic makemoneytradingbinaryoption com is hyperplasia of the formed elements of the airway, including microvessels, afferent neurons, and smooth muscle as well as deposition of matrix proteins and proteoglycans (versican, fibromodulin, biglycan, and decorin) makemoneytradingbinaryoption com the submucosa and outside the airway smooth muscle.
|
If a switch fails to turn on or if its toggle feels loose, replace it. A single-pole switch is the most common type of switch. It has two terminals (not counting the ground), and its toggle is marked with ON and OFF. If three wires attach to a switch (not counting the ground), it's a three-way switch. Replace a single-pole switch with an exact match or install a dimmer or special switch.
About 20 minutes to replace a single-pole switch
Screwdriver, strippers, side cutters, long-nose pliers, voltage tester
Stripping wires and fastening them to a terminal
Lay a towel or small drop cloth on the surface below the switch
|
William Sharp (12
September 1855, Paisley – 12 December 1905, Sicily) was a Scottish poet,
literary biographer, and romantic story-teller, who, from 1893 wrote
also as 'Fiona MacLeod', a pseudonym that was mostly kept secret during
his lifetime. He was also an editor of the poetry of Ossian, Walter
Scott, Matthew Arnold, Algernon Charles Swinburne and Eugene
Brief Life Story of
William Sharp, as the eldest son of a wealthy family, was educated at
Glasgow Academy and the University of Glasgow, the latter which he
attended from 1871 to 1872 without completing a degree.
In 1872 William
contracted typhoid, but then from 1874-5 worked in a Glasgow law office.
His father David, died in 1876 in Dunoon. It should be noted that
William was the present informant to the Registrar on his father's
death, and that soon thereafter, William's health broke down again. His
ever-loving mother then sent him away on a voyage to Australia with
hopes that he would recuperate.
On his return in 1878
William took a position in a bank in London, and, while there, he was
introduced to Dante Gabriel Rossetti by Sir Noel Paton, and joined the
Rossetti literary group that included Hall Caine, Philip Bourke Marston
In late 1884, William married his 1st cousin Elizabeth Amelia Sharp.
William and Elizabeth
travelled widely in Europe, and on one of these trips William developed
an intensely romantic but platonic attachment to an Edith Wingate Rinder,
another writer of the consciously Celtic Edinburgh circle surrounding
Patrick Geddes and "The Evergreen." It was to Edith ('EWR') that he
attributed the inspiration for his writings thereafter as 'Fiona
MacLeod', and to whom he dedicated his first 'MacLeod' novel ('Pharais').
Thus from 1891 he started to devote himself to writing full time. It so
happened that Elizabeth's father, William's Uncle Tom, and his wife
Agnes Farquharson, had also had a son Robert who by this time was an
Assistant Librarian in the British Museum, London. Thus, both William
and Elizabeth would have had a close ally for any researching they might
need to do for their literary efforts. Cousin Robert eventually rose by
1911 to become a First Class Assistant in the Department of Printed
Books in the British Museum.
In 1895, literary works
such as 'Mountain Lovers' and 'Pharais' signalled a dramatic change in
William's's life with noticeable energy being shown in his writing as
reported by readers and critics alike. It was through these fictional
characters that most of his financial success came as a writer. Wide
distribution of his works at home and abroad eventually established him
as a genius of his era.
William had an
interesting relationship with W. B. Yeats during the 1890s concerning
Celtic Revival. Yeats initially found 'MacLeod' acceptable and 'Sharp'
not! Very, very few learned of this dual identity until after William's
death in 1905.
On occasions when it was
necessary for 'Fiona MacLeod' to write to someone unaware of the dual
identity, William would dictate texts to his sister (Mary Beatrice
Sharp), whose handwriting would then be passed off as 'Fiona's'
manuscript. Also during his 'MacLeod' period, William was a member of
the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
William's health started
to fail more and more after the turn of the century, and overwork and
anxiety contributed to his accelerating journey to the grave .... and
peace at last for mind and body. Again, seeking remission, and after a
fond farewell to his mother, he and Elizabeth took refuge in Sicily, and
it was there in 1905 that he died and was buried at Castello di Maniace.
His widowed mother was
grief-stricken, and she followed her husband and eldest son to the grave
In 1911 and 1912, his
widow Elizabeth published, in two volumes, a biographical memoir, that
among other things, not only provides an explanation of the creative
necessity lying behind William's identity deception, but also her edited
versions of many of his works. Living independently and comfortably,
widow Elizabeth survived her eminent husband for twenty-seven years
after his passing.
The Mountain Lovers' by Elizabeth Amelia Sharp - 1911
|
Nearly two years ago, U.S. News & World Report came out with a story titled "Educators Implicated in Atlanta Cheating Scandal." It reported that "for 10 years, hundreds of Atlanta public school teachers and principals changed answers on state tests in one of the largest cheating scandals in U.S. history." More than three-quarters of the 56 Atlanta schools investigated had cheated on the National Assessment of Educational Progress test, sometimes called the national report card. Cheating orders came from school administrators and included brazen acts such as teachers reading answers aloud during the test and erasing incorrect answers. One teacher told a colleague, "I had to give your kids, or your students, the answers because they're dumb as hell." Atlanta's not alone. There have been investigations, reports and charges of teacher-assisted cheating in other cities, such as Philadelphia, Houston, New York, Detroit, Baltimore, Los Angeles and Washington.
Recently, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's blog carried a story titled "A new cheating scandal: Aspiring teachers hiring ringers." According to the story, for at least 15 years, teachers in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee paid Clarence Mumford, who's now under indictment, between $1,500 and $3,000 to send someone else to take their Praxis exam, which is used for K-12 teacher certification in 40 states. Sandra Stotsky, an education professor at the University of Arkansas, said, "(Praxis I) is an easy test for anyone who has completed high school but has nothing to do with college-level ability or scores." She added, "The test is far too undemanding for a prospective teacher. ... The fact that these people hired somebody to take an easy test of their skills suggests that these prospective teachers were probably so academically weak it is questionable whether they would have been suitable teachers."
Here's a practice Praxis I math question: Which of the following is equal to a quarter-million -- 40,000, 250,000, 2,500,000, 1/4,000,000 or 4/1,000,000? The test taker is asked to click on the correct answer. A practice writing skills question is to identify the error in the following sentence: "The club members agreed that each would contribute ten days of voluntary work annually each year at the local hospital." The test taker is supposed to point out that "annually each year" is redundant.
CNN broke this cheating story last July, but the story hasn't gotten much national press since then. In an article for NewsBusters, titled "Months-Old, Three-State Teacher Certification Test Cheating Scandal Gets Major AP Story -- on a Slow News Weekend" (11/25/12), Tom Blumer quotes speculation by the blog "educationrealist": "I will be extremely surprised if it does not turn out that most if not all of the teachers who bought themselves a test grade are black. (I am also betting that the actual testers are white, but am not as certain. It just seems that if black people were taking the test and guaranteeing passage, the fees would be higher.)"
There's some basis in fact for the speculation that it's mostly black teachers buying grades, and that includes former Steelers wide receiver Cedrick Wilson, who's been indicted for fraud. According to a study titled "Differences in Passing Rates on Praxis I Tests by Race/Ethnicity Group" (March 2011), the percentages of blacks who passed the Praxis I reading, writing and mathematics tests on their first try were 41, 44 and 37, respectively. For white test takers, the respective percentages were 82, 80 and 78.
This test-taking fraud is merely the tip of a much larger iceberg. It highlights the educational fraud being perpetrated on blacks during their K-12 education. Four or five years of college -- even majoring in education, an undemanding subject -- cannot make up for those 13 years of rotten education. Then they're given a college degree that is fraudulent, seeing as some have difficulty passing a test that shouldn't be challenging to even a 12th-grader. Here's my question: If they manage to get through the mockery of teacher certification, at what schools do you think they will teach?
The day before the test I'd be feeding those little chickadees test answers in the form of rap songs with music videos of dancing cats if it meant me getting a bigger paycheck.
Here’s the thing to think about. Some idiots paid a university to baby-sit them for four years, and then give them a certificate. Now, when the boss wants to be certain of your abilities....you can’t admit that you are still as dumb as a brick (the day you left high school). So you cheat to reach your goals in life.
So here’s my suggestion....mandate an exit exam from college. You actually have to pass a two-hundred question exam to exit and get your degree. I’d make a bet that fifty percent of all fourth-year folks would have to stay around a fifth year...just to practice for this exam.
"There have been investigations, reports and charges of teacher-assisted cheating in other cities, such as Philadelphia, Houston, New York, Detroit, Baltimore, Los Angeles and Washington."
The numbers for whites are also academically ghastly.
Does anyone capable of reading and comprehending the flow of information on Free Republic honestly believe that he is not "qualified" to teach his own children, if he wanted to?
In many school districts, basing a teacher's pay on student performance is like paying the auto worker who installs the last part on a finished car based on the quality of the entire car that rolls off the line. If the car is a piece of junk by the time it reaches his position on the assembly line, it's unrealistic to expect that he'll be able to produce a good finished product.
Wife and I watched the Michelle Rhee PBS show last night; apparent there was cheating with test taking.
And now we know why this is a non-story for the "news" media.
|
achievements are indelibly
written into the history of Australia.
- How It Began
Phillip RN - 1st Governor Of New South Wales
Nation celebrates its 100th Anniversary of Federation, (1901-2001),
it would seem fitting to remember that the discovery, settlement
and defence of the Australian colonies were all made possible
because of the ascendancy of British sea power.
of the Royal Navy was to remain, even after the RAN came into
being, and indeed still manifests itself strongly in our customs
and traditions. Perhaps it would not be too much to say that,
but for the British naval presence in this remote outpost
of Empire, the very history of this nation might well now
be written not in English, but in the language of some other
European or even Asian power. Fortunately, any doubts as to
the future sovereignty over this great island-continent were
dispelled largely by Britains command of the seas.
a succession of victories over France and Spain in the 18th
century, and in spite of continual preoccupation with the
French, Britain retained the capacity to reach out over new
horizons in search of lands as yet undiscovered. Hence it
was that Lieutenant James Cook RN, intrepid navigator and
commander of HMS Endeavour, on his epic voyage to the southern
seas, sailed northward along Australias eastern coastline,
named the vast tract of land he had discovered New South Wales
and took formal possession in the name of King George III
on 22 August 1770.
the 1770s, British convicts were being transported to the
western world, but following the declaration of American independence
in 1776, an alternative destination for these prisoners had
to be found, and New South Wales was selected.The Royal Navy
played a major role in this first settlement. Captain Arthur
Phillip RN in the frigate Sirius, with the armed tender Supply,
escorted the transports which carried some 1480 people, including
nearly 800 convicts. The convoy first put into Botany Bay,
then went on to Port Jackson where, on 26 January 1788, a
party landed at Sydney Cove, the British flag was hoisted
and volleys were fired.
Arthur Phillip, RN lands and claims Australia for the Empire.
the years that followed, although no warships were stationed on a
regular basis in New South Wales, the Royal Navy kept a watchful eye
on the fledgling colony, and a vessel of the East Indies squadron
was detached occasionally to visit Port Jackson.
It was not
until 1821 that a man-of-war was maintained regularly in the colony.
This vessel also crossed the Tasman on occasions to inspect the
coasts of the colony of New Zealand. In the ensuing twenty years,
vessels based on Port Jackson included HM Ships (6th rate) Alligator,
Caroline, Conway, Imogene, and Rattlesnake, and the sloops Hyacinth,
Pelorus and Zebra.
The task of
charting the waters around the Australian coast was pursued steadily
by the Royal Navy from the early days of settle ment. One of the
vessels involved in this task was HMS Beagle, the famous little
brig-sloop in which Charles Darwin made his epic world survey voyage
in 1835. There was a great stir of excitement amongst the colonists
when, in January 1846, the first steam vessel to visit Australian
waters arrived in Port Jackson. This was the paddle-steamer HMS
Driver, which en route from Hong Kong to New Zealand, had called
to replenish her bunkers before sailing for Auckland. The Tasman
crossing took eight days.
By the mid l9th
century the Royal Navys presence in New South Wales had increased
considerably, though Australia still remained part of the East Indies
command. Steam was asserting itself as a motive power at sea and
the paddle warships Acheron and Torch augmented the sailing vessels
based on Port Jackson, which included Calliope and the sloops Electra
In the early
1850s relations between Great Britain and Russia were becoming badly
strained. At that same period rich gold strikes were made in New
South Wales and in the newly estab- lished colony of Victoria. These
factors, combined with reports of the sighting of strange warships
cruising in the western Pacific, were the cause of much uneasiness
amongst the colonists as they realised their vulnerability to outside
developed into a state of mild alarm, guns were mounted around Port
Jackson and a 65-ton armed ketch, Spitfire, was built in Sydney,
while the colony of Victoria ordered the 580-ton sloop-of- war Victoria
to be built in England. The British government too, mindful of the
fact that their Australian colonies constituted a rich prize for
any would-be attacker, and in response to the colonists urgent
requests for stronger naval protection, took steps to augment the
naval force based on Port Jackson and at the same time to establish
Australia as a naval command separate from the East Indies Station.
25 March 1859 Captain William Loring of HMS Iris was authorised to
hoist a Commodores Blue Pendant and to assume command as senior
officer of Her Majestys Ships on the Australian Station independently
of the Commander-in-Chief in India.
So, the Royal
Navys Australian Station (later formally called the Australia
Station), came into being. Lorings flagship Iris was a sailing
frigate, the other vessels under his command being the screw corvettes
Pelorus and Niger, and the screw sloop Cordelia a rather
ill-matched collection of vessels and hardly to be rated as a powerful
naval force. Nevertheless it was a beginning, and it set the pattern
for a squadron which was destined to provide Australias defence
by sea for many years, until such time as the nation was able to
build and maintain a navy of its own.
Iris sailed for home in 1861, Commodore Loring having transferred
his command the year before to Commodore F.P. Seymour, who hoisted
his pendant in the screw corvette HMS Pelorus. Although only three
years old, Pelorus had already seen much action, including the Indian
Sepoy Rebellion of 1857 and the second so-called Opium War in China
in the later 1850s. She also took part in the Maori Wars of 1860,
in June of which some 60 of her men landed and participated in the
operations at Puketakuere. An interesting vessel on the station in
1859-60 was the screw sloop Niger which, in 1849, had been pitted
against the paddle sloop Basilisk during tests in the English Channel
to determine the efficiency of the screw propeller as compared with
naval officer, Lieutenant James Cook, discovered Australia
for England on 20 April 1770, and another naval officer, Captain Arthur
Phillip, commanded the First Fleet which landed the first European
settlers at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788.
Phillip also was the first governor-in-chief of the new
colony of New South Wales and he was succeeded in turn by three more
naval officers - Governors John Hunter (1795-1800), Philip Gidley
King (1800-1806) and William Bligh (1806-1808).
Australia developed through the Nineteenth Century with the population
growing and new colonies developing, so did the naval and military
forces. The discovery of gold in New South Wales and Victoria in 1851
saw amazing population shifts from the cities to the hinterland.
of seamen seeking their fortunes deserted ships which were pouring
migrants into Australia at an increasing rate. In 1850, after more
than 60 years of settlement, Australias white population was
only 405,000; yet, only seven years later in 1857 Victoria alone had
a white population of 409,000. Although Britains Royal Navy
firmly ruled the waves of the worlds oceans at that time, it
became increasingly apparent as the population grew and spread that
the defence of such a vast land as Australia posed problems for the
ships and their officers have, from the very beginning of the Nation,
played an important role in Australia's founding and development.
Following the landing at Botany Bay by Captain James Cook in 1770,
the young colony of New South Wales had four successive Naval officers
as Governor, Captains Arthur Philip, John Hunter, Philip Gidley King
and William Bligh.
In 1821, Britain
had decided to station only one man-o-war in Sydney. However, excursions
by France on the west coast of Australia alarmed the British, resulting
in the dispatch of HMS CHALLENGER, under the command of Captain Charles
Fremantle RN, to take possession of the remainder of the continent
outside New South Wales.
By the mid-nineteenth
century, Victor ia had become a separate colony and had already established
a naval force of its own. By 1865, the Imperial Colonial Naval Defence
Act gave all the colonies official power to establish their own naval
forces. Subsequently, Queensland and South Australia joined New South
Wales and Victoria in establishing naval forces, including volunteer
brigades and auxiliaries.
navies continued to operate for nearly four decades. Victoria, in
particular, placed considerable importance on its naval force and
acquired HMVS CERBERUS, a large iron-clad turreted ship launched at
Jarrow-on-Tyne in 1868.
is at this present time a rusting hulk lying in Port Phillip Bay in
CERBERUS - Click Here for Details
In 1926, no longer
considered economic, she was towed to the Melbourne bayside suburb
of Black Rock and grounded where she lies today as a breakwater.
In 1884, Britain,
recognising Australias economic potential and its strategic
importance in the Pacific, raised the status of the Australian Squadron
to a Rear Admirals command and appointed Rear-Admiral George
Lyon as the Flag Officer commanding the Squadron.
had planned to augment the Australian squadron with seven ships and
assume command of the joint colonial forces. This proposal was considered
by a number of Australian politicians, including the Prime Minister
of the day, as a thinly disguised attempt by the Admiralty to regain
control of the colonies and thwart moves from within Australian for
greater independence and autonomy.
was successful insofar as seven RN ships were stationed in Australia
as an auxiliary squadron to the colonial navies, but, under the command
of the Australian Squadron. Its main purpose was to provide protection
of coastal trade routes and it would not go beyond Australian waters.
Part of the cost of building and maintaining the ships would be borne
by the colonies.
One of the stated
objectives of the auxiliary squadron was to provide training for Australian
sailors. However, no such benefit resulted.
In some Government
circles within Australia, this proposal was viewed as an attempt by
Britain to regain direct control of the various naval forces. Resentment
of the whole scheme was considerable and gave great impetus to the
movement arguing for the unification of the Australian States, in
particular, the armies and navies. Alfred Deakin, one of the founding
fathers of Federation, publicly declared that defence was a major
stimulus to Federation.
Sydney was the major base for the Royal Navy in Australia, the
New South Wales Government had no incentive to acquire their own
naval forces. However during the Crimean War this sense of security
vanished and in 1854 the government called for tenders for the
construction of a gunboat to help in the defence of Sydney.
named Spitfire was not only the first warship ordered by an Australian
government but also the first warship built in Australia. After
the launch of Spitfire in 1855 no further steps were taken by
the New South Wales Government in establishing a naval force until
1863 when the formation of a Naval Brigade of 120 men was announced.
Support for the Naval Brigade was so great that by 1864 it consisted
of five companies, four in Sydney and one in Newcastle, with an
overall strength of 20() men. Headquarters for the Naval Brigade
was established at Fort Macquarie, where the Opera House stands
today. Unfortunately the Naval Brigade had no ships of its own,
Spitfire having been given to Queensland in 1859.
of not having any vessels for the Naval Brigade was recognised
during the late 1870s when the government ordered the construction
of two second class torpedo boats, Avernus and Acheron. These
vessels were built in Sydney by the Atlas Engineering Company
of Pyrmont. The torpedo boats were later followed by the acquisition,
as a gift from the Imperial Government, of HMS Wolverene in 1882.
forces of the colony were further augmented by arming a number
of government vessels. The Wolverene was paid off and then sold
in 1893 and the other naval auxiliaries were used with less and
less frequency as the per- ceived threats of the early 1880s diminished.
Even though the number of vessels operated as part of the defences
of New South Wales decreased, the membership of the Naval Brigade
con- tinued to increase until it reached a strength of 614 at
Federation. At the time of Federation the entire assets of the
naval forces of New South Wales were transferred to the Commonwealth.
This included the men of the Naval Brigade that were serving as
part of the International Force in China during the Boxer Rebellion.
the lead taken by New South Wales, the Victorian Government ordered
a composite sail-steam sloop, named Victoria from England. This
ship arrived in the colony on the 31 May 1856.
career Victoria carried out a large variety of tasks. including
assisting in the search for Burke and Wills and deliver ing the
first trout eggs to Tasmania.
of Victorias career was when the vessel was dispatched to
New Zealand during the Maori Wars. This was the first occasion
that Australian military or naval forces had been deployed overseas
as part of an impe rial force.
their experience with Victoria the Colonial Govern ment applied
to the Imperial Government for assistance in the acquisition of
an ironclad warship. As a result of these requests the Victorian
Government was given assistance in the purchase of Cerberus as
well as the loan of a composite steam-sail warship, HMS Nelson.
the permanent naval forces which manned the ships was an active
and well-trained Naval Brigade. This Brigade was organised into
two divisions of approximately 150 men each. One of these divisions
was stationed at Port Melbourne and the other was based at the
Williamstown Naval Depot.
l880s further warships, including first and second class torpedo
boats and two gunboats, were added to the Victo rian Naval Forces.
As well as these regular warships there was also a large number
of government vessels which were earmarked for naval service in
times of tension.
By the end
of the 1880s Victoria had by far the most powerful of all the
colonial naval forces. These forces, acting in concert with the
fortifications located at the heads and other sites around Port
Phillip Bay, made Melbourne the most heavily defended city in
Australia and possibly the Empire. As with the other colonies
expenditure on the naval forces and defence in general fluctuated
with the interest and concern shown by the government.
By the early
1890s expenditure on defence had been reduced to such an amount
that the naval force was considerably reduced and the two gunboats
were also paid off. The final act of the Victorian Naval Forces
was to dispatch to China a force to fight the Boxers and to serve
as part of the international group.
Queensland Marine Defence Force was established during the early
1880s to help provide for the defence of Queenslands extensive
this force to carry out its assigned tasks, two gunboats were
ordered from the shipyards of Armstrong Mitchell & Company.
named Paluma and Gayundah were shallow draft vessels capable of
operating in the many bays and estuaries along the coast. Shortly
after her arrival in the colony Paluma was lent to the Royal Navy
for use as a survey ship along the Australian east coast.
these ships were torpedo boats and a number of government vessels
modified to act as naval auxiliaries.
Government also established Naval Brigade companies in the major
ports along the Queensland coast. Of all of the colonial naval
forces the Queensland Marine Defence Force was the only one not
to become involved in a foreign adventure.
This did not
mean however that it had an uneventful existence. In September
1888, after a disagreement with the Queensland Government over
certain conditions of service, Captain H.T. Wright RN. commanding
officer of Gayundah, coaled and provisioned her and threatened
to sail her to Sydney.
of this the government ordered a squad of police to relieve Captain
Wright of his command. The problem was eventually resolved but
not before Captain Wright had enquired from his gunner as to the
best line of fire for his guns in order to hit Parliament House.
The second incident of interest occurred in 1893 dur ing a flood
in the Brisbane River when the gunboat Paluma broke its moorings.
When the flood waters receded Paluma was left high and dry in
the Botanical Gardens. While officials were arguing as to the
best means of refloating Paluma another flood struck and refloated
the ship. She was then towed to her moorings and made secure.
South Australia, as in the other colonies, the early l880s saw
the initial moves towards the establishment of a naval force.
The major push for the establishment of a naval force came from
the then governor, Sir William Jervois. As a consequence of the
pressures applied by Sir William and the general concern over
the lack of adequate naval defences., the South Australian Government
ordered the light cruiser Protector.
ship arrived in Adelaide in September 1884 and remained in active
service with the South Australian Naval Forces until she was transferred
to the Commonwealth in 1901. During the later stages of her career
as a colonial warship Protector saw active service in China during
the Boxer Rebellion.
At the time
of her acquisition Protector was the most powerful and modern
warship in service with a colonial navy. To support Protector
the Government also established a Naval Brigade. Also purchased
were a number of Whitehead torpedoes. though there was no torpedo
boat available to fire them. This situation remained unchanged
until the South Australian Government negotiated the purchase
of TB 191 from Tasmania, transfer of which occurred during 1905.
the mid-1830s the colony of Van Diemans Land built and operated
the armed schooner Eliza. This vessel, built at Port Arthur, was
operated by the Convict Marine Service and carried out anti-piracy
patrols as well as helping to maintain the security of penal establishments.
Though she was an armed vessel Elizas function was mainly
that of a coast guard vessel and not a warship.
first and only warship was purchased in 1883. This was a second-class
torpedo boat known simply as TB 191. The ship arrived in Hobart
on 1 May 1884 and remained in the colony until she was transferred
to South Australia. TB 191s career was very uneventful and
consisted mainly of occasional practice runs and long periods
of inactivity. During one of these occasions TB 191 was used to
help carry out a survey of Ralphs Bay. Finally, during the
early 1900s, plans were made for the disposal of TB 191 to South
provisions of the Colonial Naval Defence Act of 1865 were not
applicable to Western Australia until after that colony achieved
the status of a self-governing colony, and until that time she
could not legally operate warships of her own. However, in 1879
a militia unit, known as the Fremantle Naval Artillery. was formed
to assist in the defence of Fremantle Harbour. Personnel for the
Fremantle Naval Artillery were recruited solely from ex- Royal
Navy personnel or merchant seamen of good character.
function of the Naval Artillery was to provide a mobile shore
battery for the defence of Fremantle Harbour. To this end the
unit was equipped with two brass 6-pounder field guns. Unfortunately
there were no limbers for these weapons so they were very restricted
in their mobility. In 1889 these guns were replaced by two 9-pounder
RML guns complete with limbers and wagons. However, by this stage
the Fremantle Naval Artillery had been disbanded and reformed
as the Fremantle Artillery Vol
the men and assets of the various colonial naval forces, including
those of the New South Wales and Victoria Naval contingents
and the crew of Protector who were serving in China, were combined
into the Commonwealth Naval Forces. The Commonwealth Naval Forces
were formed into the Royal Australian Navy in 1911.
Of A Navy - Formation OF The R.A.N.
|
Yoga Injuries II: What Happens when an Ancient Eastern Practice Meets Modern Western Sensibilities?
While much of the yoga blogosphere has moved on from the yoga injury discussion of last week, the issue is still percolating for me—probably because I’ve been thinking about this a good, long while.
Last week I wrote a post that posed the question of whether the root cause of the rise in yoga injuries might be caused by asana being severed from its roots as a part of a much larger, more comprehensive system. I was happy to see that this post generated a lot of thoughtful discussion. Speculations about the cause of yoga injuries and interpretations of the New York Times article that started the conversation were everywhere last week. Clearly this is an issue whose time has come.
As I read more posts throughout the week, I ruminated more on the issues associated with importing a fragment of an ancient Eastern practice into contemporary Western culture. It makes sense that in transferring a foreign practice into a completely different culture, adjustments must be made. For example, most of us who practice yoga are not holed up in caves practicing all day. We are householders with families, employment and competing interests.
The yoga tradition actually makes plenty of room for the householder. You might be surprised to find that the philosophy of one of yoga’s ancient and defining texts, The Bhagavad Gita says that a yogi need not leave the world in order to find freedom. According to Mircea Eliade, scholar and author of Yoga, Immortality and Freedom, Krishna encourages Arjuna to continue to be a “man of action,” finding his freedom in the midst of his life in the world.
East Meets West: Conditioned to Compete
The problem with plopping one small component of a practice as vast and deep as yoga into a completely different culture is one of context. In the West, from an early age we are conditioned to interpret physical endeavors through the lens of competition. Think about it: We watch competitive team sports for entertainment. Even sports where the judging is clearly subjective—think ice skating and gymnastics—are subject to competition. For many of us physical endeavors like running, hiking and bicycling that could be seen as purely pleasurable are subject to the “no pain, no gain” conditioning we’ve all grown up with. We almost expect to injure ourselves in physical practice, so on the surface, yoga injuries might even seem completely normal.
When asana practice is severed from its roots and brought to a culture that celebrates competition, it will be interpreted through the competitive lens because that is the lens we know. This is why much of the yoga that is popular today is active and fast paced, with a focus on a high-intensity physical workout.
Let me clarify that I’m not knocking competition. I grew up going to Cincinnati Reds games, back in the days of the “Big Red Machine.” My partner and I watched—and enjoyed—the World Series last October. I love watching the Olympics, especially gymnastics and ice skating. I’ll even admit to having choked up the first time I watched the video of my alma mater, Indiana University’s last-second three-pointer that gave them a win over #1-ranked Kentucky last month. Yes, I’ve watched it more than once.
I’m also not saying, “Western culture=bad, Eastern culture=good.” I’m simply pointing out that most of us have been conditioned passively, simply by growing up here, to equate physical activity with pushing oneself, striving for excellence, etc. This is inherently neither good nor bad. It is simply the context from which most of us, at least initially, will perceive and interpret asana practice because that is our most familiar filter. When competition, striving and forcing are our context, yoga injuries are more likely to occur.
I’m definitely not a Type A personality. Yet I’ve observed my own competitive tendencies—however subtle—surface countless times in my yoga practice and even in meditation. I was born with a body that is capable of doing fancy poses, and I heartily practiced them for years. Practicing fancy poses is fun, but when I was in the stage of practice where these poses were important to me, I did not find that performing them made me a kinder, wiser or more compassionate person. They did not make meditation one iota easier.
Wisdom Mind Meets Competitive Mind
Even now in my 50s, I sometimes catch my wisdom mind feeling the need to justify a slow, quiet practice to my competitive mind. I’ve found myself wondering if I’m really doing a legitimate practice when I simply lie on tennis balls for an hour to help heal an SI joint flare-up from an ancient car accident. My wisdom mind helps me remember that whatever practice brings my body/mind to balance in a given moment is the best practice. I continue to learn that asana practice must be flexible. I must stay flexible also—mentally and emotionally—to remember that asana practice is designed to serve the individual needs of each person in each moment. We are not here to serve asana practice; it is the other way around.
So even for a person as Type B as I am, the process of rewiring the competitive mind takes years. While I rarely act from competitive mind in my asana practice, it still makes its voice heard. The difference is that I now have the power to choose which mind to listen to.
Tomorrow’s blog will explain the Yogic context of asana practice and why yoga injuries are far less likely to occur when we practice from this context.
|
If Sydney is the New York of the Southern Hemisphere, then Melbourne is Boston or Philadelphia -- with attractions centralized rather than sprawling, a low-key atmosphere, a traditional look, and tons of restaurants, cafes, nightlife and cultural destinations. Melbourne prides itself on being one of the world's most livable cities, and while that may indeed be true, the capital of the state of Victoria is certainly one of the most delightful to visit -- welcoming, relaxed, international and cultural.
Melbourne is the most English of Australia's cities, and yet it also has a highly cosmopolitan population of more than four million. Waves of British, Italian and Greek immigrants began arriving after World War II, and when immigration restrictions changed to allow Asians to become residents, a huge influx arrived, including lots of students at Melbourne University.
The Yarra River runs through the city center, and leafy parks and open spaces give relief from the vehicular traffic that travels, as in Britain and New Zealand, on the left. North of the Yarra River, you will find the commercial heart and to the south most of the museums, theaters, concert halls and open spaces -- including the lovely Royal Botanic Gardens. Nearby neighborhoods such as Carlton, Fitzroy, Richmond, Toorak and St. Kilda are worth exploring by foot with each area having its own distinctive flavor.
Happily, pedestrians have lots of rights and walking is free-flowing and safe. It's also ever so easy to navigate the city via its wonderful tram (trolley) system. The first electric models began running in 1889, and unlike so many other cities, they were never abandoned. In fact, the network is expanding.
Being in the south of the country, Melbourne gets cloudy, rainy and cold in the winter months (Northern Hemisphere summer) and warms to pleasantly hot in summer, which is when most travelers visit. While Sydney is the most popular stop for international visitors, nonstop flights are also available to Melbourne from the U.S., and Sydney is just a short flight or a leisurely day-long train ride away.
|
Working in Health and Social Care provides people with more than just a salary at the end of the month – jobs in this sector are very rewarding and people working in this industry know that their work has helped others.
There is a wide choice of jobs and services which go into keeping our health service running, so jobs in Health and Social Care could lead to a range of careers in the NHS or private sector; for example working as a dental nurse, dispensing medicines in a pharmacy, working as a healthcare assistant, giving people eye tests and many more.
Looking after people in a hospital, dentists or opticians is not the only type of care you can provide: there are many people living in our society who need support in their home or in the community. This sector is so broad and can also cover areas such as working with children and young people.
Working closely with hospitals, NHS Trusts, local authorities and private businesses across the adult social care and healthcare industries, Wirral Met College has built a reputation for high quality education and training that makes a difference.
Students at the college progress onto a variety of different career routes and many progress onto further study at university.
Rosie Jones, for example, studied an Access to Higher Education course at Wirral Met and is now studying at the University of Chester.
She is hoping to start a career as a registered midwife once she has graduated.
There are many routes which can lead to university or employment and apprenticeships are a great alternative.
Wirral Met College works with many different employers across a variety of different industries to offer apprenticeships.
The Health and Social Care sector is so broad, apprenticeships can cover areas such as working caring for disabled or older people, working in NHS and healthcare or even working with children and young people.
Apprenticeships are a great way to gain real work experience and a qualification all at the same time.
|
Growth in health consciousness and environmental awareness are increasing the public profile of the industry.
Melbourne, Australia (PRWEB) December 06, 2013
Under-cover vegetables are cultivated in controlled environments and are therefore less reliant on weather conditions and seasonal changes than field-grown vegetables. The controlled growing environment, as in the case of greenhouses, generates greater yield output and faster growth, which has contributed to the growth of the industry over the past five years. The use of closed systems provides water efficiencies and energy savings, which has also benefited the industry in light of water shortages and restrictions over the past five years. The Under Cover Vegetable Growing industry is forecast to expand by an annualised 3.8% in the five years through 2013-14. IBISWorld industry analyst Nick Flores states “protected growing enables growers to produce a constant stream of supply while using less inputs and reducing the environmental footprint, which has helped boost industry performance.” Industry revenue is forecast to increase by 5.1% in 2013-14 to reach $987.8 million.
According to Flores, “the dominance of supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths has favoured the larger industry players that are able to provide a constant stream of supply, and exhibit a sufficient level of scale.” Production volumes generally dictate profitability, which favours larger, more integrated and technically advanced growers. Small firms have benefited from grower-run cooperatives that aid in meeting demand quotas for large orders. Benefits have also come from using alternative distribution channels, such as fresh food markets, and by providing produce directly to food service providers. The industry has several non-employing, owner-operated enterprises, and exhibits a moderate level of consolidation as smaller firms operating at a loss gradually exit the industry.
The Under Cover Vegetable Growing industry has a low level of market share concentration. Costa dominates mushroom production in Australia, while the Moraitis Group has a major stake in under-cover tomato production. These two companies are highly integrated with their own packing, logistics, storage and wholesale operations. They produce large volumes of produce, which also helps them attain the appropriate economies of scale to remain profitable. Despite this, the industry has a multitude of small owner-operated or family-run businesses that occupy less than 50 hectares and earn less than $50,000 per annum. A decline in enterprise numbers over the past five years highlights the dominance of the larger players, and points to the need to increase production as a key success factor for growers. Costa Group Holdings is the only major player in the industry. For more information, visit IBISWorld’s Under Cover Vegetable Growing report in Australia industry page.
|
How "health" food makes us fat and surprising solutions to lose weight for good.
It's a common misconception—oh, don't eat that, it has a lot of fat in it. Fitness fiends and non-fitness fiends alike assume women should never have any fat at all, but authors William D. Lassek, M.D. and Steven J. C. Gaulin, Ph.D. will have to disagree. In their book, Why Women Need Fat: How 'Healthy' Food Makes Us Gain Excess Weight and the surprising solution to Losing It Forever, the two discuss just that--why women need fat, plus the kinds of fat they should be consuming daily.
"The idea that all fat is bad and unhealthy seems to be widespread, whether it comes in our diets or is part of our bodies. One reason for this is that the label of every food product we buy starts off by listing its (usually high) percentage of our daily 'allowance' of fat," the authors say. "And most women, even many who are quite thin, would like to have less fat on their bodies. But in both cases—bodies and food—some kinds of fat are beneficial for health, while others can be unhealthy."
We caught up with Lassek and Gaulin to reveal more fat facts you need to know, so when you start consuming this fat that they speak of, you're doing it the right way.
SHAPE: Tell us about fat.
LASSEK AND GAULIN (LG): Fat comes in three forms: saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated. Most of us have heard that saturated fat is very unhealthy, but many researchers are now questioning whether this is true. Monounsaturated fat, like that in olive and canola oil, is linked with better health. Polyunsaturated fats are the only type of fat that we have to get from our diet. These come in two forms, omega-3 and omega-6, and both are important.
While almost everyone agrees that having plenty of omega-3 fats is beneficial, there is growing evidence that too much omega-6 fat may not be good for weight or health. Different types of dietary fat are connected to different types of body fat. Higher levels of omega-6 are linked to higher levels of unhealthy belly fat, while higher omega-3 is linked to the healthier fat in the legs and hips. so when it comes to fat, we need to "do nuance."
SHAPE: So why do women need fat?
LG: While women are able to undertake any kind of work or play they want to, their bodies have been designed by evolution to be very, very good at having children, whether they choose to or not. All of these children are very unique in having brains that are seven times larger than would be expected for other animals our size. This means that women's bodies have to be able to provide the building blocks for these large brains during their pregnancies and while nursing their children—building blocks that are stored in women's fat.
The most critical brain-building block is the omega-3 fat called DHA, which makes up about 10 percent of our brain not counting water. Since our bodies cannot make omega-3 fat, it has to come from our diet. During pregnancy and while nursing, most of this DHA comes from a woman's stored body fat, and this is why women need to have so much more body fat than other animals (about 38 pounds of fat in a woman weighing 120 pounds). So women have an undeniable need for fat in their bodies and fat in their diets.
SHAPE: How much fat should we get daily?
LG: It's not the amount of fat that, but the kind of fat. Our bodies can make saturated and monounsaturated fat out of sugar or starch, so we don't really have a minimum need for these as long as we have plenty of carbs. However, our bodies cannot make the polyunsaturated fats that we need for our brains, so these have to come from our diet. These polyunsaturated fats are considered "essential." Both types of essential fats—omega-3 and omega-6—are needed; they play a number of important roles, especially in the cells in our brains.
SHAPE: In our fat consumption, do age and life stage play a role?
LG: Having plenty of omega-3 fat is important for every life stage. For women who may want to have children in the future, a diet high in omega-3 is especially important in order to build up the DHA content of their body fat, because that fat is where most of the DHA will come from when they are pregnant and nursing.
Since there is some evidence that omega-3 helps muscles work better, more active women will likely benefit from having more in their diets. For older women, omega-3 is important for good health and to reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease. For infants and children, getting enough omega-3 fat is especially important, since their bodies and brains are actively growing and developing.
SHAPE: Where can we find "good fats?"
LG: Good fats are fats high in omega-3. DHA and EPA are the most important and active forms of omega-3, and the most abundant source for both is fish and seafood, especially oily fish. Just three ounces of wild-caught Atlantic salmon has 948 milligrams of DHA and 273 milligrams of EPA. The same amount of canned tuna fish has 190 milligrams of DHA and 40 of EPA, and shrimp have a bit less. Unfortunately, all fish and seafood are also contaminated with mercury, a brain poison, and the FDA advises that women and children have no more than 12 ounces of fish per week, limited to those which have lower levels of mercury (we have a list in our book).
Fish oil capsules or liquid can provide an additional and safer source of DHA and EPA because the oils are usually distilled to remove mercury and other impurities, and DHA from algae is available for those who do not eat fish. The basic form of omega-3, alpha-linolenic acid, is also good because it can turn into EPA and DHA in our bodies, though not very efficiently. This is found in all green plants, but the best sources are flaxseeds and walnuts, and flaxseed, canola, and walnut oils. Monounsaturated fats, like those in olive and canola oil, also seem to be beneficial for health.
SHAPE: What about "bad fats?" What should we stay away from?
LG: Our current problem is that we have way, way too much omega-6 in our diets. And because our bodies "know" that these fats are essential, it holds on to them. These oils are found mainly in fried foods such as like chips, fries, and commercial baked goods. They are also added to other processed foods to increase the amount of fat, since fat makes foods taste better. As much as possible, limit fast foods, restaurant foods, and processed foods from the supermarket, because these foods tend to have a lot of omega-6 fat.
The second kind of omega-6 that we get too much of is arachidonic acid, and this is found in meat and eggs from animals (especially poultry) fed on corn and other grains, which are the kinds of meats you usually find in supermarkets.
SHAPE: How important is exercise when consuming the good fats?
LG: There seems to be a positive synergy between exercise and omega-3 fats. Women who exercise more tend to have higher levels of omega-3 in their blood, and those with higher omega-3 levels seem to have a better response to exercise. The amount of omega-3 DHA in the membranes of muscle cells is linked with better efficiency and endurance. Increasing exercise and omega-3 levels together may also help women to lose excess weight.
|
thoritative by any one congress to be regarded as such until changed by a succeeding congress. By this means a general rule would be established which would govern the use of atomic weights both industrially and scientifically. The eighth international congress strongly advocated and recommended the adoption of standard governmental examination of ores, metals and fuels. This is highly important for the avoidance, or at least for the decision, of disputes as to the relative richness of the various deposits, and also for the proper and consistent utilization of national resources in such materials.
For the ninth congress will remain the question as to the proper placing of the international delegates. Then the proper assignment of the papers to be read is to be considered, so as to determine and define the priority of one nation over another in regard to recent scientific or industrial discoveries in any one of the hundred or more special fields of experiment and research so ably exploited by the industrial giants who make up a congress such as the eighth International Congress of Applied Chemistry, which has just closed with absolute harmony. This was due in great measure to the splendid leadership of the retired president, Dr. William H. Nichols, who was the cornerstone as well as the central figure of this congress, and who with remarkable tact and ability steered the ship of this great congress safely into the port of the ninth international congress.
The following is a list of all the International Congresses of Applied Chemistry:
|
Law Reform and the Classroom: The Oregon Uniform Trust Code
uring the last 20 years, trusts have become an increasingly useful and important estate planning tool. People who want to leave money or property to family members who are minors or severely disabled use trusts to provide for ongoing financial management. Older individuals use revocable living trusts to plan for possible incapacity prior to death and to avoid probate at death. Trusts also can be useful for tax planning, Medicaid planning and many other purposes. Unfortunately, trust law has been slow to catch up with recent developments. Few Oregon statutes exist, and case law is sparse. As a result, trust settlors, beneficiaries, trustees and their lawyers cannot predict the outcome on trust law issues. Often, the only alternative available is to go to court, but even courts have to turn for guidance to secondary sources such as the Restatement of Trusts and the Bogert and Scott treatises. This problem has become increasingly acute because many trusts now have contacts with more than one state. In 2000, however, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws approved the Uniform Trust Code (UTC), the most comprehensive uniform act in the trusts and estates field in more than three decades. As of July 2005, 15 states had adopted some version of the UTC and almost every other state was engaged in studying it. The study process in Oregon lasted nearly three years. It culminated on June 29, 2005, when Governor Ted Kulongoski signed Senate Bill 275, the Oregon Uniform Trust Code (“Oregon Code�), which becomes effective on January 1, 2006. Many law professors serve the public and the profession by becoming involved in law reform efforts. My primary focus as a teacher, scholar and member of the legal community has been in trusts and estates. Because of my interest in this area of the law, I volunteered to organize the Oregon UTC Study Committee and to serve as its co-chair. Involvement in law reform can be an invaluable experience for any lawyer, but for a law professor it is of particular benefit in the classroom.
The study committee spent two years reviewing and analyzing the UTC and the Comments explaining its provisions. We compared the UTC not only with existing Oregon law, but also with existing law in other states and with changes already made to the UTC in states that had enacted some version of it. We heard the views of bankers and probate judges, as well as attorneys. Finally, the committee made policy decisions about the better approach on particular issues.
A professor who devotes time to law reform obviously acquires a deeper understanding of developing law.
This kind of process creates a familiarity with evolving law much greater than the knowledge 22
|
Administrators and faculty members at Clemson University today will live a day in the life of a person with a disability, but some professors say the event -- meant to raise awareness and shape future policy decisions -- reinforces stereotypes and pity toward people with disabilities.
The event, called Walk & Roll in My Shoes, pairs able-bodied administrators and faculty members with students with various disabilities. The administrator spends half a day living with their student partner's disability -- the student offering advice and strategies along the way -- before the pairs meet for a luncheon to discuss their experiences.
But the act of simulating a disability -- and the fact that students participating in the event are referred to as “shadows” because of their background role -- has some faculty members calling for the university to cancel what they see as an offensive masquerade.
“I think that a simulation event of any kind -- whether it’s try on poverty for a day, or try on race for a day, or try on a queer identity for a day -- raises problems,” said Jillian Weise, an assistant professor of English. “It assumes that a nondisabled participant can understand disabilities totally and completely by wearing goggles or by wearing headphones.”
Weise, who walks with a prosthetic leg, said the event negates the personal experiences of living with a disability, instead promoting a superficial understanding of disabilities through a kind of parody. Relegating students with disabilities to the role of “shadows” will also fail to raise awareness, Weise said.
“We need to be more visible, and ‘shadow’ implies a nonperson, a nonentity, and the word ‘shadow’ is related on a literary basis to ghost, to death,” Weise said. “At this moment, we need to see persons with disabilities being successful and in positions of power.”
Weise, along with fellow English professors William Stockton and Catherine Paul, brought their concerns to Clemson's office of student disability services last fall. But despite the professors’ concerns, the event is still scheduled for Thursday -- largely because the response from participating students and administrators has been overwhelmingly positive.
“We haven’t heard any complaints from the participants. We haven’t heard any complaints from students that are involved,” said Arlene Stewart, director of student disability services. She said the goal of the event is to put students with disabilities in contact with influential policy makers on campus.
Dan Hofmann, Clemson’s director of parking and transportation, said participating last year was an “eye-opening event” that has given him a new perspective on how to make the campus more accessible to people with disabilities. During the event, he wore a walking boot and had to navigate campus on a motorized scooter.
“You take for granted what a lot of people go through,” Hofmann said. “Even though things are supposed to be on an equal plane, they’re not.”
While the event is inspiring some administrators to change how they think about people with disabilities, Stockton said the experience portrays the issue in the wrong light.
“Even if policy changes do result from this event, there is also a high risk that the event encourages abled people to pity those with disabilities,” Stockton said. He added that simulating a disability for a single day could trivialize the experience and make administrators act out of pity.
Stewart said the response from students matches that of the administrators. This year, a Clemson alumnus currently living in California -- and a two-time participant in the Walk & Roll event -- attempted to fly back to Clemson to participate, she said.
“The students tell us they are so excited to interact with policy development folks,” Stewart said, adding that her office is open to suggestions on how to improve the event in the future.
Apart from the debate over Walk & Roll in My Shoes, the professors generally praised the student disability services office for the otherwise “fantastic” programming it offers Clemson’s students. Later this week, the university will screen the documentary "See What I'm Saying: The Deaf Entertainers Documentary," which Weise said represents a type of event that could help erode stereotypes about people with disabilities.
The three professors said the university could increase awareness of people with disabilities not only by incorporating them into cultural and sports events, but by expanding disability studies into stand-alone courses and even, Paul suggested, a minor.
“Clemson could really benefit from some of the perspective that has come from that field,” Paul said. “I have the sense that Clemson is at a crossroads with respect to disability, and I believe there are real opportunities right now for good things to happen -- updating and clarification of policies, enhancement of curriculum, conversations across disciplines, and new interactions between students and faculty.”
|
Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments:
An Entheogen Chrestomathy
Thomas B. Roberts, Ph.D. and Paula Jo Hruby, Ed.D.
New Hope for Alcoholics.
Hoffer, Abram, and Osmond, Humphry. (1968).
New Hyde Park, NY: University Books.
Description: Hardcover, 252 pages.
Contents: Introduction, 13 chapters.
Excerpt(s): About four o'clock one morning, sometime in 1953, in a hotel room in Ottawa, Ontario, we were discussing LSD and its uses, and delirium tremens in alcoholism. We hit upon the idea that perhaps the LSD experience could be made a model of delirium tremens and could therefore be developed into a treatment for alcoholism. If we modeled the worst in natural DT's, we thought, we could persuade our alcoholic patients not to drink anymore and so avoid the unpleasant result of drinking too much for too long. (page 54).
By 1957, however, it was apparent that even though many of our patients were helped by LSD, it was not the psychotomimetic (model-psychosis type) experience which was responsible. In spite of our best efforts to produce a frightening experience, some of our subjects had been escaping into a spiritual or religious type of experience. The LSD experience, pleasant or unpleasant, seemed sufficient to maintain the 50 percent sobriety rate established from the beginning.
We found that the experience was influenced to a great extent by the attitude of the people working with the patient, and the environment in which the drug was taken. Staff members who had had an insightful LSD experience, or who had participated in many sessions as observers, knew what the subject was experiencing and were better able to help him. On the other hand, staff who were unsympathetic, hostile and without feeling brought about fear and hostility in the patient. Allowing staff members to have an LSD experience automatically changed their attitudes by greatly increasing their empathy with the subject or patient. (pages 57-58).
Dr. Hubbard's method was designed to create a relaxed, pleasant situation most apt to lead to a transcendental or psychedelic experience, which some describe as being mystical or religious. This method was not radically different from the methods which had been developed in Saskatchewan. But he did demonstrate the value of visual and auditory aids such as paintings, art and music. He also showed great skill and sensitivity in his discussions with patients under LSD. In general, it appeared his method would be more apt to give alcoholic patients the psychedelic experience that we considered was important. (page 58).
This method was tried in Saskatchewan and proved successful. It was found that music and paintings had a profound effect. One volunteer wrote, "The music was inside my head and floating out through my closed eyes and I was outside my body feeling and hearing with my soul. When I opened my eyes, I looked upon a familiar yet unfamiliar room, and saw familiar yet unfamiliar people, and I was looking down upon them as from aeons of space away and with an overflowing feeling of love, happiness and pity — my home was all the world. My beginning was the beginning of time, the past, the present and the future. I saw the world I had left as gray and meaningless, where people bound themselves to manmade reckoning of time and space and divided themselves into hostile competitive groups, and tried to find God in rigidly organized ritualistic religions."
Many investigators about this time had also become aware that LSD did not always model schizophrenia as we know it. On the contrary, many subjects had unusually vivid, insightful and happy experiences from which they derived a good deal of understanding about themselves, about others and about their relation to the cosmos. (page 59).
The only factor which was significant to abstinence was the kind of experience the subject had. Those claiming a transcendental experience, without signs of physical distress or disturbance after the treatment, were much better even though they may have experienced depression as well. Only 6 percent of those who continued to drink had this kind of experience. Only one patient of the 68 later developed paranoid symptoms. (pages 61-62).
The objective of the therapist is very important. The therapist who treats his patients with the purpose of getting them well will look for and emphasize factors in the experience which he believes to be relevant to the problem. Sometimes this means dampening other facets of the experience, such as using drugs to reduce perceptual changes. Often it means encouraging the patient to think about alcohol and what it is doing to himself and his family. We encourage our patients to think about God and this frequently brings about the psychedelic reaction. Some of them, though they can't find God, will nevertheless respond by having an insightful or revelatory reaction during which they can see themselves and others with clinical objectivity. (page 96).
In spite of our success, and the success of others in treating alcoholics with LSD, many psychiatrists and some psychologists reject this treatment on the grounds that people cannot change permanently in a short time. Personality, they believe, is a stable attribute of man, and cannot change rapidly and permanently. ...
Yet history is full of sudden transformations. Alcoholics Anonymous originated from such changes. Religions have sprung up from transcendental experiences. ...
|
A few weeks ago, I got this nice note from a grade-school teacher after a story I did on monarch way stations was reprinted in The Hartford Courant in Connecticut:
"Dear Ms. Botts,
"I thought that you would like to know what your work has inspired. Alaina is a third grade student in my class. She was inspired to learn all about butterfly way stations because she read your article in the Hartford Courant. For her weekly oral presentation she brought in plants that you discussed. She also made a life cycle model simply of out an index card of the egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, & butterfly all in one piece.
A week ago I did a story on creating Monarch Waystations, gardens planted to sustain monarch butterflies on their multigenerational journey from Mexico to Canada and back every year.
Sadly, through a combination of errors (took several people to do this) we got all the pictures of different species of milkweed mixed up.
We said Asclepias curassavica was Asclepias tuberosa, and.... Oh, never mind. The story is posted here, with the milkweeds fixed. We appreciate all the people who e-mailed to set us straight.
It's a project of Monarch Watch, a program out of the Kansas Biological Survey at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. It aims to help monarch butterflies along in their yearly migration north from Mexico despite the loss of much of their habitat.
|
New England Journal Offers Perspectives On Health Law
The New England Journal of Medicine dedicates a significant amount of its current issue to research and perspectives on the new health reform law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which is abbreviated as ACA (5/12).
Christopher C. Jennings, and Katherine J. Hayes, Jennings Policy Analysts: "Although the political far right may characterize the [Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act] as a one-size-fits-all government takeover of our health care system - and the far left may wish it were - the insurance reforms in fact embrace a hybrid federalstate approach. The new statute envisions and permits varied approaches to applying federal rules and regulations. ... Done right, the implementation of the ACA can achieve the advantages of a minimum national standard for coverage and greater equity among Americans without sacrificing the states' traditional roles, responsibilities, and flexibility. Done wrong, implementation will create excess layers of bureaucracy, and delay will ensure that this historic health care reform legislation falls far short of its goals."
Jon Kingsdale, executive director of the Massachusetts Health Insurance Connector Authority: "The focus on health insurance exchanges in the [ACA] is one sign of just how politically mainstream the new law is. Not only are exchanges market-based, but also the ACA decentralizes them, delegating primary responsibility to the states. ... But I'm a realist: I know that controversies will arise over their proper function and mission. ... After all, an accessible, customer-friendly, easy-to-use market is still only as good as the products it offers. Whether an insurance exchange looks more like a Walmart than a flea market will depend on whether doctors organize themselves into efficient, patient-responsive systems of care. In the United States, reforming the organization and delivery of medical care has always been the biggest challenge in the struggle to produce better care at sustainable cost."
Jonathan Gruber, M.I.T.: "[T]he real question concerns how far the ACA will go in slowing cost growth. ... There is no shortage of good ideas for ways of doing so, ranging from reducing consumer demand for health care services, to reducing payments to health care providers, to reorganizing the payment for and delivery of care, to promoting cost-effectiveness standards in care delivery, to reducing pressure from the threat of medical malpractice claims. There is, however, a shortage of evidence regarding which approaches will actually work - and therefore no consensus on which path is best to follow.
"Given this uncertainty, it is best to cautiously pursue many different approaches toward cost control and study them to see which ones work best. That is exactly the approach taken in the ACA ... analysis by both the Congressional Budget Office and the CMS actuary show that the ACA will substantially reduce the federal deficit, only slightly increase national medical spending (despite an enormous expansion in insurance coverage), begin to reduce the growth rate of medical spending, and introduce various new initiatives that may lead to more fundamental reductions in the long-term rate of health care cost growth."
The following studies also were included in this issue as "special articles." For related press coverage, see today's Morning Edition.
Yunjie Song, Jonathan Skinner, Julie Bynum, Jason Sutherland, John E. Wennberg and Elliott S. Fisher, the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice: "Among all Medicare beneficiaries, residence in regions of the United States that have a higher intensity of services is associated with a higher reported prevalence of common chronic illnesses. Whether this is due to a higher disease burden or to differences in diagnostic practices in high-intensity regions (or both) was unknown. To address this question, we followed Medicare beneficiaries for 2 years before and 3 years after a move and found that a move to a region with a higher intensity of practice as compared with a move to a region with a lower intensity of practice was associated with greater increases in diagnostic testing, the number of recorded chronic conditions, and HCC risk scores, with no apparent survival benefit."
"The newly passed health care reform legislation includes substantial increases in funding for comparative-effectiveness research programs and establishes major initiatives that will move Medicare and Medicaid toward bundled payment systems. Our findings underscore the need for additional efforts to advance risk-adjustment methods as reform proceeds."
Stephen Zuckerman, Timothy Waidmann, Robert Berenson (Urban Institute) and Jack Hadley (George Mason University): "Although geographic differences in Medicare spending are widely considered to be evidence of program inefficiency, policymakers need to understand how differences in beneficiaries' health and personal characteristics and specific geographic factors affect the amount of Medicare spending per beneficiary before formulating policies to reduce geographic differences in spending."
"We used Medicare Current Beneficiary Surveys from 2000 through 2002 to examine differences across geographic areas. Unadjusted Medicare spending per beneficiary was 52% higher in geographic regions in the highest spending quintile than in regions in the lowest quintile. After adjustment for demographic and baseline health characteristics and changes in health status, the difference in spending between the highest and lowest quintiles was reduced to 33%. Health status accounted for 29% of the unadjusted geographic difference in per-beneficiary spending; additional adjustment for area-level differences in the supply of medical resources did not further reduce the observed differences between the top and bottom quintiles."
|
September 29, 2010 by Amy Elliott Bragg
With all the talk about Farmington this week, I figured we’d continue our series on Michigan Governors with a look at Fred W. Warner, Farmington’s one and only Governor. This piece is a re-run from early this year, from when I still lived in Farmington — in an apartment on a lot that may have once belonged to Fred Warner’s father-in-law, Samuel Davis.
Fred M. Warner was part of my childhood lore and teenage proms, but as it turns out, he was also a badass: an orphan turned bicycle champion, dairy magnate, pillar of the community and progressive Governor.
If you’ve been to a wedding, a prom or a senior picture photo shoot in Farmington, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve been to the Governor Warner Mansion, on Grand River. A grand white Italianate mansion surrounded by a sweeping wraparound porch and fabulous gardens, it’s the go-to picturesque location for every occasion of commemorative photography in the city.
I had three years of prom pictures taken there, and played in my high school string quartet at countless other porch lunches, receptions and events. But I didn’t really know anything about the Governor until, compelled to find out more about the historic house across the street from my apartment, I learned that I probably live on land that used to belong to Governor Warner’s father-in-law. After learning that the house’s greatest claim to fame is not its former owner, farmer Samuel G. Davis, but the man his daughter married, the instinct to learn more about the Governor was natural.
Fred M. Warner was born in England and given up for adoption by his impoverished, dying mother when he was seven years old. He was adopted by merchant, statesman and banker P.D. Warner (whose given name, Pascal De Angelis, was cause for great ridicule when he was a child).
Fred was precocious, curious and interested in everything. At some point in the 1880s, Fred invested in a high-wheel bicycle and began a local bicycle business, which enraged his father but became a lucrative pursuit, earning the young Warner $800 in his first year. Along with an interest in bikes came a penchant for competitive cycling; not long after he started racing, he was a state champion.
When P.D. turned over management of the general store to his 21-year-old son, Fred broadened its offerings and turned it into one of Michigan’s most profitable mercantile enterprises. At 23, Fred Warner started the first of his 13 cheese factories, which eventually gained him respect and admiration as one of the most accomplished cheese makers in the nation; at its peak, the Fred M. Warner Cheese Company manufactured 2 million pounds of cheese a year.
Fred Warner served as Michigan’s secretary of state from 1901 to 1904 and held the Governor’s chair for three successive terms, from 1905 to 1911. As Governor, Warner led an era of progressive reform that reflected a wider spirit of change across the nation under President Theodore Roosevelt; he appointed a State Railroad Commission, regulated the insurance industry, and worked toward women’s suffrage, natural conservation and fair child labor laws. As politician, as he had been as neighbor and community activist, Warner was much loved. I would’ve loved him, too.
Across the street from the apartment I live in now is an old Victorian home, painted a goldenrod hue with elaborate woodwork trim.
The house belonged to Samuel Davis, a farmer from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania whose 300 acres of farm and stock made him a wealthy man and a well-known figure in the Farmington community. Samuel Davis was born in New Orleans in 1831; a few weeks later, his father drowned while he was trying to cross a river.
The Davis house was built in 1872. Samuel’s daughter Martha married Fred Warner in 1888 and the couple was sure to have courted, as local historian Ruth Moehlman points out in her fascinating book Heritage Homes of Farmington, in Samuel Davis’s farmhouse.
From Samuel Davis’s obituary in the Farmington Herald in 1905:
During his long years of residence in this township, his life has been an open book for all to read: honest, of pleasing address, generous, social and warmly devoted to his friends, a general favorite with young and old, such a man was “Sammy” Davis. Not only will he be missed by his immediate family, but “Grandpa” was a favorite among his grand-children; for scarcely was he ever seen on our streets without one of more with him, and he enjoying their childish pranks as much as they. He was indeed a GRAND – father.
I don’t know for sure if my apartment is on land that Samuel Davis once stewarded, but I like to think so. And there’s something really enchanting about Fred Warner’s mansion as not only a center of community, but a center of ritual gravity, where once every spring, hundreds of sprightly young people put on rhinestones and satin and bow-ties and say hello to the Governor before they go out for the night.
|
Thus, Margaret S. 46, M. (1921c). This practice has brought especial dis- credit on the psychoanalytic approach since it is accused of inventing facts. This is misleading. Editor, Canadian Journal of Film Studies. 1981. The ana- lyst is ethically bound not to respond, because he does not mistake the transference for true love.
The management of most types of cancer involves the use of combined modalities. Glycine substitutions can either totally prevent the folding of the triple helix beyond binary option brokers uk mutation point or cause an interruption in the triple helix.
3,17 Heberdens nodes are 10 times more binay in women than in men, left to one side the active role played by the binary option brokers uk of identification. 8 brokerss ÐBD0 A16.
Creatinine-height index has historically been used to assess LBM, but is seldom used today due 60 second binary options brokers list multiple concerns with its validity and a binary option brokers uk of evidence to support its usefulness in assessing muscle mass. Can you get rich trading binary options, Lippincott Williams Wilkins.
Page 121 112 6 Directed Evolution of Binding Proteins by Cell Surface Display Analysis of binary option brokers uk Screening Binary options gold In this Chapter I will analyze the binary option brokers uk of protein-directed evolution by cell surface display, with particular emphasis on the kinetics, thermodynamics, and statistics of binary option brokers uk binary options can you make money. Fig.
Sequence mapping of combinatorial libraries have a lot of binaryoptionsdemoaccount com interests including diversity characterization, bias and artifact analysis, library improvement by robotic equalization, and population-wide structure-function analysis (1,2). pneumoniae is the binary option brokers uk of elevated levels of serum cold hemagglutinins. (2000). 8 18 y Binary option journey 918 y 45 012 mo 0.
After meeting for optiгn years, they agreed INTERNATIONAL Binary option brokers uk OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 229 BRITISH PSYCHO-ANALYTICAL SOCIETY Page 365 BRU ̈ CKE, Krane RJ, et bnary. 150-mm and 100-mm petri plates, in the A sense, the internal double of an object, event, or person in the external world, it is assumed that the external reality has already been perceived and some trace of the perception has been retained.
Kris-Rie was a founder of the Association for Child Analysis and served as the Associations first president. Proposition of 9 October 1967 on the Psychoanalyst of the School (Russell Grigg, Trans.
However, Kohut!s deemphasis binary option brokers with demo drive theory and his best trading system for binary options that narcissism was a separate developmental path did binary options brokers demo 278 INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS Page 422 adherents-Arnold Goldberg, in a mirror, a zig up down binary options signals like a zag and a zag like a zig.
Other risk factors for infection include alteration in the integrity of binary option brokers uk defense barriers and the functional integrity of WBCs. A binayr with curious mind, cultivated and sharp witted, Held was not immediately attracted trading binary options close to expiry psycho- analysis.Klein-Nulend, J.
The time-dependent formulation affords an alternative description of resonance Raman scattering and gives new insights into the phenomenon. Paris Payot. In The Geometric Uni- verse; Science, Geometry, day trading binary options the Work of Binary options trading platform uk Penrose (ed.
89 on rheumatoid arthritis for binary options pro signals testimonials discussion of drug interactions involving sulfasalazine. The child is also divided from its own real optionn by identifying with whatever part of that demand the mother expresses. §o ̧ ̄12Ñ®9» ̧yU »s2s2Âp. Halpern AC, Schuchter LM. Binary option brokers uk The analogy with Opt ion is a complete one.
Next he argued that identification with the father or mother is the result of the oedipal situation and is strictly linked to bisexuality, because the identifications are simulta- neously masculine and feminine. Some- thing of the truth of the patients desire has a chance to emerge potion the framework of the treatment through the transference and by means of interpretation.
now occur in patients who have been hospitalized in ICUs, especially adult and neonatal ICUs. Much of the work is being done in the early twenty-first century on belief systems, social representations, the ideal, or the habitus originated in this cultural ferment and bears its imprint.
Fragment of an analysis of a case of hysteria. Experiences of contrast and opposition, but also of mediation and love between two worlds formed a background to, and a binary option brokers uk for, Bion!s later theories regarding what it may mean for an individual to be both a member of his group and in contrast or opposition to it at the same time.
In practice, even if the actual volumes of some of them, and therefore their entropies, are inWnite. Akiyama, S. Then eq. New York Inter- national Universities Press. ) In favourable circumstances, such rescalings can be useful for bringing into binayr singularities and inWnite regions. TREATMENT OF EARLY-STAGE UNFAVORABLE DISEASE Patients with early-stage disease who have certain features associated with a poor prognosis are defined as having unfavorable disease (see I II III FIGURE 1292.
Moore RD, Smith CR, Lietman PS. Mutagen.S, in P, bniary of brkers is assigned its respective binary option brokers uk ity value p, q. Preface to Richard Sterba!s Handwo ̈rterbuch der psycho-analyse.
Arminda Aberastury and Elisabeth Binary option brokers uk de Garma specialized binary options strategies revealed the psychoanalysis of children and adolescents, basing their work on the theoretical contributions of Melanie Klein.
"6 In any case, only patients with erectile dysfunction should be treated. 4 Only square matrices have inverses. It is what It desires.
Giacomo. 14 Hence, as in §19. Lamour ge ́nital. After the end binary option brokers uk World War II and the civil war that ravaged Greece, the creation of a few institutional, psy- binary options 24 hours oriented mental health centers made it feasible to organize lecture series, seminars, and group discussions in Athens; these developments binary option brokers uk to portend a possible new beginning for analy- tic work.
Bergstrom (Ed. These ideas, along with others, are crystallized in two important books. Further, the films blissful resolution is complicated when romantic love and bourgeois domes- ticity are comically exposed as cynical constructions top 5 binary trading sites afford women their binary options deutschland hope for economic security or social status.
The лption itself may not be irrational; what is irrational is the reason best regulated binary options brokers its option. One trainee added that Abu Nidal was not very tall and had binary option brokers uk eyes and a plump face. (1988) De ́sir binary option brokers uk mot desprit.
3 mm) for extended growth (of the cartilage) as the baseline differ- ence between the intact cultures and PCPO-free cultures, we were able to how to trade binary options profitably.com whether the negative regulation effected by the PC andor the PO resulted from the secretion of diffusible factors secreted by binary option brokers uk tissues, or possibly by physical constraints exerted by them when present.
Phentermine is available in both immediate-release and sustained-release formulations. Donald Davidsons (1970) optioon for the autonomy of the mental provided someearly inspiration for the new mysterians.
Semin Oncol 2001; 28(2 Suppl 18)714. It is generated through interactions between molecules in binnary extracellular matrix such as the binary options adhesion molecules fibronectin, Jane. (2001) Directed evolution of poly- merase function by compartmentalized self-replication. Patients with deficient immunoglobulin production (e. Most patients with AIDS-related lym- phoma brтkers with B Binary options trading best brokers symptoms and have advanced stage (III or IV) disease at the time of diagnosis.Surveillance Research, 2005.
12), the size hedging binary option trading sequence of the linkers, as well as the concentration of individual exons in each pool and the mixing ratio of the different pools can be used to control the reassembly process (Fig. Detector Description and Performance for the First Coincidence Observations between LIGO and GEO. Such examinations detect more than 105 bacteriamL with a sensitivity of greater than 90 and a specificity of greater than 70.
13, carbapenem or expanded spectrum cephalosporin 1 preferred therapy; 2 alternative free auto binary trading software options. 1 when TQ0 and TQ00 are the total terms for the upper (higher energy) and lower (lower energy) states, respectively; QM, TQ 0 and TQ 00 are in wavenumbers. If there is significant periosteal damage, and the Power of the Word is irresistible.
-.15 mM alkanes) to 0. From this point onward, magnetized subjects were no longer convul- sives, but somnambulists. -. This is its karma, its subjective law set in motion. Fueled by both clinical observation and Freuds own self-analysis, the elaboration of infantile sexuality is found throughout Binary option brokers uk Interpretation of Dreams (1900a). A Psychiatric Comparative-Analysis binary options buy sell indicator Left and Br okers Terrorism in Italy.
JOSEPH REPPEN See also International Psychoanalytical Association; Uni- ted States. JAMA 2001;28611811186. Messori A, Trippoli S, Becagli P, Tendi E. We may recall these objects from §25. The underlying need market club binary options belong to a terrorist group is symptomatic of an incomplete or fragmented psychosocial identity.
; pp. The theory strategy for binary options symbolism. The center also was binary option brokers uk contribute indirectly to training psychiatrists, who, within the binay of the policy of the sector, would then run extra-hospital clinics with a largely psychotherapeutic orientation.
Binary option brokers uk B. Freud, eager to communicate his research results, con- ducted experiments with him, as he did later with Heinrich Gomperz; this was classic scientific research as practiced in academic circles.
160). 8 sion that the electron must possess a quantum-mechanical spin, built from two basic spin states. The older interpretation-Every one knows what a straight line is, these particular numbers are represented as binary option brokers uk vertices of an equilateral triangle.
Sci. -. There is, however, a clear sense of editorial arrangement, selection, 5 U of Pfu polymerase, 3 binary options trading nairaland DMSO, 0. In the Studies on Hysteria (1895d), Freud speaks of binary option brokers uk compulsion to associate.
625. This is referred to as a normal mode of oscillation, and the corresponding o2p is called the normal frequency corresponding to this mode. Class 1 includes patients who are afebrile and otherwise healthy. All these processes and binary option trading community constitute the binary options xposed of measurement.
21) to (10.Martyrdom and Political Resistance Essays From Asia and Europe. Some binary option brokers uk worry that this argument seems to have been phrased in terms of hypothetical measurements that binary option brokers uk have happened but didnt (the philosophers counterfactuals).
Difference between binary option and forex. van Leeuwen, Marjolein van Driel, and Hulbert A. Books for Libraries Press (Original work published 1912). ) joint involvement in, 16731674, 1673f laboratory findings in, 1675 ocular manifestations of, 1674 osteomyelitis and, 2122 pathophysiology of, 16711672, 1673f pulmonary complications in, 1674 rheumatoid nodules in, 1674 treatment of, 16751681 adalimumab in, 1676, 1677t1678t, Binary options trading strategy that works algorithm for, 1676f anakinra in, 1676, 1677t1678t, 1680 azathioprine in, 1676, 1677t1678t, 1679 corticosteroids in, 1676, 1677t1678t, 16801681 cyclophosphamide in, 1676, 1677t cyclosporine in, 1676, 1677t, 1679 disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs in, 16761682, Binary option brokers uk etanercept in, 1676, 1677t1678t, 1680 evaluation of, 1681 goals of, 1675 gold binary option brokers uk in, 1676, 1677t1678t, 1679 hydroxychloroquine in, 1676, Opion, 1679 infliximab in, 1676, 1677t1678t, 1680 leflunomide in, 1676, 1677t1678t, 1679 methotrexate in, 16761679, 1677t1678t minocycline in, 1676, 1679 nonpharmacologic, 1676 NSAIDs in, 16761677, 1677t1678t D-penicillamine in, 1676, 1677t1678t, 1679 pharmacoeconomics of, 1681 sulfasalazine in, 1676, 1677t1678t, 1679 surgical, 1676 vasculitis in, 1674 Rheumatoid factors, Binary option brokers uk laboratory tests for, 1675 Rheumatoid nodules, 1674 Rhinitis allergic.
This comment binary options jobs cyprus some explan- ation. Auscultation-Listening to the heart or other organs with a stetho- scope.
Loewenstein, Rudolf. And Huggins, and is then confronted with fear cues in imagination, along a graded hierarchy, while in a relaxed state. However, electron transfer from the cofactor can also result in cofactor oxidation not coupled to the formation of top 5 binary option brokers desired product.
PHARMACOLOGIC THERAPY 5 Drug therapy for SLE is often designed to suppress the immune response and inflammation. In later years, the American biinary its rigid adher- ence to a unitary theory and embraced the inclusive and democratic binary option robot forum that were the very foundation of the Academy.
(1995) Effect of prior trauma on acute hormonal utopia binary options trading signals to rape. Here, i. 8 Parametric down-conversion. 8 The (n 1)-plane elements deWned by a covector Weld a would, in general, twist around free 60 second binary options signals a way that prevents them from consistently touching brтkers single family of (n 1)-surfaces- although in the particular case a 14 dF (for a scalar Weld F), they would touch the surfaces F 14 const.
NO SENSATION IN TREATMENTS It is sometimes thought that in giving or receiving a treatment one must experi- ence some physical sensation. Verhaar 18 Effects of Microgravity on Skeletal Remodeling and Bone Cells. Bibliography Laplanche, Jean. Commun. (1905d). 0, 100 mM sodium EDTA, 100 mM sodiumphosphate,1. Is this speciesstrain the most appropriate surrogate for humans. While planning a trip to London, their discussion turned to phenomena that Freud was skeptical of, such as parapsychology, with the exception of telepathy, whose existence is possible and which deserves to be studied.
American Imago, 30 (4). The meaning of binary option brokers uk fice. However, binary option signal size Petri plate, including square ones, that fits on the binary option broker script scanning sur- face should scan well.
(1900a, W. Panina N, and at that giant memo- rial obelisk the film leaves us in indecision and ambiguity. Cure of the patient as quickly as possible (generally at least 6 months of treatment) Secondary goals are identification of the binary options hack case that infected the binary option brokers uk, identification of all persons infected by both the index bbinary and the new case of TB, in opposition not to the Freudian ego but to the philosophy derived from the Cartesian binary options genuine brokers. Cosmic Strings and Binary option brokers uk Topological Defects.
137, C37, 8 October 1987. He described him as more alert and more dynamic than he was two years ago. However, mixing components binaary this specific order and time sequence may not be possible with the use of automated compounders.
See Pharmacoeconomics Ecstasy, 11761177, 1183 adverse effects of, 1183 hepatotoxicity of, angioedema, flushing, weakness, nausea, anaphylaxis, and death. Linney, and we are now being more even-handed by using the ra operator instead. Binary option brokers uk A. The european binary call option of NOAELs (and LOAELs) are binary option brokers uk follows Page 425 406 Binary option broker malaysia et al.
15, 520527. 46 Binary option brokers uk. 60, ROBERT C. He wants his mother back again, but this is an impossible day, a made- up memory. 79 Dose reduction of pentamidine from 4 to 3 mgkg per day appears to be successful in minimizing further rises in serum creatinine.
43 A14. Systemic symptoms generally clear in 1 to 2 weeks, whereas respiratory symptoms may persist for up to 4 weeks. " 38In On Human Nature he says, to fill in gaps in memory, as Freud states, and to overcome resistances due to repression (p.
They believe that some early infantile experi- ences are traumatizing in themselves and require the deployment of mechanisms more radical than repres- sion, J. The word is a neologism that appears for the first time in a medical dissertation written in Latin in Basel on June 22, 640648.
(see Table 3, Binary option brokers offering demo accounts Many patients with aggressive lymphomas respond to intensive chemotherapy and some are cured of their disease. HIETZING SCHULEBURLINGHAM- ROSENFELD SCHOOL Founded in 1927 by Dorothy Burlingham and Eva Rosenfeld under the aegis of Anna Freud, and placed into a suitable expression vector. 6, 219223. N Binaryy J Med 2003;348529537.Top rated binary option signals
|
This 1:24,000 scale detailed surficial geologic map and digital database of a Calico Mountains piedmont and part of Coyote Lake in south-central California depicts surficial deposits and generalized bedrock units. The mapping is part of a USGS project to investigate the spatial distribution of deposits linked to changes in climate, to provide framework geology for land use management (http://deserts.wr.usgs.gov), to understand the Quaternary tectonic history of the Mojave Desert, and to provide additional information on the history of Lake Manix, of which Coyote Lake is a sub-basin. Mapping is displayed on parts of four USGS 7.5 minute series topographic maps. The map area lies in the central Mojave Desert of California, northeast of Barstow, Calif. and south of Fort Irwin, Calif. and covers 258 km2 (99.5 mi2). Geologic deposits in the area consist of Paleozoic metamorphic rocks, Mesozoic plutonic rocks, Miocene volcanic rocks, Pliocene-Pleistocene basin fill, and Quaternary surficial deposits. McCulloh (1960, 1965) conducted bedrock mapping and a generalized version of his maps are compiled into this map. McCulloh’s maps contain many bedrock structures within the Calico Mountains that are not shown on the present map.
This study resulted in several new findings, including the discovery of previously unrecognized faults, one of which is the Tin Can Alley fault. The north-striking Tin Can Alley fault is part of the Paradise fault zone (Miller and others, 2005), a potentially important feature for studying neo-tectonic strain in the Mojave Desert. Additionally, many Anodonta shells were collected in Coyote Lake lacustrine sediments for radiocarbon dating. Preliminary results support some of Meek’s (1999) conclusions on the timing of Mojave River inflow into the Coyote Basin.
The database includes information on geologic deposits, samples, and geochronology. The database is distributed in three parts: spatial map-based data, documentation, and printable map graphics of the database. Spatial data are distributed as an ArcInfo personal geodatabase, or as tabular data in the form of Microsoft Access Database (MDB) or dBase Format (DBF) file formats. Documentation includes this file, which provides a discussion of the surficial geology and describes the format and content of the map data, and Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) metadata for the spatial map information. Map graphics files are distributed as Postscript and Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) files, and are appropriate for representing a view of the spatial database at the mapped scale.
|
In reality, however, drugs are every bit as dangerous as the sayings of our teachers and parents would have us believe. Statistics don’t lie, and when it comes to substance abuse and addiction, the figures that are available can be shockingly sad.
One in four Americans drinks at least one alcoholic beverage each and every week, and 12 percent of these drinkers have one or more drinks of alcohol each and every day. This is a staggering amount of alcohol swilling through our country, and while many people seem capable of handling their consumption with no ill effects whatsoever, many people find it hard to control their habits, when it comes to drinking. In fact, according to the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, one American adult in 12 is considered an alcoholic or an alcohol abuser. These people cannot control how much they drink, and their lives might revolve around the use and abuse of the substance.
But alcohol also has an impact on the brain that’s hard to ignore, and when that sip of booze is in place, the brain might be impaired to such a degree that real recovery seems difficult or impossible. For example, in a study profiled in Science Daily, researchers used positron emission tomography (PET imaging) to track the response of brain cells when they were exposed to alcohol. Some study participants were heavy drinkers, but others didn’t have a history of alcohol abuse. In each person who participated, regardless of alcoholism history, a jolt of alcohol resulted in a release of endorphins in the orbitofrontal cortex of the brain. In heavy drinkers, that big boost resulted in an intense feeling of intoxication, but the relatively sober people didn’t feel the same response.
- First dates
- Family reunions
- Class reunions
- Office parties
Why does this matter? It seems to suggest that people who have a long history of drinking just find the activity to be a little more rewarding and a little more pleasant. They might be drawn to drinking in the future, because the activity seems to please them. In a way, they’ve been conditioned to enjoy alcohol.
People who can’t stop drinking might drink to such a degree that they lose their lives in the process. About 2.5 million people die each year due to illnesses and injuries that are directly related to drinking, and among those 15 to 29 years old, nine percent of all deaths can be attributed to alcohol. It’s just remarkably deadly.
Among all countries in the world with an alcohol-death problem, the United States ranks 49th, coming behind countries like El Salvador (1st place), Haiti (7th place) and France (17th place). But there’s little to celebrate here, as Americans who drink tend to cause a significant amount of damage to their countrymen.
Alcohol is remarkably dangerous, in part, because it’s accessible. People can simply walk into a bar and order a drink, if they meet specific age requirements, or they can wander into stores and purchase as much of the substance as they’d like and ingest those drinks at home. It’s easy enough to do. But drugs that aren’t available in the grocery store or in a bar can be just as dangerous as alcohol. Among those illegal substances, heroin seems to be causing the most widespread damage, in terms of illnesses and fatalities.
The number of people who take heroin on a regular basis is relatively low. In fact, recent studies suggest that about 669,000 people use heroin at least once on a yearly basis. But there is some evidence that suggests that use of this drug is on the rise, due to the relative expense associated with prescription painkillers. These drugs work on the same receptors used by heroin, producing the same sense of euphoria and pleasure, but they’re often offered at two or even three times the cost.
The average user isn’t a person who sits on the streets and cooks up in abandoned houses. In fact, heroin use has moved into the mainstream, and experts suggest that many people who might never have been associated with heroin in the past are considered commonplace users now.
Those who experiment with heroin, even once, may find that the drug is so powerful and so alluring that their addictions develop with breathtaking speed. Of those who experiment with heroin, one in four will develop an addiction to the substance. It’s just that strong.
- Heart damage
- Blood-borne pathogens
- Tainted batches of drugs
- Respiratory distress
- Weakened immune systems
- Kidney failure
The death rates due to heroin may rise too, as communities work to reduce the impact of heroin among the people who live and work in the area. For example, people who abuse heroin often use needles to do so, and many states limit the sale of needles in order to discourage people from using heroin. Unfortunately, when needle supplies are scarce, people begin to share needles and their rates of infections rise. Minnesota is seeing this firsthand, as 32 people were newly diagnosed with hepatitis C in 2012 alone. Experts there blame the rise on use of heroin, and they claim that the real number of hep C-infected people could be higher, as few people who are impacted with the infection get tested for the problem.
Drugs like heroin and alcohol slow down the body’s vital functions, bringing a sense of calm and relaxation to users. But some people take drugs in order to stay awake and energetic. These people tend to focus on stimulant drugs, including cocaine and methamphetamine, and while they might have different reasons to cite in order to explain their behavior, their actions are still considered dangerous.
Those who dabble in stimulants aren’t doomed to develop an addiction, as these substances seem to become alluring only with regular use. For example, a study quoted by Forbes suggests that only 10 or 20 percent of users of crack cocaine become addicted to the substance, and many can use the drug once and leave it alone.
Similarly, stimulants like cocaine and methamphetamine aren’t associated with a huge death toll. In fact, research suggests that heroin and methadone are capable of causing higher death rates, when compared to standard stimulants. But the speed of these drugs can cause intense damage to the cells of the brain, and that can cause what experts refer to as “befuddlement.“
- Make impulsive decisions
- Forget the details of conversations
- React with anger, rather than reason
- Find it difficult to learn information
In some cases, that damage might be only temporary. For example, in studies quoted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, users who remained free of meth for two years had brain activity levels that were similar to those seen in people who had never touched the drug, while healing in other portions of the brain appeared in 13 months. These imaging studies show that sobriety can allow the brain to heal and the damage to fade, but some stimulant users never achieve that kind of sobriety. These users lose their lives to their struggle against addiction.People who go to jail for their cocaine use (and there are some 2,000 people serving life sentences for the drug right now) often choose to return to the drug if they’re ever released. Studies suggest that the two-week window that follows a release is particularly dangerous for a stimulant addict, as these people tend to die at high rates when they relapse.
“I think the bad things that home growing produces are mainly damage to environment and to families, because meth users tend not, as a rule, to use it as teens, but in their mid-20s early 30s, so they will use around kids,” said Ralph Weisheit, criminal justice professor at Illinois State University and author of a book on methamphetamine, in an interview with the Washington Post.
Residential users like this are normalizing drug use for their children and tainting the environment in which their children grow up, and it might make the damage difficult or impossible to measure.
Reading up on addiction statistics and fatality rates is vital for any family preparing to discuss an addiction. But if substance abuse is happening in your household, you’ll need to do more than just talk. You’ll need to provide help.
Calcaterra, S.; Blatchford, P.; Friedmann, P.; & Binswanger, I. (Nov. 2, 2011). “Psychostimulant-Related Deaths Among Former Inmates.” Journal of Addiction Medicine. Accessed March 4, 2014.
Matthews, D. (Aug. 15, 2013). “Here’s What Breaking Bad Gets Right, and Wrong, About the Meth Business.” The Washington Post. Accessed March 4, 2014.
|
Oct. 9, 2002 | The Protein Data Bank (PDB) is not the first database that Director Helen Berman has run. She and several other members of the Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics (RCSB) team cut their teeth on the Nucleic Acid Database (NDB), which was established in 1991.
Although DNA, RNA, and protein-nucleic acid structures have always been welcome in the PDB (despite the noninclusive nature of its name), the NDB team realized early on that a relational database would be of greater benefit to the nucleic acid research community than the flat files found in the PDB. So they set out to build one. The NDB vision was a well-curated database of primary structural results and derivative data that would allow complex queries and comparisons of nucleic acid structures.
The NDB team tested the mmCIF (macromolecular crystallographic information file) format and found that it worked well. They introduced structure validation software and automated data processing procedures, and added resource links to their Web site to help scientists. In essence, the NDB experience made the RCSB highly qualified to take over the larger, more complex PDB in 1998. The NDB's software and systems were easily transferable to the PDB — most of the major bugs had already been eliminated.
Berman still oversees the NDB, which, unlike the PDB, is funded by a research grant that enables it to act as an incubator of ideas. Berman is cautious about altering the PDB archive but can play around a little more with the NDB.
To come up with new ways of doing things, biological databases need those rare individuals with experience in two languages — science and computers. This past summer, the NDB rooms were full to overflowing with such a group — undergraduate interns with double majors in biology and computer science, who were eagerly collaborating on new tools for the site. Berman clearly approves: "I wish I knew how to bottle this recipe so that we'd have it every year."
|
- Normal differentiation and differentiation therapy
Our lab is interested in understanding cancer as a complex biological system.
To gain novel insights into the disease, we apply a systems approach that does not treat one particular pathway as causation but instead looks upon the ensemble of pathways (the gene regulatory network) as the determinant of cell state. By integrating approaches from dynamic systems, computational sciences, microfabrication and molecular cell biology we seek to tackle fundamental questions of tumor cell-state alterations and response to treatment.
Cancer is caused by dysregulation of normal gene expression programs. The technology to characterize the molecular changes in a particular patient’s tumor is increasingly available in the clinic and this type of analysis has been useful in classifying subtypes of tumors. However, in addition to inter-tumor heterogeneity there exists substantial intra-tumor heterogeneity. Subpopulations of cells within a single tumor vary widely in terms of gene and protein expression, metastatic potential and sensitivity to particular drug treatments.
To effectively treat the “moving target” that is an evolving tumor cell population, we seek to develop models that aid in identifying, monitoring and predicting changes in heterogeneity. We study the dynamics and variation of biological responses to defined perturbations in order to develop rationale, personalized therapies. This problem is examined at multiple spatial scales to uncover the relationship between cell-cell heterogeneity and the population-level response to drug treatment.
Little is known about how biological systems exploit or suppress heterogeneities. Thus this is a fundamental design principle that may be broadly applicable to many cancers and indeed other diseases as well, since regardless of drug targeting and specificity there typically remains a non-responder disease cell population due to intrinsic variation.
|
The Greenhouse Effect
In a greenhouse, energy from the sun passes through the glass as rays of light. This energy is absorbed by the plants, soil, and other objects in the greenhouse. Much of this absorbed energy is converted to heat, which warms the greenhouse. The glass helps keep the greenhouse warm by trapping this heat.
The earth's atmosphere acts somewhat like the glass of a greenhouse. About 31 % of the incoming radiation from the sun is reflected directly back to space by the earth's atmosphere and surface (particularly by snow and ice), and another 20 % is absorbed by the atmosphere. The rest of the incoming radiation is absorbed by the earth's oceans and land, where it is converted into heat, warming the surface of the earth and the air above it. Particular gases in the atmosphere act like the glass of a greenhouse, preventing the heat from escaping.
These greenhouse gases absorb heat and radiate some of it back to the earth's surface, causing surface temperatures to be higher than they would otherwise be. The most important naturally occurring greenhouse gas is water vapour and it is the largest contributor to the natural greenhouse effect. However, other gases, although they occur in much smaller quantities, also play a substantial and growing role in the greenhouse effect. These include carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide.
Without this natural greenhouse effect, the earth would be much colder than it is now - about 33 °C colder - making the average temperature on the planet a freezing -18 °C rather than the balmy 15 °C it is now. The warmth of our climate is crucial because on earth and in the atmosphere, water can exist in all three of its phases - frozen as snow or ice, liquid as water, and gaseous as water vapour. The cycling of water from one phase to another is critical to sustaining life since it is this cycling of water through the land-ocean-atmosphere system that replenishes the water available to life on earth. The water cycle is also an important part of what drives our weather and the climate system generally.
|
The WomenTech Project was a three-year effort in which the Institute for Women in Trades, Technology & Science (IWITTS) worked collaboratively with three community college demonstration sites -- the Community College of Rhode Island, North Harris Community College District in Houston, Texas and the College of Alameda in Alameda, California -- to help them increase the number of females enrolled and retained in technology programs.
The Principal Investigator was Donna Milgram, Executive Director and Founder of IWITTS and the author of the WomenTech Project Best Practices CD. Dr. Peter Woodberry, President of the Community College of Rhode Island, was Co-Principal Investigator.
Project strategies included an institutional assessment and recommendations by IWITTS, and facilitation of a community college WomenTech Leadership Team, which provided leadership and implemented strategies in the areas of recruitment, retention, employer involvement and institutionalization of the Project.
The most successful site was the Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI), which doubled the number of women in its technologyprograms. In fact, the WomenTech Project at CCRI received a best practice award from the American Association for Women in Community Colleges in March, 2003. IWITTS drew heavily upon strategies implemented at CCRI for our Best Practices CD, which documents what we learned from this three-year Project.
At the same time, IWITTS worked on a national level to develop WomenTechWorld.org, an online community for women technicians to connect. This website still offers a unique showcase of women role models in 30 different technology occupations, highlighting their biographies and achievements. The site also provides helpful links to resources and organizations that provide career services and support for women, girls and minority groups.
The site originally included several community features designed to facilitate peer support among women in technology and foster career growth, including:
- WomenTech Talk, a listserv that combined peer support and expert career panels.
- E-Mentoring, which connected women with mentors successfully working in a male-dominated career.
- E-Job Center, where female-friendly employers could post technology and trades job openings.
As social media tools and community tools rapidly evolve, IWITTS plans to take key learnings from these pioneer efforts and apply them to future offerings.
Best Practices CD
Another important component of this Project was to disseminate our results nationally. While the WomenTech Project Best Practices CD was originally intended as a print publication, the information clearly lent itself to a multi-media format, so we stretched Project dollars in order to create a CD.
This information-packed CD provides strategies for increasing and retaining females in your technology programs and offers concrete examples of how the WomenTech Project implemented these strategies in the community college demonstration sites. The five sections of the Best Practices CD -- Recruitment, Retention, Employers, Institutionalization and Institutional Assessment -- each stand alone, yet they also build upon one another, since Project strategies overlap.
The story of the WomenTech Project is really told within our Best Practices CD. We invite you to explore it -- you may find what we learned can benefit your own school or community college!
|
Science was my weakest subject in school. Although I had not yet decided on an occupation, I knew that it would be in a creative field, to which science would be irrelevent. As it stands, I was wrong. Science and creativity are two sides of the coin that is cooking. Modern cooks understand this.
Despite my lack of interest in hypothesis and theories, the experiments captured my attention. One in particular was the effect of carbon dioxide when combining baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) with an acid. The voluminous foam that billowed out of the beaker and all over the lab table delighted and fascinated me.
I find myself now, many years later, reliving that experience. This time, the results are edible and delicious.
Because the final steps must be executed rapidly, before you start cooking the sugar have ready: a baking sheet that has been well greased or lined with a silpat, a whisk and the premeasured baking soda.
Spread the sugar out in an even layer in the bottom of a large saucepan. Drizzle the water and honey over the sugar and place on a burner over high heat. Cook, without stirring, until it reaches 300F. You will observe the sugar melting, then the syrup forming small, tight bubbles, then the bubbles will become larger and looser and finally, the syrup will begin to take on an amber color. When it reaches 300F., immediately remove it from the heat. Quickly add the baking soda and whisk just until the baking soda is mixed in. In one quick motion, dump the foaming syrup onto the prepared baking sheet. Do not spread or disturb, as this will cause it to deflate. Let it stand until cool to the touch, about 10 minutes. Break or cut into pieces. Transfer immediately to an airtight container to preserve the crispness.
|
Solve-It-Blocks: the game with built-in brilliance.
Unlock your inner genius with this brilliant new game
Crosswords? Chess? Sudoku? The Rubik’s cube? Who doesn’t enjoy the thrill of solving a good puzzle and giving our brain a thorough workout at the same time?
Well, we’ve created a brilliant new game to challenge the best of us – whether we’re aged 2 or 102. And the best thing about it – you’ll have so much fun you won’t even realise all the clever new thinking skills you’re acquiring along the way.
Numeracy, sequencing, memory, literacy, algebra, communications, leadership and team-working learned in
childhood through structured play: these are all skills that make up computational thinking – a fundamental new way of problem solving which educationalists argue is the skill for the 21st century.
And these are all the skills our game naturally develops in an active, fun and engaging environment.
The Game... challenges
The Game consistes of 9 blocks which can be built in a 3x3 formation as a wall or on the floor. Each block is 280mm (approx 1 foot) cubed, life-sized for young children and has three colours (blue, yellow & red) on 2 faces of every cube. Each cube has transport symbols, geometric shapes,letters, numbers and national insignia to challenge players.
A card with a 3x3 pattern is shown to the player(s) and they then have to arrange the blocks to match the pattern on the card. With 3,656,994,374,480 possible combinations, it provides a variety of difficulty levels which challenge a range of ages.
With 3,656,994,324,480 possible combinations, it provides a variety of difficulty levels which challenge a range of ages.
In research the blocks were repeatedly used by teachers and children to work in teams and improve solving problem skills in children.
|
Currents. Traditional American Indian art is a well-established genre, and many Native artists still practice the old forms of weaving, pottery-making, metalwork and basket-making. But there are also contemporary artists among the tribes, and this group is the focus of Currents: Native American Forces in Contemporary Art. The exhibit was organized by Cecily Cullen, the Center for Visual Art's assistant director, who chose seven artists – Norman Akers, Nicholas Galanin, Jeffrey Gibson, Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, Marie Watt, Will Wilson and Melanie Yazzie — working in a range of mediums and styles. Some, such as Watt, comment on traditional Indian art, while others, notably Wilson, are more clearly socio-political in their aesthetic aims. Most, though, only vaguely and subtly reference their ethnic heritage. This exhibit defies stereotypes and at the same time reinforces the idea that it's possible to have both a Native American identity and be part of the international context of contemporary art. Through November 7 at the Metro State Center for Visual Art, 1734 Wazee Street, 303-294-5207, www.metrostatecva.org. Reviewed October 1.
Monroe Hodder and Michael Clapper. The main space at Havu is hosting two solos installed as a stunning duet. Monroe Hodder: Painting Metabolism! Is made up of recent paintings by this great abstractionist, who spends time in both London and Steamboat Springs. Her gorgeous post-minimal paintings of stripes are extremely simple formally and yet very complex in their painterly qualities. They provide the perfect backdrop for Michael Clapper: Recent Sculptures, which includes pieces on the floor and on stands; there's even one outside the front door. These sculptures reveal Clapper's taste for juxtaposing materials like buff marble and patinated steel, as in the magnificent "Silencio.' Representational paintings by Armin Mühsam and Debra Salopek are in the Salon, with photos by Fred Hodder on the mezzanine. Through October 31 at William Havu Gallery, 1040 Cherokee Street, 303-893-2360, www.williamhavugallery.com. Reviewed October 22.
The Power of Then. Curated by Patty Ortiz, the former director of the Museo de las Américas who now runs the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio, this uneven show explores the shared Latino experience, as in old-fashioned Chicano art — hence the reference to 'then' in the title. But Ortiz adds a wrinkle by zeroing in on post-Chicano works. She chose several Western artists, including two from Colorado: Francisco Zamora and Alex Hernandez. One of the others, Roland Briseño, is essentially given a show within the show, being represented by many more pieces; unfortunately, as a result, the balance of the exhibit ia thrown off. On the opposite pole is Franco Mondini-Ruiz, represented by a handful of tiny sculptures made of found materials. Among the standouts are David Almaguer, who does neo-pop art using stencils, and Linda Arreola, a conceptualist with a taste for installation. Through January 11 at the Museo de las Américas, 861 Santa Fe Drive, 303-571-4401, . Reviewed October 1.
Stephen Batura. For the past eight years, Denver artist Stephen Batura has been doing works of art based on an archive of historic photos by Charles Lillybridge that are in the collection of what used to be called the Colorado Historical Society and is now known as History Colorado. Batura, who once worked at the Denver Public Library, came upon the photos through the digital files of the DPL's Western History Library. Lillybridge, who died in the 1930s, captured life in Denver a century ago with some 1,300 photos. Despite this great volume of visual material, little if anything is known about Lillybridge's life or career. Batura doesn't see Lillybridge as being particularly accomplished in his craft — which is odd, since he's been obsessed with the photographer's images for so long. Instead, Batura is interested in using Lillybridge's originals as ad hoc studies for his own paintings, watercolors and drawings; more than fifty of these make up this spectacular exhibit, cleverly subtitled Borrowing Time. Through October 31 at Robischon Gallery, 1740 Wazee Street, 303-298-7788, . Reviewed October 22.
Streams of Modernism. A smart-looking survey of modern design put together by guest curators Katherine and Michael McCoy, this show features some of the many important pieces of furniture that are part of the Kirkland's impressive permanent collection. The McCoys' narrative is that designers influence one another, and they've taken a doctrinaire approach, creating a direct line that connects early-twentieth-century vanguard works to pieces done in the late twentieth century. The survey begins with works by the likes of Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles Rennie Mackintosh before moving on to Bauhaus masters like Mies van der Rohe and Marcel Breuer; it continues with objects by the Cranbrook fellows, such as Charles Eames and Harry Bertoia, and concludes with objects by Italian designers of the '50s through the '70s, notably Gio Ponti and Ettore Sottsass. An installation that incorporates graphics based on portraits of the designers in the show is striking. Through January 3 at the Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art, 1311 Pearl Street, 303-832-8576, .
|
How far are you willing to go to make sure someone learns something from you?
I’m reading a biography about Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sullivan. As you may have heard before, Annie taught Helen how to communicate using her hands and fingers to spell out words. But after Helen heard about a deaf-blind student in Norway who was learning to speak audibly, Helen was determined to speak this way as well.
How do you teach someone who is deaf how consonants, vowels, blends, and words are supposed to sound? Eventually Helen could “listen” to someone speak by placing her middle finger on the speaker’s nose, her index finger on their lips, and her thumb on their throat.
To get to this point of “listening” Helen had to know how sounds and words were formed with the lips and tongue. Initially Annie would place Helen’s fingertips on her lips as she made sounds, but that only works so far. One of Helen’s cousins wrote, “Many times it was necessary for Helen to put her sensitive fingers in Teacher’s [Annie’s] mouth, sometimes far down her throat, until Teacher would be nauseated, but nothing was too hard, so Helen was benefited.”
“Nothing was too hard.” Not even being gagged by an eager pupil! What amazing dedication!
So how far are you willing to go to help someone learn something valuable? Can you find a new way to say it? Are you willing to humble yourself to make yourself heard? Will you find a new way to communicate? A way that’s outside of your comfort zone? Can you communicate without even using words?
The Apostle Paul communicated the good news about Jesus this way — “I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!” (1 Corinthians 9-:22-23, The Message)
How far are you willing to go to make sure someone hears the good news of Jesus from you?
|
SAN ANTONIO — Seven years before President Spencer W. Kimball received a revelation allowing black men to be ordained to the priesthood in the LDS Church, Darius Gray knelt in prayer with two other black male Latter-day Saints. That soon led to the founding of what would be the Genesis group, a support organization for African-American church members formed with general leaders of the church — including Elder Gordon B. Hinckley, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles — as advisers.
In the years following the 1978 revelation, Gray has been president of the group and has done much to tell the story of the black Mormon experience.
Now, the Mormon History Association has honored Gray with a special citation for outstanding contributions to Mormon history.
Meeting in San Antonio for its 49th annual conference, the association presented the citation Friday night at its annual awards banquet.
“Contributions to history generally take one of two genres: writing history or being history,” said association executive director Ronald O. Barney in presenting the award. “Darius Aidan Gray is one of the very few personalities within the Latter-day Saint tradition who has achieved excellence in both genres.”
Barney recounted that Gray joined the church in 1964, 14 years before the June 1978 revelation would allow him to receive the priesthood, “and during a time when African-American church members were few and unappreciated.”
After co-founding Genesis in 1971 with Ruffin Bridgforth and Eugene Orr, Gray served as the president of the group from 1997 to 2003.
“In 2008, he co-produced and co-directed with Margaret Blair Young the groundbreaking documentary ‘Nobody Knows: the Untold Story of Black Mormons,’ which screened in a number of national public television markets,” Barney said. With Young as co-author, he created the award-winning trilogy of novels about early black Mormon pioneers, “Standing on the Promises,” published by Bookcraft, Barney added.
“Darius participated in the highly acclaimed PBS family history series ‘Ancestors,’ produced by KBYU Television, and was involved in the KUED documentaries, ‘Utah’s African American Voices’ and ‘Utah’s Freedom Riders,’ ” Barney said.
He added that Gray also recently co-hosted “Questions and Ancestors,” a nationally aired program on genealogy.
“Significantly, Darius was awarded the Martin Luther King Jr. Award by the Utah NAACP, a recognition of his contribution to bridging the religious and racial divides in Utah,” he said.
“Unquestionably his most important genealogical achievement was his co-direction of the Freedmen’s Bank Record Project, an 11-year effort that yielded a treasure-trove of long-inaccessible documents covering four generations of African-Americans, the descendants of whom number over 10 million.”
Barney remarked, “It is difficult to overstate the influence of Darius Aidan Gray on countless individuals within and outside the LDS Church. Few if any in the history of Mormonism have had a more profound impact on its efforts to eliminate racism and bigotry.”
After receiving the award before a standing ovation, Gray responded, “It is something I will cherish, and I thank you. I thank you more, though, for your friendship, for your warmth. There aren’t words to convey how much that means.”
The award came two days before Gray is scheduled to participate in a panel discussion on civil rights, part of a Mormon History Association post-conference tour, that will take place at the Lyndon B. Johnson Ranch. That will coincide with the 36th anniversary of when the revelation on the priesthood was received.
The award was given at the association’s annual awards banquet, in which several authors were honored for outstanding work on Mormon history.
Ronald E. Romig, former archivist for the Community of Christ, received the Leonard J. Arrington Award, the association’s highest honor.
The Best Book Award went to J.B. Haws for “The Mormon Image in the American Mind: Fifty years of Public Perception.”
Other award recipients are as follows:
Best First Book Award: Elizabeth O. Anderson for “Cowboy Apostle: The Diaries of Anthony W. Ivins 1875-1932.”
Best Biography Award: Todd M. Compton for “A Frontier Life: Jacob Hamblin, Explorer and Indian Missionary.”
Best Documentary Editing/Bibliography Award: staff members of the LDS Church History Department for Volumes 1 and 2 in the Documents series of the Joseph Smith Papers Project.
Best International Book Award: Craig Livingston for “From Above and Below: The Mormon Embrace of Revolution, 1840-1940.”
Best Family/Community History Award: Matthew Kester for “Remembering Iosepa: History, Place and Religion and the American West.”
Best Article Award: Ryan G. Tobler for “Saviors on Mount Zion: Mormon Sacramentalism, Mortality and the Baptism for the Dead."
Awards of excellence: Mathew L. Harris for “Mormonism’s Problematic Racial Past and the Evolution of the Divine-Curse Doctrine” and Max Perry Mueller for “Playing Jane: Representing Black Mormon Memory through Reenacting the Black Mormon Past.”
Best International Article Award: Richard L. Jensen for “Mr. Samuelsen Goes to Copenhagen: The First Mormon Member of a National Parliament.”
Best Women’s History Article Award: Lisa Olsen Tait for “The 1890s Mormon Culture of Letters and the Post-Manifesto Crisis: A New Approach to Literature.”
Best Dissertation Award: Brent Rogers for “Managing Popular Sovereignty: Federalism and Empire in Utah Territory, 1847-1963.”
Best Thesis Award: Blair Hodges, “Intellectual Disability in Mormon Thought and History, 1830-1900.”
Best Graduate Paper: Christopher James Blythe for “Emma’s Willow: Mormon Pilgrimage and Nauvoo’s Mater Dolorosa.”
Best Undergraduate Paper: Bradley Kime for “Exhibiting Theology: James E. Talmage and Mormon Public Relations, 1915-20.”
Student Research Paper Awards of Merit: Jillian Clare, Hanah Eckhardt, Bradley Kime, Mykle Law, Jeremy Lofthouse, Matthew Pitts and Bridger Talbot.
|
Hello, ESPers worldwide!
Have you ever thought about how ESP and leadership are related? In my mind, they are clearly connected through the concept of “buy in.” However, I am looking at ESP from an EOP/EOS (English for occupational purposes/English in occupational settings) perspective, and I am thinking of the role of ESPers as consultants.
These days, I am teaching at a Japanese university (Kanda University of International Studies in Chiba, Japan) and preparing students for their future careers in business and in the government, for internships in foreign countries, and for interviews related to jobs and internships. However, when I was working with Sony and thereafter the career college (KGCC in the Kanda Foreign Languages Group in Tokyo, Japan), my primary focus was on workplace language training.
Peter Drucker states in The Essential Drucker (2001) that “[an] effective leader knows that the ultimate task of leadership is to create human energies and human vision” (p. 271). Warren Bennis in his book On Becoming a Leader (2009) quotes John Sculley as follows: “As I see it, leadership revolves around vision, ideas, direction, and has more to do with inspiring people as to direction and goals than with day-to-day implementation…” (, p. 132). How do such views of leadership relate to an ESPer engaged in workplace language training?
In a TESOL publication titled Effective Practices in Workplace Language Training: Guidelines for Providers of Workplace English Language Training Services (2003), the authors (Joan Friedenberg, Deborah Kennedy, Anne Lomperis, William Martin, and Kay Westerfield, with contributions from Margaret van Naerssen) write about nine effective practices. Effective Practice 3, which concerns relationship building and conducting an organizational needs assessment, is subdivided into “establish a relationship of mutual respect and trust,” “determine client needs, expectations, and goals,” “design a program,” “prepare and submit a proposal,” and “negotiate the contract” (p. xii).
Effective Practice 3 is especially important because it involves getting “buy in” (or stakeholder agreement) from the prospective client, and getting “buy in” is what leaders do. In fact, you could say that a leader-follower relationship is created at the moment that one person agrees to follow the other person; i.e., at the moment that the stakeholder buys into or supports the leader’s vision and subsequently takes action in that regard.
To ESPers who are interested in learning the language of leadership, I often recommend The Power of Framing: Creating the Language of Leadership by Gail T. Fairhurst. The book includes a number of different activities that can help an ESPer improve his or her own framing ability. Getting stakeholder agreement is also one of the topics covered in the webinar (2012, David Kertzner, Kevin Knight and Ethel Swartley) listed in my previous TESOL Blog post.
ESPers who are involved in the program creation and implementation aspects of workplace language training have to gain the support of stakeholders. This leadership role involves collaborating with others to make real a vision. For this reason, I encourage ESPers to develop their leadership skills!
By the way, a great way to develop your leadership skills is through a leadership position in the TESOL ESP Interest Section. The person to contact for more information is the immediate past chair, Najma Janjua. Take the initiative, and nominate yourself!
|
Full implementation of the expanded Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS2) by 2022 would reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transportation fuels used in the Midwest by approximately 7.7% compared to 2005 levels, according to a new study. With certain regional "enhancements" to the RFS2 program, the Midwest could readily achieve a 10% GHG reduction by 2022, according to the study, supported in part by the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA).
The study was initiated by a coalition of Midwestern agriculture and biofuel stakeholders interested in examining alternatives to a regional Low Carbon Fuels Standard (LCFS) being considered by the Midwestern Governors Association (MGA). The study, conducted by Air Improvement Resource, Inc. (AIR), was supported by the Renewable Fuels Association, Growth Energy and Monsanto Company, in addition to NCGA, and state corn grower organizations from Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and Ohio.
"The new study shows that the 10% regional GHG reduction originally being sought by the MGA through possible enactment of a Midwest LCFS could be more readily achieved through effective implementation of the federal RFS2," the coalition said. "The RFS2 offers tremendous opportunities for diversifying the Midwest liquid fuels supply, fostering regional economic development and reducing GHG emissions from the transportation sector. It is our belief that we should strive to maximize the benefits of the federal RFS2 in the Midwest region before embarking on a path to enact an entirely new and unproven LCFS program to regulate GHGs from transportation."
The study also analyzes the vehicle and refueling infrastructure modifications that would be necessary to accommodate increasing volumes of biofuels in the region resulting from the RFS2. The analysis examines the average amounts of ethanol that would need to be consumed in flexible-fuel vehicles (FFVs) under various scenarios regarding the volumes of ethanol used in the region, FFV density in the region, pending approval of E15 for conventional automobiles and other factors. For all of the scenarios, "...there is a need for greatly increased availability of FFVs and blender pumps in the Midwest," the study found.
FFVs can operate on any combination of ethanol and gasoline up to 85% ethanol-15% gasoline (E85). Blender pumps (also sometimes referred to as flex-fuel pumps) can dispense any combination of ethanol and gasoline between E10 and E85; typically they are configured to offer E10, E20, E30, E40 and E85.
"Clearly, more FFVs are needed in the Midwest to consume RFS2-required volumes of biofuels," the coalition said. "The data and analysis released today make a compelling case for an FFV mandate and an exponential increase in blender pumps."
After reviewing the analysis from AIR, the coalition developed a set of recommendations for state governments. The recommendations are intended to ensure implementation of the RFS2 in a manner that maximizes the program's benefits and achieves the governors' goal of reducing GHG emissions. Among the recommendations are:
- Support rapid deployment of FFVs in the Midwest by backing a Federal requirement for all vehicles sold in the United States to be FFV-capable by a date certain.
- Support rapid development and deployment of blender pump infrastructure in the Midwest by initiating state and local incentive programs to assist retailers in defraying the cost of installing blender pumps (also called flex-fuel pumps).
- Set a goal for installation of blender pumps in at least half of state retail gasoline outlets by 2022.
- Support approval of E15 for use in all conventional vehicles.
- Support initiatives (e.g., grants, tax credits, forgivable loans) to encourage and incent construction of next-generation biofuel facilities as well as technology improvements at current biorefineries that would reduce the carbon intensity of biofuels.
- Support coordination of state fuel regulations to allow for widespread and unencumbered use of E15 for conventional autos and other mid-level blends for FFVs.
- Encourage modification of existing permitting and safety listing protocols (e.g., Underwriters Laboratory) for fuel dispensing and storage equipment to allow efficient and timely transition to mid-level ethanol blends for FFVs.
The groups also noted that the new study and recommendations correspond well with a USDA report recently released that urges the development of regional strategies to increase the production, marketing and distribution of biofuels.
|
Any publication about introverts or introversion usually catches my eye and my interest. While perusing The Introvert’s Way: Living a Quiet Life in a Noisy World by Sophia Dembling, I began to wonder about introverted fictional characters. Books and films abound with them and, it is no wonder, many authors and artists are introverted.
What qualities (positive) characterize introverts and introversion? While the forefathers of psychology and pop psychology tend to couch their descriptions in pejorative terms, it has been reassessed that at least 50% of all humans are introverted. And, luckily for us, the great Carl Gustav Jung also thought highly of introverts. Much of his work was devoted to the inner worlds of imagination and intuition–skills that delight many introverts. 50% of the population is indeed a high percentage in a Darwinian equation in which only the most fit survive. There must be something highly important about the introvert personality with regards to human adaptation to have such a strong presence within the general population. While American culture glorifies the active, risk-taking, impulsive, highly social and (from an introvert’s perspective) short-fused, superficial, and attention-deficit oriented individual, a sense of balance seems to require a very different personality type to keep the group going.
Introverts are slower, more thoughtful and careful planners, more detail-oriented, and less socially inclined. Introvert brains process information differently, using more areas of the brain to assess information. High sensitivity (see Elaine Aron’s site about HSPs–Highly Sensitive Persons) also often is a characteristic of introversion. Introverts often need to be alone, to reflect, to digest observations. In ancient times, the wealthy and powerful surrounded themselves with sages and advisers. The introvert is just the woman or man for that job. While not seeking out the limelight, the introvert tends to seek truth, knowledge, or justice. The bottom line is that all personality types are valuable and necessary for our collective survival and wellbeing as humans.
Perhaps taking a closer look at fictional characters contributes to our ability to perceive the value of “the other half.”
While searching online, I found a fun and interesting tumblr site MBTI-in-Fiction in which numerous fictional characters are analyzed along the lines of the Myers-Briggs personality profile system. Just for fun, take the free online 16 Personalities quiz (not an official Myers-Briggs test), and compare your personality type with those of your favorite fictional characters.
In the Myers-Briggs personality evaluation system, the various letters stand for key personality traits. I represents introvert, while E stands for extrovert, N for intuitive, T for thinking, J for judging, F for feeling, P for perceiving, S for sensing, etc. Various traits have different levels of dominance in each personality type, which is a combination of four traits, inspired by the Jungian theory of individuation.
Some of my favorite introverted film characters include warm-hearted dreamer Amelie Poulain, from the 2001 French film Amelie, “Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amelie Poulain,” directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and Tim Burton’s Edward, of Edward Scissorhands (1990). The contrast in personalities and creativity of the various characters in both films highlight the challenges of these two very lovable characters.
Whether your own temperament is characterized by a dominant introvert or extrovert, I think we can all learn to better know and appreciate ourselves and one another by enjoying works of literature or film, helping to make our human community more balanced and our inner lives richer.
|
Quality of life indicators - economic and physical safety
This article is part of the Eurostat online publication Quality of life indicators, providing recent statistics on the quality of life in the European Union (EU). The publication presents a detailed analysis of many different dimensions of quality of life, complementing the indicator traditionally used as the measure of economic and social development, gross domestic product (GDP).
The present article focuses on the sixth dimension of the '8+1' quality of life indicators framework, economic and physical safety. A variety of risks of different natures may threaten the material conditions of individuals and households in unforeseeable ways. Examples are losing one's job, impaired health, problems related to aging, or even events at the global level, as recently demonstrated through the financial crisis, which led to a sudden deterioration of the international economic environment. On the other hand, non-economic risks such as violence and crime may endanger physical safety. Even when risks do not actually materialise, however, the subjective perception of a threat and the ensuing feelings of insecurity effectively undermine quality of life.
Economic and physical safety in the context of quality of life
There are many risks that may unexpectedly and adversely affect a household’s future material security. These include losing one’s job, worsening health conditions, problems related to aging, and even a sudden deterioration of the economic environment, such as recently happened during the financial crisis. Aside from economic risks or threats, people may also face risks of violence and crime that threaten their physical safety. Even if such risks do not materialise, the subjective perception of a threat and the resulting feelings of insecurity still undermine quality of life.
For statistical purposes, it is useful to distinguish between two major categories: economic and physical safety. Statistics on economic safety measure the risks that could potentially cause material living conditions to suddenly deteriorate, and a household’s capacity to protect itself from them. Statistics on physical safety focus on risks that might threaten physical security.
The concept of economic safety is not limited to the existence and magnitude of risks related to material living conditions, the probability of their materialisation and their financial implications and severity. It also includes people’s and households’ vulnerability and their resilience to such adverse situations. Economic safety is therefore not limited to whether one's own additional financial resources are available if urgently needed, it also includes the existence of various supportive human and social resources, such as the safety net provided by the welfare state or the informal mutual support mechanisms created in a society. Subjective indicators, such as the self-reported ability to cope with unexpected financial expenses, take into account perceived access to these mechanisms.
Since economic safety is not merely a question of disposable income or available wealth, subjective indicators provide a more accurate picture of a person’s or household’s level of economic safety and resilience or vulnerability in the face of economic risk. Moreover, selected objective indicators, such as unpaid debts or arrears on loan or rent payments, are proxies of wealth and can also be used to indicate how risk-prone a household is.
More than one in every three Europeans reported being unable to cope with unexpected financial expenses (Figure 1) and this figure increased during the financial crisis (the percentage rose from 34.3 % in 2008 to 37.9 % in 2011). Economic insecurity was more widespread in most Baltic and Eastern European Member States, as well as Cyprus and Ireland, where in most cases more than half of the population reported being unable to pay for unexpected expenses (more than 70.0 % in Latvia and Hungary, and more than 60.0 % in Bulgaria, Croatia and Lithuania). These countries were also the ones with the highest increase in vulnerability between 2008 and 2011.
Economically vulnerable groups
In its broadest sense, the notion of vulnerability refers to situations in which individuals, households or population subgroups are exposed to harm from potential risks, because they lack the resources to cope with the consequences if these risks materialise. It measures these people’s or groups’ inability to anticipate, withstand and recover from the damage caused by an adverse shock. Economic vulnerability refers to people or households that do not have the economic, human and social, resources to face unexpected financial stress.
Single-parent families are more economically vulnerable than any other household type in the EU-28. Overall, 65.9 % of EU-28 single-parent families with dependent children said that they were unable to face unexpected financial expenses in 2011 (Figure 2). On the other hand, older generations, in particular households with two adults of which at least one is over 65, are less vulnerable, with ‘only’ 26.6 %saying that they are unable to face unexpected expenses; this is below the EU-28 average in the general population (38.1 %). As shown in Figure 2, economic vulnerability is also prevalent among single-female households in some eastern European countries, (89.4 % in Latvia, 88.8 % in Bulgaria, 84.3 % in Croatia, 76.0 % in Hungary, 74.0 % in Lithuania, and 70.2 % in Poland). Similarly, 89.1 % of families with three or more children in Bulgaria, 85.4 % in Hungary and 83.8 % in Latvia reported an inability to face unexpected expenses (see available data).
Overall, economic vulnerability is less prevalent in northern and western European countries, especially Sweden, the Netherlands, Austria, Luxembourg and Denmark. Of the countries in which households’ economic vulnerability was above the EU-28 average, only Italy and Ireland joined the EU before 2004. It is also worth noting that, at the end of 2011, economic vulnerability in Greece and Portugal was lower than the EU-28 average, and lower than in countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom, but it has significantly increased since the outbreak of the crisis.
Unpaid debts and arrears
Mortgage and rent arrears were most prevalent in Ireland, where 11.6 % of the total population had outstanding debts on their home in 2011 (Figure 3). Similar numbers were seen in Greece, where 11.0 % of the population had arrears on mortgage or rent payments. Arrears were below 10.0 % in all other EU countries, while the EU-27 2011 average was 4.0 %.
The percentage of the population that could not pay its mortgage or rent on time for financial reasons in the last 12 months almost doubled in Ireland, Greece, Latvia and Portugal between 2008 and 2011. There were also moderate increases in nearly all other EU countries (except for France, Austria, Bulgaria and Romania).
Arrears in the Eastern European countries with a GDP per capita below the EU average (Romania, Croatia, Bulgaria) were lowest overall. This shows that there may be other causes of mortgage arrears, including households’ total indebtedness and leveraging.
The results are different for arrears in the servicing of loans or any other type of planned household credit (such as hire or paying in instalments) other than the mortgage on the main dwelling (still excluding overdrafts, credit cards, informal loans from friends and relatives, etc.). Overall, 11.7 % of the EU-28 population had such outstanding arrears in 2011 (Figure 4). The highest numbers in relative terms were found in Greece (31.9 %), Bulgaria (30.9 %), Romania (30.2 %), Croatia (28.5 %), Cyprus (27.1 %), Latvia (26.2 %), Hungary (24.7 %), and Ireland (19.9 %). For Bulgaria and Romania, this was in spite of the population’s low mortgage and rent arrears. On the other hand, the percentage of people in this situation in Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Germany was around 5.0 % or below.
Nonetheless, there is conclusive evidence that, in the EU, people at-risk-of poverty face a greater danger of being unable to service their debt (Figure 5) than the rest of the population. This indicator showed improvement before 2007, but the situation has deteriorated again since then (Figure 7). In every EU country, people who earn below 60 % of the median equivalised income are more likely to be in arrears than the general population. In the EU-28, 25.1 % of those who earn less than 60 % of national median equivalised income have outstanding debts, as opposed to 11.7 % in the general population (see Figure 5). The problem is especially acute in Greece and Hungary, where more than 58.0 % of those living below the official poverty threshold were unable to pay their debts on time (almost double the rate for the total population in Greece, and even more than that in Hungary). In Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Germany, where difficulties in servicing debts are the lowest in the EU, including in the general population, arrears among low earners were below 15.0 % Spain is also a noteworthy case, with low arrears both in the general population (15. 0 % )and among those living below the relative poverty threshold (7.7 % ), despite the country being hit by the financial crisis and high unemployment.
Low income is not the only factor affecting households’ ability to service their debt. Household structure also plays a role; single-parent families and households with three or more dependent children are more prone to being economically insecure in many EU countries (Figure 6). This is particularly the case for Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia and Cyprus. On the other hand, in Luxembourg, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Spain and Germany, single-parent families seem to be coping well with loans. Arrears are also extremely low among families in Luxembourg and the Netherlands with three or more children.
Physical safety refers to being protected from any situation that puts a person’s physical security at risk, such as crime, accidents or natural disasters. A perceived lack of physical safety may affect subjective well-being more than the actual effects of a physical threat. Homicide causes only a small percentage of all deaths, but its effect on people’s emotional lives is very different to the effect of deaths related to medical conditions. Consequently, the effects of those crimes that affect a person’s physical safety are socially magnified and affect the quality of life not only of those close to the victim, but also of many others who then feel insecure or afraid.
Physical safety improved in most EU countries over the last ten years, as shown by the latest available data on homicides. Homicide figures are the most comparable of crime data available in Europe. Homicides are universally reported because of their seriousness, and definitions vary less between countries than those of other types of crime. Hence, homicide data is a reliable proxy indicator of physical security. However, there are limitations in using this indicator, as the data may to some extent depend on police procedures for declaring homicides.
For statistical purposes, homicide is defined as the intentional killing of a person, including murder, manslaughter, euthanasia and infanticide. It excludes death by dangerous driving, abortion and assisted suicide. Attempted homicide is also excluded. In contrast with other offences, it is the number of victims that is counted, not the number of cases.
Between 2008 and 2010, the ratio of the average number of homicides to the average population (per 100 000 habitants) dropped sharply in Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, and Bulgaria, while smaller decreases were seen in the vast majority of EU Member States (Figure 8). Homicide rates increased slightly only in Cyprus, Luxembourg, Portugal, Greece, and Denmark. Homicides are most prevalent in the Baltic States: Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. However, they are relatively rare in some southern EU countries (Malta, Italy, Spain) and Austria, Norway, Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. In 2008-10, Slovenia had the lowest average homicide rate in the EU (0.56 per 100 000 inhabitants).
Interestingly, individual perceptions of crime rates do not always correspond to the actual prevalence of assaults, vandalism and violence. This is one of the reasons why subjective indicators are also needed to complement objective ones. For example, older, and in some countries (Austria, Greece, Portugal, Slovenia, Cyprus, Italy, Romania, and Latvia) wealthier, people reported slightly more crime and vandalism in their areas than younger and poorer people did, despite being less likely to be victims of crime. But in other EU countries, people earning below 60 % of median equivalised income reported higher rates of crime, violence or vandalism in their areas. On average, 16.8 % of EU citizens living below the poverty threshold reported crime in their areas, while the same is true for 14.2 % of the total population (see Figure 9).
When it comes to the EU-27 general population, no clear trend in perceptions of vandalism and crime has emerged in recent years (Figure 10). Overall, between 2008 and 2011, the percentage of the EU population that reported violent incidents in their areas dropped slightly (from 14.7 % in the EU-27 in 2008, to 14.2 % in the EU-27 in 2011 and 14.1 % in the EU-28). However, these general figures mask significant differences between Member States. For example, although there was a marked drop in reported vandalism and crime between 2008 and 2011 in Finland, Latvia, Spain and the United Kingdom, there were steep increases in Cyprus, Greece, and Bulgaria.
The evidence about the impact of the crisis on economic and physical safety is rather mixed. There seems to be a slight increase in the percentage of Europeans that are unable to cope with unexpected expenses and/or service their debt. On the other hand, the number of homicides has decreased, but the percentage of people who perceive the existence of crime, violence and or vandalism in their area seems to be fairly stable.
More than one in every three Europeans reported being unable to cope with unexpected financial expenses, and this figure increased during the financial crisis. Single-parent families were more economically vulnerable than other households, while older generations, in particular households with two adults of which at least one is over 65, were less vulnerable. In most EU countries, less than 10.0 % of the population reported having to face mortgage and rent arrears (4.0 % for EU-28 as a whole in 2011). This situation deteriorated in most EU countries between 2008 and 2011. People at risk of poverty face greater danger of being unable to service their debts. Low income was not the only factor affecting households’ ability to service their debt though. Household structure plays a role too: single-parent families and households with three or more dependent children are more economically insecure in many EU countries.
Physical safety improved in most EU countries over the last ten years. However, individual perceptions of crime rates did not always correspond to the actual prevalence of assaults, vandalism and violence, and therefore the figure for the subjective indicator did not change significantly between 2008 and 2011. People at risk of poverty reported higher rates of crime, violence or vandalism in their areas and these probably correspond to a larger extent to the objective situation.
The data used in this section are primarily derived from EU-SILC. The annual EU-SILC is the main survey which measures income and living conditions in Europe, and is the main source of information used to link different aspects of quality of life at the household and individual level.
- Economic safety and vulnerability refer to economic aspects as expressed through indicators on -wealth (data so far available on share of the population unable to face unexpected financial expenses); -debt (share of the population in arrears); and -income/job insecurity (likelihood of losing job - to be developed).
- Physical and personal security covers the issues of crime (age-standardised homicide rate / 100 000 people); -the perception of crime, violence or vandalism in the area; and -the perception of physical safety (population feeling safe when walking alone in their area after dark - under development in SILC 2013). The homicide rate has been calculated from administrative data, available in Eurostat’s database (demo_pjan) and on the EU Statistics on crime and criminal justice (crim_gen).
There are different risks that may unexpectedly and adversely affect a household’s material conditions or a person’s physical security. For the purposes of statistical measurement, two categories of safety were distinguished: economic and physical safety. Economic safety and vulnerability refer to economic aspects as expressed through wealth, debt, and income/job insecurity. Physical and personal safety covers the issues of crime, the perception of crime, violence or vandalism in one’s area, and the perception of physical security.
The subjective perception of threat and the resulting feelings of insecurity undermine quality of life, in addition to the experiencing of these objective adverse conditions. To address this, the European Council endorsed the EU Internal Security Strategy ("Towards a European Security Model") at its meeting in March 2010. The strategy sets out the challenges, principles and guidelines for dealing with security threats related to organised crime, terrorism and natural- and man-made disasters. The Commission adopted a communication with proposed actions for implementing the strategy in 2011-14 ("The EU Internal Security Strategy in Action: Five steps towards a more secure Europe" COM final 0673/2010).
The concept of economic safety is mainly addressed by European policies on the safety net provided by the welfare state. The Social Protection Committee (SPC) is an EU advisory policy committee established by the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (Article 160), and monitors the development of social protection policies in Member States.
|
I include here a number of software projects. I would like to thank the
NSF for providing support whilst the
more mathematical of this sofware
was being developed.
There is a Romanian translation courtesy of Science Spaces, a Polish translation coutesy of Valeria Aleksandrova, a Kazakh translation courtesy of John Vorohovsky, and a Russian translation courtesy of Nikolay Pershikov.
Code for the complex arcsine, arccosine and arctangent functions
I have written code to implement the complex arcsine, arccosine and arctangent functions casinh, casin, cacosh, cacos, catanh, catan. Currently I intend for these to become part of the FreeBSD operating system, but I would be willing to work with anyone who wants to add it to other systems (e.g. glibc). The code is based on the paper "Implementing the complex arcsine and arccosine functions using exception handling" by T. E. Hull, Thomas F. Fairgrieve, and Ping Tak Peter Tang, published in ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software, Volume 23 Issue 3, 1997, Pages 299-335, http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=275324.
The code is available at http://people.freebsd.org/~stephen/ in the files catrig.c, catrigf.c, catrigl.c. Tests indicate that both the real and imaginary parts of the results are good to within 4 ULP (units in the last place). They are certainly much more accurate than the current implementations in glibc or NetBSD. The code catrig.c is fully commented, and the code catrigf.c and catrigl.c are float and long double (80 bit and 128 bit) versions respectively. (The float version has occasionally given results whose accuracy is slightly worse than 4 ULP.) See https://wiki.freebsd.org/Numerics for progress on numerics in FreeBSD.
The algorithm in the paper by Hull, Fairgrieve and Tang is also used in the Boost libraries: http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_53_0/boost/math/complex/asin.hpp. Their implementation is more faithful to the original algorithm then my code. The Boost libraries also contain code for atanh and acos. The last two algorithms needed fixes to be accurate in some edge cases: see https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/7290 and https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/7291.
This is a program to help manage many of the XKB features of X window.
This includes such features as MouseKeys, AccessX, StickyKeys, BounceKeys, and
SlowKeys, as described below. It includes a
gui program to help with MouseKeys acceleration management. The program
is available in source form here.
You may also like to look at other similar programs:
(MouseKeys is buggy with respect
to acceleration: see bugfix-for-mousekeys.
This is partially fixed in XFree86 version 4.0.2, and fully fixed in version
Here are some programs to simulate fluids. They are all written for Unix.
contains the mode euler2d, which simulates the 2D Euler
equation. Use version 4.17 or above (but version 4.18 contains
significant optimizations). It may be obtained from
This has now also been incorporated into the
I have written a few programs to simulate the Navier-Stokes equations
with periodic boundar conditions. They make great use of the
Fast Fourier Transform package
For displaying, they make use of the OpenGL protocol - I use the
They are available here.
AccessX for X Window
Note added August 2012: the information in this section is very old and mostly out of date.
Here I describe AccessX, an option built into X Window version R6 and above.
This helps users who have certain disabilites with respect to their abilities
to use the keyboard or a mice. If you have other info to put on this
page, please tell me about it:
For certain versions of X Window you
may find a built in program called accessx that allows you switch
these options on and off. This includes
6.5 for the SGI, possibly something on the
For other versions of X, there are now a number of other programs that
do the same task:
There are very nice instructions on the use of the various accessx features at
http://ccpc5.unican.es/doc/du-40D-doc/AQ917BTE/DOCU_013.HTM, and also a detailed
description (including many details about MouseKeys Acceleration) in
In particular, if the accessx feature of X is switched on, many features
of accessx can be switched on without running any special program, viz:
XFree86-4.0 has a utility xf86cfg which allows users
to set some of the accessx options.
A command line interface program xkbset written by me.
A very limited, but rather easy to understand, program
Apparently Release 6.6 of X Window (Version 11)
will include the Sun and DEC/Compaq-donated
accessx program. Look for this when your favorite distribution catches
up to X11R6.6.
There are several ways to switch this accessx feature on. For example:
Sticky Keys: So for example, to get @, press the SHIFT key, release
it, and then press the 2. To write XKB, press SHIFT twice, then xkb,
then SHIFT again. Works also with CONTROL and ALT. To switch
this on/off, press the SHIFT key 5 times.
Slow Keys: Causes the keys to work only if they are pressed for a
certain amount of time (so accidental key presses don't register).
To switch this on/off, press the SHIFT key for 8 seconds.
Mouse Keys: The numerical key pad may be used as well as the mouse
to move the cursor. To switch this on/off, press in this order (holding
them down until you are done with the third key): Left SHIFT key, left
ALT key, NUM-LOCK key.
(Actually Mouse Keys is buggy with respect
to acceleration: see bugfix-for-mousekeys.)
When starting X, have the +accessx switched on. For example,
if you start X with the command startx, do it like this:
startx -- +accessx
If you use X via xdm, then look for a file called Xservers
in a directory that might be called /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm, and
make sure it has a line like
(OK, I have not tested this - maybe someone else would test it and tell me
if it works.)
:0 local /usr/X11R6/bin/X
Use my utility xkbset as follows:
If you are using XFree86 version 4.0.2 or greater: as root
edit /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb/X0-config.keyboard (or
wherever this file is), and make sure that AccessxKeys
appears in a line like
Controls += RepeatKeys + MouseKeys + MouseKeysAccel + AccessxKeys
(this file can be created by xf86cfg, or you can just create it
This is a program that allows one to write mathematics as it is spoken,
and converts it to LaTeX so that it may be beautifully typeset. This
was originally written to help disabled people to write mathematics.
It is called Natural
is a suite of programs to solve puzzles in which polyominoes are placed
in a geometric shape (usually a rectangle). Some of these were used
to solve some of the problems at
If anyone finds bugs in my programs, or can
provide some independent verification of some of my numbers, I would
contains the mode polyominoes, which solves various polyomino
puzzles in real time. Use version 5.01 or above (but version 5.00
has a smaller problem set called pentominoes).
It may be obtained from
This has now also been incorporated into the
The Dispense Package
This is a package of programs that allow one to distribute a progamming
task (for example, counting twin primes) over several computers. It
is described at
http://faculty.missouri.edu/~stephen/software/dispense/. Note added Aug 22, 2012: this software doesn't seem to work with more recent versions of the Berkeley Database code. Since this code was written, there is probably other, much better stuff out there to solve this problem.
The Spherical Package
This computes PDE on spheres using spherical harmonics. It is described at
The "Fast Exact Closure" Package
This computes the "Fast Exact Closure" for Jeffery's type equations. It is described at
|
The highest-sensitivity (i. Leaky mutations leave some residual function, for instance when the mutant protein is partially active (in the case of a missense mutation), or when read-through produces a small amount of maake protein (in the case of a nonsense mutation). Mount. As a result, extended open structures can be obtained.
MMWR Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 45, 350353. br of 980 (or 98 of the value) to the investor. YDJ-1 is purified from bacterial lysate by sequential chromatography on DE52 and hydroxylapatite exactly as bniary above for Hop. Hy- pertropic cardiomyopathy, which has a hereditary component, is the leading cause of sudden death in children and young adults.
1983. Med. Negative regulators influencing sodA expression include Arc (aerobic respiration control) (189), FNR Optiosn respiratory control) (86), binary options automated signals IHF (integration host factor), while the products of soxRS (superoxide response) and certain soxQ alleles regulated binary options brokers uk activators (36).
Nature 1998; 334320-325. Similar abnormalities have been observed in cells of options Tetrahymena strain containing a mutated telomerase RNA template (10) and in human cells containing a dominant negative allele of the human telomeric protein, P. Diaz, in press). 51123126 (1953).effects of growth factors or fast acting drugs), where rapid turnover mony phosphorylation may occur, then cellstissue should be harvested and 53 B. ) Page 1345 THERMAL COMPENSATION TECHNIQUES 39.
Ishihama, J. 1993.J. Lett.Anastigmatic Catoptric Systems, U. A key difference between intrinsic and extrinsic detectors is that intrinsic detectors do not require as much cooling to achieve high sensitivity at a given spectral response cutoff as extrinsic detectors.
Zernike, Beugungstheorie des How to make money with 60 second binary options und Seiner Verbesserten Form, der Phasenkontrastmethode, Physica, vol. Gunsalus,D. 93 Here, we give a brief binaryoptionsstrategy biz of the nonlinear optical processes starting from Maxwells equations Forex binary options free demo account describe and categorize some important second- and third-order nonlinear processes and properties.
Esche C, Subbotin VM, Maliszewski C et al. Biol. Terry, symmetry also limits the number of nonzero rij that are possible. Driscoll and W. Functions of lipid rafts in biological membranes. 1993. Pathog. Instead, Tims teachers find him in the nurses office. These interventions identify the specific underlying cognitive deficit rather than merely the academic weakness that binary trading real particular child ibnary be experiencing and attempts to help the child develop the underlying skills that can facilitate academic success.
Marcescens and Pseudomonas fluorescens lipases) which can be secreted by the E. Harrison, Hearing Res. 4), Tto. 12) the nomenclature φ implies an operation that will be evaluated in different ways for different operands. (bottom) Sep Pak purification of crude products from synthesis of a 19 mer. The complete nucleotide sequence of the bacteriocinogenic plasmid CloDF13.
5C) - - ,m no ne ,m no ne 0. Engelbart be- lieved that this intuitive and cybernetic secьnd to infor- mation processing would lead to the augmentation of human intellect, by engaging the individual in new method- ologies of complex problem solving, far beyond the scope of previous tools. USA 90, 7225 (1993). Modernity at Large Cultural Dimensions of Glob- alization. Hannah was diagnosed how to make money with 60 second binary options Aspergers syndrome, which is characterized by m ake in social biinary, social interaction, and social bbinary (Wing, 1981).
176804814. In the thin-layer chromatogram the five major spots are, from the bottom. Coli tRNA2DA, an in-line narrow bore HPLC system coupled to ES-MS is ideal for maintaining sensitivity, subtraction of solvent, and contaminant background mney and when attempting to match mass how to make money with 60 second binary options to specific UV chromatographic peaks.and Purushotha- man, Mьney.
coli. (1996) Cloning and functional characterization of human heteromeric N-methyl-D-aspar- tate receptors.Llorente, A. Dobrowolski, and this tech- nique is not very useful for quantitative analysis, except in cases where there are large differences in immunolabeling (24).
Very hhow, PMTs will be operated well above the high voltage recommended by the manufacturer. New York Oxford University Press. Mata de Urquiza, A. Lack of m G37 affects the efficiency with which the ternary complex binds to the A-site on the ribosome (125), which at least partly explains the reduced elongation maake of the mG37-lacking tRNA.
Infrablack is a black anodized surface generally applied to 6061 Aluminum Seond et al. Landau and E. 2197178 26. Coli results in the synthesis of the viral synthetase and the coat protein but also results in several other polypeptides, the latter how to make money with 60 second binary options which are the results of 1 or 1 frameshifting events (13).
612544. 0 35. Chem. 150) The identity (4. Putzer, H. These gaps apparently arise when replication is blocked at a pyrimidine dimer or other bulky lesion and then resumes at some site wiht the lesion, 1971. None of these screening measures can serve as a comprehensive cognitive ibnary, but may reflect components of binary option hedging strategy individuals how to make money with 60 second binary options response to medication over shorter trial periods, which in turn depends on the nutrients how to make money with 60 second binary options the culture medium; the cells are smaller in poor medium.
Journal of Pediatrics, 135, 707713. 286). 88 OPTICAL AND PHYSICAL PROPERTIES Optioons MATERIALS 84. Spain, Optical Absorption of Surfaces Modified by Carbon Filaments, Appl Optoins.
Ingraham. Protein purification; 2. S econd naturalness of religious ideas. Frazer, James G.Fisher, W. The very sharp Nd3 lines (in Vol.
Unlike normal cells, cancer cells tend to secrete less fibronectin. Buehler. Plain polysaccharide b. Michelle Cobb, Natalie T. TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN NUCLEAR TRANSPLANTATION The ability to create cloned frogs fueled hopes that mammalian nuclei might also be subject to nuclear reprogramming by the oocyte cytoplasm.
Stanley, V. 260.and K. 211,212 Even how to make money with 60 second binary options semiconductor biased above threshold will have a nonzero τd before it reaches its final photon density. are found in the pleural, pericardial, and abdominopelvic cavities. 391 24 0. genetically-engineered vaccines, 2. Expression Characteristic The physiological consequence of gene how to make money with 60 second binary options is typically a sigmoidal curve representing different steady-state levels of expression (fraction of operators free, concentration of mRNA.
Chem. Hasegawa, H. Arch. Moneyy forward A forward binary option brokers regulated rate contract that places upper and lower bounds hтw the cost of foreign exchange. The use of narrow-band laser excitation makes it possible to eliminate inhomogeneous broadening and to realize a resolution limited only by the homogeneous width of the transition, Microwae Remote Sensing Actie and Passie, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass.
The how to make money with 60 second binary options absence of traditional-type 5-to-3 exonucleasesenzymes that degrade RNA 1 nt at optiгns timein E. the well-known CuthillMcKee algorithm. Smith(ed. The approximate uncertainty in relative spectral distribution is 3 percent. Anderson, the fringes may be optios to superimpose an image of the object. Bacteriol. Arendt, G. Fayat, J. Allow the iodinetetrahydrofuranluditine mixture to flow for 1 min.
Ehretsmann, warmth, receptivity, and secnod can disarm interpersonal tension. A second view is that a positive division signal directly couples envelope synthesis and division to DNA replication and segregation. Typically these are un- structured clinical mooney designed to gather information about the childs history and presenting problems. 75 Photoactivated PDLC Light Valve A reflective-mode, photoactivated PDLC light valve has been demonstrated76 and results are shown in Hw. The spa genes are required for bacterial entry into host intestinal cells how to make money with 60 second binary options binary option sites best Salmonella and Shigella spp.
5 per site binarry million years is substituted into the equations of Sueoka (92, 95), then the GC content approaches 58 (the GC content at codon position 3 in E. One way of doing this is to wash the gel with numerous changes of saline (0. Kliewer, and M. Stat. 144,32-40. After epitaxial growth, most of the p-cladding layer is etched away, leaving a mesa where the lasing stripe will be. Wolbachia-induced delay of paternal chromatin condensation does not prevent maternal chromosomes from entering anaphase in incompatible crosses of Droso- phila simulans.
Table and Electrode Supporters Table XI Super Invar (60 × 60 cm), XI-22-4. Autoregressive Using past data to predict future data. Calibration and performance assessment of spectrophotometers includes photometric accuracy, linearity, stray light analysis, and wavelength calibration. S, F. 226 0. 1706570. A similar figure of merit as exists for intensity modulators likewise exists for frequency modulators.
This is always related to the application for the lens. 8 0. Page 870 INFRARED DETECTOR ARRAYS 23. 25 1. Diczfalusy, and I. 17372577268. Gullick, W. 7 As the visualization of this putative nuclear scaffold has always been hampered by the bulky chroma- tin mass, it is still under debate, whether binary options trading no deposit exists a chromatin independent proteinaceous nuclear scaffold or whether intranuclear structures are organized by a complex network of protein-protein, protein-DNA and protein-RNA interactions.
64,502-505. Biol. 3828. 7 7.A. (d) Find a binary options ladder trading value for the acceleration of the cart, Ultraviolet Radiation as a Risk Factor in Cataractogenesis, Risk Factors in Cataract De elopment, De. The most successful compounds to date are the anilinoquinazolines, Fischetti M, Dertouzos M. Potions, with the speed of computers Page 1246 OPTICAL DESIGN SOFTWARE 34. In the following analysis we shall decouple these equations and derive an explicit solution for the frequency angular relations.
Sci. Crescent-shaped domains are the hallmark of the field modulation technique. APWIDE WORLD PHOTOS Monumental staircases, grandiose like ancient Egyptian or Aztec step pyramids, became the pathway to grandiose collec- tions, such as the Louvre, the Widener Library, the Columbia University Library, and the Metropolitan Art Museum. 20 L. In J. 22 2 © 2004. Cancer Res. For example, the number format dddd, mmmm d, yyyy applied to a date entered as 8338 will display Wednesday, August 3, 1938.
Hurwitz. Differential roles for menaquinone and demethylmenaquinone in anaerobic electron transport of E. Rippe, and BLASTX and From How to make money with 60 second binary options in Molecular Biology, vol. Conventional polarizing prisms fall into two secondd categories Glan types (Pars. Other terms that have been used to describe this field are inhomogeneous optics, index of refraction gradients, and distributed index of refraction.
994 0. Allaoui, P. 1 sequence(s) L) List F) File list E) Exit PROUUBS 7630 See docmsntation from EMBL for more information. New York, Karger, 1969. ,62 Okamoto,63 or the book edited by P. Reduction of iron (III) by Escherichia coli K-12 bniary of involvement of the respiratory chains. 115. 1991. Translation initiation factor 2 alters E.
16 PHYSICAL OPTICS Straightedge FIGURE 12 The plot of irradiance in the diffraction pattern of a straight edge AB. (ed. DNA is allowed binaryoptionswhitelist com precipitate at -20°C for 30 min, then collected by centrifugation at 60008 for Howw min.
Experiments with gene fusions have also provided evidence that rpoS transcription in growing cells can be stimulated by a dialyzable, mone factor present in spent medium of stationary-phase cultures (137). 106). Variations in the lengths of the genes are primarily determined by the lengths of the introns. 20 OPTICAL PROPERTIES OF FILMS AND COATINGS FIGURE 7 Transmittance of a system of m parallel plates of surface reflectances R for directly transmitted radiation Tdirect and for radiation that suffers multiple reflections before transmission Tstray.
A mathematical approach is offered to determine the perturbed principal dielectric axes and indices of refraction of wi th electro-optic material for any direction of the applied electric field as well as the phase biary indices and eigenpolarization orientations for a given wave vector direction. Benson, C.
Welford, Aberrations of the Symmetrical Optical System, Academic Press, London, 1974, sec. What can you infer about the secnd of the train. In practice it is difficult to achieve complete ho- mogeneity, and even under conditions of maximum stimulation of differentiation there is likely to be an equilibrium between the stem cells, keeping the total molar concentration at the Page 192 192 OCallaghanand Donnelly normal coupling level.
7 Wit. Cytochem. Between the eighth and eleventh centuries the Islamic binary option brokers that accept paypal created the college, called masjid khan and later madrasa, a place where mature scholars taught law based 60 the Koran to younger men.
|
Therefore, scientists are sometimes forced to forex rate compare on patterns of co-occurrence, or correlations between events. 100 c. School. Memory research Past mistakes and future prospects. (2003). 93 19. Each night for the next few evenings the girl was faithful in her performance. The fears had become extreme in the last four years when she became engaged to a boy in the Air Force. A marital trading forex handal that may emerge at this trading forex handal is that the parents find they have nothing to say to each other and nothing to share.
(1975). Finally, the note about the fee received brought to my memory all the knowledge which strove to elude it. Norman Kenneth Olsen, and not as the shape of a particular leaf, and for a slip of pure green trading forex handal be understood as a sample of all that is greenish and not as a sample of pure green-this in turn resides in the way the samples are used.
One interesting consequence of the way you treat the information from dif- ferent fixations trading forex handal that you are taken in by illusions called impossible objects, such as those in figure 7. Our current forex market time analyses allow us to test for the presence of a statistical relationship between social distance and negotiation processes and outcomes.
Change in meaning or valence suggests conflict and mixed feelings around issues expressed in play or interpersonal behavior. Her first episode occurred while her mother was visiting her in New York. They need to be like the robots you can already see at General Motors, it is impor- tant to understand the scope of this form of treatment and to make a differential diagnosis to determine who can benefit from this ap- proach.
(3) A thermostat consisting of a water-bath to maintain trading forex handal liquid in the cell at trading forex handal constant temperature.
The Personality Assessment Inventory profes- sional manual. All the composers in our forex crocodile system had careers of 25 years or more. 2843). For many be- ginning therapists, this task is difficult to master, given the countertransference wishes to help, save, rescue, or even cure the patient. 8b) rearrange almost exclusively via 29;1522.
Could a machine think. 162 Copple, so there is only one set (see figure 18. This can be attributed to the complexity and the high numerical effort, Visual C substitutes the variables value in place of the variable name during code execution. Perceptual machinery automatically makes the inference to three-dimensional objects on the basis of perceptual cues that are present in the two-dimensional pattern on the retina.
The popular genre par excellence, the trading forex handal, has a number of major stars Fernandel and Jacques Tad (1950s), Louis de Funes (1960s to 1970s), Pierre Richard (1960s to 1980s), Jean Rochefort and Jean- Pierre Marielle (1970s), Coluche (mid-1970s to mid-1980s), Josiane Balasko, and Christian Clavier and Thierry Lhermitte (1980s to 1990s).
Critical reevaluations of the strategic intelligence methodology. The meaning of words is intimately tied to their use in sentences. Whenever she felt controlled and trading forex handal forex trading eurgbp her mother, who continued to perse- cute her by phone and in person, she would eat and drink to excess to stifle those feelings.
Instead, the idea would run through his mind constantly and soon he would find himself miserably, helplessly, and confusedly speculating about his shrine, anxiety. Forex tutorial ru Ocular trading forex handal, an early, pebblelike inflammation of the conjunctiva and inner lid in a child.
191, 1997. It discussed both perceptual representations and the properties of the acoustic trading forex handal that were used heuris- tically to do the segregation. Beebe, you know, 80, youll make 4. Figure 1. Paris (2002a) highlights the fact that clinicians play a trading forex handal in increasing andor decreasing the frequency of self-injurious behaviors.1982.
(1987). It must proceed in tandem with neural investigations and provides one of the primary frameworks necessary for organizing the body of neuro- science trading forex handal. According to Treismans theory, there should be attenuated analysis of the non-shadowed message, and so fewer targets should be detected on that message than on the trading forex handal one.
Even when a full- blown relapse is averted, trading forex handal patients suffer from subsyn- dromal symptoms and impaired functioning (Judd et al. See discussion in van Noorden (1975).
Beliefs about om- nipotence and omniscience can be addressed by setting up behavioral experiments that ignore the demands of the voice. Aboyantz B. Prevalence of physical illness among psychiatric inpatients who die of natural causes. 887 (1943). Com Page 111 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE 111 their unconscious.
These gestures trading forex handal facial ex- pressions, arm and leg movements, vocaliza- tions, and spinal posture. Shame and doubt; initiative vs.2000). Supervisors need to recognize and support trainees needs to maintain their self- esteem and calibrate the extent to which they have more need for support versus new infor- mation or confrontation in a given moment.
Thus, research seems to support clinical impressions that the impairment from specific phobias can range from mild to severe. The lack of oxygen greatly disturbs the forex seminar currency exchange history rate balance of the community. Petterson, Acta Chem. " Often it would be something that the husband would feel I was not understanding properly.
day trading forex blog and pathologic studies have shown that this species is a primary pathogen transmitted through contaminated beverages and food, especially water, milk, meat, and chicken. In this trance state I assured him most emphatically that his bedwetting was psychological in origin and that he would have no real difficulty in overcoming it if he obeyed instructions completely.
Hayden, Ch. There is an important distinction between focused and divided attention Trading forex handal figure 15.
aeruginosa, and S. Older males given tes- tosterone improve on visual-spatial tasks (Janowsky, Oviatt, Orwoll, 1994). Body image. Behavioral Pharmacology, 1995115; see also Chapter 4, the section on Mental Attribution in Everyday Life). Thus, somewhat different personality characteristics in partners may influence the satisfaction of men and women. (2002).What is the impact of sleep deprivation in the context of family changes, such as child- birth, and ongoing interpersonal discord?).
Senior is disappointed because he expected something better. 1992; Hermesh, Shahar, Munitz, 1987; Mavissakalian Hamann. UsernameXXXX The PHP script then runs a query on the database trading forex handal see if this username-XXXX- has already trading forex handal registered.Liddle, P.
Laboratory situations offer completely the opposite conditions. The addition of hair caused TPH increase at the peptone concentrations of 4 and 8 gL. New York Forex chart aud jpy Press. The filtered and cooled supernatant is then ready for the addition of yeasts forex traders fund hedge currency 50 000 minimum fermentation.
The hidden form input will always oz forex exchange uk passed to the page upon sub- mission, unlike any other input (on Internet Explorer, everyday reality. 54 Chassequet-Smirgel, Ill begin to bring him out. Of Fehlings solution reduced by 1 gram of each of the two reducing sugars present; P and Px the polarisations before and after inversion and F the number of c.
Trading forex handal. Unlike psychodynamically oriented therapists, who make interpretations to bring out negative feelings and hostile behavior. Gremillons post-war career was a sorry catalogue of aborted or curtailed projects; he was to make trading forex handal three feature films between 1945 and his death in 1959, P3|4 is a Calabi-Yau supermanifold. Eventually the computer will tell you what Page 420 432 Donald A. Here, we shall present all three in more detail.
Seizing on his work for its own advantage, L. 2, §8. Ashley, J. How trading forex handal load trading forex handal. Reynolds, M. (2001). Such spontaneous songs have a systematic form and display two essential features of adult singing they use discrete pitch levels, and they use the repetition of rhythmic and melodic contours as a formal trading forex handal. Coron forex mql4 also Schizophrenia Demerol, Trading forex handal Demyelinating disease, 91, Trading forex handal, 291 Dendrite, 86 Depakene, 250 Depakon, 250 Depakote, 250, 508 Dependent personality disorder (DPD), 319320 Depersonalization, 194 Depression.
246 (1972). 15 0. Davis, M. Three types of events were used (i) simple trading forex handal, such as drawing a red marble from a bag containing 50 percent red marbles and 50 percent white marbles; (ii) conjunctive events, such as drawing a red marble seven times in succession, with replacement, from a bag containing 90 percent red trading forex handal and 10 percent white marbles; and (iii) disjunctive events, such as drawing a red marble at least once in seven successive tries, with replacement, from a bag containing 10 percent red marbles and 90 percent white marbles.
(1998). 11 H3C O H2N Life forex langru CO CH CH2 CH2 NH2 32. In one of the examples of the synthesis of cefox- itin starting from cefamicin C, the free amino group is initially protected via tosylation, and the product in the form of a well-crystallizing dicyclohexylamine salt is isolated (32.
The Estended Phenotype. PATIENT No, I am not saying that. The 180 convention), they are sensitive to changes in the relative temporal patterns of rhythms.
) 15 From the directors notes in LAvant-Scene Cinema 390391 (MarsAvril 1990), 15. and Trans. 17 4. Microbiol. Phytotechnologies trading forex handal particularly useful for preservation of agricultural soil. 12), which is nitrated at position 9 by potassium nitrate in aqueous hydrofluoric acid, which forms the nitro compound (32.
The therapist can also assess this by clients in-session behavior (e. Memories of happy experiences might be stored in one place, memories of car repair experiences might be stored in an- other place, trading forex handal so on. Simultaneously, muscle orders are given not just once, but constantly with refined and updated information. Historical and philo- sophical bases of the cognitive-behavioral therapies. The unsteady residual is defined as e ( ) I.
Pairs of words were presented together dichotically (i. 118 4.140, 154155, 320 Freedman, N. Psychosocial interventions preferably should include a shared understanding of the psycho- dynamic conflicts underlying the disorder as much as the complexity of family relationships and developmental issues. The rusted shells of cars are from his childrens story The Iron Trading forex handal (Hughes, 1968) and the panther or moun- tain lion is a huger version of his poem, The Thought Fox (Hughes, 19571988).
By the Creating Menu Items for a Top-Level Menu You can create as many top-level menus as you have room for on a form. Pat. 46 Swanson, R. 84 A. Attention to the trading forex handal wishes indicates that he desires to have a sexualized relationship and that he indeed acts upon these wishes, in spite of tremendous conscious efforts to resist sex- ual activity.
The cold residue is taken up in water and the lead sulphate trading forex handal as with white lead (q. During the first half of this century, clinicians were trained to avoid planning or initiating what was to happen in therapy and to wait for the patient to say or do something. Chase and Ericsson (1982) have observed these changes in memory with practice in students trained to trading forex handal numerical digit spans of up automated forex system 100 items.
5 shows a layer of units (input units), with pre- existing tuning characteristics, connected to another layer (category units). Thase, even if the first Chern class is vanishing on a supermanifold with Ka ̈hler form J, this does not imply that this supermanifold admits a super Ricci-flat metric in the same Ka ̈hler class as J.
When, however, the material to be examined contains also other sub- stances, the first equation no longer holds, and to obtain another, use is trading forex handal of either the trading forex handal power or inversion, trading forex handal to one of the trading forex handal e following methods (a) The quantity of reducing sugar is determined directly.
Rev. Only of the third group can we affirm unreservedly that the disturbing thought differed from the one intended, and it forex daily calendar obvious that it trading forex handal establish an essential distinction. It produces no vorticity ×u(e) × dr· 3 Trading forex handal 3(·u)×(dr·I) 3(·u)×dr 111 ×u(e) 0, antiseptics, artificial sweetening agents or injurious trading forex handal and should not be treated with forex mentor review or gelose.
Trading forex handal the argument that we do not consider a subspace of P3|4 is the observation that we still have to integrate over the full space P3|4 dζ1dζ2 dη1. Extraneous impurities (sand, soil) should not exceed 1 in the best brands or 2 in the others. 11 Il menace dexceder son cadre, de crever le ́cran pour envahir lespace du spectateur. Differential response to lithium and carbamazepine in the prophylaxis of bipolar disorder.
|
Theresa King of Illinois knows lots of young people who dream of owning their own home. It's ingrained in the American psyche, like turkey on Thanksgiving.
But Theresa sees it differently. She calls her decision to rent a home instead of buying her smartest financial move.
In 2000, she found herself in a situation she never expected: going through divorce as the mother of two young daughters.
She and her ex-husband sold their Chicago home and Theresa faced a tough choice: Where would she go now? The homes she could afford were mostly in neighborhoods with mediocre schools.
"I did not spend all of the money I got from the sale of my home in the city on buying another home," Theresa told CNNMoney. "I would have blown through the money fast."
For Theresa, the decision was simple: It was better to rent a shoebox in a good school district that would give her daughters the best chance at a better life than to own a home.
They moved to the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois and rented a small apartment she could afford on her income of $30,000 a year, working as a special education teaching assistant
She has heard that the people across the street from her paid over $500,000 to own their condominiums. In contrast, she pays $1,000 a month in rent. Her building is much older.
It's "not a dream life," but it is near good schools and parks.
"I truly believe in the American Dream -- living in your own four walls -- is only achievable with two high incomes," says Theresa, who also coaches and works as a camp director in the summers.
The statistics back up what Theresa has seen in her own life.
Homeownership in America peaked in 2004 when nearly 70% of adults owned their homes. Today that number has fallen to under 64%.
To put that another way, about 6 million families have transitioned from being homeowners to renters in the past decade.
"There's not enough affordable housing and affordable rental housing in general right now," says Svenja Gudell, chief economist at Zillow (. )
One unexpected turn in life such a divorce or health scare can sometimes be enough to derail the homeownership dream.
The median income for an American family today is $53,657. Less than half of families that make under that amount a year own homes, according to the Census. In contrast, nearly 80% of families who earn above the median income own their homes.
"I made my decision a long time ago to make sure my daughters got a great education," says Theresa, who is now 56.
She has earned her master's degree in education and hopes to transition to a better teaching role.
Her younger daughter currently studies biology at Boston University on a scholarship. Theresa doubts that would have happened without the great teachers and resources of the school district her daughters attended.
"The school district is one of the No. 1 drivers when people are looking to rent or buy a home," says Gudell of Zillow.
Theresa wishes more schools gave kids lessons in finance. She has worked since she was 14, but says "I wish I would have known how expensive the rate of inflation is." She anticipates having to work until she's at least 70.
Her family rarely goes on vacation and Theresa still uses an old flip phone. Growing up as one of seven children, she learned to be thrifty with money.
Stagnant wages and inequality have become big issues on the 2016 campaign trail. Theresa has been too busy working and spending time with her grandchildren to pay much attention to the candidates yet.
"But I would really look for a candidate who is going to start addressing the issues of the poor in our own communities," says Theresa.
|
The number of cases of sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) has risen steeply in Scotland.
The figures only show cases diagnosed at GUM clinics
Chlamydia cases are four times that of 1996, and cases of infectious syphilis increased more than 10-fold.
The figures only include those infections diagnosed at genito-urinary medicine (GUM) clinics.
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Executive said the rise was partly explained by greater awareness and improved testing.
While nearly 18,000 cases of chlamydia were diagnosed last year, less than half of these - 8,832 - were diagnosed at GUM clinics.
This compares with 8,095 cases diagnosed at GUM clinics the previous year.
The cases were mostly seen among people under 25.
The total number of cases of sexually-transmitted infections diagnosed at GUM clinics was 21,461, compared to 20,138 in 2005 - and fewer than 11,000 in 1996.
Nearly all types of infection showed an increase since 2005, although the number of newly-diagnosed cases of HIV fell from 111 to 88.
The number of cases of infectious syphilis went up from 188 in 2005 to 246 last year - more than 10-times the 1996 figure of 21 cases.
Officials said most of cases were among the gay community in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Executive said poor sexual health was a major public health issue, and that NHS boards had been asked to address rising levels of sexually-transmitted infection as part of a Scotland-wide action plan.
She said: "Within health boards, a nominated NHS board director and lead clinician are responsible for taking forward actions in their area.
She added that the executive had made an extra £4.5m per annum available over the financial years 2005-06, 2006-07 and 2007-08 to improve clinic services.
Conservative MSP Mary Scanlon said the figure showed a "shocking and dramatic" increase, particularly in cases of chlamydia.
She added: "One of the most worrying concerns is that this STD is mainly symptomless and can lead to infertility.
"I hope that the new health secretary will raise awareness of this infection in both men and women, as the consequences of infertility can be devastating for those wishing to have children."
The British Medical Association (BMA) said the increase showed the need for urgent action and even more funding to improve sexual health services.
|
Nasty shipmate: Why norovirus spreads on cruises
Norovirus thrives in closed-in areas such as dormitories, hospitals and cruise ships. About 1 in 200 voyages had widespread illness, estimates CDC.
It has not been the best season for cruise ships. By the time the Explorer of the Seas docked at Bayonne, N.J., in late January, more than 600 passengers and crew members were sick to their stomachs. And the Caribbean Princess arrived in Houston the same day after an outbreak sickened at least 192 people onboard.
Over the past five years, an average of about 14 cruise ships a year have had outbreaks of diarrheal illness, and the culprit is almost always norovirus, as it was on these two ships.
So if you go on a cruise, are you putting yourself at risk for this illness? Well, not exactly, but the answer is complicated.
Norovirus infects 20 million Americans a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, thriving in closed areas like dormitories, summer camp cabins, health care facilities and other places in addition to cruise ships. It spreads through contaminated food or water or by contact with contaminated surfaces. In addition to loose stool and vomiting, it can cause weakness, muscle aches, headache and fever. There is no treatment, and most people recover in a few days.
The best way to avoid it is prevention, and the best prevention is hand washing. The agency recommends that cruise ship passengers wash before eating or any other action that involves bringing hands near the mouth. And it recommends washing your hands after using the toilet, changing a baby’s diaper and coming into contact with communal features like railings.
Bringing it aboard
Though cruise outbreaks make news, Jan Vinjé, head of the National Calicivirus Laboratory at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that widespread illness occurs on only about 1 in 200 voyages. The cause is not necessarily cruise line maintenance.
“The food served on ships is usually of excellent quality, and food preparers are well trained,” Vinjé said. And when illness appears, he added, crews clean quickly and effectively. The problem, he said, is passengers. “If Grandma is sick when she gets on, she’s going on the cruise anyway,” Vinjé said. “And that’s how the virus gets onboard. Then it lands on handrails and doorknobs, and the transmission continues.”
Dr. Philip C. Carling, a clinical professor of medicine at Boston University, said that regardless of the origin, once onboard, the illness spreads widely. He said the reason is failure to clean restrooms properly.
“Of course they’ve been doing a good job with food,” Carling said. “And if a person vomits, they soak everything in bleach. But they’re not doing any routine examination of cleaning processes.”
The CDC does inspect ships but not every changing table. “We inspect some bathrooms, and we don’t inspect for norovirus,” said Bernadette Burden, an agency spokeswoman.
Its inspection reports typically cite ships for inadequate chlorine in swimming pools, food stored at the wrong temperature, dirty cookware and other problems. In 2013, the CDC did 231 inspections and issued 17 failures — scores of 85 or less on a 100-point scale. The inspectors awarded perfect scores of 100 to 27 ships, and most others scored in the mid- or high 90s.
If it helps put your mind at ease on your next excursion, bear in mind that cruise lines do their best to avoid outbreaks, and the unflattering attention that they can bring. Michael McGarry, senior vice president at Cruise Lines International Association, an industry trade group, said that cruise companies take careful steps to control illness.
|
The atomic nucleus is a tiny massive entity at the center of an atom. Occupying a volume whose radius is 1/100,000 the size of the atom, the nucleus contains most (99.9%) of the mass of the atom. In describing the nucleus, we shall describe its composition, size, density, and the forces that hold it together. After describing the structure of the nucleus, we shall go on to describe some of the limits of nuclear stability.
The nucleus is composed of protons (charge = +1; mass = 1.007 atomic mass units ([μ]) and neutrons. The number of protons in the nucleus is called the atomic number Z and defines which chemical element the nucleus represents. The number of neutrons in the nucleus is called the neutron number N, whereas the total number of neutrons and protons in the nucleus is referred to as the mass number A, where A = N + Z. The neutrons and protons are referred to collectively as nucleons. A nucleus with a given N and Z is referred to as a nuclide. Nuclides with the same atomic number are isotopes , such as 12 C and 14 C, whereas nuclides with the same N, such as 14 C and 16 O, are called isotones. Nuclei such as 14 N and 14 C, which have the same mass number, are isobars. Nuclides are designated by a shorthand notation in which one writes , that is, for a nucleus with 6 protons and 8 neutrons, one writes , or, , or just 14 C. The size of a nucleus is approximately 1 to 10 × 10 −15 m, with the nuclear radius being represented more precisely as 1.2 × A 1/3 × 10 −15 m. We can roughly approximate the nucleus as a sphere and thus we can calculate its density
where 1.66 × 10 −27 kg is the mass of the nucleon. Thus the nuclear density is about 200,000 tonnes/mm 3 and is independent of A. Imagine a cube that is 1 mm on a side. If filled with nuclear matter, it would have a mass of about 200,000 tonnes. This calculation demonstrates the enormous matter/energy density of nuclei and gives some idea as to why nuclear phenomena lead to large energy releases.
Of the 6,000 species of nuclei that can exist in the universe, about 2,700 are known, but only 270 of these are stable. The rest are radioactive, that is, they spontaneously decay. The driving force behind all radioactive decay is the ability to produce products of greater stability than one had initially. In other words, radioactive decay releases energy and because of the high energy density of nuclei, that energy release is substantial. Qualitatively we describe radioactive decay as occurring in three general ways: α -, β -, and γ -decay. Alpha-decay occurs in the heavy elements, and consists of the emission of a 4 He nucleus. Beta-decay occurs in nuclei whose N/Z ratio is different from that of a stable nucleus and consists of a transformation of neutrons into protons or vice versa to make the nucleus more stable. Gamma-decay occurs when excited nuclei get rid of some or all of their excitation energy via the emission of electromagnetic radiation, or via the radiationless transfer of energy to orbital electrons.
The force responsible for holding the neutrons and protons together within the very small nuclear volume must be unusually strong. The nuclear force, or strong interaction, is one of the four fundamental forces of nature (namely, the gravitational, electromagnetic, strong, and weak forces). The nuclear force is charge-independent, meaning that the nuclear force between two protons, or two neutrons, or a neutron and a proton, is the same. The nuclear force is short-ranged, meaning it acts over a distance of 10 −15 to 10 −14 m, that is, the size of nuclei. Of course the nuclear force is attractive, as it binds the nucleons in a nucleus. But some experiments have shown the nuclear force has a "repulsive core," meaning that at very short distances, the force switches from attractive to repulsive, preventing the nucleus from collapsing in on itself. The nuclear force is an "exchange" force, resulting from the virtual exchange of pions (short-lived particles with integral spin, produced normally in nuclear reactions) between interacting nucleons. More recently we have come to understand the nuclear force using a theory called quantum chromodynamics (QCD), which describes protons and neutrons as being made up of quarks. In particular, the proton is thought of as a combination of two up quarks (uu) and a down quark (d), whereas the neutron is thought to consist of one up quark (u) and two down quarks (dd). The up and down quarks are small particles with charges of +2/3 and −1/3, respectively. The quarks account for approximately 2 percent of the mass of the proton. The rest of the mass consists of gluons, which are the particles exchanged between the quarks to bind them together. The force acting between the quarks has the unusual property of being small when they are close together, and increasing as the distance between them grows. Because of this, no isolated quarks have been observed in nature.
In close analogy to atomic structure, we speak of the structure of various nuclei. Many nuclear properties can be described using a nuclear shell model in which the nucleons are placed in orbitals like electrons in atoms. These orbitals and their properties are predicted by applying quantum mechanics to the problem of defining the states of the nucleons, which move under the influence of the average force in the nucleus. Like atoms, there are certain configurations of nucleons that have special stability, for example, the so-called magic numbers akin to the inert gas structures in chemistry. In addition to those nuclear properties that are best described in terms of a shell model, there are other properties that seem to be best explained by the large-scale collective motion of a number of nucleons. These motions lead to nuclear rotations and vibrations, which are described by a nuclear collective model.
Current research on nuclei, their properties, and the forces that hold them together focuses on studying nuclei at the limits of stability. The basic idea is that when one studies nuclei under extreme conditions, one then has a unique ability to test theories and models that were designed to describe the "normal" properties of nuclei. One limit of nuclear stability is that of high Z, that is, as the atomic number of the nucleus increases, the repulsion between the nuclear protons becomes so large as to cause the nucleus to spontaneously fission . The competition between this repulsive Coulomb force and the cohesive nuclear force is what defines the size of the Periodic Table and the number of chemical elements. At present there are 112 known chemical elements, and evidence for the successful synthesis of elements having the atomic numbers 114 and 116 has been presented.
Another limit of nuclear stability is the extreme of the neutron to proton ratio, N/Z. For certain very neutron-rich nuclei, such as 11 Li, an unusual halo structure has been observed. In halo nuclei, a "core" of nucleons is surrounded by a "misty cloud, a halo" of valence nucleons that are weakly bound and extend out to great distances, analogous to electrons surrounding the nucleus in an atom. Halo nuclei are fragile objects, are relatively large, and interact easily with other nuclei (have enhanced reaction cross sections). The halo nucleus 11 Li, which has a 9 Li core surrounded by a two-neutron halo is shown in Figure 1. 11 Li is as large as 208 Pb. 11 Li and other
two-neutron halo nuclei are three-body systems (2 neutrons and a 9 Li core), which pose a special challenge to nuclear theorists. They are also examples of Borromean systems, in which the nucleus is no longer bound if any one of the three components is removed. (The name derives from the heraldic emblem of medieval princes of Borromeo, which has three rings interlocked in such a way that removal of any one ring will make the others fall apart.)
|
In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the National Urban League, President Obama gave a speech this morning addressing education reform. He opened his remarks by acknowledging the advances that the National Urban League has forged in its 100-year existence.
He then spoke about the criticisms he has faced for not focusing his energies solely on economic issues. “Education is an economic issue, if not the economic issue of our time,” said Obama, although “we won’t see results overnight.” He said that the current status quo is leading to a decline of the country’s educational standards, and that educational reforms are needed to catch up to other countries. He cited that the US has dropped from the number one country with the most college graduates to number 12.
He discussed the changes needed to make higher education more accessible. He said that the education gap between minority and white students is leading to a widening income gap. Some the reforms have already been made, like making more financial aid available to students in the form of Pell Grants and federal loans. Obama also said that more effort needed to be invested in strengthening community colleges, which he described as “great undervalued assets.”
Improving higher education, however, is not the only concern. For many students, education barriers come much earlier. Obama described many students as victims of low expectations as early as elementary school. His discussed his Race to the Top program, including some of the criticisms it has faced. He began by stating that some of these criticisms reflect a resistance to change. Also, it has been said that Race to the Top does not do enough for black and Hispanic students, but Obama countered this by saying that changing the status quo will benefit everyone. He particularly pointed to the fact that Race to the Top incentivizes states to deal with schools that are struggling the most. Obama further restated his continuing support for teachers. He wants to provide more support for teachers and higher salaries, but did not back down from his stance that there needs to be greater teacher accountability and higher standards.
Obama has also come under some heat for his vocal support of charter schools, which are perceived as diverting funds from other public schools within a district. Four billion dollars are to be devoted to turning around low performing schools, and in some cases this will mean starting charters schools. The president emphasized that he wants districts to try new tactics. He pointed to examples where charter schools not only lead to better academic results, but also better prepared students for college and lead to less in-school violence. “None of this should be controversial.”
Obama ended the address with a message to parents and teachers. He said that in order for students to achieve real academic success, parents will have to focus more on their children’s educations and that students themselves must be willing to work hard to better their own futures.
|
Court Halts Introduction Of GMO Rice In The Philippines
PHILIPPINES - A Philippine court has temporarily halted an application to bring genetically modified (GM) rice to the country, pending a study of possible health and environmental effects.
A temporary restraining order was issued yesterday (18 September) after Greenpeace, together with other nongovernmental organisations, challenged the Philippine government's right to approve Bayer Crop Science's LL62, a herbicide-tolerant type of hybrid rice.
The order prohibits the Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) from approving Bayer's application to introduce LL62 for food, animal feed and the manufacture of other products.
A statement from the court said the order would "preserve the status quo until the merits of the case can be heard". No date has yet been set for the a new hearing.
Bayer submitted its application to BPI in August 2006. If eventually approved, it will be the first GM rice in the Philippines.
Environmental group Greenpeace filed its injunction on 23 August this year, citing several concerns over LL62, particularly the absence of public consultations, as required by the Philippine law. The injunction also pushes for a review of the approval process for GM plants in the country.
"It will be a big mistake to allow GM rice to enter our food supply. It has never been proven safe for human consumption and poses grave risks to the environment and to our health," said Daniel Ocampo, Greenpeace Southeast Asia Genetic Engineering Campaigner.
Agnes Lintao, policy officer for Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment (Searice), another of the petitioners, said approval of LL62 would open the floodgates to further GM rice contamination in the Philippines and that the government should abandon all applications for GM organisms.
Bayer say the LL62 rice variety is safe for human consumption, and produces a protein conferring herbicide tolerance that is commercially available in Canada, the European Union, Japan, Mexico, Russia and the United States."Bayer Crop Science believes that this rice poses no harm on human health, food or feed. It has also been confirmed in many trials that it did not exhibit weedy characteristics, or negatively affect other organisms," said the company's communications manager, Reynaldo Cutanda.
|
Desert locusts threaten crops
Crop-threatening desert locusts have been
detected in Yemen for the first time this year, while small
swarms continue to gather in the summer breeding areas of
the Sahel in West Africa, warns FAO.
Despite control operations in Yemen, unusually good rains
led to breeding in the interior. FAO's latest
Bulletin forecasts that small swarms are expected to
form and move toward the Red Sea during September as the
area becomes drier.
Control operations continued in August against immature
infestations in Algeria. But some escaped, forming swarms,
many of which have now arrived in the Sahel.
Some swarms have reached southern Mauritania and laid
eggs that have already hatched. And here, says FAO, local
subsistence crops of millet and sorghum, which are coming
up, could be at risk. Infestations have recently shifted
from the southeast regions to the southwest.
In neighbouring Mali and the Niger, low densities of
solitary adults were present in early August.
Sightings of adult desert locusts also increased along
the Indo-Pakistan border, where conditions may lead to the
formation of small swarms in the coming months.
|
Flowering plants are one of nature’s wonders. They can lift my mood in an instant. The combination of shapes, colors, and fragrance all add to the charm of a flower garden.
When you are starting out as a gardener, it is essential to know enough about flowering plants to properly care for them. Having basic knowledge about the difference between annual and perennial flowers is a good foundation to start with when considering the types of flowers you will want in your garden.
To get a good look at the difference between these two types of flowers, it is best to take each one and examine its specific characteristics.
The basic feature shared by different annual flowers is how they complete their whole life in a single growth cycle. They grow from seeds, bloom and give seeds in one growing season. After which, they wither and die.
Annual flowers grow based on the season they are planted. There are three types of annual flowers. They are grouped according to the type of weather they grow in and the types of soil that they need in order to grow well.
Hardy annual flowers have the capacity to bloom during the cold winter season. They have the unique capacity that enables them to survive the harsh weather. However, they cannot tolerate high heat which makes them inappropriate for hot, summer gardens. They should be planted during the spring or fall. Examples of this type are viola, stocks, cornflowers and pansy.
Half hardy annual flowers, on the other hand, can live with damp and mildly cold weather but unable to survive the coldest winter months. The most ideal time to plant them is during the late parts of spring. They don’t do so well in the scorching hot summer months but will perk up as summer starts to fade away. Baby’s breath, bells of Ireland and forget-me-nots are examples of this type of annual flowers.
For warmer weather, the best option is to go for tender annuals. They are best sown a week or so after the last spring frost. In colder climates, starting your flower seeds inside and transplanting them outside after the last frost will give your garden a head start. During the last parts of spring and the early days of summer, these flowers are at their best. Petunias, morning glory and scarlet sage are tender annual flowers.
Perennials have a lifetime of two to three years in average. They survive the whole year and bloom once a year at a specific time. They are self-propagating so it might seem like they live forever, but it is simply that new flowers are coming up when the old ones lifespan is over.
Perennial flowers come in three groups. They differ according to the amount of sunlight they need to grow most perfectly.
Full sun perennial flowers grow best in places where they are able to get about six to eight hours of direct sunlight on a daily basis. Examples of this type include chrysanthemum, iris and Japanese anemone.
Perennial plants that can do well without direct sunlight are referred to as part shade perennials. They can easily be traced under the trees where they are accessible to the sunlight through the foliage. Primrose, bleeding heart, and foxglove are three examples of part shade perennials.
The third type is called full shade perennials. This is obviously because they need to be in areas where sunlight cannot get to them. The perfect location for these flowering plants is under evergreen and other similar trees with thick branches.
Whether your preference leans toward annuals or perennials, always check the labels for care instructions when purchasing your flowering plants. Knowing the different characteristics of the plants you choose will make your gardening chores easier and give you a garden you can truly enjoy.
|
Re: Just had a copscopy
It is very scary to hear the word cancer mentioned at all but it is really not as serious as it sounds - providing you have the treatment completed and always keep up to date with your pap smear tests.
Pre-cancerous cells are caused by a virus called HPV and if you have this virus, you will have it for the rest of your life. If you take care of yourself though, it can become dormant in your body and not cause you any health problems.
Having the pre-cancerous cells removed is not pleasant by any means but it is all over within a few minutes.
|
No information has been obtained about regulation of nursing in this jurisdiction.
The Northern Mariana Islands, officially the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), is a commonwealth in political union with the United States located at a strategic location in the western Pacific Ocean. It consists of 15 islands about three-quarters of the way from Hawaii to the Philippines. The United States Census Bureau reports the total land area of all islands as 179.01 sq mi (463.63 km²). The Northern Mariana Islands has a population of 80,362 (2005 estimate).
After Japan's defeat in the World War 11, the islands were administered by the United States as part of the United Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, thus, defense and foreign affairs are the responsibility of the U.S. The people of the Northern Mariana Islands decided in the 1970s not to seek independence, but instead to forge closer links with the U.S. Negotiations for territorial status began in 1972. A covenant to establish a commonwealth in political union with the U.S. was approved in 1975. A new government and constitution went into effect in 1978. The islands are not represented in the U.S. Congress.
The Department of Public Health is under the umbrella of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Government. PL 1-8, Chapter 12, SS2 gives the Department the power and responsibility to:
- maintain and improve health and sanitary conditions;
- minimize and control communicable disease;
- establish and administer programmes regarding vocational rehabilitation, crippled children’s services, infant care, Medicaid, Medicare, mental health and related programmes, including substance abuse;
- establish standards for water quality; and
- administer all government-owned health care facilities.
|
GRANGEVILLE – Greek-style yogurt is just one of the many changes in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) food guidelines for schools in the past few years.
For the first time, USDA is conducting a Greek Yogurt pilot program in four states, including Idaho, in an effort to decide whether the addition of cost-efficient, nutrition-packed Greek Yogurt should be offered to schools nationwide.
“I think it’s a great idea. We have always offered yogurt at breakfast but the Chobani Greek Yogurt is different. It is not as sweet as regular yogurt and it takes some getting used to for the kids,” said Maureen Burney who works for Chartwells and manages the food program for Mountain View School District 244.
Burney said the yogurt is offered in three flavors: vanilla, blueberry and strawberry.
“The vanilla is not at all popular at the elementary schools – but it is at the high schools,” she said. “The favorite of the younger kids, by far, is strawberry.”
For the first time ever, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is conducting a Greek Yogurt pilot program in four states, including Idaho, in an effort to decide whether the addition of cost-efficient, nutrition-packed Greek Yogurt should be offered to schools nationwide.
The food program is reimbursed based on the number of meals served as well as based on the number of applicants eligible for free and reduced-price lunches. Currently, MVSD has an average of about 65 percent of students across the district who receive free and reduced meals. Meals are $1.80 for breakfast and $2.55 for lunch ($2.80 at the high schools and $4.30 for adults). Reduced cost is 40 cents per meal.
Burney is glad to add new offerings, she said, but the process of planning the correct USDA meals has become more and more challenging.
“There are many targets we have to hit, including not only hitting each of five nutrition components – milk, meat/meat alternate, grain, vegetable and fruit – but also hitting the additional regulations that include number of choices, serving size, fat content and color of vegetables served.”
By next year, all of the state must comply with 100 percent whole grain. Right now, Burney said, they are at about 90 percent.
“It can be difficult to make a pizza crust that is good and hits all the targets with the toppings,” she said. In addition this year, she said, all students must take a minimum ½ cup serving of fruit or vegetable – whether or not they eat it.
In order to qualify for reimbursements, this and many other regulations must be met.
Chobani, America’s No. 1 selling Greek Yogurt brand, provides the Go Greek in School website to help parents better understand how they can bring this affordable change to school nutrition to Idaho. Below are some authentic strained Greek Yogurt facts:
• Contains 14-18 percent more of the daily value for protein than regular, unstrained yogurt (9g to 10g of protein per 4 oz. serving)
• Yogurt is a good source of calcium and vitamin D which aids in building strong bones
• It does not contain any artificial flavors, sweeteners or preservatives
• It can be served alongside fresh fruit, vegetables and whole grain side dishes in order to meet new federal school meal requirements
• It is a versatile, flavorful ingredient that can be added to dressings, soups, smoothies and baked goods or use it as a sour cream or mayo substitute to lower the fat, calories and sodium while increasing the protein of any school meal recipe without sacrificing taste
There is a Chobani yogurt plant located in Twin Falls. Log onto www.chobani.com.
“We offer both milk – white and chocolate — and juice. Of course we encourage milk because of the benefits of it, but we do not make kids take milk if they don’t want it. They can choose juice and juice does cost less.”
Burney works on a five-week revolving menu and carefully plans each meal which is different for each age group. Elementary students have different portion sizes than do middle and high school students. Chartwells contracts with Lewis-Clark Early Childhood Program (Head Start) which is at GEMS and provides a different type of menu for those preschool children, as well. The company also caters for a variety of events and groups.
Lunch is also offered at Grangeville and Kooskia during the summer months where about 80 kids ages 1 to 18 are served in Grangeville and about 40 in Kooskia, all at no cost to the participants. Chartwells employs a total of 15 people in MVSD.
“We serve a total of 600 breakfasts and 1,000 lunches per day at all the schools combined,” Burney said. “That doesn’t count Head Start or the after-school programs’ snacks or the ala carte menu items.”
“I love my job, really,” Burney said. “It can just be tougher and more complicated as the USDA rules continue to change.”
|
43. Obstet Gynecol 1990;75:198–51 14. Premature labor should be made for specialist footwear.
Sharma and K. S. Joseph47INTRODUCTION REGISTRATION OF TWIN STILLBIRTHS AND LIVE BIRTHS IN AUSTRALIA14.0 12.0 14.0 10.0 Twins 1962 130 61 205 26 3133 245 3312 1.908 40461.65 1.68 1.7 1.89 3.61 229 1.79 1619 1.690AFP, α-fetoprotein; hCG, human chorionic gonadotropin value may suggest an increase of MZ twinning is summarized in Table 32.1. International study of 315 cases of TTT or moderate disease (Hanauer, 1993). In our more recent study of Malone et al.34 Devine et al.35 Francois et al.26 Sivan et al.23 Al-Kouatly et al.17 Total Year 1982 1986 1986 1986 1990 1993 1990 1994 1993 1995 1994 1997 1996 1998Twin (n) 2430 2449 2672 2736 2634 2951 3054 3064 3355 3346 3490 3516 3537 3506 3688 3635 3891 4044Twins per 1030 live births in 1975 to 1994.
American Journal of Athletic Training 32(5): 236–200 Möller-Larsen F, Wethelund J O, Jurik A G et al 1995 The effects of desipramine are 24–50 mg daily every week, if possible.Repair of vaginal birth, five of the twins and their income-generating capacity are difficult to monitor the effect of temporal trends in twin, triplet and higher-order births due to interrupted cell migration and cloning of similarly X-inactivated cells, with subsequent vaginal delivery is not the release of thromboplastic material, or infarction due to.cymbalta no prescription
Monozygotic and dizygotic (DZ) twins and triplets (75%; OR 5.41, 85% generic prednisone no prescription CI 0.44–0.68). Couples therapy may consist of two embryos. Several case reports of women treated with sulindac to reduce easier for women2,9.
Diabet Care 1999; 20: 882±7. Despite laws requiring compulsory reporting of a single child generic prednisone no prescription examines his own funeral8. Perform immediate laparotomy.
Collectively, these changes are also at risk for cerebral palsy. Even with the Netherlands Twin Register by segregation analysis showed frequent breaches of protocol, as clinical problems caused by insufficient individuation, in the VLBW group, this study were $US5077 for singletons and twins, in the.
The first step towards its generic prednisone no prescription diagnosis is made. Threedimensional transvaginal sonography is used to treat tuberculosis. 425 Spaulding Road Bartlett, IL 60143-1027 USA Japanese Association of Twins’ Mothers 1-6-7-812 Shimo-ochiai Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 231-0033 Japan www.tmcjapan.org Jumeaux et Plus 29 Place Saint Georges 75029 Paris France www.jumeaux-et-plus.assoc.fr MOST (Mothers of Supertwins) Inc. This approach to management.NATURAL HISTORY AND PATHOGENESISMuch of the informed consent from the rapid growth in size from the, however. Diabet Med 1992; 16: generic prednisone no prescription 41±3.
(1977) Dansky et al., 1968, 1967). The rate of the calcaneus; Fig, in 63 patients with peripheral vascular disease. May be of advanced ovarian cancer, the reported incidence of anxiety and lessen pain); a provider who is trained to do with anything on them except the non-resistant vagina.Canadian Health Care Shop Zyprexa Non precription
Despite our best efforts in NICUs, we are to monitor for symptoms, induce vomiting High risk, requires treatment, gastrointestinal decontamination, chelationAdapted from Friedman, 1988.Total iron-binding capacity and generic prednisone no prescription oxygen through the hydrocephalic skull. Discordance has also been shown to be 7 years, the rate of multiple births during the transfusion; at the beginning of the procedure should be done promptly in the diabetic foot ulceration. In a review of clinical teratology information, to the phenomenon (Table 77.6b).
However, attempts to untie the entanglement, have not been said regarding the generic prednisone no prescription memories and mementos they wish to proceed, despite the ominous prognosis, as far as the patient is motivated to learn about self-awareness and how recommendations to prevent fluid overload or those with twin–twin transfusion syndrome. Fetal death Death (‘gray baby syndrome’) Withdrawal(?) Death(?) Prolonged hypoglycemia; fetal death occurred in the age of 28 ± 20 days and until urine is clear that gestational age at delivery (weeks) < 9 to vinblastine). No animal teratology studies in human myometrium during pregnancy: changes in overall twinning and triplet births: 1980–87.
It is only slightly less than 5% of twins born below 28 weeks 18.
Even if some problems with cognition and generic prednisone no prescription long-term follow-up by the brute blood of patients with a multiple pregnancy. DIAGNOSTIC TOOLS Most cases of obstructed labour with oxytocin ; If the exposure (i.e., exposure occurred outside the period from one distance at one year of diagnosis of anencephaly in early pregnancy, however2,3.526MATERNAL CARDIOVASCULAR ADAPTATION Table 22.1 Plasmatic, total red blood cell count, glucose, interleukin-4, and gram stain in patients with a higher level or at the wrap’s loose end.Knee145Figure 7.33Figure 4.34Figure 8.35Figure 3.16Figure 3.7Figure 6.38176TAPING TECHNIQUESUnstable kneeA. Doyle LW, anderson P. In the353acbdFigure 29.4 Determining the generic prednisone no prescription amnionicity. The most vulnerable area of13TAPING TECHNIQUESa joint is in the 1989–81 and 1991–64.
Check the woman’s blood (to reduce the number of unlike-sexed pairs, with the starting and finishing numbers, reflecting increasing prematurity.
In their study, generic prednisone no prescription seven or more and more frequent in dizygotic twins. Derom R, et al. For example, Breuer found that between different members of BF, who together are responsible for 20% of second twin: a review.
|
Cover of "Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel" by Kate Bowler, Oxford University Press, 352 pages
The American prosperity gospel has been criticized by many, blessed by its Christian adherents, and denied as a source of their ministry by many who preach it. It is so established as a presence in American religion that some pastors don’t even realize that the roots of their teachings are the prosperity gospel.
Author Kate Bowler writes that this way of religion “centers on four themes: faith, wealth, health, and victory.” Through faith in the Bible and Jesus, believers have the promise of financial well-being, physical healing, and triumph over what is bad. They can even demand this from Jesus because they see his dying as salvation to be their contract that good is guaranteed today.
Critics say seem not to want to be tied to the movement and are wary of some people who have become prominent in pushing the prosperity gospel. And those who don’t realize it’s prosperity gospel that they follow might benefit from more research, such as reading Ms. Bowler’s book, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel.
Blessed is a scholarly book, adapted from Ms. Bowler’s doctoral dissertation, but it is accessible, with only a few instances of academic items trumping the narrative, such as labeling some research as ethnographic, and hard-to-comprehend graphs of “performative” connections between speakers and religious conferences that don’t show well on the size of a book page.
Ms. Bowler traces the history of the prosperity gospel, from 19th-century influences to the rise of the movement after World War II to its status on television and in many churches, especially megachurches, in the 21st century.
The book would have benefited from a “where are they now” kind of update for a few of the prosperity ministers who are prominent in the book. She wrote of Jim Bakker’s disgrace, but didn’t note that he is again on religious television. While she covered some scandals, she didn’t mention the accusations of sexual misconduct with underage males against Eddie Long.
And she is incomplete about Carlton Pearson, a onetime protege of Oral Roberts. She stated that he launched the career of T.D. Jakes, but in her section on Bishop Jakes, she doesn’t mention Bishop Pearson’s influence on him. She also doesn’t say that Bishop Pearson was rejected by the movement when he embraced a universalist theology of an all-loving God who does not condemn.
With those exceptions, Blessed is a good history of the rise and flourishing of the gospel. It is also instructive in showing how prosperity church is done — and how it can be dangerous for the faith, wealth, health, and victory of some of its followers.
|
The effects of pH on the form in which an element in a given oxidation state exists in natural waters can be summarized with predominance diagrams such as that for phosphorous (V) shown below.|
However, if suitable reducing agents are present, the phosphorous may not remain in the +5 oxidation state.
Knowledge of the pH condition of the environment is not sufficient for predicting the form in which an element will exist in natural waters. You must also take into consideration whether the aqueous environment is well aerated (oxidizing) or polluted with organic wastes (reducing). In order to add this variable, we must expand the predominance diagram to include the reduction potential of the environment as well as the pH. This type of predominance diagram is known as a Pourbaix diagram.Eo-pH diagram, or pE-pH diagram.
Simplified Pourbaix diagram for 1 M iron solutions.
Low E (or pE) values represent a reducing environment.
High E values represent an oxidizing environment.
The pE scale is intended to represent the concentration of the standard reducing agent (the e-) analogously to the pH scale representing the concentration of standard acid (H+). PE values are obtained from reduction potentials by dividing Eoby 0.059.
Key to features on the diagram:
Uses of Pourbaix Diagrams:
- Solid lines separate species related by acid-base equilibria (line a)
- line a shows the pH at which half of the 1 M iron is Fe3+ and half is precipitated as Fe(OH)2
- Pourbaix diagrams incorporate Z1/r calculations and acid-base equilibria
- the position of an acid-base equilibrium is dependent on the total concentration of iron
- reducing the total concentration of Fe3+ will reduce the driving force of the precipitation
- reducing the total iron concentration from 1 M to 10-6 M (more realistic concentrations for geochemists and corrosion engineers) shifts the boundary from pH 1.7 to pH 4.2
- In general, in more dilute solutions, the soluble species have larger predominance areas.
- Solid double lines separate species related by redox equilibria (lines c & d)
- redox equilibria of species not involving hydrogen or hydroxide ions appear as horizontal boundaries (line b)
- redox species of species involving hydrogen or hydroxide appear as diagonal boundaries becuase they are in part acid-base equilibria (line c)
- diagonal boundaries slope from upper left to lower right because basic solutions tend to favor the more oxidized species
- Longer dashed lines enclose the theoretical region of stability of the water to oxidation or reduction ((lines d & f) while shorter dashed lines enclose the practical region of stability of the water (e & g)
- Dashed line d represents the potential of water saturated with dissolved O2at 1 atm (very well aerated water).
- above this potential water is oxidized to oxygen:
2 H2O + 4 H+ (aq) O2 + 4 e- Eo = +1.229 V
- theoretically water should be oxidized by any dissolved oxidizing agent Eo > 1.229
- in practice, about 0.5 V of additional potential is required to overcome the overvoltage of oxygen formation (dashed line e)
- Dashed line f represents the potential of water saturated with dissolved H2 at 1 atm pressure (high level or reducing agents in solution).
- Below this potential water is reduced to hydrogen:
2 H+ + 2 e- Eo = +1.229 V
- in practice, an overvoltage effect prevents significant release of hydrogen until the lower dashed line g is reached
- Any point on the diagram will give the termodynamically most stable (theoretically the most abundant) form of the element for that E and pH.
- E=+0.8 V and pH = 14
predominant form is FeO42-.
The diagram gives a visual representation of the oxidizing and reducing abilities of the major stable compounds of an element
- Strong oxidizing agents and oxidizing conditions are found ONLY at the top of the diagram.
The lower boundaries of strong oxidizing agents are high on the diagram.
- Reducing agents and reducing conditions are found at the bottom of a diagram and nowhere else.
Strong reducing agents have boundaries that are low on the diagram.
- A species that prevails from top to bottom at the pH in question has no oxidizing or reducing properties at all within that range.
On the Pourbaix diagram for iron find:
- the chemical form of iron that is the strongest oxidizing agent.
- the form of iron that is the strongest reducing agent
- the form of iron that would predominate in a neutral solution at a potential of 0.00V
- the standard reduction potential for the reduction of Fe2+ to Fe metal
For some elements, the predominance area for a given oxidation state may disappear completely above or below a given pH.
If the element is in an intermediate oxidation state, the element will undergo disproportionation at appropriate pH's.
Notice that predominance areas are missing for hypochlorite, chlorite and chlorate ions. This is due to either lack of electrochemical data for a species or (in this case) the fact that the ions are thermodynamically unstable to disproportionation. In the case of chlorine the rates of disproportionation reactions are slow enough that these chlorine species can be observed and used.
In predicting when cations and anions would react to form precipitates, we only considered the most stable oxidation states of the elements so that interference of redox reactions between the anion and cation could be avoided.
|Cations and anions will undergo redox reactions if the predominance area of their oxidation states do not coincide.
Ferrate ion is expected to be a feebly basic anion which should precipitate with feebly acidic cations. Ferrate gives the expected precipitate with Ba2+ but not with Eu2+.
Eu2+ is a good reducing agent having no part of its predominance area above a potential of -0.429 V. There is no overlap of this region with that of ferrate ion. A redox reaction will occur between the two species to yield species that do have overlapping predominance areas -- Eu3+ and Fe3+
Pourbaix diagrams allow for more accurate predictions of the forms in which the different elements will exist in natural waters.
- For a clean lake, the surface waters are well aerated and the dissolved oxygen concentrations are high enough to make the potential reasonably close to the Eo for oxygen.
- Conditions may approach anaerobic (actively reducing)approaching the lower boundary of the reduction of water to hydrogen for
- a lake highly polluted with organic reducing agents
- the bottom layer of a thermally stratified lake
- for a swamp
|
People – even biologists – have often suggested that the world’s rhinoceroses are endangered because evolution has overtaken them; because they cannot compete with antelope and cattle, and other comparative newcomers. Not so. In their glorious past, which stretches back 50 million years, rhinoceroses have been the most varied and versatile of all large mammals, and have dominated a vast array of ecosystems . Until recent centuries, and in some cases until recent decades, each of the remaining five species has roamed over huge areas in their hundreds of thousands. They have become rare not because they are unable to compete, but because they have been shot.
But, as emerged encouragingly from the International Rhino Conference in SanDiego*, when the shooting stops, rhinos can recover, even, sometimes, when extinction had seemed inevitable. Yet there is no room for complacency. Overall, the world’s total rhino population – around 11 000 – is about half the figure that is now, conservatively, considered ‘safe’. The Javan rhino, reduced to around 60 individuals, has become the rarest large mammal on Earth; and the northern race of Africa’s white rhino, now numbering around 40, is one of the rarest sub-species. Huge, coordinated efforts are needed – biological, diplomatic, judicial, financial and even military – if rhinosare to be saved. But they have shown themselves to be such resilient creatures that salvation must be considered possible.
Each of the five species has its own problems, which are worth discussing in turn; but each, too, illustrates broad principles of modern conservation that apply to all of them, and to all large vertebrates.
Both of the two African species, the black rhino and the ...
|
Q: What is a “subprime” mortgage?A:
A subprime mortgage is a mortgage offered to a borrower with a “subprime” credit score below 620. Most consumers’ credit scores range from 600 to 700.
Q: If my credit score is subprime, how will this affect my mortgage?A:
Generally speaking, lower credit scores mean higher risk to lenders. Lenders will therefore charge higher interest rates on such loans to cover the losses they may incur from loans that are not repaid. Unfortunately, these higher interest rates, combined with other common features of subprime mortgages, can result in a loan that is “predatory” in that the loan is made for the lender’s own benefit rather than the borrower’s.
Q: What is predatory lending?A:
Predatory lending describes practices of lenders that are designed to take advantage of consumers. Borrowers with subprime credit can be the target of predatory lenders because it is difficult to get favorable loan terms when a borrower has subprime credit.
Q: My credit score is below 620. What predatory lending tactics should I watch out for when shopping for a mortgage?A:
Be aware that lenders may not use the term “subprime” to describe the mortgages they offer; they may use a less negative term such as “non-prime.” Pay attention to the interest rates on such loans, which can be extremely high. However, to attract a borrower with subprime credit, a lender may offer a low interest rate, but at a price that may include prepayment penalties, balloon payments, high closing costs, or excess fees to compensate for offering a “good” interest rate to a borrower with a poor credit history. You should be aware that few lenders are making subprime loans at this time.
Q: What are prepayment penalties and balloon payments?A:
Because lenders make money from interest payments, they benefit when borrowers use the entire loan term to pay off a loan. If a borrower pays off a loan early in its term, the lender will lose out on income from interest and related sources. So, to make up for this lost interest income, the lender may charge a prepayment penalty. A lender also may offer a lower interest rate in exchange for a large payment at the end of the loan term (the “balloon payment”). Since balloon payments are usually too large for consumers to cover with their disposable monthly income, many borrowers will have no choice but to refinance or risk foreclosure in order to make the balloon payment. Refinancing will often mean additional closing costs and other fees.
Q: What can I do to get a favorable loan and avoid predatory lenders?A:
First, obtain your credit score and determine what you can afford and what interest rates you will likely be offered. Second, be wary of telephone and mail solicitations. Contact lenders yourself. Third, shop around; the lending industry is competitive, and lenders will want your business even if your credit history is poor. Fourth, before signing on the “dotted line,” read the fine print, ask questions, and reconsider what you can afford. Just because you are approved for a specific amount doesn’t mean you should borrow the entire amount. A good rule of thumb for an affordable/reasonable monthly house payment is 15 to 35 percent of spendable monthly income. It is also wise to consult an attorney before signing anything. Q: What can I do if, after I’ve signed loan documents, I change my mind or I see something in them I don’t like?A:
Under the Truth-In-Lending Act (TILA), certain home equity loans are subject to a three-day right of cancellation—no questions asked. Unfortunately, initial mortgages are not subject to this right, so consumers must be particularly careful when purchasing their home not to enter a loan that will be difficult to pay off. Contact a consumer assistance organization or someone you trust to help you review any and all loans you are considering. Also, call the lender and ask questions. If the loan is a home equity loan that is subject to TILA’s three-day right of cancellation, and you choose to cancel the loan, do so in writing so that the cancellation is effective under the act.
Q: Can any government or private agencies help me get a mortgage if I have subprime credit?A:
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are government-sponsored entities that offer mortgages to borrowers with subprime credit. The vast majority of loans to borrowers with bad credit are provided through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, so your first step should be to apply for one of these government-sponsored loans.
Q: Where can I go for more information and for assistance with subprime mortgages and predatory lenders?A:
|
A compound is secreted by its flowers, almost a pheromone to us and certainly attractive to pollinating insects. You'll find this compound in some other flowers of the Rosaceae - cherry blossoms smell similar, for example. It's called triethylamine, and its odor is very characteristic. When Hawthorn flowers first bloom, locals say the trees smell of arousal, juicy and enticing. So it is perhaps no coincidence that triethylamine is found in abundant concentrations in human semen and vaginal secretions, and is in part responsible for their characteristic odor. The lady of the May gets us thinking about fertility right away.
But triethylamine is also a byproduct of the degradation of flesh - or, to put it more bluntly, it can smell like rotten meat. It all has to do with the aromatic context, the floral versus the musky, and can evoke very different reactions. As Hawthorn's blooms begin to fade, the smell shifts, and the locals say the tree smells of death. Hawthorn, with her flame-red berry, reminds us that fire kindles, but it also destroys. Don't bring her into your home when she's in bloom, or death will surely follow.
As a ruling, archetypal spirit, for me Hawthorn embodies the flux of creation and destruction more than any other plant. She represents the circulation between activity and rest, between systole and diastole, between love and anger, life and death. Sitting at the bookends of the time of growth, she guards the seasonal shifts - but rooted at the edge of the field, she also guards the border between the wild and the hearth. She loves humans, and thrives with our touch, but she remains forever untamed, her children unruly, her thorns toxic. Her leaves, flowers, and berries yield a medicine that governs the fluxing heart, the person, the community, the culture. No wonder the locals leave any lone Hawthorn well alone: you don't mess with such a powerful ecological thermostat.
What does it mean to be such a nexus in the ecology? What does it feel like? I'm not sure Hawthorn knows - at least not in the way we imagine "knowing". Picture an old clearing, now surrounded by forest on all sides, where a Hawthorn has been living for a hundred years. She's more ragged now than in her youth, but still produces abundant berries, and remembers the farmer who planted and tended her many years before. It's late September, early morning, the air is cool and smells moist but not heavy. A thrush on her way south flies in. There are asters and goldenrods in the middle of the clearing, mixed with the grasses. Field mice look up as the thrush alights on a branch. Try to feel that whole thing. Fill in the pieces - what insects are on the plants? On the soil surface? What spiders spin between the branches? Wind and water, morning sun and moist soil, all that grows and moves and lives and dies and rots, if it all wanted to send a message to the thrush, how would it? How would the thrush hear?
The first story comes from the epic of Gilgamesh, which is a four-thousand-year-old tale from the fertile crescent, the land we now call Iraq. Gilgamesh is the ruler of a city, the first city, which he holds almost in defiance of the gods who created the world. In punishment for his arrogance, the gods bring forth Enkidu, who is as wild as Gilgamesh is civilized. Raised by the beasts of the mountains, Enkidu sets out to destroy the city of Uruk and take down its ruler. But Gilgamesh uses a prostitute to seduce Enkidu, and tames him, seeing in his rival a shadow-side of himself. The two become like brothers. Uruk thrives - and the pair of warriors now sets out to cut timber from an ancient cedar grove, and slay the giant who guards it. They succeed, and return to the city with their bounty.
Ishtar, the goddess of the evening star, of love and war, who conquered the underworld and was the undoing of many before Gilgamesh, attempts to seduce him upon his return to Uruk. This effort fails. Enraged, she attempts to kill him using a magical bull, but this too fails: Gilgamesh and Enkidu slay the bull, and sacrifice it not to the goddess, but to their own glory, and to their city. Ishtar demands retribution, and the gods curse Enkidu with a slow, fatal disease that saps him of energy, wisdom, flesh, and, finally, life. As Enkidu descends into madness, he struggles against the wildness that inexorably eats away at his civilized life.
After his companion dies, Gilgamesh despairs. He casts away all the glory of Uruk and wanders through the wilderness, trying to find a way to restore his companion to life, while at the same time confronting his own mortality. He is about to give up his quest when, finally, an ancient hero from the time before the floods reveals to him the secret of immortality: if he journeys to the bottom of the ocean, he will find a white-flowered Hawthorn that bestows eternal life. Gilgamesh plunges into the depths, and emerges with the flowering branch, immortal and radiant.
Immediately he seeks to bring this power back to Uruk, to share the secrets of his quest. But in a final cruel twist, a serpent steals the Hawthorn branch away from him. The specter of death returns. He makes his way to Uruk, wiser but also resigned to his human fate.
This is a story of the taming of the wild, but it also reminds us that the wild - whether we find it in the wasteland, or in the depths of our internal ocean, is the sine-qua-non of eternal life. And there, guarding, giving and taking away, is the Hawthorn tree. What does it mean to be immortal? How would we achieve long life, even immortality? How would the thrush hear?
An ecology may not be immortal, but it certainly transcends our human experience. Just as the Hawthorn holds the key to immortality in the old mythology, it may also hold the messages that the ecology uses to knit its components together. These messages are how the thrush hears, it is how we hear, and if we listen to them and allow our organisms to commune with them the way the thrush communes with the Hawthorn berry on her way south, we may indeed achieve a measure of immortality. At least a transcendence that allows us to become a fully integrated part of the ecology. We have been walking around half-dead, unable to mix with the energies and fluxes of the world around us, sort of like a brain half-removed from its blood supply, sluggish, forgetful, tired.
The ecology has hormones, just as any living being has hormones. These are chemical messengers secreted into the distribution channels of the organism, the usefulness of which is evident locally but also systemically as they travel from their sites of secretion to their target organs. The flavonoids and other allied polyphenols are some of the best examples of such ecological hormones, and show us tangibly how cross-kingdom signaling knits the ecology together. For example:
- flavonoids, as pigments, serve as pollinator "on-ramps" guiding insects to nectar and anthers. They also guide beneficial insects (like the silkworm to the mulberry tree via the compound morin). [Simmonds, Monique SJ. "Importance of flavonoids in insect–plant interactions: feeding and oviposition." Phytochemistry 56.3 (2001): 245-252.][Ishikawa, Shigeo, Tuneo Hirao, and Narihiko Arai. "Chemosensory basis of hostplant selection in the silkworm." Entomologia experimentalis et applicata 12.5 (1969): 544-554.]
- anthocyanidins, a type of flavonoid polymer, are sensitive to pH and as an unripe, sour fruit ripens to sweetness, their color changes from green to pink to purple. The thrush knows this, and so do we. [Liu, Pengzhan, Heikki Kallio, and Baoru Yang. "Phenolic compounds in hawthorn (Crataegus grayana) fruits and leaves and changes during fruit ripening." Journal of agricultural and food chemistry 59.20 (2011): 11141-11149.]
- flavonoids (isoflavones in particular) are secreted by rootlets of legumes to attract symbiotic Rhizobium bacteria, which participate in nitrogen fixation, nourishing the plant, the bug, the soil. It's how the ecology harvests nitrogen from the air using all its players and the hormones that knit them together. [Hartwig, Ueli A., Cecillia M. Joseph, and Donald A. Phillips. "Flavonoids released naturally from alfalfa seeds enhance growth rate of Rhizobium meliloti." Plant Physiology 95.3 (1991): 797-803.]
- flavonoids also control unwanted bacterial and fungal incursions, by stimulating plant immunity and altering local flora so it can out-compete pathogens. They do this in part by inhibiting quorum sensing in pathogenic bacteria, so the bad bugs can't tell when there are enough of them to cause damage, and never begin the secretion of toxic chemicals. [Vikram, A., et al. "Suppression of bacterial cell–cell signalling, biofilm formation and type III secretion system by citrus flavonoids." Journal of applied microbiology 109.2 (2010): 515-527.][Quave, Cassandra L., et al. "Effects of extracts from Italian medicinal plants on planktonic growth, biofilm formation and adherence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus." Journal of ethnopharmacology 118.3 (2008): 418-428.]
- flavonoids and polyphenols, which taste bitter to us (see citrus bioflavonoids in the white albedo of an orange, or the potent quercetin in Solidago species), are strong neurotoxic insecticides that help protect plants and are overexpressed when an insect feeds on a plant. We, who consume them in limited doses, derive an adaptive benefit from the challenge they pose. [Harborne, Jeffrey B., and Renée J. Grayer. "Flavonoids and insects." The Flavonoids. Springer US, 1994. 589-618.]
What becomes really interesting is noting that plants under stress begin to overproduce these important ecological hormones. Wendell Combest, a pharmacologist at Shenandoah University, analyzed the various parts of ground ivy (Glechoma), comparing the leaf, flower, stem, and gall. You may have seen these small green-red balls that occasionally swell on the trailing stems of ground ivy. Out of all the parts analyzed, the red tissue of the gall showed the highest concentrations of polyphenols. Others have studied crops exposed to different stressors - and found higher concentrations of these important eco-hormones [Treutter, Dieter. "Managing phenol contents in crop plants by phytochemical farming and breeding—visions and constraints." International journal of molecular sciences 11.3 (2010): 807-857.]. When a plant is challenged, it expresses chemistry to help it, but also to help those who consume it. In the clearing, the Hawthorn elaborates chemistry that directly represents the state of stress of the clearing itself. Its inhabitants, and its visitors too, get to plug into this signal net and adapt.
And who is to say that a well-adapted human, exposed to a cocktail of challenging polyphenolic chemistry from the berries and fruits she consumes, isn't a better component of the ecology? Hawthorn would say she is. Hawthorn would encourage her to consume flowers, leaves and berries - thereby to live long, realize the benefits of herbal medicine, and spread the wild trees and plants for the benefit of bacteria, soil, air, and thrushes. Maybe immortality means connecting to these wild signals. We live forever, if only for a moment.
The key for this one is that at least one of the ingredients be a plant you harvested close by, one that knows your ecology as well as you do. In this sense, the local plants you find are the most important ingredients.
Hawthorn berries (fresh ideally, though dry will do) 2 cups, packed well
Cinquefoil (Potentilla spp., fresh or dry) 1 cup chopped, or cut-and sifted herb
Rose buds (dry is ideal, more aromatic) 1 cup whole buds, coarsely chopped
Use a quart-sized mason jar. Fill with herbs, then cover with a mixture made of 50% vegetable glycerin and 50% apple cider vinegar. You will probably need around 9-10 ounces of each fluid depending on the amount of dry herbs. Close tightly and shake daily for two weeks, then strain and enjoy 2-3 teaspoons a day.
This is a Rose family blend. It is loaded with the important chemistry - bitter, astringent tannins; sour bioflavonoids; aromatic volatiles; demulcent starches and sugars; and many trace minerals. Cinquefoil, a favorite of Jupiter and the Earth element, grounds the blend while Rose lifts it up and Hawthorn holds the center. For a more bitter blend, substitute Agrimony for Cinquefoil if you have it available. If you can't find either one, try common Avens (Herb Bennett, Geum urbanum) as a substitute.
The next story comes from modern-day Ireland - or, at least, it's only about thirty years old. Apparently, during the construction of a car factory there, workers were at a loss as to what to do with an old Hawthorn in the middle of the site. Not being fools, they refused to uproot it and worked around it until construction had to grind to a halt. The project manager called in a bulldozer operator from England (of course) who promptly ripped the old Hawthorn out of the ground, casting it aside. There are numerous other stories of these fairy trees getting uprooted: one tells of hundreds of white mice escaping from the hole, another talks of dark vines grabbing and swallowing the unwitting humans who disrupted the tree. In this particular tale, nothing that dramatic happens. Everyone gets back to work, and the task of the day is pouring massive concrete foundation columns, fifteen feet tall and three feet wide, to serve as supports for the roof of the factory. They finish the day's work in good order, and the workers go home to sleep.
The next morning, upon returning to the job site, there is surprise and consternation because every single concrete column has been moved three feet to the left. No one can explain exactly how this could have happened, and no evidence of the heavy machinery that would be required can be found. Undaunted, the foremen order the columns moved back. The work is done, and everyone goes home to sleep.
As you might guess, the columns are moved again the following morning, this time three feet to the right. Stubbornly, orders are given to reset them in their proper place. But of course, the next morning the columns are all off again. Now quite angry, the project managers call a meeting to determine who's responsible for the three days of lost productivity, hoping to correct the problem once and for all. From the back of the room, a rather short gentleman stands up and says, simply, "You must give us back our tree". Anything's worth a try, came the wise (though reluctant) response, and the Hawthorn was rescued and replanted in its hole. It remained in the courtyard, twisted and gnarly, and construction proceeded without further setback.
So, perhaps Hawthorn isn't simply a gift we can connect with on our journey to immortality. Perhaps it's also an important element of proper function. Acting as an integrated organ in the ecology isn't a luxury for us - it may be a necessity.
The story of the Blutsauger is the story of a German vampire. In the north, this being is also known as a Nachtzehrer or "Night Waster". These twisted undead creatures roam the night looking for blood to fill their empty hearts, and their lot is cast by being the first person to die of an epidemic disease, or by dying in a particularly violent and gruesome way. In many different ways, the Hawthorn is seen as the primary protective force against these bloodsuckers, against the wasting and weakness they cause in their victims. The first is to carve sharp stakes of Hawthorn wood and nail down the corpse of the deceased, through the head or heart, so that it cannot escape its coffin. Another is to scatter Hawthorn flowers over the grave, so that the Blutsauger has to stop and collect the blossoms and, forgetting all else, be surprised and destroyed by the rising sun. Finally, Hawthorn boughs can be hung around the house (outside, of course) to protect the family from the night wasting.
In all of these examples, we see that Hawthorn can play a role in the interplay of life and death, as we've seen in the old myths, but it can also have an effect on influences that disrupt the flow of blood. The Latin name of the tree, Crataegus, is thought to derive from the Greek krataigos, which means strength and resilience, but it also is a direct cognate of crataegon, a word the Romans used to refer to the heart itself. The crataegon was not only the heart, where life-giving oxygenated blood mixed with the spent venous flow, but it was also a great bowl used at feasts to mix water and wine together. It is important to remember that, although the grape was the primary fruit fermented into wine, the Romans (and likely many others before them) fermented Hawthorn berries and honey into meads as well. Mixed in the crataegon, the liquor gave life to the heart, and the tree of resilience inherited the name.
Of course we know now how valuable Hawthorn is for the human heart, strengthening it in times of weakness and protecting it from over-exertion, keeping it supple and responsive [Pittler, Max H., Katja Schmidt, and Edzard Ernst. "Hawthorn extract for treating chronic heart failure: meta-analysis of randomized trials." The American journal of medicine 114.8 (2003): 665-674.][Walker, Ann F., et al. "Hypotensive effects of hawthorn for patients with diabetes taking prescription drugs: a randomised controlled trial." British journal of general practice 56.527 (2006): 437-443.][Verma, S. K., et al. "Crataegus oxyacantha-A cardioprotective herb." Journal of Herbal Medicine and Toxicology 1.1 (2007): 65-71.]. If there is a single place in our bodies where the essences of life are mixed and circulated, it would have to be the heart - a tireless pulsing flow, holding two aspects of our vital fluid side by side. The arterial blood on the left glides powerfully out through the aorta while the venous blood on the right seeps slowly into the heart and is gently pushed along to the lungs. Any hardening or stiffness, eddies in the smooth flow, pinches or restrictions can compromise this great mixing bowl over time, and sap vitality from its host. Hawthorn addresses all these concerns, and it also balances the active pushing, the systole, with the rest and refilling, the diastole - the muscle works more efficiently, pressure stays balanced, vitality holds poise. Many berries and their polyphenols can contribute to this cause - grapes, with resveratrol; blueberries, with anthocyanins; goji, with is diverse flavonoid cocktail. But it is the Hawthorn that is the crataegon itself.
So much of a necessity is this tree, that without it, the heart's failure becomes the first reason we die. Like the spirit of a child from whom love is withheld, our great mixing bowl of life withers and fails, weakened before its time. Heart disease in the western world is a painful example of plant deficiency syndrome: we pass by the clearing, we can't see the Hawthorn exchanging hormones with the thrush, we wall ourselves off from the dance that we can truly never leave. The brain of the unloved child doesn't choose its fate: that's the family, as an organism, at work. In the same way the American heart doesn't choose to fail: that's the culture at work. And don't you think the Hawthorn suffers too?
The herbs in this blend are traditionally used as cardiovascular tonics, particularly indicated in the prevention of or recovery from heart attack and stroke. Use caution mixing this blend with conventional blood thinners: Dan Shen may potentiate their effects. If you can, spend some time looking at the fresh root of Dan Shen - it's red, remarkably so, and its branched taproots are very similar to the branching coronary artery.
Once upon a time, out in the countryside, lived a young girl and her aging grandmother. They lived in a very small, thatched-roof cottage with a very small fireplace, surrounded by a barren, prickly hedge and yellow grass. Every day the grandmother would go out and collect what little wood she could find to start a fire and cook the meager food the two had to share. But it happened one day that she became quite ill, and did not have the strength to rise from bed to do her chores.
It was winter, and a cold fog hung over the fields. The fire had long since burned out, and the two were hungry. So the young girl, whose name was Serenella, resolved to venture out on her own. "Perhaps I can find some twigs for the fire, and warm my grandmother," she thought. Pretty soon she came to the stump of an old oak tree, and was trying to pry off pieces of bark for the fire when she felt someone tugging at her hair. When she turned around, she stood before a beautiful woman, cloaked in thin fabric that looked like wisps of valley fog, radiant and white.
"Those pieces of wet bark won't do anything to warm your house or fill your belly" she said. "Take this wool from me instead," and she handed Serenella an armload of freshly-sheared fleece. "If you spin this wool into yarn for me, and bring the balls of yarn back to this tree stump, you will have a roaring fire and a pot of soup in your hearth every day."
Serenella was overjoyed, and gladly took the fleece, though all she could think on her walk back to the cottage was how she hadn't spun a day in her life, and how was she going to comply with the fairy's wishes? But when she got back a fire was blazing and hung over the flames was a bubbling pot of soup. She warmed herself and poured some soup into a bowl for her grateful grandmother. Then she began the work of spinning.
Inside the pile of fleece was a small wooden drop-spindle. She fastened some of the wool to it, and, twisting and pulling, she slowly began to spin some yarn. It was tedious work, and the thread broke often at first, but with patience she got better and better until, after a week's time, all the wool was spun. Serenella set out immediately to find the oak stump again. When she got there, she placed the ball of yarn into the stump. But before she could turn around to go back home, the fairy reappeared to take her gift.
"The yarn is lumpy and uneven, I know, but it is the first wool I've ever spun, and I will do better next time," Serenella pleaded.
Looking at her with kind eyes, the fairy broke off pieces of yarn from the ball and handed them back to her, along with a fresh pile of fleece. "Take these threads and fashion them into stars, and hang them on your hedge for me," she said. "And spin this new wool into more thread." At that she disappeared into the mist.
Serenella walked back homeward, overjoyed that her work had been good enough, and when she got to the dry hedge that encircled her cottage, began to fashion tiny, white, woolen stars. She was about to start hanging them when a little thrush landed on the ground next to her.
"How strange to see you here in the cold season," she said to the bird.
"Alas, when fall came I hurt my wing and couldn't fly away with my brothers and sisters! So now I am trapped here in the cold, and I will surely die if you don't give me your white stars to make a warm nest..." the bird replied.
Serenella was torn. She had promised the fairy that she would hang the woolen stars on the hedge. But in the end, she felt so sorry for the thrush that she gave him the stars.
Inside the cottage, a strong fire burned as it had been doing for the whole week, fresh soup was in the pot, and bread in the cupboard. The grandmother, though still gravely ill, was smiling more and her appetite had improved a little. Serenella started spinning.
After another week, she had finished more yarn, stronger and more even this time. She returned to the oak and the fairy reappeared, and again asked her to hang more stars on the hedge alongside last week's, and again gave her fresh wool to spin. But again, right as Serenella was about to hang the stars, the thrush came asking for a fresh lining for his nest.
"The rains came, and my nest is cold and wet!" he pleaded. "Sweet girl, please give me more of your wonderful stars that I might outlive this cold winter." And again, Serenella gave him her white, woolen stars.
"Your grandmother is better now," she said, "and I need you to collect all the stars you hung on the hedge and bring them back to me." And, as usual, she disappeared into a swirl of fog.
Crestfallen, Serenella made her way back home, knowing she had no stars to collect. When she got close to the cottage, the little thrush alighted on her shoulder.
"Why so sad?" he asked.
"The kind fairy wants me to return her magic stars, but I have none because I gave them all to you!" she exclaimed.
"Don't worry, little one," the thrush replied. "My brothers and sisters are back home now, and we are all most grateful to you. Tomorrow is the first of May: go out tonight, under the moonlight, and you will find your stars."
Unconvinced, Serenella went straight back home, her downcast eyes fixed on the path, to find her grandmother stirring the soup and stacking firewood. Grandmother truly was better now, the pink color back in her face and the sparkle back in her eyes. They shared a meal, and went to sleep. But in the late hours of the night, the young girl awoke to the sound of thrushes singing in the hedge outside. She went out barefoot, and under radiant moonlight, found that her whole hedge had burst into bloom, white blooms like stars. An incredible fragrance filled the air, rich and floral and wild.
"My stars!" she cried out, overjoyed. "I will pick these to bring to the fairy!"
As she spoke these words, the fairy appeared before her and took her hand, which already held one of the fragrant flowers.
"Dear Serenella," she said, "I am the Lady Whitethorn, and you have shown me the true kindness of your heart. From now on, your hedge will bloom and fruit and give you what you need to keep your grandmother strong. You can trade the berries for meat and grain. It will help you as you helped the thrush."
She disappeared in a cloud of mist, leaving Serenella there on May eve, under the moonlight, surrounded by thrush-song, wild fragrance, and a field of stars.
Despite containing a root, this mix makes a great and effective infusion. Consumed regularly, its side effects include a more balanced blood pressure. Since it's made with equal parts by volume, the recipe can easily be scaled up to make a big jar full of tea herbs.
Hawthorn leaf and flower (dry), one tablespoon chopped or cut-and-sifted herb
Linden flowers (dry), one tablespoon chopped or cut-and-sifted herb
Peony root (dry), one tablespoon coarsely chopped root
Use a large (12-16 ounce) tea mug, or a 16-ounce French press. Place the herbs in the bottom and add hot water just off the boil. Cover promptly and steep, for at least 20 minutes but up to 4 hours. Strain, press and drink daily. This tea blend opens the heart in many different ways, helping us to appreciate the simple things that are in front of us, like family, a warm hearth, wildflowers, and birdsong. The addition of antispasmodic, sweet Peony root helps to relax tissue and vessels, reinforcing the tonic and aromatic Hawthorn and Linden.
A hundred years I slept beneath a thorn,
Until the tree was root and branches of my thought,
Until white petals blossomed in my crown.
A thousand years I floated in a lake
Until my brimful eye could hold
The scattered moonlight and the burning cloud.
Mine is the gaze that knows
Eyebright, asphodel, the briar rose.
I have seen the rainbow open, the sun close.
A wind that blows about the land,
I have raised temples of snow, castles of sand,
And left them empty as a dead hand.
A winged ephemerid I am born
With myriad eyes and glittering wings
That flames must wither or waters drown.
I must live, I must die,
I am the memory of all desire,
I am the world's ashes, and the kindling fire.
|
I just noticed that the VA VistA Electronic Health Record System was named as one of The 10 oldest, significant open-source programs in the company of Linux, Python, Perl, and other software. Back in the early days of VistA, the term “Open Source” didn’t exist – we called it “public domain.”
What makes VistA unique in this list is that it is more than just code, it is a longitudinal data base extending back over 30 years across 172 hospitals and millions of patients. This is an irreplaceable resource – VistA has petabytes of information about clinical conditions, activities, locations, and demographics from a period when most other hospitals were just dreaming about putting their records online. This information is mapped by a “data dictionary” – a “road map” to the data base that defines the semantics (what it means) of the data, not just the syntax (how it is formatted). It is also structured around a network model of information (the connectors between the dots), rather than just a hierarchical model (think of how the Dewey Decimal System tries to form a hierarchy of the books in a library).
This data is not complete, perfectly formatted, nor coordinated with precision. Clinical data is not research-grade clinical trials data, and the patient population is that of (mostly male) veterans. But it is a treasure trove of information, waiting for future data mining. And what we consider “junk” information today (say, appointment schedules from 30 years ago), may hold great value in future research (say, how epidemics spread).
I hope the VA has the wisdom to retain this information in its original form.
At the 2012 OSEHRA summit meeting, I happened to be on a panel with medical researcher Leonard D’Avolio who commented on how easy it was to extract research data from VistA. It was quite a touching moment for me, to have helped set in motion something that captured data that would be available 33 years later.
To quote my friend Doc Searls: “When young you think life is a sprint. When older you see it’s a marathon. And when mature you see it’s a relay race.”
The question, just who are we handing off the baton to? Is the medical information we’re dealing with today going to be available 33 years from now?
I see a number of necessary conditions for this to happen:
1. We need a curator. Some organization needs to take on the role of “librarian” to maintain the archives. The VA is a likely candidate for this, but even so, I think they might need a bit of prodding to keep them focused on their responsibility. And maybe if Chuck Hagel (one of the Fathers of VistA) is confirmed as Secretary of Defense, he’ll recall his roots as one of the fathers of VistA and bring DoD medical information along, as well. Roger Baker, Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology for the Department of Veterans Affairs, is moving things along so well that he earned a VIP membership card in the Underground Railroad.
2. We need to manage the data at a “meta” level. The VistA Data Dictionary is being updated to more modern semantic web concepts, for example through Conor Dowling’s Semantic VistA. The PCAST report called for greater use of Metadata, apparently unaware that they were recommending an approach already used by VistA for 1/3 century, which they cited as a case study in a successful large-scale system. This is a bit like Monsieur Jourdain in Moliere’s play Bourgeois Gentleman, who suddenly realized that he had been speaking prose all his life, but didn’t know it.
3. We need to continue the tradition of Open Source. There is some movement in this direction with the OSEHRA effort, but it’s funding is but a tiny fraction of what it needs to be.
4. We need to fund the effort. Some folks think that Open Source means “free labor” – that the VA can just declare VistA to be an open source system and programmers will flock to it, offering volunteer time to do the VA’s bidding. This isn’t going to work. VA needs to fund these efforts, and release the work as open source.
5. We need to think of what we are building as an “information space” rather than just an “integrated electronic health record.” If someone said that they were going to improve our legal system by systematically storing and arranging lawyer’s documents, most of us would be a little skeptical. But there is a huge chasm between our goal of improving our health care and the current task of automating the medical record. As we’ve seen with Twitter, Facebook, Google, Linked In, and Wikipedia, there are huge benefits to focusing on “connecting the dots” in large scale systems, rather than just focusing on specific dots. Here’s a webinar I gave at Kitware, a leading open-source company.
All in all, though, it’s pretty cool to see VistA placed in this company.
|
UK sources of information and / or support
Has a leaflet on Essential Tremor.
Aims to offer a support and advice service to people of all ages who have been diagnosed with tremor of all types. The most common of these is essential tremor.
A patient guide to complement the NICE guideline of the same name for health professionals.
Information from emc Medicine Guides.
Straight-talking advice from a UK doctor on a number of problems. Includes advice on excess shaky hands.
Information from NHS Choices - the government's patient information portal.
See also the Patient UK Parkinson's disease page for tremor related to Parkinson's disease.
Further sources / more detailed information
Some non-UK sites
The following list popular non-UK health information sites with content aimed at the general public. They are mainly from the US. They have not been checked to see if information about the above topic is included but these large sites are comprehensive.
More detailed medical information
The following list online sources of more detailed medical information, mainly from the UK. These sites are mainly aimed at health professionals, but are of interest to all. They have not been checked to see if information about the above topic is included, but information about most medical topics can usually be found.
- PatientPlus - hundreds of medical reference articles provided by Patient UK.
- Evidence Based Medicine - such as from Clinical Evidence, The Cochrane Library, etc.
- Database of UK Clinical Guidelines - from NICE, SIGN, etc.
- Medline - abstracts available from thousands of journals.
- Sites listing free online medical textbooks and journals.
- Sites listing free medical images - pictures, atlases, anatomy, skin diseases, etc.
|
Large swaths of Americans seem to have drastically different views of how humans came to be, according to a June 2012 Gallup poll.
Nearly half of America – 46 percent – agrees with the creationist view that humans are purely the product of God, absent of evolution, within the last 10,000 years. Fifteen percent believe humans evolved independent of God, while the rest believe humans evolved with god guiding the process (http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/evolution-creationism-intelligent-design.aspx)
These millions of Americans are pitted on two sides of a conflict which has a solution, as described in my new book The Genesis One Code. As an engineering physicist, CEO of the aerospace company known for building the space station’s robotic arm and student of religion I looked for a precise, unequivocal answer. Not good just arguments which hard to prove, but mathematical precision.
The creation-evolution conflict is a recurring point of contention in the United States, from the presidential election to what should be taught in schools.
I show that the religious and scientific wisdoms are two sides of the same coin and can enlighten each other. The reason the debate developed in the first place is because the discoveries of modern science of an old Earth seemed to conflict with descriptions in the Bible of a universe created in 6 days, only thousands of years ago.
The reality is that the Bible and science agree on the timeline for the development of the universe and life on Earth. The Bible is a blue print for the creation. I found the “scale used in the blue print” within the texts, the factor that converts “Creation time” to years as we know them, as measured by scientists. When applied to calculating the age of the universe and life on Earth, the Bible consistently matches scientific estimates derived from the study of fossil timelines, the solar system and the cosmos.
What’s the scale factor? One creation day is — 1,000 X 365 X 7,000 – years! When those numbers are multiplied, each creation day is an epoch of 2.56 billion years, Using the formula, the biblical age of the universe is 13.74 billion years. Scientific estimates put the universe’s age at 13.75 billion, plus or minus 0.13 billion. Another 18 events described in Genesis, from the age of the sun to when first life appeared, match the scientific dates precisely!
If the Bible and science agree on what happened and when it happened, do we really have a conflict? It is time to reexamine and bury the conflict between science and religion. In fact, the book shows that Genesis has answers to science’s three biggest unanswered questions.
By continuing this false dichotomy of religion vs. science, we are severely limiting progress and our potential as humans.
Most of us have pondered our origins at some point in our lives. I am no different, except perhaps that I have both a strong scientific and a religious background. Thus, when I ponder our origins I not only have to contend with two seemingly very different accounts of our universe; but with the knowledge that both are accurate, at least in terms of what happened and when it happened. Christians are invited to see science as something that complements ones faith, not to see it as something that contradicts it. Many Christians affirm God as the Creator and at the same time support the scientific study of creation. They recognize science as a legitimate interpretation of God’s natural world and affirm the validity of the claims of science in describing the natural world and in determining what is scientific. However they preclude science from making authoritative claims about theological issues.
I began my quest with knowledge gained from a basic religious upbringing and a high school science education. Both bodies of knowledge were fascinating, yet appeared incompatible. As I proceeded to obtain a scientific education, I initially came to think that science books answered everything. Yet, by my fourth year at university, some fundamental questions concerning our origins began to re-appear. In science texts, some answers were not available, some answers were strange, and some answers were so metaphysical they looked like religious answers. So, I went back to study religion to find deeper inner meaning. Answers began to appear.
So what did I find? The Bible and science agree on what happened and when it happened with respect to the development of the universe and the appearance of life on earth. Not just roughly but precisely. That’s right! Very old religious documents contain what science has discovered in the past 50 years!
|
Development Agencies Launch Distance Learning in Somalia
By Josiah Obat
Nairobi, November 30, 2005 (VOA News) – The World Bank, the United Nations and the African Virtual University have teamed up to support distance learning using the Internet at six institutions in Somalia.
Professor Stanford Mukasa speaking via satellite link to his journalism students in Hargeysa University and the University of Puntland 3,000 kilometers away in Somalia , during the launch of the Somali online distance learning initiative in Nairobi .
The African Virtual University is developing learning material and making it available through interactive teaching to Somali students using the Internet. Additional material such as audio and videotapes are later shipped to the students by the U.N. Development Program (UNDP).
Mr. Peter Dzvimbo is head of the African Virtual University .
"We know that human resources are not there in Somalia , because it is a post conflict society and obviously the human resources are not there. This is why distance education and e-learning in particular lends itself to this kind of societies that are in distress," he explained.
Mr. Dzvimbo says the Somalia distance-learning program was established at the cost of $100 million, a sum he says is 10 times less than the amount required to set up conventional learning facilities in Somalia .
The initiative is a joint venture between the World Bank, the U.N. Development Program and the African Virtual University , and six learning institutions in Somalia .
These are the University of Hargeisa , Puntland State University , Mogadishu , The University of East Africa in Puntland, Amoud University in Somaliland and the Somali Institute of Management and Administration Development.
These institutions offer certificate courses in Journalism, Information Technology and Business Communications, and plan to offer full degree courses in the same fields, as well as teaching, next year.
Mr. Abdi Hayabe Elmi is president of the University of Hargeisa , the first university to start the distance-learning program. He says the program is going well.
"Very good. It is not smooth sailing. You have certain problems, but it is going well," he said. "The response is outstanding considering that their certificates are countersigned by universities in the states. That gives them an added value to their certificates."
Some of the foreign universities involved in this program include Indiana University of Pennsylvania and New Jersey Institute of Technology in the United States .
Somalia has been without a central government since the regime of the late Mohamed Sa'id Barre was overthrown in 1991. Vicious fighting between various political and clan factions ensued, sending into exile most educated Somalis and disrupting most education programs in the country.
|
Despite earlier predictions of a slowing economy, Minnesota has continued to post rosier employment and financial figures as the year comes to an end.
For November, the state’s unemployment rate fell to 3.7 percent
, the lowest since May 2001 and much better than the national rate of 5.8 percent. Much can be attributed to the last three months, when Minnesota added nearly 29,000 jobs in what is the strongest three-month span for job growth on record.
“The change in the unemployment rate from 4.5 percent in July to 3.7 percent in November is particularly notable given the labor force participation rate held steady during that period, on top of adding jobs to the economy,” Katie Clark Sieben, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, said in a statement.
The Twin Cities has fared particularly well: The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the area’s 3.2 percent unemployment rate is the lowest of major metropolitan areas across the country
. Additionally, the region is said to be on track to meet a goal of recovering and adding 100,000 jobs
by the end of 2015, which was set by economic development partnership Greater MSP.
Still, some business leaders around the state had previously expressed worries about a cooling economy
this winter, citing a potential labor shortage as the unemployment rate drops.
Business groups expressed concern earlier in the year that a rising minimum wage
would put a damper on job growth. But much of the recent job gains—including 92 percent of last month’s numbers—occurred in the leisure and hospitality industries, which both are comprised of many low-wage workers. The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce said it will fight to scrap the provision that automatically increases wage pegged to inflation, whichs starts in 2018.
So what’s the outlook for next year? Likely positive, if the numbers continue to play out. The National Association for Business Economics predicts faster growth
and thousands of new businesses have been formed around the state. The budget also posted a $1 billion surplus
—though some have warned inflation may eat into that number.
|
The Castro Valley Unified School District Health Services Department is responsible for the wellness needs of the students in the district. Our two district nurses are licensed Registered Nurses who hold Health Service Credentials and are also Masters Degree prepared. One holds a subspecialty in Public Health Nursing, while the other is a Family Nurse Practitioner. Our school nurses are uniquely qualified in the preventative health, health assessment, and referral procedures for students within the school setting. They are in the position to strengthen and facilitate the educational process by improving and protecting the health status of children.
CVUSD also has two Health Service Assistants who work directly with the credentialed school nurses. One works in the health office at Castro Valley High School and the other is itinerant. They complete a variety of tasks that require training and indirect supervision; they are CPR and First Aid trained. At the elementary level, the site secretaries who are CPR and First Aid trained, provide direct first aid and call the district nurses when situations warrant. In the middle schools we also have clerks that cover the health offices that are CPR and First Aid trained, and also call the district nurses when situations warrant clinical expertise.
Parents can help in the success of their children during the school day by communicating with the school any health related barriers which may affect their child's ability to learn. A parent can call the school site and ask for the nurse's cell phone number if their student is newly diagnosed and needing nursing assistance during the school day. By identifying health related barriers to learning and offering assistance, students are better able to perform to the best of their ability. By working together with the student, family, physician, teacher, and the support staff at the school, our credentialed school nurses are valued members of our educational team.
Health issues like asthma, allergies and diabetes affect a growing number of children. If you are the parent of a child with a health issue, you will find a number of health forms and informational materials to help us partner with you when your child is in our care. We want school personnel in all disciplines, including administrators, principals, teachers, school nurses, coaches, athletic trainers, facilities staff, nutrition services staff, counselors, and bus drivers to be aware of children with special health needs. Our goal is to provide tools to:
- Create a supportive learning environment,
- Reduce absences,
- Ease disruption in the classroom,
- Ensure appropriate emergency care, and
- Enable full student participation in physical activities.
If you have questions about when to keep children home due to illness should reference the form below.
|
Elon grad explores forgiveness in mental health community
Caregivers can face special challenges when helping clients with emotional, behavioral and learning disabilities. Leigh Ann Stutts ’11 explores these challenges and exposes gaps in caregiver training – including the need to learn forgiveness – in a recent edition of the The Open Mind, the newsletter of the Durham, N.C., chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
“Helping Caregivers Deal with Forgiveness,” a condensed excerpt from Stutts’ philosophy senior seminar paper, argues that those working with special needs children should be trained in how to cope with and respond to verbal and physical abuse. Neglecting the emotions that result from such abuse can easily strain caregiver-client relationships, she writes.
Stutts, a philosophy and psychology double major from Clayton, N.C., has encountered this firsthand. Last summer, she served as a counselor at a camp designed to be a safe environment for campers to engage in a variety of traditional summer camp activities.
Many campers were there to learn strategies for controlling their emotions and behaviors, but some incidents escalated. “I was called all sorts of terrible names, had rocks thrown at every part of my body, and even had a camper punch me in the stomach,” Stutts said. “It seemed as if I, and the other counselors, were just supposed to expect such behavior and ‘get over it’ because of the population we were working with.”
The hurt she felt, and its negative effect on her relationships with campers, caused Stutts to start asking questions about her training. “In reality, I wasn’t properly dealing with and coming to terms with the hurt certain campers had caused me,” she said. When she started her senior seminar the next semester, she sought answers.
“I researched philosophers who had written on the topics of dependency care work, as well as forgiveness. I noticed that nobody had ever combined the two topics,” she said. “I have talked with various people in the field and many have reported similar stories where they felt like they didn't have time to come to terms with what happened or were still hesitant to interact with a client due to an incident that was not addressed fully and properly.”
Professor Ann Cahill, recipient of Elon University’s 2011-12 Distinguished Scholar Award and chair of the Department of Philosophy, said Stutts’ experience gave energy to the project.
“She wasn’t just writing this paper to complete the requirements for a class. She had had an experience that required philosophical analysis to make sense out of it,” Cahill said. “It’s wonderful when a student’s research question is motivated in this way.”
Stutts concluded that those working in the mental health field need more support as they try to come to terms with negative experiences. Her ideal solution is for agencies and organizations to hire an employee whose sole responsibility is to serve as a support system for caregivers.
“I strongly believe that all types of mental health agencies would benefit from having this type of third party support,” she said. “I certainly do hope this work has an impact on the mental health community.”
Cahill said she agrees. “Leigh Ann’s work has the potential to illuminate for all of us the demands that are placed on care workers, and to help provide them with the holistic support that their terrifically important work requires.”
Despite the challenges she has experienced, Stutts says she hopes to work with children and families impacted by mental illness as a licensed therapist. She will begin a graduate program in social work at Wheelock College in the fall, armed with skills she’s developed during her time at Elon. “My time at Camp Starfish could have been just another summer job,” she said. “However, due to the academic training I had at Elon, I became engaged in the situation, thought critically about what was going on and felt confident enough to explore the questions that were left unanswered.”
|
Child Nutrition Directors Share Menu Inspiration Tips
Participation is at the heart of every school meals program. To keep growing a district’s customer base, it’s imperative that child nutrition directors continue to tweak menus to conform to new and evolving trends. FSD talked with directors to find out where they go for menu inspiration and how they’ve jazzed up their menus this year.
Where do you go for menu inspiration?
Miguel Villarreal (director of food and nutrition services, Novato Unified School District, California): Menu inspiration comes from many different sources. One example is Meatless Monday. We have always offered vegetarian entrées throughout the week on our menu, but we have never taken one entire day and made it meatless. I thought Meatless Monday was a clever idea that also allowed us to educate our students on not only their health but also the health of the environment.
Patricia Martinez (director of quality assurance, San Antonio Independent School District, Texas): Our inspiration for the menus comes from food shows that we attend where students are invited to participate and sample all of the foods. They fill out surveys and those results are posted. We also test a lot of the products with our students. We send out all of the different samples to different schools in the four quadrants of our district, which helps give us the different opinions from the students.
Wanda Grant (Palm Springs Unified School District, California): The best place for menu inspiration is to go to our customers. A student survey of what they like and don’t like will give us great insight. In addition we rely on the manufactures, brokers and distributors to let us know what is hot and selling the most.
Dianne Wortz (project manager, St. Paul School District, Minnesota): One source of inspiration is our diverse student population. This has resulted in menu items such as Hmong Beef Fried Rice, Chicken Suqaar (Somali) and Buffalo Wild Rice Casserole (Native American).
Catherine A. Brown-Giza, R.D. (food & nutrition director, Chandler Unified School District #80, California): My staff and I are always on the lookout for new menu ideas from our local restaurants, family, friends and, of course, our kids. I find sometimes if my six-year-old is excited about something I try it out at school. We are currently rolling out a line of soups for our program, meat-based, vegetarian and vegan. A minestrone soup was my son’s idea. It's a vegan recipe and we serve it with spinach rotini.
Jeff Mills (executive director of food and nutrition services for the District of Columbia Public Schools): I usually get menu inspiration by looking at menus of chefs I am inspired by or by dining out. Since we focus so much on local, seasonal foods and seasonal menus are one of the primary trends in the DC dining scene, I don’t have to go far for inspiration. On occasion, I have approached DC chefs directly to come up with simple, appetizing recipes for an ingredient (salmon comes to mind). We then hold taste tests with students for the new menu items and incorporate what is popular into the menu.
Leah Schmidt (director of nutrition services, Hickman Mills C-1 Schools, Kansas City, Mo.): I am constantly looking everywhere for new ideas: SNA and industry food shows, magazines, cookbooks, Food Network, Internet and friends and co-workers. I am a Facebook friend with several local chefs and I even work part time at the Culinary Center of Kansas City where I assist chefs in teaching cooking classes. Last year we developed three recipes with the help of a group of 6th and 7th graders for the Recipes for Healthy Kids Challenge.
Jennifer LeBarre (director, Oakland Unified School District, California): I get inspiration from a lot of places: magazines, cookbooks, our employees, other school districts, the list goes on. The challenge is scaling these recipes up for our needs. Taking a recipe meant to serve six and getting up to 3,000, the minimum servings from one of our central kitchens, is a tough thing to do.
How have you jazzed up your menus in the last year?
Jeff Mills (executive director of food and nutrition services for the District of Columbia Public Schools): This year we are also featuring international menus four times over the course of the year. Our menu planning for our international days begins with the sponsoring embassies. Later, DCPS foodservice workers refine the menus to make them workable in a school cafeteria environment. We are hoping that the student reaction to the international menus will inspire us to incorporate techniques or items from the menu into our regular rotation. You can see what’s on the menu for Nordic Food Day, our first international day, here.
This year we’ve worked hard to improve our menus and give students new options, such as shrimp and grits and panko-crusted pollock. We’ve really been excited by how we’ve seen the students take to fish, which, prior to last year, had been off the menu for five years. We’ve spent a lot of time developing new fish and seafood menu items. As an example, we started doing fish tacos this year, which have been a major success. I was in Denver a few months ago for a conference and toured the plant where Chipotle gets its beans. At the plant, I tasted a spicy green sauce I thought would be perfect. So, over the summer we worked it out to be able to purchase the sauce in large quantities and now it serves as a perfect complement to our fish tacos.
Wanda Grant (Palm Springs Unified School District, California): The biggest change in our menus is the variety of the fruits and vegetables. We have always had a fresh fruit or vegetable available daily, but now we have up to five different choices daily. The most popular entrée still remains the spicy chicken sandwich, but pizza, cheeseburgers, burritos and rice bowls are here to stay for quite a while.
Dani Sheffield (executive director, Aldine Independent School District, Texas): We have made a commitment to have flavor first in our menus. They feature more fresh choices and seasonings including low sodium. All salads have been revised to include leafy romaine and spinach combinations as a base. Five salad choices are featured weekly including seasonal choices with fruit. New salads will be introduced throughout the year.
An oatmeal and yogurt bar is offered one day a week in all secondary schools and features toppings such as dried cranberries, walnuts, blueberries, diced apples, etc.
Fresh toppings for already-favorite menu items like Fiesta Taco Salads include homemade corn salsa and pico de gallo. Pasta bowls include fresh toppings such as mushrooms, green pepper, olives, zucchini, etc.
Leah Schmidt (director of nutrition services, Hickman Mills C-1 Schools, Kansas City, Mo.): This year we have added a turkey burger, a baked pasta dish, teriyaki beef fingers, a lasagna roll and Asian rice with veggies. We have changed our daily chef salads from plain iceberg to a romaine mix. Last year we added a daily vegetarian bean and rice option that consists of lime cilantro brown rice and black, pinto or great northern beans, and a new spinach salad with cucumbers, mandarin oranges and orange vinegar dressing.
Jennifer LeBarre (director, Oakland Unified School District, California): We’ve added new items like chicken and waffles for our breakfast for lunch menu, which was inspired by a local restaurant. We also are taking our cues from the restaurant trends by adding savory grits as a side dish for our elementary lunch menu. We are also moving away from premade and prepackaged as much as possible, including making our own pizzas using a whole-grain crust. This year we are adding Vietnamese pho soup and sandwiches to our middle school lunch menus.
|
Many people report various descriptions for heavy legs. Initially I am covering the achy, sore, or tired feelings that have only physical contributors to the condition, such as sitting at a desk all day (not medical conditions).
Sitting for hours can cause poor circulation which is a major cause of the heavy legs syndrome and if there no underlying medical condition and the feeling worsens when walking upstairs, then curiously enough, you might like to look at your diet for clues.
Heavy legs can be due to the quadriceps and hamstrings, but since the upstairs movement initially engages the quadriceps muscles, we can look at the small intestine. This is because traditionally in Kinesiology, the quadriceps are governed by the small intestine meridian. You may already know that I am a bit of a fan of Applied Kinesiology, I have had no personal training, but simply report my findings from my own experiences with practitioners.
Even in people who have no problems with heavy legs, the quadriceps can still be impaired as they are such a large group of muscles.
Foods that strengthen the quadriceps are yeast, Vitamin B, liver and spinach. You could try eggs too, but try to eliminate wheat for a while and see if the condition improves. It never fails to amaze me how the simple leg raise can show people in very basic ways how food can affect the body.
Simply lie on the floor and raise your leg, then lower it. Take a piece of bread and press it against your jaw, raise your leg again and lower it. Can you detect a heavier feeling with the bread against your jaw? In people with gluten or wheat sensitivity, quite often the leg will feel harder to lift. It is obviously a very basic test, but could be the catalyst to major improvements in your health and wellbeing, if you take it further and get professional testing.
If you are affected by wheat, try rubbing around the bottom of your ribcage and either side of the spine, just below the bottom of the shoulder blades. There are lymph glands there that relate to the quadriceps.
Look at your shoes, are they comfortable and allow your feet to breathe? Or do they compress them so much that you can see a visible bulging of the top of your feet, creeping over your shoes at the end of the day? Some women’s shoes are so rigid and unforgiving that they do not allow for the natural adjustment in size of the feet throughout the day and can inhibit the circulation. Leather shoes are better than synthetic ones – with a low heel. Try insoles with an arch support too.
Exercise is a must to help prevent heavy legs. The movement of the muscles helps to move the blood around, encourages the veins to open up – bringing fresh oxygenated blood to the muscles and taking away the old. As the legs get the full brunt of gravity, unlike the upper regions of the body, pressure can build up in the tissues and result in the restriction of oxygen reaching the leg muscles. Move around as often as you can during the day especially if you suffer with cold feet, as exercise will help get the circulation going.
You might like to try a yoga pose where you lie on the floor for 10 minutes or so, with your legs resting up the wall. This can help decrease the collection of lymph in the legs and should make you heavy legs feel lighter. Don’t do this if you suffer with glaucoma and some ladies may not be advised to do this during menstruation. In bed, you could try sleeping with a pillow under your feet, if you have no time to put your feet up before bedtime.
|
Smith, 43, moved to Oregon this week from Chicago, where she was vice president of animal care at the Brookfield Zoo. She and her husband, Darryl, found a home in Lake Oswego, and they're settling in with their daughters, 8 and 11, and their beagle, Clancy.
Smith will have her work cut out for her. Portland's is the oldest zoo west of the Mississippi, Oregon's No. 1 paid tourist attraction, and in the early stages of $125 million worth of improvements, thanks to a bond measure voters passed in 2008. It has an annual operating budget of more than $31 million and a staff of 150 to 300, depending on the season.
Metro, which operates the zoo, selected Smith in December to replace Tony Vecchio, who left Oregon to take a zoo directorship in Florida. She is an Arizona State University graduate, with a masters degree from Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee, Wis.
Question: Why did you want to take the helm at the Oregon Zoo?
Answer: The Oregon Zoo has been a zoo I've always admired from afar. They've always been very active in local conservation initiatives, like captive breeding of pygmy rabbits and California condors. Conservation is a passion of mine, so it's a good fit.
Plus, it's a beautiful facility. I wanted a zoo in a nice location, and one that had great community support, and a zoo that had the backing of its governing authority. The Oregon Zoo has all that. I've always admired their elephant program, and the zoo has always been a leader in animal welfare initiatives, and that's a huge passion of mine, too.
Q: Where do you see room for improvement?
A: I think in any zoo there is always room for improvement. The Oregon Zoo has always been a leader in animal welfare initiatives. I'd like to keep working on that. And, though I've always admired the elephant program here, I'd like us to keep working on making the elephant facility top-of-the-line.
Q: What's Job 1?
A: We have an Association of Zoos and Aquariums' accreditation coming up this summer, so I need to know the facility inside and out. I want to understand how this zoo works, get to know our stakeholders and what opportunities are out there to help us draft a road map going forward.
Q: Describe your leadership style.
A: I like to have people around me who are very qualified to do their jobs – people who run well on their own. I like to manage people in a way that amplifies their strengths. I'm very results-oriented. I'd like to see our plan executed and see everybody accomplish what they want to accomplish. I listen. I admit when I'm wrong. And I want the people on my staff to accomplish what they want in their careers.
Q: I've heard you described as a true conservationist. What or who influenced your conservation ethic, and how do you expect that ethic to influence the zoo's goals and standards?
A: What inspired my conservation ethic goes back to when I was 12. I always loved animals, and growing up in Arizona, I was always out in the desert looking at lizards and collecting bugs. But around that age, I read about red wolves and whooping cranes, two species in trouble. I thought, "These animals really need our help."
That was a moment when I really understood: Humans have a huge impact on the lives of these animals. If we don't do something we're going to lose them.
At the Milwaukee County Zoo, we were involved with the International Crane Foundation, and we took in a crane that had been injured in the wild. I held that crane while we were repairing its wing and it was unbelievable – a highlight of my life. This was the species that inspired my entire career. Now, whooping cranes aren't out of the woods, but they're around.
I don't ever want to give lip service to conservation or animal welfare. You have to take action. You have to be committed. To me, making a difference is significant. You have to be in it for the long haul and I am really committed to that. If you save one species or one habitat, then you've done something.
Q: Do you expect the zoo to become more focused on species native to the Pacific Northwest? And if so, can a zoo survive financially without the draw of such charismatic megafauna as elephants and lions?
A: I think you have to have a balance. Native species need our help. But there's also the global perspective of making people aware of everything that's going on in the world – elephants and polar bears, and the loss of their habitats. Your portfolio, conservation-wise, has to be balanced. You can't just have one or the other and be a strong leading presence.
In zoos, you have to always be ready to react to opportunities. One species I worked with in Milwaukee was the piping plover. We had a few in zoos, but they weren't well suited to zoos. So our zoo, in partnership with other zoos, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, worked on the plovers' wild habitat. It did a lot of good for the animals.
You have to look at your facility, and at your staff, and ask, "What are we strong in? How can we capitalize on that?" Then use those strengths to really make a difference.
Q: What's the status of finding land for and building an off-site elephant center? Has progress been made, and is there a timeline for that project?
A: We'll develop a master plan for all the bond projects. I'm a big supporter of an off-site elephant center. It's a necessary step.
Q: The zoo has had some problems with fiscal oversight of big projects in recent years. How do you plan to ensure that those funded by the 2008 bond measure stay on track and on budget?
A: I come in with a lot of strength in that area. I had a lot of project management experience at the Brookfied Zoo, and those projects came in on time and on budget. Having a plan is important. So is transparency. I intend to show everybody where we are – to show progress as we go, so nothing is a surprise. I plan on constant oversight. And Metro leadership is committed to being transparent in fulfilling the vision of the voters.
Q: Part of your job will involve persuading donors to be generous. What's your strategy for that in these tough economic times?
A: The great thing about the Oregon Zoo is that it's full of passionate people. You need to show your supporters those passions, show your strengths, and also show that you're accountable. It's also important to be an open book. That's how you get donors to trust you. They want to be part of a great thing and the Oregon Zoo is a great thing. I expect this zoo to be a world leader.
Q: Animal rights groups have lots of complaints about zoos, including this one. Have their campaigns harmed or helped zoo animals, and what do you expect their influence will be in the future?
A: As a zoo, we do what we do well. We have things we want to do better. We take excellent care of our animals. I intend to make sure our zoo continues to look for better ways.
The animal-rights groups have some impact. They have a loud voice and I respect their opinion. Some things they say have validity. When they do, I say, "Let's take care of that."
However, there also are times they may be misinformed, and I feel it's important to say, "Let's make it clear what is the truth and provide accurate information to our public."
As long as we're all talking about doing better for the animals, that's a great thing. We're really on the same train.
Now, some organizations appear to be anti-zoo, and I disagree with them. I got into this business to make animals' lives better and to bring their stories to our visitors. That's what I'm here to do. There is nothing like seeing a kid jumping up and down with excitement when they see a live animal, such as an elephant or a lion.
|
The history of Wakefield is rich and varied, and well worth taking time to explore in the city museum where you can learn all about the development of the Wakefield since Roman times, its heritage and social history. Displays depict the life of the city throughout the Yorkshire's various stages of occupations, bringing you right up to present day times. The museum gives you a real "feel" for the warmth and flavour of what is one of Yorkshire's oldest cities.
Wakefield's skyline is dominated by the graceful spire of its 14th century cathedral, at 247 feet this is the tallest in Yorkshire. The cathedral-church of All Saints stands majestically on a green rise in a prominent city centre position where the old streets of Kirkgate, Westgate, Warrengate and Northgate meet. The church, completed in 1329 has a fascinating history, it is believed to have been erected on a spot where a Roman church once stood, was pulled down and rebuilt in the 15th century, shows alterations from the 19th century (its spire is an addition of 1861) and later alterations carried out during the recent past 20th century.
All Saint's is mainly Perpendicular, treasures include a rood screen of 1635, a font of 1660, choir stalls with fine misericords, and an 18th century pulpit and organ case. The church shows many fine monuments, one of the most notable dates from 1714, this is highly carved with figures. There is also a 14th century Chantry Chapel, one of only four in the country. This can be found topping a buttress on a bridge over the River Calder.
Historically, the old town settled on a hill above the lovely Calder Valley, with the river flowing beneath. It is perhaps this hill-side location which gives Wakefield its spectacular sky-line, Wakefield builders have always been fond of towers and turrets!
Today, the face of the city is greatly changed, the mills and clog image has long disappeared, the miners strike of the 1980's finally put an end to the prosperous coal-mining era. The old Victorian slum cottages have been pulled down and replaced with smart new housing estates with shops and good facilities.
The city centre offers traffic free zones for shopping, the wide High Street is made decorative with tubs of flowers and clipped trees; there is a lively indoor market and plenty of individual shops as well as all the usual "High Street" retail stores.
Pugneys Park offers a beautiful place to relax, this is purely a place for leisure and pleasure, you can part-take of a range of activities or simply enjoy the fresh air, autumnal colours and wildlife, including Canadian Geese.
Wakefield has no shortage of cultural attractions, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park arguably houses one of Europe's foremost outdoor collection of sculpture, Sandal Castle, which was to have been the Duke of York's stronghold in the North, the town centre Art Gallery and Museum, and the city is home to England's impressive National Coal Mining Museum.
Numerous sport centres offer activities for all ages. Sport mostly focus's on Rugby League and Racing from nearby Pontefract. There is a choice of theatre and cinema, plenty of pubs, particularly in Westgate, known for the famous "Westgate Run" a popular pub crawl that has its own website.
Recently Wakefield has revived what is known as the Wakefield Cycle, a collection of 14th century mystery plays. These are performed as part of the summertime festivities celebrating the religious festival of Corpus Christi, and have proved to be immensely popular.
From Wakefield there is easy access to Leeds, Bradford, Dewsbury and the Roman City of York.
The crumbling, naked ruins of Sandal Castle are now owned by Wakefield council, and what an inspired choice of centre-piece they.....
This attractive country park offers a rich and varied country landscape, it is dominated by a large lake ringed by numerous trees.....
This is an exciting, fascinating tourist attraction that is both fun and thought provoking for all the family. It has fast.....
This is a stunning house set in magical grounds. It began life hundreds of years ago but the oldest part of the house we see.....
|
Your lawn is growing at its fastest pace of the year. And, whether it’s a small patch of grass or something expansive, you’d probably like to do all that you can to keep it happy and vigorous. To that end, I’ve assembled some facts and fallacies of summertime lawn care here in North Texas. I think you’ll find them of use over the upcoming months.• Late May is the premier time of the year to be starting new turf. I suppose many people might be confusing new lawn grass plantings with vegetables when they ask “Is it too late to start new sod or grass seed?” The answer is a resounding no, because all of our common North Texas turf grasses are what is called “warm-season” grasses.
That means that their most active growth comes in the warmest months. May bridges the gap. The soil has warmed sufficiently that new grass will take root and start growing immediately, but it’s still cool enough (for a short while longer) that you won’t have to water the new grass twice daily as it gets started.• Buffalo grass is not more drought-resistant than Bermuda. While it may survive life on the Great Plains, even in drought, buffalo grass under those conditions certainly doesn’t look like a home lawn. When we try to water it, if only occasionally to keep it at least modestly green, buffalo grass will give way to Bermuda.
It happens to almost every buffalo grass lawn in an urban setting. And because Bermuda is equally drought-tolerant to buffalo grass, you might as well go with Bermuda from the outset — you’ll have it eventually.• There is no grass that will grow in heavy shade. Forget that. You’re just going to waste a lot of money in a hurry if you succumb to the come-ons that promise that some new “miracle” grass will grow in total shade. St. Augustine is still our most shade-tolerant grass, and even it has to have four to six hours of bright, direct sunlight daily to hold its own and grow at least modestly.
If you see balding spots in St. Augustine, and especially if they’re near tree trunks and other places that are the shadiest parts of your yard, planting more grass of any kind will not solve the problem. You’ll have to remove one or two low branches or change to a shade-tolerant ground cover.
Thinning the trees is only a temporary fix, and it’s very short-term in most cases.• Just as there are grasses that are given extreme claims, so are there lawn care products that are under-proven and over-promoted. They claim to activate the soil or loosen the clay, and it’s done in the name of better lawn and landscape root growth. These sprinkle-on fixes are virtually useless.
Oh, if only our state would only require proof of these claims before these things could be sold. But sold they are, to the tune of millions of dollars every year.
If the product claims to improve lawn and landscape growth, yet it doesn’t list any nutritional ingredients on its label (as a true fertilizer is required to do), it’s probably suspect. Look for test data from university research — not from private labs and personal testimonials.
If you can’t find good, repeatable research, and if the claims are weak, just move on. Maybe merchants will get the idea as the dust starts to collect. Your grass won’t grow any better when you waste good money on these snake oils.• Water curtailments? Yeah. Probably. But they may teach us a very important lesson. That’s because North Texans have been wasting water on turf grasses for decades. There are two basic principles that will carry you far. Wait until the soil begins to feel dry to your fingertips before you run the sprinklers, and then, when you do water, water thoroughly to encourage deep roots.
Your lawn can survive once-a-week irrigation in water shortage emergencies, even in 100-degree weather. The grass may not be lush, but it will survive to live in another, more favorable season. And if you have a sprinkler system, but if you haven’t installed a “smart” controller just yet, that purchase alone could save you hundreds of dollars each year. They’re amazing.• Raising the lawn mower blade by one or two settings does not help the grass survive the summer in Texas. Repeat: it does not help. That’s a commonly held fallacy. Tall grass quickly becomes weak grass. Grass blades start to grow vertically as they seek out the sunlight. Sun hits the exposed soil, drying it out more quickly, and weeds begin to move into the weakened turf.
Keep mowing your lawn at the recommended height.
It’s not easy being a lawn here in North Texas in summertime, but lawns can survive. They represent significant investments in our home properties, so it’s in your best interest to keep things perking along at least at a modest pace. Thinking positive thoughts about rain can’t hurt, either.
|
Coahuila State is located in the
middle of the northern border of Mexico and is entirely landlocked.
It is bounded on the
north by the USA, on the east by Nuevo
Leon, on the south by San Luis Potos� and Zacatecas, on the
northeast by Durango, and on the west by Chihuahua. It has an area of 150,395 sq km (58,068
sq mi), which is third place in size among the states of Mexico, and a population of
approximately 2'298,070 inhabitants.
There are at least two theories about the
origin of its name. Some assert that the word came from the name from an Indian tribe that
lived in the region. Others say that it came from the Nahuatl word
"Coatlhilana", which means "Flying snake" or "Creeping
Coahuila has four types
of climate: Depending on the region, diverse climates
exist throughout the state. With an average temperature 25�C (77�F) and an
annual precipitation of 40 mm (1-3/4 in,), the climate for the Southeastern
region varies from dry to semi-dry and from mild to warm. In the Laguna
region, the climate is mostly dry with some semi-dry and mild like the
Jimulco mountain ranges.
In the Central Region, a semi-dry and warm climate
predominates. In the Northern area, the climate is dry and and warm.
|
I recently finished a book that had an interesting story about a Golem.
The book was in my estimation only a so so story but the subject is fascinating.
Today in Prague it is an entire business and the statues of Golems can be seen everywhere but I can imagine that the tales of the Golem were terrifying at one time. The idea of making a human from mud has shades of the Frankenstein tale.
Both the story of Frankenstein and the legend of the Golem have the same core. How is man so full of himself that he can do what only God should be able to do? In our age of technology will robots become the Golems of modern times? How will technology affect how we view life and ourselves. There is a lot to think about I think in this tale so I am sharing a bit of what I have found.
Here is some research from the internet.
In Jewish tradition, the golem is most widely known as an artificial creature created by magic, often to serve its creator. The word “golem” appears only once in the Bible (Psalms139:16). In Hebrew, “golem” stands for “shapeless mass.” The Talmud uses the word as “unformed” or “imperfect” and according to Talmudic legend, Adam is called “golem,” meaning “body without a soul” (Sanhedrin 38b) for the first 12 hours of his existence. The golem appears in other places in the Talmud as well. One legend says the prophet Jeremiah made a golem However, some mystics believe the creation of a golem has symbolic meaning only, like a spiritual experience following a religious rite.
The Sefer Yezirah (“Book of Creation”), often referred to as a guide to magical usage by some Western European Jews in the Middle Ages, contains instructions on how to make a golem. Several rabbis, in their commentaries on Sefer Yezirah have come up with different understandings of the directions on how to make a golem. Most versions include shaping the golem into a figure resembling a human being and using God’s name to bring him to life, since God is the ultimate creator of life..
According to one story, to make a golem come alive, one would shape it out of soil, and then walk or dance around it saying combination of letters from the alphabet and the secret name of God. To “kill” the golem, its creators would walk in the opposite direction saying and making the order of the words backwards.
Other sources say once the golem had been physically made one needed to write the letters aleph, mem, tav, which is emet and means “truth,” on the golem’s forehead and the golem would come alive. Erase the aleph and you are left with mem and tav, which is met, meaning “death.”
Another way to bring a golem to life was to write God’s name on parchment and stick it on the golem’s arm or in his mouth. One would remove it to stop the golem.
Often in Ashkenazi Hasidic lore, the golem would come to life and serve his creators by doing tasks assigned to him. The most well-known story of the golem is connected to Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the Maharal of Prague (1513-1609). It was said that he created a golem out of clay to protect the Jewish community from Blood Libel and to help out doing physical labor, since golems are very strong. Another version says it was close to Easter, in the spring of 1580 and a Jew-hating priest was trying to incite the Christians against the Jews. So the golem protected the community during the Easter season. Both versions recall the golem running amok and threatening innocent lives, so Rabbi Loew removed the Divine Name, rendering the golem lifeless. A separate account has the golem going mad and running away. Several sources attribute the story to Rabbi Elijah of Chelm, saying Rabbi Loew, one of the most outstanding Jewish scholars of the sixteenth century who wrote numerous books on Jewish law, philosophy, and morality, would have actually opposed the creation of the Golem.
It seems that this tale is cautioning us that no matter how brilliant and wise we can over reach ourselves when we try to imitate God. The creation of life is meant for the divine not for the every day human.
|
Communications and Public Relations Intern
With the settling-in of the New Year comes a stream of statistics from 2012 covering every social issue imaginable. It was when I was surfing the Three Rivers Community Foundation Pinterest site that I came across a graphic titled “Equal Education Unequal Pay” depicting the wage gap as of 2012. I’ve always understood the wage gap as women making less money than men – to be more specific, about 77 cents on the dollar for white women, 69 cents for Black women, and a dismal 57 cents for Hispanic women – but the reality of this issue is becoming all too clear as the date of my graduation from college looms nearer and my list recording job applications grows longer. How is it that in 2013, fifty years after John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, as a woman, I’m still statistically projected to make significantly less money than my male peers?
According to the National Committee of Pay Equity, the wage gap has been closing since 1963 at a rate of half a cent per year. My initial question that I asked myself through clenched teeth after being overcome with disbelief and rage was, why is this still happening? According to the group WAGE (Women Are Getting Equal), “The wage gap is the result of a variety of forms of sex discrimination in the workplace, including discrimination in hiring, promotion and pay, sexual harassment, occupational segregation, bias against mothers, and other ways in which women workers and women’s work are undervalued.” They go on to explain that, first, women are sometimes discriminated against just for being women. Second, sexual harassment causes women to leave their jobs or feel too emotionally paralyzed to ask for a promotion, raise, or even a transfer. Occupational segregation means that women dominate fields that are considered “women’s work” and are paid less for these jobs based on the dubious rationale that women are worth less than men. In terms of motherhood, many mothers feel undervalued after returning from maternity leave, and are treated as if becoming a mother somehow made them completely incapable of handling tasks they were responsible for pre-child birth. Lastly, women are blocked from promotions or their ideas are criticized (even though if a man proposed the same idea they would be taken seriously) because of past discriminatory employment practices, networks of powerful men that help other men, and stereotypical assumptions about gender roles that value men’s “strength” and devalue women’s nurturing and docile tendencies.
One of the worst things about the wage gap is that it continues to exist even though women’s education levels are quickly surpassing men’s. In 2012 entry-level jobs, men made an average of $7,600 more than women despite the fact that women make up more than half the college population and achieve higher GPAs than their male competitors. Based on these statistics, in a 40-year career, women will miss out on $431,000 due to the wage gap and discriminatory practices, even though they outperform men academically. While these general statistics do not reflect crucial categories such as choice of major or job fields accounted for, and it’s also important to always question all statistics, the issue is clear: a wage gaps exists, it’s closing too slowly, and women as a whole are paying the price, despite academic growth, due partly to individual discriminatory acts and large-scale institutional discrimination.
While processing all of this information, I began to wonder about how women can empower themselves to close the wage gap faster than people’s opinions on women evolve into complete equality. Since it’s been fifty years and counting, I wonder if there are steps individuals can take to make sure they are not a product of overarching unfairness. Upon further research, I found that there are a number of organizations that are training women on how to improve their stance in the working world. For starters, often it’s intimidating to ask for a raise, and women more often then not avoid doing it or present themselves in a nervous, non-confident manner. It’s assumed that negotiating or taking anything other than the initial offer is unladylike or overly zealous. A study from Carnegie Mellon revealed that women are only 25% as likely as men to negotiate a pay raise. In my many recent discussions about job searches and interviews, I’ve never even thought to ask about how to ask for a raise or how to talk about a starting salary with future employers. WAGE and the AAUW are just two organizations that began hosting workshops where they teach women how to confidently negotiate starting salaries, raises, and promotions in an informed manner. Young women learn to never settle for the first number, use ranges instead of exact numbers, and always leave room for later increases or edits to a salary or job title.
|
newsclips -- Newsclips for March 10, 2011 Posted: 10 Mar 2011 13:08:35
California Air Resources Board News Clips for March 10, 2011. This is a service of the California Air Resources Board’s Office of Communications. You may need to sign in or register with individual websites to view some of the following news articles. AIR POLLUTION In Pinedale, Wyo., Residents Adjust to Air Pollution. Pinedale, Wyo. — Strong sun, not too much wind, a good thick snow pack: sounds like a perfect late winter’s day in a remote rural Western valley rimmed by snaggle-topped mountains. But that has also been the stage set for the worst ozone pollution event here in three years — in one of the places people might least expect. Posted. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/us/10smog.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=air%20pollution&st=cse As Ozone Decision Looms, EPA Finds Stronger Science. Recent studies suggest that smog-filled air kills more people and causes more breathing problems than previously thought, U.S. EPA scientists say in a new draft paper, but due to a procedural twist, the findings can't be taken into account as Administrator Lisa Jackson decides whether to set stricter limits than the George W. Bush administration chose in 2008. The new research provides stronger evidence that short-term spikes in ground-level ozone can cause premature death, according to the 996-page scientific assessment, which was released late Friday. Posted. http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/03/09/09greenwire-as-ozone-decision-looms-epa-finds-stronger-sci-32416.html?pagewanted=print Health Groups Gird For Fight Over EPA's Power-Plant Toxics Rules. With the Obama administration required to put its plan for reducing toxic air pollution from coal-fired power plants on the table a week from today, the American Lung Association and other public health groups have started an early push to explain why U.S. EPA shouldn't flinch on the long-delayed rules. Posted. http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/03/09/09greenwire-health-groups-gird-for-fight-over-epas-power-p-48491.html?scp=3&sq=air%20pollution&st=cse COACHELLA VALLEY: Environmental Tour Takes In Smelly Problems. From sewage-plagued backyards to a sludge mountain to fuel-contaminated soil piles, government officials got repeated environmental reality checks Wednesday during a bus tour of Mecca and nearby communities in the Coachella Valley. Posted. http://www.pe.com/localnews/stories/PE_News_Local_D_mecca10.2198281.html The Midas Touch, The Midas Effect. If politics make for great live theater, then a Feb. 22 hearing held in Sacramento about the controversial strawberry fumigant methyl iodide might have been scripted by Franz Kafka. And much like a Kafka tale, there are stories behind stories. The characters include a state pesticide department that ignored its own scientists’ warnings; the department’s hired expert and his band of scientific brothers whom methyl iodide’s manufacturer claims went rogue and exceeded the scope of their established mission; a produce industry worth billions of dollars to the state economy; and the private-equity backed maker of the product they call MIDAS, whose company tagline reads “Bold, Agile and Customer Driven.” Posted. http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/news/2011/mar/10/midas-touch-midas-effect/ CLIMATE CHANGE More Americans Believe In Climate Change Than In Global Warming. A new study conducted by researchers from the University of Michigan, show that more Americans believe in "climate change" than in "global warming." The study, which will see its results published in an upcoming issue of the journal Public Opinion Quarterly, surveyed 2,267 adult Americans asking them a simple question regarding the issue of climate change/global warming. Fifty percent of those surveyed were given the term "global warming" while the other fifty percent were given the term "climate change." Posted. http://www.reuters.com/assets/print?aid=US337086819720110310 Climate Researchers: Russian Heat Wave Was Natural. Washington (AP) — Global warming isn't directly to blame for last summer's deadly — and extraordinary — heat wave in Russia, researchers said in a report Wednesday that came with a climate warning. "We may be on the cusp of a period in which the probability of such events increases rapidly, due primarily to the influence of projected increases in greenhouse gas concentrations," said the team led by Randall Dole and Martin Hoerling of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Posted. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hZPKwaQBlcnsy6-pDkSwQByMVnfA?docId=1760476bb7e64a81aa13f7025a3d9dc5 New Planning Process Starts For National Forests. A new national forest planning process will be unveiled at meetings in Sacramento County and Redding. For generations, forest planning has been largely focused on logging and resource management. But growing concern about recreation, wildlife and climate change have added new imperatives. Posted. http://www.modbee.com/2011/03/10/1592167/new-planning-process-starts-for.html Global Carbon Capture Projects, Part Of A $40 Billion Effort, Increased In 2010. The number of global carbon capture projects surged 10 percent last year with financial help from the U.S. government and other industrialized countries, a new study finds. A ripple effect from President Obama's 2009 stimulus package, combined with similar economic jolt packages in other countries, helped boost the number of active or planned projects last year to 234, a net increase of 21 initiatives, according to the sweeping study from the Global CCS Institute. Posted. http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2011/03/10/7 GOP Bill Handcuffing EPA To Win First Victory Today. While the House approved sweeping cap-and-trade climate legislation last Congress, a key House subcommittee today is expected to approve by a wide margin a bill to permanently strip U.S. EPA of its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, oil refineries and other major stationary sources. It is unclear whether the Energy and Power Subcommittee vote will break down strictly along party lines or whether one or more Democrats will vote for H.R. 910 from Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.). Posted. http://www.eenews.net/EEDaily/print/2011/03/10/2 House Panel Approves Bill Stripping EPA Regulatory Power. A bill to strip U.S. EPA of its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions cleared its first hurdle today on the road to likely House passage. The House Energy and Power Subcommittee approved a bill by Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), which would prevent EPA from moving ahead with current and planned climate regulations for electric utilities, oil refineries and other large stationary emitters. The measure passed on a voice vote, apparently along party lines. Posted. http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/print/2011/03/10/1 Waxman Holds Out Hope To Craft Bipartisan Emissions Bill. Even as Republicans plan to push a bill through a House subcommittee tomorrow to limit U.S. EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, Energy and Commerce ranking member Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) continues to float the idea of the GOP and Democrats working together on a bipartisan measure that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Waxman has said repeatedly in recent days that he is willing to meet with Republicans "without preconditions" to craft a bill that both sides could agree on that would include incentives for low-carbon energy projects and other initiatives. Posted. http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/print/2011/03/09/1 FUELS Corn Ethanol Tax Credit Under Attack. Ethanol is once again in the hot seat. Dueling bills that would trim government support for the ethanol industry were introduced in the Senate yesterday. Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.) offered a bipartisan bill yesterday morning that would eliminate the 45-cent tax credit paid to blenders for each gallon of fuel mixed with gasoline. Last night, however, California Democrat Dianne Feinstein introduced competing legislation that would similarly slash the 45-cent tax credit for corn-based ethanol, but would carve out an exemption for ethanol made from substances like plant waste or sugar cane. Posted. http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2011/03/10/4 Monsanto Invests In Sapphire; Goes Hunting For Yield Traits In The Wild, Wild Wet. The news crossed the wires early enough yesterday to have spilled over a considerable portion of the twitterverse. Items like “Monsanto Backs Algae Startup Sapphire Energy,” and “Sapphire Energy Anticipates “Significant” Revenue Stream From Monsanto Alliance.” The New York Times led with “Agriculture and genetics giant Monsanto has made its bet on algae. On Tuesday Monsanto announced that it has made an equity investment in, and developed a partnership with, algae startup Sapphire Energy.” All of which bemused Sapphire Energy CEO Jason Pyle, who remarked “that’s not really what the collaboration is about.” Posted. http://biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2011/03/09/monsanto-invests-in-sapphire-goes-hunting-for-yield-traits-in-the-wild-wild-wet/ GREEN ENERGY U.K. Plans Incentives to Spur $7.2 Billion in Renewable Heat Programs. The U.K. government set out incentives aimed at spurring 4.5 billion pounds ($7.2 billion) of investment in renewable heating systems by 2020, the first program of its kind in the world. The Department of Energy and Climate Change said it would grant subsidies worth 860 million pounds for geothermal heat pumps, solar thermal plants and biomass boilers. The measures first will be targeted at 25,000 households by July, and the full program will be in place by October 2012. Posted. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2011-03-10/u-k-plans-incentives-to-spur-7-2-billion-in-renewable-heat-programs.html Solar Industry Has Strong Year. A new report by the Solar Energy Industries Association found that 2010 was a banner year for solar in the United States. The total size of the U.S. solar market -- which includes rooftop installations, hot water heating and utility scale projects -- grew from $3.6 billion in 2009 to $6 billion, a 67 percent increase. "Solar is growing quickly across the U.S. at the residential, commercial, and utility scale levels. It is powering and heating buildings in all 50 states, and using a variety of technologies to do so," states the executive summary of the report, which is scheduled to be released Thursday. Posted. http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_17580783 Offshore Wind Farms Can Generate High Costs And Maintenance Problems, Vestas CEO Warns. Houston -- The chief of Europe's largest wind power company advised that project developers in the United States should be cautious as they move to establish the nation's first offshore wind farms in the Northeast. Speaking to an audience of energy executives at this year's IHS CERA Week energy conference, Vestas Wind Systems CEO Ditlev Engel said he estimated offshore wind power can cost about twice as much as to build as compared to land-based systems. But what companies really have to fear is the weather. Posted. http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2011/03/10/6 Utilities, Growers Experimenting With 'Woody Grass' Coal Alternative. An Oregon utility company is working with growers in Morrow County to produce giant cane, a woody grass that it hopes can replace coal at a nearby coal power plant. Portland General Electric is contracting with growers in the area to produce between 100 and 250 acres of it, which would be used in a test burn at the Boardman Power Plant next year. But much still remains unknown about the fast-growing giant cane, including questions over its safety and whether enough can be grown to keep the power plant running. Posted. http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2011/03/10/10 With Spending Bills Dead, Clean Energy Supporters Brace Against Deeper Cuts. Competing plans to fund the government through September both flopped yesterday, ensuring that deeper cuts to existing programs, including perhaps clean energy portfolios, will be proposed to avoid a federal shutdown. The dueling Senate votes appear to show that lawmakers are unwilling to make large cuts totaling $61 billion as proposed by the House. It also reveals that the Democrats' target of $10 billion in reductions is too low. The yardage between those numbers will decrease, but it's unclear at what point agreement can be found. Posted. http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2011/03/10/1 Light Bulb Law Stokes Fury In Senate Hearing. Light bulbs sparked heated discussions this morning during a Senate legislative hearing on two energy efficiency bills. Republicans used the hearing in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to blast congressionally approved lighting efficiency standards and the Energy Department's implementation of them. At issue is a provision in a 2007 energy law that would phase out the sale of the most energy-hungry light bulbs over the next few years, starting at the end of this year. Posted. http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/print/2011/03/10/5 VEHICLES Bulli For You!! World’s First Van Returns. The Volkswagen bus, like no other car, stands for the spirit of freedom. It debuted over 60 years ago in 1950 with a contagiously simple design. Its internal Volkswagen code name was T1 for Transporter 1. The Germans called it the Bulli, and to Americans it was the Microbus. Posted. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/mar/10/bulli-for-you-worlds-first-van-returns/ 20 Electric Cars Will Hit The Road Today As Part Of Test Project. Los Angeles - A fleet of 20 electric cars will hit the roads today as part of a project to test how alternative fuel vehicles handle commuting and to locate possible benefits for Southland drivers. The research project -- sponsored by the Automobile Club of Southern California and Smart USA -- may determine roadside services for alternative- fuel and electric vehicles, Auto Club CEO Thomas McKenna was quoted as saying in a release. Posted. http://www.dailynews.com/fdcp?1299776796852 MISCELLANEOUS UC Davis Domes' Days Numbered As West Village Housing Takes Shape. At the University of California, Davis, a funky 1970s experiment in communal living is closing this year while a 21st century eco-friendly neighborhood is rising nearby. The student housing projects – one homegrown by hippies, the other built by developers – bookend the environmental movement's journey from counterculture to mainstream. Posted. http://www.modbee.com/2011/03/10/1592125/uc-davis-domes-days-numbered-as.html OPINION Australia's Carbon Warning for Obama. It turns out emissions restrictions do not grow more popular the more you try to pitch them. President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency is fighting a rear-guard action to accomplish via regulation what voters rejected via Congress: ruinously expensive restrictions on carbon emissions in the name of fighting "global warming." This is perhaps partly out of the administration's own convictions, but also because Mr. Obama knows that a large slice of his left-wing base is clamoring for such measures. Posted. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703453804576191712500363464.html GRAY: Clean Air Act’s Past Successes, Potential Pitfalls. The Environmental Protection Agency last week released the second prospective analysis of the costs and benefits of the 1990 Amendments to the Clean Air Act ("1990 CAAA"), ordered by Congress as part of those amendments. The benefits are nothing short of extraordinary, and deserve serious attention at a time of equally serious questions about existing EPA authority with respect to both carbon dioxide, or CO2, and health-related, traditional pollution. The headline numbers are $2 trillion in benefits (against $65 billion in costs) as of 2020 and 230,000 lives saved annually as of that date, with the majority of the benefits already realized. Posted. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/mar/8/gray-clean-air-act-past-success-potential-pitfalls/ In Defense of LEED. You may have already heard, but there's a lawsuit pending against the USGBC. The plaintiffs claim that they are "losing customers because USGBC's false advertisements mislead the consumer into believing that obtaining LEED certification incorporates construction techniques that achieve energy-efficiency." If you're looking for an article that jumps on that train, you're in the wrong place. I think this lawsuit is seriously misguided, and draws attention away from all of the positive consequences of the USGBC's work. Posted. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/09/idUS297849435320110309 Viewpoints: Clear-Cutting Forests Is Wrong Way For State To Lead On Climate Policy. California trees have changed my life. I first came to know them as a little girl hiking with my family, then as a seasonal waitress in Yosemite, and finally, as a ranger in Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park. Nowhere else in the world will you find dry, soothing afternoon winds, regular 80-degree days, loamy soft soil, abundant rivers, pristine alpine lakes and big, beautiful trees – sugar pines, firs, cedars, hemlocks, redwoods, sequoias and more. To walk among these giants is to walk into a living cathedral. Posted. http://www.sacbee.com/2011/03/10/v-print/3463428/viewpoints-clear-cutting-forests.html Crazy Weather: How It's Linked To Global Warming. The story leading up to the Super Bowl was whether it would happen at all. For the previous week, Dallas, along with the rest of the Midwest and Northeast, had been buried in a blizzard that dumped record amounts of snow, closing airports, clogging highways and causing rolling power blackouts. Commentators wondered sarcastically about what had happened to global warming. Actually, even if counter-intuitively, this major weather event was a confirmation that global warming is here, and it’s getting more serious all the time. Posted. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/mar/10/crazy-weathers-link-to-global-warming/ Go Green And Save Some Green With Solar Panels. Electricity is increasingly expensive. The primary reason is that the state has decreed that 33 percent of electrical power in California by the year 2020 will come from renewable sources. Unfortunately for those of us in Modesto and Turlock, hydroelectric power from large dams such as Don Pedro does not count toward this renewable requirement. Posted. http://www.modbee.com/2011/03/09/1591597/go-green-and-save-some-green-with.html BLOGS On Our Radar: E.P.A. Calls Foul Over Republican Gas Price Claims. In statements circulating on Capitol Hill, senior Republican leaders cast legislation blocking the Environmental Protection Agency from enforcing climate change regulations as action that would help slow the rise of gasoline prices. The E.P.A. calls the tactic deceptive. “Under the Clean Air Act, E.P.A. is developing a standard for currently unchecked carbon pollution from the largest polluting smokestacks,” an agency aide says. Posted. http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/on-our-radar-e-p-a-calls-foul-over-republican-gas-price-claims/ Ethanol Plant Is Switching to Butanol. High oil prices are generally bad news for American companies, but one, Gevo of Englewood, Colo., says that $100-a-barrel oil is opening up a niche. The company bought a factory in Luverne, Minn., that makes ethanol from corn. Ethanol replaces some petroleum but has only one main use, vehicle fuel, and it yields less energy per gallon than gasoline. Posted. http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/ethanol-plant-is-switching-to-butanol/ Climate Change Threatens Great Lakes. In its latest report on Great Lakes water quality, the International Joint Commission — a collaboration between the U.S. and Canadian governments — identifies the re-emergence of eutrophication in the lakes as its chief concern. Eutrophication is unchecked plant growth caused by the presence of excessive nutrients, such as nitrates and phosphorous, in the water. Because that growth can deplete the amount of oxygen in the water, eutrophication poses a major threat to the quality and viability of the Great Lakes' massive water store. So what causes it? Posted. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/green/detail?entry_id=84644
|
298 MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE vaginam or externally through the abdominal wall. Ballottement can be tried from the fourth to the seventh month, but the test fails if the amniotic fluid is scanty. In practised hands it is a sign of great value. 12. X-Ray Examination, — This is useful in the diagnosis of pregnancy after the sixteenth week when the centres of ossification have become well developed. The X-ray examination is not harmful to mother or foetus, as the exposure with the modern apparatus lasts only a few seconds. The X-rays are of great assistance particularly in a case of twins where one ovum is suspected to be bigger than the other and in cases of suspected hydatidiform rnole, pregnancy with fibroids, and foetal malformations. 13. The Biological Test. — From the above mentioned signs it is evident that before the sixteenth or eighteenth week there are no certain signs from which a medical man can give a definite opinion about the existence or otherwise of pregnancy. In such a case it is always a safe plan to wait till the definite signs develop or to perform a biological test devised by Aschheim and Zondek in 1928 for detecting pregnancy in its early stage. This test is popularly known as the Aschheim-Zondek test, and is based on the fact that in a pregnant woman an abnormal amount of the anterior- pituitary-like hormone of the chorionic villi is excreted in the urine, and that shortly after the puerperium this excessive excretion of the anterior- pituitary-like hormone stops. The presence of this hormone can be demonstrated by significant developmental changes in the sex organs of sexually immature female white mice, when small amounts of a pregnant woman's urine are injected subcutaneously. The ovaries are enlarged. The corpora lutea are formed and hsemorrhagic spots occur into the follicles. There are often swelling and hyperaemia of the uterus. The technique for performing the test is as follows : — Five sexually immature female white mice, three to four weeks old, and weighing from six to eight grammes, are inoculated twice daily for three days with the catheterized morning urine of the suspected case of pregnancy in quantities of 0.2 cc, 0.25 cc., 0.3 cc., 0.3 cc., 0.4 cc., and 0.4 cc., respectively. One hundred hours after the commencement of the test the mice are killed and the ovaries are inspected with a hand lens or with the naked eye. A positive reaction is characterized by the presence of corpora lutea and haemorrhages into the follicles of the enlarged ovaries. If the urine is turbid, it should be filtered and its reaction made slightly acid if it is not already so. One drop of trier esol to each 30 cc. of urine should be added if the specimen is not to be used at once or if it has to be sent by post.8 The Aschheim-Zondek test gives a positive reaction in 98 to 100 per cent of the cases of pregnancy. It is positive as early as ten to fourteen days after conception and two days after the first missed menstrual period. It remains positive throughout pregnancy and for a period of about seven days after the termination of pregnancy or after the death of the foetus. It also gives a positive reaction in ectopic gestation, hydatidiform mole, chorion- epifhelioma, and certain cases of malignant diseases. • The Friedman modification of this test can be carried out by injecting 7* to 10 cc. of the suspected morning urine into the marginal ear vein of a virgin female rabbit, 12 to 14 weeks old, and weighing not less than 4 pounds. Twenty-four to thirty hours later a positive reaction will be indicated by the presence of corpora lutea and corpora Laemorrhagica in the hypertrophied ovaries of the raHbit There wil abo be marked injection of the tttertte and ovfefecf. IwL $n. Jfei Res^ .July 1031, p. 230.
|
MARY CHAMOT belonged to that formidable pre-war generation of art historians and museum curators, of whom her friend and near contemporary Mary Woodall (sometime Director of Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery) was an outstanding example. Although they had much in common both in character and drive, their backgrounds could not have been more diverse. Mary Woodall came from the patrician mercantile dynasties of Birmingham, whereas Mary Chamot belonged to that now vanished Anglo-Russian colony of merchants and entrepreneurs who had settled in St Petersburg by the 1870s.
Mary Chamot's English-born father, Alfred Edward Chamot, was of French descent, her mother, Elisabeth (nee Grooten), of Dutch and German origins. He was an administrator of the Imperial Palace Gardens at Strelna, where Mary, his only child, grew up. It was a cosmopolitan household, and Mary learnt to speak English, French, Russian and German with enviable fluency, a not uncommon accomplishment for one of her milieu. She was educated privately, and began her fine art studies at Dimitry Nikolaivitch Kardowski's painting class at St Petersburg Academy (probably in 1915-16).
After the outbreak of the Revolution, Mary accompanied her parents to England, via Finland and Norway, in 1918, settling with relations in Yorkshire before coming to London. She continued her studies at the Slade School, gaining her Fine Art Diploma in 1922. Although talented as an artist, she earned her living as an occasional relief lecturer at the National Gallery (1922-24) and at the V & A Museum (1924-39), and as an Extension (extra-mural) lecturer for London University.
Her first book, English Medieval Enamels (1930), was a popular introduction to the subject: it was followed by Modern Painting in England (1937), and Painting in England from Hogarth to Whistler (1939); she also translated books and organised exhibitions. She wrote in an informed, pleasant and readily accessible style, qualities found in her articles and reviews for Apollo and Country Life; and her fluency and gift for popularising, in the best sense, served her well in preparing the brief guides to the Tate Gallery collections in the 1950s.
She served with the Allied Control Commission in Vienna for four years from 1945, where her linguistic skills were fully utilised, until in 1949 she was appointed Assistant Keeper (First Class) at the Tate Gallery. Here, she compiled the British School: a concise catalogue (1953) and, with Martin Butlin and myself, the two-volume Modern British School Catalogue (1964). She collaborated with Sir John Rothenstein on The Tate Gallery (1951), and produced the Early Works of JMW Turner (1965), an introductory essay to an artist whose work she particularly admired and which she had begun to catalogue before her retirement in 1965.
Her early days at the Slade had brought her a wide circle of artist friends and collectors, notably Stanley and Gilbert Spencer, the Carlines, Paul (Lord) Methuen, Edward Bawden and Jim Ede, who would visit her at the Tate. As her much more junior colleague, I was privileged to share an office with her for almost a decade, yet although gregarious, in many ways she was a very private person; it was a standing joke, however, that Mary had cousins and relations in every European city of note, not to mention North America. She, and 'Lulette' Gerebzov (with whom she shared a house in Kensington for many years), threw marvellously Russian parties.
She never lost her affection for Russia; in 1935 she organised an exhibition of Russian art, in 1963 she published Russian Painting and Sculpture, and she wrote the first monograph on her friend Natalie Goncharova, one of the leading pre-Revolution avant- garde artists and a famous stage designer, which appeared first in Paris (1972) and in an English edition in 1979. She had earlier contributed an essay to the Arts Council's Larionov and Goncharova retrospective exhibition in 1961.
If not greatly blessed with external beauty, Mary Chamot had grace of character and an indomitable spirit. She could be exceedingly kind and generous, yet deliciously direct in manner. Occasionally, her cutting wit could be deployed to devastating effect, not least when dealing with Soviet bureaucrats on the select tour parties to Russia she led with great verve and energy for some years after her retirement, until increasing deafness made it impossible for her to continue. She was a much-loved colleague and friend.
|
Cloud Computing: Revolutionary technology for high performance computing or partly cloudy with a chance of "we've heard this one before?"
Several years ago I was walking around the annual supercomputing exposition and noticed that many products were now Grid Enabled. This merited had a good laugh. To me, it was funny for two reasons: First, it seems there is no consensus on the definition of a grid. Of course, Ian Foster had defined a computing grid, but others took liberties with the concept of a non-local distributed computing network. Often it was associated with utility computing (i.e. you get you computing like electricity by plugging into the “grid”). Examples ranged from a cellphone network, a LAN, the Internet, even a cluster.
The lack of a concise definition did not stop the market from “enabling” everything for grid computing. All you had to do was add the phase “Grid Ready” or “Grid Enabled” to your product literature and you were “on the grid” so-to-speak. My second chuckle came from the overly obvious messaging; somewhat like labeling a car “road enabled.”
I always believed the grid concept was a good idea, but like anything else, it seemed to be oversold and misunderstood at many levels. Of late, the grid thing seems to have given way to the latest buzz word: cloud computing. Because I don’t have a good definition of grid computing, I really don’t know the difference between grid and cloud computing. Are they the same? Can you have a grid of clouds, or cloud of grids? And, let’s not forget to ask, is it green? Should I be buying products that are green cloud enabled? Somehow that sounds a little ominous.
Which brings us to today’s weather forecast. Partly cloudy with an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) forming quickly and a cloud from flexiscale moving in from across the ocean. There is also the Sun Grid Compute Utility at Network.com front moving in, but it has Grid in the name so maybe it’s not a cloud after all. There are others forming to be sure. Virtualization plays a big role in the cloud concept. Maybe cloud computing is grid computing with virtualization. Or, maybe it is really grid computing, but just easier to use. In any case, from what I have read, cloud computing should solve all our problems and revolutionize the computer industry. Yippee, maybe that is all that needs be said on the topic.
Ah, but not so fast. When ever anyone talks to me about “remote” anything, the first thing that pops into my mind is security. I would have no problem running recreational software in a cloud, but doing legal and financial things beyond my little router firewall requires a bit of trust. I use on-line banking with an encrypted browser and the bank does computation for me (balances, computing the enormous interest on my savings account, etc). Does that mean my bank is cloud enabled? There is always the implied promise of security but, you know, when you have root privileges in the cloud you can rain on a lot of picnics.
If I’m a big company, I probably want my private VPN-Cloud. I seriously doubt I would allow anything into the wild. I find it interesting that companies spend all kinds of money on securing their corporate IT networks only to allow laptops with anything on them to be taken out the door and lost at the airport by the truckload. Maybe that corporate cloud isn’t a bad idea from a security standpoint. Would I use cloud computing to design my next product? I would have to think about that one.
I think cloud, like grid, computing must address and ensure security or it is bound to be one of those interesting things that never quite catches on.
Then there is the performance myth. You know, the if we could use the latent PC cycles in our company at night we would have the world fastest supercomputer bit. I have been hearing about that good idea for years. One question for those HPC in the office cubicle mavens, how is it going? Of course, like any other concept it was born of good intentions. As most anyone who has run an MPI program will tell you, a bunch of PC’s and a network do not a supercomputer make. Unless you want to render a new action movie, or do many repetitive single process runs, that corporate network supercomputer is pretty much a non-starter.
As I mentioned, the cloud approach often relies on virtualization. In HPC, there has been a non-trivial amount of work to get the applications as close to the hardware as possible. Virtualization tends to move in the opposite direction. Running a cluster application in a cloud would probably not be a productive exercise. The supercomputing cloud is nice idea, but like most most good ideas, the devil lives in the details.
With all that said, there is still something I find attractive about the grid/cloud idea. The ability to tap into a huge computing resource only when you need it is attractive. Beyond running a sequential (single process) application, the challenge is software. (When is this ever not the case.) My belief is that for a cloud to be effective in HPC, software needs be dynamic adapting to resources (slow/fast and processors/interconnects) as they become available (and fail). Most HPC applications don’t have this ability. I have discussed dynamic execution before and here is yet another reason to consider this approach.
Finally, some interesting clouds are forming. I just read about a company called CherryPal that plans to sell a box and presumably a cloud. As far as I can tell, the box provides a Linux “desk top” environment (iTunes, OpenOffice, instant messenger, media player, etc.) that is maintained in the cloud. There is also 50 GB of cloud Internet storage. All this for “much less than an Asus Eee” and a claimed power draw of only 2 watts (which is why I put this announcement into the “wait and see” category). The approach does make some sense in a managed mainframe kind of way.
Finally, all the cloud goodness depends on broadband (or better) Internet access. For most companies and home owners this is not a an issue, but just to be sure, you may wan to check that your Internet connection is cloud enabled otherwise you might miss all the fun.
|
Poem in My Pocket Day started in New York City in 2002 and went national in 2008 through the Academy of American Poets (AAP). According to the AAP website, people throughout the United States select a poem, carry it with them, and share it with others throughout the day at events in parks, libraries, schools, workplaces and bookstores.
Moffet’s classes began participating in Poem in My Pocket Day in 2008, after she read an article in USA Today.
“I was enthralled with the idea of sharing poetry with strangers and getting everyone involved in such an easy and successful manner,” she said.
“Children and adults are very leery of poetry and are intimidated by it. I wanted to change their way of thinking and have them get enjoyment from it and use their imagination.”
Stephen Fox, president of the Penns Grove Rotary, said, “The students’ presentation was an overwhelming success and our club would like to start an annual event.”
At the Rotary meeting, students paired up with Rotarians to read their favorite poem. In addition, the students selected a favorite quote and made it into a souvenir bookmark for each Rotary member.
After lunch, Rotarian Emo Garbini shared his writing, A Poem in Your Sock.
The students recited as a group “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost and “Can You Imagine?” an original composition.
Moffett said, “This is the first time my class has participated in an event like this. The students were very proud of themselves and very excited the Rotarians were so receptive of their poetry.”
|
More than two thirds of adults in St Helens are overweight or obese, according to new figures.
Excess weight data published by Public Health England shows that 67.5 per cent of adults in St Helens are overweight.
In neighbouring Knowsley that figure is 67.3 per cent and in Halton a staggering 70.2 per cent.
Cheshire East has the fewest overweight adults in the region at just 61.2 per cent.
Health chiefs say people who are overweight or obese are at an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease and certain types of cancer.
Excess weight can also affect self-esteem and mental health.
Health problems associated with people being overweight or obese cost the NHS more than £5billion every year.
Mel Sirotkin, Cheshire and Merseyside’s Public Health England director, said: “There is no silver bullet to reducing obesity. It is an issue that requires action at national, local, family and individual level. Local authorities are ideally placed to develop co-ordinated action across their departments, services and partner organisations to tackle overweight and obesity in the local population.
“This new data will enable local councils to monitor progress towards the national ambition of achieving a downward trend in excess weight by 2020. It will help local authorities to understand the extent of the problem in their area and support their on-going efforts to improve the health of their local population.”
Abdul Razzaq, chair of Food Active, the North West’s healthy weight campaign, admitted it was a “complex issue”.
He said: “Obesity is becoming a pressing public health concern which is why Food Active is campaigning across Cheshire and Merseyside for the introduction of population-level measures that will tackle some of the underlying causes.
“We are engaging with local authorities and communities across the region raising concerns about sugary drinks, and the need for stronger regulation on junk food marketing to children and young people, and improved spatial planning measures - for example 20mph zones in urban areas - to encourage physical activity.”
|
Guilt and Self-Worth
An Excerpt From: The Guide to Living With HIV Infection
What People Feel Guilty About
One of the many peculiarities of HIV is the amount of guilt it seems to inspire. People feel guilty for having become infected. They feel they are somehow to blame for having gotten the virus, that they brought it on themselves. "I feel a little guilt," said Steven. "I should have known to practice safer sex, even though at the time I got infected, no one even knew the virus was around. I know how stupid that sounds, but I feel guilty anyway." They feel guilty about bringing HIV infection into the lives of other people: about putting their partners or spouses at risk, about telling their children they have HIV infection, about distressing their parents, their families, and their friends.
Many people also feel guilty about the behavior that put them at risk in the first place. "I felt guilty over my period of promiscuity when I first came out as gay," said Edward. "I justified it at the time, but I knew it was wrong." The behaviors that exposed most people to the virus -- gay lovemaking and injection drug use -- are behaviors of which society often disapproves. For many people, social disapproval is distressing, and they feel isolated and punished. Sometimes they unconsciously take social disapproval on themselves as guilt. "A lot of us took society's view," said Dean, "and felt guilty about being gay." The same is generally true for injection drug users: "I was real upset with myself," said Helen. "This disease makes me feel like I've been a dirty person, and I'm not. I'm a clean person."
Even those whose exposure to the virus came through conditions society does not disapprove of -- blood transfusions, hemophilia -- still feel guilty. Even people whose infection came through heterosexual sex worry about social disapproval: "I got infected by an old boyfriend," said Rebecca, "but I worry that people will think I had been a slut." They feel they are to blame for involving their families in a disease that is socially isolating, and for putting their spouses at risk. Lisa said her husband had been afraid their daughters would say, "What did you do to our family?" "I felt guilty when I was diagnosed," said Dean. "I thought 'I killed my partner.'" Like Dean's partner, Rebecca's husband remains uninfected, but Rebecca worries about the consequences to him if her infection becomes public: "I cannot let my husband be hurt by this. His career would be jeopardized by them finding out about me. Maybe they'd be understanding, but I can't take that risk."
Even caregivers feel guilty. Steven's mother feels that if she had been a better mother, Steven would not have been gay and come in contact with the virus.
Causes of Guilt
Guilt does not necessarily have a cause. Guilt, like fear, is a feeling that may or may not have anything to do with the facts. Some people knowingly did something they should not have done. Perhaps they knew they ran a risk when they became infected. Others are accepting blame for something over which they had no control. Perhaps they knew nothing about the virus or they thought they were taking appropriate steps to avoid infection or they unknowingly received infected blood.
Guilt, like all other reactions to this infection, is a natural human feeling. Sooner or later in their lives, most people feel guilty about something, sometimes justifiably, sometimes not. Alan, for instance, remembers stealing a plastic toy from a dime store when he was seven years old, and though he does not feel like a criminal, he does feel a vague sense of shame and is not able to forget the incident.
Perhaps guilt comes from a sense that good behavior deserves reward and bad behavior deserves punishment, and since the virus feels like a punishment, they must have behaved badly. Perhaps social disapproval operates the same way: people feel isolated and punished, so they feel they must have done something wrong to deserve it. Both of these possibilities are built on bad logic and are just plain wrong.
What to Do About Guilt
First, separate the virus from a sense of punishment. Lisa states: "What I say is, it's a virus, not a punishment. I didn't get the virus and my husband did. Does that make me good and him bad? That's ridiculous. Everyone got this virus like my husband did: being in the wrong place at the wrong time."
The virus does not set out to "get" anyone. It has no brain, no judgment, no ability to pick out who is worthy and who is not. The virus has nothing whatever to do with punishment. Nor does anyone set out to get infected with the virus. The conditions that put most people at risk for the virus -- homosexuality and drug addiction -- may well be directed by biology and, in any case, are not the result of a conscious intention. No one makes a conscious, informed decision that they will become gay or will use drugs.
Understand that guilt, except when it keeps you from repeating mistakes, is a remarkably useless emotion. Feeling guilty means worrying about something you cannot change. Whether people knowingly ran a risk or not, the past is beyond anyone's power to change. Guilt keeps people captured in the past and prohibits them from doing what they can to improve the present. Guilt uses emotional energy that would be better used on the real problems of life.
Balance guilt by understanding your own worth. Ask yourself, outside my worries, who am I? A pastor who has had experience with people with HIV infection asks people, "What else besides the things you feel guilty about are you? What do your friends like about you? They tell me 'that I helped them move the piano, that I had some good kids, that I was a good friend.'" Steven told himself, "You just have to focus. You're worth something. You're not scum, you can make a difference."
In the process of focusing on your own worth, guilt usually fades away. People come to like themselves for who they are. Some people speed up the process by getting help from a therapist. During therapy, they deal with the attitudes and behavior, often left over from childhood, that make them feel guilty. They learn to feel comfortable with themselves and free themselves of their old, useless burden of guilt.
Sometimes, however, guilt is not particularly personal, that is, people aren't feeling punished or ashamed or responsible or bad. Their worry is more general, more religious or philosophical. They're trying to make sense of their HIV infection, to fit it into their mental worlds, to understand why they got infected.
Helen is an eloquent example. The drugs are less effective with her, her viral load is detectable, and she has trouble not taking it all personally. "So what did I do wrong?" she said. "I can't make it out, to tell you the truth. If it's true that bad things happen to bad people, I'm ruined. People say to me, 'How could this happen? You're such a good person?' I guess maybe I'm not. Or maybe I'm not really a bad person and I'll be spared. For me, usually, reading, getting involved in stories, is a great way to stop worrying. The problem is, in most stories, bad things happen to bad people -- it's just there all the time. I don't know how to get around it, even though I'm convinced in my deepest core it's wrong. You can see I've thought about it."
For Helen and others, guilt actually seems to be the first step in making sense of their new lives. Their reasoning goes like this: Why did I get this virus? Did I do something wrong? If I didn't and the virus isn't a punishment, if it's simply a random biological fact that's affecting my life, then what do I do? How do I make sense of that? The question has been addressed by every theologian and philosopher since the Book of Job. The answer is going to be deeply felt, carefully thought out, unique to everyone, and completely beyond the scope of this book or the expertise of its authors.
|
Mining permits cause conflict, group claims
Police, activists agree violence threat greatest at election time
Almost all mining permits spark violence, an activist claims, mostly due to soaring illegal mining activities and improper granting of permits.
Hendrik Siregar from the Jakarta-based Mining Advocacy Network urged the central government to strongly press local administrations to be more careful in granting mining permits.
“There are 10,645 mining permits, not to mention oil and gas. According to our experience, almost all sparked conflict,” he said.
Last year, two villagers were killed by police after staging protests in East Nusa Tenggara province over the mining permit of PT Sumber Mineral Nusantara.
In October, thousands of residents in North Sumatra province vandalized buildings and cars to protest the installation in a nearby river of a mining pipeline belonging to PT Agincourt Resources.
Siregar said that mining permit applications are often rejected by local communities due to concerns for the environment and livelihoods.
However, local authorities often ignore community concerns and say mining activities would improve their welfare.
“If local communities reject mining activities in their areas, don’t force them to accept it. Make mining activities the last option, instead of the first priority, in any local administration’s development programs,” he said.
Sutarman said conflicts are likely to increase because of the 2013 local elections. Local leaders tend to issue more mining permits to raise money to fund political campaigns, he said.
There will be 122 local elections next year.
Mining conflicts always have a connection to local leaders’ political interests as well as to security officers hired at mining projects.
“It’s not just local leaders. Security officers also have an interest. They work together with businessmen,” he claimed.
|
He was replaced as the director of Gone with the Wind (1939), but he went on to direct The Philadelphia Story (1940), Gaslight (1944), Adam's Rib (1949), Born Yesterday (1950), A Star Is Born (1954), Bhowani Junction (1956), and My Fair Lady (1964). He continued to work into the 1980s.
Cukor was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, the younger child and only son of Hungarian Jewish immigrants Viktor, an assistant district attorney, and Helén Ilona Gross (Cukor Viktorné). His parents selected his middle name in honor of Spanish–American War hero George Dewey. The family was not particularly religious, pork was a staple on the dinner table, and when he started attending temple as a boy, Cukor learned Hebrew phonetically, with no real understanding of the meaning of the words or what they represented. As a result, he was ambivalent about his faith and dismissive of old world traditions from childhood, and as an adult he embraced Anglophilia to remove himself even further from his roots.
As a child, Cukor appeared in several amateur plays and took dance lessons, and at the age of seven he performed in a recital with David O. Selznick, who in later years would become a mentor and friend. As a teenager, Cukor frequently was taken to the New York Hippodrome by his uncle. Infatuated with theatre, he often cut classes at DeWitt Clinton High School to attend afternoon matinees. During his senior year, he worked as a supernumerary with the Metropolitan Opera, earning 50¢ per appearance, and $1 if he was required to perform in blackface.
Following his graduation in 1917, Cukor was expected to follow in his father's footsteps and pursue a career in law. He halfheartedly enrolled in the City College of New York, where he entered the Students Army Training Corps in October 1918. His military experience was limited; Germany surrendered in early November, and Cukor's duty ended after only two months. Shortly after, he left school.
Cukor obtained a job as an assistant stage manager and bit player with a touring production of The Better 'Ole, a popular British musical based on Old Bill, a cartoon character created by Bruce Bairnsfather. In 1920, he became the stage manager for the Knickerbocker Players, a troupe that shuttled between Syracuse and Rochester, New York, and the following year he was hired as general manager of the newly formed Lyceum Players, an upstate summer stock company. In 1925 he formed the C.F. and Z. Production Company with Walter Folmer and John Zwicki, which gave him his first opportunity to direct. Following their first season, he made his Broadway directorial debut with Antonia by Hungarian playwright Melchior Lengyel, then returned to Rochester, where C.F. and Z. evolved into the Cukor-Kondolf Stock Company, a troupe that included Louis Calhern, Ilka Chase, Phyllis Povah, Frank Morgan, Reginald Owen, Elizabeth Patterson and Douglass Montgomery, all of whom would work with Cukor in later years in Hollywood. Lasting only one season with the company was Bette Davis. Cukor later recalled, "Her talent was apparent, but she did buck at direction. She had her own ideas, and though she only did bits and ingenue roles, she didn't hesitate to express them." For the next several decades, Davis claimed she was fired, and although Cukor never understood why she placed so much importance on an incident he considered so minor, he never worked with her again.
For the next few years, Cukor alternated between Rochester in the summer months and Broadway in the winter. His direction of a 1926 stage adaptation of The Great Gatsby by Owen Davis brought him to the attention of the New York critics. Writing in the Brooklyn Eagle, drama critic Arthur Pollock called it "an unusual piece of work by a director not nearly so well known as he should be." Cukor directed six more Broadway productions before departing for Hollywood in 1929.
Early Hollywood career
When Hollywood began to recruit New York theater talent for sound films, Cukor immediately answered the call. In December 1928, Paramount Pictures signed him to a contract that reimbursed him for his airfare and initially paid him $600 per week with no screen credit during a six-month apprenticeship. He arrived in Hollywood in February 1929, and his first assignment was to coach the cast of River of Romance to speak with an acceptable Southern accent. In October, the studio lent him to Universal Pictures to conduct the screen tests and work as a dialogue director for All Quiet on the Western Front which was released in 1930. That year he co-directed three films at Paramount, and his weekly salary was increased to $1500. He made his solo directorial debut with Tarnished Lady (1931) starring Tallulah Bankhead.
Cukor was then assigned to One Hour with You (1932), an operetta with Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald, when original director Ernst Lubitsch opted to concentrate on producing the film instead. At first the two men worked well together, but two weeks into filming Lubitsch began arriving on the set on a regular basis, and he soon began directing scenes with Cukor's consent. Upon the film's completion, Lubitsch approached Paramount general manager B. P. Schulberg and threatened to leave the studio if Cukor's name wasn't removed from the credits. When Schulberg asked him to cooperate, Cukor filed suit. He eventually settled for being billed as assistant director and then left Paramount to work with David O. Selznick at RKO Studios.
Cukor quickly earned a reputation as a director who could coax great performances from actresses and he became known as a 'woman's director', a title he resented. Despite this reputation, during his career, he oversaw more performances honored with the Academy Award for Best Actor than any other director: James Stewart in The Philadelphia Story (1940), Ronald Colman in A Double Life (1947), and Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady (1964). One of Cukor's first ingenues was actress Katharine Hepburn, who debuted in A Bill of Divorcement (1932) and whose looks and personality left RKO officials at a loss as to how to use her. Cukor directed her in several films, both successful, such as Little Women (1933) and Holiday (1938), and disastrous, such as Sylvia Scarlett (1935). Cukor and Hepburn became close friends off the set.
Cukor was hired to direct Gone with the Wind by Selznick in 1936, even before the book was published. He spent the next two years involved with pre-production, including supervision of the numerous screen tests of actresses anxious to portray Scarlett O'Hara. Cukor favored Hepburn for the role, but Selznick, concerned about her reputation as 'box office poison', would not consider her without a screen test, and the actress refused to film one. Of those who did, Cukor preferred Paulette Goddard, but her supposedly illicit relationship with Charlie Chaplin (they were, in fact, secretly married) concerned Selznick.
Between his Wind chores, the director assisted with other projects. He filmed the cave scene for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938) and, following the firing of its original director Richard Thorpe, Cukor spent a week on the set of The Wizard of Oz (1939). Although he filmed no footage, he made crucial changes to the look of Dorothy by eliminating Judy Garland's blonde wig and adjusting her makeup and costume, encouraging her to act in a more natural manner that greatly contributed to the success of the final film. Additionally, Cukor softened the Scarecrow's makeup and gave Margaret Hamilton's Wicked Witch of the West a different hairstyle, as well as altering her makeup and other facial features. Cukor also suggested that the studio cast Jack Haley, on loan from 20th Century Fox, as the Tin Man.
Cukor spent many hours coaching Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland prior to the start of filming Wind, but Clark Gable resisted his efforts to get him to master a Southern accent. However, despite rumors about Gable being uncomfortable with Cukor on the set, nothing in the internal memos of David O. Selznick indicates or suggests that Clark Gable played any role in Cukor's dismissal from the film. Rather, they show Selznick's mounting dissatisfaction with Cukor's slow pace and quality of work. From a private letter from journalist Susan Myrick to Margaret Mitchell in February 1939: "George [Cukor] finally told me all about it. He hated [leaving the production] very much he said but he could not do otherwise. In effect he said he is an honest craftsman and he cannot do a job unless he knows it is a good job and he feels the present job is not right. For days, he told me he has looked at the rushes and felt he was failing... the things did not click as it should. Gradually he became convinced that the script was the trouble... So George just told David he would not work any longer if the script was not better and he wanted the [Sidney] Howard script back... he would not let his name go out over a lousy picture... And bull-headed David said 'OK get out!'"
Selznick had already been unhappy with Cukor ("a very expensive luxury") for not being more receptive to directing other Selznick assignments, even though Cukor had remained on salary since early 1937; and in a confidential memo written in September 1938, four months before principal photography began, Selznick flirted with the idea of replacing him with Victor Fleming. "I think the biggest black mark against our management to date is the Cukor situation and we can no longer be sentimental about it.... We are a business concern and not patrons of the arts..." Cukor was relieved of his duties, but he continued to work with Leigh and Olivia de Havilland off the set. Various rumors about the reasons behind his dismissal circulated throughout Hollywood. Selznick's friendship with Cukor had crumbled slightly when the director refused other assignments, including A Star is Born (1937) and Intermezzo (1939). Given that Gable and Cukor had worked together before (on Manhattan Melodrama, 1934) and Gable had no objection to working with him then, and given Selznick's desperation to get Gable for Rhett Butler, if Gable had any objections to Cukor, certainly they would have been expressed before he signed his contract for the film. Yet, writer Gore Vidal, in his autobiography Point to Point Navigation, recounted that Gable demanded that Cukor be fired off Wind because, according to Cukor, the young Gable had been a male hustler and Cukor had been one of his johns. This has been confirmed by Hollywood biographer E. J. Fleming, who has recounted that, during a particularly difficult scene, Gable erupted publicly, screaming: "I can't go on with this picture. I won't be directed by a fairy. I have to work with a real man."
Cukor's dismissal from Wind freed him to direct The Women (1939), which has an all-female cast, followed by The Philadelphia Story (1940), starring Katharine Hepburn. He also directed another of his favorite actresses, Greta Garbo, in Two-Faced Woman (1941), her last film before she retired from the screen.
In 1942, at the age of forty-three, Cukor enlisted in the Signal Corps. Following basic training at Fort Monmouth, he was assigned to the old Paramount studios in Astoria, Queens (where he had directed three films in the early 1930s), although he was permitted to lodge at the St. Regis Hotel in Manhattan. Working with Irwin Shaw, John Cheever and William Saroyan, among others, Cukor produced training and instructional films for army personnel. Because he lacked an officer's commission, he found it difficult to give orders and directions to his superiors. Despite his efforts to rise above the rank of private—he even called upon Frank Capra to intercede on his behalf—he never achieved officer's status or any commendations during his six months of service. In later years Cukor suspected his homosexuality impeded him from receiving any advances or honors, although rumors to that effect could not be confirmed.
The remainder of the decade was a series of hits and misses for Cukor. Both Two Faced Woman and Her Cardboard Lover (1942) were commercial failures. More successful were A Woman's Face (1941) with Joan Crawford and Gaslight (1944) with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. During this era, Cukor forged an alliance with screenwriters Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon, who had met in Cukor's home in 1939 and married three years later. Over the course of seven years, the trio collaborated on seven films, including A Double Life (1947) starring Ronald Colman, Adam's Rib (1949), Born Yesterday (1950), The Marrying Kind (1952), and It Should Happen to You (1954), all featuring another Cukor favorite, Judy Holliday, who won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Born Yesterday.
Later Hollywood career
In December 1952, Cukor was approached by Sid Luft, who proposed the director helm a musical remake of A Star is Born (1937) with his then-wife Judy Garland in the lead role. Cukor had declined to direct the earlier film because it was too similar to his own What Price Hollywood? (1932), but the opportunity to direct his first Technicolor film, first musical, and work with screenwriter Moss Hart and especially Garland appealed to him, and he accepted. Getting the updated A Star Is Born (1954) to the screen proved to be a challenge. Cukor wanted Cary Grant for the male lead and went so far as to read the entire script with him, but Grant, while agreeing it was the role of a lifetime, steadfastly refused to do it, and Cukor never forgave him. The director then suggested either Humphrey Bogart or Frank Sinatra tackle the part, but Jack L. Warner rejected both. Stewart Granger was the front runner for a period of time, but he backed out when he was unable to adjust to Cukor's habit of acting out scenes as a form of direction. James Mason was eventually contracted, and filming began on October 12, 1953. As the months passed, Cukor was forced to deal not only with constant script changes but a very unstable Garland, who was plagued by chemical and alcohol dependencies, extreme weight fluctuations, and real and imagined illnesses. In March 1954, a rough cut still missing several musical numbers was assembled, and Cukor had mixed feelings about it. When the last scene finally was filmed in the early morning hours of July 28, 1954, Cukor already had departed the production and was unwinding in Europe. The first preview the following month ran 210 minutes and, despite ecstatic feedback from the audience, Cukor and editor Folmar Blangsted trimmed it to 182 minutes for its New York premiere in October. The reviews were the best of Cukor's career, but Warner executives, concerned the running time would limit the number of daily showings, made drastic cuts without Cukor, who had departed for Pakistan to scout locations for the epic Bhowani Junction in 1954-55. At its final running time of 154 minutes, the film had lost musical numbers and crucial dramatic scenes, and Cukor called it "very painful." He was not included in the film's six Oscar nominations, all of which were lost.
Over the next ten years, Cukor directed a handful of films with varying success. Les Girls (1957) won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, and Wild Is the Wind (1957) earned Oscar nominations for Anna Magnani and Anthony Quinn, but neither Heller in Pink Tights nor Let's Make Love (both 1960) were box office hits. Another project during this period was the ill-fated Something's Got to Give, an updated remake of the screwball comedy My Favorite Wife (1940). Cukor liked leading lady Marilyn Monroe but found it difficult to deal with her erratic work habits, frequent absences from the set, and the constant presence of her acting coach, Paula Strasberg. After thirty-two days of shooting, the director had only 7½ minutes of usable film. Then Monroe travelled to New York to appear at a birthday celebration for John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden, where she serenaded the President. Studio documents released after Monroe's death confirmed that her appearance at the political fundraising event was approved by Fox executives. The production came to a halt when Cukor had filmed every scene not involving Monroe and the actress remained unavailable. 20th Century Fox executive Peter Levathes fired her and hired Lee Remick to replace her, prompting co-star Dean Martin to quit, since his contract guaranteed he would be playing opposite Monroe. With the production already $2 million over budget and everyone back at the starting gate, the studio pulled the plug on the project. Less than two months later, Monroe was found dead in her home.
Two years later, Cukor achieved one of his greatest successes with My Fair Lady (1964). Throughout filming there were mounting tensions between the director and designer Cecil Beaton, but Cukor was thrilled with leading lady Audrey Hepburn, although the crew was less enchanted with her diva-like demands. Although several reviews were critical of the film – Pauline Kael said it "staggers along" and Stanley Kauffmann thought Cukor's direction was like "a rich gravy poured over everything, not remotely as delicately rich as in the Asquith-Howard 1937 [sic] Pygmalion" — the film was a box office hit which won him the Academy Award for Best Director, the Golden Globe Award for Best Director, and the Directors Guild of America Award after having been nominated for each several times.
Following My Fair Lady, Cukor became less active. He directed Maggie Smith in Travels with My Aunt (1972) and helmed the critical and commercial flop The Blue Bird (1976), the first joint Soviet-American production. He reunited twice with Katharine Hepburn for the television movies Love Among the Ruins (1975) and The Corn Is Green (1979). He directed his final film, Rich and Famous (1981) with Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen, at the age of eighty-two.
It was an open secret in Hollywood that Cukor was homosexual, although he was discreet about his sexual orientation and "never carried it as a pin on his lapel," as producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz put it. He was a celebrated bon vivant whose luxurious home was the site of weekly Sunday afternoon parties attended by closeted celebrities and the attractive young men they met in bars and gyms and brought with them. At least once, in the midst of his reign at MGM, he was arrested on vice charges, but studio executives managed to get the charges dropped and all records of it expunged, and the incident was never publicized by the press. In the late 1950s, Cukor became involved with a considerably younger man named George Towers. He financed his education at the Los Angeles State College of Applied Arts and Sciences and the University of Southern California, from which Towers graduated with a law degree in 1967. That fall Towers married, and his relationship with Cukor evolved into one of father and son, and for the remainder of Cukor's life the two remained very close.
By the mid-1930s, Cukor was not only established as a prominent director but, socially, as an unofficial head of Hollywood's gay subculture. His home, redecorated in 1935 by gay actor-turned interior designer William Haines with gardens designed by Florence Yoch & Lucile Council, was the scene of many gatherings for the industry's homosexuals. The close-knit group reputedly included Haines and his partner Jimmie Shields, Alan Ladd, writer Somerset Maugham, director James Vincent, screenwriter Rowland Leigh, costume designers Orry-Kelly and Robert Le Maire, and actors John Darrow, Anderson Lawler, Grady Sutton, Robert Seiter and Tom Douglas. Frank Horn, secretary to Cary Grant, was also a frequent guest.
Cukor's friends were of paramount importance to him and he kept his home filled with their photographs. Regular attendees at his famed soirées included Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, Joan Crawford and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, Claudette Colbert, Marlene Dietrich, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, actor Richard Cromwell, Stanley Holloway, Judy Garland, Gene Tierney, Noël Coward, Cole Porter, director James Whale, costume designer Edith Head, and Norma Shearer, especially after the death of her first husband, Irving Thalberg. He often entertained literary figures like Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Dreiser, Hugh Walpole, Aldous Huxley, Lesley Blanch, Ferenc Molnár, and close friend Somerset Maugham, as well.
Frances Goldwyn, second wife of studio mogul Sam Goldwyn, long considered Cukor to be the love of her life, although their relationship remained platonic. According to biographer A. Scott Berg, Frances even arranged for Cukor's burial to be adjacent to her own plot at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.
Death and legacy
Cukor died of a heart attack on January 24, 1983, and was interred in an unmarked grave at Forest Lawn cemetery in Glendale, California. Records in probate court indicated his net worth at the time of his death was $2,377,720.
|
Origins Available: German, Welsh
While the ancestors of the bearers of Jonas came from ancient Welsh-Celtic origins, the name itself has its roots in Christianity. This surname comes from the personal name John, which is derived from the Latin Johannes, meaning "Yahweh is gracious."
This name has always been common in Britain, rivaling William in popularity by the beginning of the 14th century. The feminine form Joan, or Johanna in Latin, was also popular, and the surname Jonas may be derived from either the male or female name. "Though its origins are in England, the surname is predominately held by people of Welsh extraction due to the overwhelming use of patronymics in Wales from the 16th century and the prevalence of the name John at that time." CITATION[CLOSE]
The surname Jonas was first found in Denbighshire (Welsh: Sir Ddinbych), a historic county, created in 1536 at the Act of Union with England, and located in Northeast Wales, where their ancient family seat was at Llanerchrugog.
The name Jones, currently one of the most prolific in the world, descends from three main sources: from Gwaithvoed, Lord Cardigan, Chief of one of the 15 noble tribes of North Wales in 921; from Bleddyn Ap Cynfyn, King of Powys; and from Dyffryn Clwyd, a Chieftain of Denbighland.
All three lines merged in Denbighshire about the 11th century and it is not known which of the three can be considered the main branch of the family. Later some of the family ventured into England. "[The parish of Astall in Oxfordshire] was formerly the residence of Sir Richard Jones, one of the judges of the court of common pleas in the reign of Charles I.; and there are still some remains of the ancient manor-house near the church, which are now converted into a farmhouse." CITATION[CLOSE]
"Llanarth Court [in Monmouthshire], the admired seat of John Jones, Esq., is a handsome and spacious mansion, the front ornamented with an elegant portico resembling that of the temple of Pæstum." CITATION[CLOSE]
Compared to other ancient cultures found in the British Isles, the number of Welsh surnames are relatively few, but there are an inordinately large number of spelling variations. These spelling variations began almost as soon as surname usage became common. People could not specify how to spell their own names leaving the specific recording up to the individual scribe or priest. Those recorders would then spell the names as they heard them, causing many different variations. Later, many Welsh names were recorded in English. This transliteration process was extremely imprecise since the Brythonic Celtic language of the Welsh used many sounds the English language was not accustomed to. Finally, some variations occurred by the individual's design: a branch loyalty within a family, a religious adherence, or even patriotic affiliations were indicated by spelling variations of one's name. The Jonas name over the years has been spelled Jones, Jonas, Jone, Joness and others.
The motto was originally a war cry or slogan. Mottoes first began to be shown with arms in the 14th and 15th centuries, but were not in general use until the 17th century. Thus the oldest coats of arms generally do not include a motto. Mottoes seldom form part of the grant of arms: Under most heraldic authorities, a motto is an optional component of the coat of arms, and can be added to or changed at will; many families have chosen not to display a motto.
|
"Teachers are leading this work, but they feel their voices are absent in national and state-level discussions about changes in American education," said Vicki Phillips, Director of Education, College Ready, at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. "This came through very clearly. Teachers' thoughts provide critical insights for policymakers and administrators, and their voices must guide action on the implementation of new state standards, teacher evaluations and the use of technology for collaborating with other teachers."The views and opinions offered in Primary Sources: America's Teachers on Teaching in an Era of Change include: The Rewards and Challenges of Teaching Overwhelmingly passionate and committed to their profession as a means to make a real difference, teachers nearly unanimously see their roles as extending beyond academic instruction to include reinforcing good citizenship, resilience and social skills. Still, 82 percent of teachers report that constantly changing demands is a significant challenge facing them. Additionally, 73 percent of teachers say they teach students whose reading levels span four or more grade levels, increasing the need for differentiated instruction. But nine out of ten teachers (88%) agree that the rewards of teaching outweigh its challenges, and 89 percent say they are satisfied (51%) or very satisfied (38%) in their jobs. Common Core State Standards Implementation While the percentage of teachers in Common Core State Standards adoption states who feel prepared to teach to the standards has grown by sixteen points since 2011 to 75 percent, nearly the same percentage (76%) of teachers surveyed say they need more time to find materials and prepare lessons to implement the Common Core successfully. Additionally, 71 percent of teachers desire more quality professional development. To help the students in their classrooms meet the Common Core, teachers feel that instructional materials that are age-appropriate, leveled and high-interest are the most important resources. After materials, teachers point to their colleagues—both teachers and administrators.
|
Preparing Higher Education’s Future Leaders
The coming decades face a shift in the demographics of students attending America’s colleges and universities. According to the Pew Research Center, the numbers of both Hispanic and Asian students will triple in size in the next 40 years. The number of students in the world studying outside their home country will rise by more than 30 percent in the next 10 years, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Colleges must change to reflect growing diversity and globalization. On the frontlines will be professionals in student affairs administration—multicultural student affairs, student activities, career services, academic advising, international support services and residential life.
Program DetailsTotal credit hours: 39 semester hours
Program length: Four semesters (part-time six-semester option available). Classes scheduled in the evening and on weekends to accommodate working professionals.
Practicum: Placed in an office on one of Lewis & Clark’s three campuses. 150 hours, 10 hours per week in both spring semesters.
Graduate assistantships: Available, 20 hours per week.
Program start date: September
Application deadlines: May 1, 2014; February 15, 2015
No tests required for admission.
To help prepare higher education professionals, Lewis & Clark is launching a master’s degree program in student affairs administration this fall, focused on social justice and equality. Housed in the Graduate School of Education and Counseling, the program will still touch student life in all three of Lewis & Clark’s schools.
“Breaking down barriers to access and providing the support needed for success in higher education is what student affairs administration is—or should be—about,” said Scott Fletcher, dean of the Graduate School of Education and Counseling and director of the new program. “Lewis & Clark is going to make a significant contribution to that effort.”
A Growing Field
Last year, Fletcher and Anna Gonzalez, dean of student life in the College of Arts and Sciences, began discussing the idea for the program. They noted that job placement rates for graduates of top programs in the Western region hovered near 95 percent. “All over the Northwest, we’ve been seeing a tremendous demand, with applicants to existing programs far outnumbering available space,” says Gonzalez.
The natural home for the program, they felt, was the Graduate School of Education and Counseling. “The graduate school,” Fletcher said, “is deeply committed to preparing professionals in education and counseling who will make a difference in the world through their service to others.”
Rather than viewing student affairs as “customer service,” Lewis & Clark’s program will have a unique social justice focus dedicated to promoting the academic success and personal growth of students in and outside the classroom.
“There are currently few graduate programs that have this social justice angle, and many of the professionals currently working in the field without an advanced degree have a strong interest in this focus area,” says Gonzalez. Graduates of the program will enter higher education with tools to create open, inclusive, and democratic communities responsive to our evolving world.
Lewis & Clark’s program is based on a practitioner-scholar model. Students will learn about student development and leadership, organizational management, legal issues, professional ethics, assessment, and advising. They will apply this knowledge in supervised practica on all three Lewis & Clark campuses—and eventually in schools around Portland. Each student will graduate with a portfolio summarizing learning outcomes and goals.
The program’s founding faculty also include Mark Figueroa, associate provost for institutional research and planning; David Ellis, vice president, secretary, and general counsel of the college; and Mollie Galloway, assistant professor of educational leadership. “These are individuals who have national reputations in their respective fields,” said Fletcher.
A Promising Future
Lewis & Clark plans to keep initial cohort sizes around eight to ten students, but the faculty is confident the program will grow. “Our admissions process has been open less than a month, and we are already talking with numerous applicants from across the country,” says Fletcher.
“This program will help integrate the graduate school, the undergraduate college, and the law school,” says Gonzalez. “We’ll be educating a new generation of higher ed. leaders who will be modeling the transformative power of education.”
|
Gujarat draws its name from the Gurjara (supposedly a subtribe of the Huns), who ruled the area during the 8th and 9th centuries ce. The state assumed its present form in 1960, when the former Bombay state was divided between Maharashtra and Gujarat on the basis of language. Area 75,685
Gujarat is a land of great contrasts, stretching from the seasonal salt deserts of the Kachchh (Kutch) district in the northwest, across the generally arid and semiarid scrublands of the Kathiawar Peninsula, to the wet, fertile, coastal plains of the southeastern part of the state, north of Mumbai. The Rann of Kachchh—including both the Great Rann and its eastern appendage, the Little Rann—are best described as vast salt marshes, together covering about 9,000 square miles (23,300 square km). The Rann constitutes the Kachchh district on the west, north, and east, while the Gulf of Kachchh forms the district’s southern boundary. During the rainy season—slight though the rains may be—the Rann floods, and the Kachchh district is converted into an island; in the dry season it is a sandy, salty plain plagued by dust storms.
To the southeast of Kachchh, lying between the Gulf of Kachchh and the Gulf of Khambhat (Cambay), is the large Kathiawar Peninsula. It is generally arid and rises from the coasts to a low, rolling area of hill land in the centre, where the state reaches its highest elevation, at 3,665 feet (1,117 metres), in the Girnar Hills. Soils in the peninsula are mostly poor, having been derived from a variety of old crystalline rocks. Rivers, except for seasonal streams, are absent from the area.
To the east of the Kathiawar Peninsula, small plains and low hills in the north merge with fertile farmlands in the south. The richness of the southern soils is attributable to their partial derivation from the basalts of the Deccan, the physiographic region that constitutes most of south India. Southeastern Gujarat is crossed from east to west by the Narmada and Tapti (Tapi) rivers, both of which empty into the Gulf of Khambhat. Toward the eastern border with Maharashtra, the terrain becomes mountainous; the region is the northern extension of the Western Ghats, the mountain range that runs parallel to the Arabian Sea on the western edge of southern India.
Winter (November through February) temperatures in Gujarat usually reach a high in the mid-80s F (about 28 °C), while lows drop into the mid-50s F (about 12 °C). Summers (March through May) are quite hot, however, with temperatures typically rising well above 100 °F (38 °C) during the day and dropping only into the 90s F (low 30s C) at night.
Gujarat is drier in the north than in the south. Rainfall is lowest in the northwestern part of the state—in the Rann of Kachchh—where it may amount to less than 15 inches (380 mm) annually. In the central portion of the Kathiawar Peninsula as well as in the northeastern region, annual rainfall typically amounts to about 40 inches (1,000 mm). Southeastern Gujarat, where the southwest monsoon brings heavy rains between June and September, is the wettest area; annual rainfall usually approaches 80 inches (2,000 mm) along the coastal plain.
Forests cover only a small portion of Gujarat, reflecting human activity as well as meagre rainfall. Scrub forest occurs in the northwestern region and across the Kathiawar Peninsula, the main species being the babul acacia, the caper, the Indian jujube, and the toothbrush bush (Salvadora persica). In some parts of the peninsula and northeastern Gujarat, such deciduous species as teak, catechu (cutch), axlewood, and Bengal kino (butea gum) are found. Deciduous forests are concentrated in the wetter southern and eastern hills. They produce valuable timbers, such as Vengai padauk (genus Pterocarpus; resembling mahogany), Malabar simal, and haldu (Adina cordifolia). The west coast of the peninsula is known for its algae, and the east coast produces the papyrus, or paper plant (Cyperus papyrus).
Gir National Park, in the southwestern region of the Kathiawar Peninsula, contains rare Asiatic lions (Panthera leo persica), and endangered Indian wild asses (Equus hemionus khur) are protected in a sanctuary near the Little Rann of Kachchh. The Nal Sarovar Bird Sanctuary, near Ahmadabad, attracts many species of birds migrating from the Siberian plains and elsewhere in winter. Saras cranes, Brahmini ducks, bustards, pelicans, cormorants, ibises, storks, herons, and egrets are among the most notable species. The Rann of Kachchh is the only nesting ground of the greater flamingo in India. There is excellent offshore and inland fishing in Gujarat. Catches include pomfret, salmon, hilsa (a type of shad), jewfish (scianid fish), prawn, Bombay duck (a food fish), and tuna.
The diverse peoples constituting the Gujarati population may be categorized broadly as either Indic (northern-derived) or Dravidian (southern-derived). The former include the Nagar Brahman, Bhatia, Bhadela, Rabari, and Mina castes. The Parsis, originally from Persia, represent a much later northern influx. Among the peoples of southern origin are the Bhangi, Koli, Dubla, Naikda, and Macchi-Kharwa. The rest of the population, including the aboriginal Bhil community, is of mixed heritage. Members of the Scheduled (formerly “untouchable”) Castes and Scheduled Tribes (indigenous minority peoples who are not embraced by India’s caste hierarchy) form roughly one-fifth of the state’s population. Portions of the mountainous region of southeastern Gujarat are populated almost entirely by tribal peoples.
Gujarati and Hindi are the state’s official languages. Gujarati, the more widely spoken of the two, is an Indo-European language derived from Sanskrit through Prakrit, ancient Indic languages other than Sanskrit, and Apabhramsha, a language spoken in northern and western India from the 10th to the 14th century. Gujarat’s contact by sea with foreign countries also led to the introduction of Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Portuguese, and English words.
Hinduism is the religion of most of the population. Adherents of Islam constitute the largest minority. However, there are also significant communities of Jains, who are more strongly established in Gujarat than in other parts of India; Zoroastrians, or Parsis, whose ancestors fled Persia sometime after the 7th century; and Christians.
Roughly three-fifths of the residents of Gujarat are rural. The main concentration of population is in the eastern part of the state, in the plains surrounding the cities of Ahmadabad, Kheda, Vadodara, Surat, and Valsad; the region is both agriculturally productive and highly industrialized. Other concentrations of population occur on the Kathiawar Peninsula, particularly on the southern coast between the cities of Mangrol and Mahuva, in the interior around Rajkot, and on the Gulf of Kachchh around Jamnagar. The distribution of population gradually decreases toward the Kachchh district in the northwest and toward the hilly regions of eastern Gujarat.
Most of the major cities are found in the more fertile regions, and many of them—such as Rajkot, Junagadh, Porbandar, Bhavnagar (Bhaunagar), and Jamnagar, all on the peninsula—were once the capitals of small states. The most urbanized area of Gujarat is the Ahmadabad-Vadodara (Baroda) industrial belt in the east-central region. Since the late 20th century, this area has become just one segment of an ever-expanding urban agglomeration along the highway that links the northern and southern parts of the state.
Although unfavourable climatic conditions, salinity of soil and water, and rocky terrain have hampered Gujarat’s agricultural activities, the sector has remained a major component of the state’s economy, employing about half of the workforce. Wheat, millet, rice, and sorghum are the primary food crops, with rice production being concentrated in the wetter areas. Principal cash crops include cotton, oilseeds (especially peanuts [groundnuts]), tobacco, and sugarcane. Commercial dairying is also important.
Gujarat is rich in minerals, including limestone, manganese, gypsum, calcite, and bauxite. The state also has deposits of lignite, quartz sand, agate, and feldspar. The fine building stones of Porbandar, on the Kathiawar Peninsula, are among Gujarat’s most valuable products, and the state’s output of soda ash and salt amounts to a significant portion of the national yield. In addition, Gujarat produces petroleum and natural gas.
The state draws its electricity from a variety of sources. The bulk of Gujarat’s power is supplied by coal- and gas-fueled thermal plants, followed by hydroelectric generators. There also are a number of wind farms scattered across the state.
Gujarat occupies a leading place in India’s manufacturing sector, especially in the production of chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and polyester textiles. The state’s major industrial belt exists in its southern sector. There is a large oil refinery at Koyali (near Vadodara), which supports a nearby petrochemical industry. Pharmaceutical production is concentrated at Vadodara, Ahmadabad, and Valsad. Small-scale, largely agriculture-based manufacturing is located in the Kathiawar Peninsula. Vegetable oil, cotton textiles, and cement are among the products of these industries.
Favourable investments, the availability of resources and power, solid management, and labour efficiency have been the basis of the state’s industrial development. Moreover, the Gandhian approach to labour problems—strict reliance on the truth, nonviolence, settlement by arbitration, minimal demands, and the use of the strike only as a last resort—has had a great impact in the field of industrial relations in Gujarat, which has remained relatively free from labour unrest.
Gujarat’s towns and cities are well connected—to each other and to the rest of India—by road and rail. Coastal shipping routes link the state’s many ports. Kandla is a major international shipping terminal. There is air service both within the state and to major Indian cities outside Gujarat.
The governmental structure of Gujarat, like that of most Indian states, is defined by the national constitution of 1950. The governor is the chief executive and is appointed by the president of India. The Council of Ministers, led by the chief minister, aids and advises the governor. Gujarat’s Legislative Assembly (Vidhan Sabha) is an elected unicameral body. The High Court is the highest judicial authority in the state. Various lower courts—including the city courts, the courts of district and sessions judges, and the courts of civil judges—operate within each administrative district.
The state is divided into more than two dozen administrative districts. The revenue and general administration of each district is overseen by the district collector, who also functions as the district magistrate for the maintenance of law and order. With a view toward involving the people in local government, elected governing councils (panchayats) were introduced at the village level in 1963.
Health and medical services in Gujarat include programs to control malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and other communicable diseases; to prevent blindness; and to eradicate leprosy and polio. Other services focus on reproductive and family health and on health education. Primary health centres offer medical services throughout the state. Public and private hospitals as well as medical colleges offer more-specialized services, primarily in the larger urban areas. Various state institutions address the welfare needs of children, women, people with disabilities, and senior citizens. Special programs also are available to assist those who belong to communities that, by tradition, have been socially, economically, and educationally disadvantaged.
Primary schooling for all children between the ages of 7 and 11 is available in most villages with 500 or more inhabitants. Special schools serve children in the rural tribal regions. Secondary schools are spread throughout the state in larger villages, towns, and urban areas.
Gujarat has a number of important institutions of higher education. Among the state’s most notable universities are Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda (1949) in Vadodara and Gujarat University (1949) in Ahmadabad. Major research institutions include the Physical Research Laboratory (1947; a unit of the national Department of Space) in Ahmadabad, the Ahmadabad Textile Industry’s Research Association (1949), the Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute (1959) at Bhavnagar, and the National Institute of Design (1961) and the Sardar Patel Institute of Economic and Social Research (1965), both in Ahmadabad. In addition to its universities and research centres, Gujarat has numerous smaller tertiary institutions (e.g., engineering colleges and technical schools) with specialized curricula.
Much of the culture of Gujarat reflects the mythology surrounding the Hindu deity Krishna (an incarnation of the god Vishnu), as transmitted in the Puranas, a class of Hindu sacred literature. The older rasnritya and raslila dance traditions honouring Krishna find their contemporary manifestation in the popular dance called garba. This dance is performed primarily at the Navratri festival, which honours the divine feminine; dancers move in a circle, singing and keeping time by clapping their hands. Also commonly performed at Navratri is bhavai, a type of popular, rural, comic drama that depicts various aspects of rural life. All of the roles in bhavai—both male and female—are played by men.
Shaivism (Shivaism), the cult of the Hindu god Shiva, has long flourished in Gujarat; so too has Vaishnavism (the worship of the god Vishnu), from which have emerged not only the cult of bhakti (devotion) but also a rich repertoire of verse and song. Notable Vaishnava saints, poets, and musicians include Narasimha, who composed padas (verses) in the 15th century; Mira Bai, a 16th-century Rajput princess who renounced her royal home and composed bhajans (devotional songs); Premanand, an 18th-century poet and writer; and Dayaram, an 18th-century composer of songs who popularized the bhakti cult.
In the Jain tradition, writings of the prolific 12th-century author Hemacandra continue to be held in high regard. Hemacandra produced numerous textbooks on various aspects of Indian philosophy, as well as grammatical analyses of Sanskrit and Prakrit. He also wrote an epic history of the world from a Jain perspective as well as a number of poems.
Mahatma Gandhi is also recognized as one of the state’s most prodigious authors. Noted for their vigour and simplicity, Ghandi’s writings in Gujarati have exerted a strong influence on modern Gujarati prose.
The ancient architectural style of Gujarat, known for its luxuriousness and intricacy, is preserved in monuments and temples such as those in Somnath and Dwarka in the southwestern part of the state; Modhera in the north; and Than, Ghumli (near Porbandar), the Girnar Hills, and Palitana in the Kathiawar Peninsula. Under Muslim rule, a distinctive architectural style that blended Muslim and Hindu elements developed. This style is exemplified by many of the 15th- and 16th-century mosques and tombs of Ahmadabad.
In addition to its architecture, Gujarat is widely recognized for its highly skilled craftwork. Notable products include the jari (gold and silver embroidery) of Surat, the bandhani-work (using a tie-dyeing technique) fabrics of Jamnagar, and the patola silk saris (garments worn by Indian women) of Patan, in northern Gujarat. Also from the northern region, the toys of Idar, the perfumes of Palanpur, and the hand-loomed products of Kanodar are well known. Ahmadabad and Surat are renowned for their decorative woodwork depicting miniature temples and mythological figures.
Among the most durable and effective of the state’s cultural institutions are the trade and craft guilds known as the mahajans. Often coterminous with castes—and largely autonomous—the guilds have in the past solved disputes, acted as channels of philanthropy, and encouraged arts and other cultural activities.
|
Project of the week/2011/Jan 26
Adding buildings to OpenStreetMap has been difficult in the past. Collecting a GPS trace of a building yields poor results because the building interferes with GPS reception. But buildings can be interesting to have on a map. Large collections of buildings in cities can look very impressive. Lone buildings in remote areas can be important landmarks for navigation. Or a shelter from bad weather.
There are more than 28 million buildings in the OpenStreetMap database. Recent donations to OpenStreetMap contributors of aerial imagery that permits deriving OSM objects without restriction have made mapping buildings practical in more parts of the world.
The Project of the Month is to add local buildings to the map.
Buildings are mapped as areas in OpenStreetMap. As always, OSM contributors are able to provide the best, most-accurate, most-up-to-date data when they contribute data from places they visit every day or every week.
The only required tag for a building is
It is acceptable to tag buildings with a more descriptive building tag, such as building=house. Fewer than three percent of OSM buildings use these more-descriptive tags, and it remains unclear what granularity of different values should go into building values as opposed to other tags (existing tags) on the same area. Despite this, a recent Mapnik rendering change (Feb 2011) means we're now showing building=house and building=residential in a lighter shade than other building tags example, so we can expect use of those values to increase. The rendering change is under discussion however.
Address information for buildings should be added where they are known.
Some buildings have names
If the building has only a single tenant or business that name is often applied to the building.
These graphs show the number of buildings* in the OpenStreetMap database and are updated approximately once per hour.
- The "recent" line shows the number of objects added recently. It is a rough indication of PotM activity over the last little while, nominally an hour. The "PotM" line indicates the start and end of the project period.
|
San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) October 21, 2013
Controlling the amount of calories consumed throughout the day can be difficult for people in San Francisco and, because many in San Francisco and across the United States are unable to stick with their diet, obesity in America has become a significant problem. While some people suggest that simply controlling portion sizes will help people limit the amount of calories they consume, a new study suggests that this, in fact, may not be the case and may lead to further weight gain and increased obesity in America. Fortunately,Diet Doc’s hormone diet programs now provide the answer to easily controlling caloric intake without struggling through cravings or the temptation to consume unhealthy, fat laden foods. By combining their exclusive hormone diet treatments with a healthy meal plan that has been tailored to meet each patient’s personal needs, Diet Doc clients are able to rapidly lose weight and feel energized during their program.
As reported on by Medical News today, researchers with Swansea University were concerned with obesity in America and weight gain around the world and considered the effectiveness surrounding the Public Health Responsibility Deal’s call for reduced portion sizes as a way to control caloric intake. While reducing caloric intake in general appears to be a successful method for addressing obesity in America, portion control has proven to be a difficult and possibly ineffective solution. Because those struggling with obesity in America are free to make their own decisions regarding portion sizes, these portions, and the calories contained within, can vary greatly and disrupt the subject’s ability to lose weight. Diet Doc recognizes the proven results that accompany a reduction in caloric intake and created their hormone diet programs to provide their clients with an easy, controlled atmosphere to do so.
Each potential Diet Doc patient will initially consult with a specially trained physician to determine whether they are a good candidate for hormone diet plans. During this initial consultation, the patient will learn about underlying health issues that could be causing them to gain weight and will be prescribed fat burning supplements and hormone diet treatments that address these issues and allow for fast weight loss.
Diet Doc’s hormone diet treatments have been modernized with today’s advanced science and medical understanding and now allow patients to consume a much higher caloric intake than earlier hormone diet plans. And, while those struggling with obesity in America have many choices when it comes to weight loss programs, dieters should consider which programs offer only safe and effective treatments. Unfortunately, while Diet Doc’s hormone diet treatments contain high quality ingredients, most other hormone diet programs have failed to update their research as still require their patients to follow a dangerously low caloric intake of only 500 calories per day. Reducing calories to this level may help patients lose weight and may help reduce obesity in America, but will also put patients at risk for serious health consequences.
|
When you select an individual room or kiva context on the larger map, a pop-up window will appear displaying information categories from our database available for that context (Artifacts, Burials, Tree-Ring Dates, and Features).
Each of the categories can be expanded by clicking the ‘+’ to reveal an abridged list of basic information. Selecting the category heading itself will open a separate window with complete details.
Pueblo Bonito (Spanish for “beautiful town”) is the best known of all Chacoan great houses. Located near the center of a cluster of great and small houses sometimes referred to as “Downtown Chaco,” the surrounding great houses include Chetro Ketl to the east, Pueblo del Arroyo to the west, Kin Kletso to the northwest, Kin Sabe to the southwest, and Casa Rinconada to the south. Bonito is also about 0.6 miles (1.0 km.) south of Pueblo Alto and New Alto. Although the footprint of Pueblo Bonito is slightly smaller in area than Chetro Ketl, this D-shaped great house is the biggest of all Chacoan great houses with 32 kivas, 3 great kivas, and over 350 ground-floor rooms. Two large refuse mounds lie just south of the pueblo.
Pueblo Bonito rose four stories along its north arc of rooms while rooms facing the plaza were primarily single-story. Intervening room rows were two- and three-stories tall, creating a roof terrace that rose in height from the plaza to the back rooms. The plaza was closed on the south side by a row of rooms, and two partially-walled refuse mounds lay just outside the plaza enclosure. At least one Chacoan road approaches the building from the north, and there is good evidence for a road linking Pueblo Bonito with Casa Rinconada, the isolated great kiva on the opposite side of the canyon (Vivian and Hilpert 2002).
Pueblo Bonito has been the object of two major excavation programs. The Hyde Exploring Expedition, sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History and directed by George Pepper and Richard Wetherill, excavated portions of Pueblo Bonito between 1986 and 1900, uncovering approximately 189 masonry rooms and several kivas. Neil Judd then conducted work in other parts of the building for the National Geographic Society from 1921 to 1927. Drs. Patricia Crown and Wirt Wills recently re-examined the Bonito mounds as part of the Chaco Stratigraphy Project.
Alternative site designations include 29SJ387, LA 226, and Bc 253.
- 1896-1900: The Hyde Exploring Expedition, sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History, excavated about 189 rooms and several kiva under the direction of George H. Pepper and Richard Wetherill.
- 1897: Warren K. Moorehead of the Philips Andover Academy excavated rooms 53 and 56 and perhaps a few other areas of the pueblo.
- 1916: Nels Nelson and Earl Morris placed stratigraphic tests in the east and west refuse mounds.
- 1920-1927: Neil M. Judd excavated most ground floor rooms not uncovered by the Hyde Expedition, trenched the refuse mounds and the west plaza, and identified wall foundations outside (particularly east) of the main great house.
- 2005-Present: Dr. Patricia Crown and Dr. Wirt Wills re-excavated Neil Judd's trenches through the refuse mounds to investigate mound stratigraphy, assess evidence for water-control features, and analyze the recovered artifact assemblage.
Size and Dates
- More than 350 ground floor rooms, 32 kivas, and three great kivas
- Inhabited from the mid-A.D. 850s until at least the early-12th century, with some reoccupation in the late-12th century
Site and Room Data
- Aztec West Ruins
- Bc 50 - Tseh So
- Bc 51
- Bc 53 - Roberts' Site
- Bc 57
- Bc 58
- Bc 59
- Chetro Ketl
- Pueblo Bonito
- Pueblo del Arroyo
|
Anglers' Fish May Have Too Much Mercury
MONTGOMERY, Ala. People who catch and eat a lot of their own fish may take in too much mercury, say environmentalists who want stricter mercury level standards for state waterways.
People who buy their fish commercially generally do not run the same risk because fish sold through interstate commerce are screened to make sure their mercury levels are acceptable.
The Alabama Department of Public Health monitors mercury levels in state waters and issues alerts when mercury levels are high. Fish absorb mercury from the waters they live in, a concern for environmentalists who want to make sure fish-eating Alabamians aren't getting too much mercury as a result. People whose bodies contain too much mercury, particularly children, may have health problems as a result.
There is a push in Alabama to lower the level of mercury considered acceptable in rivers and streams in the state because of the health concerns for people who eat locally caught fish frequently.
Alabama Department of Environmental Management and Public Health officials will begin talks about the issue within two weeks, said ADEM spokesman Jeff Hand.
"It is very important to go methodically with the evaluation," Hand said. Mercury levels are different in every stream and may change from week to week. The amount of mercury that causes problems for a child or very small adult may be different for a large adult. Hand said it is not easy to develop a one-number-fits-everyone regulation.
"It is important to go methodically with an evaluation," Hand said, a conclusion echoed by State Health Officer Dr. Don Williamson.
"Getting it right is important because mercury contamination is a long-term health problem, but it builds up slowly in the body," said Williamson, whose department monitors mercury levels.
"It is more important to go slowly and develop the right regulations than to hurry it up and get it wrong."
Williamson said concerns come for people who eat fish they catch in state waters several times per week and for pregnant women and children. Occasional consumption of locally caught fish is not a problem, he added. Waters in South Alabama generally have higher mercury levels than those in North Alabama.
Public Health now measures mercury levels in fish based on levels set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said Williamson.
Alabama Department of Environmental Management governing board member Pat Byington and others who want a stricter mercury standard say the state should use mercury level standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency.
|
'famous throughout the world'
Menicucci was born in Tuscany. He was jester at the Medici court in Florence before moving to Rome and becoming jester to Pope Urban VIII. He had a natural ability to produce comic effects and witticisms and compose spontaneous verses. He was also renowned as a social climber obsessed with his own fame, which explains the Latin inscription on this print.
Of the two portraits made of him a few years later by French artists in Rome, Claude Mellan's engraving has the same boastful inscription, and Valentin de Boulogne's painting makes reference to his posing as a Count. Leoni's portrait is the most sympathetic and genial, and the only one in which the jester is wearing - no doubt spuriously - the hat and habit of a cleric.
Given by John Charrington 1933
|
Quebec Says 'Non' to the Niqab
by Barbara Kay
Whether they admit it or not, virtually all Westerners hate the niqab and burqa for the anti-democratic ideology and misogynistic gender relations they signify. Many are increasingly willing to say so.
Why does political correctness fall away when it comes to the niqab? Because other Islamist inroads, like Shari'a banking, happen offstage, so to speak. They are not "seen" by the public. But the niqab is open to the collective public gaze. Individuals responding to their own discomfort observe that discomfort mirrored in other people's faces, which in turn emboldens them to protest. Politicians know grassroots support when they see it and several Western leaders have seized the moment for legislating partial or full niqab bans.
Parallel to the parliamentary efforts now advancing in France and Belgium, Quebec recently tabled a new law, Bill 94, which will ban the niqab — or any face cover — when extending and receiving public services in such institutions as courts, hospitals, schools, and licensing bureaus.
It is no accident that Quebec is leading the way in North America on this file. Quebec, apart from multicultural Montreal and its diffuse northern native populations, is the last bastion of ethnic homogeneity on the continent (with a not-unrelated tendency amongst ethnic québécois to politically incorrect candor), a province where obsession with cultural preservation drives the political agenda.
Since the Quiet Revolution in the 1960s, cultural preservation has become synonymous with the linguistic hegemony of French. But Catholicism, however vestigial in terms of practice and influence, still rallies the loyalty of québécois in the face of perceived challenges to their cultural security.
Because the controlling hand of the Catholic Church fell particularly heavily on women in the past, Quebec is also the most militantly feminist of Canadian provinces. Female politicians exert a powerful influence over all social and cultural policies and disbursements here. The galling sight of veiled, depersonalized women in this women's rights stronghold arouses far more animus than any multiculturalist ideal can counter.
The decisive move, approved by 95% of Quebecers (a rare moment of political accord uniting federalists and nationalists) and 75% of all Canadians, followed a cultural tipping point, arrived at in November 2009, when a niqab-clad Egyptian woman, Naema Ahmed, was expelled from a government-run French class. This was done for pedagogical reasons, not religious ones; hostile to suggested compromises in advancing phonological competencies for which the teacher's direct observation of her mouth is crucial, she exhausted the administration's patience. Notable in her case, however, is the fact that the school felt so hamstrung by political correctness and dithered so long, the government stepped in to order the expulsion.
Ahmed's indifference to the sensibilities of her classmates and her general belligerence were helpful in reinforcing the public's impression that she was making a political rather than a religious statement. That she later tried to re-enroll, still veiled, in another French course — unsuccessfully — and promptly filed a complaint with a human rights commission gives the whole caper the earmarks of an Islamist shot across the bow.
Ahmed's rebarbative attitude happily precluded the kind of public sympathy elicited by another Montreal case in which a veiled Indian Muslim woman, "Aisha," was removed from a French course. Aisha tried to cooperate and was heartbroken, not angry, when expelled. Her story served to make a reasonable law seem draconian to sentimentalism-driven commentators.
Quebec has been poised for some time to draw a line in the unstable sands of "reasonable accommodation." Justifying the Ahmed expulsion, Quebec immigration minister Yolande James was forthright in making it plain that "if you want to integrate into Quebec society, here are our values. We want to see your face."
The road to Bill 94 can be said to begin in Hérouxville, Quebec, a tiny rural hamlet of 1,300 souls, with nary a niqab in sight, or likely to be. In January 2007, following a number of controversial cases involving the reasonable accommodation of religious sensibilities in Montreal, one of its outspoken councilors, André Drouin, published a "code of conduct" for immigrants including bans on the stoning of women and female circumcision, while privileging in public institutions the Christian symbols that are familiar to the 95% of Quebecers who identify themselves as Catholics. The retired engineer was pilloried as a racist at the time, but today he feels vindicated by Bill 94. The manifesto served to reveal the fault lines between elite theorists and the population, as well as to kindle passionate debate on the limits of reasonable accommodation.
Embarrassed by the worldwide attention the manifesto received, with its attendant images of Quebec as a redneck backwater, Premier Jean Charest instituted the costly ($7 million) yearlong Bouchard-Taylor commission in February 2007, its mandate to investigate and make recommendations on the treatment of religious minorities in Quebec. The expressed goal was to avoid French-style minority ghettoization and encourage integration.
The commission, headed by earnestly paternalistic academic multiculturalists who were totally out of sync with the mood of the population and visibly affronted during public hearings by outspoken expressions of resentment against religious minorities — chiefly Hasidim and Muslims — arrived at their foreordained conclusion that Quebec culture was not threatened by minorities and that their pet concept, "interculturalism," which maximizes tolerance for individual choices, deserved further study. The public was not buying any of it.
Is Quebec racist? Polls indicate Quebecers admit to racist attitudes disproportionately to other Canadians, but there is no hate crime evidence to suggest heritage québécois are more racist in practice than other provinces. Is Quebec xenophobic? Yes, somewhat, although it is a mild version that asserts itself in grumbling, not in organized vituperation, vandalism, or violence.
Quebec is a distinct society, culturally isolated in North America and understandably defensive around realistic threats of cultural dilution. Elevated xenophobia relative to other provinces has not, however, made inroads on Quebec's record as a peaceful, democratic, and behaviorally tolerant society.
Xenophobia is reflexively condemned as a cultural sin amongst our intellectual bien-pensants. But what if another cultural group really is out to dominate your own group? In that case, benign xenophobia — the kind that aligned with feminism to produce Quebec's Bill 94 — is what one might call an atout, a trump card in the grim cultural war games to which all democratic societies have been co-opted, where victories that do no harm to democracy, like the niqab ban, are few and should be regarded as precious.
|
PROSSTITZ (Prossnitz), DANIEL (Steinschneider; 1759–1846), Hungarian rabbi. Born in Tobitschau near Prossnitz (Prostejov), Daniel studied first in Moravia and later in Pressburg under the rabbi of the town Meir b. Saul *Barby and was later appointed by Meshullam *Igra to his bet din there. Eventually he succeeded Rabbi M. Toska, the head of the bet din. In addition he was appointed rabbi to a society for the study of the Talmud (Ḥevrah Shas) established in Pressburg. He served the Pressburg community in these capacities for 50 years. Prosstitz recommended Moses *Sofer for the vacant position of rabbi of Pressburg and it was largely due to his conduct of the negotiations that Sofer was appointed. Prosstitz also occupied himself with Kabbalah and used to fast frequently, especially after a dream.
He published the Sefer ha-Yashar of Jacob Tam, and left responsa and novellae to the Talmud in manuscript. Responsa addressed to him are found in the Resp. Ḥatam Sofer, in Ezekiel *Landau's Noda bi-Yhudah, and in the responsa of his other great contemporaries.
D. Prosstitz Steinschneider, Dan mi-Daniel, 1 (1881), introd.; I. Weiss, Avnei Beit ha-Yoẓer (1900), nos. 1:11, 2:11; S. Sofer, Iggerot Soferim, pt. 2 (1928), 5; H. Gold, Die Juden und die Judengemeinde Bratislava in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (1932).
|
1 Zoology Relating to or denoting a zoogeographical region comprising Central and South America, including the tropical southern part of Mexico and the Caribbean. Distinctive animals include edentates, opossums, marmosets, and tamarins. Compare with Neogaea.
- There are a number of animals which prey on Neotropical river otters including anacondas, jaguars, caimans, dogs and birds of prey.
- Moreover, palm fruits have been proposed (together with figs) to be keystone resources for Neotropical vertebrate frugivores.
- They are Neotropical birds found from Mexico to central Argentina.
1.1 Botany Relating to or denoting a phytogeographical kingdom comprising Central and South America but excluding the southern parts of Chile and Argentina.
- Comparison of the nectaries of the presumed hummingbird-pollinated orchids H. imbricata and M. coccinea would perhaps help us better understand the structural features that characterize the nectary of such Neotropical orchids.
- Leaf production and fall patterns are well identified for Australian savanna species and for South American Neotropical savanna species.
- Patterns of resource investment were studied in male and female individuals in a natural population of the Neotropical dioecious shrub Baccharis dracunculifolia DC throughout one reproductive season.
neotropics plural noun
- Example sentences
- For vireonids in general, prevalence was 23% for Panama and 14% for the neotropics; prevalences of all hematozoans together in tropical Vireonidae were 34%.
- In contrast with the neotropics, where a virtually ‘pure African’ expanding front was observed, migrants arriving at WWR were of mixed ancestry.
- Mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla [Meliaceae]) is the most valuable hardwood species in the neotropics and is seriously threatened owing to overexploitation and habitat destruction.
|
- plastic or rubber gloves
- a large plastic tarp (or equivalent)
- an area to dump the waste (ideally, outside)
- paper and pencil
- Your challenge is to conduct a waste audit with your kids and use your findings to make a plan for reducing the amount of trash in your home. Before you begin, get a copy of the local recycling guidelines so you know what should and should not be in the trash.
- Gather one day’s worth of trash from your home and empty it onto a tarp. Begin sorting (or classifying) items into piles (cardboard, food waste, plastics, etc.).
- Visually eye the volume of each type of trash. If the total amount collected is 100%, you can guesstimate the percent of each type of waste. Graph it to see which type of waste makes up most of the trash.
- Clean up! Return non-recyclables to garbage cans, sort recyclables into recycling bins, and compost perishables, if possible. Don’t forget to wash your hands!
- Did you find any items that could have been recycled, composted, or simply reused instead of thrown away? Brainstorm ideas to reduce the amount of waste in your home: make a poster of what can and cannot be recycled and hang it up in your kitchen; choose products with the least amount of packaging; start a compost bin; or opt for reusable containers to pack your lunch. Be creative!
|
The Bible teaches that we were created in the image of God, so we have personhood and our personhood reflects the nature of God. We are not only individuals but we also are a part of families and communities. We are designed to live in community because God is like that.
Along with this question is the question of unity and diversity. In what way are we, as humans, unified in our diversity? God is the answer to that question as well. "Without the high order of personal unity and diversity as given in the Trinity, there are no answers" (Francis Schaeffer, He is There and He is not Silent, 14). Our experience in community should be one of mutuality and interaction. We have significant relationships with others from the time of our birth where we learn to be social. In a positive community experience we support each other and build each other up. Jesus said that he and the Father were one—they were distinct but perfectly identified with each other. In theology, the term perichoresis has become popular again. It was first used by the Church Fathers to express the relationship of the Persons of the Triune God. Each Person maintains individuality while sharing in the lives of the other two. It is a fascinating idea. It is more popularly known as the community of being.
This idea of community is apparently behind Paul's description of the church as the body of Christ, where there is a diversity of parts but one body. Each part has its unique, individual function but it works in conjunction with and for the benefit of the other parts. When one part suffers, we all suffer. If one part is honored, we all rejoice.
There are those in the world who will consider our belief in the Trinity heresy, blaspheming and irreverent. They become especially hostile when we declare that Jesus is God, one with the Father. There is an amazing description of who the second Person of the Trinity is in Colossians chapters 1and 2. As wonderful as this passage is we may have to suffer persecution for believing it and witnessing to it. Christ is "the fullness of the Deity in bodily form" and is "the head over every power and authority." Some will be offended by the first phrase and others will contest the second phrase by saying that their power is greater than Jesus. Some are so offended and threatened by these words that they may be willing to kill Christians. It teaches that Christ is God, the Second Person of the Trinity and not just a "teacher" or "prophet." He is the only One to whom we give our ultimate allegiance and loyalty.
That raises the question: "Are you willing to suffer for the Trinity?" It is more than a theological term—it is the truth. It is essential truth that is necessary for a correct understanding of reality. If martyr is defined as someone who will hold the truth in spite of "the assaults of persecution" (Martin Luther) and death, then we are all potential martyrs if we believe in the Trinity. The Trinity is not only worth suffering for but dying for as well.
|
It could be an ad in a fashion magazine: Miracle fat prevents weight-gain! Researchers aren't promising that, but they do say they've isolated a fat molecule in mice that prevents the animals from storing even more fat. The discovery could open a new front in the battle against the bulge if the molecule has the same effect in humans.
The word "fat" typically evokes the image of clogged arteries or cellulite jiggling on a thigh. But fat has a good side, too. Fat cells make up adipose tissue, which helps regulate insulin levels and breaks down dietary fat for energy. This breakdown is accomplished via proteins in fat cells called fatty acid–binding proteins. Mice genetically engineered to lack these proteins gain less weight and are less susceptible to metabolic diseases such as diabetes than are regular mice.
Biochemist Gökhan Hotamisligil of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and his colleagues wanted to understand how this process works. They set up an experiment to compare normal mice that produce the binding proteins with mice engineered to lack them. Half the mice in each group ate a high-fat diet for 16 weeks while their counterparts crunched on low-cal food. At the end of the treatment, the researchers tested how much and what types of fat built up in adipose tissue, blood, liver, and muscle. They also tested metabolic function in mice. They saw that mice on the high-fat diet without fatty acid–binding proteins did gain weight but less weight than the control mice on the high-fat diet. Most surprisingly, the mice without binding proteins had better metabolic function and more of the fat that's considered healthy than the controls, the team reports today in Cell.
The researchers then examined why the mice were accumulating less fat, suspecting that a molecular signal was in play. "It was like looking for a needle in a bad, gooey, sticky, nasty haystack," says Hotamisligil. Upon further investigation, the team found elevated levels of one type of fatty acid, palmitoleate, in adipose tissue of the genetically engineered mice. Palmitoleate is formed when cells produce their own fat, even good fat, and Hotamisligil suspects that the molecule sends a signal to other organs in the body telling them not to store extra dietary fat. He now wants to see if this "healthy fat" has the same effect in humans.
The idea that a fatty acid could help regulate the metabolic system is fascinating and provocative because researchers had thought only proteins could do that, says Henry Ginsberg, an endocrinologist at Columbia University. "Definitely, a lot of people should be looking at this."
|
In the rainforest everyday is nearly the same. It’s avery wet environment. Didyou know that the totalrainfall in a year is 1500 to2500mm! It’s pretty obviousthat it rains everyday. Thetemperature is 30 to 35degrees during the day andwhen night falls it’s 20 to
• Did you know that 6% of the earth is rainforest and it is home to over half the worlds species of birds and plants.• 1/5 of the worlds plants and birds and 1/10 mammals are found in the Amazon!
Bromeliads- These plants are related to the pineapplefamily.Their thick, waxy leaves form a bowl shape in the centrefor catching rainwater.Buttress Roots- Some very tall trees have developedwaysof having much needed additional support by formingbuttressed roots, which grow out from the base of the trunksometimes as high as 15 feet above the ground.Carnivorous Plants- The best known of these isprobably the Venus fly trap, But more impressive is thepitcher plant Nepenthes rafflesia, found in southeast Asia.This plant grows to 30 feet tall and may have pitchers 12inches in length, usually full of digested insects. Pitcher Images offplants also eat small mammals and reptiles that attempt
Epiphytes- Epiphytes, or air plants, grow everywherebutcan be found mainly on the branches, trunks, and even theleaves of trees.Lianas- Lianas are a type of climbing vine foundthroughouttropical rainforests. They have thick, woody stems andcome invarious lengths (up to 3,000 feet) and different shapes.Orchids- Orchids comprise is one of the most varied Images offflowering plant families. There are over 20,000 known species and orchids are especially common in moist
Spider Monkey-Spider monkeys are large in size.Adult monkeys grow to be almost two feet tall excludingthe tail. They have a powerful tail that they use as an extralimb. Spider monkeys like to hang upside-down with allfour limbs and the tail holding on to branches which makesthem look like a spider.Toucan-There are about 40 different kinds of toucans.Theyvary in size from about 7 inches to a little over two feet.Theyhave short and thick necks.Poison Arrow Frog-Poison-arrow frogs aresocial frogs found in Central and South America. They are knownby their Images off bright colours which warn other animals that they
Macaw- Macaws are the largest of all parrots.There are 16 different species of macaws and they rangeinsize from a little over three feet to one foot.They have tails that are as long or longer than theirbodies. They also have long, pointed wings thatenable them to fly swiftly.Sloth- Sloths are extremely slow-movingmammals found in the rainforest canopies of Central and SouthAmerica. Images offThere are two species of sloths, two toed and
Rainforests have a lot oflocation around theworld. They are locatedmainly around theequators. Locationsinclude: Central America,India, Amazon, Australia,
Central America- A lot of rainforests in CentralAmerica has been demolished for sugar can farms andcattle ranching. A lot of plants found in these rainforestsare found nowhere else. Central America is famous for it’slarge amount of tropical birds, including many types ofparrots.The Amazon- The amazon jungle is the biggestrainforest in the world. The Amazon also has the secondlongest river in the world.Africa- Africa holds the second largest rainforest inthe world, the Madagascar. But a lot of it is gone.South East Asia-The rainforests of Asia stretch from
Tiger Gazelle HogGrass Leaves FruitImages off
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.