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Alternative Dispute Resolution, or ADR, encompasses means of resolving disputes without resorting to litigation. It is possible to engage in ADR without filing a lawsuit, or to utilize ADR in a binding or non-binding effort to resolve a dispute. In ADR, the parties enter into a contract that sets forth the terms and conditions of how the dispute resolution will be handled, including who hears their concerns, how their concerns will be presented, and how their agreements will be made. This can give the parties to a dispute a great deal of flexibility over how their controversy will be resolved. The most common forms of ADR are: Mediation - The parties select a mediator, or mediators, who are trained to assist them in their negotiations. The process is voluntary and the parties control all decisions, all agreements are made by the parties. In court-ordered mediation, the mediators may be selected by the court, or by an administrator. Arbitration - The parties select an arbitrator, or a panel of arbitrators, who hear their case and then decide an appropriate resolution. Arbitration is usually binding on the parties. Facilitation (Facilitative Mediation) - The parties meet with a facilitator, who helps them reach a compromise or settlement.
Resources, worksheets, outlines, newsletters and essays relating to mediation and arbitration.
Arbitration Virtual Library.
Links to Alternative dispute resolution information and resources, including 'international public arbitration' for disputes between nations, from the World Wide Web Virtual Library project.
Campus Conflict Resolution Resources
Comprehensive collection of materials and links for planning, administrating and succeeding with a campus mediation center.
Centre for Dispute Resolution
Non-profit organization in the United Kingdom, providing alternative dispute resolution services, including business and international disputes, providing information and training services, and advocating for expanded use of ADR.
Links to internet resources, and information about publications and organizations, on conflict resolution.
The website for the electronic newsletter 'European Arbitration'.
Happ's Arbitration Links
Links to ressources in the field of international commercial and investment arbitration.
Harvard Program on Negotiation
Information on the organization and its programs, with articles.
Iran-United States Claims Tribunal
Official website of the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal, an international arbitral tribunal established 19 January 1981 by treaty between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America.
United Kingdom based mediation service for solving all types of business and personal disputes.
Mediation Information and Resource Center
Everything from defining mediation, to guidelines for choosing a mediator. An international searchable directory with links to mediator's web pages.
Permanent Court of Arbitration
The first world body dedicated to the pacific settlement of disputes, now also very active in international commercial arbitration. Established by the first Hague Peace Conference in 1899.
Last update:March 4, 2007 at 8:13:52 UTC | <urn:uuid:930e28c7-fb53-4a82-881e-a08f44eba03c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dmoz.org/Society/Law/Legal_Information/Dispute_Resolution_and_Arbitration/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00100-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903455 | 603 | 2.625 | 3 |
JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
Finding the top of the world was easier in 1851--at least to this illustration, showing the Crystal Palace of the Great Exhibition of 1851 sitting firmly in place above all. I can imagine that if you were sitting in Hyde Park along with the 1851-foot long building, it would be easy to think that you were indeed at the top of the food chain. The structure was the crowning achievement of the Exhibition: it was almost one million feet under iron and wood and glass, and could hold tens of thousands of people who could view the enormous gardens housed there.
Perhaps most astonishing of all was that the modular structure--design by Joseph Paxton--was moved three years later, in 1854, to Penge Place, where it stood until it was consumed by fire in 1936. | <urn:uuid:f0a64a7a-58f0-4ce8-bc63-9caaaa30ccf7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://longstreet.typepad.com/thesciencebookstore/2011/11/at-the-top-of-teh-world-1851.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394937.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00160-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982039 | 170 | 3.265625 | 3 |
|The Hawkesbury Sandstone Collection is a family of objects made from Gosford Sandstone, on-site at the quarry’s stone yard. The Broached Colonial pieces by Max Lamb represent a major shift in Lamb’s work with stone. The pieces include steps, a table, four stools, and a bench.||
After an intensive research period in his hometown of London, Max Lamb identified the distinctive sandstone, native to the Sydney Bay area, as a predominant feature of the landscape and a resource readily available upon the arrival of the First Fleet. Lamb traveled to Sydney for one month of development and production focused on creating a collection of sandstone furniture, in collaboration with Gosford Quarries.
At Gosford Quarry Lamb discovered that the overburden boulders, inherent to the quarrying process, had been used to backfill old sections of the quarry. The absence of loose boulders moved the designer towards the creation of a highly refined collection of objects cut from regular ashlar blocks, each one with a direct correlation to his research on colonial period art, the necessary resourcefulness of the first colonists, and the geology and topography unique to Sydney.
Lamb's quarry work demonstrates an ability to make intelligent adaptations of raw blocks of stone into simple usable furniture. Lamb arrives at new quarries without a predetermined set of designs. Available materials, cutting equipment and the relationship he develops with the staff at each quarry drive the generation of each new collection.
The Hawkesbury Sandstone Collection consists of four pieces: steps, a table, stools and a bench.
The steps began as an investigation of Mrs Macquarie's Chair. On visiting the site Max discovered that the seat was so large it required steps to lead up to its various levels. The steps to Mrs Macquarie's Chair resulted in an investigation of sandstone steps around Sydney, finally leading to research into freestanding stone steps, such as horse mounting steps.
The table references the sandstone rock faces exposed along the shoreline of Sydney Bay and within the city. Over time rain erodes the organic sediment dividing the layers, turning the sandstone into what appears to be a series of varying scaled blocks and slabs. The table represents one of these slabs - as if pried from the rock-face using a crowbar.
The stools directly reference seated figures in colonial period paintings. It is often the case that people are seated on wooden stumps, which appear to be the off-cuts from a non-furniture related process. In a highly active environment, where few comforts existed, the creation of permanent furniture was necessarily secondary to food security and shelter.
The bench takes its inspiration from another useful element Lamb discovered in the Sydney Botanical Gardens: the natural sitting place created by the protruding roots of mature fig trees. The sprawling, exposed roots, combined with the shade offered by the large canopy, provide a perfect resting spot.
To get a vantage point via steps, to have somewhere to place documents or food, to sit independently or as a group - these are the essential activities that the Hawkesbury Sandstone Collection by Max Lamb provide for. Elemental forms made from one of the most beautiful natural resources in the world.
We knew it was essential to have a British designer involved in Broached Colonial Commissions. Max Lamb was perfect for several reasons: his simple, sometimes crude but ultimately functional stone furniture fitted perfectly with so much of our research into the colonial period. Adaptive use of natural materials that lent themselves to practical purposes was essential during the first years of the colony, and this is exactly how Lamb approaches his work in quarries – searching for stones that lend themselves to being transformed into a seat, a table or a bench.
Max Lamb, born in the UK in 1980, grew up in a bucolic seaside town in Cornwall, England: an upbringing that imbued him with a love of nature and a creative spirit. This led him to explore materials by re-contextualising them in both conventional and unconventional ways. He exploits the inherent qualities of his materials and reconsiders their function. Lamb designs products that stimulate a positive three-way interaction between product, maker and user, through a visual simplicity that effectively communicates the obvious function of each piece.
After completing a degree in Three-Dimensional Design at Northumbria University, Lamb went on to receive a Master’s Degree in Design Products from the Royal College of Art, London, in 2006. A frequent lecturer and design workshop leader, Lamb currently lives in London where he continues to develop new designs that challenge the traditional concepts of the materials he uses, and the processes with which he manipulates them.
All pieces were cut and finished by the stonemasons at Gosford Quarries. Gosford Quarries was Max Lamb’s first choice of a quarry partner, due to the fact that Lamb’s research revealed that Governor Arthur Phillip explored the area during the first year of settlement. For Lamb, this provided a crucial connection between his idea of creating furniture pieces that represent the furniture needs during the first months of settlement and the present. Gosford Quarries is Australia’s leading sandstone producer, active since 1922, and is widely recognised for its expertise in all areas of quarrying, processing and supply in the residential, commercial building, landscaping, civil and restoration markets. Gosford Quarries owns and operates eight active sandstone quarries around Australia.
The main factory is located at Somersby on the Central Coast of NSW. Over five acres, Gosford Quarries have one of the largest and most modern sandstone works in the world, the largest in Australia. Gosford Quarries use state of the art machinery including four Gang Saws, a 5 Axis Bridge Saw, and a programmable diamond wire saw that can cut 3-Axis up to 2.5m. The wire saw was used for the cutting of the arc shaped bench. During the last few decades, Gosford Quarries’ involvement in projects such as the Hilton Hotel Sydney, Governor Phillip Tower and the Commemorative Museum, and winning international architectural awards for excellence, have elevated the profile of the company and increased its success. | <urn:uuid:455fa129-99b0-47cc-8f0e-3e285997251f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://broachedcommissions.com/commissions/2011/colonial/hawkesbury_sandstone_collection/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396872.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00083-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958255 | 1,277 | 2.96875 | 3 |
|Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos|
- Fragrance: Inhaling either peppermint or citrus scents help wake my brain up. I keep essential oils in my classroom and take a sniff as needed. Portable, non-toxic, and I can do it as often as I would like.
- Music: Give me a song I can sing along to and I perk right up! I can always put on headphones if I don't want to bother anyone else. Or if I'm in the classroom at the time, the kids dance along with me!
- Water: I've noticed that when I get dehydrated, my brain slows down. It is hard for me to drink enough water in the classroom (after all, I can't always run to the bathroom when I need to), so I try to make sure I drink extra glasses when I first get up and at lunch time.
- Movement: Maria Montessori observed that the mind follows the hand. In order to be able to control our minds, we have to be able to control our bodies. To get my students focused, I give them a physical task such as washing dishes, scrubbing tables, or sewing. The same thing works for adults: find an activity that involves your hands and your mind will calm down and come into focus.
- Take a break: A change is as good as a rest! A few minutes walking around after sitting in front of a computer will help you stay focused on the task at hand. I take a few minutes for some deep breathing before my students come in. It allows me to focus my mind on what I want to get done during the day before the hustle and bustle begins. | <urn:uuid:0a0797ec-dfd0-4457-93e1-f9b46497f893> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://cjoyreed.blogspot.com/2013/02/5ff-fighting-fog.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396222.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00110-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972972 | 349 | 2.75 | 3 |
A term that was first applied to the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill, Rome, completed in 507 BC. It was destroyed several times by fire and rebuilt. The existing Capitol, a large portion of which serves the purpose of a museum, was erected from designs by Michelangelo. In all the chief cities of the ancient Roman Empire there was a capitol or town hall. In the United States the building occupied by Congress at Washington bears the name of the Capitol, and the halls of the legislative assembles of the different states are so named.
Home • Copyright © The Worlds of David Darling • Encyclopedia of Science • Encyclopedia of Alternative Energy • Contact | <urn:uuid:32b19ee8-fe9c-4f4c-9f28-35ee2c45d8c3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia_of_history/C/Capitol.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397749.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00149-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951691 | 133 | 3.34375 | 3 |
Survival ASL: 25 Essential Signs For Kids
This important guide provides 25 essential signs for children to start learning American Sign Language. It has been designed especially for the mobile format, so the signs are always ready at hand for you!
Preview eBook PDF [380 KB] - FREE
eBook PDF [1.04 MB] - $2
New! Print Book [5.5 x 4 inches] - $4
To purchase directly from the Apple iBookstore go here.
For the Amazon Kindle edition, click here.
To purchase the eBook in other formats, visit the Survival ASL: Kids Smashwords page.
31 pages, Full Color
28 pages, Full Color
"I am Deaf and teach Sign Language classes for hearing families. I find the signs accurate and appealing to the eye..." --Melissa Greenlee, review at Smashwords.com.
"...man, I wish I had a book like this when my kids were little! The 25 essential signs are illustrated and easy to learn. This is a great resource for parents struggling to give their disabled children tools for communication." --Mom-Blog.com
Adrean Clark is also the author of 8 Ways to be Deaf and The Census Taker and Other Deaf Humor.
Visit Adrean at Adreanaline.com! | <urn:uuid:9d7c5e25-e1d0-4390-b7d3-a6c194a0c69c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.survivalasl.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00156-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.836899 | 274 | 2.71875 | 3 |
First ever encyclopedia documenting the Gaza war released Sunday
Gaza, The “creativity” studies and training foundation released Sunday the first ever electronic encyclopedia that documents Israel’s late 2008 early 2009 war on the Gaza Strip to mark the war’s second anniversary as it approaches.
The encyclopedia, dubbed “the Gaza Holocaust”, is the product of drawn out efforts by the foundation’s strategic research and studies center, said foundation head Mohammed al-Madhoun. “More than 120 of the foundation’s field researchers contributed to this remarkable work, as well as many more from research centers, rights foundations, and ministries.”
The idea, sparked at the time of Israel’s aggression, was to document the suffering and crimes that occurred during the war. “The encyclopedia contributes to the decay of Israel’s legitimacy in the framework of a battle that stripped Israel of its moral and humanitarian legitimacy.”
The reference book attempts to correct the past mistake of not recording Israel’s crimes. “The encyclopedia therefore protects history from being falsified, and provides a reliable reference with voice and picture.”
The name “the Gaza Holocaust” was part of the name battle that Israel had been playing in an attempt to monopolize names. The named heroic disaster was therefore named the holocaust.
Madhoun called on media agencies to deliver the encyclopedia to every household in the world. “The encyclopedia should be translated into English, and then continued to be developed and supported with more data and documents.”
He added that the reference followed a new approach in documenting history and building cases against criminals in light of the current information revolution.
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|William John Cox| | <urn:uuid:59aa5b1d-3095-4e84-bfbf-a4c1b70cfb47> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.modernwriters.org/focus/analysis/7564-israeli-war-crimes-goes-electronic.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00200-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90898 | 438 | 2.71875 | 3 |
University of Maryland researchers fabricated semiconducting carbon nanotubes claimed to have the highest mobility of any known material at room temperature.
University of Maryland researchers fabricated semiconducting carbon nanotubes claimed to have the highest mobility of any known material at room temperature. Mobility is the conductivity of a material divided by the number of current-carrying charges. It is the number used to compare conduction properties of one semiconductor to another. The mobility of these nanotubes exceeds 100,000 cm3/Vsec at room temperature. For comparison, the silicon used in today's computer chips has a mobility of only about 1,500 cm3/Vsec.
Carbon nanotubes are single-atom-thick sheets of graphite, rolled into a seamless cylinder. The semiconducting carbon nanotubes may replace conventional semiconductor materials in applications from computer chips to biochemical sensors. "Many challenges remain before nanotubes can replace silicon in computer chips," says Michael Fuhrer, assistant professor of physics. "The contact resistance between nanotube and metal electrodes must be controlled. Nanotube batches must be prepared that contain only semiconducting nanotubes. And nanotubes must be placed with precision on substrates," he adds. | <urn:uuid:374c6a4a-6156-40f1-9df6-29fbfc551765> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://machinedesign.com/news/nanotubes-may-be-best-semiconductors | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398628.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00113-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909492 | 256 | 3.625 | 4 |
- not manned
- ⌂ without people aboard and, hence, operating by automatic or remote control, as a pilotless aircraft or spacecraft
- Not crewed: an unmanned spacecraft.
- Obsolete Not trained. Used of a hawk.
- Simple past tense and past participle of unman.
From un- +"Ž manned. | <urn:uuid:f51fe205-1630-4205-ae51-7a88235c782b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.yourdictionary.com/unmanned | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398216.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00175-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.816866 | 73 | 2.546875 | 3 |
For release: 03-10-03
Science Ops status report #: 03-036
International Space Station Commander Ken Bowersox is checking out how microgravity is affecting muscles and bones in his hips, legs, and ankles. He's serving as the test subject for a human life sciences experiment. Bowersox works closely with the team at NASA's Payload Operations Center at the Marshall Center — the command post for all science activities on the Station. Read more about other science activities on the Space Station.Photo: Bowersox completes experiments on the Space Station. (NASA/JSC)
Whether it’s by being repairmen or being experiments themselves, the Expedition Six crew continues to demonstrate the benefits of having humans in space. The three Expedition Six crewmembers worked with ground controllers in the Payload Operations Center at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. to conduct some hardware troubleshooting. They also continued to carry out their research mission on the Space Station.
This week, the Expedition Six crew marked their 100th day in space, conducting research on the Station for 14 weeks. For many of the experiments, they are serving as test subjects, studying how their bodies adapt to living in space. All three crewmembers conducted another session on the Pulmonary Function in Flight experiment also known as PuFF. The session included five lung function tests. Among other things, the experiment measures the changes in evenness of gas exchange in the lungs since unevenness of gas exchange is a hallmark of almost every pulmonary disease. By better understanding the effects of gravity or lack of gravity on the human pulmonary system, clinical medicine on Earth may benefit. The PuFF experiment will also help prepare crews for longer missions in space.
Commander Ken Bowersox also served as the test subject for another human life sciences experiment that looks at how living in a microgravity environment causes stress on the bones and muscles in the lower extremities. Last week, Bowersox worked with the control team on the ground to troubleshoot this experiment called Foot/Ground Reaction Forces during Space Flight (FOOT). Bowersox recreated the previously encountered data recording problem, and then learned how to fix it by rebooting the data acquisition system. Information learned from this troubleshooting will help avoid the data recording problem during future experiment sessions.
International Space Station Science Officer Don Pettit also took a repairman’s role in troubleshooting problems with the Microgravity Science Glovebox. The glovebox is a Space Station facility that has a sealed work area for safely holding fluids and other materials while the crew does hands-on experiments using gloves attached to the front of the facility.
The glovebox has been inactive since November when power was lost from an internal Power Distribution and Conversion box. The power box was returned to the ground, repaired, returned to orbit, and re-installed successfully. With that box repaired, power can now be re-applied to the Facility to continue troubleshooting the initial problem, which occurred in November.
The first step in the latest round of troubleshooting began with Pettit turning the
glovebox on. Then ground-based engineers observed the facility in standby mode for four hours. During that time, the circuit breaker problem did not reoccur, allowing the troubleshooting to continue to the next step. Last week, Pettit began the task of rotating the glovebox forward to access a series of electronic cable hook ups. Following procedures developed by the glovebox team on the ground, he disconnected cables from an electronics box. The Facility was successfully powered in this minimum configuration eliminating additional portions of the circuitry as the source of the problem. Troubleshooting is scheduled to continue this week as Pettit and the glovebox team narrow down the probable cause of the breaker trips.
Other routine activities continued including crystal growth experiments and downloading radiation monitoring data. Crew Earth Observations continue this week with opportunities to photograph tropical cyclone Japhet off the coast of southern Mozambique. All science activities are planned and executed by NASA’s payload operations team at the Marshall Center. Planners here continue to choreograph activities for the rest of Expedition Six and Expedition Seven, scheduled to start with the arrival of a Soyuz spacecraft this spring. | <urn:uuid:6776b5ff-1b7a-437e-90a7-e7234d1c0c43> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/news/releases/2003/03-036.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00081-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944717 | 863 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Sound Reinforcement & Friction With Others
During any event where live sound is being mixed from a central locations, the sound technician is the person in control of the sound board; as a result, others will perceive him/her to be the person to whom they should direct both their complaints about the sound and their advice to the technician about how the system should be run. The sound technician needs to exercise restraint and use wisdom when responding to these well-intentioned inputs, and seek first to understand, serve, and assist.
This section gives some common points of friction, and proposes methods of dealing with them. These solutions should not be treated as gospel as each human interaction is unique; in other words, use these proposed solutions as a starting point for working out how you will respond in each situation that arises.
Whenever someone approaches the sound technician and complains that the sound level is too high (or to low, for that matter), it is important to understand where in the room that person is sitting. The individual may have seated themselves directly in front of a speaker, or too close to the drum kit, and so it may be necessary for them to move to a place in the room where volume levels are naturally lower.
Sustained exposure to sound levels above 90 db is harmful to our ears, and so I always have a db meter with me at the sound board. As part of a dialogue with someone about sound levels, I often pull out the db meter and show it to them; I talk about how I always keep sustained sound levels below 90 db. In most instances, this reassures them and their concerns are alleviated.
In other instances, it isnít the volume level that the person is bothered by, but something else. My favourite example of this was the person who told me a particular band was too loud, but after they returned to their seat I noticed that even when the band was playing very softly they sat with their fingers in their ears. It wasnít the volume that was the problem, it was the style of music. There isnít much you can say to this sort of person, but it is important to listen to them and treat them with respect.
When people listen to music in their cars, or at home on their stereos, they often fiddle with the EQ and boost the bass, or treble, or both, or put the graphic EQ into a V or at an angle, or do other funky things that alter the sound emerging from their speakers. Because they become accustomed to this altered sound, anything else sounds wrong to their ear.
When these comments arise, try to find an example from the music being played at the moment the comment is uttered in order to provide the person with a reply. For example, if the complaint is about a lack of bass, examine the current music to see what bass should be present in the mix and then talk about the presence or lack of bass that you hear. Help the person to understand that sound reinforcement is about using the amplification system to help everyone in the congregation hear what is happening on the platform, and if there isnít any bass being produced by the band then there isnít any to amplify and then hear.
Musicians and public speakers are notoriously opinionated about how they sound in the house mix. Generally, they are also completely ignorant about sound reinforcement. When someone on the platform wants to direct the house mix, the only real alternative is to have them come down off the platform and hear the same thing that you are hearing.
In my experience, these comments most commonly originate from the person who is in charge of the event. This places the sound technician in the awkward position of having to somehow either educate or appease the leader, when that leader canít be simultaneously on the platform and standing beside sound technician. The only way I have found to work these situations is to find someone (other than the sound technician) who the leader implicitly trusts, then suggest to the leader that this trusted person be his/her ears while you adjust the mix.
I have found that singers often ask for their EQ to be changed, based upon what they hear in their monitor. If you are running a separate monitor mixing board where the singerís monitor EQ can be adjusted separately from the houseís EQ, there isnít a problem. However, in most church-related situations you donít have the luxury of a separate monitor board.
The key in these situations is to find some compromise between what the singer wants and what you need for the house. The first time this request comes up will probably be in a situation where you donít have time to educate the singer about the differences between the house sound and their monitor, so be prepared to be the sole compromiser when this first comes up; then take the singer aside at a later time and explain the dilemma. Work to reach a compromise that allows the singer to feel confident about their voice in the system while still allowing you to have the sound you require to make the house mix sound good.
A similar problem sometimes arises with instruments too; whereby the musician adds effects or EQ to their instrument's sound which enhances the way the instrument sounds in the monitor but which causes the sound to be less suitable for the use in the house. Use a similar approach to the one given in the previous paragraph: work with the musician, explain your dilemma, and work to find some middle ground that meets your collective needs. | <urn:uuid:319cc1c4-7821-4541-bb72-cf436da2ba9f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.rath.ca/Misc/Worship&Sound/Sound_Reinforcement_Friction.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00047-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969707 | 1,108 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Aerial view of Mentone c1920 showing site of Mentone College.
Mentone was designed by its founders in the 1880’s to be a place where people of some social standing would live. In its first years Mentone had citizens such as M.H.Davies, at one time Speaker of the Victorian Parliament, his brother J.B.Davies, a principal in land companies, C.J.Potts, a solicitor, Percy Dobson, C.H.James, C.J.Hearle, J.Moodie and other professional men who commuted to Melbourne by train each day. These wealthy people and others who followed them were keen to have their children well educated.
The primary school, opened in 1889, was a result of their lobbying in government circles. Over the next fifteen years three secondary colleges opened in Mentone and the success of these schools showed that there was a class of people in the district prepared to pay for education beyond primary level.
The first secondary schools were Mentone College ( opened 1896 ), Mentone Girls’ Grammar School (1899) and Kilbreda College (1904). Later on came Mentone Grammar School (1920), St. Bede’s College (1938) and Mentone Girls’ Secondary College (1954). All of these schools except Mentone College are still in existence. Indeed, they educate well over five thousand pupils at any given time and these numbers would astonish their original founders.
Thomas McCristal, founder of Mentone College.
Thomas McCristal who had run a private grammar school in Benalla purchased the property of the bankrupt J.B Davies, the land boomer, and established his school on the present site of St. Bede’s in 1896. McCristal was a devout Catholic and his school was looked on with favour by the Catholic clergy, but it was not officially part of the church system and many of its pupils were not Catholics. McCristal was a tolerant man who despised bigotry and he received generous praise for his training of youth from people of various religious backgrounds. He was an Old Xaverian, trained in the Classics, and he tried to make Mentone College a place where culture would be learned and respected. He was proud of the Old Boys who went into the professions such as medicine, law and accountancy. His school attracted the sons of local business and professional people, like Clifford Scantlebury the doctor’s son who was dux in 1908. There were also the Gavan Duffy brothers, sons of a Melbourne legal family, and duces in 1911 and 1915.
McCristal and his wife, Mary, had up to 50 or so boarding students, mostly from country Victoria and the Riverina. There were also the sons of foreign diplomats who were entrusted to their care, and some sons of families who ran city businesses such as restaurants where parents considered the family life was not conducive to study.
Tom McCristal played cricket for Mentone with great success for several years on each side of 1900. He often played alongside some of his students. On one occasion McCristal and a boy called Cowell put on two hundred to turn a game against South St. Kilda. McCristal’s share was 92 while his student made a century. He used the game of cricket with its emphasis on fair play and honesty as a way of educating boys for life. In 1903 his school eleven won the premiership in the Victorian Schools Association Competition and he proudly spoke of this feat at ensuing speech days.
In 1901 he built timber classrooms near Palermo Street and these served the college for twenty years while the old Davies house was the boarding section. There was ample space between the two for sport and games to be played. The college even had its own small farm for provisions.
McCristal advertised his school as providing the benefits of Mentone’s healthy seaside climate and the boarders went for a daily swim, before breakfast in the warmer months. They also went on long walks across the surrounding countryside or seashores each Sunday. The college lasted from 1896 until 1920 when its founder sold out because he and his wife were reaching an age where having to act as mentors to many boys on a twenty-four hour a day basis was becoming burdensome.
McCristal received much praise for his work as an educator of the finest character. Many of his ex-students referred to him as being the finest gentleman they had met and a great influence over their lives. McCristal moved to Sydney and enjoyed a long retirement during which he often received visits from his old students. He died in 1945, a year or so after his wife. His classroom block was sold to the founders of Mentone Grammar who moved it to their property, first in Warrigal Road, and later near the oval in the present Venice Street school. Most of the old McCristal estate was sold off after 1920 with the old Davies section being bought by the Columban Missionary priests. They rented it to Mentone Girls’ Grammar from 1923 until 1937 when it was bought by the De La Salle Brothers who set up St. Bede’s the next year.
- Gamble, Leo, (1982), St. Bede’s College and its McCristal Origins.
Article Cat. Historical Features
Article Ref. 53 | <urn:uuid:c8f76fab-5806-4771-a2ee-cbb23dfa6ea2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://localhistory.kingston.vic.gov.au/htm/article/53.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403823.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00052-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990185 | 1,113 | 2.671875 | 3 |
A military post was first established here in 1868 and named Sherman Barracks after the famous Civil War general, William Tecumseh Sherman. The post's name was soon changed to Omaha Barracks and, in 1878, to Fort Omaha. In 1879, General George Crook, noted Indian fighter and head (1875-1882, 1886-1888) of the Army's Department of the Platte, occupied a new brick home here, which is still standing.
By the late 1880's, the 80-some acres of Fort Omaha had become insufficient for the Army's needs. A larger post, Fort Crook, was established near Bellevue and Fort Omaha was closed in 1896. In 1905, it reopened as an Army Signal Corps training school. Closed in 1913, the fort again reopened in 1916, this time as a training school for the crews of Army observation balloons. About 16,000 men trained here in preparation for service in World War I.
When the Army declared Fort Omaha surplus property in 1947, it became a Naval Reserve Manpower Center. Since then it has served as a recruiting, training, and administrative facility for several branches of the armed forces.
Daughters of the American Colonists
Historical Land Mark Council | <urn:uuid:1cea8247-00ff-400b-9523-202017035c3e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://nebraskahistory.org/publish/markers/texts/fort_omaha.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00075-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9688 | 254 | 3.296875 | 3 |
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Pediatric Heart News - Saving babies with critical heart disease begins before day one
Saving babies with critical heart disease begins before day one
Date: March 1, 2012
The diagnosis was the troubling trifecta of congenital heart disease—tricuspid atresia, transposition of the great arteries and coarctation of the aorta. But there was a silver lining in this ominous picture—the diagnosis was made prenatally.
“If the patient had been born and this had not been recognized, the ductus could have closed, compromising perfusion to the body and potentially resulting in renal failure, liver failure and brain damage,” says pediatric cardiologist Phil Spevak, director of noninvasive imaging for congenital heart disease.
Because indications of the problem were first recognized during a routine ultrasound at the end of the first trimester, the obstetrician referred the mother to Johns Hopkins Children’s Center for Fetal Echocardiography, part of a multidisciplinary program that begins with imaging and continues through diagnosis and treatment, which happens as soon after birth as possible.
“Getting the diagnosis right is the most critical thing,” says Spevak. “The whole goal is to get the best outcome. In a sense, we have two patients, the fetus and the family.”
Depending on the heart disease of the fetus, the planning team typically includes—in addition to pediatric cardiologists—cardiac surgeons, neonatologists, perinatologists, nurses and the referring physician. In cases when surgery is not immediately needed—if the baby has an arrhythmia, for example—other interventions are begun, such as treating the mother with an anti-arrhythmia drug designed to cross over to the fetus and control the heartbeat. In this case, the newborn immediately received medication in the NICU to maintain fetal physiology and prevent the transition to postnatal circulation.
“With a diagnosis by 18 weeks’ gestation,” says Spevak, “we know what the condition is, the people who need to be involved and what we need to do. When the baby is born, everything is prepared.”
If immediate surgery is indicated, the mother usually delivers at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, which avoids the need to stabilize and transport the fragile newborn. In this case, the newborn underwent the first procedure days after birth and is doing well. “With the prenatal model,” Spevak says, “you have a better chance that the infant will be in good condition going into surgery.”
In the United States, still only about half of all babies with critical heart disease are diagnosed prenatally. Yet with advances in cardiac imaging that not only allow for diagnosis but for modeling surgery before birth, says Spevak, there is more hope for successful outcomes now than ever before. | <urn:uuid:8cb97e15-4829-489c-ad11-24b9f22a3a4f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/publications/pediatric_heart_news/pediatric_heart_news_winter_2012/saving_babies_with_critical_heart_disease_begins_before_day_one | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00090-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938743 | 671 | 2.828125 | 3 |
The Metamorphoses of Ovid are a compendium of the Mythological narratives of ancient Greece and Rome, so ingeniously framed, as to embrace a large amount of information upon almost every subject connected with the learning, traditions, manners, and customs of antiquity, and have afforded a fertile field of investigation to the learned of the civilized world. To present to the public a faithful translation of a work, universally esteemed, not only for its varied information, but as being the masterpiece of one of the greatest Poets of ancient Rome, is the object of the present volume.
rocks. Cadmus, afflicted at this fresh calamity, retires from Thebes, and flies to Illyria, together with his wife, where they are both transformed into serpents. Of those who despise Bacchus, Acrisius alone remains, the grandfather of Perseus, who, having cut off the head of the Gorgon Medusa, serpents are produced by her blood. Perseus turns Atlas into a mountain, and having liberated Andromeda, he changes sea-weed into coral, and afterwards marries her.
A tumult arising during the celebration of the nuptials, Phineus claims Andromeda, who has been betrothed to him; and together with Proetus, he and Polydectes are turned into stone. Pallas, who has aided Perseus, now leaves him, and goes to Helicon, to see the fountain of Hippocrene. The Muses tell her the story of Pyreneus and the Pierides, who were transformed into magpies after they had repeated various songs on the subjects of the transformation of the Deities into various forms of animals; the rape of Proserpine, the wanderings of | <urn:uuid:067ca28f-e4f9-438d-bfc2-1b1d22f96d8c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://manybooks.net/titles/nasop2176521765-8.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00083-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962499 | 357 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Scattered across East Hampton village are about two-dozen frame houses -- dating from between 1700 and 1850 -- that are posing a historic headache for local preservation efforts.
The frame houses play an important role in showing how the village, founded by English farmers in 1648, evolved, officials contend. "They're like a Polaroid snapshot of our history," said Mayor Paul Rickenbach Jr.
The buildings are privately owned, however, and village officials fear they could eventually be torn down by new owners who want to build a larger house -- especially because village code limits how large a structure can be built on any individual property, based on the size of the lot.
Now, the village is reviewing a plan to give a zoning bonus to owners of those houses, allowing them to add 35 percent of the gross floor area to any new construction -- provided the timber frame buildings are left intact.
The proposal, which could be voted on early next year, has drawn general support at public meetings, but some of the details are still being questioned, because the legislation is limited to the allowable space.
Some residents of the 4.9-square-mile village said they should have the right to voluntarily take advantage of the program, rather than being forced into it by having their home included, a requirement in an early version of the village plan.
The East Hampton Village Preservation Society, for example, says it supports the goals of the zoning proposal to protect timber-frame structures, but its executive director, Kathleen Cunningham, asked the board whether it was considering a tax abatement. She said her group could not support the legislation unless it included a provision that all dwellings on each property be used by only one family.
East Hampton architect Bruce Siska, whose family has lived in the village for 12 generations, wrote to the village board in support of the preservation concept. "These houses represent our village's past, and should be maintained for future generations," he wrote.
Siska and his wife live in a house that began as a three-bay lean-to around 1740, with wide pumpkin pine floors harvested from local trees and milled by local craftsmen, with door hinges, latches and nails made by local blacksmiths. "It is pretty remarkable when you stop and think about it," he said.
Another East Hampton architect, Greg Zwirko, sent a letter to the village board saying he has worked in the village for more than 40 years, and developed a deep appreciation for the local influence reflected in its early houses.
"Over the years, I've seen many wonderful classic and traditional houses lost . . . not everyone coming to East Hampton appreciates the heritage we have," he wrote.
Rules on expansion
In East Hampton village, where some homes are built on tiny lots carved out in colonial times and others are built on large estates, village code limits the gross area of newly constructed houses with a formula that customized the allowable size to each specific lot.
-- Maximum gross floor area is 10 percent of the total lot size, plus 1,000 square feet. No building of more than 20,000 square feet is permitted, no matter how large the lot size.
-- When a second building is constructed on a lot with cooking or sleeping facilities, the gross floor area of each building is combined.
-- The limit applies whether the second building is suitable for occupancy by a separate family as an independent living unit.
Source: East Hampton village zoning code | <urn:uuid:f5369d29-9279-4ddf-ad5d-bb7c9c39a8de> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.newsday.com/long-island/towns/east-hampton-works-on-home-preservation-plan-1.4377828 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00169-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97237 | 707 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Our guest blogger is Katrina Womble, an intern at the Center for American Progress.
Last week, February 26 to March 3, was National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. The National Institute of Mental Health defines an eating disorder as an “illness that causes serious disturbances to your everyday diet, such as eating extremely small amounts of food or severely overeating.” In the United States, up to 24 million people of all ages and genders suffer from an eating disorder, such as anorexia or bulimia.
Although eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness, only 1 in 10 men and women with eating disorders receive treatment. This low incidence of treatment for eating disorders is often the result of inadequate protections in federal and state laws. The federal mental health parity law only requires health insurance plans that already offer mental health coverage to provide the same level of benefits for mental illnesses as for other physical illnesses and diseases. This law does not mandate that group plans must provide mental health coverage and the law also allows states to determine which mental illnesses will be covered.
While some state laws provide comprehensive coverage for all mental illnesses (such as Arkansas), some states limit the coverage to “serious mental illnesses” or a specific list of “biologically based” mental illnesses (like Iowa’s does). These categories have been used by states and insurance companies to restrict or exclude individuals, including those suffering from eating disorders, from receiving life-saving treatment.
Most states only offer coverage for those individuals who meet all of the criteria for a diagnosis of anorexia nervosa (excessive food restriction) or bulimia nervosa (binge eating followed by purging). Health insurance plans do not typically cover individuals who have been diagnosed with an ‘eating disorder not otherwise specified’ (EDNOS) even though this diagnosis is more common than anorexia or bulimia. This means that a female patient who meets all of the diagnostic criteria for anorexia except that she is still having her period could be diagnosed with EDNOS and would not receive coverage for her eating disorder.
There is also significant variation in private insurance coverage of eating disorders. For example, companies can refuse coverage if a person’s body mass index (BMI) is not “low enough.” While the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA) has determined that a BMI of 17.5 is a “strict indicator” of anorexia, Magellan Behavioral Health Inc. requires an individual to have a BMI of 16 or below before they deem hospitalization to be medically necessary. Anthem Blue Cross has even stricter eligibility standards, requiring an individual to have a BMI of less than 15 to qualify for acute inpatient hospitalization. This means that a 5 foot 6 woman would be considered anorexic by SAMHSA if she weighed 108.5 pounds, but she would have to weigh a mere 99 pounds (Magellan) and 93 pounds (Anthem) to be eligible for treatment depending upon her health insurance provider. Alternatively, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan, one of the options that states could use to base their benchmark plan off of, allows doctors to determine when a patient is in need of medical treatment for their eating disorder.
The inclusion of mental health coverage in the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) 10 essential health benefits (EHB) is an important step towards providing comprehensive health care coverage to all Americans. However, the HHS has issued proposed regulations that allow states to choose a benchmark plan from among the three largest small employer plans, the three largest state employee plans, the three largest Federal Employees Health Benefits Plans, or the largest HMO plan offered in a state. This means that states can adopt a benchmark plan based on a state employer plan that may exclude coverage for eating disorders.
These disparities in coverage for eating disorders across state laws and insurance plans emphasize the need for the federal government to adopt a national benchmark plan for EHB that includes comprehensive mental health. For CAP’s formal comments to HHS Secretary Sebelius on the proposed EHB regulations, click here. | <urn:uuid:61f01216-661d-445c-b391-5e93c8c8ab15> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/03/06/436763/will-health-reform-provide-coverage-for-eating-disorders/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399522.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00049-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952605 | 843 | 3.375 | 3 |
By Janise Rodgers, GeoHazards International, United States
GeoHazards International is working with the staff of Ludlow Castle School and local New Delhi engineers to provide an earthquake-safe learning environment for this government school’s students. The programme is part of a larger pilot project supported by the governments of India and the United States to build local capacity to reduce the risks posed by existing buildings with inadequate earthquake resistance.
Principal B. K. Sharma has approximately 1 900 students under his charge, ranging from kindergarten to 12th standard, and he wants ensure that all of them know what it takes to stay safe in an earthquake. His school has been selected as part of a pilot project by GeoHazards International (GHI) to improve earthquake safety in important public buildings in Delhi. The project is a partnership between GHI, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Government of India, and the Government of Delhi.
|Students demonstrate that they know what to do during an earthquake during a “Duck, Cover, and Hold On” drill.|
Delhi is only about 150 kilometres south of the Himalayas, close enough for a major earthquake occurring on one of the large plate boundary faults in the foothills to cause significant damage to the city. Scientists anticipate that the next segment of the Himalayan plate boundary to experience a large earthquake will be the portion closest to Delhi, because this part of the fault has not experienced a great earthquake since 1505. In 2001, India received a wake-up call from the magnitude 7.7 Bhuj earthquake, when buildings in the city of Ahmedabad (approximately 225 kilometres from the epicentre) collapsed, killing and injuring residents. The writers of India’s national building code recognised Delhi’s earthquake hazard and placed it in Seismic Zone IV, the second-highest in the country.
To help counter the earthquake threat, GHI initiated a project in which engineers from the Delhi Public Works Department work with specialists in seismic safety from India and the United States to make existing important buildings better resist earthquake damage. The process, called “seismic retrofitting”, improves the performance of an existing building that might be heavily damaged or even collapse in strong earthquakes in order to lessen the damage. The amount of improvement and the specific methods used depend on a number of factors such as the extent and nature of damage the owner will accept, the amount of money the owner is willing to spend, the type of building, its age and condition, and how much disruption of the building’s functions and users will be acceptable.
Ludlow Castle School will be retrofitted to protect the students from injury or death, and to reduce structural damage to the building so that it can be used as an emergency shelter and an emergency relief collection and distribution centre for the Delhi Disaster Management Authority. The process involves reinforcing the buildings’ brick walls with “seismic belts” of steel mesh and concrete that will make them more resistant to damage, and bracing or anchoring objects that could fall on the students. To minimise disruption of classes, construction started at the beginning of the school’s summer break in May 2007. GHI worked with SEEDS India, a local non-governmental organisation, and the Government of Delhi to develop a handbook for bracing and anchoring objects. The handbook, printed by the Government of Delhi, is available for use in other schools in Delhi and is easily adaptable for other cities in India as well. GHI and SEEDS sensitised and trained the school staff and parents in earthquake preparedness and disaster response and helped the staff develop an evacuation plan and test it with drills. Principal Sharma was an enthusiastic partner in these efforts and has become an advocate for earthquake safety.
|Primary students learn about earthquake safety during a school assembly.|
GHI will work with the Delhi Public Works Department to replicate the work done at Ludlow Castle School in other government schools in Delhi. The Department has recently created a new group of public works engineers focused solely on seismic retrofitting. This group’s first priority will be to assess and subsequently retrofit nearly 500 of Delhi’s most vulnerable masonry school buildings. Once this programme is complete, Delhi will have made significant progress toward improving the earthquake safety of its schools.
GHI has also worked on improving school earthquake safety with the OECD Programme on Educational Building (PEB). In 2005, GHI and PEB produced the book Keeping Schools Safe in Earthquakes which describes strategies and programmes for making schools resist earthquake shaking. In 2006, GHI and PEB organised with the Turkish Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs a workshop in Istanbul for representatives of the countries comprising the Economic Cooperation Organisation (www.ecosecretariat.org) to discuss how schools in these countries could avoid the tragedy experienced by schools in Pakistan in October 2005.
For further information, visit the GHI website at www.geohaz.org or contact:
200 Town and Country Village
Palo Alto, CA 94301 | <urn:uuid:2ab0e72b-2564-40b1-8d41-31076216c160> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.oecd.org/india/improvingschoolearthquakesafetyinindia.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00129-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946578 | 1,046 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Facial feature tracking has received considerable attention in recent decades for its applications in video gaming, man-machine interaction, model based coding, and numerous other disciplines. Analyzing a head and shoulders sequence remains to be one of the most needed, yet challenging problems in video processing today. Even so, years of research has reduced the problem of facial analysis to a numerical optimization in which classical search methods are often used. See Pearson (1995) for an excellent review of the evolution of model based coding and Pandizic et al. (2003) for the current state of the art.
A dominant amount of attention for facial feature tracking has been spent applying it towards model-based facial coding (MBFC). In model-based coding, the idea is to analyze an object (i.e., the face) and send high level information about the animation of the object like movement and rotation, instead of sending raw video. The decoder uses knowledge of the model and renders the appropriate animation. The face, however, is a particularly difficult object to model because it requires not only rigid body motion, but also deformations to create expression. Modern facial models can recreate a human likeness with remarkable clarity. Figure 1 shows three reconstructed facial models and the original frames.
Selected frames of a model-based video. Top: the original video frames. Bottom: frames synthesized from a model based coder. The frames are generated using a facial model; they are rendered sequences derived from stretching a facial “texture” over the three dimensional facial wireframe. See (Eisert, 2000).
Using a model to transmit video opens the possibility for transmission using dynamic bandwidths (i.e., sending video at different bandwidths dynamically depending on the conditions of the transmission channel). In transform based coding, dynamic bandwidth means increasing or decreasing the compression thresholds, reducing video quality when the compression is high. In MBFC, dynamic bandwidth means sending a dynamic number of parameters of the face, resulting in less movement of the model at high compression but not necessarily less quality.
This application promises to revolutionize video telephony and teleconferencing by drastically reducing the bandwidth required for transmission (Eisert, 2003). But there is no free lunch. The bandwidth reductions in MBFC must be paid for in computational analysis. Despite the advances in facial analysis, current work has been limited in several aspects. Before MBFC can be adequately implemented, the following factors need addressing:
The limitations of gradient-based optimization. This type of analysis, while showing promise for real-time implementation, inherently relies upon a gradient approximation. This approximation limits the problem scope to facial sequences involving movements built into the gradient approximation training (i.e., small head movements).
The use of static facial parameters. Current algorithms use a hand selected set of animation parameters on the face, or use all facial animation parameters. It is unclear if bandwidth could be further reduced using a dynamic set of animation parameters, or what the ideal set of parameters is that adequately represents all facial animation sequences.
The prohibitive use of computationally complex algorithms. The use of direct methods to analyze head and shoulder sequences in real time has been completed only by reducing the number of animation parameters optimized. The resultant frames are not considered high enough quality to be realistically rendered. | <urn:uuid:db5fc3e9-0014-44d5-bc51-5fc512d5256f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.igi-global.com/article/facial-feature-tracking-via-evolutionary/40904 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00080-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.899845 | 665 | 2.625 | 3 |
Hollyhocks (Alcea rosea) are flowering plants that mock the growth of a perennial plant because they are known for their ability to self seed. They are tall growing plants, usually reaching between 5 and 6 feet high. Hollyhocks produce brilliant, showy, 2- to 4-inch-wide flowers in a wide array of colors, including, rose, pink, white, yellow, violet and red. Hollyhocks can easily be grown in large ceramic pots or in wooden tubs or barrels.
Germinating Hollyhock Seeds
Fill up a planting pack with a good quality sterilized seed-raising mix. Plan on starting hollyhock seeds indoors about five to six weeks before the last spring frost date in your growing region.
Firm the mix down in the planting pack using your fingers, a fork or a spoon.
Place one to two hollyhock seeds on the surface of the soil in the cells. Push the seeds into the soil firmly to a depth of approximately 1/4 inch. Mist the seeds with water to ensure good soil-to-seed contact.
Place the planting pack in the brightest lit area in your home that is not going to provide direct sunshine. A south- or west-facing window is ideal and will keep the temperature warm enough the seeds should begin germinating in seven to 14 days. Keep the mix moist, but not soggy wet.
Transplant the hollyhock seedlings when each has two to three sets of leaves.
Choose a suitably sized planting pot. Keep in mind hollyhocks can grow to 6 feet tall, so choose a pot that is large enough to accommodate two hollyhock plants plus planting stakes.
Place the planting pot in a location that is going to provide the hollyhocks with maximum sunshine. Hollyhocks dislike any amount of shade, according to Michigan State University.
Place potting mix into a large basin or wheelbarrow until there is enough to fill the planting pot about 2/3 full. Mix into the potting mix approximately 1 cubic foot of dehydrated compost, aged manure, leaf mold or peat moss.
Scoop the potting mix and organic matter mixture into the pot to fill it to approximately 2 inches from the top of the rim.
Dig two planting holes spaced about 8 to 10 inches apart that are the same depth and width of a cell in the planting pack.
Remove a hollyhock seedling from a cell in the planting pack. Place your thumb and index finger at the bottom of the cell and push upward gently.
Plant the seedling into one of the planting holes. Scoop potting mix in and around the seedling, firming it down as you proceed.
Mix into a gallon of water an appropriate amount of starter fertilizer such as 15-30-15, 16-32-16 or similar type. Follow the instructions on the label so you will know how much to use. Water each of the seedlings with approximately 1 quart of the fertilizer-and-water solution. | <urn:uuid:534cb3df-0c4f-45a1-aa02-5159effc970d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.gardenguides.com/117733-growing-hollyhock-plants-pot.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00182-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914954 | 632 | 3.125 | 3 |
Numbers Stations: Without A Trace…
Within the bounds of our brief transit on this earth, we attempt to make our mark. Leaving a permanent trace of one’s life, in some quarters, is a large part of the purpose of our lives. In our digital lives, we leave traces wherever we go. We generate clouds of data as we surf along the surfaces of the Network. In the name of data portability, we claim the data we generate and assert personal ownership over it. We even leave instructions for how the data should be handled in the event of our death. What were footprints in the sand are now captured in digital amber.
While our most everyday communications have migrated to the Network, some of our most secret communications take a different path. It’s believed that governments have been sending secret messages using Numbers Stations since World War I. Here’s Wikipedia’s definition:
Numbers stations (or number stations) are shortwave radio stations of uncertain origin. They generally broadcast artificially generated voices reading streams of numbers, words, letters (sometimes using a spelling alphabet), tunes or Morse code. They are in a wide variety of languages and the voices are usually female, though sometimes male or children’s voices are used.
“Because [a message] can be broadcast over such an enormous area, you can be transmitting to an agent who may be thousands of miles away,” he says. And, he adds, computer communications almost always leave traces.
“It’s really hard to erase data out of your hard drive or off a memory stick,” he says. “But all you need here is a shortwave radio and pencil and paper.”
By using what’s called a one-time pad, these messages can’t be cracked. Again, here’s Mark Stout:
…because the transmissions use an unbreakable encryption system called a one-time pad: encryption key is completely random and changes with every message.
“You really truly cryptanalytically have no traction getting into a one-time pad system,‚Ä? Stout says. “None at all.”
The use of short wave radio combines the capacity to send messages over great distances with the ability to obscure the origin of the broadcast. By taking down the message using a pencil and paper, the coded message stays off the information grid of the digital Network. Tools that pre-date the digital Network route around the media that makes permanent copies as a part of the process of transmission. While these messages are out there for anyone to listen to, and even record, the endpoints of the communication and the content of the messages remain opaque.
Historically, we’ve always had a medium that would allow us to communicate without leaving a trace. Now a whisper in the ear becomes an SMS message for your eyes only. While there’s much to be gained from our new modes of permanent public social messaging, I wonder if there’s a case to be made for the message without a paper trail, without a digital imprint, without any trace at all. Can we ever embrace the impermanence of a moment that can only be imperfectly replayed in human memory? The Numbers Station is reminder of another mode of speaking in a temporary medium. | <urn:uuid:1696e283-71ae-440d-bc74-99cedfba059b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blog.echovar.com/archives/3112 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00008-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918908 | 685 | 3.09375 | 3 |
The life expectancy for someone with emphysema depends on many factors. That said, emphysema is not typically diagnosed until there is 40 to 50 percent lung damage, which is stage 2 or 3 emphysema. Therefore, the prognosis of emphysema is not favorable. The average life expectancy for someone with emphysema is five years. Your life expectancy drops to two years, however, if you don’t seek treatment and/or you do not quit smoking [source: Health Information Directory]. Intensive intervention is necessary to improve your quality of life and to extend your duration of life.
The severity of emphysema is measured in different stages. Put simply, the less severe the condition is, the greater the life expectancy. People with mild, stage 1 emphysema actually have a normal life expectancy, if they quit smoking. People with moderate to severe, stage 2 and 3 emphysema, have a life expectancy of five years or more with intensive treatments. People with end-stage, stage 4 emphysema, have little time to live, even with treatment [source: No More Smokes].
There are also other factors that greatly contribute to the life expectancy of someone with emphysema. First, weight and overall health are important factors. You should maintain a healthy body weight with a proper diet and regular exercise. Second, if you have other chronic conditions, such as HIV or connective tissue disorders in addition to emphysema, your life expectancy will be reduced. Third, emphysema also exacerbates other health concerns, such as diabetes and heart problems. Complications due to diabetes and/or heart problems may eventually cause death. Fourth, you should also avoid exposure to secondhand smoke and other hazardous fumes and dust to improve your life expectancy. Simply inhaling indoor fumes, such as heating fuel, or outdoor fumes, such as car exhaust, can complicate your condition [source: Mayo Clinic]. | <urn:uuid:7a607e69-aa0b-496b-8e98-8457474ea9ea> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://health.howstuffworks.com/diseases-conditions/respiratory/life-expectancy-emphysema.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00143-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944654 | 404 | 2.90625 | 3 |
coloring the parks
This blank map of the United States is a great way to test your child's knowledge of state capitals, and offers a few extra "adventures" along the way.
Full of state fact trivia, this crossword puzzle is great for fifth graders looking to go beyond states and capitals.
Did you know Honolulu is actually a Hawaiian word meaning "shelter"? Teach your child about the history of Honolulu with this fun worksheet.
This geography worksheet features the state of Utah, home to the Great Salt Lake, the San Juan River, and more.
Happy 4th of July everyone! Celebrate this year's Independence Day with a fun word search for you and your child.
Liven up addition for your first grader; this brightly colored worksheet's full of fireworks and fun.
This 4th of July coloring page will help your little one celebrate Independence Day. Make sure he has his red, white, and blue crayons handy!
How many stars and stripes do you see? Get in the mood for 4th of July with this fun American Flag coloring sheet.
Although the White House is technically white, you can color it any way you like with this patriotic coloring sheet.
Who is Betsy Ross? Teach your child about the creator of the American flag, and have fun coloring with this historical worksheet! | <urn:uuid:fd8c88cd-ca74-4e62-bdbd-643c0010f9b4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.education.com/collection/gezzel/coloring-parks/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396224.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00009-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944916 | 279 | 3.625 | 4 |
How Far Has Physical Education Come in the Past 20 Years?
In terms of health benefits, how far has physical education progressed over the past 20 years?
In honor of the 20th anniversary of the 1991 paper, "Physical Education's Role in Public Health," the paper's original authors and a few colleagues looked back in the most recent issue of Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport to see what still needs improvement.
In the 1991 paper, the authors encouraged physical educators to "adopt a new role and pursue a public-health goal for physical education." This mainly entailed providing physical activity during phys. ed. class and teaching students how to maintain a healthy lifestyle throughout their lives.
Much like the progress of Title IX, the authors find a half-full, half-empty tale of progress.
On the bright side, they praise recommendations and guidelines issued by many national health organizations, including the American Heart Association and American Academy of Pediatrics, regarding the promotion of physical activity. The authors also recognize the push toward more physical activity in phys. ed. classes, both for health reasons and in an attempt to improve academic performance.
The federal government earns some praise in the report, too, for having increased support of physical education over the past two decades. Specifically, the authors single out the Carol M. White Physical Education Program and Michelle Obama's Let's Move! program.
There's place for concern, however. The authors criticize No Child Left Behind for "creat[ing] an environment in which physical education, music, and art are viewed as 'nonessential,' " leading to a reduction in physical education time in many schools over the past 10 years.
They also note that there's still no widespread measure for evaluating the quality of physical education programs, despite standards developed by the National Association of Sport and Physical Education, the American Heart Association, and the Institute of Medicine. All the existing standards leave something to be desired, the authors suggest.
So, what's the next step?
The authors propose replacing the term "health-related physical education" with "health-optimizing physical education" (HOPE), which would focus on health-related physical activity, keep students active for at least 50 percent of phys. ed., and involve each student, regardless of ability.
As for specific recommendations, they suggest conducting occasional national studies that measure the amount of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) in phys. ed. classes, as well as developing easy ways for phys. ed. teachers to measure their students' MVPA.
The report also encourages policymakers at all levels to establish physical education policies that target both students' health and education through daily physical activity and phys. ed. classes.
Given that obesity-related health problems will cost the United States an estimated $190 billion this year, according to a study from April, the authors aren't hesitant to issue these recommendations.
"The health crisis emboldens us to recommend that education and public-health professionals work together with policymakers to optimize the contribution of physical education to health," they write.
Want all the latest K-12 sports news? Follow @SchooledinSport on Twitter. | <urn:uuid:3e86bc72-58af-42f2-87a3-a6fb1c4c9240> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/schooled_in_sports/2012/07/how_far_has_physical_education_come_in_the_past_20_years.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00107-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946992 | 644 | 2.78125 | 3 |
The account of the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Bible is relatively succinct, particularly in the vocal exchanges between the serpent, Eve, and Adam (bolded below). What details we know of the Fall come primarily from chapter 3 of Genesis:
1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. (Gen. 3:1–7)
Some Armenian Apocrypha manuscripts have been translated into English in recent decades which expand on the Fall narrative substantially, and which are enlightening to compare and contrast with the Genesis account and the account as presented in the temple. [Read more…] | <urn:uuid:e6b8ea3d-0714-4ffc-af16-5add44fd74d9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.templestudy.com/tag/literature/page/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00092-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97762 | 359 | 2.59375 | 3 |
ALMOST EVERYONE HAS a friend with a hollow leg. You know, that guy or girl who eats tons, never exercises, and somehow (infuriatingly) stays thinner than a clean eater, a vegan, or a paleo fiend? A new study on mice says it’s all about the (skinny) genes.
What’s the Deal?
Scientists from the University of Sydney were playing around with Kruppel-Like Factor 3 (aka KLF3), a protein that turns various genes off and on, when they made an interesting discovery . As part of the experiment, the researchers bred mutant micethat could not produce KLF3. They were surprised to find that regardless of food intake, these lab animals didn’t pack on the pounds (or, in this case, ounces).
Why were the mice able to stay so skinny, even when put on a high-fat diet? After looking more closely at KLF3 and its effects, researchers noticed the mutant mice had much higher levels of adipolin, a hormone produced by fat cells which regulates blood glucose. In general, higher adipolin levels mean less fat, because the body is able to better regulate its blood glucose level and prevent all that extra glucose from turning to blubber .
KLF3’s main role is to turn genes off and on — in the mutant mice, production of adipolin skyrocketed when there was nothing telling the body to stop producing it. Basically, the extra adipolin acted as a glucose moderator, enabling the mutant KLF-less mice to chow down on more food without getting more fat.
Is it Legit?
Maybe. While this study is fascinating, it’s hard to make any grand sweeping statements without first duplicating the experiment on Homo sapiens. We know that mice can make lousy human substitutes for drug testing, but previous experiments on obesity and genetics have indicated that the gap between mice and men might not be so huge.
The research is still in the very earliest stages — scientists need to fully understand how KLF3 and adipolin affect humans before we start touting adipolin as the new anti-obesity wonder drug. But there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
If increased adipolin levels can prevent mice from becoming overweight, it’s very possible that it can do the same in humans.
- Sophia Breen
vs allergies: How can you tell?>
video games count as exercise?>
Is it okay to work
This story was originally published by journal.ie. | <urn:uuid:e06b9422-554a-423a-a8a8-c790e521cc60> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.businessinsider.com/mouse-study-may-hold-key-to-preventing-human-obesity-2013-5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00089-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938551 | 531 | 2.953125 | 3 |
CLASSICS IN CHANGE
1800 - 2000
The Gains and the Losses
Some elucidation and re-definition of the term "Classic" is needed in a world where the word is used for a canned cat food, for a statue in a museum, for anything old and presumed valuable like a Model T but interestingly outmoded. But the "Classics" as a field of human knowledge has had a varied history, changing style and direction a number of times, while still keeping its identity as a field in our higher education. But as it moved from intimate study of ancient Greek and Latin literature in the original, progressing toward a wider audience which reads text in translation only, a great deal of the intimate touch of the original writings has been lost. Translation is a very loose and approximate art, it ignores the craftsmanship of artistic wording coupled with shifting moods of thought, it misses much of the thrust of the original meanings. As we move these days into our modern field of "Classics In Translation" in our teaching, we break the chain of direct meanings drawn from an ancient source. Unless we can intrigue some ten percent of our classics in translation students into a serious study of the original languages, we run the danger of shifting the field of Classics into a corner of the University Library where it is studied by a few specialists working by themselves in comfortable isolation.
If a person could be imagined as standing intellectually poised in the year l800, somewhere in the international territory of what is now called The Western World, there would be little question about the overriding importance of the ancient Greek and Latin texts which were the firm basis of a universal education. Looking back over a four hundred year tradition to the discovery days of the Renaissance, one could say that the modern world was building on a substructure which went back two thousand years to the Empire of the often Hellenizing Romans. In fact their Latin language had persisted as a simplified and non-literary code throughout the ages as an international vehicle for information of all sorts, and it was this common linguistic exchange which bound together the various elements of the West.
There were two educational threads which persisted into the nineteenth century. On the one hand there were the texts of the ancient Latin writers, the orations and stern histories and magnificent examples of high poetic imagination and craft, which were the stuff of universal education from the level of the schoolroom to the carrels of university scholars. On the other hand there was the common-use Latin which was the vehicle for a volumes of explication and commentary superposed onto the corpus of the ancient writings. The Delphine Classics once designed for the education of a princely dauphin, contained volumes of critical comment on the slim texts they were elucidating, and the multi-lingual world of Europe could pursue commentary about details in a written Latin which was readable anywhere. The first level of any education was instruction in enough Latin to read the common usage fluently, while next step for the 'educated' was a close perusal of the authentic texts themselves, to be read not only for their ideas and historical worth, but for the sheer quality of their language, the craft and finish of the words themselves.
Education meant first of all entering through the portals of the schoolroom into the realm of Latin writing. In the years after l800 there were many new things springing to life in the West, there was a new spirit of scientific quest and acumen, there were new machines to do a new kind of mass work, and at the same time there was a reviving interest in the vernacular languages of the countries which now felt they should speak in their own tongue. Latin was after all a foreign language to be learned after your own tongue, and by l800 the erosion of Latin as a lingua franca had already begun.
But throughout the l9th century Latin still stood at the core of all education. There were different levels in this learning escalator, it would be schoolroom Latin first, then University Latin as a mandated step, with Greek literature on the highest level for the educated scholars to glimpse the glint of Hellenic imagination beyond the palisade of the more staid Roman literary territory.
In those years of the mid century high standards were set for close reading of every subtlety in the ancient writers. Excellence meant sure promise of a career in country, church or college, while failure to excel was a mark of dismissal to a business or a trade based world. So the agonizingly careful reading of every line of a complex text like Vergil's Aeneid became a part of the study of any educated person, and the result of brilliant performance in the classics examinations led the victor into the political and post-industrial world. There was still for the graduated scholar a lifetime residue of appreciation for the art of words and fine writing. It is true, this was not in French or English or German, but in Latin as an obsolete language from a distant past, but it's impression was cultivated and firmly planted and became a part of the educated person's literary personality.
The growing interesting and awareness of the new science studies which appeared before l9th mid-century produced a formidable scientific literature in the various languages, with Germany often in the scientific lead. Following the style and spirit of the scientific literature, a new technology of Linguistics soon sprang up, originally stemming from Sir William Jones' earlier hypothesis about the historical connections between the ancient Mediterranean languages and the Sanskrit which he had studied in India. From this came the enthusiastic birth of comparative-historical linguistics, now studied and documented in the most strict and rigorous neo-scientific manner, with Laws of Sound Change admitting no more exceptions than Boyle's Law on the compressibility of gases. Beside this a discipline of historical scholarship investigating the ancient world arose, again often documented in the most precise and formal pseudo-scientific language. From the study of ancient knowledge now embodied in a fresh and 'modern' field, various associations like the American Philological Association were formed in the mid l9th century. A new Classical Professionalism was borne, the shadow of which persists to the present time in A.P.A. studies oriented to the professor as researcher and scholar rather than as teacher of students in the humanistic tradition. The unreadability of this new scholarship, whether scientific or classical, by the educated reading public, is famous.
English education, with its long process from school to University and its high competitive standards as an index of assiduity, did incidentally produce a certain literary awareness in the mind of future writers. Wordsworth in his early work made an effort to break from the classical molds, but his sense of words was already formed and there is a film of linguistic memories from his classical education which shadows all his later work. Hardy had intended at first to be a poet, but when he left poetry for the novel, he retained a well-schooled sense of getting the right word with its special semantic overlays. Expressions drawn from his memory of the shimmering light of Vergil's subtle wording are often evident in his mysterious prose. Carlyle had a certain hard edge of word mastery which must have glanced off his reading of Tacitus, and when the Prime Minister Gladstone wrote a book on Homer, it was with a sense of being as familiar with ancient literature as with politics.
I speak of these things as a special kind of integration, by which a person can be so heavily versed in the world of classical writing, that it becomes a part of his personality and his verbal awareness. Christian Fundamentalists have gone a similar route in their close and lifelong reading of a biblical text, as have generations of Indians in the school study of their Sanskrit literature. These things when learned early in fine detail, have a way of sticking close to the bone.
As the l9th century progressed, Latin as the study of a great ancient literature changed into an extensive academic pursuit, with a changing core of essential texts as favored at that time. Vergil was the favored poetic text, it would be years before he was eclipsed by a new perception of the oral poet Homer. In America the study of Cicero was essential, it provided a model for the all-important political language of the senate and the electorate, and some of its formal tri-partite resonance has remained with us to the present day. Latin had its role demonstrating useful models for English use, but our former study of writing essays and speeches in a perfectly manicured version of the classical Latin language was without reason or purpose. A quick look at the standard Latin grammars used in school and college around the year 1900 shows that they were aimed specifically at the writing of Latin, performed only in a 'correct' or Ciceronian style. Documentation of how the best classical authors of the early period had written was used to provide a library of Rules for the language, which became now a schoolroom exercise with no practical social relevance, since Latin no longer had a function as a lingua franca.
For the Latin poets it was a somewhat different case. Close reading of Vergil conferred an awareness of hidden inner meanings, of double senses and of an infinite subtlety as practiced by this rare and remarkable poetical mind. Pursuing multi-colored threads of meaning in Horace's Odes showed the extent of subtle meanings, coupled word by word with a palette of beautifully arranged metrical acoustics. If one got to read some Lucretius, there would be a memory of a rare strain of philosophical majesty which could inspire a young writer not to fear hard thinking as unsuitable to the modern pen. Here in the classics were impressions of high achievement in word and phrase, which would later mark as special the talent of writers brought up in the atmosphere of the Latin poets. If Cicero made his students longwinded and tendentious, Vergil on the other hand of the equation made them bright and subtle.
When Dean Briggs of Harvard's Department of English offered in l895 a startling new Freshman Writing Course entitled English-A, everything began to change. The course was a first-ever college course in the art of Writing English, it introduced English essay-writing for thoughtful students and aimed to produce well manicured short pieces of elegantly written English. Within five years the idea had spread to almost every college in the U.S. We now think of such a Freshman course as a natural basis for a college experience. We can hardly imagine the old system in which writing polished Latin was the absolute requirement for college work, while the writing of good English seemed peripheral and not in the college's interests.
Of course the 20th century was from its very first years a time for massive change, and nowhere was that more apparent than in the field of Education. A wave of long-due Dewey pragmatics made it clear that there were new areas to be investigated, and the fields of Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology and their various offshoots quickly came to fill the pages of college Catalogs. But the old guard was still there and if you wanted a B. A in l925 in a good college, you had to have years of Latin to apply and a series of Latin courses in college unless you wanted to do science with a B.S. on your parchment. Slowly the new and interesting areas of the Social Studies encroached on the classics , but a strong Latin background was still a requirement for college entrance until the middle of the century.
After WW II things changed rapidly. The G.I. bill for veterans verged by its general nature toward new interests and new directions. After the flush of the veterans had graduated from college there was a lapse in enrollments and the Classics Departments were being regularly reviewed and often dropped throughout the l950's. Their old close-reading and virtually tutorial methods, with just a half dozen students in a college class, were seen as too expensive, and there was question as to whether it was worth teaching a few to read Vergil when a hundred could listen to a brilliant lecture on Roman Literature.
Classes in the classics had been small in the depression ridden 'thirties, although school Latin was still a formal requirement for college admission. It was in l942 when the historian Paul Buck then Dean at Harvard and the brilliant young teacher John H. Finley commenced working on plans toward a new concept, which they called General Education. The notion was to bring the thought and literature of the ancient Greek and Roman world to a wide range of students in evocative lectures, coupled with a new series of well written translations, so the long road of studying a language thorough years of patient reading could be cut short as inapplicable to modern students. Couldn't they get the ideas and the storylines and social importance of ancient texts just as well if read carefully in English?
It was of course of interest to the classical teaching profession, that a packed course of a hundred hearing a brilliant lecture on Greek Drama, or the epics of Homer or the history of Latin Literature, might be a way of saving the Classics as a field in college education. Whitney Oakes from Princeton, having already prepared sets of new translations from the Greek dramatists, stated that a ratio of one to seven would be ideal, with ten students doing the classical language, as compared to a class of seventy reading Classics in Translation. Some felt that such a ratio could save the study of the classical languages in college, by retaining some work in the original even if a General Education project were to take hold and dominate the field. But the ratio was too optimistic and it turned out fifty years later that it would be one or two students in a lecture class of seventy who were studying Greek or Latin in the original. The Classics in Translation program was successful, it did eventually come to dominate the classical field, and the earnest wish that it would revive the study of the ancient languages has in fact not been realized.
General Education was successful, it was led by Harvard after l950 and it was quickly copied everywhere. It was attractive and appealed to a huge college audience, either by their own interests of by the college's area and distribution requirements. Soon the "Classics" came to mean reading the translations in a course where the Professor, although generally skilled in Greek and Latin, was performing his duties much in the manner of a professor of English literature. Students were expected to understand and unravel storylines, to discuss such improbable things as an ancient hero's psychological motivation, and to consider the range of ancient thought as an intellectual and generic human Universal. Such coursework was popular, it was of course interesting and not too difficult since there were no special time-consuming techniques like understanding grammar or learning vocabulary. These hard things were now not needed any longer .
By the l990's new avenues of approach to the ancient world were becoming available with the wide spread of Internet knowledge, and a new focus developed dealing with the Classics as carriers of information interesting to feminists, to students of homosexuality, or political economics, or geography and long term changes in the environment. It was a good time to mine all sorts of information from the Classics, there were new uses for data about in entirely novel interests in the history of the ancient world.
These new investigative directions were interesting and some were useful in developing new scholarly directions. They greatly extended the range of social information, but they did things at a second hand level through a web of studies, researches and texts based on the ubiquitous translations appearing everywhere on the electronic internet. A student doing 'research' for a term paper could find abundant classical references quickly, he could digest and paraphrase pages on pages of ancient texts with ease for his thesis or term paper. Now everything became available, in fact it was too much to grasp without a dose of intelligent restraint, and many students fell into the trap of plagiarism by inattention or default. How different this was from close deciphering of a page from Cicero or Lysias, as the needed documentation for a fine detail of a political event!
Everyone who has worked intimately with a language knows that translation are always liable to error. At best they are partial as bearers of fact, and they never represent much of the linguistic and artistic "feel" of an original text. Amateur theologians have long faced a similar problem in fundamentalist America, failing to realize that the KJ Bible is just a translation, and a very dated translation at that; while serious bible scholars returning to the ancient texts behind the bible face the problem of their researches becoming inaccessible to the thoughtful public. Just so classical scholars often become so involved with the techniques and the minutiae of their scholarly technique, that they can also become isolated from the humanistic literary tradition. The Bible in translation, along with the Bhagavad Gita in translation and Sophocles in translation, all face similar problems of loss of significant parts of original meanings of the texts, in one degree or another.
Straussian Analysis of Latin poetry in terms of historical and political nuancing has been pursued now for thirty years or more as a special approach to classical writing. But we now find a wider range of concerns with original documents, and any mention of Sappho brings forth discussions of lesbian interests. Now we find Catullus studied in terms of the configuration of Roman homosexuality, while Martial and Juvenal when carefully sifted for reliability, are thought to extend our sense of what Romans were thinking of at least in their less grave moments. Can we extrapolate from Petronius a sketch of slave and freedman society and document this from the myriad social inscriptions from the later Empire? Does the silver-rich wealth of ancient Athens connect with the burning of wood hearths to remove lead which is fed into the atmosphere, presaging agricultural decline centuries later?
Of course these are good questions, and some of them are worth serious consideration. But this is a far world from the literary concerns of previous age when language-based students were imbibing the feeling of what a really great poem is about, what the meaning of specially contrived word and thought sequences can mean as part of the art and the craft of writing. Gaining as we have done, a wide grasp on the world of human society both ancient and modern, we have indeed widened our scope of interests. But we have done this at a cost, losing track of the literary and artistic craft of the ancient writers whose words do not permit easy access, with a stroke of the keyboard, to the global web of information. Ideas coded in a written language do require attention and effort to explicate fully, worthwhile writing does not yield quick returns automatically.
I believe that we have lost the touch of intimacy with the words of the ancient literatures. Without serious and protracted study of our artistic originals, we lose the availability of something read long ago but now half stored as a valuable "spot in time" in our memory. We miss the chance recollections of an afternoon in the library when a passage from long ago turns up unexpectedly, to remind us that we too have a long history in our life of slow learning, and that the remembered coefficient is what furnishes the cache of personal experience in the art and techné of our classical Humanities.r> | <urn:uuid:4428a437-a6d7-4c7b-b50a-f32dbc230894> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/classics.review.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00154-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974712 | 3,919 | 2.578125 | 3 |
What does Ysidro mean?
Ysidro [ysidro] as a boys' name is of Greek origin, and the name Ysidro means "gift of Isis". Ysidro is a version of Isidore (Greek).
Ysidro has 1 variant: Isidro.Creative forms:
(male) Cydro, Yudro, ..
(female) Ysidrona, Ysiri, .. Middle name pairings:
Ysidro Alfred (Y.A.), ..
How popular is Ysidro?
Ysidro is an uncommon given name for males. Ysidro is an equally unique last name for all people. (2000 U.S. Census)
Shown below is the birth name history of Ysidro for boys. Ysidro was first listed in 1920-1929 and reached its peak position of #1648 in the U.S. then, but is not listed currently. (Top Baby Names, 2015)
Which version is better?with its source form and related boy names. Below is a graphed analysis of the history of Ysidro and related names. Isidro (#1929 the previous year), Isidore and Isidor are the popular variation forms of Ysidro. These relations of Ysidro were popular as baby names 105 years ago (usage of 0.02%) and have become much less common since, with the version Isidore becoming somewhat outmoded.
Similar NamesRecommended names are Andro, Cairo▲, Cedro, Chiro, Ciro, Fredro, Hairo, Hiro, Isandro, Jairo, Jiro, Pedro, Piero, Sandro, Spiro, Xandro, Yasir, Ymir, Ysandro (see Isandro) and Zandro. These names tend to be more frequently used than Ysidro.See names in meaning and etymology. | <urn:uuid:f7e9385f-0075-4cb7-9af5-ed5e4f6b336d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/1/Ysidro | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00018-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914239 | 399 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Operations by Subroutine
Functions may be specified in source code either as operators or as function calls; the compiler may generate either form as instructions or as a subroutine call.
A function can be compiled inline if the code is short:
abs(x) --> (if (>= x 0) x (- x))or the code generator can generate a special instruction sequence, e.g. to float an integer.
An operator can be compiled as a subroutine call if the code is longer.
X**Y --> qq8rtor(x,y) cout << "Hello\n"On small machines without floating point hardware, all floating ops may be done by subroutine calls. | <urn:uuid:d9cbaa20-5077-4e65-9e7d-c27061f42644> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~novak/cs375184.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397873.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00140-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.816446 | 149 | 3.703125 | 4 |
Amman/Nairobi, 6 April 2003 – The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is recommending that a scientific assessment of sites targeted with weapons containing depleted uranium (DU) be conducted in Iraq as soon as conditions permit.
UNEP-led field studies of sites struck by DU ordnance in the Balkans during the conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s were the first international field assessments of how DU behaves in the environment.
“Although our assessments to date, under conditions prevailing in the Balkans, have concluded that DU contamination does not pose any immediate risks to human health or the environment, the fact remains that depleted uranium is still an issue of great concern for the general public,” said UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer.
“An early study in Iraq could either lay these fears to rest or confirm that there are indeed potential risks, which could then be addressed through immediate action.”
“Based on its experience and expertise, UNEP stands ready to conduct DU assessments in Iraq in cooperation with the World Health Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency and other partners,” he said.
UNEP’s Post-Conflict Assessment Unit has published assessments of DU impacts in Kosovo (2001), Serbia and Montenegro (2002) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (2003).
The assessments were conducted with the participation of leading experts and laboratories, the collaboration of IAEA and WHO and the full cooperation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
The three studies concluded that, while radiation can be detected at DU sites, the levels are so low that they do not pose a threat to human health and the environment.
At the same time, the studies identified a number of remaining scientific uncertainties that should be further explored. These include the extent to which DU on the ground can filter through the soil and eventually contaminate groundwater, and the possibility that DU dust could later be re-suspended in the air by wind or human activity, with the risk that it could be breathed in.
The Balkans assessments were made two to sevens years after the use of DU weapons. An early study in Iraq would add enormously to our understanding of how DU behaves in the environment. It could also show if there are any risks remaining from the period of the 1991 Gulf War.
Mr Toepfer added that UNEP stands ready to conduct early environmental field studies in Iraq: “Given the overall environmental concerns during the conflict, and the fact that the environment of Iraq was already a cause for serious concern prior to the current war, UNEP believes early field studies should be carried out. This is especially important to protect human health in a post-conflict situation”.
By end-April, UNEP will publish a “desk study” on the Iraq environment that will provide the necessary background information for conducting field research. This research will examine risks to groundwater, surface water, drinking water sources, waste-management and other environment-related infrastructure, factories and other potential sources of toxic chemicals, and biodiversity.
In addition to its work in the Balkans, UNEP has recently published post-conflict assessments on Afghanistan and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Note to journalists: For more information, please contact Eric Falt at +254-2-62-3292 or +254-733-682656 (cell); Nick Nuttall at +254-2-62-3084 or +254-733-632755 (cell); or Michael Williams in Amman on Swiss cell phone +41-79-409-1528 or Michael.Williams@unep.ch.
See also www.unep.org for an extensive collection of environmental data and documents on conflict and environment in the region, and postconflict.unep.ch for UNEP’s DU and other post-conflict assessment reports.
UNEP News Release 2003/19 | <urn:uuid:cec874ec-c92f-4249-ae66-7a90e8ef2e98> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.Print.asp?DocumentID=309&ArticleID=3952 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396459.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00168-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939977 | 802 | 3.203125 | 3 |
If students' reading skills improve, their proficiency scores improve, and Toledo Public Schools is one district of many where preliminary test results provide evidence of that, school officials said.
The Ohio Department of Education posted preliminary data on its Web site yesterday from the fourth, sixth, and ninth-grade tests conducted in March in districts throughout the state.
Between now and August, the state and the local districts will verify the test results, which will be used to calculate the districts' ratings on the local report cards released that month.
Toledo school administrators displayed their early results from the March tests for fourth and sixth graders yesterday,
which showed improvement in all five of the elementary school indicators - reading, writing, mathematics, citizenship, and science - and in four of the five areas for 10th graders taking the ninth-grade test. Only writing declined, falling from 95 percent passage to 93 percent, according to district and state records.
Chief academic officer Craig Cotner attributed the district's apparent gains to the its focus on reading, especially at the early grades. "As students' abilities to read improve, they'll do better in other tests that require a fairly high level of reading," he said.
The link between students' reading abilities and proficiency test success - in all five subjects - has not gone unnoticed by educators in other districts.
Kathy Zachel, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction in Bowling Green, said the format of the tests makes reading and writing more important in each subject. The tests require written answers, not just coloring in a circle to show a response, she said. "With these short response and extended response questions on these state tests, it requires that you really have a handle on what you read," Ms. Zachel said.
Gail Mirrow, superintendent in Ottawa Hills, said the test results there, traditionally among the state's best, are in part attributable to students' early exposure to reading at home. "Parents play a key part in readiness for children coming to school. It's really important for parents to read to their children and to read with their children, because they learn to read as you read to them," she said.
Contact Sandra Svoboda at: | <urn:uuid:f47942ee-495a-4cc8-b916-c0e21d6828c5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.toledoblade.com/Education/2004/06/16/TPS-Focus-on-reading-yields-boost-in-test-scores.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00194-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964192 | 449 | 2.625 | 3 |
Animation is one of humanity’s life-long dreams (if some historians are to be believed). The theory begins with cave paintings: In some cave paintings, it’s common to see creatures drawn with far too many limbs.
There are a couple of theories behind this. Some suggest that this was simply because the artists had no means of erasing the limbs, leaving their mistakes on the walls for posterity. Others believe that these were the earliest attempts to capture the idea of motion in a static image. I choose to believe the second theory.
And what’s more natural than the desire to capture motion? Everything in nature moves. People walking, water running, plants unfolding, the only thing that is truly constant in nature is change, in the form of motion. Some of it happens in a blur, and some of it’s too slow to perceive, but it’s always happening.
Animation is no longer a novelty for web designers…it’s becoming the basis of effective interaction design.
Animation is change, and motion. It’s the closest we get to capturing life in our art. This would be why people are always saying things like “animation makes our websites (or presentations, or whatever) come alive.” It might be overused, but it’s a phrase that elegantly captures the purpose of animation in web design.
That illusion of motion, when applied correctly, is what tells the users that they have actually done something. They have successfully interacted with the interface, and have caused something to change.
This triggers the same feelings (or at least very similar feelings) in them as the ones they experience when they interact with physical objects. In a way, animation is skeuomorphic. That’s right, I said the “s” word.
When used right, animation is designed to mimic real-world interactions. In a way, we’ve come full-circle. We might not be using far too many leather textures anymore, but we’re still trying to imitate the real world.
Animation on the Web: a short history
Before we get onto more practical things, let’s take a look at how animation on the Internet came to its present (and very cool) state. It pretty much all started with gifs…
.gif files are, it turns out, older than I am by about two years. They were introduced in 1987, just in time for the early days of the Internet as we know it (more or less). Thus began the era of dancing babies and other horrors best forgotten.
Still, if the popularity of gifs showed us anything, it was that people wanted to bring animation to their web pages. Mind you, most had probably not yet considered the ways that animation could enhance usability. It was all about bringing a little style, and a little bit of life, to the otherwise static realm of the web page.
There’s never been a better time to to focus on animation in relation to web-based interfaces and apps.
When the capabilities of .gif files were exhausted, people wanted new and better ways to add animation to their sites. And sound! Oh, lovely sound. How awesome would it be if people opened up your web page, and your favorite song was playing? And, like, the actual song… none of that MIDI crap, right?
It was Flash which allowed us to learn that lesson the hard way. Let’s not forget though that Flash was pretty amazing for its day. In fact, it was an innovation. It was progress. It was cool.
No matter how badly it was abused later on, it must be acknowledged that Flash allowed us to do things with the Internet that we had not known before. It expanded creative horizons, created jobs for people in a brand-new industry, gave us “web cartoons,” and the greatest thing to ever happen in the 90s (besides Nirvana): Flash games. Even now, I find those things very addictive.
By the middle of the last decade, however, the W3C was already working on including animation in the CSS specification. In 2009, the first public draft of the CSS animation spec was released.
Now we’re looking for ways to do more than add style to websites. Now we’re trying to increase usability, inform and educate users, and to make it easier for them to figure out what they’re doing.
Animation is no longer a novelty for web designers. In film, it became the basis for a whole new kind of storytelling. For us, it’s becoming the basis of effective interaction design.
There’s never been a better time to to focus on animation in relation to web-based interfaces and apps. The technology is not yet fully-formed (when is it ever?) or fully supported (when is it ever?) but we’re finding new ways to deliver it to people without using plugins, or proprietary code.
The more we base our animation on open standards, the more people will actually be able to see it in the first place. And with this recent focus on using it to drive interaction, that’s a very, very good thing.
It’s time to be an early adopter.
Types of web animation
Let’s get down to business. What kinds of animation are we talking about? I mean, I said a lot about using animation to enhance our user interfaces; but what exactly does that mean?
It’s obviously not enough to throw animation at our web page elements and hope it improves our conversion rate. That would be silly. Like every other aspect of design, what kinds of animation you use, and when you use them, must be carefully considered.
So too must the actual details of the implementation be considered. If your animations are so resource-heavy that they weigh down your users’ mobile devices, or worse, their desktops, you’ll have a problem. Or five.
Let’s start by looking at the different types of animation typically used on the web:
Interface element animation
I don’t know whether this is the most common type of animation, though, at a guess, it probably is. And so it should be. This is, in my opinion, the most useful kind of animation that we have available to us.
Like I said in the introduction, this is the animation that lets your users know that their action (clicking, for example) has been registered. Their click was the catalyst needed to make something happen, whether that be navigating to another page, opening a sidebar or modal window, or sending an e-mail from your contact form.
That feedback isn’t just nice to have, it’s essential now, in this world of flat design. People need to know the difference between interface and decoration. Animating our elements in simple, and subtle ways upon interaction gives them the feedback they need.
It can be as simple as making button backgrounds change, or making them bounce. This category also covers the animations that make sidebars “slide” onto the page, and the ones that make modal windows inflate themselves into existence.
And once again, it’s all about providing feedback to the user. These are the animations that you’ll show to the user when something’s happening in the background, and you don’t want them to freak out.
The utility of these animations was proven a long time ago, when graphical user interfaces were first invented. It started with the way the mouse cursor would turn into an hour glass, and progress bars, too. Apple introduced the “spinning beach ball of death,“ at some point, and windows showed files flying gracefully from one folder to another.
These conventions were adopted on the Web as soon as was possible, and with good reason. When people start to wonder what’s going on, they keep clicking, or tapping. It might be an expression of frustration. They might believe it actually makes things go faster.
Either way, telling your user what’s happening, even via a simple progress bar, can ease the mind considerably… even for those of us who’ve been using computers a long time.
Beegit, the writing app I used to write and edit this article gives me a handy “progress circle“ to tell me when my images will be done uploading, as you can see in the upper-left part of the modal window:
Now story-telling with animation goes beyond cartoons. In fact, I’m not talking about those at all. Rather, some people design websites so that as a user interacts with them (for example: by scrolling down the page), animations are triggered which tell a story.
Some common examples are those pages that will show off a new product by “assembling” it before your eyes. Others play out more like a cartoon, with little characters following you down the page and everything.
The effectiveness of these animations is… debatable. Typically, they are not intended to improve usability, but to impress the user, and give them some context for the subject of the page. They might be trying to show off the craftsmanship of a product, or share the experiences that led to a company’s creation.
Whether or not they accomplish these things would probably depend on the quality of the animations themselves, whether or not they unduly affect the site’s performance, and the content of the page itself. If a user does not find what they’re looking for on your website, all of the animations in the world can’t fix that.
Two examples that I do like, a lot, come from brands that have a lot of experience with this sort of thing: Apple and Sony.
The page dedicated to the Mac Pro shows you exactly what’s under the hood as you scroll down:
Meanwhile, over at Sony, they showcase several different devices being, well, not so much “assembled” as having their parts smashed together, complete with fire effects.
Purely decorative animations
For better or worse, some people put animation on their site that serves no purpose other than to be seen. Is it worth it?
Yes, and no…
I would typically avoid it because it’s distracting. You want people’s eyes drawn to the reasons they should be buying whatever you’re selling, and your calls to action. You want them to get what they came for. If your website does not serve some purpose to the user, or if they get too distracted while trying to determine its purpose, they may not come back.
Decorative animation should be hidden, entirely. Show it after people complete your call to action. You could also include subtle animations that are only triggered once the user does something very specific, like hovering their mouse over something small in the header/footer.
Here on WDD, hovering over the logo animates it, though it could be argued that since the logo is a link, it’s not purely decorative, but it’s a good example nonetheless. A simple Google search will reveal that there are several sites where using the konami code will make something happen (like making Godzilla pop up and roar… I‘m not kidding).
Other examples include Google’s many known easter eggs, and this one from photojojo.com:
Scroll all the way down to the bottom of any page, and a friendly dinosaur will “take your picture.” What’s more, on pages that have it, the balloon seen in the screenshot will subtly float from side to side.
Animation in advertising, or: my gut says no but my wallet says yes
Advertising. To some, it’s their income (cough ahem cough), and to others, a scourge. Add animation to an ad, and boom! The eyes are drawn to it against their will. It’s a reflex action.
Add sound, and they will feel intense hatred… also a reflex action.
But it’s almost unavoidable. If you want to make people look at your ads, animating them is a great way to go. This may make you unwelcome on some modern advertising networks which pride themselves on “unobtrusive ads,” but if animated ads didn’t work, we wouldn’t still have them.
But that animation comes with the same problem posed by decorative animation: it distracts the user from their task. In the world of online sales, distraction can be death.
Ultimately, it will be up to you to weigh the pros and cons. No ads, unobtrusive ads, or animated ads, it’s all a trade-off.
You may notice that nowhere on this list did I mention splash screen animations. That’s because I expect everyone to know better.
The technical aspects of implementation do matter, but whether you’re using .gifs, video, CSS, SVG, or even Flash (shudder), there are some principles that matter more. Forget, for a moment, the technology or techniques that you plan to use, and get ready for a just a little more theory. Your users will thank you.
Performance, performance, performance
You might think, “Okay, this sounds obvious. Animations should run fast, not slow.” You’re right, it is obvious, in theory. The problem is that I still find websites, built with all the latest technology, with choppy animation.
I have an Nvidia GTX 750 TI video card that cost me about $200. Your animations should not be choppy. I was on some websites recently that made me think, “Skyrim runs faster than this.” And I wasn’t joking or exaggerating.
Now imagine what it would be like to navigate those same websites on a low-quality tablet or smart-phone. On the one hand, it’d be a great way to truly test someone’s character, but on the other hand, it won’t get those slow websites any more business. If your only options are slow animation or no animation at all, you’re better off with an interface that just sits there.
That’s to say nothing of websites that are built with so much animation and so many special effects that they need loading screens with progress bars. No one should have to wait for animations to load before they get to see the information they want or need. Ever. Making people wait is how you lose business.
Let’s break all of that down to bullet points:
- If Skyrim runs more smoothly than your website on my desktop, that’s bad.
- If your website needs a loading bar before users get to see the home page, that’s really bad.
Start with the small things
When considering animation as a design tool, rather than a stylistic choice, it’s best to start small. For one, small and unobtrusive animation performs better (see the section above). Second, big and flashy animation must have a purpose beyond just ”looking good” to be useful.
Most websites don’t need any animation beyond the kind used to make using UI elements feel “real” and semi-natural. Before you start throwing parallax around like rice at a wedding, ask yourself if it will actually improve the experience for your users. Would big and flashy things moving around on the screen inform and direct your users better than the usual text and pretty pictures?
In most cases, the answer is probably “no.” There will be exceptions, of course. There almost always are. Most of the time, however, it might be better to just animate your buttons, make your hidden navigation bar slide in, and animate the hell out of the success message that appears after someone uses your contact form.
Subtlety is key to good design, and yet so often underrated. Start there. And then, if it becomes clear that making something bigger and flashier would serve your purpose from a user experience standpoint, go all out!
Keep durations low, or: I feel the need… the need for speed
Animations should be fast, or rather, they should happen fast. I’m not talking about performance here, but rather the actual time an object spends in motion.
Think about how we interact with real objects. Sometimes we move faster, sometimes slower. The speed with which we interact with an object can depend on its size, the task at hand, or whether it’s full of a liquid we don’t want to spill; but generally, we pick things up and move them around pretty fast. Individual movements can happen in milliseconds.
“Milliseconds” is generally the amount of time in which we want to measure user interface animation. Any longer, and people start to lose patience with their machine, or your product, or both. You’ve got to keep it short, or things just feel slow.
This is especially true for products that people are required to use repeatedly. Even if the animation is super fun and entertaining, it’ll lose its appeal by the tenth time someone has to see it. It’s a bouncing button or a sliding menu, not the intro to your favorite TV show. No one’s singing along, here.
Make things bounce, once in a while
Physical objects bounce. Some of them don’t do it very well, but basically all objects bounce a little, if you drop them far enough onto a hard surface, and if there’s not too much air resistance and… you get my point.
Interacting with UI elements is like interacting with small, hard objects. You toss them to one side, they bounce a little. You drop them, they bounce a little.
Therefore, it can be helpful, when appropriate, to make your animations “bounce,” especially if they’ve been moving vertically. It’s all about maintaining the illusion.
Things don’t normally stop on a dime
Things in motion usually take a little time to stop. Stationary objects set into motion usually take a little time to speed up. Yay physics!
So, when you’re making objects move, or stop moving, remember to give them a little time (in milliseconds) to slow down or speed up. This is called “easing,” and there’s functionality for it built right into CSS.
No Ultimate Guide article would be complete without at least one section full of links. So here you go. We’ve got links to articles dealing with the basic theory behind animation in web design, tutorials to get you started, and loads of examples. Enjoy.
Web animation theory
Want more information before you start animating stuff? No problem. Here’s a whole bunch of advice from very smart people, and some general speculation on the future of animation on the Internet.
Animation Principles for the Web
This article over at cssanimation.rocks outlines the most basic principles behind animating objects in general. Be sure to check out the rest of their website for examples, tutorials, and an e-mail course. (The e-mail course costs money, though.)
Steven Fabre tells us how animation, like design itself, should be basically invisible. That only sounds paradoxical until you read it. Go do that.
Will animation be the big UI trend of 2015?
A speculative piece with a good, if short, explanation of some of the guiding principles of animation.
The Role of Animation in Web Design
Another piece with simple, basic advice. It’s short, and simple, but perhaps worth re-reading every time you have to make a major animation-related decision. Think of it as a cheat sheet for keeping perspective.
The State Of Animation 2014
An excellent overview of how web animation (more or less) currently gets done by Rachel Nabors. You’ll be seeing her name on here a few times, as she’s something of an expert on the topic.
Five Ways to Animate Responsibly
Another fantastic article by Rachel Nabors (I told you that you’d be seeing more of her stuff…). In this one, she goes over five ways to add animation to your work without alienating your users.
Get your keyframes on here! Learn more CSS properties than you ever thought possible/necessary. Learn the difference between easeIn and easeOut — I know I had to look it up.
4 Simple CSS3 Animation Tutorials
Skip the intro and get straight to the good stuff, if that’s the way you work. I’ve included quite a few introductory tutorials below. If you’d rather get straight to some basic code, start here.
A Beginner’s Introduction to CSS Animation
Exactly what it says in the title. As long as you have a basic knowledge of HTML and CSS, you’ll be able to follow this tutorial and get a working knowledge of CSS-based animation.
The Guide To CSS Animation: Principles and Examples
Smashing Magazine takes its readers through a number of basic animations. It’s simple, but valuable knowledge.
Another great introduction to CSS animation, written by the ever-fantastic Rachel Nabors. Yes, it’s from 2012, but the only difference between then and now is that the technique she provides has more browser support.
I cannot, and I seriously mean this, I simply cannot recommend the guys at Codrops enough. They have made tons of examples, proofs of concepts, idea collections, and yes, tutorials. They love animation, and they do a lot to share that love.
Here are just a few of the animation-related tutorials that they’ve created:
- Tilted Content Slideshow
- Page Preloading Effect
- Sliding Header Layout
- Playful Trampoline Effect
- How to Create (Animated) Text Fills
CSS3 Transitions, Transforms, Animation, Filters and more!
An interactive, in-depth tutorial with live plenty of live examples. Come here when you’re done with the most basic tutorials. It gives you plenty of ideas to practice with.
Transitions & Animations
A guide to simple CSS animation with a special focus on transitions, and transitional properties.
Shaking Up The Web With CSS3 (How To Make Links Shake)
A tutorial with an emphasis in shaking stuff. I mean, there ya go.
High Performance Animations
This tutorial, co-authored by the much-beloved Paul Lewis and Paul Irish, focuses on how to animate things in a way that doesn’t slow down the browser. Since this can be especially important on mobile devices, it is very much worth the read.
Tutorial: Using animation-fill-mode In Your CSS Animations
After learning so much about how to make things move, it might be a good idea to learn about the behavior of objects that either haven’t moved yet, or have just finished their animation. Sometimes the styling can get tricky, and that’s where animation-fill-mode comes in.
Keyframe Animation Syntax
A snippet provided by the ever-helpful css-tricks.com. Don’t remember how to make those keyframe things do what you want? Bookmark this, and stop worrying about it.
A Look Into: Cubic-Bezier In CSS3 Transition
This one’s all about timing. I mean, the literal timing of your animation. More specifically, it’s all about using the Bezier curve to get your animation timing just right.
I found two different, fantastic tutorials on how to create flipping animations. Each brings a different approach to the table, and some extras that the other doesn’t. So instead of just making up my mind, I’ve included them both.
Animating CSS3 Gradients
Most animation tutorials will assume that you want to animate an object’s geometry or position on the page. This one will teach you how to animate what’s inside them… in this case, a gradient.
Featured image, animation image via Shutterstock. | <urn:uuid:97e252de-b32e-43d4-98a4-d37d7b7b58fc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2015/05/the-ultimate-guide-to-web-animation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00095-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937114 | 5,092 | 2.5625 | 3 |
The Diaspora Arabs
A cluster profile covering 15 groups located in 13 countries.
While there are several characteristics that determine whether or not a person is a true Arab, one trait is always evident: a proud sense of being an Arab. Their physical, geographical, and religious aspects all vary greatly; however, the ability to speak Arabic (or an Arab dialect) and identification with the Arabian cultural heritage are, perhaps, the two most essential elements.
In the modern Arab world, traditional values have been altered. This can be attributed to the pressure to urbanize, industrialize, and de-tribalize. Today, only 5% of the modern Arabs live as desert shepherds; and significant Arab communities can now be found in almost all of the western world.
What are their lives like?
Today, about 40% of the Arabs live in cities and towns. This has caused traditional family and tribal ties to be broken down somewhat. Women, as well as men, now have greater educational and employment opportunities. These and other changes have created a new "middle class" within their society.
The Diaspora Arab communities fit into this new "middle class" category. Because the Diaspora Arabs have been exposed to western culture on a grand scale, their traditional culture and way of life have undergone many changes. As a result, they have experienced much tension.
For most of the Diaspora Arabs, there have been a greater variety of job opportunities. This has greatly aided their poor living conditions. However, it has also weakened their traditional family ties. There is greater freedom for women to leave the home, fewer arranged marriages, and less social pressure to conform to traditional religious practices.
In comparison to the traditional desert or village Arab, the social structure of the Diaspora Arab is very complex. Today, most Diaspora Arabs identify themselves by nationality rather than tribal affiliations.
Though political unity is still a dream among Arabs, the Arabic language remains the greatest common tie. In an attempt to preserve their original language, Arabs have maintained two forms of Arabic. The first is "classical Arabic," the religious and literary language that is spoken and written uniformly throughout the Arab world. The second is "colloquial Arabic," the informal spoken language which varies by dialect from region to region. Both forms are used by educated Arabs.
There have been similar attempts to preserve other cultural traditions such as the naming of children. It is customary for an Arabian child's name to reflect the three dominant elements of Arab life: kin, home, and religion. Thus, a boy might have a name such as "Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al Hamza." "Muhammad" represents his religious name. "Ibn Ibrahim" is his father's name. "Al Hamza" means that he is from the village of Hamza. Girls are given similar names, which they keep even after marriage. This reflects the Muslim Arab tradition that even though women are subservient to men, they retain their identities, separate legal rights, and family ties.
Circumcision for boys continues to be a universal practice among Arabs. This ritual is performed around the seventh year, and is celebrated as the formal initiation of the boy into the religious community. Girls are rarely circumcised, except in a few isolated locations.
The early Islamic period was a time when "Arab identity" meant that all Arabs had descended from a common male ancestor. Thus, being an Arab brought recognition, honor, and certain privileges.
What are their beliefs?
The historical link between Arabs and the Islamic religion is still very strong. Today, approximately 93% of all Arabs are Muslims, belonging to a number of sects: the Shia ("Ithna Ashari" or "Ismaeli"), the Alawi, the Zaidi, and the Sunni. Sunni Muslims are the predominant group.
What are their needs?
Resources in the various Arabic dialects are available; however, a greater effort must be made to effectively target them since they are so widespread. These groups of Arabs must be targeted by individual church planting efforts.
© Copyright 1997
Bethany World Prayer Center
This profile may be copied and distributed without obtaining permission
as long as it is not altered, bound, published
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Texas Slavery Narratives 3
PRISCILLA GIBSON is not sure of her age, but thinks she was born about 1856, in Smith County, Mississippi, to Mary Puckett and her Indian husband. They belonged to Jesse Puckett, who owned a plantation on the Strong River. Priscilla now lives in Jasper, Texas.
"Priscilla Gibson is my name, and I's bo'n in Smith County, way over in Mis'ippi, sometime befo' de War. I figger it was 'bout 1856, 'cause I's old enough to climb de fence and watch dem musterin' in de troops when de war began. Dey tol' me I's nine year ole when de War close, but dey ain' sure of dat, even. My neighbor, Uncle Bud Adams, he 83, and I's clippin' close at he heels.
"Mammy's name was Mary Puckett, but I never seed my father as I knows of. Don' know if he was a whole Injun or part white man. Never seed but one brother and his name was Jake. Dey took him to de War with de white boys, to cook and min' de camp and he took pneumony and die.
"Massa's name was Jesse Puckett, and Missus' name Mis' Katie. Dey hab big fam'ly and dey live in a big wooden-beam house with a big up-stair'. De house was right on de highway from Raleigh to Brandon, with de Strong River jis' below us. Dey took in and 'commadated travelers 'cause dey warn' hotels den.
"Massa have hunner's of acres. You could walk all day and you never git offen his lan'. An' he have gran' furniture and other things in de house. I kin remember dem, 'cause I use' to he'p 'round de house, run errands and fan Mis' Katie and sich. I 'members chairs with silk coverin's on 'em and dere was de gran' lights, big lamps with de roses on de shades. And eve'ywhere de floors with rugs and de rugs was pretty, dey wasn' like dese thin rugs you sees nowadays. No, ma'am, dey has big flowers on 'em and de feets sinks in 'em. I useter lie down on one of dem rugs in Mis' Katie's room when she's asleep and I kin stop fannin.'
"Massa Puckett was tol'able good to de slaves. We has clothes made of homespun what de nigger women weaved, and de little boys wo' long-tail shirts, with no pants till they's grown. Massa raised sheep and dey make us wool clothes for winter, but we has no shoes.
"De white folks didn' larn us read and write but dey was good to us 'cep' when some niggers try to run away and den dey whips 'em hard. We has plenty to eat and has prayer meetin's with singin' and shoutin', and we chilluns played marbles and jump de rope.
"After freedom come all lef' but me 'cause Missus say she have me boun' to her till I git my age. But I's res'less one night and my sister, Georgy Ann, come see me, and I run off with her, but dey never comes after me. I was scart dey would, 'cause I 'membered 'bout our neighbor, ole Means, and his slave, Sylvia, and she run away and was in de woods, and he'd git on de hoss, take de dogs and set 'em on her, and let dem bite her and tear her clothes.
GABRIEL GILBERT was born in slavery on the plantation of Belizare Brassard, in New Iberia Parish, Louisiana. He does not know his age, but appears to be about eighty. He has lived in Beaumont, Texas, for sixteen years.
"My old massa was Belizare Broussard. He was my mom's massa. He had a big log house what he live in. De places 'tween de logs was fill with dirt. De quarters de slaves live in was make out of dirt. Dey put up posties in de ground and bore holes in de posts and put in pickets 'cross from one post to the other. Den dey build up de sides with mud. De floor and everything was dirt. Dey had a schoolhouse built for de white chillen de same way. De cullud chillen didn't have no school.
"Dem was warm healthy houses us grew up in. Dey used to raise better men den in dem houses dan now. My pa name was Joseph Gilbert. He old massa was Belleau Prince.
"I didn't know what a store was when I was growin' up. Us didn't have store things like now. Us had wooden pan and spoon dem times. I never see no iron plow dem days. Nothin' was iron on de plow 'cept de share. I tell dese youngsters, 'You in hebben now from de time I come up.' When a man die dem days, dey use de ox cart to carry de corpse.
"Massa have 'bout four hundred acres and lots of slaves. He raise sugar cane. He have a mill and make brown sugar. He raise cotton and corn, too. He have plenty stock on de place. He give us plenty to eat. He was a nice man. He wasn't brutish. He treat he slaves like hisself. I never 'member see him whip nobody. He didn't 'low no ill treatment. All de folks round he place say he niggers ruint and spoiled.
"De li'l white folks and nigger folks jus' play round like brudder and sister and us all eat at de white table. I slep' in de white folks house, too. My godfather and godmother was rich white folks. I still Cath'lic.
"I seed sojers but I too li'l to know nothin' 'bout dem. Dey didn't worry me a-tall. I didn't git close to de battle.
"My mammy weave cloth out cotton and wool. I 'member de loom. It go 'boom-boom-boom.' Dat de shuttle goin' cross. My daddy, he de smart man. I'll never be like him long as I live in dis world. He make shoes. He build house. He do anything. He and my mammy neither one ever been brutalize'.
"De first work I done was raisin' cotton and sugar cane and sweet and Irish 'taters. I used to cook sugar.
"I marry on twenty-second of February. My wife was Medora Labor. She been dead thirty-five year now. I never marry no second woman. I love my wife so much I never want nobody else. Us had six chillen. Two am livin'.
"Goin' back when I a slave, massa have a store. When de priest come dey hold church in dat store. Old massa have sev'ral boys. Dey went after some de slave gals. Dey have chillen by dem. Dem gals have dere cabins and dere chillen, what am half white.
"After while dem boys marry. But dey allus treat dey chillen by de slave womens good. Dey white wife treat dem good, too, most like dey dere own chillen.
"Old massa have plenty money. Land am only two bits de acre. Some places it cost nothing. Dey did haulin' in ox-carts. A man what had mules had something extra.
"Us have plenty wild game, wild geese and ducks. Fishin' am mighty good. Dey was 'gaters, too. I seed dem bite a man's arm off.
"If a slave feelin' bad dey wouldn't make him work. My uncle and my mammy dey never work nothing to speak of. Dey allus have some kind complaint. Ain't no tellin' what it gwine be, but you could 'low something ailin' dem!
"I 'member dey a white man. He had a gif'. I don't care what kind of animal, a dog or a hoss, dat man he work on it and it never leave you or you house. If anybody have toothache or earache he take a brand new nail what ain't never work befo' and work dat round you tooth or ear. Dat break up de toothache or earache right away. He have li'l prayer he say. I don't know what it was.
"I's seed ghosties. I talk with dem, too. Sometimes dey like people. Sometimes dey like animal, maybe white dog. I allus feel chilly when dey come round me. I talk with my wife after she dead. She tell me, 'Don't you forgit to pray.' She say dis world corrupt and you got to fight it out."
MATTIE GILMORE lives in a little cabin on E. Fifth Avenue, in Corsicana, Texas. A smile came to her lips, as she recalled days when she was a slave in Mobile, Alabama. She has no idea how old she is. Her master, Thomas Barrow, brought his slaves to Athens, Texas, during the Civil War, and Mattie had two children at that time, so she is probably about ninety.
"I's born in Mobile, Alabama, and I don't have no idea when. My white folks never did tell me how old I was. My own dear mammy died 'fore I can remember and my stepma didn't take no time to tell me nothin'. Her name was Mary Barrow and papa's name was Allison Barrow, and I had sisters, Rachel and Lou and Charity, and a brother, Allison.
"My master sold Rachel when she was jus' a girl. I sho' did cry. They put her on a block and sold her off. I heared they got a thousand dollars for her, but I never seed her no more till after freedom. A man named Dick Burdon, from Kaufman County, bought her. After freedom I heared she's sick and brung her home, but she was too far gone.
"We lived in a log house with dirt floors, warm in winter but sho' hot in summer, no screens or nothin', homemade doors. We had homemade beds out of planks they picked up around. Mattresses nothin', we had shuck beds. But, anyway, you takes it, we was better off den dan now.
"I worked in the fields till Rachel was sold, den tooken her place, doin' kitchen work and fannin' flies off de table with a great, long limb. I liked dat. I got plenty to eat and not so hot. We had jus' food to make you stand up and work. It wasn't none the good foolish things we has now. We had cornbread and blackeyed peas and beans and sorghum 'lasses. Old master give us our rations and iffen dat didn't fill us up, we jus' went lank. Sometimes we had possum and rabbits and fish, iffen we cotched dem on Sunday. I seed Old Missy parch coffee in a skittle, and it good coffee, too. We couldn't go to the store and buy things, 'cause they warn't no stores hardly.
"When dey's hoein' cotton or corn, everybody has to keep up with de driver, not hurry so fast, but workin' steady. Some de women what had suckin' babies left dem in de shade while dey worked, and one time a big, bald eagle flew down by one dem babies and picked it up and flew away with it. De mama couldn't git it and we never heared of dat baby 'gain.
"I 'member when we come from Mobile to Texas. By time we heared de Yankees was comin' dey got all dere gold together and Miss Jane called me and give me a whole sack of pure gold and silver, and say bury it in de orchard. I sho' was scart, but I done what she said. Dey was more gold in a desk, and de Yanks pulled de top of dat desk and got de gold. Miss Jane had a purty gold ring on her finger and de captain yanked it off. I said, 'Miss Jane, is dey gwine give you ring back?' All she said was, 'Shet you mouth,' and dat's what I did.
"Dat night dey digs up de buried gold and we left out. We jus' traveled at night and rested in daytime. We was scart to make a fire. Dat was awful times. All on de way to de Mississip', we seed dead men layin' everywhere, black and white.
"While we's waitin' to go cross de Mississip' a white man come up and asks Marse Barrow how many niggers he has, and counts us all. While we's waitin' de guns 'gins to go boom, boom, and you could hear all dat noise, it so close. When we gits on de boat it flops dis way and dat scart me. I sho' don't want to see no more days like dat one, with war and boats.
"We fixes up a purty good house and quarters and gits settled up round Athens. And it ain't so long 'fore a paper come make us free. Some de slaves laughin' and some cryin' and it a funny place to be. Marse Barrow asks my stepma to stay cook and he'd pay her some money for it. We stayed four or five years. Marse Barrow give each he slaves somethin' when dey's freed. Lots of master put dem out without a thing. But de trouble with most niggers, dey never done no managin' and didn't know how. De niggers suffered from de war, iffen dey did git freedom from it.
"I's already married de slave way in Mobile and had three chillen. My husband died 'fore war am over and I marries Las Gilmore and never has no more chillen. I has no livin' kinfolks I knows of. When we come here Las done any work he could git and bought this li'l house, but I can't pay taxes on it, but, sho', de white folks won't put me out. I done git my leg cut off in a train wreck, so I can't work, and I's too old, noways. I don't has no idea how old I is.
ANDREW GOODMAN, 97, was born a slave of the Goodman family, near Birmingham, Alabama. His master moved to Smith County, Texas, when Andrew was three years old. Andrew is a frail, kindly old man, who lives in his memories. He lives at 2607 Canton St., Dallas, Texas.
"I was born in slavery and I think them days was better for the niggers than the days we see now. One thing was, I never was cold and hongry when my old master lived, and I has been plenty hongry and cold a lot of times since he is gone. But sometimes I think Marse Goodman was the bestes' man Gawd made in a long time.
"My mother, Martha Goodman, 'longed to Marse Bob Goodman when she was born, but my paw come from Tennessee and Marse Bob heired him from some of his kinfolks what died over there. The Goodmans must have been fine folks all-a-way round, 'cause my paw said them that raised him was good to they niggers.
"Old Marse never 'lowed none of his nigger families separated. He 'lowed he thought it right and fittin' that folks stay together, though I heard tell of some that didn't think so.
"My Missus was just as good as Marse Bob. My maw was a puny little woman that wasn't able to do work in the fields, and she puttered round the house for the Missus, doin' little odd jobs. I played round with little Miss Sallie and little Mr. Bob, and I ate with them and slept with them. I used to sweep off the steps and do things, and she'd brag on me and many is the time I'd git to noddin' and go to sleep, and she'd pick me up and put me in bed with her chillun.
"Marse Bob didn't put his little niggers in the fields till they's big 'nough to work, and the mammies was give time off from the fields to come back to the nursin' home to suck the babies. He didn't never put the niggers out in bad weather. He give us something to do, in out of the weather, like shellin' corn and the women could spin and knit. They made us plenty of good clothes. In summer we wore long shirts, split up the sides, made out of lowerings—that's same as cotton sacks was made out of. In winter we had good jeans and knitted sweaters and knitted socks.
"My paw was a shoemaker. He'd take a calfhide and make shoes with the hairy sides turned in, and they was warm and kept your feet dry. My maw spent a lot of time cardin' and spinnin' wool, and I allus had plenty things.
"Life was purty fine with Marse Bob. He was a man of plenty. He had a lot of land and he built him a big log house when he come to Texas. He had sev'ral hundred head of cattle and more than that many hawgs. We raised cotton and grain and chickens and vegetables, and most anything anybody could ask for. Some places the masters give out a peck of meal and so many pounds of meat to a family for them a week's rations, and if they et it up that was all they got. But Marse Bob allus give out plenty, and said, 'If you need more you can have it, 'cause ain't any going to suffer on my place.'
"He built us a church, and a old man, Kenneth Lyons, who was a slave of the Lyon's family nearby, used to git a pass every Sunday mornin' and come preach to us. He was a man of good learnin' and the best preacher I ever heard. He baptised in a little old mudhole down back of our place. Nearly all the boys and gals gits converted when they's 'bout twelve or fifteen year old. Then on Sunday afternoon, Marse Bob larned us to read and write. He told us we oughta git all the learnin' we could.
"Once a week the slaves could have any night they want for a dance or frolic. Mance McQueen was a slave 'longing on the Dewberry place, what could play a fiddle, and his master give him a pass to come play for us. Marse Bob give us chickens or kilt a fresh beef or let us make 'lasses candy. We could choose any night, 'cept in the fall of the year. Then we worked awful hard and didn't have the time. We had a gin run by horsepower and after sundown, when we left the fields, we used to gin a bale of cotton every night. Marse allus give us from Christmas Eve through New Year's Day off, to make up for the hard work in the fall.
"Christmas time everybody got a present and Marse Bob give a big hawg to every four families. We had money to buy whiskey with. In spare time we'd make cornshuck horse collars and all kinds of baskets, and Marse bought them off us. What he couldn't use, he sold for us. We'd take post oak and split it thin with drawin' knives and let it git tough in the sun, and then weave it into cotton baskets and fish baskets and little fancy baskets. The men spent they money on whiskey, 'cause everything else was furnished. We raised our own tobacco and hung it in the barn to season, and a'body could go git it when they wanted it.
"We allus got Saturday afternoons off to fish and hunt. We used to have fish fries and plenty game in them days.
"Course, we used to hear 'bout other places where they had nigger drivers and beat the slaves. But I never did see or hear tell of one of master's slaves gittin' a beatin'. We had a overseer, but didn't know what a nigger driver was. Marse Bob had some nigger dogs like other places, and used to train them for fun. He'd git some the boys to run for a hour or so and then put the dogs on the trail. He'd say, 'If you hear them gittin' near, take to a tree.' But Marse Bob never had no niggers to run off.
"Old man Briscoll, who had a place next to ours, was vicious cruel. He was mean to his own blood, beatin' his chillen. His slaves was afeared all the time and hated him. Old Charlie, a good, old man who 'longed to him, run away and stayed six months in the woods 'fore Briscoll cotched him. The niggers used to help feed him, but one day a nigger 'trayed him, and Briscoe put the dogs on him and cotched him. He made to Charlie like he wasn't goin' to hurt him none, and got him to come peaceful. When he took him home, he tied him and beat him for a turrible long time. Then he took a big, pine torch and let burnin' pitch drop in spots all over him. Old Charlie was sick 'bout four months and then he died.
"Marse Bob knowed me better'n most the slaves, 'cause I was round the house more. One day he called all the slaves to the yard. He only had sixty-six then, 'cause he had 'vided with his son and daughter when they married. He made a little speech. He said, 'I'm going to a war, but I don't think I'll be gone long, and I'm turnin' the overseer off and leavin' Andrew in charge of the place, and I wants everything to go on, just like I was here. Now, you all mind what Andrew says, 'cause if you don't, I'll make it rough on you when I come back home.' He was jokin', though, 'cause he wouldn't have done nothing to them.
"Then he said to me, 'Andrew, you is old 'nough to be a man and look after things. Take care of Missus and see that none the niggers wants, and try to keep the place going.'
"We didn't know what the war was 'bout, but master was gone four years. When Old Missus heard from him, she'd call all the slaves and tell us the news and read us his letters. Little parts of it she wouldn't read. We never heard of him gittin' hurt none, but if he had, Old Missus wouldn't tell us, 'cause the niggers used to cry and pray over him all the time. We never heard tell what the war was 'bout.
"When Marse Bob come home, he sent for all the slaves. He was sittin' in a yard chair, all tuckered out, and shuck hands all round, and said he's glad to see us. Then he said, 'I got something to tell you. You is jus' as free as I is. You don't 'long to nobody but you'selves. We went to the war and fought, but the Yankees done whup us, and they say the niggers is free. You can go where you wants to go, or you can stay here, jus' as you likes.' He couldn't help but cry.
"The niggers cry and don't know much what Marse Bob means. They is sorry 'bout the freedom, 'cause they don't know where to go, and they's allus 'pend on Old Marse to look after them. Three families went to get farms for theyselves, but the rest just stay on for hands on the old place.
"The Federals has been comin' by, even 'fore Old Marse come home. They all come by, carryin' they little budgets, and if they was walkin' they'd look in the stables for a horse or mule, and they jus' took what they wanted of corn or livestock. They done the same after Marse Bob come home. He jus' said, 'Let them go they way, 'cause that's what they're going to do, anyway.' We was scareder of them than we was of the debbil. But they spoke right kindly to us cullud folks. They said, 'If you got a good master and want to stay, well, you can do that, but now you can go where you want to, 'cause ain't nobody going to stop you.'
"The niggers can't hardly git used to the idea. When they wants to leave the place, they still go up to the big house for a pass. They jus' can't understand 'bout the freedom. Old Marse or Missus say, 'You don't need no pass. All you got to do is jus' take you foot in you hand and go.'
"It seem like the war jus' plumb broke Old Marse up. It wasn't long till he moved into Tyler and left my paw runnin' the farm on a halfance with him and the niggers workers. He didn't live long, but I forgits jus' how long. But when Mr. Bob heired the old place, he 'lowed we'd jus' go 'long the way his paw has made the trade with my paw.
"Young Mr. Bob 'parently done the first rascality I ever heard of a Goodman doin'. The first year we worked for him we raised lots of grain and other things and fifty-seven bales of cotton. Cotton was fifty-two cents a pound and he shipped it all away, but all he ever gave us was a box of candy and a sack of store tobacco and a sack of sugar. He said the 'signment done got lost. Paw said to let it go, 'cause we had allus lived by what the Goodman had said.
"I got married and lived on the old place till I was in my late fifties. I had seven chillun, but if I got any livin' now, I don't know where they is now. My paw and maw got to own a little piece of land not far from the old place, and paw lived to be 102 and maw 106. I'm the last one of any of my folks.
"For twenty years my health ain't been so good, and I can't work even now, though my health is better'n in the past. I had hemorraghes. All my folks died on me, and it's purty rough on a old man like me. My white folks is all dead or I wouldn't be 'lowed to go hongry and cold like I do, or have to pay rent.
AUSTIN GRANT came to Texas from Mississippi with his grandfather, father, mother and brother. George Harper owned the family. He raised cotton on Peach Creek, near Gonzales. Austin was hired out by his master and after the war his father hired him out to the Riley Ranch on Seco Creek, above D'hanis. He then bought a farm in the slave settlement north of Hondo. He is 89 or 90 years old.
"I'm mixed up on my age, I'm 'fraid, for the Bible got burned up that the master's wife had our ages in. She told me my age, which would make me 89, but I believe I come nearer bein' 91, accordin' to the way my mother figured it out.
"I belonged to George Harper, he was Judge Harper. The' was my father, mother and two boys. He brought us from Mississippi, but I don' 'member what part they come from. We settled down here at Gonzeles, on Peach Creek, and he farmed one year there. Then he moved out here to Medina County, right here on Hondo Creek. I dont 'member how many acres he had, but he had a big farm. He had at least eight whole slave families. He sold 'em when he wanted money.
"My mother's name was Mary Harper and my father's name was Ike Harper, and they belonged to the Harpers, too. You know, after they was turned loose they had to name themselves. My father named himself Grant and his brother named himself Glover, and my grandfather was Filmore. They had some kin' of law you had to git away from your boss' name so they named themselves.
"Our house we had to live in, I tell you we had a tough affair, a picket concern, you might say no house a-tall. The beds was one of your own make; if you knowed how to make one, you had one, but of course the chillen slept on the floor, patched up some way.
"We went barefooted in the summer and winter, too. You had to prepare that for yourself, and if you didn' have head enough to prepare for yourself, you went without. I don' see how they done as well as they done, 'cause some winters was awful cold, but I always said the Lawd was with 'em.
[Handwritten Note: 'used']
"We didn' have no little garden, we never had no time to work no garden. When you could see to work, you was workin' for him. Ho! You didn' know what money was. He never paid you anything, you never got to see none. Some of the Germans would give the old ones a little piece of money, but the chillen, pshaw! They never got to see nothin.'
"He was a pretty good boss. You didn' have to work Sunday and part of Saturday and in the evenin', you had that. He fed us good. Sometimes, if you was crowded, you had to work all day Saturday. But usually he give you that, so you could wash and weave cloth or such. He had cullud women there he kep' all the time to weave and spin. They kep' cloth made.
"On Saturday nights, we jes' knocked 'round the place. Christmas? I don' know as I was ever home Christmas. My boss kep' me hired out. The slaves never had no Christmas presents I know of. And big dinners, I never was at nary one. They didn' give us nothin, I tell you, but a grubbin' hoe and axe and the whip. They had co'n shuckin's in them days and co'n shellin's, too. We would shuck so many days and so many days to shell it up.
"We would shoot marbles when we was little. It was all the game the niggers ever knowed, was shootin' marbles.
"After work at nights there wasn't much settin' 'round; you'd fall into bed and go to sleep. On Saturday night they didn' git together, they would jes' sing at their own houses. Oh, yes'm, I 'member 'em singin' 'Run, nigger, run,' but it's too far back for me to 'member those other songs. They would raise up a song when they was pickin' cotton, but I don' 'member much about those songs.
"My old boss, I'm boun' to give him praise, he treated his niggers right. He made 'em work, though, and he whipped 'em, too. But he fed good, too. We had rabbits and possums once in awhile. Hardly ever any game, but you might git a deer sometimes.
"Let 'em ketch you with a gun or a piece of paper with writin' on it and he'd whip you like everything. Some of the slaves, if they ever did git a piece of paper, they would keep it and learn a few words. But they didn' want you to know nothin', that's what, nothin' but work. You would think they was goin' to kill you, he would whip you so if he caught you with a piece of paper. You couldn' have nothin' but a pick and axe and grubbin' hoe.
"We never got to play none. Our boss hired us out lots of times. I don' know what he got for us. We farmed, cut wood, grubbed, anything. I herded sheep and I picked cotton.
"We got up early, you betcha. You would be out there by time you could see and you quit when it was dark. They tasked us. They would give us 200 or 300 pounds of cotton to bring in and you would git it, and if you didn' git it, you better, or you would git it tomorrow, or your back would git it. Or you'd git it from someone else, maybe steal it from their sacks.
"My grandfather, he would tell us things, to keep the whip off our backs. He would say, 'Chillen, work, work and work hard. You know how you hate to be whipped, so work hard!' And of course we chillen tried, but of course we would git careless sometimes.
"The master had a 'black snake'—some called it a 'bull whip,' and he knew how to use it. He whipped, but I don' 'member now whether he brought any blood on me, but he cut the blood outta the grown ones. He didn' tie 'em, he always had a whippin' block or log to make 'em lay down on. They called 500 licks a 'light breshin,' and right on your naked back, too. They said your clothes wouldn' grow but your hide would. From what I heered say, if you run away, then was when they give you a whippin,' prob'bly 1500 or 2000 licks. They'd shore tie you down then, 'cause you couldn' stan' it. Then you'd have to work on top of all that, with your shirt stickin' to your back.
"The overseer woke us up. Sometimes he had a kin' of horn to blow, and when you heered that horn, you'd better git up. He would give you a good whippin' iffen he had to come and wake you up. He was the meanest one on the place, worse'n the boss man.
"The boss man had a nice rock house, and the women didn' work at all.
"I never did see any slaves auctioned off, but I heered of it. My boss he would take 'em there and sell 'em.
"They had a church this side of New Fountain and the boss man 'lowed us to go on Sunday. If any of the slaves did join, they didn' baptize them, as I know of.
"When one of the slaves would die, they would bury 'em on the land there. Reg'lar little cemetery there. Oh, yes, they would have doctors for 'em. If anybody died, they would tell some of the other slaves to dig the grave and take 'em out there and bury 'em. They jes' put 'em in a box, no preachin' or nothin.' But, of course, if it was Sunday the slaves would follow out there and sing. No, if they didn' die on Sunday, you couldn' go; you went to that field.
"If you wanted to go to any other plantation you had to git a pass to go over there, and if you didn' and got caught, you got one of the worst whippins'. If things happened and they wanted to tell 'em on other plantations, they would slip out at night and tell 'em.
"We never heered much about the fightin' or how it was goin.' When the war finally was over, our old boss called us all up and had us to stand in abreast, and he stood on the gallery and he read the verdict to 'em, and said, 'Now, you can jes' work on if you want to, and I'll treat you jes' like I always did.' I guess when he said that they knew what he meant. The' wasn't but one family left with 'im. They stayed about two years. But the rest was just like birds, they jes' flew.
"I went with my father and he hired me out for two years, to a man named Riley, over on the Seco. I did most everythin', worked the field and was house rustler, too. But I had a good time there. After I left 'im, I came to D'Hanis. I worked on a church house they was buildin'. Then I went back to my father and worked for him a long time, freightin' cotton to Eagle Pass. I used horses and mules and hauled cotton and flour and whiskey and things like that.
"I met my wife down on Black Creek, and I freighted two years after we was married. We got married so long ago, but in them days anything would do. You see, these days they are so proud, but we was glad to have anything. I had a black suit to be married in, and a pretty long shirt, and I wore boots. She wore a white dress, but in them days they didn' have black shoes. Yes'm, they had a dance, down here on Black Creek. Danced half the night at her house and two men played the fiddle. Eat? We had everythin' to eat, a barbecued calf and a hog, too, and all kinds of cakes and pies. Drink? Why, the men had whiskey to drink and the women drank coffee. We married about 7 or 8 in the evenin' at her house. My wife's name was Sarah Ann Brackins.
"Did I see a ghost? Well, over yonder on the creek was a ghost. It was a moonlight night and it passed right by me and it never had no head on it a-tall. It almost breshed me. It kep' walkin' right by side of me. I shore saw it and I run like a good fellow. Lots of 'em could see wonnurful sights then and I heered lots of noises, but that's the only ghost I ever seen.
"No, I never knowed nothing 'bout charms. I've seen 'em have a rabbit heel or coon heel for good luck. I seen a woman one time that was tricked, or what I'd call poisoned. A place on her let, it was jes' the shape of these little old striped lizards. It was somethin' they called 'trickin it,' and a person that knowed to trick you would put it there to make you suffer the balance of your days. It would go 'round your leg clear to the hip and be between the skin and the flesh. They called it the devil's work."
JAMES GREEN is half American Indian and half Negro. He was born a slave to John Williams, of Petersburg, Va., became a "free boy", then was kidnapped and sold in a Virginia slave market to a Texas ranchman. He now lives at 323 N. Olive St., San Antonio, Texas.
"I never knowed my age till after de war, when I's set free de second time, and then marster gits out a big book and it shows I's 25 year old. It shows I's 12 when I is bought and $800 is paid for me. That $800 was stolen money, 'cause I was kidnapped and dis is how it come:
"My mammy was owned by John Williams in Petersburg, in Virginia, and I come born to her on dat plantation. Den my father set 'bout to git me free, 'cause he a full-blooded Indian and done some big favor for a big man high up in de courts, and he gits me set free, and den Marster Williams laughs and calls me 'free boy.'
"Then, one day along come a Friday and that a unlucky star day and I playin' round de house and Marster Williams come up and say, 'Delia, will you 'low Jim walk down de street with me?' My mammy say, 'All right, Jim, you be a good boy,' and dat de las' time I ever heared her speak, or ever see her. We walks down whar de houses grows close together and pretty soon comes to de slave market. I ain't seed it 'fore, but when Marster Williams says, 'Git up on de block,' I got a funny feelin', and I knows what has happened. I's sold to Marster John Pinchback and he had de St. Vitus dance and he likes to make he niggers suffer to make up for his squirmin' and twistin' and he the bigges' debbil on earth.
"We leaves right away for Texas and goes to marster's ranch in Columbus. It was owned by him and a man call Wright, and when we gits there I's put to work without nothin' to eat. Dat night I makes up my mind to run away but de nex' day dey takes me and de other niggers to look at de dogs and chooses me to train de dogs with. I's told I had to play I runnin' away and to run five mile in any way and then climb a tree. One of de niggers tells me kind of nice to climb as high in dat tree as I could if I didn't want my body tore off my legs. So I runs a good five miles and climbs up in de tree whar de branches is gettin' small.
"I sits dere a long time and den sees de dogs comin'. When dey gits under de tree dey sees me and starts barkin'. After dat I never got thinkin' of runnin' away.
"Time goes on and de war come along, but everything goes on like it did. Some niggers dies, but more was born, 'cause old Pinchback sees to dat. He breeds niggers as quick as he can, 'cause dat money for him. No one had no say who he have for wife. But de nigger husbands wasn't de only ones dat keeps up havin' chillen, 'cause de marsters and de drivers takes all de nigger gals dey wants. Den de chillen was brown and I seed one clear white one, but dey slaves jus' de same.
"De end of dat war comes and old Pinchback says, 'You niggers all come to de big house in de mornin'. He tells us we is free and he opens his book and gives us all a name and tells us whar we comes from and how old we is, and says he pay us 40 cents a day to stay with him. I stays 'bout a year and dere's no big change. De same houses and some got whipped but nobody got nailed to a tree by de ears, like dey used to. Finally old Pinchback dies and when he buried de lightnin' come and split de grave and de coffin wide open.
"Well, time goes on some more and den Lizzie and me, we gits together and we marries reg'lar with a real weddin'. We's been together a long time and we is happy.
"I 'members a old song like dis:
"'Old marster eats beef and sucks on de bone,
And give us de gristle—
To make, to make, to make, to make,
To make de nigger whistle.'
"Dat all de song I 'member from dose old days, 'ceptin' one more:
"'I goes to church in early morn,
De birds just a-sittin' on de tree—
Sometimes my clothes gits very much worn—
'Cause I wears 'em out at de knee.
"'I sings and shouts with all my might,
To drive away de cold—
And de bells keep ringin' in gospel light,
Till de story of de Lamb am told.'"
O. W. Green
O.W. Green, son of Frank and of Mary Ann Marks, was born in slavery at Bradly Co., Arkansas, June 26, 1859. His owners, the Mobley family, owned a large plantation and two or three thousand slaves. Jack Mobley, Green's young master, was killed in the Civil War, and Green became one of the "orphan chillen." When the Ku Klux Klan became active, the "orphan chillen" were taken to Little Rock, Ark. Later on, Green moved to Del Rio, Texas, where he now lives.
O. W. Green and Granddaughter
"I was bo'ned in Arkansas. Frank Marks was my father and Mary Ann Marks my mother. She was bo'n on the plantation. I had two brothers.
"I don' 'member de quarters, but dey mus' of had plenty, 'cause dey was two, three thousand slaves on de plantation. All my kin people belonged to Massa Mobley. My grandfather was a millman and dey had one de bigges' grist mills in de country.
"Our Massa was good and we had plenty for to eat. Dere was no jail for slaves on our place but not far from dere was a jail.
"De Ku Klux Klan made everything pretty squally, so dey taken de orphan chillen to Little Rock and kep' 'em two, three years. Dere was lots of slaves in dat country 'round Rob Roy and Free Nigger Bend. Old Churchill, who used to be governor, had a plantation in dere.
"When I was nine years ol' dey had de Bruce and Baxter revolution. 'Twas more runnin' dan fightin'. Bruce was 'lected for governor but Baxter said he'd be governor if he had to run Brooks into de sea.
"My young Massa, Jack Mobley, was killed in de war, is how I come to be one of de orphan chillen.
"While us orphan chillen was at Little Rock dere come a terrible soreness of de eyes. I heard tell 'twas caused from de cholera. Every little child had to take turns about sittin' by de babies or totin' them. I was so blind, my eyes was so sore, I couldn't see. The doctor's wife was working with us. She was tryin' to figure up a cure for our sore eyes, first using one remedy and den another. An old herb doctor told her about a herb he had used on de plantations to cure de slaves' sore eyes. Dey boiled de herb and put hit on our eyes, on a white cloth. De doctor's wife had a little boy about my age. He would play with me, and thought I was about hit. He would lead me around, then he would run off and leave me and see if I could see. One day between 'leven and twelve o'clock—I never will fergit hit—he taken me down to de mess room. De lady was not quite ready to dress my eyes. She told me to go on and come back in a little while. When I got outside I tore dat old rag off of my eyes and throwed hit down. I told the little boy, 'O, I can see you!' He grabbed me by de arm and ran yellin' to his mammy, 'Mama, he can see! Mama, Owen can see!' I neva will fo'git dat word. Dey were all in so a rejoicin', excitable way. I was de first one had his eyes cured. Dey sent de lady to New York and she made plenty of money from her remedy.
"Things sure was turrible durin' de war. Dey just driv us in front of de soldiers. Dere was lots of cholera. We was just bedded together lak hogs. The Ku Klux Klan come behind de soldiers, killin' and robbin'.
"After two or three years in de camp with de orphans, my kin found me and took me home.
"My grandfather and uncle was in de fightin'. My grandfather was a wagon man. De las' trip he made, he come home bringin' a load of dead soldiers to be buried. My grandfather told de people all about de war. He said hit sure was terrible.
"When de war was over de people jus' shouted for joy. De men and women jus' shouted for joy. 'Twas only because of de prayers of de cullud people, dey was freed, and de Lawd worked through Lincoln.
"My old masta was a doctor and a surgeon. He trained my grandmother; she worked under him thirty-seven years as a nurse. When old masta wanted grandmother to go on a special case he would whip her so she wouldn't tell none of his secrets. Grandmother used herbs fo' medicine—black snake root, sasparilla, blackberry briar roots—and nearly all de young'uns she fooled with she save from diarrhea.
"My old masta was good, but when he found you shoutin' he burnt your hand. My grandmother said he burnt her hand several times. Masta wouldn't let de cullud folks have meetin', but dey would go out in de woods in secret to pray and preach and shout.
"I jist picked up enough readin' to read my bible and scratch my name. I went to school one mo'ning and didn't git along wid de teacher so I didn't go no mo'.
"I 'member my folks had big times come Christmas. Dey never did work on Sundays, jist set around and rest. Dey never worked in bad weather. Dey never did go to de field till seven o'clock.
"I married in 1919. I have two step-daughters and one step-son. My step-son lives in San Antonio. I have six step-grandchillen. I was a member of de Baptist church befo' you was bo'n, lady.
Beaumont, Jefferson Co. Dist. #3
ROSA GREEN, 85 years old, was born at Ketchi, Louisiana, but as soon as she was old enough became a housegirl on the plantation of Major "Bob" Hollingsworth at Mansfield, Louisiana. To the best of her knowledge, she was about 13 when the "freedom papers" were read. She had had 13 children by her two husbands, both deceased, and lives with her youngest daughter in Beaumont. Their one-room, unpainted house is one of a dozen unprepossessing structures bordering an alleyway leading off Pine Street. Rosa, a spry little figure, crowned with short, snow-white pigtails extending in various directions, spends most of her time tending her small flowerbeds and vegetable garden. She is talkative and her memory seems quite active.
"When de w'ite folks read de freedom paper I was 13 year old. I jes' lean up agin de porch, 'cause I didn' know den what it was all about. I war'nt bo'n in Texas, I was bo'n in Ketchi, but I was rais' in Manfiel'. Law, yes, I 'member de fight at Manfiel'. My ol' marster tuk all he niggers and lef' at night. Lef' us little ones; say de Yankees could git us effen day wan' to, 'cause we no good no way, and I wouldn' care if dey did git us. Dey put us in a sugar hogshead and give us a spoon to scrape out de sugar. 'Bout de ol' plantation, I work a little w'ile in de fiel'. I didn' know den like I see now. Dese chillen bo'n wid mo' sense now dan we was den. Dey was 'bout ten cullud folks on de place. My ol' marster name Bob Hollingsworth, but dey call 'im Major, 'cause he was a major in de war, not de las' one, but de one way back yonder. Ol' missus work de little ones roun' de house and under de house and kep' ev'yt'ing clean as yo' han'. The ol' marster I thought was de meanes' man de Lawd ever made. Look like he cuss ev'y time he open he mouth. De neighbor w'ite folks, some good, some bad. My work was cleanin' up 'roun de house and nussin' de chillen. Only times I went to church when day tuk us long to min' de chillen. When de battle of Manfiel' was, we didn' git out much. When de Yankees was comin' to Gran' Cane, my w'ite folks dig a big pit and put der meat and flour and all in it and cover it over wid dirt and put wagon loads of pine straw over it. It was 'bout five or six mile to Manfield and 'bout 49 or 50 mile to Shreveport. My ol' marster tuk all he niggers and went off somweres, dey called it Texas, but I didn' know where. De ol'er ones farm. Dey rais' ev'yt'ing dey could put in de groun', dey did. My pa was kirrige(carriage) driver for my ol' missus. He was boss nigger fo' de cullud men when marster wan't right dere. My father jis' stay dere. See, dey free our people in July. Dat leave de whole crop stanin' dere in de fiel'. Dey had to stay dere and take care of de crop. After dat dey commence makin' contraks and bargins. I was 22 years ol' when I marry de fus' time. Both my husban's dead. I had 13 chillen in all.
"De fus' time I went to church, missus tuk me and another gal to min' de chillen. I never heared a preacher befo'. I 'member how de preacher word de hymn:
'Come, ye sinners, po' and needy.
Weak and wounded, sick and so'.'
"I couldn' understan' it, but now when I look down on it I sees it now. I bleeve us been here goin' on fo' year' right yere in dis house."
WILLIAM GREEN, or "Reverend Bill", as he is call by the other Negroes, was brought to Texas from Mississippi in 1862. His master was Major John Montgomery. William is 87 years old. He has lived in San Antonio, Texas, for 50 years.
Rev. William (Bill) Green
"I is Reverend Bill, all right, but I is 'fraid dat compliment don't belong to me no more, 'cause I quit preachin' in favor of de young men.
"I kin tell you my 'speriences in savin'—mis'ry dat was, is peace dat is. I tells you dis 'spite of bein' alone in de world with no chillun.
"I is raised a slave and 'mancipated in June, but I 'members de old plantation whar I is born. Massa John Montgomery, he owned me, and he went to de war and git kilt. I knowed 'bout de war, though us slaves wasn't sposed to know nothin' 'bout it. I was livin' in Texas then, 'cause Massa John moved over here from Mis'sippi. In dat place niggers was allus wrong, no matter what, but it was better in dis place. We used to think we was lucky to git over here to Texas, and we used to sing a song 'bout it:
"'Over yonder is de wild-goose nation,
Whar old missus has sugar plantation—
Sugar grows sweet but de plantation's sour,
'cause de nigger jump and run every hour.
"'I has you all to know, you all to know,
Dare's light on de shore,
Says little Bill to big Bill,
There's a li'l nigger to write and cipher.'
"I don't know what de song meant but we thought we'd git free here in Texas, and we'd git eddicated, and dat's de meanin' of de talk about writin' and cipherin'.
"Well, when I is free I isn't free, 'cause de boss wants me and another boy to stay till we's 21 year old. But old Judge Longworth, he come down dere and dere was pretty near a fight, and he 'splains to us we was free.
"'bout five year after dat I takes up preachin' and I preaches for a long time, and I works on a farm, half and half with de owner. I has a good life, but now I's too old to preach.
Back To Slavery 2
Back To Slavery | <urn:uuid:a7b2da12-dbe4-48b0-b257-37427ee2eae5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.genealogytrails.com/tex/state/slavenarra3.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00149-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978227 | 12,402 | 3.125 | 3 |
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2015 July 4
Explanation: Not fireworks, these intense shimmering lights still danced across Earth's night skies late last month, seen here above the planet's geographic south pole. The stunning auroral displays were triggered as a coronal mass ejection blasted from the Sun days earlier impacted the magnetosphere, beginning a widespread geomagnetic storm. The six fisheye panels were recorded with digital camera and battery in a heated box to guard against -90 degree F ambient temperatures of the long winter night. Around the horizon are south pole astronomical observatories, while beyond the Aurora Australis stretch the stars of the southern Milky Way.
Authors & editors:
Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U. | <urn:uuid:6fa5997f-2211-4bbb-97eb-e46dea3a5aed> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150704.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00167-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.887767 | 200 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Brown v. Woodland Joint Unified School District (1994)
Court Decisions on Religious Liberty
Douglas E. Brown and Katherine E. Brown, parents of two students and members of the Christian Assembly of God denomination, objected to the use of portions of Impressions, a teaching aid, in the first through sixth grades in the Woodland Joint Unified School District
Impressions is a series of 59 books containing approximately 10,000 literary selections and classroom activities. Selections are associated with suggested learning activities, such as having children compose rhymes and chants, act out the selections, and even discussions the selections' characters and themes. The selections were chosen to reflect a broad range of North American cultures and traditions.
The parents challenged 32 of the Impressions selections, arguing that these portions promoted the practice of witchcraft. Most of these selections asked children to discuss witches or to create poetic chants. Some also asked students to pretend that they are witches or sorcerers and ask them to role-play these characters in certain situations.
After their complaints, the School District appointed a review committee, which included a Christian minister, to review Impressions for any emphasis on witchcraft or the occult. The committee decided that it did not have evidence or expertise to establish a connection between Impressions and occult practices. The School District accepted this report and refused to exclude the 32 disputed selections.
The question before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was: do the classroom activities in a California public school district require children to practice the "religion" of witchcraft in violation of the federal Establishment Clause and the California Constitution?
The Browns argued that the selections violated the second prong of the Lemon Test, which prohibits any government activity which has the primary effect of advancing or hindering religion - whether intentional or not, and even if those effects are secondary effects of government acts. According to the Browns, that is what happened when children read about witchcraft and are asked to act out scenes from such stories.
The 9th Circuit Court rejected this argument, citing both its own and Supreme Court precedent, both of which state that merely reading about religious history is not a prohibited religious activity. Although the children were also engaged in activities rather than merely reading, the Court also held that a practice's mere consistency with or coincidental resemblance to a religious practice does not have the primary effect of advancing religion. Citing the Supreme Court's decision in McGowan v. Maryland:
...the "Establishment" clause does not ban federal or state regulation of conduct whose reason or effect merely happens to coincide or harmonize with the tenets of some or all religions. In many instances, the Congress or state legislatures conclude that the general welfare of society, wholly apart from any religious considerations, demands such regulation. Thus, for temporal purposes, murder is illegal. And the fact that this agrees with the dictates of the Judaeo-Christian religions while it may disagree with others does not invalidate the regulation. So too with questions of adultery and polygamy. The same result could be said of theft, fraud, etc., because those offenses were also proscribed in the Decalogue.
The Court also held that, because of the nature of the overall program, a neutral observer would be unlikely to conclude that the selections are endorsing religion.
The fact that the challenged selections constitute only a minute part of the Impressions curriculum was found to further ensure that an objective observer in the position of an elementary school student would not view them as religious rituals endorsing witchcraft.
This Circuit Court decision reinforced the established precedent that mere similarity to actual religious beliefs or observances is insufficient to declare something unconstitutional.--> | <urn:uuid:fdaf672d-24df-4523-8a36-1b0d68bca4f7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://atheism.about.com/library/decisions/religion/bl_l_BrownWoodland.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00150-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956014 | 735 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Makefile -- an object that parses makefiles and stores their relevant info
$makefile = Makefile::load("filename_or_dir_nae"); $makefile = Makefile::load($fileinfo_or_dirinfo); $makefile->expand_text("$(STRING) $(WITH) $(MAKE) $(VARIABLES) $(OR FUNCTIONS)"); $makefilename = $makefile->name("dir");
The Makefile package is responsible for parsing a makefile, and subsequently for holding all relevant information from the makefile, such as variable definitions.
A new Makefile class may be created at any time, whenever you discover that it is available. The Makefile constructor parses the makefile, and integrates all of its rules into the makepp's memory database.
my $expanded_string = $makefile->expand_text("string with make variables", $makefile_line);
Expands all the make variables and expressions in the text and returns the result. If an error occurs, die's with the error message prefixed by
Makes a new makefile object. The argument is the makefile to load, or else a directory that may contain the makefile. Exits with die if no such makefile exists, or if there is a fatal parse error. Otherwise, returns the Makefile object.
If you do not specify the default directory, then directory containing the makefile is assumed.
If the makefile has already been loaded, then this does not reload the makefile; it returns the old makefile object.
$command_line_vars is a reference to a hash containing the names and values of all variables which were specified on the command line.
$makecmdgoals is the value of $(MAKECMDGOALS) for this makefile.
include_path is an array of FileInfo structures for directories that the include statement should search.
$environment is a hash containing the environment for this particular makefile.
If there is a target in the Makefile for the Makefile itself, the makefile is remade and then reread. Makefile::load does not return until the makefile has been rebuilt. | <urn:uuid:ce685e90-41d2-4867-ac7a-6a9c4eacc6fd> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://search.cpan.org/~holt/makepp-1.19/Makefile.pm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00176-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.803411 | 466 | 3.609375 | 4 |
The Kentucky coffee tree (Gymnocladus dioicus) is a very strange plant. Not closely related to the coffee plant, it gets its name from a coffee-like brew that can be made from its roasted seeds. The tree is a native of eastern North America, but within its large geographic range it's very rare.
The tree's large pods contain several seeds embedded in a green pulp that's rumored to be deadly enough to drop a cow. The seeds themselves are so poisonous that no animals, other than humans, are known to eat or disperse them in any way. Nor does the wind carry the seeds any appreciable distance. This shortage of dispersal mechanisms is probably the main reason why the Kentucky coffee tree is so rare. Although it's quite capable of thriving in a variety of habitats, the tree is usually found near waterways. There it can rely on the eroding action of moving water to abrade its very tough seed coatsthe Kentucky coffee tree's seeds can't germinate without first having their seed coats breached.
From an evolutionary point of view, it makes no sense for an organism to evolve characteristics that offer no reproductive advantage. One might ask, "Why does the Kentucky coffee tree seem to be so poorly adapted to its native ecosystem? What 'went wrong' with this peculiar plant?" Probably nothing, say botanists who have been attempting to recreate this unusual plant's ecological history. The tree seems to have adapted quite well to its environmentat least that was the case 12,000 years ago.
Circumstantial evidence suggests that the Kentucky coffee tree may be waiting for a mastodonits likely partner from the pastto come by. Though biologists don't know what the long-extinct mastodons ate, they can make inferences by looking at the diet of elephants, the mastodon's closest living relative. The similarity of the coffee tree to certain foods that modern elephants love, coupled with the many ways elephants cope with plant poisons, makes a case for the coffee tree being part of the menu of their extinct mastodon relatives.
Could the Kentucky coffee tree be what's called an ecological anachronism? Is it a survivor from a distant past in which it partnered with animals less fortunate than itself? Has its retention of poisonsdeveloped to thwart lesser would-be disperserskept it from adapting to a world without mastodons? These questions are hard to answer on the basis of the fossil record provided thus far by the players in this drama; the record is far from complete. Traditionally, past extinctions have not been given much consideration in ecological theory, but a growing number of scientists are considering this scenario for the ecological history of the Kentucky coffee tree, as well as for other possible ecological anachronisms.
The tree persists mainly because it has a backup seed dispersal system: the relentless action of streams and rivers. Its highly poisonous leaves are virtually pest- and nibble-free, good protection for the tree's survival in an uncertain future. A shortage of seed dispersal mechanisms doesn't mean that the Kentucky coffee tree is doomed to extinctionit merely means that this tree seems to have lost an edge it had several millennia ago. And although plants evolve more slowly than the animals with which they often partner, the Kentucky coffee tree may "realize" that it's time to find another cohort to help it reclaim its ancient haunts.
Musings needs your feedback! In order to continue to develop an effective resource to support your teaching practice, we would like to hear from you. If you are interested in filling out a brief survey on Musings, please fill out the Comments form in this issue and write "MUSINGS SURVEY" in the Questions/Comments box. Once we have received your completed survey, the first 25 respondents will receive one of the AMNH's three new, exciting science essay books featured in the What's New section of this issue of Musings. | <urn:uuid:6451228f-9cdd-4175-b5da-55561c3ee4bd> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.amnh.org/learn/musings/FA01/mb.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395548.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00174-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9654 | 799 | 3.640625 | 4 |
This coastal commercial building, Gulf Shores, experienced wall cladding and secondary structure failure following a hurricane event.
Roaring thunder, crackling lightning, incredible gusts of wind, and utter chaos—the severe weather whims of Mother Nature, while awe-inspiring,are unfortunately some of her most destructive. And while scientists have yet to prove that climate change is linked to the frequency of hurricane events, their occurrence is statistically increasing. Indeed, the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season spawned a record number of consecutive storms, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, www.noaa.gov).
While protecting human lives is the top priority surrounding hurricane disasters, hurricane-zone buildings that resist failure are also taking center stage. This is reflected in changing building codes and stringent product approval requirements in states like Florida and Texas. In addition, the Federal Emergency Management Agency continues its efforts, using mitigation assessment teams, to study property damage and glean knowledge on best building practices.
What are some key points that the industry has picked up along the way?
According to Jack D. Burleson, AIA, CSI, CBO, a regional manager for government relations with the International Code Council (ICC) Texas field office, the combination of high winds, huge waves, and storm surge in hurricane events makes resistance to wind and water the principal area of concern. Secondarily, a building's structural system must be protected from corrosion, decay, and termites to give it a fighting chance against these forces.
Roof aggregate turned into windborne missiles during Hurricane Ike, damaging glazing in mid- and high-rise buildings. Photo: Courtesy FEMA
However, most damage from hurricane winds and rain occurs when building elements are compromised as a result of improper design, application, material deterioration, or roof system abuse, according to Tom Smith, AIA, TLSmith Consulting, Rockton, Ill.
Dr. Leighton Cochran, CPEng, MASCE, CPP, principal of Fort Collins, Colo.-based CPP, a consulting engineering firm specialized in wind (www.cppwind.com), agrees with that assessment. He explains that the pressure created on a building's external surface increases with the square of the wind speed. As a result, building product specification and design must be able to withstand such pressures—as well as flying debris caused by the winds.
“This is key,” he warns, “because once the building envelope is broken by a flying object during a storm, the large external pressures can move to the inside of the building and generally increase the net load seen across the remaining intact building skin, at which point further failures and water damage will ensue.”
INSURE FIRST, AND BUILD RIGHT
Design and construction techniques are important, but surety is the first step. In addition to more specialized and higher-quality building design, property owners in hurricane zones are being encouraged to invest more in insurance.
Figure 1. Windborne debris areas of Florida, by county. Values are nominal design, three-second gusts, wind speeds in mph at 33 feet (10 m)
above ground for Exposure C Category. Islands and coastal areas outside
the last contour use the last wind speed contour of the coastal area.
According to James Lee Witt, director of FEMA during the Clinton administration and now a disaster-recovery consultant, if a building is sited in a 100-year flood plain, wind and flood insurance are imperative. Addressing the front-end cost, Witt estimates that every dollar spent on prevention could potentially save $3 to $5 in future losses, and perhaps more when business interruptions are taken into account.
Recognizing this, Congress has mandated that regulated and insured lenders require flood insurance on properties located in high-risk flooding zones.
Another trend to note is the migration of the U.S. population toward coastal areas, making more people and properties increasingly vulnerable to hurricane damage. This will ultimately affect the insurance industry as well.
Taking all of this into account, insurance companies are offering lower premiums to owners and property managers who elect to better fortify their facilities against hurricane damage by installing building components such as storm-resistant glazing and roofing systems.
The other big trend has been the evolution of more-stringent building codes, standards, and product approval systems, namely Miami-Dade and Broward Counties' High-Velocity Hurricane Zone (HVHZ) program. Essentially, building products specified in these counties must be tested to HVHZ's high standards of performance, the two main requirements being laboratory-tested resistance for structural wind loads and an ISO-based production quality assurance program, audited by an approved third party.
In addition to setting up and enforcing its product approval program, Miami-Dade County offers a user-friendly database of approved products which can be searched according to such parameters as material category, company name, and impact rating: http://www.miamidade.gov/buildingcode/pc-search_app.asp.
Beyond the reach of Miami-Dade and Broward, a number of other codes and standards are also addressing design requirements for high-wind zones. For example, the American Society of Civil Engineers standard, ASCE 7 – Minimum Design Loads for Buildings and Other Structures, is widely used to determine the wind loads on buildings. The standard takes into account such variables as geographic location; basic wind design and speed; surrounding terrain; building use, size and shape; and the location of components within the building envelope. Similarly, FEMA 361 – Design and Construction Guidance for Community Shelters, delineates key product approval standards for these important community facilities.
The 2007 Florida Building Code also addresses several key areas, such as minimizing damage from windborne debris by requiring missile impact testing for glazing and cladding. According to Nathan C. Gould, DSc, PE, SE, director of St. Louis-based risk-management specialist ABS Consulting (www.absconsulting.com), the small missile impact test, which projects solid steel balls weighing two grams at a speed of 130 feet per second, is required for all applicable envelope components that are to be used above 30 feet in height. The large missile impact test, which projects a specified length and weight of 2x4 wood stud at a speed of 50 feet per second, is required for applicable envelope components that are to be used at or below 30 feet.
“The building code also has specific material, strength, and installation requirements for windows, doors, and other glazing to mitigate potential impact damage,” adds Gould.
DETAILING FOR SAFETY'S SAKE
To design the essential building systems that can stand up to hurricanes, Building Teams must get the details right. This is borne out by damage survey conducted after Hurricane Charley by the Institute of Business & Home Safety and Wyndham Partners Consulting in 2004 (http://www.weatherpredict.com/pdf-downloads/HurricaneCharleyDamageSurvey.pdf), which showed that construction detailing had a significant impact on damage caused by hurricane-force winds.
For example, poor attachment methods—the type of fastener and the correct spacing of fasteners—were found to be the leading cause of envelope failure to metal sheathing. Similarly, poorly detailed vinyl soffits ultimately contributed to progressive roof failures and indoor wall/ceiling damage. Also, poorly detailed roof overhangs played a key part in progressive roof failures and other damage to interior walls and ceilings.
Based on his ICC experience, Burleson points out that forces created from the combination of wind and water place extreme loads on building components, including framing, anchor bolts, connections, fasteners, roofing, sheathing, doors, and windows. Consequently, if proper attention is not given to the connection details, this can create a “weak link in the structural chain,” ultimately leading to partial or total building failure in frequent cases.
Flashing. David Cox, senior staff engineering specialist for FM Global (www.fmglobal.com), reports that 90% of yearly wind losses experienced by the global commercial insurance firm's client base are related to flashing, which is considered to be the single most important component of a roof system.
John Ingargiola, a senior engineer in the building sciences branch of the FEMA mitigation directorate (www.fema.gov/about/divisions/mitigation.shtm), Washington D.C., elaborates on this point. “Flashing around openings is an area of concern. If the flashing is not properly designed and installed, flashing failure around openings and penetrations can cause peeling of the building envelope and lead to water infiltration.”
To address this, Smith recommends enhanced flashing details—in other words, extra-long flanges, the use of sealant and tapes, and the like—for strong wind zones. These details are outlined in his article “Wind Safety of the Building Envelope,” in the online Whole Building Design Guide, http://www.wbdg.org/resources/env_wind.php?r=e.
In addition to flashing, it is important to focus on such details as adhesives, sealants, and gaskets as well, says Chuck Anderson, codes and industry affairs manager for the American Architectural Manufacturers Association (www.aamanet.org), Schaumburg, Ill. “Compatibility between the substrates being joined and the material chosen is critical, as incompatibility could result in adhesive failure or possible discoloration of the substrate or the adhesive, sealant, or gasket,” he says. “Specifiers should also consider the durability and warranty of these products.”
Fasteners. Fasteners must be of substantial size and strength to resist shear loads. “The bearing surface between the window and the fastener must be adequate to transmit the load without deforming the window frame or allowing the frame to pull away from the fastener head,” says AAMA's Anderson. “In addition, bending stress must be checked. The latter becomes more important as the length of the fastener extending from the rough opening is increased.”
Based on post-Hurricane Ike research findings, Ingargiola reports that, in many cases, building cladding was prone to damage due to improper fastening and inadequate fastener spacing. “Fasteners should be corrosion-resistant, especially when building near salt water,” he says.
In terms of an overall strategy against water intrusion, Tim Reinhold, PhD, chief engineer and SVP of research for the Institute of Business & Home Safety (www.disastersafety.org), Tampa, Fla., points out that the use of caulking and sealing must be evaluated based on the building material involved. “For example, brick and cement blocks are porous, so it makes no sense to try to caulk or seal the joint between windows or doors and these elements. On the other hand, cracks and openings around pipes or cables can allow significant water flow into wall cavities or to the interior of the buildings, and all of these gaps should be filled to help minimize the flow of water.”
Air and moisture barriers. Another key strategy is the use of air barriers, moisture barriers, and vapor retarders to protect against water intrusion. “Air barriers are critical to the overall health and performance of air-conditioned buildings to keep moisture from flowing through the walls and around windows and doors,” says Reinhold. “And moisture barriers and drainage planes with venting to the outside of the building are important for many types of walls to keep from accumulating water inside the walls.”
AAMA's Anderson notes that rainscreen systems may require venting capacity to allow for drying of the areas intended to get wet. In addition, weeps and channels should be designed to minimize clogging.
In terms of specifying these types of systems, good resources include FEMA 499 Technical Fact Sheet No. 9: Moisture Barriers Systems, and books and articles put out by the Boston-based Building Science Corporation, www.buildingscience.com.
EXTERIORS: FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE
When choosing a cladding system for hurricane-zone buildings, it's important to consider the pros and cons of various system types. In all cases, however, faulty installation will make any system inadequate in the face of hurricanes. The top concern, says FEMA's Ingargiola, is “selecting a product that is rated for the appropriate loads and impact resistance for that location and installing according to the manufacturer's instructions.”
Cladding. Every envelope system has an Achilles heel in terms of severe weather performance. A few examples are listed here:
• Metal. Although metal cladding generally offers higher impact resistance, Reinhold cautions that these systems can be susceptible to fatigue failure around fasteners. Moreover, wind performance varies depending on the system's attachment assemblies. As Smith explains in his WBDG primer, the performance level is determined by: 1) the strength of the specified panel—which is a function of material, panel profile, panel width, and whether or not the panel is a composite—and 2) the adequacy of the attachment, which can either be by concealed clips or exposed fasteners.
• EIFS. While exterior insulation and finish systems are popular for their insulating properties, flexibility, and affordability, most experts report that they need to be carefully specified for hurricane zones. “Having been on several post-hurricane assessment teams, I have seen EIFS fail frequently in high-wind areas,” says Cochran, chair of ASCE's Structural Wind Engineering Committee and past president of the American Association for Wind Engineering. Reinhold points out that commercial EIFS systems should be designed with a drainage plane and weep holes, so that water that gets into the wall cavity can be directed out. That helps to prevent trapped water in the enclosures, which could lead to corrosion damage to the anchors and delaminating of construction materials, he says.
On the other hand, Dave Johnston, executive director of the EIFS Industry Members Association, Morrow, Ga., points out, “Tests prove that EIFS, when properly designed and installed, can repel windborne debris from a hurricane. It's time to look at the improvements that have been made to these systems and not rely on experiences of well over a decade ago to assess them.” Johnston says that “any type of structure can fail during a hurricane, given the right conditions,” noting that all approved EIFS projects do incorporate a drainage system to allow moisture to escape. In general, EIFS systems that meet the Miami-Dade County product approvals are recommended.
• Stucco. Thick stucco finishes have a good track record of hurricane-zone performance. “We have seen relatively few delaminating failures,” says Reinhold. “Although cracks in the stucco can lead to water intrusion, there have been relatively few problems when they have been painted with two to three coats of paint. Also, the natural hardness of the stucco, when combined with the support structure, provides good debris impact resistance.”
• Concrete and masonry. Although concrete and masonry structures offer strong resistance to windborne debris and high-wind pressures, according to Ingargiola, water intrusion can be an issue due to the way these wall systems are designed. “Concrete and masonry walls are designed to absorb water and release it through evaporation, so under heavy, sustained flooding, this can be an issue.”
One solution, suggests Ingargiola, is to use concrete or masonry and cladding materials in tandem. “By placing siding, panels, or stucco over masonry or concrete, a wall has good capability to prevent water intrusion and resist high-winds and debris.”
Roofing.While good detailing and well-considered cladding systems are essential, even more crucial is the integrity of the roofing system, as roof failure is the leading cause of building performance problems during hurricanes, notes FEMA's Ingargiola. In addition, roofing materials run the risk of becoming windborne debris during a hurricane, thus wreaking further havoc.
There is a wide range of choices when it comes to roofing, so getting a handle on varying performance levels is helpful.
• Single-ply. Although single-ply roofs offer certain benefits, mechanically attached, fully adhered, and air-pressure-equalized membrane systems can be susceptible to progressive failure following missile impact, says consultant Tom Smith. This being the case, they are generally not recommended for office buildings where the wind speed can reach or exceed 120 mph. On the other hand, paver-ballasted and fully adhered single-ply systems work well, as opposed to aggregate ballast, which can be more prone to blow-off, he adds. For more guidelines, Smith recommends the National Research Council of Canada's Institute for Research in Construction, which offers its Guide for the Wind Design of Mechanically Attached Flexible Membrane Roofs (http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/ibp/irc.html). This comprehensive wind design guide includes a discussion of air and vapor retarders, which can be effective in reducing “membrane flutter.”
Whether for single-ply, EPDM (ethylene propylene diene monomer), asphalt, or built-up roof (BUR) systems, Reinhold suggests strengthening the anchorage around the roof's perimeter for the first four to eight feet, depending on the size of the roof, as this is where the uplift loads are greatest. In addition, “Flashing around the perimeter of the roof needs to be well anchored, as a lot of roof failures are initiated when the flashing tears loose.”
• BUR and modified bitumen. In addition to flashing, Smith suggests that the coping and gutter systems be carefully detailed and installed to better prevent failure for BUR and modified-bitumen systems. He also notes that modified-bitumen material adhered to a concrete deck can offer strong resistance to progressive peeling even if the metal edge flashing is blown off.
• Metal. As with metal exterior systems, metal roofing performance can be highly variable. “Metal roofs are best when they are installed over a solid roof deck and when they are mechanically attached at a close-enough spacing,” advises Reinhold. “Again, focus on the attachment around the perimeter and on ensuring that there is an attachment point within about six inches of the eaves for each metal panel.” Smith also recommends calculating uplift loads and determining uplift resistance based upon the ASTM E 1592 test method.
• Tiles and shingles. When comparing metal to tile and shingle systems, the distributive nature of the larger tributary area provided by metal creates a more hurricane-resistant product, according to Cochran. However, metal roof panels are usually designed to resist the full design pressures specified in the building code, whereas tile and shingle roofing is porous in nature and can therefore use pressure equalization between top and bottom surfaces to reduce the design loads, notes Reinhold.
As for best practice design installation methods, Reinhold explains: “Tiles should be mechanically attached or attached using one of the new foam adhesive products, whereas mortar set tile should be avoided, especially along edges and ridges. Instead, ridge boards or metal hat sections should be used on hips and ridges to allow mechanical attachment of these tiles.” He notes, too, that special care should be taken to ensure that eave tiles are anchored more securely than is required for the field tiles. To assist with this, some manufacturers offer clips that can be used to anchor the free edge of the eave tiles.
Further to this point, Ingargiola states that installation is particularly important at eaves, hips, ridges, and rakes, and that proper attachment of roof sheathing before installing the underlayment should be verified, ensuring lapping and fastening of underlayment and roof-edge flashing. Selection of underlayment material is also an important step. For additional guidelines, Ingargiola recommends FEMA 499 Technical Fact Sheet No. 19: Roof Underlayment and Asphalt Shingle Roofs and Technical Fact Sheet No. 20: Asphalt Shingle Roofing for High-Wind Regions.
Even when best practice guidelines are followed, however, some still argue that tiles and shingles are not a good choice for hurricane zones. “When tiles fail, they damage other tiles downwind, creating a cascading effect,” says Cochran. “And shingles simply do not have the general uplift resistance at substantial wind speeds, as their small size means that they are more influenced by the small intense gusts and other flow phenomena.”
FENESTRATION: A HOLE IN THE LINE OF DEFENSE?
“Fenestration is a critical part of the structural and functional design and is often the key element in both the interior and exterior aesthetic design,” says AAMA's Anderson. “The overall height and shape of the building affects its visual appeal and can greatly impact the wind load requirements.”
Because wind loads, windborne debris, and water intrusion are key considerations for structures in hurricane-prone regions, Anderson recommends that all products be tested and certified to rigorous standards such as AAMA/WDMA/CSA 101/I.S.2/A440-08, NAFS- North American Fenestration Standard/Specification (for windows, doors, and skylights), as well as AAMA 506-08, Voluntary Specifications for Impact and Cycle Testing of Fenestration Products.
However, due to the nature of windows and doors, they are actually expected to leak water during a significant hurricane event. For that reason, the current rating standards only require that windows and doors not leak at a maximum of 15% of the design pressure. “Consequently, thought needs to be given to managing the water that does enter through the use of materials and products for floors and walls that are not particularly water-sensitive,” says Reinhold.
With regard to doors, leakage can occur between the door and frame and between the frame and the wall, while water can be driven between the threshold and the door. To help mitigate this, Smith suggests designing a vestibule where both the inner and outer doors are equipped with weather stripping. In addition, the vestibule itself can be coated in water-resistant finishes, and the floor can be equipped with a drain.
Another noted development in door design is component testing required by the latest version of the Florida Building Code. Whereas the previous code allowed testing as a complete assembly, now each component—door, frame, lock, and hinges—must be tested separately. The total windstorm assembly gets the rating of the lowest-rated component.
Concerning door hardware, one important point here is the type of metal used. Whereas cast aluminum and zinc may not be ideal for severe-duty openings, stainless steel and carbon steel can be good choices, although carbon steel can corrode and deteriorate rapidly if exposed to salty conditions. Where corrosion is an issue, Smith recommends anodized aluminum or galvanized doors and frames, and stainless-steel frame anchors and hardware. As for the main swinging entry and exit-door hardware, specifications must ensure that wind suction will not pull the doors open.
Glazing and storm shutters. When glazing systems fail due to pressure or debris impact, significant wind and water intrusion can follow, dramatically increasing loads on the exterior walls, interior partitions, ceilings, and the roof, notes Reinhold. For that reason, says Cochran, “Protecting the building envelope via the use of laminated glass or well-installed and -designed shutters is a must for hurricane zones.”
Fortunately, Miami-Dade and Broward Counties have set performance requirements very high, leading a national trend toward the use of safer materials. “Consequently, choosing systems that have Miami-Dade product approvals and ensuring that they are installed according to the specifications provides the highest measure of protection,” says Reinhold.
One caution, raised by the International Window Film Association, is the possibility of mistaking energy-efficient window films for safety glazing. While some of these products do offer a certain degree of glass breakage protection, it is only a side benefit. Therefore, safety glass should only be selected based upon testing and product approvals.
As for storm shutters, they should be able to fully withstand the impact of a nine-pound piece of debris traveling at 34 miles per hour, per Miami-Dade standards. Miami-Dade also recommends hardwoods as the choice shutter material, although a number of composite and metal products have succeeded in passing code-compliance testing.
In terms of installation, “Over any opening, make sure that the shutter is connected directly to a continuous load path that travels through the building and into the foundation,” says FEMA's Ingargiola. “If the shutter is attached to the window frame or a nonstructural building component, then the loads incurred on the shutter will not be transferred to the foundation, and the shutter will not perform as designed.”
Ingargiola also cautions that a rated shutter does not exempt the window behind it from have the capacity to resist design wind pressure—unless the entire shutter and window system was tested together, which is typically not the case.
DO MEP SYSTEMS MATTER?
Mechanical and plumbing equipment are rarely selected with hurricane-zone performance in mind, but some experts say they should be.
For example, when it comes to rooftop HVAC equipment, one mistake often made is assuming that the machinery is too heavy to be moved by the wind. So the equipment is either not secured, or it is fastened with simple self-drilling, self-tapping TEK screws, which hardly suffice, according to Cochran.
According to Reinhold, “Failure of rooftop equipment has been widespread in hurricanes.” Wind speeds increase with height and architectural features, causing turbulence, vortices, and flow separations near corners and edges. These effects dramatically increase downwind surface pressures, says the ABS's Gould. Lightweight rooftop equipment, “typically out of sight and out of mind,” is often most vulnerable to being picked up by high winds, says Gould. So whether it's exhaust vents, air-handling units, ductwork, transformers, switchgear, or generators, “Equipment anchorage should be designed for wind loads appropriate for a specific location and function, and should also be periodically inspected and maintained,” he adds.
In general, Cochran recommends a bolted-frame connection to the roof structure; in some cases, galvanized steel straps are called for.
Today, there is plenty of useful information available to Building Teams regarding loads to be applied when designing rooftop equipment anchorage. ASCE 7-05 now contains much better guidance on the subject, and the 2010 edition of ASCE 7 is expected to provide even more detailed guidance, particularly for uplift forces, according to Reinhold. Additional resources include FEMA 499 Technical Fact Sheet No. 29: Protecting Utilities and FEMA 548: Summary Report on Building Performance: Hurricane Katrina 2005, which includes guidance on best practices for anchorage of rooftop equipment.
As for electrical equipment, surge protection is an important consideration, especially with the proliferation of sensitive electronic equipment. “In addition to properly protecting and securing this equipment from becoming windborne debris or damaged from debris, proper grounding, corrosion resistance, and other safety measures are important for minimizing damage to electrical systems and attached equipment,” says Ingargiola.
DETAILS, DETAILS, DETAILS
When it comes to severe weather and building safety, the devil is in the details.
It's true that the punchlist for hurricane-zone design is quite long, whether it's detailing, cladding, roofing, fenestration, MEP systems, or even other building components. But the stakes are too high to take shortcuts. And in Florida's Miami-Dade and Broward Counties—as well as other regions of the U.S. that have followed suit—this is not even an option.
For the benefit of the Building Team, the growing body of research, standards, product approval programs, and lessons learned will provide a great benefit to building owners and occupants. | <urn:uuid:c6fa472f-62ac-4075-8e14-040ce2f04890> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bdcnetwork.com/high-velocity-hurricane-zones | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00133-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935857 | 5,934 | 2.875 | 3 |
German aerospace research center DLR has just completed a series of wind-tunnel tests on a wing segment that incorporates both a morphing leading edge and a laminar profile for reduced drag. The trials took place between August 27 and September 7 at the TsAGI institute in Zhukovsky, near Moscow. Airbus, EADS Innovation Works and Cassidian Air Systems partnered with DLR on the project.
The morphing leading edge would replace slats as a high-lift system. It cuts drag and noise during the landing phase by eliminating the gap between the slat and the rest of the wing. The leading edge can droop by up to 20 degrees via integrated actuators.
DLR says it tested the system’s operation and performance under “realistic conditions.” Leading-edge high-lift devices account for about one third of the lift produced during landing.
In the quest for laminar airflow, DLR researchers have made surfaces “as flat as possible” to reduce drag by up to 12 percent.
The dual goals present conflicting requirements, however. The structure needs to remain elastic to morph to the required shapes. Conversely, it needs rigidity to maintain the laminar profile, explained DLR department head Hans-Peter Monner.
A glass-fiber-reinforced material proved most suitable. The skin on the front edge of the wing is just curved, not stretched, thereby limiting stress on the material, the DLR chief said. Designers positioned layers one on top of the other, creating “a structure that has a customized rigidity distribution.”
DLR and its partners have begun considering further developing the concept to meet industrial requirements such as lightning protection, de-icing and the ability to withstand bird strikes.
Wing morphing or warping, one of the fundamentals of early aviation, has attracted renewed interest in recent years. For example, NASA tested an F/A-18 fighter with a wing warping system, enabling outer wing panels to twist up to five degrees. Finally, European manufacturers have tested it on helicopter rotor blades and Boeing plans to employ a form of the technology in a so-called adaptive trailing edge on its 737 ecoDemonstrator. That device works with an actuator that can deflect the last four percent of the airfoil up or down, thereby cutting fuel burn by making the wing more aerodynamically efficient and reducing takeoff noise by improving the airplane’s climb performance. | <urn:uuid:63de3fd0-1bdc-472f-b8f1-f7d47f1b217f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/ain-air-transport-perspective/2012-09-24/researchers-test-morphing-leading-edge-reduce-drag-0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395548.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00172-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939884 | 506 | 2.921875 | 3 |
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In Western culture the different classifications used in dealing with colors are: hue, value and chroma. Non-Western cultures may determine their color concepts by different means. Hue refers to the position in the spectrum of visible light. Each of the seven primary has a position on the spectrum measured in angstrom units. (An angstrom unit is one hundredth millionth of a centimeter and is used to measure wavelengths on the electromagnetic energy spectrum) The following is the positions of the primary colors measured in angstrom units: The color violet has a wavelength varying from 4000-4500; indigo, 4500-4700; blue, 4700-5100; green 5100-5600; yellow, 5600-5900; orange, 5900-6200; and red, 6200-6700.
Value represents the amount of light reflected, or the brightness of the color. The range of reflected goes from "white," where all the light is reflected to "black," where there is no reflection of light. But, it must be noted that no true color has been found. White even has grays to black in it. There are no true orange or green, but a mixture of other colors. The same holds true for the next classification of color, chroma, the "purity," "saturation," or "intensity" of a color. No color is pure, but an combination of other colors, although one particular hue is dominant.
The body selects from sunlight whatever colors it needs to maintain balance, and these colors are absorbed by vibrations. Lacking colors is called chromopathy, from the Greek words kroma, color, and pathos, suffering. The treatment for this condition is chromotherapy, which supplies the body with colors that it is lacking. The application of chromotherapy is very practicable and can be done without danger to anyone because the natural element of color is being dealt with.
The primary colors of the spectrum and their healing properties:
Violet: Violet is at the opposite end of the spectrum from red.
Good for mental disorders, the nervous system, baldness and female complaints.
Indigo: Indigo is a slight narcotic removing fears and reassures those afraid of the dark. Good for emotional problems, deafness, and especially good for the eyes, even cataracts.
Blue: Blue acts as an antiseptic and cooling agent. Excellent for inflammations including those of internal organs. Good for cuts and burns, also for rheumatism.
Green: Green is the great healer. It is neutral to the other others. It serves as a general tonic and neutralizer. When in doubt, use green. Excellent for heart problems, neuralgic headaches, ulcers, head colds and boils.
Yellow: Yellow is excellent in treating bowel and intestine problems. It can act as a mild sedative to relieve many fears and give a mental uplift. It is good for treating indigestion and heartburn, constipation, piles, also menstrual problems.
Orange: Orange is not as harsh of a color as red, but has many of the same properties. Very good for illnesses of the respiratory system such as asthma and bronchitis; also good as a tonic and laxative.
Red: Red is at one end of the spectrum. It is a warm color which invigorates, excellent when used for treatment of persons having heat diseases, anemia, and liver diseases.
Color healing is usually done with the technique of visualization. The practitioner vividly holds the color in his mind and directs it to the affected area of the patient.
Directing the Color:
The practitioner produces the color required to heal the patient. Most often light from outside or direct sunlight is used. To intensify the required color a piece of colored glass, plastic, or even cellophane may be used in which to direct light through. One method is to tape the piece of colored glass, plastic, cellophane, or even tissue paper on the pane of a window, then let the patient sit in front of the window so the colored light is directed directly on the patients afflicted area, if it is the stomach then the light should penetrate the stomach area, or an afflicted arm, or whatever. This treatment should be given in two thirty minutes daily, once in the morning and once in the evening.
In the absent of sunlight or there is no available window artificial light may be used. One method is the used of a photographic slide projector. This is frequently better than a window because the light can be more accurately focused onto the afflicted area. From a photographic supply firm one can obtain empty cardboard slide mouths onto which can be placed small rectangles of colored plastic or acetate so to have a set of slides of the seven primary colors.
An ordinary glass of water can become medicinal when charged by sunlight. Tape a piece of colored paper or acetate around the glass (a colored bottle is even better) and let it sit in sunlight from six to eight hours. Even if the sun does not directly shine on the water it will still be charged. A wineglass of water taken three time daily has the similar effect as a thirty minute colored light application.
An example of this is drinking red water in the morning to wake one up or invigorate the person, and drinking indigo at night to relax him. Treatment by the use of color-charged water is called Hydrochromotherapy.
Distant Color Healing
Color healing, used as form of sympathetic magic, can also be applied when the patient is absent by utilizing a photograph of the person The treatment is known as Graphichromotherapy. It is best employed by using a low voltage light bulb, perhaps even a night light. The same application applies as in all color healing: focus the color directly onto the afflicted area. This can be more easily done when the photograph is in a frame. The colored material is placed over the afflicted area of the person. The treatment should be applied at least three hours a day. A.G.H. | <urn:uuid:84d750a9-802a-4e53-bc2d-ee10bbd7b225> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/c/color_healing.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00169-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940933 | 1,252 | 3.375 | 3 |
The Pankhurst family is closely associated with the militant campaign for the vote. In 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst and others, frustrated by the lack of progress, decided more direct action was required and founded the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) with the motto 'Deeds not words'.
Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928) became involved in women's suffrage in 1880. She was a founding member of the WSPU in 1903 and led it until it disbanded in 1918. Under her leadership the WSPU was a highly organised group and like other members she was imprisoned and went on hunger strike protests.
Membership of the WSPU was limited to women only. Emmeline Pankhurst's daughters, Christabel, Sylvia and Adela, were committed members.
WPSU members were determined to obtain the right to vote for women by any means and campaigned tirelessly and sometimes violently to achieve this aim. They felt that the impact of peaceful tactics seemed to have been exhausted and a different, more radical approach was needed.
Initially the WSPU's tactics were to cause disruption and some civil disobedience, such as the 'rush' on Parliament in October 1908 when it encouraged the public to join them in an attempt to invade the House of Commons. 60,000 people gathered but the police cordon held fast.
However the lack of Government action led the WSPU to undertake more violent acts, including attacks on property and law-breaking, which resulted in imprisonment and hunger strikes.
These tactics attracted a great deal of attention to the campaign for votes for women.
Legal and constitutional support
Not all those campaigning for women's right to vote favoured militant action.
Moderate women's organisations, such as the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) led by Millicent Fawcett, were instrumental in building up the legal and constitutional support for the enfranchisement of women, but their contributions were often overshadowed by the high profile actions of the suffragettes. | <urn:uuid:de3007f6-34e1-4a49-b013-6c5d5646d838> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/overview/startsuffragette-/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00004-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984163 | 422 | 3.859375 | 4 |
Business leaders, politicians, environmentalists and academic experts are gathering in Edinburgh today to boost radical efforts to protect the environment by highlighting its economic value.
At the heart of their discussions will be the concept of ‘natural capital’, which is intended to capture the idea that animal, plants and other forms of life, together with the habitats in which they live, have an intrinsic value upon which human society depends for its prosperity and well-being.
For instance, forests provide a source of wood and other so-called ‘ecosystem services’ that offer economic benefits to human communities. Any destruction of such ‘natural capital’ can make us much poorer, and so should be taken into account when making decisions, for instance, about clearing forests for new buildings or roads.
The inaugural World Forum on Natural Capital, organised by the Scottish Wildlife Trust and other groups, will showcase the ways in which governments and companies should take into account the significant positive value of the natural environment.
The concept of natural capital was championed by Pavan Sukhdev and his co-authors in a landmark 2010 report on ‘The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity. Its main conclusion was: “The invisibility of many of nature’s services to the economy results in widespread neglect of natural capital, leading to decisions that degrade ecosystem services and biodiversity. The destruction of nature has now reached levels where serious social and economic costs are being felt and will be felt at an accelerating pace if we continue with ‘business as usual’.”
It led the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to establish in 2012 the Natural Capital Committee, chaired by the economist Dieter Helm, who is Professor of Energy Policy at the University of Oxford.
The Committee published its assessment of ‘The State of Natural Capital’ earlier this year, warning: “Natural capital is enormously important to the economy and yet it is largely omitted from national economic indicators as well as from most corporate and government policy decisions. The consequence is that resources are not being allocated efficiently within the economy and opportunities for significant gains in wellbeing and future growth are being lost.”
However, it remains to be seen whether Professor Helm and the rest of the Committee can persuade the Chancellor of the Exchequer and other members of the Government to recognise the economic cost of policies which boost growth by destroying natural capital.
Two years ago, Mr Osborne told the Conservative Party conference: “We are not going to save the planet by putting our country out of business”. And today, we have learned of allegations that the Prime Minister has referred to levies which promote renewable energy as “green crap”. That is exactly the kind of muddled thinking that will ruin us all.
Bob Ward is policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at London School of Economics and Political Science | <urn:uuid:d8dce443-185b-41e0-9912-07f7173801e8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/pricing-nature-is-a-capital-idea-8955215.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393146.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00092-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957658 | 593 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Agility, quite simply, is the ability to change direction efficiently. In a typical match, players need to make more than four directional changes per point, making agility a critical component for being able to move efficiently and get into position to hit the ball. Agility not only requires the muscular strength and power to decelerate and then accelerate in a different direction, but it also depends on flexibility and balance. Great movers typically have great agility and a diverse athletic background that allows them to develop kinesthetic awareness of how the body can move in balance.
The great thing about movement and agility drills is that they often can be integrated into on-court training time and do not necessarily require separate training time. Several tennis-specific drills are included in this chapter.
As you would do with any drill that draws heavily on strength and power, perform these drills when your muscles are fully rested. This means taking appropriate rest between sets and doing these types of exercises at the start of a training session before muscles become fatigued. Quality is more important than quantity.
Maintain peak intensity. If you start to fatigue or you see a drop in intensity, stop the drill or give yourself more rest between efforts. For many people, this may mean performing a drill for only 5 seconds. More advanced players strive to do exercises for 10 to 20 seconds while maintaining technique and explosiveness.
Focus: Improve movement, agility, and footwork; improve tennis-specific conditioning when done multiple times or with other agility and movement drills.
1. Start outside the doubles sideline facing the net (figure 5.2a).
2. Shuffle (side step) into the court, getting both feet over the singles sideline (figure 5.2b).
3. Quickly reverse direction and shuffle (side step), getting both feet over the doubles sideline (figure 5.2c).
4. Repeat this side-to-side movement pattern for 10 to 20 seconds.
Variation: Perform the drill while holding a racket. Hold the racket in the dominant hand as if you were playing a point. | <urn:uuid:c2039b79-2c77-415a-a961-e692e067d9a4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.humankinetics.com/excerpts/excerpts/improve-your-position-to-dominate-the-point1?ActionType=2_SetCurrency&CurrencyCode=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397873.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00193-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946371 | 421 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Update on The Great Lakes Water Wars
This presentation delves into the long history of political maneuvers and water diversion schemes that have proposed sending Great Lakes water everywhere from Akron to Arizona. Through the prism of the past, this talk analyzes the future of Great Lakes water diversion schemes, which now rests on the Great Lakes Compact released by the eight Great Lakes governors in December 2005. The Compact, which lays out how much water can be taken and who can take it, was adopted by the eight state legislatures in the Great Lakes region as well as the U.S. Congress before eventually being signed by the president in 2008. A similar agreement was adopted by the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The talk analyzes several noteworthy Great Lakes diversions that already exist, and sheds light on potential water diversions of the future, including the water diversion application submitted by Waukesha, Wisconsin in 2010. A decision on the Waukesha water diversion application is expected in 2013.
About Peter Annin:
A veteran conflict and environmental journalist, Peter Annin spent more than a decade reporting on a wide variety of issues for Newsweek. For many years he specialized in coverage of domestic terrorism and the radical right, including the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City and the Branch Davidian standoff outside Waco, Texas. He has spent many years writing about the environment as well, including droughts in the Southwest, hurricanes in the Southeast, wind power on the Great Plains, forest fires in the mountain West, recovery efforts on the Great Lakes, and the causes and consequences of the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico. In November of 2010, Annin was named managing director of the University of Notre Dame’s Environmental Change Initiative, which tackles the interrelated problems of invasive species, land use and climate change, focusing on their synergistic impacts on water quality and water quantity. Prior to joining Notre Dame, Annin worked for a decade as Associate Director of the Institutes for Journalism and Natural Resources, a nonpartisan national nonprofit that organizes educational fellowships for mid-career environmental journalists. In September 2006 he published his first book, The Great Lakes Water Wars, which has been called the definitive work on the Great Lakes water diversion controversy. In 2007 the book received the Great Lakes Book Award for nonfiction. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin, and a master’s in international affairs from Columbia University. | <urn:uuid:1cb15a7f-39ab-4945-9232-c31791ad22ef> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.lsa.umich.edu/vgn-ext-templating/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=9c3141da74def310VgnVCM100000c2b1d38dRCRD&vgnextchannel=ef2b0ad4891a6310VgnVCM10000055b1d38dRCRD&vgnextfmt=detail | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00030-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963649 | 495 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Gold Mine Exploration Begins on Western Shoshone Lands
Jan. 26--ELKO, Nev. -- Western Shoshone predicted that once the Bureau of Land Management seized and removed the horses of Carrie and Mary Dann, that new gold mining explorations would begin, poisoning their waterways and destroying their sacred sites.
The process was accelerated shortly after President Bush's re-election.
The Western Shoshone Defense Project and the Te-Moak Tribe joined environmentalists and filed a petition challenging federal approval for Cortez Gold Mines' exploration in Horse Canyon, which includes sacred land, in northern Nevada.
The Western Shoshone Defense Project said the region is also the same area where the Dann sisters were grazing horses, until BLM seized them last year.
Carrie Dann said she could not understand the BLM's approval of the exploration project, since the Western Shoshone have spent so many years trying to educate people and stop the destruction.
"And yet, it is this federal administration who claims 'moral values,' and these companies who claim to be socially responsible that have shown nothing but disrespect for the ways of the Shoshone people," Dann said.
The region represents the third largest gold mining area in the world. Expanded gold mines results in drilling core samples and consuming whole mountains. Gold mining pollutes and diverts massive quantities of water. It leaves behind leaking cyanide ponds.
Modern techniques leave 20 tons of waste for every simple gold ring.
The petition says the Bureau of Land Management approved the expanded Cortez Gold Mines' plans for exploration in the Horse Canyon area, despite Western Shoshone protests and recognition that the area is sacred.
Te-Moak Tribal Council member Jody Abe said the tribe is outraged. Abe said the tribes have been left out of the decision-making process that affects Indian people and their environment.
Cortez Gold Mines is a joint venture of Placer Dome Inc. and Kennecott Minerals. Placer Dome is 60 percent owner and operator, with Kennecott owning the remaining 40 percent.
The BLM is allowing Cortez to disturb 200 more acres at Cortez Hills, Pediment and Horse Canyon for exploration and for condemnation drilling for proposed waste dumps and a heap leach pad for a new mine.
Meanwhile, Denver-based Newmont Mining Corp. began construction on the controversial Phoenix gold mine at Battle Mountain, a site where copper and gold have been mined since the 1860s. Phoenix will produce 21 million pounds of copper per year and as much as 420,000 ounces of gold per year.
Citing its damage to Western Shoshone sacred lands, Newmont was protested by American Indians in Denver during the Transform Columbus Day protest.
Rich Perry, head of North American operations for Newmont, said copper was discovered on the Phoenix site in the 1860s. The first process plant was built on site in 1876.
"Phoenix represents rebirth," Perry said.
However, to the Western Shoshone and Great Basin Mine Watch, gold mining represents everything but rebirth.
Gold mining acid rock drainage pollutes waterways. The Environmental Protection Agency agreed with criticisms that Newmont dramatically underestimated the potential costs of environmental risks at the mine over tens of thousands of years.
The BLM was warned that the project would dry up streams, pollute ground and surface water, cause substantial toxicological threats to wildlife and most likely end up on the EPA's Superfund list.
Newmont officials acknowledge that sulfuric acid could leak far into the future but insist state-of-the-art reclamation practices will minimize risks at the mine.
Hugh Stevens, chairman of the Te-Moak Nation wrote an open letter to President Bush, the U.S. Congress and the American people concerning the ongoing injustices.
"Today, the Western Shoshone Nation is in a struggle for survival against the powerful forces within the U.S. Congress that are attempting to steal our ancestral homeland.
"While Western Shoshone warriors are fighting in Iraq to defend and protect the United States, certain members of Congress are attempting to illegally confiscate our homeland, which the U.S. Government promised to preserve and protect for the Western Shoshone Nation by the 1863 Ruby Valley Treaty.
"-- Western Shoshone are being attacked by a Congressional juggernaut that has been fueled by false and misleading information that is intent upon stealing our sacred lands from under our feet."
Stevens said while the direct attacks of the 1800s were deadly and killed many Shoshones, modern-day Congressional attacks upon the Western Shoshone are far more destructive, since, if they are successful, will destroy the entire Shoshone nation.
Stevens said Western Shoshone maintain title and ownership of 24 million acres of Western Shoshone lands, guaranteed by the 1863 Ruby Valley Treaty.
"These lands have never been ceded or sold by the Western Shoshone and remain the homeland of the Western Shoshone Nation."
To see more of Indian Country Today, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.indiancountry.com.
© 2005, Indian Country Today, Oneida, N.Y. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. | <urn:uuid:8256c62e-23f4-4c59-92ef-7a9fe3f427fc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.enn.com/business/article/9910 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00026-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947055 | 1,071 | 2.53125 | 3 |
The City of Wichita is fond of saying that it hasn’t raised its mill levy in many years. But the mill levy has risen in recent years.
In 2002 the City of Wichita mill levy rate was 31.845. In 2013 it was 32.509, based on the city’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. That’s an increase of 0.664 mills, or 2.09 percent, since 2002. In one year the mill levy rate increased .038 mills, or 0.12 percent. (These are for taxes levied by the City of Wichita only, and do not include any overlapping jurisdictions.)
The Wichita City Council did not take explicit action to raise this rate. Instead, the rate is set by the county based on the city’s budgeted spending and the assessed value of taxable property subject to Wichita taxation.
While the city doesn’t have control over the assessed value of property, it does have control over the amount it decides to spend.
Despite the data that is readily available in the city’s comprehensive annual financial reports, some choose to remain misinformed and/or uninformed. The video below provides insight into the level of knowledge of some elected officials and city staff. | <urn:uuid:5097a098-9cff-4872-b8b3-03c10a483b12> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/wichita-property-taxes-rise/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00092-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945522 | 254 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Brief SummaryRead full entry
Infection with larvae of the nematode (roundworm) Toxocara canis, which occurs worldwide, is the most common cause of toxocariasis in humans (less frequently, it is caused by T. cati, a parasite of cats). Both dogs and cats can acquire their respective nematode parasites at any age by ingesting eggs or paratenic hosts ("transport hosts"). The most widely recognized source of infection by Toxocara in humans is ingestion of contaminated soil, often by toddlers, but infection is also possible via the consumption of partial or whole paratenic hosts, such as raw livers of domestic animals (chickens, ducks, cows, and pigs), as well as earthworms. Uncooked vegetables have also been reported as a possible source of infection, especially those from farms that utilize animal or human excrement as fertilizer. One additional possible source of infection reported is contact with embryonated eggs on a dog’s hair coat. (Lee et al. 2010 and references therein)
Toxocara canis completes its life cycle in dogs, with humans acquiring the infection as accidental hosts. Unembryonated eggs are shed in the feces of the definitive host. Eggs embryonate and become infective in the environment. Following ingestion by dogs, the infective eggs hatch and larvae penetrate the gut wall. In younger dogs, the larvae migrate through the lungs, bronchial tree, and esophagus; adult worms develop and oviposit in the small intestine. In older dogs, patent infections can also occur, but larval encystment in tissues is more common (an infection is "patent" when direct evidence of the organism can be detected, e.g., in the patient’s feces or blood, regardless of whether symptoms have appeared). Encysted stages are reactivated in female dogs during late pregnancy and infect by the transplacental and transmammary routes the puppies, in whose small intestine adult worms become established. Puppies are a major source of environmental egg contamination. Toxocara canis can also be transmitted through ingestion of paratenic hosts: eggs ingested by small mammals (e.g., rabbits) hatch and larvae penetrate the gut wall and migrate into various tissues where they encyst. The life cycle is completed when dogs eat these hosts and the larvae develop into egg-laying adult worms in the small intestine. Humans are accidental hosts who become infected by ingesting infective eggs in contaminated soil or infected paratenic hosts. After ingestion, the eggs hatch and larvae penetrate the intestinal wall and are carried by the circulation to a wide variety of tissues (liver, heart, lungs, brain, muscle, eyes). While the larvae do not undergo any further development in these sites, they can cause severe local reactions that are the basis of toxocariasis. The two main clinical presentations of toxocariasis are visceral larva migrans and ocular larva migrans. Diagnosis is usually made by serology or the finding of larvae in biopsy or autopsy specimens. | <urn:uuid:1f7c8b5a-6085-4fb2-a809-5b80748149f5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://eol.org/pages/2926755/overview | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00135-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949977 | 638 | 3.609375 | 4 |
Marine mammal facts just drops in the bucket
July 1, 1999
Web posted at: 12:33 p.m. EDT (1633 GMT)
Part II of a three-part series
By Stephanie Siegel
CNN Interactive Copy Editor
EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is Part II of a special report examining the concerns among scientists and environmentalists that acoustic "pollution" from underwater sonar projects could degrade the habitats of whales and other marine life.
Because the Navy plans to deploy low-frequency active sonar (LFAS) to detect submarines, it will publish a required Environmental Impact Statement soon in the Federal Register showing the results of experiments on the sonar's impact on whales. The public will have 45 to 60 days to comment.
Another sonar project is holding four public meetings this week in Hawaii. The Acoustic Thermometry of Ocean Climate (ATOC) project is asking to extend its two-year permit to operate low-frequency sonar under the water off Kauai another five years.
Some scientists and environmentalists say the environmental impact studies are too small in scale to show possible long-term effects of the sonar. And the whales may be in danger.
Effects on humans
(CNN) -- The Navy has tested its divers' responses to underwater sound. According to a Navy guidebook, one trained Navy diver suffered dizziness, inability to concentrate and other symptoms after 12 minutes in water with 160-decibel sound. Though he got immediate medical attention, he relapsed after an hour and again the next day. A year or more later, he suffered a seizure and was treated with anti-depressant and anti-seizure drugs.
Air cavities in humans have been found to resonate, or vibrate, in the face at frequencies of 100 hertz and in the chest 20 hertz at 160 decibels. The lower they dive, the higher the frequency they resonate to (so at 30 meters below the surface, the lungs would resonate at 40 hertz, the face at 200, according to an ATOC Environmental Impact Statement).
Scuba diver Jay Murray said he felt his lungs vibrating in August 1994, during the Navy's unannounced Magellan Sea Trials of LFA. No ship was in sight; the digital pulsing vibration, which he said he later taped and measured at 38 hertz, came from beyond the horizon. Other Monterey Bay divers also reported "deep, heartbeat-like thumping" at times from July through November.
Ecotourism guide and naturalist Chris Reid said she was injured by LFAS in March 1998. "I intentionally dove down ... to learn what was driving the dolphins to the surface and causing their very erratic behavior." The dolphins and whales, too, "grouped very tightly together" in a typical defensive behavior, she said. "They were closer to shore than we've ever seen them, and extremely vocal -- a cacophony."
The Navy had said people would be safe five miles away from the ship, Reid said. She thought she was far enough because she could not see the ship. Her physician diagnosed post-traumatic reaction. "She could barely talk, had difficulties in expressing and finding words, expressed dizziness and confusion," Dr. Barbara Schmid was quoted as saying in a document filed as evidence against LFAS.
The scientific process
The Navy's environmental impact project manager, Joe Johnson, did not believe Reid because she had protested against LFAS before her alleged injury. In contrast to her statement, "we've got a very controlled, a peer-reviewed academic medical process," he said, referring to the Navy's diver studies.
Protesters try to disrupt the testing in 1998
Alexandros Frantzis' 1998 Nature article on a Mediterranean whale stranding that coincided with a NATO test of LFAS also was "not a peer-reviewed study" but was a letter to the editor, Johnson said.
The U.S. Navy started building LFA in the 1980s. The Navy asked Dr. Christopher Clark of Cornell University to listen for any abnormalities in tapes of whales recorded during LFA trials in 1993, he said. There wasn't much he could say without knowing where the whales and ships had been, when the sound was on and off, etc., he said.
Starting in 1994, Clark went along on some sea trials of LFAS to monitor mammal behavior, to see whether whales acted differently when the sound was on than when it was off. The Navy filed Environmental Assessments, while the NRDC pushed for the more extensive Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).
The Navy prepared the 1997 EIS mammal study once it decided it wanted to deploy LFAS, Johnson said.
This time the scientists documented a series of frequencies (from 160 to 500 hertz, according to Clark) and volumes. The loudest broadcast was about 205 decibels at the source, Johnson said. A whale 1,000 yards away from the ship would then hear about 140 up to 155 decibels, he said. The biologists' order was to keep the whales from being exposed to more than 155 decibels.
Observers onboard watched for whales, and Navy sonar listened for them. One weak point in those methods, Clark agreed, is that "just because you don't hear or see an animal doesn't mean it's not there."
The science team chose animals considered sensitive to low-frequency sound but also accessible and previously studied. The deep-water whales, thought to be more dependent on sound, are also too elusive to study. Humpbacks in the Hawaiian humpback sanctuary were a good choice because they are believed to depend on mating calls to reproduce, Johnson said.
Listen to humback whale sounds:|
A lone male humpback sings his courting song|
AIFF or WAV
(549 K/27 sec. audio)
A group of humpback whales vocalize
AIFF or WAV
(934 K/43 sec. audio)
(Courtesy of Magical Island Sounds)
Critics said it was irresponsible to risk that.
U.S. Reps. Patsy Mink and Lynn Woolsey wrote to the National Marine Fisheries Service, which granted permits for LFA research, "The National Humpback Whale sanctuary was created to provide a refuge for these whales. These booms violate the very concept of a sanctuary."
"The sanctuary's role is one of preservation," said Allen Tom, the sanctuary's manager. "After all, why have a sanctuary when there are all these types of experimentations that might harm the animals within our boundary? The public was very outraged that this type of thing occurs here."
Permission to set up ATOC in California's Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary was denied in 1995, and the sound source was stationed farther offshore.
To learn how whales respond to sounds, scientists could have studied shipping noise already out there, or correlated whale strandings with naval operations, said sperm whale biologist Dr. Linda Weilgart, a former postdoctoral student of Clark.
Dr. Hal Whitehead, Weilgart's husband and colleague at Canada's Dalhousie University, studied the numbers in Clark's ATOC reports and reached different conclusions, Weilgart said.
"Whales were clearing out of the inner two-thirds of the study area," Weilgart said. "They're discounting this by saying the average distance when the sound was on is the same as when it was off. They're ignoring the geometry of a circle: You go farther away, the area's bigger. They were clearly avoiding the sound source when it was on."
The ATOC research team did find some differences. Its 1997 report concluded, "Initial results indicated that the mean distances between the ATOC source and blue and humpback whale groups were very slightly different during the experimental and control periods." But it cautioned, "Because other factors such as shipping activity and ambient noise level were not incorporated into the analysis, it is not certain if any observed differences are due to an effect of the ATOC transmissions."
Dr. Joseph Mobley of the University of Hawaii, who conducted aerial surveys to count the whales, said ATOC had no major effect on the observed animals, either in Hawaii or in California. "The trend appears to be undisturbed."
Reports from others of odd whale behavior have been discounted because a relationship to the sonar has not been proven. "Many of the 'observations' made by another group were made either when playbacks were not occurring or when the playback was many tens of miles away," Clark said.
Two humpback whales "made a rare appearance" in Oahu's Pearl Harbor during the test period, according to the Navy's LFA Environmental Impact Statement Web page. This variation in whale behavior was not mentioned in the preliminary research report.
Dates and locations of remaining public information meetings on ATOC project: Thursday,
July 1, 1999, 7-9:30 p.m.
Hawaii Imin International
East-West Center, 2nd Floor,
1777 East-West Road
A conference on the ATOC project will also be held and is open to the public: Thursday,
July 1, 1999, 9 a.m.- noon
Hawaii Imin International
East-West Center, 2nd Floor,
1777 East-West Road
Send comments about ATOC to:
Office of Naval Research
c/o Kathleen Vigness
Marine Acoustics, Inc.
901 Stuart Street, Suite 708
Arlington, VA 22203
In the 1997 LFA test, whale calls decreased 50 percent. But the research team didn't know it until they analyzed the data, Johnson said.
And he still doesn't know whether that figure is biologically significant.
A summary from Clark and associate Adam Frankel also said there were no results "indicating that any species shows any biologically significant adverse response to ATOC."
"Biologically significant" means "something would cause enough of a change in reproductive success that it would lead to a measurable change in a population," Clark explained.
The studies won't find population differences because they weren't designed to, Weilgart charged. "None of that is being studied by the ATOC and LFA scientists; nothing that would tell us whether the species as a whole is being harmed."
The Sierra Club made a similar criticism of the research design in a letter to its sponsoring agencies (National Marine Fisheries Service and DoD's Advanced Research Projects Agency) in 1994: "We are dismayed at the lack of clarity over what constitutes a significant impact."
Whales' birth and death and reproduction rates are still unknown, Weilgart said. "Humpbacks are the most studied whales, and no one has even seen them mate. You need a huge amount of baseline work -- many, many years of studying the same population."
On that most scientists agree: The puzzle of whale behavior is missing most of its pieces.
"We have no baseline data on normal behavior in wild cetaceans," said MacDonald Hawley of the Cetacean Freedom Network. "They move around too much. They're hard to see. We have no ability to stay with them long enough in their environment to see what they do."
Sonar and marine life
Sea life threatened by noise pollution, report says
June 28, 1999
Groups fight Navy's low-frequency sonar
April 16, 1998
Scientists, environmentalists clash over whale research
March 31, 1998
CNN TravelGuide Destinations: Nature exhibits - Sounds of the sea
Ocean-monitoring system proposed
May 18, 1999
Right whales in the wrong place
March 4, 1999
Scientists prepare for humpbacks' survival
February 26, 1999
Gray whales slow to start winter migration
December 22, 1998
Unsafe sanctuaries: Protection varies at America's marine reserves
November 25, 1998
Better stewardship urged for humpbacks
April 4, 1998
Researchers: Right whales unusually scarce off Southeast Coast
February 2, 1999
Acoustic Thermometry of Ocean Climate (ATOC)
Low-Frequency Active Environmental Impact Statement
Natural Resources Defense Council
Quiet Sea Coalition
Ocean Mammal Institute
Magical Island Sounds
Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary
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Robotic battery change station. The empty battery is removed from under the car and replaced with a full battery in less than one minute. Photo courtesy of Rosalyn Futeran
Cleaner air, a quieter environment, a cheaper source of energy…are just some of the assets of electric cars creating a global revolution.
The electric car has certainly captured everyone’s attention, and it seems that we all want to drive one. Hybrids with two sources of power have been around for some time now, but a purely electric vehicle is something quite different. Perhaps driven by concern for the environment, nearly all of the world’s car manufacturers are building electric vehicles and this is a subject we clearly want to know more about after using oil-based cars for a century. So has there been some sort of technological breakthrough which could justify the changeover from gasoline to battery power – to the car without an exhaust pipe? The answer is a ringing “no” – if you discount the lithium ion batteries – the same type that you use in your cell phone – as a breakthrough. These batteries are much smaller and lighter than the old lead acid batteries and contain no liquid, and of course, intensive research is ongoing to make them ever more efficient.
What seems to have stimulated the market in Israel is a powerful business model exemplified by Better Place led by Mr Shai Agassi. He has managed to sell the idea that as most people – at least 80% - drive their cars for less than 150 kilometers per day – the car battery will have enough charge to get them home safely where they can plug it in to their electricity supply for a recharge during the night. Charging stations are also being built at the curbside and at places of work to supplement the night-time charge and eliminate range anxiety. Swipe your rechargeable credit card on the post and away you go. Driving for a longer distance calls for the battery to be changed, and this requires many stations to be built where this can be done – the battery will drop out from under the car under robot control, and be replaced by a fully charged one in less than one minute. Your car will have a highly sophisticated GPS two-way communications system linked with central control which will automatically track the car and advise when battery power is running low and where the nearest change stations are located.
Clearly, a large investment in infrastructure is required. That technology has been sold in at least half a dozen countries around the world and will be implemented in 2011 as the cars and roadside plugs and battery change stations are built. It is a revolution indeed. The advantage of course is cleaner air for us all, a quieter environment and a cheaper source of energy from power stations which can utilize renewable and sustainable clean bio-fuels, nuclear, wind, solar and wave energy and be able to shed the load mainly at night, just at the time when industry is quiet and electricity cheaper. It is easier to build a pollution control system into centralized power stations than into vehicles. It sounds like a good bet, and we will watch to see how successfully the technology will be accepted by the many fleet owners who have signed up.
So would you invest in one of these cars? The most likely deal is that you will buy or lease your car but the battery will not belong to you. This is perhaps fortunate as they are very expensive, and one will not want to be buying one just when you want to sell the car. The charges for leasing batteries and for charging have not yet been determined and neither have the prices for the cars even though they are technically much simpler than gasoline powered cars. The car itself looks like a normal car in every way except for that space where the exhaust pipe used to be. There is said to be a very large electric motor under the bonnet which provides stunning acceleration and also the means to produce and store electricity from regenerative braking.
The new technology is likely to have a dramatic effect on the global economy as well as many national economies. A reduction in oil consumption is sure to benefit those countries which have oil importing trade deficits and lower their dependence on a handful of petroleum-rich nations. At the same time there will be the global effect of reduced toxic emissions and a reduction of greenhouse gases which lead to climate change and a cleaner, healthier and more sustainable environment.
The research and development have been done in Israel since 2008 while the parent company of Better Place is situated in Palo Alto in California. Renault are bringing out an electric vehicle called the Fluence. Nissan has its Leaf, Ford will enter the market with an all electric Focus and General Motors will soon be selling its Volt and Mitsubishi its Mie. Electric vehicles, especially trains, have been around for a long time, but now it finally looks as if the car is about to join them.
To put the Israeli situation into a world perspective, there are other initiatives in most countries to encourage electric vehicle usage. Governments in many developed countries are spending large sums to initiate research and development. They have significantly reduced taxes and insurance on electric vehicles, allowed free parking and charging points and access to congestion zones, the use of bus lanes and free toll travel on highways. All the major car manufacturers are rolling out their own versions of electric vehicles and will soon go into mass production mode with them. There are other technological advances which are being investigated such as the hydrogen fuel cell, and while a moderate number of cars and buses can be found on the road with them, mass production is unlikely for many years. Many governments are encouraging mass electric public transit efficiency especially by the very energy efficient tramcar which appears to be a popular form of transportation wherever it has been introduced.
Electric vehicles first came into existence in the mid-19th century, but soon gave way to gasoline cars with an internal combustion engine. It looks as if the clock is now going to be turned back once more due to widespread concerns over the environmental impact, improved battery, electrical and electronic technology and electric power production from fossil free and renewable sources of energy. We are entering a new world.
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- itamar makes friends - a review | <urn:uuid:6d6619d4-ea95-40c8-bb91-e66f0c1093c8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.esra-magazine.com/blog/post/entering-a-new-world%E2%80%93electric-cars | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00201-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970444 | 1,329 | 3.03125 | 3 |
| Understanding The Difference
Between Men And Women
By: Michael G. Conner, Psy.D, Clinical & Medical Psychologist
For centuries, the differences between men and women were socially defined and distorted through a lens of sexism in which men assumed superiority over women and maintained it through domination. As the goal of equality between men and women now grows closer we are also losing our awareness of important differences. In some circles of society, politically correct thinking is obliterating important discussion as well as our awareness of the similarities and differences between men and women. The vision of equality between the sexes has narrowed the possibilities for discovery of what truly exists within a man and within a woman. The world is less interesting when everything is same.
It is my position that men and women are equal but different. When I say equal, I mean that men and women have a right to equal opportunity and protection under the law. The fact that people in this country are assured these rights does not negate my observation that men and women are at least as different psychologically as they are physically.
None of us would argue the fact that men and women are physically different. The physical differences are rather obvious and most of these can be seen and easily measured. Weight, shape, size and anatomy are not political opinions but rather tangible and easily measured. The physical differences between men and women provide functional advantages and have survival value. Men usually have greater upper body strength, build muscle easily, have thicker skin, bruise less easily and have a lower threshold of awareness of injuries to their extremities. Men are essentially built for physical confrontation and the use of force. Their joints are well suited for throwing objects. A mans skull is almost always thicker and stronger than a womens. The stereotype that men are more "thick-headed" than women is not far fetched. A mans "thick headedness", and other anatomical differences have been associated with a uniquely male attraction to high speed activities and reckless behavior that usually involve collisions with other males or automobiles. Men invented the game "chicken", not women. Men, and a number of other male species of animal seem to charge and crash into each other a great deal in their spare time.
Women on the other hand have four times as many brain cells (neurons) connecting the right and left side of their brain. This latter finding provides physical evidence that supports the observation that men rely easily and more heavily on their left brain to solve one problem one step at a time. Women have more efficient access to both sides of their brain and therefore greater use of their right brain. Women can focus on more than one problem at one time and frequently prefer to solve problems through multiple activities at a time. Nearly every parent has observed how young girls find the conversations of young boys "boring". Young boys express confusion and would rather play sports than participate actively in a conversation between 5 girls who are discussing as many as three subjects at once!
The psychological differences between man and women are less obvious. They can be difficult to describe. Yet these differences can profoundly influence how we form and maintain relationships that can range from work and friendships to marriage and parenting.
Recognizing, understanding, discussing as well as acting skillfully in light of the differences between men and women can be difficult. Our failure to recognize and appreciate these differences can become a life long source of disappointment, frustration, tension and eventually our downfall in a relationship. Not only can these differences destroy a promising relationship, but most people will grudgingly accept or learn to live with the consequences. Eventually they find some compromise or way to cope. Few people ever work past these difficulties. People tend to accept what they dont understand when they feel powerless to change it.
Relationships between men and women are not impossible or necessarily difficult. Problems simply arise when we expect or assume the opposite sex should think, feel or act the way we do. Its not that men and women live in completely different realities. Rather, our lack of knowledge and mutual experience gives rise to our difficulties.
Despite great strides in this country toward equality, modern society hasnt made relationships between men and women any easier. Todays society has taught us and has imposed on us the expectation that men and women should live together continuously, in communion, and in harmony. These expectations are not only unrealistic but ultimately they leave people feeling unloved, inadequate, cynical, apathetic or ashamed.
The challenge facing men and women is to become aware of their identities, to accept their differences, and to live their lives fully and as skillfully as possible. To do this we must first understand in what ways we are different. We must avoid trying to change others to suit our needs. The following illustrates some important differences between men and women. These differences are not absolute. They describe how men and women are in most situations most of the time.
Men and women approach problems with similar goals but with different considerations. While men and women can solve problems equally well, their approach and their process are often quit different. For most women, sharing and discussing a problem presents an opportunity to explore, deepen or strengthen the relationship with the person they are talking with. Woman are usually more concerned about how problems are solved than merely solving the problem itself. For women, solving a problem can profoundly impact whether they feel closer and less alone or whether they feel distant and less connected. The process of solving a problem can strengthen or weaken a relationship. Most men are less concerned and do not feel the same as women when solving a problem.
Men approach problems in a very different manner than women. For most men, solving a problem presents an opportunity to demonstrate their competence, their strength of resolve, and their commitment to a relationship. How the problem is solved is not nearly as important as solving it effectively and in the best possible manner. Men have a tendency to dominate and to assume authority in a problem solving process. They set aside their feelings provided the dominance hierarchy was agreed upon in advance and respected. They are often distracted and do not attend well to the quality of the relationship while solving problems.
Some of the more important differences can be illustrated by observing groups of young teenage boys and groups of young teenage girls when they attempt to find their way out of a maze. A group of boys generally establish a hierarchy or chain of command with a leader who emerges on his own or through demonstrations of ability and power. Boys explore the maze using scouts while remaining in distant proximity to each other. Groups of girls tend to explore the maze together as a group without establishing a clear or dominant leader. Relationships tends to be co-equal. Girls tend to elicit discussion and employ "collective intelligence" to the task of discovering a way out. Girls tend to work their way through the maze as a group. Boys tend to search and explore using structured links and a chain of command.
While men and women can reach similar conclusions and make similar decisions, the process they use can be quit different and in some cases can lead to entirely different outcomes. In general, men and women consider and process information differently.
Women tend to be intuitive global thinkers. They consider multiple sources of information within a process that can be described as simultaneous, global in perspective and will view elements in the task in terms of their interconnectedness. Women come to understand and consider problems all at once. They take a broad or "collective" perspective, and they view elements in a task as interconnected and interdependent. Women are prone to become overwhelmed with complexities that "exist", or may exist, and may have difficulty separating their personal experience from problems.
Men tend to focus on one problem at a time or a limited number of problems at a time. They have an enhanced ability to separate themselves from problems and minimize the complexity that may exist. Men come to understand and consider problems one piece at a time. They take a linear or sequential perspective, and view elements in a task as less interconnected and more independent. Men are prone to minimize and fail to appreciate subtleties that can be crucial to successful solutions. A male may work through a problem repeatedly, talking about the same thing over and over, rather than trying to address the the problem all at once.
While there are differences in the ways that men and women think, it must be emphasized that they can and do solve problems in a similar manner. There are no absolutes, only tendencies.
Women have an enhanced ability to recall memories that have strong emotional components. They can also recall events or experiences that have similar emotions in common. Women are very adept at recalling information, events or experiences in which there is a common emotional theme. Men tend to recall events using strategies that rely on reconstructing the experience in terms of elements, tasks or activities that took place. Profound experiences that are associated with competition or physical activities are more easily recalled. There appears to be a structural and chemical basis for observed memory differences. For instance, the hippocampus, the area in the brain primarily responsible for memory, reacts differently to testosterone in men and it reacts differently to changing levels of estrogen and progesterone in women. Women tend to remember or be reminded of different "emotional memories" and content to some extent as part of their menstrual cycle.
There is evidence to suggest that a great deal of the sensitivity that exists within men and women has a physiological basis. It has been observed that is many cases, women have an enhanced physical alarm response to danger or threat. Their autonomic and sympathetic systems have a lower threshold of arousal and greater reactivity than men. In both men and women, higher levels of testosterone directly affect the aggressive response and behavior centers of the brain. Increasing estrogen and progesterone in men has a "feminizing" effect. Sexually aggressive males become less focused on sexual aggressive behavior and content when they are given female hormones. On the other hand, changing estrogen and progesterone levels in women during menstrual cycles can produce a "flood" of memories as well as strong emotions. Increasing or high levels of testosterone can produce an emotional insensitivity, empathic block and increased indifference to the distress others.
At the heart of sensitivity is our capacity to form, appreciate and maintain relationships that are rewarding. Even here there are important differences. For men, what demonstrates a solid relationship is quite different from that of most women. Men feel closer and validated through shared activities. Such activities include sports, competition, outdoor activities or sexual activities that are decidedly active and physical. While both men and women can appreciate and engage in these activities they often have preferential differences. Women, on the other hand, feel closer and validated through communication, dialogue and intimate sharing of experience, emotional content and personal perspectives. Many men tend to find such sharing and involvement uncomfortable, if not, overwhelming.
The Task Of Relationship Facing Men and Women
The task that faces men and women is to learn to accept their differences, avoid taking their differences as personal attempts to frustrate each other, and to compromise whenever possible. The idea that one gender can think and feel like the other if they truly loved each is rather absurd. Sure, a man or women could act in consideration of the others needs, but this would not necessarily be rewarding and honest. Holding the benefit of another above our own is rewarding. But from time to time, and more often for most of us, it is important to be our self and to be accepted, and not to be the source of distress and disappointment in the lives of people we love.
The Role Of Counseling and Therapy Counseling
and therapy can help a couple understand and appreciate each other, and even benefit
from their differences. Understanding these differences intellectually is
not enough. A counselor or therapist can help point out these
differences, as they surface, and guide a couple to a greater level of
relationship. Understanding that differences are not intentional and that
misunderstandings are merely the result of expectations that are not
realistic can make a huge difference in a relationship. The differences
that can be sensed between a man and women can deepen their relationship.
More importantly, when men seek to understand and appreciate that which is
feminine, they come to a deeper understanding of their self. And when a
women seeks to understand that which is masculine in men, they come to
appreciate and understand more about their own masculinity. For
A Related Article See, "About Romantic
1999-2000 Michael G. Conner
Counseling and therapy can help a couple understand and appreciate each other, and even benefit from their differences. Understanding these differences intellectually is not enough. A counselor or therapist can help point out these differences, as they surface, and guide a couple to a greater level of relationship. Understanding that differences are not intentional and that misunderstandings are merely the result of expectations that are not realistic can make a huge difference in a relationship. The differences that can be sensed between a man and women can deepen their relationship. More importantly, when men seek to understand and appreciate that which is feminine, they come to a deeper understanding of their self. And when a women seeks to understand that which is masculine in men, they come to appreciate and understand more about their own masculinity.
For A Related Article See, "About Romantic Love"
copyright 1999-2000 Michael G. Conner | <urn:uuid:c7c28a39-7b26-4d83-87f2-a0aa024ce193> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.oregoncounseling.org/ArticlesPapers/Documents/DifferencesMenWomen.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00131-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965851 | 2,699 | 3.09375 | 3 |
For Immediate Release: July 30, 1999
Contact: David Ridenour at (202) 507-6398 or [email protected]
Recent efforts to raise fuel efficiency standards, including those for light trucks like sports utility vehicles and mini-vans, would increase traffic fatalities, according to a new paper released by The National Center for Public Policy Research.
Ever since the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) law was passed in 1975, the size and weight of American cars has been dropping. Passed in the wake of the Mid-East oil embargo as a means of forcing the auto industry to increase auto fuel efficiency, the CAFE law mandates that automakers produce cars achieving an average of at least 27.5 miles per gallon (mpg) and produce light trucks achieving an average of 20.7 mpg.
But according a new paper released by The National Center for Public Policy Research, "Raising Sports Utility Vehicle Fuel Efficiency Standards Would Kill," greater fuel economy has come at a high price human lives. The paper notes that for every 100 pounds cut from the average car weight, 302 additional people die in automobile accidents. Between 1975 and 1983 alone, the average car weight dropped by more than 1,000 pounds. A recent analysis of government data indicates that 46,000 Americans have died in car accidents since 1975 that they would have survived if only they had been in larger cars.
"The more metal a car has to absorb the force of a crash, the less force people inside the car will have to absorb. It's as simple as that," said David Ridenour, Vice President of The National Center for Public Policy Research. "We have to decide which is more important to us: Fuel economy of the lives or our loved-ones."
Environmentalists have been pressing for higher fuel economy standards for light trucks, including popular sports utility vehicles, arguing that since these vehicles are used like passenger cars they ought to be regulated as such.
Ironically, SUVs owe much of their popularity to the CAFE law. The law all but drove the family station wagon into extinction, leaving many Americans searching for an alternative. The alternative turned out to be the SUV. SUVs have a distinct advantage over station wagons because the are classified as trucks and thus subject to the less stringent 20.7 mpg standard, allowing them to be larger and safer.
The National Center for Public Policy Research is a non-profit, non-partisan educational foundation based in Washington, D.C. A copy of the paper is available on the web at http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA256.html. To arrange an interview, contact David Ridenour at (202) 507-6398 ext. 109 or by e-mail at [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:7eab6ad6-1c59-4ebb-8af5-ab9196a43851> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://Project21@nationalcenter.org/PRNPA256SUV799.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00185-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960551 | 564 | 2.609375 | 3 |
F. Ray Risdon
Collection of Lincolniana and American
To say that Abraham
Lincoln is one of the most revered political
figures in the United States is to state a mere
truism. Few citizens, however, translate
that respect into a lifetime of collecting and
organizing thousands of materials that relate to
the 16th President. F. Ray
Risdon (1888-1958), a Los Angeles attorney, took
that dramatic and important step. By the
time he transferred his collection to Occidental
College in 1957, the weight of more than 3000
books, 1500 pamphlets, 300 letters, and
innumerable other items had broken the floor
joists of the room in which they were kept.
was not limited to Lincoln. He was an
active participant in local and national
politics, a progressive Republican whose
principles led him, at times, to break from the
party line. Bipartisanship and an undying
curiosity about the history of his country
contributed to the wide variety of topics
covered in the collection. While its focus
is on the American Civil War and the debates
that surrounded it, the dates of materials range
from the late 18th century to the
middle of the 20th.
For a list of
primary source materials in the collection, go to
aid, a research guide.
To search for books
and other published works, go to the catalog.
About this Project /
This exhibit was developed
by Jonathan Sudholt as part of an internship
Simmons Graduate School of Library
and Information Science.
The project is
developed in collaboration with the Special
Dale Ann Stieber, Special Collections Librarian. | <urn:uuid:f8756bb1-db16-4561-8df8-023943c6f62d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://sites.oxy.edu/special-collections/Risdon/main.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00156-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912338 | 366 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Does a high level of public debt stunt a nation’s economy?
This is anything but a mere academic question. The answer might well determine public policy — moves made by legislators, the executive branch, central bankers.A 2010 study published by two Harvard professors concluded that nations with a high ratio of debt to gross domestic product — with debt at more than 90 percent of GDP — tend to see their economies contract. Their findings became accepted economic wisdom.Until now.
An economics graduate student at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst was working on an assignment when he found that he couldn’t replicate the findings in the paper by Harvard’s Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff. So he tried again, and again, but found the same thing. So too did his professors.
The UMass graduate student, Thomas Herndon, and Professors Michael Ash and Robert Pollin have created a firestorm among the academic economic set — and beyond.
Turns out the Harvard study was flawed. The economists’ spreadsheet had a coding error that doomed it from the outset.
Now comes the grousing. Disagreeing with one another’s findings, of course, is what a subset of academic economists often does best.Reinhart and Rogoff have admitted that their study was flawed. Sort of. But they’ve also been doing not a little backtracking, working overtime to cover their data points.
We’ll admit to some regional pride, some home team boosterism over all of this. A graduate student at UMass, our own school right up the road, has corrected the Harvard set.
Go, Minutemen! But there’s so much more to it. Economic principles and theories concocted in the halls of academia are used to develop a government’s response to real world events.It would be nice to see that the foundation is set right. | <urn:uuid:c0a16a22-4dfc-48c3-a3fd-254c843ad70e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.masslive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2013/04/editorial_umass_posts_win_over.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00070-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963999 | 392 | 2.53125 | 3 |
The Rows of a Worksheet
Introduction to Rows
We already know that a worksheet organizes its information in categories called columns. To show the values in a worksheet, each column holds a particular value that corresponds to another value in the same horizontal range. While the values under a column should be the same type, the values in a horizontal range can be different. The group of values that correspond to the same horizontal arrangement is called a row.
Although each row in a list has a value for each column, it is not unusual to have empty areas under a certain column and sometimes a row would even have only one value even though there are many columns available.
As a spreadsheet application, when Microsoft Excel starts it creates the rows you will need. As a matter of fact, Microsoft Office Excel 2007 creates 1,048,576 rows.
Like the columns, each row is labeled. The rows are labeled from Row 1 to Row 1,048,576. These labels show on small boxes on the left side of the Microsoft Excel interface. Each box that shows the label of a row is called a row header:
You can use just a few of the rows for your assignment but all of them are always available.
When using a row, you can click it or use the keyboard to get to it. You can also right-click a row. When you do this, a menu would appear:
To support the rows of a worksheet, the Worksheet class is equipped with a property named Rows. Therefore, to refer to a row, you can use the Worksheets collection or the worksheet object to access the Rows property. Another way you can refer to rows is by using the Range object.
To identify a row, indicate its worksheet and you can pass its number to the parentheses of the Rows collection. Here is an example that refers to the 5th row of the second worksheet of the current workbook:
Sub Exercise() Workbooks.Item(1).Worksheets.Item(2).Rows(5) End Sub
As reviewed for the columns, this code would work only if the second worksheet of the current workbook is displaying. If you run it while a worksheet other than the second is active, you would receive an error. To access any row, omit the Workbooks and the Worksheets collections.
As mentioned already, you can refer to a row using the Range object. To do that, pass a string to the Range object. In the parentheses, type the number of the row, followed by a colon, followed by the number of the row. Here is an example that refers to Row 4:
Sub Exercise() Range("4:4") End Sub
If you want to refer to the rows more than once, you can declare a variable of type Range and initialize it using the Set operator and assign it the range you want. Here is an example:
Sub Exercise() Dim SeriesOfRows As Range Set SeriesOfRows = Workbooks.Item(1).Worksheets.Item("Sheet1").Range("4:4") SeriesOfRows.Whatever End Sub
A group of rows is said to be in a range if they are next to each other. To refer to rows in a range, in the parentheses of the Rows collection, pass a string that is made of the number of the row from one end, followed by a colon, followed by the row number of the other end. Here is an example that refers to rows from 2 to 6:
Sub Exercise() Rows("2:6") End Sub
The rows of a group qualify as non-adjacent if they are or they are not positioned next to each other. To refer to non-adjacent rows, pass a string to the Range collection. In the parentheses, type the number of each row followed by a colon, followed by the same number. These combinations are separated by commas. Here is an example that refers to Rows 3, 5, and 8:
Sub Exercise() Range("3:3, 5:5, 8:8") End Sub
To refer to all rows of a worksheet, use the Rows name. Here is an example:
Sub Exercise() Rows End Sub
As done with columns, you can select one row or a group of rows. You can perform selections using the mouse, the keyboard, or a combination of both.
To select a row using the mouse, position the mouse on a row header. The mouse cursor would change into a right-pointing arrow. Then click:
You can also use only the keyboard. To select a row using the keyboard, make sure a box on its right side is selected. Press and hold Shift. While Shift is still down, press the Space bar and release Shift
To support row selection, the Row class is equipped with a method named Select. Therefore, to programmatically select a row, access a row from the Rows collection using the references we saw earlier. Then call the Select method. Here is an example that selects Row 6:
Sub Exercise() Rows(6).Select End Sub
We also saw that you could refer to a row using the Range object. After accessing the row, call the Select method. Here is an example that selects Row 4:
Sub Exercise() Range("4:4").Select End Sub
When a row has been selected, it is stored in an object called Selection. You can then use that object to apply an action to the row.
You can also select more than one row at the same time. You can perform selections using the mouse, the keyboard, or a combination of both.
To select a range of rows using the mouse, click one row header and hold the mouse down. Then drag in the direction of the range:
To select many rows using only the keyboard, select the starting row. Press and hold Shift, then press either the up or the down arrow key. When the range of rows has been selected, release Shift
You can also use a combination of the mouse and the keyboard to select one or more rows:
To programmatically select a range of rows, refer to the range using the techniques we saw earlier, then call the Select method. Here is an example that selects rows from 2 to 6:
Sub Exercise() Rows("2:6").Select End Sub
To programmatically select non-adjacent rows, refer to them as we saw earlier and call the Select method. Here is an example that selects Rows 3, 5, and 8:
Sub Exercise() Range("3:3, 5:5, 8:8").Select End Sub
To programmatically select all rows of a worksheet, call the Select method on the Rows collection. Here is an example:
Sub Exercise() Rows.Select End Sub
When many rows have been selected (whether adjacent or not), their selection is stored in an object named Selection. You can access that object to apply a common action to all selected rows.
To display the contents of boxes on its right, a row uses a certain height. The height is the distance from the top to the lower borders of the row. There are various techniques you can use to change the height of a row, using approximations or being precise.
To manually change the height of a row, position the mouse on the lower border that separates it from the next row (unless it is the last row). Here is an example:
Click, then drag up or down until you get the desired height, then release the mouse.
You can also resize a group of rows. First, select the rows as we described above. Then position the mouse on the bottom border of one of the selected rows. Click and drag up or down in the direction of your choice until you get the desired height. Then release the mouse.
To undo this action:
If one of the boxes on the right side of a row header is too short or too tall, you can change the height of the row. To do this:
To undo any of these actions:
You can use a dialog box to set exactly the desired height of a row or a group of rows. To specify the height of a row:
To specify the same height for many rows:
This would call the Row Height dialog box where you can type the desired value and click OK or press Enter.
To undo any of these actions:
To support the height of a row, the Row object is equipped with a property named RowHeight. Therefore, to programmatically specify the height of a row, access the row using a reference as we saw earlier, access its RowHeight property and assign the desired value to it. Here is an example that sets the height of Row 6 to 2.50
Sub Exercise() Rows(6).RowHeight = 2.5 End Sub
In our introduction, we saw that Microsoft Excel creates and makes available over a million rows you can use when working on a worksheet. In the next lesson, we will see that you can use the boxes on the right sides of the row headers to create the necessary values of your worksheet. One of the result is that, at times, you will want to create a row between two existing rows. Microsoft Excel provides all the means you need to add one or more new rows to a list. When you add a new row, Microsoft Excel removes the last row to keep the count to 1,048,576.
You can only insert a new row above an existing one. To insert a new row:
To provide the ability to add a new row, the Row class is equipped with a method named Insert. Therefore, to programmatically add a row, refer to the row that will be positioned below the new one and call the Insert method. Here is an example:
Sub Exercise() Rows(3).Insert End Sub
To add more than one row, first select the rows, whether in a range or randomly. Then:
If you select rows randomly (non-adjacent), a new row would be created below each of the selected rows.
To undo any of these actions:
To programmatically add new rows, refer to the rows that would be below the new ones, and call the Insert method. Here is an example that will add new rows in positions 3, 6, and 10:
Sub Exercise() Range("3:3, 6:6, 10:10").Insert End Sub
If you have a row you do not need anymore, you can delete it. To delete a row:
To support row removal, the Row class is equipped with a method named Delete that takes no argument. Based on this, to delete a row, access it using a reference as we saw earlier, and call the Delete method. Here is an example:
Sub Exercise() Rows(3).Delete End Sub
Of course, you can use either the Rows collection or the Range object to refer to the row.
To delete more than one row, first select the rows, whether in a range or randomly. Then:
To undo any of these actions:
To delete a group of rows:
Sub Exercise() Range("3:3, 6:6, 10:10").Delete End Sub
Click and hold your mouse down. Drag up or down. Two horizontal lines would guide you. When you get the row to the desired location, release the mouse.
When you move a row, its boxes move but it assumes the appropriated number based on its new location so the numeric sequence would be kept.
To move a group of rows, select them. Position the mouse on one of the horizontal lines of the selection:
Click and hold your mouse down. Drag up or down. Horizontal lines would guide you. When you get the rows to the desired location, release the mouse. When you move the rows, their boxes move but they assume the numbers of the new location with the appropriate numeric sequence.
When moving one or more rows, their location changes and they keep the values on the right sides of their row headers. Sometimes, you may not want to move the row(s) but only their values. This means that you can copy the rows to the clipboard and paste them where you want.
To copy a row to the clipboard:
After copying a row to the clipboard, all of its values are made available. To put those values on another row:
Instead of moving a row and its values, you can instead moving only its values but keep the row wherever it is located. To support this operation, you can cut a row to the clipboard and paste its values to another row.
To temporarily move a row to the clipboard to wait to be pasted:
After cutting a row to the clipboard, if you do not want to paste it anywhere, you can press Esc. If you want to paste it to another row:
To temporarily move the contents of many rows to the clipboard to wait to be pasted, select the rows as we saw earlier. Then:
If you want to paste the values to another group of rows:
When you paste, the values of the boxes under the original rows would be emptied.
The rows of a list display their values as necessary. Sometimes, you may not need to see all the rows. You can display some of the rows you need and (temporarily) hide those you do not need. You can hide one row or you can hide as many as you want.
To hide a row:
When a row has been hidden, its row header disappears from the numeric sequence and the line between the previous neighbors is thicker than the other dividing lines.
To hide many rows, select the rows. Then:
To programmatically hide a row, first select. Then, access the Hidden property of the EntireRow object of Selection. Here is an example:
Private Sub Exercise() Rows("6:6").Select Selection.EntireRow.Hidden = True End Sub
This code example will hide row 6. In the same way, to hide a group of rows, first select their range, then write Selection.EntireRow.Hidden = True.To reveal the hidden rows:
When using a long list, you can scroll up and down as necessary. While scrolling down, some rows would be disappearing from the top. When scrolling down, some rows would disappear from the bottom. If you want, you can freeze a row so that, when you scroll down, a top row the rows above it would not move.
To freeze a row, click the row header of the row that will lead the moving rows. On the Ribbon, click View. In the Window section, click Freeze Panes, and click Freeze Panes.
Instead of freezing the rows, you can divide the Microsoft Excel series of rows into two groups. Then you can scroll one group while the other is fixed.
To split the rows in two groups, click a row header. On the ribbon, click View. In the Window section, click Split. This would display a bar.
As mentioned for the columns, the similarities between the freezing and splitting are as follows:
The differences between the freezing and splitting are as follows:
|Home||Copyright © 2007-2015, FunctionX| | <urn:uuid:13ade61c-bf30-462b-b939-b489b67f2671> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.functionx.com/vbaexcel/topics/rows.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00014-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901776 | 3,159 | 4.53125 | 5 |
Causes of Insomnia
Insomnia can originate by any of a number of factors such as physical illness, a stress-filled lifestyle, excessive caffeine consumption, or chronic pain. It may simply be the result of poor sleeping habits, such as napping during the day and going to bed at irregular hours. Insomnia can often be linked to alcohol or drug abuse and to misuse of certain medications.
Psychological factors account for about half of all insomnias. Numerous mental and emotional factors can precipitate sleep disorders, especially insomnia. These include grief, depression, anxiety, fear, and excitement.
Anxiety and depression are two common causes of insomnia. If the insomnia is simply due to a short-term reaction to a situation in one's life, the insomnia will normally disappear as soon as the situation changes. It is rare to see someone who has a severe case of insomnia due to purely emotional factors.
Sleep problems are usually a biochemical problem. Biochemical breakdown can take place in many ways. For example, if your digestive system is stressed and unable to digest protein, the amino acids which affect neurotransmission will not be available to your brain. You can become ill emotionally without having anything emotionally stressful going on in your life.
Vulnerability to insomnia
Some people are more likely than others to experience insomnia during times of stress.
Stress plays a pivotal role in insomnia. Causes of stress such as a troubled marriage, a chronically ill child, or an unrewarding career can contribute to poor sleep.
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Medications That May Contribute to Weight Gain
Several medications can work against weight loss, slowing the rate of weight loss or contributing to a plateau.
Medications That Alter Brain Chemistry
Medications used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, depression, epilepsy and migraines often have the side effect of weight gain. This side effect is thought to be due to the drugs affect on neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and norepinephine, which are found in the brain and are integral to many mental processes, including mood regulation, hunger and satiety.
Weight gain is particularly linked to many of the newer drugs used to treat psychiatric disorders. In an analysis of dozens of smaller drug studies, clozapine and olanzapine showed the greatest risk of weight gain and ziprasidone had the least risk.2 Lithium, a medication used to stabilize mood, may also work against weight loss.
Successful treatment of depression is also linked with weight gain or hindered weight loss. The reason for this finding may be either a reversal of the lack of appetite that is commonly seen with depression or a side effect of the medication used to treat the problem. Tricyclic antidepressants, especially amitriptyline, and monoamine oxidase inhibitors, such as phenelzine and tranyclypromine are more likely to cause a weight gain than selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). As a group of related drugs, the SSRIs have different impacts on weight, depending on which drug is used.3 For example, paroxetine is linked with weight gain, nefazadone is weight neutral, and bupropion often promotes a modest weight loss.4
Many medications used for the treatment of epilepsy and migraine headaches are linked with weight gain. An exception is topiramate, an antiseizure drug that is associated with weight loss.
Medications For Diabetes, Hypertension, Cancer and Inflammatory Disorders
Drugs used in the treatment of diabetes, including insulin, thiazolidinediones, and sulfonylureas, may hinder weight loss. One diabetes medication, biguanide metformin, may promote weight loss.5
The beta-adrenergic blockers, including propranolol, that are used to treat high blood pressure, are associated with a modest weight gain during the first few months of treatment.6 Likewise, the medications used treat breast cancer may cause a small weight gain in some women.7
Corticosteroids, used primarily to reduce inflammation, are also linked with weight gain—with the higher the dose used, the greater the likelihood and degree of weight added. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) do not appear to affect weight.
While there are several drugs that affect weight and have the potential to hinder weight loss, it is important to understand that not all of the medications used to treat these conditions affect body weight nor does every drug have the same effect on every person who takes it. In many cases, it is possible for a physician to prescribe medications that treat the medical problem without an adverse affect on weight.
Generic and Brand Names of Medications that Affect Weight
Used in the Treatment of:
- Biguanide metformin
This content is reviewed regularly. Last updated November 6, 2011.
Other Science Library Topics:
1 Kulkarni SK, Kaur G. Pharmacodynamics of drug-induced weight gain. Drugs Today. 2001 Aug;37(8):559-572.
2 Allison DB, Mentore JL, Heo M, et al. Antipsychotic-induced weight gain: a comprehensive research synthesis. Am J Psychiatry 1999 Nov;156:1686-1696.
3 Fava M. Weight gain and antidepressants. J Clin Psychiatry. 2006:61 Suppl 11:37-41.
4 Croft H, Houser TL, Jamerson BD, et al. Effect on body weight of bupropion sustained-release in patients with major depression treated for 52 weeks. Clin Ther. 2002 Apr;24(4):662-72.
5 Purnell JQ, Weyer C. Weight effect of current and experimental drugs for diabetes mellitus: from promotion to alleviation of obesity. Treat Endocrinol. 2003;2(1):33-47.
6 Sharma AM, Pischon T, Hardt S, Kunz I, Luft FC. Hypothesis: Beta-adrenergic receptor blockers and weight gain: A systematic analysis. Hypertension. 2001 Feb;37(2):250-4.
7 Ingram C, Brown JK. Patterns of weight and body composition change in premenopausal women with early stage breast cancer: has weight gain been overestimated? Cancer Nurs. 2004 Nov-Dec;27(6):483-90. | <urn:uuid:dd6daee0-14aa-48c7-afd6-7df740e878ba> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.weightwatchers.com/util/art/index_art.aspx?tabnum=1&art_id=23531 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00042-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.861523 | 1,002 | 2.875 | 3 |
Feeling and Expressing Emotions
Are you struggling with thoughts like you are feeling something but are not sure what it is? Sometimes your emotions are so out of control that you blow up on minor incidents and at people who do not deserve it? May be sometimes you feel you want to cry for no good reason. Or may be you feel so detached that you have difficulty reacting to upsetting events. There are genuine reasons for you to be upset but you don’t show any emotion?
Although feeling and expressing emotions is integral part of our lives still there are numerous people who have difficulty doing so. To some of us our emotions remain a mystery and a source of confusion that we have difficulty expressing them constructively. For building healthy relationships we ought to learn give a healthy expression to our emotions.
Accepting and Valuing Your Emotions
Our emotions and feeling are a part of our being. To lead an effective and full life we depend upon different sources of information (our senses, thoughts and perceptions) to guide and motivate us to make sense of the larger world. Our emotions are one of these sources.
There is a strong relationship between our emotions and significant events in our life. Our feelings of happiness, sadness, loss, guilt etc are all related to past events in our life or anticipated events of the future. For example, you something minor happens that hurt your feelings and you started crying uncontrollably. This recent evoked past hurts that initiated that burst of tears. This crying session was an important source of information. Instead of ignoring or exaggerating our emotions it is more important that we feel what we are feeling, accept what we are feeling, think about those feelings and then learn from them. For this realization we ought to identify our feelings, interpret them and then express them. It is a good idea to ask three questions when ever you feel something that bothers you:
- What is this feeling?
- What is this feeling signaling about this particular situation?
- Why am I feeling this now?
Sometimes it is difficult to establish a relationship between events happening in our lives and our emotions. There are times when we are unable to name what we are feeling. Last week I heard a friend say “I am feeling strange, and I do not know why, what is happening to me?” In such a case it is important we take a moment to focus on ourselves and our feelings.
If it is difficult for you to name what you are feeling, it will help if you pay attention to your body. I’ll suggest another example; few years ago I was in an abusive situation. When ever I visited my mother-in-law she would constantly berate me. I was supposed to keep quite in her honor but also not show any emotions of hurt. When I returned back to my place I would experience my jaws tightening up and the nerves on my temples would start showing. At nights I would grind my teeth so much that I was spiting blood in the mornings. Most feelings are manifested through body and every body is different. Some people feel a knot in stomach when they experience fear others may feel a lump in throat if they are over whelmed. You have to rely on your body for knowing your feelings you can’t depend on another person’s experiences. It will help if you list all the possible feelings you know of (e.g., happiness, fear, sadness, insecurity, shame, rage etc.) and then in front of every feeling write any incident you remember when you experienced that emotion.
Our feelings are also related to our behavior. Even when we are not sure what we are feeling our behavior can send others a clear message what we are experiencing. Like people have told me the pitch of my voice rises when ever I am taking about things I am passionate about like environmental degradation, oppression of the weaker sections in the society, inequalities in the society, gender disparities to name a few. They take my passion to be my anger and I am often misunderstood. Another example is if you are talking to one of your friends you may not be aware of your own facial expressions or voice modulations but your friend’s changing facial expressions can give you a clue. This will tell you how you are feeling towards your friend, may be angry or frustrated with them. If you are successful in making connection between life events and your feelings then you’ll be able to understand and articulate your concerns with others.
The Role of Interpretations
We often think our feelings are just a response to events in our lives. Our feelings are more than a reaction towards events rather they are our interpretation of those events. Our interpretation or judgment of these events guides our emotional responses. Each event can generate numerous emotional responses but it is our particular interpretation of the event that determines our emotional response. I remember in the high school board exams all students worked very hard. The test was really tough, those who were good students were happy even when they expected not to ace the exam. I heard one of them say “it was a toughy all the hard work paid off.” I remember one ace student in particular who threw a fit crying consolably for she did not do good in the exam. Her words were “I messed up. Now how I will make to medical college.” And there were few like me who was in the mid range, utterly disappointed but tried to focus our attention on the next test. Every body had the same test but our interpretations of that test were different so were our responses.
We make interpretations of events rapidly and automatically that we are not even aware if it’s happening. If our emotional response to an event is disproportionately extreme to the event it is self it is because our mind is rapidly and automatically interpreting the event and we are not conscious of the process. I learned this early. As a middle school student when ever I did poorly on the school tests I would tell my parents and they would scold me ad nauseam and in turn I would spoil the next test due to fear of failure. They would scold me again when the test score came in so I learned early to conceal information and disclose it as needed depending on the event. The common self defeating interpretations of life events are:
- Dichotomous Thinking: Interpreting events in extremes either this or that nothing in between. For example, a friend’s mother-in-law would create a scene if her son was late to return from work. Every time he was late by thirty minutes she would panic that something happened to him instead of thinking he was stuck in traffic or he had a flat tire. She refused to consider it was normal delay and he’ll make home safe. This fear not only controlled her life but she in turn controlled every body’s life. The son had to call home all the time to report his where abouts and his wife had to fake she was equally concerned or MIL would come after her.
- Excessive Personalization: Person automatically concludes that another’s behavior is targeted towards them or they are responsible for another person’s behavior. Example, if parents are fighting a little child often interprets it is his/her fault. If my spouse was extraordinarily silent I would suspect I may have done something to upset him. So every thing became about me. I took extra responsibility for his behavior.
- Overgeneralization: Imagining a catastrophic impact of a simple event on multiple aspects of life. The friend’s MIL mentioned in the first bullet interpreted her son’s delayed return as “I’ll be left alone, no one will take care of me when I’ll grow old.” “The DIL will take all his insurance money and leave me high and dry.” Where as, none of this was true.
- Filtering: Fixated negative thinking, emphasizing on negative events and corresponding effects rather than paying attention to positive events in life. Some people like that MIL are fixated on all the negative in the world and they fail to appreciate the blessing they have thus they live unhappy lives and exude only unhappiness.
- Emotional Reasoning: Concluding, what one is feeling must be the truth like “I feel defeated so every thing is lost,” “I feel like an idiot, I made fool of my self so I must be an idiot” etc.
It is helpful to learn how to recognize any tendencies you may have to distort events through interpretations like those mentioned above following by learning to do positive and valid interpretations and then give an accurate emotional response.
We have choices about how to interpret any event like wise we have choices about how to express what we are experiencing. Most of us have learned we have only two options for expressing our emotions about any incident; defense or offence. For example, in response to the constant berating by MIL I chose to swallow my anger and simmer in isolation instead of confronting her. My cultural dictate proscribed me from talking back to her. I was choosing silence not out of choice but as the only option available to me. Now I know I could have asked her to talk about her grievances in clear words rather than insinuations. In actuality there are many ways to express our emotional response to any event. Our every behavior exhibits our conscious and subconscious feelings and determines their intensity. We make a choice to determine the intensity of any feeling.
I’ll use an example from my high school days. Rinky was my best friend. Her parents were moving to a different town during the autumn break. During the autumn break my mother had planned to visit her parents with me and my brother. I chose to stay back with my father and spend time with Rinky and give her a send off. I waved my hand till the door to the plane was shut. My options were 1) go to on a vacation and enjoy my time as I new Rinky will soon leave the town and I could do nothing about it so I need not bother myself. 2) Spend more time with Rinky or 3) Make new friends and limit my contact with Rinky to avoid feeling her loss. I chose to stay with her and get a closure on our time together. We are still friends we made it through thick and thin irrespective of the distance. The other two options could have given me a momentary relief from the pain of losing a best friend but they could do not provide a closure with her. The point is I had the options and I made the decision.
Following questions will help decide how to respond to your feelings:
- Is there a match between the intensity of my emotions and the situation at hand?
- Are there several feelings I am experiencing in this particular moment?
- What are my interpretations and judgments of this particular event?
- What are my options for expressing my feelings?
- What are the consequences of each option for me?
- What are the consequences of each option for others?
- What result am I hoping for?
- What do I want to do?
- What if I do nothing?
Even doing nothing is an option, taking a time out and going for walk or deep breathing is also a way of responding to your feelings. Just remember you have many options.
Understanding Our Feelings and Our Families
We were all born blank slates it was our birth families or the families we grew in shaped our initial world view and what emotions we exhibit and how we express them. If you are working on learning to give a healthy expression to your feelings try looking back at the root of those feelings in your early upbringing.
We are not taught family rules on emotions we pick up the cues from our care givers and start imitating them and gradually they become our habit and our reality. Here are few examples from my own life: My grandmother was nasty towards my mother, my hurt mother would remain silent or move around the house with tears in her eyes. If I asked for my mother’s attention or disobeyed her she would start crying or would give me a silent treatment. I learned early it was not appropriate to seek attention and it was my job to keep others happy and not make them upset. In a way I learned my needs were not important and it was my job to please others. Whereas, my father was a martinet he threw anger fits if we disobeyed him, tried talking back to him or if he needed attention. He would say “Don’t raise your voice at me,” and would ground us for weeks together, he was suggesting the rule was children have no right to express anger and parental anger was permissible. It has helped me trace the roots of my emotional responses in my family’s rules on expressing emotions.
Here are some suggestions on problematic family rules that are common to most families:
- Always consider other people’s feeling before you think about your feelings
- Do not harbor negative feelings against other people or you are a bad person
- Do not express anger, it is a destructive emotion
- Ignore your feeling you have to what you have to do
- Display of anger begets attention and obedience
- Don’t share your true feeling they can be used against you in future
- Trust your head more than you trust your heart it is emotional
- Be happy all the time even if you are not. Fake happiness and you’ll become habitual of being happy
As a child you may not have had an exposure to an array of emotions or the family rules proscribed you from even identifying them. But now you are an adult you can make your own rules about emotions or change and replace your family rules on emotions.
To learn new ways of experiencing and expressing emotions demand you unlearn the old patterns, it is not an easy process but it is not impossible either. An awareness towards our thoughts and emotions helps in this process. Be conscious of your feelings, accept them and value them and address the issue they are signaling to. Pay attention to your thought processes, how you interpret your life events and what you learned about emotions from your family and how it is impacting your adult life. Every time you warrant an emotional response take a deep breath and review your options. It will take a lot of practice and it is a continuous process.
For Additional Information Refer:
Burns, David (1982) Feeling Good. New York: Avon Books.
Eastman, Meg and Sydney C. Rozen (1994) Taming The Dragon in Your Child. U.S.A.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. | <urn:uuid:0e3285c2-8850-48f4-8f2b-b63f9dc1c734> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://girlsguidetosurvival.wordpress.com/all-about-relationships/feeling-and-expressing-your-emotions/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396455.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00192-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971949 | 2,988 | 2.9375 | 3 |
This area of Transition Services looks at training people with disabilities to use public transportation safely and independently.
It answers such questions as: What are the essential components of a successful travel training program? What specific skills do travelers need? What issues arise with specific disabilities such as physical, cognitive, or visual impairments.
Transportation provides us all with access to the wider opportunities of society employment, postsecondary education, job training programs, recreation. Traveling by car, by cab, or by public transportation systems such as bus and subway enables us to go to work and come home, go to school or other training programs, visit friends, take care of daily needs such as grocery shopping, and enjoy recreational activities.
Yet, many individuals with disabilities have traditionally been isolated from these societal opportunities, because they lacked a means of transportation. For many, driving a car was not possible, due to a visual, physical, or cognitive disability. Public transportation systems were often inaccessible due to structural barriers. Still other individuals were unable to use the transportation systems that were available, because they lacked the training, or "know-how," to use these systems safely.
Today, the lack of access to transportation that many individuals with disabilities have experienced is changing. Recently enacted federal legislation clearly intends to ensure that people with disabilities have an equal opportunity to participate independently and successfully in society. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) recognizes the critical role that public transportation plays in the lives of many people and mandates that public transportation systems become accessible to people with disabilities. It also mandates that paratransit services are available and accessible to individuals who are unable to use public transportation.
Unfortunately, availability of transportation is not the only impediment to independent travel for people with disabilities. They must also know what systems of transport are available, how to access these, how to plan their travel, and how to execute their travel plans safely. For many individuals, learning how to travel on public transportation requires systematic training. Travel training, then, is often a crucial element in empowering people with disabilities to use the newly accessible transportation systems in our country.
To this end, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) can be of particular importance. The IDEA requires public schools to provide what are known as "transition services" to youth with disabilities, to prepare them for the transition from school to adult life. While accessible transportation and transportation training are not specifically mentioned within IDEA, clearly the ability to use available transportation systems may be critical to a student's transition into the adult world. Thus, both the ADA and the IDEA provide individuals with disabilities, their families, school systems, service providers, community agencies, and transit systems with compelling incentives to work together to ensure that individuals with disabilities learn how to use accessible transportation.
The focus of this section will be to discuss transportation concerns of students and adults with disabilities. After reading this section, you should understand the following:
- Travel Training
- Skills required for traveling independently
- Beginning Travel Training
- The process of travel training
- The necessity of travel training programs
- Who benefits from travel training programs?
- The Importance of Equal Access to Transportation
- Where to Look for Travel Training Programs
- Travel Training Guidelines for People with a Cognitive Disability
- Travel Training Guidelines for People with a Physical Disability
- What to Look For in a Travel Training Program
- Teaching Travel Skills to Persons who are Blind or Visually Impaired
- Evaluating the quality of programs that teach travel skills
- Public Transportation and the ADA
To read much more on this topic, as well as other topics pertaining to transition services in special education, log in to NASET now.
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Dr. Samuel Green purchased land on the east bank of the Cape Fear River in the 1730's. His intention was to cultivate rice in the swampy lowland. He named his plantation Greenfields. Located south of what would one day become Wilmington, he also dammed up several small creeks to create a mill pond that drove a functional grist mill well into the 1800's. By the end of the 1800's it was already a recreational destination and by the 1920's the City of Wilmington had taken over much of the land for a city park. | <urn:uuid:821dd096-ee0e-47c7-b129-a0f997efdeb2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.greenfieldsnc.net/2010/07/lauras-birthplace.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398075.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00201-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984265 | 113 | 2.640625 | 3 |
See what questions
a doctor would ask.
Brain abscess: abscess in the brain may involve any of the lobes of the brain. See detailed information below for a list of 66 causes of Brain abscess, Symptom Checker, including diseases and drug side effect causes.
The following medical conditions are some of the possible
causes of Brain abscess.
There are likely to be other possible causes, so ask your doctor
about your symptoms.
Home medical tests possibly related to Brain abscess:
Listed below are some combinations of symptoms associated with Brain abscess, as listed in our database. Visit the Symptom Checker, to add and remove symptoms and research your condition.
Some of the possible treatments listed in sources for treatment of Brain abscess may include:
Review further information on Brain abscess Treatments.
Some of the comorbid or associated medical symptoms for Brain abscess may include these symptoms:
Research the causes of these more general types of symptom:
Research the causes of related medical symptoms such as:
Research the causes of these symptoms that are similar to, or related to, the symptom Brain abscess:
Read more about causes and Brain abscess deaths.
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Search Specialists by State and City | <urn:uuid:a839b60c-a57a-4f9c-99a6-26848004eaa0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/sym/brain_abscess.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397111.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00067-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939714 | 947 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Ever since the indefensible, horrible terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, DC took place, TV announcers have been asking: Why did this happen? Chalmers Johnson's book, Blowback, provides the answer.
"The term 'blowback,' which officials of the Central Intelligence Agency first invented for their own internal use, is starting to circulate among students of international relations. It refers to the unintended consequences of policies that were kept secret from the American people. What the daily press reports as the malign acts of 'terrorists' or 'drug lords' or 'rogue states' or 'illegal arms merchants' often turn out to be blowback from earlier American operations."
In the context of Johnson's book, what possible actions "kept secret from the American people" brought about this horrible disaster?
- The Saudi Arabia-located Gulf War which Bush I foisted on the world in his speech to Congress exactly eleven years ago: September 11, 1990
- The Camp David accords, which signalled the US buy-out of Egypt as a countervailing force for Palestinian rights in the Middle East, which occurred on September 11, 1978
- The recent Israeli actions in the Occupied Territories that have included assassinations of Palestinian leaders and the slaughter of Palestinian civilians with the use of American aircraft
- Clinton's bombing of the Sudan, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and killing tens of thousands of people (no one knows how many for sure because the US blocked an inquiry at the UN and our corporate-dominated "news" agencies deliberately fail to pursue it)
- Bush administration renewal of attacks and sanctions against Iraq that have seen upward of a million people die, most of them children
The thesis of Johnson's book is straightforward:
"I believe the profligate waste of our resources on irrelevant weapons systems and the Asian economic meltdown, as well as the continuous trail of military 'accidents' and of terrorist attacks on American installations and embassies, are all portents of a twenty-first century crisis in America's empire, an empire based on the projection of military power to every corner of the world and on the use of American capital and markets to force global economic integration on our terms, at whatever costs to others."
Beyond the tragedy of the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, what other examples of blowback can we trace?
"It is now widely recognized, for example, that the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which resulted in the deaths of 259 passengers and 11 people on the ground, was retaliation for a 1986 Reagan administration aerial raid on Libya that killed president Muammar Khadaffi's stepdaughter."
As Johnson illustrates, for decades United States leaders have supported dictators in national struggles for independence:
- Indochina against the French
- Malaya against the British
- Indonesia against the Dutch
- Philippine guerillas against American puppet, Ferdinand Marcos
- South Korea against American puppet dictator, Syngman Rhee
- 1960: Koreans overthrew Rhee - Americans put in Park Chung-hee, first of 3 army generals who would rule from 1961 to 1993
- Americans tolerated a coup d'etat by General Chun Doo-hwan in 1979 and covertly supported his orders that led to the killing of several hundred, maybe several thousand, Korean civilians at Kwangju in 1980 (probably far more people than the Chinese Communists killed in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989)
- Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo in Taiwan
- Ngo Dinh Diem (assassinated on American orders), General Nguyen Khanh, General Nguyen Cao Ky, And General Mguyen Van Thieu in Vietnam
- General Lon Nol in Cambodia
- Marshals Pibul Songgram, Sarit Thanarat, Praphas Charusathien, and Thanom Kittikachorn in Thailand (where they were essentially caretakers for the huge American air bases at Udorn, Takli, Korat, and Ubon)
- General Suharto in Indonesia (brought to power with the help of the CIA and overthrown with the help of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency)
- 1981: U.S. launched Vietnam-style operations in Central America, supporting insurgency against a Sandinista government in Nicaragua sympathetic to Castro's Cuba; U.S. supported cocaine trade of Nicaraguan counterrevolutionaries, the "Contras"
Another factor which is more than likely to produce blowback is the economic policy which American leaders pursued in Asia.
"To base a capitalist economy mainly on export sales rather than domestic demand, however, ultimately subverts the function of the unfettered world market to reconcile and bring into balance supply and demand. Instead of producing what the people of a particular economy can actually use, East Asian export regimes thrived on foreign demand artificially engineered by an imperialist power. In East Asia during the Cold War, the strategy worked so long as the American economy remained overwhelmingly larger than the economies of its dependencies and so long as only Japan and perhaps one or two smaller countries pursued this strategy.
Johnson indicates that America's economic imperialism may likely result in a world-wide economic blowback.
An over-capacity for products oriented to the American market (or products needed to further expand export-oriented economies) became overwhelming. There were too many factories turning out athletic shoes, automobiles, television sets, semiconductors, petrochemicals, steel, and ships for too few buyers."
But by the 1980s the Japanese economy had become twice the size of both Germanies. Anything it did affected not just the American but the global economy. Moreover, virtually everyone else in East Asia (and potentially every underdeveloped country on earth) had some knowledge of how to create such a miracle economy and many were trying to duplicate Japanese-style high-speed growth.
"The economic crisis at the end of the century had its origins in an American project to open up and make over the economies of its satellites and dependencies in East Asia. Its purpose was both to diminish them as competitors and to assert the primacy of the United States as the globe's hegemonic power. Superficially it can be said to have succeeded. The globalization campaign significantly reduced the economic power and capitalist independence of at least some of the United States' 'tiger' competitors-even if, as with Russia and Brazil, the crisis could not be kept within the bounds of East Asia. This was, from a rather narrow point of view, a major American imperial success.
"Despite such immediate results, however, the campaign against Asian-style capitalism (and the possibility that America's satellite states in the area might gain independent political clout as well) was ill-founded and included serious blowback consequences. The United States failed to acknowledge that East Asian success had depended to a considerable extent on preferential, Cold War-based exports to the American market. By cloaking its campaign in the rhetoric of market opening and deregulation instead of the need to reform outdated Cold War arrangements, the United States both destroyed the credibility of its economic ideology and betrayed its Cold War supporters. The impoverishment and humiliation of huge populations from Indonesia to South Korea was itself blowback enough, even if the blowback for the time being spared ordinary Americans. But if and when the stricken economies recover, they will almost certainly start to seek leadership elsewhere than from the United States. At a bare minimum, they will try to protect themselves from ever again being smothered by the American embrace. In short, by refusing to reform its Cold War structures and instead insisting that other peoples emulate the American way, the United States gave itself an unnecessary, possibly terminal case of imperial overstretch. Instead of forestalling global instability, it helped make such instability inevitable."
But we must look to possible destructive effects which could result from the tragic attack on New York City and Washington, DC. The people who killed the thousands of Americans in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were persons who had allowed themselves to become so brainwashed by their leaders that they embraced their own death.
We must not become programmed by leaders who may try to turn us into unthinking, unreasoning pawns in a world war, indoctrinated dupes reacting to recent events in heedless retaliation. It has now become necessary that we recognize and act on our solidarity with reasonable, freedom-loving people throughout the world.
It's clear that actions taken by our leaders have led to this horrible blowback situation of common people becoming victims in a war we didn't realize had been going on for decades. People in other countries were being murdered in this ongoing terrorist war that our leaders were carrying out, but it took people dying in the United States before we woke up to the reality of what was happening.
We should be encouraged by the fact that in this time when a variety of people are reacting in a deranged manner, many cool heads and reasonable voices are being heard.
- Robert Jensen's article in CounterPunch, "Why I Won't Rally Around the President":
"When we speak out against war in public, we will find support, but we also should expect hostility. We should expect the question posed by one of the people who wrote to condemn me: 'Whose side are you on?' The answers to that are simple:
- I am on the side of the people -- no matter where they live -- who will suffer the violence, not the leaders -- no matter where they live -- who will plan it.
- I am on the side of peace, not war.
- I am on the side of justice, not vengeance.
- And most important, I am on the side of hope, not despair."
- Anthony Lewis's Op-Ed in the 9/15/01 New York Times, "Beware Unintended Results":
"The danger in the current situation is that hasty, ill-targeted military action could arouse anti-Western sentiments right across the Middle East. That could threaten such important U.S. friends as the governments of Egypt and Jordan — and Saudi Arabia, from which Osama bin Laden is an angry exile and which is at the core of his grievance. He would be delighted at a United States response that destabilized the Saudi regime."
- In Paris, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin warned that a precipitous attack could unleash wider instability: "We should not start thinking in terms of a confrontation between the Western world and the Islamic world as such . . . We have friends and partners there. We must keep our heads."
- "I hope that the United States will not act rashly and [will] take international public opinion into account when weighing its response," former Turkish President Suleyman Demirel said. "I hope they will not try and pin this act on an entire region or an entire ethnic group, but that they will have the prescience to punish only those who were responsible for this act of terrorism."
One of the first things we must do to protect against further blowback is to regain our democracy, to make sure that this crisis is not used as the excuse to destroy or limit essential civil liberties. Already, some disturbing actions have taken place to suppress our rights:
- Only hours after the attacks, the FBI reportedly began installing its controversial Carnivore system at some Internet providers to monitor and record electronic communications, particularly seeking accounts with Arabic names. On the day of the attacks, an ABC-Washington Post poll found that 66% of Americans would willingly give up some civil liberties to combat terrorism.
- On Sept. 12, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld publicly cautioned that divulging classified intelligence could hinder the government's efforts to track down those responsible and could put military personnel at risk. His remarks heightened expectation that the "classified leaks" bill, which would criminalize intelligence leaks, could be swiftly revived after being shelved only last week.
- On September 12, Vermont's governor, Howard Dean, said at a news conference that the crisis would require "a re-evaluation of the importance of some of our specific civil liberties."
- The U.S. Senate approved legislation on September 12 that would make it easier for the FBI to obtain warrants for electronic eavesdropping. And Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., saying that civil libertarians in the past had blocked legislation essential in a terrorism fight, vowed to push for laws to make search and surveillance easier in domestic intelligence-gathering efforts.
- Also on September 12, House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., echoing earlier remarks by Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., warned that an erosion of civil liberties would be inevitable. "We're in a new world where we have to rebalance freedom and security," he said, according to The Washington Post.
Fortunately there are some sane voices who realize how important it is to keep our liberties intact. Senator (Bob) Graham seemed to capture in his statement [Sept. 12] precisely the proper tone that if we sacrifice basic rights and liberties for security, then the terrorists will truly have prevailed. Acknowledging that the enormity of this disaster makes for an extraordinary time, we must keep First Amendment rights in focus.
Robert O'Neil, founding director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, in Charlottesville, Va., put it another way: "The dilemma is balancing, on one hand, the undoubted need for better and more sophisticated intelligence gathering, against the imperative to preserve civil liberties despite the heightened threats of terrorism."
O'Neil predicts government action on "potential threats that were simmering before Tuesday and on which the heat may now be turned up, especially in view of Senator Lott's comment about civil liberties at risk in time of war. Those include," he said, "possible revival of the 'classified leaks' bill, renewed interest in installing Carnivore-like devices and maybe a new round of Clipper Chip," the encryption technology for digital telephones developed secretly with a "back door" key by the National Security Agency in 1993.
"The concern we have in the media [is that] as we demand information, we'll be accused of being subversive for the very process of interviewing, associating with or learning about those who would explain terrorism," O'Neil said. "The person who has their First Amendment credentials The New York Times, The Washington Post around their neck is probably OK," he added. "But someone seeking information and asking questions for a book or a free-lance article, for example, will be guilty by association," Armstrong said. "It becomes very insidious. What happens when reporters start asking about that intelligence failure … asking for proof that the people targeted are the right people? Somewhere in there, it's going to be considered disloyal."
Civil liberties groups are already beginning to gather their forces, the Los Angeles Times reported. The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California has started a telephone hotline to monitor violations of civil liberties, particularly racial profiling. And the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights met on September 13 in San Francisco to discuss the risks to civil liberties and plan a possible response.
Contrary to some of the extremists now trying to scare America into a lunatic reaction to its crisis, a time of tragedy is precisely the time to place renewed emphasis on civil liberties.
This horrific calamity which has befallen us can be a genuine wake-up call, making us aware of the necessity that we retake control of our government so that such catastrophes do not recur.
To protect ourselves from further catastrophic blowback, we must arouse ourselves to become once again an informed citizenry. We must demand that our executive and legislative leaders actually carry out due diligence in assuring that the people's interests are being served. No longer can we allow our leaders to act in ways which threaten our nation, our way of life, and our very lives.
September 16, 2001
Dr. Norman D. Livergood | <urn:uuid:30e6fc6d-520a-4dcb-a8a4-8825f1db31ff> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.hermes-press.com/blowback.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00052-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960942 | 3,279 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Scientists at the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology (GIVI) have found that the enzyme DGAT1, associated with the storage of fat in the liver, is required for the infectious activity of HCV. “Our results reveal a potential Achilles heel for HCV infection,” says Melanie Ott, M.D., Ph.D., senior author on the paper, which appears in Nature Medicine. “Several DGAT1 inhibitors are already in early clinical trials to treat obesity-associated diseases. They might also work against HCV.”
At first glance, the HCV life cycle is fairly simple. The virus enters the cell. One large protein is produced and cut into several smaller viral enzymes and proteins that build the virus. The RNA genome is copied, and the new RNAs and structural proteins are used to make new virus particles that are released into the bloodstream to infect more cells. These processes were thought to occur at specialized membranes inside the cell.
Recently, however, it has been shown that fat droplets are critically involved. DGAT1 is one of the enzymes that help to form fat droplets. The Gladstone team, led by Eva Herker, Ph.D., discovered that HCV infection and viral particle production are severely impaired in liver cells that lack DGAT1 activity.
“DGAT enzymes produce the fat that is stored in the droplets that are important for HCV replication, so we wondered if inhibiting those enzymes might disrupt the viral life cycle,” says Dr. Herker. “We found that HCV specifically relies on one DGAT enzyme, DGAT1. When we inhibit DGAT1 with a drug, the liver still produces fat droplets through another DGAT enzyme, but these droplets cannot be used by HCV.”
The team then sought to identify which step in the HCV life cycle requires DGAT1. They found that DGAT1 interacts with one viral protein, the viral nucleocapsid core protein, required for viral-particle assembly. The core protein normally associates with the surface of fat droplets but cannot do so when DGAT1 is inhibited or missing in infected cells. | <urn:uuid:1033b086-2b0c-4eee-8dbb-59d2a45630a7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.genengnews.com/gen-news-highlights/investigators-discover-a-fat-storage-enzyme-key-to-hcv-infection/81244047/?kwrd=Gladstone%20Institute%20of%20Virology%20and%20Immunology | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404382.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00017-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950621 | 450 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Stomach, mucosa (cross section)
The surface of the stomach is lined by surface mucous cells which comprise a simple columnar epithelium. This epithelium is formed into numerous gastric pits, in the region labelled C in this image. The mucosa beneath the pits is relatively thick and densely packed with simple tubular gasric glands, in the region labelled A and B above.
The upper region of each gastric gland (B above) is fairly straight and perpendicular to the mucosal surface. The deeper region of the gland (A above) is often more twisted.
At low magnification, such as the image above, the various secretory cells present the appearance of three indistinct bands parallel to the mucosal surface:
- Chief cells predominate in the deep band (A in the figure above);
- Parietal cells predominate in the middle band (B in the figure above); and
- Surface mucous cells line gastric pits in the outer band (C in the figure above).
Mucous neck cells are most common in the necks of the glands (near the line drawn between B and C in the figure above).
Each of these mucosal regions may be examined at higher power:
The submucosa of the stomach is relatively unspecialized.
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of Medicine / Anatomy / David
Last updated: 11 February 2002 / dgk | <urn:uuid:2e98d059-58c9-48a7-aaf5-47867fe6226d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.siumed.edu/%7Edking2/erg/GI100b.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00088-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.880872 | 306 | 3.75 | 4 |
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By Renee L. Shroades
November 2005 -
Lighting Article Use Policy
THE LIGHTING INDUSTRY is on the verge of a new era. Many researchers agree that light-emitting diodes (LED) are revolutionizing illumination in institutional and commercial facilities. LED technology offers maintenance and engineering managers the promise to save energy, reduce maintenance and change their entire lighting infrastructure.
“They hold promise for so many things,” says Patricia Rizzo, lead research specialist at the Lighting Research Center (LRC). They have the potential to be the biggest change in lighting since Edison’s invention of the incandescent, she says.
But before the pinnacle of this lighting transformation takes place, manufacturers have more work to accomplish. The LRC’s Solid-State Lighting Program conducts research and education needed to help LED technology overcome the barriers it faces in gaining widespread acceptance.
LED technology has been around for more than 30 years. Until recently, however, only small electronic devices, such as indicator lamps, used it. Many researchers say LED technology isn’t ready for general lighting use, but each improvement in its development opens doors to more applications in which it can replace less efficient light sources.
During a two-year project, the LRC retrofitted an elevator with LED downlight fixtures.
“The project worked out very well, Rizzo says. “We were getting the light levels that we were aiming for, and it demonstrated that elevators are a viable application for LED fixtures.”
Besides lasting much longer than traditional incandescent fixtures, (LEDs) have the ability to work with on-demand dimming and motion-sensing lighting controls, which could bring added savings. Their rugged design makes them resistant to elevator cabin vibration, which might reduce maintenance needs.
While manufacturers are already introducing general-illumination LED products, Rizzo offers a word of caution to specifiers:
“They might not always perform the way you would expect them to because (the lighting industry is) still in the process of setting standards,” she says. Unlike other lighting technologies, LEDs have no standards that address such issues as life cycle, light output and color consistency.
“We don’t want people to be disappointed,” she says. “We want expectations to be realistic.”
LRC is working to establish LED standards through its Alliance for Solid-State Illumination Systems and Technologies (ASSIST) organization, a collaboration of researchers, manufacturers and government agencies. The first LED standard recommendation ASSIST issued addresses LED life.
“They don’t burn out like incandescents,” she says. “LEDs just kind of fade away.” As a result, it has been challenging for the industry to define the life of LED products.
Before LEDs can become mainstream technology, lighting technicians will need training on their proper installation and maintenance, and education will be critical to the success of LED technology.
“LEDs have very different system components that have to be managed well for them to perform well,” Rizzo says. LED performance depends on the interaction of individual components. Poorly integrated systems might experience premature failure.
So, in part, maintenance and engineering managers will determine the success of LED technology. By learning about the technology and educating their technicians on the systems, they could lead their organizations to a much brighter future.
Two recent agreements with and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) give an indication of the expanding scope of the agency’s efforts to enforce federal laws in institutional and commercial facilities.
In late October, a hospital in Sanford, Me., and another in Exeter, N.H., each agreed to pay $3,000 in penalties to resolve EPA claims that they had violated the federal Clean Water Act by not having proper plans in place to prevent spills. Exeter Hospital and Goodall Hospital agreed to the reduce penalties under an expedited settlement program of the EPA’s New England office in Boston.
The cases represent the first two instances the office has negotiated such settlements involving violations of the act’s oil pollution prevention regulations.
Facilities that can store more than 1,320 gallons of oil in above-ground tanks or 42,000 in underground tanks must have spill-prevention, control and countermeasure (SPCC) plans if it could reasonably be expected that a discharge of oil from the facility would reach a body of water or its adjoining shoreline in a worst-case scenario.
Although both hospitals store oil in amounts above thresholds requiring the preparation and implementation of an SPCC plan, EPA inspectors found they did not have such plans.
“All facilities, big or small, need to abide by the law requiring plans to prevent oil spills,” says Robert W. Varney, the office’s regional administrator.
In the other case, Howard University in Washington, D.C., announced last month that it has reached an agreement with EPA’s Region 3 office in Philadelphia to settle alleged violations of the regulations governing underground fuel-storage tanks. The university agreed to pay a $59,589 penalty and comply with the regulations.
The violations involved various storage-tank safeguards, including monthly monitoring. The case involved a 3,000-gallon diesel-fuel tank, a 6,000-gasoline tank at the university’s service center, a 12,000-gallon tank at its cancer research center, and two additional tanks.
For more on EPA’s underground storage tank program, visit www.epa.gov/swerust1/
A Veterans Hospital in Vermont has been hit with the largest proposed fine ever issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s New England office to a federal facility — $372,254 — for improper handling and storage of hazardous waste. The fine is also the one of the largest ever issued by the EPA against a Veterans Administration facility nationwide.
According to the EPA, “the hospital’s actions posed a significant threat to human health and the environment. The EPA’s complaint cites numerous hazardous waste management violations, including improper storage of containers of ether and picric acid in clinical laboratory and pathology areas. Both substances are potentially explosive and shock-sensitive.
As more maintenance and engineering managers strive to make their facilities greener, professional associations are stepping up their efforts to address energy-efficiency and sustainability issues.
The Association of Energy Engineers (AEE) recently unveiled its Green Building Engineers (GBE) certification program, which is designed to help its members reduce energy use in buildings by 10 percent or more. Developed in partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) through its Energy Star® Challenge, the GBE program educates energy engineers about ways to improve energy efficiency in buildings. AEE designed the program to serve as a resource for organizations applying for Energy Star. For more information, visit www.aeecenter.org
Also, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has launched a campaign emphasizing its role as “the engineering engine that drives sustainability.” ASHRAE will use the campaign’s logo, theme, and web site — www.engineeringforsustainability.org — to identify its products and services related to sustainability. | <urn:uuid:4f025e52-2c5f-47c8-9495-2c7e1685d2a3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.facilitiesnet.com/lighting/article/Early-Returns-LEDs-Show-Promise-for-Facilities--3543 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397795.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00033-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948201 | 1,552 | 2.625 | 3 |
Asia Society convened a working group with the Statewide Afterschool Networks in Connecticut, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Ohio to create trainings and resources that will help programs implement global learning activities. These global learning “quick sheets” are one-page examples of developmentally appropriate unit plan outlines in typical afterschool content areas. Each activity in the unit builds upon the last, connects across the four domains of global competence, and leads to sample program outcomes.
Because standalone activities typically don’t develop competencies, the goal of the quick sheets is to support programs with creating intentional, integrated, connected, and sustained activities that lead to youth competency development and the program’s stated outcomes. While the quick sheets include enough detail so a youth workers could practically envision the implementation of the unit plan, they are not meant to be prescriptive; there is no one right way to implement global learning activities during afterschool. These quick sheets come with a Creative Commons license, so practitioners can freely use and adapt them for their specific purposes. Staff can use the activity planning template to write down their own global learning unit plan ideas or to further customize the ideas on the quick sheets.
Read through our Guidance on Using Afterschool Quick Sheets for an overview of ways to use these resources and a sample approach to the literacy unit, or just click on one of the quick sheets below.
Quick Sheets Series
Global Learning and Activity Planning Template
Global Learning & Cooking
Global Learning & Literacy
Global Learning & STEM (Coming soon!)
Global Learning & Arts (Coming soon!)
Global Learning & Physical Education (Coming Soon!) | <urn:uuid:c577405f-d89f-4e5a-8af7-3da83b66f13c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://asiasociety.org/global-learning-beyond-school/global-learning-out-school-time | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403823.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00052-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.87319 | 332 | 3.078125 | 3 |
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The north pole of a suspended magnet that is free to swing will always point North, both in southern or in northern hemisphere.
This is because Earth is a magnet with the North and South poles, just like any bar magnet. The south magnetic pole of Earth is located close to the geographic North Pole of Earth. Since south and north poles of two magnets attract (and the like poles repel), the north pole of any bar magnet, such as a compass needle, will point towards the geographic North.
We’ve answered 328,176 questions. We can answer yours, too.Ask a question | <urn:uuid:399869fd-35eb-4738-b481-49e1781170e6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/bar-magnet-suspended-that-free-swung-vertically-432964 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00064-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939395 | 129 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Assign (troops, employees, or resources) to a new place or task: units concentrated in Buenos Aires would be redeployed to the provinces
More example sentences
- This denied the Nazi command the possibility to redeploy the troops.
- Being able to redeploy analysts and form ad hoc teams quickly and effectively is a basic requirement for intelligence organizations today.
- The US is planning to redeploy troops from South Korea to Iraq.
For editors and proofreaders
Line breaks: re|deploy
Definition of redeploy in:
What do you find interesting about this word or phrase?
Comments that don't adhere to our Community Guidelines may be moderated or removed. | <urn:uuid:13e28a5a-2baf-4319-bb9a-9bcd6297a205> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/redeploy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00119-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.879357 | 142 | 3 | 3 |
The staff of Barr-Harris has compiled a list of books to help grieving parents and children cope with loss and grief. These books suggest various ways of talking about death with children of different ages and provide a better understanding of how children mourn.
Books on Loss and Grief for Parents
- 10 Steps for Parenting your Grieving Child by Berenberg, A, Scolzitti, V., and Cain, J. (2011)
- Talking about Death by Earl A. Grollman (1990)
A practical guide for parents and other adults faced with explaining death to a child while struggling with their own feelings about death. It suggests age-appropriate responses to many questions and provides read-along passages for parents who may need help finding words to express their thoughts and feelings about death. We recommend parents read the book first, before using the read-along passages.
Earl A. Grollman has written many excellent books about death.
- A Music I No Longer Heard: The Early Death of a Parent by Leslie Simon and Jan Johnson Drantell (2010)
Interviews with seventy people who lost a parent before the age of 19 because of illness, accident, suicide, or murder. Very readable resource for anyone who has experienced loss of a parent in childhood or knows someone who has.
- Letters from Motherless Daughters by Hope Edelman (1996)
The companion book to Motherless Daughters, this book does not have the same impact although it is still interesting. Both books are highly recommended.
- Motherless Daughters by Hope Edelman (1996)
An excellent compilation of interviews with young women whose mothers died when they were young girls. The psychological comments that accompany the interviews are accurate and insightful.
- Making Toast: A Family Story by Roger Rosenblatt (2010)
A thoughtful, poignant memoir of a man who lost his daughter. The story chronicles how he and his wife helped their son-in-law and grandchildren handle their late daughter’s unexpected death.
- How Do We Tell the Children? by Dan Schaefer and Christine Lyons (1993)
This guide to informing children of death in different situations includes a useful quick-reference crisis section. We recommend this book to parents whose own grief may be interfering with their thinking about how to help their children.
- Helping Children Live with Death and Loss by Diana Seibert (2003)
This book is designed for parents, caregivers, teachers, and other adults who will be responding to children who have experienced a loss. It addresses how to answer children’s questions about death, how children respond developmentally to loss, choosing literature about death for children, and understanding and responding to specific death and loss situations.
- After a Parent’s Suicide: Helping Children Heal by Margo Requarth (2006)
A compassionate, practical hands-on guide for the surviving parent or caretaker dealing with children’s particular grief when their parent commits suicide. The author is a survivor of a parental suicide and gives the reader hope children may be helped to survive a parent’s suicide. Also suitable for teachers and mental health professionals. | <urn:uuid:05147038-9a6d-46c3-8334-6f90521b0b24> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://barrharris.org/for-your-child/books-for-parents/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397695.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00156-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934432 | 648 | 2.984375 | 3 |
Conflict is something that causes a lot of stress, and it occurs on many scales: it can range from small conflicts between family members or friends to large conflicts between countries. Regardless, conflict is a source of stress, and while small amounts of stress can be good, too much stress can become deadly.
Having said that, it is important to avoid conflict in your life, and the best way to avoid conflict is to expect and embrace it. Let us find how can you avoid conflict by embracing it.It is first important to realize that you cannot really avoid conflict with other people. The only real way to avoid conflict with others is to move out into the wilderness where no one lives, but this generally is not the best way to avoid conflict.
As long as you work with and live with others, you should expect to have conflicts and disagreements.There are no two people in this world that see eye-to-eye on everything, and this will naturally lead to conflicts.By using the expression "embrace conflict," means that you have to avoid conflict by expecting and dealing with it.
Passive people do not do this. They try everything in their power to avoid conflict, but this only creates feelings of tension, resentment, and stress within them, and once they finally do attempt to resolve it, it will often come in the form of them exploding or being overly aggressive.This of course is counter productive. An aggressive person will embrace conflict by going out looking for it, which is equally bad. The best way to avoid conflict is to expect and embrace it, but you do not want to go looking for trouble.
It is always important to avoid hitting your listener with too much information at once. Some people define assertiveness as hitting their listeners with so much information and facts that they are compelled to see things from their point of view. While this form of behavior may sound logical at first, it actually is not.
The only time that people will accept what you are saying is once they are interested in accepting it. Even when it appears that people accept your bull dozing, they will generally do it to agree with you, and then will avoid you or your recommendations once they get the chance.It is also best to avoid arguing with people. An assertive person is someone who can often get their point across without a lot of bickering.
Remember, there is no such thing as "winning an argument." Even when it appears that you have won, you will typically only increase feelings of resentment in the person you are arguing with, and this is crucially important.When you convince someone of something, and it is against their will, they will still maintain the same opinion. It is always important to make people accept an idea by making it something they’re attracted to.
Bickering with people achieves nothing, and will often cause far more harm than good. It is also important to make use of patience while avoiding bumping heads with people. You do not want to be too eager, as it is important to move towards your objective carefully.You also do not want to find yourself in a situation where you will collide with the person you are trying to work with. You want to be wise enough to avoid sore spots in the people you deal with, as these could be costly to your relationship.
When you deal with people, never take sides. One of the worst mistakes you can make when dealing with people is to take sides. It is much better to be open to a variety of different ideas, and you will want to consider what everyone is telling you.
It is not a good idea to focus on a single issue, as this will create conflict with anyone who perceives you as being antagonistic towards their ideas. If you can combine positive aspects from multiple people in order to come up with something that is valuable and important, this will definitely give you a powerful edge. | <urn:uuid:caa30a38-8a98-4ed2-a622-f649842896ff> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.exforsys.com/career-center/assertive/how-to-avoid-conflict.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00071-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977885 | 792 | 2.640625 | 3 |
What does Memorial Day mean to you? Vacationing? Cooking out? Relaxing on the couch for hours? Whatever it stands for, let’s take a moment and come back to the day’s true meaning.
Not to be confused with Veteran’s Day, which honors all veterans, Memorial Day specifically honors those who have died while serving in the United States military. Since 1775 there have been over 1.3 million who have made that sacrifice. While it originated in 1868, and was originally known as Decoration Day, Memorial Day didn’t become a federal holiday until 1971.
Now celebrated nationwide on the last Monday in May, Memorial Day is a time of remembrance and gratitude for those who gave everything so we can be free… to go on vacation… to cook out… to have a relaxing day off. It’s a time to reflect on just how lucky we really are.
Here’s what President Ronald Reagan had to say in 1986:
Today is the day we put aside to remember fallen heroes and to pray that no heroes will ever have to die for us again. It’s a day of thanks for the valor of others, a day to remember the splendor of America and those of her children who rest in this cemetery and others. It’s a day to be with the family and remember. — Ronald Reagan, Arlington National Cemetery
Continue Reading → | <urn:uuid:8d7d4886-12ea-49cc-9555-d7db456fb4c8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.2ndhalflounge.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00023-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960258 | 293 | 2.53125 | 3 |
March 1, 2006
UC scientists target malaria in Mali
DAVIS--Three UC Davis medical entomologists are launching a five-year federally funded project to train scientists at the University of Bamako, Mali, on strategies to combat malaria, one of the leading causes of death in that West African country.
Medical entomologist Gregory Lanzaro, director of the UC Mosquito Research Program and director of the UC Davis Center for Vectorborne Diseases (CVEC), recently received a five-year, $650,000 training grant from the Fogarty International Center, Bethesda, Md., as part of the National Institutes of Health's Global Infectious Disease Research Training Program.
"Vector control is currently the most effective measure to reduce malaria transmission," said Lanzaro, an entomology professor who is partnering with associate professor of entomology Anthony Cornel, based in Parlier, and Shirley Luckhart, associate professor of medical microbiology and immunology, UC Davis School of Medicine.
"It is critically important that our UC Davis Malaria Vector Training Program provide Mali trainees with a solid background in insecticide resistance monitoring and other management methodologies," Lanzaro said. "A second, more ambitious strategy in our program involves the release of genetically modified mosquitoes for either population suppression or replacement."
The training will take place on both university campuses. Lanzaro will train the Mali vector biologists in population genetics; Cornel will instruct them in insecticide resistance, and Luckhart will explain the interactions between mosquitoes and Plasmodium parasites, which cause malaria.
Malaria spreads through the bite of Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes infected with the Plasmodium parasite. More than 800,000 reported cases of malaria occur annually among Mali's 11 million residents, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The malaria mortality rate varies between 16 and 25 percent, with children under age five and pregnant women the most vulnerable.
The percentage of children under age five who die from malaria rose from 45.7 percent in 2000 to 50 percent in 2002, according to the Mali Ministry of Health. An estimated 80 to 90 percent of children younger than five carry Plasmodium parasites during the rainy season.
Intensive efforts to eliminate malaria are largely ineffective, Lanzaro said, because many African countries lack the infrastructures and resources necessary to mount sustainable campaigns against malaria. Traditionally, industrialized countries invest very little in malaria research in Africa.
WHO endorses the use of insecticide-treated bed nets to kill Anopheles vectors. However, insecticide resistance now "presents a serious threat to the success of the program," he noted. Drug resistance also challenges the malaria-eradication program.
"We need more innovative strategies to control the spread of malaria," Lanzaro said. One way is to release genetically modified mosquitoes carrying genes that resist or kill mosquito vectors in wild populations.
In addition, sterile males could be released to collapse female reproduction activity. Only female mosquitoes are blood-suckers, Lanzaro noted. The female needs the protein to develop her eggs.
One of the world's oldest and deadliest diseases, malaria kills between 1.5 million and 2.5 million people each year, primarily in Africa. Malaria kills a child in Africa every 10 to 15 seconds, or some 8,000 children per day. WHO estimates that 90 percent of the global incidence of malaria occurs in Africa, and that 35 of the 44 countries with intensive malaria are in Africa. Nine out of 10 deaths due to malaria are among sub-Saharan African children younger than age five.
Plasmodium falciparum, the most deadly parasite that the Anopheles mosquito transmits, can kill within hours of noticeable symptoms, which include high fever, severe headache, drowsiness, delirium and confusion.
The UC Davis Center for Vectorborne Diseases has provided training opportunities for scientists from African and Latin American countries over the past decade. The three UC Davis entomologists have all worked closely with the Malaria Research and Training Center (MRTC) at the University of Bamako.
Lanzaro, who received his doctorate in medical entomology from the University of Florida in 1986, has worked on the biology of Anopheles mosquitoes for 25 years. He has conducted field research in Mali since 1991, and also in Cameroon.
Cornel, a native South African who completed his doctorate at the University of the Witwatersrand in 1993 in mosquito systematics, has conducted field work in South Africa since 1988, and in Mali and Cameroon since 2003.
Luckhart, who completed her doctorate in entomology from Rutgers in 1995, has worked on insect innate immunity for nearly 20 years and is currently focused on Anopheles mosquito-malaria parasite interactions. She conducted field research in Kenya in collaboration with the U.S. Army from 1999-2001.
Media Contact: Kathy Keatley Garvey, (530) 754-6894, firstname.lastname@example.org
Further information on mosquito research is available on the UC Mosquito Research Program Web site at www.ucmrp.ucdavis.edu. | <urn:uuid:2e1fca05-942b-4256-afec-1d45cbe3dedd> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/whatsnew/article2.cfm?id=1546 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403823.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00142-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933402 | 1,058 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Spitzer Discovers Hidden Ring
This animation transitions from a visible light image of the planetary nebula called NGC 246 to Spitzer's new infrared view. The movie highlights Spitzer's ability to see the invisible; as the movie dissolves to the Spitzer image, a giant ring (red) emerges. This clumpy ring consists of material that was expelled from the aging star at the center of the nebula.
Planetary nebulas are clouds of gas and dust that surround dying stars. When a star like our own Sun begins to run out of fuel, its core shrinks and heats up, boiling off the star's outer layers. Leftover material shoots outward, expanding in shells around the star. This ejected material is then bombarded with ultraviolet light from the central star's fiery surface, producing huge, glowing clouds -- planetary nebulas -- that look like giant jellyfish in space.
In the Spitzer image, the expelled gases appear green, and the ring of expelled material appears red. Astronomers believe the ring is likely made of hydrogen molecules that were ejected from the star in the form of atoms, then cooled to make hydrogen pairs. The new data will help explain how planetary nebulas take shape, and how they nourish future generations of stars.
The Spitzer image composite was taken on Dec. 6, 2003, by Spitzer's infrared array camera, and is composed of images obtained at four wavelengths: 3.6 microns (blue), 4.5 microns (green), 5.8 microns (orange) and 8 microns (red).
The visible light image is from the Advanced Observing Program of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory. Visible-light image credit: Jeff Cremer/Adam Block/NOAO/AURA/NSF | <urn:uuid:e4bc6141-8ecd-4432-bdae-531edc0a3c34> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/video-audio/704-ssc2004-13v1-Spitzer-Discovers-Hidden-Ring | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395613.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00177-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917101 | 366 | 3.796875 | 4 |
1999 James A. Fowler
You are free to download
this outline provided it remains intact without alteration. You
are also free to transmit this outline electronically provided
that you do so in its entirety with proper citation of authorship
I. Some New Testament verses referring to "fear."
A. Greek word phobos, from
which we get English word "phobia."
- "everyone kept feeling a sense of awe"
-"great fear came upon the whole church"
- "you have not receive a spirit of slavery leading to fear"
2:3 - "I was with you in weakness and in fear"
7:5 - "conflicts without, fears within"
B. Greek word deilas referring
to "fright" or "dread"
"Why are you timid, you men of little faith?"
- "Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful"
1:7 - "God has not given us a spirit of timidity"
C. Greek word eulabeia referring
- "offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and
II. English word "fear" has great range of meaning.
A. Reflex - abrupt and acute sense
of alarm or surprise
B. Thrill - sensation of daring; roller-coaster,
bungee jumping, gambling
C. Wariness - healthy awareness of the
D. Cowardice - timidity, afraid to venture,
E. Apprehension - fret, worry
F. Anxiety - chronic sense of panic and
terror, phobias, dread
G. Awe - honor, respect, reverence
III. What do we fear? (a few examples)
unfamiliar, lack, want, loss, unemployment, economic instability,
loss of support,
isolation, loss of health, cancer, incomprehensible, future,
death, end times,
war, nuclear warfare, bodily harm, social decay, governmental
decline, lack of
being dependent, exposure, darkness, guns, air travel, closed
places, mice, spiders,
fire, storms, earthquakes, catastrophe, heights, work, world,
love, broken relationships, disapproval, what others think, what
others might do,
sexual desirability, what will happen to our family (spouse,
desertion, people, pagans, other races, crowds, the world, opponent,
or embarrassed, loneliness, having nothing to say, offending
inadequacy, inability, responsibility, success, our capability
to hurt, being out of
security, being dependent, being fearful, being exposed, cracking
IV. What does fear do to us? Consequences of fear.
tension, diarrhea, sleeplessness, indigestion, hyperactivity,
problems, increased sexual desire
debilitating, disorganized, distorts reality, warps perception,
our relationship with God, doubts of salvation, question God's
love, His ways, His
question our ability to live as Christian.
V. Why do we fear?
A. Psychological causes?
threatened, perceived danger, feel powerless, inadequate, inferior,
genuine guilt, false
S - insignificance, incompletion
E - isolation, uninvolved
L - instability, insincerity
F - ignorance, impropriety
B. Spiritual causes?
Satan cause us to fear? - II Tim. 1:7; Gen. 3:10
Is fear always wrong? an evil to be overcome? Rev. 21:8
Fear not - Matt. 14:27; 17:7; Mk 5:36; 6:50; Lk. 1:13; 5:10;
8:50; Jn. 12:15; Acts
27:24; Rev. 1:17
Is fear part of being human? Job 41:35
Is fear a deterrent to crime?
Is fear a choice we make to sin? a failure to have faith?
God want us to fear?
Fear God - Acts 9:31; II Cor. 7:1; Col. 3:22; Eph. 5:21; I Pt
Fear the devil - Matt. 10:26-28; Lk. 12:4
Fear judgment - Heb. 10:31
VI. How do we respond to fear?
A. Natural responses
suppress, avoid, insulate, self-protection, rationalize, manipulate,
B. God's intended response
of God - the end of all other fears, the essence of faith
Presence of God - Gen. 15:1; Ps. 23:4; 34:4; 118:6; Isa. 41:10;
43:1,5; Matt. 14:27; 17:6;
Love of God - Ps. 118:4; Lk. 12:32; Rom. 8:15; I John 4:18
Activity of God - Ps. 56:3; Isa. 12:2; Matt. 8:26; John 14:1;
I Pet. 5:7 | <urn:uuid:0c79ff8f-22e0-42a9-93e4-62a26895fc83> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.christinyou.net/pages/fear.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00077-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.784532 | 1,075 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Decision-Making Model Analysis Paper
Before embarking upon this assignment, I never thought much about "Decision-Making Models." In fact, I was somewhat surprised at the sheer number of models I stumbled upon in my research. A quick look at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_making) shows that, for business applications alone, there are well over a dozen decision-making
models to suit any need. Without being cognizant of the fact, the decision-making process at my current work site closely resembles the "Pros & Cons Model."
The purpose of this paper is to introduce the "Pros & Cons Model," discuss the way in which we have implemented it, and espouse some of the benefits of its use. Because the nature of my work site is somewhat sensitive (we work in conjunction with the State of California to develop the Child Welfare Services software used by social workers throughout the state), no names or specific job titles will be mentioned.
Conceptually, the fundamentals of the "Pros & Cons Model" are quite simple. Every cause has an effect; and these effects can be beneficial or detrimental with varying degrees of severity. By considering and researching the possible effects of any given decision, it should be possible to evaluate and modify that decision in such a way as to maximize the positive effects while minimizing the negative.
Moving beyond the fundamental concepts of the "Pros & Cons Model," we have the actual process itself. According to the Berkeley University of California Career Center website (https://www.berkeley.edu), this process consists of seven steps:
1. On a piece of paper, write down the decision you are considering making. Write it as if you had already made the decision (for example, "Accept the XYZ Company job offer
in Los Angeles.")
2. Divide the piece of paper into two columns, with "Pros" at the top of one column. Write down the outcomes of the decision that you believe are positive.
3. In the "Cons" column, write down the outcomes of the decision that are negative or less desirable.
4. In the course of writing down your pros and cons, you will probably notice that there are some outcomes that are uncertain or are too hard to predict. Write these outcomes down on a separate piece of paper.
5. Conduct Research about the outcomes that you are unsure about, then add those to the Pro or Con column.
6. For the outcomes that are simply too hard to predict, you might want to talk with other people to get their input or opinions. If possible, evaluate if the outcome is a pro or con and add that to your table.
7. As you begin to complete the table, it may become clearer if the decision you are considering is advisable.
At my current work site, we follow these steps with minor adaptations tailored to an environment where the positive and negative effects of a decision are perceived differently across departments and parties.
Our decision making process begins with a meeting (don't they always?) In this meeting, representatives of all departments (Design, Development, and Test) and parties (Developer, Customer, and End User) are in attendance and arrive with materials, sent out prior to the meeting, that outline the premise(s) of the decision(s) to be made. Once all members are present and have acknowledged that they have reviewed the materials before them, a discussion takes place where each representative outlines the pros and cons of the current decision from their perspective. After each representative has identified their pros and cons, all participants have the opportunity to suggest modifications to the original decision in order to eliminate the majority of the cons that have been identified. At this point, all of the participants in attendance work together to produce a final decision that maximizes the positive benefits for the group as a whole, while minimizing the negative effects.
The benefits of this process are many. First of all, by having all departments and parties involved in creating the final decision, those decisions are (usually) acceptable and beneficial to everyone involved. Secondly, by having all of the relevant information out on the table, it is easier to make logical and beneficial decisions. Finally, by identifying and sharing such a wide array of pros and cons, there is an increased unlikelihood of a negative effect being unaccounted for.
Again, this is an adaptation of the "Pros & Cons Model" used by a single work site. Use of this process has resulted in the benefits listed above; but this approach will not work in all environments. Before this assignment, I knew very little about the wide array of decision-making models
currently available; but with a little effort and adaptation, my research has shown me that it should be possible for any individual or organization to find something to improve their decision-making abilities.
Berkeley University of California Career Center. (n.d.). Make Decisions. Retrieved April 7, 2006, from https://career.berkeley.edu/Plan/MakeDecisions.stm | <urn:uuid:5e2ab373-3944-42d2-ad5d-2935af296540> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.123helpme.com/decision-making-model-analysis-paper-view.asp?id=164525 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00043-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945348 | 1,024 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Kenyan AIDS Orphans Pass National Exam with the Help of School Lunch
Earth Institute scientist champions school lunch as one way to fight global poverty
At the Bar Sauri Primary School in the village of Yala, Nyanza Province Kenya earlier this month a remarkable thing happened: all the 33 pupils who sat for the national exams passed. "The school took second best position in the district," reported Bashir Jama, Regional Coordinator for the World Agroforestry Center ( www.ICRAF.org ) and member of the Hunger Task Force. More remarkable still, half of the winners are AIDS orphans. The headmistress attributed this remarkable success in part to the school lunch program she initiated through voluntary contributions of farmers in the community.
As soon as Jama heard this news, he reported it to Dr. Pedro Sanchez, Director of the Tropical Agriculture Program at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and co-chair of the Hunger Task Force of the United Nations' Millennium Development Project. (Click here to view recent report.)
"The power of school lunches supported by local farmers is really catching fire," says Sanchez. "The Hunger Task Force strongly supports this great idea" in combination with other feeding programs that target mothers and very young children. It is satisfying, Sanchez added, not only to know that AIDS orphans in Kenya are passing the national exam, but to have further proof of the value of locally supported school lunches.
Other strategies championed by the Hunger Task Force to reduce global hunger, according to the Task Force's Interim Report, include restoring budgetary priority to agriculture as an engine of economic growth, empowering women, and promoting community-based hunger-reduction actions to boost agricultural production, nutrition, rural markets and infrastructure, and environmental sustainability.
The farmers in Yala who contributed the free lunches had been able to dramatically increase their crop yields by using innovative new agroforestry techniques. By using small trees as fertilizer, the farmers had increased their maize yield by two to four times, thus producing a surplus that could help support local school lunches. The donation of a cow to produce milk for the schoolchildren also helped augment the students' nutrition - and ability to learn. As Jama reported, "Best subject was science and the school's cow contributed!"
Sanchez and a delegation from the Earth Institute and the Millennium Project's Hunger Task Force will be visiting the Bar Sauri Primary School in April as part of the Hunger Task Force's work to produce recommendations on actions that can be taken to greatly reduce global hunger.
The delegation will then attend a Food Security conference in Uganda, sponsored by the International Food Policy Research Institute (www.ifpri.org), the first week in April.
The Earth Institute at Columbia University is the world's leading academic center for the integrated study of Earth, its environment, and society. The Earth Institute builds upon excellence in the core disciplines earth sciences, biological sciences, engineering sciences, social sciences and health sciences and stresses cross-disciplinary approaches to complex problems. Through its research, training and global partnerships, it mobilizes science and technology to advance sustainable development, while placing special emphasis on the needs of the world's poor. | <urn:uuid:845cbe05-0998-4cf8-bb2a-8dd0f75cd4ab> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/news/2004/story03-17a-04.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396887.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00177-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943615 | 642 | 2.609375 | 3 |
What’s in an accent?
To truly speak a language fluently, do you need to have the accent too? It’s certainly something that even experienced interpreters can struggle with, particularly as there are so many dialects and regional accents for every language.
Anne Merritt, an English as a foreign language lecturer based in South Korea, writes in the Telegraph that the key to speaking a second language well lies in pronunciation, rather than accent. In fact, she says that battling to perfect an accent “sets you up for failure”.
She explains that it is notoriously difficult to learn an accent different from your own and speak it flawlessly. As any actor who has attempted a regional accent knows, it will almost always be criticised by the people who grew up speaking with that accent. Just ask Oscar-winner Anne Hathaway, who attempted a Yorkshire accent in the 2011 movie One Day. The Telegraph’s Robbie Collin said at the time that it was “impossible to tell” how good Hathaway’s performance in the film was, as every line of dialogue she speaks in it is “masked by one of the most honkingly rubbish Yorkshire accents you’ve ever heard”.
It’s what you say, not how you say it
Luckily, Ms Merritt says being able to speak another language complete with the authentic accent is not essential, and instead people should focus on pronouncing the words in the correct way. She gives five tips for this:
1) Listen and repeat
2) Learn the language’s stress patterns
3) Use a mirror to watch how your mouth moves
4) Practice words in sentences, as context can alter the pronunciation
5) Record your practice sessions and listen back to identify areas for improvement
Her advice for getting to grips with speaking a language fluently includes listening to songs and watching movies recorded in that language in order to mimic the way people speak. She also suggests listening to podcasts, as they can be played at a slower speed in order to hear in detail how a particular sound is made.
It has long been thought learning to speak in a perfect foreign accent is an impossible goal in adulthood. However, a study by linguistics professor at Canada’s Simon Fraser University Murray J Munro and linguist at the University of Alberta Tracy Derwing revealed it is possible to nail the pronunciation. The key is making the goal communicating clearly with people, rather than speaking with an authentic accent.
Time reports that the linguists suggested replacing the “nativeness principle” – the idea of mimicking an accent perfectly – with the “intelligibility principle”, where it’s how understood you are that guides your learning. The authors pointed out that with the correct pronunciation it is possible to understand people speaking a foreign language, even if their native accent is heavy.
“Learners guided by the intelligibility principle focus less attention on individual vowels and consonants, and more attention to the ‘macro’ aspects of language, such as general speaking habits, volume, stress, and rhythm,” Time explained. In order to best learn a language in a way that allows a person to speak it clearly, they should immerse themselves in that language so they can pick up the gist of how it is spoken when a mother tongue.
Speaking like a native
Of course, there will always be an allure to learning accents, but this does not have to involve speaking in a different language. Amy Walker is an actress and singer from the US who has also made a name for herself teaching actors how to speak with different accents. Her website 21 Accents includes a series of films, including one in which she demonstrates 21 accents in just a few minutes.
Ms Walker notes that people attempting to learn a new accent should look for certain quirks in it that they can use as a touchstone. For instance, she says to perfect a standard British accent people should remember to be “clear” as the consonants are pronounced in a crisp way, while the vowels are pure. To master the Australian accent, her tip is to imagine chewing the sounds, while for a deep southern American accent the buzzword is “hang” as the ends of words are left to hang and the ‘Rs’ at the end of words are not pronounced.
What accents do you struggle with, and which are your favourite to speak? | <urn:uuid:254b4c1f-6549-4ec4-a561-d9a641e2a92e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.languageinsight.com/blog/2013/05/03/whats-in-an-accent/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00027-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965405 | 920 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Today, Cambodia’s rights record will be reviewed in the framework of the “Universal Periodic Review” (UPR) at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The UPR is the only opportunity the international community has to engage on human rights with some states.
But not with Cambodia.
In addition to field presence of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, frequent reports by the latter and reviews by UN expert bodies, Cambodia has been on the agenda of the Human Rights Council (HRC), and that of its predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights, for two decades.
Following the 1991 Paris Peace Accords, a Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General (now called Special Rapporteur) was appointed to monitor the country’s human rights situation.
Last September, the HRC extended the mandate held by Professor Surya Subedi, the current Special Rapporteur, for two years. NGOs that pushed for stronger language to be included in the HRC resolution were criticised for their alleged lack of constructiveness.
The end result was a text that failed to mention human rights violations for which the Cambodian authorities are responsible, ranging from arbitrary arrests and violence against peaceful demonstrators, to brutal forced evictions.
The resolution welcomed “efforts and progress” made by the government and encouraged it to pursue judicial and land reform. It simply stressed the need for it to “continue to enhance its efforts to investigate urgently and to prosecute … those who have perpetrated serious crimes”.
Think this is strong language? Let us examine previous resolutions on Cambodia, looking at the issue of impunity.
Resolutions adopted in the 1990s expressed “grave concern” about “numerous violations” and urged the government to address impunity “as a matter of critical and urgent priority” (1997); stressed that “addressing the continuing problem of impunity [remained] a matter of critical and urgent priority” (1998); or “strongly appealed” to the government to “take all necessary measures” to bring perpetrators to account (1999).
Resolutions adopted from 2000-2003 expressed “serious concern” about the prevalence of impunity and called upon the government to “take further measures, as a matter of critical priority” – the word “urgent” disappeared. They welcomed “investigations into some cases of politically motivated violence” (2000) and recognised the government’s “commitment and efforts” (2002).
The 2004-2005 resolutions welcomed Cambodia’s progress “in improving its human rights situation” and urged the government to “address as a matter of priority, inter alia, the climate of impunity” – the word “critical” disappeared.
Then, 2008-2009 HRC resolutions expressed the Council’s “concern about some areas of human rights practices” and urged Cambodia to “continue to address [. . .] the problem of impunity” – what was before a “climate” of impunity merely became a “problem”.
Finally, 2010 and 2011 resolutions urged the government to investigate and prosecute “all those who have perpetrated serious crimes”. The word “impunity” disappeared altogether.
The resolutions were of a merely “technical assistance” character and contained no condemnatory language.
The weak, de-politicised 2013 resolution was the obvious next step.
In fact, by failing to condemn ongoing impunity and abuse of power in the run-up to last year’s election, and adopting weaker and weaker resolutions, the international community allowed the continuation of a system in which, whenever challenged, the Prime Minister reacts by using the only language he knows: brute force.
What we witnessed in the last decade was merely the illusion of progress. The relative decline in political violence was due to fear, not consolidation of the rule of law.
Up to 2003-2004, the most serious human rights violations perpetrated in Cambodia were related to political struggles – ie, struggles over control of the state apparatus and the spoil system and patronage possibilities that come with it.
After that date, once CPP hegemony had been firmly established, most human rights abuses were committed in relation to economic struggles, as loyalties had to be bought and cronies had to be fed.
But as CPP rule is being challenged, the regime is proving that it still regards violence as a legitimate political strategy. They feel authorised to use the army to shoot at protesters, ban all public gatherings and detain citizens incommunicado.
And they do so in part because they know there will be no international outcry – only, possibly, more “technical assistance”.
Cambodia’s donors – who are the main sponsors of UN resolutions on the country – should put their response in line with the political reality, and that response should not be limited to technical assistance.
It should involve a full range of human rights tools: monitoring, reporting and condemnatory stances. This can start today with the UPR.
What Cambodia needs is strong institutions, not strong men. Rule of law will not come as a by-product of technical assistance.
As long as donors will not demand real reform in exchange for aid, there will be no progress.
Human rights are inescapably political. They are about imposing limits on the exercise of power.
In Cambodia, greater respect for human rights, legal safeguards and checks and balances will mean undermining the regime and its cronies, whose rule is based on injustice, violence and impunity.
Technical assistance will be no substitute for political will.
United Nations at the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) | <urn:uuid:7753383a-4aa3-4c6d-bf86-48bfe3bcc30e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.phnompenhpost.com/analysis-and-op-ed/message-donors-cambodia | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397562.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00016-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94972 | 1,184 | 2.515625 | 3 |
As humans age, their brains may need to work harder to multitask, new research from Japan suggests.
In the study, older people's brains showed more activity in the frontal regions when multitasking compared to the brains of multitasking younger people. Frontal regions of the brain control complex tasks, such as memory, attention and planning.
The increased activity in these areas suggests multitasking is more mentally demanding for older people, the researchers said. This, in turn, may be related to the overall decline in brain function associated with age. [Want a Younger Brain? Try Eating Omega-3.]
The study involved 20 younger people, ages 21 to 35, and 15 older adults, ages 69 to 87.
Participants wore a device that measures the amount of blood flowing to the frontal regions of the brain. Measurements were taken as participants performed one of three activities: a physical task that consisted of stepping in place while sitting down, a mental task that consisted of performing a calculation, and a dual task that consisted of performing both the physical and mental task at the same time.
In all participants, blood flow to the frontal regions increased in the calculation and dual tasks. This revealed increased brain activity in those regions, since activity in brain cells leads to higher blood flow. By contrast, blood flow to the frontal regions did not increase in the physical task, likely because these areas of the brain do not control motor functions.
Researchers found the greatest difference between the groups during multitasking: Older people had higher levels of blood flow to their frontal regions than did younger people, and the increases in blood flow lasted for a longer time in the older individuals.
Older participants also took fewer steps during multitasking than they did when performing the physical task by itself. On the other hand, older people performed just as many calculations correctly in the dual task as they did when performing the mental task by itself.
"It appears that older participants may turn their attention to the execution of the calculation task at the expense of the stepping task, while young subjects are able to maintain appropriate attention to both calculation and stepping," the researchers wrote in the Jan. 18 issue of the journal BMC Neuroscience.
"This finding suggests that older participants required increased [prefrontal cortex] activation in order to maintain attention to both the stepping and calculating tasks," the researchers wrote. The prefrontal cortex is one region in the front of the brain.
Pass it on: Frontal regions of the brain are more active when multitasking in older people compared to younger people. | <urn:uuid:d546d0b6-e532-4d17-bb19-1c40d9637433> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.livescience.com/26419-brain-activity-multitasking.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398216.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00173-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959576 | 512 | 3.609375 | 4 |
Browse Results For:
The First Amendment to the Constitution states that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press, but the definitions of "press," of "freedom," and even of "abridgment" have evolved by means of judicial rulings on cases concerning the limits and purposes of press freedoms. _x000B__x000B_In How Free Can the Press Be? Randall P. Bezanson explores the changes in understanding of press freedom in America by discussing in depth nine of the most pivotal and provocative First Amendment cases in U.S. judicial history. These cases were argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, state Supreme Courts, and even a local circuit court, and concerned matters ranging from The New York Times's publication of the Pentagon Papers to Hugo Zacchini, the human cannonball who claimed television broadcasts of his act threatened his livelihood. Other cases include a politician blackballed by the Miami Herald and prevented from responding in its pages, the Pittsburgh Press arguing it had the right to employ gender-based column headings in its classified ads section, and the victim of a crime suing the Des Moines Register over that paper's publication of intimate details, including the victim's name. Each case resulted in a ruling that refined or reshaped judicial definition of the limits of press freedom._x000B__x000B_Does the First Amendment give the press a special position under the law? Is editorial judgment a cornerstone of the press? Does the press have a duty to publish truth and fact, to present both sides of a story, to respect the privacy of individuals, to obtain its information through legally acceptable means? How does press freedom weigh against national security? Bezanson addresses these and other questions, examining the arguments on both sides, and using these landmark cases as a springboard for a wider discussion of the meaning and limits of press freedom.
Provincial Newspapers and the Negotiation of a Muslim National Identity
The modern nation-state of Turkey was established in 1923, but when and how did its citizens begin to identify themselves as Turks? Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Turkey’s founding president, is almost universally credited with creating a Turkish national identity through his revolutionary program to “secularize” the former heartland of the Ottoman Empire. Yet, despite Turkey’s status as the lone secular state in the Muslim Middle East, religion remains a powerful force in Turkish society, and the country today is governed by a democratically elected political party with a distinctly religious (Islamist) orientation. In this history, Gavin D. Brockett takes a fresh look at the formation of Turkish national identity, focusing on the relationship between Islam and nationalism and the process through which a “religious national identity” emerged. Challenging the orthodoxy that Atatürk and the political elite imposed a sense of national identity from the top down, Brockett examines the social and political debates in provincial newspapers from around the country. He shows that the unprecedented expansion of print media in Turkey between 1945 and 1954, which followed the end of strict, single-party authoritarian government, created a forum in which ordinary people could inject popular religious identities into the new Turkish nationalism. Brockett makes a convincing case that it was this fruitful negotiation between secular nationalism and Islam—rather than the imposition of secularism alone—that created the modern Turkish national identity.
How Corporate Journalism Killed the Arkansas Gazette
An Oral History
When Africa stumbled into independence in the 1960s, the blossoming of newspapers of nearly every political persuasion was widely hailed as a critical stepping stone toward true multiparty democracy. However, rather than marking a clean break with an authoritarian past, the era of multiparty politics in Africa has been a time of increased hardship and repression for journalists who dare criticize powerful incumbents. Media repression continues to rise. After decades of retreat, authoritarian regimes are using social media and other sophisticated systems in a new era of repression to thwart democracy and trample human rights. For consecutive decades, the state of freedom has declined � more people in more places face more repression. While systemic torture in war-torn Somalia and the return of a military dictatorship in Egypt captured headlines, there is also widespread, insidious and 21st-century style surveillance elsewhere with abuse or imprisonment or both of political activists. For the media to play its role as priests of democracy, Tatah Mentan maintains that media freedom must be rigorously defended as integral to the democratic way of life.
The Best of Cameroon Report' (1978 - 1986)
Working for Cameroon state-owned Radio in the 1970s and ë80s meant toeing the official line and learning not to sing out of tune. While the rather scanty private press that existed at the time was subject to prior censorship, a different kind of censorship ñ self-censorship prevailed at the Radio where topics for commentaries were vetted by the Minister of Information or his delegate. But for Anglophones working in a predominantly francophone environment, once topics were approved, the authorities could not be sure which direction commentaries were going to take as the journalists applied the tactics of ëbite and blowí, sometimes giving full expression of their Anglo-Saxon spirit of debate and critical analysis as evidenced in this selection of commentaries from the Sunday morning commentary programme, ìCameroon Reportî (now ìCameroon Callingî) of the late 1970ís up till 1986. It is a showcase of the irrepressible seed of freedom of expression that Anglophone journalists were imbued with and demonstrated at a time when subjects related to coups díÈtat, human rights and governance were considered taboo. It was and shall remain the indelible input of the Anglophone character that has had a positive influence on Cameroonís media landscape.
This enlightening book offers a collection of histories of underground papers from the Vietnam Era as written and told by key staff members of the time. Their stories (as well as those to be included in Part 2, forthcoming) represent a wide range of publications: counterculture, gay, lesbian, feminist, Puerto Rican, Native American, Black, socialist, Southern consciousness, prisoner's rights, New Age, rank-and-file, military, and more. The edition includes forewords by former Chicago Seed editor Abe Peck, radical attorney William M. Kunstler, and Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos, along with an introductory essay by Ken Wachsberger.
Wachsberger notes that the underground press not only produce a few well-known papers but also was truly national and diverse in scope. His goal is to capture the essence of "the countercultural community."
A fundamental resource for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of a dramatic era in U.S. history.
This enlightening book offers a collection of histories of underground papers from the Vietnam Era as written and told by key staff members of the time. Their stories, building on those presented in Part 1, represent a wide range of publications: countercultural, gay, lesbian, feminist, Puerto Rican, Native American, Black, socialist, Southern consciousness, prisoners’ rights, New Age, rank-and-file, military, and more. Wachsberger notes that the underground press not only produced a few well-known papers but also was truly national and diverse in scope. His goal is to capture the essence of “the countercultural community.” This book will be a fundamental resource for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of a dramatic era in U.S. history, as well as offering a younger readership a glimpse into a generation of idealists who rose up to challenge and improve government and society.
A Day in the Rhetorical Life of Colin Powell's U.N. Address | <urn:uuid:29636813-4008-4919-a20a-2cd6017df2e3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://muse.jhu.edu/browse/library_science_and_publishing/journalism?items_per_page=10&browse_view_type=default&m=41 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393463.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00138-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95134 | 1,587 | 2.875 | 3 |
GRAND RAPIDS, MI – As rain falls and flood waters rise, health officials are offering tips for staying safe and reminding residents to have a plan for dealing with storms.
Don’t try to drive through roads covered with water, says the Kent County Health Department. The road could be washed out or swept away by a strong current
Avoid floodwaters, officials add. The water may contain debris, gasoline or raw sewage.
A plan for dealing with storms is as important as a fire escape plan, said Adam London, the acting health officer for Kent County.
“Think of creating a plan based on your typical day,” he said. “If Mom and Dad work across town from each other, kids are in school, and roads home are closed due to debris, what would you do to reunite after a storm? It’s helpful to review how to react to different situations.”
He suggests considering several meeting places in different directions where the family could meet. Also, families should determine one person whom everyone would contact by phone, text or email during an emergency.
If the person is out of town, he or she might have better lines of communication if phones in town don’t work.
Other tips from the health department include:
• If floodwaters get in your home, clean and disinfect everything that got wet.
• If you see a downed power line, do not approach it, call 911.
• Damaged sewer systems can create serious health hazards. Service any damage to septic systems as soon as possible.
• Prepare enough food and water at home to last at least three days. Consider storing one gallon of water per person per day, as well as three days of non-perishable food, such as canned goods, protein bars and canned fruit.
• Learn more about emergency preparedness at the Get Ready Kent County website. | <urn:uuid:9e477403-cc4f-4755-93f5-317853938c30> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2013/04/do_you_have_a_storm_plan_healt.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396224.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00017-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965821 | 390 | 2.84375 | 3 |
After researchers pored over seven surveys and tests by public and private groups, they found a clear and dramatic decline in the amount teens and pre-adolescents are reading. The analysis is outlined in a study released on Sunday by the San Francisco-based Common Sense Media, which looked solely on reading trends and achievement overtime.
The most recent data reported that 45 percent of 17-year-olds only read for pleasure one or two times a year. In 2012, 19 percent of students reported reading every day, which is a quick drop compared to the 31 percent who were reading daily in 1984. By 1980, there were one million personal computers in the world. Today, the United States alone has over 310 million personal computer owners, according to the Computer Industry Almanac Inc. census.
The digital revolution has inundated children and teens with cellphones, tablets, laptops, and other platforms to distract themselves from the bookshelf. This has led researchers to questions if there is a link between the increase in technology and decrease in reading levels.
James Steyer, CEO and founder of Common Sense Media, has four kids and says he has seen the trend most with his 16-year-old. "And I start to see it in our 10-year-old, as well, because he is less and less reading, and more and more attracted to some of the digital media platforms that he has access to, and that he did not have access to when he was, say, 6 or 7 years old," he said.
The study did not conclude that digital platforms are the culprit, but the researchers analyzing the data did think it was an obvious connection. They also pointed out that the impact of electronic reading, such as e-books and reading on social media, such as Twitter, has not been evaluated yet.
"First of all, most children now have access to e-readers, or other smart electronic devices like phones and tablets," he said. "And they're spending time on that. Numerous reports show the increasing use of new technology platforms by kids. It just strikes me as extremely logical that that's a big factor."
In terms of national test taking abilities and reading comprehension, there has been an improvement in fourth and eight graders since 1992; however, education researchers are not impressed. Only 46 percent of Caucasian students are proficient in reading, and when race is taken into account, it becomes worse.
Among African-Americans, only 18 percent of fourth graders and 17 percent of eighth graders are considered proficient readers from test evaluations. Latinos sit a little higher, at 20 percent and 22 percent respectively.
Is there a difference in gender? Of course there is. In fact, the study shows a gender gap of 30 percent of girls ages 15 to 17, who say they read five to seven days a week, while only 18 percent of boys say they read that often.
"That gap," Steyer said, "is shamefully huge."
Steyer emphasizes the need for a national education effort aimed at reading with the collaborative effort of parents, schools, businesses, and policy makers, while there is already an ongoing effort to improve upon STEM programs (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).
New types of educational programs are emerging throughout major cities, known as Pathways in Technology Early College High School or P-Tech for short. Students enroll based on a lottery system, and those who make it are given a highly STEM-focused education that lasts them for six years. Why so long? Students graduate with a high school and associate’s degree with a guarantee $40,000 job at graduation.
These P-Tech schools were originally developed by IBM, the New York City department of education, and the City University of New York. They are an innovative approach to the U.S. education system in order to fill the need from industry by pushing the importance of STEM programs and de-emphasizing a four-year liberal arts education.
The post-World War II period was the last time state governments decided to reevaluate the education system. They made high school, previously optional, mandatory. The move was made to ensure the future populations would have a more skilled workforce in order to compete with a newer, higher-tech industrial era, according to Time. Researchers, such as Steyer, believe it’s reading’s turn to steal the focus of lawmakers and drag the heavy burden of low reading levels.
"This is a cause for genuine concern," Steyer said. "As a father of four and an educator, I think reading is so essential to kids' academic success and long-term well-being."
Steyer also recommends parents to step up and set the standard for their children, by providing model behavior and increasing their own reading time. The study did find that about half of all parents read to their children under 12-years-old every day.
Researchers hope to pursue further studies to determine how e-books affect children’s reading proficiency through retention and comprehension, especially since it is such a new phenomenon in this new digitally pervasive world. | <urn:uuid:edc54351-105a-4bb8-86d3-e153b7b2296a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.medicaldaily.com/reading-levels-drop-among-teens-while-race-and-gender-gaps-remain-281766 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00011-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975009 | 1,040 | 2.578125 | 3 |
WASHINGTON, DC July 11, 2007 -- Chronic mild stress in pregnant mothers may increase the risk that their offspring will develop cerebral palsy--a group of neurological disorders marked by physical disability--according to new research in mice. The results may be the first to demonstrate such effects of stress on animals in the womb.
The new study, led by Pierre Gressens, MD, PhD, of Inserm in France, used a mouse model to test whether exposure to minimal but repeated stress throughout gestation would make the offspring more vulnerable to brain lesions similar to those observed in children with cerebral palsy. The findings are published in the July 11 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. Inserm, l'Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale, is the French public biomedical research agency.
"These findings are consistent with growing evidence that constant stress, even minimal, can have a major impact on the quality of life," says Victoria Luine, PhD, distinguished professor of psychology at New York's Hunter College, who did not participate in the research.
In the study, the scientists adjusted the normal cycle of light and dark that the pregnant mice were accustomed to for half of the mice, subjecting them to a mild level of stress. Then the researchers exposed the brains of the developing fetuses to injury. When the brains of the young mice were examined on birth, Gressens and his team found that the offspring born from stressed mothers showed brain lesions about twice as big as those in offspring of unstressed mothers.
"Determining the impact of gestational stress on the incidence of cerebral palsy would be of paramount interest," says Gressens. "Limiting stress during human pregnancy might prove to be a cost-efficient way to reduce the human, emotional, social and economic burden of cerebral palsy."
The work was a supported by Inserm, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, the Universités Paris 6 and 7, the Fondation Grace de Monaco, the association Société d'Etudes et de Soins pour les Enfants Paralysés et Polymalformés, the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, and the Académie Nationale de Médicine.
The Journal of Neuroscience is published by the Society for Neuroscience, an organization of more than 36,500 basic scientists and clinicians who study the brain and nervous system.
Gressens can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:6eb82c27-6d47-4b5c-a255-698e2613468f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-07/sfn-msi070907.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404382.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00000-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904465 | 525 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Many toys from the past are made of wood. Wood is strong and can be carved into different shapes. Plastic could not be used in the past because people did not know how to make plastic then.
Look at these wooden toys from the past.
Do you know what they are called and how you play with them?
The building blocks would have been used to help children to learn their letter sounds and to spell.
What do you use to learn your letter sounds?
You may have these toys to play with now.
Is anything different between these old toys and your new ones? | <urn:uuid:2a21edef-e7b0-4fe3-90ed-877e484166a6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mylearning.org/toys-from-the-past/p-3125/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396875.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00010-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987099 | 120 | 2.71875 | 3 |
A majority of Americans don't consider the foods they eat to have an effect on their vision, but you can eat your way to healthier vision. There are foods naturally designed to maintain eye health that may have an important role in keeping your eyes healthy and protecting them from age-related eye diseases.
As Americans live longer, vision-related problems affecting older Americans will increase. Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) affects one in three people over the age of 75 and is the leading cause of blindness in older Americans.
Carrots are probably the first food to come to mind when thinking about foods good for your eyes. But there are other vegetables also rich in vision-enhancing nutrients that top the list.
Spinach is one of the best food sources for lutein. Lutein and zeaxanthin may slow the progression of and even possibly improve AMD and the development of cataracts. Surprisingly, lutein in cooked spinach is absorbed easier than in raw spinach. Dark leafy green and gold foods, including spinach, kale, corn, collard greens, broccoli, squash and eggs, are where lutein and zeaxanthin are found.
Along with being a rich source of vitamin A and lutein, kale provides several other sight-saving nutrients, including vitamin C and vitamin B6. Kale is an excellent source of vitamin C, which has been shown to reduce the risk of cataracts and AMD. New studies have also found B vitamins, include B6, may help lower the risk of AMD.
Another super food for your eyes is winter squash, such as butternut squash. One serving (1 cup) of squash provides 300 percent of the daily value for vitamin A. Vitamin A has been found to help lessen the risk of AMD and cataracts. One study reported up to a 43 percent lower risk for AMD in people who consumed a high intake of vitamin A. Try frozen squash, found in the frozen vegetable section, when squash is not in season.
If you eat sweet potatoes only at Thanksgiving, you might want to reconsider eating this eye-healthy food in your diet year-round. That's because a sweet potato is one the best foods you can eat for vitamin A. In fact, one serving (medium-size sweet potato), gives you 360 percent of the daily value for vitamin A. When sweet potatoes are not an option, try sweet potato fries. Sweet potato fries are available in the frozen food section and one serving of these tasty fries gives you 100 percent of your daily need for vitamin A. Try the recipe below for a delicious dipping sauce to go with sweet potato fries.
In general, eat a wide variety of vegetables and fruits that are dark green, gold and orange in color to boost the nutrients known to help with vision health.
Sweet Potato Fries with Maple Dipping Sauce
All you need
1 (22-oz) pkg frozen sweet potato fries
1?4 cup light sour cream
1?4 cup low-fat plain yogurt
2 tsp maple syrup
1?4 tsp ground cinnamon
All you do
1. Cook sweet potato fries according to package directions.
2. Meanwhile, for sauce, in a small bowl combine sour cream, yogurt, maple syrup and cinnamon.
Serve fries with dipping sauce.
Nutrition facts per serving: 205 calories, 8g fat, 1g saturated fat, 5mg cholesterol, 200mg sodium, 33g carbohydrate, 4g fiber, 3g protein
Source: Try Foods International
Katie Wilhelmi is a registered dietitian at the New Ulm Hy-Vee. | <urn:uuid:8eac36b2-2a2c-4690-97b6-3e03d5b48172> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nujournal.com/page/content.detail/id/550001/Eat-your-veggies--see-well.html?nav=5087 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00118-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923276 | 744 | 2.796875 | 3 |
'Congo' is a magnificent, epic look at the history of the region
In 'Congo,' Belgian author and historian David Van Reybrouck tells a story rife with plunder, exploitation, violence, corruption – and human resiliency.
David Van Reybrouck’s magnificent Congo: The Epic History of a People, as translated from the Dutch by the award-winning Sam Garrett, is truly an “epic” work. It spans the history of the Congo from the arrival of British explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley in August of 1877 to today’s nearly two-decade-old civil war over the so-called “rare earth” minerals prized because of their use in cell phone technology.
Van Reybrouck’s introduction provides a comprehensive sketch of the period, including the “pre-Stanley” era of circa 1500, with extensive discussion of the international slave trade undertaken by Portuguese merchants. This trade, which lasted until approximately 1850, eventually devastated the population of the Congo region. And over that same time period, there occurred rampant proselytizing of the Catholic faith, first by the Portuguese and later by the Italian Capuchins, monks of the Franciscan order.
Stanley’s arrival, eight years before the famous – or rather, infamous – Berlin Conference, where the powers of Europe essentially determined the future of Africa, was a critical moment in the Congo region’s history.
Stanley had already “found” the presumably lost physician David Livingstone on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in 1871 and was now being commissioned by London ‘s Daily Telegraph and the New York Herald to cross Central Africa from east to west – “a staggering journey through festering swamps, hostile tribal territories, and murderous rapids.” Starting in 1882, Stanley, armed with contracts from King Leopold II of Belgium, moved from one Congolese village chieftain to the next, entering into treaties with them. Within four years, more than 400 such treaties were established. Van Reybrouck asserts, “They were written without exception in French or English, languages the chieftains did not understand … those treaties did very much stipulate that they, as chieftains, surrendered all their territory along with all subordinate rights to paths, fishing, toll-keeping, and trade.”
The Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 convened by the German leader Otto von Bismarck, effectively placed the sovereignty of the Congo in Leopold’s hands. Leopold’s Association Internationale du Congo was granted authority over “an enormous section of central Africa” – the so-called Congo Free State – even though Leopold never set foot in the region. As Van Reybrouck notes, the legacy of the Free State was “notorious not so much for its vague borders as for its crushing regime – the bloodiest in the nation’s history.” And to oversee Leopold’s imperial ambitions, he named to the Free State’s administration men whom Van Reybrouck labels as “racists and sadists.” Torture, abuses of power, and massacres occurred with monotonous regularity.
As the post-World War I era arrived, there was some relative prosperity among the Congolese, but there were always ways in which the colonial “patrons” kept the people in line. Smoke-filled, whites-only restaurants like the Cerele Albert in Elisabethville were where decisions were made about the lives and futures of the indigenous black population. There was censorship of films and schooling was managed by the missionaries, which would “mold the masses in the desired shape.” For example, pupils were taught everything about the Belgian royal family, but nothing about the American civil rights movement.
Paul Lomami Tshibamba, the first giant of Congolese literature, wrote of his time in the Leopoldville of the 1920s, “The colonizer did everything to convince us we were big children, that we would remain that way.… My generation no longer knew our parents’ traditions; we were born in this city founded by colonials, in this city where the life of a man was subordinate to the power of money … without money, you ended up in prison.”
Religion and colonial power meshed seamlessly and cultivated a “servility” that provided diamond-mining entities like Union Minière with “happy and tractable workers.” Even the relative prosperity city dwellers attained was infused with European and other cultural influences. Cuban 78 r.p.m. records were particularly popular, effectively bringing music home from the Caribbean, which had received so many Congolese slaves in centuries past. Also, the music of tenor Enrico Caruso could occasionally be heard wafting from huts, and starched collars and elegant hats enjoyed a wide favorability.
As the 1930s progressed, Congo’s cities were strictly delineated by white and black centers, as were graveyards and even soccer matches, where black and white teams did not compete with each other, “out of fear for riots after a defeat or humiliation after a victory.” And after a white man had been murdered by a Congolese, the colonial newspaper L’Avenir concluded that any African threatening the life of a white man should face the death penalty.
During World War II, Belgium had sided with the Allies but collapsed to the German army in a matter of weeks, its exiled government moving to London. The Congo’s Force Publique, aiding the Allied cause with over 3,000 soldiers, was instrumental in defeating a superior Italian force at Saio, near the Sudanese border. However, as Van Reybrouck notes, its contributions in winning the war are virtually unknown today.
In the bombing of Hiroshima at the conclusion of the war, the bomb itself was constructed with the Congo’s yellow cake uranium. In fact, the mine at Shinolobwe had “the world’s largest confirmed deposit of uranium.” The Congo was also an invaluable source of other raw materials, the supply of which in Southeast Asia and other regions had been cut off from the Allies – copper, tin, zinc, rubber, cotton, and quinine being just a few. By 1945, the Congo had become the second most industrialized sub-Saharan African country after South Africa.
The rubber industry exacted a particularly significant toll on its workers, where “red rubber” had pushed workers deep into the tropical forests, where they encountered predators, tse-tse flies, and sleeping sickness, the latter of which affected as much as 20% of the equatorial forest’s population.
A decline in the political and economic fortunes of Belgium had made the country more dependent on the Congo than vice-versa. And following a cataclysmic strike by mine workers at Matadi and the fall of the Third Reich in 1945, a relative stability and calm fell upon the Congo, lasting for a decade. Belgium, understanding these dynamics, proposed a “Belgian-Congolese Community” reform initiative; however, it ultimately proved fruitless as most Belgians were unable to summon any empathy for the Congolese perspective.
In the post-war period, there was a relative freedom in the region, with Kinshasa becoming “a city of fashion, elegance and coquetry;" there was also a vibrant musical culture developing as well as clubs and associations. The enlightened men (women were excluded) who embraced these developments were known as évolués.
In 1955 an article by Belga press writer Jef Van Bilsen called “A Thirty Year Plan for the Political Emancipation of Belgian Africa” was published in the magazine of the Flemish Catholic Workers’ Association, De Gids. It basically blindsided the colonials and threw more tinder on an already smoldering unrest in the region. Next the founding of the political party Mouvement National Congolais (MNC) in 1958 gave rise to the charismatic Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. And finally, there was Jan. 4, 1959, the day on which Van Reybrouck says “everything changes,” when over 20,000 Congolese gathering at the Stade Roi Baudouin (named after the Belgian’s puppet King Baudouin) demanded independence for their country following a soccer match.
Riots and fires in Leopoldville soon ensued, and Lumumba, Joseph Kasavubu, and other Congolese opposition leaders were imprisoned for a short time, even through Kasavubu had actively preached peaceful resistance and civil disobedience.
In April of 1959, Lumumba convened a meeting of the country’s eight political parties in order to combine forces, resulting in Congo’s first congress, and in January of 1960, 150 men (including Lumumba) gathered at the Palais de Congrès in Brussels where Belgium had granted Congo numerous political concessions but also exposed fissures in the Congolese political opposition.
May of 1960 saw the election of Joseph Kasavubu as the Congo’s first president, with Lumumba his prime minister. Between this year and 1965, notes Van Reybrouck, there “was an apocalyptic era in which everything that could go wrong did go wrong.” There were invasions by the Belgian army and United Nations forces, an exodus out of the country by Belgian nationals, and a military mutiny – and that was just for starters. Lumumba responded by installing his ally Victor Lundula as the head of the army and named as his deputy former journalist Joseph Désiré Mobutu. Thus began a five-year series of attempts by the Congolese government to contain unrest, which included violence against Belgians.
Frustrated by a UN Security Council Resolution which the Kasavubu administration thought didn’t go far enough in sanctioning the Belgians, Lumumba sent an ill-fated telegram to Moscow which was immediately leaked to the CIA and began to cause concerns in Washington. Van Reybrouck suggests that this was less political brinkmanship than just outright panic. But as a consequence, US President Dwight Eisenhower refused to meet with him and US Deputy Secretary of State C. Douglas Dillon cited Lumumba’s “irrational, almost psychotic personality.” At this point, having alienated the US, the UN, and even his own president, Lumumba was seemingly supported only by the Soviet Union.
But Lumumba’s fortunes plummeted even further when, following the South Kasai region’s secession, he ordered what UN Secretary Dag Hammarskjold termed a genocide. Not long afterward, Kasavubu removed him from office. President Eisenhower even ordered the CIA to “liquidate” Lumumba: “In true James Bond style, [Lumumba] was to be poisoned with a tube of hyper-toxic toothpaste.” In January of 1962, Lumumba was arrested by Mobutu and murdered by Katangan forces. Revolutionary fever gripped the country. The Congo was even visited by Cuban revolutionary leader Che Guevara, although he left after only seven months, having decided that a revolution would be unworkable.
By 1965, Mobutu, who had replaced Lumumba as Congo’s prime minister, had overthrown President Kasavubu’s government and, with the arrival of 1971, declared the country to be known as Zaire. The first decade of Mobutu’s presidency had been “electric,” in the words of Congo writer Vincent Lombume. He declared Lumumba a national hero, a savvy political maneuver that neutralized the still simmering opposition from Lumumba’s followers. He also lavished largesse on the army, both reinforcing loyalty and modernizing the institution.
The first five years of Mobutu’s leadership featured massacres, executions, and torture, but he also managed to deliver “bread and circuses” to the Congolese masses. He even invited the Apollo 11 astronauts to Zaire, and in 1974, the country hosted a boxing match between heavyweights Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, known popularly as the “Rumble in the Jungle.” Mobutu also reformed higher education by consolidating the country’s three universities into one entity.
However, Mobutu was also clearly an admirer of Chinese leader Mao Tse Tung and required all Congolese men to disregard Western clothing and don the “abacost," a high-necked outfit based on Mao’s own garment. And, in another nod toward totalitarianism, he banned Western music in favor of Zairian, constructed state-endorsed monuments around the countryside, and produced telecasts praising the “dear leader” in addition to other state-sponsored propaganda. Mobutu himself became increasingly isolated, concerned more with protecting his own interests than the nation’s.
Mobutu’s political descent began in the 1970s, when he spent money recklessly and selfishly, at one point printing so much that he found himself having to print twice as much just so he could pay the printer. A currency crisis in 1979 that produced staggering inflation was seemingly inevitable, as were charges of corruption and public anger over the cutting back of public services.
Between 1990 and the 1997 – the last year of his reign – Mobutu held on to power based perhaps exclusively on his cunning and recalcitrance. It was the death throes of a dictator taking the country down with him as he fell. He crushed student protests with the army he was slowly losing control of. And in February of 1992, another catastrophic event saw Mobutu crushing a protest in Kinshasa, the March of Hope led by the charismatic priest Abbé José Mpundu. In August of that same year, the Congo’s Sovereign National Conference nominated Étienne Tshisekedi, leader of the Union Sacrée de l’Opposition as the country’s new prime minister in a transitional government.
The 1997 ascension to the presidency of Laurent-Désiré Kabila and his Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération (AFDL) spelled the end of Mobutu’s leadership. With no money, no foreign aid, and no functioning army, the country was collapsing. Kabila defeated Mobutu in the first three “Congo wars” and Mobutu subsequently fled for Europe.
Kabila’s feckless leadership was defined by alienation from the AFDL, the democratic opposition, and the press (which he had effectively silenced). And he did himself no favors with the UN by refusing to allow them in the country to investigate the mass extermination of Hutu refugees from the Rwandan civil war. Van Reybrouck described Kabila as “no longer the voice of a sly fox, but of a clodhopper.”
The Second Congo War (1998-2003) was marked chiefly by a Rwandan and Ugandan invasion of the Congo in the wake of the Rwandan genocide that put them in control of half of the country’s territory. During this period, Rwanda and Uganda engaged in a pillaging of the Congo’s vast natural resources, often at the point of a gun. Gold, diamonds, tin, niobium, and tantalum, as well as coltan (the mineral used in cell phone production) were excavated in huge tonnages by Congolese who typically worked in horrible conditions for no pay.
Right behind the Rwandans and Ugandans in this ill-gotten harvest were shady arms dealers, crooked businessmen, multinational companies, and shadowy intermediaries. But another horrific byproduct of this rush to plunder was the wholesale killing of elephants for their ivory tusks. On one reservation, over 3,000 elephants were slaughtered for their ivory.
Following the murder of Kabila in 2001, his son Joseph became president. Though at the time he seemed feeble and relatively young (29 years old), he began an important reform movement that helped oust Rwanda and Uganda from the Congo region by way of a series of 2002 peace talks. But, as Van Reybrouck cautions, “today, Rwanda displays all the qualities of a blossoming military dictatorship, while neighboring Congo remains huge, sluggish and weak, and unable to deal with the problems of the day.”
Soon after, Kabila, almost predictably, fell into a pattern of violence against political opponents, but still managed to triumph (58 percent to 42 percent) in the voting over his main challenger, Jean-Pierre Bemba, in the country’s 2006 election. Kabila had the distinction of being the first democratically elected president of the Congo since Joseph Kasavubu.
In 2007, with the arrival of the world financial crisis, European companies moved out of the Congo in droves and were being replaced by Chinese ones with virtually unlimited funds at their disposal. In September of that year, China signed a “mega-deal” with Congo that sealed a joint-venture with three Chinese state-owned enterprises that gave Congo a 32% share to China’s 68%. The enterprise would be allowed to excavate 10 million metric tons of copper and 600,000 metric tons of cobalt in Katanga. The reaction from the West (including the World Bank and International Monetary Fund) was, understandably, panicked.
Van Reybrouck puts this Sino-Congolese agreement in perspective with those of its Western counterparts in perhaps his most compelling passage:
“[T]he generous trade relations that China maintains with Zimbabwe and Sudan demonstrate that for Beijing, human rights are no sacred criterion.… [F]or China, commercial interests currently take precedence over humanitarian ones.… [T]his sounds opportunistic, but it is no more or less opportunistic than the way France, Belgium and the United States kept Mobutu in the saddle in the 1980s. Among western regimes, respect for human rights dates only from the 1990s”.
Another interesting current phenomenon is the exodus of Congolese to the Chinese city of Guangzhou. On any given day, the length of the queue in front of the Chinese consulate in Kinshasa resembles what one might see at a rock concert. For many, escape is the only option.
Overall, the Congo, in Van Reybrouck’s eyes, is a story of plunder, exploitation, violence and corruption at its highest levels. But it is also one of human resiliency in the face of constant struggles. Van Reybrouck befriended and interviewed hundreds of ordinary Congolese – the musicians, writers, storytellers, merchants, and countless others who demonstrate in a very human way the unshakable belief that their country will prosper again.
If there were one area I wished Van Reybrouck had examined, it would be the AIDS crisis in the Congo that, since 1981, has claimed nearly 30 million Africans. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta had estimated that by 1985, the incidence of AIDS in Kinshasa was between fifteen and thirty times greater than in the U.S.
But all told, "Congo" is a remarkable work of research, with over sixty pages of footnotes and sources. Van Reybrouck has woven a narrative that stands admirably among some recently published works on the ravages of colonial occupations, such as Julia Flynn Siler’s chronicle of the overthrow of the Hawaiian royal family, "Lost Kingdom;" Gregg Jones’ "Honor in the Dust," about the U.S. incursion into the Philippines during the Spanish American War; and Evan Thomas’ brilliant "The War Lovers," about Theodore Roosevelt, William Randolph Hearst, and the American involvement in Cuba during that same conflict. And certainly, it joins Adam Hochschild’s "King Leopold’s Ghost" as a monumental contribution to the annals of Congo scholarship.
Chris Hartman is a Monitor contributor. | <urn:uuid:71291073-0b1b-4ba5-a8d2-c83eaa32a849> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2014/0604/Congo-is-a-magnificent-epic-look-at-the-history-of-the-region | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00119-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965832 | 4,255 | 3.046875 | 3 |
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — With more kids online and using cell phones at increasingly younger ages, two issues have quickly climbed higher on the public’s list of major health concerns for children across the U.S: sexting and Internet safety.
Compared with 2014, Internet safety rose from the eighth to the fourth biggest problem, ahead of school violence and smoking, in the 2015 annual survey of top children’s health concerns conducted by the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health. Sexting saw the biggest jump, now the sixth top-ranked issue, up from thirteenth.
Childhood obesity, bullying, and drug abuse remained the top three child health concerns for a second year in a row, while child abuse and neglect ranked fifth. Smoking and tobacco use, usually rated near the top of the list, dropped from the fourth top concern to the seventh – which may reflect the decline in smoking and tobacco use by youth in recent years.
“The major health issues that people are most worried about for children across the country reflect the health initiatives providers, communities and policy makers should be focused on,” says Matthew M. Davis, M.D., M.A.P.P., director of the National Poll on Children’s Health and professor of pediatrics and internal medicine in the Child Health Evaluation and Research Unit at the U-M Medical School.
“The increasing level of concern about Internet safety and sexting that are now ranked even higher than smoking as major childhood health issues really dominates the story this year,” adds Davis, who is also with the U-M School of Public Health, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, and deputy director for U-M’s Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.
“We found that while the public may find benefits to today’s shifting media environment, whether through cell phones or other technology, many also recognize risks that may make young people vulnerable.”
Expanding use of smart phones and other technology potentially exposes children and teens to the danger of predators and other harms like cyber-bullying. Sexting (sending and receiving sexually suggestive text messages and photos) has also led to cases of teens around the country suffering from low self-esteem and even committing suicide following photos being widely shared among peers.
Sexting and Internet safety, however, were not as high on the list for African American adults, who rated depression fourth, school safety fifth and alcohol abuse as the seventh highest childhood health concerns. Hunger climbed from spot No. 15 in 2014 to the tenth biggest childhood health concern among African American respondents in 2015.
“We found that adults from different communities across the U.S. see the challenges of child health differently,” Davis says. “It’s important to understand the priorities of different communities we are trying to reach as we work to safeguard children’s health and help them live the healthiest lives they can.”
While white, African American and Hispanic respondents all list childhood obesity and bullying in the top three child health issues, Hispanics list child abuse and neglect as the No. 3 health concern for kids across the U.S. Overall, the public viewed child abuse and neglect as the fifth major health concern.
“Since we began tracking how the public rates child health problems nearly a decade ago, we have found persistent and consistent concern for child abuse and neglect,” Davis says. “This is an area we must continue to focus on in medical care, in our public health efforts and also in our health policy making.”
This is the ninth year adults were asked to rate their concerns for kids’ health in the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital Poll. Other child health concerns rated as a “big problem” in 2015 for children and teens across the U.S. include: unsafe neighborhoods (40 percent), alcohol abuse (39 percent), sexually transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS (38 percent), depression (38 percent), suicide (37 percent), hunger (34 percent), not enough opportunities for physical activity (31 percent), gun-related injuries (30 percent), motor vehicle accidents (30 percent), attention deficit disorder (26 percent), autism (24 percent), safety of medications (17 percent) safety of vaccines (15 percent) infant mortality (13 percent) and food allergies ( 13 percent).
Purpose/Funding: The C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health – based at the Child Health Evaluation and Research Unit at the University of Michigan and funded by the University of Michigan Health System – is designed to measure major health care issues and trends for U.S. children.
Data Source: This report presents findings from a nationally representative household survey conducted exclusively by GfK Custom Research, LLC (GfK), for C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital via a method used in many published studies. The survey was administered in May 2015 to a randomly selected, stratified group of adults age 18 (n =1,982) from GfK’s web-enabled KnowledgePanel® that closely resembles the U.S. population. The sample was subsequently weighted to reflect population figures from the Census Bureau. The survey completion rate was 60% among parent panel members contacted to participate. The margin of error is ± 3 to 4 percentage points.
The findings of the poll reflect the views of the public and do not represent the opinions or positions of the University of Michigan, the University of Michigan Health System, or the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health. | <urn:uuid:fa7d50a5-a8c8-41cd-aa4d-39ed67f945f6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.uofmhealth.org/news/archive/201508/sexting | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00024-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949701 | 1,179 | 2.703125 | 3 |
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September 10, 2009 | In 2008, NCAR scientist Sean Swenson used data from twin satellites named GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) to measure the mass of water in the region around east Africa's Lake Victoria, revealing that human management—not just drought—was responsible for declining water levels.
Swenson is drawing from GRACE again, this time to assess northern India's groundwater. The stretch of the subcontinent that runs from eastern Pakistan across northern India into Bangladesh is likely the world's most intensively irrigated region. It's also home to 600 million people. In a study published in Geophysical Research Letters in August, Swenson and his collaborators found that, between 2002 and 2008, the region depleted groundwater at a rate of around 13 cubic miles (54 cubic kilometers) per year, enough to produce a drop of about 4 inches (10 centimeters) per year in the water table when averaged over the entire region.
The research team's estimate of yearly groundwater loss is roughly equivalent to the loss from melting Alaskan glaciers during the 2002-2008 period. It represents the total volume of water leaving the area through evapotranspiration and runoff in excess of precipitation.
"This is probably the largest rate of groundwater loss in any comparable-sized region on Earth," Swenson and his co-authors write. "If this trend is sustained, it will lead to a major water crisis in the region when this nonrenewable resource is exhausted."
GRACE works by measuring subtle variations in Earth's gravity caused by water moving around and under Earth's surface. The two satellites follow each other through space about 85 miles (220 kilometers) apart, making passes over the same spots. Scientists can extrapolate changes in gravity from the rates of acceleration between the satellites, combining this data with hydrological models to give a holistic picture of groundwater.
The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research under sponsorship by the National Science Foundation. Any opinions, findings and conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. | <urn:uuid:888e5544-a4a9-40f4-bcec-b41f6fb60c08> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/just-published/860/indias-diminishing-groundwater | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398628.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00143-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923002 | 447 | 3.6875 | 4 |
Most squid snatch their prey with a pair of extendable tentacles, which can shoot out at high speed. These muscular limbs are longer than the other eight arms, and end in a bulbous “club” that’s covered in suckers or hooks. Once they latch onto something, they rapidly contract and bring the prey in towards the squid’s sharp beak.
But one deep-sea squid—Grimalditeuthis bonplandi—is very different. Its tentacles are thin and fragile, and almost always break off when it’s captured. For ages, people thought it lacked tentacles altogether until a full specimen was found in the stomach of a fish. Weirder still, its clubs have neither suckers nor hooks. Instead, they are flanked by a pair of leaf-shaped membranes. Why?
Now, after observing a live individual off the coast of California, Hendrik-Jan Hoving from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in California thinks he knows what how the squid uses its feeble tentacles. They’re not grasping limbs, but fishing lures. By waving the membranes, the squid uses its clubs to mimic the movements small animals and attract its prey.
For around 25 years, MBARI has been using remotely controlled subs to explore the waters around California’s Monterey Bay. Hoving frequently pilots these vehicles and he sees a lot of squid. But on 22 September 2005, he stumbled across his first specimen of Grimalditeuthis bonplandi. It was the first time that anyone had seen the creature alive in its natural environment.
G.bonplandi lives all over the world, but this particular one was floating in a deep underwater canyon off the coast of California, 1000 metres or so below the surface. Its 14-centimetre body was largely transparent but flashed with neon pulses of red and violet. It hung there in the darkness at a slight tilt, beating its heart-shaped tail fins, arms splayed apart and tentacles outstretched.
“When we zoomed in for a close-up of the tentacle club, we saw it wiggling and undulating by flapping its membranes,” says Hoving. “We were really excited. It so strikingly resembled the movements of a small marine organism.”
The team collected and dissected the Monterey specimen, and confirmed that its tentacle muscles were extremely thin and poorly developed compared to those of a related squid. There’s no way the animal could have used these limbs to handle prey. Indeed, when the squid wanted to bring its club towards its head, it seemed to swim towards the club rather than contracting the tentacle muscles.
Over the next five years, Hoving’s team observed six more of these squid in the Gulf of Mexico, and all of them behaved in the same way. Their clubs tips all gently undulated like some small swimming animal.
Judging by their stomach contents, we know that G.bonplandi eats shrimp, other small crustaceans, and even other small squid. Hoving thinks that the squid could use its undulating clubs to lure in these victims in three possible ways: by disturbing glowing creatures in the water and creating temporary flashes; by creating attractive low-frequency vibrations; or by creating waves of moving water that mimic small swimming animals. Of course, how the squid then grabs any incoming prey is an open question.
Many predators use lures to attract their victims. Anglerfish, viperfish and dragonfish have lures projecting from their heads. Alligator snapping turtles wriggle their pink tongues like wriggling worms. Many vipers do the same with their tails, and one even has a tail that looks like a spider. The assassin bug (Stenolemus bituberus) kills spiders by strumming their webs in the style of a trapped and struggling insect. In a fit of perverse irony, the cookie-cutter shark uses a glowing collar to lure in larger predators, which it then eats.
It’s entirely plausible that some squids use similar tactics. The stubby squid buried itself in sand but wiggles one outstretched arm. The deep-sea squid Chiroteuthis calyx has glowing organs on its tentacles, which might help to attract fish. Another squid, Octopoteuthis deletron might use the glowing tips of its (freakishly detachable) arms in a similar way. None of these possible examples of luring have been proved, and the same goes for G.bonplandi.
Edith Widder, a marine biologist and deep-sea explorer, says the idea is plausible. “I wish they had had some way to check for the amount of bioluminescence in the water column where they observed the squid,” she says. “I also think the idea that it could produce a hydrodynamic signal has merit. If you think about the enormous challenge these animals face, locating food and mates in such vast volumes of darkness you have to believe they must have come up with some pretty clever solutions.”
“We are very far from doing experimental work on these animals as we encounter them so rarely,” admits Hoving. “We had moments of good fortune which allowed a peek into the lives and behaviour of this poorly known species. Hopefully, with increasing application of underwater technology and exploration of the water column, we will be able to learn more about Grimalditeuthis and other inhabitants of the world’s largest ecosystem.”
Reference: Hoving, Zeidberg, Benfield, Bush, Robison & Vecchione. 2013. First in situ observations of the deep-sea squid Grimalditeuthis bonplandi reveal unique use of tentacles. Proc Roy Soc B http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.1463 | <urn:uuid:7f4cb8d5-4897-49a7-b3e6-78ee51d2bfd4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/08/27/squid-with-feeble-tentacles-might-use-them-as-fishing-lures/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394987.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00172-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952415 | 1,218 | 3.8125 | 4 |
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Aaron, Moses, Chur: Very Different Leaders
This week's Torah portion, whose centerpiece is the story of the Golden Calf, presents us with a typology of three different kind of leaders: Moses, Aaron and Chur.
Two are household names, but Chur is not so well-known. Chur is mentioned at the end of Parashat Mishpatim. When Moses ascends Mount Sinai to receive the tablets of the covenant, he leaves Aaron and Chur in charge of the people.
According to the Midrash (Tanchuma Tetzaveh), Chur is killed by the mob because he vigorously protests against making the Golden Calf.
Chur represents the kind of leader we might characterize as courageous and confrontational. The rabbis base this story on the absence of any further mention of him after he is given such a prominent role in Mishpatim.
According to this same Midrash, Aaron, having seen Chur killed before his eyes, goes along with the people's demand for the Golden Calf.
However, rabbinic tradition, in general, has a more generous view of Aaron than just a timorous soul who folds under pressure. True, Aaron is nonconfrontational and wants to appease the people. He is the kind of leader who will do anything to avoid conflict. But, again according to rabbinic tradition, he is loving and kind, as well as a rodef shalom, a pursuer of peace.
According to rabbinic legend, if two people were quarreling, Aaron, on his own initiative, would go to each of them separately and assert that the other one wanted to reconcile. No wonder that he was so beloved of the people that, according to the rabbis, at the time of his death, he was mourned more than Moses.
What about Moses? He is the kind of leader who often is more like Chur.
He punishes the people for the sin of the Golden Calf and, throughout the Torah, chides the Israelites for their inability to obey God. Yet he also pleads with God and becomes an advocate for the people after the Golden Calf incident. After all, he has the patience to put up with this rag-tag collection of difficult former slaves for 40 years. So he combines certain qualities of both Chur and Aaron.
In our personal lives, we find times in our various relationships when we need to be like Chur, and at times, when we need to be like Aaron. Few of us successfully manage a continuous, Moses-like balanced blend.
In history as well, there is a time for Chur-type leaders and a time for Aaron-type leaders.
For example, British leader Neville Chamberlain's Aaron-like stance was not as effective against Hitler as was Winston Churchill's Chur. Civil-rights head Martin Luther King Jr. and South African activist Nelson Mandela knew how to be Moses-like, and combine confrontation and reconciliation. What kind of leaders do we need today in the United States and Israel, given the dangerous and confusing world in which we live?
Rabbi Alan Iser is the religious leader of Congregation Or Shalom in Berwyn. | <urn:uuid:11f22e65-5db0-4c0d-8bad-f1bd2dd09d14> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.jewishexponent.com/aaron-moses-chur-very-different-leaders | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00199-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969237 | 668 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Google has started to showcase charts on its search results page created from public data, allowing users to compare unemployment rates and population trends.
The initiative, announced today, is part of a broader effort by the Mountain View Internet company to make government information – often overlooked on poorly organized agency Web site – more accessible.
Users who enter a query like “California unemployment rate” into Google will get chart that illustrates the rate in the state since 1990. Clicking on it opens a bigger version and offers users the ability to refine the data by county, or compare the rates in different counties.
Similar charts are available for users who enter a query like “Alameda County population.”
Although Google creates the charts, the data comes from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau. More types of information will be added in the future, Google said.
It is the first time that Google is creating and showcasing charts, within its search results, to help users better visualize data. The new tool was spawned by Google’s 2007 acquisition of Trendalyzer, software for illustrating data.
Google’s unveiling coincided with a public demonstration of Wolfram/Alpha, a potential competitor, at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Technology. Unlike a search engine, Wolfram/Alpha, which is available only in a limited test, culls information such as charts from the Web instead of links to pages.
– Posted by Verne Kopytoff | <urn:uuid:fd47dc19-7df9-4e6f-91bd-3eae568181c2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blog.seattlepi.com/techchron/2009/04/28/charting-government-data-on-google/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00127-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913161 | 306 | 2.75 | 3 |
The New Testament and other early writings contain numerous references to the siblings of Jesus, especially James. Most of these refer to events after the crucifixion of Jesus and indicate that Jesus' brother James became the leader of the Jesus movement based in Jerusalem.
There were three important meetings between Paul and James in Jerusalem that occurred after Paul's Damascus road conversion. The first comes from Paul's own account. Paul indicates that he went to Jerusalem three years after his conversion where he stayed with Peter for fifteen days and visited with James. The date of this meeting is probably 35-37 CE (Jesus was crucified 30-33 CE). The second occurred over a decade later when Paul led a delegation from Antioch to Jerusalem for the "apostolic assembly". Paul reports on this meeting, and he refers to James, Peter, and John as the "pillars" of the church. The book of Acts also has an account of this watershed gathering, which probably occurred around 48 CE, and indicates that James rendered the final decision. The book of Acts relates a third and final visit by Paul to Jerusalem to meet with James, occurring in 56 CE or later after the final missionary journey of Paul.
There are indications that James consistently maintained that Paul's Gentile (non-Jewish) converts must follow the traditional Hebrew ways (Torah) that required circumcision, dietary regulations, and Sabbath observances. Paul resisted, and this running dispute marked their uneasy relationship. The conflict between Paul and James is the main storyline of A Wretched Man.
After their deaths in the 60's and after the Jewish Civil War (66-73 CE), Jewish Christianity receded and the church became more Gentile. With the destruction of Jerusalem, the Jewish Christians had lost their power base, and they were ill-equipped to contend with Torah free, Gentile Christianity in the Roman provinces. Over the next century, Pauline Christianity emerged as normative and Jewish Christianity became heretical. Since the victors write the history, the significant role of James as the leader of the first-generation Jesus movement was diminished. The process became complete when James and the other siblings were marginalized as mere cousins of Jesus by an ascetic, celibate monk and papal advisor, later revered as St Jerome, whose doctrine of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary gained ascendancy around 400 CE.
Modern scholarship has rekindled interest in James, and it is the strong scholarly consensus that Mary was the mother of both Jesus and James (and others). Joseph's role as father is less certain.
Readers are gushing!
"A stupendous novel"
"Regardless of your personal religious background, this book is absolutely breathtaking"
"Your novel was difficult to put down and brought to life a distant time and place with such humanity and liveliness"
"A truly significant work" | <urn:uuid:78514511-5a10-4f2c-89d4-dd4efaeb5e60> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://theliberalspirit.com/awretchedman/a-primer-on-james.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396455.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00032-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973295 | 576 | 3.28125 | 3 |
Poor nutrition is a worldwide problem affecting the rich, middle income and poor alike. Rich or poor, we tend to eat too many refined carbs and sugars, the main contributors to poor health and runaway health care costs.
Some 925 million low-income people in poor countries are underfed, but many more — from all income groups — are overfed yet malnourished. Proof of this is the number of obese and overweight people worldwide, now roughly the same as the number of underfed.
The solution to both problems may be fairly simple: Growing and eating more vegetables. For undernourished people, vegetables improve diet in two ways. They are more productive than grains or livestock, as well as easier to grow, so more food can be made available and diversifying the diet with a variety of vegetables improves health overall.
For people who have enough or too much food, increasing the vegetable portion has many long-term health benefits, including helping to achieve proper body weight. Eating lots of vegetables would drive down health problems and thus health-care costs.
Writing in State of the World 2011, the latest in the wonderful annual series from the Worldwatch Institute (worldwatch.org), Abdou Tenkouano calls for a "Revolution of Greens" to match the Green Revolution of the 1970s, which was really a "Grain Revolution."
Tenkouano, director of the World Vegetable Center in Africa, says that even if we provide enough calories from staple crops people will not be properly nourished until diets improve. Diseases related to imbalanced diets cause 2.7 million deaths worldwide annually and are among the top mortality risk factors.
Meanwhile, health experts like Dr. Andrew Weil are calling for a vegetable revolution in rich countries, too. Weil prescribes the adoption of a "food pyramid" approach built on a wide base of vegetables and fruits, and for the rest of our foods to be unrefined. Along with proper exercise, such a diet would eliminate the bulk of the health problems of overfed people and solve the health-care costs crisis to boot.
Consuming more veggies would also have broad social implications, reports Tenkouano. It would solve the problem of micronutrient deficiencies, including lack of Vitamin A, iron and iodine, that affect some one billion people. These deficiencies lead to poor mental and physical development, especially among children, and cause poor performance in work and in school, further crippling communities already facing other health problems and poverty.
Inadequate intake of iron is also widespread, leading to chronic anemia. This condition is also linked to learning disabilities, mental retardation, poor physical development, and a reduced ability to fight infectious diseases, ultimately leading to premature death.
Eating vegetables solves many of these problems. The good news is that small farmers can earn much higher incomes from growing vegetables than staples. Unfortunately, very little work is being done on improvement of vegetable crops. In 2002, the research centres that belong to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research invested $118 million on cereals research, but just $15.7 million on fruit and vegetable research.
Yet improved vegetable varieties can have a big nutritional and economic impact. Better varieties of eggplant now developed for Africa, for example, can be harvested every week for seven months and produce for up to 15 months if pruned back at the end of the season. A typical farmer can harvest 10 to 20 bags of eggplant (30 kilograms each) every week throughout the seven-month growing season and earn $2,500 per hectare per year, several times the income possible from staple grain crops.
Vegetables are also something many people can grow in home gardens, vacant lots or even on balconies. Adoption of a diet rich in vegetables is one way to feed the world, to feed it better and with less environmental impact. | <urn:uuid:f230ca1c-5df3-41bd-8c90-f0e73447e8a8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/Eating+vegetables+makes+healthier+world/4211650/story.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00183-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95663 | 789 | 3.296875 | 3 |
Valuation of Agriculture Land
Land used for agricultural purpose shall be valued using solely the income approach
to value without any allowance for urban or market influences.
The income of the property shall be determined using the capitalized average annual
net cash rental of the property.
Is the average of the annual net cash rental, excluding real estate and sales taxes,
determined through an analysis of typical arm's length rental agreements collected
for a five year period before the year for which the valuation is being determined
for comparable agricultural land used for agricultural purposes and located in the
vicinity, if practicable, of the property being valued.
Shall be capitalized at a rate 1.5 percentage points higher than the average long-term
annual effective interest rate for all new farm credit services loans for the five
year period before the year for which the valuation is being determined.
Agricultural Land: Land which is one or more of the following:
Cropland of at least 20 gross acres.
Ten or more gross acres of permanent crop.
Grazing land with a minimum carrying capacity of 40 animal units, and containing
an economically feasible number of units.
Land devoted to high density use in the production of commodities.
Land devoted to use in the processing of cotton necessary for marketing.
Land devoted to use in the processing of grapes for marketing.
Agricultural Home Site: an allowance for residence and associated residential
structures on an agricultural property (usually one acre, unless actual occupancy
dictates a larger acreage used strictly for residential purposes).
Agricultural Property: Property used for agronomy, horticulture or animal
husbandry, producing an agricultural crop or commodity.
Animal Unit: A unit of measure to classify grazing land according to its
carrying capacity, i.e. ability of a parcel of land to graze a certain number of
animal units over a period to time (usually a year-but sometimes expressed on a
monthly basis) without injurious effect upon the natural vegetative cover of the
land. In the State of Arizona, the following equivalent measures have been classed
as one animal unit:
- One mature beef animal of 1,000 pounds
- One and one-quarter horses
- Five head of sheep
- Five head of goats
- Five head of Ratites
Crop Value: The value of the vine, tree, or plant over and above the land
value. The add on value as permanent crops reach maturity or the value of the harvest
from the field crop.
Fallow Land: Land capable of being farmed but due to the lack or cost of
water or participation in a crop rotation program is left idle. It is value the
same as irrigated lands.
Farm property Qualification: The type of crop being raised on a farmstead
relates directly to the qualification for farm property. Field crops (grain, alfalfa,
sugar beets, lettuce, safflower, etc.) require twenty (20) acres or more. For permanent
crops (citrus, nut, grape and fruit) ten (10) acres or more are normally required.
Headquarters Land: Land used for storage and farm/ranch improvements (barns,
sheds, corrals, seasonal employees housing) and valued the same as crop or grazing
Irrigated Land: Land cleared, leveled and ditched for the application of
water and growing of plants (includes the roads, ditches, well sites, ponds, turn
and skip rows as well as the cropped acres).
Non-Qualifying Rural Property: Land used for residential pleasure, development,
speculative or recreational purposes, classed and valued according to its primary
Qualifying Agricultural Property: Land must be in active production for seven
out of the last ten years prior to application as agricultural land for qualification
as agricultural property. Failure to farm the property due to severe drought conditions
may extend the idle period on a year-to-year basis as initiated by the cognizant
assessor, and as approved by the Department of Revenue.
Qualifying Ranch Property: Natural grazing land must have a minimum annual
carrying capacity of forty (40) animal units per year to qualify as ranch property.
Undeveloped Land: Raw acreage that is not used as part of farming acreage
and does not meet the criteria for classification as wasteland. Value is based upon
comparable properties in the locale of similar size, quality and use potential.
Unit (Annual) Carrying Capacity: That which the land will naturally support.
A measurement of the animal units allowed by the State of Arizona Land Department
for negotiation of grazing leases of state land.
Waste Land: Land that can not be converted to an economically beneficial
use and includes such land areas as river bottoms, sand hills, rock outcroppings,
sand washes and soil salinity areas. Value is based on its contribution to the farming
operation. In valuing ranch or grazing property, wasteland is not segregated and
The Income Approach
The income approach is used to value commercial or industrial properties, or properties
which are bought and sold by investors primarily because of their income producing
potential. This approach to value depends on reliable and detailed information on
the income and the costs of doing business for a particular business or enterprise.
This is referred to as the "income stream" of the property. The income approach
defines value as "the present worth of future benefits of owning a property." These
are composed of the annual income for an estimated number of years (called the economic
life of the property) plus a capital amount representing land value or land value
plus some remaining worth of the improvements. This approach emphasizes investment
components rather than physical components of a property.
The steps in the income approach are:
- Estimate potential gross income (PGI)
- Deduct vacancy and collection losses
- Add miscellaneous income to derive effective gross income (EGI)
- Deduct operating expenses to derive net operating income (NOI)
- Select appropriate capitalization rate and method
- Develop an estimated value | <urn:uuid:f1ffd703-3a5e-4127-8f9d-89c31de320a8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pinalcountyaz.gov/Assessor/LandAgriculture/Pages/agvaluation.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00129-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.89497 | 1,282 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Spring Camp 2013: Marine Mania
Do you love the ocean? So do we! Join us this Spring Break to learn why the ocean is so special. Using our Sea Lab and Wildlife Center as backdrops, campers will learn about ocean habitats (like mangroves, seagrass and corals), common and bizarre marine organisms, and the roles we can play to help conserve and protect these incredible and wet natural resources.
Monday, March 25th: Coastal Treasures
Want to discover more about the wonderful world of coastal marine habitats? Get your hands wet while investigating the animals that make the mangroves and seagrass their homes. Learn what makes these habitats special, as you identify the different organisms that live there, replicate their adaptations, and create models of their homes.
Tuesday, March 26th: Reef Relief
Immerse yourself in the colorful and diverse world of coral reefs. Come learn how corals get their bright colors, find and make food, and provide homes for thousands of other organisms. We’ll also look at how human activities can impact these fascinating, yet fragile superstars of the sea.
Wednesday, March 27th: Slippery, Slimy, and Spineless
What do sponges, squid, jellyfish, shrimp, and sea stars all have in common? No backbone! This day will introduce you to the world of marine invertebrates as you explore bringing sea monkeys to life, learn how sea stars can regrow lost body parts, dissect a squid, and more.
Thursday, March 28th: Secrets of the Deep
Come explore the mysteries of the deep sea, the largest habitat on Earth! Even with little to no light, the darkest depths of the ocean host some of the strangest, but coolest creatures, from those with transparent bodies to the ability to produce their own light.
Friday, March 29th: Shark Bait
Dive into the world of sharks as we uncover why they have such a bad reputation. Discover how sharks use their special senses and unique adaptations to make them the supreme leaders of the ocean. We’ll also learn why all sharks are fish, but not all fish are sharks.
$45 members/$55 non-members per day/per child
$200 members/$250 non-members - full week (5 days)
Pre-K (at least 4 years old) thru Fifth Grade
9:00 AM- 3:30 PM
Before Care: 7:45 - 9:00 AM ($5 per child per day)
After Care: 4:00 - 6:00 PM ($12 per child per day)
Phone Contact: Registrar 305-646-4222
Email Contact: firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:b14d0572-a3b2-4a05-9d52-311a90ac431d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.miamisci.org/www/planetarium_events.php?datepass=1364236832 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00101-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.892276 | 561 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Top Operating System Guide
An operating system is the piece of software that interfaces between the computer's hardware, and the user. Without an operating system, using a computer would be near impossible for all but the brightest computer scientists. Nearly all electronic devices use an operating system of one type or another. Even devices such as microwaves and dishwashers use an embedded operating system, an operating system which is extremely simple and built for one specific task.
The most popular operating system on desktop computers is currently Microsoft's Windows XP with 67% usage, Windows Vista at 21%, Apple's Mac OS X at 4.73%, various Linux operating systems at a combined 1.15% and Windows 2k at .9%. When it comes to web hosts, there are essentially only two operating systems, Windows and Unix based systems. Windows based hosts use the IIS (Internet Information Services) while Unix (and Linux) based hosts often use the Apache web server. For simple websites, the operating system your web host uses won't matter much, however as your website becomes more complex, the system your web hosting provider uses becomes extremely important. Large websites that use IIS may very well stop working all together when switched to an Apache based host, and vice verses.
Apache is the most popular web server software in use today. One of the reasons that Apache is so popular is that it is free to use and is open source, meaning you have the ability to modify the software in any way you'd like. Other web server software such as IIS is more locked down and changes are not as easily made.
Operating System Resources:
Microsoft Windows - Get support with current versions of Windows and learn about the features of the upcoming version.
Microsoft IIS Server Software - Learn about the featurs of IIS as well as support and tips.
Unix - Around since at 1969, Unix has since branched into a huge amount of distributions including Sun's Solaris, Minix, Linux, and BSD.
Linux - Hundreds of operating systems are based upon the Linux operating system.
Ubuntu - The most popular Linux desktop distribution. Simple to use and has a large support network.
Open SUSE - Good for Linux beginners as well as experts. This softward is managed by Novell Inc.
Fedora - A project largely managed by Red Hat Inc. and has some interesting innovations however is sometimes difficult to use for newcomers.
Debian - A large Linux project with hundreds of developers which has gone on to create over 100 Debian-based operating systems.
Mandriva - Formerly Mandrake. While fully functional, Mandriva is often ignored by much of the Linux community.
Slackware - One of the cleanest distributions of Linux out there. The developers accomplish this by simplifying everything down to the core.
Gentoo - Originally designed for power users, many found it to be too tedious to use and update. Known for its extensive online documentation.
Cent OS - Stands for Community ENTerprise Operating System. Designed to be used with servers.
Free BSD - Known for its performance and stability, Free BSD is often used in servers and critical computers.
Web Hosting - Linux is a great Operating System for web hosting.
Apache - The most commonly used web hosting application on Linux based systems. 46% of all websites run on Apache.
Linux History - A history of the Linux operating system.
Securing and Optimizing Linux - Learn how to keep your Linux installation both secure and running smoothly. | <urn:uuid:94c409e9-b558-4ac3-bd41-0b2705267042> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bighosts.com/top-operating-system-guide.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396222.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00139-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939801 | 724 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Here’s another reason to eat lunch at home with your child. According to a recent study, kids who have lunch at home with their moms are at a lower risk of becoming obese than kids whose meal is prepared by someone other than their mother.
Researchers at University of Granada in Spain studied 718 school children between the ages of 9 and 17 from 13 public and private schools in Granada. The investigators assessed the kids’ weight, size and body mass index (BMI) by age and sex, and performed skinfold measurements at six sites in the waist, hips, arm and thighs. They also looked at the relationship between family environment and obesity in childhood through a questionnaire used to assess the children’s family environment, physical exercise habits and food consumption.
The authors of the study found that the kids who didn’t eat at home had “a poorer nutritional status” than kids whose meal is prepared by their mother. They say this is due to the fact that the mother is the person in the family who knows the nutritional needs of children the best and has the strongest knowledge of nutrition to prepare the kids’ meals.
The researchers also found significant differences in BMI between kids with good physical exercise habits and kids with sedentary habits. Kids who spent a lot of time watching TV, surfing the internet and playing video games had higher BMI than those who did not. They say healthy habits should be encouraged within the family and that physical exercise and healthy habits are necessary to keep children healthy. | <urn:uuid:733c7aa0-e5b2-4c25-952b-d545762ee112> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blog.ctnews.com/healthylife/2012/05/28/eating-at-home-and-childhood-obesity/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397111.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00146-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982355 | 308 | 3.515625 | 4 |
This press release is available in French.
Montreal -- Too much fast food, poor meal choices and bad eating habits are causing more Canadians to be overweight or obese. Despite this trend, individuals who eat well are 20 per cent less likely to be obese, according to a study by Concordia University economists published in the Journal of Primary Care & Community Health.
"The risk of being obese or overweight is directly related to bad eating habits such as skipping meals, eating away from home, high consumption of fast and processed foods, as well as low consumption of fruit and vegetables," says first author Sunday Azagba, a PhD candidate in the Concordia Department of Economics. "In Canada, food purchased from restaurants accounts for more than 30 per cent of the average weekly food expenditure per household."
As part of their study, the researchers examined data from the Canadian National Population Health Survey to evaluate how eating habits could impact obesity trends among adults aged 18 to 65. The World Health Organization, which uses the body mass index (BMI) to measure weight-for-height, estimates that a BMI greater than or equal to 25 makes for an overweight person and a BMI greater than or equal to 30 equals obesity.
"More than 25 per cent of Canadians aged 31 to 50 exceed the safe limit of total calories derived from fats," adds co-author Mesbah Sharaf, a PhD candidate in the Concordia Department of Economics, noting advances in food engineering by producers may have contributed to the difficulty of resisting food craving and increase obesity rates.
Measures to encourage healthier eating
Higher taxes on fatty foods might encourage healthier eating, the economists suggest, yet higher prices won't sway everyone to choose a better diet. "Some people are unresponsive to taxes and such added costs to fast food would reduce their spending power without altering their eating behavior," says Azagba, noting an alternative would be for governments to subsidize less calorie-dense foods such as fruit and vegetables. "This might induce more people to substitute healthy foods for unhealthy ones."
Other measures to encourage healthier eating could entail subsidizing healthy meal plans at schools and universities, restricting junk food in educational institutions and improving physical education programs in schools. "Education programs that raise awareness of the benefits of physical activity and the health implications of food choices, as well as compulsory warning labels about the health risks on food packaging, similar to those on cigarette packages, may also help to mitigate obesity rates," says Sharaf.
It's imperative that obesity rates across Canada decline, says Azagba: "Health-care costs for caring for obese individuals are estimated to be 42 per cent greater than for people with normal weight. Research has found excessive body weight to be a risk factor for many chronic disease, such as cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, liver diseases, as well as prostate, breast and colon cancer."
Excessive body weight is an epidemic with repercussions beyond Canada. The World Health Organization estimates that 1 billion adults are overweight and that obesity accounts for more than 2.6 million deaths each year. The European Union estimates the combined direct and indirect costs of obesity to be 33 billion a year, whereas in the United States the total cost of obesity is estimated to be $139 billion annually.
|Contact: Sylvain-Jacques Desjardins| | <urn:uuid:ef41b83f-d155-4733-a797-7a1f5928e577> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news-1/Hefty-impact-of-poor-eating-habits-87245-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00092-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952811 | 669 | 3.375 | 3 |
Plant Biology: Growth Industry
by Alison Abbott
Synopsis and resource annotations by Max Grinnell
Not many research relationships in chemical ecology, the study of the chemical
signals between plants and other organisms in the environment, start with a pack
of dogs chasing down a young scientist's VW bus, but that was how things began
between scientist Ian Baldwin and rancher Herb Fletcher in 1988. This article,
from Alison Abbott in the December 15, 2010 issue of
Nature, begins by discussing Baldwin's 1988
trip to the Utah desert, and his experience encountering a gang of ferocious
dogs and a machine gun wielding Herb Fletcher, while searching for a native
species of the tobacco plant. As it turns out Baldwin found a kindred spirit in
Fletcher with a shared interest in natural history, plants, and ecology, and the
encounter created a firm friendship that began a new era in Baldwin's research.
The article continues with an examination of the chemical language of plants,
the research conducted by Ian Baldwin over the past two decades, and the
challenging research environment of chemical ecology.
After his encounter with Fletcher, Ian Baldwin discovered the native tobacco
plant Nicotiana attenuate in Utah, and it was the spark that helped him continue
his research into the world of chemical ecology. It turns out that because they
can't run away, plants have evolved ingenious chemical methods to repulse their
enemies, including the ability to generate noxious chemicals in their leaves and
emit complex bouquets to attract those predators that will take out the plant's
attackers. Baldwin hopes that his research will lead to the deciphering of this
chemical language, and that the research will eventually allow scientists to
modify plants' signals to give them stronger protection from within.
Additionally, future scientists may be able to develop environmentally friendly
mimics of natural signals so that herbicides will no longer be necessary.
Baldwin works in Jena, Germany where he is one of the directors of the Max
Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology. There, he and his colleagues develop
powerful genetic tools to knock out (or knock down) genes involved in making
these chemical signals. Some of his lab's more recent work demonstrated that
plants, when nibbled by herbivorous insects, can change the ratio of isomers of
their signaling molecules to attract predators of the leaf-eaters. Baldwin's
largest lab is back in Utah, where his team plants thousands of seedlings over a
vast, remote area. Here, Baldwin's research on genetically modified plants can
continue uninterrupted, but he notes that the work can be backbreaking and
perilous due to the danger of snakes, brush fires, and perhaps even an
occasional gun wielding rancher and his pack of dogs.
Found below is a list of useful resources that will illuminate and enhance
understanding of the topics found within this article.
The first link
take visitors to the homepage of Biodiversity International. Here they will find
materials on agricultural biodiversity and links to online databases.
The second link
to the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research website, which contains
podcasts, videos, and lesson plans related to plant biology.
The third link
includes teacher resources from the PBS American Field Guide that deal with the
interaction between pollinators and flowering plants.
Moving along, the fourth
leads to a website from the American Phytopathological Society that
presents a helpful list of resources in introductory plant pathology.
The fifth link
take interested parties to a very fine plant evolution timeline created at the
University of Cambridge.
The final link
users away to a set of fact sheets that deal with common diseases of plants
provided by Professor Gary Moorman of Pennsylvania State University. | <urn:uuid:6ea18cf3-28dd-4b2c-ba61-d19749e214d0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://amser.org/ASRM-201103.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00155-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927907 | 789 | 3.4375 | 3 |
for National Geographic News
View the Belize Photo Gallery: Go>>
Belize is a tiny Central American nation that's been blessed with an enormous natural treasurethe Western Hemisphere's biggest coral barrier reef. The reef system is a riotous assemblage of colorful marine life that attracts naturalists, snorkelers, and divers from around the world.
The reef system and nearby ocean waters are also essential providers for the inhabitants of coastal Belize, many of whom depend upon their rich bounty for economic survival.
But the sea's vast resources are not limitless, and the waters of Belize are showing the strain of years of unchecked fishing as well as damage from increased tourism, pollution, and disease.
Conservation organizations have enlisted the help of the Belizean government, which maintains 12 marine protected areas throughout the reef. A cluster of seven of these areas have even been accorded UNESCO World Heritage statusa designation reserved for the world's most outstanding examples of cultural and natural heritage.
Positive strides were made last November when a series of regulations were passed to preserve the spawning areas of the endangered Nassau grouper. But protection comes at a price to the people who have made their living fishing these waters, and the new laws cannot be effective without their support and cooperation.
Popularity Hurts Nassau Grouper
A telling example of the overfishing problems plaguing the reef system is the story of the Nassau grouper (Epinephelus striatus). This fish is vital to the reef ecosystem as a predator of smaller fish, lobster, crab, octopus, and shrimp. In turn, groupers are prey for larger animals including barracuda, shark, and dolphins.
Their most voracious predators, however, have been humans.
The active local fishery for Nassau grouper began about 70 years ago, focusing on a 10- to 14-day spawning period each year during the full moon of late December or early January. This is when the fish leave their reef lairs and congregate by the thousands on traditional spawning banks to the seaward side of the reef.
At the same time, locals left their villages and towns in small dug-out boats equipped with handlines, spearguns, or traps and headed to these banks to fish for the groupers. For years, the picking was easy, and it seemed the bounty would never end.
But recently, it's been a radically different story. Many spawning beds are emptyand so are fishermen's nets.
SOURCES AND RELATED WEB SITES | <urn:uuid:ce829f53-d184-453f-8032-c218f4d6b93e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/03/0304_030304_belizefish.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391766.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00118-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949813 | 526 | 3.203125 | 3 |
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