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At the end of January, the European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights, and Citizenship, Viviane Reding, announced the European Commission's proposal to create a sweeping new privacy right-the "right to be forgotten."
The right, which has been hotly debated in Europe for the past few years, has finally been codified as part of a broad new proposed data protection regulation. Although Reding depicted the new right as a modest expansion of existing data privacy rights, in fact it represents the biggest threat to free speech on the Internet in the coming decade. The right to be forgotten could make Facebook and Google, for example, liable for up to two percent of their global income if they fail to remove photos that people post about themselves and later regret, even if the photos have been widely distributed already. Unless the right is defined more precisely when it is promulgated over the next year or so, it could precipitate a dramatic clash between European and American conceptions of the proper balance between privacy and free speech, leading to a far less open Internet.
In theory, the right to be forgotten addresses an urgent problem in the digital age: it is very hard to escape your past on the Internet now that every photo, status update, and tweet lives forever in the cloud. But Europeans and Americans have diametrically opposed approaches to the problem. In Europe, the intellectual roots of the right to be forgotten can be found in French law, which recognizes le droit à l'oubli-or the "right of oblivion"-a right that allows a convicted criminal who has served his time and been rehabilitated to object to the publication of the facts of his conviction and incarceration. In America, by contrast, publication of someone's criminal history is protected by the First Amendment, leading Wikipedia to resist the efforts by two Germans convicted of murdering a famous actor to remove their criminal history from the actor's Wikipedia page.
European regulators believe that all citizens face the difficulty of escaping their past now that the Internet records everything and forgets nothing-a difficulty that used to be limited to convicted criminals. When Commissioner Reding announced the new right to be forgotten on January 22, she noted the particular risk to teenagers who might reveal compromising information that they would later come to regret. She then articulated the core provision of the "right to be forgotten": "If an individual no longer wants his personal data to be processed or stored by a data controller, and if there is no legitimate reason for keeping it, the data should be removed from their system."
In endorsing the new right, Reding downplayed its effect on free speech. "It is clear that the right to be forgotten cannot amount to a right of the total erasure of history," she said. And relying on Reding's speeches, press accounts of the newly proposed right to be forgotten have been similarly reassuring about its effect on free speech. In a post at the Atlantic.com, Why Journalists Shouldn't Fear Europe's ‘Right to be Forgotten,' John Hendel writes that although the original proposals a year ago "would have potentially given people the ability to cull any digital reference-from the public record, journalism, or social networks-they deemed irrelevant and unflattering," Reding had proposed a narrower definition of data that people have the right to remove: namely "personal data [people] have given out themselves." According to Hendel "[t]his provision is key. The overhaul insists that Internet users control the data they put online, not the references in media or anywhere else."
But Hendel seems not to have parsed the regulations that were actually proposed three days later on January 25. They are not limited to personal data that people "have given out themselves"; instead, they create a new right to delete personal data, defined broadly as "any information relating to a data subject." For this reason, they arguably create a legally enforceable right to demand the deletion of any photos or data that I post myself, even after they've gone viral, not to mention unflattering photos that include me or information about me that others post, whether or not it is true.
In a widely cited blog post last March, Peter Fleischer, chief privacy counsel of Google, notes that the right to be forgotten, as discussed in Europe, often covers three separate categories, each of which proposes progressively greater threats to free speech. And the right to be forgotten, as proposed at the end of January, arguably applies in all three of Fleischer's categories.
The first category is the least controversial: "If I post something online, do I have the right to delete it again?" This involves cases where I post a photo on Facebook and later think better of it and want to take it down. Since Facebook and other social networking sites already allow me to do this, creating a legally enforceable right here is mostly symbolic and entirely unobjectionable. As proposed, the European right to be forgotten would also usefully put pressure on Facebook to abide by its own stated privacy policies by allowing users to confirm that photos and other data have been deleted from its archives after they are removed from public display.
But the right to delete data becomes far more controversial when it involves Fleischer's second category: "If I post something, and someone else copies it and re-posts it on their own site, do I have the right to delete it?" Imagine a teenager regrets posting a picture of herself with a bottle of beer on her own site and after deleting it, later discovers that several of her friends have copied and reposted the picture on their own sites. If she asks them to take down the pictures, and her friends refuse or cannot be found, should Facebook be forced to delete the picture from her friends' albums without the owners' consent based solely on the teenager's objection?
According to the proposed European Right to Forget, the default answer is almost certainly yes. According to the regulation, when someone demands the erasure of personal data, an Internet Service Provider "shall carry out the erasure without delay," unless the retention of the data is "necessary" for exercising "the right of freedom of expression," as defined by member states in their local laws. In another section, the regulation creates an exemption from the duty to remove data for "the processing of personal data solely for journalistic purposes, or for the purposes of artistic or literary expression." Essentially, this puts the burden on Facebook to prove to a European commission authority that my friend's publication of my embarrassing picture is a legitimate journalistic (or literary or artistic) exercise. If I contact Facebook, where I originally posted the embarrassing picture, it must take "all reasonable steps" on its own to identify any relevant third parties and secure the takedown of the content. At the very least, Facebook will have to engage in the kinds of difficult line-drawing exercises previously performed by courts. And the prospect of ruinous monetary sanctions for any data controller that "does not comply with the right to be forgotten or to erasure"-a fine up to 1,000,000 euros or up to two percent of Facebook's annual worldwide income-could lead data controllers to opt for deletion in ambiguous cases, producing a serious chilling effect.
For a preview of just how chilling that effect might be, consider the fact that the right to be forgotten can be asserted not only against the publisher of content (such as Facebook or a newspaper) but against search engines like Google and Yahoo that link to the content. The Spanish Data Protection authority, for example, has sued Google to force it to delete links to embarrassing newspaper articles that are legal under Spanish law. And suits against third party intermediaries are also threatening freedom of speech in Argentina, as the case of Virginia Da Cunha shows. The Argentine pop star had posed for racy pictures when she was young, but recently sued Google and Yahoo to take them down, arguing that they violated the Argentine version of the "right to be forgotten." Google replied that it could not comply technologically with a broad legal injunction demanding the removal of the pictures, and Yahoo said that the only way to comply would be to block all sites referring to Da Cunha for its Yahoo search engines. Nevertheless, an Argentine judge sided with Da Cunha and after fining Google and Yahoo, ordered them to remove all sites containing sexual images that contained her name. The decision was overturned on appeal, on the grounds that Google and Yahoo could only be held liable if they knew content was defamatory and negligently failed to remove it. But there are at least one hundred and thirty similar cases pending in Argentine courts demanding removal of photos and user-generated content, mostly brought by entertainers and models. The plaintiffs include the Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Yesica Toscanini; when a user of Yahoo Argentina plugs her name into the Yahoo search engine, the result is a blank page.
Finally, there is Fleischer's third category of takedown requests: "If someone else posts something about me, do I have a right to delete it?" This, of course, raises the most serious concerns about free expression. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that states cannot pass laws restricting the media from disseminating truthful but embarrassing information-such as the name of a rape victim-as long as the information was legally acquired.
The proposed European regulation, however, treats takedown requests for truthful information posted by others identically to takedown requests for photos I've posted myself that have then been copied by others: both are included in the definition of personal data as "any information relating" to me, regardless of its source. I can demand takedown and the burden, once again, is on the third party to prove that it falls within the exception for journalistic, artistic, or literary exception. This could transform Google, for example, into a censor-in-chief for the European Union, rather than a neutral platform. And because this is a role Google won't want to play, it may instead produce blank pages whenever a European user types in the name of someone who has objected to a nasty blog post or status update.
It's possible, of course, that although the European regulation defines the right to be forgotten very broadly, it will be applied more narrowly. Europeans have a long tradition of declaring abstract privacy rights in theory that they fail to enforce in practice. And the regulation may be further refined over the next year or so, as the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers hammer out the details. But in announcing the regulation, Reding said she wanted it to be ambiguous so that it could accommodate new technologies in the future. "This regulation needs to stand for 30 years-it needs to be very clear but imprecise enough that changes in the markets or public opinion can be maneuvered in the regulation," she declared ominously. Once the regulation is promulgated, moreover, it will instantly become law throughout the European Union, and if the E.U. withdraws from the safe harbor agreement that is currently in place, the European framework could be imposed on U.S. companies doing business in Europe as well. It's hard to imagine that the Internet that results will be as free and open as it is now.
This article, by Jeffrey Rosen, was originally published on Stanford Law Review Online | <urn:uuid:d807956a-318a-42a7-90b1-c4a1edef998b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://gizmodo.com/5886384/the-right-to-be-forgotten?tag=Eu | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00104-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9577 | 2,278 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Bharat Biotech International Ltd. (BBIL) Monday launched a new anti-rabies vaccine Rabirix that can be used both for prevention //as also for treatment in case of infection due to animal bite or contact with saliva of an infected animal.
Rabirix has been indigenously developed by BBIL and "can be used for both prophylactic (vaccine-pre bite) and therapeutic (post bite) treatments", said Krishna M. Ella, chairman and managing director at the launch. Julie Gerberding, director of the US-based Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was also present.
Rabirix is a purified vero cell based rabies vaccine (PVRV), which has been extensively evaluated clinically for pre-bite and post-bite applications, and has proven to be well tolerated with minimal or no side effects.
The immune sera samples from phase III clinical trials have been analysed at the Pune-based National Institute of Virology and the efficacy of the product has been established.
Rabies is an acute viral encephalitis transmitted from an infected animal to human by exposure to saliva.
Human infection with rabies is nearly always secondary to animal bite, with dog being the major reservoir for human Rabies. Once clinical symptoms have occurred, the disease is almost invariably fatal.
No tests are currently available to diagnose rabies infection in humans before the onset of clinical disease.
Four million people are exposed to the rabies virus worldwide every year and 60,000 people fall victim to it. In India, three million people undergo anti-rabies treatment and 30,000 deaths are reported annually which accounts for 50 percent of mortality from rabies worldwide.
"The rabies vaccines contribute approximately 50 percent of the vaccine market in India in terms of value. Currently, the market size of rabies vaccines is estimated to be around Rs.2.5 billion," said Ella.
BBIL has created a dedicated mark
eting division christened IMMUTIKA (Immunisation and Tika) to promote vaccines.
Source-IANSRelated medicine news :1
. Bharat Rao Is Inventor of the Year2
. Bharatpur Likely To Get Avian Flu Lab3
. Biotechnology industry expected to grow into a three billion dollar industry by 20024
. Biotechnology on the lead5
. Panacea Biotech To Market Anthrax Vaccine6
. Commercialization of Biotech Discoveries, An Encouragement For Researchers7
. Biotech drug causing anemia-EPREX8
. Leading Biotech Companies Are Interested In Acquisition Of Smaller Companies9
. Biologicals Transfer Proposal between US and Indian Biotechnology10
. Vical Biotech and NIH jointly develops HIV vaccine11
. Biotechnology Initiatives Planned In Hyderabad | <urn:uuid:2f4ec590-985b-4bb5-a3e6-bc582f80678f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Bharat-Biotech-Launches-Anti-Rabies-Vaccine-16734-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00089-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932114 | 587 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Current ExhibitsAge of Mammals
During the Cenozoic Era continents drifted into relatively familiar positions, mountain chains began to emerge, and plants and animals became increasingly recognizable - marking the birth of the modern world.
This was the Age of Mammals. And although they appeared at the same time as dinosaurs, mammals were, initially, small and furtive. Then, as the great reptiles began to disappear, the mammal population increased and soon they were poised to take over.
The Age of Mammals was a time of experimentation and diversification that combined the strange and the familiar.
Seven Wonders Of The Badlands
Marvel at the wonders of the badlands on this guided hike.
Enjoy hands-on learning and make your own fossil replica.
Secrets of the Lost Quarry
Help us locate an historic palaeontological quarry in this interactive program. | <urn:uuid:0ffa8fe6-cab1-4fd7-9853-71e6d54e3f22> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.tyrrellmuseum.com/exhibits/age_of_mammals.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00128-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948778 | 179 | 3.515625 | 4 |
About 450 Moriori from as far away as Australia have descended on New Zealand’s Chatham Islands to celebrate the opening of the first ever Moriori marae…
The celebration … will be followed by a renewal of a 500-year-old covenant known as Nunuku's law of non-violence - which forbade bloody conflict - last renewed in the same year - 1835…
A recent ‘feel-good’
story in the
As the history of the Moriori culture demonstrates, such a culture would be choosing its own destruction.
On ten small islands several hundred miles
off the coast of
It was this failure to distinguish between two types of force that led to the literal annihilation of the Moriori, for in 1835 they were invaded by a neighbour that embraced the latter view, and – with the exception of a few that were enslaved or kept as “food stock” – they were wiped out.
Of the 2000 or so Moriori who had enjoyed
their ‘non-violent’ life in the
“"To lay down one's life for what one considers to be right is the very core of satyagraha [resistance by non-violent means] . . . [In non-violence] the bravery consists in dying, not in killing." So said Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi, still one of the apostles of non-violence. To embrace one’s own destruction, one might paraphrase, one must be brave. Or stupid. Or a reader of Lew Rockwell.
For as Moriori biographer Michael King observes approvingly, "The Moriori had learned a tactical and philosophical truth that was to be articulated by other people from other cultures in the twentieth century: non-violence is an effective weapon only against an adversary who shares your conscience." Gandhi was lucky in his adversary – the Moriori were not.
Their invader, two
Maori tribes from nearby
"We took possession ... in accordance with our customs and we caught all the people. Not one escaped. Some ran away from us, these we killed, and others we killed - but what of that? It was in accordance with our custom... I am not aware of any of our people being killed by them."
As one historian says (also approvingly), “Moriori stayed true to their moral imperative, Nunuku's law of non-violence, even as they and their families were being bludgeoned and speared to death. That is not to say they were not terrified, but their fortitude and courage must have been phenomenal. Pacifism in the face of sure death is hard to imagine.”
Pacifism in the face of sure death is not just hard to imagine, it is suicidal. To choose such a course with one’s eyes wide open, or to advocate such a course for others to follow, is not just wrong, it is evil.
Pacifism kills. When you doubt that, remember the Moriori. As P.J. O’Rourke once suggested so eloquently, in combating the many evils in the world “people sometimes have trouble deciding whom to shoot” – they should realise nonetheless that at times in the battle against evil that war is the most humane option. At such times, we must give war a chance.
Now is such a time. | <urn:uuid:d5e5d7b5-a495-468d-9dbc-f11bc4aa19f3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://organonarchitecture.co.nz/Not_PC/Pacifism%20Kills.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393463.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00146-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977593 | 707 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Rat Snake Green Red Tailed basic information
The Gray Rat Snake averages about 1.5 meters in length, or around 5 feet. They can reach up to 7 feet. They are usually brown, tan, white, or gray in color with darker blotches. The pattern and coloration of this species can vary greatly. One variety, known as "Oak Phase", is very light in color. They have very straight sides and weakly keeled scales on the back. The markings are more distinct on younger snakes. | <urn:uuid:8c897e37-0fcd-4f29-8233-3b1ebb2be283> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://snakesite.info/basic-information/1087/Rat-Snake---Green-Red-Tailed.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397565.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00201-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963353 | 104 | 2.546875 | 3 |
The Cooper Institute address is one of the most important addresses ever delivered in the life of this nation, for at an eventful time it changed the course of history. When Mr. Lincoln rose to speak on the evening of February 27, 1860, he had held no administrative office; he had endeavoured to be appointed Commissioner of Patents, and had failed; he had sought to be elected United States Senator, and had been defeated; he had been a member of Congress, yet it was not even remembered; he was a lawyer in humble circumstances, persuasive of juries, but had not reached the front rank of the Illinois Bar. The record which Mr. Lincoln himself placed in the Congressional Directory in 1847 might still be taken as the record of his public and official life: “Born February 12th, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. Education defective. Profession a lawyer. Have been a captain of volunteers in the Black Hawk War. Postmaster in a very small office. Four times a member of the Illinois Legislature and a member of the lower house of Congress.” Was this the record of a man who should be made the head of a nation in troubled times? In the estimation of thoughtful Americans east of the Alleghanies all that they knew of Mr. Lincoln justified them in regarding him as only “a Western stump orator”—successful, distinguished, but nothing higher than that—a Western stump orator, who had dared to brave one of the strongest men in the Western States, and who had done so with wonderful ability and moral success. When Mr. Lincoln closed his address he had risen to the rank of statesman, and had stamped himself a statesman peculiarly fitted for the exigency of the hour.
Mr. William Cullen Bryant presided at the meeting; and a number of the first and ablest citizens of New York were present, among them Horace Greeley. Mr. Greeley was pronounced in his appreciation of the address; it was the ablest, the greatest, the wisest speech that had yet been made; it would reassure the conservative Northerner; it was just what was wanted to conciliate the excited Southerner; it was conclusive in its argument, and would assure the overthrow of Douglas. Mr. Horace White has recently written: “I chanced to open the other day his Cooper Institute speech. This is one of the few printed speeches that I did not hear him deliver in person. As I read the concluding pages of that speech, the conflict of opinion that preceded the conflict of arms then sweeping upon the country like an approaching solar eclipse seemed prefigured like a chapter of the Book of Fate. Here again he was the Old Testament prophet, before whom Horace Greeley bowed his head, saying that he had never listened to a greater speech, although he had heard several of Webster’s best.” Later, Mr. Greeley became the leader of the Republican forces opposed to the nomination of Mr. Seward and was instrumental in concentrating those forces upon Mr. Lincoln. Furthermore, the great New York press on the following morning carried the address to the country, and before Mr. Lincoln left New York he was telegraphed from Connecticut to come and aid in the campaign of the approaching spring election. He went, and when the fateful moment came in the Convention, Connecticut was one of the Eastern States which first broke away from the Seward column and went over to Mr. Lincoln. When Connecticut did this, the die was cast. | <urn:uuid:15deed99-5050-40a1-af92-c20eebe151a7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/11728/87.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398075.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00174-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987743 | 719 | 3 | 3 |
Canned foods are a significant component of the diet of most people in both developed and developing countries, offering a wider choice of nutritious, good quality foods in a convenient form all year. During canning, both desirable and undesirable changes occur in nutritional and sensory properties of foods, resulting from heat treatment employed for the destruction of microorganisms to achieve the desired commercial sterility. The extent of thermal processing, in terms of both temperature and duration of the treatment, is dependent upon the chemical and physical composition of the product, the canning medium and the conditions of storage, determining the product quality in terms of its sensory properties and nutrient content. This book reviews the major principles and operations used during food canning, identifies the nutritional and sensory changes occurring during the process and their effect on the quality of canned foods. In addition, it explains the use of response surface methodology (RSM) as modelling and optimization techniques used in the canning industry in recent times to manipulate canning processes to maintain the nutritional and sensory qualities of canned foods, using two recent studies where RSM was used to study the effect of pre-canning processes including blanching time, soaking time and sodium hexametaphosphate [(NaPO3)6] salt concentration on moisture, minerals, leached solids, phytates, tannins and hardness (texture) of cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata) and bambara groundnut (Voandzei subterranea). Regression models were developed to predict the pre-canning parameters that yield the best quality products, with minimal effects on the nutritional and textural properties of the products. The optimal conditions found to achieve the optimum quality of the canned cowpeas were blanching time of 5 min, soaking time of 12 h and [(NaPO3)6] salt concentration of 0.5%, and for the bambara groundnut; blanching time of 8 min, soaking time of 12 h and [(NaPO3)6] salt concentration of 0.5%. The combination of blanching, soaking and [(NaPO3)6] salt were modeled using RSM to retain the nutritional (mineral) content of products while reducing the anti-nutritional factors and the hardness of the canned products with acceptable quality characteristics, indicating that as recent advances in canning technology, modelling techniques could be used to control canning operations while retaining desirable product quality characteristics. | <urn:uuid:a424240b-5007-4937-8ded-7ab42a2793fe> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.novapublishers.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=7289 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00008-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926877 | 496 | 2.8125 | 3 |
WASHINGTON -- Hearing about a shortage of farm laborers in California, the couple who would become Susumu Ito's parents moved from Hiroshima to become sharecroppers near Stockton. Thus began a saga that recently brought Ito, 91, to the Holocaust Memorial Museum here, where he and 119 former comrades in arms were honored, during the annual Days of Remembrance, as liberators of Nazi concentration camps. While his Japanese-American Army unit was succoring survivors of Dachau, near Munich, his parents and two sisters were interned in a camp in Arkansas.
Ito attended one-room schools, graduated from high school at 16 and was accepted at Berkeley. His parents, however, believed Japanese-Americans could not rise in the professions -- even the civil service -- for which the university would prepare him. So he attended community college, studying auto mechanics, although he could not join the mechanics union.
In 1940, Congress passed conscription and Ito was content to be drafted, thinking the military would be an adventure. He got that right.
Although nearsighted and "my feet were flat as boards," he and five other Japanese-Americans from around Stockton were inducted in February 1941. Because "Japanese revered their sons being in the military," the Japanese-American community threw a farewell banquet for them, and gave each $35. After Pearl Harbor, the Army "took our rifles away."
Soon, while he was in training at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, his parents and sisters were interned as security threats, first at a California race track where they slept in horse stalls on straw mattresses, later in Arkansas. Bored by life as a military mechanic and "gung ho about going to war," he volunteered to be a forward spotter seeking targets for the artillery, a job with a high casualty rate and a short life expectancy. Soon he was in Mississippi, from where he, wearing his country's uniform, could occasionally visit his family behind barbed wire in Arkansas.
In Mississippi, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, composed of Japanese- Americans, trained before being shipped to Europe. It included Daniel Inouye, now 85, who lost an arm while winning a Medal of Honor. He is now in his eighth term as a U.S. senator.
After experiencing combat in Italy, the unit moved up through France and to the famous rescue of the "lost battalion" of the 36th Texas Division, which was cut off by Germans. The 442nd, which suffered 1,000 casualties rescuing 175 surviving Texans, became the most decorated unit for its size in American history.
By March 1945, the 442nd was in southern Germany. Soon it was at Dachau. Eddie Ichiyama of Santa Clara, Calif., who also was here recently, says that "even right now" he can smell the stench. The ovens were still warm. On a nearby railroad flatbed car, what looked to be a supply of cord wood was actually stacked corpses.
Nelson Akagi of Salt Lake City remembers an officer "adopting" Larry Lubetzky, a liberated Lithuanian Jew, as an interpreter. After the war, prisoner number 82123 went from Germany to Jerusalem to Canada to Mexico City, from where Akagi received a call in 1992. Akagi will search the Holocaust Memorial Museum archives for fresh information about Lubetzky.
After the war, Ito rejoined his loved ones, who had lost everything. He became a professor of cell biology and anatomy at Harvard Medical School. He retired in 1990 but still goes to the lab several days a week.
Such cheerful men, who helped to lop 988 years off the Thousand Year Reich, are serene reproaches to a nation now simmering with grievance groups that nurse their cherished resentments. The culture of complaint gets no nourishment from men like these who served their country so well while it was treating their families so ignobly. Yet it is a high tribute to this country that it is so loved by men such as these.
The Holocaust museum draws almost 2 million visitors a year, four times more than were anticipated when it opened 17 years ago. A museum official says dryly, "Human nature has been an enormous help." She means that atrocious behavior, a constant component of the human story, continually reminds people of the museum's relevance. It is, therefore, grand that the museum also honors those, like Ito, Akagi and Ichiyama, who exemplify the rest, and best, of that story. | <urn:uuid:2db9534f-0ba2-4991-8bd0-67ce48772276> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://townhall.com/columnists/georgewill/2010/04/25/in_praise_of_cheerful_men/print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398516.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00117-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985106 | 932 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Molds are naturally occurring fungi that can be found anywhere, and can grow on virtually any substance, as long as moisture or water, oxygen, and an organic source are present. Molds reproduce by creating tiny spores (viable seeds) that usually cannot be seen without magnification. Mold spores continually float through the indoor and outdoor air.
Currently, there are no EPA regulations or standards for airborne mold. There are no mandated actions specific to molds and indoor air quality required by any state or federal agencies. The U.S. EPA states “Standards” or Threshold Limit Values for airborne concentrations or mold, or mold spores, have not been set.
Although there are no EPA regulations or standards for airborne mold contaminants, there are microbiological benchmarks or assessment guidelines. Therefore, in the event that we discover mold on campus, Montclair State University’s policy is to follow EPA’s recommended protocol for Mold Remediation in Schools and Commercial Buildings, the guidelines of the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH), and other guidelines from professional and government organizations. While not required by EPA, as a quality control measure, air testing may be done (before and after remediation) to confirm that once the remediation is complete the concentration of spores inside the area is lower than outdoor/background levels.
Indoor Air Regulations and Mold
“Standards or Threshold Limit Values (TLVs) for airborne concentrations of mold, or mold spores, have not been set. Currently, there are no EPA regulations or standards for airborne mold contaminants.”
Mold Remediation in Schools and Commercial Buildings
Is sampling/testing for mold necessary? (From EPA FAQs)
In most cases, if visible mold growth is present, sampling is unnecessary. Since no EPA or other federal limits have been set for mold or mold spores, sampling cannot be used to check a building's compliance with federal mold standards. Surface sampling may be useful to determine if an area has been adequately cleaned or remediated. Sampling for mold should be conducted by professionals who have specific experience in designing mold sampling protocols, sampling methods, and interpreting results. Sample analysis should follow analytical methods recommended by the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA), the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH), or other professional organizations. | <urn:uuid:ecf0af38-a454-4afd-bbcd-96f21b98aff5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.montclair.edu/facilities/environmental-safety-sustainability/mold/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00157-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.897682 | 482 | 3.421875 | 3 |
Spay Day: Reducing Pet Overpopulation and Helping Area Pets
March 7, 2011
Seventy-five family dogs were spayed or neutered when Spay Day 2011 took place March 5 and 6 at the University of California School of Veterinary Medicine. The annual event helps low-income pet owners in Yolo and Sacramento counties protect their pets' health. The effort also relieves crowding in area animal shelters and reduces the number of animals that are euthanized because of pet overpopulation.
About 200 veterinary faculty, staff and students volunteered over the weekend, taking care of case histories, exams, anesthesia, surgery and post-operative recovery of dogs of all sizes. The animals arrived Saturday for an overnight stay on campus and went home with their owners Sunday afternoon. Breeds included chihuahas, terrier (pit bull) mixes, collies, dachshunds and others.
Faculty experts in anesthesia, surgery and general medicine examined the animals, performed procedures and conducted follow-up checkups. Staff members registered patients, prepared animals for surgery, readied the surgical suite and performed other technical and nursing tasks. Students escorted the pets as they received medications before surgery, assisted in the anesthesia and operating rooms, monitored recovery of the animals, and met with clients.
Each dog also received flea medication, vaccines if clients desired them for their pets, and a microchip with free registration.
A National Event
Spay Day takes place in communiities throughout the country and is coordinated locally by the Sacramento Area Animal Coalition, which arranged for about 700 spay-neuter appointments this year. UC Davis is one of 18 regional partners who donate spay and neuter services for this special day. The school's Spay Day effort took place at the Ira M. Gourley Clinical Teaching Center, where veterinary students learn basic clinical skills of anesthesia, surgery and patient management. Since 2004, veterinary faculty, staff and students have transformed the center into a community veterinary clinic on Spay Day to spay and neuter dozens of dogs.
Two unaltered dogs and their offspring can produce up to 67,000 puppies in six years. There are not enough homes for them all. Spay Day organizers state that spaying and neutering is the single best way to reduce the number of unwanted animals entering animal shelters. | <urn:uuid:c23838dd-208e-434d-bd88-a3fa24824c8d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/whatsnew/article2.cfm?id=2347 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393463.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00136-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956588 | 478 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Latest update: September 4th, 2012
It was not easy to maintain tradition and religious observance in the sparsely settled American colonies. These colonies were, of course, far away from the old European centers of Jewish life and learning. Furthermore, there were very few Jews residing in America during the 17th and 18th centuries.
In 1695, New York City, considered to be a relative bastion of American Judaism, had a Jewish population of about 100. By 1750 this number had increased to about 300; by 1794 it rose to only 350. In addition, qualified religious leadership was to be found only in a few cities. The first ordained Orthodox rabbi in America, Rav Abraham Rice, did not arrive until 1840. Sadly but not surprisingly, he found total chaos in Baltimore`s Jewish religious community.
Despite the almost insurmountable obstacles that stood in the way of observance, there were those who made valiant efforts to maintain Yiddishkeit to whatever extent possible.
The Franks were a prominent New York Jewish family during Colonial times. Jacob Franks came to New York in 1705, and he married Bilhah Abagail Levy in 1719. They were typical of Jewish families of the times in that, with very few exceptions, they were observant and resolved to continue their Jewish way of life.
Of course, “remaining loyal to the ancient traditions was not easy in the colonies where there were neither rabbis nor Jewish learning, and where Jews were outnumbered 1,000 to one.” (Jewish Pioneers in America, 1492-1848, Anita Libman Lebeson, Brentano`s Publishers, 1931, pages 110-111.)
In the 1740`s it was extremely difficult in a place like Georgia to maintain observance. There were at most four or five Jewish householders and only two of them were “religious.” One of the two families was that of the Sheftalls, headed by Benjamin Sheftall, who came to Savannah with the first Jewish settlers. Benjamin`s oldest son, Mordecai, became thirteen in the spring of 1749. However, his father did not have a siddur and tefillin for him. Such religious items had to come from abroad, and war had made it very difficult for British ships to come to Georgia.
Benjamin`s anguish at the thought that his son would not be properly prepared for full-fledged membership in the Jewish community is reflected in a note to his friends in England [the spelling and wording of the original has been preserved]:
As I have received some letters five days ago from one of our relation, Samule, who writes me that you was so good as to send mee some books and other things, which I to my misfortune never have received, and as I do not no [know] which way they wear [were] sent, nor no [know] the name of the captain or the name of the ship, so I can`t enquier for them. I hope your honour will soon find it out wether that ship is taken by an enemy or lost at sea.
If she is not taken nor lost, I hop your honour will let me no [know] where to inquier for them. I live [leave] your honour to guess in what grife I am in to be so misfortenabel, my eldest son binq [being] three months ago thirten years of age and I not to have any frauntlets [phylacteries] nor books fit for him. I won`t troubel your houner with much writing, for my heart is full of grife.
No more at present, I am Your humbel servant Benjamin Sheftall Savanah in Georgia, March 1748.
Mrs. Hyman Samuel (n?e Rebecca Alexander), whose family lived in a small town in Virginia during the last part of the 18th century, corresponded with her parents in Hamburg, Germany. Rebecca`s husband, a competent craftsman, was a watchmaker and silversmith. The letters of hers that are extant are among the best descriptions we have of life on the American Jewish cultural and religious frontier. They indicate the difficulties encountered in America by those who wanted to remain observant Jews. Indeed, the reader cannot help but empathize with the Samuels for the Jewish isolation they experienced in the New World.
Petersburg, January 12, 1791, Wednesday, 8th [7th ?] Shebat, 5551.
Dear and Worthy Parents:
We are completely isolated here. We do not have any friends, and when we do not hear from you for any length of time, it is enough to make us sick. I hop e that I will get to see some of my family. That will give me some satisfaction.
You write me that Mr. Jacob Renner`s son Reuben is in Philadelphia and that he will come to us. People will not advise him to come to Virginia. When the Jews of Philadelphia or New York hear the name Virginia, they get nasty. And they are not wrong! It won`t do for a Jew. In the first place it is an unhealthful district, and we are only human. God forbid, if anything should happen to us, where would we be thrown? There is no cemetery in the whole of Virginia. In Richmond, which is twenty-two miles from here, there is a Jewish community consisting of two quorums [twenty men], and the two cannot muster a quarter [quorum when needed?]. In another letter Rebecca wrote:
I hope my letter will ease your mind. You can now be reassured and send me one of the family to Charleston, South Carolina. This is the place to which, with God`s help, we will go after Passover. The whole reason why we are leaving this place is because of (its lack of) Yehudishkeit.
Dear Parents, I know quite well you will not want me to bring up my children like Gentiles. Here they cannot become anything else. Jewishness is pushed aside here. There are here (in Petersburg) ten or twelve Jews, and they are not worthy of being called Jews. We have a shohet here who goes to market and buys terefah meat and then brings it home. On Rosh Hashanah and on Yom Kippur the people worshipped here without one Sefer Torah; and not one of them wore the tallit or the arba kanfot, except Hyman and my Sammy`s godfather.
You can believe me that I crave to see a synagogue to which I can go. The way we live now is no life at all. We do not know what the Sabbath and the holidays are. On the Sabbath all the Jewish shops are open, and they do business on that day as they do throughout the whole week. But ours we do not allow to open. With us there is still some Sabbath. You must believe me that in our house we all live as Jews as much as we can. My children cannot learn anything here, nothing Jewish, nothing of general culture.
On Love Marriage Children and Death Collected and Edited by Jacob R. Marcus, Society of Jewish Bibliophiles 1965, pages 7 and 9.
Ibid., pages 42-45.
Dr. Yitzchok Levine, a frequent contributor to The Jewish Press, is a professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey. He can be contacted at email@example.com.Dr. Yitzchok Levine
About the Author: Dr. Yitzchok Levine served as a professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey before retiring in 2008. He now teaches as an adjunct at Stevens. Glimpses Into American Jewish History appears the first week of each month. Dr. Levine can be contacted at firstname.lastname@example.org.
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A suppressor, often called a "silencer" is a device used to make a gun less loud. Suppressors are most often added to the gun barrel, usually by screwing the silencer onto the end of the barrel. Some guns have a built-in suppressor.
Even though many people use the name "silencer" when talking about a suppressor, it does not really make the gun silent. How much the sound is reduced depends both on the cartridges and the suppressor. A suppressed firearm usually produces between 120 to 135 decibels (dB), which is much quieter than without the suppressor, but is still loud enough to cause hearing loss without additional protection such as earplugs. An unsuppressed firearm usually produces 140 to 165 dB. For comparison, a typical jackhammer produces about 130 dB.
In most states in the United States, suppressors are legal for civilians to own, but the National Firearms Act requires that buyers must undergo an extensive background check and pay a $200 tax. Possession of an untaxed suppressor is illegal, except for licensed class 3 firearms dealers, the military, and law enforcement. | <urn:uuid:e81762fe-8d98-4115-8971-33df25dffca6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressor | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396029.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00167-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944843 | 235 | 2.96875 | 3 |
It's a clever idea - create a network of traffic lights that communicate using radio data links. Unfortunately when thieves discovered that the lights used standard SIM cards the temptation proved too great.
If you are creating embedded code for a device then security isn't usually uppermost on your list of concerns but a news item from South Africa should make you pause to consider an aspect of security you might well overlook.
The clever administrators of the City of Johannesburg must have thought it was a really great idea when they decided to install traffic lights that communicated with the central control via a cellular modem - no wires needed for the data link and you only pay for what you use.
Cellular data links are an attractive option for any distributed embedded device be it a monitoring unit or a control device like the traffic lights. However, and you can probably guess what's coming, each cellular modem needed a SIM to make connection and the SIMs used were 100% standard mobile phone SIMs with standard accounts. When enterprising thieves learned that there were lots of poles with free SIM cards on top the result was inevitable. Unfortunately the thieves damaged the traffic light control units in the removal of the SIM card and now the city faces a large (R8.8 million) bill to replace all of the damaged lights.
The stolen SIM cards have now been blocked and the designers are trying to work out how to make the electronics less attractive to thieves.
The long term solution is probably to use custom SIM cards that don't fit let alone work in a standard phone. However, when designing embedded systems it is always going to be attractive to make use of existing off the shelf hardware - it's generally cheaper and doesn't involve any development process. Some measure of security would have been achieved if, say, the SIM was data-only or if it was locked down using digital security, but it's physical appearance might still have encouraged thieves to steal it.
With the growth of the "Internet of things" this is a problem that can only get worse.
Official Johannesburg website report
Discussion at the Schneier on Security blog | <urn:uuid:5ffe2d7d-4952-41ab-bb38-b4e8eef6f8ef> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.i-programmer.info/news/91-hardware/1839-stealing-sims-from-traffic-lights.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404382.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00011-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953372 | 423 | 2.65625 | 3 |
After the second year on orbit, the ESA's GOCE satellite collected enough data to model the Earth's gravity field with unprecedented precision.
The new geoid was introduced at the 4th International GOCE User Workshop held at the TU München, Munich, Germany.
Prof. Reiner Rummel said, "We see a continuous stream of excellent GOCE gradiometry data coming in. With each of the two-month cycle, our GOCE gravity field model is getting better and better."
For more information on the topic, please visit the ESA website http://www.esa.int/goce | <urn:uuid:17940611-1596-42ce-be16-54764d8f84ba> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.iag-aig.org/index.php?tpl=text&id_c=79&id_t=497 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00190-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.897795 | 131 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Into the Vortex: Dynamics in Nanoscale MaterialsMicron and nanosized magnets are of great interest for their potential applications in new electronic devices, such as magnetic random access memories. As the size of magnets is reduced to a 1-micron scale and below, the boundaries (surfaces, perimeters, etc) of the objects begin to profoundly influence both the static and dynamic behavior of the materials. Researchers from Argonne’s Materials Science Division (MSD), Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM), and Advanced Photon Source (APS) have recently examined the dynamics of 3- to 7-micron-diameter NiFe alloy disks with a combination of theoretical calculations and a new time-resolved magnetic imaging technique using synchrotron-based x-ray photoemission electron microscopy (PEEM). These structures, which are a few microns in diameter, exhibit a simple magnetic configuration called a “vortex state,” in which the local magnetization circulates around a singular central region, the vortex core. When the disks are placed in an external magnetic field, the location of the vortex core shifts, and then relaxes back towards the center when the field is removed. For circular disks in particular, this vortex state can be evaluated analytically, thus providing a model system for the fundamental study of magnetization dynamics in very small structures.
Although the vortex state is a fairly simple magnetic configuration, its dynamic response (the motion of the vortex core) to magnetic field pulses is not, and is still not well understood. In fact, there is considerable controversy over the frequency of the vortex core motion and its path, resulting from earlier experiments at the Advanced Light Source and the Swiss Light Source. By studying these simple circular structures, the Argonne researchers aimed to resolve these questions. The disks were fabricated by electron beam lithography at the CNM and imaged using PEEM at X-ray Operations and Research sector 4 of the APS. A small magnetic field was applied to shift the core, then removed while magnetic images were taken. The figure below shows selected snapshots of a 5.3 micron diameter disk taken at different times after the removal of the field, along with a plot of the vortex core position. In the plot, the blue curve is a fit to a 56.1 MHz oscillation frequency. In the images, the disks have bright and dark regions depending on the magnetization direction, so the boundary between bright and dark reveals the core singularity position. The researchers found that the core position oscillates with the frequencies predicted theoretically, but that its relaxational trajectory is not as predicted. Instead of a circular trajectory a mostly linear path perpendicular to the applied field was seen. This is a surprising result, which is the subject of further experiments to more sensitively detect the core motion parallel to the field direction. These studies that probe ultrasmall magnetic imaging at ultra-fast time scales are leading to a greater understanding of the behavior of complex materials, which is important for applications that require magnetic materials on the nanoscale.
K. Yu. Guslienko, X.F. Han, D.J. Keavney, R. Divan, and S. D. Bader, Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 067205 (2006).
This work was supported by the U. S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contract No. W-31-109-ENG-38.
Click here to see a QuickTime ”movie” of the time sequence of vortex images captured via the soft x-ray photoemission electron microscope (PEEM) at XOR beamline 4-ID-C. | <urn:uuid:4f774955-1701-4422-9e56-4b77f778a2fc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.aps.anl.gov/Science/Highlights/2006/20060220.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00063-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906902 | 762 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Move over, Roomba. Make way for Fukitorimushi, an autonomous floor-cleaning robot that crawls like an inchworm and uses a super-absorbent nanofiber cloth to wipe up microscopic dust and residue that ordinary vacuums leave behind. Unveiled at the recent Tokyo Fiber Senseware exposition in Milan, Fukitorimushi (lit. "wipe-up bug") is designed by Panasonic and incorporates nanofiber technology developed by textile maker Teijin, Ltd.
The robot cleans by simply dragging its nanocloth belly across the floor as it slowly crawls around in search of dirt. (Watch the video.)
Fukitorimushi, which moves around by flexing and stretching its body like an inchworm, uses "feelers" of blue-white light to search for floor grime. When it finds a dirty spot, the robot emits a red light and devotes extra effort to cleaning that area. After it has finished cleaning, the machine returns to its charging station to replenish its battery.
Fukitorimushi's body is covered in Teijin's Nanofront cloth, which is made of polyester filament fibers measuring 700 nanometers in diameter (about 7,500 times thinner than the average human hair). The nanofibers significantly increase the fabric's surface area and porosity, giving it superior wiping characteristics and the ability to absorb oil and ultra-fine dust particles less than one micron in diameter. The large surface contact area also increases the fabric's friction with the floor and makes it resistant to sliding. The robot relies on this increased friction to push itself forward while wiping the floor.
According to its creators, Fukitorimushi is also designed to engage the emotions and foster a closer relationship between humans and machines. The way the machine creeps across the floor may seem a little strange at first, but the designers say people tend to grow fond of the robotic creature after watching it for a while. In addition, the owner must periodically replace Fukitorimushi's nanocloth cover with a clean one. The designers suggest this task of looking after the Fukitorimushi may encourage a pet-like affection for the machine.
[Link: Tokyo Fiber '09 Senseware Guide (PDF)] | <urn:uuid:78ba5025-7135-47dd-9fcd-56bc60ccbcea> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://pinktentacle.com/2009/05/fukitorimushi-autonomous-floor-wiping-robot/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00145-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925397 | 464 | 2.5625 | 3 |
(From the publisher):
The sun is a variable star. Changes in solar output have sent glaciers marching toward the equator every fifty thousand years or so. It wasn't until the first decade of the Twenty Second Century, however, that humanity realized the true extent of Sol's variability. Beginning in 2102, the sun was wracked by a series of solar flares. As such outbursts grew more frequent and violent, astronomers began to reexamine their long held beliefs about the nature of the sun.
It was with understandable horror that they realized Sol was about to enter a period of long term instability. Projections called for the sun's output to increase gradually for several hundred years. While minor on the scale of the universe, the change would render Earth uninhabitable within a century. If nothing were done to stop it, the Mother of Men would become a twin to Venus--a hothouse planet on which liquid water no longer existed.
Despite their best efforts, the scientists could find no practical method for bringing the errant star to heel. After decades of study, Earth's leaders reluctantly concluded that humankind would have to abandon its ancestral home. They began to search the Solar System for a place of refuge. The haven they chose was not one many would have guessed.
Original title: The Clouds of Saturn
Genre: Fiction→ Science Fiction→ Hard Science
Fiction→ Science Fiction→ Planets & Societies→ Adapting To Harsh Conditions | <urn:uuid:82521c70-6b74-4019-9998-a4adfb8af143> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.iblist.com/book34172.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404382.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00082-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961538 | 298 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Modern people want to be informed today, especially when it comes to his health. The health website www. Alldiseasessheets.org includes a broad range of diseases information.
"The great diversity of medical knowledge is understandable to persons and offers the opportunity to better understand yourself and your body. The website content is original, written by one of the authors or endorsed by the website editor," said John Uyt, Editor of Alldiseasessheets Website.
The reader immediately receives a comprehensive insight into the capabilities of the website. The interface is clearly laid out and the information is easy to access.
"The variety of diseases is endless. This website is in alphabetical order, a large number of common diseases before, with knowledge levels about the illness and the treatment options. For each disease, the disease is discussed in detail. The user receives information on the causes of the disease, the risk factors, and the degree distribution," said John Uyt.
It will continue to be typical for the respective disease symptoms led and optionally also be references to other signs of disease. For each disease, the user receives far-reaching end information for the diagnosis, procedures, and possible impediments to a diagnosis.
However, is particularly important for all people ask the question: How do I get well? The health website offers comprehensive information to appropriate therapies and offers suggestions for therapies that are based on the latest medical findings. The evaluation is performed by professional hand and is completely free for the user. In addition to the extensive notes to the disease, there is also useful information for obtaining their own health. The proper diet, adequate exercise, and not least the good mental balance play a crucial role.
"Covered here are such topics as anorexia, illness, lung cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, hay fever, eating disorder and many more. In addition, readers are supplied with medical news Treatment options are also available," added John Uyt.
http://www.alldiseasessheets.org has announced that there will be more changes for the benefit of users in the future. The goal is, directly or indirectly, better and more fully to inform those affected by all diseases, include large qualitative and interactive medical information, and offer its visitors a wide range of diseases information available. | <urn:uuid:2481652c-41ae-415b-8cf7-6f7da6281a38> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.freeprnow.com/pr/alldiseasessheets-website-launch-to-provides-diseases-information-and-treatment-options | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393093.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00021-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955806 | 469 | 2.53125 | 3 |
- While Egypt struggles to wade through political problems, its education system suffers
- Literacy rates are low and unemployment is high, especially among females
- Many middle-class families are spending a large part of their income on private tutoring
- A few start-up companies have emerged, however, to address the education deficit
In a deserted playground a few hundred miles south of Cairo, 13-year-old Asmaa Ashraf fiddles with a broken rusted slide. She is waiting listlessly for a lesson with her math tutor.
The bright-eyed teenager lives in a sepia-toned village in the province of Qena, a place of rural poverty and neglect. But she has big dreams about education. She wants to open a school one day.
"At my school, we'll learn," she says, brushing her hands longingly over the slide. "Teachers will show up and we'll be allowed to ask questions. We'll be allowed to draw with color."
Such aspirations, however, amount to fantasy for most youth in a country still struggling to land on its feet after being turned completely upside down.
Two and a half years after the country's uprising began, Egypt's fledgling democracy is stillborn, stubbornly stuck between its past and future. And as the government struggles to wade through the country's protracted political problems, Egypt's festering education system is orphaned -- even though, with a growing youth population, it's key to the country's future.
In the World Economic Forum's latest report on global competitiveness, Egypt ranked near the bottom -- 131st out of 144 countries -- for quality of primary education. Egypt's literacy rate is 66%, according to a 2011 United Nations report. Meanwhile, a report by London think tank Chatham House says just $129 a year is spent on each Egyptian student; the United States, for example, spends 40 times as much.
The situation is worst in regions far from the capital, and in Upper Egypt, where more than half the population is under 29.
Many schools look more like rank penitentiaries rather than hubs of learning. Students and teachers seem to be on the verge of exhaustion rather than bursting with inspiration.
And forget technology. Desks and a stable electricity supply are luxuries.
"We didn't have enough desks last year," recalls Asmaa's 12-year-old neighbor, Omnia. "So most of us just sat on the floor. We only get a little paper, but my mom found this," she said, holding up a small, faded "Hannah Montana" notebook. The American pop culture reference is lost on her.
To make up for the gaps in education, millions of middle-class Egyptian families spend a large part of their income -- sometimes as much as 25% -- on private tutoring. It's impossible to know how much money is spent in all, but some estimates put the total at $1 billion a year.
Public school teachers rarely make more than $300 a month. More than a few of them say they teach the bare minimum in class so that they can earn more from the same students in private tutoring sessions.
"There are too many issues to deal with," said one 32-year-old teacher in Asmaa's village. "I have kids of my own I'm struggling to take care for." He says he gives three hours of private tutoring in the evening and does mechanical work on the side.
For parents with any hope that their children will be better off, investing in education is essential. Egypt's final secondary school exams are a rite of passage for students. Their scores chart their future. If they don't do well, they won't get a place in college.
The status quo is even more somber for Egypt's women. According to a recent World Bank report, the illiteracy rate for young people in Upper Egypt is 17%, higher than the national average of 11%, and the illiteracy rates for females is 24%, almost twice that of males. Also, 70% of young women in Upper Egypt are jobless.
Politicians, whether they're from the ruling Muslim Brotherhood or the opposition, agree that educational reform is needed. But they quickly fall silent when pushed to articulate plans. One politician said the country simply has "bigger fish to fry," with a controversial new constitution and still no full, functioning parliament.
But with unemployment at staggering rates -- 33% for men age 20-24 and 53% for women in the same age -- Egypt has a highly combustible pool of frustrated and disenfranchised youth in danger of becoming a lost generation.
"This is a generation that desperately needs to learn how to critically think, to learn how to be in the 21st century," said Malak Zalouk, director of the Middle East Institute for Higher Education at the American University in Cairo. "Mubarak's regime trained students to be loyal citizens. And now, despite a revolution for dignity ... there is none."
It sounds like an almost hopeless picture. However, as Egypt's public education system founders, a few innovative ideas have emerged.
This year, a few Egyptian entrepreneurs have launched Nafham, a Web-based startup that features crowd-sourced educational videos. Nafham, which means "We understand" in Arabic, hopes to provide an alternative -- a virtual classroom -- for struggling Egyptian families. It divides the Egyptian public school curriculum into lessons that can be explained in 5- to 15-minute videos, covering all lessons mandated by the government curriculum.
Since the website went live in October, Nafham's staff of teachers created around 4,900 videos, while 1,000 videos were crowd-sourced -- reviewed and approved by the staff. By late May, Nafham's YouTube channel had more than 1 million views.
For the 65% of Egyptians who don't have Internet access -- those who stand to gain the most from the service -- Nafham says it hopes to form group viewings in some villages. It is also in talks with some companies to offer USBs with Internet access to groups throughout the countryside.
Another innovative initiative is Teach for Egypt, a start-up created by Nada Ramadan, a 24-year-old Egyptian who's a graduate student at Georgetown University in Washington. Based on the Teach for America model, Ramadan plans to recruit ambitious college graduates -- most from within the Egyptian community and diaspora -- to commit to a two-year service in which they are trained extensively and placed in underprivileged schools.
Ramadan says she's running into problems, however, while trying to implement her idea. The bureaucracy in Egypt leaves little room for productivity, let alone creativity and innovation. Still, she continues to push on.
"We could all stand around and protest that the government is failing us, or we could go out and offer the solutions," she said. "So, that's what we're trying to do."
But until those solutions are offered, Asmaa -- and a whole generation in waiting -- will continue to linger near broken slides, daydreaming about the future. | <urn:uuid:1bd60f48-6d6e-4350-ba11-c9882dc19d2f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/24/world/africa/egypt-broken-schools | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00107-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969248 | 1,462 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Self-esteem worksheets are a tool that can be used to assess where you most need work on your own sense of self-worth and value. You may have a vague idea that you are having a problem with
but feel unsure what areas are causing you the most problems or what you should do to begin to improve. These worksheets help answer the question “Where do I begin to work on my self-esteem?”
provided below, or design your own with a blank piece of paper or journal. The point is to take the time to assess how you feel about yourself so you can begin work on your problem areas or make a plan to reach goals that are eluding you.
1. How do you feel about your appearance? Do you think you are more or less attractive than other people? What areas do you think you could improve in order to help
raise your self-esteem?
2. Looking back over your job history, how do you feel about your job or career accomplishments? What career accomplishment or skills are you most proud of? Do you think you are meeting your potential? Do you have a goal or dream that you haven’t pursued such as writing a book or starting your own business? What is holding you back?
3. How do you feel about your interactions with other people? Are you nervous around people you don’t know? Or are you more uptight around relatives or coworkers? Are you satisfied with your marriage or current partner? If you are in a committed relationship, are you able to assert your needs within your relationship?
4. What are you most proud of in your life? What do you hope to be remembered for? What goal do you want to meet before you die? What steps are you taking to get there? Is lack of faith in yourself holding you back?
WORKSHEET #2: LISTENING TO OTHER PEOPLE
Other people’s opinions should never be the most important thing in your life. For one thing, you may react to what you think people are thinking rather than what they’re actually thinking.
1. What is the nicest thing anyone has ever said about you? Have you ever received any special awards or commendations?
2. Ask your closest friends or family members for positive feedback. For example, ask them what they think your best quality is or what you should be proudest of.
3. Keep a log listing every nice thing that is ever said about you. A collection of little compliments and memories of praise can give you courage and strength on difficult days.
These are two examples of self-esteem worksheets that can be used as tools to focus on your self-esteem. Feel free to create your own. The important thing is to take the time to work on improving any weak areas. Getting started is often the hardest part. | <urn:uuid:2845bca7-6283-456c-b51c-7d95cd0a9353> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.selfesteem2go.com/self-esteem-worksheets.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394937.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00024-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968702 | 587 | 3.203125 | 3 |
by Bill Barnes
Here's a value that often eludes urban policy thinkers: adding beauty to the world. Blair Ruble, in contrast, thinks "there is no higher mission for an urban community to fulfill." He's not so much talking about the aesthetics of physical surroundings; he's moved by the beauty of what people do and create in the places they make.
Ruble asserts this view in his terrific "biography" of "Washington's U Street."
The U Street neighborhood lies about 20 blocks north of the National Mall and between North Capital Street and 16th Street in the Northwest quadrant of the District of Columbia.
U Street is unique and uniquely significant. Its history and current condition nonetheless reflect themes common to many communities across the nation. A Neighborhood Biography
Ruble's book is a history of an urban space, a community - of black/white relations and "contact" among strangers; of the neighborhood's "most celebrated offspring," musician Duke Ellington, and also of the great baseball player, Buck Leonard; of historically black Howard University and segregated Griffith Stadium; and, especially, of jazz, poetry, modern dance, historical studies, civil rights activism, and other ways of "making the world richer and purer by adding more beauty to it."
It's also a history of Jim Crow in Washington, the 1919 violence in which "African-Americans defended their community from white marauders," the area's "Black Broadway" era between the two world wars; a different kind of violence in April 1968 after the murder of Dr. King and the "New U" entertainment district of the last decade or so.
Around 1900, more African-Americans lived in Washington than in any other American city. Historian Constance Green called the city "the undisputed center of American Negro civilization."
Ruble says that U Street was the "undisputed heart of this undisputed center." Surrounded by a hostile white world - invigorated by the Jim Crow practices of the Woodrow Wilson Administration - a vigorous popular entertainment culture and a black elite grounded at Howard and in civic activism and the arts and humanities produced a remarkable flowering from people such as Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Duke Ellington, Mary Church Terrell, Langston Hughes and others less well-known.The more things change ...
The more things change ... well, the more they change. For better and worse, the world of U Street "could not survive desegregation." Anti-discrimination laws and practices gradually created housing, shopping and entertainment opportunities that drew U Streeters out of the area. "Life appeared to ebb out of the neighborhood."
After the 1968 uprising and violence, U Street experienced several decades of poverty and dereliction.
Beginning in the 1990s, the development of a "New U" brought different, mostly white, middle-class residents and patrons of new retail and entertainment venues. Some long-time residents disdained the emerging pattern. That reaction corresponds to a finding of recent research: "race is salient" in framing residents' reactions to "retail gentrification."
The U Street story affirms the importance of having histories of places and the people who made them. The past is ever-present and the present demands a sense of the past. This applies everywhere and especially in Washington, a city whose existence as a community is often overlooked or even denied by a focus on the federal presence.
U Street also manifests the complex pluses and minuses of community change, in places large and small. Recent books about Harlem, for example, at once applaud and lament the gentrification of that area of Manhattan. Washington is experiencing much private and public discussion prompted by the 2010 Census results: "changing demographics raise issues for the city's cultural identity," "The Washington Post" recently headlined.
In "The New Urban Renewal," Derek Hyra finds that "a greater segment of the African-American population is benefitting from revitalization" today than in the past: "race and class, as opposed to race alone, define who benefits and who does not."
Government is part of the causal picture. Building on a long line of "urban renewal" and "economic development" critiques going back to the 1950s, Hyra analyzes the important roles that policies, made at all levels of government, played in producing community outcomes in Harlem and in Chicago's Bronzeville.
In the end, we come back to Blair Ruble's main point: amidst suffering and "silliness and stupidity," the challenge is for places to become environments where people can create, places that enhance rather than diminish people's talents and capacities. "City air makes people free" because it sets up the necessary creative balance between the demands of community and the imperative, as the philosopher Isaiah Berlin put it, that people be able to "choose as individuals how they shall live."
In short, cities should be places where people can add beauty to the world.Bill Barnes is the director for emerging issues at NLC. Comments about his column, which appears regularly in Nation's Cities Weekly, and ideas about "emerging issue" topics can be sent to him email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:d19df588-adb6-49d2-bc92-194ba7c91103> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nlc.org/find-city-solutions/city-solutions-and-applied-research/emerging-issues/2011-columns/u-street-and-neighborhood-change-a-thing-of-beauty-is-a-joy-forever | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397842.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00048-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952439 | 1,060 | 2.59375 | 3 |
pushnew item place &key key test test-not
Arguments and Values:
place---a place, the value of which is a proper list.
test---a designator for a function of two arguments that returns a generalized boolean.
test-not---a designator for a function of two arguments that returns a generalized boolean.
key---a designator for a function of one argument, or nil.
new-place-value---a list (the new value of place).
pushnew tests whether item is the same as any existing element of the list stored in place. If item is not, it is prepended to the list, and the new list is stored in place.
pushnew returns the new list that is stored in place.
Whether or not item is already a member of the list that is in place is determined by comparisons using :test or :test-not. The first argument to the :test or :test-not function is item; the second argument is an element of the list in place as returned by the :key function (if supplied).
If :key is supplied, it is used to extract the part to be tested from both item and the list element, as for adjoin.
The argument to the :key function is an element of the list stored in place. The :key function typically returns part part of the element of the list. If :key is not supplied or nil, the list element is used.
For information about the evaluation of subforms of place, see Section 126.96.36.199 (Evaluation of Subforms to Places).
It is implementation-dependent whether or not pushnew actually executes the storing form for its place in the situation where the item is already a member of the list held by place.
(setq x '(a (b c) d)) => (A (B C) D) (pushnew 5 (cadr x)) => (5 B C) x => (A (5 B C) D) (pushnew 'b (cadr x)) => (5 B C) x => (A (5 B C) D) (setq lst '((1) (1 2) (1 2 3))) => ((1) (1 2) (1 2 3)) (pushnew '(2) lst) => ((2) (1) (1 2) (1 2 3)) (pushnew '(1) lst) => ((1) (2) (1) (1 2) (1 2 3)) (pushnew '(1) lst :test 'equal) => ((1) (2) (1) (1 2) (1 2 3)) (pushnew '(1) lst :key #'car) => ((1) (2) (1) (1 2) (1 2 3))
The contents of place may be modified.
Affected By: None.
Exceptional Situations: None.
push, adjoin, Section 5.1 (Generalized Reference)
The effect of
(pushnew item place :test p)is roughly equivalent to
(setf place (adjoin item place :test p))except that the subforms of place are evaluated only once, and item is evaluated before place. | <urn:uuid:17fd281d-7475-42d8-a8ad-97416c044e1f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/m_pshnew.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00076-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.796066 | 684 | 3.28125 | 3 |
Probe series touts 1THz high-accuracy measurement
Applications such as short-range communication, terahertz imaging, astronomy, and other high-speed communications applications require the ability to characterise sub-millimetre wave devices with data that is accurate and repeatable. Recent technology innovation in photonics and nanotechnology is enabling terahertz research, which is being applied in many emerging technology sectors.
Terahertz technology is finding use in an increasingly wide variety of applications: information and communications technology; biology and medical sciences; non-destructive evaluation; homeland security; quality control of food and agricultural products; global environmental monitoring; and ultra-fast computing among others. These applications present unique challenges, particularly with transmission line losses as testing approaches 600GHz and beyond.
Significant progress has been made in terahertz band (300GHz-3,000GHz) circuit fabrication, and continued growth in terahertz applications requires the availability of quality test and measurement equipment. Robust and calibrated on-wafer measurements of planar millimetre and sub-millimetre wave devices can significantly reduce the effort required to characterise a wafer of devices while increasing the accuracy of the measurement by eliminating errors and effects associated with fixtures.
Cascade Microtech now offers its new T-Wave probe series, which includes millimetre and sub-millimetre wavelength on-wafer ground-signal-ground probes and associated components for electrical measurement of devices and materials with frequencies up to 1.1THz. The T-Wave probe's innovative silicon probe tip is instrumental in achieving not only small pitches as narrow as 25µm but also delivers low contact resistance and insertion loss of less than 1.5dB between 140GHz and 220GHz. The T-Wave probe has excellent tip visibility for accurate probe placement, and with easily replaceable probe tips, cost of ownership is significantly reduced. | <urn:uuid:cad47fa5-a37a-4223-928e-fe20b96dfc33> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.eetasia.com/ART_8800700982_480400_NP_c26029ec.HTM | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397797.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00002-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920396 | 393 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Tintypes continue to fascinate us. Despite the process being over 150 years old, its methodical, almost meditative procedure and striking results have kept it alive. It's also a fairly scientific process that involves a good bit of chemistry. Check out this video to learn more about the technical and practical aspects of the practice of shooting tintypes.
South Africa's racial segregation laws and policies of the apartheid era may have ended 22 years ago, but the lingering effects of the forced separation of whites and blacks is getting another look through a photography project called "Unequal Scenes." It is the brainchild of American Photographer Johnny Miller, who now lives in Cape Town. What started as a post on his Facebook page, has morphed into a national and international dialog.
Point and shoot. That's how many people think about modern photography. A lot of things we take for granted today developed in the 1800s, including photography. Exposures took days until Louis Daguerre invented his daguerreotype process, which reduced days to minutes and produced clearer, more detailed images. At about the same time, the Victorian Period began with the ascension of Queen Victoria to the British throne. Disease was rampant and mortality rates were high, especially among children under five years old. Arguably, these were contributing factors to the unintended birth of portrait photography.
In November 2015, my mom came up with some old photos of my deceased grandfather, which were negatives printed on film. She said that she had asked several photography studios if it was possible to get normal prints from the printed negatives, but the answer was always no. As those were some of the only photographs left of him, she had kept all of them with a hope. Years after, it was my turn to try. The process to get some decent prints and move my mom to tears was ever so easy.
From Vogue to People, including Playboy and National Geographic, all these popular magazines are familiar to us and instantly recognizable, but just a few of us know what their first editions looked like decades ago. As time passed by, bringing forth new faces, new fashion, and a whole new way of thinking, magazines needed to evolve with their time and adapt. Some have stayed faithful to their initial visual identity, having only undergone minor changes because they knew what worked for them. On the other hand, other magazines covers have changed drastically, their covers being a far cry from the original design.
Ah, the selfie stick. And here we were thinking this was a new invention! Taken in 1934, Helmer Larsson and his wife, Naemi Larsson, show true human ingenuity as they pose for a portrait together in Wermland, Sweden, using a literal selfie stick. I think this is the first photograph I've seen where a selfie stick doesn't make the user look like an absolute tool.
COOPH Video Director, Matthew Rycroft, continues to make my job easier by sending me engaging content to share with the Fstoppers' community. Their latest video focuses on the ability, we all have as photographers, to capture unique, iconic, and fun moments. Watch "The Power of a Photograph," as it highlights twenty-two iconic photos that depict loss, depression, defiance, bravery, triumph, love and respect.
This gruesome photograph became pivotal anti-war propaganda that drastically shaped public opinion. The horrific frozen frame depicts a baptismal moment of unwavering distinction, a moment in a time that could not be undone, an elevated wartime tension that could not be unraveled. In this sense, the photograph was successful. It was shocking and characteristic in its ability to drive the anti war movement, protesting against brutality of the Vietnam conflict. But, what you can't see, is enough to change your perspective completely.
In this video essay, Evan Puschak aka The Nerdwriter explains some of the techniques Ansel Adams used to achieve his technical and esthetic mastery. Using visualization and some other relatively easy to learn techniques, Adams learned to bring what he saw in his mind's eye to his photographs (yes, I said "easy to learn," but hard to master). It was Adams' commitment to taking photographs, with intent, that made him a master artist and led him to develop the tools he needed to bring his images to fruition.
As someone who makes a full time living working as a photographer I am often asked for advice on how to get started and how to make it in this career. Despite the seemingly impossible odds, it is in fact quite possible to make a fantastic living in this industry. Former assistant to Mario Testino, Alexi Lubomirski, has created one of the best videos I've seen describing the persistence and tenacity required to succeed. If you are looking for a dose of motivation I highly recommend giving this a watch.
If you frequent this site, there's a pretty good chance you love photography. But how much do you actually know about its origins? Most of us rightfully jump to the camera obscura when thinking about the beginnings of photography, but how did we get from there to today's modern cameras? Have you ever wondered what the first photo ever taken was of? Or what the world's first color photo was of?
Right-o! Let's jump in our "wayback machine" to London, England in the late 19th century to witness some of the oldest known video footage, not only just of the city, but in all of human history. I'm a sucker for finding the earliest cinema and photography have to offer, and if you are too, then click on. | <urn:uuid:1f9102e0-b79e-4504-b244-cdbd91a1d2e0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://fstoppers.com/category/historical | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408828.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00183-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978734 | 1,139 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period
Typographers, that’s who. The people who study and design the typewritten word decided long ago that we should use one space, not two, between sentences. That convention was not arrived at casually. James Felici, author of the The Complete Manual of Typography, points out that the early history of type is one of inconsistent spacing. Hundreds of years ago some typesetters would end sentences with a double space, others would use a single space, and a few renegades would use three or four spaces. Inconsistency reigned in all facets of written communication; there were few conventions regarding spelling, punctuation, character design, and ways to add emphasis to type. But as typesetting became more widespread, its practitioners began to adopt best practices. Felici writes that typesetters in Europe began to settle on a single space around the early 20th century. America followed soon after.
Every modern typographer agrees on the one-space rule. It’s one of the canonical rules of the profession, in the same way that waiters know that the salad fork goes to the left of the dinner fork and fashion designers know to put men’s shirt buttons on the right and women’s on the left. Every major style guide—including the Modern Language Association Style Manual and the Chicago Manual of Style—prescribes a single space after a period. (The Publications Manual of the American Psychological Association, used widely in the social sciences, allows for two spaces in draft manuscripts but recommends one space in published work.) Most ordinary people would know the one-space rule, too, if it weren’t for a quirk of history. In the middle of the last century, a now-outmoded technology—the manual typewriter—invaded the American workplace. To accommodate that machine’s shortcomings, everyone began to type wrong. And even though we no longer use typewriters, we all still type like we do. (Also see the persistence of the dreaded Caps Lock key.) | <urn:uuid:50653270-d9ad-421d-953a-ff057c3d5c60> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2013/01/14/why-you-should-never-ever-use-two-spaces-after-a-period-2/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396887.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00129-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942928 | 427 | 2.75 | 3 |
Agriculture as a Tool
by Dr. Dov Sitton
(Updated July 1999)
Desertification affects arid regions
throughout the world, inflicting destitution on the populations of vast areas
and threatening them with famine. Reversing the process by which the desert
invades arable land and turns it into a desolate waste is one of the most
crucial challenges facing the communities and nations of arid regions.
Confronting the problems caused by
desertification requires tremendous efforts. An essential prerequisite for
success is a dedicated leadership aware of the problems, willing to allocate
adequate financial resources and to introduce effective agrotechnological
methods - and endowed with perseverance.
From the very inception of modern
Israel, settling the desert and turning it into farming land was considered a
matter of national priority. First by trial and error and later on through
research and development, agricultural know-how was incorporated into practice
and became a highly useful tool for turning the desert into productive and
The major transition from traditional
to modern agriculture was based, from the very beginning, on changing
attitudes with regard to the supply of water to the arid regions, combined
with suitable adaptation and implementation of advanced agricultural methods
and accumulated experience.
The pivotal role of water supply for
agricultural purposes in the arid and semiarid regions of Israel will be
discussed in detail.
Although the State of Israel borders
the Mediterranean Sea, its climate is profoundly affected by the proximity of
vast tracts of desert to the south and east. Precipitation is limited to the
winter season, which extends essentially from November to March. Annual
rainfall averages between 800 and 400 mm. in the north and west of the country
and declines sharply toward the south and east, dropping almost to zero. Thus,
most of the area of Israel is characterized by semiarid and arid conditions.
About 60% of the country is classed as arid and needs to be irrigated all year
round to sustain agriculture, and even where precipitation is relatively high
- in the northern and western parts - summer crops require irrigation between
April and October. The more aridic areas are characterized by stronger solar
radiation and higher levels of water evaporation from the ground surface.
All over the country, but much more
so in the southern and eastern regions, the annual precipitation varies
considerably from one year to the next. Under such climatic conditions the
water supply picture is one of a fragile balance between supply and demand.
The Negev before 1948
Until 1948, the year of the
establishment of the State of Israel, the southern part of the country, called
the Negev, was inhabited mainly by nomadic Bedouin tribes. The Bedouin - who
numbered some 65,000 at that time and were spread out over an area of about
10,000 sq. km. - subsisted principally on sheep, goat and camel herding. The
Bedouin tribes moved around periodically in search of pasture and water. Being
wholly dependent on erratic seasonal rains and floods, they were often short
of food for themselves and for their flocks.
In certain areas - mainly the
northern and western Negev - semi-nomadic Bedouin practiced a subsistence
agriculture which relied wholly on the erratic rainfall. The crops grown were
mainly barley and wheat, and farming was restricted to winter and early spring
crops. Drought and crop failure were frequent events.
An additional type of farming
practiced on a very small scale by the Bedouin was based on the stone dams
erected by the ancient Nabateans and Byzantines. Such dams, supplemented by
simple barriers made of dirt, were used to collect floodwaters and promote
deep wetting of the ground. Under such conditions they were able to plant a
small number of fruit trees, such as grape, almond and pomegranate and to
cultivate vegetables during the summer.
First Modern Agricultural Settlements in the
The officials of the Ottoman Empire
who ruled Palestine until 1917, and later the British Mandatory authorities,
saw the Negev as uninhabitable territory whose chief importance was strategic
and political. Therefore, little effort was invested in developing the region
and improving the standard of living of its inhabitants.
The Jewish community, on the other
hand, showed particular interest in the vast uninhabited tracts of the Negev
from the very inception of the agricultural settlement drive at the end of the
19th century. A small number of studies and surveys were carried out in the
twenties. These pointed to a pessimistic conclusion - namely that scanty
rains, lack of local sources of water and infertile soils precluded successful
farming. Furthermore, the agrotechnologies available at the time did not offer
ways of overcoming local environmental limitations. There is no doubt that the
early surveyors were influenced by the meager, rain-fed agriculture practiced
by the Bedouin.
At a later date, it was realized that
the establishment of small communities to explore local conditions was
essential to planning future settlement in the Negev. In 1943 three
experimental settlements were established in the Negev, each roughly 30 km.
distant from the others. The main aim was to explore soil conditions,
availability of water (including data on annual precipitation), and the kind
of crops that could be cultivated under the prevailing conditions. Another
eleven settlements were founded in the Negev in 1946, equipped and financed by
Jewish national institutions, and a further five settlements in 1947.
From the very beginning of this
pioneering endeavor, it was apparent that the main limiting factor from the
standpoint of agriculture was the scarcity of water. The recognition that the
establishment of a modern and economically viable agriculture hinged on
irrigation, which in turn called for a reliable supply of water, led to the
launching of a series of exploratory studies. These included meteorological,
geological and hydrological surveys. Attempts were made to drill wells and
draw underground water; however, the quantities obtained were quite small, and
the salinity of the water was often too high for agricultural use. Attempts to
build dams and reservoirs to collect seasonal floodwaters failed because of
the large fluctuations from year to year in quantity and intensity of the
floods, as well as technical difficulties. Eventually it was concluded that
the only way of securing a dependable and sufficiently large supply of water
for agriculture was to transport fresh water from northern sources via pipes.
The first pipeline, installed in
1947, assured a reliable but limited supply of water to most of the
settlements of the Negev - although several of them still needed to rely on
local wells. This pipeline transported water from wells in the northern Negev.
The first stage, installed and functioning in 1947, consisted of 190 km. of
6"-diameter pipelines supplying 1 million m3 (MCM) annually. Later on
this line was converted to a 20" pipeline supplying 30 MCM annually. This
pioneering endeavor was followed by two large-scale projects which will be
described below. The significance of this pioneering pipeline was that the
concept of transporting water from the north to sustain the southern arid
section of the country had become firmly established.
Agricultural Settlements in the Negev after 1949
Shortly after the establishment of
the state of Israel in 1948 a large influx of immigrants took place. A
relatively large proportion of the new immigrants were directed to new
settlements, many of them in the southern region of the country. Proper supply
of water was a precondition for inhabiting a region which lacked sufficient
local resources of water for farming and domestic use. A comprehensive system
for supplying water was therefore called for.
The first large-scale project
constructed to provide the new settlers with an adequate water supply system
was a 66"-diameter pipeline drawing water from the Yarkon River to the
Negev over a distance of 130 km. The annual output of this line was about 100
The second large-scale project was
the National Water Carrier, the most ambitious water supply project to date,
designed mainly to convey water to the southern region of the country from the
Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) in the north. The plans were approved in 1956, and
the carrier was completed and functioning by 1964. The carrier is a
combination of underground pipelines, open canals, interim reservoirs and
tunnels supplying about 400 MCM annually. Water from the Sea of Galilee,
located about 220 m. below sea level, is pumped to an elevation of about 152
m. above sea level. From this height the water flows by gravitation to the
coastal region, whence it is pumped to the Negev. The National Water Carrier
functions not only as the main supplier of water, but also as an outlet for
surplus water from the north in winter and early spring and a source of
recharge to the underground aquifers in the coastal region.
Israel's Water Resources and Supply: Policy and
As we saw, the problem of an adequate
water supply for agriculture began to preoccupy the leadership of the Jewish
community long before the State of Israel was founded. Soon after the state's
establishment in 1948, the issue of water was assigned top priority. Urgency
was seen not only in planning and carrying out projects and securing funds,
but also in consolidating a legal framework which would regulate all the
elements pertinent to the matter of water supply. Accordingly, in 1959 the
comprehensive Water Law was passed in the Knesset. The Water Law states that
all sources of water in the state are public property, subject to the control
of the state and dedicated to the needs of its inhabitants and the development
of the country. Each person is entitled to obtain water and to use it, subject
to the provisions of the Law. Three central institutions created by the Law -
the water council, the water commission and the court for water matters - are
charged with carrying out a comprehensive and balanced policy of water
production and supply on the national level.
Management of Water Resources in Israel
Total available water in Israel
averages about 2,000 MCM annually. The main consumers are the agricultural,
domestic and industrial sectors, agriculture accounting for 60 - 72% of total
About 90% of the fresh water
resources of the State of Israel have been incorporated into a single system
that enables implementation of a uniform national policy of water production
and regular supply to the different sectors of consumers (agriculture,
domestic and industry). To conserve and protect Israel's water resources,
currently exploited almost to the limit, several measures have been taken by
the water authorities:
- Allocation of water quotas. Each
sector is assigned an annual quota of water. The policy of allocation
depends on the water balance, which may vary from one year to the next.
- Institution of sliding price
scales varying according to sector. The individual consumer, be he farmer
or city dweller, pays a higher price for water consumed beyond the
- Recycling of sewage water.
Increasing quantities of sewage water have been finding their way into the
environment and endangering groundwater and other sources of fresh water.
The pressing need to find alternate sources of water supply, together with
the critical condition of the environment, led the authorities to set up
the Shafdan plant, a large-scale project for processing sewage to produce
purified water. The treated water is recharged to a nearby aquifer. Two
major benefits result: a) percolation of the water through the soil layers
provides an additional cleaning phase, and b) the aquifer serves as an
underground reservoir for the recharged water, preventing loss by
evaporation. Water is pumped off when needed, i.e., mainly in summer.
About 100 MCM of this purified water is transported annually via a
separate pipeline called the "Third Negev Pipeline" to the
western Negev for irrigation. Due to the high degree of purity of the
treated water, it can be used for all crops without any health risk.
Additional plants for processing
sewage water for irrigation are under construction or on the planning
boards. It is expected that most of the water allocated for agriculture
will eventually consist of purified effluents.
Smaller-scale plants in the Negev
provide treated sewage water for irrigation of fields located a short
distance from the source of the effluent. This water is of inferior
quality because of minimal treatment, and use is restricted to irrigation
of crops such as cotton in the summer. Small projects of this type are
reported to be highly cost-effective.
- Exploitation of saline (brackish)
water. Hydro-geological surveys have revealed that the Negev and the Arava
valley possess considerable reserves of saline underground water with a
variable concentration of salts. Many studies have been carried out to
investigate whether this water can be used for irrigation. It was found
that certain crops, such as cotton, tomato and melon, readily tolerate
saline water (up to 7-8 dS/m salinity). For certain crops, there is no
doubt that saline water can be used in place of fresh water for
irrigation. However, to minimize accumulation of salts around plant roots
and facilitate leaching away of salts that do accumulate, it is essential
a) to use drip delivery systems and b) to cultivate the plants in
soil-less medium or light soils (sandy or loamy-sandy soil).
Advanced Methods of Irrigation
One of the principles of good
agricultural practice is to provide developing plants with an adequate water
supply - i.e., to avoid excess standing water and to prevent exposure to water
shortage. Excessive amounts of water can cause poor aeration of the root
system leading to inhibition of plant development, or wasteful percolation
through the soil beyond the volume of the root system, or both. A water
deficit places the plant under stress and interferes with its normal
development. Avoiding water stress is particularly important in arid regions,
where high solar radiation and low humidity enhance evapotranspiration (the
process of loss of water from the ground surface and plant canopy).
Efficient use of water is crucially
dependent on advanced irrigation technologies, and nowhere more so than in
arid-land farming. Until about 50 years ago crops in this country were
irrigated by surface (flood and furrow) irrigation. Surface irrigation is
possible only when the ground is leveled and the soil type enables slow or
moderate percolation of the water. Under arid conditions, surface methods of
irrigation lead to severe loss of water by evaporation and to percolation
beyond the developed root system, especially in the stages of germination and
early development; moreover, between irrigation sessions the plants are
exposed to stress. Another negative aspect of surface irrigation under arid
and semiarid conditions is the process of soil salinization. The prevailing
high temperatures and low humidity cause intense evaporation from the ground
accompanied by accumulation of salts in the upper layers of the soil. The soil
gradually becomes unfit for cultivation, both because of the destruction of
the soil and due to the direct effect of the high concentration of salt on the
plants. Vast areas in arid and semiarid regions of many countries affected by
salinization have indeed had to be abandoned.
Pressurized irrigation with
sprinklers, introduced about 50 years ago, contributed much to modernizing
agriculture and increasing water use efficiency. However, from the standpoint
of agriculture in arid and semiarid regions, the most important development
has been the introduction of drip irrigation. Drip irrigation was developed in
Israel and introduced into Israeli agriculture less than 30 years ago. Since
then it has been disseminated all over the world with great success.
Drip irrigation has many advantages
over other irrigation methods:
- Water is discharged uniformly
along the lateral (pipe fitted with drippers) even on moderately sloping
terrain. The invention of compensated drippers enables uniform irrigation
of steeper slopes and long distances.
- Fertilizers can be supplied to
the plant via the drippers together with the water (fertigation).
- Water and fertilizers are
delivered directly to the root system rather than to the total area of the
field, thereby economizing on both water and fertilizers.
- The quantity of water delivered
can be optimized to fit different soil types, avoiding percolation of
water beyond the root zone.
- The emergence of weeds is
- Exploitation of poor quality
water (saline water or effluents) is made possible.
- Drippers with a given discharge
of water (liters per hour) can be installed at any spacing to accommodate
the needs of any crop.
- Drip irrigation is the most
efficient method as regards water saving. Water use efficiency (WUE), is
the ratio between the amount of water taken up by the plant and the total
amount of water applied. Since the drippers emit the water directly to the
soil adjacent to the root system, which absorbs the water immediately,
evaporation to the air is minimal. This effect is especially important
under the conditions prevailing in arid zones. In irrigation by sprinklers or by
surface methods, evaporation is enhanced by winds; by comparison, in drip
irrigation the impact of winds is minimal.
- Drip irrigation, unlike sprinkler
irrigation, makes it possible to utilize saline water by eliminating
direct contact between the water and the leaves, thus avoiding burns.
- Drip irrigation causes salts to
be continuously washed away from the root system, avoiding salt
accumulation in the immediate vicinity of the roots when irrigating
salinized soils or irrigating with saline water.
- Drip irrigation allows the use of
sewage water because the water is delivered directly to the ground,
minimizing health risks.
- High-quality drip irrigation
equipment can last for fifteen to twenty years if handled properly.
To sum up the subject of water use
efficiency, studies show that while WUE is about 45% in surface irrigation and
75% in sprinkler irrigation, in drip irrigation it is about 95%. Consequently,
it may be concluded that drip irrigation has many advantages over other
methods of irrigation and that it is significantly superior to surface and
sprinkler irrigation in regard to water saving, especially under conditions of
limited water supply.
The Role of Research in Arid Zones
From the very early exploratory
agricultural communities in the arid regions of Israel to the large settlement
projects and all the way to the present, there has been a continuous and
fruitful interaction between farmers and scientists. Many problems deriving
from the conditions specific to arid regions have been studied by researchers,
leading to successful solutions and innovative discoveries. Among many others
are the development of methods for bettering salinated soils, the use of
saline water for irrigation, the development and breeding of new varieties of
vegetables and other crops, and the methodology for incorporating fertilizers
in irrigation water by means of drip systems.
The extension services offered to
farmers by the Ministry of Agriculture have been instrumental in the
introduction to the farmers of advanced agrotechnologies, new varieties and
proper agricultural management The existing close cooperation between farmers,
extension officers and researchers is the main factor contributing to the
success of farming in the arid Negev of Israel.
In the light of the review presented
here, it is suggested that Israel can serve as an effective learning model for
many regions afflicted by similar arid conditions.
Foreign Relations Department
Ministry of Agriculture
12 Arania St.
Hakirya, Tel Aviv 61070
Applied Research Institutes
Ben Gurion University of the Negev | <urn:uuid:2c50c647-8306-40f8-bb49-ac98d4cf3ee3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/agriculture/agdes.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00148-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942714 | 4,287 | 3.578125 | 4 |
Alzheimer's More Likely Inherited Through Mother
Researchers use MRI scans to look for shrinking brain tissue
Understanding how Alzheimer's is inherited may help researchers develop ways to prevent or treat the disease.
A new study suggests that Alzheimer's Disease is more likely to be inherited through the mother than through the father.
But the study has limitations. There is no definitive test for Alzheimer's Disease, except examining the brain in an autopsy. So physicians and researchers have to use stand-ins, or proxies, to determine whether someone has the disease. A physician may give an elderly patient a memory test, or ask family members about behavioral changes.
Researchers in this study used MRI scans to look for shrinking brain tissue.
Robyn Honea of the University of Kansas Medical Center says a certain amount of shrinkage is a normal part of aging, but some of the people in their study lost more brain tissue than others.
"What we found is that really there wasn't that much difference between people that had a father with Alzheimer's disease and those that had no family history," Honea explains. "However, the group that had a mother with Alzheimer's disease had more shrinkage, primarily in two different areas of the brain."
The parts of the brain where they observed this shrinkage are associated with memory, and are areas that typically atrophy in Alzheimer's patients.
But a change in brain volume doesn't necessarily signal the onset of Alzheimer's. Honea says they gave tests to measure loss of memory and other brain functions over the two years of the study.
"We did measure cognitive change, but they didn't have significantly more cognitive change than any of the other groups," she said.
This is a relatively limited study, with just 53 people. And Honea is careful to point out that family history is an established risk factor for Alzheimer's, so the fact that people whose mother had Alzheimer's show more brain atrophy doesn't mean that the disease is only inherited through the mother.
"We know that people that have a mother or a father [with Alzheimer's disease] are at risk. We're really seeing that risk play out in the mother group in this sample. That doesn't necessarily mean that the group that had a father [with the disease] aren't at risk, too. They're just not exhibiting the same brain changes."
Honea says understanding how Alzheimer's is inherited may help researchers develop ways to prevent or treat the disease. | <urn:uuid:7c2becec-78a2-403d-abed-ec0f235488fd> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.voanews.com/content/alzheimers-more-likely-inherited-through-mother-117315403/171396.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00108-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974278 | 505 | 3.203125 | 3 |
August 1, 2012
A number of reports within the mainstream news arena have begun surfacing surrounding the newly emerging H3N8 ’seal flu virus’, labeling it as the ‘next pandemic’ and hammering on the possibility for the virus to spread among humans. It seems that the media ultimately likes to hype up all pandemic ‘threats’ whether it be the notoriously-mild swine flu ‘pandemic’ or the looming bird flu explosion. With the surfacing of so many touted pandemics and alarming viruses always comes a push for rushed vaccinations, later followed by haunting reports of severe side effects (and years later confirmed by medical journals.)
But what about the seal flu virus? Is it a real threat, or a phony pandemic scare? The strain was first examined in New England among harbor seals by scientific researchers, killing over 162 of the seals over a four-month period. After launching an investigation headed by virologist W. Ian Lipkin, MD, of Columbia University, it was found that the mutated virus had actually transmitted from sea birds to the seals themselves.
The virus had mutated in a number of ways after affecting the seals, such as being able to spread among mammals — or at least from seal to seal as of right now. The virus infected the seals lung tissue and airways, and eventually became even more virulent.
Will the Seal Flu Virus be Combined with Bird Flu H5N1 to Make a ‘Super Virus’?
Of course the largest concern with this virus is the possibility that it will spread to humans from animals. Considering that it has already mutated somewhat substantially, mainstream media organizations are already sounding the alarm for pandemic mode. Experts say, however, that it’s highly unlikely that the H3N8 seal flu virus will even spread to humans. That is unless, of course, the mammal-adapted H3N8 were to combine with the H5N1 bird flu virus. Such a combination and subsequent mutations would provide a recipe for a potentially deadly ‘super’ virus.
What’s most concerning is the fact that this could most easily be expedited in a laboratory setting, making the virus highly weaponized.
It may sound outlandish to some, but bioterrorism experts have previously confirmed that such a concern does exist — even with the bird flu virus itself. When scientists recently published research on how to develop a highly-weaponized version of the H5N1 bird flu that could easily spread among humans, experts on bioterrorism began to speak out.
One such foremost expert on the subject is Paul Keim, chair of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity. In a statement on just how serious of an impact just weaponized bird flu could have on the world, Keim stated:
“This is such a dangerous biological weapon, it would not be controllable. Whoever used it would doubtlessly decimate their own people as well,” Keim said
It is quite easy, then, to see how a weaponized version of the human-adapted seal virus — a merger of two deadly strains — is particularly concerning. In the event that such a bioterrorism act were committed by a group or individual, it could be severely problematic. Whether or not this scenario will unfold is yet to be seen, however, it seems to be the most significant manner in which a real pandemic could develop through artificial means.
My Recommended ‘Pandemic’ Kit to Keep Year Round Regardless of Media Scare
It is essential to begin bolstering up your immune system regardless of whether or not a new ‘pandemic’ is on the horizon. In addition to switching to high quality organic foods, drinking pure water, and performing sweat-inducing activities on a daily basis, here are my recommended ‘pandemic’ substances list to keep in your home at all times:
- Oil of oregano
- Liquid turmeric
- High quality colloidal silver purchased from a reputable provider (Supernatural Silver is a great provider and is even approved by the FDA, believe it or not)
- 5,000 IU doses of Vitamin D3
- Nascent atomic iodine
- Probiotics or fermented foods like kefir
This post first appeared at Natural Society | <urn:uuid:4961588f-5eff-499c-b74c-57250278bbca> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.prisonplanet.com/newly-emerged-h3n8-seal-flu-virus-touted-as-next-%E2%80%98pandemic%E2%80%99.html/print/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403502.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00146-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962124 | 901 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Barry Farm street names reflect post-Civil War history
For denizens of the Barry Farm community in Southeast Washington, the 19th century still holds strong at the corner—
Zabia Dews, the "Mayor of Barry Farm," outside Charlie's Corner store at the junction of Sumner and Wade Roads SE. Photo by the author.
"Look up at these street names," says Zabia Dews, 63, of the 2700 block of Wade Road SE, pointing to signs above for the junction of Sumner Road SE and Wade Road SE. "There's a history here people don't know about, or they forgot. We can't let it disappear."
The original names remain today: Howard Road SE, which runs past the Anacostia Metro Station, for General Oliver Otis Howard; Sumner Road SE for Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner; Wade Road SE for Ohio Senator Benjamin Wade; Pomeroy Road SE for Kansas Senator Samuel Pomeroy, an early member of Howard University's Board of Trustees; and Stevens Road SE for Pennsylvania Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, prominently featured in Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln."
The James Barry farm
In 1801 the board of commissioners of the embryonic capital city wrote to the principal landholders "asking to be furnished with lists of lots sold by them." Benjamin Stoddert, the first Secretary of the Navy, Notley Young, a prominent plantation owner, and more than a dozen other men including James Barry, "one of the incorporators of the Washington Canal Company," received the letter.
"Mr. Barry was largely invested in business, both foreign and domestic, and he was very zealous as an advocate of the interests of the eastern section of the city, in opposition to the claims of the western section," according to the Records of the Columbia Historical Society.
More than 60 years later, in April 1864, the surveyor of Washington County (all land in the District east of the Potomac, outside of the L'Enfant Plan and Georgetown) was "instructed to stone the new road between the northwest and southwest boundaries of the Barry Farm, known as the Stickfoot Branch road," reported the Daily National Republican.
In September young men were drafted off the farm to fill President Lincoln's call for a half million more Union troops. By now the Barry Farm, across the Eastern Branch from the Washington Navy Yard, was sandwiched between the United States Government Hospital for the Insane (Saint Elizabeths) which saw its first patient in 1855 and Uniontown (Anacostia), the city's first subdivision.
At this time, during the Civil War, the city was brimming with "the floating colored population" of runaway slaves from "Maryland, Virginia, and farther South," according to General Oliver Otis Howard's autobiography. In 1865 Howard became Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, a government agency established to aid freed slaves and their families.
"What would make you self-supporting?" asked Howard.
"Land! Give us land!" several replied.
In the spring of 1867, Howard used $52,000 in Freedmen's Bureau funds to purchase all 375 acres of the Barry Farm. He sold 1- and 2-acre lots. Within 2 years, 266 families called Barry Farm home, including the sons of Frederick Douglass.
Old Barry Farm develops
"The land all the time was constantly inquired for by working freedmen," Howard recalled. "It was taken with avidity, and the monthly payments, with very few exceptions, were promptly and regularly made. The prospect to the freedmen of owning a homestead was a great stimulus to exertion." A schoolhouse for 150 pupils was quickly erected. Barry Farm was a self-sufficient, self-contained community.
An 1894 Hopkins map (plate 34) of Barry Farm shows streets names still in currency today. Photo from the DC Public Library, Washingtoniana Division.
Today, Barry Farm is almost exclusively associated with the faded 26-acre Barry Farm Dwellings, a 432-unit (nearly a third vacant) property of the DC Housing Authority. The name association hasn't always been that way, says Dews, known as the "Mayor of Barry Farm" for his familial roots on Wade Road SE for nearly a century and his mentorship of neighborhood youth. "It's been a long time since we've been a tribe. But that's what we were and it's important for the younger generation to know this history."
As the city restarts its redevelopment planning process for Barry Farm Dwellings, at an estimated cost of $400 million over a timeline of two decades, the Barry Farm Resident Council, with assistance from Empower DC and local activists, has communicated to the DC Housing Authority that alongside issues of public safety, displacement and employment, a heritage preservation plan is a key concern. 140 years ago, Barry Farm residents and the city were similarly at odds.
According to the Baltimore Sun's Washington correspondent writing in the summer of 1872, "The board of public works propose to open streets in the village and as the residents there have each a deed of one acre of land for his cottage, they are not disposed to surrender any portion of their homesteads for streets or anything else without compensation." When a contractor "appeared in the village to cut up the lots, he was beset, the horses taken from the street plows, the wagons upset, and the laborers driven away. In the afternoon the work was begun under the protection of the police."
Then as now, self-preservation and kinfolk survival is the indigenous creed of Barry Farm, Dews says. "These street names are what's left of the tribe that represented the hard work and sacrifice necessary to build families and businesses. We need to get back to the old way of living."
- Let's stand by the Silver Line
- Near National airport, the Mount Vernon Trail is new again
- A big development in Woodley Park may spark DC's next housing battle
- DC is on the verge of ditching a harmful traffic law
- N Street NW has new bike lanes
- Capital Bikeshare members ride here, bike lanes or not
- What are your ideas to make Metro greater? | <urn:uuid:eca331cb-f0e7-4a39-bf15-a627a702bd15> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/17520/barry-farm-street-names-reflect-post-civil-war-history/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396875.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00183-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967465 | 1,284 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Definition of hyperaesthesia
n. - A state of exalted or morbidly increased sensibility of the body, or of a part of it. 2
The word "hyperaesthesia" uses 14 letters: A A E E E H H I P R S S T Y.
No direct anagrams for hyperaesthesia found in this word list.
Words formed by adding one letter before or after hyperaesthesia (in bold), or to aaeeehhiprssty in any order:
s - hyperaesthesias
All words formed from hyperaesthesia by changing one letter
Browse words starting with hyperaesthesia by next letter | <urn:uuid:12240d73-954c-42cf-ab32-0c48f55b95da> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.morewords.com/word/hyperaesthesia/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397565.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00065-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.8754 | 135 | 2.78125 | 3 |
The above photograph pictures a sluice of life in Mobile, Alabama in 1954. I don’t know who saw the photograph in 1954 or how they might have interpreted it, but it is hard to imagine that one would not have been affected by the ironic tension between the image of an elegantly dressed African-American woman and her niece, shot in “living color”—a rarity in 1954—and the neon sign to a movie house marking the “colored entrance” and designating a stark difference between black and white. However one might have received and engaged the photograph when it was first produced there can be no questioning the fact that the scene that it depicts serves as an aide-mémoire to a critical moment in the American experience to which we are all heirs, a collective past that we ignore or repress only at our national peril.
Of course, Jim Crow segregation was not only a southern phenomenon—I remember seeing “colored only” beaches at Asbury Park, New Jersey when I was growing up in the 1950s—but it certainly had a home in Dixie where it was aggressively defended in the name of “states rights.” And from this perspective the photograph is a vivid and eloquent reminder that there are times when “home rule” and a parochial localism need to be governed by a more capacious moral compass, not least when human and civil rights are at stake.
It is this last point that bears special attention today as the photograph was recently printed in the NYT along with the reprise of a series of similar images shot by Gordon Parks for an issue of Life magazine originally published in 1956. What makes it especially pertinent is that the Supreme Court is about to rule on a number of cases concerning the constitutionality of gay and lesbian marriages and legal unions. Many are arguing that such decisions should driven by local interests under the rationale of states rights. Of course, it was not so long ago that the cultural logic that warranted the “colored entrance” sign in the photograph above also proscribed interracial marriage as an unnatural act of miscegenation in many states. That changed in 1967 with the Courts decision in the case of Loving v. Virginia. One needs only to ponder the photograph above and the legacy that it gestures to, both past and present, in order to understand why the Court needs to guarantee the civil right of gay and lesbian couples to marry and join in legal union.
Photo Credit: Gordon Parks/Gordon Parks Foundation | <urn:uuid:c97acd63-1016-4b04-8606-03bdb2ff733b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nocaptionneeded.com/2013/06/doing-the-right-thing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408828.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00054-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968778 | 513 | 2.875 | 3 |
Agin-Buryat Autonomous Area (əgyēnˌbŏryätˈ) [key] or Aga Buryat ägˈə bŏryätˈ, former administrative division, S Siberian Russia, in what is now the Transbaykal Territory. Aginskoye was the capital. Formed in 1937, the area followed the Onon River. Buryats, Buddhist descendants of the Mongols, made up about 54% of the area's population. In 2008 the autonomous area was merged with the surrounding Chita region to form the Transbaykal Territory.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:2e302467-bb9c-4e70-85e7-2ad7faa3fb6d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/world/agin-buryat-autonomous-area.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396459.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00183-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.879132 | 154 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Skeletal dysplasia is caused by a genetic mutation. The gene mutation can occur spontaneously or can be inherited.
Diastrophic dysplasia and usually spondyloepiphyseal dysplasias are inherited in a recessive manner. This means a child must receive two copies of the mutated gene -- one from the mother, one from the father -- to be affected.
Achondroplasia, on the other hand, is inherited in a dominant manner. That means a child needs only one copy of the mutated gene to have that form of skeletal dysplasia. There is a 25% chance that a child born to a couple in which both members have achondroplasia will be of normal height. But there is also a 25% chance the child will inherit both dwarfism genes, a condition known as double-dominant syndrome. This is a fatal condition that usually results in miscarriage.
Often parents of children with achondroplasia do not carry the mutated gene themselves. The mutation in the child occurs spontaneously at the time of conception.
Doctors do not know what causes a gene to mutate. It is a seemingly random occurrence that can happen in any pregnancy. When average-size parents have a child with dwarfism due to a spontaneous mutation, it is not likely that other children will also have the mutation.
In addition to genetic skeletal dysplasia, short stature has other causes, including disorders of the pituitary, which influence growth and metabolism; kidney disease; and problems that affect the body's ability to absorb nutrients.
Some forms of dwarfism are evident at birth or during infancy and can be diagnosed through X-rays and a physical exam. A diagnosis of achondroplasia, diastrophic dysplasia, or spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia can be confirmed through genetic testing. In some cases, prenatal testing is done if there is concern for specific conditions.
Sometimes dwarfism doesn't become evident until later in a child's life, when dwarfism signs lead parents to seek a diagnosis. Here are signs and symptoms to look for in children that indicate a potential for dwarfism: | <urn:uuid:5c009f17-d70e-4348-8e90-66310e4cae05> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.webmd.com/children/dwarfism-causes-treatments?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398516.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00006-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958133 | 449 | 4.09375 | 4 |
Future Cars Menu
Berkeley Lab Produces Hydrogen from Acidic Water
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has developed a technique to produce hydrogen from acidic water. What the researchers there have done is create a molecule that is structurally and chemically similar to the industrial catalyst molybdenite.
The new molecule will replace platinum as the catalyst of choice for creating hydrogen from acidic water for a fraction of the cost.
According to the Berkeley Lab, “Christopher Chang and Jeffrey Long, chemists who hold joint appointments with Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) Berkeley, led a research team that synthesized a molecule to mimic the triangle-shaped molybdenum disulfide units along the edges of molybdenite crystals, which is where almost all of the catalytic activity takes place.
“Since the bulk of molybdenite crystalline material is relatively inert from a catalytic standpoint, molecular analogs of the catalytically active edge sites could be used to make new materials that are much more efficient and cost-effective catalysts … Recent studies have shown that in its nanoparticle form, molybdenite also holds promise for catalyzing the electrochemical and photochemical generation of hydrogen from water. Hydrogen could play a key role in future renewable energy technologies if a relatively cheap, efficient and carbon-neutral means of producing it can be developed.”
Right now, platinum is selling for more than $2,000 an ounce, which is the most expensive element in most fuel cells. Molybdenite, on the other hand, is not as rare and is selling for 1/70th the price of platinum, which will greatly reduce the cost of fuel cells in general.
Bringing down the cost of fuel cells is imperative if the hydrogen car industry is to take off. Besides using fuel cells in cars, manufacturers use fuel cells in reverse to produce hydrogen from water. So, on both the creation and consumption ends, low cost fuel cells mean a faster path to market for H2 cars and fueling stations which is the goal many people (like myself) have.
This site follows the emergence, application and development of transportation innovation. Reference to manufacturers, makes and models, and other automotive-related businesses are provided for informational purposes only and do not constitute an endorsement by FutureCars.com. | <urn:uuid:74d2e68d-354e-45a2-ac85-fd2edbebe242> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.futurecars.com/blogs/s/berkeley-lab-produces-hydrogen-from-acidic-water | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00047-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933356 | 495 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Eye (?), n. [Prob. fr. nye, an eye being for a nye. See Nye.] Zool.
A brood; as, an eye of pheasants.
© Webster 1913.
Eye (?), n. [OE. eghe, eighe, eie, eye, AS. exa0;ge; akin to OFries. age, OS. ga, D. oog, Ohg. ouga, G. auge, Icel. auga, Sw. oga, Dan. øje, Goth. aug; cf. OSlav. oko, Lish. akis, L. okulus, Gr. , eye, , the two eyes, Skr. akshi. 10, 212. Cf. Diasy, Ocular, Optic, Eyelet, Ogle.]
The organ of sight or vision. In man, and the vertebrates generally, it is properly the movable ball or globe in the orbit, but the term often includes the adjacent parts. In most invertebrates the years are immovable ocelli, or compound eyes made up of numerous ocelli. See Ocellus.
Description of illustration: a b Conjunctiva; c Cornea; d Sclerotic; e Choroid; f Cillary Muscle; g Cillary Process; h Iris; i Suspensory Ligament; k Prosterior Aqueous Chamber between h and i; l Anterior Aqueous Chamber; m Crystalline Lens; n Vitreous Humor; o Retina; p Yellow spot; q Center of blind spot; r Artery of Retina in center of the Optic Nerve.
⇒ The essential parts of the eye are inclosed in a tough outer coat, the sclerotic, to which the muscles moving it are attached, and which in front changes into the transparent cornea. A little way back of cornea, the crystalline lens is suspended, dividing the eye into two unequal cavities, a smaller one in front filled with a watery fluid, the aqueous humor, and larger one behind filled with a clear jelly, the vitreous humor. The sclerotic is lined with a highly pigmented membrane, the choroid, and this is turn is lined in the back half of the eyeball with the nearly transparent retina, in which the fibers of the optic nerve ramify. The choroid in front is continuous with the iris, which has a contractile opening in the center, the pupil, admitting light to the lens which brings the rays to a focus and forms an image upon the retina, where the light, falling upon delicate structures called rods and cones, causes them to stimulate the fibres of the optic nerve to transmit visual impressions to the brain.
The faculty of seeing; power or range of vision; hence, judgment or taste in the use of the eye, and in judging of objects; as, to have the eye of sailor; an eye for the beautiful or picturesque.
The action of the organ of sight; sight, look; view; ocular knowledge; judgment; opinion.
In my eye, she is the sweetest lady that I looked on.
The space commanded by the organ of sight; scope of vision; hence, face; front; the presence of an object which is directly opposed or confronted; immediate presence.
We shell express our duty in his eye.
Her shell your hear disproved to her eyes.
Observation; oversight; watch; inspection; notice; attention; regard.
Booksellers . . . have an eye to their own advantage.
That which resembles the organ of sight, in form, position, or appearance
; as: (a) Zool.
The spots on a feather, as of peacock
The scar to which the adductor muscle is attached in oysters and other bivalve shells; also, the adductor muscle itself, esp. when used as food, as in the scallop.
The bud or sprout of a plant or tuber; as the eye of a potato
The center of a target; the bull's-eye
A small loop to receive a hook; as hooks and eyes on a dress
The hole through the head of a needle
A loop forming part of anything, or a hole through anything, to receive a rope, hook, pin, shaft, etc.; as an eye at the end of a tie bar in a bridge truss; as an eye through a crank; an eye at the end of rope.
The hole through the upper millstone.
That which resembles the eye in relative importance or beauty
. "The very eye
of that proverb."
Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts.
Tinge; shade of color.
Red with an eye of blue makes a purple.
By the eye, in abundance. [Obs.] Marlowe. -- Elliott eye Naut., a loop in a hemp cable made around a thimble and served. -- Eye agate, a kind of circle agate, the central part of which are of deeper tints than the rest of the mass. Brande & C. -- Eye animalcule Zool, a flagellate infusorian belonging to Euglena and related genera; -- so called because it has a colored spot like an eye at one end. -- Eye doctor, an oculist. -- Eye of a volute Arch., the circle in the center of volute. -- Eye of day, Eye of the morning, Eye of heaven, the sun. "So gently shuts the eye day." Mrs. Barbauld. -- Eye of a ship, the foremost part in the bows of a ship, where, formerly, eyes were painted; also, the hawser holes. Ham. Nav. Encyc. -- Half an eye, very imperfect sight; a careless glance; as, to see a thing with half an eye; often figuratively. "Those who have but half an eye. " B. Jonson. -- To catch one's eye, to attract one's notice. -- To find favor in the eyes (of), to be graciously received and treated. -- To have an eye to, to pay particular attention to; to watch. "Have an eye to Cinna." Shak. -- To keep an eye on, to watch. -- To set the eyes on, to see; to have a sight of. -- In the eye of the wind Naut., in a direction opposed to the wind; as, a ship sails in the eye of the wind.
© Webster 1913.
Eye (), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Eyed (); p. pr. & vb. n. Eying ∨ Eyeing.]
To fix the eye on; to look on; to view; to observe; particularly, to observe or watch narrowly, or with fixed attention; to hold in view
Eye me, blest Providence, and square my trial
To my proportioned strength.
© Webster 1913.
Eye, v. i.
To appear; to look.
My becomings kill me, when they do not
Eye well to you.
© Webster 1913. | <urn:uuid:892b12b5-42b3-4bf3-90f8-aa1978b05d80> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://everything2.com/title/Eye | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00100-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903829 | 1,518 | 3.171875 | 3 |
At Swansea-based Calon Cardio-Technology, work is underway to develop the next generation of smaller and more efficient blood pumps – surgically implantable artificial hearts – used as an alternative to heart transplants in patients with chronic cardiac failure.
In designing such blood pumps, it’s obviously crucial to ensure that the pump operates as efficiently as possible. But it’s also vital to avoid damage to red blood cells as they circulate through the pump: broken-down blood cells can cause a condition called haemolysis, leading to kidney failure.
Accordingly, Calon carries out highly complex computer simulations of the flow of blood through a pump design, using a mathematical technique known as computational fluid dynamics. Working with Swansea University’s Advanced Sustainable Manufacturing Technologies centre, the operation of each new design is simulated on a supercomputer cluster operated by HPC Wales, a high performance computing facility part-funded by the European Union.
On a conventional high-powered desktop computer, each 3D simulation, involving a “mesh” of around two million elements, would take two to three days, explains Calon’s chief technology officer Graham Foster. The use of a supercomputer slashes that time significantly.
“We need to model about a dozen scenarios for each pump design, after which we tweak and refine it,” he says. “With a supercomputer, a scenario takes two to three hours, not two to three days, and we can send the dozen scenarios as a single batch. We’re saving time and also cost.”
While supercomputers aren’t mandatory for simulating the workings of products under development, there’s no doubt that the combination of high-powered computers and advanced visualisation technology is rapidly transforming the use of 3D product simulation and visualisation within product lifecycle management (PLM) and product design generally.
How? By not only making it easier to apply ever-more refined mathematical techniques, but also making the results accessible to non-specialists, such as designers, who happen to be engineers and not physicists.
“It’s about using real physics, real mathematics and real chemistry, in order to see real outcomes on screen, in a virtual world,” says Stephen Chadwick, managing director for northern Europe at simulation software firm Dassault Systèmes. “This makes it much easier for people who haven’t got a PhD to visualise the outcome of a design decision.”
Better still, such simulations deliver answers faster and more cheaply than would be possible with physical models, says Barry Christensen, director of product management at simulation software specialists ANSYS. Moreover, he notes, simulation can highlight issues that might otherwise not become apparent until products are on the market.
And building such digital prototyping technology into commonly used computer-aided design tools helps the use of simulation to become much more widespread, adds Wasim Younis, simulation solutions manager at Symetri, a firm specialising in digital design training and consultancy using Autodesk design software.
In the process, he points out, the dividing line between design and product simulation is blurring, bringing advanced simulation techniques into the realms of the everyday.
“Should I be using 2mm thick plate or 3mm thick plate? Designers often face choices like that and with simpler user interfaces built into everyday tools, finding the answer is easier than ever,” he says. “Design engineers are designing the product and working with finite element analysis at the same time.”
Even so, some simulation problems remain out of reach for ordinary businesses with ordinary computers. But perhaps not for much longer.
“There’s a class of computational fluid dynamics problems that are currently intractable at an industrial level,” says Peter Vincent, lecturer in aerospace aeronautics at Imperial College London. “They can be solved by supercomputers in national laboratories, but not at an industrial level.”
However, in partnership with graphics computing firm Nvidia, manufacturers of the graphics processing units (GPUs) powering many desktop computers, Imperial College is looking to see if Nvidia’s latest-generation Tesla chips, each with more than 2,500 compute “cores” compared to just two to four in a desktop computer, can be harnessed to the task. Emerald, the UK’s most powerful GPU-powered supercomputer, housed at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, contains 372 such Tesla GPUs.
“With the right computer algorithm and the right kind of simulation problem, there can be a five-to-tenfold increase in speed for a given expenditure on computing power,” says Dr Vincent. “That can bring many more problems within reach.”
Increasingly, too, virtual reality and advanced visualisation technology are adding to the armoury of simulation technologies. At the Ford Motor Company’s product development centre in Dearborn, Michigan, for instance, engineers don head-mounted computer displays, not unlike binoculars, to explore high-definition visual renderings of complete virtual vehicles, “walking around” them, exploring their interiors and even going for a virtual drive.
The use of such high-definition, photo-realistic immersive environments allows engineers to examine aspects of vehicle design that are difficult explore in the physical world.
“We’re getting a better picture of what our designers are producing for our customers, under different lighting conditions, and can iteratively look at all the build combinations that can be produced, all in a very short time,” says Elizabeth Baron, virtual reality and advanced visualisation technical specialist at Ford. “Without it, we just couldn’t check all the issues that we check now.”
TOP FIVE FUTURE PLM TECHNOLOGIES
1. High-definition, photo-realistic immersive virtual reality
2. Cloud-based supercomputing
3. Graphics processing unit-powered desktop simulation
4. Parallel-processing algorithms
5. Web-enabled collaborative simulation and analysis | <urn:uuid:80e2f6b5-1588-4225-8b4e-87930df2d59f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://raconteur.net/business/take-a-walk-on-the-virtual-side | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393093.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915366 | 1,260 | 3.125 | 3 |
CNN has banned the use of the term "Frankenstorm" to refer to Hurricane Sandy, reports the Los Angeles Times’ ShowTracker.
CNN meteorologist Rob Marciano said in a tweet Friday, "The name ‘Frankenstorm’ has been coined by some meteorologists and media. We are refraining due [to] the severity of the storm."
The storm caused a number of deaths as it hit the Caribbean late last week en route to the United States. It was expected to cause extensive damage in the Northeast as it travels northward with high winds and rain toward some of the country’s most populated areas.
Sandy, expected to make landfall today, is being projected as the largest storm ever to hit the East Coast of the U.S. The term “Frankenstorm” surfaced because the storm combines a number of weather elements to create a “perfect storm” scenario — including a late summer hurricane, a high pressure ridge around Greenland to steer it west toward land, and an early winter cold front moving in from the west. | <urn:uuid:1d413ac7-bbef-4467-942a-66174a0127a3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.tvweek.com/broadcast/2012/10/why-cnn-banned-use-of-the-term/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404382.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00181-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955115 | 221 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Salmon Pueblo and the Middle San Juan River Valley
From 2001 to 2014, Archaeology Southwest’s Preservation Archaeologist Paul Reed was based at Salmon Pueblo. His long-term collaborative research project examines the reach of the cultures centered at Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde into the Middle San Juan Basin. It also seeks to understand what communities in the region looked like after the influence of each of those cultures waned.
Salmon Pueblo was constructed as a Chacoan outlier—a settlement or enclave of people from Chaco Canyon—around A.D. 1090. At that time, the pueblo had 275 to 325 original rooms spread across three stories, an elevated tower kiva in its central portion, and a great kiva in its plaza. Subsequent use by local Middle San Juan people (beginning in the 1120s) resulted in extensive modifications to the original building: hundreds of rooms were reused, many of the original large rooms were divided into smaller rooms, and more than 20 small kivas were built into pueblo rooms and plaza areas. The site was occupied by Pueblo people until the 1280s, when much of the site was destroyed by fire and abandoned. | <urn:uuid:363728b0-44a7-4c9d-81c2-e06dfe3cb2b3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/what-we-do/investigations/pueblos/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396872.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00002-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975214 | 251 | 3 | 3 |
Spacetime, Phil. Spacetime
Mach's Principle Ernst Mach (1838-1916)
What is "Mach's Principle"? This word is coined by Einstein in 1918. As you will see, it is hard to give an unequivocal answer. This principle is said to have played an important role in forming Einstein's general relativity, although the final theory turned out to dissatisfy this principle. But what did Einstein understand by "Mach's principle"? And if you examine Mach's text, you may be puzzled, since there may be several candidates for this name. Anyway, it should be instructive to check the original text by Mach where he states the ideas which seem to be closely related to this "principle".
See also Einstein's comment on Mach, as a philosopher, in 1916.
The significance of personalities like Mach lies by no means only in the fact that they satisfy the philosophical needs of their times, an endeavor which the hard-nosed specialist may dismiss as a luxury. Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things can easily attain an authority over us such that we forget their wordly origin and take them as immutably given. They are then rather rubber-stamped as a "sine-qua-non of thinking" and an "a priori given", etc. Such errors make the road of scientific progress often impassable for long times. Therefore, it is not at all idle play when we are trained to analyze the entrenched concepts, and point out the circumstances that promoted their justification and usefulness and how they evolved from the experience at hand. This breaks their all too powerful authority. They are removed when they cannot properly legitimize themselves; they are corrected when their association with given things was too sloppy; they are replaced by others when a new system can be established that, for various reasons, we prefer. (Einstein, "Ernst Mach", Physikalishe Zeitschrift 17 (1916), 102; Collected Papers vol. 6, Doc. 29)
The core of "Mach's Principle" is something like this: the inertia of a body is determined in relation to all other bodies in the universe (in short, "matter there governs inertia here"). But "inertia" here is ambiguous: inertial mass, or the property expressed by the law of inertia?
Mach states such ideas in the following parts, after he presented his famous objections against Newton's argument for absolute space.
If, in a material spatial system, there are masses with different velocities, which can enter into mutual relations with one another, these masses present to us forces. We can only decide how great these forces are when we know the velocities to which those masses are to be brought. Resting masses too are forces if all the masses do not rest. ... All masses and all velocities, and consequently all forces, are relative. There is no decision about relative and absolute which we can possibly meet, to which we are forced, or from which we can obtain any intellectual or other advantage. (Mach, The Science of Mechanics, ch.2, vi-3, Open Court, 1960, 279)
Here, Mach talks about inertial mass, but his emphasis is on the relativity of motion. In order to understand Mach's assertion, you have to remember that Mach tries to define the notion of mass in terms of acceleration and the principle (law) of reaction. For this, see ch.2, iv and v.
All those bodies are bodies of equal mass, which, mutually acting on each other, produce in each other equal and opposite accelerations. (ch.2, v-3, 266)
Thus, adopting the notion of mass definable along this line, given two bodies A and B, only the ratio of the masses of A and B can be defined for Mach; the concept of mass is relative in this sense.
However, Mach then comes to an argument related to the law of inertia.
The comportment of terrestrial bodies with respect to the earth is reducible to the comportment of the earth with respect to the remote heavenly bodies. If we were to assert that we knew more of moving objects than this their last-mentioned, experimentally-given comportment with respect to the celestial bodies, we should render ourselves culpable of a falsity. When, accordingly, we say, that a body preserves unchanged its direction and velocity in space, our assertion is nothing more or less than an abbreviated reference to the entire universe. (ch.2, vi-6, 285-6)
The considerations just presented show, that it is not necessary to refer the law of inertia to a spacial absolute space. On the contrary, it is perceived that the masses that in the common phraseology exert forces on each other as well as those that exert none, stand with respect to acceleration in quite similar relations. We may, indeed, regard all masses as related to each other. That accelerations play a prominent part in the relations of the masses, must be accepted as a fact of experience; which does not, however, exclude attempts to elucidate this fact by a comparison of it with other facts, involving the discovery of new points of view. (ch.2, vi-8, 288)
Here, Mach denies the need for Newton's absolute space for expressing the law of inertia; and notice that this argument can be extended also against assuming an inertial frame. Mach is arguing, "How can we determine such a frame? Only by referring to other bodies in the universe." This position seems to be basic to Mach.
According to Einstein's formulation (1918), however, Mach's Principle is this:
The G-field is without remainder determined by the masses of bodies. Since mass and energy are, according to results of the special theory of relativity, the same, and since energy is formally described by the symmetric energy tensor (T°æ°è), this therefore entails that the G-field be conditioned and determined by the energy tensor. (Translation by C. Hoefer, Barbour & Pfister 1995, 67)
What this means is that the metric field of the spacetime is completely determined by the mass-energy distribution in the universe; since the metric field determines the geometry and hence the geodesics (motion along a geodesic is a substitute for an inertial motion). Thus, as a consequence of this, spacetime without any mass-energy distribution becomes meaningless. So far, this seems in accordance with the spirit of Mach's idea (but Minkowski space becomes incompatible with this principle). However, it is quite hard to see the trace of Mach's original motivation, that is, the idea of reconstructing mechanics only in terms of relative motions, without presupposing an absolute space, or an inertial frame for that matter, in the first place. Instead, Einstein often uses an obscure expression "the relativity of inertia", which may, or may not be related to Mach's original idea. Thus, some of the contemporary Machians (such as Julian Barbour) argues that Einstein chose a wrong way to incorporate the Machian idea into the theory of general relativity. But in order to assess such claims, we have got to examine Mach's and Einstein's works in more detail.
The word "Mach's Principle" was, as is already pointed out, introduced by Einstein in 1918, and thanks to Einstein's reputation, many physicists and philosophers began to discuss it; but most of them followed Einstein's rendering(s), rarely going back to Mach's own words.
"Prinzipielles zur allgemeinen Relativitaetstheorie", Annalen der Physik 55, 240-244.
However, there are a number of puzzles as regards Einstein's ambiguity, and as regards Mach's own view in writing down those passages to which Einstein and others refer: what exactly did he mean? These are not an easy question, and interested readers are referred to the Volume 6 of Einstein Studies,
J. Barbour and H. Pfister, eds., Mach's Principle, Birkhaeuser (1995);
a number of eminent scholars discuss this question and related problems. Julian Barbour, in particular, argues that there is a second Mach's Principle with respect to time. This book is valuable also because many hitherto unknwn attempts at a relational theory of classical mechanics, along the line suggested by Mach, are extracted and reproduced. As to the question how far Einstein's general relativity incorporated the Machian ideas, there is no general agreement among the scholars. If you wish to discuss "Mach's Principle", this volume is certainly one of the "compulsory" readings. See also Newsletter 42.
In order to follow some of the more technical materials in this volume, maybe you should consult chapter 21 of Misner et al, Gravitation (1973); section 21.12 in particular has the title "Mach's Principle and the Origin of Inertia". There, the authors give their updated version of Mach's Principle, and sketch a possible line for fulfilling this principle. | <urn:uuid:1a9f2ae1-5239-4f9d-b1f7-65b8374ad2d5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www1.kcn.ne.jp/%7Eh-uchii/mach.pr.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396872.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00034-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950652 | 1,865 | 3.25 | 3 |
NCTQ Standard 16 - Instructional Design for Special Education
Instructional design for Special Education
The program trains candidates to design instruction for teaching students with special needs.
Standard applies to: Special Education programs.
Indicators that the program meets the standard:
16.1 The program requires several courses (or the equivalent) designed for special education candidates with a strong focus on instructional design in a particular content area (e.g., reading, mathematics, science, social studies) or in multiple content areas.
16.2 More than half of the grade for coursework described in 16.1 is based on assignments that require teacher candidates to design instruction.
16.3 Course assignments requiring design of instruction should explicitly address “specifically designed” instruction that can meet a range of students’ needs by:
- Development of a curriculum feature, such as developing a new task or lesson that explicitly teachers a new concept or a prerequisite concept; OR
- Minor modification of the curriculum (i.e., while keeping the essential curriculum architecture intact, changing a specific feature on order to, for example, add more positive examples of a concept); OR
- Major adaptations (i.e., while keeping the essential curriculum architecture intact, changing a specific feature in order to, for example, add more positive examples of a concept); OR
- Major enhancements to the curriculum (i.e., designing a template involving an entirely new curriculum architecture in order to adopt the content of an existing lesson to student needs). | <urn:uuid:585289ea-579e-4843-b67e-de368b09d78f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wmcarey.edu/nctq-standard-16-instructional-design-special-education | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398628.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00083-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901926 | 308 | 2.796875 | 3 |
These get huge and always feed readily. We produce a few each year, mixed in with the Tangerines. Many grow up to be a beautiful pale orange and red-banded snake (Apricot Phase) while others may look more like the specimen illustrated here. Most of ours will be heterozygous for other traits and will be priced accordingly.
These get huge and always feed readily. Wide black and red-orange rings on red. We have out-crossed the Tangerine phase to Red phase animals to intensify coloration. Our adults are nearly six feet long! Most of ours will be heterozygous for other traits and will be priced accordingly.
Homozygous for Amelanism, a recessive trait. Unbelievable! Bright bands of red, white and yellow. Some specimens exhibit a bit more orange than others, similar to the 'Apricot' specimens described above. A key genetic trait that should be in all collections of Honduran Milksnakes!
Homozygous for Amelanism, a recessive trait. We paid little attention to the Albino Honduran Milksnakes, until somebody put one of these in my hands! Absolutely blinding colors of scarlet, fluorescent orange and pinkish-white combined in a six foot snake with a great disposition. We've been selecting for high band count specimens as we find these more attractive than the wider bands.
Homozygous for Hypomelanism, a recessive trait. Hypo Hondurans are simply unbelievable! We think these are prettier than the albinos. Totally lacking black tipping and with very thin clean bands, all of the colors are accentuated into very clean and pure colors. Almost look pastel, or maybe plastic… A key genetic trait that should be in all collections of Honduran Milksnakes!
Homozygous for Anerythrism, a recessive trait. Another incredible looking mutation in this very popular snake. Totally lacking red pigments, these are clad in bands of pink, white and black. We'll produce heterozygous specimens as well. Combine this with hypomelanism to produce 'Ghost' Hondurans, or with albinism to create 'Snow' Hondurans. A key genetic trait that should be in all collections of Honduran Milksnakes!
Homozygous for Anerythrism and Amelanism, two recessive traits. When combined, the results are Snow Hondurans - an astounding snake clad in bands of pinks, whites, and pale lemon yellows, often with subtle undertones of oranges. Utterly beautiful and a must have for Milksnake aficionados!
Homozygous for Anerythrism and Hypomelanism, two recessive traits. When combined, hypomelanism further lightens the remaining blacks and grays into pale grays and silvers, creating a subtle beauty that's hard to beat.
The Nelsons' Milksnake is very close to the more common Sinaloan Milksnake in appearance, size and temperament. The primary diagnostic feature is that the black rings are 2-3 times the width of the white rings.
Some of our Nelson's Milksnakes produce a high percentage of unusually marked (aberrant) specimens. Some of these are very attractive snakes! Highly variable, making each a unique work of art. Appears to be a simple recessive trait.
Homozygous for Amelanism, a recessive trait. The most and brightest red of any albino tricolor. These snakes grow quickly, and are incredibly beautiful. Some people have accused us of molding them out of plastic - until they move!
These get big (approaching four feet) and always feed readily. Thin black and white rings with wide red bands. We have selected breeding stock from across the nation to eliminate inbreeding depression.
Sometimes called "Striped", "Spotted", or "Splotched" Sinaloans. An interesting genetic mutation creating unusual aberrant Sinaloan Milksnakes! All have unusual calico patterned heads, and solid white-tails, although the amount of that varies a bit. Between those two points, anything can happen to the pattern. Every specimen is truly unique, no two are alike. Extreme examples may even be completely patternless! Highly variable, making each a unique work of art. | <urn:uuid:de4110c0-2679-49f1-91fe-e1f3aa203a0c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.vmsherp.com/ViewMilksnakes.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00019-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918389 | 925 | 2.515625 | 3 |
One of my students stumbled upon a mention of World Poetry Day that was new info to me. Apparently, it’s that time again: March 21. According to the ReadWriteThink curriculum Web site, “Believed to have its origin in the 1930s, World Poetry Day is now celebrated in hundreds of countries around the world. This day provides a perfect opportunity to examine poets and their craft in the classroom. In 1999, UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) also designated March 21 as World Poetry Day."
I’m heading off to Bologna, Italy today for my very first trip to the world famous Bologna Children’s Book Fair. I’ll be attending in my role as the new (co) editor of Bookbird, the journal on international children’s literature, and I’m hoping to learn, learn, learn. I also hope to find some wonderful, new international poetry for young people. Wouldn’t that be fun?
In the mean time, I’d also like to share an excerpt from my March Book Links “Everyday Poetry” column focused on multi-media options for poetry. If you’re looking for fresh ways to approach poetry with young people, you might consider multi-media methods for experiencing the visual and aural qualities of poetry. Using popular Internet sites, CDs, and a variety of software, you can lead kids in exploring the imagery, emotion, and language of poetry in ways that are creative, playful and multi-sensory.
VIDEO-- Look to the Internet for many examples of poetry in various visual formats. On Teacher Tube.com, you can find school-friendly video vignettes of young people reading poetry aloud, including their own original poetry, as well as teachers presenting a variety of poetry lessons…. Nearly everyone enjoys searching You Tube.com for fun, but it can also be a great site for poetry resources. One new trend is the video book talk or book trailer. Some are created by the poet, some by the publisher, and some by fans—a project possibility for kids, teachers, and librarians.
AUDIO-- There are several places to find audio adaptations of poetry for young people. Many are available as CDs accompanying print books…. Many poetry-related web sites include audiofiles among their links, such as The Academy of American Poets, Poetry Magazine.com, Poets and Writers, Inc., LibriVox.org for amateur recordings of books in the public domain, and the Favorite Poem Project …. More and more children’s poets are making audio recordings of themselves reading their own poetry available on their personal web sites…. As children experiment with technological tools of all kinds, they can be very savvy about finding creative ways to express themselves through poetry.
For examples of many of these sites and sources, check out the rest of the column. And once again, we have a lovely poem to accompany the column—a spring gem by Bobbi Katz. It’s beautifully formatted on the Book Links page for educator use.
by Bobbi Katz
I wake to heavy quiet this April morning:
a special weighted sound.
Outside my window snowflakes fall
softly, softly feathering the ground-
softly, softly bearding the daffodils.
Grandma always called it onion snow.
Arriving when wild onions have started to grow,
those foolish fat flakes don't seem to know
they are too late for winter
and misfits in spring.
"Come listen to that onion snow!"
she would have said.
"Have you ever heard
such a silence??”
Copyright c 2008 by Bobbi Katz; used with permission.
Linda, a blogging colleague is also sharing her thoughts about this Book Links column at Write Time. Check it out.
Join this week's Poetry Friday crew at Wild Rose Reader. Thanks for hosting, Elaine!
Image credit: http://www.bookfair.bolognafiere.it/bcbf09_index.asp?m=107&l=1&ma=356;ala.org | <urn:uuid:d4a9932d-d31a-4220-83b9-b835480a8aed> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://poetryforchildren.blogspot.com/2009/03/world-poetry-day-av-poetry.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00000-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943225 | 866 | 2.5625 | 3 |
the capital of Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge took control of it in 1975, and sent most of the population to work in the country, but people started to come back to the city in 1979 when the Vietnamese took control of it.
Definition from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Advanced Learner's Dictionary.
Dictionary pictures of the day
Do you know what each of these is called?
Click on any of the pictures above to find out what it is called. | <urn:uuid:a0382b4a-4b11-4b40-8487-a3b86d7af647> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/Phnom-Penh | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00033-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942181 | 97 | 2.75 | 3 |
Raising the minimum wage, strengthening workplace policies, restoring the Earned Income Tax Credit, increasing funding for education and encouraging unionization would help correct dramatic wage losses in Michigan since 1979. Wages in the state have dropped over the past 35 years, particularly for low- and middle-wage men. Over this same period of time, women’s wages, participation in the labor force and educational attainment have increased somewhat. Yet, gender-based wage disparities persist. The labor and economic policies suggested above would boost the pay of Michigan workers of all genders, and help close the gender wage gap.
Wage Trends and the Gender Wage Gap
For a number of years in the mid-twentieth century, wages rose in tandem with productivity. Between 1949 and 1979, productivity (a measure of the value of goods and services that is produced, on average, per each hour of work) increased 108.1% nationwide, while wages for non-supervisory workers increased 93.4%.1 This suggests that economic prosperity was widely shared by businesses and employees, alike. After 1979, however, the link between productivity and wages began to break. Productivity continued to rise, though at a slower pace, while wages lagged substantially behind. Between 1979 and 2013, productivity grew 64.9%, but hourly wages rose just 8.2%.2
In Michigan, compensation for low- and mid-wage workers of prime working age3 fell substantially between 1979 and 2013.4 Real hourly wages dropped 13.4% for low-wage workers and 12.7% for mid-wage workers (see Appendix A.1). With the exception of the years 1998 to 2010, relatively high levels of educational attainment did little to curb this trend. The median hourly wages of prime age workers with bachelor’s degrees fell 4.3%, while wages for workers with master’s degrees or higher increased only 10.7%. Workers without a postsecondary education saw the steepest decreases: The wages of workers without a high school diploma dove 46.3%, while workers with only a high school education saw their wages decrease by 32.1% (See Figure 1 and Appendix A.2).
The wages of many Michigan male workers fared worse than the state average. Low-wage men’s hourly earnings plummeted 31.2%, while mid-wage male workers’ wages fell 16.0%. The decline in male wages in Michigan continued even during the nationwide labor market strength of the late 1990s.5 The sharp wage decline abated just a bit during this time, but did not result in wage increases for male workers earning at or under the middle of the wage distribution (see Figure 2).
From 1979 to the late 1990s, wages for low- and mid-wage women declined or saw only modest improvements. However, beginning in the late 1990s, wages for these workers improved the most, averaging 14.6% between 1999 and 2010 for mid-wage women, and 11.3% for low-wage women, before dropping substantially after 2010. Overall, real hourly earnings for low-wage women increased only 4.2% in 2013 relative to 1979, and 10.1% for mid-wage women (see Figure 3).
While the rest of the Michigan workforce saw a decline or stagnation in their hourly earnings, the wages of the highest paid workers of any gender grew consistently – particularly of those earning at the top 10% of the wage distribution. Their wages increased between 8.3% and 39.7% from 1979 to 2013 (see Appendix A.1). Disparity in wage growth – with increases for a relatively small sector of the workforce and declines for the vast majority – is one of the most important factors influencing the shrinking of the middle class and the faltering of living standards in the country.6
Gender Wage Gap
As will be shown in the next two sections of this report, over the past three decades, women have increased their labor force participation and have obtained educational credentials at greater proportions than their male counterparts. These improvements help explain the rise in women’s wages7 – particularly for women earning in the top 20% of the wage distribution (see Figure 3 and Appendix A.1) – and the narrowing of the gender wage gap.
The gender wage gap – the difference between the earnings of women relative to men’s – began to improve nationwide in the late 1970s. According to one calculation, the nationwide gender wage gap decreased from 37.3% in 1979 to 17.2% in 2012. However, more than one-quarter of this improvement can be traced to the erosion of men’s wages, rather than to gains in women’s wages.8 As we saw above, the wages of Michigan men of prime working age, earning at or under the middle of the wage distribution, declined sharply – by as much as 31.2% between 1979 and 2013.
Economists caution that a narrowing of the wage gap based on decreases in men’s wages is problematic, as it hurts not only men, but also women. The same factors that harm men’s wages are also exerting a negative influence on women’s wages. If, for a time, protections against discrimination, higher levels of educational attainment and increased labor force participation helped curb the downward pressure on women’s wages, policy choices – such as monetary policy focusing on inflation rather than full-employment, the deregulation of industries, the weakening of labor standards, the erosion in the real value of the minimum wage, and decreased unionization – threaten to reverse these positive wage gains in women’s wages.9
Despite wage gains for women (and wage losses for men), Michigan women experience the seventh-widest gender wage gaps (26.3%) in the nation.11 On average, Michigan women working full-time year-round earned just $0.74 for every $1 a similarly employed man earned.12 The state’s gender wage gap has been stuck in the 70-cent range since 2005, despite nominal increases in the state’s wage floor13 (see Table 1). The wage gap for women of color is much wider: In 2012, an African American woman made just two-thirds what a man made ($0.67 for every $1), and a Hispanic woman earned a little over one-half ($0.54).14
The persistence of a gender wage gap is influenced in part by women’s continued over-representation in the low-wage workforce (see Table 2 and appendices C and D). Although women 16 years and over composed around half (49%) of Michigan’s overall workforce between 2008 and 2012, they represented well over two-thirds (69%) of the low-wage workforce.15 The share of women of prime working age who are employed in low-wage occupations was 20.8% in 2012, while for men this share was just 8.9%. This makes women in the state more than twice as likely as men to be low-wage workers.16
However, the over-representation of women in low-wage occupations does not, alone, explain the gender wage gap. High-earning women have not been spared the pernicious effects of wage disparity. In fact, they experience the highest wage gap among all groups in the wage distribution (see Appendix A.3). While low-wage women earn $1.53 less than men in the same wage group (a 12.91% difference) and have a wage gap of $0.13, women in the highest-wage group earn $9.67 less than their male counterparts (a 23.6% difference) and have a wage gap of $0.21.
Various research has found that a significant proportion of the wage gap (between 7% and 12%) cannot be explained away by women’s choices in occupation.19 This “unexplained” wage gap hurts even college-educated women many of whom, 10 years after graduation, earn just 69% of what men earn. One possible explanation is that when women become mothers, they experience a “motherhood penalty” that extends well beyond the time they are out of the workforce. Research suggests that employers are less likely to hire mothers compared with childless women, and that when they do hire mothers, they tend to offer these women lower salaries than their childless counterparts. Fathers, on the other hand, do not suffer a similar parental penalty.20 Differences in the treatment of men and women – and mothers and fathers – likely account for a significant portion of the unexplained wage gap, and the overall wage gap.
Women’s Contribution to the Economy
While the gender wage gap persists and the wages for the majority of women have stagnated, the contribution of female workers to the nation’s economy has increased over the past 35 years. If women had abstained from working outside the home from 1979 to 2012, the economy would be significantly smaller than it is now.21 Nationwide, the share of women working full-time year-round increased significantly, from 28.6% in 1979, to a peak of 44.2% in 2000, before decreasing slightly to 40.7% in 201222 in the wake of the Great Recession and the jobless recovery that followed.23 The increase in the share of mothers working full-time year-round was even more dramatic, rising from 27.3% in 1979 to 46.0% in 2007 and 44.1% in 2012.24 Women’s work hours nearly doubled between 1979 and 2007 – from 925 annual hours to 1,820 – and increased 80% from 1979-2012 (a figure that accounts for the effects of the recession).25 Employment trends for Michigan women are likely similar.
During this period, women’s contribution to their total household incomes also increased substantially, particularly for low-income families. While in 1979, low-income women contributed just over one-third (33.5%) of their total household earnings, by 2012 their contribution rose to nearly half (45.8%). For middle-income households, women’s contribution rose from 25.0% to 38.6%, and for wealthier households, from 23.8% to 33.5%.26
Through their increased participation in the labor market and the greater number of hours worked, women helped expand the nation’s economy by $1.7 billion (11%) from 1979 to 2012. This increase in the economy is equivalent to almost twice the combined contribution of the information, communications and technology industries in 2012.27
Demographic Portrait of Michigan Women
Women are the backbone of Michigan’s economy. In 2012, women made up over half (51.7%) of the state’s population of prime working age and a slightly smaller but highly significant share (48.9%) of the total employed population in this age group.28
Michigan women have relatively high levels of education. With the exception of professional and doctorate-level degrees, they hold higher shares of various postsecondary degrees compared to men, including 58.1% of bachelors and 57.1% of masters degrees (see Table 3).
When looking at the state’s female population, alone, we can observe that nearly half (45.3%) of Michigan women of prime working age hold postsecondary degrees of any type, including 20.6% with bachelor’s, 13.5% with an associate, and 9.4% with master’s degrees. Another 20.7% attended college but did not earn a degree (see Figure 4 and Appendix B).
Michigan men of this age group, in comparison, have significantly lower levels of postsecondary educational attainment. Only 37.6% of men in the state hold a postsecondary degree of any type, including 15.9% with a bachelor’s, 10.2% with an associate and 7.5% with a master’s degree. However, a higher percentage of men have doctorates or professional degrees (4.0%), than do women (1.8%).Total postsecondary educational attain-ment at the national level is 46.4% for women and 41.3% for men.
Over the past three decades, women’s participation in the labor force increased significantly, while men’s and the state’s average for all genders decreased. From 1979 to 2013, the labor force participation rate29 for women 16 years and older increased 4 percentage points from 50.7% to 54.9%, while men’s participation fell 13 percentage points from 79.0% to 66.5% (see Table 4). In 2012, women of prime working age had a much higher labor force participation rate (70.3%), making their contribution to the state’s economy vital. (Men’s labor force participation rate for this age group was 80.7%).
Michigan women are more likely than their male counterparts to live in poverty, despite increases in educational attainment and labor force participation. Of the state’s population of prime working age who are living in poverty, over half (54.7%) are women.30 In fact, the state’s poverty rate for women of this age group is 24.8% – nearly 6 percentage points higher than the rate for men.31
The poverty rate of Michigan’s female-headed households in the prime working age group is higher than for women of this age group as a whole. Although these households had an employment rate of 70.8% in 2012, over one-quarter (27.7%) lived in poverty. Their median household income was just $35,030.32
Of the almost 315,300 low-income working families in Michigan, more than two in five (41.9%) are headed by women.33 Although mothers of very young children make up just 4.6% of the state’s workforce, they represent a higher share (6.9%) of the low-wage workforce.34 One in five (22.0%) of these mothers were employed in a low-wage occupation.
In 2012, significant shares of Michigan working households (whether headed by women or men, or both equally) received food assistance (formerly known as food stamps and now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP). Almost half (48.8%) of working families with household incomes below 200% of the federal poverty threshold received food assistance. The SNAP participation rate for families below 100% of poverty was even higher – close to three-quarters (70.3%).35
Median Wages in the Midwest: A Comparison
As we saw in the first section of this report, median wages dropped 12.7% in Michigan between 1979 and 2013. The drop was larger for low-wage workers (13.4%), while high-wage workers saw their wages increase by 8.3% or more (see Appendix A.1). Men’s wages declined more than women’s.
Much of the Midwest also experienced wage declines or stagnation. Illinois and Indiana both had negative real median wage growth, while wages stagnated in Wisconsin, Iowa and Missouri, which experienced growth between 0% and 2.3%. Minnesota, on the other hand, bucked the trend. The state saw real median wage growth of 11%, much of it occurring after 1997, around the time when the nation’s workers enjoyed the employment and wage benefits of a tight labor market. The difference in wage growth between Minnesota’s and Michigan’s wage trends between 1979 and 2013 is a whopping 23.7 percentage points (see Table 5 and Figure 5).
Men’s median wages throughout the Midwest also declined significantly – nearly all of it in the double-digit range. Michigan led the pack, with the steepest decline of 16.0%, while Minnesota, though unable to avoid negative growth, saw the smallest decline in the region: 4.9% (see Table 5 and Figure 6). Once again, the turning point seems to be the late 1990s, when men’s wage decline in Minnesota began to lose steam (and in fact, turned positive between 1999 and 2005) while in Michigan it continued on a downward trend that accelerated after 2009.
Although all Midwestern states experienced positive wage growth for women, Minnesota and Michigan stand out once again. Women in Minnesota saw the most cumulative wage growth in the region (40.1%), while Michigan women saw the least (10.1%). In 1979, women in Minnesota were paid 8.8% less than women in Michigan. But by 2013, the former’s wages had surpassed the latter’s. Minnesota women now earn 17.0% more than their Michigan counterparts. Unlike male wages, the diverging trends in female wages in Minnesota and Michigan began much earlier than the late 1990s. By 1982, women’s wages in Michigan had turned negative (2.5%), while in Minnesota they had turned positive (2.0%). This trend picked up steam in the late 1990s, resulting in the 30 percentage point gap that exists today.
What explains the dramatic differences seen in Minnesota and Michigan? One part of the answer points to deindustrialization. Over the past two decades, Michigan has struggled with a declining manufacturing sector, much of it concentrated around the auto industry. This industry, which throughout much of the twentieth century had expanded the middle class in Michigan – and especially in Detroit – began to falter with the global decline in manufacturing, foreign competition in the auto industry, and the increased automation of many assembly-line jobs.36 From 1990 to 2011, manufacturing employment in Michigan declined by 37% and employment earnings in this sector declined by a similar figure (35%). Deindustrialization and the near collapse of the auto industry led to a decade-long recession in the state, from which Michigan is still recovering. Minnesota was not as reliant on the manufacturing sector, and certainly not on the auto industry. During this same period of time, manufacturing employment in the state fell by a relatively smaller rate (11%), while related employment earnings fell 6%.37
While manufacturing was declining, the knowledge-based sector of the economy was expanding, and Minnesota was able to take advantage of it. The knowledge-based economy, in which today’s high-wage jobs are concentrated, can be defined as production and services based on knowledge-intensive activities – such as information technology, finance, insurance and private health care and social services.38 Between 1990 and 2011, Minnesota grew its employment in the knowledge-based economy by 60%, twice Michigan’s rate of 30%. Minnesota’s employment earnings in this sector expanded even more: 74%, more than twice Michigan’s 32% growth.39
While deindustrialization and the near collapse of the domestic auto industry were, to some extent, unavoidable and greatly impacted Michigan’s economy – something that Minnesota was mostly spared – that alone did not set these two states is such diverging economic paths. Policy choices have played an important role in their differing outcomes.
Minnesota is a high-tax state, which enables it to invest more in its residents. Since the early 1970s, Minnesota lawmakers have made the conscious choice to implement and protect various tax and fiscal reforms – collectively known as the “Minnesota Miracle” – that succeeded in curbing disparities in the quality of public education, and shifted more of the burden of financing local governments from property taxes to state income and sales taxes.40 Minnesota has a progressive state income tax rate that varies between 5.35% and 9.85%, with the higher tax rate reserved for wealthier Minnesotans. In contrast, Michigan has a flat income tax rate of 4.25%, which applies to everyone – rich or poor. In combination with other state and local taxes, Minnesota’s tax structure allowed it to collect $5,016 in taxes, per capita, in 2011. In contrast, Michigan’s combined state and local taxes, per capita in 2011, was just $3,655. Minnesota’s enhanced ability to collect revenue also allows it to spend more on services for its residents compared to Michigan: $4,443 per capita in Minnesota vs. $2,813 in Michigan.41
Minnesota’s spending priorities include early childhood education, K-12 education, higher education, the state’s social safety net, infrastructure and public transit – all of which are funded much more generously than in Michigan,42 and all of which help prepare its workforce for the demands of the modern global economy and give Minnesotans a chance to succeed – even in bad times.
The stark differences in wages seen in Minnesota and Michigan, therefore, should not come as a surprise. Minnesota’s wage gains are in great part the result of the state’s resolve to invest in the public good, while Michigan’s wage declines are the result of both a shift in the global economy and, most importantly, of policy choices that have hurt its working men and women.
Raise the Minimum Wage and Eliminate the Tipped Wage. Raising the wage floor to $10.10 per hour would reduce poverty in the state (including child poverty), boost the state’s economy, and create thousands of jobs.43 Increasing the minimum wage, and in particular eliminating the tipped wage would also help reduce the gender wage gap. As discussed above, women are more likely than men to work in low-wage occupations, including jobs as servers in the restaurant industry where they make up 70% of the workforce.44 The Michigan Legislature recently passed a law that would increase the state’s minimum wage to $9.25 by 2018 and index it to inflation. This law also pegged the tipped wage to 38% of the regular minimum wage. While a step in the right direction, the increases would still leave many families in poverty, including thousands of Michigan children whose parents struggle to make ends meet on these wages.45 Increasing the wage floor to $10.10 or above and bringing the tipped wage to parity with the regular minimum wage would boost many families above poverty and narrow the gender wage gap.
Encourage Collective Bargaining. As discussed above, since the 1970s, wages have been eroding or stagnating for men and women earning at or under the middle of the wage distribution. Wages for higher-paid workers, on the other hand, have increased, resulting in an increase in wage inequality. These trends coincide with a decline in unionization rates – which fell to 13.1% in 2011 – and has resulted in the loss of worker’s bargaining power. Studies suggest that deunionization explains about a third of the growth of wage inequality among men and a fifth of the growth among women. Higher rates of union membership could curb wage erosion. Unionization enhances worker’s ability to bargain for better wages and usually results in higher wages for those who are covered by a collective bargaining contract. This “union wage premium” (as the phenomenon is known) is 17.3% higher wages for men, 9.1% for women, and 13.6% overall.46
Strengthen Workplace Policies. As discussed above, women’s contributions to the national economy have steadily increased since 1979. More women and mothers have entered the labor force and increased their work hours. Through their work, they have substantially expanded the nation’s economy. Women’s higher participation rate in the labor force means that workplace policies need to change to accommodate the needs of dual-income and single-parent families, especially for those who are in low-wage jobs. Michigan should enact legislation requiring paid family and medical leave and standards for scheduling, to help workers plan for and meet their family needs. Michigan should also increase its child care subsidy to be more in line with market rates, improving both the quality and affordability of child care options for low-paid workers. Evidence suggests that access to stable, high-quality child care increases labor force participation, reduces employee absenteeism and turnover, and helps workers maintain their employment.
Restore the State Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The EITC is a refundable tax credit that promotes work and offsets the tax burden of many low- and middle-income working families. In tax year 2012, the Legislature reduced the Michigan EITC from 20% to 6% of the federal credit. This change increased the taxes paid by many working families by 70%, with low-income households most affected. The EITC is a tool that has been proven to reduce poverty and boost the work efforts of many families, particularly for single-parent households with low educational attainment.47 Restoring the credit to 20% would encourage more of these households to join the workforce and increase their work hours. This, in turn, would increase the state’s labor force participation rate and over time increase those workers’ hourly earnings.
Increase Education Funding, Including Higher Education. As discussed in the section, “Median Wages in the Midwest: A Comparison,” wage trends in Michigan and Minnesota could not be more different. While wages dropped dramatically in Michigan (particularly for men), in Minnesota wages increased for the overall population and for women, and decreased only slightly for men. Although there are a number of factors that led to the different outcomes for these two states, Minnesota spends substantially more on the education of its residents, from pre-kindergarten to university. Minnesota’s higher rates of investment on education – and in particular, in higher education – not only produces a highly educated workforce and an attractive business climate for high-paying knowledge-based jobs, but it also curbs tuition increases at state colleges and universities. Lower tuition increases results in lower amounts of student loan debt, a type of debt that can reduce the discretionary income of student debtors and reduces their ability to fully participate in the consumer economy. From 2013 to 2014, tuition at public colleges and universities in Minnesota decreased 0.4%, which in Michigan it increased 2.1%.48
I would like to extend a very special thank you to David Cooper (Economic Policy Institute) and Katherine Gallagher Robbins (National Women’s Law Center) for their assistance gathering and processing data. I am also grateful to Luke Reidenbach (California Budget Project), for his perceptive insights on wage trends.
- Josh Bivens, Elise Gould, Lawrence Mishel and Heidi Shierholz, Raising America’s Pay: Why It’s Our Central Economic Policy Challenge, Economic Policy Institute, June 2014.
- Although more commonly referring to individuals between the ages of 25 and 54, in this report “population of prime working age” refers to persons 25 to 64 years of age. This expanded definition allows us to capture data for workers who are midway between the minimum age (62) for the receipt of partial Social Security benefits, and the age (66) for the receipt of full benefits and therefore near full-retirement. Unless otherwise noted, data in sections “Wage Trends and the Gender Wage Gap” and “Demographic Portrait of Michigan Women” will refer to this age group only.
- Low-wage workers are those with hourly earnings in the 20th percentile of the wage distribution. Mid-wage workers are those with earnings exactly in the middle. High-wage workers are those with earnings in the 80th percentile, and top 10% are workers with earnings in the 90th percentile.
- During the late 1990s, the nation as a whole experienced low levels of inflation and unemployment, a productivity surge that was mostly led by computer-based information technology, and an increase in the federal minimum wage. These events led to a short-lived but positive increase in hourly wages for workers of all gender at the national level. Michigan bucked this wage trend, however. For more information of the dynamics of the U.S. labor market during this period, see Lawrence F. Katz and Alan B. Krueger, “The High Pressure U.S. Labor Market of the 1990s,” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1999; and Gavin Wright, “Productivity Growth and the American Labor Market: The 1990s in Historical Perspective,” Understanding the 1990s, in Paul Rhode and Gianni Toniolo (eds.), Cambridge University Press, 2006.
- Josh Bivens et al. Op. Cit.
- Heidi Shierholz, Commentary: The Wrong Route to Equality – Men’s Declining Wages, Economic Policy Institute, June 12, 2013.
- Data refers to workers 16 years and older, working full time year-round.
- Julie Vogtman and Katherine Gallagher Robbins, Higher State Minimum Wages Promote Fair Pay for Women, National Women’s Law Center, Mach 2014. Gender wage gap data refers to population 16 years and older.
- Ibid. The wage gap comparison is to earnings of non-Hispanic white males, who generally have the highest earnings among all men and whose earnings are, therefore, the benchmark on which the gender wage gap measurements (including those for minority women) are based.
- Increases in the minimum wage could potentially affect women more than men, because women are more likely than men to be employed in low-wage occupations. See discussion of the over-representation of women in low-wage jobs, below.
- National Women’s Law Center, The Wage Gap by State for Women Overall, November 2013.
- National Women’s Law Center, Underpaid and Overloaded: Women in Low-Wage Jobs, July 2014. Here, the low-wage workforce is defined as those in occupations with median hourly wages of $10.10 or less.
- Joan Entmacher, Katherine Gallagher Robbins and Lauren Frohlich, Women are 76 Percent of Workers in the 10 Largest Low-Wage Jobs and Suffer a 10 Percent Wage Gap, National Women’s Law Center, April 2014.
- Estimates on total number employed, and median hourly and annual wages refer to workers (both genders combined) between the ages of 25 to 64 years.
- American Association of University Women, The Simple Truth About the Gender Wage Gap, Fall 2013.
- Eileen Appelbaum, Heather Boushey and John Schmitt. The Economic Importance of Women’s Rising Hour of Work: Time to Update Employment Standards, Center for American Progress and Center for Economic and Policy Research, April 2014.
- Ibid. Data in this section refers to women ages 16 to 64 years old.
- The Great Recession officially lasted from December 2007 to June 2009. However, high levels of unemployment remain a problem in several states, including Michigan, which in June 2014 had an unemployment rate of 7.5%, the fourth highest in the nation and significantly above the national rate of 6.1%.
- Op. Cit. Data refers to mothers in households with children under the age of 18.
- Ibid. These figures are based on a “middle three quintiles” definition of middle-class. See Appelbaum et al. for other definitions of middle class and their respective data. See also Craig K. Elwell, The Distribution of Household Income and the Middle Class (Congressional Research Service, March 2014) for expanded definitions of middle class.
- Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplements, 2013. U.S. Census Bureau, CPS Table Creator.
- The labor force participation rate is the share of the civilian population who are either working or looking for work relative to the total civilian non-institutional population, and should not be confused with the unemployment or the employment-to-population rates, which are difference measures. The labor force participation rate can be influenced by individuals’ decisions to pursue education or to drop out of the labor market altogether, particularly during economic downturns.
- Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplements, 2013, op. cit.
- 2012 American Community Survey, 1-Year Estimates.
- Op. Cit.
- Deborah Povich, Brandon Roberts and Mark Mather, Low-Income Working Families and State Policy: Investing for a Better Economic Future, Working Poor Families Project, Winter 2013-2014. This data refers to households of any age group headed by women without a spouse present, with children under the age of 18.
- Helen Blank, Karen Schulman and Lauren Frohlich, Nearly One in Five Working Mothers to Very Young Children Work in Low-Wage Jobs, National Women’s Law Center, April 2014. The term “mothers of very young children” is defined as women raising at least one child under the age of 3; the data refers to employed workers only. “Low-wage occupations” is defined as occupations with median hourly wages of $10.10 or less.
- Working Poor Families Project analysis of the 2012 American Community Survey microdata. Data does not specify age groups.
- Lou Glazer and Don Grimes, The New Path to Prosperity: Lessons for Michigan from Two Decades of Economic Change, Michigan Future, October 2013; and Thomas J Sugrue, Motor City: The Story of Detroit, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, accessed August 13, 2014.
- Glazer and Grimes, ibid.
- Yannet Lathrop, Raising the Minimum Wage: Good for Working Families, Good for Michigan’s Economy, Michigan League for Public Policy, February 2014.
- Yannet Lathrop, Raising the Minimum Wage Helps Women, Promotes Pay Equity, Michigan League for Public Policy, April 2014.
- Gilda Z. Jacobs, Michigan League for Public Policy, Testimony on Senate Bill 934, House Government Operations Committee, May 21, 2014.
- Lawrence Mishel, Unions, Inequality, and Faltering Middle-Class Wages, Economic Policy Institute, August 29, 2012.
- Yannet Lathrop, The Michigan EITC: A Small Investment that Makes a Big Difference, Michigan League for Public Policy, June 2013.
- Michael Mitchell, Vincent Palacios and Michael Leachman, States Are Still Funding Higher Education Below Pre-Recession Levels, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, May 1, 2014. | <urn:uuid:788f0a9e-b3c8-4eca-99c7-47f068fd2524> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mlpp.org/labor-day-in-michigan-report-pay-falls-for-low-wage-men-yet-women-still-far-behind | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00096-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95206 | 7,053 | 3.265625 | 3 |
National Overview - May 2011
During the spring of 2011, persistent rainfall combined with melting snowpack caused historical flooding in some of the United States' major rivers, including the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the Missouri. A relentless storm track pattern provided precipitation amounts 150 percent of normal in the Ohio Valley. As the Ohio, Missouri, and Mississippi River experienced historical crests, dams and levees were breached. Those that were not breached were significantly tested throughout the enduring event. Smaller towns and farmland were intentionally flooded to save larger, more populated towns. While the slow-moving disaster provided extra lead time for the residents to prepare their homes and businesses, hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland from an area south of the Great Lakes to the Gulf Coast were swimming in 20 feet (6 m) of water for weeks.
The Lower Mississippi Basin begins at the confluence of the Ohio and Upper Mississippi Rivers in Cairo, Illinois. According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 4 million people reside within the 35,000 square mile Lower Mississippi watershed. After a massive flood overwhelmed the southernmost stretch the river in 1927, the Army Corps of Engineers built a 2,200-mile system of earthen levees, floodwalls and other controls along the Mississippi, Arkansas, and Red Rivers. The flood control system has been tested over the years, especially in 1973 and 1993 when extremely wet conditions swelled the rivers to comparable historical levels. In 2011, extreme amounts of precipitation led to unprecedented flooding in several locations along the major rivers.
The extreme amounts of precipitation was set up by a large-scale weather pattern during April which consisted of high pressure, which typically results in warm dry air, over the South and Southwest U.S. This high pressure was associated with a ridge which inhibited systems from entering the region deflecting storms into the Ohio River Valley region. The persistence of this pattern during the season exacerbated the magnitude of the precipitation amounts and subsequent flooding.
During the month of April, over 1,300 daily precipitation records were broken across the Midwest and South - 197 in Kentucky alone. For the month, 72 locations reported their wettest day in any April on record and 5 of these stations set a new all-time record for the wettest 24-hour period for any month. Rainfall totals for April exceeded 13 inches (330 mm) in cities along the Ohio River. At Louisville International Airport, the 13.97 inches (355 mm) surpassed the previous record of 11.10 inches (282 mm) set in 1970. A monthly record of 13.52 inches (343 mm) of precipitation was also a record in Cincinnati. Further inland, the 15.91 inches (404 mm) of precipitation in Paducah, Kentucky was also an April record. The 12.7 inches (329 mm) that was measured in Lexington surpassed the 1970 record of 9.3 inches (236 mm). Columbus, Ohio received 7.14 inches (181 mm) of precipitation which was also a record. The 6.89 inches (175 mm) that fell in Cleveland broke the 1961 record of 6.61 inches (168 mm). From March-May, departures were at least 150 percent of normal in an area that stretched from the Ohio Valley to the Middle Mississippi Valley.
|Location||Record||Amount||Previous Record (year)|
|Northwest Climate Region||Most March–May Precipitation||10.10"||9.39" (1993)|
|Washington||Most March–May Precipitation||13.67"||12.85" (1997)|
|Wyoming||Most March–May Precipitation||6.69"||6.41" (1906)|
|Indiana||Most March–May Precipitation||19.38"||18.05" (1933)|
|Ohio||Most March–May Precipitation||17.47"||16.22" (1964)|
|Kentucky||Most March–May Precipitation||23.70"||22.08" (1935)|
|West Virginia||Most March–May Precipitation||18.19"||17.11" (1967)|
|Pennsylvania||Most March–May Precipitation||18.62"||15.48" (1983)|
|New York||Most March–May Precipitation||16.14"||14.35" (1983)|
|Vermont||Most March–May Precipitation||17.18"||16.94" (1983)|
In order to protect heavily populated cities from flooding, the Army Corps of Engineers opened several spillways along the Lower Mississippi River. On May 2 officials intentionally breached part of the Birds Point-New Madrid Levee near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to protect the small Illinois town of Cairo, population of 2,800. The two-mile opening allowed water to pass through at a rate eight times that of Niagara Falls, flooding the Birds Point New-Madrid Floodway - which is 130,000 acres of Missouri farmland in addition to about 100 residences. The move was challenged in courts, but overturned, preventing devastating flooding in Cairo and elsewhere downstream. The Corps estimated it will take up to two months for the water to recede from the floodway and another month for the land to dry out.
One week later on May 9, the Bonnet Carre' Spillway was opened, allowing flood waters to flow into Lake Pontchartrain. When all 350 bays are opened in that spillway, it diverts 250,000 cubic feet (7,079 cubic meters) of water per second into Lake Pontchartrain and on into the Gulf. The last time all Bonnet Carre' bays were opened was in 1983. Farther upstream, a portion Morganza Spillway was opened on May 14. This move alleviated stress on the Old River Control Structure upstream and the levees which protect New Orleans downstream. The only prior time the Morganza Spillway had been opened was in 1973 and this marked the first time in history that all three spillways have been opened simultaneously.
Even with all the precautions taken, the populated cities and rich farmland along the riverside, which are normally protected by the system of levees, were flooded. The massive wall of water drifted slowly southward, overtopping its banks along the way. In Memphis, Tennessee on May 10, the Mississippi River crested at 47.9 feet (14.6 m), the highest level reached at Memphis since 1937 (48.7 feet or 14.8 m). In Greenville, Mississippi, the river crested on May 16, about one foot below the historical crest of 65.4 feet (19.9 m) set in 1927. The 2011 flood set a record in Vicksburg, Mississippi, cresting on May 18 at 57.1 feet (17.4 m) , besting the previous record of 56.2 feet (17.1 m) set in 1927. The flooded Mississippi also caused the Yazoo River to backfill, flooding out Yazoo City, Mississippi where some of the worst flooding occurred. Flood stage is 29 feet (8.9 m), but the crest reached 38.7 feet (11.8 m), just a few feet shy of the record set in 1927 of 43.4 feet (13.2 m).
Another stage height record was set farther downstream in Natchez, Mississippi on May 19. The crest was nearly 4 feet (1.2 m) higher than the previous record of 58.04 feet (17.7 m) set in 1937. To the south of Baton Rouge is the Atchafalaya Basin which, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, is the largest swamp in the United States. When the Morganza Spillway was opened as much as 1.2 million gallons of water per second flooded into the basin encroaching upon Morgan City which is perched on the banks of the Atchafalaya River. The river gauge at the riverside city, home to nearly 13,000, experienced its maximum peak at 10.35 feet (3.2 m) on May 29, just shy of the record of 10.53 feet (3.2 m) set in 1973.
Due to drastic steps of the Army Corps of Engineers that sacrificed farmland and less populated cities, major flooding was averted in the more populated cities along the southernmost sections of the Mississippi River. While the slow surge of water had dispersed some by the time it made it to Baton Rouge (flood stage is 35 feet or 10.7 m) and New Orleans (flood stage is 17 feet or 5.2 m), low-lying areas were still affected. The crest at Baton Rouge was more than 3 feet (0.9 m) below its record level and it was 5 feet (1.5 m) below the record level in New Orleans.
Additional flooding occurred later in the spring and into the summer along the Missouri River. The Missouri River is the longest river in North America and one of the largest tributaries of the Mississippi. Its headwaters begin in Montana and flow through several major cities including: Great Falls, Montana; Williston and Bismarck, North Dakota; Omaha, Nebraska and Kansas City, Missouri before joining with the Mississippi in St Louis, Missouri.
Record amounts of precipitation and melting snowpack contributed to historical flooding along the Missouri and its tributaries. The average rainfall across the state of Wyoming, which hosts several tributaries of the Missouri, was the most for any spring, based on records that data back to 1895. In eastern Montana, precipitation was 300 percent of normal for the month of May. The Missouri River basin experienced its fourth wettest spring and its third wettest May on record.
In Wyoming and Montana, for the month of May, a total 14 locations set precipitation records and seven locations set a new all-time record for the wettest 24-hour period for any month on record. In Glasgow, Montana, the monthly precipitation amount of 6.97 inches (177 mm) was a record in addition to the seasonal snowfall record of 108.6 inches (276 cm). This shattered the previous snowfall record of 70.7 inches (180 cm) set in 2006/2007. During the July 1 - June 30 snow season, Williston, North Dakota received a record 107.2 inches (272 cm) of snow. The previous record was 94.7 inches (241 cm) set during the 1895-1896 season. Record to near-record snowpack in the Northern Rockies and High Plains during the winter and spring contributed to high levels of runoff. The runoff quickly filled all six of the rivers reservoirs forcing the Corps of Engineers to release them. The swollen river breached levees, forcing mandatory evacuations downstream. Additional damaging flooding is expected to continue through early summer.
Flooding was not confined to just rivers and streams. Water levels at Lake Champlain, which straddles New York, Vermont, and Canada, also experienced historical crests. At Rouses Point, Vermont, water levels rose to 102.8 feet (31.3 m) on May 10 and remained at or near historical levels for several weeks. The previous record lake level was 102.1 feet (31.1 m) set in 1869 and the normal for this time of year is about 97 feet (29.6 m). Record amounts of rainfall and melting of winter snowpack in the state exacerbated the flooding. It was the wettest Spring on record in Vermont. In Burlington, it was the wettest May on record with 8.67 inches (220 mm) of precipitation - besting the previous record of 7.10 inches (180 mm) set in 2006. Warmer-than-normal spring temperatures also increased the melting and runoff of snowpack. In Burlington, 128.4 inches (236 cm) of snow fell this season, 45.3 inches (115 cm) more than normal.
The prolonged flooding during the spring of 2011 that affected the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri River Valleys draws comparisons to the great floods during the early 20th century. During the fall of 1926, record precipitation amounts resulted in major flooding along the lower Mississippi in the spring of 1927. During the three-month period (March-April), Arkansas, Illinois, and Missouri each had their wettest such period in 117 years of record keeping. It was reported that the flood of 1927 submerged more than 165 million acres, drowning 246 people. Economic losses were estimated at 2.8 billion in 2010 dollars.
During the winter 1937, excessive precipitation during an 11-day period (January 13-24) contributed to flooding along the Ohio River. The state of Kentucky experienced a record 16.13 inches (410 mm) of precipitation in January. Individual locations had as much as 23 inches (584 mm) of precipitation during the month. From January 1-24 percent of normal precipitation in the area was approximately 600 percent of normal. Due to the copious amounts of precipitation, the Ohio River crested in Louisville at 85.4 feet (26 m). The Louisville flood stage is 51 feet (15.5 m). Further downstream in Paducah, the flood stage is 39 feet (11.9 m), but the river crested at 60.6 feet (18.5 m). It was reported that 3.3 billion in 2010 U.S. dollars worth of damage was done from the event.
As a result of a series of heavy snows in the Upper Midwest during the winter of 1972/1973 punctuated by heavy springtime rains in the South, the Mississippi swelled, overtopping its banks during the spring of 1973. Both Tennessee and Wisconsin had their wettest March-April period. Additionally, nearly every state east of the Rockies experienced above normal precipitation. Damages came to an estimated 256 million in 2010 U.S. dollars.
In the summer of 1993 frequent and excessive rainfall in the northern Plains southeastward into the central U.S. saturated soils, filling streams and rivers to capacity. For the summer period, record precipitation fell in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. Observed river crests in Iowa and Missouri easily surpassed previous record amounts by several feet. In St. Louis, at the confluence of the Missouri, Illinois and Mississippi rivers, the old record of 43.3 feet (13.2 m) set in 1973 was shattered on August 1, 1993 (49.7 feet or 15.1 m). The Missouri River also inundated towns. In Kansas City, the river set a new stage height of 48.9 feet (14.9 m), topping the old record of 46.2 feet (14.1 m) set in 1951. A total of 20 river gauges set all-time records. The devastating floods of 1993 are currently the costliest flooding disaster in the U.S. as damages neared 23 billion in 2010 U.S. dollars. In addition to the cost, more than 50 people were killed and at least 15 million acres of farmland were flooded. Other effects of the 1993 floods were: halted shipping on the Mississippi and Missouri for nearly two months, ten airports were flooded, all rail traffic in the Midwest was ceased, and both the 1993 and 1994 harvests were lost.
The impacts of the 2011 flooding are far reaching, affecting economic sectors such as: agriculture, fishing, shipping, insurance, refineries, and tourism. Economic losses will take years to recoup. Hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland were flooded, creating a nightmare at a time of year when the growing season is just beginning for many crops. In Tennessee, corn planting has been delayed and the winter wheat crop, which is typically harvested in June, was damaged. It was reported that nearly 900,000 acres of farmland in Mississippi was flooded - roughly 10 percent of all farmland in the state. In Arkansas, it is estimated that the flood waters wiped out 1 million acres of farmland - a staggering number when you consider that the agriculture industry generates 16 billion dollars annually in Arkansas. In all, the floods washed out more than 3.5 million acres of farmland within the Lower Mississippi River Valley.
The dangerous floodwaters shut down river commerce, which would have also caused additional stress on the levees. In addition to river commerce, in eastern Arkansas a 23-mile section of Interstate-40, a major east-west thoroughfare, was closed. Businesses and homes were closed or swept away, leaving many without a job or personal belongings. As the event continues to unfold, estimated economic losses are mounting. Overall, total insured losses currently amount to approximately 2-4 billion dollars.
|$800 million||Agriculture in Mississippi|
|$500 million||Agriculture in Arkansas|
|$320 million||Damage in Memphis, Tennessee|
|$317 million||Agriculture and property in Missouri's Birds Point-New Madrid Spillway|
|$80 million||First 30 days of flood fighting efforts in Louisiana|
Farming was not the only economic sector in the South that was heavily damaged. The amount of fresh water flowing into the Gulf of Mexico caused an imbalance in the ecosystem wiping out the oyster beds which need the salt water to keep their metabolisms in check. The large amounts of fresh water saturated with fertilizers, pesticides and other farming chemicals is expected to flow into the gulf causing a "dead-zone" according to Lt. Col. Mark Jernigan, deputy commander of the New Orleans District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. A dead zone is as area with low oxygen levels caused by the increase of fertilizers which fuels the growth of algae.
It is too early to be able to give an exact figure of the damages done and economic loss of the 2011 flooding. However, we do know that it will take years to recover from the 6.8 million acres that were flooded. The flooding that occurred across the United States in Spring of 2011 will be one of the worst flooding disasters in modern American history. | <urn:uuid:21dcfbd6-b64f-4281-b228-dad691581e95> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/2011/5/supplemental/page-3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397696.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00134-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953451 | 3,715 | 3.828125 | 4 |
Research commissioned by Cerebra, the charity that helps to improve the lives of children with brain conditions, and carried out by the Cerebra Research Unit (CRU) at the Peninsula College of Medicine & Dentistry, has found little evidence to suggest that cranial osteopathy is of benefit to children with cerebral palsy.
The research is published on-line in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.
Osteopathy has, over recent years, become a popular complementary treatment for children with cerebral palsy. Cerebra initially asked researchers at the CRU to investigate existing evidence regarding the benefits of osteopathy in this instance. The research team found no properly conducted scientific studies, with only one small study that showed some improvement after osteopathy therapy - but this had very few participants and the results were difficult to interpret.
The lack of existing evidence prompted Cerebra to ask the research team to carry out a large randomised control trial in order to provide families with good evidence about the effect of osteopathy for their children with cerebral palsy.
Before the trial was designed, the CRU research team talked in detail to parents and carers of children with cerebral palsy to discuss how they would like the study to be run. This degree of parental involvement in designing a trial is very unusual, but it ensured that the team designed a trial that was acceptable to families and that addressed the issues they wanted to be answered.
The researchers also interviewed osteopaths from the Foundation of Paediatric Osteopathy to find out more about the treatment and to help design the trial - the osteopaths who interacted with the research team agreed that the trial was a sensible test of the treatment.
In total, 142 children from the South West of England and Greater London were recruited to the trial for a six month period. Children were randomly allocated to either a treatment group or a control group: those in the control group were offered six sessions of osteopathy when they had completed the trial. This meant that the research team was able to compare a group of children who had received treatment with a group who had not, and that all children were offered the opportunity to have the treatment paid for by the trial.
Of the 142 children who were recruited into the trial, 133 (94 per cent) remained in the trial for the full six months.
The children were assessed 10 weeks and six months after they started the trial. The main results are those obtained at six months. The researchers found no statistically significant difference between the two groups in terms of a child's movement (which was assessed by physiotherapists who did not know if the child had received osteopathic treatment or not), the child's quality of life, the child's sleeping patterns and the child's level of pain. There was also no difference in the quality of life score for the parents and carers in either group.
The only difference identified by the research team was that 38 per cent of parents whose children had received osteopathy rated their children's overall wellbeing as better compared with 19 per cent of those who had not received osteopathy.
Professor Stuart Logan, Cerebra Professor of Paediatric Epidemiology, Director - Institute of Health Service Research and Director - PenCLAHRC, at the Peninsula College of Medicine & Dentistry, commented: "This has been a fantastic experience working so closely with Cerebra in designing and carrying out research which is of importance to their members. It was also a great opportunity to work with osteopaths who are committed to developing the evidence base around their work. None of this could have been done without the whole-hearted support of the families."
He added: "A properly conducted randomised controlled trial, such as this, is the only way to provide reliable, conclusive evidence on the effectiveness of any treatment. We hope that this evidence will be used to help parents and carers make informed decisions about treatment choices for their children. It can also give health professionals the information they need to be able to advise parents about treatments."
Chris Jones, Chief Executive at Cerebra added "It has been an extremely positive experience working with Professor Logan, and the Peninsula College of Medicine & Dentistry. Whilst we would obviously prefer to spend limited resources on finding and proving the positive benefits of any particular treatment - something that will directly improve the lives of children with Cerebral Palsy - it is also vitally important that we help children, parents and careres better understand what doesn't work as well as what does. Informed and educated decision making is critically important and we hope this research will play a significant part in empowering those people we are here to help."
Cerebral palsy affects approximately one in 400 children in the UK. Physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and speech and language therapy are often provided to support children with cerebral palsy. A number of complementary therapies claim to be beneficial. | <urn:uuid:a899cdad-2e63-494f-b836-b252d9099646> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-03/tpco-on031411.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00169-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981337 | 983 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Blackford comes from outer space, almost literally. Their origins are in the astrophysics world, and their break-through technology is called MOPED:
Blackford Analysis’s core technology is MOPED, an algorithm developed in astrophysics to tackle analysis of immense datasets. The patented approach involves compressing the huge datasets while retaining all information needed to solve a problem – allowing speedups of many orders of magnitude over traditional techniques.So what does this have to do with imaging? It seems that we can apply the algorithm to matching volumes, such as two CT scans!
The technology comes from astronomical surveys, where instruments capture gigabytes of images per hour. This information is generally interpreted by comparison with models, essentially complex formulae driven by a set of parameters, which reproduce the observations.
Parameters might be the mass of a galaxy, or the distance it is from Earth, and there will be some combination of parameters that produces a modelled image that is very close to that actually seen through the telescope. Situations like this are called ‘parametric modelling problems’.
MOPED’s particular ability when solving such problems is that it speeds up the step that determines how well a given combination of parameters recreates the image.
After the initial compression, the time taken for each combination changes from being set by the number of pixels to being set by the number of parameters. If 10 parameters were to be determined by an image taken by a modern digital camera with 12 million pixels, the calculation would be more than one million times faster.
This means that problems that were too slow become possible, often solvable in real-time. As datasets become larger, and the cost of the hardware resources required to tackle them rocket, the case for MOPED is even more compelling: the powerful algorithm vastly reduces that hardware cost.
Developed by Blackford Analysis, the medical imaging technology makes it possible for radiologists to anatomically link small features such as lung nodules between studies for the first time within the PACS.A video is worth at least 10,000 words:
While the radiology imaging software will also align CT and MR from any part of the body, instant anatomical alignment in the chest is a major breakthrough, given respiratory movement and the requirement for a deformable registration.
Blackford Analysis’ technology greatly reduces the time it takes to compare current and prior studies, a drain of radiologist’s time as volumetric datasets increase in size and complexity and become ever more commonplace.
A key advantage of the software is that it designed for integration in the existing PACS environment so radiologists can use it without having to interrupt their natural review processes by moving to another workstation.
Crucially, the alignment is achieved without any alteration of the raw slice data so radiologists don't need to worry about the authenticity of what they are reviewing.
Blackford is thinking outside the box. In all of the other registration programs I've seen, an attempt is made to match the entire volume of the old study to the new. Because patients are not rigid (their bodies aren't, anyway) this doesn't work so well. Some software will attempt to distort the data-set to achieve a fit, which could conceivably distort the findings as well. Blackford takes the novel and proper approach of an instantaneous point-to-point mapping, finding the exact spot on the old study that I'm seeing in the new exam. Brilliant! That's really all we need in the end, isn't it? And it does appear to work quite well. And to have it actually integrated into the PACS viewer would be incredible.
I hope to meet with the folks from Blackwell at RSNA and see the thing live and in action.
PACS vendors: you WANT this in your product. You really do. Jump on it now. | <urn:uuid:713c82ae-c0e3-4133-8beb-c38377512b10> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://doctordalai.blogspot.com/2011/11/match-game.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00200-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950589 | 789 | 3.34375 | 3 |
Prayer and simple living characterize the saint Mother Church offers to us today. Saint Saba (439-532) is known for simple things, died at 93 of natural causes, dedicated himself to God; it is said that his vocation was to the anchorite way of life; he’s not a well-educated man. The Byzantine Church calls Saba “the Sanctified.” In monastic circles Saba is honored as being one of the great Patriarchs of Eastern monasticism. Said before on these pages, saints beget saints, Saba was a spiritual son of Saint Euthymius the Great and a collaborator with Saint Theodosius.
Saint Saba was the founder of a now famous lavra named after him in the Kidron Valley, close to Jerusalem, and Qumran (where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found). Saba’s lavra is the second oldest continually functioning monastery in the world, after that of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai. Under Saba’s direction several famous saints are counted, men like Saint John of Damascus.
He is an intercessor for rain, healings, and against temptations from the devil.
A previous post on Abbot Saint Saba is here. | <urn:uuid:082dc170-9f6e-4ee2-9f61-2e7276ea69e1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://communio.stblogs.org/index.php/2013/12/saint-saba/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00095-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965461 | 261 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Almost all health care is voluntary: patients choose when to engage in care, when to take their medicine (if they choose to take it), and whether to return for follow-up visits. In human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and other chronic diseases, the benefits of medication adherence for the patient and public health are tremendous.
Mobile health — the use of mobile devices such as cell phones to improve health outcomes and health care services — has been shown to be effective in promoting adherence to treatment for HIV infection. The World Health Organization has strongly recommended text messaging as a reminder tool to increase adherence to antiretroviral therapy.
However, the potential of mobile health is much greater than just reminders. A randomized, controlled trial in Kenya that showed the effectiveness of text messaging to improve outcomes of HIV treatment used weekly interactive check-ins to ask patients how they were doing, with follow-up phone calls to those reporting a problem. This model involved a weekly text message to patients with a single word — “Mambo?” (“How are you?”).
The intention was to promote self-care rather than issue timed medication reminders. The patients reported that they felt cared for and supported. Clinic staff indicated that the intervention made their work more effective and efficient, since they could focus on patients who needed and wanted their help. Text-messaging services with frequent medication reminders increase costs and result in user fatigue. In separate trials, neither medication alarm devices nor daily text-message reminders improved adherence.
The provision of health information through mobile phones offers the opportunity to improve health literacy. But does it translate into improved adherence? Although this may be possible, effectiveness has not yet been shown in controlled studies.
A randomized, controlled trial showed that longer motivational text messages with words of encouragement were no more effective at improving adherence than short messages. A separate trial of motivational messaging showed no effect on adherence. Imagine that patients are feeling sick, and a unidirectional text-messaging service keeps telling them they are important and cared for. It is better to show patients you care, rather than just tell them. | <urn:uuid:6c38fe5c-4669-4590-a61d-d852604efb99> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.scoop.it/t/healthcare-technology/p/4010797790/2013/11/12/mobile-phones-to-improve-hiv-care | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00171-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953546 | 433 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Local Ohio educators gathered at PBS station WBGU to discuss educational and outreach opportunities from PBS KIDS, including the National STEM Video Game Challenge, which is open for entries through March 12. David Lowenstein, the senior director of Ready To Learn at PBS, was on hand to explain the Challenge, making video games for children ages 4-8 and the great prizes available. You can even hear from previous winners of the STEM Video Game Challenge and how they are approaching making their winning games. Check it out here:
The National STEM Video Game Challenge is in full swing, and PBS stations across the country are holding community events to get students pumped about making their own interactive games. Middle school, high school and college students, as well as educators, have been invited to join the PBS KIDS stream of the Challenge by creating games for children ages 4-8 that focus on early math skills. Check out photos and highlights from the most recent station events:
January 21, 2012
Robinson Technology Center at Norfolk State University
WHRO partnered with Norfolk State University to host four workshops for students and educators. The workshops, led by gaming professionals, included hands-on technology training and demonstrations.
photo courtesy of WHRO
January 26, 2012
WXEL partnered with the Palm Beach County Boys & Girls Club to host two workshops for middle school students at the station. The workshop featured Kayta Hott from E-Line Media, who worked with students on their game designs.
photo courtesy of Jen Creveling
January 28, 2012
WQED Multimedia at Carnegie Mellon University
WQED hosted a collaborative workshop, the “Mini Global Game Jam,” for middle school students in conjunction with the 2012 Global Game Jam at Carnegie Mellon University. The Global Game Jam is a 48-hour marathon “sleepover” for gamers around the world to come together in local “jams” and build new, innovative gaming experiences for kids and adults alike. Students received hands-on training and worked with mentors to develop their game ideas and start initial programming of their ideas.
photo courtesy of Devon Tutak | <urn:uuid:f05fe0ce-0318-4101-8298-50bc87635d7f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://pbskids.org/lab/news/2012-02/?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397744.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00056-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955238 | 431 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Elements of measure theory, Classical definitions and axiomatic approach. Sample space. Class of events and Probability measure. Laws of total and compound probability. Probability of m events out of n. Conditional probability, Bayes’ theorem. Random variables - discrete and continuous. Distribution function. Standard probability distributions - Bernoulli, uniform, binomial, Poisson, geometric, rectangular, exponential, normal, Cauchy, hypergeometric, multinomial, Laplace, negative binomial, beta, gamma, lognormal and compound. Poisson distribution. Joint distributions, conditional distributions, Distributions of functions of random variables. Convergence in distribution, in probability, with probability one and in mean square. Moments and cumulants. Mathematical expectation and conditional expectation. Characteristic function and moment and probability generating functions Inversion uniqueness and continuity theorems. Borel 0-1 law: Kolmogorov’s 0-1 law. Tchebycheff’s and Kolmogorov’s inequalities. Laws of large numbers and central limit theorems for independent variables. Conditional expectation and Martingales.
2. Statistical Methods
(a) Collection, compilation and presentation of data, Charts, diagrams and histogram. Frequency distribution. Measures of location, dispersion, skewness and kurtosis. Bivariate and multivariate data. Association and contingency. Curve fitting and orthogonal polynomials. Bivariate normal distribution. regression-linear, polynomial. Distribution of the correlation coefficient, Partial and multiple correlation, Intraclass correlation, Correlation ratio.
(b) Standard errors and large sample test. Sampling distributions of x,s2, t, chisqure and F; tests of significance based on them, Small sample tests.
(c) Non-parametric tests-Goodness of fit, sign, median, run, Wicloxon, Mann-Whitney, Wald-Wolfowitz and Kolmogorov-Smirnov. Rank order statistics-minimum, maximum, range and median. Concept of Asymptotic relative effciency.
3. Numerical Analysis
Interpolation formulae (with remainder terms) due to Lagrange, Newton-Gregory, Newton Divided different, Gauss and Striling. Euler-Maclaurin’s summation formula. Inverse interpolation. Numerical integration and differentiation. Difference equations of the first order. Linear difference equations with constant coefficients. | <urn:uuid:2b91f12e-645b-461b-982b-b5f93c74d437> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.upscsyllabus.in/ies-iss/iss-statistics-i-syllabus | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398873.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00131-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.804059 | 528 | 2.953125 | 3 |
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Step 10. Monitor and revise the plan
Now the planning process comes full circle. Information is needed on how well the plan is being implemented and whether it is succeeding, so that the implementation agencies can improve the way in which the plan is being applied and so that the planning team may learn from experience and respond to changing conditions. It is necessary to know:
Are the land-use activities being carried out as planned?
Are the effects as predicted?
Are the costs as predicted?
Have the assumptions on which the plan was based proved to be correct?
Are the goals still valid?
How far are the goals being achieved?
Data are needed to answer all these questions, but data collection must not be allowed to become an end in itself. The more time spent gathering data, the less available for analysis and action. Focus on readily measurable outputs or land conditions relevant to the planning goals and use established methods of data collection such as product sales records. Rank the importance of items to be measured, so that time and budget constraints do not prevent important data from being acquired. Crop yield, rates of tree growth and livestock production are obvious indicators. Other critical data sets are linked to the nature of the plan; for example, the monitoring of water availability in irrigation projects or of river sediment load in projects intended to check erosion.
Monitoring may involve observations at key sites, regular extension visits and discussions with officials and land users. A checklist and periodic meetings in the planning area may serve the purpose. Those responsible for plan implementation should list the tasks needed to correct problems as they arise and should also take action.
Review and revision
By analysis of the data collected, compare what has been achieved with what was intended. Identify problems in the implementation of the plan, or in the data or assumptions on which the plan is based.
There are a wide variety of reasons for failure. The first is that the plan was found to be based on incorrect assumptions; for example, that low crop yields were caused by a lack of fertilizer when in fact the major constraint is water. There may be changes in economic circumstances, such as when the world price of a cash crop falls. Often, failures occur in the logistics of implementation; if monitoring finds that fertilizers are not reaching farmers, is this a result of inefficiencies in the distribution system? Lastly, there may be problems of communication and participation, such as farmers who are not in fact planting the multipurpose trees that are recommended. Such problems should first be approached by finding out the reasons through talking to farmers.
Try to find solutions to the problems and discuss them with those who have to initiate corrective action. For minor changes, this can be at the level of the implementing agencies, for example in the form of revised extension advice. More substantial changes, amounting to a revision of the plan, must be referred to decision-makers. Continuous minor revisions are to be preferred where possible, since the attempt to make more substantial changes can lead to delays. However, there is no point in persisting with methods that are clearly failing to achieve their objectives.
This is the point at which benefits can be derived from the research initiated as part of, or in association with, the plan. If some of the problems encountered were anticipated, shell research results may be available. This applies both to technical problems, for example of plant nutrition or water quality or social difficulties. Where new problems arise, additional research will have to be undertaken.
There will usually be a change of emphasis over the lifetime of a development plan. In the beginning there will be an investment-intensive phase in which the results become visible in the shape of roads, water supplies, job opportunities, credit and material inputs. The second stage, consisting of extension and maintenance and operation of capital works, is harder to monitor. Day-to-day management is in the hands of individual farmers; credit repayments have to be administered, supplies of inputs maintained and marketing arrangements reviewed. The transition from the politically popular investment phase to the phase of ongoing maintenance and improvement is difficult. The latter calls for even more effective and willing cooperation between implementing agencies and land users.
Responsibility: planning team
List the goals and criteria achievement agreed in Step 1. Add any that emerged later in the planning period.
Gather data relevant to each criterion of attainment: physical, economic and social.
Compare what has been achieved with what was planned. Identify elements of success and failure.
Seek explanations for failures. Were they caused by:
Review the goals: are they still valid?
Initiate modification or revision of the plan:
Contents - Previous - Next | <urn:uuid:0b67c947-0ca8-4d2b-981a-b54e7c906701> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.fao.org/docrep/T0715E/t0715e0a.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397565.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00046-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951671 | 952 | 3.234375 | 3 |
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The concept of the universal was born in the lands we now call Europe, yet it is precisely the universal that is Europe's undoing. All European politics is caught in a tension: to assert a European identity is to be open to multiplicity, but this very openness could dissolve Europe as such. This book reflects on Europe and its changing boundaries over the span of twenty centuries. A work of philosophy, it consistently draws on concrete events. From ancient Greece and Rome, to Christianity, to the Reformation, to the national revolutions of the twentieth century, what we today call "Europe" has been a succession of projects in the name ofecclesiaor community. Empire, Church, and EU: all have been constructed in contrast to an Oriental "other. " The stakes of Europe, then, are as much metaphysical as political. Redefining a series of key concepts such as world, place, transportation, and the common, this book sheds light on Europe as process by engaging with the most significant philosophical debates on the subject, including the work of Marx, Husserl, Heidegger, Patocka, and Nancy.
Denis Guénoun's father was an Algerian Jew who inherited French citizenship and revered the principles of the French Revolution. He taught science in a French lycée in Oran and belonged to the French Communist Party. He rarely fought on a winning side, but his belief in the common interests of Arabs and Jews, Europe and a liberated North Africa, call out to us from the ruins.In World War II, he was drafted to defend Vichy France's colonies in the Middle East. At the same time, Vichy barred him and his wife from teaching school because they were Jewish. When the British conquered Syria he was sent home to Oran. In 1943, after the Allies captured Algeria, he joined the Free French Army and fought in Europe. After the war, both parents went back to teaching, doing their best to reconcile militant unionism and clandestine party activity with the demands of teaching and family. The Guénouns had little interest in Israel. They considered themselves at home in Algeria. From 1958 onward, Guénoun supported Algerian independence, outraging his French neighbors. Expelled from Algeria by the French paramilitary Organisation Armée Secrète, he spent his last years in Marseille.This book movingly recreates the efforts of a grown-up son, Denis Guénoun, to understand what happened in his childhood. Gracefully weaving together youthful memories with research into his father's life and times, this memoir confounds the distinctions -- ethnic, national, and political -- that might otherwise explain or justify conflict. Who belongs where? Who is one's natural enemy? Radically hostile to any sort of racism, Guénoun's father believed Jews and Arabs were bound by an authentic fraternity and could only realize a free future together. He called himself a Semite, a word that united Jewish and Arab worlds and best reflected a shared origin.
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- DAISY Audio - Similar to the Daisy 3.0 option above; however, this option uses MP3 files created with our text-to-speech engine that utilizes Ivonas Kendra voice. This format will work with Daisy Audio compatible players such as Victor Reader Stream and Read2Go. | <urn:uuid:2bdec317-7cdc-4ab8-99c3-414b905cd34e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.bookshare.org/browse/author?key=Denis%20Guenoun | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398216.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00164-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95777 | 943 | 2.65625 | 3 |
by Chauleaqua Washington
For New Pittsburgh Courier
Starting in high school there are always the worries about saving for college. Constantly asking when to save and how much to save. Saving for college is becoming a big deal now that college tuition has gone up.
“Students and parents alike spend their valuable time and hard-earned money to get into the right school and earn their college degree,” said Patricia Sadar, an adjunct professor at Florida International University.
When saving for college students should start as early as they can. Saving money at home isn’t going to cut it. Students should put their money in the bank and in a savings account. The account should differ from their checking account, this way the temptation to spend is less than normal, she said. When picking out a bank make sure that their interest rates are high, this way you can gain more money faster.
Most banks do not charge children a service charge. Some of these banks locally include PNC bank, Dollar Bank, Fifth Third Bank, First Commonwealth and more. After having a secure bank and putting money into a savings, the next most important thing to do is keep putting money into the account. The more money in the account the more interest you receive on it.
Savings should most likely be saved in the parents’ account; students’ assets are weighed more heavily when determining financial aid eligibility. With money in the bank and it receiving interest, knowing when and why to save can save time. Save when college tuition starts to increase and financial aid is available. The more you save the less you need to barrow.
Bonds are another great investment to make. Interest rates are higher on bonds, and they tend to save more than banks. Now that students have started saving for college the next step is to apply for scholarships and loans.
(Part two of this series will deal with scholarships and loans.) | <urn:uuid:dd25a4f2-9315-43cf-863f-e15a6a63c09f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://newpittsburghcourieronline.com/2011/11/17/saving-for-college-while-in-high-school/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396222.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00087-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968931 | 391 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Definitions for velarium
This page provides all possible meanings and translations of the word velarium
the marginal membrane of certain medusae belonging to the Discophora
Origin: [L., a covering.]
A velarium was a type of awning used in Roman times. It stretched over the whole of the cavea, the seating area in the Colosseum, to protect spectators from the elements. Precisely how the awning was supported is a matter of conjecture. The velarium that covered the Colosseum in Rome provided both shade and slight protection from rain, although the main use of the velarium was to create a ventilation updraft, creating circulation and a cool breeze.
Chambers 20th Century Dictionary
vē-lā′ri-um, n. an awning which could be drawn over the Roman amphitheatre: the marginal membrane of certain hydrozoans:—pl. Velā′ria.
The numerical value of velarium in Chaldean Numerology is: 1
The numerical value of velarium in Pythagorean Numerology is: 2
Images & Illustrations of velarium
Find a translation for the velarium definition in other languages:
Select another language: | <urn:uuid:807f805a-0d8f-4fa2-ab82-d21954735543> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.definitions.net/definition/velarium | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00081-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.741948 | 258 | 3.546875 | 4 |
* The history of Rinderpest including the history of vaccines and vaccination
* Details other Morbillaviruses
* Epidemiology and transmission of Rinderpest
Rinderpest and Peste des Petits Ruminants tells the story of how, by the year 2010, scientists are set to globally eradicate one of the great historic plagues that has ravaged human livestock for centuries. Descriptions of the disease in Europe date back to the 4th century and it was regularly re-introduced following wars and other civil unrest until late in the 19th century. It was introduced with devastating effect into Africa towards the end of the 19th century and is now widespread across sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Southern Asia. Its causative agent, rinderpest virus, a morbillivirus very closely related to human measles virus, decimates the cattle population along with those of other susceptible domestic ruminants and many wildlife species wherever it is present.
Specialists at veterinary research institutes worldwide and those working in university veterinary departments, virologists, infectious disease specialists, and vaccine researchers
Rinderpest and Peste des Petits Ruminants, 1st Edition
Rinderpest, An Old Worldwide Story
Rinderpest in Africa
Rinderpest and Peste des Petits Ruminants Viruses
Epidemiology and Transmission of Rinderpest
Rinderpest and Wildlife, A Controversy
Immunology of Rinderpest: An Immunosuppression but a Lifelong Protection
Old Prophylactic Methods
History of Vaccines and Vaccination
New Generation Vaccines Against Rinderpest and Peste des Petits Ruminants
Towards Eradication of Rinderpest
Index of the Key Players in the History of Rinderpest Research
Key References List
Quotes and reviews
"This is a good monograph; no, it is an excellent monograph. ...Interspersed with the science are fascinating chapters on the history of the plagues and their therapies throughout the centuries...This is a good read and worthy of all virologists attention."
- Joe Brownlie, Royal Veterinary College, Hatfield, U.K. for SOCIETY FOR GENERAL MICROBIOLOGY online
"Overall the book is a pleasure to read, and is a valuable resource for researchers on the subject. The book touches on the important milestones of these important diseases and includes a wealth of information on history, diagnosis, control and eradication of rinderpest. The book is suitable for its intended users who are specialists at veterinary research institutes, virologists, infectious disease specialists, and vaccine researchers."
- Dr. F. M. Mohamed, USDA/APHIS/VS/FADDL, Plum Island Animal Disease Center, Greenport, NY for VETERINARY PATHOLOGY (2006) | <urn:uuid:fe61f499-c4da-4c3a-a196-680ffeaca7cf> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://store.elsevier.com/product.jsp?isbn=9780120883851 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00089-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.868131 | 600 | 2.96875 | 3 |
May 9, 2012
Rare Cross River Gorilla Caught On Camera
Brett Smith for RedOrbit.com
A system of video camera traps set by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has captured evidence of the Cross River gorilla, a notoriously reclusive and endangered species of primate.“The video represents the best images to date of Cross River gorillas, normally shy animals that flee at the slightest hint of human presence,” said WCS director Christopher Jameson.
“The footage provides us with our first tantalizing glimpses of Cross River gorillas behaving normally in their environment. A person can study these animals for years and never even catch a glimpse of the gorillas, much less see anything like this.”
One of the four cameras captured eight gorillas traveling through Cameroon´s Kagwene Gorilla Sanctuary for almost two minutes. The video shows the animals emerging from the forest and surveying the area, possibly aware of the camera´s presence. At one point, a male silverback gorilla charges past the camera while beating his chest. Another gorilla appears to be missing a hand, the possible result of a poacher´s snare.
According to the WCS, evidence of a snare-related injury should serve as both an alarm and a warning to those looking to protect these rare creatures.
“Cross River gorillas occur in very low densities across their entire range, so the appearance of a possible snare injury is a reminder that continued law enforcement efforts are needed to prevent further injuries to gorillas in the sanctuary,” said Liz Macfie, gorilla coordinator for WCS´s Species Program.
Government patrols have reduced hunting activities in the area since the establishment of the Kagwene Gorilla Sanctuary in 2008. The sanctuary, which measures almost 20 square kilometers in size and contains 20 to 30 gorillas, was created as a keystone in the effort to save the Cross River gorilla. It evolved out of the “Gorilla Guardian” network, created by WCS to improve gorilla survival prospects in the most vulnerable unprotected forest sites in Cameroon. The sanctuary is now managed by a three person staff, all appointed by Cameroon´s Ministry of Forests and Wildlife. The sanctuary also retains a team of local staff from the eight villages near the protected area. Kagwene is the only site where daily monitoring of Cross River gorilla movements takes place.
When researchers first confirmed gorilla´s presence in 2003, they quickly realized the potential of the area as a monitoring site due to the presence of a significant number of gorillas, relatively easy tracking conditions, and the interest of local communities in the gorilla´s conservation.
Cross River gorillas are considered ℠critically endangered´ and it is believed that the entire population is between 250 and 300 gorillas. They only live in the mountainous regions along the Nigeria—Cameroon border, where they exist in disjointed groups spread out over 12,000 kilometers. A 2007 genetic study and field surveys suggest that these groups are often linked by the migration of individual gorillas.
The major threats to their survival are habitat loss and poaching. While less than one percent of illegal poaching involves Great Apes, their smaller population means that they feel a greater proportional impact. The results of ape poaching also include the orphaning of younger apes, which are often illegally sold as pets. | <urn:uuid:d3d1056b-eeed-4b99-b862-b1e25dbdfcbf> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112531305/rare-cross-river-gorilla-caught-on-camera/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399106.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00018-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938842 | 689 | 2.65625 | 3 |
The term “Creationism”
describes one theist position on the history of Earth. It holds that Earth is
about 6000 (maybe 8000) years old, and that the “God” of the Judeo-Christian
Bible created it out of nothingness, exactly as that series of events is
described in (a variety of versions of) the Book of Genesis. In this regard
there are folks, for example, who regard as factual the presentations at the “Creation
Museum” in Petersburg, KY, where, to quote from their website, “Adam and Eve
live in the Garden of Eden, children play and dinosaurs roam near Eden’s Rivers
[and t]he serpent coils cunningly in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and
Creationists believe what they believe because they believe that the whole of that book called The Bible contains the “inerrant word of God.” This means, to my understanding, that a) “God” wrote it, or at least dictated it in one sense or another, and b) that every description, proscription and prescription in it is his, her, or its word and is to be understood literally and followed to the letter. Although I don’t know of any polling on the matter, my impression is that the text to which most U.S. creationists refer as “inerrant” is the one found in what is known as the “King James Bible.” Which before we get to the question “why creationism” does raise some interesting questions of its own.
The “King James Bible” is a version of the ancient text that over time was written/translated in/to/from Ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, Early and Classical Greek, and Latin, into a wide variety of modern languages. The King James version was created in England at the time of the accession of King James VI of Scotland to the throne of England, as James I, in 1603, upon the death of Elizabeth I. While his mother, the tragic figure Mary Queen of Scots, was a Catholic, succeeding to the throne at a very early age upon Mary’s abdication, James was raised as a Protestant (and was, by the way, according to some sources gay. If true, that’s quite a contradiction for the “the Bible-is-inerrant” Christian homophobes, is it not?)
Having experienced religious wars, on and off, through the 16th century and having seen the effects of much more vicious ones waged during the same period on the Continent, the English ruling class had no interest in possibly returning to the days of armed religious conflict. And thus there was a major interest in establishing a firmly Protestant, English, Bible as “The Book.” And so the creation (if I may use that word) of “The King James Version” was authorized. This translation and compilation, from multiple sources in several languages, by a committee of 47 Anglican Church scholars, was published in 1611, with a further-edited version published in 1769.
Now it happens that there is no evidence that any of the Committee’s members had any direct communication with “God.” Thus there is no evidence that the King James Version, is in any way the “Word of God,” inerrant or otherwise. However, this circumstance, like others mentioned above, has never seemed to have stopped any believer in “Inerantism” from believing that every word of this particular multi-sourced/multi-translator translation is indeed the “literal Word of ‘God’.” So why is this a problem in the US? If folks want to believe in an “inerrant” Bible, take the descriptions of events literally, and follow its prescriptions and proscriptions as they wish, what’s the problem with that?
It’s a problem because there are “Inerantists,” generally found in the Republican Religious Right, who not only want to take various of the Bible’s prescriptions and proscriptions as guides for their own behaviour. In addition, they want to force them upon the rest of us through the force of law. On certain issues, like the matter of when life begins, they want to do this through the use of the criminal law. On others, like the matter of gay marriage, they want to use the civil law to enforce their religious position. These policies can be best characterized as ones of “Religious Determinism.” Of course the Christian Right and their Republican allies, often indistinguishable from one another (as when Billy Graham openly endorses Mitt [whatever happened to Mormonism-as-a-cult, but that’s another matter --- and Billy never gave is the low-down on it] Romney for the Presidency) pick and choose very carefully from among the Biblical prescriptions and proscriptions that they want followed. For example, they forget about “Thou shalt not kill” and totally ignore the Dietary Laws. But that ultra-selective (actually politically-driven selectiveness) is a matter for another time.
The point here is that if those rules found in the King James Bible that the Republican Religious Right likes and wants to impose upon the rest of us through the use of the criminal and civil law, are justified by them based on the supposition that they are the “inerrant word of God,” then the whole of the Bible would have to be “inerrant,” not just the selected rules. And that is the “why” of creationism. For if it is just a story, created by humans, not “God,” then the whole claim of “Inerantism” for the rest of the Bible falls flat on its face. And so then would their entire justification for the use of Religious Determinism in national policy. Presently, Republican Religious Determinists fall back on selectively quoting the “inerrant Bible,” from the Halls of Congress on down (or up, depending upon your view of the Republican Congress) to justify their position. If they didn’t have that crutch, why then they might have to argue from a position of reason. And good golly, where would that leave them?
Addendum: Just as I was about to send this column into our Managing Editor, Mark Newman, I came across the following news item on The Huffington Post, Jan. 30, 2013: (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/30/gop-creationism-colorado-schools_n_2570717.html?view=print&comm_ref=false): “Republican Bill That Would Allow Creationism To Be Taught In Colorado Schools Called 'DOA'.” The good news for Colorado students is that since the Colorado legislature is in Democratic hands (for now), the bill won’t make it to the Governor’s desk. The bad news for our nation is: “[A]ccording to a 2012 Gallup poll, 46 percent of Americans believe God created humans within the last 10,000 years. Only 15 percent of Americans believed God played no part in human evolution while 32 percent believed that humans had evolved, but that God played a part in that process.” Read it and weep. | <urn:uuid:e941c7b1-ec62-4981-81dc-d89889bab993> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://thepoliticaljunkies.org/tpjmagazine/2013/2/10/why-creationism | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00101-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965743 | 1,557 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Patras has been proclaimed Cultural Capital of Europe for 2006, and we have taken the opportunity to publish the present volume, entitled Patras - from Ancient Times to the Present. Our objective is to draw attention to the most important aspects of the development of the town and the intellectual and artistic expression of its inhabitants, so as to give prominence to the role it has played over time: that is, from the period when its mythical founder, Patreus, laid its foundations, down to the present day, when it is a populous, vibrant town with a busy harbor, the 'capital' of the Peloponnese and an open gateway leading to Italy and the West in general.
Cultural remains are to be found in the area of Patras from as early as the prehistoric period, more specifically from the Early Helladic II period, about 2000 BC, and excavations conducted at various settlements indicate that the area continued to be inhabited in the Middle Helladic and Mycenaean periods (from 1900 to about 1100 BC). Nevertheless, the inhabitants of the town took no part in the Trojan War, while the Geometric period, which followed the Mycenaean, is represented by very few archaeological remains, such as funerary monuments and artifacts. In the Classical period, ancient Patrai experienced impressive growth from the 5th century BC onwards, when the small scattered settlements came together to form the city-state of Patrai. Thucydides confirms its development and refers to it as a naval yard for the Peloponnesian fleet. During the period of conflict between the successors of Alexander the Great, Patrai changed rulers, reacquired its independence in 281/280 BC, and played a leading role in the revival of the Achaian League. After a period of instability and political fermentation, the relations between the League and Rome were strengthened and the status of Patrai improved, bringing political and economic gains to its inhabitants. Augustus, appreciating its geopolitical significance, founded a Roman colonia here and adorned the town with architectural monuments. After the division of the Roman empire, the province of Achaia was attached to Eastern Illyricum, with its capital at Corinth, which was also the seat of the metropolitan see of Achaia.
In the Early Byzantine period (4th-7th century), the development of Patras was no different from that of the major urban centers of the Peloponnese, and its role was defined by the career of the current bishop of the area. During the Byzantine centuries, the town extended from the castle to the coast and the Early Christian basilica of the apostle Andrew, whose veneration was closely connected with the life of the town. From the 8th century onwards, Patras emerged as the second most important town in the Peloponnese after Corinth, and its harbor was a secure station on the sea route from Constantinople to Italy. At the same time, it became a metropolitan see and its population included some important figures of monastic and spiritual life, such as Arethas of Patras, archbishop of Kaisareia in Kappadokia, who was a major spiritual figure and an important collector of manuscripts. The economic flowering of the town at this period is attested, inter alia, by the career of the noblewoman Danielis, who acquired fabulous wealth through her weaving workshops.
A primary role was played in the history of Patras by its castle, which crowns the town, built on the ruins of the ancient acropolis. Work on its construction probably began in the second half of the 6th century, with the aim of protecting the inhabitants against barbarian raids. Historical testimony to its existence is recorded by the emperor Constantine Porphyrogennetos, who refers to the raids of the Avars and Slavs in Greece at the beginning of the 9th century. In 1205 Patras passed into the hands of the Franks - without any great resistance, according to the Chronicle of the Morea and was ceded to William Champolitte and Godfrey de Villehardouin, who founded the Principality of Achaia with its capital at Andravida. After this, the town became a barony and was ceded to Aleman, at the same time being made a Catholic archdiocese. At this period the castle underwent significant structural modification and was converted into a strong medieval fort. Two centuries later, in 1408, the castle came under the jurisdiction of Venice, which improved its defensive structure in keeping with the machinery and weapons systems of the period. Constantine Palaiologos became master of Patras in 1430 and during the approximately thirty years of his control he, too, strengthened the defensive capability of the castle. Most of the interventions in almost every part of the castle, however, along with its defensive design, date from the period of Ottoman rule, though it gradually lost its strategic importance with the construction of the Fort at Rion.
For the period after the capture of Patras by the Franks (1205) there are several reliable sources relating to the political and economic activities of the inhabitants, and also to the effect on the ecclesiastical map of the establishment of Catholic bishoprics in the town. The creation of the Principality of Achaia and the feudal system had a significant impact on the political life of the general area. The Ottoman Turks made their appearance in the Peloponnese in the middle of the 14th century, and their fleet anchored in the gulf of Patras (1349). A few years later the Principality experienced a period of profound crisis and in 1408, Patras was ceded to the Venetians; in 1429 it was attached to the Despotate of Mystras, until 1458, when it was captured by Mohamed II.
Ottoman rule in the Peloponnese secured a period of peace that lasted about a century, until 1571, when the naval battle of Lepanto, which resulted in the routing of the Ottomans, gave rise to new expectations. The people of Patras rebelled and liberated their city, though a year later Patras reverted once more to the Turks. After this, despite all the raids by Westerners on the towns of the Peloponnese, Patras remained under Ottoman rule until 1687, when the Venetians again made themselves masters of the town, thereby completing their conquest of the Peloponnese. Venetian rule lasted until 1715, when Patras was once more ceded to the Ottoman Turks, remaining in their possession until the Greek War of Independence in 1821. The major event that left its mark on this period was the uprising of 1770 (the Orloff episode), when Patras was besieged by locals and fighters from the Ionian islands; the siege was raised after an attack by Albanians and the slaughter of Greeks. From the beginning of the 18th century, the economy can be observed to have grown, a development that continued throughout the 18th to the early 19th century, reaching its pinnacle at the time of the Napoleonic Wars and making Patras the commercial centre of the entire Peloponnese. With the outbreak of the Greek National Uprising, the town proved to be a vital point in the Greek plans for liberation, though the castle remained impregnable and was only surrendered by the Turks in 1828, to the French army under General Maison.
Fantastic depictions, testimonies and reliable sources for the life of Patras as a commercial centre, and for its harbor and the environs, are provided by the foreign travelers who visited it from the 15th century onwards. The town was marked on the map of an intellectual stream of travelers from West to East, whose objective was for the most part to locate and record anything connected with ancient and modem local populations, and also the customs and practices of the peoples who lived within the Ottoman empire. Information about Patras is also derived from texts written in the form of diaries kept by commercial representatives and diplomats during their journey to the Sublime Porte and the Black Sea, and also by pilgrims to the Holy Land. Alvise Manenti disembarked at Patras in 1499, inaugurating a travel chronicle that was to last until the beginning of the 20th century, and offering us a wealth of literary and visual material relating to the town, the castle and its geographical location, centered on the harbor. Many travel-writers called at Patras and the Peloponnese in general with Pausanias in their hands, in an attempt to confirm his descriptions and record the contemporary picture of the monuments and sites.
During the 19th century, until the middle of the 1870s, the image of Patras changed completely, and the town with an Ottoman character evolved into a commercial centre oriented to the western Mediterranean. with a flourishing industry and a busy harbor that formed a natural extension of a modern neoclassical town. The urban tissue was redrawn and the first mansions, the residences of merchants were built in the new section, the Lower town. This area of the town also housed the majority of the commercial and industrial establishments. The main export from Greece in the 19th century was currants, which were channeled primarily to the British market, and which made Patras the 'currant capital' and the largest export harbor for this product. This commercial development attracted entrepreneurs from the various parts of Greece that produced currants, such as Corinth, Elis, Messinia and Epiros, as well as commercial representatives from Britain and Germany. The growing of currants did not merely support the economy of the Peloponnese, but also radically changed the demographic picture of Patras, as its population increased continuously, and a wave of internal migration was created resulting in the town having a population of about 85,000 inhabitants at the beginning of the 20th century. At the same time, significant industrial units began to be built from the final decades of the 19th century, and the railway was constructed. Steam-powered factories, such as flour-mills, thread factories, wineries, etc, began to process and standardize certain goods, giving the town another image. Alongside the growing of currants, a variety of local wines began to be produced from them, such as roditis, mavrodaphni and moschato, with a leading role in this played by the German currant merchants Gustav Klaus and Albert Hamburger. The currant crisis of 1895, however, was to cause great social and economic disturbance that marked the beginning of a wave of emigration to the United States.
The town planning and architecture of Patras changed radically from the time when Stamatis Voularis undertook to draw up a new town plan, in 1828. Using the castle as a central reference point, Voulgaris designed a plan based on the coordinates of modern Boukaouri and Yermanou Streets, and created a grid of streets intersecting at right angles with rectangular building plots that has defined the personality of the town down to the present day. The Lower town was created, spreading along the sea as an extension of the Upper town - the two areas were later (1930) linked by the great staircase of Ayios Nikolaos. One feature of Voulgaris's town plan was the creation of porticoes, which offered protection from the frequent rainfall and the rays of the sun. This plan marks the beginning of the reconstruction of Patras, in which a leading role was played by Greek and German architects, such as Lysandros Kaftantzoglou, Stamatis Kleanthis, Ernst Ziller, Theophil Hansen, Spyridon Tzetzos and others. Outstanding examples of neoclassical architecture, both private and public, began to adorn the town. The main reference point, down to the present day, is the Apollo Municipal Theatre in Vasileos Georgiou Square. The archontika (mansions) stand out with their richly decorated facades and ceiling-paintings in the porticoes, which give the town a distinctly Renaissance character.
The economic course followed by Patras from the beginning of the 20th century did not change the life of the inhabitants, since traditional industries continued to flourish, while new industrial and craft-industrial units were added to those that already existed. The opening of the Corinthian canal (1894) and the development of Piraeus were two severe blows to Patras and maximized the impact of the currant crisis. Patras harbor became the point of departure for a great stream of emigration to North and South America. The social tissue of the town, however, did not change: a limited number of families continued to control the economy and a group of newly successful industrialists and merchants was added to the traditional 'aristocracy'. The upward progress of local industry and craft-industry, and also of trade, supported the economy and a wider social group who formed the bourgeoisie. The continuous growth of education, moreover, rapidly gave rise to differences in the cultural level of the inhabitants of Patras, who took part in various intellectual and artistic event that have been characteristic of the town from that time until the present day, such as the theatre and the annual Carnival.
An important role in raising the intellectual level of the inhabitants of Patras was played by the primary schools and high schools that began to operate from 1834 onwards, with the establishment of free public education. Alongside the public schools were founded the Arsakeion, which made a significant contribution to the education of girls, and private schools such as the Vorelis Girls' School, attended by the daughters of the wealthy classes. The so-called 'People's Schools' also made their contribution to education and training; these followed a free curriculum of studies at secondary education level, with no examinations. And in 1897, the Patras Craft-industrial School was founded with the aim of training craftsmen to staff industries and craft-industries.
A separate chapter in the artistic and intellectual life of the town is formed by the theatre, opera, cinema, Karagiozis and the famous Patras Carnival. It is no coincidence that two of the most famous monuments of the town, which are still functioning, are the Roman Odeion and the neoclassical Apollo Theatre, built to designs by E. Ziller (1871-1872). Authors of plays, translators, directors and men of letters in general saw their works performed by professional and amateur companies. This formed a tradition of theatre in Patras which is still alive today. On the other hand, companies from Italy with a repertoire of operas, visited the town regularly, lending its theatre an international character: performances of opera were inaugurated in 1850, with Verdi's La Traviata and Bellini's Norma. Just before the turn of the 20th century, the cinema came to Patras and people rapidly embraced the new form of entertainment. At first, theatres such as the Apollo, Paradeisos, and Exedra were converted, and continued to function as theatres as well as cinemas, thus inaugurating a cinema history that has continued down to the present day. It should not be forgotten, moreover, that Patras is the birthplace of the Greek Karagiozis: it was D. Sardounis, known as Mimaros, who established the art of the shadow theatre. Finally, the Dionysiac-style carnival celebrations described by Mangeart in 1829 developed into the famous Patras Carnival, an event that transcended local borders from the early 20th century and has become a panhellenic celebration.
The chronicle of the Press in Patras has as its starting point the liberation of the town from the Ottoman Turks (1828) - that is, when the French philhellene Maxime Raybaud published the French language weekly political, commercial and literary journal Courrier d'Orient. The history of the Press, however, begins in 1840 with the publication of the local newspaper The Achaian Herald, edited by N. Maniakis. After this, other weekly newspapers appeared, such as Minos, Fortitude, Indomitable and Patras, many of them enjoying a reputation throughout Greece, like The Taxpayer, which first appeared in 1869. The publication of newspapers continued to intensify during the 19th and 20th century, while the publication of periodicals was at a lower level. The first printing-press founded in Patras was a branch of the Tobras-Ioannidis Press in Nafplio and operated from 1836 to 1839 under the direction of M. Deangelis and St. Nikolaidis. Thereafter, printing-presses multiplied, with the press of A.S. Agapitos distinguished by its longevity.
In the middle of the 20th century, more specifically in 1966, Patras acquired its own university, which has gained an academic reputation over the forty years of its operation, bringing beneficial results to the society of Patras and the surrounding area. In 1992, the Greek Open University was founded in the town, providing undergraduate and post-graduate education for broad groups of society and making continuing or life-education an attainable goal. The Centre of Advanced Technological Education of Patras, too, has functioned since 1974 and has developed into a Technological Education Institute, which has opened branches at Aigio, Amaliada and Pyrgos, with a student body approaching 20,000. These three higher education institutions, with their young, student population, set the tone for the life of the town.
Patras is now a modern town numbering, together with the neighboring municipalities, some 200,000 inhabitants. It spreads before the sea and extends to the Upper town around the castle. Many neoclassical mansions and commercial buildings are preserved, some of them together with their porticoes, giving the town a distinctive character. Patras is also its harbor, however, a vital lung, a gateway to Western Europe, which is increasingly a connecting link between East and West. The new Rion bridge, indeed, has given Patras and its harbor even greater importance.
In 2006 Patras is the Cultural Capital of Europe, and the events planned to celebrate this will allow visitors to form a picture of its history over time. They will also enable its inhabitants to realiserealizet the beginning of the 21st century, their town is called upon to emerge as the real capital of the western province of the Ionian sea, bordering with, and the Greek gateway to, the United Europe, in an eternal communication between people and movement of goods.
For the Publishing Committee
Tr. E. Sklavenitis — K. Sp. Staikos | <urn:uuid:794dd4cc-c4fc-45c9-8704-b48cc8f68b4f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.oakknoll.com/bookexcerpt.php?booknr=92858 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00120-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973189 | 3,860 | 2.734375 | 3 |
One of my favorite nutraceuticals is magnesium. Long considered only a side kick to calcium, its full potential is rarely appreciated by the public.
Magnesium is the fourth most abundant mineral in the body, and a co-factor in over 300 biochemical reactions. It is vital to the function of the cardiovascular, musculoskeletal and nervous systems. Magnesium contributes to maintaining healthy blood pressure, normal heart rhythm, strong bones, protein synthesis and energy metabolism. It is critical to the function of certain enzymes, the production and regulation of hormones and neurotransmitters, it supports the immune system, and is necessary for the proper contraction and relaxation of muscles. Recent research finds that magnesium helps to improve sensitivity to insulin, and can be a deterrent to developing metabolic syndrome and diabetes.
Signs of magnesium deficiency point to other roles in health and well being. Early signs can include loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, weakness, irritability, insomnia, muscle twitching, apathy, confusion, and issues with memory. As magnesium deficiency progresses signs can include numbness, tingling, muscle contractions and cramps, seizures, personality changes, abnormal heart rhythms, and spasms of the arteries that feed the heart. Severe magnesium deficiency can result in low levels of calcium and/or low levels of potassium in the blood.
It is well known that certain individuals are at increased risk for magnesium deficiency, through inadequate diet, excessive loss, and/or poor absorption. Poorly controlled diabetics lose more magnesium through excretion in the kidneys. Thirty to sixty percent of alcoholics have low magnesium levels, and up to ninety percent going through withdrawal are found to be deficient. Magnesium requires uptake in the intestines; therefore, individuals with chronic malabsorption, such as found in inflammatory bowel disease, gluten sensitive enteropathy, and intestinal surgery are at risk. Chronic diarrhea associated with these diseases also increases the potential for deficiency; and, illnesses that involve vomiting and/or diarrhea can temporarily lower magnesium. Pancreatitis, hyperthyroidism (over active thyroid), heavy menstrual periods, excessive sweating, and prolonged stress can also lower magnesium levels. Some individuals with chronically low blood potassium or calcium levels may actually have an underlying low magnesium level that will reverse with supplementation. Older adults are at risk due to several factors: their diet is often low in magnesium, and as we age we absorb less from our diet, while excreting more from the kidneys. In addition, seniors are often taking medications that will add to the problem.
Recently, the FDA announced that prolonged use of acid-lowering medications, over the counter and prescription strength, deplete magnesium. Other medications known to interfere with healthy magnesium levels include certain diuretics, antibiotics, laxatives and anti-cancer drugs. On the flip side, many antacids and laxatives actually contain magnesium, and excessive use can contribute to elevated magnesium levels. In addition, since magnesium is eliminated from the body via the kidneys, those with kidney disease need to be monitored for excessive intake of magnesium. Signs of hypermagnesemia (too high) can be similar to hypomagnesemia (too low), as listed earlier in the article.
As always, the best way to support healthy magnesium levels is through food. Aim to eat a variety of vegetables, especially the dark green leafy family (think spinach and swiss chard), legumes (beans, peas, peanuts and soy), nuts (almonds and cashews in particular), seeds (pumpkin, sesame, and sunflower rank high), avocado, and whole grains. Halibut, salmon and some fruits are also good sources. Refined grains are low in magnesium, since the magnesium-rich germ has been removed. In general, magnesium levels in food are often lowered through cooking and processing. Adequate calcium intake is necessary when consuming magnesium. This is easy to achieve with dietary sources, as many magnesium-rich sources are also sources for calcium. The following site is a useful way to search for the food sources of nutrients: http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/ .
The current RDA for magnesium in adults is: males 400-420 mg; females 310-360 mg; pregnant females 350-400 mg daily; and breastfeeding females, 340-360 mg. Unfortunately, most Americans probably do not get enough magnesium from their diet. In addition, too much coffee, soda, salt, or alcohol may be implicated in lending a hand in lowering levels. Many people may benefit from supplementation, especially those previously mentioned at risk for deficiency. Studies also suggest or support a role for magnesium supplementation in asthma, diabetes, high blood pressure, fibromyalgia, migraine headaches, arrhythmia, congestive heart failure, noise-related hearing loss, osteoporosis, PMS, restless legs syndrome, preeclampsia and eclampsia (in hospital therapy). In my practice I also find magnesium useful in helping to address constipation, sleep issues, fatigue, anxiety and stress.
The chelated forms of magnesium appear to be better absorbed. Of these, magnesium citrate is the most cost effective. Magnesium oxide is cheap, but not well absorbed and can be irritating to the GI tract. Since magnesium will relax the muscles of the bowels (hence, its benefit in relieving constipation) the main side effect to watch for is bowel intolerance, such as diarrhea or abdominal cramping. Magnesium glycinate is a chelated form that generally does not affect the bowels. Do not disregard the healing effects of the old-fashioned Epsom salt bath, especially to relax muscles and aide in a restful night’s sleep. Be aware that magnesium can interfere with the the function of some medications and/or increase the side effects of the drugs. Appropriate doses and administration of supplementation should be discussed with your health care provider. Be well.
Ann Carey Tobin, M.D., FAAFP, is a board certified family physician. Her integrative medicine consultation practice, Partners in Healing, is located in Delmar. She can be reached at 518.506.6303, by e-mail at firstname.lastname@example.org, or visit www.partnersinhealing.info
Disclaimer: This information is provided for educational purposes only. Please consult a medical practitioner regarding the applicability of any opinions or recommendations with respect to your symptoms or medical conditions. | <urn:uuid:b7e1d24c-ed8f-4df9-9a1d-b0357d97710d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blog.timesunion.com/holistichealth/magnificent-magnesium/6608/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00198-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922352 | 1,323 | 2.921875 | 3 |
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In October of 1992, public health officials investigated several cases of bloody diarrhea in a small town in Maine; one of the patients, a two year old, developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) and died of kidney failure. The cause? Escherichia coli 0157:H7, better known as just plain E. coli. E. coli 0157:H7, a bacteria which was only identified in 1982, is one of hundreds of varieties of E. coli found in the guts of mammals. This particular variety, according to the Centers for Disease Control, can be found in anywhere from 1-3% of all cattle in this country and causes them absolutely no harm. However, when E. coli 0157:H7 is picked up by a human host, the effects can be devastating; at the very least it can cause severe, often bloody diarrhea, and in the worst cases, particularly in young children, E. coli can kill. Most often E. coli illnesses are associated with eating undercooked hamburger, but frighteningly, in the Maine case, it turned out the source of the E.coli was a fresh vegetable from an organic garden. In fact, the first victim was a vegetarian, and probably contracted her illness by eating poorly washed raw vegetables that she grew herself using E. coli tainted manure from her own cow and calf as fertilizer (for unknown reasons, calf manure seems to carry the disease more often than adult cow manure). E. coli is spread through contact with contaminated feces. Apparently, through improper handwashing, the first victim then passed the disease on to her own kids and one of their playmates, resulting in the death of one of the children.
This is by no means the only case of E. coli being contracted from vegetables. According to Dr. Jonathan Mermin, an epidemiologist in the Foodborne and Diarrheal Diseases Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the consumption of lettuce was implicated in four separate outbreaks of E. coli during the summer of 1995, one at a restaurant in Idaho, one in Montana where the source seemed to be a supermarket, one involving Boy Scouts in Maine, and one at a hospital in Toronto; only the Montana outbreak was successfully traced back to the source of the lettuce. Then, last summer, outbreaks of E. coli in Illinois and Connecticut were traced to a bagged mesclun mix coming out of California. In both the Montana case and last summers outbreak, the producers of the lettuces were organic growers and the lettuces were probably contaminated by E. coli infected cow manure.
Why are lettuces in particular plagued by E. coli contamination? One reason is that lettuce is not cooked before consumption, a process which generally would kill pathogens. Another is that lettuce is not vigorously washed before consumption or peeled, as are other vegetables. Also, according to Dr. Mermin, there is now some evidence that lettuce juices can actually support E. coli; the process of cutting the head to harvest it, tearing or bruising of the leaves, all make these juices available to the bacteria. And finally, the process of crisping often used in supermarkets and by producers, whereby the heads of lettuce are placed in vats of warm water so that the leaves drink in the moisture and then are placed in the cooler where the leaves become nice and crisp, can cause E. coli contamination of one head of lettuce to spread to every head of lettuce sharing the water bath (this process was implicated in the Montana outbreak).
Dr. Mermin, who flew to California to investigate last summer's outbreak says there are six primary points in the growing-consumption chain where lettuces could become tainted (though in this instance, it was almost certainly on-farm):
Lettuce is not the only non-meat food which could be contaminated by human pathogens; last falls Odwalla juice debacle (in which hundreds of people out west were made sick by unpasteurized apple juice - one person died) and an outbreak of E. coli in the United Kingdom associated with the handling of raw potatoes are only two documented examples of produce contamination. And E. coli 0157:H7 is not the only pathogen of concern. Dr. Mermin cited examples of salmonella on tomatoes and cholera on cantaloupe, two good reasons to wash all fruits and vegetables before cutting into them. In Maine, a few hundred school children were made quite ill by cryptosporidium, a protozoan for which there is no primary treatment. The source was apple cider which had been pressed at a school agricultural fair using apples gathered from a cow pasture. Dr. Aaron Margolin, a microbiologist at UNH, listed for me a whole slew of other potentially deadly pathogens carried by animals which could be contracted by humans including tuberculosis, lysteria, campylobacter, rotovirus, and toxoplasmosis. And Dr. Mermin pointed out to me that E. coli 0157:H7 was only recently identified; "Believe me", he said, "there'll be more of these diseases in the future that right now we don't even know exist."
I asked Dr. Margolin what the average small farmer could do to ensure the safety of his/her crops. First, he recommended composting manure before using it as a fertilizer. He also said to be aware of what other animals might be contaminating your garden, noting there are more than fifty animals which can carry cryptosporidium. In fact, several of the experts I spoke with mentioned rats and mice in particular as being vectors for serious illnesses - for example salmonella in the eggs of chickens who eat rat droppings - and suggested being vigilant in their control and extremely cautious around their feces. Dr. Margolin also suggested that deep wells are the best sources of irrigation, and noted that surface water stands a pretty good chance of being contaminated with at least some pathogens which have the potential for being transferred to produce. Thus, if you are washing lettuce mixes before market, it is important you use only drinking quality water to do so. Finally, Dr. Margolin said to be aware of what your neighbors are doing. You can have the most pristine farm in New Hampshire and if someone uphill from you is spreading raw manure or Class B sludge, your soil could be contaminated by run-off.
In the end Dr. Margolin cautioned that any person with a compromised immune system, that is, very young or very old, or a person who is ill, should be following the advice of a physician when it comes to food. He suggested that such individuals should be eating only vegetables which have been washed, peeled and boiled for ten minutes, and should never consume raw foods like salads or unpasteurized products like cider or raw milk. This is an instance where it might be preferrable to get your vitamins out of a bottle rather than to take the risk of contracting a deadly illness. For the rest of us, our body's defenses are truly amazing; a bout of crypto might make me or you well acquainted with our toilets, but it probably wouldn't kill us. But an AIDs patient or an infant, they could be dead.
Clearly, manure handling is of utmost importance in ensuring the safety of what we grow. Most organic growers are composting their manure, but certainly not all. According to Dr. Kathleen Gensheimer, the State Epidemiologist who investigated the Maine case cited at the beginning of this article, the woman who became ill was continuously putting raw manure into her garden all summer. Other experts I spoke with told me about individuals they had seen mulching actively growing food crops with raw manure, and Dr. Mermin, while investigating in California, found the use of raw manure there quite worrisome. Just from a fertilization standpoint, putting raw manure onto food crops that are close to harvest doesn't make sense. From a sanitation standpoint, the practice is reprehensible and in most places is, in fact, illegal. More commonly though, raw manure is not used on actively growing food crops, but spread onto pasture or disked into cropland before it is planted. Though this is a venerable practice, it definitely has problems associated with, most notably run-off polluting water supplies.
I spoke with Will Brinton, PhD. (the director of Woods End Research Lab in Mt. Vernon, ME. and widely regarded as this country's top Compost Wonk) about the issue of raw manure. Over 100 million tons of manure are produced in this country every year and less than seven percent of it is composted. This is a really enormous problem.
Dr. Brinton sees the days of raw manure spreading coming to an end in the not too distant future, mostly because of the degradation of water supplies. I asked him how long pathogens can survive in raw manures which have been spread on cropland, or which have fallen there in the pasturing of animals or using animals such as swine to turn soil. There's a lot of controversy over this issue; he said, it's not well understood but at least partly depends upon conditions such as how wet the soil is. In slightly anaerobic conditions like a very wet field, pathogens will probably survive longer. For this reason, most states have laws regarding how quickly food crops can be harvested from areas where raw manure has been applied. For certified organic growers here in New Hampshire the wait is a minimum of 120 days. However, the Organic Food Protection Act of 1990 (which still has not gone into effect because of the long process of writing rules but which should come on line soon) specifies a minimum of 60 days, a number which could prove to be problematic given that CDC's Dr. Mermin told me there is good evidence that E. coli can survive in manure for seventy days.
Some people use so-called aged manure on their crops, but this term is a hard one to define. Certainly, manure sitting in a pile for a time before it is used will undergo some degree of composting, but again, conditions such as temperature and moisture will affect just how much composting actually happens. Donna Rosenbaum, a food safety consultant with Food Safety Partners told me that freezing has no effect upon E. coli. You put a contaminated hamburger into the freezer, its still contaminated when it comes out. A hamburger has to be evenly heated to 155 degrees for five minutes to kill E. coli. A frozen manure pile contains many microorganisms in suspended animation, just waiting for warm weather to become active. Thus, a manure pile aged for six months in winter has a very different biological profile from one aged six months in spring and summer. Also, keep in mind that every time you add a forkfull of fresh manure to a pile you reinoculate it with pathogens; aging doesn't begin until the day you stop adding fresh waste to the pile. Because of pathogens and run-off pollution problems, Dr. Brinton feels we really should be composting, period before we spread manures. The kind of composting Dr. Brinton is talking about is not the stack-the-manure-in-a-corner-and-hope variety, but proper get-the-manure-hot-and-take-its-temperature variety.
For the complete how-to, buy the On-Farm Composting Handbook available from Northeast Regional Agricultural Engineering Service, 152 Riley-Robb Hall, Cooperative Extension, Ithaca, NY 14853-5701 for $20.00 + $3.95 shipping.
Briefly, proper composting involves balancing the nitrogen in the manure with the carbon in bedding (or leaves or wood chips or whatever you have) at a rate of between 1:20 and 1:40, controlling the moisture, and aerating the pile. Particle size and pH also play a role in composting, but ultimately, if all goes well, the pile should heat to an ideal temperature of between 130 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit for a period of five to fifteen days. Temperatures much lower than these could result in poor pathogen reduction, much higher will kill off many beneficial organisms. This period of heating kills off most of the harmful pathogens in the compost, but according to Dr. Brinton, somewhere between 2-10% of the most heat resistant bacteria survive (though viruses and helminths do not). For this reason, a period of between 60 and 120 days of curing is essential. During this time there is a great bloom of microbial organisms in the manure; this is known as speciation.
Speciation results in most (though not necessarily all) of the harmful pathogens being out-competed and dying. Unfortunately, the federal standards written into the notorious 503 Rule (which you might remember from the great sludge debate) do not require this curing process, so composts can be bagged and sold which sometimes exhibit so-called regrowth, where harmful bacteria briefly bloom before dying out as the compost ages. Though such young composts have the potential to transmit disease, Dr. Brinton, maintains that long curing results in very safe manure. Most of the organic farmers I've talked to are composting their manures for a year and a half, or two years. I think you can be very confident about the safety of these composts.
If you want to be certain your compost is done before using it, there are a couple of tests available from Woods End that are extremely accurate. The more expensive one (in the short-term) is purchasing a Dewar flask, which runs around $300.00. This is the standard technology in Europe, where laws are extremely stringent and flunking the Dewar test can put a compost company out of business. Basically, the flask is a thermos which allows the compost to heat, how fast and how hot determines how done the compost is. A much less expensive test (in the short haul, but if youre going to be doing this a lot, investing in a Dewar flask might be a good idea) is a nifty little set-up developed by Woods End called Solvita. This runs about $14.00 a test and involves sticking a paddle in a jar of compost and waiting for the paddle to change color.
It occured to me that perhaps we could do an end run around the issue of pathogens in manures by making certain the animals who provided our manure did not carry harmful human pathogens. But it turns out testing is expensive and not always particularly helpful. For example, in the Maine case, no E. coli was ever found in the manure of the calf or her mother. However, through complicated procedures it was ascertained that the cow and her calf had antibodies in their blood for E. coli which matched the genetic makeup of the E. coli which was found in the garden soil. Even if such procedures were within the economic means of the average market farmer, they are only a snapshot of a particular moment on the farm. The farmer could buy a pig or a new heifer, a wild animal could enter the farmyard; all these could be carriers and could infect the other animals on the premises. Also, many farmers import manure to their homesteads and have no control over the health of the animals which created it. Countries like Denmark and Sweden have had great success with zero tolerance policies toward Salmonella and E. coli, destroying animals and even whole herds to enforce compliance. Under pressure from consumer groups, President Clinton announced a new food safety initiative; perhaps with enough political will zero tolerance could someday be the norm here, too. Will Brinton, for one, can see a time coming when farms are not only organically certified, but microbially certified as well. But right now these diseases are endemic in agribusinesses where animals are produced in factory conditions. Such businesses would face enormous costs to rid their animals of human pathogens; they just are not interested in doing so, and as long as they don't, it will remain almost impossible for the small farmer to keep these diseases out of his/her operation. For example, most researchers agree that Salmonella is virtually ambient in this country; it can be found in more than 50% of the samples of chicken taken from any supermarket. As Vickie Smith, NH's Organic Certifier told me, You'd have to have completely asceptic conditions to keep all these diseases off a farm. It's just not realistic.
The apple cider industry is still reeling from the Odwalla juice scandal; it may never fully recover. All it would take for organic vegetable producers to suffer a similar disaster would be one well publicized outbreak of organic produce-related E. coli next summer. The greenmarkets would be turned into ghost towns at the height of the season. As stewards of the land, as individuals committed to practices which improve the health of the soil, plants, animals and people, and as responsible business people, it is our duty to see the disaster coming and to keep it from ever arriving. Who are we to shake our fingers at the sludge industry for endangering public safety when we ourselves participate in risky practices? We must recognize the presence of human pathogens in animal manures and do all we can to keep these diseases from reaching our families, friends and customers. Fastidious sanitation cannot be over-emphasized; always, always wash your hands after handling manure, or for that matter farm implements which have come in contact with manure. Take those manure encrusted boots off before entering your house or your vehicle. Wear coveralls to work around manure and then take them off when you're done. Keep your truck bed clean. Don't use poultry to weed any crop you intend to eat in the next year. Plant a green manure crop to precede a vegetable crop on that patch you had the pigs clean up last summer. Never just pull a carrot out of the ground, wipe it off and hand it to your kid for a snack. I could go on forever, but you get the message. And finally, proper composting of manures before they are used is essential to ensuring the safety of the food we grow.
The following individuals were extremely helpful in providing information used in this article:
Also, many different individuals at the following organizations were very helpful: The UNH Cooperative Extension, The University of Maine Cooperative Extension, New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, New Hampshire Department of Agriculture, New Hampshire Dept. of Health and Human Services, USDA National Organic Program, White Mountain Resource Management, Inc.
The following written materials were also used:
Cieslak, Paul R., Gensheimer Kathleen F., et al., Escherichia coli 0157:H7 Infection from a manured garden, The Lancet 1993; 342: 367.
Hay, Jonathan C. Pathogen Destruction and Biosolids Composting, BioCycle 1996; 37,6: 67-76.
Light, Luise. Cleaning Up the Mess, Vegetarian Times 1996; December: 58-69.
Millard, Peter S., Gensheimer, Kathleen F., et al. An Outbreak of Cryptosporidiosis From Fresh-Pressed Apple Cider, JAMA 1994; 272: 1592-6.
Mainely Composting (a series of articles), BioCycle 1996; 37: 46-82
Manual of Best Management Practices For Agriculture in New Hampshire, A Discussion of Nutrient Best Management Practices for Agricultural Nonpoint Source Pollution. New Hampshire Dept. Of Agriculture; Concord, NH: 1995.
New Hampshire Organic Certification Program Production Standards, Part Agr 906 Of Organically Grown Foods. Bureau of Markets, NH Dept. of Agriculture; Concord, NH: 1996.
Organic Food Production Act of 1990, Section 2114. Organic Plan, Part 2 Manuring.
State of New Hampshire Solid Waste Rule on Composting, Env.-Wm 2304.03 Processing Standards.
Rynk, Robert, ed. On Farm Composting Handbook. Ithaca, NY: Northeast Regional Agricultural Engineering Service. 1992.
Copyright © 1997--Hillary Nelson. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
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To report problems or otherwise comment on the structure of this site, send mail to the Webmaster | <urn:uuid:1d41eab2-84c5-4575-a181-635d4b942389> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://eap.mcgill.ca/SFMC_1.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408828.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00020-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958417 | 4,225 | 3.1875 | 3 |
- This page contains information regarding a plant "known to be poisonous" to goats as well as other animals. This information was researched from various resources. Please note, that the author is not a botanist or specialist regarding plants. This information is posted for your reference and comparison purposes only.
ALSO KNOWN AS:
Calico Bush, Southern Mountain Laurel, American-Laurel, Wood-Laurel, Small-laurel, Poison Laurel, Leaf-Laurel, Kalmia, Broad-Leaf Kalmia, Clamoun, Ivybush, Big-leaf Ivy, Spoonhunt, Spoonwood.
Glycosides Containing Plant - Mountain-laurel is a broad-leaved evergreen shrub that is 10 to 30 feet (3-9 m) tall at maturity. The crooked, irregular branches are characteristically contorted, forming dense thickets. The shiny evergreen leaves are simple, alternate, and mostly crowded at the branch tips. The flowers are borne in panicled corymbs at the ends of leafy branchlets. The fruit is an oblong capsule, 0.5 to 1 inch (1.2-2.5 cm) long. The bark is reddish brown to dark gray, and thin. Mountain laurel is sometimes confused with Labrador tea (Ledum spp.).
DANGEROUS PARTS OF PLANT:
All parts are poisonous and can be fatal to both humans and animals.
In order for toxic signs to manifest, 0.2% by weight of green leaves needs to be ingested. Gastroenteric signs develop first, generally within 6 hours of ingestion, including salivating, vomiting (in capable species), diarrhea, abdominal pain, and tremors. Disturbances in cardiac rate and rhythm may then be noted. If sufficient quantites were consumed, convulsions may occur, followed by coma and death. Not all affected animals will die, and livestock may recover without treatment, depending upon amount ingested.
Moderate. Mountain-laurel is considered toxic to most livestock. Kingsbury lists
the following percentage of lethal doses of mountain-laurel leaves to
animal body weight. goats > 0.4%. The foliage of mountain-laurel is a winter forage for white-tailed deer but it may be toxic if deer are forced to rely on it exclusively or
forage on it in large quantities.
All animals may be affected. It has been suggested that deer are possibly unaffected by Mountain Laurel; either because Mountain Laurel is considered unpalatable or because of the ability of a deer to digest and pass toxins with no side effects.
CLASS OF SIGNS:
Stomach irritation, abdominal pain, abnormal heart rate and rhythm, convulsions, coma, death.
Prevent further ingestion and provide supportive care. Veterinary attention is needed if ingestion was recent, or if clinical signs are present.
SAFETY IN PREPARED FEEDS:
These plants are not safe in hay nor in any other prepared feed.
Animals should not be allowed to graze these plants. Keep hungry livestock away from areas where these plants grow. Pets may nibble or taste the leaves out of curiosity or boredom, and this is not advised, but seldom leads to clinical toxicosis. Honey made from the nectar of these flowers is also toxic and should not be consumed, so exercise caution when placing beehives. | <urn:uuid:32ecbf6a-e3ac-4d4b-9183-852f0a2fd1cc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.goatworld.com/health/plants/mountainlaurel.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00133-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918436 | 707 | 2.984375 | 3 |
According to a report
from the White House, the state of federal science vessels is poor: the fleet is aging, boats are being retired or sold off, and insufficient investment is coming in to allow the fleet to be replaced.
The report states: "“the Fleet will experience a reduction in size and capacity due to several vessels nearing their projected end of service life."
There are currently 42 U.S. research vessels are deployed in the world’s oceans and the Great Lakes to carry out a wide variety of scientific missions. Scientists are worried that without additional funding, valuable marine research will be affected.
Commenting on the report, Mark Abbott, dean of the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University in Corvallis, said
in the science journal Nature
: "The community is deeply concerned that the ability to go to sea will be significantly reduced in the next decade, as research ships are retired or laid up."
Despite the warnings, there is some good news. The Sikuliaq
, a new vessel for use in polar regions, has been funded, and two research ships
are being built by the US Navy. | <urn:uuid:4855bcde-1f21-4445-8d3f-2ac971c46c6d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/352303 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394605.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00024-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9639 | 240 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Last week, Treehugger posted an article suggesting that ranchers in Brazil were covertly using Agent Orange to illegally clear patches of the rainforest. The article received several comments on most sites where it was syndicated, mostly outraged that this could be occurring; however, there were some that were skeptical.
Agent Orange is a combination of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D; however, the 2,4,5-T was found to be contaminated with 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin, also known as TCDD, which is a very toxic dioxin compound. Today, 2,4,5-T is banned in many areas of the world due to the toxicity dangers. It isn’t just Agent Orange that is banned, but one of its principle ingredients. Translations via Google of the sites cited by Treehugger never actually claimed that Agent Orange was used or that the entire “Agent Orange” compound was used.
Illegal clearing of the rainforest is dangerous beyond being illegal. Most elementary school science students can tell you that we need foliage to maintain appropriate levels of oxygen in the air. While there is much controversy about global warming, additional carbon dioxide in the air is said to contribute to global warming. The rainforest also recycles water from the jungle floor back into the atmosphere, decreasing the chances of droughts around the world. There are many varieties of plant life in the rainforest that we have no yet even discovered how to use, yet, 25 percent of medicines today originated from plants found only in rainforests.
Using chemical herbicides to clear land for farming or raising cattle is dangerous, whether or not the chemical is Agent Orange. It is alarming to people that any trace of Agent Orange might end up in their food, whether the area is used for crops or livestock. While small amounts of Agent Orange can have alarming effects, large amounts of other chemicals can have similar ones.
Yes, Monsanto and Dow both produced Agent Orange during the Vietnam War era, however, we do not even know if Agent Orange is still being used, let alone if it is being manufactured. I am afraid that the original article by Treehugger may have been a bit alarmist and name dropping was used as an SEO technique. While these are important things to monitor, it does not help to share information that is not backed up by fact. | <urn:uuid:791c1630-face-4903-b3e1-62b13c406b3f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dietsinreview.com/diet_column/07/reports-of-agent-orange-being-used-in-brazil-may-be-exaggerated/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396029.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00168-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976739 | 502 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Leading up to the year 2015, the United Nations and civil society groups are organizing a series of consultations to help shape the post-2015 development agenda. Part of this process is a Global Online Discussion, which provides a platform for people worldwide to share their visions for building a just and sustainable world free from poverty. IWHC made the following contribution to the online discussion on “The Unfinished HIV Agenda.” Click here to read our contribution to the thematic consultation on Inequalities, specifically within the sub-discussion on “Inequalities faced by girls”.
Despite the highly gendered nature of the HIV/AIDS pandemic (women represent well over half of all people living with HIV worldwide), most prevention and treatment programming fails to account for the social determinants—violence against women, limited access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services, early and forced marriage, etc.—which make women and girls particularly vulnerable to the virus.
The International Women’s Health Coalition believes that effectively curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS relies fundamentally on the integration of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) with HIV/AIDS programming. The post-2015 development agenda must address the particular susceptibility of women and girls to HIV as well as the fundamental role that gender inequality plays in the spread of the virus.
Integrating SRH and HIV/AIDS services is a proven strategy for reducing new infections. When men and women have access to HIV testing and treatment in the same spaces they seek out family planning and maternal health services, they are more likely to find out their status, learn about prevention methods, and explore treatment options.
Research has also shown that the availability of HIV services alongside other SRH services can reduce the stigma typically associated with HIV-specific programs. Because the availability of treatment services for other STIs has been proven to reduce new HIV infections, expanding access to all forms of contraception and sexual health services through voluntary, rights-based, client-centered, and cost-effective programming is imperative.
Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) should equip young people with protective sexual behaviors, the skills to effectively use condoms and other contraceptive methods, and should address gender and power, human rights and healthy relationships. While male and female condom use is proven to reduce new HIV infections, the distribution of condoms alone is not a sufficient prevention method. CSE should ensure that young people know how to use condoms correctly and should equip girls in particular with the tools to negotiate condom use and refuse unwanted sex.
In addition to equipping young people with scientifically sound and culturally appropriate information about sexuality, health, and rights, CSE should introduce empowering life skills to help young people navigate healthy and rewarding relationships, influence leaders in their community, and exercise their rights.
It is critical to invest in prevention efforts that target the most at-risk and overlooked populations of women and girls—adolescent girls, married girls and women, sex workers and women who use drugs. We must also ensure that treatment options are available and accessible to those living with HIV/AIDS, and that prevention and treatment efforts do not infringe on the rights of women living with the virus.
Women living with HIV/AIDS have a number of unique needs, and are particularly vulnerable to coercive sterilization practices, violence and discrimination. They still often provide the bulk of care and support for their families, they face unmet need for contraception, and they need support to prevent vertical transmission.
Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission efforts play an important role in reducing new HIV infections, but these programs tend to focus far more attention on the infant than the mother. The rights of HIV positive mothers must be fully protected and realized, including the right to informed consent and to choose the treatment regimens that best meet their needs.
The post-2015 development agenda must commit to addressing HIV/AIDS through targeted evidence-based prevention and treatment methods that account for the unique needs of women and girls. Curbing the spread of HIV hinges on the transformation of discriminatory gender norms and practices, and the expansion of SRHR programming and policies. When women are able to refuse sex, live free from violence, insist on condom use, and avoid early marriage, they are able to reduce their risk of HIV infection (not to mention attend school, participate in civic affairs, and engage in healthy and respectful relationships).
Like so many of our development priorities, addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic is inherently linked to issues of gender equality. We must focus not only on the direct determinants of HIV infection, but also the profound gender inequalities and resulting discriminatory practices which make women more vulnerable to the virus and which stand squarely in the way of addressing its spread. | <urn:uuid:56a486ef-48aa-4943-9e24-429ba0368d28> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://iwhc.org/2013/02/putting-sexual-and-reproductive-rights-at-the-center-of-the-hiv-response/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00115-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947385 | 955 | 3.203125 | 3 |
So you have data from a source, and he didn't keep a record of how he got the coordinates, and he's (pick one or more) dead, retired, nowhere to be found. And you have numbers but they don't fit the format of standard UTM grids, and when you try to run the numbers and get latitude and longitude you come out in the middle of Siberia (except when your data is actually from Siberia, in which case it comes out in downtown Burbank). Now what?
Pretty much every governmental entity advanced enough to draw a sketch map on a napkin has its own grid system. The reason is that a grid centered on the state or county fits the geography better than a grid that may be centered several degrees away. Also, depending on the shape to be covered, one map projection may work better than another. For New Hampshire, which is long in a north-south direction, the obvious projection is a transverse Mercator grid centered on 71 40 W. Now for the standard UTM grids, Zones 18 and 19 meet at 72 W, and the state (a small state at that) would be split by two zones whose grids meet at an angle. Also the central meridian for Zone 18 is 75 W and the meridian for Zone 19 is 69 W, neither of which are anywhere close to New Hampshire. The standard UTM grid isn't well suited to New Hampshire, but a special grid centered on the north-south axis of the state works much better. For states that are long in the east-west direction, like Kentucky, a conic projection is better. The National Geodetic Survey standards for state grid systems specify that grids be based either on the transverse Mercator projection or the Lambert conformal conic projection. What's very nice from the standpoint of government agencies are that zone boundaries are defined by state and county lines, not latitude and longitude. So towns and counties are never split.
Why local grids? They're more accurate. The standard UTM grid is accurate to one part in 2500. That is, if you measure a distance on the map in terms of the grid, and then measure it on the ground, you could be off by 1/2500, or about two feet in a mile. No biggie for targeting artillery (since the UTM system was started by the military) but possibly big trouble if you're plotting right of way for a road and the guy whose property is on the wrong side of that two feet is litigious. So the state plane systems try for accuracy of one part in 10,000 (six inches per mile). They do that by having smaller zones so the projection surface fits the earth more snugly, and by having the projection surface better centered on the state.
It's possible to have even more specific local grids. Wisconsin and Minnesota (and possibly other states) have county grids. These use not only the projection best suited to the shape of the county, but take topography into account as well. For a datum (model of the earth's shape) they use not sea level, but an ellipsoid matching the average elevation of the county. And if the county has an overall topographic slope, the grid will be shifted so that the cylinder or cone mapping the county provides the closest fit to the county topography. Wisconsin shoots for (and mostly gets) accuracy of one part in 30,000 for the county grids in rural areas and 1 in 50,000 or 1-1/4 inches in a mile in urban areas. For example, one grid covers four counties in southeast Wisconsin along the Lake Michigan shore. The central meridian isn't at the longitude that best fits the shapes of the counties, but a bit farther east. The shift optimizes accuracy in the urban areas, which are all along the lakeshore.
So if you have odd looking numbers, you may have a state or county grid. The agencies most likely to be able to provide information are your State Department of Transportation, State Surveyor, or State Geological Survey. Also, early implementations of state plane coordinate systems used feet for their unit of measure, not meters, and surveyors still work a lot in feet. So if meters don't work, try feet.
Also, if the map that was used is a privately published map, like say for a guidebook, the grid may be an entirely arbitrary one defined by the publisher. I once got an inquiry from someone looking at data from Mexico, and finally figured out the map had 0,0 at Tijuana, the far northwest corner of Mexico, and measured south and east from there.
Return to Professor Dutch's Home Page
Created 1 April 2008, Last Update 16 May 2015
Not an official UW Green Bay site | <urn:uuid:9e48ffb8-73b2-4ff7-a970-8c8b998dace2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.uwgb.edu/DutchS/UsefulData/OddGrids.HTM | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403502.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00186-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953628 | 971 | 2.828125 | 3 |
The first body fossils of trilobites appeared in the Early Cambrian Period, about 540 million years ago. The trilobite pictured above is an olenellid (probably in the genus Nevadella) from the Early Cambrian of southwestern Nevada, a very typical trilobite in the Lower Cambrian of North America. It seems likely that trilobites were preceded by soft-bodied ancestors: at several localities, sedimentary rocks with trace fossils of trilobite activity underlie the oldest rocks with trilobite body fossils.
Trilobites underwent several radiations in the Cambrian; by the end of the Cambrian, about 500 million years ago, they were as diverse as they would ever be. In the Ordovician, trilobite lineages began to specialize, and diversity went down; it continued to drop in the Silurian and at the end of the Devonian. The trilobite pictured below, Phacops, is a typical Devonian trilobite, found in North America, Morocco, and elsewhere.
In the Carboniferous and Permian Periods, trilobites became quite scarce, but they did not go entirely extinct until the end of the Permian, 245 million years ago, for reasons that are still not understood. | <urn:uuid:07061b3c-c96a-4f88-9fa0-171425fe0e4c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/arthropoda/trilobita/trilobitafr.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396887.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00050-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9655 | 275 | 4.25 | 4 |
When we think of the seminal moments in the birth of the United States of America, many people would point to the battles of Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill. But according to Robert Sullivan, the founding landscape of our nation is not in Massachusetts. It is in and around New York.
In his new book, My American Revolution: Crossing the Delaware and I-78, Sullivan writes that the majority of battles in the Revolutionary War were fought in the middle colonies: New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.
In the book, he retraces the steps of Washington and his soldiers on a 30-mile trek north from the Delaware River. Sullivan tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz, the journey took him through the Watchung Mountains, a low mountain range in New Jersey, that played a key role in the Revolution. It is where Washington lit fires as warning signals to those in New York, when he saw movement by the British force.
Sullivan wanted to do his own reenactment. He managed to use a mirror and the sun's reflection to send a signal to his daughter 20 miles away in Brooklyn. Through the process, Sullivan discovered something about those signal posts. They have been critical points throughout our history.
He tells Raz, they were used as anti-Soviet missile sites by the American military. "And then at 9/11 each one of these sites had become exactly a place where people went ... to see the towers come down," he says. "These high points mattered to us strategically."
Boston has its Liberty Trail, but Sullivan says, Revolutionary landmarks in and around New York tend to go unnoticed. It could be because the British were often on the winning side of the battles fought there. "We don't champion them naturally. It's hard to champion great losses and defeats and evacuations." Like the Battle of Brooklyn, which wound up being the first big fight and failure of the Revolution.
"It was an evacuation," Sullivan tells Raz. The British "cornered Washington up into what is today Brooklyn Heights." But the Marbleheaders, a brigade from Massachusetts, rowed Washington and his troops to safety across the East River.
Though these sites might seem trivial today, Sullivan wants to champion them as footnotes of history — "and make the footnotes the top part," he tells Raz. "What we stand in is the kind of everyday landscape that seems to be no big deal in history. And so this kind of footnoted history is more about humility and understanding that you can't fight certain things."
Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. | <urn:uuid:ee2911f5-7a73-4a13-8713-641a1e2e368d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://wamu.org/programs/all_things_considered/12/09/01/following_the_footnotes_of_the_revolutionary_war | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397562.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00107-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973539 | 540 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Instead of writing papers at the end of the semester in my videogame studies class, my students are building videogames. After all, what better way to understand games than to make one, a notion Ian Bogost calls carpentry.
My students aren’t designing merely any kind of game. They are designing metagames, by which I mean a game that itself comments upon or thinks through some aspect of other videogames. The assignment is available for all to share or remix.
Only a few of my students are computer science or game design majors. They are are almost all nonprogrammers, non-designers. But in line with the central message of Anna Anthropy’s Rise of the Videogame Zinesters, I believe anyone can make a videogame. Maybe not Skyrim but certainly a modest game that uses the affordances of the medium to think about the medium. Because my students’ initial pitches were much more ambitious than what they could ever hope to achieve in the space of two weeks, I cribbed a list of design principles that are either explicitly mentioned or implied in Anthropy’s chapter “Making the Games.” Again, I share it here:
- “Dumb little games” have value and can enrich our understanding of the form
- Perfection isn’t a useful goal
- Accidents and mistakes can be creative forces
- Use what’s on hand
- Be derivative
- Be weird | <urn:uuid:0ae9a719-5acf-4832-ac00-990bf66782cb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.samplereality.com/2012/04/26/be-weird-and-other-game-design-tips/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00094-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946395 | 304 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Birders and other wilderness tourists eager to explore one of the world’s most biodiverse places, however, head inland, to the richly forested and, until recently, woefully unprotected, interior.
Since 2003, Brazil has set aside some 768,488 square kilometers (297,000 square miles)—the area of Central Europe—as national parks and other conservation areas. However, only 8% of its lush Atlantic rainforest, a biodiverse ecosystem key to the country’s efforts to become fully carbon neutral, is protected. In 2010, former President Lula da Silva responded by creating four new wilderness refuges, set to expand further in early 2011.
The newly protected tracts of wilderness total 65,070 hectares (161,000 acres): Alto Cariri National Park and expanded Pau Seguro National Park, protecting Atlantic rainforests accessible from popular Porto Seguro; Serra das Lontras National Park concentrating remarkable biodiversity in a scenic coastal mountain range; and Boa Nova National Park and Boa Nova Wildlife Refuge, which sprawl across Atlantic jungles, dry tropical forests, and the semi-arid caatinga.
These new parks, which are already being developed for tourism, are great news for travelers and conservationists. They can thank an international birders, in particular the organization Save Brasil, for making a flap. For decades, this group has been working with Brasil Flora, CL Brasil, and CEFP to protect two Important Bird Areas (IBAs). Boa Nova is home to 396 recorded birds including 31 threatened or endangered species such as the slender antbird and narrow-billed antwren. Birders in Serra das Lontras have spotted 330 species, 29 of which are threatened, such as the acrobata. The new national park is also a biodiversity hot spot for endangered plants and mammals.
These protected areas have been popular birding destinationsfor years, which is why eagle-eyed visitors couldn’t help but notice that cacao plantations, logging, and expanding human settlements threatening a region they treasured for its endemic and endangered species. Though they won an important victory for their feathered friends, it is bittersweet; only 2.6% of the original Boa Nova forest remains intact.
Brazil is home to more than 1,800 recorded species, about 10% of which are threatened and at least 234 endemic. Flocks of birders supported Save Brasil, and you can help by making the effort to visit these remarkable wilderness areas. Guides (currently required) and tours are usually geared to birders, but with a bit of advance notice can organize all sorts of trips into Brasilia’s interior. | <urn:uuid:2ed5cdf7-931b-4596-93f6-7541248c096a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.viator.com/Brazil-tourism/Birders-and-Conservationists-Enthusiastic-about-New-Parks/d79-t4074 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00045-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927961 | 553 | 3.390625 | 3 |
The Software Management model stems from the Software Resource Model, or the SRM. The SRM is used by the Platform and many Solutions, tying together the sometimes disparate frameworks different Solutions use to manage or otherwise track Software. This article covers how the base Resource Model works, and how the SRM sits on top of that.
To understand how the Software Resource Model works, first it is important to understand the underlining Resource Model used by the Symantec Management Platform for all Resource types.
NOTE: At the time of this publication, the information contained here was known to be valid, however minor changes during the course of Product development might have changed schema. Please test any query or other data inspection with the understanding that these references might be stale based on a recent update.
The Resource Model is a mechanism that enables the storage of large amounts of data for several entities. On key difference between items and tables is that data stored by resources can be stored in one or more tables. Items however store data in a state column.
The Resource Model provides a common solution development environment by allowing common pieces of the framework to be used. The Resource Model is a framework designed to be extended and customized by other solutions. Examples of this include the Data Loader, resource security, and Notification Server data forwarding.
The Resource Model also provides a common experience for end users. Examples of this common functionality include: Query Builder, Resource Manager, and Data Entry pages.
What is a Resource?
Resources represent the physical objects that the Symantec Management Platform manages. The term resource is often used synonymously with a tangible object, such as a user's computer, a user's phone, or the user themselves. When discussing resources in conversations, this definition is typically sufficient; however, from a design perspective, this definition is incomplete. Programmatically, resources are composed of three things: a Resource Type, Data Classes and Associations.
Resource types are arranged in a hierarchy. Data classes, association types and resource type keys are inherited from the base resource type.
Figure 1. - Resource design diagram
Resource types extend the Item Object Model. Because resource types are based on items, the base resource type class is called ResourceItem. Examples of resource types are Computers, Users, Printers, Routers, Contracts and Software Packages. Since resource types extend Items, all resources are items; however, there is an important distinction between a resource and an item. That distinction is the data classes and associations that comprise resources. Therefore we typically refer to resources and items (or standard items) separately.
Resource associations are relationships between resource types. Conceptually, a parent type is associated with a child type in the form of a relationship. A well named association indicates what the relationship is. Associations also define a cardinality which determines how many parents can/must be related to how many children (0 to 1, exactly 1, 0 to many, etc). A resource type may have multiple associations. Examples of resource associations are Users Company (connects a user type to a company type), Users Manager (connects a user type to a user type) and Incident To Resource (connects an incident type to any resource type).
Like the Item Object Model, the Resource Model is extensible, supporting customizable types, data classes and associations. New resources can be built on top of existing resources thereby inheriting the features of that existing resource, including its dataclasses and associations. For example, a Software Company may be extended from Company, which in turn extends from Resource.
Resource Model Components
- Resource Type
- Data class (Resource Data Class)
- Resource Association
- Resource Association Type
- Resource Type Key
A Resource Type contains the definition of a type of entity in Notification Server (NS).
Examples of entities are: computer, user, and software
A Resource Association is a individual link between two resources. The link describes the relationship between two resources. This relationship describes the parent and child resources and the cardinality that is allowed. A Resource Association's data is forwarded between Notification Servers.
Figure 1-3 display the relationship/associations between resource types.
Figure 2. - Relationships between Resource Types
The Contract Resource Type is also derived from the base Resource type. Below is a chart of the Contract Resource.
Figure 3. - Contract Resource Type Model
Resource Type Key
The Resource Type Key is the mechanism for identifying a resource instance. Different solutions need to identify a resource by different lookup values.
An example of is of the Computer Resource Type. Inventory Solution identifies a computer by Name and Domain whereas Asset Management Solution uses the serial number to identify a computer. The standard core implementation of a resource Type key provides resource lookups for data class attribute values.
Resource Type Views
vResource, vResourceItem, and vResourceEx are views on [vitem] joined to [ItemResource].
- vResource - This view includes all resources.
- vResourceItem - This view includes all resources joined with [vItem]
- vResourceEx - This view extends vResource to include the Name, Description and IsLocal flag.
- vResourceType - This view shows all Resource types and is a view on [ResourceType]
What is a Data Class?
A data class is essentially a database table that contains custom data relevant to a given resource type. When standard items are extended, their extended data is stored in the Item table as an xml blob. This is not the case with resources which use a separate table for each data class. This is done for performance reasons. Separate tables allow for easy querying and reporting about the resource. A resource type may have multiple data classes. Examples of data classes are User General Details, Company Details and Software Delivery Package Summary. A common naming scheme is used to for Resources, namely: RM_Resource...
Data Class (Resource Data Classes)
Data Classes store actual data for a resource instance. Groups of similar properties are typically placed into a single data class. A data class can be assigned and used by many different resource types. Existing Resource types can be extended to include additional data classes. Data Classes are categorized as inventory or event data classes.
Inventory data classes can be set to record a 1 or multiple rows of information. The data contained in a Inventory Data Class can be forwarded between Notification Servers. The Inventory Data Class is designed to store the current state of the data. Inventory style data class tables are prefixed with "Inv_" in the CMDB.
Data Classes may contain foreign keys. The Data Class foreign key specifies that a given field in a given Data Class is a link to another item. Data Class foreign key items are linked to another Data Class using an Item Reference. The core includes these two standard implementations for foreign keys:
- Data Class foreign key - This specifies that the value in the Data Class is the GUID of a specified class.
- Data Class resource foreign key - This specifies that the value is the GUID of a resource item of a specified resource type.
Event Data Classes are designed to store a history of the data. Event style data class tables are prefixed with "Evt_" in the CMDB. A summary of all Data Classes in the CMDB can be found in the "DataClass" table. The Data lasses are filtered by style with the vInventoryClass and vEventClass views.
The following diagram in Figure 4 displays the Software Resource Model. This diagram shows the relationship between resources and data classes. Blue boxes are resource types and orange boxes are data classes.
Figure 4. - The Software Resource Model
The following diagram (Figure 5) provides a more detailed look at the Software Resource Model.
Figure 5. - The Software Resource Model, greater detail
Software Resource Model Navigation
The data classes in the resource data model ( yellow boxes ) are named by their correct name, and the table can be discerned by the data class name. Columns are also supplied via the box below the data class names. They do not list those columns that are created for any data class automatically ( _id, _ResourceGuid).
Figure 6 - Example of a data class, its name, and columns
The actually dataclass table name contains the Inv_ prefix and all the spaces are replaced with _ i.e. in the given example the table name is Inv_Windows_File.
The software resources (blue) boxes only list Name and Description column as essentially all software resource tables have the same number of columns
The exact table name contains the RM_Resource prefix and all the spaces are replaced with _ i.e. for the for the resource above it is RM_ResourceSoftware_Installation_File
The software resource tables are joined to resource data classes (solid purple arrows) by GUID column in the software resource and _ResourceGuid column in the data class
SELECT * FROM RM_ResourceFile rf JOIN Inv_File_Details fd ON rf.Guid = fd._ResourceGuid
The foreign key relationship to resource instance (dashed gray arrows) are joined on the column that essentially has the foreign software resource in its name.
SELECT * FROM Inv_Installed_File_Details f JOIN RM_ResourceFile fr ON f.FileResourceGuid = fr.Guid
Some explanation: as you can see on the model the Installed File Details data class is associated with the Computer resource, not the File Resource. But it does have connection to the file resource ( dashed gray arrow ) via the FileResourceGuid column.
Also, for each resource NS Resource Management framework also creates a view and updates it automatically. The view combines resources of the given type and all the types derived from it. The view name contains the vRM_Resource prefix, then the software resource name with the spaces replaced with _ and then _Item postfix.
This information is provided to aide in understanding how Resources within the Symantec Management Platform are represented and associated. At the time of this publication, the information contained here was known to be valid, however minor changes during the course of Product development might have changed schema. Please test any query or other data inspection with the understanding that these references might be stale based on a recent update. | <urn:uuid:1cfb38d1-67a6-4db6-824b-dd08a166021b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.symantec.com/connect/articles/software-management-resource-schema-71?page=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396147.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00005-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.877952 | 2,109 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Strong earthquakes have been ravaging the planet this year causing billions of dollars worth of damage, extreme amounts of deaths and leading to those who do not understand seismology to ask: what is going on?
One self-taught pseudoscientist, Raffaele Bendandi, allegedly predicted before his death in 1976 that a devastating earthquake was going to strike Rome on Wednesday. By noon, 22 very minor quakes shook up Italy, but none of them were the strong temblors Bendandi foretold, according to the United States Geological Survey
Nonetheless, thousands left Rome as a precaution. In one neighborhood near the city’s central train station, many storefronts were closed off and those who feared disaster escaped to the nation’s countryside, reports the Canadian Press
Although there are dubious claims made all the time, researcher Alberto Michelini is glad that these proclamations are made because then people in his field can “take advantage of this moment of fear and psychosis to try to explain what we do.”
Two questions have arisen Wednesday: Did Bendandi even make such a prediction? Can seismologists predict earthquakes?
Did he say it?
reports that the president of the association in charge of Bendandi's documentation, Paolo Lagorio, is unaware of his prediction and is doubtful that he even made such statements prior to his death because there is no evidence of it.
University of Kent sociology senior lecturer, Adam Burgess, stated that these kinds of rumors occur because of uncertainty and a paucity of trust towards government. In this case, Burgess notes, this is a reflection of how Italians feel toward their government, reports CBC News
“In the Italian context this might be exacerbated by the more typical experience of the Italian state where even laws and legislation that are passed will often mean very little in practice,” said Burgess.
Can it be predicted?
notes that Bendandi’s prediction was based on the movement of the moon, the planets and the sun, but is this even possible?
Scientists do not believe it is possible to forecast earthquakes because of the randomness of temblors. “Despite huge efforts and great advances in our understanding of earthquakes, there are no good examples of an earthquake being successfully predicted in terms of where, when and how big,” said head of seismology at the British Geological Survey, Brian Baptie.
Furthermore, those who have utilized certain methods to predict earthquakes have been scrutinized and discredited within the scientific community because they contain “little basis and merely cause public alarm.”
Although very short-term earthquake predictions (30 seconds) are definitely possible, long-range prediction is much more difficult, but it can lead to seismologists to state that certain regions are long overdue for a strong quake, including the western United States and the recently-hit Japan.
According to the London Telegraph
, Bendandi has been correct in previous predictions. He made front-page headlines after he predicted the 1915 Avezzano earthquake, which caused 30,000 deaths. His forecast was off by two days and it struck the region of Le Marche. | <urn:uuid:afb52211-3cc2-409d-8da6-04c789d9ae7d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/306572 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00039-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967314 | 641 | 2.8125 | 3 |
A nitrogen molecule is slightly larger than an oxygen molecule, which makes it less permeable (less able to penetrate the tire material and leak out). This means it will stay in your tire longer. If you did not check your tire pressure on a regular basis, you may not realize when your tires are getting flat. By using nitrogen tire inflation, you will not have to worry about this as often since nitrogen keeps your tires inflated longer. In fact, if your tires are filled with 95% nitrogen, they will actually stay at the best pressure for up to four times as long as they would if they were filled with only oxygen.
Besides this fact, there are several other bonuses to maintaining optimum tire pressure with nitrogen instead of oxygen and other molecules. By keeping the proper tire pressure in your car, you can actually stretch your fuel dollars by increasing your miles per gallon.
Did you know you can lose as much as 3% of your gas mileage by driving on tires that are not properly inflated? With the current cost of gas, who can afford that? You want nothing less than optimum gas usage.
Your tires also last longer if they are properly inflated. Properly inflated tires distribute pressure more evenly, which means the tires will not wear out as fast. They are much less likely to blow. Research shows that the vast majority of tire blowouts are caused by under-inflation. Since nitrogen tire inflation lasts longer, there will be fewer under-inflated tires... this translates into fewer blowouts.
Another nice benefit to nitrogen tire inflation is that it is totally dry. This means there are no water vapors to condense on your tire rims. Over time, these condensed vapors can actually cause your rims to rust, but nitrogen inflated tires do not have this problem.
As I mentioned earlier, tires with 95% nitrogen stay at pressure up to four times longer than other tires. But why not fill tires with 100% nitrogen? Studies have actually shown that nitrogen over a certain percent really does not have any additional benefits.
The consensus is that for regular vehicles, between 93 and 95% nitrogen is a good level to maintain. That said, adding nitrogen up to that 93% mark can do a lot for your tires. You see, if you want to save money on gas, keep your rims from rusting, and generally maintain better tire pressure overall, nitrogen tire inflation is something you will want to invest in.
Some people that say nitrogen is not necessary... that it is one of those unneeded services and regular compressed air works just fine. Well, they are partially right - compressed air works fine if you check your tire pressure every 2-4 weeks.
As for being unnecessary, so is your radio, cruise control, air-conditioner, power steering, power seats, power windows, and the list goes on. Agreeably, those items are not necessary to get you from point A to point B.
However, these items do make your driving experience more comfortable while contributing to safety. Power steering and power brakes are good examples of this.
Nitrogen is one of those options that helps keep your tires properly inflated longer than compressed air, so the entire face of the tire maintains contact with the road. This improves fuel economy and driving safety by reducing heat related blowouts caused by under inflation.
There have been rumors of the EPA mandating Nitrogen inflation on all new cars rolling off the assembly line. As of now, some special Nissan vehicles (with Nitrogen already in the tires) are scheduled to be delivered only to dealerships that are Nitrogen certified.
What happens if the dealership does not offer Nitrogen? The automaker says no Nissan dealership will be certified to sell a GT-R unless it can provide access to nitrogen in order to maintain the tires in top factory-issue condition.
If you are looking for straightforward advice, on all you automotive needs, and would like to deal with people who truly care about you and your vehicle, go to http://www.advancedtireandrepair.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tommy_Nickelson
NOTE: Nitrogen Tire Inflation is known to reduce incidents of flat tires by preserving the integrity of your tire wall, maintaining consistent tire pressure for longer periods of time, and resulting in improved gas mileage and increased vehicle safety. Our TireBlast™ Nitrogen Tire Filling Station is designed for tire and auto shops to provide a safe and reliable Nitrogen tire fill option for clients and customers. | <urn:uuid:7d67cbe8-0761-4892-860d-6579db9b9d80> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.tireblast.com/2010/12/are-you-tire-friendly.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391634.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00056-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9591 | 927 | 3.40625 | 3 |
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reply to post by Ghostinshell
Excellent - thanks for the link. I love this story...
BTW - Your embedded vid isn't working.
here is the direct link:
and the title, so you can search if the links don't work:
"The truth of Troy (2004 BBC Horizon)"
reply to post by BobAthome
here is the wiki link that talks about the bible and the hittites:
so, the bible does talk and them....
furthermore; the documentary talks about how the hittites and troy where allies. which would example how a long war could happen.
from Compendium of World History Chapter XII
TROJAN MIGRATION TO FRANCE
After Troy fell, in 1181 BCE, the populace in the conquered regions
fled from the Greeks to various parts of Europe. One of these groups
was led by Aeneas and finally reached Italy. But, there were other
groups who left Troy after the First Trojan War.
Another group of Trojan refugees was led by Francio the son of the
ill-fated Hector, and heir to the line of Samothes in Gaul. These fled
to the northern shore of the Black Sea, then returned to Isauria in
Asia Minor, from where they migrated to Pannonia and then on to Western
Europe. From these Trojans is descended the house of the Dukes of
Brabant (an old province embracing parts of modern Belgium and the
Netherlands). From this Assyro-Judaic family came Charlemagne, the
first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.
A complete list of these Trojan rulers, from Hector down to
Charlemagne, is found in the work by Jhr. C. A. Rethaan Macaré entitled
"Oude Kronijk van Brabant", in the "Codex Diplomaticus Neerlandicus,"
series 2, part 3, published by Het Historisch Genootschap te Utrecht,
Utrecht, Holland in 1855.
The chronology starts with 1181 BCE and continues right down the line
without complications till Silvius Brabon II, who begins to reign in
732 BCE. The beginning and end of each reign is synchronized with
contemporary Biblical history, which, incidentally, is presented in its
correct chronology down to a period long after the dividing of the | <urn:uuid:94371078-5e5e-49fc-a31e-2566e8a330a0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread984503/pg1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391766.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00022-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.880786 | 568 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Love and War in Cyberspace
Students are quite adept at the practice of cyber-relationships. Email, IM, texting, gaming, Facebook, Twitter and other media have become popular communication methods for students, even replacing face-to-face contact for some. While such methods are appealing due to ease of use and apparent anonymity, students are often not aware of the potential problems that can result. Some of the bad things that happen in actual relationships, such as harassment, stalking, and predation, can also occur online.
Here are a few tips on how to protect yourself in cyberworld:
- Protect your identity. It may not be a good idea to inform the whole world of your hometown, high school, address, telephone number, credit card information, or Social Security number. Even just one or two of these items gives a predator all the means they need to find you. Also, be aware that some online services allow users access to programs that identify the physical location of other users.
- If you are planning on actually meeting someone, request a photograph or other identifying information, and cancel your plans if he or she refuses or makes excuses.
- Also, speak with the person by telephone before meeting with him or her. You can learn a lot about a person by paying attention to their social skills.
- If you decide to meet someone, do so in a public place, tell a friend where you're going and with whom, and drive yourself to and from the meeting.
- Look for warning signals of an unhealthy relationship, whether it be online or not. See Healthy Relationships for more information.
- Listen to your discomfort. If something is occuring online that makes you feel uncertain, disconnect.
- Don't break the law or violate the Code of Student Conduct. Threats and verbal abuse that occur online are still subject to these provisions, and you'll have written proof of it too!
- Keep an online time limit. It's harder to do well in class when you're online for more than a couple of hours per day.
- Finally, there's nothing like a real, live human being. Make time to relate to others in real space too!
Call the Counseling Center at 348-3863 if you are experiencing difficulties in cyberspace. | <urn:uuid:90bfd2b6-2544-48e5-89a0-f30ec046672a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://counseling.ua.edu/cyberspace.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396224.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00188-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943573 | 468 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Being struck with Parkinson’s disease is no reason for anyone to give up.
However, for those who have the incurable condition and have to struggle on with its daily effects in their bodies – the important thing to do is to keep fighting back.
Parkinson’s is a disease of the nervous system. It generally causes the muscles to become stiff and the body to tremble which gradually gets worse, as a person gets older.
The good news is about the condition is that Parkinson’s is treatable.
One of the local NGOs which has been at the forefront in battling with this debilitating disease is the Malaysian Parkinson’s Disease Association, or MPDA, in Kuala Lumpur.
This year it turns 20-years-old. And to commemorate its two decade year old history, the MPDA has lined up a host of activities for its nationwide members.
Last month, the MPDA celebrated World Parkinson’s Day. The event falls on April 11 each year, which marks the birthday of Dr James Parkinson.
Parkinson was amongst other things, an English surgeon who became most famous for his work called, “An Essay on the Shaking Palsy” in the 19th century. He was the first to describe “paralysis agitans”, a condition that was later renamed as “Parkinson’s disease” by Jean-Martin Charcot.
World Parkinson’s Day today the world over is dedicated to improving the quality of life of People with Parkinson’s (PwP) through advocacy and raising awareness about the disease.
During World Parkinson’s Day, MPDA had a very special guest from the United States at their centre.
He was Dr Marcus Cranston who was struck with Parkinson’s at the age of 44.
Instead of allowing the sinister disease to get the better of him, Dr Cranston, an American physician and Air Force Colonel now aged 48, succeeded to turn the situation around to his advantage.
He has made it a personal challenge to increase worldwide awareness of Parkinson’s by making a journey through 44 countries in 4 weeks and 4 days, as well as running 4 miles in all of the country he visits.
Needless to say, his initiative took place on the fourth of April this year.
Dr Cranston’s “Run-the-World for Parkinson’s disease” campaign combines travel and sport to raise funds for research through Michael J Fox Foundation and Team Fox.
(Incidentally Michael J Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1991 and is one of the most well-known and outspoken activists for PwP’s today).
Malaysia was the eighth country that Dr Cranston had visited to date.
Sharing the stories
During his visit to MPDA’s Parkinson’s centre, Dr Cranston spent an hour getting to know members of the MPDA which included caregivers to PwP’s.
As he shared his personal experiences with Parkinson’s, he was intrigued to hear some of the stories that Malaysians with the disease also had to tell him.
After his visit, members of the MPDA and volunteers travelled to the Bukit Jalil Recreation Park where they joined Dr Cranston to complete his four-mile run in Malaysia.
The group was joined by about 30 undergraduates from the International Medical University (IMU).
“The event on World Parkinson’s Day not only increased awareness about Parkinson’s in those who participated but it also gave hope for those who have to struggle with their condition every day,” said Sara Lew, president of the MPDA.
“PwPs not only find strength in meeting and sharing success stories with others in the same condition but they also look forward in learning about new research and treatments that are available for Parkinson’s disease patients,” she added.
Sara whose father had Parkinson’s disease for 21 years until he passed away three years ago went on to point out that being struck with Parkinson’s is no reason for anyone to give up.
“What is most important is that for all of us to know that there definitely is life after Parkinson’s disease and we must always persevere on and not be limited by anything because of Parkinson’s.”
A World Parkinson’s Congress was held in Montreal in Canada last year. It was a third of its kind of international event focusing on Parkinson’s disease.
It was a coming together of an impressive team of doctors, patients, caregivers and supporters in which more than 3,330 delegates from 64 countries around the globe tackled issues related to Parkinson’s – from a professional point of view to what people with Parkinson’s face in their own societies in their countries.
“MPDA has come a long way in this respect,” pointed out Sara.
“Over the years we have never been afraid or shy to tell the stories of Malaysians with Parkinson’s, what they have to do if they have the disease to what kind of support our healthcare offers them.
“We have also reached out to caregivers who are the key in helping PwP’s lead as much a normal life as possible. Through our interaction and sharing with one another, we have grown in strength and look forward to face the many challenges to come in the future,” concluded Sara.
Malaysian Parkinson’s Disease Association is located at No 35, Jalan Nyaman 10, Happy Garden, Jalan Kelang Lama, 58200 Kuala Lumpur. They may be contacted at Tel: 603-7980 6685 or Fax: 603- 7982 6685.
You may also visit their website:Â www.mpda.org.my
Or say “hello” to them on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Malaysian-Parkinsons-Disease-Association/207738475948217
Anthony SB Thanasayan is a wheelchair and animal activist. He is also a former city councillor. | <urn:uuid:2a2e5556-9301-4f13-91a0-b95173409f17> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/2014/05/14/there-is-life-after-parkinsons/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00119-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969897 | 1,394 | 2.5625 | 3 |
The silk road from the Far East to Asia probably operated from about 200 B.C.E although it was not a direct trading route but worked in stages; so there was no direct contact from say China to Palestine. Marco Polo arrived in China around 1265 C.E. Chazal ascribe Noah's sons as founders of the Greeks etc. There is no reference to Chinese, Koreans or Japanese - so which son takes the honours?
- Anybody can ask a question
- Anybody can answer
- The best answers are voted up and rise to the top
Torah Meira - page 297 says that according to some Magog the son of Yefes is connected with Eretz Sin - ארץ סין. Although there are other translations of ארץ סין - one of the translations is China. This would indicate - at least according to this translation - that the Chinese are descendants of Yefes.
See all about the destinations of some of the 70 nations in Talmud Yerushalmi Megilla (Artscroll edition 12a,3). They quote R. Aharon Marcus in Kessess Hasofer who holds that the descendants of Magog (descendant of Yefes) may be identified with the Mongols, who lived near China (but who are known to have ranged as far as the Danube River). He notes that Arab writers have referred to the Great Wall of China as the "wall of Magog."
Well the Zohar Vayishlach 178a makes reference to the "Royal Tusser" which was also the Greek name for the Chinese domesticated silk worm(as opposed to the wild variety which is also mentioned in the Zohar). So it would appear that the Chinese were indeed known.
Considering that China is made up seven main people groups, it would really depend on which specific people group you are talking about. However, if we take the primary people group, the Han Chinese, who are believed to have emigrated north from India, then according to the Table given in the Jewish Encyclopedia based on the various midrashim, they would have been descended from Ham.
Now from a more Arheological perspective, I give you this:
By Stedman in his book The Beginnings.
So I'm going to go with Ham. Though there is also possibility that at least some of the people groups in China were descendents of Avraham Avinu's sons that he sent east(see Ibn Ezra Beresehit 26:1, and Genesis Rabba 65). | <urn:uuid:0f60d24b-4dcb-4fd5-8d98-4b4273cd8b9c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26988/did-chazal-know-about-china-and-the-chinese-and-from-which-of-noachs-sons-do-t | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00053-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969433 | 537 | 3.28125 | 3 |
S.A. Bent, comp. Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men. 1887.
[Born at Mecca about 570 A.D.; began to preach his doctrines after his fortieth year; fled to Medina, July 16, 622; defended and then propagated his system by the sword; while fitting out a second expedition against Syria, died of a fever in the spring of 632.]
There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet.
The watchword of his career. That it was his exclamation on entering the world, is not asserted in the earlier accounts of his life, and is clearly the invention of a later age.
When advised by his uncle to abandon a cause so bitterly opposed by the Koreishites, the powerful tribe to which he belonged, Mohammed replied, O uncle! I swear that if they put the sun on my right hand and the moon on my left, I will not renounce the career I have entered upon until God gives me success, or I perish.
During a harangue to his followers, he called upon a neighboring mountain to advance, in token of the authority of his words. It remained motionless; and Mohammed exclaimed, If the mountain will not come to Mohammed, Mohammed will go to the mountain. All the people followed him, and the majestic tone of his voice supplied the place of a miracle.
His last words were: Yes, I come; among the glorious associates of paradise! | <urn:uuid:94c61bb5-a249-41ed-adaf-af3e68c3ad79> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bartleby.com/344/286.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00178-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978817 | 301 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Researchers from the UK and US have engineered a white blood cell that is able to recognise immune-system-evading HIV-1 strains. The team's new 'assassin cells' may cripple the well-disguised virus, possibly slowing or preventing the onset of AIDS in infected individuals. The findings are published online in the journal Nature Medicine.
In 2007 an estimated 33 million people worldwide were living with HIV. Drug resistance to anti-retroviral treatments, which are effective in delaying the onset of AIDS, is increasingly becoming a problem. Finding new and more cost-effective treatments against this destructive virus is of utmost importance and high on the political agenda.
HIV replicates and mutates rapidly, drawing on an arsenal of strategies to escape detection from the immune system. One of its most effective T-cell evasion strategies is its capacity to hide its 'molecular fingerprints': the tell-tale antigens that viruses normally display on the surface of infected cells. Normally, these fingerprints (called epitopes) are identified by T cells, which in turn trigger an immune response.
'When the body mounts a new killer T-cell response to HIV,' explained Professor Andy Sewell of Cardiff University in the UK, 'the virus can alter the molecular fingerprint that these cells are searching for in just a few days. It's impossible to track and destroy something that can disguise itself so readily. As soon as we saw over a decade ago how quickly the virus can evade the immune system we knew there would never be a conventional vaccine for HIV.'
The researchers concentrated their efforts on devising a 'disguise detection' strategy in order to detect and weaken (or possibly destroy) HIV-1. Working with an antigen called SL9 (which causes HIV to mutate, reducing its fitness), they engineered a killer T-cell receptor that successfully recognised all of the different disguises that the virus used to evade detection. This receptor was attached to killer T-cells, which were then able to destroy HIV-infected cells in culture.
'The T-cell receptor is nature's way of scanning and removing infected cells - it is uniquely designed for the job but probably fails in HIV because of the tremendous capability of the virus to mutate,' according to Dr Bent Jakobsen the UK-based company that owns the new technology.
'In the face of our engineered assassin cells, the virus will either die or be forced to change its disguises again, weakening itself along the way,' said Professor Sewell, who added that the new cells would be more likely to weaken than to kill the virus. 'Even if we do only cripple the virus, this will still be a good outcome as it is likely to become a much slower target and be easier to pick off. Forcing the virus to a weaker state would likely reduce its capacity to transmit within the population and may help slow or even prevent the onset of AIDS in individuals.'
Clinical trials using the engineered killer T-cells are planned for next year in the US, pending regulatory approval.
According to Professor Rodney Phillips of the University of Oxford, where the collaborative research effort first began in 2003, 'Until now no-one has been able to clear the virus naturally. Immune cells modified in the laboratory in this way provide a test as to whether we can enhance the natural response in a useful and safe way to clear infected cells. If successful, the technology could be applied to other infectious agents.'
'Now we have managed to engineer a receptor that is able to detect HIV's key fingerprints and is able to clear HIV infection in the laboratory,' said Dr Jakobsen. 'If we can translate those results in the clinic, we could at last have a very powerful therapy on our hands.'
For more information, please visit:
University of Pennsylvania
University of Oxford | <urn:uuid:6bfbfad3-b9be-4848-a120-683c70eaa73a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nanotechwire.com/news.asp?nid=6902 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394414.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00020-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944928 | 779 | 2.953125 | 3 |
(Last Updated on : 25/04/2014)
Rajapalayam is an important municipal city in Virudunagar district of Tamil Nadu
. It is situated 85 kilometer south west of Madurai. Its main attraction is Ayyanar falls and the town of Srivilliputur. It is also known for its Rajapalayam breed of dogs.
Rajapalayam gets its name from the name of the community that is dominant here - Rajas or Rajus a Telugu speaking community that had migrated from Andhra Pradesh centuries ago. The word 'palayam' is frequently used in many Tamil cities as a suffix and it translates roughly as a 'fort'. The origin of Rajapalayam dates back to 1700 AD. The exact timing of the settling of Raju people in this specific area is not established, but believed to have happened as a consequence of collapse of Vijayanagara empire and the arrival of Rajus as administrators or commanders to this region.
Initially, Rajapalyam developed as an agricultural community and most people had farming as their source of livelihood. In the mid 1900s, the small town of Rajapalayam gradually evolved into a thriving business community. Due to the enterprising and hard working nature of its people, commerce developed quickly in the region and several industries, particularly cotton based flourished. Hence it got the name "Cotton city". Today Rajapalayam is one of the most industrialized cities in southern Tamil Nadu and people of all communities and religions live and contribute for its growth.
Rajapalayam city acquired the total area of 11 sq kms. It is located 9° 12' to 9° 47' N latitude and 77° 20' to 78° 26' E longitude. The climate of the city is Semi- arid -tropical monsoon type. It has a high mean temperature and a low degree of humidity. In summer the maximum temperature is 37.1°C and minimum is 25.4°C. In winter the maximum temperature is 29.2°C and minimum is 20.4°C. The maximum rainfall of the city is 792 mm.
The economy of the city is based on the manufacture of textiles, and there are mills for spinning and weaving cotton, as well as a large cotton market.
The major industries of Rajapalayam are-
Rajapalayam Mills Ltd- Manufacturer of cotton yarn
Rajapalaiyam Spintext- Manufacturer of cotton yarn
Rajapalaiyam Textiles- Manufacturer of cotton yarn
Sri Ramco Spinners- Manufacturer of cotton yarn
Sri Vishnu Shankar Mill Ltd- Manufacturer of cotton yarn
Ramaraju Surgical Cotton Mills- Manufacturer of surgical bandages & cloth
Sandhya Spinning Mills Ltd- Spinning mill, part of Ramco Group
Geetha Krishna Spinning Mill Pvt. Ltd.- A quality cotton yarn manufacturer
Sree Karpagambal Mills Ltd.- Large yarn spinning and fabric weaving mill since 1956
Sethuram Spinners Pvt. Ltd.- Leading spinning mill in Rajapalayam. Manufacturers and exporters of open end yarn, 100% cotton open end (OE) yarn used for making of denim, terry towel, bottom weights, industrial fabrics and furnishings etc
Polyspin Export ltd- manufacturer and exporter of p.p.bags and jumbo bags
Sterling Techno(P) Ltd- Manufacturer of cotton yarn
Madras Chip Boards- Manufacturer of flush doors
Limenaph Chemicals (P) Ltd is Manufacturers of cement paints (colours), adhesives, lime powder, paints, distemper and alloied products.
Ramaraju Surgicals Surgical dressings, cotton wool, grey, gauze, absorbent gauze and bandages from the Ramaraju Surgical Cotton Mills have been manufactured to international quality standards for almost 60 years now.
Raju Spinning Mills (P) Ltd-Manufacturer of cotton yarn
Nachiar Spinning Mills. - The largest and number one exporters of cotton yarns and cloths from Rajapalayam to all the Europe and African countries
Shri Padmavathi Cotton Mills- Manufacturer of cotton Yarn.
The nearest airport to Rajapalayam is Madurai.
Rajapalayam has a railway station that connects it with Tirunelvel
i, Sivakasi, Srivilliputur and other towns and cities of the state.
Rajapalayam is well connected by road with the neighbouring towns and cities of the state.
As per 2001 Census of India, Rajapalayam had a population of 121,982. Males constitute 50% and females 50% of the population . 9% of the population is under 6 years of age.
Rajapalayam has an average literacy rate of 73%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 80%, and female literacy is 66%.
The major languages used in Rajapalayam are Tamil, Telugu and English.
Most important festival of Rajapalayam is the sacred wedding ceremony of Goddess Meenakshi and Lord Sundareswarar. This festival is held during March -April. During this festival the city displays a colourful and joyous mood. Images of the divine couple are taken around the city in a tastefully decorated chariot, amidst the presence of a huge gathering of devotees. The notes of Nadaswaram and drums further aggravate the festive ambience. The annual float festival marks the images of Meenakshi and her consort floating on the Mariamman tank on an illuminated raft bedecked with flowers. As such there are festivals throughout the year in Rajapalayam. All most 11 big annual festivals are celebrated, which are spread through the year with exception of the monsoon months. There are several libraries, theaters and town halls for entertainment in the city.
The Rajapalayam breed dog was used for hunting long back in Rajapalayam. It is a hound dog, white in colour with good height. Its nose is generally light in colour-pink.
Ayyanar Koil (Ayyanar Falls):
Ayyanar Falls is located on the slope of Western Ghats, It has lot of waterfalls and a temple. It provides good opportunity for woodland mountain climbing. Dam is situated on the way to Ayyanar Falls which is providing water for the whole city.
Sanjeevi Hills is situated in Rajapalayam on the way to Chatrapatti. The calm and serene ambience makes it a favorite spot for tourists. Tradition recounts that in order to save the unconscious Lakshmana, Hanuman, the monkey god carried the entire Sanjeevi Hill with the herbal plants to Sri Lanka and threw it away afterwards. It is said that the thrown down hill is the Sanjeevi Hills.
Sri Andal's Temple is located in Srivilliputtur . Andal was a great devotee of Lord Krishna. The tower at the entrance gate (Main Gopuram) is the second highest in Tamil Nadu. And the tower is the symbol of Tamilnadu Government.
Shenbagathope Grizzled Squirrel Sanctuary:
The forests are found on the eastern slopes of the Western Ghats. Only 6.3% of the total geographical area is under forests. Many rare and endemic varieties of flora and fauna are found along the mountain slopes. A wildlife sanctuary, spread over 480 square kilometres was established in 1989 at Shenbagathopu in Srivilliputtur taluk..
This sanctuary is contiguous with the Periyar tiger reserve on the south-western side and the Megamalai reserve forest on the north-western side. The altitude varies from 100 to 2010 m above sea level. The sanctuary is home to the endangered, arboreal grizzled giant squirrel 'Ratufa macrora'. This greyish brown squirrel weighs 1 to 1.8 kg. and is the size of a small cat. It measures about 735 mm. from nose to tail with the tail being 360 to 400 mm. long. They construct drays at forked branches where the crowns of neighbouring trees meet. This enables the squirrel to move away from the site by jumping from tree to tree when threatened. The home range of an individual is between 1,970 and 6,110 square metres.
Rajapalayam has many higher secondary and high schools, which provide quality education. Most of the schools are established due to the vision and philanthropy of wealthy Rajus.
Notable schools in town are-
S.S.Govt. Higher Secondary School
P. A. Chinnaiah Raja Memorial School
P.A.C Ramasamy Raja Matriculation Higher Secondary School,
A.K.D. Dharmaraja School,
N.A. Annappa Raja Higher Secondary school
Nadar Hr. Secondary School.
N.A. Ramachandra Raja Gurukulam.
In recent years, there has been some progress in women education beyond high school and many have become accomplished doctors, engineers and professionals.
Higher education which was once the preserve of wealthy people of this town has become possible to its ordinary people with the beginning of a separate women's college in the town.
A Gurukulam (old style institute teaching Sanskrit and Vedic literature) has also been set up recently.
PACR Polytechnic College
N.A.Manjammal Polytechnic College
Rajapalayam Raju's College
AKD Dharma Raja Women's college. | <urn:uuid:530fb571-09a2-4e7e-a8c1-9d010c7bfbd8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.indianetzone.com/8/rajapalayam_tamil_nadu.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397744.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00008-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94364 | 2,043 | 2.734375 | 3 |
- This event has passed.
International Conference: ‘Game Changers – Personalities and Pivotal Moments in the Napoloeonic Wars and the War of 1812’
October 18, 2013 - October 20, 2013
Seeking to bridge these two interlinked wars by examining some of the key characters and moments in each.
Whether on the plains of Maida in 1806, when his famous 20th Regiment played a key role in defeating Napoleon’s ‘Invincibles’, or in his amphibious assault on Washington which promised for a time to be of game changing importance (only for his death at Baltimore to be a pivotal moment in the War of 1812) Robert Ross proved to be a key military figure.
Rostrevor, or Rosstrevor, as it was called in the days of Major General Robert Ross, was once owned by his family and is the location of two monuments erected to his memory, a 100ft imposing obelisk on the shores of Carlingford Lough, almost on the exact spot where he intended to build his retirement home had he made it back from the USA. The other was erected in Kilbroney Parish Church in the village, by the officers and men of the 20th Regiment which he had commanded with such distinction in the Napoleonic Wars. Mrs Ross later called her home in Rosstrevor ‘Bladensburg’ in memory of her husband, while her near neighbour, across the road was a sister of none other than Ned Pakenham who was killed at the Battle of New Orleans.
The conference not only represents an opportunity for scholars to come together to discuss the key personalities and pivotal moments of these two wars, (many on the British side fought in both), but to do so in a location rich with historical heritage and natural beauty. The stunning beauty of Rostrevor inspired William Makepeace Thackeray to claim that it would be a ‘world wonder if it lay upon England’s shore’ while C.S.Lewis acknowledged it as the inspiration for Narnia. | <urn:uuid:8a5817ab-3754-4d92-adcf-ee9450616900> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.navyhistory.org/event/international-conference-game-changers-personalities-and-pivotal-moments-in-the-napoloeonic-wars-and-the-war-of-1812/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393146.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00088-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973028 | 431 | 2.734375 | 3 |
After Confucius: Studies in Early Chinese Philosophy
After Confucius is a collection of eight studies of Chinese philosophy from the time of Confucius to the formation of the empire in the second and third centuries B.C.E. As detailed in a masterful introduction, each essay serves as a concrete example of “thick description”—an approach invented by philosopher Gilbert Ryle—which aims to reveal the logic that informs an observable exchange among members of a community or society. To grasp the significance of such exchanges, it is necessary to investigate the networks of meaning on which they rely. Paul R. Goldin argues that the character of ancient Chinese philosophy can be appreciated only if we recognize the cultural codes underlying the circulation of ideas in that world. Thick description is the best preliminary method to determine how Chinese thinkers conceived of their own enterprise.
Who were the ancient Chinese philosophers? What was their intended audience? What were they arguing about? How did they respond to earlier thinkers, and to each other? Why did those in power wish to hear from them, and what did they claim to offer in return for patronage? Goldin addresses these questions as he looks at several topics, including rhetorical conventions of Chinese philosophical literature; the value of recently excavated manuscripts for the interpretation of the more familiar, received literature; and the duty of translators to convey the world of concerns of the original texts. Each of the cases investigated in this wide-ranging volume exemplifies the central conviction behind Goldin’s plea for thick description: We do not do justice to classical Chinese philosophy unless we engage squarely the complex and ancient culture that engendered it. | <urn:uuid:341c2dca-a292-41a5-a84f-fabbb891de25> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.sas.upenn.edu/ealc/content/after-confucius-studies-early-chinese-philosophy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397111.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00183-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954734 | 334 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Sweden just release a set of four stamps showing different glimpses of a cat’s daily life. The stamps were designed by Swedish illustrator Carina Länk and they are a celebration of the ways in which cats communicate through their body language and sounds.
SVERAK, the National Cat Association of Sweden, helped interpret each of the cat behaviors depicted in the stamps:
|“Food is good.” Cats need a well-balanced diet and will not settle for leftovers. If their food does not have the right ingredients, cats can suffer from deficiency diseases. It is in a cat’s nature to snack and they can eat up to 20 times a day. Cats are predatory animals and over thousands of years have maintained their carnivorous instincts.|
|“That’s mine!” A little ball can entertain a cat. Cats are mischievous in general and can entertain themselves with relatively little means. A wad of paper can be equally interesting as a toy purchased at the store. But avoid a ball of yarn and any other items with loose parts that the cat can swallow.|
|“Don’t come too close!” Defensive posture, often an arched back with the body angled toward the potential attacker, ears flattened backwards or to the side, dilated pupils, whiskers standing straight out and the mouth bared to show its teeth. This cat is clearly signaling that it is prepared to defend itself.|
|“I slept well.” A cat needs a lot of sleep, around 20 hours a day, and all cats want to be left alone when they are sleeping. There is probably no other animal in the world that can stretch as sensually as a cat that has just woken up. Cats have excellent hearing and are alert to sounds even when they are sleeping – just watch how their ears move in their sleep.|
Ms. Länk also designed the picture of the cat on the First Day Cover, the head of the cat on the FDC cancellation, and the illustration of kittens on the Collector’s Sheet. Visit the Posten online shop and download Bulletin 1 2010 to read an interview with Ms. Länk and to order the new cat stamps for your collection.
Thanks to Moderncat reader Marie-France for the info. | <urn:uuid:56482b80-9cb0-4279-a6e0-93798f1361f2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.moderncat.net/2010/02/02/swedish-stamps-celebrate-cats/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00148-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951819 | 483 | 2.78125 | 3 |
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Bali Jatra (or Bali Yatra) literally means "journey to Bali". It is popularly known as Cuttack Bali Jatra. This festival is held in Odisha,in the city of Cuttack at "Gadagadia ghata" of the Mahanadi river, to mark the day when ancient Sadhabas (Odia mariners) would set sail to distant lands of Bali, as well as Java, Sumatra, Borneo (all in Indonesia), and Sri Lanka for trade and cultural expansion. They sailed in large vessels called Boitas.The festival marks its beginning at the end of the Kartik Purnima in October and November, and goes on for a period of seven days right from the full moon. This is the specific time that was considered auspicious by the Sadhabas to begin their voyage in vessels called Boitas.The scientific cause of starting voyage on "kartika purnima" is to take profit of the wind blown this time. "Ajhala" or big fabrics were used to carry "boita" or vessels by wind.
In Cuttack, Bali Jatra is celebrated annually as a large, open, fair near the Barabati Fort area. It is said to be the largest fair of Odisha state. There are several attractions for children, and food stalls selling Odia delicacies(cuttacki Dahivada aludum, Thunka puri, Barafa pan, Gupchup etc), and other vendors selling toys, curiosities, and other gifts. Every year attracts people in millions. People from all over the nation come to experience it. In Bali Yatra Children float toy boats made of colored paper, dried banana tree barks, and cork in the Mahanadi river, ponds, and water tanks, to commemorate the voyage of their ancestors to Indonesia. These toy boats, that are usually launched after sunset with small oil lamps, lit and placed inside them, provide a very attractive sight during the festival. People sing a song "Aa ka ma bai, pan gua khai..."to remember the early maritime history of Odisha (Orissa). The song tells about four months that are important for marine merchants of Kalinga(early Odisha).
This festival is also celebrated with great fanfare in Paradeep. Bali Jatra bears testimony to the rich maritime legacy of ancient Orissa. It is also known as Boita Bandana Utsab, or the "festival of boats".
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Select a Shoot Out contest credit package below. | <urn:uuid:6bde0477-1129-4463-a1e2-bfe0558561e1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://jpgmag.com/photos/2800540 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397111.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00126-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945164 | 580 | 2.765625 | 3 |
First Aid Programs & Resources
- Regulations / Directives / Training
- First Aid Jobs
- Return to Compliance Program Index
It is a requirement of OSHA that employees be given a safe and healthy workplace that is reasonably free of occupational hazards. However, it is unrealistic to expect accidents not to happen. Therefore, employers are required to provide medical and first aid personnel and supplies commensurate with the hazards of the workplace. The details of a workplace medical and first aid program are dependent on the circumstances of each workplace and employer.
First aid refers to medical attention that is usually administered immediately after the injury occurs and at the location where it occurred. It often consists of a one-time, short-term treatment and requires little technology or training to administer. First aid can include cleaning minor cuts, scrapes, or scratches; treating a minor burn; applying bandages and dressings; the use of non-prescription medicine; draining blisters; removing debris from the eyes; massage; and drinking fluids to relieve heat stress. OSHA's revised recordkeeping rule, which went into effect January 1, 2002, does not require first aid cases to be documented. For example: A worker goes to the first-aid room and has a dressing applied to a minor cut by a registered nurse. Although the registered nurse is a health care practitioner, the employer does not have to report the accident because the worker simply received first aid. The selected references below provide more information on first aid.
First Aid Requirements (Appendix A to § 1910.151 -- First aid kits (Non-Mandatory) - 1910.151 App A)
Medical services and first aid. (1926.50 App A) | <urn:uuid:735029dd-f81a-465d-b211-b1196ccc8115> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ehsjobs.org/Compliance/first_aid.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00018-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948218 | 344 | 2.75 | 3 |
BAUDEAU (Boudeau), PIERRE, surgeon-major; b. 1643; arrived in New France in 1692 (according to a note by Frontenac [Buade*], whose correspondence tells the circumstances of Bandeau’s appointment); buried in Montreal in 1708.
In 1692 Michel Sarrazin, one of the most famous Canadian doctors and naturalists, decided to enter the Jesuit order. Frontenac relates that he was obliged to replace the practitioner by a person “who arrived here before the said Sieur Sarrazin left to go to France, and who [Baudeau] is a very skilful man, expert in his profession, loved and esteemed by everybody here, and who has served for a long time in the land and naval forces.” Subsequently Sarrazin changed his mind and studied medicine in Paris. Frontenac requested the minister to continue to give Sarrazin his support, “but I ask you above all,” he went on, “to withdraw nothing of what is due to the Sieur Baudeau, surgeon-major, a man who must at all costs be retained.”
From 4 Oct. to 7 Nov. 1693 and from 22 Feb. to 31 March 1695, Baudeau served at the Hôtel-Dieu of Quebec, as he did from 22 Aug. to 30 Oct. 1708; he was assigned to the women’s ward there.
In 1705, Baudeau was performing his duties at Montreal; he had occasion to examine a soldier of M. de Ramezay, Jean Du Tartre (de Tard), dit La Verdure, who had received a sword wound during a brawl that involved the brothers Étienne* and Jacques-Urbain Rocbert de La Morandière and some soldiers of the garrison. Baudeau was buried 4 Nov. 1708 at Notre-Dame de Montréal.
AHDQ, Registres de l’Hôtel-Dieu de Québec. AJM, Registres d’état civil de Notre-Dame de Montréal. AN, Col., C11A, 10–16. AQ, Manuscrits relatifs à l’histoire de la N.-F., 2e série, VIII, 196. Jug. et délib., V, 465–71, 914. “Correspondance de Frontenac (1689–99),” APQ Rapport, 1928–29, 343. [The printed document gives Baudoin instead of Baudeau, but the manuscript clearly mentions Baudeau.] Ahern, Notes pour l’histoire de la médecine, 37, 38, 478. Arthur Vallée, Un biologiste canadien: Michel Sarrazin, 1659–1735, sa vie, ses travaux et son temps (Québec, 1927), 24, 157. | <urn:uuid:f8fafc0d-3d15-4b16-9b52-1b496ed93072> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/baudeau_pierre_2E.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394414.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00125-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.887265 | 629 | 2.984375 | 3 |
|Heirloom blue corn grown traditionally by the Hopis. Bushy 5 foot plants produce 7 inch ears. Heirloom variety. Although a southwestern variety, they can do well in the warmer areas of the Maritime Northwest. Mature in 75 to 90 days.
Originally domesticated by Mesoamericans, it is a staple food with many other traditional uses. Home gardeners love to grow corn, and there are many varieties suited to different climates. Plant seeds 1 inch deep in rows or clumps, two weeks after the last frost date. Corn needs rich soil, full sun and adequate moisture to produce good ears. It is wind pollinated, so if you want to save seed, you will need to either stagger the planting time of different varieties, or plant them 1/4 mile apart. Water deeply. | <urn:uuid:ece53fdb-6f76-49f2-886f-48b5755be805> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.backyardgardener.com/plantname/pda_26ef-2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397795.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00001-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931855 | 166 | 2.703125 | 3 |
CCS uses established technologies to capture, transport and store carbon dioxide emissions from large point sources, such as power stations. It also has an important role to play to ensure manufacturing industries, such as steel and cement, can continue to operate, without the associated emissions.
CCS is a key tool in tackling climate change, providing energy security, creating jobs and economic prosperity.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) states that CCS could reduce global carbon dioxide emissions by 19%, and that fighting climate change could cost 70% more without CCS.
From its base in London the Carbon Capture & Storage Association brings together specialist companies in manufacturing & processing, power generation, engineering & contracting, oil, gas & minerals as well as a wide range of support services to the energy sector such as law, finance, consultancy and project management.
The Association is a model for sectoral cooperation in business development and its existence is welcomed by government.
CCS, or Carbon Capture and Storage, is a low carbon technology which captures carbon dioxide (CO2) from the burning of coal and gas for power generation, and from the manufacturing of steel, cement and other industrial facilities. The carbon dioxide is then transported by either pipeline or ship, for safe and permanent underground storage, preventing it from entering the atmosphere and contributing to anthropogenic climate change.
There is an urgent need to tackle climate change and we need “all the tools in the box” to do so; we cannot tackle climate change effectively without CCS. Measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including more electric cars, will mean we need more electricity; and CCS is an unavoidable option if we are to ensure that we can meet this electricity demand with an acceptable carbon footprint.
To meet our UK climate change targets, we will need to decarbonise the power sector by the 2030s, and the heavy industry sector beyond that. We cannot do this without CCS.
The Energy Technologies Institute has published an insights report on 'Reducing the Cost of CCS - Developments in Capture Plant Technology'. The report concludes that "A sequential, co-located series of deployments in the UK using existing technology can reduce initial CCS “demonstration” costs by up to 45%".
Download the report here
The CCSA has today published a paper on how to retain the assets developed in the UK's CCS Competition projects. The paper "CCSA Policy Brief: Retention of Opportunities to Develop CO2 Transport and Storage Infrastructure" looks at a number of different ownership models, policy and financing options and concludes that retaining existing infrastructure assets could be a key enabler in realising low-cost CCS projects.
Download the CCSA Policy Brief here | <urn:uuid:dfe7cf2a-52b7-4a4a-8a97-03fb9d3711d6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ccsassociation.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00007-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937547 | 553 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Nanotechnology could change the world
New applications could see nanotechnology being utilised in food industry in the not too distant future
Nanotechnology could have a potentially transformative effect on the food industry and the world
The science of nanotechnology is most often associated with high-tech materials and electronics but is increasingly being used in the medical arena and new applications could see it being utilised in the food industry in the not too distant future.
According to Teagasc research officer Maeve Henchion, the technology could have a potentially transformative effect on the industry and the world. “It can be used to tackle issues like obesity and food waste,” she says.
“For example, a lot of people say they don’t like low fat products because they are not creamy enough and they don’t have the right texture. Nanotechnology could be used to address those issues and make the products taste more like full fat versions.”
Food waste can be tackled through sensors embedded on food packaging.
“At the moment the food companies put best before dates on packages which are designed to be very safe,” Henchion says.
“That means the food can often be quite safe to eat but is thrown out. This is very wasteful. Having packaging which can detect the presence of pathogens in the food, and react to it by changing colour, would reduce wastage greatly as food would only be thrown out when it has gone off. This would also improve food safety. All the major food companies are working on this area at the moment.”
One of the areas Teagasc is working on is to create sensors that can detect specific pathogens and accurately assess the amount present during the food manufacturing process. These sensors will make use of what are known as phage-derived nanomaterials.
Bacteriophages, or phages, are viruses that specifically target bacteria. They are minute particles composed of protein and nucleic acid which are seen as very promising new nanomaterials.
“They are attracting attention from many diverse fields including medical science, pharmaceutical science, material science, microelectronics, biosensors, detection, environmental science, and food science,” says Dr Olivia McAuliffe, senior research officer with Teagasc’s Food Research Centre in Moorepark, Co Cork. “Phages are unique compared to other nanomaterials in that they can be intentionally modified, or even rewritten, using genetic engineering.”
She points out that they are already in use in medical applications.
“On the medical side of things it is being used as a drug delivery mechanism. You can express a particular protein on the surface of the phage that makes it target a particular cell type such as a cancer cell.
“This is the beauty of phages – they can be engineered in this way.”
Another medical application is their bactericidal properties. Again they can be engineered just to target a specific type of bacteria and it is also possible to extract the bactericidal protein from them and use it rather than the phage itself for the treatment.
“Our main interest is in multi-drug-resistant pathogens,” McAuliffe points out. “There are phage proteins that kill MRSA and c.difficile for example. These proteins are effectively antibiotics but they will work when traditional antibiotics will not. This is a very exciting area.”
Interestingly, the Teagasc research into these micro-organisms and their uses began as a result of their potentially harmful effects on dairy processes.
“Phages are the enemy of the dairy industry,” McAuliffe notes. “They interfere with fermentation and can cause a lot of problems. But now we are seeing them as a valuable anti-bacterial organisms.”
It is the targeting capability of the phages that makes them useful for bio-sensing.
“A team in Queens University has been using them to develop biosensors which can detect species such as e. coli or listeria. We are working with them to increase the sensitivity of the sensors so that a small sample would only be required and that rapid results could be obtained.
“Ultimately we are hoping to develop a sensor that will be able to detect multiple pathogens.”
Despite all of these potential benefits there is no guarantee that consumers will welcome nanotechnology enhanced foodstuffs with open arms. “People tend to react to things like this on an emotional basis,” says Maeve Henchion. “There is a need to get a balanced debate going so that people can assess the pros and cons of the new technology and the media can play a major role in this.”
Surveys carried out by Eurobarometer and Teagasc have revealed a low level of awareness and understanding of nanotechnology among consumers as well as some quite negative attitudes to so-called nanofoods among certain segments of the population.
“Consumers are concerned about perceived control so labelling is important,” Henchion explains. “They want to know what they are buying. But this is where a default heuristic can come into play. If you label one product as using nanotechnology then the one which didn’t use it is automatically viewed as somehow superior.”
The Teagasc research presented consumers with a number of hypothetical products, some using nanotechnology that delivered certain price and health benefits, and other traditional versions of them. The results were interesting in terms of the trade-offs people were willing to make.
People with a greater overall understanding of science and technology were more accepting of the nano-foods and while others were not so accepting even when there were clear health benefits involved.
However, some groups were willing to put aside their reservations to avail of price or health benefits.
Another interesting finding was the differentiation between “nano inside” and “nano outside”.
Consumers were far more concerned about nanotechnology where it had been used in the production process than when it had been used for the packaging.
These concerns could hold back the technology, according to Henchion.
“There is a high level of uncertainty among consumers and this needs to be addressed. The industry needs to engage with the public to develop a much greater understanding of the technology if its full potential is to be realised.” | <urn:uuid:6c277580-35ef-49ab-9654-25771fcadba9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.irishtimes.com/business/nanotechnology-could-change-the-world-1.1749229 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397562.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00186-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969799 | 1,323 | 3.359375 | 3 |
Forces and Motion
by Tom DeRosa & Dr. Carolyn Reeves
Retail price $22.97 (15% SAVINGS)
A delightful first look at 3rd to 6th grade-level physical science! Includes textbook, student journal and teacher's manual.
Complete with fun and easy to do activities, the book explains important concepts in easy to understand language and then helps to reinforce the educational material with activities that explore the world around us. From friction to speed and much more, this new elementary series is both creation-science based and built on National Science standards. A must-have new series from the Creation Science Institute!
Textbook ISBN 9780890515396
80 page paperback
Exercise your mind with fun activities - and record your results!
This student journal for the Investigate the Possibilities series provides a vital place for you to save information about your investigations, projects, and ideas, as well as reflect on what you have learned and why it is important.
The journal is filled with:
• helpful graphs for special projects
• Scripture reflections to pause and think about
• questions to help you understand science better
• useful charts to simplify your studies
• guidance for digging deeper into important scientific principles
You will come to understand the intricate and awesome nature of God's world while you have a lot of fun!
An activity-focused science curriculum guaranteed to engage your student!
In this new Investigate the possibilities series for 3rd through 6th grade, elementary physical science is simplified into 20 simple investigations that use household items for education experiments! This easy-to-use manual will help you direct the learning experience by providing additional guidance for hands-on projects, important concepts, structure, and insightful instruction notes.
The Teacher's Guide provides:
• bonus activities for additional learning
• clear investigations objectives to help guide the learning experience
• sections on creation apologetics and connections to Bible references
• material that gives consideration to National Science Education Standards
Make science as simple to teach as it is to learn with this complete, and easy to use series!
About the Authors:
Authors Tom DeRosa and Carolyn Reeves are committed biblical creationists with a combined 60 years teaching science. Both are excellent at helping students experience science concepts in the world around them.
Tom Derosa studied biblical creation and became committed to breaking down the barrier of a lack of knowledge about the biblical account of creation that is keeping people from Christ. In 1988 he formed Creation Studies Institute and has authored several books.
Carolyn Reeves, Ph.D., and her husband make their home in Oxford, Mississippi where they are active members of North Oxford Baptist Church. Carolyn retired after a 30-year career as a science teacher, finished a doctoral degree in science education, and began a new venture as a writer and an educational consultant. The Reeves have three children, three in-law children and nine grandchildren. | <urn:uuid:31788b96-ccfb-42b0-b0cb-df67512170a0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://store.nwcreation.net/foandmo1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397749.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00020-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922357 | 596 | 3 | 3 |
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Got a Cold? Don't Blow It!
For most of us, it's a reflex: When we're congested and our noses are stuffed up, we reach for a tissue and blow.
But medical experts say that blowing your nose when battling a cold or flu is a habit we should try to break.
According to an article in the New York Times, researchers have found that blowing your nose slows drainage and propels mucus - along with all those unwanted infectious germs - back into the sinus cavities.
Researchers at the University of Virginia studied several cold and flu behaviors and their impact on our bodies. Turns out that coughing and sneezing are relatively harmless, and don't put any undue stress on the nasal cavities.
But blowing one's nose is not quite as benign.
The researchers found that nose blowing causes a tremendous spike in pressure on the nasal cavities, which reverses the flow of our mucus, and propels it back into the sinuses. Experts say that that this sends viruses and bacteria right back into our systems, and even opens the door to further infection.
So what are we supposed to do? An ear, nose and throat expert cited in the aforementioned article suggests that the best way to alleviate congestion is to blow one nostril at a time. That, and decongestants, are the recommended methods to handle congestion.
Personally, I'm a big fan of neti pots. They're are very strange at first, but if I'm supposed to avoid Kleenex the next time a cold strikes, then a neti pot may be the only way to get some much-needed relief. | <urn:uuid:7d86c5a6-810d-43d9-90a8-6a04f8609985> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://life.gaiam.com/article/got-cold-dont-blow-it | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398873.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00029-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958607 | 345 | 2.625 | 3 |
Turmeric is a widely used tropical herb in the ginger family. Its stalk is used both in food and medicine, yielding the familiar yellow ingredient that colors and adds flavor to curry. In the traditional Indian system of herbal medicine known as
, turmeric is believed to strengthen the overall energy of the body, relieve gas, dispel worms, improve digestion, regulate menstruation, dissolve gallstones, and relieve arthritis, among other uses.
Modern interest in turmeric began in 1971 when Indian researchers found evidence suggesting that turmeric may possess anti-inflammatory properties. Much of this observed activity appeared to be due to the presence of a constituent called curcumin.
Curcumin is also an
Many of the studies mentioned in this article used curcumin rather than turmeric.
Turmeric's antioxidant abilities make it a good food preservative, provided that the food is already yellow in color, and it is widely used for this purpose.
Turmeric has been proposed as a treatment for
. Dyspepsia is a catchall term that includes a variety of digestive problems, such as stomach discomfort, gas, bloating, belching, appetite loss, and nausea. Although many serious medical conditions can cause digestive distress, the term dyspepsia is most often used when no identifiable medical cause can be detected.
In Europe, dyspepsia is commonly attributed to inadequate bile flow from the gallbladder. While this has not been proven, turmeric does appear to stimulate the gallbladder.
More importantly, one
double-blind, placebo-controlled study
suggests that turmeric does reduce dyspepsia symptoms.
Another double-blind, placebo-controlled study suggests that, when taken along with standard medications, curcumin can help maintain remission in people with
test tube studies
, and some preliminary human trials, curcumin and turmeric are frequently described as anti-inflammatory drugs and recommended for the treatment of such conditions as
In a 2011 study, researchers investigated the efficacy and safety of turmeric for treating knee OA.
One hundred and seven people were randomized to receive ibuprofen (800 mg daily) or turmeric (2 grams daily) for 6 weeks. Both groups experienced a similar degree of improvement in their symptoms, and the side effects did not differ between the groups. Although this study is far from conclusively, some advocates suggest that curcumin is superior to standard medications in the ibuprofen family because, at standard doses, there is comparatively little evidence of harm to the stomach.
Contrary to some reports, turmeric does not appear to be effective for
Animal and test tube studies suggest (but definitely do not prove) that turmeric might help
Weak evidence hints that curcumin might help prevent the heart and kidney injury potentially caused by the chemotherapy drug
Some researchers have reported evidence that curcumin or turmeric might generally help
protect the liver
However, other researchers have failed to find any liver protective effects, and there are even some indications that turmeric extracts can damage the liver when taken in high doses or for an extended period.
On the basis of even weaker evidence, curcumin or turmeric have also been recommended for preventing
chronic anterior uveitis
(an inflammation of the iris of the eye), fungal infections,
, and treating
One preliminary study failed to find curcumin helpful for lichen planus, a disease of the skin and mucous membranes.
A 6-month, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 36 seniors failed to find that consumption of curcumin (at a dose of up to 4 g daily) led to improvements in
double-blind, placebo controlled study
performed in Thailand compared the effects of 500 mg curcumin 4 times daily against placebo, as well as against a locally popular over-the-counter treatment. A total of 116 people were enrolled in the study. After 7 days, 87% percent of the curcumin group experienced full or partial symptom relief from dyspepsia as compared to 53% of the placebo group, and this difference was
is a disease of the lower digestive tract marked by alternating periods of quiescence and flare-up. Curcumin has shown some promise for helping to maintain remission and prevent relapse. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled study, 89 people with quiescent ulcerative colitis were given either placebo or curcumin (1 g twice daily) along with standard treatment.
Over the six-month treatment period, relapse rate was significantly lower in the treatment group as compared to the placebo group.
For medicinal purposes, turmeric is frequently taken in a form standardized to curcumin content, at a dose that provides 400 to 600 mg of curcumin 3 times daily.
Turmeric is on the FDA's GRAS (generally recognized as safe) list, and curcumin, too, is believed to be fairly nontoxic.
Reported side effects are uncommon and are generally limited to mild stomach distress.
However, there is some evidence to suggest that turmeric extracts can be toxic to the liver when taken in high doses or for a prolonged period of time.
For this reason, turmeric products should probably be avoided by individuals with liver disease and those who take medications that are hard on the liver.
In addition, due to curcumin's stimulating effects on the gallbladder, individuals with gallbladder disease should use curcumin only on the advice of a physician. However, safety in young children, pregnant or nursing women, and those with severe kidney disease have also not been established.
Ammon HPT, Wahl MA. Pharmacology of
Sreejayan N, Rao MNA. Free radical scavenging activity of curcuminoids.
Deodhar SD, Sethi R, Srimal RC. Preliminary study on antirheumatic activity of curcumin (diferuloyl methane).
Indian J Med Res
Srimal RC, Dhawan BN. Pharmacology of diferuloyl methane (curcumin), a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agent.
J Pharm Pharmacol.
Gupta B, Kulshrestha VK, Srivastava RK, et al. Mechanisms of curcumin induced gastric ulcer in rats.
Indian J Med Res.
Van Dau N, Ngoc Ham N, Huy Khac D, et al. The effects of a traditional drug, turmeric
and placebo on the healing of duodenal ulcer.
Kositchaiwat C, Kositchaiwat S, Havanondha J.
Linn. in the treatment of gastric ulcer comparison to liquid antacid: a controlled clinical trial.
J Med Assoc Thai.
Rasyid A, Lelo A. The effect of curcumin and placebo on human gall-bladder function: an ultrasound study.
Aliment Pharmacol Ther.
Thamlikitkul V, Bunyapraphatsara N, Dechatiwongse T, et al. Randomized double blind study of
Curcuma domestica Val
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J Med Assoc Thai
Lal B, Kapoor AK, Asthana OP, et al. Efficacy of curcumin in the management of chronic anterior uveitis.
Ravindranath V, Chandrasekhara N. Absorption and tissue distribution of curcumin in rats.
Shankar TNB, Shantha NV, Ramesh HP, et al. Toxicity studies on turmeric (
): acute toxicity studies in rats, guinea pigs and monkeys.
Indian J Exp Biol
Ruby AJ, Kuttan G, Babu KD, et al. Anti-tumour and antioxidant activity of natural curcuminoids.
Satoskar RR, Shah SJ, Shenoy SG. Evaluation of anti-inflammatory property of curcumin (diferuloyl methane) in patients with postoperative inflammation.
Int J Clin Pharmacol Ther Toxicol.
Afaq F, Adhami VM, Ahmad N, et al. Botanical antioxidants for chemoprevention of photocarcinogenesis.
Arbiser JL, Klauber N, Rohan R, et al. Curcumin is an in vivo inhibitor of angiogenesis.
Cheng AL, Hsu CH, Lin JK, et al. Phase I clinical trial of curcumin, a chemopreventive agent, in patients with high-risk or pre-malignant lesions.
Deshpande SS, Ingle AD, Maru GB. Chemopreventive efficacy of curcumin-free aqueous turmeric extract in 7,12-dimethylbenz(a)anthracene-induced rat mammary tumorigenesis.
Dorai T, Gehani N, Katz A. Therapeutic potential of curcumin in human prostate cancer. Curcumin inhibits tyrosine kinase activity of epidermal growth factor receptor and depletes the protein.
Ireson CR, Jones DJ, Orr S, et al. Metabolism of the cancer chemopreventive agent curcumin in human and rat intestine.
Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev.
Krishnaswamy K, Goud VK, Sesikeran B, et al. Retardation of experimental tumorigenesis and reduction in DNA adducts by turmeric and curcumin.
Li JK, Lin-Shia SY. Mechanisms of cancer chemoprevention by curcumin.
Proc Natl Sci Counc Repub China B.
Smith WA, Freeman JW, Gupta RC. Effect of chemopreventive agents on DNA adduction induced by the potent mammary carcinogen dibenzo[a,l]pyrene in the human breast cells MCF-7.
Chuang S, Cheng A, Lin J, Kuo M. Inhibition by curcumin of diethylnitrosamine-induced hepatic hyperplasia, inflammation, cellular gene products and
cell-cycle related proteins in rats.
Food Chem Toxicol.
Deshpande UR, Gadre SG, Raste AS, et al. Protective effect of turmeric (Curcuma longa L) extract on carbon tetrachloride-induced liver damage in rats.
Indian J Exp Biol.
Song EK, Cho H, Kim JS, et al. Diarylheptanoids with free radical scavenging and hepatoprotective activity in vitro from Curcuma longa.
Venkatesan N. Pulmonary protective effects of curcumin against paraquat toxicity.
Deshpande S, et al. Subchronic oral toxicity of turmeric and ethanolic turmeric extract in female mice and rats.
Kandarkar SV, Sawant SS, Ingle AD, et al. Subchronic oral hepatotoxicity of turmeric in mice--histopathological and ultrastructural studies.
Indian J Exp Biol.
Babu PS, et al. Hypolipidemic action of curcumin, the active principle of turmeric (Curcuma longa) in streptozocin induced diabetic rats.
Mol Cell Biochem.
Rao DS, et al. Effect of curcumin on serum and liver cholesterol levels in the rat.
Srinivasan K, et al. The effect of spices on cholesterol 7 alpha-hydroxylase activity and on serum and hepatic cholesterol levels in the rat.
Int J Vitam Nutr Res.
Lim GP, Chu T, Yang F, et al. The curry spice curcumin reduces oxidative damage and amyloid pathology in an Alzheimer transgenic mouse.
Awasthi S, Srivatava SK, Piper JT, et al. Curcumin protects against 4-hydroxy-2-trans-nonenal-induced cataract formation in rat lenses.
Am J Clin Nutr.
Apisariyakul A, Vanittanakom N, Buddhasukh D. Antifungal activity of turmeric oil extracted from Curcuma longa (Zingiberaceae).
Hanai H, Iida T, Takeuchi K, et al. Curcumin Maintenance Therapy for Ulcerative Colitis: Randomized, Multicenter, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial.
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Venkatesan N, Punithavathi D, Arumugam V. Curcumin prevents adriamycin nephrotoxicity in rats.
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Last reviewed July 2012 by EBSCO CAM Review Board
Please be aware that this information is provided to supplement the care provided by your physician. It is neither intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. CALL YOUR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER IMMEDIATELY IF YOU THINK YOU MAY HAVE A MEDICAL EMERGENCY. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider prior to starting any new treatment or with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
Copyright © EBSCO Publishing. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:c09e0a5f-caf6-4005-96ec-c6bcb2ab53e6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.svmh.com/Health/content.aspx?chunkiid=21874 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395613.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00145-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.828384 | 3,050 | 3.296875 | 3 |
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town, with a population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods. Villages are normally permanent, with fixed dwellings; however, transient villages can occur. Further, the dwellings of a village are fairly close to one another, not scattered broadly over the landscape, as a dispersed settlement.
In the past, villages were a usual form of community for societies that practise subsistence agriculture, and also for some non-agricultural societies. In Great Britain, a hamlet earned the right to be called a village when it built a church. In many cultures, towns and cities were few, with only a small proportion of the population living in them. The Industrial Revolution attracted people in larger numbers to work in mills and factories; the concentration of people caused many villages to grow into towns and cities. This also enabled specialization of labor and crafts, and development of many trades. The trend of urbanization continues, though not always in connection with industrialization. Villages have been eclipsed in importance as units of human society and settlement.
Although many patterns of village life have existed, the typical village was small, consisting of perhaps 5 to 30 families. Homes were situated together for sociability and defence, and land surrounding the living quarters was farmed. Traditional fishing villages were based on artisan fishing and located adjacent to fishing grounds.
"The soul of India lives in its villages", declared M. K. Gandhi at the beginning of 20th century. According to the 2011 census of India, 68.84% of Indians (around 833.1 million people) live in 640,867 different villages. The size of these villages varies considerably. 236,004 Indian villages have a population of fewer than 500, while 3,976 villages have a population of 10,000+. Most of the villages have their own temple, mosque, or church, depending on the local religious following.
People's Republic of China
Republic of China (Taiwan) In the Republic of China (Taiwan), villages are divisions under townships or county-controlled cities. The village is called a tsuen or cūn (村) under a rural township (鄉) and a li (里) under an urban township (鎮) or a county-controlled city. See also Li (unit).
In Indonesia, depending on the principles they are administered, villages are called desa or kelurahan. A desa (a term that derives from a Sanskrit word meaning "country" that is found in a name such as "Bangladesh") is administered according to traditions and customary law (adat), while a kelurahan is administered along more "modern" principles. Desa are generally located in rural areas while kelurahan are generally urban subdivisions. A village head is respectively called kepala desa or lurah. Both are elected by the local community. A desa or kelurahan is the subdivision of a kecamatan (district), in turn the subdivision of a kabupaten (regency) or kota (city).
The same general concept applies all over Indonesia. However, there is some variation among the vast numbers of Austronesian ethnic groups. For instance, in Bali villages have been created by grouping traditional hamlets or banjar, which constitute the basis of Balinese social life. In the Minangkabau country in West Sumatra province, traditional villages are called nagari (a term deriving from another Sanskrit word meaning "city", which can be found in a name like "Srinagar"). In some areas such as Tanah Toraja, elders take turns watching over the village at a command post. As a general rule, desa and kelurahan are groupings of hamlets (kampung in Indonesian, dusun in the Javanese language, banjar in Bali). a kampung is defined today as a village in Brunei and Indonesia.
Kampung is a term used in Malaysia, (sometimes spelling kampong or kompong in the English language) for "a Malay hamlet or village in a Malay-speaking country". In Malaysia, a kampung is determined as a locality with 10,000 or fewer people. Since historical times, every Malay village came under the leadership of a penghulu (village chief), who has the power to hear civil matters in his village (see Courts of Malaysia for more details).
A Malay village typically contains a "masjid" (mosque) or "surau", paddy fields and Malay houses on stilts. Malay and Indonesian villagers practice the culture of helping one another as a community, which is better known as "joint bearing of burdens" (gotong royong). They are family-oriented (especially the concept of respecting one's family [particularly the parents and elders]), courtesy and practice belief in God ("Tuhan") as paramount to everything else. It is common to see a cemetery near the mosque. All Muslims in the Malay or Indonesian village want to be prayed for, and to receive Allah's blessings in the afterlife. In Sarawak and East Kalimantan, some villages are called 'long', primarily inhabited by the Orang Ulu.
Malaysian kampung are found in Singapore, but there are few kampung villages remaining, mostly on islands surrounding Singapore, such as Pulau Ubin. In the past, there were many kampung villages in Singapore but development and urbanization have replaced them.
The term "kampung", sometimes spelled "kampong", is one of many Malay words to have entered common usage in Malaysia and Singapore. Locally, the term is frequently used to refer to either one's hometown or a rural village, depending on context.
In urban areas of the Philippines, the term "village" most commonly refers to private subdivisions, especially gated communities. These villages emerged in the mid-20th century and were initially the domain of elite urban dwellers. Those are common in major cities in the country and their residents have a wide range of income levels. Such villages may or may not correspond to administrative units (usually barangays) and/or be privately administered. Barangays more correspond to the villages of old times, and the chairman (formerly a village datu) now settles administrative, intrapersonal, and political matters or polices the village, though with much less authority and respect than in Indonesia or Malaysia.
Village, or "làng", is a basis of Vietnam society. Vietnam's village is the typical symbol of Asian agricultural production. Vietnam's village typically contains: a village gate, "lũy tre" (bamboo hedges), "đình làng" (communal house) where "thành hoàng" (tutelary god) is worshiped, a common well, "đồng lúa" (rice field), "chùa" (temple) and houses of all families in the village. All the people in Vietnam's villages usually have a blood relationship. They are farmers who grow rice and have the same traditional handicraft. Vietnam's villages have an important role in society (Vietnamese saying: "Custom rules the law" -"Phép vua thua lệ làng" [literally: the king's law yields to village customs]). It is common for Vietnamese villagers to prefer to be buried in their village upon death.
Selo (Cyrillic: село; Polish: sioło) is a Slavic word meaning "village" in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Russia, Serbia, and Ukraine. For example, there are numerous sela (plural of selo) called Novo Selo in Bulgaria, Croatia, Montenegro and others in Serbia, and Macedonia. Another Slavic word for a village is ves (Polish: wieś, Czech: ves, vesnice, Slovak: ves, Slovene: vas). In Slovenia, the word selo is used for very small villages (fewer than 100 people) and in dialects; the Slovene word vas is used all over Slovenia.
In Bulgaria, the different types of sela vary from a small selo of 5 to 30 families to one of several thousand people. According to a 2002 census, in that year there were 2,385,000 Bulgarian citizens living in settlements classified as villages. A 2004 Human Settlement Profile on Bulgaria conducted by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs stated that:
The most intensive is the migration "city – city". Approximately 46% of all migrated people have changed their residence from one city to another. The share of the migration processes "village – city" is significantly less – 23% and "city – village" – 20%. The migration "village – village" in 2002 is 11%.
It also stated that
the state of the environment in the small towns and villages is good apart from the low level of infrastructure.
In Bulgaria, it is becoming popular to visit villages for the atmosphere, culture, crafts, hospitality of the people and the surrounding nature. This is called selski turizam (Bulgarian: селски туризъм), meaning "village tourism".
In Russia, as of the 2010 Census, 26.3% of the country's population lives in rural localities; down from 26.7% recorded in the 2002 Census. Multiple types of rural localities exist, but the two most common are derevnya (деревня) and selo (село). Historically, the formal indication of status was religious: a city (gorod) had a cathedral, a selo had a church, while a derevnya had neither.
Most Russian rural localities have populations of fewer than 200 people, and the smaller places take the brunt of depopulation. e.g., in 1959, about one half of Russia's rural population lived in villages of fewer than 500 people, while now less than one third does. In the 1960s–1970s, the depopulation of the smaller villages was driven by the central planners' drive in order to get the farm workers out of smaller, "prospect-less" hamlets and into the collective or state farms' main villages or even larger towns and city, with more amenities.
Most Russian rural residents are involved in agricultural work, and it is very common for villagers to produce their own food. As prosperous urbanites purchase village houses for their second homes, Russian villages sometimes are transformed into dacha settlements, used mostly for seasonal residence.
The historically Cossack regions of Southern Russia and parts of Ukraine, with their fertile soil and absence of serfdom, had a rather different pattern of settlement from central and northern Russia. While peasants of central Russia lived in a village around the lord's manor, a Cossack family often lived on its own farm, called khutor. A number of such khutors plus a central village made up the administrative unit with a center in a stanitsa (Russian: стани́ца; Ukrainian: станиця, stanytsia). Such stanitsas often with a few thousand residents, were usually larger than a typical selo in central Russia.
In Ukraine, a village, known locally as a "selo" (село), is considered the lowest administrative unit. Villages may have an individual administration (silrada) or a joint administration, combining two or more villages. Villages may also be under the jurisdiction of a city council (miskrada) or town council (selyshchna rada) administration.
There is, however, another smaller type of settlement which is designated in Ukrainian as a selysche (селище). This type of community is generally referred to in English as a "settlement". In comparison with an urban-type settlement, Ukrainian legislation does not have a concrete definition or a criterion to differentiate such settlements from villages. They represent a type of a small rural locality that might have once been a khutir, a fisherman's settlement, or a dacha. They are administered by a silrada (council) located in a nearby adjacent village. Sometimes the term "selysche" is also used in a more general way to refer to adjacent settlements near a bigger city, including urban-type settlements (selysche miskoho typu) and/or villages; however, ambiguity is often avoided in connection with urbanized settlements by referring to them using the three-letter abbreviation smt instead.
The khutir (хутір) and stanytsia (станиця) are not part of the administrative division any longer, primarily due to collectivization. Khutirs were very small rural localities consisting of just few housing units and were sort of individual farms. They became really popular during the Stolypin reform in the early 20th century. During the collectivization, however, residents of such settlements were usually declared to be kulaks and had all their property confiscated and distributed to others (nationalized) without any compensation. The stanitsa likewise has not survived as an administrative term. The stanitsa was a type of a collective community that could include one or more settlements such as villages, khutirs, and others. Today, stanitsa-type formations have only survived in Kuban (Russian Federation) where Ukrainians were resettled during the time of the Russian Empire.
Same general definition as in the United Kingdom.
An independent association named Les Plus Beaux Villages de France, was created in 1982 to promote assets of small and picturesque French villages of quality heritage. As of 2008, 152 villages in France have been listed in "The Most Beautiful Villages of France".
South of Barcelona is Spain's most romantic Mediterranean beach town, with a 2.5 km-long (1 1/2-mile) sandy beach and a promenade studded with flowers and palm trees. Sitges is a town with a rich connection to art; Picasso and Dalí both spent time here. Mérida is an important Roman town with great tapas. Barcena Mayor (Cantabria) has houses that date back to the sixth century with simple two floors constructions and rectangular form. Salamanca, an ancient Celtic town, is also a Renaissance city with striking architecture. Its sandstones buildings have a beautiful lustre giving the city the nickname, La Ciudad Dorada.
Morella, Castellón is a medieval village located in the region of "Comunitat Valenciana" with huge castles with a rich renaissance history. Rogueira pasturelands is one of the great ecological jewels of Galicia. Rivers, pools and springs abound in this verdant forest, as do underground water caves and caverns with a prehistoric past. San Marti Vell is a charming small village well known for its Gothic spire. La Bisbal should be next on the list. The town is worth visiting for its Main Square and the castle. This Romanesque castle is situated in the middle of the town, giving it a romantic look. There is also Palafrugell, Palau-sator, Sant Julia[disambiguation needed] and Sant Feliu de Boada. They are all very important because of their medieval patrimony. Castelló d'Empúries has 13th-century Gothic churches. Angles also possesses outstanding medieval constructions throughout its village. All villages have a church or hermitage.
Villages are more usual in the northern and central regions, Azores Islands and in the Alentejo. Most of them have a church and a "Casa do Povo" (people's house), where the village's summer romarias or religious festivities are usually held. Summer is also when many villages are host to a range of folk festivals and fairs, taking advantage of the fact that many of the locals who reside abroad tend to come back to their native village for the holidays.
In the flood prone districts of the Netherlands, villages were traditionally built on low man-made hills called terps before the introduction of regional dyke-systems. In modern days, the term dorp (lit. "village") is usually applied to settlements no larger than 20,000, though there's no official law regarding status of settlements in the Netherlands.
A village in the UK is a compact settlement of houses, smaller in size than a town, and generally based on agriculture or, in some areas, mining (such as Ouston, County Durham), quarrying or sea fishing. They are very similar to those in Ireland.
The major factors in the type of settlement are location of water sources, organisation of agriculture and landholding, and likelihood of flooding. For example, in areas such as the Lincolnshire Wolds, the villages are often found along the spring line halfway down the hillsides, and originate as spring line settlements, with the original open field systems around the village. In northern Scotland, most villages are planned to a grid pattern located on or close to major roads, whereas in areas such as the Forest of Arden, woodland clearances produced small hamlets around village greens. Because of the topography of the Clent Hills the north Worcestershire village of Clent is an example of a village with no centre but instead consists of series of hamlets scattered on and around the Hills.
Some villages have disappeared (for example, deserted medieval villages), sometimes leaving behind a church or manor house and sometimes nothing but bumps in the fields. Some show archaeological evidence of settlement at three or four different layers, each distinct from the previous one. Clearances may have been to accommodate sheep or game estates, or enclosure, or may have resulted from depopulation, such as after the Black Death or following a move of the inhabitants to more prosperous districts. Other villages have grown and merged and often form hubs within the general mass of suburbia—such as Hampstead, London and Didsbury in Manchester. Many villages are now predominantly dormitory locations and have suffered the loss of shops, churches and other facilities.
For many British people, the village represents an ideal of Great Britain. Seen as being far from the bustle of modern life, it is represented as quiet and harmonious, if a little inward-looking. This concept of an unspoilt Arcadia is present in many popular representations of the village such as the radio serial The Archers or the best kept village competitions.
Many villages in South Yorkshire, North Nottinghamshire, North East Derbyshire, County Durham, South Wales and Northumberland are known as pit villages. These (such as Murton, County Durham) grew from hamlets when the sinking of a colliery in the early 20th century resulted in a rapid growth in their population and the colliery owners built new housing, shops, pubs and churches. Some pit villages outgrew nearby towns by area and population; for example, Rossington in South Yorkshire came to have over four times more people than the nearby town of Bawtry. Some pit villages grew to become towns; for example, Maltby in South Yorkshire grew from 600 people in the 19th century to over 17,000 in 2007. Maltby was constructed under the auspices of the Sheepbridge Coal and Iron Company and included ample open spaces and provision for gardens.
In the UK, the main historical distinction between a hamlet and a village was that the latter had a church, and so usually was the centre of worship for an ecclesiastical parish. However, some civil parishes may contain more than one village. The typical village had a pub or inn, shops, and a blacksmith. But many of these facilities are now gone, and many villages are dormitories for commuters. The population of such settlements ranges from a few hundred people to around five thousand. A village is distinguished from a town in that:
Like France, villages in Lebanon are usually located in remote mountainous areas. The majority of villages in Lebanon retain their Aramaic names or are derivative of the Aramaic names, and this is because Aramaic was still in use in Mount Lebanon up to the 18th century.
Many of the Lebanese villages are a part of districts, these districts are known as "kadaa" which includes the districts of Baabda (Baabda), Aley (Aley), Matn (Jdeideh), Keserwan (Jounieh), Chouf (Beiteddine), Jbeil (Byblos), Tripoli (Tripoli), Zgharta (Zgharta / Ehden), Bsharri (Bsharri), Batroun (Batroun), Koura (Amioun), Miniyeh-Danniyeh (Minyeh / Sir Ed-Danniyeh), Zahle (Zahle), Rashaya (Rashaya), Western Beqaa (Jebjennine / Saghbine), Sidon (Sidon), Jezzine (Jezzine), Tyre (Tyre), Nabatiyeh (Nabatiyeh), Marjeyoun (Marjeyoun), Hasbaya (Hasbaya), Bint Jbeil (Bint Jbeil), Baalbek (Baalbek), and Hermel (Hermel).
The district of Danniyeh consists of thirty six small villages, which includes Almrah, Kfirchlan, Kfirhbab, Hakel al Azimah, Siir, Bakhoun, Miryata, Assoun, Sfiiri, Kharnoub, Katteen, Kfirhabou, Zghartegrein, Ein Qibil.
Danniyeh (known also as Addinniyeh, Al Dinniyeh, Al Danniyeh, Arabic: سير الضنية) is a region located in Miniyeh-Danniyeh District in the North Governorate of Lebanon. The region lies east of Tripoli, extends north as far as Akkar District, south to Bsharri District and Zgharta District and as far east as Baalbek and Hermel. Dinniyeh has an excellent ecological environment filled with woodlands, orchards and groves. Several villages are located in this mountainous area, the largest town being Sir Al Dinniyeh.
An example of a typical mountainous Lebanese village in Dannieh would be Hakel al Azimah which is a small village that belongs to the district of Danniyeh, situated between Bakhoun and Assoun's boundaries. It is in the centre of the valleys that lie between the Arbeen Mountains and the Khanzouh.
Syria contains a large number of villages that vary in size and importance, including the ancient, historical and religious villages, such as Ma'loula, Sednaya, and Brad (Mar Maroun’s time). The diversity of the Syrian environments creates significant differences between the Syrian villages in terms of the economic activity and the method of adoption. Villages in the south of Syria (Hauran, Jabal al-Druze), the north-east (the Syrian island) and the Orontes River basin depend mostly on agriculture, mainly grain, vegetables and fruits. Villages in the region of Damascus and Aleppo depend on trading. Some other villages, such as Marmarita depend heavily on tourist activity.
Mediterranean cities in Syria, such as Tartus and Latakia have similar types of villages. Mainly, villages were built in very good sites which had the fundamentals of the rural life, like water. An example of a Mediterranean Syrian village in Tartus would be al-Annazah, which is a small village that belongs to the area of al-Sauda. The area of al-Sauda is called a nahiya, which is a subdistrict.
Pacific Islands Communities on pacific islands were historically called villages by English speakers who traveled and settled in the area. Some communities such as several Villages of Guam continue to be called villages despite having large populations that can exceed 40,000 residents.
New Zealand The traditional Māori village was the pā, a fortified hill-top settlement. Tree-fern logs and flax were the main building materials. As in Australia (see below) the term is now used mainly in respect of shopping or other planned areas.
Australia The term village often is used in reference to small planned communities such as retirement communities or shopping districts, and tourist areas such as ski resorts. Small rural communities are usually known as townships. Larger settlements are known as towns.
In contrast to the Old World, the concept of village in today's North America north of Mexico is largely disconnected from its rural and communal origins. The situation is different in Mexico because of its large bulk of indigenous population living in traditional villages.
In twenty U.S. states, the term "village" refers to a specific form of incorporated municipal government, similar to a city but with less authority and geographic scope. However, this is a generality; in many states, there are villages that are an order of magnitude larger than the smallest cities in the state. The distinction is not necessarily based on population, but on the relative powers granted to the different types of municipalities and correspondingly, different obligations to provide specific services to residents.
In some states such as New York, Wisconsin, or Michigan, a village is usually an incorporated municipality, within a single town or civil township. In some cases, the village may be coterminous with the town or township. There are also villages that span the boundaries of more than one town or township; some villages may straddle county borders.
There is no population limit to villages in New York. Hempstead, the largest village, has 55,000 residents; making it more populous than some of the state's cities. However; villages in the state may not exceed five square miles (13 km²) in area.
Michigan and Illinois also have no set population limit for villages and there are many villages that are larger than cities in those states. The village of Arlington Heights, IL had 75,101 residents as of the 2010 census.
In Ohio villages are often legally part of the township from which they were incorporated, although exceptions such as Hiram exist, in which the village is separate from the township. They have no area limitations, but become cities if they grow a population of more than 5,000.
In states that have New England towns, a "village" is a center of population or trade, including the town center, in an otherwise sparsely developed town or city — for instance, the village of Hyannis in the town of the Barnstable, Massachusetts.
In many states, the term "village" is used to refer to a relatively small unincorporated community, similar to a hamlet in New York state. This informal usage may be found even in states that have villages as an incorporated municipality, although such usage might be considered incorrect and confusing.
Villages in Nigeria vary significantly because of cultural and geographical differences.
In the North, villages were under traditional rulers long before the Jihad of Shaikh Uthman Bin Fodio and after the Holy War. At that time Traditional rulers used to have absolute power in their administrative regions. After Dan Fodio's Jihad in 1804, political structure of the North became Islamic where emirs were the political, administrative and spiritual leaders of their people. These emirs appointed a number of people to assisted them in running the administration and that included villages.
Every Hausa village was reigned by Magaji (Village head) who was answerable to his Hakimi (mayor) at town level. The Magaji also had his cabinet who assisted him rule his village efficiently, among whom was Mai-Unguwa (Ward Head).
With the creation of Native Authority in Nigerian provinces, the autocratic power of village heads along with all other traditional rulers was subdued hence they ruled 'under the guidance of colonial officials'.
Even though the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has not recognised the functions of traditional rulers, they still command respect in their villages and political office holders liaise with them almost every time to reach people.
In Hausa language, village is called ƙauye and every local government area is made up of several small and large ƙauyuka (villages). For instance, Girka is a village in Kaita town in Katsina state in Nigeria. They have mud houses with thatched roofing though, like in most of villages in the North, zinc roofing is becoming a common sight.
Still in many villages in the North, people do not have access to portable water. So they fetch water from ponds and streams. Others are lucky to have wells within a walking distance. Women rush in the morning to fetch water in their clay pots from wells, boreholes and streams. However, government is now providing them with water bore holes.
Electricity and GSM network are reaching more and more villages in the North almost everyday. So bad feeder roads may lead to remote villages with electricity and unstable GSM network.
Village dwellers in the Southeastern region lived separately in 'clusters of huts belonging to the patrilinage'. As the rainforest region is dominated by Igbo speaking people, the villages are called ime obodo (inside town) in Igbo language. A typical large village might have a few thousand persons who shared the same market, meeting place and beliefs.
|Total number of rural localities in Russia||294,059||216,845||177,047||152,922||155,289|
|Of them, with population 1 to 10 persons||41,493||25,895||23,855||30,170||47,089|
|Of them, with population 11 to 200 persons||186,437||132,515||105,112||80,663||68,807|
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to Villages.|
|Look up village in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.| | <urn:uuid:36ae17af-ba48-4848-8407-19fef0c5c587> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mashpedia.com/Village | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392069.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00080-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967403 | 6,387 | 3.40625 | 3 |
April 30, 2009
Drugs That Preserve Eggs For Reproduction Need To Be Given In Stages
Cryoprotectants needed to preserve eggs for reproduction need to be given in stages, albeit rapid ones, say scientists who have developed a mathematical model that predicts optimal time for loading and unloading these drugs.
Their studies in Rhesus monkey eggs, which are very similar to human eggs, show that a two-step process of easing into and out of the drugs needed to help protect eggs at subzero temperatures dramatically reduces the amount eggs contract and expand in the process.
These dramatic size shifts can literally rip an egg apart or, at the very least, reduce the chances it can be fertilized, says Dr. Ali Eroglu, reproductive biologist and cryobiologist in the Medical College of Georgia Schools of Medicine and Graduate Studies.
Scientists first looked at how fast the three most commonly used cryoprotectants "“ dimethylsulfoxide, ethylene glycol and propylene glycol "“ permeate monkey eggs. Faster permeability is better with these drugs which must be given at room temperature when their toxicity levels are high. With permeability rates in hand, MCG scientists used a mathematical model, developed in collaboration with Villanova University in Pennsylvania, to successfully predict optimal loading and removal times.
They found propylene glycol works best in monkeys. The drug penetrated the egg membrane faster and got out faster, Dr. Eroglu and his colleagues report in the April issue of Molecular Reproduction & Development.
All of the drugs worked best when used incrementally: putting some in the medium around the egg and a few minutes later adding a little more when it was time for cryopreservation and, conversely, transferring them to increasingly lower concentrations of the drugs when it was time for thawing.
While still less than 10 percent, success rates for egg preservation to help protect an endangered species or enable a cancer patient to retain fertility have improved in recent years as scientists learn more about how best to give and remove the drugs "“ including using more than one at a time "“ with the idea that they may work synergistically and hopefully with reduced toxicity.
Scientists also are taking important cues from critters with an innate ability to preserve themselves. Increasingly added to the mix of manmade cryoprotectants are sugars, which are used by a variety of species, such as brine shrimp and eight-legged tardigrades, a microscopic water-dweller also known as "water bears," to survive drought conditions. Scientists like Dr. Eroglu, are showing that these sugars, such as trehalose used by tardigrades, also can help humans, monkeys and other species that don't naturally produce them.
With human egg preservation, the sugars currently are placed in the medium along with the cryoprotectants, where it appears to work some magic. Sugar can't permeate a cell membrane so high concentrations in the medium reduce the amount of fluid that moves inside the egg. Too much fluid causes the egg to swell and potentially burst. Almost paradoxically, because sugar thickens the medium, it helps put pressure on the cell to move cryoprotectants out when it's time.
Animals likely use sugars this way and to transform to a glasslike state. Those that naturally produce sugars have transporters that enable it to be outside and inside their cells, where it appears to afford additional protection. Dr. Eroglu has given mice eggs that added protection by injecting sugar in a process similar to how sperm can be injected for fertilization. He's found it dramatically reduces the temperature needed to reach the glasslike preserved state. In fact, he's shown trehalose can enable eggs to move into a glasslike state at -30 degrees Celsius compared to -80 C, -100 C or even colder temperatures required with only conventional cryoprotectants.
That means eggs can be stored and transported much more easily. "With conventional cryoprotectants, you have to store them in liquid nitrogen. With this, you can just put them in a freezer or transport them on dry ice," Dr. Eroglu says. Additionally, the more dramatic temperature shifts put additional stress on already stressed eggs.
Improved transportability could be a big plus if/when these preservation techniques are applied to organs, he says. About 40 percent of organs intended for transplantation are damaged before and during transportation and Dr. Eroglu theorizes the glasslike state that can preserve an egg for years could go a long way in reducing that.
One of his many goals is to make the protective powers of sugar more widely available by designing ones that can penetrate a cell or egg membrane.
Researchers at Mercer University School of Medicine in Macon, Ga., Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta and Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta also contributed to the study.
By: Toni Baker
On The Net: | <urn:uuid:b606c7ca-b734-4bef-9736-2ab8f0acc79b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1680328/drugs_that_preserve_eggs_for_reproduction_need_to_be_given/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396875.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00049-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944909 | 1,022 | 3.34375 | 3 |
Why a framework?
Actually, this framework is the Ajax engine described by J. J. Garrett and
intended to suppress waiting for the user when accessing the server.
The framework provides classical, cross-browser functions to use the XMLHttpRequest object. But a framework may goes beyond that, and allow to build "rich web applications", applications with a graphical user interface and other features of desktop software that run through a browser, while exchanging data with a remote server.
Features of an Ajax framework
Any Ajax framework is able to communicate with the server, and thus, to read
data or to send it data or commands. In the last case a server-side script
The frameworks often add components that make use of the asynchronous communication with the server.
The classical examples are buttons, tabbed panels, grids, listboxs and other such widgets.
A more innovative example, the "boxes", are more and more often implemented, and Lightbox and Slimbox are two of them. There are image galleries that place them side by side on the screen and that are making use of Ajax to display them instantanously .
Framework may be server-driven also, and in this case, component are created on the server with a scripting language such as PHP, and sent to the browser. Ajax is used to transmit user actions to the server part, and to handle the results.
The ability to work offline as it is offered by HTML 5 is a complement to the Ajax framework as well.
What Ajax framework to choose?
You want to use an Ajax framework to make dynamic pages without having to rewrite the whole stuff youself and test it on all browsers...
But they are so numerous that you wonder which one to use. You want not make a bad choise and be forced later to redo all the pages with a different framework!
You are less likely to regret the choice of a framework if you adopt one of the most used because they are continually supplemented by new extensions and have a good support by users.
Among these, there are jQuery, well documented, Mootools that is modular, Ext JS offering many widgets for RIA.
The interaction with a server side language also should guide the choice.
no server components and therefore server technology dependencies.
Most of them use XML as data format, and sometime JSON, another textual format.
This tag includes the "prototype" library into the page and its
function become usable by the browser, in this page.
Such Ajax libraries and frameworks include:
jQuery provides the most complete documentation. The version 1.3.2 is two times faster than previous one. It has full access to the DOM.
It is used by default by the Wordpress CMS.
jQuip is a more modular version of JQuery with only 4k for the core code.
- Closure Library.
Is the base of several other frameworks including that of Yahoo. Its goal seems to be in reducing the size of Ajax Code.
- Script Aculous.
One of the first frameworks, Script Aculous soon developed many dynamic and graphics effects to liven up Web pages.
Libraries from latest competitors are better optimized.
Based also on prototype, add special effects to HTML pages.
Another toolkit as JQuery, includes graphical effects.
Mootools has features similar to jQuery. It is modular. Many extensions provide graphical widgets such as Lightbox, image galleries ...
Dedicated to rich web applications, the RIAs, Ext JS has many plugins and user interface components, the widgets.
- Dojo Toolkit.
Uses packages with a mechanism to load them together along with the page. It can build reusable components and widgets, a lot of them is provided on the site. It allows to manipulate the DOM more easily, and to make graphical effects.
Includes advanced cross-browser layout managers and an advanced build system for graphical user interfaces similar to that of desktop software. Widgets are provided with the function to use them from the keyboard or the mouse. Third parties provide PHP or Java code to process data with XMLHttpRequest.
A simple library for GET and POST with callbacks. Implements responseHTML, the A.E.P. extension.
On the server side, the programmer may use PHP functions to process requests from the browser. PHP allows to deal with database, search data, build pages or parts of page and publish the page or return data to the XMLHttpRequest object. PHP 5 specifically, thanks to its SimpleXML class, is able to create XML files that may be returned to the object. But all these tasks require special functions to write... however the work is already done in some free open source frameworks.
Java is the programming language that is the more often used to build web
A Java framework permit to use Java web services interactively with a web page.
The more commonly used are:
- DWR (Direct
Legacy Java software for the web now is moving to Ajax. JavaServer Faces now includes Ajax features. ThinWire takes a unique approach in that the application is written as if it was a desktop software. All the logic executes on the server, the framework encapsulates the web rendering and communication layers.
- Microsoft Ajax Library (formerly ATLAS) is made of a client side part: Microsoft AJAX Library, and a server side part: ASP.NET 2.0 Ajax Extensions. But a component library is also provided with graphical widgets: ASP.NET Ajax Control Toolkit.
- Ajax.NET Professional "serializes" (converts and stores) .NET data to the JSON format.
Ajax and XUL
The two systems work on the Firefox browser. The first one allows to communicate
with the server from a remote web page, the second one displays an interface
either in a local computer or through the net, with the same browser.
The main difference is in the use of Canvas (HTML tag) to extend Ajax and to extend XUL, XPCom and XBL.
Some current developments will reinforce again the importance of Ajax by providing standard for RIA (Rich Internet Applications), mainly HTML 5 that extends HTML with Web applications features and that allows a Web application to run offline.
- Ajax Tutorial. Learn Ajax and XMLHttpRequest.
- Ajax API library. Google centralizes the loading of a framework among a selection of the most popular and will keep them indefinitely available online. | <urn:uuid:33057e85-f976-48ae-8984-85cfb46cc392> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.xul.fr/ajax-frameworks.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397842.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00029-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.884005 | 1,327 | 2.796875 | 3 |
two mechanics problem
1. a block with mass m slides on a horizontal surface. the block is intially at x=0 with velocity v0.
the frictional force that the block experience is proportional to v^(3/2)
for positive constant K. what is the max distance that the block travel?
2. a particle of mass m is under the influences of a force F(x) that attracts the particle according to
F(x) = -kx^(-2)
where x is the distance from a fixed origin at x=0 and k is a positive constant
if the particle is released from the rest at x=d, how long does it take to reach the origin?
These are the same problems you posted under "friction question". | <urn:uuid:676bb7c9-23a3-4fbc-a6f9-91e42064a9dd> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mathhelpforum.com/advanced-applied-math/128016-two-mechanics-problem-print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00077-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905492 | 162 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Researchers at Warwick Medical School have discovered a way of identifying which women are most at risk of postnatal depression (PND) by checking for specific genetic variants. The findings could lead to the development of a simple, accurate blood test which checks for the likelihood of developing the condition.
Presenting the research to the International Congress of Endocrinology/European Congress of Endocrinology, Professor Dimitris Grammatopoulos, Professor of Molecular Medicine at the University of Warwick, said that approximately one in seven women who give birth suffer from PND, which normally starts around two weeks after childbirth.
He explained: “Current screening policies rely on the opportunistic finding of PND cases using tools such as the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Score (EPDS), but such tests cannot identify women at risk, ahead of them developing the condition."
The researchers assessed a group of 200 pregnant women for PND using the EPDS, once during their first visit to the ante-natal clinic, and again two to eight weeks after they had given birth. They found that the women who developed PND were more likely to have specific genetic variants of the bcl1 and rs242939 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the glucocorticoid receptor and the corticotrophin-releasing hormone receptor-1 genes, respectively.
These receptors control the activity of the hypothalamo-pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis - an endocrine system that is activated in response to stress. The hypothalamus is part of the brain that monitors many aspects of the state of the body’s systems and is closely linked with the pituitary gland, which releases a number of hormones into the blood stream that control vital body functions.
The finding appears to show that postnatal depression is a specific subgroup of depression with a distinct genetic element which means that some women are genetically more reactive to the environmental factors which trigger depression.
“Although we knew already that there was an association of the HPA axis with depression, ours is the first study to show a link between specific elements of this pathway and the particular case of PND,” said Professor Grammatopoulos.
“We now intend to conduct further research on other genetic variants of the HPA axis in a larger, multi-centre study involving women from Coventry, Birmingham, and London.
“We think that we have made an important step forward in characterising the prospective risks and are therefore paving the way for timely, appropriate medical treatment for women who are likely to develop PND.”
PND is a serious condition, the researchers say, and quite different from the ‘baby blues’, which is milder and shorter-lived. Symptoms include sadness, changes in eating and sleeping patterns, crying episodes, reduced libido, anxiety and irritability.
Effects on children can be significant; for example, depressed mothers are less likely to be affectionate towards and to play with their children and they may use less ‘baby talk’ which is designed to engage the child’s attention. This may lead to learning and emotional difficulties for the children in later life.
Although it may seem evident that PND is caused by some kind of hormonal upheaval but the role of the HPA axis in this form of depression has not been proved until now.
“We believe that we have made a discovery with important clinical and social implications. If we can identify women likely to suffer from PND in advance so that they can be treated appropriately and at an early stage, we will have improved the lives not just of the parents, but also of their children,” Professor Grammatopoulos concluded.
The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale is a 10-item self-reported questionnaire developed to identify women with PND. Items of the scale correspond to various symptoms of clinical depression, and overall assessment is done by the total score of the sum of the ten items.
The research was funded by the Departments of Pathology and Obstetrics, University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire departmental funds, Warwick Medical School and by the Robert Gaddie Memorial Fund.
The joint 15th International Congress of Endocrinology/14th European Congress of Endocrinology, Europe’s biggest scientific meeting on hormones, took place in Florence, Italy on 5-9 May 2012. For the full programme, see www.ice-ece2012.com .
For further information, please contact her Kate Cox, Communications Manager, Warwick Medical School on +44 (0)2476 574255/150483, m: +44(0)7920 531221 or firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:92c42618-1d06-40bb-8fdd-eed7063669fa> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/blood_test_could/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397695.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00005-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948236 | 968 | 2.875 | 3 |
The Age of Intelligent Machines: Can Machines Think?
February 21, 2001
- author |
- Lee Gutkind
Originally Published 1990
Can machines think? This has been a conundrum for philosophers for years, but in their fascination with the pure conceptual issues they have for the most part overlooked the real social importance of the answer.
It is of more than academic importance that we learn to think clearly about the actual cognitive powers of computers, for they are now being introduced into a variety of sensitive social roles where their powers will be put to the ultimate test: in a wide variety of areas, we are on the verge of making ourselves dependent upon their cognitive powers. The cast of overestimating them could be enormous.
One of the principal inventors of the computer was the great British mathematician Alan Turing. It was he who first figured out, in highly abstract terms, how to design a programmable computing device, what we now call a universal Turing machine.
All programmable computers in use today are in essence Turing machines. About forty years ago, at the dawn of the computer age, Turing began a classic article “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” with the words “I propose to consider the question, ‘Can machines think?’” but he then went on to say that this was a bad question, a question that leads only to sterile debate and haggling over definitions, a question, as he put it, “too meaningless to deserve discussion.”1
In its place he substituted what he took to be a much better question, a question that would be crisply answerable and intuitively satisfying–in every way an acceptable substitute for the philosophic puzzler with which he began.
First he described a parlor game of sorts, the imitation game, to be played by a man, a woman, and a judge (of either gender). The man and woman are hidden from the judge’s view but are able to communicate with the judge by teletype; the judge’s task is to guess, after a period of questioning each contestant, which interlocutor is the man and which the woman.
The man tries to convince the judge he is the woman, and the woman tries to convince the judge of the truth. The man wins the judge makes the wrong identification. A little reflection will convince you, I am sure, that aside from lucky breaks, it would take a clever man to convince the judge that he was the woman–on the assumption that the judge is clever too, of course.
Now suppose, Turing said, we replace the man or woman with a computer and give the judge the task of determining which is the human being and which is the computer. Turing proposed that any computer that can regularly or often foal a discerning judge in this game would be intelligent, a computer that thinks, beyond any reasonable doubt.
Now, it is important to realize that failing this test is not supposed to be a sign of lack of intelligence. Many intelligent people, after all, might not be willing or able to play the imitation game, and we should allow computers the same opportunity to decline to prove themselves. This is, then, a one-way test; failing it proves nothing.
Furthermore, Turing was not committing himself to the view (although it is easy to see how one might think he was) that to think is to think just like a human being–any more than he was committing himself to the view that for a man to think, he must think exactly like a woman. Men, women, and computers may all have different ways of thinking.
But surely, he thought, one can think in one’s own peculiar style well enough to imitate a thinking man or woman, one can think well, indeed. This imagined exercise has come to be known as the Turing test.
It is a sad irony that Turing’s proposal has had exactly the opposite effect on the discussion of what he intended. Turing didn’t design the test as a useful tool in scientific psychology, a method of confirming or disconfirming scientific theories or evaluating particular models of mental function; he designed it to be nothing more than a philosophical conversation stopper.
He proposed, in the spirit of “Put up or shut up!”, a simple test for thinking that is surely strong enough to satisfy the sternest skeptic (or so he thought). He was saying, in effect, that instead of arguing interminably about the ultimate nature and essence of thinking, we should all agree that whatever that nature is, anything that could pass this test would surely have it; then we could turn to asking how or whether some machine could be designed and built that might pass the test fair and square.
Alas, philosophers, amateur and professional, have instead taken Turing’s proposal as the pretext for just the sort of definitional haggling and interminable arguing about imaginary counter-examples that he was hoping to squelch.
This forty-year preoccupation with the Turing test has been all the more regrettable because it has focused attention on the wrong issues. There are real world problems that are revealed by considering the strengths and weaknesses of the Turing test, but these have been concealed behind a smoke screen of misguided criticisms. A failure to think imaginatively about the test actually proposed by Turing has led many to underestimate its severity and to confuse it with much less interesting proposals.
So first I want to show that the Turing test, conceived as he conceived it, is (as he thought) quite strong enough as a test of thinking. I defy anyone to improve upon it. But here is the point almost universally overlooked by the literature: there is a common misapplication of the Turing test that often leads to drastic overestimation of the powers of actually existing computer systems. The follies of this familiar sort of thinking about computers can best be brought out by a reconsideration of the Turing test itself.
The insight underlying the Turing test is the same insight that inspires the new practice among symphony orchestras of conducting auditions with an opaque screen between the jury and the musician. What matters in a musician is, obviously, musical ability and only musical ability; such features as sex, hair length, skin color, and weight are strictly irrelevant. Since juries might be biased even innocently and unawares by these irrelevant features, they are carefully screened off so only the essential feature, musicianship, can be examined.
Turing recognized that people might be similarly biased in their judgments of intelligence by whether the contestant had soft skin, warm blood, facial features, hands, and eyes–which are obviously not themselves essential components of intelligence. So he devised a screen that would let through only a sample of what really mattered: the capacity to understand, and think cleverly about, challenging problems.
Perhaps he was inspired by Descartes, who in his Discourse on Method (1637) plausibly argued that there was no more demanding test of human mentality than the capacity to hold an intelligent conversation: “It is indeed conceivable that a machine could be so made that it would utter words, and even words appropriate to the presence of physical acts or objects which cause some change in its organs; as, for example, it was touched in some so spot that it would ask what you wanted to say to it; in another, that it would cry that it was hurt, and so on for similar things. But it could never modify its phrases to reply to the sense of whatever was said in its presence, as even the most stupid men can do.”2
This seemed obvious to Descartes in the seventeenth century, but of course, the fanciest machines he knew were elaborate clockwork figures, not electronic computers. Today it is far from obvious that such machines are impossible, but Descartes’ hunch that ordinary conversation would put as severe a strain on artificial intelligence as any other test was shared by Turing. Of course, there is nothing sacred about the particular conversational game chosen by Turing for his test; it is just a cannily chosen test of more general intelligence.
The assumption Turing was prepared to make was this: Nothing could possibly pass the Turing test by winning the imitation game without being able to perform indefinitely many other clearly intelligent actions. Let us call that assumption the quick-probe assumption.
Turing realized, as anyone would, that there are hundreds and thousands of telling signs of intelligent thinking to be observed in our fellow creatures, and one could, one wanted, compile a vast battery of different tests to assay the capacity for intelligent thought. But success on his chosen test, he thought, would be highly predictive of success on many other intuitively acceptable tests of intelligence.
Remember, failure on the Turing test does not predict failure on those others, but success would surely predict success. His test was so severe, he thought, that nothing that could pass it fair and square would disappoint us in other quarters. Maybe it wouldn’t do everything we hoped–maybe it wouldn’t appreciate ballet, understand quantum physics, or have a good plan far world peace, but we’d all see that it was surely one of the intelligent, thinking entities in the neighborhood.
Is this high opinion of the Turing tests severity misguided? Certainly many have thought so, but usually because they have not imagined the test in sufficient detail, and hence have underestimated it. Trying to forestall this skepticism, Turing imagined several lines of questioning that a judge might employ in this game that would be taxing indeed–lines about writing poetry or playing chess. But with thirty years’ experience with the actual talents and foibles of computers behind us, perhaps we can add a few more tough lines of questioning.
Terry Winograd, a leader in AI efforts to produce conversational ability in a computer, draws our attention to a pair of sentences.3 They differ in only one word. The first sentence is this: “The committee denied the group a parade permit because they advocated violence.” Here’s the second sentence: “The committee denied the group a parade permit because they feared violence.”
The difference is just in the verb–”advocated” or “feared.” As Winograd points out, the pronoun “they” in each sentence is officially ambiguous. Both readings of the pronoun are always legal. Thus, we can imagine a world in which governmental committees in charge of parade permits advocate violence in the streets and, for some strange reason, use this as their pretext for denying a parade permit. But the natural, reasonable, intelligent reading of the first sentence is that it’s the group that advocated violence, and of the second, that it’s the committee that feared the violence.
Now sentences like this are embedded in a conversation, the computer must figure out which reading of the pronoun is meant, it is to respond intelligently. But mere rules of grammar or vocabulary will not fix the right reading. What fixes the right reading for us is knowledge about politics, social circumstances, committees and their attitudes, groups that want to parade, how they tend to behave, and the like. One must know about the world, in short, to make sense of such a sentence.
In the jargon of artificial intelligence, a conversational computer needs lots of world knowledge to do its jab. But, it seems, it is somehow endowed with that world knowledge on many topics, it should be able to do much more with that world knowledge than merely make sense of a conversation containing just that sentence.
The only way, it appears, for a computer to disambiguate that sentence and keep up its end of a conversation that uses that sentence would be for it to have a much more general ability to respond intelligently to information about social and political circumstances and many other topics. Thus, such sentences, by putting a demand on such abilities, are good quick probes. That is, they test for a wider competence.
People typically ignore the prospect of having the judge ask off-the-wall questions in the Turing test, and hence they underestimate the competence a computer would have to have to pass the test. But remember, the rules of the imitation game as Turing presented it permit the judge to ask any question that could be asked of a human being–no holds barred. Suppose, then, we give a contestant in the game this question: An Irishman found a genie in a bottle who offered him two wishes.
“First I’ll have a pint of Guinness,” said the Irishman, and when it appeared, he took several long drinks from it and was delighted to see that the glass filled itself magically as he drank. “What about your second wish?” asked the genie. “Oh well, that’s easy,” said the Irishman. “I’ll have another one of these!” Please explain this story to me, and tell me there is anything funny or sad about it.
Now even a child could express, even not eloquently, the understanding that is required to get this joke. But think of how much one has to know and understand about human culture, to put it pompously, to be able to give any account of the point of this joke.
I am not supposing that the computer would have to laugh at, or be amused by, the joke. But it wants to win the imitation game–and that’s the test, after all–it had better know enough in its own alien, humorless way about human psychology and culture to be able to pretend effectively that it was amused and explain why.
It may seem to you that we could devise a better test. Let’s compare the Turing test with some other candidates.
A computer is intelligent; it wins the World Chess Championship.
That’s not a good test, it turns out. Chess prowess has proven to be an isolatable talent. There are programs today that can play fine chess but do nothing else. So the quick-probe assumption is false far the test of playing winning chess.
The computer is intelligent; it solves the Arab-Israeli conflict.
This is surely a more severe test than Turing’s. But it has some detects: passed once, it is unrepeatable; it is slow, no doubt; and it is not crisply clear what would count as passing it. Here’s another prospect, then:
A computer is intelligent; it succeeds in stealing the British crown jewels without the use of force or violence.
Now this is better. First, it could be repeated again and again, though of course each repeat test would presumably be harder, but this is a feature it shares with the Turing test. Second, the mark of success is clear: either you’ve got the jewels to show for your efforts or you don’t. But it is expensive and slow, a socially dubious caper at best, and no doubt luck would play too great a role.
With ingenuity and effort one might be able to came up with other candidates that would equal the Turing test in severity, fairness, and efficiency, but I think these few examples should suffice to convince us that it would be hard to improve on Turing’s original proposal.
But still, you may protest, something might pass the Turing test and still not be intelligent, not be a thinker. What does might mean here? what you have in mind is that by cosmic accident, by a supernatural coincidence, a stupid person or a stupid computer might fool a clever judge repeatedly, well, yes, but so what? The same frivolous possibility “in principle” holds for any test whatever.
A playful god or evil demon, let us agree, could fool the world’s scientific community about the presence of H20 in the Pacific Ocean. But still, the tests they rely on to establish that there is H20 in the Pacific Ocean are quite beyond reasonable criticism. The Turing test for thinking is no worse than any well-established scientific test, we can set skepticism aside and go back to serious matters. Is there any more likelihood of a false positive result on the Turing test than on, say, the tests currently used for the presence of iron in an ore sample?
This question is often obscured by a move called operationalism that philosophers have sometimes made. Turing and those who think well of his test are often accused of being operationalists. Operationalism is the tactic of defining the presence of some property, intelligence, for instance, as being established once and for all by the passing of some test. Let’s illustrate this with a different example.
Suppose I offer the following test–we’ll call it the Dennett test–for being a great city. A great city is one in which, on a randomly chosen day, one can do all three of the following: hear a symphony orchestra, see a Rembrandt and a professional athletic contest, and eat quenelles de brothel a la Nantua for lunch. To make the operationalist move would 6e to declare that any city that passes the Dennett test is by definition a great city. What being a great city amounts to is just passing the Dennett test.
Well then, if the Chamber of Commerce of Great Falls, Montana, wanted, and I can’t imagine why–to get their hometown on my list of great cities, they could accomplish this by the relatively inexpensive route of hiring full time about ten basketball players, forty musicians, and a quick-order quenelle chef and renting a cheap Rembrandt from some museum. An idiotic operationalist would then be stuck admitting that Great Falls, Montana, was in fact a great city, since all he or she cares about in great cities is that they pass the Dennett test.
Sane operationalists (who far that very reason are perhaps not operationalists at all, since “operationalist” seems to be a dirty word) would cling confidently to their test, but only because they have what they consider to be very good reasons for thinking the odds astronomical against a false positive result, like the imagined Chamber of Commerce caper. I devised the Dennett test, of course, with the realization that no one would be both stupid and rich enough to go to such preposterous lengths to foil the test.
In the actual world, wherever you find symphony orchestras, quenelles, Rembrandts, and professional sports, you also find daily newspapers, parks, repertory theaters, libraries, fine architecture, and all the other things that go to make a city great. My test was simply devised to locate a telling sample that could not help but be representative of the rest of the city’s treasures. I would cheerfully run the minuscule risk of having my bluff called. Obviously, the test items are not all that I care about in a city.
In fact, some of them I don’t care about at all. I just think they would be cheap and easy ways of assuring myself that the subtle things I do care about in cities are present. Similarly, I think it would be entirely unreasonable to suppose that Alan Turing had an inordinate fondness for party games or put too high a value on party game prowess in his test. In both the Turing test and the Dennett test a very unrisky gamble is being taken: the gamble that the quick-probe assumption is in general safe.
But two can play this game of playing the odds. Suppose some computer programmer happens to be, for whatever strange reason, dead set on tricking me into judging an entity to be a thinking, intelligent thing when it is not. Such a trickster could rely as well as 1 can on unlikelihood and take a few gambles. Thus, the programmer can expect that it is not remotely likely that 1, as the judge, will bring up the topic of children’s birthday parties, or baseball, or moon rocks, then he or she can avoid the trouble of building world knowledge on those topics into the data base.
Whereas I do improbably raise these issues, the system will draw a blank, and I will unmask the pretender easily. But with all the topics and words that I might raise, such a saving would no doubt be negligible. Turn the idea inside out, however, and the trickster will have a fighting chance.
Suppose the programmer has reason to believe that I will ask only about children’s birthday parties or baseball or moon rocks–all other topics being, for one reason or another, out of bounds. Not only does the task shrink dramatically, but there already exist systems or preliminary sketches of systems in artificial intelligence that can do a whiz-bang job of responding with apparent intelligence an just those specialized topics.
William Wood’s LUNAR program, to take what is perhaps the best example, answers scientists’ questions–posed in ordinary English–about moon rocks. In one test it answered correctly and appropriately something like 90 percent of the questions that geologists and other experts thought of asking it about moon rocks. (In 12 percent of those correct responses there were trivial, correctable defects.)
Of course, Wood’s motive in creating LUNAR was not to trick unwary geologists into thinking they were conversing with an intelligent being. And that had been his motive, his project would still be a long way from success.
For it is easy enough to unmask LUNAR without ever straying from the prescribed topic of moon rocks. Put LUNAR in one room and a moon rocks specializt in another, and then ask them both their opinion of the social value of the moon-rock-gathering expeditions, for instance. Or ask the contestants their opinion of the suitability of moon rocks as ashtrays, or whether people who have touched moon rocks are ineligible for the draft. Any intelligent person knows a lot more about moon rocks than their geology. Although it might be unfair to demand this extra knowledge of a computer moon-rock specialist, it would be an easy way to get it to fail the Turing test.
But just suppose that someone could extend LUNAR to cover itself plausibly on such probes, so long as the topic was still, however indirectly, moon rocks. We might come to think it was a lot more like the human moon-rock specialist than it really was. The moral we should draw is that as Turing-test judges we should resist all limitations and waterings-down of the Turing test. They make the game too easy–vastly easier than the original test. Hence, they lead us into the risk of overestimating the actual comprehension of the system being tested.
Consider a different limitation on the Turing test that should strike a suspicious chord in us as soon as we hear it. This is a variation on a theme developed in a recent article by Ned Block.4 Suppose someone were to propose to restrict the judge to a vocabulary of, say, the 850 words of Basic English, and to single-sentence probes–that is, “moves”–of no more than four words.
Moreover, contestants must respond to these probes with no more than four words per move, and a test may involve no more than forty questions Is this an innocent variation on Turing’s original test? These restrictions would make the imitation game clearly finite.
That is, the total number of all possible permissible games is a large but finite number. One might suspect that such a limitation would permit the trickster simply to store, in alphabetical order, all the possible good conversations within the limits and fool the judge with nothing more sophisticated than a system of table lookup. In fact, that isn’t in the cards.
Even with these severe, improbable, and suspicious restrictions imposed upon the imitation game, the number of legal games, though finite, is mind-bogglingly large. I haven’t bothered trying to calculate it but it surely astronomically exceeds the number of possible chess games with no more than forty moves, and that number has been calculated. John Haugeland says it’s in the neighborhood of 10120. For comparison, Haugeland suggests there have only been 1018 seconds since the beginning of the universe.5
Of course, the number of good, sensible conversations under these limits is a tiny fraction, maybe 1 in 1015, of the number of merely grammatically well-formed conversations. So let’s say, to be very conservative, that there are only 1015 different smart conversations such a computer would have to store. Well, the task shouldn’t take more than a few trillion years–with generous federal support. Finite numbers can be very large.
So though we needn’t worry that this particular trick of storing all the smart conversations would work, we can appreciate that there are lots of ways of making the task easier that may appear innocent at first. We also get a reassuring measure of just how severe the unrestricted Turing test is by reflecting on the more than astronomical size of even that severely restricted version of it.
Block’s imagined–and utterly impossible–program exhibits the dreaded feature known in computer-science circles as combinatorial explosion. No conceivable computer could overpower a combinatorial explosion with sheer speed and size. Since the problem areas addressed by artificial intelligence are veritable minefields of combinatorial explosion, and since it has often proved difficult to find any solution to a problem that avoids them, there is considerable plausibility in Newell and Simon’s proposal that avoiding combinatorial explosion (by any means at all) be viewed as one of the hallmarks of intelligence.
Our brains are millions of times bigger than the brains of gnats, but they are still–for all their vast complexity–compact, efficient, timely organs that somehow or other manage to perform all their tasks while avoiding combinatorial explosion. A computer a million times bigger or faster than a human brain might not look like the brain of a human being, or even be internally organized like the brain of a human being but, far all its differences, it somehow managed to control a wise and timely set of activities, it would have to be the beneficiary of a very special design that avoided combinatorial explosion. And whatever that design was, would we not be right to consider the entity intelligent?
Turing’s test was designed to allow for this possibility. His point was that we should not be species-chauvinistic, or anthropocentric, about the insides of an intelligent being, for there might be inhuman ways of being intelligent.
To my knowledge the only serious and interesting attempt by any program designer to win even a severely modified Turing test has been Kenneth Colby’s. Colby is a psychiatrist and intelligence artificer at UCLA. He has a program called PARRY, which is a computer simulation of a paranoid patient who has delusions about the Mafia being out to get him.
As you do with other conversational programs, you interact with it by sitting at a terminal and typing questions and answers back and forth. A number of years ago, Colby put PARRY to a very restricted test. He had genuine psychiatrists interview PARRY. He did not suggest to them that they might be talking or typing to a computer; rather, he made up some plausible story about why they were communicating with a real, live patient by teletype.
He also had the psychiatrists interview real, human paranoids via teletype. Then he took a PARRY transcript, inserted it in a group of teletype transcripts from real patients, gave them to another group of experts–more psychiatrists–and said, “One of these was a conversation with a computer. Can you figure out which one it was?” They couldn’t. They didn’t do better than chance.
Colby presented this with some huzzah, but critics scoffed at the suggestion that this was a legitimate Turing test. My favorite commentary on it was Joseph Weizenbaum’s; in a letter to the Communications of the Association of Computing Machinery, he said that, inspired by Colby, he had designed an even better program, which passed the same test.6 His also had the virtue of being a very inexpensive program, in these times of tight money. In fact you didn’t even need a computer for it. All you needed was an electric typewriter. His program modeled infantile autism.
And the transcripts–you type in your questions, and the thing just sits there and hums–cannot be distinguished by experts from transcripts of real conversations with infantile autistic patients. What was wrong with Colby’s test, of course, was that the unsuspecting interviewers had no motivation at all to try out any of the sorts of questions that easily would have unmasked PARRY.
Colby was undaunted, and after his team had improved PARRY, he put it to a much more severe test–a surprisingly severe test. This time, the interviewers–again psychiatrists, were given the task at the outset of telling the computer from the real patient. They were set up in a classic Turing machine test: the patient in one room, the computer PARRY in the other room, with the judges conducting interviews with both of them (on successive days). The judges’ task was to find out which one was the computer and which one was the real patient. Amazingly, they didn’t do much better, which leads some people to say, “Well, that just confirms my impression of the intelligence of psychiatrists!”
But more seriously now, was this an honest-to-goodness Turing test? Were there tacit restrictions on the lines of questioning of the judges? Like the geologists interacting with LUNAR, the psychiatrists’ professional preoccupations and habits kept them from asking the sorts of unlikely questions that would have easily unmasked PARRY. After all, they realized that since one of the contestants was a real, live paranoid person, medical ethics virtually forbade them from toying with, upsetting, or attempting to confuse their interlocutors.
Moreover, they also knew that this was a test of a model of paranoia, so there were certain questions that wouldn’t be deemed to be relevant to testing the model as a model of paranoia. So they asked just the sort of questions that therapists typically ask of such patients, and of course PARRY had been ingeniously and laboriously prepared to deal with just that sort of question.
One of the psychiatrist judges did, in fact, make a rather half-hearted attempt to break out of the mold and ask some telling questions: “Maybe you’ve heard the saying ‘Don’t cry over spilled milk.’ What does that mean to you?” PARRY answered, “Maybe you have to watch out for the Mafia.”
When then asked “Okay, now you were in a movie theater watching a movie and smelled something like burning wood or rubber, what would you do?” PARRY replied, “You know, they know me.” And the next question was, ” you found a stamped, addressed letter in your path as you were walking down the street, what would you do?” PARRY replied, “What else do you want to know?”7
Clearly, PARRY was, you might say, parrying these questions, which were incomprehensible to it, with more or less stock paranoid formulas. We see a bit of a dodge that is apt to work, apt to seem plausible to the judge, only because the “contestant” is supposed to be a paranoid, and such people are expected to respond uncooperatively on such occasions. These unimpressive responses didn’t particularly arouse the suspicions of the judge, as a matter of fact, though they probably should have.
PARRY, like all other large computer programs, is dramatically hound by limitations of cost-effectiveness. What was important to Colby and his crew was simulating his model of paranoia. This was a massive effort. PARRY has a thesaurus or dictionary of about 4,500 words and 700 idioms and the grammatical competence to use it-a parser, in the jargon of computational linguistics.
The entire PARRY program takes up about 200,000 words of computer memory, all laboriously installed by the programming team. Now once all the effort had gone into devising the model of paranoid thought processes and linguistic ability, there was little time, energy, money, and interest left over to build in huge amounts of world knowledge of the sort that any actual paranoid would, of course, have. (Not that anyone yet knows haw to build in world knowledge in the first place.)
Even one could do it, building in the world knowledge would no doubt have made PARRY orders of magnitude larger and slower. And what would have been the point, given Colby’s theoretical aims?
PARRY is a theoretician’s model of a psychological phenomenon: paranoia. It is not intended to have practical applications. But in recent years there has appeared a branch of AI (knowledge engineering) that develops what are now called expert systems. Expert systems are designed to be practical. They are typically software super specializt consultants that can be asked to diagnose medical problems, analyze geological data, analyze the results of scientific experiments, and the like. Some of them are very impressive.
SRI in California announced a few years ago that PROSPECTOR, an SRI-developed expert system in geology, had correctly predicted the existence of a large, important mineral deposit that had been entirely unanticipated by the human geologists who had fed it its data. MYCIN, perhaps the most famous of these expert systems, diagnoses infections of the blood, and it does probably as well as, maybe better than, any human consultants. And many other expert systems are on the way.
All expert systems, like all other large AI programs, are what you might call Potemkin villages. That is, they are cleverly constructed facades, like cinema sets. The actual filling-in of details of AI programs is time-consuming, costly work, so economy dictates that only those surfaces of the phenomenon that are likely to be probed or observed are represented.
Consider, for example, the CYRUS program developed 6y Janet Kalodner in Roger Schenk’s AI group at Yale a few years ago.8 CYRUS stands (we are told) for “Computerized Yale Retrieval and Updating System,” but surely it is no accident that CYRUS modeled the memory of Cyrus Vance, who was then secretary of state in the Carter administration.
The paint of the CYRUS project was to devise and test some plausible ideas about how people organize their memories of the events they participate in. Hence, it was meant to be a “pure- AI system, a scientific model, not an expert system intended for any practical purpose. CYRUS was updated daily by being fed all UPI wire-service news stories that mentioned Vance, and it was fed them directly with no doctoring and no human intervention.
With an ingenious news-reading program called FRUMP, it could take any story just as it came in on the wire and could digest it and use it to update its database so that it could answer more questions. You could address questions to CYRUS in English by typing at a terminal. You addressed CYRUS in the second person, as you were talking with Cyrus Vance himself. The results looked like this:
Question: Last time you went to Saudi Arabia, where did you stay?
Answer: In a palace in Saudi Arabia on September 23, 1978.
Question: Did you go sightseeing there?
Answer: Yes, at an oilfield in Dharan on September 23, 1978.
Question: Has your we ever met Mrs. Begin?
Answer: Yes, most recently at a state dinner in Israel in January 1980.
CYRUS could correctly answer thousands of questions, almost any fair question one could think of asking it. But one actually set out to explore the boundaries of its facade and find the questions that overshot the mark, one could soon find them. “Have you ever met a female head of state?” was a question I asked it wondering CYRUS knew that Indira Ghandi and Margaret Thatcher were women.
But for some reason the connection could not be drawn, and CYRUS failed to answer either yes or no. I had stumped it, in spite of the fact that CYRUS could handle a host of what you might call neighboring questions flawlessly. One soon learns from this sort of probing exercise that it is very hard to extrapolate accurately from a sample performance to the system’s total competence. It’s also very hard to keep from extrapolating much too generously.
While I was visiting Schenk’s laboratory in the spring of 1980, something revealing happened. The real Cyrus Vance suddenly resigned. The effect on the program CYRUS was chaotic. It was utterly unable to cape with the flood of “unusual” news about Cyrus Vance. The only sorts of episodes CYRUS could understand at all were diplomatic meetings, flights, press conferences, state dinners, and the like–less than two dozen general sorts of activities (the kinds that are newsworthy and typical of secretaries of state). It had no provision for sudden resignation.
It was as if the UPI had reported that a wicked witch had turned Vance into a frog. It is distinctly possible that CYRUS would have taken that report more in stride than the actual news. One can imagine the conversation
Question: Hello, Mr. Vance, what’s new?
Answer: I was turned into a frog yesterday.
But, of course, it wouldn’t know enough about what it had just written to be puzzled, startled, or embarrassed. The reason is obvious. When you look inside CYRUS, you find that it has skeletal definitions of thousands of words, but these definitions are minimal. They contain as little as the system designers think that they can get away with.
Thus, perhaps, “lawyer” would be defined as synonymous with “attorney” and “legal counsel,” but aside from that, all one would discover about lawyers is that they are adult human beings and that they perform various functions in legal areas. you then traced out the path to “human being,” you’d find out various obvious things CYRUS “knew” about human beings (hence about lawyers/, but that is not a lot.
That lawyers are university graduates, that they are better paid than chambermaids, that they know how to tie their shoes, that they are unlikely to be found in the company of lumberjacks–these trivial, weird, facts about lawyers would not be explicit or implicit anywhere in this system.
In other words, a very thin stereotype of a lawyer would 6e incorporated into the system, so that almost nothing you could tell it about a lawyer would surprise it. So long as surprising things don’t happen, so long as Mr. Vance, for instance, leads a typical diplomat’s le, attending state dinners, giving speeches, flying from Cairo to Rome, and so forth, this system works very well.
But as soon as his path is crossed by an important anomaly, the system is unable to cape and unable to recover without fairly massive human intervention. In the case of the sudden resignation, Kolodner and her associates soon had CYRUS up and running again with a new talent–answering questions about Edmund Muskie, Vance’s successor. But it was no less vulnerable to unexpected events. Not that it mattered particularly, since CYRUS was a theoretical model, not a practical system.
There are a host of ways of improving the performance of such systems, and, of course, some systems are much better than others. But all AI programs in one way or another have this façade-like quality, simply for reasons of economy. For instance, most expert systems in medical diagnosis developed so far operate with statistical information. They have no deep or even shallow knowledge of the underlying causal mechanisms of the phenomena that they are diagnosing.
To take an imaginary example, an expert system asked to diagnose an abdominal pain would be oblivious to the potential import of the fact that the patient had recently been employed as a sparring partner by Mohammed Ali: there being no statistical data available to it on the rate of kidney stones among athlete’s assistants. That’s a fanciful case no doubt–too obvious, perhaps, to lead to an actual failure of diagnosis and practice. But more subtle and hard-to-detect limits to comprehension are always present, and even experts, even the system’s designers, can be uncertain of where and how these limits will interfere with the desired operation of the system.
Again, steps can be taken and are being taken to correct these flaws. For instance, my former colleague at Tufts, Benjamin Kuipers, is currently working on an expert system in nephrology for diagnosing kidney ailments that will be based on an elaborate system of causal reasoning about the phenomena being diagnosed. But this is a very ambitious, long-range project of considerable theoretical difficulty. And even all the reasonable, cost-effective steps are taken to minimize the superficiality of expert systems, they will still be facades, just somewhat thicker or wider facades.
When we were considering the fantastic case of the crazy Chamber of Commerce of Great Falls, Montana, we couldn’t imagine a plausible motive for anyone going to any sort of trouble to trick the Dennett test. The quick-probe assumption for the Dennett test looked quite secure. But when we look at expert systems, we see that, however innocently, their designers do have motivation for doing exactly the sort of trick that would fool an unsuspicious Turing tester.
First, since expert systems are all superspecializts that are only supposed to know about some narrow subject, users of such systems, not having much time to kill, do not bother probing them at the boundaries at all. They don’t bother asking “silly” or irrelevant questions. Instead, they concentrate, not unreasonably, on exploiting the system’s strengths. But shouldn’t they try to obtain a clear vision of such a system’s weaknesses as well? The normal habit of human thought when we converse with one another is to assume general comprehension, to assume rationality, to assume, moreover, that the quick-probe assumption is, in general, sound.
This amiable habit of thought almost irresistibly leads to putting too much faith in computer systems, especially user-friendly systems that present themselves in a very anthropomorphic manner.
Part of the solution to this problem is to teach all users of computers, especially users of expert systems, how to probe their systems before they rely on them, how to search out and explore the boundaries of the facade. This is an exercise that calls for not only intelligence and imagination but also for a bit of special understanding about the limitations and actual structure of computer programs. It would help, of course, if we had standards of truth in advertising, in effect, for expert systems.
For instance, each such system should come with a special demonstration routine that exhibits the sorts of shortcomings and failures that the designer knows the system to have. This would not be a substitute, however, for an attitude of cautious, almost obsessive, skepticism on the part of users, for designers are often, not always, unaware of the subtler flaws in the products they produce. That is inevitable and natural because of the way system designers must think. They are trained to think positively–constructively, one might say–about the designs that they are constructing.
I come, then, to my conclusions. First, a philosophical or theoretical conclusion: The Turing test, in unadulterated, unrestricted form as Turing presented it, is plenty strong well used. I am confident that no computer in the next twenty years in going to pass the unrestricted Turing test. They may well win the World Chess Championship or even a Nobel Prize in physics, but they won’t pass the unrestricted Turing test.
Nevertheless, it is not, I think, impossible in principle for a computer to pass the test fair and square. I’m not giving one of those a priori “computers can’t think” arguments. I stand unabashedly ready, moreover, to declare that any computer that actually passes the unrestricted Turing test will be, in every theoretically interesting sense, a thinking thing.
But remembering how very strong the Turing test is, we must also recognize that there may also be interesting varieties of thinking or intelligence that are not well poised to play and win the imitation game. That no nonhuman Turing test winners are yet visible on the horizon does not mean that there aren’t machines that already exhibit some of the important features of thought.
About them it is probably futile to ask my title question, Do they think? Do they really think? In some regards they do, and in some regards they don’t. Only a detailed look at what they do and how they are structured will reveal what is interesting about them.
The Turing test, not being a scientific test, is of scant help on that task, but there are plenty of other ways to examine such systems. Verdicts on their intelligence, capacity for thought, or consciousness will be only as informative and persuasive as the theories of intelligence, thought, or consciousness the verdicts were based on, and since our task is to create such theories, we should get on with it and leave the Big Verdict for another occasion. In the meantime, should anyone want a surefire test of thinking by a computer that is almost guaranteed to be fail-safe, the Turing test will do very nicely.
My second conclusion is more practical and hence in one clear sense more important. Cheapened versions of the Turing test are everywhere in the air. Turing’s test is not just effective, it is entirely natural; this is, after all, the way we assay the intelligence of each other every day.
And since incautious use of such judgments and such tests is the norm, we are in some considerable danger of extrapolating too easily and judging too generously about the understanding of the systems we are using. The problem of overestimating cognitive prowess, comprehension, and intelligence is not, then, just a philosophical problem. It is a real social problem, and we should alert ourselves to it and take steps to avert it.
Postscript: Eyes, Ears, Hands, and History
My philosophical conclusion in this paper is that any computer that actually passed the Turing test would be a thinker in every theoretically interesting sense. This conclusion seems to some people to fly in the face of what I have myself argued on other occasions. Peter Bieri, commenting on this paper at Boston University, noted that I have often claimed to show the importance to genuine understanding of a rich and intimate perceptual interconnection between an entity and its surrounding world–the need for something like eyes and ears–and a similarly complex active engagement with elements in that world–the need for something like hands with which to do things in that world. Moreover,
I have often held that only a biography of sorts–a history of actual projects, learning experiences, and other bouts with reality–could produce the sorts of complexities (both external, or behavioral, and internal) that are needed to ground a principled interpretation of an entity as a thinker, an entity with beliefs, desires, intentions, and other mental attitudes.
But the opaque screen in the Turing test discounts or dismisses these factors altogether, it seems, by focusing attention on only the contemporaneous capacity to engage in one very limited sort of activity: verbal communication. (I have even coined a pejorative label for such purely language-using systems: “bedridden.”)
Am I going back on my earlier claims? Not at all. I am merely pointing out that the Turing test is so powerful that it will indirectly ensure that these conditions, they are truly necessary, are met by any successful contestant.
“You may well be right,” Turing could say, “that eyes, ears, hands, and a history are necessary conditions for thinking. so, then I submit that nothing could pass the Turing test that didn’t have eyes, ears, hands, and a history. That is an empirical claim, which we can someday hope to test. you suggest that these are not just practically or physically necessary but conceptually necessary conditions for thinking, you make a philosophical claim that I for one would not know how, or care, to assess. Isn’t it more interesting and important in the end to discover whether or not it is true that no bedridden system could pass a demanding Turing test?”
Suppose we put to Turing the suggestion that he add another component to his test: Not only must an entity win the imitation game; it must also be able to identify–using whatever sensory apparatus it has available to it–a variety of familiar objects placed in its room: a tennis racket, a potted palm, a bucket of yellow paint, a live dog. This would ensure that somehow or other the entity was capable of moving around and distinguishing things in the world.
Turing could reply, I assert, that this is an utterly unnecessary addition to his test, making it no more demanding than it already was. A suitably probing conversation would surely establish beyond a shadow of a doubt that the contestant knew its way around in the real world. The imagined alternative of somehow “prestocking” a bedridden, blind computer with enough information and a clever enough program to trick the Turing test is science fiction of the worst kind: possible “in principle” but not remotely possible in fact in view of the combinatorial explosion of possible variation such a system would have to cope with.
“But suppose you’re wrong. What would you say of an entity that was created all at once (by some programmers, perhaps), an instant individual with all the conversational talents of an embodied, experienced human being?” This is like the question, Would you call a hunk of H20 that was as hard as steel at room temperature ice? I do not know what Turing would say, of course, so I will speak for myself.
Faced with such an improbable violation of what 1 take to be the laws of nature, I would probably be speechless. The least of my worries would 6e about which lexicographical leap to take, whether to say, “it turns out, to my amazement, that something can think without having had the benefit of eyes, ears, hands, and a history” or “it turns out, to my amazement, that something can pass the Turing test without thinking.” Choosing between these ways of expressing my astonishment would be asking myself a question too meaningless to deserve discussion.
Question: Why was Turing interested in differentiating a man from a woman in his famous test?
Answer: That was just an example. He described a parlor game in which a man would try to fool the judge by answering questions as a woman would answer. l suppose that Turing was playing on the idea that maybe, just maybe, there is a big difference between the way men think and the way women think. But of course they’re both thinkers. He wanted to use that fact to make us realize that, even there were clear differences between the way a computer and a person thought, they’d both still be thinking.
Question: Why does it seem that some people are upset by AI research? Does AI research threaten our self-esteem?
Answer: I think Herb Simon has already given the canniest diagnosis of that. For many people the mind is the last refuge of mystery against the encroaching spread of science, and they don’t like the idea of science engulfing the last hit of terra incognito. This means that they are threatened, I think irrationally, by the prospect that researchers in artificial intelligence may come to understand the human mind as well as biologists understand the genetic code and physicists understand electricity and magnetism. This could lead to the “evil scientist” (to take a stock character from science fiction) who can control you because he or she has a deep understanding of what’s going on in your mind.
This seems to me to be a totally valueless fear, one that you can set aside for the simple reason that the human mind is full of an extraordinary amount of detailed knowledge, as Roger Schenk, for example, has been pointing out. As long as the scientist who is attempting to manipulate you does not share all your knowledge, his or her chances of manipulating you are minimal. People can always hit you over the head. They can do that now. We don’t need artificial intelligence to manipulate people by putting them in chains or torturing them. But someone tries to manipulate you by controlling your thoughts and ideas, that person will have to know what you know and more. The best way to keep yourself safe from that kind of manipulation is to be well informed.
Question: Do you think we will be able to program self-consciousness into a computer?
Answer: Yes, I do think that it’s possible to program self-consciousness into a computer. “Self-consciousness” can mean many things. you take the simplest, crudest notion of self-consciousness, I suppose that would be the sort of self-consciousness that a lobster has: When it’s hungry, it eats something, but it never eats itself. It has some way of distinguishing between itself and the rest of the world, and it has a rather special regard for itself. The lowly lobster is, in one regard, self-conscious.
You want to know whether or not you can create that on the computer, the answer is yes. It’s no trouble at all. The computer is already a self-watching, self-monitoring sort of thing. That is an established part of the technology. But, of course, most people have something more in mind when they speak of self-consciousness. It is that special inner light, that private way that it is with you that nobody else can share, something that is forever outside the bounds of computer science.
How could a computer ever be conscious in this sense? That belief, that very gripping, powerful intuition, is in the end, I think, simply an illusion of common sense. It is as gripping as the commonsense illusion that the earth stands still and the sun goes around the earth. But the only way that those of us who do not believe in the illusion will ever convince the general public that it is an illusion is by gradually unfolding a very difficult and fascinating story about just what is going on in our minds.
In the interim, people like me, philosophers who have to live by our wits and tell a lot of stories use what I call intuition pumps, little examples that help to free up the imagination. I simply want to draw your attention to one fact.
You look at a computer, I don’t care whether it’s a giant Cray or a personal computer, you open up the box and look inside and see those chips, you say, “No way could that be conscious. No way could that be self-conscious.” But the same thing is true if you take the top off somebody’s skull and look at the gray matter pulsing away in there. You think, “That is conscious? No way could that lump of stuff be conscious.” Of course, it makes no difference whether you look at it with a microscope or with the naked eye.
At no level of inspection does a brain look like the seat of consciousness. Therefore, don’t expect a computer to look like the seat of consciousness. You want to get a grasp of how a computer could be conscious, it’s no more difficult in the end than getting a grasp of how a brain could be conscious. When we develop good accounts of consciousness, it will no longer seem so obvious to everyone that the idea of a self-conscious computer is a contradiction in terms. At the same time, I doubt that there will ever be self-conscious robots, but for boring reasons. There won’t be any point in making them.
Theoretically, could we make a gall bladder out of atoms? In principle, we could. A gall bladder is just a collection of atoms, but manufacturing one would cost the moon. It would be more expensive than every project NASA has ever dreamed of, and there would be no scientific payoff. We wouldn’t learn anything new about how gall bladders work.
For the same reason I don’t think we’re going to see really humanoid robots, because practical, cost-effective robots don’t need to be very humanoid at all. They need to be like the robots you can already see at General Motors, or like boxy little computers that do special-purpose things.
The theoretical issues will be studied by AI researchers looking at models that, to the layman, will show very little sign of humanity at all, and it will be only by rather indirect arguments that anyone will be able to appreciate that these models cast light on the deep theoretical question of how the mind is organized.
1. Alan M. Turing, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” Mind 59 (1950).
2. Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method (1637), trans. Lawrence LaFleur (New York: Bobbs-Merrill,1960).
3. Terry Winograd, Understanding Natural Language (New York: Academic Press, 1972).
4. Ned Block, “Psychologism and Behaviorism, Philosophical Review, 1982.
5. John Haugeland, Mind Design (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1981), p. 16.
6. Joseph Weizenbaum, CACM17, no. 9 (September 1974): 543.
7. I thank Kenneth Colby for providing me with the complete transcripts (including the judges’ commentaries and reactions) from which these exchanges are quoted. The first published account of the experiment is Jon F. Raiser, Kenneth Mark Colby, William S. Faught, and Roger C. Parkinson, “Can Psychiatrists Distinguish a Computer Simulation of Paranoia from the Real Thing? The Limitations of Turing-like Tests as Measures of the Adequacy of Simulations,” in Journal of Psychiatric Research 15, no. 3 (1980):149-162. Colby discusses PARRY and its implications in “Modeling a Paranoid Mind,” in Behavioral and Brain Sciences 4, no. 4 (1981): 515-560.
Courtesy of Tufts University
Daniel Dennett is Distinguished Arts and Science Professor and Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He is the author or editor of a number of books on cognitive science and the philosophy of mind, including The Mind’s I, coedited with Douglans Hofstadter (1981); Elbow Room (1984); and The Intentiional Stance (1987). | <urn:uuid:0e08558c-6cd7-4912-939c-3c722c731da4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-age-of-intelligent-machines-can-machines-think-3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396222.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00164-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967957 | 12,356 | 2.75 | 3 |
IMPORTANT KITCHEN HERBS
There are hundreds of varieties of herbs to grow and enjoy, but only about fifteen varieties are regularly used in most kitchens.ANGELICA
Considered a biennial because it usually flowers, goes to seed, and dies in its second year. However, it sometimes takes three or four years to flower.
The plant is majestic, with large, light green, serrated-edged leaves and thick, hollow stalks. Early in the summer, angelica blossoms with huge clusters of white flowers.
Culture: prefers rich, moist soil in a partially shady location. Be sure to plant it in the back of the garden as it often reaches five or six feet in height.
Propagation: by fresh, viable seed. Once a planting is established, it will re-seed itself. Harvest the leaves and stems early in the season while they are still tender and colorful.
Uses: as an aromatic used to flavor liqueurs and wines. The candied stems decorate many fancy pastries. The tips and stalks may be cooked with tart fruit to impart a natural sweetness.
History: Angelica blooms in its native Lapland on the eighth of May, the feast day of Michael the Archangel. Legend has it that the angel proclaimed angelica a cure for the plague.BASIL
Basil is a tender annual, very sensitive to frost. It is easily propagated by seed sown directly in the garden after the soil has warmed up. Basil likes a soil rich in organic matter and thrives on an extra dose of compost. Plant it in full sun and be sure to water it weekly in dry weather.
Culture: This fast-growing plant reaches about two feet in height and has large, egg-shaped leaves that curl inward. In midsummer, small spikes of white flowers shoot up from each stalk. Pinching out the blooms, or the tips of each stem before they flower, will make the plant bushy. The leaves can be harvested throughout the summer from the growing plant.
There is a "Dark Opal," or purple, variety of basil that beautifully offsets the greens and the grays of the kitchen herb garden. It also imparts a rich magenta color to white vinegar.
Propagation: Collect seed when flower heads have dried on the plant;.
Uses: Basil has a pungent flavor that superbly complements all types of tomato dishes. Pesto, a green sauce served on pasta, is made from ground basil leaves, garlic, olive oil, nuts, and cheese. To dry basil, harvest just before it blooms. Hang, screen dry, or freeze.
History: In its native India, basil is a sacred plant, and its culture supposedly brings happiness to the household. In Italy, a gift bouquet of basil is a sign of romance.CATNIP
A member of the mint family, this herb is a feline favorite. Cats love to roll in it, rub on it, chew it, play with it, and otherwise hamper the growth of your patch. But to watch them frolic is sheer delight.
The plant is a hardy perennial growing about two to three feet tall. Fragrant, velvety, gray green, heart-shaped leaves on squarish stems are characteristic of the plant. Pink flowers bloom off the terminal ends of the shoots from midsummer on. If you keep the flowers pinched off, the plants will be bushier.
Propagation: by seed or root divisions.
Uses: Cut catnip just before the flowers open and hang to dry. Store in airtight containers to preserve the volatile oils. Sew little cloth pillows or fancy mice and stuff with the crushed herb. These make wonderful gifts.CHIVES
The plant is a hardy perennial, reaching twelve to eighteen inches in height. The leaves dark green, hollow spears poke up through the soil in early spring, almost before anything else. Mauve blue flower balls bloom on hard, green tendrils from midsummer on. These should be cut to keep the plant growing but can be left later in the season to keep foraging bees happy.
Culture: Chives prefer full sun, rich soil, and plentiful water. Mulching around the plants is helpful to keep competitive weeds and grasses at bay.
Propagation: by seeds or root divisions. A small plant will quickly enlarge and should be divided every three or four years to keep the plant healthy. Simply cut through the plant with a shovel or sharp knife in the early spring, allowing at least ten small, white bulbous roots per new clump. Set the divisions ten inches apart.
Uses: Harvest chives as soon as the spears are a few inches long. Snipping out entire spears encourages tender new growth. Chives do not dry well. Freeze for winter use. The delicate onion flavor of chives is used extensively in cooking. Chives can be added to omelets, soups, cheeses, salads, or fish. Sour cream and chives fattens up many a baked potato.
History: Chives are native to the East, and for centuries they were used to ward off evil and promote psychic powers.DILL
Dill is a hardy annual that closely resembles fennel. However, it usually develops only one round, hollow main stem per root, and the feathery branches are a bluish green. Yellow flowers bloom in clusters of showy umbels. The dill seeds are dark brown, ridged, and strongly flavored. Dill grows two to three feet tall and can be planted in groupings to keep the plants supported in windy weather.
Culture: It does best in full sun in sandy or loamy, well-drained soil that has a slightly acid pH (5.8 to 6.5). Enrich your soil with compost or well-rotted manure for best dill growth. Once you have grown dill, it will re-seed in the following years.
Propagation: By seed sown directly in the garden.
Uses: Dill weed and dill seed are both used in cooking; the weed is mild and the seeds are pungent. Dill weed can be harvested at any time, but the volatile oils are highest just before flowering. It adds a delicate flavor to salads, vegetable casseroles, and soups. The seed heads should be cut when the majority of seeds have formed, even though some flowers may still be blooming. Whole dill heads look striking in jars of homemade pickles and flavored vinegar. Dill seeds add zest to breads, cheeses, and salad dressing. The seeds may be threshed from the heads after drying.
History: Dill has been used in the culinary arts for centuries.FENNEL
There are two types of fennel grown: the herb fennel, grown for its leaves and seeds, and Florence fennel, grown primarily for its bulbous leaf stalks.
Herb fennel is a hardy biennial that often becomes a perennial in favorable climates. The plant reaches three to four feet tall and has thick, shiny green, hollow stalks; feathery branches; yellow flowers that bloom on showy umbels; and sweetly flavored, ridged seeds.
Culture: Fennel prefers a rich, well-drained soil in full sun. Add lime if the pH is below 6.0. Propagate by seed in the early spring to give it sufficient time to flower and go to seed. The leaves should be harvested just before the plant flowers. Fennel is closely related to dill and the two should not be interplanted because they may cross-pollinate, resulting in dilly fennel or fennelly dill
Uses: Fennel is favored in all types of fish cookery and is often used to flavor sauerkraut.MARJORAM
Majorana hortensis or Origanum majorana
Marjoram is a tender perennial native to the warm Mediterranean. In colder climates, it is grown as an annual. The plant reaches eight to twelve inches in height and has short, branched, squarish stems. The small, oval leaves are grayish green and covered with a fuzzy down. Little balls or knots grow out of the leaf clusters and the end of the branches in the midsummer. From these, white or pink flowers emerge.
Culture: Marjoram thrives in a light, rich soil in full sun. It prefers a neutral pH. Since it has a shallow root system, mulching around the plant helps to retain soil moisture and keep the weeds down.
Propagation: Marjoram seeds can be sown directly in the garden after the soil has warmed up. Germination is slow - usually about two weeks. Keep the seedbed moist until the plants have sprouted. Marjoram can also be started from cuttings, layering, or division. Set transplants about a foot apart.
Uses: Marjoram is highly aromatic and its flavor improves with drying. Harvest just before the flowers open. Marjoram is traditionally used in sausages and stuffing's.
History: Throughout history, marjoram has symbolized sweetness, happiness, and well-being. Shakespeare called it the "herb of grace."MINT
Peppermint, spearmint, apple mint, and curly mint are but a few varieties of the fragrant mints used in gum, jelly, and liqueur.
Mints are hardy perennials often attaining three feet in height. They are notorious spreaders and will invade the surrounding garden territory if they are not confined. Mint is known by its squarish stems and its tooth-edged leaves. Clusters of white or purple flowers bloom off the terminal ends of the shoots.
Culture: They prefer a moist, rich soil and will do well in full sun to partial shade.
Propagation: By seed or divisions. Older mint plantings can be divided up every four or five years. Separate the roots into foot-sized clumps with a sharp shovel. These divisions are a nice present for a gardening friend.
Uses: The leaves may be harvested and enjoyed fresh throughout the summer. To dry mint, cut the stalks just above the first set of leaves, as soon as the flower buds appear. Hang to dry for ten to fourteen days. Mint jelly is a favorite accompaniment to lamb roasts and chops. Minted peas are a summertime treat.OREGANO
Some confusion has arisen about the relationship between oregano and marjoram. They are close relatives and oregano is often called wild marjoram.
Oregano is a hardy perennial growing eighteen to thirty inches tall. The oval, grayish green, hairy leaves grow out from the nodes. White or pink flowers make their showing in the fall.
Culture: The plant does best in a well-drained, sandy loam soil. If the pH is below 6.0, add lime before you set out the plants; oregano likes a sweet soil and a plentiful supply of calcium. Oregano thrives in full sun in a location sheltered from high winds. Mulch over the plant if winters are severe.
Propagation: Oregano may be propagated by seed, divisions, or cuttings. Because the seeds are slow to germinate, you will get best garden results by setting out young plants spaced fifteen inches apart.
Uses: Oregano's fame bubbles from the flavor it imparts to pizza and other Italian specialties. To dry oregano, cut the stems an inch from the ground in the fall, just before the flowers open. Hang to dry.PARSLEY
Parsley is a hardy biennial, often grown as an annual. There are two main types of parsley: the Italian flat-leaved and the French curly.
During the first growing season, the plant develops many dark green leaves that are grouped in bunches at the end of long stems. Italian parsley leaves are flat and fernlike; French parsley leaves are tightly curled. Umbels of yellow flowers are borne on long stalks. The plant reaches twelve to eighteen inches in height.
Culture: Parsley thrives in rich soil, endowed with plentiful organic matter. it prefers full sun for optimum growth, but it will survive in partial shade.Propagation: Parsley can be planted from seed sown directly in the garden. However, since it takes three to four weeks to germinate, it is often more reliable to set out young plants. Space parsley transplants about eight to ten inches apart.
Uses: Parsley can be picked fresh throughout the season. To preserve for winter use, cut the leaves in the fall and dry or freeze them. Parsley is a popular kitchen herb, found with the fanciest steak or the most common stew. It is a rich source of many vitamins and minerals, including vitamins A, B, and C; calcium; iron; and phosphorus.
History: The Greeks believed that Hercules adorned himself with parsley, so it became the symbol of strength and vigor. Parsley was also associated with witchcraft and the underworld; it was never transplanted because this supposedly brought misfortune to the household.ROSEMARY
The perennial evergreen shrub grows two to six feet high, depending on the climate. It has woody stems, bearing thin, needlelike leaves that are shiny green on the upper surface and a powdery, muted green on the under surface. Blue flowers bloom on the tips of the branches in the spring.
Culture: Rosemary is a tender plant and must be sheltered or taken indoors for the winter in northern latitudes. It thrives best in a warm climate and prefers a well-drained, alkaline soil. Apply lime or wood ashes to acid soils testing below pH 6.5.
Propagation: Rosemary is usually started from cuttings or root divisions because seed germination is slow and poor. This herb is a good candidate for container growing, allowing you to move it into protected quarters for the winter.
Uses: Harvest any time for fresh use. Hang to dry for winter supply. Rosemary is a highly aromatic herb often used to flavor mea dishes. Use only a few needles per pot as the taste is overpowering
History: Rosemary has been called the "herb of remembrance." This title may date back to the Greeks who used it to strengthen the memory. It has appeared in religious ceremonies, particularly weddings and funerals, to symbolize remembrance and fidelity.SAGE
Sage is a hardy perennial, native to the Mediterranean. It grows two feet or so in height and has velvety, textured, patterned, grayish green leaves. The stems become woody as the plant matures and should be pruned out to keep the plant producing. Lavender flower spikes bloom in the fall.
Culture: Sage prefers a well-drained soil in full sunlight. Enrich the soil with compost before planting, and add lime if the pH is below 5.8. Water well while the plants are young.
Propagation: Sage can be started from seed, cuttings, or divisions. Since the plant takes a long time to mature, transplants are usually set out. Space the plants two feet apart.
Uses: Harvest sparingly the first season and increase your quota yearly. The leaves can be picked any time; but it is recommended that two crops a year, one in June and another in the fall, be harvested to keep the plants less woody. Hang to dry in small bunches. The flavor of sage is recognizable in stuffing's. It especially complements heavy meats and game. Its flavor may overpower lighter herbs.
History: Although it is a prized culinary herb today, during past centuries sage was mainly cultivated as a medicinal herb. The name Sal-via comes from the Latin, salvere, meaning "to save," and it was believed that drinking a strong sage tea improved health and prolonged life. Needless to say, it was found in every herb garden.SAVORY
Satureia hortensis (summer)
Satureia montana (winter)
Of the two savories grown for kitchen use, the summer variety is the mild annual and the winter is the sharper-flavored perennial.
Both savories have narrow, pointed, dark green leaves that grow out of the nodes. Small branches often arise just above the leaves. Lavender or pink flowers bloom in the late summer. Winter savory grows eight to ten inches tall; summer savory is slightly taller. Since they are small plants, the savories are good for container growing.
Culture: The savories prefer a somewhat dry soil and will survive even where the land is not too fertile. For the best flavor, plant them in full sun.
Propagation: Summer savory is planted from seed sown directly in the garden in the early spring. Winter savory is propagated by cuttings or divisions. Space both varieties twelve inches apart.
Uses: To harvest for winter use, cut the stems in the fall, just before the flowers bloom. Cut winter savory sparingly. Summer savory can be pulled out of the ground, since it will die anyway after one season. Hang to dry. These herbs are notably associated with bean dishes, ranging from soups to casseroles. Savory is also an ingredient of bouquet garni.TARRAGON
Tarragon has a high standing, especially in French cuisine where it lends itself to be'arnaise sauce and les fines herbes (a French herb blend).
Tarragon is a perennial plant, the best varieties coming from the European countries. The Russian variety is weedy and lacks the essential oils. One way to distinguish between varieties is this: the Russian tarragon produces viable seed, the European rarely does.
Culture: Tarragon prospers infertile soil with plentiful water and sunlight. It is advisable to mulch over the roots in the late fall to protect the plant from winter injury. Since tarragon becomes a rather large plant, it is often divided up every three or four years to make it easier to manage.
Tarragon grows two to three feet tall and tends to sprawl out late in the season. The long, narrow leaves, borne on upright stalks, are a shiny, dark green. Greenish or gray flowers may bloom in the fall.
Propagation: Since it rarely sets seed, tarragon should be propagated by cuttings or divisions.
Uses: This herb may be harvested throughout the summer. To dry for winter use, cut the stalks a few inches from the ground in the early fall. Hang or screen dry.
Native to the Mediterranean, this aromatic, perennial herb has many well-known varieties including: lemon thyme, creeping thyme, and garden or common thyme. It is a favorite plant of bees.
Thyme is a short plant, only about eight to ten inches tall. The leaves are small and narrowly oval, usually a dull grayish green. The stems become woody after a few years. Pink or violet flowers arise from the leaf axils in the early fall.
Culture: Thyme flourishes in sandy, dry soils in full sun. It is an excellent candidate for rock gardens.
Propagation: Propagate thyme by seeds, divisions, or cuttings. The seeds are slow to germinate, so it is best to set out transplants. Space thyme fifteen inches apart. Older, woody plants can be rejuvenated by digging up the plant and dividing it in the early spring. Fertilize with compost or seaweed.
Uses: The leaves can be harvested for fresh use throughout the summer. To dry thyme, cut the stems just as the flowers start to open. Hang to dry in small bunches. Harvest sparingly the first year. Thyme is one of the three essential herbs used in poultry stuffing's; the other two are parsley and sage. | <urn:uuid:6b4deac4-3d5e-4658-981b-3de39040cfa5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.angelfire.com/ga/earthwise/importantkitchenherbs.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00148-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941157 | 4,203 | 2.875 | 3 |
In the late 19th century Europe’s chemical industry spread globally, bringing new products and industries—from photography, artificial silk manufacture, and gunpowder, to art nouveau products, underground electric cables, celluloid, and plastic manufactures—to relatively isolated regions.
Ian Inkster will examine how this new chemistry upset the social and political balance in non-Western locations, such as Formosa (present-day Taiwan) and Japan. He will also argue that these global impacts could have been rendered either insignificant or positive by the very chemistry that created them.
About the Event
This talk is a part of the 2014 Gordon Cain Conference, “Chemical Reactions: Chemistry and Global History.” The conference, organized by Lissa Roberts (University of Twente), will also include a closed workshop that is intended to produce papers for an edited volume (view the full conference abstract here).
For more information, please contact Rebecca Ortenberg, program assistant, at 215.873.8247, or email@example.com.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Ian Inkster: “Global Commodities as Connectivities: Chemistry in Birmingham and Camphor Wars in Formosa, 1860s–1914”
About the Keynote
This talk will consider two main themes. How it was that an urban-based chemical program spread at a global level under the force of a conjuncture of specific sites of local knowledge, academic research, and intellectual property into the heart of a series of new industries associated with Europe in the later 19th century—from photography and artificial silk manufacture to gunpowder, craft, and art nouveau products (in this case chemistry replaced such expensive material as ivory or marble or mother-of-pearl), underground electric cables, and the even more important broad emergence of celluloid and plastic manufactures.
Secondly, it will analyse how this new chemistry directly impacted on the politicisation of frontier warfare in Formosa from the 1860s, escalating with the colonial invasion of Japan in the mid-1890s. This second task is designed to show how high-tech chemistry could, unbeknown to any of its agents in the ‘West,’ and at the behest of no one evil-doer, radically upset the frontiers and checks and balances of non-Western ethnicities in relatively isolated locations of the world. Colonialism was a matter of commerce and useful knowledge in alliance with a process of cultural ‘othering,’ which in the hands of Anglophone interests and Japanese colonial imperatives altered forever the entire history of a crucial part of maritime China at a time of its cultural degradation and commercial dismemberment.
Finally, it will be shown that such global connectivities or impacts might have been rendered either insignificant or turned to more positive account by the very chemistry that had created them in the first place. Chemical work from the first World War allowed the production of plastic material and product to be freed from its dependency upon several raw materials. If such work had come earlier, political disaster in Formosa might well have been avoided.
Ian Inkster is professorial research associate in the Taiwan Studies Centre of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and professor of global cultural history at the Wenzao University of Foreign Languages, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Previously he was research professor of international history at Nottingham Trent University. His original training was in economics, and he spent many years teaching economic history in Australia, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. His research is based on global approaches to the history of science, technology, and industrialization, and in the United States his best-known books are The Japanese Industrial Economy: Late Development and Cultural Causation (Routledge, 2001); Japanese Industrialisation: Historical and Cultural Perspectives (Routledge, 2001); Technology and Industrialisation: Historical Case Studies and International Perspectives (Ashgate, 1998); and Science and Technology in History, An Approach to Industrialisation (Macmillan and Rutgers University Press, 1991). Inkster has been editor of the London-based journal History of Technology since 2000.
Lissa Roberts is a professor of long-term development of science and technology in the Department of Science, Technology, and Policy Studies, University of Twente, the Netherlands. She has an extensive research and publication background in the history of chemistry and has spent the last several years exploring the historically claimed relations and practical interactions between science and technology, material and knowledge production, and science and global history. This work has led to a number of publications, including The Mindful Hand: Inquiry and Invention from the Late Renaissance to Early Industrialisation (with Simon Schaffer and Peter Dear, University of Chicago Press, 2007); The Brokered World: Go-Betweens and Global Intelligence, 1770−1820 (with Simon Schaffer, Kapil Raj, and James Delbourgo, Science History Publications, 2009); Situating Science in Global History: Local Exchanges and Networks of Circulation (special issue of Itinerario, 2009); and Centers and Cycles of Accumulation in and around the Netherlands (LIT Verlag, 2011).
The Cain Conference is an annual conference intended to foster discussions about the intersections of scholarly historical knowledge and practical information, discussions that have a bearing on contemporary culture. It is supported by a generous gift from Gordon Cain and is hosted by the Chemical Heritage Foundation. | <urn:uuid:e18badd1-3e37-42d3-a1fe-1c69e042d484> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.chemheritage.org/visit/events/public-events/2014-04-10-gordon-cain-conference-public-lecture.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408828.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00023-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921585 | 1,112 | 2.796875 | 3 |
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