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Gunpowder is a low-explosive substance that is used as a propellant in firearms. It burns rapidly and produces a large amount of gas, which produces a pressure wave inside the gun barrel, sufficient to propel a shot charge, bullet or projectile from a shotgun, rifle, or artillery piece.
The first true gunpowder was black powder.
Black powder is a mixture of potassium nitrate more commonly known as saltpeter, sometimes spelled "saltpetre," carbon in the form of charcoal, and sulfur with a ratio (by weight) of approximately 15:3:2 respectively. (Less frequently, sodium nitrate is used instead of saltpeter.) Modern black powder also typically has a small amount of graphite added to it to reduce the likelihood of static electricity causing loose black powder to ignite. The ratio has changed over the centuries of its use, and can be altered somewhat depending on the purpose of the powder.
Historically, potassium nitrate was extracted from manure by a process superficially similar to composting. These "nitre beds" took about a year to produce crystallized potassium nitrate. It could also be mined from caves from the residue from bat dung (guano) accumulating over millenia.
In the United States, saltpeter was worked in the "nitre caves" of Kentucky at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Nitrates have the property to release oxygen when heated, and this oxygen leads to the fast burning of carbon and sulfur, resulting in an explosion-like chemical reaction when gunpowder is ignited. The burning of carbon consumes oxygen and produces heat, which produces even more oxygen, etc. The presence of nitrates is crucial to gunpowder composition because the oxygen released from the nitrates exposed to heat makes the burning of carbon and sulfur so much faster that it results in an explosive action, although mild enough not to destroy the barrels of the firearms.
One of the advantages of black powder is that precise loading of the charge is not as vital as with smokeless powder firearms and is carried out using volumetric measures rather than precise weight. However, damage to a gun and its shooter due to overloading is still possible.
The main disadvantages of black powder are a relatively low energy density compared to modern smokeless powders, large quantities of soot and solid residues left behind, and a dense cloud of white smoke. (See the article Black Powder.) During the combustion process, less than half of black powder is converted to gas. The rest ends up as smoke or as a thick layer of soot inside the barrel. In addition to being a nuisance, the residue in the barrel attracts water and leads to corrosion, so black powder arms must be well cleaned inside and out after firing to remove the residue. The thick smoke of black powder is also a tactical disadvantage, as it can quickly become so opaque as to impair aiming. It also reveals the shooter's position. In addition to those problems, a failure to seat the bullet firmly against the powder column can result in a harmonic shockwave, which can create a dangerous over-pressure condition and damage the gun barrel.
Black powder is well suited for blank rounds, signal flares, and rescue line launches. It can also be used to make fireworks by mixing it with chemical compounds that produce the desired color.
The disadvantages of black powder led to a development of a cleaner burning substitute, known today as smokeless powder. There are two types of smokeless powder: single base and double base. Single base smokeless powder is more prevalent, and is made from nitrocellulose. Double base powder contains both nitroglycerin and nitrocellulose.
Both nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin were first produced in Europe in the mid-1800s, and this initiated the era of modern smokeless propellants. When smokeless powders burn in a confined area, such as a gun barrel, nearly all the substance is converted to gas, so there is very little smoke. Smokeless powders also produce a great deal more energy than an equivalent amount of black powder.
Nitrocellulose, once known as "guncotton," is made by treating cellulose with nitric and sulphuric acids. This made an unstable product that resulted in numerous accidents. But about 1886 French chemist Paul Vieille discovered that guncotton could be made into a gelatin by treating it with alcohol and ether, and then it could be rolled into sheets, cut into pieces, and stabilized by treating it with diphenylamine. The French called this Poudre B; it was the first successful single base smokeless powder.
Nitrocellulose is the basic material in many harmless, domestic products including celluloid plastic, early photographic film, rayon, fingernail polish and lacquer, so it is not rare. In fact, a large amount of gunpowder is made from reclaimed nitrocellulose.
In 1887 or 1888, Alfred Nobel used nitroglycerin to gelatinize nitrocellulose, increasing the energy of the powder and producing a new smokeless powder named "Ballistite." This was the first successful double base powder, and it began to be produced in 1889 at the Nobel factory in Ardeer, Scotland.
In 1889 the British developed a smokeless powder using a combination of 58 percent nitroglycerin, 37 percent guncotton, and 5 percent vaseline. This made a paste that was squeezed through a die to form strings or cords. The resulting product was originally called cord powder, which was soon shortened to "Cordite." It was used to load rifle, pistol, and artillery rounds.
Thus, the essential chemistry of modern smokeless powders had been worked out by 1890. Until then, all cartridges and shotgun shells were loaded with black powder. An example is the U.S. Government's .45-70 caliber rifle load, the standard small arms military load up to about the beginning of the twentieth century. (It was called the .45-70 because it was a .45 caliber round, originally loaded with 70 grains of blackpowder. 70 grains of black powder was safe in the low-strength rifles of the time. But 70 grains of smokeless powder in the .45-70 case would blow up any rifle, even the strongest!) But when smokeless powder became available, cartridges previously loaded with black powder, such as the .45-70, increasingly were loaded with smokeless powder, and new cartridges, such as the .30-30 Winchester which appeared in 1895 in Winchester's new lever action Model 94 rifle, were designed to use smokeless powder. (The .30-30 had that designation because it was a .30 caliber round, originally loaded with a 165 grain bullet and 30 grains of the smokeless powder available at the time.)
Although blackpowder and its modern derivatives do still have some major uses today, almost all ammunition used in guns throughout the world (except for muzzleloaders and some military cannons and artillery pieces) is loaded with smokeless powder. Manufacture of smokeless powder is a complicated and expensive process.
Smokeless powder is made in a large number of burning rates, from fastest (used in pistols and light target-type shotgun loads) to slowest (used in large-capacity magnum rifle rounds loaded with heavy bullets, as well as in some artillery pieces and cannons). Burning rates are controlled by kernel size and deterrent coating applied to the kernels. Graphite is also applied to make the powder flow better and to reduce static electricity.
Smokeless powder is made in three forms of granules: flakes, cylinders or extruded grains, and round balls (known as ball powder). The flakes and extruded grains are actually perforated with a tiny hole; both are made by extruding the powder, and then cutting it to length (while wet). Ball powder is cut into very small pieces while wet, and then formed into spheres. The flake powders are usually the fastest burning, while the extruded grains are slower burning. Ball powders can range in burning rate from medium to nearly the slowest. Ball powders also flow best through powder measures. The 5.56 mm cartridge (known in sporting use as the .223 Remington), used in the American M-16 rifle and numerous other military arms, was designed for the use of ball powder.
Today there are more than 100 different smokeless powders available; each of them has its own burning rate and burning characteristics, and is suitable or ideal for particular loads in particular guns. Powders are designated by a manufacturer or distributors name, along with a name or number for that powder: e.g. Accurate 2320, Alliant Green Dot, Alliant Reloader 22, Winchester 748, IMR 700X, IMR 4350, Ramshot Silhouette, Vitavuori N170, Hodgdon Varget, Hodgdon 4831, etc.
Three important developments for loaders of ammunition have occurred since 1890:
Some definitions say that gunpowder is a "low explosive." This is correct for black powder, but incorrect for today's smokeless powders, which are not explosives. If smokeless powder is burned in the open air, it produces a fast burning smoky orange flame, but no explosion. It burns explosively only when tightly confined, such as in a gun barrel or a closed bomb.
The United States Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) classifies smokeless powder as a flammable solid. This allows shipping of smokeless powders by common carriers, such as UPS. In fact, gasoline is a more dangerous substance than smokeless gunpowder when the powder is unconfined (as opposed to being confined in a gun charge or in a bomb).
Black powder, however, is a true low explosive, and burns at almost the same rate when unconfined as when confined. It can be ignited by a spark or static electricity, and must be handled with great caution. Thus it is considerably more dangerous than smokeless powder, and is classified by the ICC as a class-A explosive; consequently, shipping restrictions for black powder are stringent.
Most scholars believe that saltpeter explosives developed into an early form of black powder in China, and that this technology spread west from China to the Middle East and then Europe, possibly via the Silk Road. Around 1240 the Arabs acquired knowledge of saltpeter, calling it "Chinese snow." They knew of gunpowder soon afterward. They also learned about fireworks ("Chinese flowers") and rockets ("Chinese arrows").
Some scholars have claimed that the Chinese only developed saltpeter for use in fireworks and knew of no tactical military use for gunpowder, which was first developed by Muslims, as were fire-arms, and that the first documentation of a cannon was in an Arabic text around 1300 C.E.
Gunpowder arrived in India perhaps as early as the mid-1200s, when the Mongols could have introduced it, but in any event no later than the mid-1300s. Firearms also existed in the Vijayanagara Empire of India by as early as 1366 C.E. From then on the employment of gunpowder warfare in India was prevalent, with events such as the siege of Belgaum in 1473 C.E. by the Sultan Muhammad Shah Bahmani.
We can, with saltpeter and other substances, compose artificially a fire that can be launched over long distances... By only using a very small quantity of this material much light can be created accompanied by a horrible fracas. It is possible with it to destroy a town or an army ... In order to produce this artificial lightning and thunder it is necessary to take saltpeter, sulfur, and Luru Vopo Vir Can Utriet (sic).
The last phrase is thought to be some sort of coded anagram for the quantities needed. In the Opus Maior Bacon describes firecrackers around 1267: "A child’s toy of sound and fire made in various parts of the world with powder of saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal of hazel wood."
Bacon does not claim to have invented black powder himself, and his reference to "various parts of the world" implies that black powder was already widespread when he was writing. However, Europe soon surpassed the rest of the world in gunpowder technology, especially during the late fourteenth century.
Shot and gunpowder for military purposes were made by skilled military tradesmen, who later were called firemakers, and who also were required to make fireworks for various celebrations. During the Renaissance, two European schools of pyrotechnic thought emerged, one in Italy and the other at Nürenberg, Germany. The Italian school of pyrotechnics emphasized elaborate fireworks, and the German school stressed scientific advancement. Both schools added significantly to further development of pyrotechnics, and by the mid-seventeenth century fireworks were used for entertainment on an unprecedented scale in Europe.
By 1788, as a result of the reforms for which the famed chemist Lavoisier was mainly responsible, France had become self-sufficient in saltpeter, and its gunpowder had become both the best in Europe and inexpensive.
Gunpowder production in the United Kingdom appears to have started in the mid thirteenth century. Records show that gunpowder was being made in England in 1346 at the Tower of London; a powder house existed at the Tower in 1461; and in 1515 three King's gunpowder makers worked there. Gunpowder was also being made or stored at other Royal castles, such as Portchester Castle and Edinburgh Castle.
By the early fourteenth century, many English castles had been deserted as their value as defensive bastions faded with the advent of the cannon. Gunpowder made all but the most formidable castles useless.
Henry VIII was short of gunpowder when he invaded France in 1544 and England needed to import gunpowder via the port of Antwerp. The English Civil War, 1642-1645, led to an expansion of the gunpowder industry, with the repeal of the Royal Patent in August 1641.
The British Home Office removed gunpowder from its list of Permitted Explosives, on 31 December 1931. Curtis & Harvey's Glynneath gunpowder factory at Pontneddfechan, in Wales closed down, and it was demolished by fire in 1932.
The last remaining gunpowder mill at the Royal Gunpowder Factory, Waltham Abbey was damaged by a German parachute mine in 1941 and it never reopened. This was followed by the closure of the gunpowder section at the Royal Ordnance Factory, ROF Chorley; the section was closed and demolished at the end of World War II; and ICI Nobel's Roslin gunpowder factory which closed in 1954.
This left the sole United Kingdom gunpowder factory at ICI Nobel's Ardeer site in Scotland. In the late 1970s-1980s gunpowder was imported from eastern Europe; particularly from what were then, East Germany and Yugoslavia.
Prior to the American Revolutionary War very little gunpowder had been made in the Colonies that became the United States; since they were British Colonies, most of their gunpowder had been imported from Britain. In October 1777 the British Parliament banned the importation of gunpowder into America. Gunpowder, however, was secretly obtained from France and the Netherlands.
The first domestic supplies of gunpowder were made by E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. The company had been founded in 1802 by Eleuthère Irénée du Pont, two years after he and his family left France to escape the French Revolution. They set up a gunpowder mill on the Brandywine Creek at Wilmington, Delaware, based on gunpowder machinery brought from France and site plans for a gunpowder mill supplied by the French Government.
In the twentieth century, DuPont manufactured smokeless gunpowder under the designation IMR (Improved Military Rifle). The gunpowder division of DuPont was eventually sold off as a separate company, known as IMR; its powder was and is manufactured in Canada. Still later, in 2003, the IMR company was bought out by the Hodgdon Powder Company, Inc., based in Shawnee Mission, Kansas. IMR powders are still sold under the IMR name.
The Hodgdon Company was originally started by Bruce Hodgdon shortly after World War II. Hodgdon bought large quantities of surplus powder from the U.S. government and repackaged it and sold it to sportsmen. Hodgdon eventually became the largest powder supplier in the United States. Hodgdon bought powder from various manufacturers around the world, including Nobel in Scotland, Olin in the U.S., a manufacturer in Australia, and others, and repackaged and sold this powder under its own brand name and designations. Hodgdon also manufactured Pyrodex, a modern and improved form of black powder.
Additional present-day U.S. manufacturers and suppliers of gunpowder include Winchester/Olin, Western Powders (Accurate Arms and Ramshot powders), and Alliant (formerly Hercules). VihtaVuori gunpowders from Finland, Norma gunpowders from Sweden, and some powders from other manufacturers are also available and frequently used by American shooters.
China and Russia are major producers of gunpowder today. However, their powder goes almost entirely into production of ammunition for military weapons and is not available to civilians, nor are statistics available for their production of gunpowder.
All links retrieved January 23, 2014.
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Considering an Electric Vehicle?
If you want to drive and have minimal impact on Earth with the least expensive fuel costs, consider an electric vehicle (EV). EVs come in a wide range of types and sizes, from converted 1980s VW Rabbits to sleek new Tesla Roadsters. While an efficient gasoline vehicle may get around 35 miles per gallon, an electric vehicle that is charged by the grid can operate at the gasoline equivalent of about $1.10 per gallon. Conversion kits are available that come with everything except the batteries, which need to be purchased separately. Depending upon the cost of the original “donor car,” a conversion (for example, a VW Rabbit) could cost less than $10,000. These lightweight vehicles typically have a top range of 50 miles and a top speed of 75 mph.
At the other extreme, a new Tesla Roadster costs more than $100,000—way outside of the average person’s budget. But the sports car’s statistics are as impressive: a range of 244 miles, and an electronically limited top speed of 125 mph.
In between the low- and high-end EVs are purpose-built and converted plug-in electric vehicles (PHEVs). These cars are similar to, and usually even start out as, standard hybrid-electric vehicles, like the Toyota Prius. But take the basic Prius and add a much larger battery pack, and the car can run solely on its batteries for a few miles. And if you can plug the car into your household electricity between trips, then the engine will not have to do battery recharging, either. New Prius PHEVs are coming out with an electric-only range of about 15 miles. That may not seem like much, and to many it is not enough, but it is within the distance that many commuters travel to work on a daily basis. New to Prius hybrids are add-on batteries that can significantly increase the electric-only range. Enginer sells kits that can give a standard Prius up to 40 miles of battery-only driving, and increase overall fuel economy in the vehicle by 100%.
Production EVs, with the first being the Nissan Leaf, are being followed by models from Ford, Volkswagen, Volvo, and others. The Leaf has a range of about 140 miles and a top speed of 93 mph. As interest in super-high-mileage vehicles heighten, more and more EVs will become available.
Many EVs available fit the description of “neighborhood electric vehicles.” These are generally very small cars, limited in speeds they can reach, often maxed at 35 mph. Many are open-sided vehicles like the Gem, but some others are full-bodied. Other companies are coming out with around-town subcompacts with all-electric drives. These grocery-getters like the Smart fortwo are production-made, but not fast enough for unencumbered freeway speeds.
Finally, there is quite affordable electric transportation for traveling around-town: electric bicycles and other forms of personal transportation options. Costing between $1,000 and $3,000, electric-assist bicycles can get a person down the road quickly without breaking a sweat. For do-it-yourselfers, electric bike conversion kits can be a cheaper alternative. Electric motor scooters and even high-speed electric motorcycles are also available. | <urn:uuid:91755106-952b-4155-b1b0-f483128594ea> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.homepower.com/comment/1046 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397749.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00139-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945932 | 692 | 3.140625 | 3 |
(Last Updated on : 10/05/2011)
Bhatti is the author of the Mahakavya Bhattikavya that consists of short cantos. The name Bhatti has been taken from the Prakriti name Bhartr. His work gave Magha the drive to show his grammatical skills to the extent that he does. He was known to Bhamaha. The list of Alamkaras given by Bhatti is in a certain measure though the source is still unknown.
Bhatti's poem serves the double plan of describing Rama's history as well as illustrating the rules of grammar. The twenty-two cantos fall into four sections; the first four cantos describe miscellaneous rules; then the next five give the leading rules, cantos ten to thirteen illustrate the ornaments of poetry and the rest of the cantos illustrates the use of the tempers and tenses. Pleasure and profit has been devised carefully. Bhatti has given the rank of a Mahakavi. Bhatti plots to produce interesting and effective verse. His aim helps his style as it does not allow the adoption of long compounds or obscure allusions.
The main metre used by Bhatti is the €ioka which is used in most of the Cantos; Upajati of the Indravajra type also prevails. There are other metres used which occur occasionally in the poem. Long metres are not used frequently and this makes the style comparatively easier. Large stanzas encourage development of thought and expression.
This article is a stub. You can enrich by adding more information to it. Send your Write Up to email@example.com | <urn:uuid:670cecc0-0ead-447f-9f91-d954888e84ce> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.indianetzone.com/54/bhatti.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00039-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961773 | 349 | 2.875 | 3 |
Where do you bury someone like Darwin, a man who admittedly had lost his Christian faith and declared himself an agnostic? When he died on April 19, 1882, his family planned to bury him in the local churchyard beside the graves of his children. Some of Darwin's countrymen, however, had other ideas and quickly began lobbying leading scientists and members of government to come together and ask the dean of Britain's Westminster Abbey to allow Darwin to be buried there. The dean, Reverend George Granville Bradley, responded that his "assent would be cheerfully given," and so Darwin, the agnostic, was buried in Westminster Abbey on the afternoon of April 26. Darwin's old friend, botanist Joseph Hooker, was among the pallbearers, as were Alfred Russel Wallace, the young naturalist whose writings had pushed Darwin into publishing his own theory, and James Russell Lowell, the United States' ambassador to Britain. In a part of the Abbey known as Scientists' Corner, Darwin lies a few feet from the burial place of Sir Isaac Newton and next to that of the astronomer Sir John Herschel. It was Herschel that Darwin referred to in the introduction of The Origin of Species as the great philosopher who coined the phrase "mystery of mysteries" to describe the change of Earth's species through time. | <urn:uuid:6d2a367a-13c7-4015-9c6c-0e988b835dad> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2004/11/darwin-wrong/did-you-know-learn | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00082-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982341 | 267 | 3.3125 | 3 |
Safety glass structures2011. January 14.
Safety glass is a type of glass which is designed to resist breaking, and to break in a way which minimizes the risk of injuries in the event that the glass cannot withstand the forces which are exerted on it.
Safety glass is also designed to be stronger than conventional glass, reducing the risk of breakage in the first place by being tougher than ordinary glass. Tempered safety glass can handle rapid shifts in temperature along with severe impacts, and laminated safety glass is capable of withstanding heavy impacts as well. Laminated safety glass has another advantage: if a person or object collides with it, the glass will not give way, keeping the object contained.
Tempered glass is one of two kinds of safety glass regularly used in applications in which standard glass could pose a potential danger. Tempered glass is four to five times stronger than standard glass and does not break into sharp shards when it fails. Tempered glass is manufactured through a process of extreme heating and rapid cooling, making it harder than normal glass.
The brittle nature of tempered glass causes it to shatter into small oval-shaped pebbles when broken. This eliminates the danger of sharp edges. Due to this property, along with its strength, tempered glass is often referred to as safety glass.
unique shower cabin doors
Laminated glass is a type of safety glass that holds together when shattered. In the event of breaking, it is held in place by an interlayer, typically of PVB or EVA, between its two or more layers of glass. The interlayer keeps the layers of glass bonded even when broken, and its high strength prevents the glass from breaking up into large sharp pieces. This produces a characteristic "spider web" cracking pattern when the impact is not enough to completely pierce the glass.
Laminated glass is normally used when there is a possibility of human impact or where the glass could fall if shattered. Skylight glazing and automobile windshields typically use laminated glass.
toss resistant constructions
break resistant constructions
bullet proof constructions
Special tempered, screened, laminated products:
The combination of these heat-treated and laminated glasses gives many options for architectural solutions.
combination of decoration and security purposes
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The delegates to the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 that drafted the U.S. Constitution had no liking for popular democracy—what the more blunt called “mob rule.” They were reacting against radicals who had taken over the government of Rhode Island and canceled debts. The delegates feared the majority would deprive the minority of its rights. Laws should be constructed, said James Madison, “so as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.”
In line with this conviction, the Founding Fathers, most of whom were lawyers, constructed a system of checks and balances designed to make it very difficult for any one group through the executive or the legislature to obtain all power.
The Constitution gives to the president, for instance, the right to appoint not only the justices of the Supreme Court but also the judges on the federal circuit courts of appeals. But it gives the Senate the right to advise on and consent to these appointments. And the appointments are for life.
On the whole, this system has worked well. For the past two decades, however, when the presidency and the Senate have been controlled by different parties, it has worked less well. When that happens, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s questioning of the president’s nominees has been unduly delayed or controverted in a partisan spirit or the nominations have died in committee. Both parties have been guilty of this.
At this moment, the Judiciary Committee, with 10 Democratic members and nine Republicans, is sharply divided over two of President Bush’s nominees for judgeships. Mr. Bush has proposed 47-year-old Michael W. McConnell, a distinguished law professor and legal scholar, for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit and 40-year-old Miguel A. Estrada for the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The personal and professional qualifications of these nominees are not contested by the committee’s Democratic majority, but their views on certain hotly debated legal issues are. Professor McConnell has published widely and is on record as opposing abortion and favoring some forms of school vouchers. Because of this, a New York Times editorial instructed the Senate to reject him. Mr. Estrada, who emigrated from Honduras to the United States as a teenager, has already acquired a considerable reputation for his legal brilliance and his work as a federal prosecutor, but he has no list of publications. He too, however, is known to be opposed to abortion.
The Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, led by New York’s Senator Charles E. Schumer, chairman of the subcommittee on courts, have been exploring at length what Mr. Schumer calls the ideologies of the two nominees. That seems to mean not just their juridical positions but also their overall philosophies.
Some inquiry into a nominee’s ideology is appropriate. It can, however, be less searching when nominees for circuit courts are being heard, because judges on those courts do not have the same opportunities to be creative—to make law, as it were—available to Supreme Court justices.
All office holders are required to swear to uphold the Constitution. But in areas where constitutional law is unsettled, nominees for judgeships should not be asked to make explicit affirmations beforehand. If they are, they should be free to decline to answer if they think the independence of their future judgments would be compromised.
While inquiries into judicial philosophy have some legitimacy, murky discussions of ideologies should not be permitted to mask the political positions that the Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee are taking—positions that appear clearly when the nominees are interrogated. The nominees may affirm, as both Mr. McConnell and Mr. Estrada have done, that they will uphold the Constitution and established law. But if they are known to think, or are suspected of thinking, that the Roe v. Wade decision was wrong, they have little chance of being approved by the Democratic majority on the Judiciary Committee even if they would enforce that decision as law.
The Democrats on the Judiciary Committee have so allied themselves with pro-choice groups as to deprive the circuit courts of men and women who would make eminent judges. If this obduracy continues (and is repeated by Republicans when they are in control), those courts may some day be staffed by mediocrities whose chief recommendation is that they have no ideologies whatsoever. The framers of the Constitution never envisioned that sort of imbalance and would have tried to check it if they had. | <urn:uuid:c4c48700-b6bc-428c-abc7-41766b41e7f3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://americamagazine.org/print/issue/408/editorial/senators-judges-and-ideologies | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00056-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97454 | 909 | 2.578125 | 3 |
150 years ago, England granted the Miskito people of Honduras rights over their own land. Unfortunately, that treaty has not been respected until a few days ago when the government officially returned over nearly one million hectares of rainforest along the country’s coast. The Miskito people number about 200,000 and live in about 128 communities in the forests of Honduras and Nicaragua.
Image © kmr18819
In recent decades, the Miskito people’s forest homes have been threatened by land speculators, loggers, and ranchers, who have settled there illegally, clearing forest and grazing cattle. From 1990 to 2005, Honduras lost 37.1 percent of its forests-one of the highest rates of deforestation in Latin America. But now this new handover will allow the Miskito to legally protect their land and even negotiate treaties with the United Nations.
Norvin Goff, the chairman of Miskitu Asla Takanka, a representative of the Honduran tribes, told MongaBay.com that they hope to use their new position to spread awareness of climate change: “Now we will be able to teach others how we have protected our forests and natural resources, and benefit from our role in helping the world that wants so badly to stop destroying the forests so we can slow climate change.”
Lead image © Ben Britten | <urn:uuid:481eaf24-d5db-48aa-a048-3ce0eee7f2b2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://inhabitat.com/honduran-government-hands-over-one-million-hectares-of-land-to-indigenous-people/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396224.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00193-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93993 | 277 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Today is the feast of St. Peter Celestine, Pope Celestine V, who famously resigned the papacy.
One of the fascinating people in our Catholic family history.
Pietro da Morrone, born c. 1215, in the Molise area of central Italy, came from a family of peasants. He entered a Benedictine monastery and later became a hermit. Peter eventually guided a community of hermits modeled along the lines of the Cistercian Benedictine rule. He was well-known for his holiness and his acclaimed ability to heal.
With the death of Nicholas IV, the see of Peter was vacant for three years. Pietro was eventually elected “by inspiration” in 1294. He took the name Celestine.
Celestine came out of the blocks with a strong spiritual program. He created 12 cardinals, the number of the apostles, including 5 monks. Celestine was inspired by the musings of Joachim de Fiore. Celestine probably wanted to ring in a new age of the Spirit, with a strong monastic dimension, in preparation for the end times.
In a loose way, perhaps we can see today the rise of “movements” and some of the charismatic elements of these movements – as we still emerge from the horror of the 20th century and battle the dictatorship of relativism, as being part of a pattern that repeats itself through our history after the Ascension of the Lord, the end times. Every generation has sensed itself to be in the end times. But I digress.
Poor Pope Celestine couldn’t hold it all together. He abdicated on 13 December 1294 after only 5 months as Pope. The cardinals elected Benedict Caetani, who took the name Boniface… Boniface VIII.
The former Pope-monk but once-again-Peter fled Rome and went to his hermitage back in the hills of central Italy and Apulia. He tried to get out of Italy to Greece, but he was apprehended in June 1295 and brought to Boniface. Boniface imprisoned him. Peter Celestine died a year later on 19 May 1296 and was buried in L’Aqulia.
He was canonized in 1313. He was removed from the universal calendar of the Roman Church in 1969, but he is still venerated in the Abruzzi area of Italy. The church in which he was interred was damaged in the earthquake that rocked central Italy some time ago.
Benedict XVI visited the church. More on that, below.
Dante, in his Divine Comedy, in Inferno 3, places in hell someone whom we think may be Peter Celestine V. Dante calls him “the shade of him who in his cowardice made the great refusal”. “The great refusal” being the rejection of the highest office to which one might ascend in this world, with all the duties and responsibilities and implications for the bonds of society that that office carries.
Remember that the Divine Comedy is about, among other things, the interrelationship of the secular and the sacred. Dante was writing political theory in the Divine Comedy. His Hell is constructed to reflect the ways in which people harm no just themselves, but also the bonds of society. Dante would have hated Peter Celestine’s abdication also because he opened the way for Dante’s great enemy Boniface VIII, whom he detested.
If you have never read the Divine Comedy, you should. You could start with Esolen (Part 1, Inferno HERE) or perhaps with Dorothy Sayer’s fine version (Part 1, Inferno, HERE). There are many renderings to choose from. I am getting into one by Clive James.
When Pope Benedict visited the tomb of Pope Celestine he left his palium there, that first one he used, the longer paleo-palium.
An interesting gesture. O, my prophetic soul.
From the 2005 Martyrologium Romanum:
6. Ad Castrum Fumorense prop Alatrium in Latio, natalis sancti Petri Caelestini, qui, cum vitam eremeticam in Aprutio ageret, fama sanctitatis et miraculorum clarus, octogenarius Romanus Pontifex electus est, assumpto nomine Caelestini Quinti, sed eodem anno munere se abdicavit et solitudinem recedere maluit. | <urn:uuid:a0444e3e-f59d-498a-9f00-afe76a178197> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://wdtprs.com/blog/2014/05/a-pope-in-hell-the-curious-case-of-st-pope-peter-celestine-v/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397562.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00167-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966452 | 937 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Classroom Activities and Lesson Plans for Native Voices
The National Library of Medicine (NLM) Division of Specialized Information Services K-12 Workgroup has released classroom activities and lesson plans to supplement the Native Peoples’ Concepts of Health and Illness Web site.
For grades 6-12, these classroom activities and lesson plans familiarize students to the health and medicine of Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians. The activities and lesson plans are available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/resources/lesson-plans-list.html.
The activities and lesson plans use Native Voices exhibition Web site content material and other NLM online educational/science resources., composed of four units. Each unit introduces a different way of exploring and learning about the Native Voices exhibition in about 1.5 to 3 hours. These units are: 1) A scavenger hunt, 2) An environmental health science lesson, 3) A social science lesson, and 4) A biology lesson.
While the activities and lesson plans can be used in science classrooms, clubs, and programs, they can be used also to reinforce the history and societal developments of Native peoples in social science and history classrooms.
About the Native Voices Web site
The Native Voices Web site (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices) allows people to experience an exhibition currently on display at NLM in Bethesda, Maryland. Both versions explore the connection between wellness, illness and cultural life through a combination of interviews with Native people and interactive media.
For more about K -12 Resources from the National Library of Medicine, this month’s SCR CONNECTions featured an overview of this and other databases and online exhibitions which include classroom materials. Go to: http://nnlm.gov/scr/training/webmeeting.html#Archives for a recording of the session and presentation material. | <urn:uuid:2aa17906-f2d0-4860-966b-bfbf975c538e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://nnlm.gov/scr/blog/2014/02/20/k-12-materials-for-native-voices/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00032-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900855 | 395 | 3.90625 | 4 |
Look at pictures of any Montessori classroom around the world and you will see children working on mats on the floor as well as at child-sized tables. The mats provide children with a delineated work space of their own where they can work and even leave work over the course of a day or days as they learn to work on larger and more complex projects.
Floor work is also practical. Children enjoy being able to move and interact with equipment. For example, when children use the Red Rods they spend most of their time walking to get the rods, carrying the rods to the mat, moving the rods around, and carrying them back to the shelf. Once you see how delighted your three or four year old is doing this exercise, everything will make much more sense!
Set up your Montessori classroom or home area with small rectangular mats the size of a yoga mat. The material for the mats should be carpet or rug -- anything that has a non-sticky texture and lends itself to being rolled and unrolled.
Questions? Send them in so we can share them with everyone!
Adventures in Autism
4 years ago | <urn:uuid:eea26c39-52dc-41aa-b91f-e6357739bfd4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://montessorihouse.blogspot.com/2007/09/importance-of-mats-and-floor-work.html?showComment=1193805540000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396100.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00000-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95803 | 232 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Big prize for ideas to help marine mammals, fishing fleets
Inefficient gear has serious ecological, economic costs
By Marsha Walton
Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles are caught annually in nets and on longlines.
Partners and judges in the International Smart Gear Competition
American Fisheries Society
Center for Sustainable Aquatic Resources
Fisheries Conservation Foundation
Marine Wildlife Bycatch Consortium
National Fisheries Institute
World Wildlife Fund
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries
(CNN) -- From sea turtles to whales to dolphins and birds, hundreds of thousands of animals die each year because they become entangled in fishing gear.
Now in an unusual partnership of scientists, the fishing industry and conservation groups, a contest with a hefty $25,000 prize is aimed at reducing those accidental deaths, known as "bycatch."
The World Wildlife Fund is taking the lead in the International Smart Gear Competition, which was announced Monday on the opening day of the Fourth World Fisheries Congress in Vancouver.
"Smart Gear" will begin accepting entries in June, with a deadline of December 31, 2004. Winners in three categories will also get technical help in bringing their ideas from the drawing board to manufacture.
"We hope this competition is able to harness the creativity and ingenuity of fishermen, students, and the public to reduce the waste caused by inefficient gear," said Tom Grasso of the World Wildlife Fund's marine conservation program.
WWF cast a wide net in getting partners and judges for the contest, including the leading trade association for the fish and seafood industry, the National Fisheries Institute.
"It's really an ideal situation when you have the industry, government, and environmental groups coming together with a common goal," said Linda Candler, a spokeswoman for the National Fisheries Institute.
The U.S. Oceans Commission says entanglement in fishing gear is the leading threat to marine mammals worldwide. And billions of pounds of "non-target" fish also are wasted each year; those fish also are considered bycatch.
For fishing fleets, dealing with bycatch takes time and raises costs. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates fishing fleets lose hundreds of millions of dollars a year because of the loss of juvenile and non-target fish.
A handful of devices that already exist to protect unintended capture are very effective, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Turtle excluder devices, known as TEDs, allow turtles to swim out of shrimp nets, while the shrimp stay in.
TEDs reduce shrimping-related sea turtle deaths by more than 90 percent, according to the World Wildlife Fund. And using circle hooks, instead of conventional "J" hooks by longline fleets, can also reduce turtle mortality.
Simply setting nets in deeper water can in some cases reduce bycatch.
Alarms known as pingers that are attached to fishing nets can annoy whales, dolphins and porpoises enough that they swim away to safety.
Researchers from Duke University in North Carolina and the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, estimate that 308,000 of those species die each year because they are trapped in nets.
Rules for the competition can be found at www.smartgear.org. | <urn:uuid:83b90512-ccb4-41b0-8882-d51b50aa7600> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/05/06/smartgear/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00053-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936396 | 646 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Americans held their collective breath as Hurricane Isaac pelted the Gulf Coast with 80-mph winds and up to twenty inches of rain in some places last week.
In an ominous sign, the Category I hurricane passed through New Orleans seven years to the day after Hurricane Katrina made landfall. Isaac was a force to be reckoned with, as New Orleans was drenched with more rain than it received during Hurricane Katrina.
Our hearts go out to all those on the Gulf Coast, especially the nine people who lost their lives. Roughly half the households in Louisiana—some 900,000—were left without power, and some reports indicate that the storm may have caused up to $2 billion in damages. Still, the damage wrought by Isaac was far less than that caused by Katrina in 2005, which was responsible for 1200 deaths, and over $100 billion in damages.
That doesn’t happen by luck--it’s the product of state, local, and federal agencies working hand-in-hand to strengthen our nation’s communities ability to respond to disasters. [W1]
Major General Walter Davis, the Deputy Commanding General of US Army North, said that since Katrina in 2005, “local, state, and federal agencies, with the added assistance of military forces, have worked tirelessly to establish and rehearse cooperative partnerships that have truly enhanced our collective ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters of all kinds”.
The years of planning, training, and preparation paid off. State and local responders performed magnificently, as local civil authorities, augmented with thousands of National Guardsmen. Despite the damage, local authorities had the situation well in hand, with no major requests for federal military responders. Still, the situation was carefully monitored by one of the primary agencies responsible for Defense Support of Civil Authorities—US Army North. Headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, Army North is US Northern Command’s operational headquarters for land forces in the homeland.
As Isaac barreled down on the Gulf Coast, the men and women of Army North raced directly into the storm’s path. Nearly one hundred men and women took up positions throughout the Gulf region—assessing damage, and making plans for logistical support, should federal forces be needed. Defense Coordinating Officers spent long nights working alongside their counterparts from FEMA, as well as state and local officials. Based on experience learned from previous hurricane seasons, helicopters from the Army and Navy stationed themselves on the edge of the storm, just a few hours’ flight from Isaac’s landfall.
Isaac was destructive, yes, but years of tedious building, planning, and preparation paid off. The levees in New Orleans held, and civil authorities helped citizens comply with mandatory evacuation orders. Emergency shelters were identified well in advance, as were distribution points for water, food, and ice.
“The state [of Louisiana] and the National Guard were very well prepared”, said Colonel Bryan Newkirk, a Defense Coordinating Officer who worked closely with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s emergency management team.
“It was very encouraging the way the state met the needs of the people. They didn’t need a lot of federal assistance”.
Federal assistance was minimal, but welcome. At one point, medical planners worked with officials from Health and Human services to evacuate 125 nursing home residents to nearby Belle Chasse Naval Air Station.
Thousands of National Guardsmen—over 5,000 in Louisiana alone—were activated to assist their countrymen. State responders were very proactive in identifying a potential disaster, when it appeared that the Tangipahoa Dam could potentially fail. Though the dam ultimately held, Louisiana officials were quick to rush transportation assets and search-and-rescue teams to the area as a precautionary measure.
Responders from Army North headed for home once they were assured that state and local officials had the situation under control. By all accounts, the response from local officials was little short of amazing, given the conditions at hand.
Most importantly, though, citizens from across America came together to help those affected receive food, medicine, and emergency shelter. This strong sense of community helped prevent many issues which arose in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
These results don’t come about by accident. They come about through the extraordinary efforts of government officials, first responders, and the American people. We are pleased that the affects of Hurricane Isaac could be managed by the resilient communities of the Gulf Coast. Yet, Army North will always be in the background, ready to support American communities and their citizens when they need it the most. Our countrymen expect, and deserve nothing less. | <urn:uuid:96cbfb60-3677-4864-bedd-5d2afeb86469> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.businessinsider.com/these-lessons-from-katrina-paid-off-during-hurricane-isaac-2012-9 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396222.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00052-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972996 | 956 | 2.5625 | 3 |
There’s nothing to burn. No ore to mine. No coal trains snaking from Wyoming to Midwest power plants. But wind power has its own pollution problem looming.
Last year, one third of new electric capacity in the U.S. came from wind, reports the DOE, and it’s growing quickly. All of the new U.S. generating capacity in September 2012 came from wind and solar, says the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee, and the U.S. now relies on wind for 4.43% of its total generating potential. And there’s plenty of room to expand: Industrialized nations—Denmark (29%), Spain (19%), and Germany (11%)—are building heavily wind-driven energy grids.
The problem comes when all of those wind turbines need to be replaced. Scandinavia, among the first to adopt wind into its energy mix, is on the leading edge of this problem: "As the wind becomes a central part of energy supply, a huge waste problem is growing with similar speed," reported Denmark’s major business newspaper Dagbladet Børsen in 2011.
While wind power looks self-contained—a field of towers, white fiberglass rotors, and the breeze—the massive fiberglass and carbon-composite blades eventually have to be decommissioned and replaced. Mechanical engineering Christopher Niezrecki of the University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Wind Energy Research Group estimates the U.S. will have as many as 170,000 wind turbines by 2030 (about 20% of the country’s installed capacity) translating into more than 34,000 trashed blades per year; globally, the figure may be as many as 170,000. Since each blade can stretch the length of a football field and weigh 18 tons, that’s a lot of unplanned waste.
To prevent this avalanche, the National Science Foundation (NSF) is funding Niezrecki and the University of Wichita to find biological-derived materials for biodegradable blade materials that replace carbon-fiber composites and petroleum-based epoxies, the current industry standard. As today’s materials cannot be easily recycled, most used blades are cut or ground up for incineration and burial in landfills and roads.
The next generation of blade material may come from natural cellulose fibers and bio-based plastics derived from soybean, linseed, and other vegetable oils, instead of oil-based polymers. The $1.9 million NSF grant will seek to understand how those may be applied to the wind industry, and any products made from fiberglass, says Niezrecki.
Even Texas, whose economy has ridden the energy boom for almost a century, is bullish on the potential for blades that can biodegrade or be easily recycled, reports the Houston Business Journal.
"Our turbines in Texas are less than 10 years old, and the average life span is 20 years old," Roby Roberts, a spokesman for Madrid-based EDP Renewables, owner of Houston’s Horizon Wind Energy, told the Journal. But "we’re going to have to get rid of the blades in some fashion. The company who can come up with a process of recycling the blade is going to have a pretty good business plan." | <urn:uuid:cf05c2ca-1551-45f0-a51a-43411c1acaa5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680889/turbine-blades-made-out-of-vegetables-to-solve-winds-hidden-pollution-problem | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391634.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00087-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93455 | 684 | 3.3125 | 3 |
CHICAGO (AP) — A Chicago conservator has restored the state of Illinois’ rare copy of the 13th Amendment signed by President Lincoln.
The almost 147-year-old document signifying the end of slavery is made of animal skin, which was creased and wrinkled, and some of the original iron gall ink had flaked away.
That made it too fragile to display, and it’s been stored in a vault at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield.
Graphic Conservation Co. restored the document at no charge to the state, and will turn it over to museum officials on Thursday.
It will go on display in February.
Illinois’ document is one of at least 14 duplicate copies of the 13th Amendment signed by Lincoln. It also was signed by most lawmakers who voted for it.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. | <urn:uuid:04aca741-3303-4e7b-87bf-406756f754c1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://thegrio.com/2011/12/06/lincoln-signed-copy-of-13th-amendment-restored/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393146.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00120-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970486 | 182 | 2.890625 | 3 |
NEW YORK DAY BY DAY
NEW YORK DAY BY DAY; 'Seneca Falls,' Dalton-Style
By Susan Heller Anderson and Maurice Carroll
Published: April 9, 1984
The learning experience was on
both sides of the footlights the other day when the Dalton School's fourth graders performed ''Seneca Falls,'' a ''documusical'' on the history of women's rights. It was written by the East Side private school's composer-in-residence, Carmino Ravosa.
The play traces the struggle for women's suffrage in this country from the first public meeting, in Seneca Falls, N.Y., on July 14, 1848, to the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Portraying such characters as Susan B. Anthony, Amelia Earhart and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, two of the meeting's organizers, were 31 fourth graders, the boys usually playing unsympathetic fathers and husbands.
Daniel Laikind played Elizabeth Cady Stanton's father, and sang, ''If You Had Only Been a Boy.''
''I never knew women's rights was such an important part of history,'' he said later. ''It changed the world.''
''Some day I'm going to fly,'' Mimo Masuda sang as Miss Earhart. ''If men can fly, so can I.''
''Girls today don't know what it took from other women so they could get to this stage,'' said Mr. Ravosa, who has held the Dalton post for six years. The show had its premiere - with adults - at Carnegie Hall in 1974, and he has written three new numbers since then.
''None of my daughters' history books included women,'' he said, explaining his initial inspiration. ''Now, even the boys have been inhaling books on all these characters. Seneca Falls should be as famous as 1776.'' Susan Heller Anderson Maurice Carroll | <urn:uuid:be19ce0d-ffe6-4447-89a0-288dc5f864b5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nytimes.com/1984/04/09/nyregion/new-york-day-by-day-seneca-falls-dalton-style.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402516.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00046-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964682 | 396 | 2.515625 | 3 |
By Dr. Mercola
Perhaps it's just a matter of course that you wash your eggs before using them. Many Americans do. But did you know that in many areas of the world, they don't?
The Japanese, Australians and Scandinavians wash their eggs, too, either when they bring them home from the store and before refrigerating them, or just after taking them from the refrigerator and before cracking them into their skillets.
Some natural health advocates think this is the wrong way to handle freshly laid chicken eggs. The Prairie Homestead blogger says that at her house, they drink raw milk straight from the cow, eat unwashed veggies from their garden and raw eggs from their chickens.
"Some people aren't quite so, shall we say, accepting. And sometimes when you give people a carton of chicken eggs to take home that have bits of shavings and feathers stuck to them, it kinda grosses them out.
But no big deal, just give the eggs a good scrubbing and send them out the door. Right? Wrong."1
That may sound crazy to many people, but for centuries around the world, where there was little water and no hope of refrigeration, eggs were neither washed nor cooled.
To Americans, it doesn't seem logical that unwashed eggs would be safe to eat. The USDA agrees, and in 1970 began requiring egg producers in the U.S. to machine-wash their eggs.
But in many European countries, egg-washing is banned. Except for Japan, which experienced an egg-related salmonella outbreak in the 1990s, other Asian countries steer clear of the egg-washing routine as well.
Eggs have been gathered from the chickens and stored in a room-temperature pantry for years with no trouble. It's best to use washed eggs sooner than any that are unwashed.
It's important to know that when you bring eggs home from the refrigerated cooler at the grocery store, they need to be refrigerated again when you get home. Cold eggs brought to room temperature tend to sweat, which encourages bacterial growth.
On the other hand, eggs that are fresh from the farm and have an intact cuticle do not need to be refrigerated, as long as you are going to consume them within a relatively short period of time.
Eggs Are One of the Healthiest Foods on the Planet
Eggs are good for you. They're also relatively inexpensive, especially for the powerful nutrients they offer. Besides all the essential amino acids (which your body doesn't provide for you), eggs supply lots of protein, many beneficial vitamins and healthy — aka necessary — fats.
Best of all, the high protein is great for weight loss, and can potentially boost your metabolism by as much as 100 calories a day. Containing around 78 calories each, eggs are very filling.
Satiety Index studies reveal that for this reason, eating eggs earlier in the day cuts down on higher-calorie foods later, including late-night snacks.
Some have been told they should avoid eggs because they contain too much fat and raise your cholesterol, but that's incorrect. Good fats are desirable for a healthy diet. Rather than "raising" your cholesterol, eating the whole egg, yolk and all, offers nearly perfectly balanced nutrients.
Saturated fats like those in butter, dairy products, and coconut oil are actually fat fighters. To quote the Epoch Times:
"The key is to eat the right fats, in moderation.
Fats support healthy hormones, promote skin regeneration, reduce sugar cravings, keep you fuller for longer, burn (yes, I said burn) body fat, support brain health, boost energy levels and metabolism, protect your immune system, and optimize your health."2
Salmonella — Should We Worry About It?
When the "to refrigerate eggs or not to refrigerate" question arises, fear of salmonella poisoning usually ends any speculation for those who don't have all the facts about farm-fresh eggs.
Salmonella is commonly associated with undercooked CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operations) eggs or CAFO meat, but the bacteria can easily contaminate other foods it touches.
Egg contamination occurs either by the hen being infected with salmonella or the egg coming into contact with chicken feces containing the bacteria. Unfortunately, the latter is most prevalent in the U.S.
A U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report estimated in 2011 that around 450 Americans die of salmonella poisoning every year. This microorganism can cause gastroenteritis, precipitating loose stools, abdominal cramps and fever.
Most cases are virtually undetectable; in rare cases, it can be deadly, usually for people with weakened immune systems, infants and the elderly. Concerning incidents involving egg-borne salmonella poisoning throughout the world has changed traditional understanding in recent decades.
Outbreaks traced back to egg contamination have increased throughout the world since the late-1970s and mid-1980s, one review noted, mostly in the U.K., Australia and Denmark, but also in the U.S., Mexico, Italy and Japan.3
In 1988, the CDC noticed that a formerly dominant strain, S. typhimurium, was being replaced by the S. enteritidis strain.
When food poisoning in the northeastern U.S. increased five times over, most of the victims had eaten Grade A whole eggs, so the CDC identified eggs as the culprit. The Salmonella enteritidis strain:
" … [C]an infect a chicken's ovaries, contaminating a yolk before the shell firms up around it.
Cooking usually kills the bacteria before they can harm you; still, eggs contaminated with salmonella are responsible for about 142,000 illnesses a year in the U.S., according to the Food and Drug Administration."4
So Why Don't Europeans Wash Their Eggs?
U.K.-based World Poultry Science Journal published a lengthy paper not only explaining not only their reasons for prohibiting egg washing — but also implicating egg washing as the cause for the salmonella outbreaks:
"Current European Union legislation prohibits the washing of Class A eggs. This is in stark contrast to countries such as the United States of America and, more recently Japan, which have embraced egg-washing technology.
The emergence in the U.K. of egg associated Salmonella enteritidis as a significant cause of food poisoning has, combined with the increase in non-cage egg production systems, increased interest in technologies that might improve the microbial quality of the egg."5
The paper went on to discuss the departure from caged-layer egg production, implicating the "new" egg-washing trend in the rampant contamination problem.
According to Fooducate.com, EU directives state that washing eggs “may favour [sic] trans-shell contamination with bacteria and moisture loss and thereby increase the risk to consumers.”
"To summarize, European eggs are not refrigerated, not washed, and end up sickening less people than here.
The U.S. is more effective at producing low cost eggs, cleans the poop off, and requires refrigeration. Yet in 2010, half a billion eggs were recalled after potentially being tainted with salmonella."6
Don't Wash Off the 'Bloom!'
One little-known phenomenon in nature is the protective cuticle or "bloom" eggs are covered with when they're laid by their respective mother hens.
Similar to the wax job vehicles get after a car wash, this invisible coating on eggs keeps them from being porous and helps protect them from harmful bacteria. The Prairie Homestead explains:
"Bacteria has a hard time getting inside a dry egg. Washing dirty eggs removes the bloom and invites bacteria to be drawn inside the egg. And washing eggs in cool water actually creates a vacuum, pulling unwanted bacteria inside even faster."
That's especially true if there are hairline cracks in an egg, and water introduces pores they didn't have before, both of which increase the chances for bacterial contamination.
To ameliorate this, the drill in the U.S. is to place newly laid eggs straight into a machine for a soap and hot water "shampoo" (which, of course, washes away that undetectable safety jacket). They're then sprayed with bacteria-protective oil and refrigerated for good measure.
Clinical Studies — A Contrast
The Public Library of Science (PLSS) published a study on the topic under the premise that worldwide, S. Typhimurium is one of the most common bacteria in salmonella food-poisoning cases. Researchers examined the ability of five S. Typhimurium strains to penetrate both washed and unwashed eggs using whole egg and agar egg penetration methods.
Statistical analysis of the agar penetration experiment indicated that S. Typhimurium was able to penetrate washed eggs at a significantly higher rate when compared to unwashed eggs. When compared to unwashed eggs, washed eggs also had significantly damaged cuticles.7
A Belgium-based study began by noting that egg washing is currently not permitted in the European Union, with few exceptions, due to concerns that the process will damage the cuticle.
Researchers compared 400 eggs, some from older hens, which tend to lay eggs with "poorer" cuticle coverage and therefore constitute a greater risk for contamination. Under this "worst-case scenario," washed eggs were visually assessed and found to be undamaged by washing.8
Some European countries vaccinate their hens against salmonella. Although U.S. egg producers aren't required to follow suit, they do have to follow a litany of safety measures such as testing, pest control and refrigeration from the time they leave the farm to the time they reach the store.9
Essentially, the U.S. is with a few countries on one side of the divide while much of the world is on the other. At the end of the day, most scientific advisers for the poultry industry believe that whichever method works to keep salmonella contamination at bay, it's six of one and half a dozen of the other. In reality, however, the problem with contamination can often be traced back to how the chickens are raised.
How Eggs (And Chickens) Are Raised — That Is the Question
The question begs to be asked: after all the egg-washing procedures, why are there any cases of salmonella poisoning in eggs in the U.S.? The answer may lie in the fact that in Europe, the animal husbandry standards are simply higher than those of the U.S.
Hen cages are large, and most are raised in much larger areas such as free-range pens, which means hens will most likely avoid laying eggs where they've relieved themselves.
Most large-scale poultry farms in the U.S. are CAFOs that measure around 490 feet by 45 feet, and can hold 30,000 chickens or more. Their typical diet consists of genetically engineered (GE) corn, soybeans and antibiotics, rather than their natural diet of seeds, insects, green plants and worms.
If you have your own laying hens, the Prairie Homestead blog suggests that the easiest way to keep eggs clean is to prevent them from getting dirty in the first place. But if they're visibly soiled he suggests:
- Cleaning hen-nesting boxes often and supply them with fresh wood shavings.
- Place roosting areas higher than the boxes, because chickens typically roost in the highest area of the coop they can find, which discourages them from roosting in and soiling the boxes where eggs are laid.
Still, dirty eggs do appear occasionally. The best cleaning methods are using:
- Fine sandpaper to gently rub off soiled areas, which keeps the egg dry.
- Warm or hot water that's at least 20 degrees warmer than the egg, which is important — the hotter the better. In the process, don't let them soak.
- Plain dish soap rather than anti-bacterial, bleach or "solutions" unless you run a commercial egg operation.
If you're purchasing eggs, locally raised are usually best. Ask the producer if they've been washed. Free-range, pastured eggs, ideally organic, are virtually always the best choice, and far less likely to be contaminated with salmonella or other contaminants. | <urn:uuid:679fb31c-5e6b-408e-872e-303bb7137f70> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/01/02/why-americans-refrigerate-eggs.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00138-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956658 | 2,580 | 2.5625 | 3 |
BEIJING: China's second moon orbiter Chang'e-2, which is drifting deep into space after completing its moon mission has sent back the first batch of data while orbiting the second Lagrange Point (L2) about 1.7 million km away from Earth.
The orbiter is scheduled to travel around the L2 orbit till the end of 2012, according to the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence.
The data it sent back was obtained by gamma-ray a spectrometer, high-energy solar particle detector and solar wind ion detector loaded on the orbiter while it travelled from the moon's orbit to its current position, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Chang'e-2 will carry out exploration activities, such as monitoring of the high energy particles and solar winds, around the L2. Li Chunlai, one of designers of the lunar probe project, said Chang'e-2 will be the first moon orbiter in the world to observe solar winds for a fairly long time around the L2 which is a prime position to study solar winds.
Chang'e-2 entered the L2 orbit, where gravity from the sun and Earth balances the orbital motion of a satellite, in late August and has been operating stably for 26 days.
There are five so-called "Lagrange Points" about 1.5 million km from the Earth in the exact opposite direction from the sun. Positioning a spacecraft at any of these points allows it to stay in a fixed position relative to the Earth and sun with minimal amount of energy needed for course correction. It is the first time for China to send a spacecraft to a place 1.7 million km away from Earth. | <urn:uuid:0479c520-605c-4c9b-813c-f55094055781> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-09-21/news/30184561_1_moon-orbiter-solar-winds-chang-e-2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00076-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910657 | 356 | 2.71875 | 3 |
We know that whatever value we have for , the best course to the shore is a straight line, with no curves. To find this distance, we simply use geometry.
We know that the shortest distance from ship to shore makes a right angle. The distance from the boat to shore such that is an unknown variable, therefore, is the hypotenuse of a triangle made with the shortest route to shore and the shore itself. We know the former: it's . We also know the latter, which is . So, the hypotenuse, then, using the Pythagorean theorem, is . That should be enough for you to make the function .
Just in case it's not, though, here you go: Next we plug in time values. is the time it takes to row to shore, and is the time it takes to walk the remaining distance. Therefore: | <urn:uuid:00ea92e7-639b-440f-b471-e3f3081ae9c0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mathhelpforum.com/calculus/30835-related-rates.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396459.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00176-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955409 | 177 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Rogowski Coils for current measurement
Invented in 1912, Rogowski coils are air-cored toroidal windings which, when wrapped around a current carrying conductor, produce a voltage proportional to the differential of the current flowing in the conductor.
Having no magnetic core, there are no saturation effects and bandwidth is wide.
Windings are traditionally evenly spaced around the toroid and output voltage is largely independent of distortions in the shape of the toroid. This last feature means flexible wraparound Rogowski coils can be quickly attached to unbroken conductors.
To compensate for inherent differention, an integrator is connected to the coil output.
One major drawback is, a simple Rogowski coil is susceptible to external magnetic interference.
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Problem Page - Applications - How they work - Tech Tips - Training - Events - Jobs | <urn:uuid:fcb145b0-c590-4e43-afa9-56c8184eb982> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sensorland.com/HowPage055.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397748.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00091-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.874059 | 202 | 3.46875 | 3 |
Self-Questioning to Support Reading Comprehension
By: Judy Zorfass, Liz Weinbloom, and PowerUp WHAT WORKS
Proficient readers typically engage with a text by asking themselves questions as they read: Who is speaking? Why did the author choose this example? What's important here? Do I understand what I am reading?
In contrast, struggling readers, and those with disabilities, are not likely to pose questions before, during, or after reading. These students, in particular, need direct instruction and practice in self-questioning. As students develop this skill, they will become better at reading comprehension and will build the skills they need to be college and career ready. The specific ELA Common Core State Standards related to self-questioning are:
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.1 Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.2 Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.10 Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.
Making sure that students understand the three basic types of question—literal, inferential, and evaluative—is a good starting point. The answers to literal questions are "right there" in the text (e.g., details, key words, main idea, core concept). To answer inferential questions, readers must think deeply and use context clues to look beyond what is stated outright in the text. To answer evaluative questions, readers need to consider different perspectives, make a judgment, and/or take a position. Model for your students varied ways to pose anticipatory questions before reading, self-monitoring questions during reading, and assessing for understanding questions after reading. Use hypertexts and mixed media to create a document with appropriate self-questions embedded via hypertext or word processor comments.
Your clear explanations can highlight critical features of the self-questioning approach, especially when you involve a range of technology tools. Integrate Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles by giving students a wide range of options for how they produce these questions, including writing in the margins, typing comments in a word processor document, adding notes to a collaborative document, making an audio recording, creating a semantic map, or discussing the text with a partner. A four-column chart with general questions in the headings (such as "What do I know about this topic?" and "What more do I want to know?") can be helpful for recording questions before, during, and after reading.
By modeling and integrating technology, you can help your students understand self-questioning. Use hypertexts and mixed media to create a document with appropriate self-questions embedded via hypertext or word processor comments, and programs that can link audio questions to a written document. Check out the video "Embedded Supports to Differentiate Instruction for Struggling Students" below, for more ideas.
You can provide opportunities for students to practice self-questioning by asking them to generate their own questions, share their questions with peers, and respond to their peers' questions as well as their own. Have students co-read a text (e.g., in a Google Doc) and ask questions of each other in real time. Vary the environments in which students use this strategy by integrating self-questioning into reading, writing and discussion. You can even take advantage of smart phones by having students send each other text messages with questions.
In the classroom
Ms. Raya's lesson plan for her fourth grade class provides a good example of how self-questioning can be practiced to improve reading comprehension in all content areas. Ms. Raya's students recently learned about literal, inferential, and evaluative questions. They have been maintaining a collaborative document where they collect, categorize, and share these types of question based on diverse readings. In this lesson, Ms. Raya plans to assist both her struggling and proficient students to better understand historical fiction by modeling and supporting self-questioning behavior (which aligns with the Common Core State Standard on close reading and citing textual evidence to support analysis listed above).
Ms. Raya will have her students practice using self-questioning methods to comprehend and explain a text. They will use varied question types to make literal, inferential, and evaluative statements about a text, and they will tie the questions and answers directly to specific details and locations in the text. She will support her learners with technology tools, including an interactive white board, tablets for individual student work, collaborative documents for class-wide collecting and sharing of information, and digitally distributed graphic organizers and templates.
She plans her lesson by dividing it into three sections: before reading, during reading, and after reading.
Online teacher resources on self-questioning
This article draws from the PowerUp WHAT WORKS website, particularly the Self-Questioning Instructional Strategy Guide. PowerUp is a free, teacher-friendly website that requires no log-in or registration. The Instructional Strategy Guide on self-questioning includes a brief overview that defines self-questioning along with an accompanying slide show; a list of the relevant ELA Common Core State Standards; evidence-based teaching strategies to differentiate instruction using technology; another case story; short videos; and links to resources that will help you use technology to support instruction in self-questioning. If you are responsible for professional development, the PD Support Materials provide helpful ideas and materials for using the self-questioning resources. Want more information? See PowerUp WHAT WORKS.
Judy Zorfass, Liz Weinbloom, and PowerUp WHAT WORKS (2014) | <urn:uuid:294faac0-8f94-4101-b38a-40077ce1f136> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ldonline.org/article/Self-Questioning_to_Support_Reading_Comprehension | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00022-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918747 | 1,222 | 4.3125 | 4 |
A contrast stretch is a linear piece-wise mapping of image gray values. The slope of the function should be greater than 1 over the range of pixel values to be contrast stretched. If an image has a lot of detail over a small range of pixel values, using a contrast stretch will spread those pixel values out while maintaining the shapes in the image. One simple way to do this is to take the minimum value of an image and map it to zero. Take the highest value and map it to 255 (the max gray value). Since this is linear, all values in between are spread out accordingly. Here are some examples.
Original Contrast Stretch
As you can see, images with a smaller range of pixel values seem to change more.
There are two different ways to do a contrast stretch. One way is to actually modify the image. Another way is to change the lookup table. I tried both and found (as expected) that modifying the lookup table is much faster. Here are the results for top left image.
The median was .22 seconds (using matlab 5.3 tic and toc) and 458753 flops (using flop).
The median was 0.0 seconds and 1787 flops. | <urn:uuid:28f1a3ac-3771-473a-821d-48c428106be0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.signalsguru.net/projects/imageprocessing/lab4_contrast.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00011-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.892616 | 249 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Court Says Regulators Must Protect Keystone Species from Giant Trawlers
The massive nets of an industrial midwater trawling fleet comb through the water above the ocean floor in search of Atlantic mackerel and herring, leaving little in their wake. Among the casualties are millions of river herring and shad, both forage fish that are a vital food source for mid-Atlantic predator fish, marine mammals and sea birds. As victims of “bycatch,” river herring and shad populations have dwindled to less than 5 percent of their historic levels.
Last week, a federal judge issued a ruling that could help protect these two keystone fish species. The federal district court’s ruling gives the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) until October 2016 to conduct an in-depth environmental analysis and to decide whether to protect them through a full federal fishery management plan. If river herring and shad are ultimately added to a plan, the fisheries service will be required to create science-based guidelines to rebuild river herring and shad populations.
The judge found that the NMFS violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to study the environmental impact of leaving river herring and shad unprotected and to consider measures that would bring them under immediate management. The NMFS is required to identify and manage fish that need conservation. But the service has failed to do so, despite the fact that river herring and shad populations have been decimated along the East Coast.
“The National Marine Fisheries Service invested millions of federal dollars in state waters habitat restoration for river herring and shad, but continues to undermine their recovery by failing to protect them in federal waters,” says Earthjustice attorney Roger Fleming. “This order is a step in the right direction that will require the federal agency to take a hard look at the environmental repercussions of their decision...The agency’s own scientific data shows these fish are caught and killed by the millions...and need protection.”
The court ruling means the fisheries service must act now, after years of agency inaction and successful resistance from the fishing industry, and despite public awareness of the danger of industrial trawlers.
In the summer of 2012, after considering comments from tens of thousands of Americans, both the New England and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Councils took dramatic votes calling for the NMFS to increase oversight of industrial trawlers to strengthen protection of river herring, shad, Atlantic herring and mackerel and juvenile groundfish. Ocean conservation groups, family fishermen and other members of the public also cheered the councils for working hard to implement the first ever bycatch caps for river herring and shad in the Atlantic herring and mackerel fishing grounds.
Behind the scenes, industry worked against approval of the monitoring requirement, and NMFS rejected the requirement for vessels to carry observers on every fishing trip. The agency promised instead to pursue another plan that would allow the industry to pay the cost of the observers. However, the NMFS has continually delayed completing this plan, and it is unlikely that 100 percent observer coverage will be a reality any time soon. Without monitoring, bycatch caps are meaningless.
The new court order is a significant step in the right direction. It is now apparent the monitoring and bycatch measures—viewed by many as a good interim step—have been thwarted by industry and agency inaction. The need to rebuild global fish stocks is becoming ever more pressing; a recent study conducted over a decade found that global fish catches are falling three times faster than official UN figures suggest, largely due to over-fishing.
The good news is that fishing restrictions have significantly improved catch levels in some places, such as Norwegian herring and cod fisheries. With science-based catch limits, monitors, and habitat protections, the essential forage species in the mid-Atlantic region stand a good chance of recovery, helping to restore their ecosystem and fisheries that depend upon them in the future. | <urn:uuid:9ae4f7dd-560c-4296-b4f5-4e138011d860> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://earthjustice.org/blog/2016-february/court-says-regulators-must-protect-keystone-species-from-giant-trawlers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397795.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00046-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945613 | 812 | 2.90625 | 3 |
The next day, Friday, December 2, E.D. Nixon calls a meeting of black leaders to discuss how to fight bus segregation.
Knowing that the city bus system depends heavily on the African-American community, the black leaders agree to call a boycott of all city buses on Monday, December 5. A new and popular minister in Montgomery by the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. is chosen to lead the boycott. By Friday evening the news of the upcoming boycott has spread throughout the city.
On Monday morning, December 5, King and the other leaders wait nervously at a bus stop to see whether their plan will work. To their relief and surprise, bus after bus rolls by with no African Americans aboard. United in protest, boycotters choose instead to walk, take carpools, pedal bicycles, and even ride mules to get to work instead of board the buses.
That same day Rosa Parks goes to court with her lawyer. The judge finds her guilty of breaking a city segregation law and fines her $14. Declaring that the law is unjust, Rosa Parks's lawyer says he will appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
QUESTIONS FOR ROSA | <urn:uuid:5067be10-6e26-4d25-8a34-dd875c62594a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://teacher.scholastic.com/rosa/boycott.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00073-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944541 | 242 | 3.859375 | 4 |
Type of Participation
What is meant by type of participation? Name the three types of relationship participation.
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- Document requirement | <urn:uuid:238c5380-726a-4f8c-9a61-0616f0c10c4e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.geekinterview.com/question_details/67359 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00069-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.864354 | 225 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Warren County Local History by Dallas Bogan
|Dallas Bogan on 4 August 2004|
|original article by Dallas Bogan|
|Return to Index to see a list of other articles by Dallas Bogan|
In the early days of Ohio The Little Miami was the most important millstream
in the state. Cheaper transportation was needed to transport the products from
the mills on the river. Besides the numerous gristmills, and flourmills, there
were one or two paper mills, a cotton mill at Oregonia and woolen mills on or
near the river. It was thought that the town of Gainsboro, laid out in 1815
(the site of Kings Mills), would be an important factory town.
At least three mills were in operation on the Little Miami River at the turn of the 19th century. The first mill, known as Waldsmith's Mill, was located at the present site of Milford; the second and third mills, built in 1793 and 1799, respectively, were located near Xenia and Kings Mills. The county, in 1832, contained 30 gristmills, 44 saw mills, 25 tanneries, 28 distilleries, 6 woolen factories, 3 iron foundries, 3 oil mills, 2 paper mills and 1 brewery. Also in this year, Todd's Fork, in the twenty-five miles of its course, turned 8 saw mills and 4 gristmills. East Fork, which feeds Todd's Fork one mile below Clarksville in the thirteen miles of its course, turned two saw mills and two grist mills. Turtlecreek had two sawmills and two gristmills.
Some of the earliest mills in Warren County were constructed on the small streams, which feed the Little Miami. The reasoning for this was the greater ease and less cost of constructing a dam across a smaller stream.
Directing the water current upon the wheel of the mill consisted of cheap structures of brush and logs. This was done rather than using a reservoir to retain the water. The waterpower was converted into energy in which to turn a huge grinding wheel. During the dry season the mill would be idle. The clearing away of the forests caused the smaller streams to be less constant in their flow.
The following was taken from 1882 Beers History of Montgomery County.
Before the early mills the early pioneers used a type of homemade mill. A rather crude method in the process of getting corn cracked into meal is described as such:
"Every expedient was resorted to get corn cracked into meal. The `hominy-block' was unsatisfactory, and grating by hand was worse. The stump-mortar was made by burning a round hole in the top of a stump; a spring pole was rigged over it, with a stone pestle attached. Hominy was first made by hulling corn, soaking the grains in weak lye, then cracking in the `hominy- block,' or in the improved `stump-mortar.' The hand- mill, although hard, slow work, was a welcome improvement, and soon one stood in the chimney-corner of every cabin. The stones were about four inches thick, and were broken down as nearly round as possible to about twenty inches in diameter. On top of the upper stone, near the edge, one end of a pole was fixed, the other end working in a socket in a piece of timber on the floor overhead. One person turned the stone by hand, while another fed the corn into the eye. It took two hours to grind enough meal to supply one person for a day, the operators often changing places in the work. Before the cabins were all supplied with these hand- mills, neighbors sometimes shouldered a peck or half bushel of corn, and carried it five miles to the cabin of a settler who had one, grind his corn, and return with the meal.
"Flour was very scarce, and, at this time, was all brought from Cincinnati, and, as we have said, was very expensive. Most of the settlers kept a small quantity laid by for use only in case of sickness. Those who could afford it had biscuits for breakfast on Sunday morning, baked in a spider before the fire. Corn-pone, dodgers and flap-jacks, supplied them for the rest of the week. Those who could not afford to buy flour would run the wheat three or four times through these hand- mills.
"The next advance made was when these little mills were rigged to run by horse power, by fastening a pole across the stone, hitching the horse to the end of the pole, and driving him round and round a circle. The next improvement was made in running a single pair of stones by water-power. The wheel was a simple paddle wheel, run by the natural current of the stream, and, although not reliable, was good enough to grind all the wheat and corn that the settlement needed."
NOTICE: All documents and electronic images placed on the Warren County OHGenWeb site remain the property of the contributors, who retain publication rights in accordance with US Copyright Laws and Regulations. These documents may be used by anyone for their personal research. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the submitter, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed Warren County OHGenWeb coordinator with proof of this consent.
This page created 4 August 2004 and last updated
28 September, 2008
© 2004 Arne H Trelvik All rights reserved | <urn:uuid:012ce21f-feaa-4cb7-8751-6892b1c8ac71> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ohwarren/Bogan/bogan131.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396100.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00112-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977685 | 1,144 | 3.265625 | 3 |
.- A new library at the Oxford Oratory in England will host the archive and museum of the famous Catholic convert and writer G.K. Chesterton.
The G.K. Chesterton Library said Aug. 1 that many people think Chesterton was “one of the best – as well as one of the most amusing – writers and thinkers of the twentieth century.”
Organizers are preparing the collection to be opened in 2013 based on materials collected by Chesterton scholar Aidan Mackey, who was a friend of Chesterton’s secretary Dorothy Collins. The initiative has garnered substantial support from the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in New Hampshire.
The library intends to support and encourage the study of Chesterton, his contemporaries and his ideas “in close collaboration” with other Chesterton-friendly societies and organizations across the world.
Chesterton lived from 1874 to 1936. Under the influence of his wife Frances, he became a devout Anglican Christian. He converted to Catholicism in 1922.
He enjoys a reputation as a writer with a taste for wit and a love of finding truth in paradox.
The author wrote journalistic essays, novels, poetry, plays philosophical works and Christian apologetics. He created the character of Father Brown, a Catholic priest who solves murder mysteries.
His books include “Orthodoxy,” a defense of Christian faith, and “The Everlasting Man,” a reflection on the role of Jesus Christ and Christianity in history.
In the latter work, he stressed the power of Christianity to renew itself through Jesus.
“Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died,” he said. “Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave.”
Chesterton devised a political philosophy called Distributism, whose ideal is the widespread ownership of economically productive property. He was also a staunch opponent of eugenics and birth control.
Those influenced by Chesterton’s writings include C.S. Lewis, Mahatma Gandhi and E.F. Schumacher.
The library’s collection includes a complete run of his newspaper “GK’s Weekly,” with some annotations by Chesterton. It includes many of Chesterton’s books, including some first editions. It has a background library of writers like Hilaire Belloc and Fr. Vincent McNabb, the U.K. journal Second Spring reports.
The G.K. Chesterton Library has launched an appeal to secure financial support. More information is available at: http://chestertonlibrary.blogspot.co.uk.
Tags: Catholic authors | <urn:uuid:c0527abe-c5b9-45e0-849f-e175ffe78fe5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/oxford-oratory-to-host-chesterton-library/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00168-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963637 | 561 | 2.65625 | 3 |
What is the New Urban Agenda?
What is the New Urban Agenda?
The New Urban Agenda will be the outcome document agreed upon at the Habitat III cities conference in October 2016. In turn, it will guide the efforts around urbanization of a wide range of actors — nation states, city and regional leaders, international development funders, United Nations programmes and civil society — for the next 20 years. Inevitably, this agenda will also lay the groundwork for policies and approaches that will extend, and impact, far into the future.
Who will write the New Urban Agenda?
The preparatory process along the road to Quito will influence the formulation of the New Urban Agenda, which was unveiled as a “zero draft” in May 2016. That preparatory process included an extensive series of official and semi-official events, including regional meetings, thematic meetings and “Urban Thinkers Campuses” for stakeholder input.
In addition, from August 2015 to February 2016 a group of 200 experts, known as “policy units”, came up with important recommendations for the drafting and implementing of the New Urban Agenda. Those recommendations, too, were open to broad public comment.
While reflecting the ideas hashed out in the global dialogue that leads up to the October 2016 event, eventually the Habitat III Bureau (composed of 10 U. N. member states) and Secretariat were the ones to write the zero draft. Its terms are now being negotiated by member states before an agreement is, hopefully, reached in Quito.
What was the old urban agenda?
The United Nations’ current thinking on global urbanization is summed up in the Habitat Agenda: Istanbul Declaration on Human Settlements, the outcome document agreed upon in 1996 at the Habitat II conference. It called for adequate shelter for all and sustainable human settlements in an urbanizing world.
Since then, over 100 countries have adopted constitutional rights to adequate housing, a major success of the Habitat Agenda. At the same time, however, international aid organizations and bilateral development agencies have steadily reduced their investments in cities and slashed their urban programmes. These are trends that have challenged the full implementation of the Habitat Agenda.
What has been the legacy of this previous agenda?
Within the United Nations, the Habitat Agenda’s influence has been wide-ranging over the past two decades. Its main provisions worked their way into the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of 2000 with a target of achieving “cities without slums”. The MDGs’ focus on eradicating poverty and ensuring environmental sustainability closely correlated with the Habitat Agenda.
Since then, major United Nations gatherings on sustainable development, such as the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 and Rio+20 in 2012, have consistently reaffirmed the core tenets of the Habitat Agenda.
Current discussions around the Post-2015 Development Agenda, too, draw on the principles of the Habitat Agenda. For example, “Realizing the Future We Want For All”, the 2012 report to the secretary-general by a U. N. task team, noted that by 2050, “70 per cent of the world’s population will be living in cities.” That report also highlighted the development challenges inherent in rapid urbanization.
Finally, the follow-up development agenda to the MDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also include prominent reference to the spirit of the Habitat Agenda. The urban-focused SDG, Goal 11, can also be seen as an extension of an idea first set out by the Habitat Agenda.
What will the New Urban Agenda cover?
The New Urban Agenda, coming on the heels of the crystallization of the Post-2015 Development Agenda, will seek to create a mutually reinforcing relationship between urbanization and development. The idea is that these two concepts will become parallel vehicles for sustainable development.
Early documents on the New Urban Agenda suggest that it will particularly highlight what are being referred to as “development enablers” and “operational enablers”. Together, this thinking goes, these two factors will be able to further cement the relationship between urbanization and sustainable development.
Development enablers can be thought of as frameworks that seek to harness the multiple, often chaotic forces of urbanization in ways that can generate across-the-board growth. Examples of development enablers that the New Urban Agenda will highlight include national urban policy; laws, institutions and systems of governance; and the broad urban economy.
Operational enablers, on the other hand, aim to bolster sustainable urban development — or to allow it to take place at all. When implemented, they result in better outcomes for patterns of land use, how a city is formed and how resources are managed. The New Urban Agenda will highlight three operational enablers, collectively being referred to by the UN-Habitat leadership as the “three-legged” approach: local fiscal systems, urban planning, and basic services and infrastructure.
What priorities will guide the New Urban Agenda?
Beyond the specific technocratic solutions of economics and governance, several core ideas will form the ideological underpinnings of the New Urban Agenda. Initial documents suggest that, for instance, democratic development and respect for human rights will feature prominently, as will the relationship between the environment and urbanization.
Similarly, the New Urban Agenda will almost certainly include significant focus on equity in the face of globalization, as well as how to ensure the safety and security of everyone who lives in urban areas, of any gender and age. Risk reduction and urban resilience will likewise play prominent roles. And the new agenda will place key importance on figuring out how to set up a global monitoring mechanism to track all of these issues and concerns.
Meanwhile, the core issues of the Habitat Agenda — adequate housing and sustainable human settlements — remain on the table, as the number of people worldwide living in urban slums continues to grow. Indeed, in the time since the Habitat Agenda was adopted the world has become majority urban, lending extra urgency to the New Urban Agenda.
There is also an increasing recognition that cities have morphed into mega-regions, urban corridors and city-regions whose economic, social and political geographies defy traditional conceptions of the “city”. The New Urban Agenda will have to address these trends in urbanization while also recognizing that cities and metropolitan areas are the major drivers of national economies.
This fact in particular should entice member states to give credence to the tenets of the New Urban Agenda.
Will the New Urban Agenda be a binding agreement for member states?
No. As an “agenda” it will provide guidance to nation states, city and regional authorities, civil society, foundations, NGOs, academic researchers and U. N. agencies in their thinking about cities, urbanization and sustainable development. But guidance is not binding.
This arrangement is different from, for example, the December 2015 climate negotiations in Paris, which aspired to result in a legally binding agreement — terms that could now be reflected in the New Urban Agenda. After all, there is increasingly widespread agreement that cities today hold the key to quick and immediate action on global climate change.
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Citiscope is a place for the world’s urban leaders — mayors, councils, business, civic, neighborhood and independent observers — to exchange ideas and learn from each other. Comments are most welcome. Participants must first sign in to Disqus. (Not registered? It’s easy: Sign up here or connect with a social media account.) We ask that you use your real first and last names and say what city you’re from. Comments that do not follow Citiscope’s comments policy will be removed. | <urn:uuid:214eb539-440e-47c5-a9d7-3adb005f7f04> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://citiscope.org/habitatIII/explainer/2015/06/what-new-urban-agenda | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399425.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00086-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929547 | 1,606 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Maine Forest Service warns of Browntail Moth caterpillar infestation
AUGUSTA - The infestation of a noxious invasive caterpillar in the Brunswick area is worse this year than last year, and local residents should begin thinking now about how they want to deal with the pest, according to Maine Forest Service (MFS) officials.
Winter web surveys show “extremely high levels of browntail moth caterpillar over-wintering webs in the tops of oak trees” in the Brunswick area, according to a MFS entomologist, under the Maine Department of Conservation. Surveys were conducted in January and February in the southern Maine coastal area from Belfast to south of Portland.
The number of webs in Brunswick, Bath, West Bath, Topsham and Bowdoinham appears to have doubled compared to last year’s number, Charlene Donahue, MFS forest entomologist, said.
Beyond that area, the caterpillar also is showing up in Falmouth, Turner, Augusta and Lewiston “and it may be in other places, and we haven’t found it yet,” she said. “The public needs to be aware of it.”
“I was really hoping the population would go down,” Donahue said, adding that the cause of the increase in the Brunswick area is unknown. “Eventually, they’re going to eat themselves out of house and home, and at some point, the population will crash.”
“This is reminiscent of a similar cycle we went through in the 1990s in the Casco Bay area,” Dave Struble, Maine state entomologist, said. “The public needs to be aware of this situation, and the Maine Forest Service is here to help residents make informed decisions about dealing with the infestation.”
The browntail moth is an invasive species that arrived in the U.S. in the 1910 on nursery stock coming from Europe, moving through Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Nova Scotia before the population collapsed. The only place where it is now found in North America is the coast of Maine and Cape Cod, Donahue said.
The caterpillar, distinctive because of the two patches of bright orange on its end, contains toxic microscopic hairs on it to keep birds from eating it, “a very good defense system,” the forest entomologist said.
Unfortunately, those hairs can cause a blistery, oozy rash or respiratory distress for human beings who come into contact with them.
The hairs break off the caterpillars and circulate in the air. The caterpillar also molts, and the dried skin containing the hairs can drift, also causing problems for people, Donahue said. The hairs remain toxic for a year or more, so people still can be affected in subsequent seasons, she warned.
Donahue pointed out that there is no single, simple answer as to why and where the browntail moth population is increasing.
“It may be something about the humidity in the area, and the hosts are there,” including oak, apple, crab apple, poplar and birch trees, she said about the web increase. The caterpillar population also may be affected by extreme cold weather and therefore doesn’t appear in Aroostook or Piscataquis counties, she said.
Donahue reported that in Turner, she found an 8-mile-long stretch of trees containing scattered webs. She also noted that while the caterpillar currently isn’t a problem in the Casco Bay area, it has infested the 40-acre Vaughn’s Island Preserve in Kennebunkport, which is heavily used by the public. The moth has been there for four to five years, but hasn’t yet shown up on the mainland, she said. The entomologist said MFS is working with the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust, which manages the area, on the infestation.
The MFS entomologist said that municipalities in the most heavily affected area have been contacted about the infestation. She said it is important for local residents and municipalities to begin thinking now about whether they want to control the browntail moth.
Webs in small trees like crabapple and cherry can be pruned out now and soaked in a bucket of soapy water or burned. For webs in the tops of oak trees, the only control is chemical treatment applied by licensed pesticide applicators who have the equipment to reach the caterpillars.
Pesticide treatment should be done in May, Donahue said. Done any later and neither trees nor people will be protected from the moths, she said.
“This is nothing that a homeowner can control on their own,” she added. “It’s best to work with your neighbors so you can get rid of browntail moths in a larger area.”
The MFS is compiling a list of licensed pesticide companies who are willing to do the work and will make the list available, Donahue said.
For information about the browntail moth caterpillar, go to: http://www.maine.gov/doc/mfs/btm08.htm
For information about precautions to take regarding the browntail moth caterpillar, go to: http://www.maine.gov/doc/mfs/btmprecautions08.htm
For more information about pesticides, go to: http://www.maine.gov/agriculture/pesticides/
For the list of licensed pesticide companies dealing with browntail moth caterpillar, call Charlene Donahue, MFS forest entomologist, at: (207) 287-3244 or email: Charlene.email@example.com | <urn:uuid:e267e0a9-419b-4e55-a006-83424077b025> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dailybulldog.com/db/outdoors/maine-forest-service-warns-of-browntail-moth-caterpillar-infestation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00001-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951034 | 1,218 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Diseases and Conditions
Hyperthyroidism and Graves Disease
Hyperthyroidism, or an overactive thyroid gland, is typically diagnosed after the development of symptoms that can include weight loss, increased heart rate or palpitations, nervousness, difficulty sleeping, fatigue, intolerance to heat, warm skin, sweating or bulging of the eyes with Graves disease. Blood tests will show an elevated level of thyroid hormone (T3, T4) with a decreased level of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), which is produced by the pituitary gland. The causes of hyperthyroidism include thyroiditis or inflammation of the thyroid gland, Graves disease, an overactive thyroid nodule, an overactive enlarged thyroid gland or goiter, and several other less common causes. Thyroiditis is an inflammation of the thyroid gland thought to be due to a viral illness and is typically self-limited over weeks to months. An overactive thyroid nodule is uncommon and can be diagnosed with a radioactive thyroid scan and ultrasound. Graves disease is the most common cause of hyperthyroidism, and it requires definitive treatment.
Graves disease is an autoimmune disorder of the thyroid gland in which patients develop antibodies to a receptor on the thyroid gland that then cause the gland to continuously overproduce thyroid hormone. Over time the thyroid gland enlarges and patients will develop a thyroid goiter. Patients with Graves disease can also develop swelling in the tissue behind the eyes which can cause bulging of the eyes and can lead to vision changes.
The symptoms of hyperthyroidism are readily treated by a number of different treatments depending on the cause of hyperthyroidism. Medications such as propothiourical (PTU) or methimazole are oral medications that decrease the amount of thyroid hormone produced by the thyroid gland and decrease the effects of increased thyroid hormone on the body. Other medications, such as propranolol or beta-blockers, can improve symptoms by blocking the effect of thyroid hormone on the cardiovascular system. Medications can be used as the primary treatment of thyroiditis until the inflammation resolves; however, when used for Graves disease or an overactive thyroid nodule or goiter, medications will decrease symptoms but will not treat the underlying disease.
The treatment of an overactive thyroid nodule is surgical removal. Your physician will begin medications to block the production of thyroid hormone to help relieve the symptoms of hyperthyroidism prior to surgery. Overactive or "hot" thyroid nodules are almost always benign in nature, and the remainder of the normal thyroid gland can be left in place to provide thyroid hormone production following surgery. Most patients will not need thyroid hormone replacement following removal of half of the thyroid gland.
The definitive treatment of Graves disease is either radioactive iodine therapy or surgical removal of the thyroid gland. Radioactive iodine therapy is the most common form of treatment for Graves disease and is administered as an oral form of radioactive iodine, which is absorbed by the thyroid gland. After its absorption the radioactivity destroys the thyroid gland. Because iodine is almost solely absorbed by the thyroid gland, there is relatively little radiation exposure outside of the thyroid gland. No previous studies have suggested that there is a significant increase in thyroid cancer following this treatment. After radioactive iodine treatment most patients will develop hypothyroid. These patients will require thyroid hormone replacement in the form of a thyroid hormone pill. Surgical removal of the thyroid gland is another definitive treatment for Graves disease or for thyroid goiter. Patients who cannot tolerate radioactive iodine or choose surgery as an alternative treatment can be cured almost immediately with removal of the entire thyroid gland. Most patients remain in the hospital for 24 hours following surgery and can return to normal activities a few days after surgery. There is a small amount of risk with thyroidectomy including bleeding, injury to nerves that can lead to hoarseness and damage to the parathyroid glands, which control the calcium level in the blood. Following removal of the entire thyroid gland, all patients will need thyroid hormone replacement in the form of oral thyroid hormone. | <urn:uuid:693c627a-149d-4ea6-8ba7-a615f33f5d03> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.montefiore.org/hyperthyroidism-and-graves-disease | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396147.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00109-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923011 | 817 | 3.625 | 4 |
Domestic violence is defined as a pattern of abuse used by one partner in an intimate relationship to gain or maintain power and control over the other partner. Until recently, domestic violence has focused on adult survivors, but abuse doesn't happen in a vacuum -- it impacts every family member, especially the children.
According to the international group, Futures Without Violence, it is estimated that in the United States 15.5 million children live in homes where domestic violence occurred at least once last year and another 7 million children live in homes where severe violence occurred. Our community is not immune to this, and unfortunately, neither are our children.
Children growing up with domestic violence are impacted both immediately and long term by abuse. Despite parents' best efforts to protect them, nearly 100 percent of children living in homes with domestic violence are aware of the abuse. They sense the tension, hear the escalated voices, threats and screams, and witness the physical assaults. It is important to note that 85 percent of domestic violence is perpetrated by men toward their female partners, and statistics show that 50-70 percent of men who abuse female partners also abuse children in the home.
Children cannot comprehend the complex nature of the power dynamic that exists in all abusive relationships. This leaves them confused, unable to understand why the very person who is supposed to love them is hurting their mother and why their mothers can't protect them.
When abuse happens in the home it elicits different responses in children. Some try to intervene to protect their mothers and are inadvertently or intentionally injured by the batterer. Others run and hide, and wait helplessly for the abuse to end. Many children who see and hear abuse are affected in the same manner as if they themselves had been physically abused. Without knowing why or when the abuse will occur again, children in violent homes live in a state of constant fear. This takes a tremendous toll emotionally, socially and behaviorally.
No child goes untouched by violence, and every child is affected differently, even within the same family. The frequency and intensity of the violence, the coping skills and temperament of each child and whether she or he has directly experienced abuse influence how well any child survives. There are many signs that indicate a child may be living with abuse, although some may be present for other reasons. Infants are apt to cry excessively, develop eating, sleeping and attachment disorders, and fail to thrive. Preschoolers often regress in behaviors, complain of physical symptoms such as headaches and abdominal pain, and exhibit separation anxiety. School aged children suffer from anxiety and depression, have difficulty establishing peer relationships, and struggle to focus in school. Adolescents struggle with interpersonal relationships, are often delinquent, and exhibit risky behavior. At any age, children may have a strong desire to connect with the batterer, and may imitate abusive behavior, to gain attention and approval.
The good news is that children are resilient. The single most important factor influencing a child's ability to heal from violence is a strong, consistent relationship with one caring adult, typically the non-abusing parent. Educators, caregivers, family members and friends play important roles by providing care and compassion in a safe, supported, predictable environment. Each of us has the ability to make an enormous difference in a child's life by reaching out to non-abusing parents and letting them know we are concerned and that we are there to provide support. As we have seen repeatedly, when a mom is feeling safe and strong, so are her children.
All too often, women inform us that the abuse does not stop when they leave their batterer. Frequently, batterers are granted visitation with their children, and the abuse continues. Visitations, whether supervised or not, translates into opportunities for abusers to control, manipulate, intimidate and emotionally abuse their children and ex-partners. According to one study, during visitation 5 percent of abusive fathers threaten to kill the children's mother, 34 percent threaten to kidnap their children, and 25 percent threaten to hurt their children. These visits also have the potential to turn lethal, as in the recent Manchester, N.H., case where a father killed his 9-year-old son and himself during a supervised visitation.
Domestic violence is a crime, and as a community it is time to raise the standard by holding batterers more accountable. We need to question whether men who are abusive toward their partners and their children should be granted access to the children, a situation which leaves many of our children vulnerable to continued exposure to violence. An examination of the patriarchal root causes of violence against women, and open conversations addressing these issues will allow us to begin to create a community where every child can feel safe, free to grow and reach their maximum potential.
The Women's Freedom Center is the local organization in Windham County working to end domestic and sexual violence. Follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/womensfreedomcenter and at www.womensfreedomcenter.net. You can reach an advocate on our 24-hour crisis line at 802-254-6954. | <urn:uuid:27456aa7-8ba2-469b-868b-ce93239580eb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.reformer.com/opinion/ci_24235605/effects-domestic-violence-children | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394987.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00171-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966098 | 1,025 | 3.5 | 4 |
Where on Earth...? MISR Mystery Image Quiz #19
Here's another chance to play geographical detective! This natural-color image from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) represents an area of about 375 kilometers x 407 kilometers, and was captured by the instrument's vertical-viewing (nadir) camera in May, 2002. This mystery concerns a large body of water (the blue waters which dominate most of the image) and the region surrounding it. Use any reference materials you like and answer the following 5 questions.
1. Three of these statements about the large water body are false. Which one is true?
(A) The deepest portion of the water body is less than 2000 meters deep.
(B) The shallow waters of the northwest section of the water body are less saline than in deeper waters.
(C) A rich biological community of worms and crustaceans thrive in the mud below 180 meters depth.
(D) Algae and plankton form a vast and productive underwater "meadow" in the relatively shallow northern waters.
Answer: B is true
The Black Sea is the largest anoxic (oxygen poor) sea in the world. The deepest part of the Sea is over 2 kilometers, but there is very little oxygen below the top few hundred meters. Replenishment of the bottom waters of sea with new sea water from the Mediterranean is slow, and there is very little circulation between the relatively fresh shallow waters and the saltier, oxygen poor waters at great depths. The bacteria in the bottom waters quickly consume the available oxygen and the Sea is virtually dead below the top 200 meters. Despite this situation, its surface waters have supported a rich and diverse marine life. The relatively shallow north-western part of the Black Sea was virtually covered with "underwater meadows" known as Zernov's Phyllophora fields. The rivers which drain to the Sea provided the nutrients essential for marine plants and algae, until over-fertilization from agriculture and industry in the 1970s and 1980s caused the Phyllophora ecosystem to suffer a catastrophic collapse.
2. Three of these statements about the large water body are true. Which one is false?
(A) The pale blue swirls of color in these waters indicate calcareous phytoplankton called coccolithophores.
(B) Since the 1960s, coccolithophores have become more abundant, and diatoms (another type of phytoplankton) have decreased.
(C) Early seafarers used the prevailing clockwise circulation of the currents to navigate these waters.
(D) Archaeological relics discovered under 100 meters of water indicate that the coastline was lower several thousand years ago than today.
Answer: C is false
One group of phytoplankton that are identifiable from space are calcareous phytoplankton called coccolithophores; and judging by the milky turquoise color of the swirls, it is probable that coccolithophores were in bloom. The increased nitrogen content of river waters entering the Sea since the early 1970s is part of the reason for an increase in coccolithophores and a decrease in diatoms (siliceous plankton) since that time. The Black Sea current runs counterclockwise and was utilized by early navigators. The Sea is a rich source of archaeological relics, since many ancient wooden vessels are preserved in the oxygen-deprived waters. One archaeological site from which ships and relics were recovered is situated below 100 meters of water in an area that appears to have been a coastline several thousand years ago.
3. Three of these statements about human activities within the area are true. Which one is false?
(A) There have been more than 10 geological studies conducted to determine the petroleum potential of the region.
(B) More than 20 fish species once found in the large water body have become "commercially extinct" over the last 50 years.
(C) One country within the image area is reported to have a 99.7% literacy rate or better.
(D) Many of the navigable rivers are forced to close for up to one month during winter.
Answer: D is false
An array of geological studies and surveys have been conducted to assess the oil and gas resources od the Black Sea. The traditional livelihood of fishing in the Sea has been suffering in recent years, with 21 of the 26 major species now considered "commercially extinct" due to over-fishing, pollution and invasive species. The literacy rate (the proportion of people aged 15 and over who can read and write) in both Romania and Ukraine is high, but the literacy rate for Ukraine is especially high at 99.7% for the year 2003. The region can become bitterly cold in winter, with temperatures recorded as low as -30 degrees Celsius. During the winters of 1928-1929, 1953-1954, 1941-1942, 1984-1985, many coastal areas were frozen for 45-60 days. Only the north-western part of the Black Sea ices over during such cold winters, but within this area ports and rivers can freeze for more than a month. Whilst important ports and navigable rivers are kept open by ice-breakers, rivers that are not broken up by ice-breakers may freeze for two months.
4. Three of these statements about the river whose delta, or mouth, appears along the lower left-hand edge are false. Which one is true?
(A) The freshwater inflow from this river to the large water body is approximately twice the amount of saltwater inflow to the large water body.
(B) The entire river delta falls under the jurisdiction of one country.
(C) Contaminated water from a mining disaster that occurred hundreds of kilometers upstream (in January 2000), took less than 30 days to reach the river mouth.
(D) Over the past 20 years, the discharge of nitrates and phosphates from this river have decreased compared with 1960s levels.
Answer: C is true
About 60% of the total freshwater inflow to the Black Sea comes from the Danube River (about 200 km3/year), and the volume of saltwater flowing to the Black Sea through the Bosporus is estimated to be between 120 km3/year and 315 km3/year. Thus, the volume of inflow from the Danube is not twice the volume of the inflow from the Bosporus. Most of the Danube Delta falls under the jurisdiction of Romania, but a small northerly portion of the Delta falls under Ukrainian jurisdiction. When the Baia Mare mining disaster contaminated the Tizsa River on January 30, 2000, contaminated water was brought down the Tizsa and into the Danube, and the cyanide pollution from the tailings overflow was detected at the mouth of the Danube on February 25. The nutrient discharge from the Danube to the Black Sea has been relatively stable for phosphates, but nitrogen levels are about four times those observed in the 1960s.
5. A rare bird that can weigh more than 45 pounds is known to inhabit:
(A) a nature preserve situated along the wide river that flows from the top of the image nearest to the right,
(B) lands surrounding the shallow, mineral-rich, pink and green-colored lagoons that extend from the upper right-hand edge of the image,
(C) neither of these places, or;
(D) both of these places.
The Great Bustard (Otis tarda) is the largest land bird in Ukraine. Adult Great Bustards can reach about 48 pounds. The Askania-Nova Biosphere Reserve along the Dnieper River provides habitat for the Great Bustard. There are also a number of Great Bustards found in the Sivash (or Syvash) area, where a series of shallow, mineral-rich lagoons connect the Black Sea with the Sea of Azov. The Western and Central Syvash lagoons appear here as the pink and green-colored water bodies in the upper right-hand corner.
6. A sinuous river curves toward the large water body in the upper-central portion of the image. Near the mouth of this river, a small orange spot can be discerned along the right-hand bank, near a small city known by two names. Name the most likely cause for the orange color at that location.
The orange area referred to is situated along the eastern (right-hand) shore of the Bug River, about 20 kilometers south of the city of Mikolayiv (or Nikolaev). The most likely cause of the orange color is "red mud", which is waste from the bauxite refining process. The area is likely to be an artificial lake or other storage area used to accumulate slurry, and the waste probably comes from the large Mikolayiv Alumina Plant.
63 people from all over the world sent in responses before the deadline. Individuals who answered all five question correctly are listed below in the order in which responses were received. The prize winners are indicated by an asterisk. Five prizes instead of the usual three were awarded due to a problem with misdirected email.
1. Pete Johantgen, Powell, OH, USA *
2. Abigail Swann, Palisades, NY, USA *
3. Mitch Burrill, Harper's Ferry, WV, USA
4. Andrzej Szuksztul, Poland *
5. Philippe Delacrétaz, Lausanne, Switzerland *
6. Ivan P Anderson, Kent, England *
7. David G Berry, Shetland Islands, Scotland
8. Steffen Leider, Berlin, Germany
Individuals who gave correct answers to four of these five difficult questions, and to the bonus question, are listed below.
1. Jeanine Chiu, Oak Park, CA, USA
2. Yu Wei, Xiamen, China
3. Tim Ehlenbeck , Houston, TX, USA
4. Steve Kluge, North Salem, NY, USA
5. Adam Smith, Watertown, MA, USA
6. David E. Wilkins, Boise, ID, USA
7. D. Brunton, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada
8. Marion Florjancic, Crotone, Italy
9. David Young, Madison, WI, USA
10. Bob Myers, Mission Viejo, CA, USA
MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Office of Earth Science, Washington, DC. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology.
Credit: Image credit: NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team.
<< RETURN TO QUIZZES
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The Public Bath and the City
“...it is something within me which knows very well that it would be useless for me to take pains to appear strong and display self mastery, for my wild nature will always be visible through a thousand and one cracks.”
By Christie Pearson
Imagining the city as an enclave of constructed civility always entails a contrasting backdrop of wild nature. But even within urban boundaries, elements of nature are protected through ritual practices, and in spaces where natural forces can have their pleasurable and restorative effects in safe confines. The public bath in its many forms around the world has provided a place for these rituals. Here the distinction between “culture” and “nature” blurs. The public bath as a civic amenity is in decline worldwide, and its value as a ritual has been fractured in the West. At the intersection point of many apparent oppositions— good and bad, clean and dirty, sacred and profane—the meaning of the public bath as an image or an institution reflects our shifting definitions of civil culture, functioning as a mirror of city itself. Now may be the moment to reclaim urban public bathing culture.
Traditions of collective bathing are inseparable from the history of human cultures, with examples stretching back at least to Mohenjo Daro, a city that flourished around 2000 BC in the Indus Valley of what is today Pakistan. Baths may be retreats placed outside a settlement, like the North American sweat lodge, Japanese onsen, European hot springs, or Scandinavian cottage sauna. Some forms may require pilgrimage to a sacred landscape: Hindu worshippers travel to the Ganges to pray and immerse themselves in its cold waters, and to confluence sites for the Kumbh Mela events. When the public bath moves into the city, it may frame natural landscapes, as in an indoor wave pool or a Japanese open-air rotenburo, or amplify the elemental qualities that buildings usually try to moderate, such as heat and cold, wet and dry, darkness and light. These urban bath cultures, like the Roman thermae and balnae, Turkish hammam, Japanese sento, and Russian banya, have formed a cornerstone of their cities’ spatial forms and their citizens’ daily rituals. They rely on boundaries and rules, which continually evolve as long as the tradition is alive. Etiquette prescribing degrees of nudity shifts: bathers in a disreputable medieval English “stew” were fully naked, while in the eighteenth-century European spa they wore muslin bathing dress. Rules about contact between the sexes shift: when Commodore Perry arrived in Japan in 1853 and the disapproving American eye beheld the mixed bathing in Japanese cities, he pushed the Japanese to more strictly enforce segregation. This taboo took hold eventually—but only in the city. The fact that all still bathe together at many rustic onsen illustrates how flexible the inner and outer behavioral codes must be at the public bath, particularly as the context becomes more or less urban.
People go to public baths for beautification, hygiene, healing, socializing, amusement, sex, and worship. A visitor to a public bath in the West today may be apprehensive. What are the rules? We fear that our personal boundaries will be compromised and that our public personae will be lost with our clothing. Moral uncertainty always seems to accompany the public bath. Austere Romans echoed Spartan and Greek warnings that a warm bath would make men effeminate. Bathing was held to be an agent of moral decline by early Christians (focusing on outer cleansing could detract from inner purity), and lauded by industrial-era social reformers as a key to moral improvement. Bathing the poor and the ill was considered an act of charity by medieval Christians and Buddhists alike, yet the fear that too much enjoyment would lead to moral deterioration haunts the Western traditions of the bath.
The roots of public bathing lie in the history of the sacred landscape, and many early bathing sites appear to have first been places of worship. Originally chosen for their spectacular and evocative geographies, these sites have the potential to inspire awe before a force greater than ourselves, and even transform us through a meaningful encounter. The urban public bath attempts to capture the power of a wild landscape and its water, and to bring about a catharsis in the bather through its rituals. The rituals that rule the public bath are designed to encourage one to linger and ultimately lose one’s sense of purpose, allowing a peaceful space of silence to emerge.
The history of mankind goes from natural cave to the artificial cave, from the underground cave to the aboveground cave…
—norman brown, love’s body
In the West, the act of entering a discreet realm within the city and disrobing with others can symbolize a return to nature, to paradise, or to the amniotic bath from which we are born. The bath in the city may act as a kind of container for a socially constructed version of nature: once inside, we are paradoxically freed to act “naturally” through ritualized rules. Its accepted status as a space governed by ritual makes possible behaviors that the rest of public life rejects. The urban bath has policing agents of various kinds, including your neighbor who will be sure to tell you what you are doing wrong. The many kinds of pleasure that may be enjoyed at the baths are continuously kept in check, adjusting to shifting sensibilities, so that we may approach the powers of the wild in safety, and in a well-rehearsed ritual moderated by evolving architectural and behavioral forms.
The evolution of the Western European public bathing tradition attained its cultural peak, in terms of sheer impact, with the great thermae of Imperial Rome. Modelled on the less luxurious Greek men’s gymnasium with its cold showers, these institutions grew to accommodate thousands from many walks of life. At the height of the empire, leisured Romans spent every afternoon at the baths: beginning in the dressing room, apodyterium; then moving to a warm room with a heated floor, the tepidarium, to begin a sweat; then the hotter calidarium, which usually contained a hot water source; finishing with a cold plunge bath in the frigidarium. You might decide to warm up by working out in the palestra, or with some poetry reading in a library exedra within the thick wall of service spaces, stores, libraries, and galleries. Vendors roamed, selling food, drinks, depilation, and sexual services. Some emperors tried to enforce gender segregation to prevent the baths being used for sexual activities, but this was never a popular rule: they mostly remained mixed-gender. Roman bath architecture pioneered experiments with complex concrete domes and curves that would later be adopted by Christian churches to evoke another spirituality. A sectional cut through Bath, England, illustrates a history shared by many Western European cities. Beneath the newly developed swimming and health establishment of Bath Spa lie the remnants of Georgian and Victorian spas for the well-heeled, seventeenth-century curative baths frequented by royalty, a medieval monastery where monks used the waters to heal the sick, and the Roman bathing and temple precinct of Sulis-Minerva, all built over the sacred spring of the Celtic goddess Sulis. The civic and sacred functions overlap and continually reframe the hot spring’s water.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, public baths and, in fact, bathing of any kind all but disappeared. Medieval bath-houses had to contend with outbreaks of plague and venereal disease and the warnings of doctors, who now considered bathing itself to be dangerous, theorizing that immersion in water compromised the protective covering of one’s pores. The monks who had believed in the curative powers of Bath’s spring later condemned the public baths for their twenty- four-hour revelry and debauchery, as a rise in illegitimate births caused churches throughout Europe to enforce segregated bathing. Then, when the bubonic plague devastated the continent in the fourteenth century, public baths were closed, abandoned, or openly turned into brothels—only to be cleaned up once again in the sixteenth century when new sexually transmitted diseases appeared.
With the emergence of germ theory in the mid-nineteenth century, opinion again shifted. Cities were crowded and growing quickly as the Industrial Revolution gained strength, and a fear of contagion between classes took hold. Planners came under pressure to provide for public standards of hygiene. England led the way, with measures such as the Public Baths and Wash Houses Act of 1846. American social reformers wishing to “elevate” their citizens responded with the “City Beautiful” movement of the 1890s, when great parks and monumental bath houses were built in cities like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. These cities quickly had to institute regulations prohibiting showers longer than ten minutes, as pleasure was distracting from purpose. New York children told to leave the summer swimming baths on the Hudson would dirty themselves to be allowed re-entry. People were enjoying themselves, sidestepping the facility’s proper hygienic function. The moralizing approach to public improvement attempted to prevent this slide into decadence, away from the good life of virtue into the good life of pleasure.
What survives today in the modern Western city is a splitting and compartmentalizing of programs that were, for a time, coexistent. Cleansing as a moral duty has given way to scientifically endorsed health programs, including showers at public swimming pools and gymnasiums, or in your own home hygienic unit. Bathing is now also a beautifying treatment at the day spa, and is the scene of eroticism in gay male bath-house culture—a vibrant expression of the public bath incorporating sensuality, sexuality, and cleansing. There are some exceptional places where men and women can bathe together; far fewer where erotic expression between women or between genders is tolerated. While still gender-segregated, a sauna or hot tub at a recreation centre is a rich social space that offers many opportunities for communal conversation or private reflection.
Non-Western traditions of public bathing have changed less over the centuries. The Finnish sauna, Japanese sento, Russian banya and Turkish hammam are examples of living traditions, under siege yet still a vital part of communal life. In these enduring forms of the public bath we glimpse what our societies could have. Public baths in Islamic societies are traditionally situated adjacent to or as part of the mosque complex, which includes community centers and schools. The plan of Istanbul reveals cells of residences and businesses, each served by a central hammam and mosque. The architecture of the hammam is an Islamic riff on or repurposing of Roman baths. Its iconic central form is a cosmic dome, and the baths themselves are a sequence of courts, where the largest space flips you up into a constructed starry night sky. Men and women are allowed at different times, or in differ- ent areas. The bather first passes through the camekan, a space for smoking, drinking tea, and lounging, to which you will return at the end. In a warm disrobing room you put on wooden clogs and wrap yourself in a pestemal (Turkish towel). Next is the largest space, the hararet, where you sweat lying on an elevated, heated platform. Either alone or with the help of a tellak (attendant), bathers may re- ceive a massage, soaping, and rinsing at one of the perimeter basins. Although once inside the hammam the sexes are segregated, literature makes clear the historical opportunities for liaisons en route to the baths, underscoring the baths’ apparent aversion to excessive purposefulness. In Ottoman Turkey, groups of women would spend en- tire days soaking and gossiping at the hammam, bringing with them their children, food, drink, and musical instruments. At many points in history, this has been the only public social space accessible to women who were otherwise sequestered in the home.
Bathing friends are the best of friends.—japanese saying
Urban recreational spaces, such as public pools, gardens, and parks, periodically create festival conditions by temporarily dismantling social hierarchies, allowing us to choose to be participants or spectators in the collective. The urban public bath is different; it makes detached spectatorship impossible. A gentle saturnalia is evoked when we enter the city outdoor swimming pool in summer, or the sauna at the YMCA. The creative excitement of the festival is present, but here it is restrained, guarded by its ritual use. This public bathing tradition is also invoked when urbanites head to a beach, lido, or hot spring with our friends and family: a foray to the edge of the wilderness. Our identities lose articulation in our bathing costume, and we become free to re-create ourselves. We could make more of these opportunities to remove or loosen our identities.
This is something that public spaces of worship also attempt. As a sacred opening to contemplation, religious buildings and gathering spaces invite collective action, imagination, and play as much as the above civic examples. Overlappings and intertwinings of civic and sacred uses of buildings are well documented; the hammam is part of a civic-religious complex; the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome is a vestige of the Imperial Baths of Diocletian; medieval cathedrals have housed markets, livestock pens, and dancing. Where rituals of cleansing are explicitly addressed in holy texts of Jews, Hindus, or Muslims, the public bath itself has an overtly sacred role. In Finland, the sauna is a traditional place for giving birth and laying out the dead, and a child is taught to behave here as in church. The Koran admits of only two types of public buildings: the mosque (which contains a variety of social functions) and the hammam, the baths. The idea that the public bath is in some sense a sacred space recurs. It is a secular ritual, at once profoundly personal and shared.
However the public bath is framed, its cultivation allows us to continually renew its role as a free zone of peace and contemplation. Searching for meaning amidst the pleasures of the bath, we find instead our minds silently wandering on the peripheries of perception. Deep reflections are glimpsed through shifting mirror-mazes of light and water. Our private bathtub expands in the public bath, where we find ourselves in our broader home of human community. | <urn:uuid:9d1e4318-3913-4c33-911c-d35e3ddbabfa> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://alphabet-city.org/issues/water/articles/the-public-bath-and-the-city | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00123-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950053 | 2,999 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Ah, coffee. Office drones and college kids alike can't live without it. And it turns out that sweet, sweet lifeblood is actually good for you.
An independent panel of scientists just submitted a report to the federal government proposing changes to its dietary guidelines, Bloomberg reports. The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee hadn't discussed caffeine in previous reports, but they took the time this year to extol the health virtues of a cup of joe.
Their report cites "strong evidence" that drinking a moderate amount of coffee (3-5 cups per day, or up to 400 milligrams of caffeine) won't hurt your health down the road. In fact, the panel argues, there's evidence that coffee can decrease your risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and Parkinson's disease. "Therefore, moderate coffee consumption can be incorporated into a healthy dietary pattern, along with other healthful behaviors," the report's authors write.
"Coffee's good stuff. I don't want to get into implying coffee cures cancer — nobody thinks that," committee member Tom Brenna told Bloomberg. "But there is no evidence for increased risk, if anything, the other way around."
The bad news? Frappuccinos and lattes are not included. You have to drink it black, because added sugar, cream, and milk can pack on the calories. The panel was iffy about artificial sweeteners, though they "appear to be safe" as long as you don't use them a lot. And you should also steer clear of high-caffeine energy drinks, especially when they're mixed with alcohol.
Politico notes that the feds could completely ignore the panel's advice, but it's still relieving to hear that experts think guzzling coffee isn't such a bad thing. So next time your coworkers call you out on your daily Starbucks runs, you can be extra smug about it. | <urn:uuid:ad6e8a51-07cc-4004-a33d-9fc1ecc43616> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/food/news/a33229/your-coffee-addiction-is-officially-good-for-you/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00179-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969291 | 388 | 2.765625 | 3 |
The War of 1812 was, in a sense, a second war of independence that confirmed once and for all the American break with England. With its conclusion, many of the serious difficulties that the young republic had faced since the Revolution disappeared. National union under the Constitution brought a balance between liberty and order. With a low national debt and a continent awaiting exploration, the prospect of peace, prosperity, and social progress opened before the nation.
Commerce cemented national unity. The privations of war convinced many of the importance of protecting the manufacturers of America until they could stand alone against foreign competition. Economic independence, many argued, was as essential as political independence. To foster self-sufficiency, congressional leaders Henry Clay of Kentucky and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina urged a policy of protectionism imposition of restrictions on imported goods to foster the development of American industry.
The time was propitious for raising the customs tariff. The shepherds of Vermont and Ohio wanted protection against an influx of English wool. In Kentucky, a new industry of weaving local hemp into cotton bagging was threatened by the Scottish bagging industry. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, already a flourishing center of iron smelting, was eager to challenge British and Swedish iron suppliers. The tariff enacted in 1816 imposed duties high enough to give manufacturers real protection.
In addition, Westerners advocated a national system of roads and canals to link them with Eastern cities and ports, and to open frontier lands for settlement. However, they were unsuccessful in pressing their demands for a federal role in internal improvement because of opposition from New England and the South. Roads and canals remained the province of the states until the passage of the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916.
John Marshall, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1801 to 1835, in a portrait by Alonzo Chappel. In a series of landmark cases, Marshall established the principle of judicial review -- the right of the courts to determine if any act of Congress or the executive branch is constitutional, and therefore valid and legal.
The position of the federal government at this time was greatly strengthened by several Supreme Court decisions. A committed Federalist, John Marshall of Virginia, became chief justice in 1801 and held office until his death in 1835. The court -- weak before his administration -- was transformed into a powerful tribunal, occupying a position co-equal to the Congress and the president. In a succession of historic decisions, Marshall established the power of the Supreme Court and strengthened the national government.
Marshall was the first in a long line of Supreme Court justices whose decisions have molded the meaning and application of the Constitution. When he finished his long service, the court had decided nearly 50 cases clearly involving constitutional issues. In one of Marshall's most famous opinions -- Marbury v. Madison (1803) -- he decisively established the right of the Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of any law of Congress or of a state legislature. In McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), he boldly upheld the Hamiltonian theory that the Constitution by implication gives the government powers beyond those expressly stated. | <urn:uuid:d261e1dd-b5f4-4d15-a383-a7a62935ff52> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/outlines/history-2005/westward-expansion-and-regional-differences/building-unity.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396872.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00194-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955766 | 632 | 3.8125 | 4 |
NEW YORK – Hiroshima Prefecture is aiming to promote efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons by becoming a hub for international peace, Gov. Hidehiko Yuzaki said.
“Destruction by nuclear weapons does not stop at physical damage, such as death and structural damage, but literally wipes out the entire histories of communities to which people belonged, as well as the memories of the families that lived there,” he said Wednesday.
Yuzaki made the comments during the opening speech for a panel discussion at U.N. headquarters in New York on the sidelines of a meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the 2015 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference.
The panel meeting, hosted by the prefecture, was titled “Civil Society Activities Toward the 2015 NPT Review Conference: Putting Hiroshima’s Experience into Action for the Future.” The panelists included Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui and Angela Kane, U.N. high representative for disarmament affairs.
Matsui repeated his call for abolishing nuclear weapons by 2020 as more hibakusha enter their elderly years.
The United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and another on the city of Nagasaki three days later. The war ended soon after.
It was first time a Hiroshima governor has taken part in an NPT preparatory committee meeting.
“By joining forces with the city of Hiroshima, we were able to attract a lot of attention” Yuzaki told reporters after the discussion. The event was also attended by Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue.
Walter Fuellemann, permanent representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross to the United Nations, said at the event that the focus of the nuclear weapons debate is shifting from military doctrines and security issues to inhumane aspects, public health and environmental issues. This shift is expected to help promote nuclear disarmament, he said. | <urn:uuid:857033b6-8a9b-42e5-8549-dced0114ee46> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/05/01/national/hiroshima-vows-central-role-anti-nuke-push/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00028-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961336 | 397 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Can you sleep yourself thin? No, not quite. But an amazing study of 68,000 women conducted at Harvard Medical School reveals that women who sleep five hours a night are 32 percent more likely to gain 30 pounds or more as they get older than women who sleep seven hours or more.
Common sense says that someone who’s awake and running around should be using up more calories than someone who’s in bed. Running around should make them skinnier, right? But the study, conducted over a 16-year period, reveals that even when the women who slept longer ate more, they still gained less than women who slept less.
It’s true that the group that slept longer also tended to exercise a little more. And it could be, admitted the researchers, that people who are a bit sleep deprived could metabolize calories less efficiently than those who are better rested.
But no one knows for sure. Until they do, think twice before you cut back on sleep.
Over the long haul, it may make you fat. | <urn:uuid:04ee1614-6208-42fb-b3f8-0a4cbc01e785> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.rd.com/health/diet-weight-loss/sleep-yourself-thin-sleep-problems/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397749.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00080-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966836 | 215 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Eyewitness Testimony: A Review of The Literature
by Carrie Dickens
"The gravest of errors that can occur in our
system of justice" (Rattner,
- thousands of innocent people are wrongfully
convicted every year (Buckhout,
- 77,000 people per year are charged with
crimes on the basis of eyewitness evidence (Goldstein et al., 1989)
- in a study by Wells (1996) 90% of the
wrongful convictions studied resulted from mistaken eyewitness identifications
- in a study by Brandon & Davies (1973) 74% of
the wrongful convictions studied resulted from evidence provided by eyewitnesses
- Calvin C. Johnson: was charged with the
rape of a young woman and served 16 years in jail
- Ronnie Bullock: spent 60 years in prison
for the kidnap and rape of a young Illinois girl
- Edward Honaker: spent 10 years in a Virginia
prison for sexually assaulting a woman at gunpoint
- Kirk Bloodsworth: was placed on death row
for raping and strangling a 9 year old girl
To explore the research that exists regarding
eyewitness testimony and to assess it on the basis of internal and external
- the staging of a crime
- identify the perpetrator or give an account
- jury studies
The research on reliability focuses on the interrogative
suggestibility and subsequent memory integration of witnesses. The
suggestibility of a witness is a measurement of how susceptible a witness
is to biased questioning. Memory integration occurs when a highly suggestible
witness is introduced to leading post event information.
Research on Reliability
Whether or not a witness is credible is dependant
upon the witness' decision to be deceptive. Deception can take two
forms. A witness may intentionally lie about events he/she observed
or the witness could offer false information in an attempt to please the
interrogator. Credibility differes from reliability in that it assesses
the amount of deliberate deception whereas reliability assesses the consistency
of a witness' report.
Research on Credibility
Accuracy refers to the amount of correct information
presented by the witness. Most research in this area has focused on
the variables that affect or predict accuracy. In 1987, Cutler, Penrod
and Martens examined the roles of system and
estimator variables in eyewitness identifications.
They cite the originator of the terms estimator and system variables
as Wells (1978). Cutler
et al. (1987) report that Wells (1978) defined estimator variables as
those factors that are beyond the control of the the criminal justice system
and system variables as as those factors that are within the control of the
criminal justice sytem.
- gender (MacLeod & Shepherd, 1986;
Butts & Mixon, 1995)
- race (Brigham & Malpass, 1985;
Bothwell, Brigham & Malpass, 1989; Chance, Goldstein & McBride,
- age (Goodman & Reed, 1986;
Searcy et al., 2000;
Dekle, Beal, Elliot &
- weapon focus ( Loftus, Loftus & Messo,
1987; Tooley, Brigham, Maass
& Bothwell, 1987; Maass &
- emotional stress (Christianson, 1992; Yuille
& Tollestrup, 1992; Deffenbacher, 1983)
- lineup procedure (Steblay, 1997; Garrioch & Brimacombe,
- interview techniques (Yarmey, 1998; Wells & Bradfield, 1998)
- context reinstatement (Sanders, 1986; Gibling & Davies, 1988; Smith & Vela, 1982)
- The Cognitive Interview (Fisher et al., 1987; Geiselman
et al., 1985; Fisher, Gieselman
& Amador, 1989)
The Confidence- Accuracy Correlation
In 1980, Deffenbacher reported that
the American legal and judicial systems place a great amount of importance
on the confidence an eyewitness expresses as a predictor of accuracy. However,
he notes that early studies have differed on whether or not their results
reflect a correlation between confidence and accuracy.
little or no correlation
- Brown, Deffenbacher & Sturgill (1977)
- Clifford & Scott (1978)
& Murray (1984)
- Loftus, Miller & Burns (1978)
Penrod, Loftus & Winkler (1982)
The impact of eyewitness testimony is never more
apparent than in a courtroom. Research on juror influence focuses
on this impact. Specifically, this research examines characteristics
of the witness that affect juror decisions as well as the presence or absence
of a witness.
Research on Juror Influence
- effects of witness and defendant attractiveness
on jury verdicts (Catano, 1980)
- effects of witness expertise and confidence
on juror perceptions of credibility (Whitley & Greenberg, 1986)
- effects of degree of detail on perceived
guilt (Bell & Loftus, 1988)
- juror knowledge of the effects of different
variables on eyewitness memory (Cutler, Penrod & Stuve,
- juror reactions to child witnesses (Leippe & Romanczyk, 1991)
When evaluating the external validity of the research
presented in this review, it is apparent that a shift in focus is called
for. This is true for four reasons. Specifically these reasons
Current eyewitness research trends do not accurately
reflect real-life criminal events.
Current eyewitness research, with the exceptions
of Gudjonsson (1989) and Fisher et al. (1987) do not provide solutions to
The conclusions of eyewitness research are derived
from a limited population sample.
In most respects, eyewitness research fails to
yield consistent findings.
Suggestions for Future Research
- focus on ways to measure and assess individual
differences in eyewitness performance
- expand population sample to include more
- replicate previous studies
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E.F. (1988). Degree of detail of eyewitness testimony and mock juror judgements.
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Psychology, 28(17), 1637-1648 | <urn:uuid:e941cf78-a675-4cd2-bdca-2c9e79f0f2e7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.anselm.edu/internet/psych/theses/sr2003/dickens/senior_thesis.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00137-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.723175 | 3,073 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Contributed by Holly Bremerkamp
Like most parents, I spend a considerable amount of time thinking about how my child is performing in school and all of the things I can do to make sure she’s excelling. At night, I sit at the kitchen table with her and look over her homework to make sure it’s complete. I encourage her to ask questions when she’s in class and comes across something that she doesn’t understand. I try to expose her to technology that can open up new learning experiences. In short, I’m leaving no stone unturned. This might sound familiar to you.
Much of what I know now as a parent I learned during my 10 years as an English teacher, when I would spend days and nights trying to figure out what my students needed to succeed and how I could help them get there. Through my later experience working for the school district in St. Louis and now for CTB/McGraw-Hill, I’ve come to understand the value of one particular tool in helping students develop academically — and it’s one you might not expect: Assessment data.
If you’re around my age, your vision of assessment probably involves having to memorize a lot of facts sitting at a desk with a No. 2 pencil. In most cases, the tests you took served only a few purposes: To determine your grade in a particular class, which classes you might be placed in the following school year, or perhaps even whether you were able to graduate.
Some tests our children take today not only look very little like the ones from when we were growing up, they’re used in totally different ways. Pencils and paper have been replaced by computers and adaptive learning systems. And now schools are using student assessment not only to evaluate performance, they’re using it to change the way their teachers teach by identifying the areas where their students need the most help.
The very process of assessment has changed, as well. Schools no longer wait until the end of a marking period to administer assessments; they do so earlier and more frequently in an effort to pay close attention to how each student is progressing academically and give teachers the feedback they need to tailor their instruction to meet those students’ unique needs.
Teachers aren’t the only ones who can take advantage of assessment data. Many schools also make this data available to parents, who can use it to monitor the areas where their child may need extra help. This may seem like a complicated process, but it isn’t meant to be. Student assessment reports are designed to be easily interpreted, primarily by teachers but by parents, too. (If you’re having trouble understanding or obtaining your child’s report, don’t be afraid to speak with one of his or her teachers. Most likely, they’ll be happy to help.)
Once parents have used the assessment reports to figure out where their child needs to improve, they can talk with their child’s teacher about the best way to drive this improvement — whether through a tutor, additional homework assignments or more intensive instruction. Assessment can also be used to highlight a child’s strengths. If parents know where their child is particularly strong — and sometimes it may surprise you — they can work with their child’s teacher to select enrichment activities that further build on areas of strength.
Student assessment data is a powerful tool that parents should be aware of and harness as they work to make sure their child is developing the skills he or she needs to be successful. Simply put, I’ve found that looking at my daughter’s assessment data gives me far more insight into how she’s performing and where she needs to improve than a simple letter grade ever could. I encourage all parents to shake off their preconceptions about assessment and begin having conversations with their child’s teachers about how they can use data to help their child develop academically. I know my daughter’s education wouldn’t be the same without it.
And you'll see personalized content just for you whenever you click the My Feed .
SheKnows is making some changes! | <urn:uuid:ac186aaa-c23c-4387-8368-fd2b46ebf36b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sheknows.com/parenting/articles/989031/how-to-use-student-assessment-data | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00082-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970816 | 862 | 2.828125 | 3 |
How to Use the Ruler to Format a Paragraph in Word 2013
Paragraph formatting in Word 2013 can be confusing. Two places on the Ribbon are for paragraph formatting, or if you opt instead to use the Paragraph dialog box, your mind may go into shock from the abundance of options. A more graphical, and therefore more fun, way to manipulate a paragraph’s indentation and margins is to use the ruler.
The ruler is naturally hidden in Word. To show the ruler, click the View tab and place a check mark by the Ruler item, found in the Show group.
In Print Layout view, the ruler appears on the top of the writing part of the Word window. A vertical ruler also shows up and runs down the left side of the window, though that ruler is only for show.
The dark gray part of the ruler (the outer ends) is beyond the page margins. The lighter gray part is inside the page margins, and the ruler measures that space from the left, starting with zero inches.
On the ruler, you find four gizmos that control paragraph indenting: one downward-pointing triangle, two upward-pointing triangles, and one block. These gizmos reflect the current paragraph formatting, and they can be manipulated with the mouse to change the paragraph formatting. The next few paragraphs describe the settings they control.
To adjust a paragraph's right margin, grab the Right Indent guy on the ruler and drag him to the right or left.
The first line indent is set independently of the rest of the lines in a paragraph by dragging the First Line Indent doojobbie to the left or right.
To adjust a paragraph’s left margin for all lines but the first line — called a hanging indent — grab the Hanging Indent thing on the ruler and slide it to the left or right. Moving this gizmo does not affect the First Line indent.
The Left Indent thing controls both the Hanging Indent and First Line Indent at the same time. It allows you to adjust both the paragraph’s left margin as well as the first line indent with one mouse action rather than two.
The ruler measures from the page’s left margin, not from the left edge of the page.
The page’s left margin is set when you format a page of text.
The Tab gizmo is used to set the various tab stops used in Word.
The ruler works fine for visually setting indents, but when you need to be precise, use the Paragraph dialog box.
Here are all the paragraph-formatting commands you can summon by holding down the Ctrl key and pressing a letter or number. By no means should you memorize this list.
|Left-align (flush left)||Ctrl+L|
|Right-align (flush right)||Ctrl+R|
|Line spacing||Alt+H, K|
|1.15 line spacing||Ctrl+0| | <urn:uuid:9279c5fa-16d5-4da8-a0db-d780ee5634e8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-use-the-ruler-to-format-a-paragraph-in-word.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00027-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.860804 | 616 | 3.484375 | 3 |
The World Bank Group's Environment Strategy 2012-2022 lays out an ambitious agenda to support "green, clean, resilient" paths for developing countries, as they pursue poverty reduction and development in an increasingly fragile environment.
The Environment Strategy, which covers the World Bank, International Finance Corporation (IFC), and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), recognizes that while there has been notable progress in reducing global poverty, there has been significantly less progress in managing the environment sustainably. While developing countries will still need rapid growth to reduce poverty over the next decade, the global environment has reached a critical state that could undermine livelihoods, productivity, and global stability.
"Green" refers to a world in which natural resources, including oceans, land, and forests, are sustainably managed and conserved to improve livelihoods and ensure food security. It's a world in which healthy ecosystems increase all the economic returns from the activities they support. Growth strategies are focused on overall wealth rather than GDP as it is currently measured. Governments pursue regulations that encourage innovation, efficiency, sustainable budgeting, and green growth. Biodiversity is protected as an economically critical resource. In this world, good policies enable the private sector to use natural resources sustainably as part of good business, creating jobs and contributing to long-term growth.
Biodiversity continues to decline as a result of habitat destruction and degradation. Over the past 40 years, there have been significant declines in healthy ecosystems-e.g., forests, mangroves, sea grass beds, coral reefs-and their flora and fauna populations, with species loss affecting everything from fungi to insects, plants, frogs, tigers, and gorillas. Forests have seen annual losses of 5.2 million hectares between 2000 and 2010, despite declines in deforestation rates and increased forest plantations. As a result, the capacity of ecosystems to provide services such as water provisioning and flood control has declined significantly. Land degradation is also worsening as a result of deforestation and poor agricultural practices, with soil erosion, salinization, and nutrient depletion contributing to desertification. Freshwater supplies are seriously stressed, with 1.4 billion people living in river basins in which water use exceeds recharge rates. Oceans and shared seas are also under stress from climate change, overharvesting, pollution, and coastal development. The decline of marine resources threatens the livelihoods of over 100 million men and women involved in fish processing.
Through the global Wealth Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services (WAVES) partnership, partnership, the Bank Group is supporting efforts to measure the value of countries’ natural assets and thereby inform policy choices. The Bank Group is also supporting the Global Partnership for Oceans to help restore the world's oceans to health and optimize their contributions to economic growth and food security. In addition, the World Bank Group will build on its experience in carbon finance to test the market's willingness to encourage the protection of critical habitat areas while also providing carbon storage benefits; continue innovative work on forests and land use linked to the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) program; and develop methodologies to capture and monetize carbon co-benefits—for example, through wildlife conservation programs.
"Clean" refers to a low-pollution, low-emission world in which cleaner air, water, and oceans enable people to lead healthy, productive lives. It is a world where development strategies put a premium on access-so that rural women no longer spend their days hauling wood-alongside options for low-emission, climate-smart agriculture, transport, energy, and urban development. Cleaner production standards spur innovation, and industry is encouraged to develop clean technologies that provide jobs and support sustainable growth. Companies and governments are held to account on their low-emission, low-pollution commitments, and innovative financing helps to spur change.
The poorest countries suffer directly and measurably from an increasingly polluted and degraded environment, with women and children disproportionately affected. Air and water pollution are rising sharply in cities in lower- and middle-income countries, and developing countries' water resources are under threat from drawdown and pollution-human waste, phosphorus, and nitrogen that deplete waterways of oxygen and causing the death of fish and invertebrates. The increased use of fertilizers for food crops over the next 30 years is expected to result in a 10- to 20-percent global increase in river nitrogen flows to coastal ecosystems (UNEP 2007). In some regions, levels of heavy metals, stockpiles of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), and other chemical wastes from industry, which affect human and animal health, water supplies, and land, are increasing. Meanwhile, carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise, reaching a record high in 2010 and making it more challenging to limit the rise in global temperatures to 2 degrees by 2100.
Recognizing that countries cannot "grow dirty and clean up later," the Bank Group is encouraging low-emission development strategies and innovative financing for renewable energies, climate-smart agriculture, and lower-carbon cities. It is also supporting pollution management through river clean-up and legacy pollution projects, using carbon finance funds to scale up use of cleaner stoves to reduce indoor pollution for women and children, and developing partnerships with the private sector to spur cleaner production standards and strategies.
"Resilient" means being prepared for shocks and adapting effectively to climate change. In a resilient world, countries are better prepared for more frequent natural disasters, more volatile weather patterns, and the long-term consequences of climate change. Healthy and well-managed ecosystems are more resilient and so play a key role in reducing vulnerability to climate change impacts. Climate resilience is integrated into urban planning and infrastructure development. Through effective social inclusion policies, countries and communities are better prepared to protect vulnerable groups and fully involve women in decision-making.
Climate change will increase the vulnerability of human and natural systems. The economic costs of climate change and variability will be large, making it even more challenging to address issues of poverty and environmental degradation. Natural hazards-earthquakes, droughts, floods, and storms-continue to cause significant loss of life and economic damage, with women and children the most affected by disasters. Cities and Small Island Developing States are also particularly vulnerable.
The Bank Group is helping countries adapt to climate change through better coastal zone management and climate-smart agriculture; improving disaster risk management by expanding the use of climate risk insurance and other financial instruments to help with recovery after natural disasters; and assisting vulnerable Small Island Developing States to reduce dependence on oil imports, build sound infrastructure, and restore protective coastal ecosystems such as mangroves. | <urn:uuid:e3947bf3-5f9b-429b-bdba-a3bd38586b27> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/environment/publication/environment-strategy-toward-clean-green-resilient-world.print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396875.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00019-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932436 | 1,356 | 3.484375 | 3 |
Consider the classic "message in a bottle" scenario: a man is stranded on an uncharted landmass far from civilization. Thanks to his watertight missive, he is able to let others know that he's out there — that the landmass on which he is marooned exists somewhere in the world. However, without any reference points, his exact location remains a mystery.
Geneticists have been mulling over a similar problem since the completion of the Human Genome Project (HGP): they were aware of a small percentage of genetic sequences that simply couldn't be located within the human genome. The sequences were identified by the HGP and other gene sequencing efforts, so researchers knew of their existence, but they couldn’t tell where, in the genome, they were hiding.
It was often thought that localizing these unmapped genetic sequences would require a new technology that could more effectively scour the genome and read chromosomes from end to end. Instead, a team led by Broad associate member Steve McCarroll and computational biologist Giulio Genovese got to the bottom of the mystery using math and some clever problem-solving. By using statistics to track the genetic sequences back to their ancestral sources, they were able to locate many of these “missing” pieces: most were found hiding within a tightly packed and relatively quiet swath of DNA called heterochromatin. The researchers describe the newly-found sequences as islands of biologically active DNA lying within “heterochromatic oceans."
Genovese devised a way to trace these sequences using “admixture mapping,” a method previously used to locate genes associated with disease. When populations are separated for long periods of time (in the case of humans, tens of thousands of years), the chromosomes of each population acquire enough differences that they can be distinguished from each other using statistical methods. When those populations start to mix, their “admixed” offspring carry mosaic chromosomes — a patchwork of segments from those two distinct sets of ancestors.
Genovese reasoned that, since pieces of the genome that are close together tend to be inherited together, it’s possible to map the location of a gene or sequence by tracing it back through generations to its source in one of the ancestral populations. So, much as one might try to locate the source of that “message in a bottle” by determining how far and in what direction the current may have carried the bottle, one could use admixture data to determine where genetic sequences may have originated.
"Around 2004 or 2005," Genovese explained, "people started to use this methodology to locate disease genes. I thought we could instead use this machinery to map the difficult one percent of sequences that had not been located."
The team generated and analyzed genetic data from 380 African Americans who participated in the Jackson Heart Study. Since most African Americans have both European and African ancestors, they could use the mosaic patterns in their genomes to map the genomic locations of the missing sequences.
“By determining whether the so-called ‘missing pieces’ of sequence came from their European ancestors or their African ancestors, we could sort of dock those pieces into place by matching their ancestry patterns to ancestry patterns in the known, mapped regions of their genomes — thus determining where in the genome these ‘missing pieces’ were located,” McCarroll explained.
The team was somewhat surprised to find so many of the sequences hidden inside the heterochromatin, an area that, due to its density and repetitive pattern of genetic code, had been difficult to reach in the Human Genome Project.
“I think people had tended to think that that part of the genome might be devoid of the kinds of complex sequences, genes, and functional biology that we associate with the rest of the genome,” McCarroll said. “What our findings showed is that these regions have expressed genes hidden inside them.”
McCarroll, who is also the director of genetics at the Broad's Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research and a professor in genetics at Harvard Medical School, described the team’s work as a “completely new and powerful approach” that will help expand existing maps of the human genome.
"Geneticists use these maps every day,” McCarroll said. “It's exciting that Giulio's approach can help to complete those resources."
The team reported their findings earlier this week in Nature Genetics.
Other researchers involved in this work include Robert Handsaker, Heng Li, Nicolas Altemose, Amelia Lindgren, Kimberly Chambert, Bogdan Pasaniuc, Alkes Price, David Reich, Cynthia Morton, James G. Wilson, and Martin Pollak. Collaborators included researchers from Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard School of Public Health, and the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
Genovese, et al. Using population admixture to help complete maps of the human genome. Nature Genetics (2013) doi: 10.1038/ng.2565 | <urn:uuid:65cea671-1063-45ff-9497-a80dea0bcf8d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.broadinstitute.org/blog/charted-islands | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00171-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961231 | 1,045 | 4.15625 | 4 |
Solar Cogeneration Installation Demonstrates Solar Cooling at SoCalGas
One of the facilities of Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) is using an innovative solar cogeneration system to not only provide electricity, but to also run mechanical chillers and support the building's air conditioning system.
"Instead of using electricity (most commonly used-method) to run mechanical chillers, SoCalGas’ demonstration project captures and stores the heat generated by solar cogeneration to power one of the Energy Resource Center’s absorption chillers and support the building’s air-conditioning system on-demand." - Cogenra Solar
The solar cogeneration system, from Cogenra Solar, converts some of the energy of the sunlight shining on the system into electricity, and then stores much of the remaining solar energy as heat in water. The system is said to use "over 75% of the energy" from the sun hitting it, as compared to the average of 15% in traditional photovoltaic systems. The heat storage and on-demand cooling provided by the cogeneration system will reduce both the electrical costs and peak demand charges for SoCalGas, which can be 30% or more of the total electricity bill for commercial buildings.
Solar cogeneration installations have usually focused on providing electricity, hot water, and space heating up until recently, and the solar cooling aspect of this system demonstrates yet another application for solar energy, especially in industrial and commercial settings. | <urn:uuid:4831961f-3778-46c5-9b6d-7197603907fe> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/solar-cogeneration-installation-demonstrates-solar-cooling-socalgas.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00095-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905218 | 305 | 2.875 | 3 |
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In western literature there are many examples of characters and stories that have since their first introduction become part of our everyday popular culture. So when we speak of Frankenstein, Dracula and Sherlock Holmes the vast majority of people know who we are talking about but very few I suspect have ever read the original source material. Another example of this is Tarzan. Tarzan was popularised in the 1930's by the MGM films starring Johnny Weissmuller and seen in countless TV and film adaptations in the 50's, 60's and 70's and through to the present most recently with a Disney animated version. I was one of these people who knew the character from the various films but had never read Edgar Rice's Burroughs's original 1912 novel 'Tarzan of the Apes', well I recently decided to remedy this and picked up a free Kindle version to see if the original story lived up to the ensuing iconic status of Tarzan as a fictional hero.
The first thing to remember when reading the novel is that it was written over a hundred years ago and it describes a world and social attitudes that are very different to those of today. The world of Tarzan is that of the old colonial Africa. To most readers of the time Africa was a mysterious place, wild and dangerous. The expression 'deepest, darkest Africa' conveyed this feeling of remoteness and dangerous fascination that westerners had for this still largely unknown continent. Europe considered Africa as a valuable commodity, its resources to be used to build up its empires and its people to be subjugated not only for the good of Europe's colonial ambitions but also for their own good. A feeling seem to run through western thinking that the native peoples of Africa were not much better than the savage animals that populated the continent. Fitting well into this way of thinking came also the ideas of Darwin and natural selection and with it the idea of the hierarchy of nature and races with the superior white western European race firmly taking its 'rightful' place at the evolutionary summit. Some modern readers may find many of the inherent beliefs underpinning the story and the attitude shown to the indigenous peoples of Africa to be at best old fashioned and laughable and at worst distasteful.
The story starts with John Clayton being born in the jungles of equatorial Africa after his parents John and Alice Clayton the present Lord and Lady Greystoke are abandoned by a mutinous ship's crew on a deserted part of the coast. Despite their predicament John and Alice being of noble birth and possessing all the admirable qualities of the English ruling class do not panic but set about surviving in the hostile environment never doubting that one day they will be rescued. Unfortunately when the child is still only a baby his parents are killed by a ferocious ape Kerchak. Left alone to die the baby is adopted by the she-ape Kala who has just suffered the loss of her own baby. Clayton is now named Tarzan meaning 'White Skin' in the ape language and is raised within the ape colony not knowing anything about his human heritage.
Never quite being able to fit in with his ape peers Tarzan one day accidently stumbles on his parents cabin, where through looking at book left there he first learns about humans and eventually over the years teaches himself to read. As Tarzan grows to manhood he uses his greater intelligence and human cunning to become the new king of the apes and he also begins learn more about humans by observing a tribe of men newly settled black natives in his jungle domain. His world is expanded even further and made more complicated when a group of western explorers including the beautiful Jane Porter are stranded along the coastal regions of the equatorial jungle. Will Tarzan's noble ancestry and human instinct win over his savage jungle upbringing? Will the true heir to the Greystoke title return to England to claim the fortune that is rightfully his?
Taken as a rip roaring, high octane adventure story Tarzan is an excellent read. Burroughs describes the early life of Tarzan amidst the tribe of apes in great detail and we learn about the frightening and dangerous life he lives as a small child among the apes. There are plenty of bloody and violent confrontations between the apes as they vie for supremacy in the group as well as deadly encounters with other dangerous residents of the jungle among them the ape's greatest foe Numa the lion.
"As the body rolled to the ground Tarzan of the Apes placed his foot upon the neck of his lifelong enemy and, raising his eyes to the full moon, threw back his fierce young head and voiced the wild and terrible cry of his people."
The story unfolds at great pace and is certainly a 'page turner', each of the book's chapters concluding on an expectant note probably due to its original publication in instalments in a pulp adventure magazine 'All-Story Magazine'. The description of the savagery of the apes and the brutality of the jungle existence is fascinating to read and Burroughs does a very good job of developing Tarzan's character from puny human boy totally reliant on his adoptive ape mother for survival to the ferocious human 'ape' who eventually learn to use his superior human intellect to gain supremacy over all of his jungle domain. The adult Tarzan is described as a giant amongst men, his years of competing for supremacy with the fierce apes giving him an outstanding physique and a wild savage beauty.
"When Tarzan killed he more often smiled than scowled, and smiles are the foundation of beauty."
It is worthy pointing out that the story is not meant to be an accurate portrayal of the day to day life of apes in equatorial Africa, we have to rely on David Attenborough rather than Burroughs to give us that! Even taking into account the scant knowledge of the time Burroughs takes some great artistic liberties when describing the jungle environment. It is doubtful that even in the early 1900's it was believed that ape colonies had the level of sophistication and the ability to use language in the way Burroughs suggests. Tarzan's colony of apes not only uses a rudimentary ape language but also engage in elaborate ceremonies and ritual execution of their enemies. It is also very doubtful that a human child could teach itself to read using only books without any help from a literate adult. It is also worth pointing out that lions don't prowl around the West African rain forest but are only found on the inland savannah. Yet despite the necessity to suspend ones disbelief at certain aspects of the story the reader is willing to do so in order to fully engage in the excitement and vibrancy of the story.
It is also interesting to examine the story in context of the times in which it was written. To a modern reader the story includes many racist attitudes; the depiction of the black characters in the story is not very flattering. The black tribe that Tarzan encounters (and frankly terrorises with little provocation) are seen as brutal savages practicing cannibalism. They conform to the stereotypes that existed at the time about black natives being uncivilised, superstitious and morally corrupt; the ape colony is treated in a kinder fashion by the author. Jane's black servant Esmeralda is seen as a fickle, weak willed and highly strung young woman where4as Jane although often frightened seems to have the strength of character to maintain her composure. Despite this it would be wrong to say that the author himself was racist, he is simply expounding the mistaken but commonly held views among westerners at the time.
Underlying the story is the idea that breeding and nobility of character will shine through whatever the circumstances. Thus Tarzan even though he is weaker physically than the apes manages to rise above his deficiencies and exert his human dominance over his peers. This is possible not just because of his humanity but because he is of noble birth, a 'lesser' working class baby would probably not have made it to the top of ape society in Burroughs's view of the world. Tarzan's father when faced with the hopelessness of the situation on being stranded in the wilds of the jungle with a pregnant wife doesn't panic but simply gets on with doing what is needed to survive, he has a confidence in his ability to survive and prosper that comes from generations of being part of the ruling class in English society. As he explains to his wife
"Hundreds of thousands of years ago our ancestors of the dim and distant past faced the same problems which we must face, possibly in these same primeval forests. That we are here today evidences their victory. What they did may we not do? And even better, for are we not armed with ages of superior knowledge, and have we not the means of protection, defence, and sustenance which science has given us, but of which they were totally ignorant? What they accomplished, Alice, with instruments and weapons of stone and bone, surely that may we accomplish also."
In the same way Tarzan innately shares his father's innate superiority over others and an inner belief that he is meant to rule over his peers.
The idea of nature versus nurture was very much in vogue at the time, building upon Darwin's ideas of natural selection. Many authors were either directly or subconsciously addressing the idea that if humans were simply just a form of advanced apes then there must exist an instinctive savagery within every man that is kept at bay by the thin veneer of civilisation and self imposed morality. Others would argue that man (predominantly western man in Burroughs view) has transcended his savage ancestry and by breeding been able to evolve away from the animal impulses and brutality of his ape cousins. These ideas were present in many classic works of fiction of around this time such as the likes of 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson or 'The Island of Doctor Moreau' (1896) by H. G. Wells and the debate still rages today although maybe on a more enlightened intellectual footing.
So despite its failings, its dubious colonial attitudes, its racist undertones and its scientific inaccuracies Tarzan is still a fantastic thrilling read and well deserves its reputation as one the classic adventure stories of the 20th century.
The story of Tarzan however doesn't end with this book, Burroughs went on to write a further 22 Tarzan adventures before his death in 1950.
If you like the films and want to see where the Tarzan phenomena all started I would urge you to read this book and enjoy the experience.
'Tarzan of the Apes' by Edgar Rice Burroughs is available for free as a Kindle edition or fro £6.99 as a paperback at the time this review was written.
The nature or nurture debate solved forever in 1912; if you dump a baby on an island surrounded by books, it'll teach itself grammatically perfect English, and generally grow up to be a pretty good sort, providing of course, you can distract it from tearing apart raw carcasses with its bare teeth and attempting to lick its own arse clean for long enough. This is, of course, as long as said baby is the offspring of a wealthy British aristocrat. God only knows what would happen if you tried the same thing with a working class baby. Actually, it's probably illegal anyway.
This is the kind of thinking that goes into Tarzan; wild assumptions, flawed logic, sweeping generalisations and unbelievable coincidences. Which, by the way, doesn't stop it being thoroughly entertaining.
The story begins with a young English couple John Clayton (Lord Greystoke) and his pregnant wife Alice Rutherford (Lady Greystoke) on a voyage to British West Africa, where Clayton has just been appointed to a new post investigating the treatment of black British subjects.
Unfortunately, the crew are a bunch of cutthroat mercenaries and the couple end up being left on a deserted island, miles away from civilization.
Lord Greystoke attempts to start a new life for them, building a home furnished with supplies they transported with them on the ship including a variety of books for their as yet unborn child. However they are not alone on the island; panthers, lions and apes roam the area terrifying the young couple with their blood-curdling cries during the night. One of these anthropoid apes attacks Lady Greystoke and, although she manages to escape, the shock sends her insane (that's what women do in this book when frightened, either swoon or go mad). The very same night she gives birth to her child. Unfortunately the after-effects of the ape attack never leave her and she dies a year later.
When Clayton himself is killed by another ape some time later, the baby is left an orphan. However, Kala, a female ape who has recently lost her own son, adopts him for her own.
So for years Tarzan, as the baby becomes known, grows up as an ape, fighting lions, battling for supremacy with apes and generally enjoying jolly jungle japes of all kinds. He gets an inkling into his true heritage when he re-discovers the home of his parents and the wealth of literature therein, and it is here that he learns to read the English language.
This man-ape's life, however, is about to change forever; onto the scene come another group of marooned travellers. One of the trapped landlubbers happens to be none other than the new Lord Greystoke, heir to Tarzan's natural title. To add to this extremely unlikely turn of events, Tarzan falls in love with the same woman as his cousin, a certain Jane Porter (of "me Tarzan, you Jane" fame).
Can Tarzan turn away from his savage upbringing to become the gentlemen Jane craves? Can she face the thought of sharing her life with this man-ape?
Edgar Rice Burroughs is obviously of the view that class is as inherent as is mankind's right to rule nature; here is an aristocrat denied his birthright and any of his natural privileges and still rising to the top. It is a controversial view, but a drum that Burroughs keeps banging, eventually to the detriment of the book. We are told so often how handsome, rugged and intelligent this "godlike creature" is with his aristocratic nature and natural grace, that personally, I was just hoping that one of those bloody vines would snap and he would fall headfirst in a steaming elephant turd. This flawless character, brought up by apes, but possessing charm, humanity and seemingly superhuman intelligence, flies in the face of what conventional wisdom tells us should happen to a child brought up without human contact and is just *too* good to be true.
The book, however, does have a darker side; it would be safe to say that, in a 21st Century context, it can't exactly be seen as a PC novel. Describing himself to Jane as "Tarzan, the killer of beasts and many black men" (I would imagine this is left out of the Disney version!), the book gives an almost uniformly negative and stereotypical view of other races, or in fact anyone who isn't white, upper-class and male. Burroughs' prejudices would now be considered highly offensive but this was a book written in a very different time and perhaps should be cut some slack.
Burroughs' whiter than white portrayal of his protagonist, his two-dimensional characters, his credulity-straining plot devices and certain artistic liberties he takes with the plot are amongst the books major flaws. Tarzan has been slated critically (although generally well-loved by readers), and it is true that Burroughs is certainly not a great writer. In fact, Rudyard Kipling said that his reason for writing the book was to "find out how bad a book he could write and get away with it."
Despite all these fundamental flaws, however, it can't be denied that Burroughs actually tells a pretty good story; vivid, colourful and imaginative. Tarzan is a pretty readable and enjoyable yarn, not a classic in the traditional sense but still an exciting, breathless page-turner. True, some of the set pieces are pretty repetitive and disposable, but crucially they never get boring.
Burroughs style of writing, despite being far from technically accomplished, reads pretty well and is easy to understand, despite the age of the text.
Tarzan is a short adventure-packed novel crammed full of drama and romance; treasure maps, shipwrecks, gunfights, cannibals, jungle creatures and love triangles. With more than 20 sequels, countless films, stage shows and other re-interpretations, Tarzan has become one of the most iconic and well-loved figures in literary history; the longevity of his fame is testament to that. The original superhero, Tarzan is resourceful, intelligent, powerful, self-sacrificing and compassionate and every bit as iconic as Sherlock Holmes, Indianna Jones, Ebenezer Scrooge or Count Dracula.
Now available to download for free, or for next to nothing from Amazon, Tarzan is a character that everyone has heard of, but a book that not many these days have actually read. It's certainly worth looking into, as an insight and background into this iconic character and as a fun, if somewhat clumsy, read. | <urn:uuid:1a254c97-6801-4ae7-a0bd-486a42f8c49d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/printed-books/tarzan-of-the-apes-edgar-rice-burroughs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394987.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00041-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974057 | 3,560 | 2.84375 | 3 |
The Mini Maker Faire brings together Makers of all types for a spectacular display of art, science, technology, craft and engineering.
This “do-it-yourself” fair invites children and adults to participate in Maker projects and demonstrations, including:
- Make and race your own lunar Rover with NASA scientists
- Experiment with 3D printers & vinyl cutters
- Build a giant marble run
- Use recycled materials to create new toys
- Experiment with robotics
- Screen-print your own t-shirt
- Make your own computer game
- Create hand-bound books
Spread the word and encourage your colleagues and students to come out and share their creativity, innovation and imagination. | <urn:uuid:6a3f5cbf-f764-4ba0-9a2f-aae29561d887> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/blog/2013/09/06/silver-spring-mini-maker-faire-september-29/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397696.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00081-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.877805 | 144 | 3.109375 | 3 |
PART 4; Environmental Report Cards
Let me talk about one science communication tool that we’ve been developing, that we think is really powerful, and this is the Environmental Report Card. They’re really powerful for three big reasons. One is they are a really good peer pressure motivator, because peer pressure motivates human change. The story I’ll give here is the Chesapeake Bay Report Card. Over on the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay; there was a grade of “D minus” that was the second worse grade compared to Baltimore Harbor, which was an “F.” The people over on the Eastern Shore rural community said, “We’re almost as bad as Baltimore, we can’t be that bad.” It didn’t matter how they compared to the Baltic Sea, or anywhere else in the world. But they knew Baltimore, and they knew they were better than Baltimore, so they got the message that they had to do something about their agricultural runoff. The other thing about Environmental Report Cards is that they are a common and shared experience. We actually published the Chesapeake Report Card in a little manila envelope. This works because we’ve trained everybody in report cards—they’ve done it for an average of twelve years of their life—getting these Report Cards. So it’s good training, we can use this metaphor very effectively. I started realizing that Environmental Report Cards worked when we developed them in Australia around 2000. After around the third Report Card, the Mayor had caught on that this was going to hit the news and this was going to be a big deal, so about two weeks before the release, they called me up and said, “Bill, how did we do?” I said, “You got a ‘C minus’.” They said, “Is there anything that I can do for extra credit in this two weeks?” This is another common human behavior. And I said, “No, but we could help you tell the story about why it’s still a ‘C minus’.” In some cases, they hadn’t upgraded the sewage yet, or they hadn’t given it enough time. So we learned that we had to pre-brief them, even with bad grades or good grades. And, that they would be able to handle any grade as long as they had advance warning.
Finally, Report Cards are really effective, because they take huge amounts of information and they make it digestible. They put data into digestible bits. They synthesize large amounts of information. So they’re really a powerful way to communicate. They allow for us to bridge the disconnect that we have in society—the disconnect that scientists are really good at doing science, typically really bad at communicating, and effectively are ignored. Politicians are generally really good communicators, that’s how they get elected. But, they don’t typically have a science background. So we have this great disconnect. And then the people, the average stakeholder on the ground, the citizens, they have neither the power or the communication skills or the science background. So, they’re really out in the cold. The only way we’re really going to move it forward, is to take them on this journey. To take the power and communication that the politicians bring, the knowledge and the science the scientists bring, and inform and engage the community, so that they become a true partner in the process that you’re going through in conservation.
Let me give you a few examples. And I’ve got a bunch of examples as we’ve been developing these Report Cards over the last twelve or thirteen years. I’m just going to focus on the Management examples. But my sort of philosophy is if you have the shared vision and you organize around that shared vision with Management, Research and Monitoring, you can do great things. There are three examples I want to give where these Report Cards have Management implications. And I’ll leave the Research and Monitoring for a later date. That’s more for the scientists.
Here’s the Report Card that we developed in the Southeast Queensland, Brisbane, Australia region. This was one of the first, the 2001 Report Card, which has since evolved to Watershed and bigger spatial scales. What it did, is that it really empowered the engineers in Queensland to go about upgrading their sewage. We mapped sewage plumes and watched the decline of nutrient loads, and the shrinkage of the plumes and the associated algal blooms. The report card helped catalyze these improvements.
Another example is from Maryland. This is what we’re doing with newly reelected Governor, Martin O’Malley—the thing called BayStat. This is a really interesting experiment in governance. This is one that I find fascinating, because monthly, the Governor sits at the table with his Secretaries of Enviornment, Agriculture, Planning and Natural Resources. He also use the inmates from the Department of Corrections to plant trees and make oyster cages. Baystat also has academic scientists; budget people and legal counsel. BayStat works to include the people the Governor needs to make decisions. And he works in a very Socratic manner; he drills people about, “What did you do last month about our sewage upgrades?” And the Governor also provided a funding mechanism. There are two funding mechanisms we have that were based on license plate fees and other ways of getting money to do some targeting. So we’re using the Report Card that we’re doing to not only track progress, but also to help spend his money most efficiently. In this case, the Report Card is not just documenting the status, but helping guide the restoration.
And then a very interesting Report Card that we did a few years ago was for the South Caucasus region (central Kura River basin), between Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the Republic of Georgia, located between the Caspian and Black Seas. The Kura River, which is shared by these three countries is heavily contaminated by open pit mines, raw sewage, and agricultural runoff. It’s a trans-boundary river that goes between these three countries. And it turns out they don’t get along. In fact, they are technically at war with one another. And that’s without Russia invading a few years ago. So this is the kind of a place where you don’t tend to come together. In fact, we had to meet in Georgia, because the Armenians weren’t allowed to go to Azerbaijan or vice-a-versa. So number one, we got them into the same room. That was a big step. Number two; we put their data on a common map. When we first showed this map, we were going to go through it relatively rapidly. We had six indicators we were going to go through and show them how we integrated them. And they said “Whoa, Stop. We’ve never seen that map before. We’ve never seen our data compared to their data.” And, they poured over this map. The report card brought them together, and then we published this report card in Russian and in English. The U.S. State Department actually funded this, because they thought, “Hey, if we can get people together to talk about something like water, maybe we can get them to talk about other things like peace.” So, it’s a really good opportunity to bring people together.
Other posts in this series:
1. Part 1 – Science Communication
2. Part 2 – Incorporating visual elements
3. Part 3 – History of Science Communication
5. Part 5 – Report card examples
6. Part 6 – Five step program for environmental report cards
7. Part 7 – Oh Canada!
8. Part 8 – Communicating Science Effectively poster | <urn:uuid:97b6a267-b177-4d72-8002-d528bffb4de8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ian.umces.edu/blog/2010/12/27/bill-dennison-speech-to-latornell-conference-ontario-canada-part-4-environmental-report-cards/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402699.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00136-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971345 | 1,657 | 3 | 3 |
Skip to comments.Ice store at Moon's South Pole is a myth: study
Posted on 10/19/2006 6:41:12 AM PDT by presidio9
Hopes that the Moon's South Pole has a vast hoard of ice that could be used to establish a lunar colony are sadly unfounded, a new study says.
In 1994, radar echoes sent back in an experiment involving a US orbiter called Clementine appeared to show that a treasure trove of frozen water lay below the dust in craters near the lunar South Pole that were permanently shaded from the Sun.
If so, such a find would be an invaluable boost to colonisation, as the ice could be used to provide water as well as hydrogen as fuel. NASA is looking closely at the South Pole as a potential site for the United States' return mission to the Moon, scheduled to take place by 2020.
But a paper published in the British science journal Nature on Thursday by a US team says the Clementine data most probably was misinterpreted.
Donald Campbell of Washington's Smithsonian Institution and colleagues collected radar images of the Moon's South Pole to a resolution of 20 metres (65 feet), looking especially at Shackleton crater, which had generated most interest.
The team found that a particular radar signature called the circular polarization ratio -- which in the Clementine experiment was taken to indicate thick deposits of ice -- could also be created by echoes from the rough terrain and walls of impact craters.
The signature was found in both sunny and permanently shady areas of crater, which suggests that the reflection comes from rocky debris, not thick ice deposits.
If there is any ice at the South Pole, it probably comes from tiny, scattered grains that probably account for only one or two percent of the local dust, the authors suggest.
"Any planning for future exploitation of hydrogen at the Moon's South Pole should be constrained by this low average abundance rather than by the expectation of localised deposits at higher concentrations," the paper says soberly.
The research involved sending a radar signal from the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico. The signal hit the southern lunar region and the reflection was picked up by the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia.
Now I'm not so sure either. I must have had "Moon" on the mind. I guess that makes me a lunatic.
What's the water for? Well, for life support, or for electrolyzing into propellants--you need LOTS of power for that--and then you have to lift the propellants back into orbit. Any payoff comes from the more modest gravity well of the Moon.
The payoff--if there is one--is S-L-O-W.
First, the sun is readily available as the base source of consumable energy. Fairly unlimited supply.
Second, whether we breathe it or burn it, the oxygen and hydrogen are not lost, they are transferred to a new compound, CO2 and H2O. The basic law of conservation of matter. Transforming them back into oxygen and hydrogen is again a question of the application of energy.
The supply of base elements is the major factor in living on the moon, not the supply of energy. Energy provides the means to manipulate the elements as needed.
It might be of interest to note that the moon appears to be 30% oxygen by weight. The missing element is hydrogen of which there are traces only.
If we added Mercury (which is denser than Mars but smaller obviously) to Mars, the little virtual calculator gizmo I've got here puts the combined mass at 9.7219E23, which is 16 per cent of the Earth's. Venus' mass is 81 per cent that of Earth. There really isn't any way to find enough material to make Mars like the Earth.
If there were lots of water available to bring Mars' mass to that of the Earth (and there could be), Mars could be converted to a planet with a planetary ocean, Earthlike atmosphere (synthesized from frozen gases imported from the outer Solar System, which is where the water could be lurking), and floating cities for humans. The final diameter of water-covered Mars would be larger than that of Earth, because of lower density.
Current Mars is just under 11 per cent the mass of Earth. Moving nearly 90 per cent of the Earth's mass is well in the future. IOW, the only practical prospect for the foreseeable is to build habitrail-style habitats on Earth (could be just inflatable structures) and deploy them on Mars, inflating them with the Earthlike atmospheric mixture, and staying indoors. :')
You mean there's no ozone hole on the moon?
The moon is an entire ozone hole. Pole to pole.
and staying indoors.
The taco stand and the fruit market, however, are still open for business.
So get out to the outer system and lob huge chunk of ice from Saturn back to the moon.
It's only 100K to send from Earth because the USA lacks the will to use better systems.
That is a fun one, but the dialogue is a joke (even in the context of an over the top tongue in cheek scifi spoof), is way too vulgar, the plot makes no sense, and there's an excess of bloodshed. Okay, so, it sounds perfect...
I can remember it for you wholesale.
As others have pointed out, this is both cost prohibitive and difficult from the bottom of a gravity well like Earth. As Kirkwood suggested the best plan is to get available water/ice someplace else in the solar system and deliver it to the Moon. A comet is a clear possibility, but there would be huge energy management issues. Those suckers are moving and getting one to impact without messing things up would be a trick.
I've read a good bit about the expected composiition of the asteroids in the main asteroid belt and there's supposed to be a lot of recoverable water/ice there. Getting out to the asteroids should actually be easier than landing on Mars. I think we'll do the belt first, then think about whether we really need to bother with Mars, except for scientific purposes. There's supposed to be a lot more in the belt that should be easy to recover, including lots of elements we may need alternative sources for as more and more terestrial resources get used up or, more likely, locked up by environmental regulations or our political or economic rivals. And there are supposed to be both precious metals (gold, platinum) and exotic elements, even things we've only made small quantities of in labs, in abundance. I want us to go there ASAP and I think that's where the commercial ventures with vision will first strike it rich.
Plus, once we get the knack of going out there and moving those rocks around they will make dandy presents to drop on those political and economic rivals. Particularly the big iron ones, with just the right targeting equipment. "Smart rocks," in other words. They make really pretty holes and there's no nasty radiation to bother everyone.
See you at the party Richter!
Smaller, shaped objects (perhaps made of tungsten) would be better, because they could be parked in their orbits such that the timing, trajectory, and targeting would be perfect, one behind the other. Despite no radiation, large impacts have much the same deleterious effect on climate.
If Moon could make an ice store work at the South Pole, he's a marketing genius.
I thought we already knew that the good Reverend was a marketing genius.
The idea is popularly known as "Rods from God," and Jerry Pournelle was an early proponent of the idea. I got the chance to discuss it briefly with him one of the times we ran into each other at Comdex, when that was still going on in Las Vegas. He's one of my favorite science fiction authors, along with Larry Niven, but Pournelle is also one of the very early PC columnists, going back to the very beginning in the mid to late 70s with kit PCs. I used to see him at least once a year from '77 on when I got involved in the first sales of pre-built PCs out in San Francisco. He was always very nice and generous with his time.
In addition to being an SF author and journalist he was also a member of Reagan's advisory panel that came up with the pieces of SDI. These kinetic energy weapons were considered as a viable weapon at that time as well, seperate from the SDI developments as this implementation doesn't deal with missile defense. There are kinetic energy parts of missile defense and their development is pretty much all that's left of SDI, except for the airborne laser, which should be available relatively shortly, and THEL, which we co-developed with the Israeli's. Rumsfeld was around back in the Reagan administration too and he's revived this version of the "Rods from God" specifically with the idea that they can be utilized against heavily dug in facilities, such as in Iran and North Korea. This 2005 article from The Weekly Standard covers that and other points about the system nicely.
Despite no radiation, large impacts have much the same deleterious effect on climate.
There are lots of sizes of rocks to drop. You choose the size depending on the effect you want. For me the point is that once we can move the asteroids around and mine materials from them we don't need to loft anything from Earth, even if we want to implement the "Rods from God" idea. We can get the material from mining the asteroids, or simply grab a rock of the right size and of a good enough shape and material to give us the effect we want. Pournelle and Niven used the idea extensively in their novel Footfall, from 1985. I think that is the ultimate "someone invades the Earth" book. They covered the topic of a natural comet impact in Lucifer's Hammer, from 1977. It has a fabulous description of the comet impact using the analogy of a huge hot fudge sundae. If anyone wants I can post that. I've already posted probably a lot more than people want to slog through and it's about 1,500 words, or 4 pages in Word. But it's a hoot.
"Howdy, stranger! If things have gone wrong, I'm talking to myself, and YOU'VE got a wet towel wrapped around your head."
"They're all connected!"
[from one of at least three Star Trek connections]
They covered the topic of a natural comet impact in Lucifer's Hammer, from 1977.I read that. It was about as much fun as an after-the-deluge kind of book would be expected to be. :') With SpaceWatch, the only way such a scheme could succeed and perhaps be explained away as a fortuitous accident would be to keep the projectiles small. Aerodynamic tungsten projectiles would get through the atmosphere and deliver a nice sized bang, destroying a population center while minimizing regional effects. He wrote, cheerfully. ;')
They also have an Orion spaceship. The character meant to represent Jerry Pournelle explains that kind of ship this way:
"Take a big metal plate," Curtis said. "Big and thick. Make it a hemisphere, but it could even be flat. Put a large ship, say the size of a battleship, on top of it. You want a really good shock absorber system between the plate and the ship.
"Now put an atom bomb underneath and light it off. I guarantee you that sucker will move." He sketched as he talked. "You keep throwing atom bombs underneath the ship. It puts several million pounds into orbit. In fact, the more mass you've got, the smoother the ride."
And when they built it and finally launched it they described it this way in the book:
Commander Kennedy whooped. "They made it! They're up! It's--"
"--first bomb fails you just start over."
"If the second bomb fails, you're already--"
"--already in the air. You'll fall. They're on their--"
"--way, by God! You can give me that drink now."
God was knocking, and he wanted in bad.
If you enjoyed Lucifer's Hammer then read Footfall. I think it's even better. Remember Harry the mailman? I really enjoyed that character. Well, they have a similar character in Footfall, Harry Red, an ex-biker / minstrel (he plays guitar and sings in bars to get drink and gas money). Really enjoyable.Well, I didn't really. The weepy diabetic guy's moral of the story, and the goofy alliance with the Soviets sound like unfettered gloomy Pournelle. Larry Niven's the wit of that collaborative team, which is why I enjoyed "Ringworld" and "Ringworld Engineers". :')
One of the things I really like about Niven is that a lot of his stories take place in one reality, which has been dubbed Known Space. It stretches from just a little in our own future, particularly with lots of stuff about Belters, the first independent humans who set up a society and industry off of Earth, to the far future of Ringworld and related stories. And he brings back events or references, as well. Of course, it also limits him (mostly) to the things he's established in earlier stories.
And it's not fun sex, it's forced or obsessive or strange.Hey, fun is relative. ;') It wouldn't surprise me that (like all of us, alas) Niven's done his best stuff and is in decline. But after all, having a career as a writer requires the luck of Teela Brown. ;')
One of the things I really like about Niven is that a lot of his stories take place in one reality, which has been dubbed Known Space. It stretches from just a little in our own future, particularly with lots of stuff about Belters, the first independent humans who set up a society and industry off of Earth, to the far future of Ringworld and related stories. And he brings back events or references, as well. Of course, it also limits him (mostly) to the things he's established in earlier stories.He's got a coherent fictional universe. :')
regarding what RightWhale said at message 56:
Hubble Telescope Turns to Moon and Sees Possible Oxygen Source
NY Times | October 20, 2005 | WARREN E. LEARY
Posted on 10/20/2005 12:58:40 AM EDT by neverdem
Breathing Moonrocks The Moon has plentiful oxygen for future astronauts
science.nasa.gov | Dave Dooling
Posted on 05/06/2006 5:39:58 PM EDT by Iam1ru1-2
One small breath for man (extracting oxygen from the lunar soil)
Daily Mail (UK) | 5/28/2006 | ELANOR MAYNE
Posted on 05/28/2006 4:25:09 PM EDT by Dark Skies | <urn:uuid:6fd1a8ec-b1b3-439d-84fb-a18345d936e7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1722173/posts?page=52 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00172-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965258 | 3,129 | 3.296875 | 3 |
Frostbite: You Often Don't Even Realize You Have It
Frostbite is a type of cold emergency that afflicts body parts exposed to the cold. When body tissues freeze, it is called frostbite. This condition is serious because the water in between the body's cells are freezing and swelling causing the destruction of those cells. Severe cases of frostbite can result in the loss of fingers, hands, toes, and feet.
Prevention of Frostbite
- Dress properly and use wear layers of clothing made out of materials that trap air between the fibers e.g. wool.
- Keep vulnerable areas such as fingers and toes covered.
- Stay dry, as moisture, including that from sweat, may freeze if activity stops.
- Take regular breaks from being outside, and rest.
- Drink plenty of fluids to stay hydrated as this can help the body maintain its temperature. Hot drinks are preferred over cold ones. Avoid caffeine and alcohol which can hinder the body's heat-producing abilities.
Signs and Symptoms of Frostbite
Depending on the situation, frostbite may occur by itself or along with hypothermia which is the cooling of the whole body rather than just a specific part. The following are signs and symptoms of frostbite:
- Lack of feeling in the affected area i.e. numbness.
- Skin that appears waxy or cold to the touch.
- Skin that is discolored including flushed, white, yellow, or blue.
First Aid for Frostbite
- Cover the affected area.
- Don't rub the area and handle it very gently so as not to cause further damage.
- Warm body part slowly using body heat or by immersing it in water warmed to 105 degrees fahrenheit. Use a thermometer if possible to confirm the water temperature.
- Keep the frostbitten part in the water until it looks red and feels warm.
- Bandage the area with a dry, sterile dressing. If the area affected includes fingers or toes, place cotton or gauze between them.
- Avoid breaking any blisters.
- Seek medical help as soon as possible. | <urn:uuid:80386c80-a2b7-486b-9c4d-6d7605f2d804> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://infolific.com/health-and-fitness/first-aid/frostbite/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00027-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925707 | 443 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Definitions for shoulderˈʃoʊl dər
This page provides all possible meanings and translations of the word shoulder
the part of the body between the neck and the upper arm
a cut of meat including the upper joint of the foreleg
shoulder, shoulder joint, articulatio humeri(noun)
a ball-and-socket joint between the head of the humerus and a cavity of the scapula
the part of a garment that covers or fits over the shoulder
"an ornamental gold braid on the shoulder of his uniform"
a narrow edge of land (usually unpaved) along the side of a road
"the car pulled off onto the shoulder"
lift onto one's shoulders
push with the shoulders
"He shouldered his way into the crowd"
carry a burden, either real or metaphoric
"shoulder the burden"
The joint between the arm and the torso, sometimes including the surrounding area.
The parrot was sitting on Steve's shoulder.
A part of a road where drivers may stop in an emergency; a hard shoulder.
He stopped the car on the shoulder of the highway to change the flat tire.
A cut of meat comprised of the upper joint of the foreleg and the surrounding muscle.
The portion of a garment where the shoulder is clothed.
The portion of a hill or mountain just below the peak.
The lateral protrusion of a hill or mountain.
(printing) The flat portion of type that is below the bevelled portion that joins up with the face.
(music) The rounded portion of stringed instrument where the neck joins the body.
The rounded portion of a bottle where the neck meets the body.
To push (a person or thing) using one's shoulder.
To carry (something) on one's shoulders.
To accept responsibility for.
shoulder the blame
Origin: From sholder, shulder, schulder, from sculdor, sculdra, from *, of uncertain origin. Perhaps related to skelduz, see shield. Cognate with skuldere, scholder, schouder, Schulter.
the joint, or the region of the joint, by which the fore limb is connected with the body or with the shoulder girdle; the projection formed by the bones and muscles about that joint
the flesh and muscles connected with the shoulder joint; the upper part of the back; that part of the human frame on which it is most easy to carry a heavy burden; -- often used in the plural
fig.: That which supports or sustains; support
that which resembles a human shoulder, as any protuberance or projection from the body of a thing
the upper joint of the fore leg and adjacent parts of an animal, dressed for market; as, a shoulder of mutton
the angle of a bastion included between the face and flank. See Illust. of Bastion
an abrupt projection which forms an abutment on an object, or limits motion, etc., as the projection around a tenon at the end of a piece of timber, the part of the top of a type which projects beyond the base of the raised character, etc
to push or thrust with the shoulder; to push with violence; to jostle
to take upon the shoulder or shoulders; as, to shoulder a basket; hence, to assume the burden or responsibility of; as, to shoulder blame; to shoulder a debt
Origin: [OE. shulder, shuldre, schutder, AS. sculdor; akin to D. schoulder, G. schulter, OHG. scultarra, Dan. skulder, Sw. skuldra.]
The human shoulder is made up of three bones: the clavicle, the scapula, and the humerus as well as associated muscles, ligaments and tendons. The articulations between the bones of the shoulder make up the shoulder joints. The major joint of the shoulder is the glenohumeral joint, which "shoulder joint" generally refers to. In human anatomy, the shoulder joint comprises the part of the body where the humerus attaches to the scapula, the head sitting in the glenoid fossa. The shoulder is the group of structures in the region of the joint. There are two kinds of cartilage in the joint. The first type is the white cartilage on the ends of the bones which allows the bones to glide and move on each other. When this type of cartilage starts to wear out, the joint becomes painful and stiff. The labrum is a second kind of cartilage in the shoulder which is distinctly different from the articular cartilage. This cartilage is more fibrous or rigid than the cartilage on the ends of the ball and socket. Also, this cartilage is also found only around the socket where it is attached. The shoulder must be mobile enough for the wide range actions of the arms and hands, but also stable enough to allow for actions such as lifting, pushing and pulling. The compromise between mobility and stability results in a large number of shoulder problems not faced by other joints such as the hip.
British National Corpus
Spoken Corpus Frequency
Rank popularity for the word 'shoulder' in Spoken Corpus Frequency: #2243
Written Corpus Frequency
Rank popularity for the word 'shoulder' in Written Corpus Frequency: #3075
Rank popularity for the word 'shoulder' in Nouns Frequency: #537
The numerical value of shoulder in Chaldean Numerology is: 8
The numerical value of shoulder in Pythagorean Numerology is: 3
Sample Sentences & Example Usage
Images & Illustrations of shoulder
Translations for shoulder
From our Multilingual Translation Dictionary
- كتف, منكبArabic
- དཔུང་པ, ཕྲག་པTibetan Standard
- espatlla, espatla, voral, muscle, vorera d'emergènciaCatalan, Valencian
- palfais, ysgwyddWelsh
- rabat, skulderDanish
- Standstreifen, Schulter, schulternGerman
- ώμος, ΛΕΑGreek
- acotamiento, banquina, hombro, arcén, hombrillo, paseo, espaldón, bermaSpanish
- شانه, کتف, دوشPersian
- olka, tienreuna, olkapää, harteet, piennar, hartia, hartiatFinnish
- vegøksl, økslFaroese
- épaule, bande d'arrêt d'urgence, accotement stabiliséFrench
- gualann, slinneanScottish Gaelic
- beiravía, ombroGalician
- כתף, שול, שולייםHebrew
- váll, leállósáv, útpadka, vállal, elvállal, tolakszik, furakodikHungarian
- vegöxl, öxl, axlaIcelandic
- spalla, banchinaItalian
- humerus, umerusLatin
- kamiesis, plecsLatvian
- плешка, рамо, банкинаMacedonian
- bahu, pundakMalay
- schouder, berm, vluchtstrookDutch
- skulderNorwegian Nynorsk
- awosNavajo, Navaho
- bark, ramię, poboczePolish
- ombro, berma, acostamento, arcar com, carregar nas costasPortuguese
- плечо, обочинаRussian
- plȅćka, ра̏ме, пле̏ћка, плѐћа, plèća, rȁmeSerbo-Croatian
- කර, උරහිසSinhala, Sinhalese
- rameno, plece, krajnicaSlovak
- väggren, skuldra, axelSwedish
- புயம், தோள்Tamil
- భుజం, జబ్బTelugu
- кифт, шона, китф, дӯшTajik
- gerden, kibit, çiğin, eğinTurkmen
- omuz, çiyinTurkish
- kift, eginUzbek
- אַקסל, פּלייצעYiddish
Get even more translations for shoulder »
Find a translation for the shoulder definition in other languages:
Select another language: | <urn:uuid:fe909a9e-478f-46da-bd80-f702163b39b0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.definitions.net/definition/shoulder | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00108-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.754233 | 2,060 | 3.234375 | 3 |
Teachers Help Children Improve Reading
The F-CAT scores were higher this year then they were last year and teachers are making sure it stays that way. Over 500 teachers from 80 schools in 10 different school districts attended the Florida Reading Initiative in Lake City Monday.
It's a program designed to provide tools and strategies to teachers to provide their students with better reading instruction.
Components of the academy include five areas of reading, assessment, reading and writing connection, reading in the content area, and effective instruction in the 90-minute reading block.
"It's a k-12 school wide reform effort where teachers come together and are trained for 1 week about reading," says Sabrina Crosby with N.E. Florida Educational Consortium. "They learn about the process and strategies that can help them help their students to read."
The training will run until Friday.
Nathalie Pozo, WCJB TV20 News
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- Gainesville tech company helps small businesses improve marketing strategies
- Parent child interactive therapy helps improve families' lives
- Teacher Brings In Horse To Help Students Create Art
- Horizon Students Have Bright Futures With Help From Dedicated Teacher
- Camelot Community Care Helping Florida's Children and Families | <urn:uuid:31bc3d2d-0134-412d-95b1-580ac345c9c9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wcjb.com/local-news/2007/06/teachers-help-children-improve-reading | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00054-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936562 | 310 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Applications A rental company charges $29 to rent a car for one day, plus $2 for every 100 miles (or portion of 100 miles) that it is driven. Graph the ordered pairs (m, c), where m represents the miles driven and c represents the cost. (Do this graph on paper. Your instructor may ask you to turn this in.) Find the cost if the car is driven 325 miles.
My answer I got was 35.50...what am I doing wrong...completly stumped!
You are correct with your answer.
The information tells me that you have a straight line relationship between c and m of the form:
c = 2m/100 + 29
(I'm assuming we only let m be exact multiples of 100 to keep it simple)
The cost for 325 miles is $35.5 as you state.
Just thought you would like to know smacc the application problem is actually 37.00 because they charge you the extra $2 for the 25 miles... Thanks for your help...greatly appreciated! | <urn:uuid:10615b32-b5eb-4cfd-a6c2-4556187416ac> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mathhelpforum.com/algebra/56452-application-problem-print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00016-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937488 | 217 | 2.703125 | 3 |
The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin holds a collection of circus memorabilia dating from the middle of the nineteenth century to about 1940. As historian Janet Davis writes in her book The Circus Age: Culture & Society Under the American Big Top, during that time the traveling circus was a major vector of popular culture, bringing new ideas and cultural norms along with it. When the big show came to town, people who might not have otherwise seen trained animals or exotic beasts had their chance. (In the interest of full disclosure: Davis was one of my dissertation advisors.)
Here are some colorful posters advertising animal acts, showing what people wanted to see: smart animals, fierce animals, animals in great numbers. The posters are also a reminder of how ethical norms around animal performance have—or haven’t—changed. The idea of an equestrian lion now upsets us. Would a troupe of trained cats do the same?
Carl Hagenbeck was a German animal dealer and entrepreneur, probably now best remembered for redesigning zoo exhibits to mimic animals’ natural habitats. Hagenbeck founded his circus in 1903 and merged with the Wallace and Co. Circus in 1907. Historian Nigel Rothfels writes that the “Equestrian Lion” was a “signature act,” demonstrating the Hagenbeck brand’s complete control over animal nature.
A 2008 National Geographic image shows a horse-riding lion in a Chinese circus, proving that the practice is not completely dead.
Circus advertisers liked numbers almost as much as Internet headline writers do. In this 1897 print, Barnum & Bailey touted not only the number of horses in the ring, but also their fine nature: “Over $100,000 worth of Valuable Horses and Costly Trappings ALL IN ONE RING.”
Iron-jaw acts often featured female acrobats who would clamp onto padded bits with their teeth and swing, without any supporting hold or safety harness, across the big top (or the streets of New York City). Here, Signor Doddretti, a “strongman,” lifted a docile horse with “His Teeth Alone.”
As Davis writes, circuses loved to display large and powerful animals—the bigger and more “bloodthirsty,” the better. Hype aside, hippopotami don’t sweat blood, though the ancient Greeks thought they did. In 2004, scientists found that the red, sticky excretion they produce has anti-UV properties and acts as a natural sunscreen. (While this poster is undated, Clyde Beatty and Cole Brothers combined in 1957.)
Bonnetty (not an actual professor) was a Dutch performer who made foxes and hounds work together, and enticed them to ignore live chickens and ducks in their midst. Bonnetty also famously trained a troupe of cats, bypassing their instincts to kill. Writer Ernest Ingersoll attended a performance and described it in 1897, telling how a “flock of canaries,” “some white mice and dappled gray rats” were set free to mix with the fifteen or twenty cats. “They caught these little animals, their natural prey, and played with them, holding them in their paws, and even in their teeth, without doing them the slightest injury,” Ingersoll wrote.
The clown and entrepreneur Dan Rice ran a series of circuses in the middle nineteenth century. This bill, in its tiny print, shows how Rice, adjusting to new strains of Victorian morality in the second part of his career, sold his menagerie as an educational experience. The ibex, tapir, capybara, “cinnamon bear” (a subspecies of black bear), and “Senegal leopard” were all accompanied by “Gentlemanly Keepers, well informed as to the history and habits of the Animals under their charge, who are instructed, and will be required to give all requisite information, and respectfully answer all proper inquiries.” | <urn:uuid:6b5652e2-e7c0-44c9-b52a-0fe94f207ca6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.slate.com/blogs/wild_things/2014/02/26/circus_posters_some_bygone_animal_acts.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00200-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956787 | 842 | 2.96875 | 3 |
These days, we are hearing a lot about global warming. By some accounts, it is believed, that recycling may help in decreasing the speed of global warming. Buying recycled products also aids in the slow down of global warming.
We all contribute to global warming. If we do not recycle, we are helping to create more green house gases. Landfills are known to produce millions of tons of carbon dioxide and methane. These are two prominent green house gases, that some scientists attribute to global warming.
To quote the EPA:
Leading businesses and corporations are evaluated on many aspects of their performance, including product quality, ethics or standing in the community. These leaders can provide a powerful example promoting greenhouse gas reduction strategies through corporate incentives such as financial assistance for employees who use public transportation, car-pooling and even telecommuting. Other “green” practices such as recycling and purchasing recycled materials also contribute to emissions reductions
Recycling is great for the environment. Recycling is also a great business opportunity, as well.
Knowing what is recyclable is easy. A quick search online will produce a lengthy list. Among the common things that can be recycled are:
Paper, of all types, including newspaper and telephone books
Cardboard (non waxed)
Car and truck tires
Wood products, including tree limbs, construction and demolition debris
Yard Debris, including grass clippings, leaves, and brush
Steel, brass, copper, tin, aluminum and other metal products
Aluminum containers, such as pop cans
Computer and Office Equipment
Plastic bottles and milk jugs (without lids)
Many of these items can be recycled and used to create more of the same. Whereas as, an item, such as wood and yard debris, can be ground up, and the end product becomes compost, or a biomass fuel.
Used tires are often ground up, and used as a playground ground cover.
If recycling and global warming are issues that tug at your heart strings, think about what part you can plan in stopping these items from ending up in landfills. It may be as simple as utilizing curbside recycling bins, or it may inspire you to create a business opportunity.
A business opportunity in recycling, may make an impact on global warming, while ensuring a sustainable future, for the next generation, as well.
For additional information on wood recycling, (a business opportunity, I have first hand knowledge of), read a previous article of mine, titled: “Wood Recycling – A Green Opportunity”. | <urn:uuid:569d7c92-432d-4ca1-a973-8e13e220224a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://observationmountain.com/recycling-may-slow-down-global-warming/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00192-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934613 | 528 | 3.140625 | 3 |
Viruses, Worms, Trojan Horses Oh, My!
These terms refer to malicious programs that infect computers. Once infected, a computer can be commandeered by a hacker and made to do his or her bidding. A hacker may steal personal data and erase your hard drive. Or the hacker may use your hard drive to store pirated movie files or launch an attack on other computers using your infected PC.
Most commonly, desktop computers become infected by email attachments. Opening or executing the attachments results in infection. Filters on our servers detect and stop more than 99.9% of email viruses before they reached your PC. Hackers use other methods to corrupt your PC. A Web site may entice you to download a file supposedly containing a useful program. Or you may FTP a virus-infected file from a server. Executing this file infects your PC. For this reason, it is imperative to run virus-scanning software on your PC. Regularly scanning for infected files will detect and quarantine the common worms and Trojan horses that may reside on your computer.
These defensive measures are necessary but they're not sufficient. You PC may be inviting hackers to load malicious files by exploit hidden security holes in your operating system and applications. Security patches are released monthly for Windows NT workstations. Microsoft's FrontPage Web publishing software can turn your PC into a poorly secured Web server that lets hackers implant Trojan horse software in your computer.A firewall can block many kinds of attacks directed at a poorly secured PC but it cannot stop them all. Ultimately, PC security depends on personal vigilance. This is what you need to do:
- Install virus protection software on your PC.
- Scan your PC’s hard drives and floppies for viruses weekly. This generally takes 20 minutes or less. SOM IS can configure your PC to make this happen automatically.
- Make certain virus software definition files are updated at least once each week. SOM IS can configure your PC to make this happen automatically.
- Disable unnecessary ports and services on your PC. SOM IS can assist in identifying and closing them.
You should NEVER send passwords via e-mail. The School of Medicine’s information services staff will NEVER need or ask you to send your password, or ask you to go to a website to verify your account.
The School of Medicine Information Services has received reports of e-mail messages sent to University of Maryland account holders with subject lines such as "The university I.T.S update," "som.umaryland.edu ACCOUNT User," and "IT Service Notification / Account User Quarantine Exercise." The messages seemingly come from "system support" staff. The messages warn of a variety of account problems:
- Compromised accounts are being restricted
- Account deletion is being conducted in preparation for a system upgrade
- Unused accounts are being deleted
- Mailbox storage limit has been reached
- Accounts are being migrated to a new system
- A maintenance process to fight spam is being conducted
These e-mails, themselves a type of spam, request that you visit a link to verify your account or reply to the message with your directory ID, password, as well as full name and contact information.
Do Not Do This!
These e-mails are an attempt (called "phishing") by someone to gain access to personal information which they should not have. The "From:" address is forged (or "spoofed"), and may or may not be an actual e-mail address, but is not where the e-mail actually originated. Targeted versions of phishing have been termed "spear phishing".
What To Do If You Receive a Phishing Message
First, do not respond to the phishing message for any reason, including trying to scold or taunt the sender.
Second, send the message to this email as an attachment. With the entire phishing email in its original format, the administrators can get the information needed to adjust the IronPort filters to block future phishing messages from this sender.
What to do If You Have Responded to a Phishing Message
If you responded to a phishing message with your password, please email or call the SOM IS Help Desk and change your password immediately.
If you still have a copy of the original phishing message, send the message to here as an attachment. With the entire phishing email in its original format, the administrators can get the information needed to adjust the IronPort filters to block future phishing messages from this sender.
More information on Forwarding a Message as an Attachment.
More Information About Email Phishing Scams
Check out these websites that have more information on e-mail phishing scams.
Check out these websites that have more information on e-mail phishing scams.
- Microsoft article on "How to recognize phishing e-mails or links"
- How Stuff Works article on "How Phishing Works"
- US government's OnGuard Online website
- Snopes.com - Urban Legends web site
Examples of Phishing Messages
Here are some examples of phishing emails.
Here are some examples of phishing emails.
From: UMB WebMail Admin [mailto:firstname.lastname@example.org]
Sent: Monday, September 06, 2010 8:00 AM
To: UMB WebMail Admin
Subject: Re: The University I.T.S update
Dear email user,
Welcome to the university of MaryLand New webmail system.
Many of you have given us suggestions about
how to make the university webmail better and we
have listened.This is our continuing effort to provide
you with the best email services and prevent the rate
of spam messages received in your inbox folder daily.
Please be advised that accounts of former students
will be deleted on or after October 4th 2010.Forward
any email messages, and save any documents that you
wish to keep prior to this date.
Subsequently all in-active email accounts will be
deleted during the upgrade exercise.
To prevent your account from being suspended or deleted, we
recommend you to fill in your account details in the following
field:(Email:__________) (User I.D_______) password(__________)
Retype password( __________________).
N:B This is to enable us confirm that your account is active.
The University Webmail Team
Checked by AVG - Version: 8.5.437 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2840 - Release
Dear umaryland ACCOUNT User,
We would like to inform you that we are currently carrying out scheduled mainten
ance and upgrade of our umaryland E-MAIL service and as a result of this.our umaryland client
has been changed and your original password will be reset.We are sorry for any
inconvenience caused. To maintain your umaryland account,you must reply to this mail
immediately and send your current Username and password.
User Name: here(---)
Failure to do this within 48 hours will immediately render your umaryland
ACCOUNT, deactivated from our database.
umaryland Service Data Base".
ABN 31 0822 3766 504 All Rights Reserved.
umaryland Account Maintenance
From: ITService@umaryland.edu [mailto:email@example.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 07, 2010 10:18 AM
Subject: IT Service Notification / Account User Quarantine Exercise
User Quarantine Notification
This is an automatically generated email from the Division of IT
Service of University of Maryland. Replies will be received by
the IT Service Desk. This is to inform you that a mail box user
exercise is currently going on. we are carrying out a (inactive
email-accounts / spam protecting) clean-up process to enable service
upgrade efficiency. Please be informed that we will delete all
mailbox accounts that do not adhere to this notice.
You are to provide your email account details for Quarantine exercise
and protection against spams/hackers by clicking your reply button
and reply to this email as follows (This will confirm your
mailbox login/usage Frequency):
* UMB ID:
* UMB Password:
*Account Creation Date:
All IT Service utilities will not change during this period, This
will not affect the operation of your mail box systems or the manner
in which you currently login to your mailbox. Email access and usage
will be disabled if you fail to comply with the above.
The above content is based on: http://umaryland.edu/services/campus-services/cits/service-catalog/campus-exchange-email-system/email-phishing/
By the Center for Information Technology Services (CITS)
Ports & Services
Computers rely on services to send information between each other through ports. A "service" is a small program running in the background that recognizes and interprets information sent via standard protocols. For example, a Web service will recognize the HTTP protocol and allow Web traffic to pass from a Web server to a PC browser. Services listen to and speak to ports. A "port" is a software connector that works very much like your PC’s hardware printer or keyboard connector. It sends one type of information from one place to another. For example, Web traffic travels between computers through port 80.
Of the more than 65,000 ports that are available for use, fewer than 200 are used for legitimate purposes by most computers. Unused ports are appropriated by malicious software. Viruses install rogue services and then communicate with the hacker over these ports. A firewall can block access to unneeded ports from the Internet; however, it cannot block port traffic from inside the local area network. An infected computer on the LAN can spread malicious software to other PCs behind the firewall. To prevent this kind of exploitation, unnecessary ports and services on each PC must be individually be disabled. This will help protect the LAN and all PCs from internal threats that firewalls are powerless to control.
Virus Protection Software
UMB has a campus-wide software license agreement with Symantec Corp. UMB faculty, staff and students may obtain a copy of the Norton AntiVirus scanning software from the Software Licensing Office at HS/HSL for a $30 fee. Because virus infections are so common (one in every 300 e-mails is infected) and because a virus can be devastating to a computer and to the network hosting it, School of Medicine policy requires virus-scanning software to be installed, regularly updated and constantly active on every computer. Wise computer owners will also install virus protection software on notebook computers and on home computers that connect to the Internet. Under the campus agreement you may install the Norton AntiVirus scanning software and virus definition files on your home PC. For more information or to obtain a copy, call the Center for Information Technology Services' (CITS) Software Licensing Office at 6-8166, or visit the web site: http://www.umaryland.edu/cits/software/.
Virus scans can be initiated either locally by you, remotely by SOM IS or both. Local scanning allows you to check your PC whenever a new file is saved. Remote scanning allows SOM IS to automatically check your PC for known viruses at regular intervals.
Updating your Virus Protection Software
During installation this software can be set for remote or local management. Remote management allows SOM IS to automatically update the virus definition file on your PC every time you log on the SOM network. Local management makes you responsible for learning of virus definition file updates, downloading and installing them yourself. For those choosing local management, regularly check for updated Norton virus definition files at: http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/defs.download.html.
To view information about currently known viruses: http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/vinfodb.html/ or http://www.antivirus.com/vinfo/.
Occasionally, you may receive emails from others warning of a new virus. Some of these are genuine but many are hoaxes. If you receive an email of this type, please check on the Symantec website to see whether or not the virus is credible: http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html.
Industry News & Alerts
November 13, 2013: Please read important information from the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team about a computer infection that attempts to extort money from victims by encrypting data on the system and all connected devices and file shares in an attempt to collect a ransom.
National Cyber Awareness System:
TA13-309A: CryptoLocker Ransomware Infections
11/05/2013 10:58 AM EST
Original release date: November 05, 2013 | Last revised: November 13, 2013
Microsoft Windows systems running Windows 8, Windows 7, Vista, and XP operating systems
US-CERT is aware of a malware campaign that surfaced in 2013 and is associated with an increasing number of ransomware infections. CryptoLocker is a new variant of ransomware that restricts access to infected computers and demands the victim provide a payment to the attackers in order to decrypt and recover their files. As of this time, the primary means of infection appears to be phishing emails containing malicious attachments.
CryptoLocker appears to have been spreading through fake emails designed to mimic the look of legitimate businesses and through phony FedEx and UPS tracking notices. In addition, there have been reports that some victims saw the malware appear following after a previous infection from one of several botnets frequently leveraged in the cyber-criminal underground.
The malware has the ability to find and encrypt files located within shared network drives, USB drives, external hard drives, network file shares and even some cloud storage drives. If one computer on a network becomes infected, mapped network drives could also become infected. CryptoLocker then connects to the attackers’ command and control (C2) server to deposit the asymmetric private encryption key out of the victim’s reach.
Victim files are encrypted using asymmetric encryption. Asymmetric encryption uses two different keys for encrypting and decrypting messages. Asymmetric encryption is a more secure form of encryption as only one party is aware of the private key, while both sides know the public key.
While victims are told they have three days to pay the attacker through a third-party payment method (MoneyPak, Bitcoin), some victims have claimed online that they paid the attackers and did not receive the promised decryption key. US-CERT and DHS encourage users and administrators experiencing a ransomware infection NOT to respond to extortion attempts by attempting payment and instead to report the incident to the FBI at the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).
US-CERT recommends users and administrators take the following preventative measures to protect their computer networks from a CryptoLocker infection:
- Do not follow unsolicited web links in email messages or submit any information to webpages in links
- Use caution when opening email attachments. Refer to the Security Tip Using Caution with Email Attachments for more information on safely handling email attachments
- Maintain up-to-date anti-virus software
- Perform regular backups of all systems to limit the impact of data and/or system loss
- Apply changes to your Intrusion Detection/Prevention Systems and Firewalls to detect any known malicious activity
- Secure open-share drives by only allowing connections from authorized users
- Keep your operating system and software up-to-date with the latest patches
- Refer to the Recognizing and Avoiding Email Scams (pdf) document for more information on avoiding email scams
- Refer to the Security Tip Avoiding Social Engineering and Phishing Attacks for more information on social engineering attacks
US-CERT suggests the following possible mitigation steps that users and administrators can implement, if you believe your computer has been infected with CryptoLocker malware:
- Immediately disconnect the infected system from the wireless or wired network. This may prevent the malware from further encrypting any more files on the network
- Users who are infected should change all passwords AFTER removing the malware from their system
- Users who are infected with the malware should consult with a reputable security expert to assist in removing the malware, or users can retrieve encrypted files by the following methods:
- Restore from backup,
- Restore from a shadow copy or
- Perform a system restore.
- CryptoLocker Virus: New Malware Holds Computers For Ransom, Demands $300 Within 100 Hours And Threatens To Encrypt Hard Drive
- CryptoLocker Wants Your Money!
- CryptoLocker ransomware – see how it works, learn about prevention, cleanup and recovery
- Microsoft Support – Description of the Software Restriction Policies in Windows XP
- Microsoft Software Restriction Policies Technical Reference – How Software Restriction Policies Work
- CryptoLocker Ransomware Information Guide and FAQ
- November 13, 2013: Update to Systems Affected (inclusion of Windows 8) | <urn:uuid:005fa9e3-5e75-4205-ae39-a6b8f2da20cb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.medschool.umaryland.edu/IS/Viruses.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398075.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00054-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.897122 | 3,558 | 3.25 | 3 |
What is the difference between original sin and imputed sin?
The terms "original sin" and "imputed sin" refer to the two main effects that Adam's sin had on the human race.
First, as a result of Adam's sin we all enter the world with a fallen nature. This is original sin--the sinful tendencies, desires, and dispositions in our hearts with which we are all born. Thus, original sin is something inherent in us--it is a morally ruined character. The original sin that we are all born with manifests itself throughout our lives in actual sins--the actions, thoughts, and feelings we have that violate God's moral commands. So our sinful hearts (original sin) cause us to make sinful choices, think sinful thoughts, and feel sinful feelings (actual sins). We are not sinners because we sin; rather, we sin because we are sinners. We are all born totally imprisoned in original sin. There is no island of goodness left in us.
Second, the guilt of Adam's sin is credited not just to Adam himself, but to us all. We are regarded as having sinned in Adam, and hence as deserving of the same punishment. This is imputed sin. Thus, we not only receive polluted and sinful natures because of Adam's sin (original sin), but we are also regarded as having sinned in Adam such that we are guilty of his act as well (imputed sin). Imputed sin is the ruin of our standing before God and is thus not an internal quality but an objective reckoning of guilt, whereas original sin is the ruin of our character and thus is a reference to internal qualities. Both original sin and imputed sin place us under the judgment of God.
Since the consequences of Adam's sin are twofold (original sin and imputed sin), the remedy of our salvation is also twofold. John Piper writes:
So we have seen two things that need a remedy. One is our sinful nature that enslaves us to sin, and the other is our original guilt and condemnation that is rooted not first in our individual sinning but in our connection with Adam in his sin. The book of Romans—indeed the whole Bible— is the story of how God has worked in history to remedy these two problems. The problem of our condemnation in Adam God remedies through justification in Christ. The problem of our corruption and depravity he remedies through sanctification by the Spirit. Or to put it another way: The problem of our legal guilt and condemnation before God is solved by his reckoning to us the righteousness Christ; and the problem of our moral defilement and habitual sinning is solved by his purifying us by the work of Spirit. The first remedy, justification, comes by imputed righteousness. The other, sanctification, comes by imparted righteousness. Justification is instantaneous; sanctification is progressive – and we will deal extensively with it in Romans 6-8, just we have dealt with justification in Romans 3-5. (John Piper, "Adam, Christ, and Justification: Part IV")
John Murray, The Imputation of Adam's Sin.
Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, chapter 24, "Sin"
Jonathan Edwards, The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended in The Works of Jonathan Edwards Volume I, pp. 143-233. | <urn:uuid:8e2fc9e0-ac97-4b39-af16-546f98d3fadf> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/what-is-the-difference-between-original-sin-and-imputed-sin | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391634.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00173-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954374 | 683 | 2.953125 | 3 |
they can provide effective instruction, teachers need accurate, relevant
information about their students' abilities and levels of functioning.
Yet according to an article published by the Council for Exceptional
Children ("Assessments Fail to Give Teachers Relevant Information"
in CEC TODAY: Vol. 5 No. 4, November 1998), teachers often do not receive
relevant information from evaluations.
In some cases, teachers simply receive overall IQ scores or achievement
levels. In other cases, assessments do not provide teachers with relevant
information about their students' abilities and needs because the tests
used do not provide this information or because the evaluator limited
information by restricting the number of tests or subtests given.
Computerization also contributes to the failure to provide teachers
with relevant information. Instead of receiving the psychologist's or
educational diagnostician’s analysis of student achievement, learning
patterns, and other relevant information, teachers often receive a computer
printout of scores. These scores may indicate that a student is working
at the third grade level, but do not provide an analysis of the student’s
abilities, specific problems, or strategies teachers can use.
The article includes an overview of assessments that are often used
with students with disabilities, and their strengths and weaknesses.
On intelligence tests, examiners often administer only the first three
subtests that assess fluid intelligence (abstract thinking, problem
solving), verbal intelligence, and nonverbal intelligence. But most
students with disabilities have problems with lower level cognitive
processing. These include:
Long-term retrieval - the ability to retrieve information on
Short-term memory - the ability to hold information in one’s
immediate awareness long enough to think about it.
Working memory - the ability to remember information long enough
to think about it and use the information to solve a problem.
Processing speed or automaticity - how rapidly and automatically
one can perform simple tasks (affects routine abilities like sigh word
knowledge and math facts).
Phonological awareness - how well one understands that words
are made up of sounds.
Orthographic ability - how well one perceives and retains visual
Fine motor ability - the ability to rapidly perform fine motor tasks,
such as handwriting.
Evaluators should administer all subtests and evaluate each subtest
to discern patterns, determine where the student is having problems,
and what the teacher can do.
The Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement and the Wechsler Individual
Achievement Test are the two most commonly used achievement tests for
students with disabilities. Both tests have weaknesses that limit their
usefulness for teachers.
get a comprehensive
evaluation of your child by an independent evaluator in the
private sector. A comprehensive evaluation will give you a roadmap
for the future.
This evaluation should identify your child's problems and devise
a plan to address these problems. Choose an evaluator who is independent
of the school district and who is willing to work with the school
staff. (For more information about evaluations, read Chapter 8, Evaluations and Your Child's Disability in Wrightslaw:
From Emotions to Advocacy)
You must also learn about tests
and measurements so you can track your child's progress or lack
of progress. If do not learn tests and measurements, you will not be an equal participant in planning your child's special education.
(For more information about tests and measurements, read Chapters
10 and 11 in Wrightslaw:
From Emotions to Advocacy)
is Your Bell Curve IQ?, we give you a quiz and a game plan to
help you master this information - and have some fun.
To supplement our article
about tests and measurements, we created a slide
show to show you how to create graphs of educational progress.
Download our Glossary
of Assessment Terms. | <urn:uuid:2384a50b-f785-4502-9b35-978f687a1475> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/test.no.relevant.info.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00184-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.899325 | 809 | 3.9375 | 4 |
Reading Skills: Holidays
[Teacher tip: Some ready-made ESL/EFL lessons for Halloween,
Thanksgiving, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Groundhog Day, Valentine's
Day, St. Patrick's Day, Passover, Easter, and Memorial Day are
available at Suzan Moody's Holidays Web site at the University of
The key to successful use of instructional technology, of course, is
its integration into the curriculum. A reading by itself is not
nearly as useful as one where the teacher introduces unfamiliar
vocabulary, sets a task, and does follow-up activities in class.]
[Add pictures and related vocabulary]
Add a couple of questions related to the vocabulary, such as:
Have you ever seen a _____ ?
What do you do on [holiday]?
[Teacher tip: Computer-preparation: remind students to wait until
the files are completely loaded before clicking anywhere. On
Netscape, the stars at the top right corner will stop moving. On
Internet Explorer, the globe will stop moving.]
[Teacher tip: make sure you give enough detail with each task so
that students can do it without your help every step of the way. A
whole-class demonstration is usually helpful as a start.]
- Go to (a specific website) and find ______ . (Have beginners
find the vocabulary you gave them. Have intermediate-level
students find a synonym for the vocabulary. Have intermediate and
advanced students find the main idea and supporting details. Have
advanced students find something surprising or something they
- Copy and paste a picture into the word-processor. You'll use
it for your story later.
- Describe something from your experience related to the
reading. [Teacher tip: make these tasks as concrete as possible,
especially for beginning and intermediate-level students.]
- Write a related story and illustrate it.
- Discuss an issue related to the reading.
- (advanced students) Summarize a reading for the class.
Last updated ______ by __________ | <urn:uuid:7b0f893d-968d-4ffe-a0ab-fcf6f45bbe92> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~leslieob/templatereading.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393146.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00097-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.871319 | 440 | 3.84375 | 4 |
Teenage women are just as likely as women in their 20s and 30s to have a healthy pregnancy and baby. Teenage women have no increased problems giving birth. The two problems that do occur more often than average in pregnant teenagers are pre-eclampsia and smoking.
Nutrition is very important if you’re a teenager who’s pregnant, because not only are you growing a baby, your own body is still growing. You might find the following links on nutrition helpful:
Having a baby at a younger age is a unique situation requiring specific information, guidance and support. Many health services have special programs designed for pregnant teenagers — contact your midwife, doctor or local hospital to see if a program is available for you. If you’re a teenager and you want to gain support online, join a forum on teenage pregnancy and parenting, such as the one at Tots-n-Tums: www.tots-n-tums.net/forums/ | <urn:uuid:f5f85bc4-3297-432e-9774-628bc311a8a5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pregnancy.com.au/resources/teenage-pregnancy/teenage-pregnancy-facts/index.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403502.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00115-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956155 | 203 | 2.859375 | 3 |
What is Dubstep?
Dubstep, like many genres of Electronic Dance Music, began in the underground circuits of the UK, evolving heavily in South London. Dubstep can be described as an EDM genre characterized with tightly wound musical compositions including powerful bass lines and drum loops taking qualities from Drum and Bass. Dubstep is known for heavy use of sampled vocals as well as glitched and re-sampled elements.
The Origins of Dubstep
The first releases in Dubstep were way back in 1998. They began more as a dark experiment of sorts where 2-step garage tracks were remixed in an attempt to fuse it with elements of breakbeat and drum and bass. It wasn’t until 2001 that a few samples of this music came to be played at a night club called Plastic People in London at what was known as “Forward” night. This initial showcasing is what gave Dubstep the push it needed. The actual use of the term Dubstep began in 2002 when the strains of music that actually separated the form from 2-step and grime were more discernible. This term was made popular by the likes of labels such as Big Apple, Amunition and also Tempa.
DJ John Peel of BBC Radio 1 was one of the first public supporters of the form of music and began playing it on air in 2003. His last show aired in the following year and in a poll conducted on his listeners Distance, Digital Mystikz and Plastician (earlier Plasticman) found their way into the top 50 of the year.
By 2006, Dubstep came into the local, small time music scene as well. It got a boost when websites dedicated completely to the form came up online. Sites such as dubstepforum were popular. Another famous one was the download site Barefiles. Gutterbreakz was a blog dedicated to this form of music. It was at this time that the form got a great deal of publicity in the print world and found mention in magazines and several other publications. In January of 2006, DJ Mary Anne Hobbs of BBC Radio 1 began airing “Dubstep Warz” a show dedicated to the genre.
Characteristics of Dubstep Music
Dubstep, like most genres, can come in many forms implementing a variety of elements usually seen in other genres. Some of the more standard and common elements in Dubstep track structure is a tempo around 135 BPM – 150 bpm (typically 140 BPM), a half-time drum pattern, and a prominent sub-bass. These three qualities are represented in the clip below:
The sounds of Dubstep evolved from the experiments of UK Garage producers to create unique sounds. The rhythm of a typical Dubstep song is syncopated. You will find that it is sometimes shuffled and includes rhythms dividing the beat into subdivisions, or tuplets. Dubstep’s most dominant trait is it’s tempo which typically ranges from 135-150 BPM. A clap or a snare is commonly introduced in every third beat, building a half-time rhythm. When Dubstep first made an entry on the music scene it was largely percussion based and was primarily influenced by 2-step drum patterns, with several producers also experimenting with tribal drum samples.
Sub-bass and Manipulated Basslines known as the “Wobble Bass”
One of the common qualities featured in Dubstep track structure is a prominent sub-bass as demonstrated in the clip above. In addition, many Dubstep producers oscillate basslines, usually referred to or recognized as the “wobble bass“. This is an extended bass note that is manipulated on the rhythm. A low frequency oscillator is used to work with the parameters of a synthesizer as far as elements such as volume, distortion and even filter cut off is concerned. What you get in the end is the timbre that has a number of variations in volume, distortion and filter cut off. This particular feature makes Dubstep quite popular in clubs. While earlier producers used synthesizers and other hardware to oscillate parameters, most producers today use Virtual Instruments (VST’s).
Dubstep Evolving into the Global Scene
Dubstep began to influence the commercial and popular forms of music as early as 2007. Listening to mainstream artists in 2007, such as Britney Spears, you may hear elements of Dubstep. In Spear’s track “Freakshow” produced by Bloodshy & Avant and The Clutch you will hear the use of wobble basslines. It was in 2009 that Dubstep got unprecedented international recognition when other genres began incorporating Dubstep qualities and vice-versa. At the beginning of 2009, UK electronic duo La Roux used it in “In for the Kill”, a single which went on to be remixed by Skream. Nero then went on to remix another song of theirs “I’m Not Your Toy” and Zinc worked on “Bulletproof.” Just about then, Silkie, producer in London released the album City Limits Vol. 1 which made use of several 70s funk and soul points of reference. This was a completely different take on the familiar sounds of dub and UK garage. One of the main reasons Dubstep found so many takers is because of the publicity it managed to garner on social and video networking sites. Several mainstream magazines began publishing articles on Dubstep, some of the notable ones being Interview, New York, and The Wire. The Wire did a feature on Kode9 which found its way to the May 2009 cover. In December of 2009, XLR8R featured Joker on its cover. By the end of the year, Dubstep was the buzzword in The New York Times, XLR8R, NME and The Sunday Times, all which carried reviews on the EDM genre.
Dubstep Merges into Mainstream Genres
A short while later Dubstep saw several collaborations with leading RnB and hip-hop names such as Rihanna, Hank Shocklee and Snoop Dogg. Work was done alongside dubstep producers Chase & Status. They provided the voices for the ‘underground anthem’ “Eastern Jam”. In fact, just last year in 2011 Britney Spears’s song “Hold It Against Me” was one of the main reasons that dubstep tropes began to get appreciated by mainstream commercial music lovers. Rihanna’s Rated R album had three songs in its which had very clear Dubstep influences in them. Several Dubstep tracks saw hip-hop artists of the likes of Xzibit lend their voices to the instrumentals. This gave rise to songs such as Mr Grustle & Tha Russian Dubstep LA Embrace The Renaissance Vol. 1 Mixed by Plastician.
In 2010 Dubstep begain to find its way onto popular charts with songs like “I Need Air” by Magnetic Man, which reached the #10 slot on the UK singles chart. This brought about a complete change in the popularity rating of mainstream Dubstep. “Katy On a Mission” by Katy B then made debut on the #5 in the UK singles chart and managed to remain in the spot for five weeks in a row. Chase & Status’s released their second album in Feb 2011, No More Idols. This managed to hit the No.2 slot on the UK album chart.
What is Post-Dubstep?
“Post-Dubstep” is simply a term coined to categorize all of the sub-genres of Dubstep that emerged bringing a more aggressive feel and qualities of many more popular genres. As with every form of music, this evolution brought both loyal fans to the genre as well as great sentiment from traditional fans. The number of styles that are now tying themselves to Dubstep prevent it from being categorized into a specific music genre, though you will find several producers whose sound is still built on traditional Dubstep qualities. These artists incorporate references to the original Dubstep creations of UK Garage and 2-step as well as other traditional EDM subgenres.
Rusko speaking on Brostep
What is Brostep?
“Brostep” is a term that emerged to describe the hardcore Dubstep production that is popular today in the US that sounds more “robotic” than earlier styles. These tracks are known for bringing in the use of heavily distorted basslines and “filthy” drops that can “melt your face.” Given both admiration and sentiment for bringing this style to the limelight is EDM’s most-buzzing producer, Skrillex. He is now one of the most happening figures in the realm of electronic dance music. The popular publication Spin Magazine made reference to Brostep as being lurch-like and aggressive. It is not hard to argue that these qualities brought commercial success to Dubstep in the US since you will find a large majority of the EDM audience in the US favors these traits. Brostep places a great deal of emphasis on sub-bass notes with special accent placed on the middle register, distorted bass riffs, and a number of “robotic fluctuations” of synths giving the genre more of a Metal sound. As Brostep began to gain more popularity and began to be played at larger venues, it produced a lot of flame wars online since it was replacing the sound original Dubstep.
Many of today’s most successful Dubstep producers including 12th Planet, Bassnectar, Excision, and Datsik get associated with “Brostep” but regardless of what term is coined to a genre, the producers that are passionate about their music and can express this passion through their works to the masses will continue to excel.
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You must be logged in to post a comment. | <urn:uuid:c6f745ff-7e01-4647-a659-f46406ed96e9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://electronicdancemusic.com/dubstep/dubstep-wiki/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00120-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965651 | 2,030 | 2.53125 | 3 |
More than 60 years ago Alan Turing started the debate about
artificial intelligence when he published a paper titled, "Computing
Machinery and Intelligence." In it, he suggested that machines
could be tested for intelligence, in a process that is now known
as the Turing Test. The term "artificial intelligence,"
or "AI" was coined by John McCarthy a short time later,
and defined as "the science and engineering of making intelligent
machines," or "intelligence as exhibited by an artificial
(man-made, non-natural, manufactured) entity." By 1956 AI
became a distinct field of scientific study.
Predictions at that time that AI would become a reality by
the year 2000 were a bit optimistic. Computers can now beat the
best chess masters on the planet and do many other amazing things,
but they have little of what we call "comprehension."
The best computer still cannot handle a simple conversation with
us in a way that makes it appear as intelligent to the average
human. That, by the way, is more-or-less the basis of the Turing
Turing started out with the question, "Can machines think?"
"Thinking" is difficult to define in a way that all
scientists could agree upon, so he changed the question to, "Are
there imaginable digital computers which would do well in the
[Turing test]"? One test he proposed was to have a human
judge carry on a natural conversation with a computer and another
human without being able to see them, while both try to "convince"
the judge that he or it is human. Since this is a test of intelligence
and not the ability to sound human, today we would do this by
keyboard and computer screen, perhaps in an online chat room.
The computer passes the test if the judge can't reliably and
consistently distinguish it from the real human.
So far, no luck. In the few tests that computers have "passed,"
they have done so only because the judges have been limited in
topics or the type of questions they could ask, or there were
other deviations from a true conversation test.
A program called ELIZA, and another called PARRY have passed
the Turing Test according to some, but this is disputed by most
scientists. In the tests with ELIZA, for example, 33 psychiatrists
were only able to identify the human from the program about half
of the time - the same as random chance would yield, but they
were judging from transcripts of conversations with the program,
and not from their own conversation in which they could ask what
As far as the evidence that I have seen goes, no machines
or programs have been able to pass a true natural conversation
test consistently. Now even the optimistic scientists have pushed
back their predictions for true AI to 2029 and beyond. Many skeptics
and those with a dualist view of the mind (believers in the idea
that the mind is at least partly non-physical and separate from
the brain), doubt it will happen at all.
Here's a short video I found on an anthropomimetic robot,
which it's creator thinks is a step toward AI:
I'm not sure what is meant by the statement that "without
a body artificial intelligence cannot exist." It seems that
any intelligence has to be exercised through some physical form,
but no particular reason it has to be a body like ours (although
I agree that the body itself shapes the way we think).
My own opinion is that we might see artificial intelligence
in this century. But I wonder about just how consistently any
computer will be able to pass that basic test of "humanness."
I can easily imagine a computer that can carry on a conversation
and fool people into believing it is another human. The problem
is, I can also easily imagine finding questions that will reveal
it as a computer.
Specifically, I would ask my conversation partners about matters
that involve the balancing of values. Classic moral dilemmas
come to mind. If you have time to do only one thing, do you save
your own child who is laying on the train tracks in front of
an oncoming train, or save the four stranger's children? A human
usually has some doubts about either which is the right course
of action or at least which he or she would really take, and
that would show in the conversation. Would the computer be convincing
enough in its moral struggling with an issue like this? Of course
it could be programmed for the classic dilemmas like this, but
there are many other ways to approach this questioning.
How would a computer "value" things? We consider
our pain, our future benefit, our stated moral beliefs, and all
sorts of other factors when thinking about what we value or what
we would like to see or do. These factors could not mean much
to a computer, and that lack of significance seems likely to
show. I suppose a computer that is designed for self-preservation
at least would have that as a basis for valuing this or that
idea or course of action, but that isn't quite the same. In fact,
one crucial difference is obvious here: a human sometimes values
some outcome more than his or her own life.
This is where we have to start questioning the validity of
the Turing Test as a test of artificial intelligence. A computer,
after all, even if it has what we would recognize as consciousness,
would not necessarily be indistinguishable in its thinking from
a human. Consider the fact that in a conversation in a chat room
we might quickly tell the difference between a conservative and
a liberal, or a shy and an extroverted person. Intelligence is
there in people of all categories even though we can create and
recognize categories. Certainly, then, a computer that has become
intelligent might still be very different from humans.
At this point in history, we are still facing the original
problem that Turing faced when designing his test, which is that
of defining intelligence. After all, we are not testing to see
if computers can do amazing things - they have passed that test
many times in many ways. We are asking whether they can truly
"think" about what they are doing - or about what they
"should" be doing, or "could" be doing.
These questions of machine intelligence are still seriously
debated in the scientific community. In 2010 the "Towards
a Comprehensive Intelligence Test" symposium was held at
De Montford University in the United Kingdom to address some
Here's another question to consider about AI: Is there a related
possibility we might refer to as "artificial wisdom?"
For more on intelligence (artificial and otherwise)...
Try my newsletter. It's free and comes with the ebook, How
to Have New Ideas. Subscribe right now... | <urn:uuid:b381999c-b7bb-45eb-837d-31cebb766ebe> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.increasebrainpower.com/artificial-intelligence.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399425.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00002-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96468 | 1,458 | 3.484375 | 3 |
Rocket Engine, Liquid Fuel, Surveyor Vernier, also Designated TD-339
This is the vernier rocket motor for the Surveyor unmanned lunar landing probe, America's first spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon. It was never flown but was test fired and probably therefore served as a developmental model. The vernier was small but of critical importance in providing propulsion for mid-course correction maneuvers and attitude and velocity control before and during the landing. It had to be absolutely reliable with restart capability. The vernier produced 30-104 pounds of thrust and was only fired for short bursts as required. The engine was used successfuly on all of the Surveyor missions from 1966 to 1968. This motor was transferred to the Smithsonian in 1979 from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Gift of Reaction Motors Division, Thiokol Chemical Corp.
- Country of Origin
- United States of America
- Reaction Motors Div., Thiokol Chemical Corp.
- PROPULSION-Rocket Engines
- Combustion chamber, concentric stainless steel shell lined with Rokide-Z ceramic coating; nozzle, molybdenum coated with a high emissivity material; a silcon carbide ring placed at the top of the combustion chamber with a silicone carbide throat insert around the internal throat; exposed surfaces of the vernier plumbing, coated with gold plate 0.001 inches thick and polished to a high luster.
- Overall: 13 in. long x 5 1/2 in. diameter, 5.5 lb. (33.02 x 13.97cm, 2.5kg) | <urn:uuid:dc2c6af1-dd4c-4057-a865-9cb9bdd6bc8d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?id=A19790174000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00077-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913873 | 338 | 2.90625 | 3 |
July 2, 2014
(14 pages, plus 2-page executive summary, PDF)
(2 pages, PDF)
Immigrants are important to Iowa and its economy. Like other working Iowans, immigrant workers generate income, spend money as consumers, and contribute to state and federal revenues as taxpayers. Like other business owners, immigrants who start businesses contribute to local economic development and job creation. And new immigrants, who tend to be younger than the general population and come from a diverse range of ethnicities, experiences, and educational backgrounds, contribute to the vitality and culture of Iowa communities. These contributions would increase further if immigration reform were to make work authorization or a path to citizenship possible for the subset of Iowa immigrants who currently lack such documents.
Iowa is home to a diverse population of about 130,000 immigrants, a broad category defined as those born outside the United States. This number includes naturalized citizens, refugees, legal permanent residents (green card holders), those with work or student visas, and undocumented immigrants. In total, immigrants make up about 4.3 percent of the Iowa population, account for 4.5 percent of the state’s economic output and represent 1 in 20 Iowa workers.
This report estimates the economic impact of Iowa’s immigrant population as a whole, and also provides new analysis of the contributions that the subset of Iowa’s immigrants who are undocumented make to tax revenues. Like other Iowans, immigrants contribute payroll taxes as workers, sales taxes as consumers, property taxes as homeowners or renters, and fees that support local utilities. What’s more, in many cases these taxes pay for programs and services that immigrant taxpayers themselves cannot access due to their immigration status.
Among the report’s findings:
• Immigrants contribute to Iowa’s economy both as workers and employers.
• The majority of Iowa’s immigrants are of prime working age, and are lowering the average age of the state’s population and increasing overall rates of workforce participation.
• Undocumented immigrants annually pay an estimated $64 million in Iowa state and local taxes, increasing revenue available for public programs and services, including many that immigrant families are unable to access themselves.
• Immigrants in Iowa work in a wide variety of occupations, and half of immigrant families make over $58,000. Like most Iowa families, the majority of immigrant families have incomes between $20,000 and $80,000.
• Compared to Iowa’s overall population, immigrants are both more likely to have less than a high school education, and more likely to have an advanced degree. Yet at all education levels, Iowa immigrants appear somewhat disadvantaged in the labor market and earn less when compared to native-born counterparts with equivalent levels of education.
Immigration has little impact on overall wage levels of non-immigrants. In part this is because immigrants, like native-born youth entering the labor force, consume goods and services, which contributes to job creation, and in part because immigrants and native-born workers often have different job specialties and the jobs they perform are often complementary and expand the economy’s productive capacity. Where wage depression occurs, it is most likely due to exploitation of undocumented workers who are made vulnerable to a variety of employment abuses that can depress their wages.
Immigrants in general are more likely than native-born Iowans to be working, because work is what drew most of them to this country and because they tend to be younger than the general population. While 60.5 percent of native-born Iowans are of prime working age (between 18 and 64), 83.2 percent of immigrants fall into that age group. Immigration has thus helped to moderate Iowa’s aging population and to increase the overall number of Iowa workers who generate income and pay taxes to support schools and other services for our children, while also contributing to programs such as Social Security and Medicare that support retirees.
Our report looks specifically at the economic impact of the subset of Iowa immigrants who are undocumented, providing new estimates of tax payments made annually by undocumented immigrants. We then contextualize these contributions in relation to the specific types of public programs and services undocumented immigrant households are able (and in most cases unable) to access themselves. Recent estimates suggest that undocumented immigrants represent about 2.5 percent of the state population — about 75,000 persons.
While barred from accessing nearly all federal public assistance, undocumented immigrants in Iowa contribute about $37 million annually in federal payroll taxes — supporting Social Security and Medicare, for which they are ineligible. Employers contribute another $45 million on their behalf in payroll taxes and in contributions for unemployment insurance that undocumented immigrants are barred from receiving.
Undocumented immigrants are also ineligible for many state and local government programs. Yet the average undocumented immigrant family pays state sales, excise, and income taxes (at least half have income taxes withheld from their paychecks) amounting to about three-fourths of what citizens would pay at the same income level. Undocumented residents are barred from services that account for about one-fourth of the state budget.
Immigration reform enabling work authorization and a path to citizenship for current undocumented residents would bring benefits both to immigrants and the state generally. Legal work status would open up better job opportunities for undocumented immigrants, make it more worthwhile to invest in worker education and training, and reduce immigrants’ vulnerability to wage depression and unfair competition. This would benefit all workers, including citizens who would no longer compete for jobs with workers whose immigration status makes them more likely to suffer wage theft or other abuses. We estimate higher wages accompanying legal work status attained through immigration reform would boost Iowa state and local tax contributions from currently undocumented immigrants by an estimated $16.5 million.
Intense debates in Iowa on the best way to reform immigration laws in the United States should be grounded in an accurate understanding of Iowa’s immigrant population. They should recognize the contributions immigrants make to the state’s workforce, economy, tax revenues and communities. It is hoped that this report will go some way toward creating that understanding.
Heather Gibney joined the Iowa Policy Project as a Research Associate in 2012. Her focus is on economic opportunity issues facing Iowa families and state budget issues.
Peter S. Fisher is Research Director of the Iowa Policy Project. He is Professor Emeritus of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Iowa, and holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
We gratefully acknowledge generous funding support provided through the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, as well as technical support provided by David Dyssegaard Kallick of the Fiscal Policy Institute in New York, and by the Economic Policy Institute. Policy recommendations are solely the perspective of the authors and the Iowa Policy Project. | <urn:uuid:ddce4a7d-9c36-4e0a-96f1-5fac4e390689> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.iowapolicyproject.org/2014Research/140702-Immigration-xs.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396459.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00109-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959802 | 1,377 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Floods are one of the most common hazards in the United States. Flood effects can be local, impacting a neighborhood or community, or very large, affecting entire river basins and multiple states.
However, all floods are not alike. Some floods develop slowly, sometimes over a period of days. But flash floods can develop quickly, sometimes in just a few minutes and without any visible signs of rain. Flash floods often have a dangerous wall of roaring water that carries rocks, mud, and other debris and can sweep away most things in its path. Overland flooding occurs outside a defined river or stream, such as when a levee is breached, but still can be destructive. Flooding can also occur when a dam breaks, producing effects similar to flash floods.
Be aware of flood hazards no matter where you live, but especially if you live in a low-lying area, near water or downstream from a dam. Even very small streams, gullies, creeks, culverts, dry streambeds, or low-lying ground that appear harmless in dry weather can flood. Every state is at risk from this hazard.
What Would You Do?
You and your family moved from a city neighborhood in San Francisco, CA, to a suburb of Phoenix, AZ. Since earthquakes were a threat in your area, you always kept some extra food, water, and other supplies on hand and maintained an earthquake insurance policy, just in case something happened. You think this kind of preparation is no longer necessary based on what your neighbors have told you. According to them, the biggest threat they face is lack of water caused by the very dry weather. You continue to see public service announcements from the federal government about flood insurance and the need to protect yourself from flood damage. Surely, there would be no need for flood insurance where you live with its bare hills, deep canyons, and dry land.
Are you at risk for flooding, or is this more of a risk to people who live elsewhere? Yes or No Is there a need to have a disaster plan and a disaster supplies? Yes or No Should you consider purchasing flood insurance? Yes or No
Know the Terms Familiarize yourself with these terms to help identify a flood hazard:
- Flood Watch:
Flooding is possible. Tune in to NOAA Weather Radio, commercial radio, or television for information.
- Flash Flood Watch:
Flash flooding is possible. Be prepared to move to higher ground; listen to NOAA Weather Radio, commercial radio, or television for information.
- Flood Warning:
Flooding is occurring or will occur soon; if advised to evacuate, do so immediately.
- Flash Flood Warning:
A flash flood is occurring; seek higher ground on foot immediately.
Take Protectice Measures
Before a Flood To prepare for a flood, you should:
- Avoid building in a floodplain unless you elevate and reinforce your home.
- Elevate the furnace, water heater, and electric panel if susceptible to flooding.
- Install "check valves" in sewer traps to prevent flood water from backing up into the drains of your home.
- Construct barriers (levees, beams, floodwalls) to stop floodwater from entering the building.
- Seal walls in basements with waterproofing compounds to avoid seepage.
During a Flood If a flood is likely in your area, you should:
- Listen to the radio or television for information.
- Be aware that flash flooding can occur. If there is any possibility of a flash flood, move immediately to higher ground. Do not wait for instructions to move.
- Be aware of streams, drainage channels, canyons, and other areas known to flood suddenly. Flash floods can occur in these areas with or without such typical warnings as rain clouds or heavy rain.
If you must prepare to evacuate, you should do the following:
- Secure your home. If you have time, bring in outdoor furniture. Move essential items to an upper floor.
- Turn off utilities at the main switches or valves if instructed to do so. Disconnect electrical appliances. Do not touch electrical equipment if you are wet or standing in water.
If you have to leave your home, remember these evacuation tips:
- Do not walk through moving water. Six inches of moving water can make you fall. If you have to walk in water, walk where the water is not moving. Use a stick to check the firmness of the ground in front of you.
- Do not drive into flooded areas. If floodwaters rise around your car, abandon the car and move to higher ground if you can do so safely. You and the vehicle can be quickly swept away.
Driving Flood Facts The following are important points to remember when driving in flood conditions:
- Six inches of water will reach the bottom of most passenger cars causing loss of control and possible stalling.
- A foot of water will float many vehicles.
- Two feet of rushing water can carry away most vehicles including sport utility vehicles (SUV’s) and pick-ups.
After a Flood The following are guidelines for the period following a flood:
- Listen for news reports to learn whether the community’s water supply is safe to drink.
- Avoid floodwaters; water may be contaminated by oil, gasoline, or raw sewage. Water may also be electrically charged from underground or downed power lines.
- Avoid moving water.
- Be aware of areas where floodwaters have receded. Roads may have weakened and could collapse under the weight of a car.
- Stay away from downed power lines, and report them to the power company.
- Return home only when authorities indicate it is safe.
- Stay out of any building if it is surrounded by floodwaters.
- Use extreme caution when entering buildings; there may be hidden damage, particularly in foundations.
- Service damaged septic tanks, cesspools, pits, and leaching systems as soon as possible. Damaged sewage systems are serious health hazards.
- Clean and disinfect everything that got wet. Mud left from floodwater can contain sewage and chemicals.
Flood Insurance Consider the following facts:
- Flood losses are not covered under homeowners’ insurance policies.
- FEMA manages the National Flood Insurance Program, which makes federally-backed flood insurance available in communities that agree to adopt and enforce floodplain management ordinances to reduce future flood damage.
- Flood insurance is available in most communities through insurance agents.
- There is a 30-day waiting period before flood insurance goes into effect, so don't delay.
- Flood insurance is available whether the building is in or out of the identified flood-prone area.
Knowledge Check Decide whether the following statements are true or false. Check the appropriate column. When you have finished, check your answers using the answer key. True or False Statements
- Flood emergencies occur in only 12 states.
- A "flood watch" announcement on the radio indicates that flooding is possible.
- Flash floods may occur with little warning.
- Flood risk varies from one region to another.
- National flood insurance is available only for buildings within an identified flood-prone area.
- It is safe to walk through floodwater if you can see the ground under it.
- It takes at least 3 feet of floodwater to make a motorized vehicle float.
- After flood waters recede from a roadway, the road could still be dangerous.
- To prepare for a flood emergency, you should have a NOAA Weather Radio as well as a commercial radio.
For More Information If you require more information about any of these topics, the following are resources that may be helpful. FEMA Publications
- After a Flood: The First Steps. L-198. Information for homeowners on preparedness, safety, and recovery from a flood.
- Homeowner’s Guide to Retrofitting: Six Ways to Protect Your House from Flooding. L-235. A brochure about obtaining information about how to protect your home from flooding.
- Homeowner’s Guide to Retrofitting: Six Ways to Protect Your House from Flooding. FEMA-312. A detailed manual on how to protect your home from flooding.
- About the Flood: Elevating Your Floodprone House. FEMA-347. This publication is intended for builders, code officials and homeowners.
- Protecting Building Utilities From Flood Damage. FEMA-348. This publication is intended for developers, architects, engineers, builders, code officials and homeowners.
American Red Cross Repairing Your Flooded Home. sixty-page booklet about how to perform simple home repairs after flooding, including cleaning, sanitation, and determining which professionals to involve for various needed services. Local Red Cross chapters can order in packages of 10 as stock number A4477 for a nominal fee. Also available online at www.fema.gov/library/viewRecord.do?id=1418.
National Weather Service Hurricane Flooding: A Deadly Inland Danger. 20052. Brochure describing the impact of hurricane flooding and precautions to take.
The Hidden Danger: Low Water Crossing. 96074E. Brochure describing the hazards of driving your vehicle in flood conditions.
Some of the links on this page require a plug-in to view them. Links to the plug-ins are available below. [http://www.fema.gov/goodbye/goodbye.jsp?url=http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/alternate.html Last Modified: Wednesday, 11-Aug-2010 12:26:06 EDT
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[http://www.fema.gov/ Federal Emergency Management Agency U.S. Department of Homeland Security 500 C Street SW, Washington, D.C. 20472 External Affairs: (202) 646-4600 [http://www.disasterassistance.gov/ (800) 621-FEMA / TTY (800) 462-7585 3 Step Guide for Assistance[http://www.ready.gov/ | <urn:uuid:f70d5fdf-c326-4700-92b5-a76e17066031> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.appropedia.org/Floods | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397748.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00199-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914176 | 2,117 | 3.765625 | 4 |
Poems on Slavery
POEMS ON SLAVERY.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
CAMBRIDGE: PUBLISHED BY JOHN OWEN.
M DCCC XLII.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and forty -two,
by H. W. Longfellow, in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the District of
CAMBRIDGE: METCALF, KEITH, AND NICHOLS, PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.
To William E. Channing
The Slave's Dream
The Good Part
The Slave in the Dismal Swamp
The Quadroon Girl
[The following poems, with one exception, were written at sea, in the latter part of
October. I had not then heard of Dr. Channing's death. Since that event, the poem
addressed to him is no longer appropriate. I have decided, however, to let it remain
as it was written, a feeble testimony of my admiration for a great and good man.]
The noble horse,
That, in his fiery youth, from his wide nostrils
Neighed courage to his rider, and brake through
Groves of opposed pikes, bearing his lord
Safe to triumphant victory, old or wounded,
Was set at liberty and freed from service.
The Athenian mules, that from the quarry drew
Marble, hewed for the Temple of the Gods,
The Slave singing at Midnight | <urn:uuid:1c0504f3-5ef3-4b4f-83ff-7083993d1e84> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.free-ebooks.net/ebook/Poems-on-Slavery/html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00189-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933035 | 322 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Software Testing: An Approach Using Cloud Computing
This is well known that every development activity requires the corresponding testing activity to ensure the quality and correctness of the software. Software testing plays an importance role to minimize the risk of failure of any developed application. Software testing requires some platforms through which the cycle of the testing get complete. These platforms or setup or the authors can say environment involves a big amount of cost of whole testing. Here by using cloud computing approach and services they will try to minimize the effort of testing configuration and reducing the testing cost. This paper describes the types of cloud services and their use in software testing. | <urn:uuid:196dc823-c04c-4773-b6a8-0e2cd01e148d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.techrepublic.com/resource-library/whitepapers/software-testing-an-approach-using-cloud-computing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393463.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00154-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925786 | 123 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Engineering Acoustics/The Rankine-Hugoniot Jump Equations
Conservation Equations and Derivation
For the purpose of performing engineering calculations, equations linking the pre- and post- shock states are required. One of the most fundamental expressions relating states is the Hugoniot which relates pressure and density as:
This expression can be derived via simplification of the canonical conservation equations:
Conservation of mass:
Conservation of momentum:
Conservation of energy:
The parameters of a shock required to completely solve for the jump conditions are pressure, particle velocity,specific internal energy,density and shock speed. With 4 state variables and only 3 equations an additional equation is required to relate some of the states and make the problem tractable. This equation is referred to as an equation of state (EOS) - of which many exist for a variety of applications. The most common EOS is the ideal gas law and can be used to reduce the system of equations to the familiar Hugoniot expression for fluids with constant specific heats in steady flow:
For general, non-linear elastic materials there exists no equation of state that can be derived from first principles. However, a huge database of experimental data has revealed that virtually all materials display a linear relationship between particle velocity and shock speed (the voracity of the linear assumption in the method of characteristics example is now even more clear!):
This equation is also known as the shock Hugoniot in the plane.
Combination of this linear relation with the momentum and mass equations yields the desired expression for the Hugoniot in the plane for virtually all solid materials:
Paths and Jump Conditions
The Hugoniot describes the locus of all possible thermodynamic states a material can exist in behind a shock, projected onto a two dimensional state-state plane. It is therefore a set of equilibrium states and does not specifically represent the path through which a material undergoes transformation.
Consider again our discussion of strong and weak shocks. It was said that weak shocks are isentropic and that the isentrope represents the path through which the material is loaded from the initial to final states by an equivalent wave with converging characteristics (termed a compression wave). In the case of weak shocks, the Hugoniot will therefore fall directly on the isentrope and can be used directly as the equivalent path.
In the case of a strong shock we can no longer make that simplification directly, howevewer for engineering calculations it is deemed that the isentrope is close enough to the Hugoniot that the same assumption can be made.
If the Hugoniot is approximately the loading path between states for an "equivalent" compression wave, then the jump conditions for the shock loading path can be determined by drawing a straight line between the initial and final states. This line is called the Rayleigh line and has the following equation: | <urn:uuid:e091cbe6-9c9f-4952-a1f4-1ce2ab0ece12> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Engineering_Acoustics/The_Rankine-Hugoniot_Jump_Equations | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397748.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00117-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919838 | 594 | 3.484375 | 3 |
Physical Characteristics Of Spider Monkeys
The main focus of this page is to study the physical characteristics of Spider monkeys. The spider monkeys of the new world, which is the Western hemisphere; especially in the continents of North and South America are more ancient than old world, which consist of the Eastern hemisphere; Australia, Africa, Eurasia and associated lands. Their brains are found to be less complex. They have slender bodies and limbs with long narrow hands. Their nostrils are further apart and the thumbs are not opposable. Read on to know more on the physiology of Spider monkeys and what they look like.
Spider monkeys are found to be the biggest and largest among the New World monkeys. The Black-headed Spider Monkeys, is the largest of the spider monkeys. It has an average weight of around 11 kg for males and 10 kg for females. Their name “spider” has been inspired by the disproportionately long, spindly limbs. Their skillful prehensile tails can be up to 89 cm long. These tails are very flexible and have hairless tips. The skin on these tips has grooves similar to fingerprints. This adaptation of physiology of Spider monkeys serves as a fifth hand.
Getting on with more details on the physical characteristics of Spider monkeys, when you see the spider monkey walk, you will notice its arms practically dragging on the ground. Surprisingly, like most monkeys, they do not use their arms for balancing. Instead, they are seen more to rely on their tail. Their hands are long, narrow and like hooks, but they have no thumbs. The fingers are extended and re-curved. The tail is sometimes longer than the body. When the animal stands or walks on two feet, it uses the tail to hold on to a support. In the wild, the Spider monkeys hardly ever come down to the jungle floor. When they swing by the tail, their hands are free to gather food. Swift and acrobatic, these Spider monkeys glide through the trees, with strides covering up to 40 feet.
The hair is rough and ranges in color from brown and black. The hands and feet typically black in color. They have small heads with hairless faces. The nostrils are very far apart, which is a distinguishing feature of spider monkeys Before concluding this articles on physical characteristics of Spider monkeys, it is important to mention that these monkeys are very agile and quick and are said to be second only to the gibbons in this respect. | <urn:uuid:27caa05d-6402-4b72-b65a-f54aa2e0a79b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://angrydmonkey.com/a-look-at-the-physical-characteristics.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399106.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00188-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956276 | 500 | 3.578125 | 4 |
Abstract: We describe a computer application for relaxation that is based on autonomous music generation synchronous to user's actions. We provide the results of a user study, showing that though the application is relatively simple, it is perceived as computationally creative by its users. The paper summarizes our observations on both computers' and human creativity that were made in process of implementing the application.
Poetry Framework Tool
Abstract: In this paper, we present the exploratory work we did in identifying the creative aspects of creating and understanding poetry. Systems exist that are able to generate poetry given several key input parameters: such as the theme, a source corpus of text, rhyme scheme, tone of the poem (comedic, serious etc.,) and so on. We have tried in implementing a system which just requires a source corpus and a rhyme scheme. We have found that although the poems generated by our technique are not very sophisticated, they reveal important differences between human and computational creativity; especially the limits of a computer's ability to “create''. We have also created a system which could identify poems within text, as well as a creativity assistant tool, which could help a novice poet in the poetry writing process.
Mood Player C#
Abstract: Music has useful social and psychological functions for individuals. In order to make use of this power, we designed a music player, i.e., Mood Player Alpha. It aims to predict moods of songs by their lyrics based on latent Dirichlet allocation. It models moods as distributions over key words in the lyrics. As long as we have the distribution and key words extracted from a lyric, we can predict the mood associated with the lyric. In order to test the idea, 200 lyrics were collected with regard to four different moods, i.e., happy, sad, angry, and relaxed. Results showed that the prediction accuracy is 66% for 10-fold cross-validation. Furthermore, a user interface was designed and evaluation in terms of creativity from 18 users was also reported.
CAPTIS: Intelligent Agent for Interactive Exercise
Abstract: Rapid progress in technology, especially in the area of articial intelligence, offers tremendous possibilities for innovation in therapy for individuals with autism or physical impairments. Clinical studies of robot-assisted therapy have demonstrated the viability and usefulness of robots in motivating patients in physical therapy and in interacting with individuals with autism. In this paper, we present the design of a interactive articially-intelligent system named CAPTIS, which uses a Kinect interface to perform similar actions to the robots used in clinical research but at a much reduced cost. The system guides a user through exercises by evaluating the user's performance and adapting to the user's preferences and performance. CAPTIS's ability to perform the three basic functions of therapy - eliciting behaviors; modeling, teaching, and/or practicing a skill; and providing feedback - at a fraction of the cost of robots reveals that CAPTIS is the beginning of a new direction in interactive AI systems for therapy
Absract: In this paper we describe the progress of the House Power Project, a solution to saving power.
Music Player Alpha
Abstract: In this paper, we propose, design and implement an autonomous, music mood-classification application, drawing on contemporary research in the field. A key aspect of our project is the leveraging of physiological studies that have been carried out for generating representative mood models. Such studies serve as the groundtruth for the identification of a set of “mood-tags” on which music is classified. We employ a Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier that uses three features extracted from audio signal analysis – intensity, rhythm and timbre to classify music by its representative mood, which is subsequently mapped onto a 2-D mood plane. A novel contribution is the use of an intuitive interaction mechanic for playlist generation based on a user specified “mood-curve”.
*Projects described on this page are the intellectual property of the students who worked on them and Georgia Tech. They do not fall under the Creative Commons License.* | <urn:uuid:fcb2ecf6-596d-48fc-b066-f105029caf48> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/AY2013/cs7601_spring/mainContent/classProjects.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00132-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95216 | 828 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Free Online Geometry Math Game – Slice Geom
Slice Geom is a challenging geometry-based puzzle game where you have to successfully slice shapes into equal parts in each level. Exercise your knowledge of shapes and ratios to cut the increasingly complex shapes into parts of equal or close-to-equal proportion (in overall percentage in size). It’s not as easy as simply slicing a square in half – there are difficult shapes that have to be manipulated into smaller shapes, as close to equal in size as possible. With beginner and advanced levels, this should be a good and enjoyable geometry activity for math puzzle enthusiasts of all ages and skill levels.
This tricky brain teaser will really test your analytical skills and spatial awareness abilities as you have to figure out a solution based on sight, shapes, and a certain level of geometry knowledge. There’s a lot of potential trial and error involved, especially in higher levels, so you’ll need the patience and tenacity of a lion. Mathematical Masterminds come in all shapes and sizes – could you be the new Geometry Genius on the block? It’s time to get problem solving!
How to Play: Before you start slicing shapes, you must choose your difficulty level, either Easy Geom, or Hard Geom. In each level, you are given a shape (or shapes) on a chalkboard (old-school style!). In the top right corner of the game screen, you are shown how many equal-in-proportion shapes it must contain in order to pass the level. Just below that, the number of chalk slices you can make on the shape is displayed. To make a slice, Left Click outside of the shape using your computer mouse or touchpad. Drag your mouse to the opposite side of where you want the slice to be, and click again. If the chalk line is white – you have made a valid slice.
Make sure you follow the instructions in the top right corner. Making too many shapes causes you to fail the level, as does creating too few shapes. Once you have created the correct number of shapes in the correct amount of chalk slices, the computer will start counting the percentage in size that each smaller shape is of the overall shape. If they are close enough to equal, you earn 3 Stars and progress to the next level. Depending on how equal the percentages are, you might receive less Stars, or even fail the level. If you fail, or want to restart a level at any stage, click on the circular arrow on the right of the game screen. In the Harder Geom levels, a red area appears on some of the shapes. You cannot make slices across this area, which in turn, increases the difficulty. | <urn:uuid:ed008f86-d2f8-40cb-a8e8-28df213c4449> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.learn4good.com/games/mathforkids/geometrymath.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399425.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00009-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940668 | 557 | 3.4375 | 3 |
A major achievement of 20th-century biology was the identification of the fundamental, shared genetic and biochemical properties of all life forms. Now, understanding the nature of biological variation at the population and species levels represents a core question in modern biological research, one that spans disciplines from genetics to biochemistry and genomics. Which cellular processes are most commonly affected to generate diverse phenotypes?
Genetic studies of morphological innovation owe a debt to early studies of homeosis, from William Bateson’s observations of aberrant developmental transformations to Ed Lewis’s elegant characterization of Drosophila HOX genes. Subsequent work in the field of evo-devo has identified numerous examples in which derived aspects of biological systems can be traced directly to subtle changes in transcription factors and cis regulatory elements.
Indeed, from microbes to man, analysis of population variation demonstrates that these elements are free agents, constantly sampling new functional space and shifting their roles in gene regulatory circuits to generate novel outputs. As we move into more quantitative molecular studies with systems-biology approaches, more general questions are “How predominant are specific changes in the periphery of gene expression?” and “How much does variation at the very core processes of gene expression contribute to evolutionary innovation?”
Responding to these challenges, the first meeting on evolution and core processes in gene expression, sponsored by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, was held July 25 28 in Chicago. Speakers from North America, Europe, Israel and Japan shared insights on interdisciplinary topics. The symposium brought together speakers from diverse backgrounds to discuss mechanistic gene expression and evolution, to highlight our current understanding, and to focus on how the field may develop a more global understanding of these processes.
Some of the presentations from microbial research set the scene for how research in higher organisms may develop. Saeed Tavazoie of Columbia University and Eduardo Groisman of Yale University School of Medicine discussed how bacteria can show remarkable “molecular memory” in regulatory systems with precisely tuned outputs. Yet with a few genetic transitions, bacteria can easily shift toward a completely different regulatory paradigm. Their examples focused on transcription factors and signaling molecules.
However, the impact of variation of the core machinery was highlighted by Seth Darst of The Rockefeller University, Robert Landick of the University of Wisconsin and Zach Burton of Michigan State University, who discussed the structure and function of E. coli RNA polymerase. This organism’s well-studied enzyme features a derived structure not observed with other bacterial polymerases, a prominent 188-amino-acid insertion connecting a key element of the active site, the “trigger loop,” to the outside of the protein. The significance of this structural innovation is unknown, but the element frequently is mutated in bacterial populations grown under conditions of nutritional stress, and certain mutations allow bacteria to ignore facultative pause sites, globally changing gene expression. How frequently such alterations in the enzyme might contribute to innovations in gene expression is an important question for future studies.
A similar, but less complete, picture emerges from research presented by Aviv Regev of the Broad Institute and Ian Dworkin of Michigan State University. These speakers described how genetic background has a critical impact on the function of the mammalian immune system and organ development in the fly. At this point, these and similar studies are still cataloging the numerous loci that affect signaling and developmental outputs; we don’t know if the bulk of such modifications occur on the periphery of regulatory networks or might also implicate central nodes, such as the transcription, splicing or translational machinery.
Lawrence Myers of Dartmouth College provided a clue to such a possibility in a discussion of his analysis of the transcriptional mediator complex of Candida albicans, a pathogen in which genes for certain subunits of the mediator have undergone a tremendous expansion. Mutation of these genes affects fungal virulence, indicating that this novelty may be an acquired trait important for growth in certain niches.
Whether human mediator similarly is subject to such evolutionary tampering is unknown, but Jean-Marc Egly at the Institut de Genetique et de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire described how mutations in mediator and some of the other ∼200 factors of the basal machinery lead to very tissue-specific effects in human disease. Such genetic variation is present in the human population, although examples of adaptive modifications are unknown.
One clue relating to animal development concerns the conserved heptapeptide repeat of the RNA polymerase C-terminal domain. Most eukaryotes feature such a repeat domain, which is of variable length in different species. Across eukaryotes, from yeast to Arabidopsis to mice, the composition of the YSPTSPS repeats are relatively invariant, except in Drosophila, where divergent sequences are abundant and conserved. Whether this alternative CTD reflects the special gene regulatory requirements of early rapid development in the long germband syncytial embryo, as discussed by Melissa Harrison of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Julia Zeitlinger of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, is unknown.
Jeremy Lynch of the University of Illinois at Chicago noted that the long germband developmental program has been multiply derived, as in Nasonia, and that certain patterns of gene expression appear to be bottlenecks that are more conserved than others; thus, it would be interesting to determine whether alternative CTD of RNA polymerase II are similarly selected in these lineages, perhaps to deal with the unique chromatin challenges of rapid development.
How does the biochemical view of gene expression at the level of Ångstrom and kd connect with evolutionary perspectives? How important are variations in core processes of gene expression, which are highly pleiotropic, in sampling the functional gene expression space explored as populations and species evolve? Quantitative genetics and systems biology are providing the raw material to map this landscape; a challenge for future studies will be to develop tools and systems that can provide us comprehensive answers to central questions of evolutionary gene expression.
David Arnosti (email@example.com) studies transcriptional enhancers and corepressors in Drosophila with colleagues in the Gene Expression in Development and Disease Focus Group at Michigan State University. | <urn:uuid:5f3a182e-699d-42df-aa7e-673b08e832d3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.asbmb.org/asbmbtoday/asbmbtoday_article.aspx?id=48701 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00172-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905635 | 1,288 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Definitions for retractable
This page provides all possible meanings and translations of the word retractable
capable of being retracted
"retractable landing gear"
A retractable pen.
Capable of being retracted; retractile.
capable of being retracted; retractile
Origin: [Cf. F. rtractable.]
The numerical value of retractable in Chaldean Numerology is: 5
The numerical value of retractable in Pythagorean Numerology is: 6
Sample Sentences & Example Usage
It was built around 79 cubic feet of empty space in the belly of the airplane. That gives you the capability to put anything that the customers want to put in there, the skin of the airplane on the belly is non-stressed, so it's open and available to cut holes into for antennas and for sensors to look out. So right now we have two fully retractable sensors in the belly of the airplane. We have brushless starter generators on the airplane to provide a lot of power, so it's built to go out and go a long way, stay out on station for a long time and come back.
Images & Illustrations of retractable
Translations for retractable
From our Multilingual Translation Dictionary
Get even more translations for retractable »
Find a translation for the retractable definition in other languages:
Select another language: | <urn:uuid:3719ae10-c63f-4d36-b9ba-c9d4d2a80036> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.definitions.net/definition/retractable | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00029-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.809451 | 287 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Calorie-conscious consumers who opt for diet sodas may gain more weight than if they drank sugary drinks because of artificial sweeteners contained in the diet sodas, according to a new study.
A Purdue University study released Sunday in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience reported that rats on diets containing the artificial sweetener saccharin gained more weight than rats given sugary food, casting doubt on the benefits of low-calorie sweeteners.
"There's something about diet foods that changes your metabolic limit, your brain chemistry," said ABC News' medical contributor Dr. Marie Savard.
Though Savard said more research needs to be done to uncover more information, the study does hint at the idea that the sweeteners alter a person's metabolism.
Savard said another recent study, which included more than 18,000 people, found healthy adults who consumed at least one diet drink a day could increase their chance for weight gain.
In the Purdue study, the rats whose diets contained artificial sweeteners appeared to experience a physiological connection between sweet tastes and calories, which drove them to overeat.
"The taste buds taste sweet, but there's no calorie load that comes with it. There's a mismatch here. It seems it changes your brain chemistry in some way," Savard said. "Anything you put in your mouth, your body has a strong reaction to it. It's much more than counting calories. It seems normally with sweet foods that we rev up our metabolism."
The information may come as a surprise to the 59 percent of Americans who consume diet soft drinks, making them the the second-most-popular low-calorie, sugar-free products in the nation, according to a consumer survey from the Calorie Control Council, a nonprofit association that represents the low-calorie and reduced-fat food and beverage industry.
Because so many foods today contain artificial sweeteners, the study results may go beyond diet drinks.
"The truth is, we're putting artificial sweetener in so many different things in water, in yogurt," Savard said. It's unclear if the results only adhere to diet sodas, she said.
"We have to rethink what this artificial stuff does to us. If we put this in water it might not be so good," she added.
The Calorie Control Council issued a statement that disagreed with the findings of the Purdue study and noted that past studies indicated low-calorie sweeteners benefit weight control.
But Savard said people who consume a drink or more a day should think about cutting back their consumption.
"The truth is, if you're consuming a drink or more a day, you know it. You know that you're taking it, and you really have to think about eliminating it. You're probably the very person who needs to change those health behaviors to prevent the diabetes, heart disease and stroke," Savard said.
"If you're just taking it once in a while, fine -- no big deal. If you're consuming one or more drinks a day, you should rethink what you're doing. You might be negating the whole reason in the first place." | <urn:uuid:84234db7-a90b-4c81-9b99-dda0894c6687> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/Story?id=4271246&page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00017-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953934 | 638 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Historic black bookstore on brink of closure
Marcus Books opened in 1959, and quickly became a hub for the neighborhood’s black community. Founders Julian and Raye Richardson believed it was the first African American bookstore in America.
But now, over 50 years later, Marcus Books is struggling to keep from closing its doors. The building where it operated was sold in bankruptcy court after the family who ran it was unable to keep up with ballooning mortgage payments. Yesterday was the store’s eviction date. But advocates are trying to convince the new owners to work with them so the store can stay open and continue helping African American youth feel pride in their culture.
The history of Marcus Books
In the 1960s, black leaders like Malcolm X brought a new consciousness to American race relations, asking African-Americans, “Who taught you to hate yourself? Who taught you to hate your own kind? Who taught you to hate the race that you belong to so much so that you don't want to be around each other?” And writers such as Amiri Baraka set their perspectives to poetry: “Black art. Poems are bullshit.”
The concept of “Black Power” found deep roots in the Bay Area’s literary world. Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Ishmael Reed – as they emerged from the black arts movement, they needed a place to be heard, for their words to be read. That place was Marcus Books, in San Francisco’s Fillmore district – once known as the Harlem of the West.
Karen Johnson, the daughter of the store’s founders, Julian and Raye Richardson, grew up in the Fillmore bookshop. The neighborhood was different then: “The gas station and the pharmacy, and the people who sold the clothes, and the shoes, and everything, and the grocery store, was all black businesses.”
Marcus Books was in line with the voices of the black community, including those of Oakland’s Black Panthers, who gained national prominence with displays of militant social resistance.
Johnson remembers how the Black Panthers would use her parent’s store in the Fillmore as a meeting room.
“Huey Newton would be in the store when I came home from high school,” she said. “And Huey was so handsome. And he was so brave. And my sister and I would come home from school and be like, ‘Oh god, it’s Huey!’ Like we can't even look, we could never even have a conversation with him because we would have been like, ‘Take me.’”
Marcus Books drew prominent African Americans from all over the country, Johnson says.
“Bill Cosby had been here, and Oprah. And one of my favorites, Barry White. I got a hug from Barry White. Mohammad Ali and Rosa Parks, and Chaka Khan. We've had more writers than the whole Harlem Renaissance.”
When the first branch opened, Johnson tells me, their best selling books were by historian J.A. Rogers, who Johnson says is still popular with her customers.
Inside the store, Johnson points out Hip Hop Speaks to Children, an anthology that highlights the use of rhythm and vernacular in hip-hop, rap, and African-American poetry. The artists range from Langston Hughes to Kanye West, to this poem by Langston Hughes.
“Whoa! I want to do that. A little Langston goes a long way,” says Johnson.
While Marcus Books still carries Langston Hughes and J.A. Rogers, it moves a lot more of what’s called urban fiction. This genre includes books like Holy Hustler, Sugar Daddy's Game, and Girls from Da Hood: 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Johnson was resistant to carrying urban fiction at first, she realized that young African Americans have a different lifestyle from the people who have shopped at Marcus Books through the earlier years. Her philosophy now is to draw young people in with what they want, and then get them interested in what she thinks they need. Last year, a third of California's African American public school students dropped out of high school. The number of black men in prison is higher than the number enslaved in the United States in 1850.
“If my parents hadn't read that much, I would not have. If they hadn't made me go to the bookstore after school, I would have gotten into some mess. And I don't know if I would be alive today,” says Johnson.
This story originally aired on August 15, 2011. | <urn:uuid:4ca8cb64-515c-4bf1-8029-ba6a92cd660e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://kalw.org/post/historic-black-bookstore-brink-closure | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00099-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973714 | 966 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Ultrasensitive qualitative detection of Japanese encephalitis
virus by reverse transcription coupled real time polymerase
One of the
leading causes of acute encephalopathy in children in the
tropics is Japanese encephalitis (JE). An arbovirus, the
Japanese encephalitis virus is transmitted by Culex mosquitoes
and is a member of genus Flavivirus of the family Flaviviridae.
The RNA genome of the JE virus is positive sense,
single-stranded, approximately 11 Kb in length, and contains one
long open reading frame.
JE virus is
related to Murray Valley encephalitis virus. The virus is
neurotropic and predominately affects the thalamus, anterior
horns of the spinal cord, cerebral cortex, and cerebellum. It
mainly affects children <15 years of age and is mostly
asymptomatic. The occasional symptomatic child typically
presents with a neurological syndrome characterized by altered
sensorium, seizures, and features of intracranial hypertension.
Though no antiviral drug is available against JE, effective
supportive management can improve the outcome. Control of JE
involves efficient vector control and appropriate use of
primates can develop similar pathological lesions to those in
human when infected with JE virus; they are considered dead-end
hosts for JE. Most horses infected by JE virus show mild
clinical signs, including fever, anorexia and depression.
However, the mortality rate is high when JE infected horses show
neurological symptoms (Ihara et al., 1997). Seroepidemiological
survey of Asian monkeys has also shown widespread infection of
these primates with JE virus (Yuwono et al., 1984). The virus
can also infect birds, pigs and donkeys. Currently, the virus is
mainly detected in East Asia, southeast Russia, India, Papua New
Guinea and the Torres Strait Islands.
methods of JE diagnosis, including hemagglutination-inhibition
and complement fixation tests for antibody assay, have been
ineffective because of low sensitivity. Although a new
immunoassay was developed to detect earlier, virus-specific IgM
antibodies in the serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of acute
and convalescent-phase patients, this new assay also suffered
from low sensitivity and non-specific reaction. Reverse
transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) has been used
to detect Flavivirus rapidly and specifically.
Help confirm the disease causing agent
Shorten the time required to confirm a clinical
diagnosis of JE infection.
Help ensure that animal populations are free of JE virus
Early prevention of spread of the virus
Minimize personnel exposure to the virus
Safety monitoring of biological products and vaccines
that derive from horses and primates
Ihara, T., Kano, R., Nakajima, Y., Sugiura, T., Imagawa, H.,
Izuchi, T. and Samjima, T. (1997) Detection of antibody to
Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) by enzyme-linked immunosorbent
assay (ELISA). J. Equine Sci. 8: 25-28.
Yuwono, J., Suharyono,
W., Koiman, I., Tsuchiya, Y. and Tagaya, I. (1984)
Seroepidemiological survey on dengue and Japanese encephalitis
virus infections in Asian monkeys. Southeast Asian J Trop Med
Public Health. 15:194-20
Specimen requirements: 0.2 ml whole blood in EDTA (purple top) or ACD (yellow top)
tube, or 0.2 ml fresh or frozen CNS tissue, or 0.2 ml CSF, serum
types other than those listed here, please call to confirm
specimen acceptability and shipping instructions.
specimen types, if there will be a delay in shipping, or during
very warm weather, refrigerate specimens until shipped and ship
with a cold pack unless more stringent shipping requirements are
specified. Frozen specimens should be shipped so as to remain
frozen in transit. See shipping
instructions for more information.
2 business days
Qualitative reverse transcription coupled real time PCR | <urn:uuid:630131e9-e297-4af3-97b6-b01690a0db60> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.zoologix.com/primate/Datasheets/JapaneseEncephalitis.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393518.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00180-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.84653 | 926 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Page 2 of 3
At the time people were using the Internet but there was no Web and this is difficult to understand from today's perspective/
What did they do?
Before the Web there were a range of ways to get at information. Of the protocols the only ones that are still in common use are newsgroups, email and FTP – File Transfer Protocol.
When the Internet was first more generally available there were a lot of potential users who just didn't see the point. You could connect your computer to another computer irrespective of where it was in the world for next to free. At the time everyone was convinced that communications cost more the further the distance the data travelled. For example local telephone calls were cheap, long distance was more expensive and intercontinental calls needed a bank loan. I suppose the idea was that you paid for the length of cable you used. Packet switching changed this "charge by distance" model and it wasn't uncommon for early demos of the Internet to take you on a quick world tour of computers in far away places. This was scary - how much money were we spending? The answer was just as much as connecting to the local computer and more than often nothing at all.
At first all the internet allowed you to do was to connect to a remote computer as if you were a terminal. We still use the Telnet protocol today but in those days it was more or less all you had. Once you connected to a remote computer you could browse its filing systems and list the contents of files. It was all very boring - unless the computer had some data you really needed.
Another key fact to keep in mind is that everything on the Internet at that particular time was text based. Everything was done with simple console based programs and everything was a matter of typing. You even had to type in reference numbers to follow links.
The original browser – you had to type in the numbers to follow the links! You can try other old browsers out at www.dejavu.org.
Slowly additional services started to develop that became possible because of the Internet and the opportunities it offered for long distance communication and sharing data. We had email, FTP and a system called Gopher. This was invented at the University of Minnesota and for a while it looked as if could fill the niche that the Web does. It was a way of finding documents that consisted of a set of nested menus. You connected to a computer and it presented you with a top level menu and you slowly worked your way down the menus until you reached the document you were interested in. You then usually downloaded it to view it later. You could also perform searches on the menu hierarchy although not on the the documents themselves. It was a bit like using a remote file system. If you think that Gopher is primitive - at the time everyone thought it was great and laughed a lot about its name - Go For... get it?
Eventually Gopher was killed off by the Web. Berners-Lee recounts a story about the University of Minnesota not being willing to drop the possibility that it might charge a licence fee in the future frightening off server implementer. However the fact that Cern placed the Web into the public domain was just one of its advantages. It was a more sophisticated system and it slowly grew in capabilities to become what we have today.
The early Web however was text only just like Gopherl and this too might come as a surprise. Berners-Lee thought that the Web should be about serious things and images shouldn’t be part of every page. The Web was all about text documents. Even so the Web was so attractive an idea that even without pictures it took off.
There are people who still find Lynx, an early text mode browser so much better than any of the modern browsers
In 1992 the first text only browser was available by FTP download. At the start of 1993 the Web accounted for only 0.1% of the traffic on the Internet; by the end of the year this had risen to 1%. And again from a modern perspective you really have to ask what was the other 99% of the Internet being used for?!
At the end of 1993 there were 200 Web servers and six months later there were 1500. The Web just grew and grew and was rapidly becoming the only way to find and make information available.
The next part of the Web story is less well known. In 1992 Marc Andreessen was a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champain and he decided to implement a new browser - Mosaic.
This one was going to be available on a range of platforms – Unix, Windows and the Mac. By the end of 1993 over a million people were using it and it seemed like a good idea to go commercial. He teamed up with the ex-boss of Silicon Graphics, Jim Clarke and hired all but one of the original team from the university. The university wouldn’t release the browser to the new company, but they carried on regardless. The university didn’t just accept the position however and sued, claiming that Mosaic Netscape, the company, had stolen the name Mosaic and the browser code. Mosaic Netscape settled at a cost of $3 million and changed its name to Netscape and the browser to Navigator.
The Netscape team had to write the browser again from scratch. The marketing plan was also very strange for the time. Instead of selling the product Netscape gave it away – unless you wanted to use it for commercial purposes when it charged you for it. In one year Netscape had 65 million users and it had Microsoft running scared.
It also had Tim Berners-Lee fairly irritated as well.
Netscape started to innovate and extend HTML to include new tags that produced fancier formatting and embedded graphics. This made a typical Web page far more interesting too look at but Berners-Lee thought that it was making everything too trivial.
The new image tag, which allowed images to be built into any Web page, was particularly worrying! He told Andreessen so on a number of occasions but it didn’t make any difference. Not only did the Web grow and grow so did its basic technologies.
Navigator introduced the hyperlink – a clickable link to another Web page or to a location in the same page – and it was fully GUI with buttons and an exciting look. | <urn:uuid:011a37fd-7f78-4e87-b8c7-ecac440137cc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.i-programmer.info/history/machines/358-web.html?start=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00076-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97989 | 1,302 | 3.484375 | 3 |
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But the oddest thing was that the Roman ghosts appeared to marching on their knees. It was only when they got to part of the floor that had been dug away that Harry realised that they were actually walking on the original Roman road that was beneath the cellar floor.
Eventually, the soldiers had followed the horse through the wall and Harry left his tools and ran. The first person he saw said to him, 'You have seen the Roman ghosts, haven't you?'.
Harry's account was at first dismissed as there were various particulars of his description that didn't fit with accepted history. For instance, Harry said that the soldiers carried round shields rather than the more traditional square Roman shields and that they laced their sandals up to their knees not their ankles. However, it has only been recently discovered from excavations at Hadrian's Wall that in the 4th Century, auxiliary troops carried round shields and they did lace their sandals just as Harry described. At the time of Harry's encounter, it was not even known that auxiliary Roman soldiers had ever been stationed in York.
Although the Treasurer's House is open to the public, the cellars are not. In one way, this is a shame. However it may be that this will have the effect of preserving the Roman ghosts for posterity. | <urn:uuid:018cb154-4c45-40dc-a6fe-86036bd92fc1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread857120/pg2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393146.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00093-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.99036 | 314 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Zinn’s “The Socialist Challenge”
> I. Highlight (or underline) and take notes on the articles you read.
Your highlighting and notations should reflect an “intellectual exchange” between you and the article (i.e., you should be highlighting key points, as well as writing down questions, comments, and summaries in the margins). You will turn in the article (covered with your highlighting and notations) in to me.
> II. Answer the study questions.
Answer the four sets of questions below with thoughtful, detailed and reflective answers. Turn in a paper copy and use turnitin.com.
1. A) What did historian Rayford Logan mean when he referred to the Progressive Era as “the nadir” for African Americans? Cite examples from the article that support this analysis. B) Do you agree or disagree with his analysis? C) How did various organizations respond to this situation (your answer should include an explanation of the NAACP and Niagara Movement)? Elaborate.
2. A) Explain, in your own words, the analysis of the Progressive Era as provided by historians Gabriel Kolko and Robert Wiebe. B) Accordingly, how would Kolko, Wiebe and other revisionist historians critique the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (your answer should cite specific policies or statements attributed to Roosevelt)? Elaborate.
3. A) Why did the author title this article “The Socialist Challenge”? Elaborate. B) What was the IWW (consult your textbook or an online resource)? C) How does the IWW fit into this author’s understanding of the Progressive Era (think back to the title of the article)? D) Overall, do you agree or disagree with the author’s interpretation of the Progressive Era? Elaborate.
4. Write a mini-mini-essay (no more than 150 words) that explores this question: “When considering the discussion of the Ludlow Massacre, what biases are evident in the textbook American Odyssey and Zinn’s Socialist Challenge?” Support your analysis by offering direct quotes from both the article and your textbook.
· Choose at least one quote from each source to incorporate into your mini-mini-essay
· Use actual quotes from the novel. In doing so, make sure you follow the guidelines we have discussed regarding quotation usage:
1. Quotations should be used sparingly, only for color and clarity
2. Quotations should not be merely thrust into the narrative, they need to be interpreted and analyzed
3. Quotations should be placed in context, meaning the narrative should clearly identify who and/or what is being quoted.
· Cite quotes parenthetically, for example: Historian Howard Zinn argued, “The attack at the workers’ camp amounted to a outright slaughter” (Zinn, The Socialist Challenge).
· Above all else, use quotes that support your view. You are trying to back up your argument by referring to historic documents.
Your writing must feature:
· a clearly written narrative that is well-edited
for example, don’t simply insert a quote into your narrative w/o using a proper transition
Historian Howard Zinn blamed the mine owners for the massacre. “The attack at the workers’ camp amounted to a outright slaughter” (Zinn, The Socialist Challenge).
· formal language that avoids the use of first (I, we, us, our) or second person (you, your) pronouns
> III. Participate in a graded oral discussion.
Your verbal participation must reflect a high degree of participation as well as a detailed understanding of the article. Note: you must have completed the study questions in order to receive full credit for the discussion.
> DUE: Blue Day classes - Dec. 1st; White Day classes - Dec. 2nd
. . In this early part of the twentieth century, labeled by generations of
white scholars as "the Progressive period," lynchings were reported
every week; it was the low point for Negroes, North and South, "the
nadir," as Rayford Logan, a black historian, put it. In 1910 there were 10
million Negroes in the United States, and 9 million of them were in the South.
The government of the United States (between 1901 and 1921, the Presidents were Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson)-whether Republican or Democrat-watched Negroes being lynched, observed murderous riots against blacks in Statesboro, Georgia, Brownsville, Texas, and Atlanta, Georgia, and did nothing.
There were Negroes in the Socialist party, but the Socialist party did not go much out of its way to act on the race question. As Ray Ginger writes of Debs: "When race prejudice was thrust at Debs, he always publicly repudiated it. He always insisted on absolute equality. But he failed to accept the view that special measures were sometimes needed to achieve this equality."
Blacks began to organize: a National Afro-American Council formed in 1903 to protest against lynching, peonage, discrimination, disfranchisement; the National Association of Colored Women, formed around the same time, condemned segregation and lynchings. In Georgia in 1906 there was an Equal Rights Convention, which pointed to 260 Georgia Negroes lynched since 1885. It asked the right to vote, the right to enter the militia, to be on juries. It agreed blacks should work hard. "And at the same time we must agitate, complain, protest and keep protesting against the invasion of our manhood rights.. ,."
W. E. B. Du Bois, teaching in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1905, sent out a letter to Negro leaders throughout the country, calling them to a conference just across the Canadian border from Buffalo, near Niagara Falls. It was the start of the "Niagara Movement."
Du Bois, born in Massachusetts, the first black to receive a Ph.D. degree from Harvard University (1895), had just written and published his poetic, powerful book The Souls of Black Folk. Du Bois was a Socialist sympathizer, although only briefly a party member.
One of his associates in calling the Niagara meeting was William Monroe Trotter, a young black man in Boston, of militant views, who edited a weekly newspaper, the Guardian. In it he attacked the moderate ideas of Booker T. Washington. When, in the summer of 1903, Washington spoke to an audience of two thousand at a Boston church, Trotter and his supporters prepared nine provocative questions, which caused a commotion and led to fistfights. Trotter and a friend were arrested. This may have added to the spirit of indignation which led Du Bois to spearhead the Niagara meeting. The tone of the Niagara group was strong:
We refuse to allow the impression to remain that the Negro-American assents to inferiority, is submissive under oppression and apologetic before insults. Through helplessness we may submit, but the voice of protest of ten million Americans must never cease to assail the ears of their fellows so long as America is unjust.
A race riot in Springfield, Illinois, prompted the formation of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1910. Whites dominated the
leadership of the new organization; Du Bois was the only black officer. He was
also the first editor of the NAACP periodical The Crisis. The NAACP
concentrated on legal action and education, but Du Bois represented in it that
spirit which was embodied in the Niagara movement's declaration:
"Persistent manly agitation is the way to liberty."
What was clear in this period to blacks, to feminists, to labor organizers and socialists, was that they could not count on the national government. True, this was the "Progressive Period," the start of the Age of Reform; but it was a reluctant reform, aimed at quieting the popular risings, not making fundamental changes.
What gave it the name "Progressive" was that new laws were passed. Under Theodore Roosevelt, there was the Meat Inspection Act, the Hepburn Act to regulate railroads and pipelines, a Pure Food and Drug Act. Under Taff, the Mann-Elkins Act put telephone and telegraph systems under the regulation of the Interstate Commerce Commission. In Woodrow Wilson's presidency, the Federal Trade Commission was introduced to control the growth of monopolies, and the Federal Reserve Act to regulate the country's money and banking system. Under Taft were proposed the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, allowing a graduated income tax, and the Seventeenth Amendment, providing for the election of Senators directly by popular vote instead of by the state legislatures, as the original Constitution provided. Also at this time, a number of states passed laws regulating wages and hours, providing for safety inspection of factories and compensation for injured workmen.
It was a time of public investigations aimed at soothing protest. In 1913 the Pujo Committee of Congress studied the concentration of power in the banking industry, and the Commission on Industrial Relations of the Senate held hearings on labor-management conflict.
Undoubtedly, ordinary people benefited to some extent from these changes. The system was rich, productive, complex; it could give enough of a share of its riches to enough of the working class to create a protective shield between the bottom and the top of the society. A study of immigrants in New York between 1905 and 1915 finds that 32 percent of Italians and Jews rose out of the manual class to higher levels (although not to much higher levels). But it was also true that many Italian immigrants did not find the opportunities inviting enough for them to stay. In one four-year period, seventy-three Italians left New York for every one hundred that arrived. Still, enough Italians became construction workers, enough Jews became businessmen and professionals, to create a middle-class cushion for class conflict.
Fundamental conditions did not change, however, for the vast majority of tenant farmers, factory workers, slum dwellers, miners, farm laborers, working men and women, black and white. Robert Wiebe sees in the Progressive movement an attempt by the system to adjust to changing conditions in order to achieve more stability. "Through rules with impersonal sanctions, it sought continuity and predictability in a world of endless change. It assigned far greater power to government . .. and it encouraged the centralization of authority." Harold Faulkner concluded that this new emphasis on strong government was for the benefit of "the most powerful economic groups."
Gabriel Kolko calls it the emergence of "political capitalism," where the businessmen took firmer control of the political system because the private economy was not efficient enough to forestall protest from below. The businessmen, Kolko says, were not opposed to the new reforms; they initiated them, pushed them, to stabilize the capitalist system in a time of uncertainty and trouble.
For instance, Theodore Roosevelt made a reputation for himself as a "trust-buster" (although his successor, Taft, a "conservative," while Roosevelt was a "Progressive," launched more antitrust suits than did Roosevelt). In fact, as Wiebe points out, two of J. P. Morgan's men- Elbert Gary, chairman of U.S. Steel, and George Perkins, who would later become a campaigner for Roosevelt- "arranged a general understanding with Roosevelt by which . . . they would cooperate in any investigation by the Bureau of Corporations in return for a guarantee of their companies' legality." They would do this through private negotiations with the President. "A gentleman's agreement between reasonable people," Wiebe says, with a bit of sarcasm.
The panic of 1907, as well as the growing strength of the Socialists, Wobblies, and trade unions, speeded the process of reform. According to Wiebe: "Around 1908 a qualitative shift in outlook occurred among large numbers of these men of authority.. . ." The emphasis was now on "enticements and compromises." It continued with Wilson, and "a great many reform-minded citizens indulged the illusion of a progressive fulfillment."
What radical critics now say of those reforms was said at the time (1901) by the Bankers' Magazine: "As the business of the country has learned the secret of combination, it is gradually subverting the power of the politician and rendering him subservient to its purposes. . , ."
There was much to stabilize, much to protect. By 1904, 318 trusts, with capital of more than seven billion dollars, controlled 40% of the U.S. manufacturing.
In 1909, a manifesto of the new Progressivism appeared-a book called The Promise of American Life by Herbert Croly, editor of the New Republic and an admirer of Theodore Roosevelt. He saw the need for discipline and regulation if the American system were to continue. Government should do more, he said, and he hoped to see the "sincere and enthusiastic imitation of heroes and saints"- by whom he may have meant Theodore Roosevelt.
Richard Hofstadter, in his biting chapter on the man the public saw as the great lover of nature and physical fitness, the war hero, the Boy Scout in the White House, says: "The advisers to whom Roosevelt listened were almost exclusively representatives of industrial and finance capital-men like Hanna, Robert Bacon, and George W. Perkins of the House of Morgan, Elihu Root, Senator Nelson W. Aldrich ... and James Stillman of the Rockefeller interests." Responding to his worried brother-in-law writing from Wall Street, Roosevelt replied: "I intend to be most conservative, but in the interests of the corporations themselves and above all in the interests of the country."
Roosevelt supported the regulatory Hepburn Act because he feared something worse. He wrote to Henry Cabot Lodge that the railroad lobbyists who opposed the bill were wrong: "I think they are very shortsighted not to understand that to beat it means to increase the movement for government ownership of the railroads." His action against the trusts was to induce them to accept government regulation, in order to prevent destruction. He prosecuted the Morgan railroad monopoly in the Northern Securities Case, considering it an antitrust victory, but it hardly changed anything, and, although the Sherman Act provided for criminal penalties, there was no prosecution of the men who had planned the monopoly-Morgan, Harriman, Hill.
As for Woodrow Wilson, Hofstadter points out he was a conservative from the start. As a historian and political scientist, Wilson wrote (The State): "In politics nothing radically novel may safely be attempted." He urged "slow and gradual" change. This attitude toward labor, Hofstadter says, was "generally hostile," and he spoke of the "crude and ignorant minds" of the Populists.
James Weinstein (The Corporate Ideal in the Liberal State) has studied the reforms of the Progressive period, especially the process by which business and government, sometimes with the aid of labor leaders, worked out the legislative changes they thought necessary. Weinstein sees "a conscious and successful effort to guide and control the economic and social policies of federal, state, and municipal governments by various business groupings in their own long-range interest..." While the "original impetus" for reform came from protesters and radicals, "in the current century, particularly on the federal level, few reforms were enacted without the tacit approval, if not the guidance, of the large corporate interests." These interests assembled liberal reformers and intellectuals to aid them in such matters.
Weinstein's definition of liberalism-as a means of stabilizing the system in the interests of big business-is different from that of the liberals themselves. Arthur Schlesinger writes: "Liberalism in America has been ordinarily the movement on the part of the other sections of society to restrain the power of the business community." If Schlesinger is describing the hope or intent of these other sections, he may be right. If he is describing the actual effect of these liberal reforms, that restraint has not happened.
The controls were constructed skillfully. In 1900, a man named Ralph Easley, a Republican and conservative, a schoolteacher and journalist, organized the National Civic Federation. Its aim was to get better relations between capital and labor. Its officers were mostly big businessmen, and important national politicians, but its first vice-president, for a long time, was Samuel Gompers of the AFL. Not all big businesses liked what the National Civic Federation was doing. Easley called these critics anarchists, opposed to the rational organization of the system. "In fact," Easley wrote, "our enemies are the Socialists among the labor people and the anarchists among the capitalists."
The NCF wanted a more sophisticated approach to trade unions, seeing them as an inevitable reality, therefore wanting to come to agreements with them rather than fight with them: better to deal with a conservative union than face a militant one. After the Lawrence textile strike of 1912, John Golden, head of the conservative AFL Textile Union Workers, wrote Easley that the strike had given manufacturers "a very rapid education" and "some of them are falling all over themselves now to do business with our organization."
The National Civic Federation did not represent all opinions in the business world; the National Association of Manufacturers didn't want to recognize organized labor in any way. Many businessmen did not want even the puny reforms proposed by the Civic Federation-but the Federation's approach represented the sophistication and authority of the modern state, determined to do what was best for the capitalist class as a whole, even if this irritated some capitalists. The new approach was concerned with the long-range stability of the system, even at the cost, sometimes, of short-term profits.
Thus, the Federation drew up a model workmen's compensation bill in 1910, and the following year twelve states passed laws for compensation or accident insurance. When the Supreme Court said that year that New York's workmen's compensation law was unconstitutional because it deprived corporations of property without due process of law, Theodore Roosevelt was angry. Such decisions, he said, added "immensely to the strength of the Socialist Party." By 1920, forty-two states had workmen's compensation laws. As Weinstein says: "It represented a growing maturity and sophistication on the part of many large corporation leaders who had come to understand, as Theodore Roosevelt often told them, that social reform was truly conservative."
As for the Federal Trade Commission, established by Congress in 1914 presumably to regulate trusts, a leader of the Civic Federation reported after several years of experience with it that it "has apparently been carrying on its work with the purpose of securing the confidence of well- intentioned business men, members of the great corporations as well as others."
In this period, cities also put through reforms, many of them giving power to city councils instead of mayors, or hiring city managers. The idea was more efficiency, more stability. "The end result of the movements was to place city government firmly in the hands of the business class," Weinstein says. What reformers saw as more democracy in city government, urban historian Samuel Hays sees as the centralization of power in fewer hands, giving business and professional men more direct control over city government.
The Progressive movement, whether led by honest reformers like Senator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin or disguised conservatives like Roosevelt (who was the Progressive party candidate for President in 1912), seemed to understand it was fending off socialism. The Milwaukee Journal, a Progressive organ, said the conservatives "fight socialism blindly . .. while the Progressives fight it intelligently and seek to remedy the abuses and conditions upon which it thrives."
Frank Munsey, a director of U.S. Steel, writing to Roosevelt, seeing him as the best candidate for 1912, confided in him that the United States must move toward a more "parental guardianship of the people" who needed "the sustaining and guiding hand of the State." It was "the work of the state to think for the people and plan for the people," the steel executive said.
It seems quite clear that much of this intense activity for Progressive reform was intended to head off socialism. Easley talked of "the menace of Socialism as evidenced by its growth in the colleges, churches, newspapers." In 1910, Victor Berger became the first member of the Socialist party elected to Congress; in 1911, seventy-three Socialist mayors were elected, and twelve hundred lesser officials in 340 cities and towns. The press spoke of "The Rising Tide of Socialism."
A privately circulated memorandum suggested to one of the departments of the National Civic Federation: "In view of the rapid spread in the United States of socialistic doctrines," what was needed was "a carefully planned and wisely directed effort to instruct public opinion as to the real meaning Of socialism." The memorandum suggested that the campaign "must be very skillfully and tactfully carried out," that it "should not violently attack socialism and anarchism as such" but should be "patient and persuasive" and defend three ideas: "individual liberty; private property; and inviolability of contract."
It is hard to say how many Socialists saw clearly how useful reform was to capitalism, but in 1912, a left-wing Socialist from Connecticut, Robert LaMonte, wrote: "Old age pensions and insurance against sickness, accident and unemployment are cheaper, are better business than jails, poor houses, asylums, hospitals." He suggested that progressives would work for reforms, but Socialists must make only "impossible demands," which would reveal the limitations of the reformers.
Did the Progressive reforms succeed in doing what they intended- stabilize the capitalist system by repairing its worst defects, blunt the edge of the Socialist movement, restore some measure of class peace in a time of increasingly bitter clashes between capital and labor? To some extent, perhaps. But the Socialist party continued to grow. The IWW continued to agitate. And shortly after Woodrow Wilson took office there began in Colorado one of the most bitter and violent struggles between workers and corporate capital in the history of the country.
This was the Colorado coal strike that began in September 1913 and culminated in the "Ludlow Massacre" of April 1914. Eleven thousand miners in southern Colorado, mostly foreign-born- Greeks, Italians, Serbs-worked for the Colorado Fuel & Iron Corporation, which was owned by the Rockefeller family. Aroused by the murder of one of their organizers, they went on strike against low pay, dangerous conditions, and feudal domination of their lives in towns completely controlled by the mining companies. Mother Jones, at this time an organizer for the United Mine Workers, came into the area, fired up the miners with her oratory, and helped them in those critical first months of the strike, until she was arrested, kept in a dungeon like cell, and then forcibly expelled from the state.
When the strike began, the miners were immediately evicted from their shacks in the mining towns. Aided by the United Mine Workers Union, they set up tents in the nearby hills and carried on the strike, the picketing, from these tent colonies. The gunmen hired by the Rockefeller interests-the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency-using Gatling guns and rifles, raided the tent colonies. The death list of miners grew, but they hung on, drove back an armored train in a gun battle, fought to keep out strikebreakers. With the miners resisting, refusing to give in, the mines not able to operate, the Colorado governor (referred to by a Rockefeller mine manager as "our little cowboy governor") called out the National Guard, with the Rockefellers supplying the Guard's wages.
The miners at first thought the Guard was sent to protect them, and greeted its arrivals with flags and cheers. They soon found out the Guard was there to destroy the strike. The Guard brought strikebreakers in under cover of night, not telling them there was a strike. Guardsmen beat miners, arrested them by the hundreds, rode down with their horses parades of women in the streets of Trinidad, the central town in the area. And still the miners refused to give in. When they lasted through the cold winter of 1913-1914, it became clear that extraordinary measures would be needed to break the strike.
In April 1914, two National Guard companies were stationed in the hills overlooking the largest tent colony of strikers, the one at Ludlow, housing a thousand men, women, children. On the morning of April 20, a machine gun attack began on the tents. The miners fired back. Their leader, a Greek named Lou Tikas, was lured up into the hills to discuss a truce, then shot to death by a company of National Guardsmen. The women and children dug pits beneath the tents to escape the gunfire. At dusk, the Guard moved down from the hills with torches, set fire to the tents, and the families fled into the hills; thirteen people were killed by gunfire.
The following day, a telephone linesman going through the ruins of the Ludlow tent colony lifted an iron cot covering a pit in one of the tents and found the charred, twisted bodies of eleven children and two women. This became known as the Ludlow Massacre.
The news spread quickly over the country. In Denver, the United Mine Workers issued a "Call to Arms"-"Gather together for defensive purposes all arms and ammunition legally available." Three hundred armed strikers marched from other tent colonies into the Ludlow area, cut telephone and telegraph wires, and prepared for battle. Railroad workers refused to take soldiers from Trinidad to Ludlow. At Colorado Springs, three hundred union miners walked off their jobs and headed for the Trinidad district, carrying revolvers, rifles, shotguns.
In Trinidad itself, miners attended a funeral service for the twenty-six dead at Ludlow, then walked from the funeral to a nearby building, where arms were stacked for them. They picked up rifles and moved into the hills, destroying mines, killing mine guards, exploding mine shafts. The press reported that "the hills in every direction seem suddenly to be alive with men."
In Denver, eighty-two soldiers in a company on a troop train headed for Trinidad refused to go. The press reported: "The men declared they would not engage in the shooting of women and children. They hissed the 350 men who did start and shouted imprecations at them."
Five thousand people demonstrated in the rain on the lawn in front of the state capital at Denver asking that the National Guard officers at Ludlow be tried for murder, denouncing the governor as an accessory. The Denver Cigar Makers Union voted to send five hundred armed men to Ludlow and Trinidad. Women in the United Garment Workers Union in Denver announced four hundred of their members had volunteered as nurses to help the strikers.
All over the country there were meetings, demonstrations. Pickets marched in front of the Rockefeller office at 26 Broadway, New York City. A minister protested in front of the church where Rockefeller sometimes gave sermons, and was clubbed by the police.
The New York Times carried an editorial on the events in Colorado, which were now attracting international attention. The Times emphasis was not on the atrocity that had occurred, but on the mistake in tactics that had been made. Its editorial on the Ludlow Massacre began: "Somebody blundered...." Two days later, with the miners armed and in the hills of the mine district, the Times wrote: "With the deadliest weapons of civilization in the hands of savage-minded men, there can be no telling to what lengths the war in Colorado will go unless it is quelled by force.. -. The President should turn his attention from Mexico long enough to take stern measures in Colorado."
The governor of Colorado asked for federal troops to restore order, and Woodrow Wilson complied. This accomplished, the strike petered out. Congressional committees came in and took thousands of pages of testimony. The union had not won recognition. Sixty-six men, women, and children had been killed. Not one militiaman or mine guard had been indicted for crime.
Still, Colorado had been a scene of ferocious class conflict, whose emotional repercussions had rolled through the entire country. The threat of class rebellion was clearly still there in the industrial conditions of the United States, in the undeterred spirit of rebellion among working people- whatever legislation had been passed, whatever liberal reforms were on the books, whatever investigations were undertaken and words of regret and conciliation uttered . . . | <urn:uuid:9e8e2d0e-e2a9-46d7-98cf-1a738e07722e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://lhs.loswego.k12.or.us/z-barkern/US%20History/syllabus%205%20(2009-2010)/Zinn%20questions%202009.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398216.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00008-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967348 | 5,876 | 2.9375 | 3 |
F-2 Support Fighter / FSX
The F-2 is planned as the replacement for Japan's aging, domestically developed F-1 fighter. Initially a total of 130 one- and two-seat versions were planned to be based at JASDF bases in Japan. It replaces JASDF's fleet of aging F-1 and F-4 Phantom fighters. The cooperatively developed and produced Japanese F-2 single-engine fighter (FS-X) has performance capabilities roughly comparable to those of the US F-16 but costs over three times as much, and about the same as the larger two-engine F-15 developed by the United States and produced under license in the same Japanese facility as the F-2 (FS-X).
In October 1985, the Defense Agency began considering three development options for the FSX: domestic development, adoption of an existing domestic model, or adoption of a foreign model. The agency originally favored domestic development. The Japan Defense Agency's research and development arm, the Technical Research and Development Institute, announced that, except for the engine, Japan possessed the domestic capability to develop an advanced fighter for about $1 billion. But by late 1986, after consultation and much pressure from the United States, it decided to consider a coproduction agreement with the United States. And in October 1987, Japanese and United States defense officials meeting in Washington decided on a joint project to remodel either the F-15 or the F-16.
In November 1988, the United States and Japan agreed to cooperatively develop the FS-X fighter aircraft, basing its design on Lockheed's F-16 Block 40 fighter aircraft. Lockheed and Mitsubishi planned to begin the first phase of the program in October 1989. However, contract negotiations deadlocked in August 1989 due to fundamental differences over the transfer, use, and payment for Japanese technology. During that time, the Air Force suspended transfers of F-16 technical data to Japan.
Once the agreement was reached, it came under heavy criticism from members of the United States Congress concerned about loss of key United States technologies and technological leadership, risks of Japanese commercialization of technology at United States expense, and an insufficient share in the project for United States-based firms. As a result of the controversy, in early 1989 the United States requested and obtained a review and revision of the agreement, restricting technology transfer and specifying that United States-based firms would receive 40 percent of the work. These highly complex issues were finally resolved in February 1990 when the two governments signed a clarifying agreement that cleared FS-X technology for transfer to the United States.
The controversy left bitterness on both sides, and Japanese industrialists, convinced that a Japanese-designed and Japanesedeveloped FSX would be superior to a modified F-16 co-developed by Japan and the United States, were irritated at United States pressure to renegotiate. They considered the agreement already favorable to the United States. Japanese industrialists and defense planners seemed to be inclined to be self sufficient with respect to future weapons research.
Contrary to US views in the early years of the program that the FS-X aircraft would be a lightly modified version of the F-16 Block 40 fighter, the FS-X aircraft evolved to be a significantly modified aircraft, with basic changes in the F-16 design leading to many changes in the configuration items. While similar in appearance, the FS-X is larger and heavier than the F-16. The FS-X design called for a 25-percent larger wing, longer fuselage, and longer horizontal and vertical tails. The FS-X has the same F110 engine used in the latest US version of the F-16 aircraft. The FS-X incorporates five technologies defined by FS-X agreements as Japanese (non-derived): active phased array fire control radar, integrated electronic warfare system, inertial reference/navigation system, mission computer hardware, and radar absorbing material. Japan also developed a co-cured composite wing for the FS-X.
The FS-X development program entered the prototype production phase in April 1993. The FS-X program helped strengthen Japan's aerospace industry. Japanese FS-X engineers acquired valuable design and systems integration experience applicable to other military and commercial aircraft projects. By making extensive changes to the F-16 baseline, Japan maximized its use of indigenous design concepts and technologies, and has ensured an important role for Japanese companies. As a result, the FS-X program reduced Japan's dependence on U.S suppliers for future Japanese military, and possibly commercial, aircraft programs. Through technology transfers and visits, the United States learned about certain Japanese FS-X technologies. Under these agreements, the US government and US companies may negotiate purchases of FS-X technologies that are not essentially developed from US technical data (non-derived) at a cost to be determined at the time of transfer. Preliminary analyses of the performance of these systems indicated that Japanese technologies, while strong in some areas, did not match US capabilities.
Lockheed Fort Worth Company (formerly General Dynamics Fort Worth Division), the manufacturer of the F-16, is the principal US subcontractor. The government of Japan has overall FS-X program responsibility. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a Japanese company, is the prime contractor and is responsible for portions of the airframe, some avionics, digital flight controls, and support equipment. Mitsubishi is also responsible for overall FS-X systems integration. Key Japanese industry subcontractors include Fuji Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Heavy Industries. Fuji is responsible for developing the aircraft nose, composite wing upper skin, and tail assembly; Kawasaki is responsible for the center fuselage. Ishikawajima Harima Industries, another Japanese participant, performed engine testing and maintenance during the development phase and manufactured portions of the US engine under license when the program proceeded into production.
|Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list| | <urn:uuid:18b84600-42bf-4730-be02-4c1a5f1ddc8d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/japan/f-2.htm | 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 | 0.950964 | 1,195 | 2.890625 | 3 |
March 10, 2011
The increased use of advanced high-strength steels (AHSS) have caused many fabricators to rethink the way they bend metal. AHSS have a relatively high springback associated with it, so much larger overbend angles are generally required. Rotary bending technology is a suitable way to product that overbend angle.
The use of thinner and stronger steel materials, commonly referred to as downgauging, is becoming more and more common within the metal fabricating industry, especially for applications requiring weight reduction.
These steels are referred to broadly as advanced high-strength steels (AHSS), but they can be divided further into two main subcategories:
While the weight reduction with these materials is significant, it comes at a price. Although regarded as having good formability characteristics, AHSS materials can present challenges in piercing, trimming, and forming operations that typically do not occur with conventional low-carbon-alloy mild steels.
One particular challenge in processing AHSS is producing accurate and consistent bend angles. With its relatively high springback, AHSS often requires much larger overbend angles—in other words, the material must be bent well beyond the desired final position to compensate for the elastic springback that occurs as the tooling disengages.
Low-alloy steels typically need 3 degrees of overbend, whereas AHSS materials may require 7, 10, or even 15 degrees of overbend, depending on the actual yield strength of the material and the geometry of the bend. A certain minimum bend radius is required to prevent cracking of the material but, in general, the larger the bend radius, the greater the resulting springback angle. With conventional wipe tooling, a linear bypassing motion is all that's available, so the necessary overbend angle in the part is achieved simply by "mashing" or "crowding" the material at the bend. The amount of overbend that can be achieved by this method is very limited.
Rotary bending (see Figure 1) is a better way to produce the required overbend and gain tight control over the resulting angle after the bend has been completed (see Figure 2). Rotary bending is, in essence, a rotating-fulcrum process. The rotary bender contacts the workpiece in only two places—at the hold-down/clamping point, and somewhere along the leg which is to be bent. The rotary bender's rocker serves as the fulcrum point, and it rotates accordingly as the part is bent by the force of the press.
In the past iterative physical bending of test samples usually was required to ascertain the correct amount of overbend angle needed for a new and unfamiliar material. Today, however, with finite element modeling (FEM) and finite element analysis (FEA) methods, it's possible to analyze the stress and strain conditions in the material and predict the amount of springback, which permits a reasonable initial estimate of the required overbend angle. In some cases, the overbend can be determined without the need for physical bending tests (see Figure 3).
To validate this approach, Anchor Danly engineers collaborated with researchers at The Ohio State University to compare several FEM/FEA scenarios with test data from the bending of actual material samples (see Figure 4).
Two different scenarios were considered in determining the theoretical springback angle: One employed an elastic modulus value of 150 gigapascals (GPa), and the second used a value of 210 GPa. This dual-path approach was in keeping with the findings of several researchers who have observed that elastic modulus decreases significantly during unloading, or springback, with increasing prestrain (overbending).1,2
With heavy-gauge and high-strength materials, it's sometimes necessary to use a spring-loaded pressure pad when clamping the workpiece, and the amount of clamping force required is a function of the material thickness, tensile strength, and bend radius. High-strength materials usually require more generous bend radii to prevent splitting or cracking; larger bend radii, in turn, usually result in greater springback, which means more overbend is required.
FEM/FEA methods also can be used to ascertain changes in springback angle caused by variations in material thickness and fluctuations in mechanical properties. The use of these methods to predict rotary bending results can contribute to a quicker tooling build cycle.
In addition to its suitability for use in processing advanced materials, rotary bending technology also can be used for press brake applications as an alternative to folding, wipe-forming, and air-bending operations. The technology can increase bend angle consistency, decrease tooling wear and galling, and minimize part marking. For soft materials that are especially prone to marking or scratching, a Delrin® insert can be installed on one or both lobes of the rotary bender's rocker, or the entire rocker can even be made of Delrin.
Many different bend geometries are possible with rotary bending technology used in press brakes, including standard 90-degree bends, oversquare/undersquare bends, "hat" bends, channel bends, Z bends, and short-leg bends. In addition, working tonnage sometimes can be reduced by as much as 50 percent. A formula for calculating the required force for a rotary bending application is shown in Figure 5.
In a press brake application, it's good design practice to keep the rotary bender's axis of rotation centered within the plane of the press brake's ram. With heavy-gauge materials, a thrust heeling provision should be included in the tooling design whenever possible (see Figure 6) to prevent transferring excessive reaction force to the guide elements of the press brake machine itself; this would also be good practice with heavy-gauge wipe-forming operations. In either case, some clearance may be required for any backgauge system that might be in use.
Although the rotary bending device shown in Figure 6 is mounted to the tooling, which is affixed to the ram of the press brake, the rotary bender also can be located on the lower, stationary portion of the tool. Care should be taken (such as with hydraulic crown compensation) to avoid any problems with ram or bed flex that could possibly cause the rotary bender to also flex and, subsequently, bind.
To adjust the overbend angle positively, the rotary bender can be moved closer to the anvil in the horizontal plane. To decrease the overbend angle, the rotary bender can be moved away from the anvil. Note that rotary benders always should be heeled with a key or "pocketed" for thrust absorption.
Figure 7 presents a guideline for setting the K dimension on standard 90-degree bends in cold-rolled steel. When AHSS is bent, however, the amount of overbend required should be determined either through FEM/FEA methodologies or by performing actual test bends. Heavy coining generally is not recommended with any rotary bending operation, and shimming the rotary bender downward to create more overbend angle can result in severe damage to the bender. Don't do it.
The FABRICATOR® is North America's leading magazine for the metal forming and fabricating industry. The magazine delivers the news, technical articles, and case histories that enable fabricators to do their jobs more efficiently. The FABRICATOR has served the industry since 1971. Print subscriptions are free to qualified persons in North America involved in metal forming and fabricating. | <urn:uuid:bf31607e-0c56-4006-a5dd-18c39cd955c6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.thefabricator.com/article/bending/processing-ahss-with-rotary-bending-technology | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00008-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923453 | 1,580 | 2.921875 | 3 |
This data set contains contains Greenland ice thickness measurements acquired using the Pathfinder Advanced Radar Ice Sounder (PARIS).The data were collected as part of Operation IceBridge funded campaigns.
Operation IceBridge products may include test flight data that are not useful for research and scientific analysis. Test flights usually occur at the beginning of campaigns. Users should read flight reports for the flights that collected any of the data they intend to use. Check IceBridge campaign Flight Reports for dates and information about test flights.
The following example shows how to cite the use of this data set in a publication.
Raney, Keith. 2010. IceBridge PARIS L2 Ice Thickness. Version 1.0. [indicate subset used]. Boulder, Colorado USA: NASA DAAC at the National Snow and Ice Data Center. http://dx.doi.org/10.5067/OMEAKG6GIJNB.
250 m along-track, 12.5 m depth
01 April to 02 May 2009
Space-delimited ASCII text
IceBridge Portal: Tool to visualize, search, and download IceBridge data.
Reverb: NASA search and order tool for subsetting, reprojecting, and reformatting data.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Wallops Flight Facility
Wallops Island, Virginia 23337-5099
Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
John Hopkins University
Laurel, Maryland 20723
NSIDC User Services
National Snow and Ice Data Center
CIRES, 449 UCB
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0449 USA
phone: +1 303.492.6199
fax: +1 303.492.2468
form: Contact NSIDC User Services
The instrument development and field campaign were funded under grants from NASA.
The PARIS Level-2 Ice Thickness data files are in ASCII text format and contain fields for latitude, longitude, time, ice thickness, aircraft altitude, and confidence of thickness measurement.
The PARIS radar data are separated into folders by date. Each folder contains the original files as they were output during the processing.
A separate metadata ASCII text file with .xml file name extension accompanies each PARIS .mod file. The metadata file contains information for date range, time range, geographic boundaries in latitude and longitude, platform, instrument, and campaign.
The ASCII text files are named according to the following convention and as described in Table 1.
|PARIS||Pathfinder Advanced Radar Ice Sounder instrument|
|.par||indicates PARIS data file|
|.mod||indicates corrected ice thickness|
The ASCII files range from approximately 12 KB to 332 KB.
Total volume of the data set is approximately 16 MB.
The IceBridge PARIS campaign covers Greenland.
Southernmost Latitude: 60° N
Northernmost Latitude: 83° N
Westernmost Longitude: 73° W
Easternmost Longitude: 11° W
The processed PARIS soundings have an along-track resolution of approximately 250 m and a depth resolution of 12.5 m.
These data are provided in unprojected geographic coordinates using the WGS84 vertical datum.
The PARIS data were collected as part of Operation IceBridge funded campaigns and are available for ten days spanning 01 April 2009 to 02 May 2009.
The data were collected in on April 1, 06, 17, 20, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, and May 2, 2009. The processed delay Doppler data are in bins approximately 250 m along-track, making the instrument temporal resolution a variable function of aircraft velocity
The PARIS Level-2 Ice Thickness data set contains parameters for Ice Thickness in meters and Confidence of Thickness Measurement.
The *.par.mod ASCII files contain fields as described in Table 2.
|Latitude||Latitude where data were collected.||Decimal Degrees|
|Longitude||Longitude where data were collected.||Decimal Degrees as negative East Longitude|
|Time||Time in seconds from midnight.||Seconds|
|Ice Thickness||Ice Thickness.||Meters|
|Altitude||Aircraft altitude. These values are not accurate; do not use them.||Meters|
|Confidence of Thickness||Confidence values range from 1 to 5.
1 - No thickness measurement due to verified geographic feature such as rocks, water, etc.
2 - No thickness measurement due to either geographic features, lack of instrument sensitivity, or signal clutter.
3 - Lowest confidence of detected bottom; bottom detected but either weak signal or multiple signal traces in echogram.
4 - Moderate confidence of detected bottom; stronger signal and no other possible bottoms in echogram.
5 - Highest confidence.
|Integers 1 through 5|
Below is an excerpt from data file 20090401_PARIS_133608.par.mod. The columns have no headings. The six columns in each record correspond to the fields described in Table 2.
The data are available via the following:
IceBridge Portal: Tool to visualize, search, and download IceBridge data.
Reverb: NASA search and order tool for subsetting, reprojecting, and reformatting data.
The ASCII text files may be opened by any simple text reader.
The Delay-Doppler (DD) algorithm was developed at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) based on partially coherent processing of radar altimeter data. It has been shown that the DD technique can be applied very effectively to the ice-sounding problem. The first major benefit is that depth waveforms from a DD sounder have more degrees of freedom than any other technique. As is true for any radar, the received sounding signal is corrupted by speckle noise. This multiplicative noise is caused by the coherent combination of reflections from the many small individual scatterers within each range interval resolved by the system. Speckle noise can be reduced only by incoherent summation of statistically independent samples of the same reflectivity process. The DD algorithm maximizes incoherent integration, thus reducing the Signal-to-Speckle Ratio (SSR), which is a better SSR, while simultaneously balancing the improved spatial resolution due to coherent processing.
The second major benefit is that depth waveforms from a DD processor have much less interference from off-nadir returns. This means that where clutter includes all false competing signals appearing at the same depth the Signal-to-Clutter Ratio (SCR) is better than from incoherent integration and somewhat better than from coherent integration. The third benefit is that for non-specular scattering, the post-processing signal strength is better, that is, a better Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), than from any other ice-sounding processing scheme, including coherent integration. These benefits are a direct consequence of the parallel integrations in multiple Doppler bins that enhance the desired waveform over both the multiplicative and the additive noise components. The practical result of these attributes is that the profiles have greater depth penetration and clutter rejection than are possible by any other means.
Fourth, and perhaps more subtle, the data are arrayed in range and Doppler space inside of the processor. For a given flight velocity V and radar wavelength lambda, there is a one-to-one relationship between Doppler frequency fD and the off-nadir angle theta in the plane of flight: fD = (2V/lambda)cos(theta). Thus, there is a one-to-one equivalence between the Doppler and the angular dimension; power arrayed in the range-Doppler domain is a mapping of the local scattering function. This domain within the DD ice-sounding algorithm provides an opportunity to select optimal depth and Doppler weighting to enhance the desired signals from depth.
Table 3 summarizes the first-order characteristics of potential radar sounder processing algorithms. The DD ice-sounder algorithm is a partially coherent integrator, using well-established techniques borrowed from synthetic aperture radar and advanced radar altimetry. The unique aspects of DD signal processing include block-by-block along-track Fast Fourier Transforms (FFTs) of the data into the Doppler frequency domain, followed by a phase multiplication or other means to correct the differential delay (off-nadir range-delay errors) of the along-track range measurement. The algorithm integrates over the history of reflections from each scatterer to form its range-delay measurement. This incoherent integration, performed in many parallel frequency-offset Doppler bins, is the basis for the advantages enjoyed by the delay/Doppler approach over both prior approaches.
|Pre-sum n pulses||Small n||Large n||Small n||Small n|
|FFT over m pulses=> m fDbins*||n/a||n/a||n/a||Range-Doppler|
|Migration (range delay correction)||n/a||n/a||Optional||Yes|
|Incoherent sums within each bin||n/a||n/a||n/a||Yes|
|Weight Doppler bins||n/a||n/a||Optional||Yes|
|Map scattering function**||n/a||n/a||n/a||Yes|
|Average (q waveforms)||Moderate q||Small q||Small q||Large q|
|* Doppler bin width (finesse) = PRF/m
** Backscattered power as a function of off-nadir angle
*** US Patent 6,188,341
n = number of pulses pre-summed.
q = number of pulses (waveforms) averaged.
m = number of pulses (after pre-summing) subjected to the FFT operation.
fD bins = width (in Hz) of each Doppler bin.
Unfocussed indicates that in contrast to the coherent or SAR method, there is no focusing kernal needed for the delay-Doppler method. In other words, it is an unfocused SAR.
PRF/m = Pulse Repetition Frequency/m, that is, an FFT over m pulses at a given PRF divides the data into m bins of equal frequency width.
Optional indicates "users choice" the coherent method may or may not benefit from range delay correction, depending primarily on the interplay between resolution and the radar's altitude.
In practice, the number of parallel Doppler bins that can be usefully integrated depends on the encounter geometry. The dominant scattering mechanism is specular reflection for relatively flat layers illuminated by relatively long wavelength. In such cases the angular width of the backscattered signal is relatively small, typically less than a few degrees. This limit may impose an upper bound on the Doppler bins available for integration. Conversely, if the backscatter is from a non-specular rough surface, the resulting backscatter diagram is as wide as the illumination (Doppler) window. Thus, selective filtering in the Doppler domain can be exploited to reduce clutter.
Consider an example of processing optimization based on the range-Doppler data array. In the event that the surface return is specular and the return from depth is non-specular, as is the case over most of Greenland for example, then the Doppler bins filled by the surface return should be nulled out, and the higher-Doppler data used for penetration. This method will eliminate obscuration of the weak bottom signal by stronger sidelobes from the surface return.
Delay-Doppler data sets can be processed according to any or all of these ice-sounding algorithms. This will provide a robust and self-calibrated basis for quantitative comparison of the relative performance of these algorithms. An example of processed sounding data using incoherent, coherent, and DD algorithms is shown in Figure 1. DD is the only process that enjoys an improvement in spatial resolution and, simultaneously, a reduction in both clutter and speckle.
Figure 1. Processing Examples.
(a) Unprocessed data. (b) Incoherent-decreased speckle with no surface clutter or resolution improvement. (c) Coherent-decreased clutter and improved resolution but no speckle reduction. (d) DD-decrease in speckle and clutter, increase in SNR, and also with improved resolution. The plots on the bottom are amplitude traces corresponding to the vertical lines thought the images. Note: The respective differences between the processing methods increases with the altitude of the radar.
The PARIS instrument was housed in two compartments within one standard 19-inch aircraft-qualified rack. The only additional components were computers used for programming, instrument control, and data acquisition. One compartment within the rack included the reference oscillator, the direct digital synthesis component, the ADCs, an FPGA, a USB interface, and a GPS receiver. All of these are commercial components. The FPGA was programmed through the USB interface prior to each use of the instrument. Once programmed, the FPGA accepted commands through the USB interface that configured system parameters such as pulse rate, pulse bandwidth, pulse length, step attenuator setting, variable attenuator setting, and sample rate. The FPGA also accepted commands to control the sounder operation to place it in standby mode, data collection mode including definition of the data collection interval, calibration modes, and test modes. The FPGA configured the DDS and triggered the generation of the transmit waveforms. The FPGA also accepted samples from the ADCs, buffered these, and transferred them to the USB interface. The USB interface provided an additional level of data buffering before the transfer of the data samples to the computers for recording.
All data samples, after possible presumming, were directly output to the computers over the USB interface, labeled removable storage in Figure 2. The USB interface to the laptop consisted of two software endpoints, one CONTROL IN/OUT endpoint for radar control and status, and one BULK IN endpoint for high-speed data transfer from the radar to the laptop. All data sent over the USB interface contained a checksum and were automatically re-transmitted upon error detection. The high-speed USB standard allowed transfer rates up to 60 MBytes/sec. The Integrated Circuit (IC) for PARIS has shown up to 32 MBytes/sec sustained transfer rates in practice, well within the sample rates required. The FPGA accepted a 1 PPS signal from the GPS receiver for sub-second time tagging of the sounder data. The GPS data were provided to the computers via an RS-232 serial interface and contained time and aircraft position data. The other compartment within the rack included the receiver and transmitter electronics. This included the filters, amplifiers, and switch on the transmitter side and the filters, amplifiers, switch, and attenuators on the receiver side.
The connections between the two compartments included a coaxial connector to carry the transmit waveform signal to the analog compartment, a coaxial connector to accept the received sounder data from the analog compartment, twisted-pair T/R switch and variable attenuator controller signals, and parallel signals to control the step attenuator. The additional connections were the two coaxial connections between the analog compartment and the antennas, and the front panel USB port (programming/command/data acquisition) and RS-232 (GPS time and position data) connections to the computer. Direct Current (DC) and Radio Frequency (RF) test ports were also included. Direct time segregation of the surface and bedrock returns prior to digitization was not possible in the long pulse design that would be required for an orbital sounder. The PARIS system was designed with sufficient dynamic range to adequately sample both returns simultaneously and time-segregate these returns in processing.
Digitization was performed with commercial devices with 12 or 14 bits at a 66.6 MHz rate. This is a higher rate than is required by the sounder, but it allowed for additional presuming if needed. The additional presumming allowed for the digitized data to be summed in hardware at pulse rates that are higher than those required for the DD processing in order to accumulate sufficient signal energy from the bottom of the ice sheet.
The only clock frequency present in the system was at 66.6 MHz and no multiples of this frequency were closer than 16.6 MHz to the 150 MHz RF frequency. Refer to Figure 5. The pulse bandwidth was only 5 MHz, so this frequency separation did not result in any contamination of the desired reflection signals by spurious power within the receiver. Furthermore, no local oscillator signals were present because no mixer stages were included in either the transmitter or the receiver. These were the factors that produced high linearity and minimized self-contamination of the sounding measurements.
The programming/control/data acquisition computer was a laptop computer connected to the sounder through the USB interface and to the GPS receiver through an RS-232 serial interface. In addition to the programming and data acquisition functions described above, this computer continually adjusted the transmit-receive interval during operational periods so that the collected data includes the range window of interest. The window normally included the top and bottom surfaces of the ice. Precision timing was not required, but the timing requirements were greater for the ice sounding demonstration than they were for the Doppler Phase-monopulse (D2P) altimeter demonstration because of the need to keep the surface return properly placed within the pass-band of the shaped filter. PARIS recorded all of the raw data for post-flight processing. While polarimetric analysis would, in theory, permit the reduction of side clutter in the data, it was not essential to include it for straightforward basement retrievals. So the basement depths given here were acquired by taking the returns to a single antenna and processing them as if they were from a PARIS-1 system.
Analyzing the processed DD data for basement locations involved a multi-step algorithm. The first step was to identify the surface and basement locations at the beginning of the data set. To do this, the peaks of the first and second derivatives as well as of the original signal are used to help locate candidate surface/bottom locations. After the initial seed locations are found, the candidate locations in the adjacent return signals are weighted based on the magnitude of the distance from the last detected surface/bottom locations and the calculated amplitudes of the signals at those locations. The peaks of the derivatives are used again to help identify the top/bottom positions within the signal. These successive surface/basement pairs utilize a window that limits the allowable distance of the detected surface/basement locations from the previous ones. Each individual data file was then plotted and manually reviewed. This review consists of:
The data were plotted along with the detected surface/basement locations and an estimate of the possible locations of aircraft reflections which the algorithm could confuse with a surface or basement location. By means of the graphic user interface, the analyst can then either suggest the area in which to automatically re-search for the correct surface or bottom, or explicitly mark where it should be in cases where the algorithm fails completely.
In addition, each data point was manually assigned a confidence level, which indicates to the end user the confidence in the algorithm and the analyst's manual interventions. Once the manual inspection of a data file is complete, the results are saved to an ASCII file in both uncorrected and corrected format. The corrected format divides the distance between the surface and basement by a factor of 1.78, whereas the uncorrected format does not.
The PARIS data processing has historically used a coefficient of 1.78 to convert calculated distance through air into distance through ice. After the processing software determines the distance between the surface reflection and bottom reflection in air, it divides that value by 1.78 to convert to distance through ice.
The following processing steps are performed by the data provider:
Definitions of Confidence Levels:
For 2009 Greenland data, do not use any measurements labeled with a confidence value of 1 or 2. There will be thickness values for these measurements, but these values are known to be incorrect.
Do not use the Altitude measurements for 2009 Greenland. The values are not correct.
The PARIS radar sounder demonstrates a new and simpler architecture permitted by recent advances in digital electronics. The primary motivation for the innovations was to assure linearity sufficient to support the requirements imposed by ice sheet sounding from a remote platform to depths of several kilometers. The radar data are brought into the digital domain after a minimum number of analog processing steps. This improves the linearity of the entire system, which among other benefits substantially reduces the spurious inter-modulation products that could otherwise contaminate the data. Figure 2 shows the block diagram of the PARIS system deployed for IceBridge.
Figure 2. PARIS Block Diagram
The operational specifications of the PARIS radar are shown in Table 4.
|Center frequency||150 MHz|
|Peak power||250 W|
|Range resolution||17 m in ice|
|Pulse rate||8-10 kHz|
|Pulse width||3-30 μs|
|Input noise figure||4 dB|
|Antenna polarization||Coupled H and V|
|Antenna gain||10 dBi|
|Prime power requirement||500W|
|Electronics mass||110 kg|
|Electronics volume||350 dm3 estimated|
The transmit waveform is a 5 MHz bandwidth chirp generated by a commercial Direct-Digital Synthesizer (DDS) chip. The chip also applies a trapezoidal envelope to the pulse, minimizing unwanted sidebands. The 250 W amplifier uses a class AB mode of operation to ensure high linearity and thus preserve the pulse's low sidebands. Bench tests of the amplifier demonstrated a two-tone third-order inter-modulation of better than -20 dBc measured at PO = 250 W.
Since polarimetric mode operation required two receive channels, the task might have been costly in time and money to achieve if a two-channel radar had been built from scratch. However, given that two copies of the PARIS-1 radar used in 2007 were fabricated for the original task as primary and backup respectively, it was decided instead to use them both, operating in tandem as shown in Figure 2.
The antennas used in the original 2007 mission were designed for only one linear polarization, so for polarimetric operation it was necessary for the APL to design a new antenna for the P-3 aircraft for use by the modified PARIS-2 arrangement during the IceBridge missions. Figure 3 shows the new turnstyle antenna as mounted in the bomb bay of the P-3, both externally and internally within its fiberglass radome. The styrofoam members added to the interior of the radome are for support of the turnstyle antenna, and are transparent to 150 MHz transmissions. Time constraints prevented the full characterization of this new antenna prior to the Ice Bridge flights.
Figure 3. Placement of PARIS Radar Antennas on the NASA P-3 Aircraft
Another significant change from the original PARIS operation mode was the necessity to deal with antenna sharing between transmitter and receiver. This came about as a consequence of insufficient room on the NASA P-3 to mount separate transmit and receive antennas, as were used during the 2007 PARIS flights. Fast, high-power Transmit/Receive (T/R) switches, as indicated in Figure 2, were required to switch the antennas between their respective transmit and receive path.
Another consequence of this change was a reduction in receiver sensitivity, the mitigation of which was prevented by the urgency of the schedule. However, since the radar was secondary to NASA's Airborne Topographic Mapper (ATM), and since use of the ATM required the aircraft to fly relatively close to the ice, it was felt that the consequent reduction in path loss would likely compensate for the loss of sensitivity. This turned out be true in much of the collected data.
Since the radar sampled the Radio Frequency (RF) signal directly, there was no down-conversion or Intermediate Frequency (IF) signal within the receiver. This greatly reduced the complexity of the analog section of the receiver. Immediately following the receive antenna was an absorptive transmit-receive switch to provide two levels of protection for the Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) during the transmit cycles. The signal continued through amplification and filtering stages, without being down-converted. Variable-gain amplifiers were employed to permit sensitivity time control, which increased the overall dynamic range of the system. Refer to Figure 4. Total gain of the receive chain was 65 to 95 dB, with a +45 dBm third-order input intercept point. Bandpass filters ensured that the subsequent undersampling operation was uncontaminated.
Figure 4. Effect of Sensitivity Time Control (STC)
The digital section of the radar contributed most of the functionality within, and permitted miniaturization not formerly seen in ice sounders. During pulse transmission, the Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) configured and triggered the DDS to directly generate a transmit pulse at the 150 MHz operating frequency, which was then amplified by the power amplifier and emitted by the antenna. During reception, the FPGA accepted the undersampled data stream from the Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC), filtered it digitally and buffered it for transfer to the data acquisition laptop via a USB 2.0 interface. Figure 5 shows the frequency plan of the undersampling strategy used.
Figure 5. PARIS Radar Undersampling Frequency Plan
Figure 6 shows examples of the digital processing performed by the FPGA.
Figure 6. Waveform Representation of the Data Processing
(a) Shows a transmit waveform centered on 16.67 MHz after being undersampled at 66.7 MHz. (b) Shows the same waveform after being passed through the Finite-Impulse Response (FIR) digital bandpass filter. After decimation-by-5, the waveform appeared as in (c), sampled at 13.33 MHz, and centered on 3.33 MHz. If a matched filter is applied to this waveform by cross-correlating it with an analytical replica of the transmit waveform, the result can be seen in (d), demonstrating sidelobe levels of -40 dB below peak.
The FPGA time-tags each transmit pulse by relying on a one pulse-per-second (PPS) signal from a GPS receiver. The time tag is used during processing to geolocate each radar pulse. The FPGA also paces radar transmission pulses and supervises application of STC gain changes. All components of the digital subsection are clocked by a stable 400 MHz reference oscillator.
The acronyms used in this document are listed in Table 5.
|APL||Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University|
|ASCII||American Standard Code for Information Interchange|
|ATM||Airborne Topographic Mapper|
|CIRES||Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science|
|FPGA||Field-Programmable Gate Array|
|FTP||File Transfer Protocol|
|FFT||Fast Fourier Transforms|
|GPS||Global Positioning System|
|L2||Processing Level 2|
|LNA||Low Noise Amplifier|
|PARIS||Pathfinder Advanced Radar Ice Sounder|
|PARIS-1||Pathfinder Advanced Radar Ice Sounder used during 2007 missions|
|PARIS-2||Pathfinder Advanced Radar Ice Sounder used during IceBridge missions|
|NASA||National Aeronautics and Space Administration|
|NSIDC||National Snow and Ice Data Center|
|PARIS||Pathfinder Advanced Radar Ice Sounder|
|URL||Uniform Resource Locator|
|USB||Universal Serial Bus|
|XML||Extensible Markup Language|
06 October 2011
22 June 2012
04 October 2012 | <urn:uuid:a47e905c-e763-45ae-9bf3-553bee684690> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://nsidc.org/data/docs/daac/icebridge/irpar2/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393093.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00131-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904386 | 5,839 | 2.53125 | 3 |
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- Canada’s mining industry is the largest in the world, with a sizable presence in the developing world.
- In Latin America, Canadian mining companies are often involved in environmentally destructive and socially irresponsible practices.
- One Canadian mining company, Pacific Rim, is accused of killing activists opposed to its ongoing mining activities in El Salvador.
- To date, the Canadian government has not taken measures to hold its mining industry to human rights and environmental standards abroad.
- A grassroots protest in Peru, which unfortunately turned violent, may represent a policy shift with regard to foreign mining on indigenous lands.
Canada’s mining industry is the largest in the world, and in 2004 its world market share accounted for 60 percent of all mining companies. In fact, the entire Latin American region is second only to Canada in terms of the breadth of its mining exploration and development activity.[i] In what some call the “halo effect,” Canadian industries have been perceived as the more conscientious alternative to their U.S. equivalents. Since Canadian industries are understood to have socially responsible practices, especially in contrast to those of American companies, they are typically welcomed abroad.[ii] Nonetheless, recent accusations that the Canadian mining company Pacific Rim played a role in the death squad killings of anti-mining activists in El Salvador has brought this reputation into question, while further investigation into the Canadian government’s regulation reveals that the government has mandated no true restrictions on its industry’s mining practices abroad. Left to its own accord, the Canadian mining industry has no problem destroying landscapes, uprooting communities, and even resorting to violence to promote its interests; for this reason, only government regulation can affect true change. A recent move by the Peruvian government to protect citizens near the city of Puno demonstrates that Latin American governments may finally be willing and able to regulate Canadian mining companies operating within their nations.
The Evolution of Canadian Mining in Latin America
In the period from 1990 to 2001, mineral investment in Latin America increased by 400 percent, and by 2005, the region was receiving 23 percent of total worldwide exploration investments. The Canadian mining industry’s share of the Latin American market is the largest of any country, at 34 percent in 2004.[iii] However, even with a substantial flow of Canadian investment in the mining sectors of these countries, living standards have not tangibly improved for those in proximity of the mines, despite the image portrayed by the mining industry.
For a large part of the 20th century, the majority of the mineral wealth in Latin America was government property. Beginning in the 1980’s, the regional shift to neo-liberalism also saw the transfer of state property to transnational corporations. [iv] The immediate entry of the Canadian mining industry into the Latin American market corresponds with this neo-liberal shift. The Canadian government used various means to facilitate and promote the Canadian mining industry’s entry into the region including funds from the World Bank, IMF and incentives provided by Canadian foreign policy initiatives themselves. Since the 1980s, structural adjustment programs implemented in Latin America have opened the region’s markets to incentivize investment from the world’s wealthiest nations. Canada has been a particularly vocal advocate of these measures, hoping to expand its economic interests in Latin America. [v]
Canada also promotes its economic reach in Latin America through Free Trade Agreements. In addition to its leadership role in NAFTA, Canada has established Free Trade Agreements or Foreign Investment Protection Agreements with many Latin American states, and has been a principal proponent of the Free Trade Area of the Americas.[vi] Canada’s Free Trade Agreement with Peru allowed the country to become Canada’s third-largest trading partner in Latin America by 2007.[vii] This increase is largely attributed to the rising price of mineral resources, especially since, “Gold and other precious metals constituted more than 53 percent of Peruvian exports to Canada in 2007.”[viii]
The Canadian government’s most controversial means of promoting its mining interests in Latin America is through foreign aid. Under the pretext of foreign aid, the Canadian International Development Agency or CIDA awarded Peru with a CAD 9.6 million, USD 6.2 million[ix] investment to the Mineral Resource Reform Project in a move meant to promote Canadian mining interests in the nation.[x]
One Canadian Mining Company’s Response to Resistance
Canadian mining companies often resort to extreme measures to promote their interests. The Canadian government has failed to regulate its mining industry abroad, but accusations that Pacific Rim, a mining company based in Vancouver, played a role in the deaths of anti-mining reporters in El Salvador demonstrates the extent of destruction that mining can reach in the region when left unchecked. In a July 12, 2011 statement, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont condemned the killings of anti-mining activists in El Salvador following the June 14, 2011 discovery of Juan Francisco Duran Ayala’s body; he was last seen posting flyers critical of gold mining in the region. His death is the most recent of numerous violent attacks against anti-mining activists in the country’s Cabañas region. [xi] In 2010, three anti-mining activists in the region were gunned down, after receiving numerous death threats citing their activism regarding the El Dorado mine in El Salvador. As a result, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights demanded that the Salvadoran government protect the rights of journalists and the media. [xii]
One radio station in El Salvador, Radio Victoria, reports receiving death threats as well as threats on family members unless they curb their anti-mining expression.[xiii] Reporters without Borders described the station’s critical role, saying, “For nearly a decade, Radio Victoria has been the mouthpiece of local communities and environmental activists opposed to the mining operations of Vancouver-based Pacific Rim Mining Corp. The station has played a key role in providing the local population with information about the dangers that the mining poses to their health and even their survival.”[xiv] Given Radio Victoria’s strong anti-mining stance, one reporter said, “We don’t trust the men who are protecting us. The mining company has connections with the local authorities. I don’t trust the local police.”[xv] The Prosecutor General’s Office is in charge of this investigation, but despite the national and international attention surrounding the events, no report was issued as of June 2011.[xvi] The failure to produce any real answers surrounding these threats and murders suggests that Pacific Rim’s influence may reach beyond local death squads to the Salvadoran government.
The Negative Effects of Canadian Mining Around the World
Canadian industries operating abroad have always benefitted from positive perceptions of the nation’s practices resulting from the aforementioned “halo effect.”[xvii] However, in truth, Canadian mining often has drastic consequences for local environments and communities; thus, recent activities, in reality, stand to dampen this image. Across the globe, Canadian mining companies destroy landscapes, contaminate the environment, and disturb the lives of locals. Meanwhile, the Canadian government does little, if anything, to hold these companies accountable for their exploits. In effect, environmental groups recognize that Canadian mining firms are “just as bad as the most ruthless of American companies.”[xviii]
To illustrate, one Canadian gold mining company, Goldcorp, maintains mines in the following Latin America nations: Mexico, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. Goldcorp represents just one of the many Canadian mining companies in Latin America, yet its mines have been associated with numerous infractions, including the destruction of archaeological sites, acid mine drainage, water resource depletion in drought-prone areas, polluting water resources with copper and iron, high levels of arsenic and lead in local inhabitants, mercury poisoning, pipeline bursts, and disregarding the pleas of locals.[xix]
The Effects of Mining on the Environment
Depletion of water resources and contamination are the principal negative ramifications of mining, in addition to physical destruction. Mining companies often forcibly monopolize water resources, as many mining techniques require large amounts of water. As a result, local communities are left with a profound shortage or impaired quality of water. For example, Goldcorp’s Marlin mine in Guatemala uses approximately 2,175,984,000 liters per year compared to the 153,300 used by an average North American citizen or the average 13,505 liters used by an African citizen.[xx] The problem is exacerbated in areas that receive as little as 150 mm of rainfall per year such as northwest Argentina, where the joint venture Alumbrera mine operated by Goldcorp, Xstrata and Northern Orion depletes the already precarious water supply, leaving locals in desperation.[xxi]
Water pollution has a more detrimental and long-lasting effect on the environment than water depletion. Acid Mine Drainage (AMD), the most common form of mining contamination, occurs when sulfides housed in the rock are exposed to air during excavation, forming sulfuric acid. This acid runs off into nearby streams and lakes, polluting the surrounding watershed. The acid dissolves other heavy metals it encounters such as copper, lead, arsenic, zinc, selenium and mercury, which further pollute the surface and ground water of the region.[xxii] AMD can continue for thousands of years after the mine is closed, as illustrated by a 2,000-year-old mine in Great Britain that continues to produce AMD today. Goldcorp mines have been associated with AMD in four Latin American countries: Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and Argentina.[xxiii]
Cyanide, used to extract gold and silver from the surrounding rock, makes large-scale processing possible, but when released into the environment, it can have serious consequences. On average, 70 tons of waste is created in the processing of 1 ounce of gold. At Goldcorp’s San Martín mine in Honduras, an average of .78 ounces of gold is extracted from every ton of ore, and an enormous amount of rock must be moved. When chemically treated rock and ore, known as ‘mine tailings,’ spill during transport, the water supply can become contaminated with cyanide.[xxiv] Though mining companies report that cyanide is broken down by sunlight and transformed into a nontoxic form, it frequently harms, or even kills, aquatic life.[xxv] At the La Coipa mine in Chile, a former Goldcorp holding, mercury as well as cyanide was discovered in groundwater as a result of mine seepage. Blood samples taken from the local community population near Goldcorp’s San Martín mine in Honduras registered high levels of mercury, lead and arsenic.[xxvi]
False Hope and Canadian Bill C-300
The Canadian mining industry’s operations in Latin America have unquestionably harmed the surrounding environments and communities and influenced the policies of the host nations.[xxvii] Despite this, the Canadian government refuses to enforce any type of human rights regulations outside of Canadian territory; instead, the government supports the mining industry both financially and politically regardless of its practices. Several enlightened segments of the Canadian government took a stand against the government’s policy with respect to foreign mining practices, but to no avail. The parliamentary Standing Committee for Foreign Affairs and International Trade issued a report calling for reforms regarding mining in foreign countries. However, the government responded stating that no precedent for prosecuting or regulating practices outside of the Canadian territory currently exists. The government established a round-table to address the issue, viewed by many critics as an ineffective stalling tactic. [xxviii]
Canadian Bill C-300, also known as the Responsible Mining Bill, provided a glimmer of hope for increased accountability of Canadian mining industry practices in the developing world. The bill would have ensured compliance with the stringent international environmental practices the Canadian government claims to uphold, as well as reaffirmed Canada’s commitment to human rights. Additionally, the bill would have outlined environmental standards for the Canadian extractive industry, provisions for grievances to be brought before the ministers of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and public reporting of any dismissed complaint in the Canada Gazette.[xxix] According to Bill C-300, any government funding for Canadian extractive companies abroad would be contingent upon compliance with the aforementioned standards and would require confirmation by the local Canadian embassy. C-300 was the legal apparatus to ensure acceptable practices by Canadian mining firms abroad. Although C-300 passed on the second reading in 2009, the bill ultimately failed to pass the final vote in the House of Commons on October 27, 2010.[xxx] This was an unfortunate victory for the Canadian mining industry, and was yet another sign that the current Conservative government does not support human rights and environmental health, at least not when Canada’s extractive industry could see its profit margin adversely affected in any way.
However, the government holds that it does in fact support human rights in developing nations through the controversial IMF and World Bank structural adjustments plans.[xxxi] In spite of Canada’s rather flattering reputation for high moral standards, at least in comparison to the U.S., Canada’s support for human rights appears quite dubious at times. Ottawa refused to sign the United Nations’ Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that requires consent from indigenous groups before any projects can commence on their land. Canada, along with Australia, called for revision, which significantly slowed the process and ultimately blocked its passage. [xxxii] The failure of this declaration was a certain victory for the Canadian mining industry in Latin America, which conducts its business almost exclusively on inhabited territory.
Nearly all new mine locations are located either on inhabited lands or close to established communities. Given the almost certain environmental degradation and pollution associated with mines, as well as the possible disruption in game and foul patterns, local communities tend to oppose mining. Though permission is technically required from indigenous communities before exploration or mining can begin on their lands, this is often a mere formality that does not even remotely protect the interests of the community. Because of this, mining is a persistent source of conflict in the region, pitting local and indigenous communities against large Canadian mining companies.[xxxiii]
Responses to Canadian Mining
Latin American resistance appears inevitable given the contradiction between the government’s policies and the citizens’ sentiments. Many Latin American citizens express little confidence in the private sector’s management of mineral extraction industries.[xxxiv] Local communities typically bear the brunt of mining cost, while profits are carted off to foreign headquarters of the mining company, leaving only a fractional percentage of profits within the capital or other major cities of the host nation. Since neither the Canadian government nor the respective national governments protect the rights of local community members, these communities are forced to stand up for themselves through protests and blockades.
Changing Times– One Latin American Country Turns Feisty and Stands Up to Mining
Despite the efforts of Canadian mining companies to go to unacceptable lengths to ensure their interests seemingly at any cost, recent action taken by the Peruvian government may demonstrate a change in policy with regard to the Andean nation’s support of Canadian mining companies. In 2007, the Peruvian government granted a concession to the Canadian company Bear Creek Mining for rights to land near Puno, on the shore of Lake Titicaca. In early May of this year, protests broke out in the Puno region, demanding a halt to mining exploration and a revocation of the concession. Originally, protesters were relatively peaceful, blocking the Bolivian border crossing and other highways. However, in late May the protests turned violent, and participants began torching government buildings and threatening to interfere with the June 5 presidential election. The García government responded by putting a hold on all new concessions for twelve months, but this was not enough for the protesters; they later blockaded more roads and spread unrest throughout the entire Puno region, threatening other industries there as well. The government decided to revoke Bear Creek’s concession, despite outrage expressed on behalf of the company. Unfortunately, this decision was not made until the police fired on a group of protesters headed toward the Juliaca airport.[xxxv]
This decision by the Peruvian government symbolized a decisive victory for local interests and demonstrated a shift in government policy. Until recently, Peruvian government policy mechanically supported economic interests over those of its citizens. This policy shift was likely invigorated as a result of the June 5 presidential election, in which the left-leaning populist Ollanta Humala was elected. In the Puno department, Humala, a champion of rights and economic prosperity for all Peruvians, won the election decisively with 78 percent of the vote, the largest margin of all 26 of Peru’s departments.[xxxvi]
Canada, a country with a supposed commitment to environmental health and human rights, has the largest extractive industry presence in Latin America. Nevertheless, the Canadian government refuses to take any action when its extractive industry’s practices fail to guarantee an accord with the country’s broader allegiances to ethical practices abroad. Unchecked mining in Latin America has grievous repercussions for the environment and the populations in surrounding areas. However, given the large political and economic influence that the Canadian extractive industry wields, even at times resorting to violence, Latin American governments often neglect the best interests of their citizens and environment when they act to join forces with foreign multinationals against their own citizens. Fortunately, this trend seems to be changing, as seen with the Peruvian government’s revocation of Bear Creek Mining’s concession amidst the uproar from local communities. Sadly, this movement turned violent before the government reacted in the name of its own citizens. For this reason, it is imperative that Ottawa hold its industries accountable to some approximation of environmental and human rights standards, both at home and abroad.
References for this article can be found here. | <urn:uuid:cd5233fb-e254-438c-aefc-848c2de0d897> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.coha.org/hidden-hegemony-canadian-mining-in-latin-america/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00027-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953864 | 3,686 | 2.90625 | 3 |
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Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder driven by recurrent, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and/or repetitive behaviors (compulsions).
Typically OCD begins in childhood and tends to run in families. When extreme cases of OCD become severe and time-consuming, they can significantly distress or disrupt a person’s life.
We utilize the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, to diagnosis your symptoms as obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Common symptoms of OCD include:
The anxiety caused by these undesired obsessions can result in a patient seeking relief by conducting rituals (compulsions).
Common compulsions include:
Although many people with OCD recognize their fears are irrational, they cannot overcome their obsessions and compulsions on their own. Our multidisciplinary staff will examine the patient to formulate an individual treatment plan.
Medication. Therapies and rehabilitative services are very helpful for patients with OCD. At times antidepressant medications may be used as OCD treatment.
Support. We work to create a support system for its patients, who benefit greatly from family members who understand the disease and support the patient in the hospital and aftercare.
Outpatient offices for OCD
Einstein Medical Center PhiladelphiaMedical Office Building at Tabor Road1200 W. Tabor Road, Suite 100Philadelphia, PA 19141215-456-9850
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Posted on August 23rd, 2012 by Rachel
A blog post by Historian Deb Weiner.
I’m inspired by Marvin’s blog post on Google’s Sergey Brin to write about two other famous Maryland Jewish innovators. Actually they are not so famous. Also they are not so Jewish, since one probably had a non-Jewish mother and the other attended a nondenominational church. But so what. They are both definitely from Maryland and their innovations revolutionized their respective fields.
William Fuld’s achievement was arguably more important than Brin’s. Instead of merely giving us access to the world at our fingertips, he gave us access to the world beyond, also at our fingertips. Yes, he created the Ouija Board. In July 1892 he took out a patent for alterations to improve the “Wonderful Talking Board” invented by his mentor Col. Washington Bowie. Apparently Fuld greatly increased the communicating abilities of the board, because it became wildly popular after he and his brother Isaac began manufacturing it at their factory on High Street in East Baltimore, and marketing it as the Ouija Board.
If this is sounding familiar to you it might be because I blogged about Fuld about a year ago. But he certainly deserves repeated mention, don’t you think?
Moving on, my most recent discovery is Harry Lobe Straus, “The Man Who Gave America the Tote,” according to biographer John C. Schmidt. I’m not talking about a bag you carry around with you. The “totalisator,” or “Tote Board,” was an electronic system that “printed and issued betting tickets at racetracks, automatically computed the bets and odds, and displayed them on a large board,” according to the Hagley Museum, which holds Straus’s papers.
A City College and Hopkins engineering graduate from a prominent Baltimore German Jewish family, Straus created the system after a 1927 incident at Pimlico, when a horse he bet on at 12:1 won, but paid off at only 4:1. The Tote brought fairness, speed, and accuracy to horserace gambling, making modern, large-scale racetrack betting possible. Portions of the system were first installed at Pimlico in 1930, though Chicago’s Arlington Park hosted the first complete system in 1933. The Tote then spread, Google-like, to racetracks around the world.
Of course I used Brin’s search engine to discover much of this information. And to bring the story full circle, it should be noted that Straus was one of the first entrepreneurs to recognize the potential of the computer. In 1948 he convinced the directors of his company, American Totalisator, to invest in a struggling young computer firm called EMCC. Amtote received 40 percent of EMCC’s stock, Straus became head of its board, and the firm used the infusion of cash to finish developing the UNIVAC, the first commercial computer sold in America. (According, of course, to Wikipedia.)
Unfortunately Straus did not live to see the UNIVAC rise to fame in the 1950s. He was killed in 1949 when his private plane crashed en route to Baltimore. As it happens, Fuld’s life also came to a sudden end: he fell off the roof of his factory while overseeing the replacement of a flagpole. The year was 1927, the same year that Straus was cheated at Pimlico, leading him to invent the Tote. Coincidence? Perhaps we should use Fuld’s creation to ask them. Or maybe just Google it. | <urn:uuid:ab6fac35-6a41-4493-9230-6cb3cdf4b052> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://jewishmuseummd.org/tag/harry-lobe-strays/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00051-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968614 | 773 | 2.625 | 3 |
New Delhi, July 31: Those who still believe the Earth is flat can now cast a longing look at the Moon. Scientists have determined that the Moon was sculpted into an orb with flattened poles, an equatorial bulge and some mystery features.
The conclusion has been made nearly five centuries after the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigated the Earth and established its spherical shape.
Scientists in the US have shown how swirling molten material could explain deviations from a simple figure of equilibrium that could be expected from the history of the Moon, which was born when a Mars-like planet slammed into the Earth in an embryonic solar system.
As this newly formed Moon — a chunk thrown up by that collision — cooled and solidified about four billion years ago, it acquired what researchers call a “tidal-rotational shape” — flattened poles and a bulge at the equator.
The US scientists said their study of the Moon explained its shape, linked the geology of its near and far sides and resolved longstanding questions about its shape and its gravity.
“Imagine a spinning water balloon; it will start to flatten at the poles and bulge at the equator,” Ian Garrick-Bethell, assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, said in a media release issued by the university.
“You also have tides due to the gravitational pull of the Earth, and that creates a sort of a lemon shape with the long axis of the lemon pointing to the Earth,” said Garrick-Bethell, the first author of a research paper on how the moon was sculpted that was published today in the journal Nature.
But these forces cannot fully explain the current overall shape of the Moon, which is complicated by its large basins — vast low-lying zones — and the craters formed when giant rocks from space crashed onto its surface.
Garrick-Bethell and his colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Arizona State University analysed large-scale lunar topography and the Moon’s gravity field to determine how it might have acquired its crust and its current shape.
Their study suggests that tidal heating and tidal-rotational forces gave the Moon a “slight lemon shape” with a bulge on the side facing the Earth and another bulge on the opposite side.
The researchers have also found that the Moon’s overall gravity field is no longer aligned with its topography as it would have been when the tidal bulges were frozen into the Moon’s shape, the media release said.
The principal axis of the Moon’s overall shape, or the long axis of the lemon, is now separated from the axis of gravity by about 34 degrees.
“The Moon that faced us a long time ago has shifted, so we’re no longer looking at the primordial face of the Moon,” Garrick-Bethell said. “Changes in the mass distribution of the Moon shifted the orientation of the Moon.”
Magellan’s voyage around the world between 1519 and 1522 was intended to establish the spherical shape of the Earth. Although Magellan himself was killed, his iconic expedition is widely viewed as providing hard evidence for a concept circulating for nearly 2,000 years. | <urn:uuid:58ea84ef-e9ae-4f13-b4da-9a2ea1182237> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.telegraphindia.com/1140801/jsp/nation/story_18675569.jsp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00057-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966662 | 684 | 3.859375 | 4 |
- Historic Sites
1864 One Hundred And Twenty-five Years Ago
April 1989 | Volume 40, Issue 3
In April the Federal Red River campaign degenerated into exactly the kind of misguided side show that the new supreme commander, Ulysses S. Grant, had vowed to eliminate from his war effort. The former chief of staff, Henry Halleck, had devised the campaign in the hope that U.S. troops in Mexico could frighten off the puppet dictator that the French emperor, Napoleon III, had installed in Mexico. Grant replaced Halleck too late to prevent a Union column under Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks from marching north through Louisiana in an attempt to invade Texas. The naval force under Adm. David Dixon Porter that followed Banks up the Red River was more interested in seizing cotton than in battling the Confederates.
Neither force even got into Texas. Banks, a former Massachusetts politician with no military experience, had been manhandled in Virginia earlier in the war by Stonewall Jackson, and he repeated this failure in Louisiana at the hands of Jackson’s protégé, Gen. Richard Taylor. On April 8 Taylor routed Banks at Sabine Cross Roads, pursued the Union retreat, and defeated Banks again the next day at Pleasant Hill, ending the Union offensive.
In his haste to escape, Banks almost had to abandon his naval support. Porter’s boats, bloated with commandeered cotton bales, were mired on the Red River’s bottom by unusually low water levels, and only an ingenious damming of the river downstream saved them. Despite the fortunate escape, Grant was furious that troops so frivolously used were unavailable to him for an attack on Mobile that spring.
The Reverend M. R. Watkinson of Ridleyville, Pennsylvania, was distressed about the spiritual health of a nation adrift in the trauma of civil war when he wrote to Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase in November 1861. “If our Republic were now shattered beyond recognition,” he asked, “would not the antiquaries of succeeding centuries rightly reason from our past that we were a heathen nation?” Watkinson proposed that the nation’s faith be represented on its coins by the motto “God, Liberty, Law.”
Secretary Chase, grappling with the politics of war financing, immediately recognized the idea as a chance to tap into the nation’s resurgent religious sentiment. He ordered several new coin patterns based on Watkinson’s model. After considering mottoes like “God Our Trust” and “God and Our Country,” the government settled upon “In God We Trust,” which first appeared on the two-cent pieces of 1864 by order of the Act of April 22. The motto grew in prominence, and since 1938 it has been part of every coin minted by the U.S. government. | <urn:uuid:7020cdac-c49b-4304-88f6-64beb56a1e20> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.americanheritage.com/content/1864-one-hundred-and-twenty-five-years-ago-1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397111.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00152-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972665 | 597 | 3.125 | 3 |
Though similar in shape to a violin, the viola is slightly larger and lower in pitch by a perfect fifth. It is usually tuned from high to low, A D G C, an octave higher than the violoncello. The tone of the viola also sets it apart from the violin, being less brilliant and warmer.
The viola has been the subject of many jokes because of its lesser role in orchestral music, implying that one does not require as much talent to play it. However, many musicians claim that the viola is actually more difficult to play and it has its own rewards.
The modern viola was developed around the same time as the violin, in the mid-fifteenth century. Originally thought to have been developed by Gaspara da Salo, earlier violas have been found proving this theory untrue. During the classical period of music, composers viewed the viola as a lesser instrument, writing music only out of a sense of tradition. It was not until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that composers started to write better parts for violas, realizing the instrument could provide interesting music of its own.
Reading viola music can be difficult at first, even for experienced musicians, because most viola music is written in alto clef (which is rarely used), rather than trebel or base clef. The different clef is difficult for musicians to transpose without practise.
The viola is typically assigned secondary parts in music, often harmonies without significant melodies assigned to the instrument. Chamber music, especially of the 1800s, is one notable exception, where the viola is often assigned significant parts. Even with extensive existing music, few modern composers write viola music.
Playing the Viola
The biggest differences between the viola and the smaller violin come primarily from the viola's larger size. Many techniques trasfer over from the violin to the viola with small adjustments for the larger size. The fingers are more widely spaced on the bridge, and the bow is slightly larger.
Famous Viola Players
- William Primrose
- Paul Hindemith(who also composed for the instrument)
- Yuri Bashmet
- Nobuko Imay
- John Cale
- Whit Schroder
- Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown(also a Texas blues violist and guitarist
Many famous violinists also play, or have played, the viola as a secondary instrument, such as
Notable Works for the Viola
Some famous works for the viola include viola sonatas by Brahms, (Brahms' own transcriptions of his clarinet sonatas, op.120) and the works of English composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams, (who studied the instrument) Benjamin Britten, Frank Bridge, Rebecca Clarke, and Arnold Bax, who used the unique tone of the instrument in their compositions.
Two major compositions for the instrument with orchestra that are regularly played are Berlioz's "Harold in Italy", a musical invocation of a part of Byron's epic "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"; and William Walton's Viola Concerto, one of the great string concertos of the 20th century.
The viola was W. A. Mozart's instrument of choice when playing chamber music with his friends. His "Kegelstatt" Trio for piano, viola and clarinet is a rare example of this combination.
Dmitri Shostakovich's last work is his Viola Sonata.
- Hindemith - Viola Concerto "Der Schwanendreher" (1935)
- Walton - Concerto in A minor (1929) | <urn:uuid:58d64166-558d-4516-b1cc-eb7c63006cde> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Viola&oldid=1031924 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00166-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96506 | 761 | 3.703125 | 4 |
Teen Substance Abuse: Signs at SchoolSkip to the navigation
If your teen is using alcohol or other drugs, he or she may have difficulties at school. The following are some questions to ask yourself if you suspect substance use is interfering with your teen's education:
- Has your teen skipped classes or missed school without your knowledge?
- Has your teen forged your name for class or school passes?
- Is your teen sleeping during class?
- Is your teen having trouble with his or her teachers?
- Is your teen spending less time studying and more time with friends?
- Is your teen less motivated to do school projects?
- Are your teen's grades dropping?
- Has your teen been expelled or suspended from school?
- Is your teen talking about quitting school?
Health Tools help you make wise health decisions or take action to improve your health.
Primary Medical Reviewer Patrice Burgess, MD - Family Medicine
Specialist Medical Reviewer Peter Monti, PhD - Alcohol and Addiction
Current as ofFebruary 20, 2015 | <urn:uuid:3a28de77-e778-4ee9-ac75-d9816a71173d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ghc.org/kbase/topic.jhtml?docId=aa52571 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396029.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00107-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936255 | 213 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Ebstein's anomaly, also called Ebstein's malformation, is a congenital heart defect in which the tricuspid valve is abnormally formed. The tricuspid valve is one of the heart's four valves. It normally swings open to allow the smooth passage of blood from the right atrium to the right ventricle, and then closes. Blood should flow in one direction and only at the right time. The tricuspid valve normally has three "flaps," or leaflets. In Ebstein's anomaly, one or two flaps are stuck to the wall of the heart and don't move normally. Ebstein's anomaly is mild in most adults who have it, but sometimes the tricuspid valve leaks severely enough to result in heart failure or cyanosis. Then surgery may be required. | <urn:uuid:45320cee-3e85-4f4e-9a2a-3b53bf5bec57> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Encyclopedia/Heart-and-Stroke-Encyclopedia_UCM_445084_Encyclopedia.jsp?levelSelected=5&title=Ebstein's%20anomaly | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394605.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00012-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939687 | 168 | 2.9375 | 3 |
It was meant to symbolize the desire of humankind for world peace, but the two white doves released by the children in the presence of Pope Francis from an open window of the Apostolic Palace in Vatican were attacked by angry birds--a crow and a gull.
A news report said:
“As tens of thousands of people watched in St Peter's Square, a seagull and a large black crow swept down on the doves right after they were set free from an open window of the Apostolic Palace. One dove lost some feathers as it broke free from the gull.
But the crow pecked repeatedly at the other dove. It was not clear what happened to the doves as they flew off.”
For a moment, the “angry birds” incident seemed to steal the attention from the Pope who not only was chosen as Person of the Year by Time Magazine, but also made it to the cover of the Rolling Stone, a magazine that primarily has popular musicians and controversial figures as main features.
I heard one commentator say that if the pontiff is God’s representative on earth, he could have prevented it, while an animal rights group called for a stoppage of the releasing of doves in the light of the incident.
Its petition read: "Domesticated doves are easy targets for other birds due to their white color and inability to recognize predators and flee. The Pope's intentions in releasing the doves were innocent, but after witnessing the gruesome aftermath he needs to end the practice."
But we ought to put meaning to what had happened. The doves represented the peacemakers while the birds of prey symbolized the elements that continue to spread hatred, violence and war.
Year in, year out, peoples in different parts of the world engage in acts that result in destruction and deaths. In Thailand, protests continue. In Ukraine, the opposition are resolved to oust its leader. In Syria, armed conflicts remain though peace talks are ongoing. Trouble persists between Israel and its neighbors; in Afghanistan, Egypt and the Central African Republic, among others. There is tension among East Asian neighbors.
The United Nations, the United States, the European Union, and other alliances of nations work hard to bring parties to the table to settle their differences. But in most instances, the causes of the conflict are deeply rooted that the process can take years, if not decades.
And who suffers? Primarily it is the civilians. The warring armies are well-fed and well-funded by their supporters and financiers, the latter having vested interests in the outcome.
But in the end, the persistence of the peacemakers does pay off. In the Philippines, we are witnessing the near resolution of the conflict between the MILF and Philippine Government.
For so many times, the doves of peace get clobbered by the angry birds of prey; yet others continue the work. They work beyond symbolism. They sacrifice, even their very lives, to save the innocent from the savagery and barbarism of fellow human beings. | <urn:uuid:f4fcefae-5483-4ee6-b08b-a52aa74dee57> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blotfreemel.blogspot.com/2014/02/angry-birds.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397565.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00162-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969721 | 629 | 2.734375 | 3 |
The front page of the New York Times is one of the many places to cover a scientific report in the most recent issue of Nature. It catches the excitement with the headline: Paralyzed Man Uses Thoughts to Move a Cursor. But the details of the work are fascinating in a way that goes well beyond headlines, and present a mixed picture of the amount of work that remains to be done. The article itself makes clear that much of the progress represented by the results from humans was dependent upon prior work on Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) performed in other primates. The same issue has a write up of some work in monkeys, so we'll start there.
That paper describes a new way of interfacing with the brain. Previous attempts have used implants to read the nerve impulses directing a movement, and translated those into motion within the computerized portion of the BCI. These are limited by the time involved in the translation, and poor tracking due to electrical noise generated by the nerves themselves. The new system that's reported on skips the tracking portion entirely. It turns out that in part of the brain that generates motor activity, there's an initial signal of target intent that indicates where you want to move. That's followed by a delay, which reflects the magnitude of the motion, which is finally kicked off by a "go" signal. By properly interpreting the intent and reading the delay, the new system could simply move a cursor to the end point, without bothering with the intervening tracking phase.
This may like a minimal simplification, but it has a huge real-world impact. When used with a virtual keyboard, the best human BICs currently work at a rate of a few letters per minute. The performance increases here suggest that the new system would allow rates of about 15 words per minute. Unfortunately, as with similar implants, the performance degrades over time, a hurdle that will have to be overcome before such devices can be deployed in humans.
That doesn't mean that people aren't working on developing such devices in the mean time. The human study reported on in the same issue uses a commercially developed prototype in its first clinical test. The first test subject had been injured three years prior, and was incapable of directing motion outside of his neck and shoulders. When asked to imagine moving his hands, however, the BCI implant was able to pick up robust signals, indicating motor nerve activity is maintained well after the loss of movement. The patterns of activity that were picked up were consistent with those seen previously in monkeys, which assisted in generating the portion of the BCI that translated nerve activity into motion. In the case of monkeys, scientists are able to readily translate the nerve activity into the intended motion because the monkeys continue to move their own limbs during the study. Although the patient here could not move his limbs, he did have the advantage that the researchers could simply tell him where to move, which made up for the absence of actual motion.
Over the course of six sessions, the patient managed to learn to move cursors to targets with over 75 percent accuracy. As the patient became competent with the system, he moved on to manipulating an e-mail program, controlling a computerized television interface, and even playing pong. The ultimate test, however, came with the connection of the BCI to a robotic arm, which the patient could also use successfully (videos of many of these activities are available). As with normal motion, the patient was able to converse the whole time he was performing these activities. This represents a major improvement over many systems in use, which track eye movement or require the use of the patient's mouth, effectively eliminating other forms of interaction while tasks are performed.
The authors of the study discuss several potential avenues for improvement of the device, but one result pointed out how much room for improvement there is. The researchers noted that these tests often triggered activity in the neck and shoulders, but this didn't correlate with any sort of cursor motion. This could be interpreted as an indication that the system is still a bit disruptive or that it isn't all that discriminating in terms of isolating relevant nerve activity. Alternately, it may indicate that the mind has difficulty performing simple motions in isolation and without non-visual feedback. Until these issues are tackled, however, this device or others like it may represent a huge step towards independence for many of the disabled. | <urn:uuid:f7c0ecab-7dbc-46ff-bb20-8587758d80f0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://arstechnica.com/science/2006/07/4638/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00060-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973711 | 886 | 3.21875 | 3 |
- Resource Centers
Back pain is second only to headache as the most frequent cause of pain for which health professionals are consulted. Back pain affects approximately 65 million people in the United States each year. Because the pharmacist is frequently among the first to be consulted, it is wise to be able to advise patients knowledgeably. Such pain can be a simple result of strain, appropriately treated by application of cold and heat and by a few days of rest. It can, however, be considerably more complicated. Therefore, the astute clinician should be able to differentiate various causes that might be more serious and require immediate consultation with a diagnostician.
Recommendations should be based on presenting symptoms, coupled with a history of the current problem and the overall health history of the patient. A young woman, for instance, presenting with pain in the kidney area, fever, and urinary frequency and urgency, may be suffering from a urinary tract infection (UTI) of almost any severity, or a vaginal infection, which can produce many of those same symptoms. The time-honored recommendations of ingestion of copious amounts of cranberry juice and some nonpre-scription phenazopyridine may be in order for a possible UTI. On the other hand, if a vaginal infection is suspected, a nonprescription yeast fighter may be appropriate, along with a supplement of lactobacillus culture, either orally or vaginally.
Most women are at least familiar with such symptoms, which typically affect the soft-tissue areas of the back and usually produce bladder or urethral pain as well. Thus, these are usually easily differentiated. Although rarer, similar symptoms can affect males (usually middle-aged to elderly) who are experiencing prostatitis, which is more common in men than urethritis. In any event, these problems tend to require rapid follow-up with thorough diagnostic measures if symptoms are not significantly improved within a day or so. General recommendations to minimize caffeine (and decongestant) intake and sugar intake also are usually appropriate in such cases.
Muscular spasms are actually more common causes of back pain and usually result from recent acute injury, although spasms can suddenly appear as a result of long-standing underlying postural or even musculoskeletal problems such as scoliosis or kyphosis. In acute injury, usually in males overex-tending weakened musculature at work or play, alternating cold and heat packs (15 to 20 minutes each), accompanied by a few days of rest, can help reduce inflammatory processes and speed healing. A nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) in appropriate patients also can be beneficial, both assuaging the pain and speeding the healing process. The pharmacist should query the patient regarding a history of gastroesophageal reflux disease or gastritis, as well as regarding possible concurrent NSAIDs being taken for other problems.
The danger here is that the injury may be more severe than simply a strain or sprain of a few muscle groups. As patients approach middle age, especially men and overweight and sedentary/underconditioned patients, the danger of spinal disk problems is high. Not only sports injuries, but also improper lifting and even a simple misstep can jar the spine sufficiently to cause a bulge or even a rupture of a disk weakened by age or decondition-ing. Such an injury opens the door for impingement syndrome, inflammation, or injury to the nerves exiting the spine or the spinal cord itself. Impingement syndrome often causes not only the pain and spasms associated with muscular strain and sprain (which are probably coexistent and indistinguishable initially), but numbness, tingling, and/or weakness in the extremities supported by these nerves.
In short, pharmacists should encourage the obvious emergency palliative measures of (1) cold compresses for the first 48 to 72 hours; (2) alternating cold and heat after that; (3) NSAIDs for appropriate patients (and acetamino-phen for those who are not but have adequate liver function); and (4) encouraging a thorough medical examination of the injury by a practitioner able to properly diagnose and treat it, in the event that it is more severe than it might appear. Back pain can be merely annoying in many cases; but it can be the source of lifelong agony and disability if not properly recognized and treated. | <urn:uuid:c9154804-05f3-40db-a5c4-e4f6f4c48e1a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pharmacytimes.com/publications/issue/2003/2003-02/2003-02-7093 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397696.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00062-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944871 | 896 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Can you be obese and healthy — at least metabolically healthy? Probably not, suggests the latest review of the research, which finds even people who are metabolically healthy and obese are at increased risk for an earlier death and risk for cardiovascular disease.
The study — published in the Annals of Internal Medicine — did not look at cancer specifically, but metabolic health is a big topic in cancer risk these days.
Many signs of poor metabolic health are factors for increased cancer risk, as well as type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
If you read this blog you probably know that the heavier you are, the more your risk increases for many cancers, including postmenopausal breast, colorectal, and pancreatic. And obesity brings metabolic issues.
Signs of poor metabolic health include a large waist, high blood pressure, inflammation and high glucose levels. Lately, scientists are working to tease apart how weight and metabolic health affect cancer risk – AICR Nutrition Advisor Karen Collins, MS, RDN, wrote about this a few months ago.
And early in the year, a study made headlines by finding that being pudgy may actually lengthen your life. Obesity did not. We wrote about that here.
This new analysis searched for studies on both metabolic health and weight, looking at the link to death and cardiovascular events, including heart surgery and stroke. The authors found a dozen relevant studies, eight that lasted over ten years and included approximately 61,000 people. The studies used a set of measures to evaluate whether participants were metabolically healthy or not. They used BMI to categorize whether people were at a normal weight, overweight or obese. BMI is a common — but imperfect — measure of body fat.
For studies that lasted only a few years, there was little difference among those at different weights who were metabolically healthy and mortality.
But when the authors focused on studies that lasted over ten years, they found obesity does make a difference. Those who were metabolically healthy and obese had an increased risk for dying earlier and heart disease compared to the metabolically healthy people at a normal weight.
And whatever people weighed — normal, overweight, or obese — the metabolic unhealthy were at increased risk. Compared to people at a normal weight and metabolically healthy, the metabolically unhealthy had from two to three times the risk of premature death or heart disease, even people who were at a “healthy” BMI.
Th authors note that these findings may not apply to everyone, such as the elderly. And the studies did not take into account healthy behaviors, such as being active.
This study will likely add to the debate on whether a person can be healthy and overweight. In this analysis, those who were overweight and metabolically healthy had a similar occurrences of heart disease and death compared to those at a normal weight and who were metabolically healthy.
For now, research is clear that excess body fat increases risk of seven cancers. And obesity increases the risk a person will have poor metabolic health. Overweight and obesity is a cause of approximately 120,000 cancers each year in the United States — that translates to about 320 cancers every day.
For more information on metabolic syndrome, the journal Circulation has a definition paper.
And if you want to know your BMI, use you use our BMI calculator. | <urn:uuid:4b1361f1-70ba-44df-865b-7983463c6549> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blog.aicr.org/2013/12/03/analysis-can-you-be-obese-and-metabolically-healthy-probably-not/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395548.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00144-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973663 | 673 | 2.59375 | 3 |
- EMC Holdings
- Children's and Young Adult Literature
- K-12 Textbook Collection
- EMC Reference Collection
- Teaching Ideas Collection
- Educational Software
- Audiovisual Collection
- Children's Magazines
- Curriculum Guides/Standards
- Testing Materials
EMC collections as of September 2008:
- Children's and Young Adult Fiction: 6,113
- Children's and YA Nonfiction: 13,725
- Children's and YA Periodicals: 19
- Picture Books: 5,811
- EMC Reference Books: 614
- Teaching Ideas: 1,246
- K-12 Textbooks: 619
This collection supports the curriculum of the UW Oshkosh College of Education and Human Services as well as other colleges on the campus. It includes picture books, easy readers, fiction and non-fiction titles for preschool through high school students. Emphasis is placed on award winning titles, honor and notable books in many subject areas, and exemplary titles which support a cross-curricula approach to teaching. The EMC collection values resources of all kinds that represent all cultural groups. The EMC Staff regularly create bibliographies which reflect the "best" titles in the EMC collection. You can view these online by clicking on our Bibliographies link.
This collection is continually being evaluated in order to ensure that it represents the highest quality of literature, both classic and contemporary, for this audience. New titles are continually being added.
This collection consists of textbooks used in most areas of the PreK-12 curriculum. The collection is being continuously upgraded, and ongoing efforts are made to obtain current textbooks. The collection includes some textbooks which are currently used in Fox Valley schools. Emphasis in the textbook collection is on materials published within the last 10 years. Textbooks are organized by the Library of Congress classification system, and all are searchable using the online catalog.
The Reference Collection is home to many valuable and current reference books including indexes to children's, adolescent and young adult literature. Additionally, the national education standards in most subject areas, the Phi Delta Kappa Fastback Collection, general encyclopedias, atlases, dictionaries, and bibliographies are also available here. This collection is continually updated.
The EMC's Teaching Ideas Collection consists of books that are, in particular, useful to students taking methods classes, doing a practicum or student teaching. These books provide information that can be readily applied to classroom teaching. This is a very useful collection for students needing to find lesson plans, unit plans, behavior management strategies, book suggestions for in-class use, etc.
The EMC AV collection has approximately 120 pieces of educational software, including DVDs, compact discs, and accompanying teacher manuals. For a list of software holdings intended for students PreK-12, see our Educational Software Bibliography. The EMC has one Macintosh and three IBM-compatible multimedia workstations which are available for students, faculty and instructional academic staff to review EMC software. Many other computers are available throughout the library and in the computer lab. The multimedia workstations are located near the AV Collection in the EMC.
The UW Oshkosh Audiovisual Collection is located in the EMC. This collection includes videos, DVDs, educational software, kits, games, posters, cassette tapes, puppets and other resource materials for future teachers. Many new videos continue to be added to the collection. Reviews of some of our AV materials can be found in the EMC Reference Collection. The AV Collection has as its scope all colleges and departments on campus and services the media needs of faculty and students, including the College of Education.
The EMC collects a variety of popular juvenile periodicals which support the K-12 curriculum. Sample titles include Sports Illustrated for Kids , Ranger Rick , Cobblestone , New Moon , Boy's Life , Science World , Spider , Ladybug and Cricket . Articles in children's magazines are indexed in the Children's Magazine Guide which is located in the EMC, and in online databases, such as Primary Search and Middle Search Plus . Back issues of all our children's magazines are available. Copies of articles may be made, but magazines cannot be checked out.
Current Curriculum Guides for the Oshkosh Area School District and Appleton Area School District are available via the EMC's website: Standards. In addition, state and national standards for subject areas covered in the PreK-12 curriculum are available in print in the EMC's Reference Collection and online via the EMC website.
The EMC does not have a collection of sample tests that can be used to assess skills, perceptions or other measurements. However, a collection of testing materials is available in the CESA Media Center (CMC) located at the North end of the lower level of the library. There are tests to measure reading, math, spelling, and written language as well as adaptive behavior, articulation, receptive language, and more. | <urn:uuid:8b9b7da8-38c3-46ff-a212-56aa52587f82> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.uwosh.edu/library/emc/about/emc-collections | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00066-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934354 | 1,024 | 2.90625 | 3 |
History of the Titanic
White Star Line, an industry leader, wanted to revolutionize travel by building the finest and biggest luxury passenger ships in the world.
Designing the Titanic.
The RMS Titanic was one of three ships belonging to the Olympic-class of White Star Line vessels. In addition to the Titanic, there was the RMS Olympic and the RMS Britannic. Responding to growing competition, design for the Olympic-class liners began in 1907. The decision was made to focus on luxury and size rather than speed. Joseph Bruce Ismay, managing director of White Star Line, wanted to build a ship larger than any that had come before.
Construction of the Titanic.
Finding a location to begin construction of the Titanic ship was an engineering feat itself. Harland and Wolff, shipbuilders for White Star Line, had substantially revamped an existing shipyard to accommodate construction of the Olympic-class liners. Construction of the Titanic began on March 31, 1909.
The beautiful grand staircase.
It took approximately three years to complete construction of the 882 foot long and 92 foot wide vessel. Work on the ship was difficult and dangerous; eight people were killed and nearly 250 injured. The Titanic was launched May 31, 1911 but was not fully fitted and ready for service until spring of 1912. Displacing 52,310 tons, the RMS Titanic was the largest passenger ship in the world.
A Modern Marvel.
Inspired by the technological innovations of the industrial revolution, White Star Line wanted the Titanic to epitomize modern technology, engineering, safety and luxury. It had a grand staircase. The ship featured electric lights, elevators and heaters. Guests could relax in a Turkish bath or spend their time playing tennis, swimming or exercising in the on-board gym.
Despite its disastrous sinking, engineers had designed the Titanic ship with safety as a top priority. The ship featured a double steel hull and 16 separate compartments capable of being sealed off from one another in the event of an emergency. The Titanic was also capable of carrying 64 lifeboats. However, in a fateful decision, White Star Line chose only to carry 16. This, combined with collapsible lifeboats, met the requirements of an outdated law mandating enough lifeboats for only 75 percent of the ship's passenger capacity.
The Maiden Voyage of the RMS Titanic.
On April 10, 1912, the Titanic set out for New York City from Southampton, England. White Star Line highly publicized the Titanic's maiden voyage. They went so far as to call the ship “unsinkable.” The promotion campaign attracted many prominent members of British and American society including nobility and wealthy industrialists. After two stops, one in France and one Ireland. The Titanic began its transatlantic crossing with 2,216 passengers.
The Night of April 14.
The history of the Titanic was forever altered when the ship struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912. Having received iceberg warnings via wireless telegraph, Captain Edward Smith altered the ship's course. However, the radio operators were more concerned with relaying private messages to passengers than passing along updated iceberg warnings to the bridge.
At approximately 11:40 p.m., lookouts spotted an iceberg directly in the path of the ship. Evasive action was taken in an attempt to avoid the collision. A sharp turn to the port side was ordered, and the iceberg struck the ship on the right side damaging the hull. Captain Smith ordered a full stop to assess the damage. Initially, only five compartments were flooded, and the watertight doors had been closed to prevent additional flooding. However, water was able to flow over the top of bulkheads and in through normal openings causing two more compartments to flood. It quickly became obvious the Titanic would sink.
Evacuating the Ship.
The first lifeboat was lowered about an hour after the collision. It had a 65 person capacity; only 19 were aboard. Tragically, many of the lifeboats were launched far under capacity. This is attributable to several factors. Assured by the still working electricity and seeming calm, many passengers didn't think the ship was sinking. In addition, many of the third class passengers became lost or trapped in the ship and didn't make it to the lifeboats. Due to a women and children first rule, many men did not board lifeboats despite there being space.
Radio operators broadcasted distress signals, but the RMS Carpathia, the closest ship, was four hours away. All but two lifeboats were successfully launched. Eventually, the Titanic split and was completely sunk by 2:20 a.m. Roughly four hours after receiving the distress call, the Carpathia arrived and began rescue efforts. More than 1,500 people died.
Discovery of the Wreckage.
The full history of the Titanic would not be known for decades. The wreckage was discovered September 1, 1985 through a combined American and French effort. Researchers learned much of what actually caused the “unsinkable” Titanic's tragic end.
Public interest in the history of Titanic persists to this day. Perhaps the fascination stems from the arrogance of the ship's designers or from the significance of such an impressive ship during a cultural and technological transition. Whatever the case, the history of the Titanic continues to captivate both historians and popular culture a century later. | <urn:uuid:d22ef458-4baa-43e3-8e65-6e263fabc392> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.historyofthetitanic.org/history-of-the-titanic.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392069.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00043-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981242 | 1,096 | 3.859375 | 4 |
A stochastic process of human related behaviors normally involves a large and highly structured latent-state (probability) space. The latent structure influence process is a state-space model that effectively compresses the large latent-state space by exploring and exploiting the structure in this space. Compared with other state-space models that do not consider the structure, the latent structure influence process captures more information, is more frugal in its number of parameters, and is less likely to overfit. We have used the latent structure influence process to model the interaction of over one hundred persons and got interesting structural information as well as summaries of individual behaviors that could not be found otherwise.
|(a) Noisy observation of 6 power plants.||(b) The computed influence of the power plants from the observation (a).||(c) The computed state sequences of the power plants from the observation (a).|
Figure Influence Modeling of Power Plant Network above illustrates the structure that the influence model attempts to capture, and how the influence model captures the structure. In this Figure, plot (a) shows a noisy observation (blue: normal, red: failed) of the state sequences of 6 interacting power plants. The interaction of the power plants has the effect that the state (normal, failed) sequence of one power plant is indicative of the state sequences of the related power plants. Our task is to infer the interaction structure of the power plants, and to filter the noise out of the observation. Plot (b) illustrates the reconstructed structure of the power plant network. It has <10% relative errors compared with the true influence matrix. Plot (c) illustrates the inferred state sequences of the power plants. They have <5% relative errors compared with the true latent state sequences.
The influence structure and the group polarization phenomenon often present themselves in human-related behaviors, as illustrated with the Reality-Mining example. One task of the Reality-Mining project was to understand the social structure of the 81 participants, as well as to summarize their schedules, with a state-space model. Even if we assign only 2 states (in-office/ outof-office) to each individual, since the states for individuals can be freely combined, we end up with 281 number of states for the whole system of 81 participants. On the other hand, the human behaviors are highly structured. For one example, the participants tend to be in and only in their offices during the work hours. For another example, the more close two persons are, the more likely their schedules are predictive of each other.
The latent structure influence process compresses the 281 number of unique states by modeling how the individuals' behaviors are close to each other. The MDS plot of this closeness information is given below. From this plot, we can see that the two smaller sloan groups are far away from the ML community, and they are slightly detached from each other. Another interesting finding is that the persons on the fourth floor of the ML building do not communicate much with the persons on the third floor of the ML building. The persons S88 and S4, among the few "connectors" of the third floor persons and the fourth floor persons, had research interests common to all people. This indicates that the geographical information is correlated with research interests, and friend circles. For a comparison, other modeling methods have more than six errors, and result in a less satisfactory social structure.
"Influence Modeling of Complex Stochastic Processes ",
Master's thesis, MIT, July 2006
"Multi-sensor Data Fusion Using the Influence Model",
Wen Dong and Alex (Sandy) Pentland,
IEEE Body Sensor Networks Workshop, April 2006, Boston, MA
"Influence Modeling of System Interactions",
Wen Dong and Alex (Sandy) Pentland,
powerpoint slides, July 2005
Download the influence toolbox for Matlab
How to use the influence model toolbox ? | <urn:uuid:ca6f1031-bbeb-44ec-ad1e-a37295c3eb4f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://vismod.media.mit.edu/vismod/demos/influence-model/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00031-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917554 | 811 | 2.53125 | 3 |
This release is available in French.
McGill University and McGill University scientist Dr. Timothy Geary received a $1-million grant today for landmark research into addressing parasitic diseases through medicines derived from African biodiversity. Grand Challenges Canada, Canada's International Development Research Centre, The Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have joined together to support this important research which provides a significant Canadian contribution to a serious global health issue.
More than 1 billion people, or one-sixth of the world's population, suffer from Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), which cause disfigurement, disability and even death in the developing world. Dr. Geary's research focuses on parasitic worms, or helminths, which live inside the body. Diseases such as hookworm, river blindness and elephantiasis cause stunted growth and cognitive impairment in children, horrific debilitating and disfiguring symptoms in adults, and make escaping the cycle of poverty virtually impossible.
"While there have been advances in the past few years in providing drugs to control the disease, there is so much more that can be done to eliminate NTDs and bring hope to many for a better future," said Dr. Geary, Director of the Institute of Parasitology at McGill. "The drugs we plan to develop through this research will combat growing resistance to existing therapies, an important next step in the treatment and control of parasitic disease."
Dr. Geary's breakthrough research, conducted in partnership with Dr. Eliane Ubalijoro of the Institute for the Study of International Development at McGill, focuses on identifying compounds from African botanical and microbial sources that can lead to new drugs to eliminate parasitic worms from the body. In this approach, he works in partnership with African scientists, particularly Dr. Kelly Chibale of the University of Cape Town, and Drs. Berhanu Abegaz and Kerstin Marobela of the University of Botswana, believing that partners from disease-endemic countries are critically important for finding new solutions to these infections. This team will conduct research both at McGill and in Africa.
"This is about Canadians helping Africans help themselves; an effective and long-term approach to the challenges developing countries face," said Dr. Peter A Singer, CEO of Grand Challenges Canada. "This is a milestone celebration for Grand Challenges Canada. We are less than a year old and I am proud to say this is our first grant announcement. For us, this is like fireworks lighting up the sky on Canada Day."
"We're delighted that this first grant from Grand Challenges Canada supports a partnership between researchers in Canada and researchers in Africa, one devoted to drawing on both Canadian and African ingenuity to solve a persistent and debilitating health problem in Africa" said David Malone, President of Canada's International Development Research Centre. "
The $1-million award is collaboration among three funders: $500,000 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; $250,000 from Grand Challenges Canada through the Canadian government's Capital Development Innovation Fund; and $250,000 from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).
"We believe in the quality of Dr. Geary's research and the potential for a significant Canadian contribution to addressing these debilitating diseases which plague so many in the developing world," said Dr. Pierre Chartrand, Vice-President Research, Canadian Institutes of Health Research. "We have to do more than just share information across traditional political and national lines: we have to invest in the development of local response and research capacity."
Over the past five years, the world has made tremendous progress in addressing some of the greatest global health issues," said Dr. Steven Buchsbaum, Deputy Director of Discovery, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. "Partnerships are increasingly critical and we look forward to working with Grand Challenges Canada as we engage the best minds to harness advances in science and technology and save lives. We hope Canada's important commitment inspires others to take action.""
"We are most appreciative of this funding and the opportunity it creates for Drs. Geary and Ubalijoro and McGill to make a significant Canadian contribution to addressing these serious global health challenges," said Dr. Rose Goldstein, Vice-Principal (Research and International Relations) at McGill. "All Canadians should be proud of the contribution this county is making on the international stage to address these sometimes fatal ailments diseases and conditions which those of us who live in the developed world often forget are very real and terrifying risks for large numbers of people."
|Contact: Vronique Perron|
Canadian Institutes of Health Research | <urn:uuid:305d4f74-1f92-40ce-a3a7-16bcb8784f0b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news-1/McGill-awarded--241-million-grant-to-address-debilitating-parasitic-diseases-in-the-developing-world-78631-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00082-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936413 | 933 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Jefferson On Education
And never suppose, that in any possible situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing, however slightly so it may appear to you. … Encourage all your virtuous dispositions, and exercise them whenever an opportunity arises; being assured that they will gain strength by exercise, as a limb of the body does, and that exercise will make them habitual.He continues with cognitive concerns:
An honest heart being the first blessing, a knowing head is the second. It is time for you now to begin to be choice in your reading … I advise you to begin a course of ancient history, reading every thing in the original and not in translations.An educated man was expected to know Greek and Latin. College entrance requirements included proficiency in Latin: reading and translating the great Roman writers and orators. Students were also expected to be able to read the New Testament in the original Greek. Jefferson’s recommendations were standard for his day:
First read Goldsmith's history of Greece. This will give you a digested view of that field. Then take up ancient history in the detail, reading the following books, in the following order: Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophontis Hellenica, Xenophontis Anabasis, Arrian, Quintus Curtius, Diodorus Siculus, Justin. This shall form the first stage of your historical reading, and is all I need mention to you now. The next, will be of Roman history (Livy, Sullust, Caesar, Cicero's epistles, Suetonius, Tacitus, Gibbon). From that, we will come down to modern history. In Greek and Latin poetry, you have read or will read at school, Virgil, Terence, Horace, Anacreon, Theocritus, Homer, Euripides, Sophocles. Read also Milton's Paradise Lost, Shakespeare, Ossian, Pope's and Swift's works, in order to form your style in your own language. In morality, read Epictetus, Xenophontis Memorabilia, Plato's Socratic dialogues, Cicero's philosophies, Antoninus, and Seneca.How many of these names are recognizable by today’s university graduates? Jefferson continues to the third matter of concern: physical exercise. His suggestions are quite interesting.
Give about two [hours] every day, to exercise; for health must not be sacrificed to learning. A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives a moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body, and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks.I don’t think Mayor Bloomberg would take too kindly of my exercising in this manner. Jefferson is emphatic about walking and continues with this point in his letter in great detail.
Never think of taking a book with you. The object of walking is to relax the mind. You should therefore not permit yourself even to think while you walk; but divert your attention by the objects surrounding you. Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far. … There is no habit you will value so much as that of walking far without fatigue.The founders were concerned with building character and acquiring the capacities to deal with life’s challenges. From character leads success in life. Character wasn’t something to sacrifice for short term gain or comfort; nor was it “virtue for virtue’s sake.” It was seen as inherently empowering, serving a man well in his life.
The education that Jefferson outlines above is one appropriate to a citizen in a free society – it is a liberal education. It makes one worthy and capable of taking one’s place among other free and civilized men. The strength gained by cultivating the dispositions and skills appropriate to a free man were seen as virtuous in every sense: worthy of the man, creating a sturdy and steady character, providing the potent tools for life, bringing one honor and esteem among civilized and cultivated men and women.
How much we lost! And how much we will have to fight to regain! | <urn:uuid:7130f3f8-a3e8-440d-8368-12f19d968583> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://libertyandculture.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00170-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95729 | 896 | 2.828125 | 3 |
CONTROL VALVES modulate the flows of process or heat-transfer fluids, and stabilize variations in material and heat balance of industrial processes. They manipulate these flows by changing their openings, and modifying the energy needed for the flow to pass through them. As a control valve closes, the pressure differential required to pass the same flow increases, and the flow is reduced. Figure 1 (see below) illustrates the pump curve of a constant-speed pump and the system curve of the process that the pump serves. The elevation (static) head of the process is constant, while the friction loss increases with flow. The pressure generated by the pump is the sum of the system curves (friction and static) and the pressure differential (ΔP) required by the control valve. As the valve throttles, the pump travels on its curve, while delivering the required valve pressure drop.
The pumping energy invested to overcome the valve differential is wasted energy, and is the difference between the pressure required to “push” (transport) the fluid into the process (system curve, at bottom left, in Figure 1) and the pump curve of the constant-speed pump. Pumps are selected to meet the maximum possible flow demand of the process, so they tend to be oversized during normal operation. Consequently, using control valves to manipulate the flow generated by constant-speed pumps wastes energy, and increases plant-operation costs.
Therefore, when designing a control system, a process-control engineer must first decide whether a control valve or a variable-speed pump should be used to throttle the flow. Variable-speed pumps reduce flow by reducing pump speed. So, instead of burning energy unnecessarily introduced by the pump head, that energy isn’t introduced in the first place. This lessens operating costs, but increases capital investment because variable and constant-speed pumps usually cost more than control valves.
When several users are supplied by the same variable-speed pump, its speed can be automatically adjusted by a valve-position controller (VPC), which detects the opening of the most-open user valve (MOV). The MOV isn’t allowed to open beyond 80-90% because, when the set-point of the VPC is reached, this integral-only controller starts increasing the pump speed. This increases the available pressure drop for all the valves, which in turn reduces their openings.
FIGURE 1: PUMP AND SYSTEM CURVES
Available valve pressure drops of control valves.
Valve Types and Characteristics
If the cost-benefit analysis comparing constant and variable-speed pumping systems favors using throttling valves, the next task is to select the right valve type for the application. Figure 2 (see below) shows that various valve designs have different pressure and temperature ratings, costs, capacities (Cd = Cv/d2), etc. Once the valve type is selected, the next task is to select the valve characteristics, and size the valve. These characteristics determine the relationship between valve stroke (control signal received) and the flow through the valve, while size is determined by maximum flow required.
FIGURE 2: PICKING THE RIGHT CONTROL VALVE
When it comes to selecting and sizing control valves, this unique and completely non-commercial valve selection chart not only helps you pick the right control valve for the job, but also serves as a fantastic reference tool you can download! Click the chart to open an enlarged pdf version for easy viewing, or click the Download Now button at the end of this article to save the chart for future reference.
After start-up, if the control loop tends to oscillate at low flows but is sluggish at high flows, users should consider switching the valve trim characteristics from linear to equal-percentage. Inversely, if oscillation is encountered at high and sluggishness at low flows, the equal-percentage trim should be replaced with a linear one. Changing the valve characteristics can also be done (sometimes more easily) by characterizing the control signal leading to the actuator rather than by replacing the valve trim.
|About the Author|
Béla Lipták is editor of the Instrument Engineer’s Handbook, and former chief instrument engineer at C&R (later John Brown). He is a recipient of ISA’s Life Achievement Award (2005) and member of CONTROL's Process Automation Hall of Fame (2001).
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Definitions for schomburgkia
This page provides all possible meanings and translations of the word schomburgkia
Schomburgkia, genus Schomburgkia(noun)
genus of tropical American epiphytic orchids with showy racemose flowers
Schomburgkia is a genus of plants belonging to the family Orchidaceae. This genus is named for Richard Schomburgk, a German botanist who explored British Guiana during the 19th century. Species in this genus are either ephiphytic or lithophytic in their growth habit. According to the Royal Horticultural Society Schom. is the official abbreviation for this genus. The type species Schomburgkia crispa is a large sized, hot growing species found in the tropical areas of Venezuela, Surinam, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador.
The numerical value of schomburgkia in Chaldean Numerology is: 3
The numerical value of schomburgkia in Pythagorean Numerology is: 1
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Symphony of Psalms
Igor Fedorovich Stravinsky was born on June 18, 1882, in Oranienbaum, now Lomonosov in the Northwest Saint Petersburg Region of the Russian Republic, and died in New York on April 6, 1971. The Symphony of Psalms was composed in 1930; Stravinsky completed the score in Nice on August 15 that year. The work was commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky for the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s fiftieth anniversary, and the title page reads (in French): “This symphony, composed/to the glory of GOD/is dedicated to the/ ‘Boston Symphony Orchestra’/ on the occasion/of the fiftieth anniversary of its existence.” The premiere of the Symphony of Psalms was planned for Boston Symphony concerts in December 1930, but Koussevitzky fell ill and the work was not performed; it received its world premiere on December 13, 1930 with Ernest Ansermet conducting the chorus and orchestra of the Brussels Philharmonic Society. Koussevitzky introduced the work in America the following week. The chorus was the Cecilia Society, prepared by its conductor, Arthur Fiedler. The first San Francisco Symphony performance of the Symphony of Psalms was conducted by the composer on March 23, 1937, in the Civic Auditorium, and featured the San Francisco Municipal Chorus. Stravinsky revised the work in 1948. The most recent performances were given in May 2007, with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, and Michael Tilson Thomas conducting. The Symphony of Psalms is scored for mixed chorus with an orchestra of five flutes (one doubling piccolo), four oboes and English horn, three bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, five trumpets (one of them a high trumpet in D), three trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, harp, two pianos, cellos, and basses. Performance time: about twenty-one minutes.
To point out that in the Symphony of Psalms Stravinsky uses the word “symphony” in a special way is to be redundant. With Stravinsky everything is a special case. No one composer has given us a more varied series of suggestions about what “symphony” can mean than Stravinsky, with his sequence of the Symphony in E-flat major (1907), Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1921), Symphony of Psalms (1930), Symphony in C (1940), and Symphony in Three Movements (1945). Of these, the Symphonies of Wind Instruments and the Symphony of Psalms are linked not only by their solemnity and a certain austere sound, but also by the composer’s return to the original sense of “symphony” as a mingling of sounds and by his departure from the Classic-Romantic associations that surround the word.
Koussevitzky made no stipulations about instrumentation or form in the commission that resulted in the Symphony of Psalms, and since Stravinsky had had the project of composing psalm settings in mind for some time, this is what he went ahead with. He first thought of setting the psalms in Old Church Slavonic, and the decision to use Latin came only when he was some way into the work. (The numbering of the psalms we use here are, as in the score, those of the Vulgate, and the translations are from the Douay version. The corresponding numbers in the King James version are verses 12 and 13 of Psalm 39; verses 1, 2, and 3 of Psalm 40; and Psalm 150.) He began with Psalm 150, and the first idea he wrote down was the rhythmic figure that, as “Laudate Dominum,” isa vital presence throughout the quick part of the last movement. “The fast-tempo sections of the Psalm were composed first,” Stravinsky writes, “and the first and second movements of the symphony followed. The “Alleluia”and the slow music at the beginning of the 150th Psalm, which is an answer to the question in the [39th] Psalm, came last.”
That a composition should have unique thematic material is a familiar enough idea, at least for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; that it should, or even can, have a unique sonority is more specifically a Stravinskian thought. What Stravinsky calls for in the Symphony of Psalms isan altogether special distribution with unusual concentration on certain sounds (flutes, trumpets, and pianos) and complete omission of others (clarinets and high strings).
For that matter, the scoring and spacing even of a common chord becomes an adventure. An E minor chord is a familiar enough object, but Stravinsky writes measure one of the psalms as though it were the first triad in the history of the world. (One of the first things a student learns in an elementary harmony class is that when writing a triad you emphasize in the first place its root and then its fifth—here those would be E and B, respectively. Stravinsky’s chord, as distributed through his orchestra, is underprivileged in Bs, even more in Es, and the note of which there is by far the most is G—the third, that is, the one that according to common practice and academic theory is not to be doubled). Part of this amazing sound stems from the spacing—the concentration of flutes, oboes, harps, and pianos at the top, the parallel concentration of bassoons, contrabassoon, trombones, timpani, basses, harp, and pianos at the bottom, with all that great gap in between.
Equally characteristic is what happens after this chord—the scurrying sixteenth notes in oboe and bassoon. Stravinsky’s practice is opposed to the classic-Romantic way of “modulating” organically from one event to the next. Instead, he proceeds by shock. He makes a deliberately violent leap from the chord to the sixteenth-note figuration and back to the chord. Another vital feature is the dynamic marking of that first chord, mezzo-forte. The force of the gesture is unmistakable, and every other composer would have expressed it with a smashing hammer blow of sound. Stravinsky turns its energy inwards, and the compressed, even repressed, nature of his expressive impulses provides an essential clue to the sources of the beauty and power of his music. The Symphony’sintensely moving final pages, “Laudate eum in cymbalis benesonantibus ...,” are another manifestation of that same spiritual reserve.
Stravinsky is much concerned with unity. The psalms he chose are unified textually. The 39th Psalm is like an answer to the 38th. The “Alleluia”with which the 150th begins is the “new canticle” of the 39th. In another sense the Symphony is unified in that its three movements are linked and to be sung and played without pause. The first psalm ascends rapidly to its conclusion. With the first notes of the next psalm it becomes clear that the whole first movement has been one great upbeat to the second. Here is Stravinsky’s account of that second movement: “The ‘Waiting for the Lord’ Psalm makes the most overt use of musical symbolism in any of my music before The Flood. An upside-down pyramid of fugues, it begins with a purely instrumental fugue of limited compass and employs only solo instruments.... The next and higher stage of the upside-down pyramid is the human fugue, which does not begin without instrumental help for the reason that I modified the structure as I composed and decided to overlap instruments and voices to give the material more development, but the human choir is heard a cappella after that. The human fugue also represents a higher level in the architectural symbolism by the fact that it expands into the bass register. The third stage, the upside-down foundation, unites the two fugues [Et immisit in os meum canticum novum].”
Stravinsky regards Psalm 150 “as a song to be danced, as David danced before the ark.” He also startled many of his listeners and readers when Dialogues and a Diary came out in 1963 with the statement that “the allegro in the 150th Psalm was inspired by a vision of Elijah’s chariot climbing the heavens [11 Kings 2, 11]; I do not think I had ever written anything so literal as the triplets for horns and piano to suggest the horses and the chariot. The final hymn of praise must be thought of as issuing from the skies; agitation is followed by the calm of praise.”
There is one more great crescendo as God is praised with timbrel and choir (Stravinsky does not take the Psalmist’s hints on orchestration), but for the praise on high-sounding cymbals and cymbals of joy, the music settles into timeless, motionless quiet. Great censers swing and quiet voices fill the air with their adoration. Or, in music, pianos, harps, and timpani move through three notes over and over, while in the same register as the voices, cellos and trumpets, later on oboes, finally all the winds, spread harmony at once rich and luminous. The “Alleluia,” the new canticle, returns for a moment to resolve, with the last “Dominum,”everything into a C major chord, severe and beatific, as beautiful and as special as only Stravinsky could make it.
Michael Steinberg, the San Francisco Symphony’s Program Annotator from 1979 to 1999 and a contributing writer to our program book until his death in 2009, was one of the nation’s pre-eminent writers on music. We are privileged to continue publishing his program notes. His books are available at the Symphony Store in Davies Symphony Hall.
More About the Music
Recordings: Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the London Symphony Orchestra (Sony Classical) | Pierre Boulez conducting the Berlin Philharmonic (Deutsche Grammophon) | Igor Stravinsky conducting the Columbia Symphony Orchestra (CBS Masterworks)
Reading: Stravinsky: The Composer and his Works, by Eric Walter White (University of California Press, Second Edition) | The Music of Stravinsky, by Stephen Walsh (Oxford University Press) | <urn:uuid:a9ec8e11-d6a7-441b-aa70-cf00812c499e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sfsymphony.org/Watch-Listen-Learn/Read-Program-Notes/Program-Notes/STRAVINSKY-Symphony-of-Psalms.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397748.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00182-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960091 | 2,248 | 3.0625 | 3 |
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