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Sea Trout Conservation
Under fisheries legislation Sea Trout have the same legal status as Salmon, and DSFBs are also responsible for their protection and enhancement. Sea Trout in the River Spey – and Brown Trout, which are part of the same family – are poorly understood and often overlooked. However, catch statistics show that the Spey Sea Trout rod fishery has been one of the largest in the UK, with a 10 year (1992-2001) average annual catch of 4,590. By comparison, only the Rivers Tywi and Teifi in Wales have caught more fish. A graph showing the Spey sea trout rod catch for the period 1952 to 2011 can be seen here.
An International Sea Trout Symposium in 2004 made the following key points, which are still valid today:
Sea Trout are the sea-running form of Brown Trout;
Sea Trout and Brown Trout interbreed;
The majority of Sea Trout are female;
Unlike Salmon, Sea Trout can return to spawn up to 10 times;
Because of their large size, female Sea Trout provide most of the Trout eggs laid in a river;
Genetic studies show that larger, longer-lived Sea Trout produce young that are also likely to grow large;
Finnock are Sea Trout in their first year after leaving the river as smolts;
Some Finnock enter rivers in the summer/autumn, and some of these breed;
Interbreeding with stocked ‘domestic’ Trout may interfere with Sea Trout genetics;
Sea Trout and Brown Trout should be managed jointly;
Since Sea Trout are largely coastal; they are barometers of the health of the local marine environment.
Because Sea Trout catches have not been as prolific as in the early 1990s, the Spey Fishery Board has maintained a precautionary approach and assumed that this trend is indicative of reduced Sea Trout abundance. While the causes of this trend are still not known, the Spey Fishery Board introduced a Sea Trout Conservation Policy for the Spey rod fishery in 2004. In consultation with proprietors, angling associations and the Spey ghillies, the policy was designed to encourage catch and release of Finnock and larger adult Sea Trout.
2009 saw the rate of catch and release increase to 62%, up from 61% in 2008, 53% in 2007, 49% in 2006 and 43% in 2005. In 2004 it had only been 21%. Whilst the overall upward trend is commendable, the Spey Fishery Board has become increasingly concerned by the fall in the numbers of Sea Trout being caught. In August 2008 the Spey Research Committee reviewed the Sea Trout Conservation Policy in light of the reduced catch and recommended to the Board that the Policy be enhanced. These recommendations were unanimously supported by the Board and a revised Sea Trout Conservation Policy was adopted for 2009 which remains for 2010 and is as follows:
Spey Fishery Board Sea Trout Conservation Policy
1. Finnock: Release all fish of 16 oz. / 35 cm / 14” or less
2. Sea Trout: Release all fish of 3 lb. / 50 cm / 20” or more
3. Bag Limit: 1 Sea Trout of takeable size per calendar day. Anglers are also encouraged to release their first fish and take the second of takeable size.
4. Unseasonable Fish: Release all unseasonable fish.
The Spey Fishery Board has continued to work hard throughout 2009 to promote a better understanding of the policy and the reasons for the changes, in order to encourage the continued compliance from all. The aim has been to explain that Sea Trout numbers continue to be in decline and, whilst we have sport today, this might not be the case in the future unless active participation in the voluntary conservation measures remains. The Spey Fishery Board will continue to monitor the situation throughout 2010.
The decline in Sea Trout numbers in recent years has been reflected in their numbers from most rivers throughout the Moray Firth and widespread concern about this has led to the creation of the Moray Firth Sea Trout Project which employed Marcus Walters in 2008 for three years to conduct research around all rivers throughout the Moray Firth, examining possible reasons behind the decline and formulating management plans to try to redress the situation. This project was superceded by the Moray Firth Trout Initiative in 2012 which is a partenership project, working with local Fisheries Trusts, District Salmon Fishery Boards and Community anging Associations to protect this species through environmental education and the conservation of trout populations and their habitat. More information can be found here: www.morayfirthtrout.org | <urn:uuid:a00180e7-3365-4624-9336-8089eba7ec5f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.speyfisheryboard.com/sea-trout-information/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398075.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00071-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95024 | 943 | 3.25 | 3 |
Truck drivers face a disproportionately high risk for fatal crash-related injuries and for serious health disorders. The 2004 fatality rate for U.S. heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers was 48.2 per 100,000 workers, approximately 11 times the rate for the general worker population. The Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses estimated 63,570 non-fatal injuries among heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers in 2004—the second highest number among all occupations.
We know this industry faces a high risk of illness and injury but the prevalence of specific health problems, and the relative contributions of occupation and health behaviors to the increased risk of injury and illness, is largely unknown. Some research associates the risk of crash-related deaths with job-related fatigue. Other studies suggest that the risks of cancer, heart attacks, and other disorders may be associated with aspects of long-haul driving such as loading and unloading cargo, irregular schedules, long hours of driving, a sedentary lifestyle, and the nature of drivers’ food choices on the road.
To help address these research gaps and better understand the risks faced by truck drivers, NIOSH is undertaking a national survey of truck driver safety and health. The survey, which grew out of stakeholder identified needs, will focus specifically on gathering baseline safety and health information among a large, representative national sample of truck drivers. We are seeking comment on the content and conduct of the survey through January 2, 2008. A proposed sample plan can be found on the NIOSH Documents for Public Review page. We propose to conduct the survey at 40 truck stops across the U.S., involving both owner-operators as well as company drivers.
The primary research questions for NIOSH are:
- Is the prevalence of health conditions and sleep disorders greater in the truck driver population than in the general population?
- How are drivers’ working conditions associated with health status and behaviors?
- Are sleep disorders, fatigue, and the working environment contributors to poor health outcomes, highway crashes and injuries?
- What are the risk factors, job tasks/exposures, and the short- and long-term effects of work-related injuries sustained by truck drivers?
We value your input and urge you to assist us in developing this important survey. In addition to posting comments on the blog, please submit formal comments to the NIOSH Docket. This extra step is important as we do not request or post contact information on the blog.
For more information on NIOSH research in this area visit the transportation, warehousing and utilities sector program portfolio.
Thank you for your assistance,
W. Karl Sieber, Ph.D.
Karl Sieber is a NIOSH Research Health Scientist with the Surveillance Branch of the Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies. He has worked in survey design and analysis and has developed approaches to collect hazard surveillance data including the collection of occupational exposure data in the indoor environment and from metalworking fluids. | <urn:uuid:8c237d61-3d69-4f78-bd35-0d163db40db2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blogs.cdc.gov/niosh-science-blog/2007/11/19/truck/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397696.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00193-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937636 | 608 | 2.609375 | 3 |
The Serbs targeted Bosniak and Croatian civilians in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. The war in Bosnia claimed the lives of an estimated 100,000 people and displaced more than two million.
The height of the killing took place in July 1995 when 8,000 Bosniaks were killed in what became known as the Srebrenica genocide, the largest massacre in Europe after the Holocaust.
Precursors to Genocide
The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was formed at the end of World War II, comprised of Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, and Macedonia with numerous ethnic groups making up the population. This included Orthodox Christian Serbs, Muslim Bosniaks, Catholic Croats, and Muslim ethnic Albanians.
Tensions in the Balkans were common, but once President Josip Broz Tito came to power in 1943, he ruled with an iron fist and was typically able to keep them in check through a dictatorship. Though he was considered to be a “benevolent dictator” and at times quite ruthless, Tito’s efforts ensured that no ethnic group dominated the country, banning political mobilization and seeking to create a unified Yugoslav identity. However, after his death in 1980, the order he imposed began to unravel.
The various ethnic groups and republics inside Yugoslavia sought independence, and as the end of the Cold War neared, the country spiraled out of control. Serb nationalism was fueled as Slobodan Milosevic rose to power in 1987. Milosevic used nationalist feelings to his advantage, making changes to the constitution favoring Serbs, creating a military that was 90 percent Serbian, and extending his power over the country’s financial, media, and security structures. With the help of Serbian separatists in Bosnia and Croatia, he stoked ethnic tensions by convincing Serbian populations that other ethnic groups posed a threat to their rights.
Ethnic Cleansing Begins
Yugoslavia began to collapse in June 1991 when the republics of Slovenia and Croatia declared independence. The Yugoslav army, largely composed of Serbs, invaded Croatia under the guise of trying to protect ethnic Serb populations there. They took the city of Vukovar, carrying out mass executions of hundreds of Croat men, burying them in mass graves. This was the beginning of the ethnic cleansings that characterized the atrocities committed during the Yugoslav Wars.
Bosnia came next in April 1992. Following their independence, Serbian forces accompanied by Bosnian Serbs attempted to ethnically cleanse the territory of the Bosniaks. Using former Yugoslavian military equipment, they surrounded Sarajevo, Bosnia’s capital city. Snipers hid in the hills and shot at civilians as they tried to get food and water. Mass executions, concentration camps, rape and sexual violence, and forced displacement were all extremely prevalent. The “siege of Sarajevo” is considered to be one of the most dramatic and representative parts Yugoslavia’s breakup, with thousands killed over the course of nearly four years.
Attempts at mediation by the European Union were unsuccessful and the United Nations (UN) refused to intervene, aside from providing limited troop convoys for humanitarian aid. Later on, the UN tried to establish six “safe areas,” including Srebrenica and Sarajevo, but these were ineffective. Peacekeepers did not have the capabilities to truly protect the people seeking refuge there, and all except Sarajevo eventually fell under Serb control.
Genocide at Srebrenica
In July 1995, Serb forces, led by General Ratko Mladic, descended upon the town of Srebrenica and began shelling it. At this point, the enclave was protected by only 450 Dutch peacekeepers armed with light fuel and expired ammunition – their force was so weak that a Dutch commander had reported that the unit was no longer militarily operational a month prior. The peacekeepers requested support from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) but were denied. Srebrenica fell to the Serbs in one day.
Mladic expelled 25,000 women and children from the town, while his forces tried to hunt down approximately 15,000 Bosniak men who had tried to escape to safety in central Bosnia. Up to 3,000 were killed, either by gunshot or by decapitation, while trying to escape. Many Bosniaks sought refuge at a UN base in nearby Potocari, but were not safe there for long.
Serb forces caught up with them by the afternoon and the next day, buses arrived at Potocari to take them away, again separating the children and women from the men. Serb troops forced the Dutch peacekeepers to hand over their uniforms and helmets so that they could use them to lure civilians out of hiding and trick them into thinking they were headed to safety.
At the end of the four day massacre, up to 8,000 men and teenage boys had been killed, and many women were subject to torture, rape, and other forms of sexual violence. Thousands were buried in mass graves. In order to conceal their crimes, Serb forces dug up the original graves of many victims and moved them across a large piece of territory.
There were clear indications that an attack at Srebrenica was being planned, yet the international community did not equip the peacekeeping forces there with the support necessary to protect the thousands who either lost their lives or were terrorized. The atrocities committed at Srebrenica are considered to be the worst on European soil after the Holocaust.
While the war was widely covered in the press and individual policymakers at times took strong stands against human rights abuses in Bosnia, in general the UN, the European Union, the United States and Russia minimized the aggressive nature of the conflict and treated the fighting as a conflict between equal warring parties. Seeking to avoid the moral responsibilities of responding to a genocide, many of these countries referred to the conflict as “ethnic cleansing” rather than “genocide”.
The U.S. Response
Up until 1995, the American government refused to take the lead onBosnia. The U.S. resisted sending in their own troops, and also vetoed Security Council draft resolutions to increase the number of UN peacekeepers. During his campaign, Bill Clinton criticized the Bush administration for their lack of action, but when he was elected in 1992, his Administration followed the same pattern.
In 1995, American foreign policy toward Bosnia changed. Evidence of the atrocities being committed, including those at Srebrenica, was becoming common knowledge and the United States’ lack of action was becoming an embarrassment. President Clinton told his national security advisers that the war was “killing the U.S. position of strength in the war” and he did not want failure in Bosnia to tarnish his chances at re-election. Despite all efforts to keep American troops out of Europe, he eventually realized that there was no effective way to end the war without it.
The International Response
The UN was hesitant to directly fight the Bosnian Serbs for fear of threatening their neutrality between nations and groups. The international community finally responded to the war after Serb forces took the town of Zepa, in addition to dropping a bomb in a crowded Sarajevo market. Senior representatives of the United States and its allies agreed to deploy NATO forces to Gorazde and defend the town’s civilian population. This plan was later extended to include the cities of Bihac, Sarajevo and Tuzla.
In August 1995, after the Serbs refused to comply with a UN ultimatum, NATO forces in conjunction with Bosnian and Croatian forces began an aerial bombing campaign. With Serbia’s economy crippled by UN trade sanctions and its military forces under assault in Bosnia after three years of warfare, Milosevic agreed to enter negotiations that led to a ceasefire. By the end of the war, roughly 100,000 people had died.
In November 1995, the Dayton Accords were signed in Dayton, Ohio, officially ending the war in Bosnia. This peace agreement established two semi-autonomous entities within Bosnia-Herzegovina: the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, inhabited primarily by Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats, and the Republika Srpska (which includes Srebrenica), dominated by Serbs, both with their own political structures, economies, and educational systems, though connected through a central government.
Refugees were guaranteed the right to return to their pre-war homes, but only a small number of Bosniaks opted to go back to Srebrenica, which had been re-inhabited by Bosnian Serbs who had also been internally displaced by the war. An influx of international assistance came after the fighting, including reconstruction efforts by non-governmental organizations, UN agencies, and foreign governments and militaries and over $14 billion in aid.
The Dayton Accords were successful in stopping the violence and allowing the region to create some form of normality, but it has turned out to be a somewhat of band-aid solution that set the stage for further divisions between Bosnia’s ethnic groups. For instance, Bosnia has a three-member presidency requiring one Croat, one Bosniak, and one Serb to represent their constituencies, but because each member is able to veto legislation that is seen as threatening to his own group’s interests, it has been nearly impossible to come to consensus for most of the important issues at the central-government level. Furthermore, this type of system still excludes other minority groups in the country such as the Roma and Jews.
The fact is that the Dayton Accords were not meant to be a long-term solution to the problems of the country; they were meant to stop the killing and secure peace. Eventually they were supposed to be replaced with a more streamlined government structure. The hope was that in working together and creating a unified Bosnian identity, the mistrust between ethnic groups would fall away – this has not been the case. Though they may live side-by-side, Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs essentially lead segregated lives. People identify themselves through their ethnicity rather than their citizenship.
The legacy of the Dayton Accords is evident within Bosnia-Herzegovina, as its economic development has lagged behind its Balkan counterparts. Unemployment remains a problem for a large portion of the country, and corruption is very prevalent. The country is currently trying to join the European Union, but a failure on the part of Serb, Bosniak, and Croat leaders to agree on details for a reform program have delayed their application for membership.
The UN Security Council passed resolution 827 establishing the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague, Netherlands in May 1993, before the war had even ended, after they were briefed on reports of massacres, rape and torture, extreme violence in the cities, and massive suffering of the hundreds of thousands who had been expelled from their homes.
The ICTY was formed to end the impunity of the perpetrators of mass atrocities, and was the first tribunal to prosecute genocide. It also has given survivors of rape, torture, and other heinous crimes the opportunity to tell their stories of what they experienced and what happened to their loved ones and be heard.
The ICTY was slow to start. A chief prosecutor was not named until 1994, and even after, the governments of Serbia and Croatia refused to turn their war crimes suspects or share information with the tribunal until their membership to the EU was jeopardized due to their lack of cooperation.
NATO showed its weakness again when members failed to arrest suspects in Bosnia out of fear of endangering their forces. However, since delivering its first sentence in 1996, the ICTY has convicted more than 60 people involved with crimes against various ethnic groups in Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo, and Macedonia. More than 160 have been charged, including high and mid-level political, military, and police leaders from multiple sides of the conflict.
It was ruled in 2001 that genocide occurred in Srebrenica, and in 2007 the International Court of Justice stated that Serbia violated the Genocide Convention by not doing enough to prevent it.
Former leader, Slobodan Milosevic received 3 indictments from the ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Kosovo in 1999, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Croatia between 1991 and 1992, and genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995. His trial, delayed multiple times due to his health, began in February 2002 and he pled not guilty to all 66 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. In 2006, he was found dead in his cell in The Hague, months before his trial was expected to end.
After evading arrest for over a decade, Ratko Mladic, the man accused of leading the siege of Sarajevo and orchestrating the genocide at Srebrenica, began his trial in 2012 and it is expected to end in 2015. He faces 11 charges, including 2 counts of genocide and has pled not guilty to all of them. His behavior in the courtroom has apparently ranged from unremorseful to sarcastic to mocking, at times making gestures at the witnesses. The defense portion of the trial began in 2014, arguing that he was simply following orders – a common justification by those who have committed mass atrocities.
Many survivors have had to live their lives not knowing what happened to their family members. Over 20,000 people are still missing. When Serb forces dug up graves with bulldozers and trucks in Srebrenica in an attempt to move them to hide their crimes, many of the bodies were scattered. As such, finding the remaining missing persons has been extremely difficult. Those who are found are almost impossible to identify due to the condition of their remains.
In 1995, President Bill Clinton founded the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) to aid in the search and identification of missing persons found at disaster sites or war zones using forensic methods that matches the DNA of survivors to the unearthed remains. So far, the ICMP has been successful in identifying nearly 7,000 bodies in Srebrenica.
While both the ICTY and ICJ have considered the atrocities committed in the former Yugoslav region to constitute genocide, this has not been a shared sentiment around the world. Notably, both Russia and Serbia have denied that the Srebrenica massacre amounted to genocide.
In July 2015, the UN Security Council held a meeting in preparation for the 20th anniversary of Srebrenica, and reportedly Serbia asked Russia to veto a draft resolution that would formally condemn the massacre as genocide. Russia used its veto to kill the resolution, stating that calling the crimes a genocide would prompt further tensions in the region.
Serbia has acknowledged that the crimes at Srebrenica occurred but has never used the word genocide to describe them. Arrests for Srebrenica-related crimes were not made in Serbia until March of 2015. Denial also runs strong in the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska, with the Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik called Srebrenica, “the greatest deception of the 20th century.
U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power was a journalist in Sarajevo when the attack on Srebrenica occurred and a first-hand witness to the suffering that the war caused. In response to Russia’s veto, she said, “It mattered hugely to the families of the victims of the Srebrenica genocide. Russia’s veto is heartbreaking for those families and it is a further stain on this Council’s record”.
Denialist rhetoric trivializes the experiences of victims and survivors, and minimizes the true weight of what occurred during the 1990s. Reconciliation cannot be possible without recognition of the crimes committed. Nothing can bring back their loved ones or erase their trauma, but by acknowledging these events as what they are, the survivors can begin the healing process and find closure for what they experienced. | <urn:uuid:978cb372-f7bf-4e39-873d-d305e08bf19b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://endgenocide.org/learn/past-genocides/the-bosnian-war-and-srebrenica-genocide/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397565.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00115-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978535 | 3,310 | 3.953125 | 4 |
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cave opened up in collapsed snow-slope
©Copyright D. Allsop - picture taken 1980 / 1981
Melt water flows down under the snow slope making a cave. Eventually the cave gets too big and the roof can't support itself so it collapses. There's snow algae giving a pink tinge to the sides of the slope too. This is algae that grows inside the ice fed by the minerals in the melt water that run over the snow and ice and in response to longer daylight hours in the spring and summer months.
Apparently this algae smells like melon when you walk on the snow, though I can't say I ever noticed it, of course now I know, I'd be readily placing my nose a few cm above the snow surface to check it out.
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|This picture is one of a collection assembled in
the 60th anniversary of Signy Island
Base: 60°43'S 045°36'W. Thank you to those who sent their treasured memories of their time in
Antarctica and allowed them to be made into a commemorative cd
and then placed here on the web.
weekend was 14-16 September 2007.
The reunion weekend was 14-16 September 2007.
Extreme Cold Weather Clothing
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Skip to comments.Is Space Digital?
Posted on 02/03/2012 5:46:10 AM PST by LibWhacker
An experiment going up outside of Chicago will attempt to measure the intimate connections among information, matter and spacetime. If it works, it could rewrite the rules for 21st-century physics
Craig Hogan believes that the world is fuzzy. This is not a metaphor. Hogan, a physicist at the University of Chicago and director of the Fermilab Particle Astrophysics Center near Batavia, Ill., thinks that if we were to peer down at the tiniest subdivisions of space and time, we would find a universe filled with an intrinsic jitter, the busy hum of static. This hum comes not from particles bouncing in and out of being or other kinds of quantum froth that physicists have argued about in the past. Rather Hogans noise would come about if space was not, as we have long assumed, smooth and continuous, a glassy backdrop to the dance of fields and particles. Hogans noise arises if space is made of chunks. Blocks. Bits. Hogans noise would imply that the universe is digital.
It is a breezy, early autumn afternoon when Hogan takes me to see the machine he is building to pick out this noise. A bright-blue shed rises out of the khaki prairie of the Fermilab campus, the only sign of new construction at this 45-year-old facility. A fist-wide pipe runs 40 meters from the shed to a long, perpendicular bunker, the former home of a beam that for decades shot subatomic particles north toward Minnesota. The bunker has been reclaimed by what Hogan calls his Holometer, a device designed to amplify the jitter in the fabric of space.
(Excerpt) Read more at scientificamerican.com ...
It is more likely that time is digital (or quantized). For space to be digital, it would have to be “holely” in that marbles in a jar have spaces between them. That would be not allowed. If time were digital, particles could be like marbles in a jar.
Now, hold on a second, if you FLIP the concept, and imagine that space is like “holes” in a jar of marbles that OVERLAP and occupy, in part, the same space as other marbles, that’d give you a lot of jitter eh!
Gamma ray observations have already placed a lower limit on the graininess of space, much lower than the Planck scale.
You are overlooking the possibility that those marbles are all identically shaped cubes. No gaps between cubes.
Michio Kaku disagrees. He believes the world and the universe are like an incredible, smoothly running machine devoid of chaos.
So...uh...WE are the SIMS!
space can not be cubes.
If there were cubes, the vibrations would be different along a diagonal vs. along an axis and we could see the difference.
This is why time is probably quantized and not space. | <urn:uuid:c1bea35d-516c-447a-ac55-9d2c59a9dfe3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2841941/posts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00110-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958405 | 633 | 2.75 | 3 |
Today’s post comes to you from current Tufts Museum Education student Carlos Lu. Please check see last weeks’ post for Part I. Check out these posts for more of Carlos’ writings.
Last time I wrote about a common paradoxical issue that faces many historic site museums: how to present history to the public while maintaining the site from the wear that very public inflicts upon it. While the natural inclination may be to focus on the maintenance of the site as the wear builds up, that approach is a purely reactive measure. Instead I present to you readers two examples of sites that use active attempts to prevent the wear to their sites, both primarily focusing on the tourists themselves. Additionally, I want to highlight a slightly controversial trend in how the detrimental effects tourism has on historic sites is perceived.
With the expectation that the wear caused by tourism will negatively affect the area, taking a preemptive approach to how tourists flow in and out of an environment can mitigate those affects before they happen. In Gulyang, China students of architecture and civil engineering used Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in order to map out the movement and development of tourism over the past century within their hometown. By tracking the development of street patterns, buildings related to tourism, and using an algorithm tracking the literal ‘flow’ of tourist movements, GIS software can predict the most economically likely places for future development and where this development might conflict with heritage sites. If certain services such as hotels or restaurants can be used to direct tourism around particular locations rather than through them, archaeological sites and the governments that want to utilize them can help ensure their survival. Then it becomes just a matter of modifying zoning laws. Understanding the inherent morphological evolution and how space is utilized allows local governments to better plan more sustainable tourism at historic sites. While the technology is still relatively new, it provides positive benefits for historic site museum preemptive care.
Another way to involve tourists in the preemptive care of historic sites is to educate them on what their visitation actually does. By disseminating information to tourists about the detrimental effects tourism has on historic sites, tourists themselves can play an active role in conservation. In Hwange National Park of Zimbabwe, tourists were given a survey about their knowledge on the safety of the animals in the preserve. Using convenience sampling, the park was able to determine that more than two thirds of visitors had knowledge of the potentially hazardous materials their visitation could expose to the animals. More importantly the survey revealed that while local visitors received their knowledge from newspaper media, and foreign visitors received their knowledge from internet sources, the biggest source of conservation knowledge was from word-of-mouth; a general awareness from their communities, family, and friends that careless tourism could negatively affect the wildlife in the park. This indicated an increased need for awareness programs instituted by the park. While a natural park reserve is not a historic site museum, care of the animals within present much the same concerns of human involvement seen at historic sites. As such, the same conclusions can be drawn about the need for awareness programs, word-of-mouth advertisement, and ensuring visitors are aware of the potentially negative effects tourism has on historic sites.
Probably the best example in recent memory of the role of public awareness plays with the preservation of historic sites is the public media’s response to an incident at Luxor Palace in Egypt. In 2013 a tourist named Ding Jinhao wrote in Chinese “Ding Jinhao was here” on the walls of Luxor Palace, scraping his message into the millennia old building. This teenager has since been eviscerated on the Chinese social media tool Weibo, an analogue of Twitter in the States. This mass social shaming extended to the governmental level when the Chinese government issued a public statement warning Chinese citizens to behave whilst overseas. While we certainly wouldn’t endorse any form of social media browbeating, the incident triggered an important shift in how Chinese tourists treat the various sites they visit. An alternative approach to inundating visitors with a sense of shame would be to offer more awareness to visitors on the lasting effects tourism has on historic sites, highlighting how past events have effected sites today.
The two teenagers from the U.K. who visited Auschwitz had a desire to cherish cultural heritage that is admirable. The natural predilection to wanting to own a piece of history got the better of them, though, and is representative of a mistake on the part of the Auschwitz site itself. Visitors need to be better educated to the effects their involvement at historic sites have. History is ephemeral and a historic site museum, and any other museum for that matter, struggles in futile against the tide of time in order to preserve what little of the past it can. But at the same time, tourism is an integral part of the maintenance and care of a historic site museum. Aware of the problems that come with tourism, such as the regular use or the attempts to bring home trinkets, can better prepare a museum to face the issues as they arise. The best thing a historic site museum can do is educate its visitors of not only the history the site has, but also the part tourists play in keeping that history alive. That means not just the metaphorical way their experiences keep the stories of the past alive, but the actual, real way their efforts of preservation while visiting can keep a site going. By being aware of this problem, museums and tourists can better manage their collections for future generations. | <urn:uuid:45c73424-a37e-4db4-8acc-662731d94f4e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://sites.tufts.edu/museumstudents/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00031-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954046 | 1,105 | 2.75 | 3 |
Fort Nisqually, WA, headquarters of Puget Sound Agricultural Company by artist Meeker, n.d.
In 1838, as part of its application to renew the fur trade monopoly, HBC asked Parliament for increased powers to promote settlement in the Oregon territory since it alone was securing British interests there. Sir George Simpson wrote: "We are strengthening that claim to it [the territory] ... by forming the nucleus of a colony through the establishment of farms and the settlement of some of our retired officers and servants as agriculturalists."
Parliament refused the request, fearing that it would be interpreted negatively by the Americans, with whom the British had signed treaties for "joint occupation" of the Oregon territory in 1818 and again in 1827. Instead the government simply extended the Company's license for another 21 years without any changes. In response HBC was determined to establish a subsidiary organization. The Puget Sound Agricultural Company was formed as a joint-stock enterprise in 1840 and although technically at arm's length from HBC, its control was vested in HBC: Governor Sir John Henry Pelly, Deputy Governor Andrew Colville and Sir George Simpson were all Directors of PSAC. Moreover, ownership of the new company's stock was restricted to members and officers of HBC. In actual fact fur trade officers and Committeemen (Directors) bought up the bulk of the stock: ordinary HBC shareholders did not. Finally, the new company agreed to purchase all its sheep, cattle and horses from HBC.
Detail showing Puget Sound, map by Jack McMaster, 2004
The new entity was headquartered at Fort Nisqually at the southern end of Puget Sound, (in modern day Tacoma), which became jointly owned by HBC and PSAC in 1839. Dr. William F. Tolmie was appointed Chief Trader at the post. Fort Nisqually had been founded by HBC in 1833 and was well-situated for its new role as both an agricultural centre and transshipment point. Due to its superior grazing lands its primary value was the raising of livestock. By 1845 it was home to over 5872 sheep, 2280 cattle and 228 horses.
A second centre was located south of Nisqually at Cowlitz Farm, on a tributary of the Columbia and the main portage route from the Columbia into Puget Sound. Cowlitz was the headquarters for the production of grain, peas and potatoes. From the outset the idea was that HBC would continue to concentrate on the fur trade and PSAC would handle the subsidiary agricultural business: it would supply foodstuffs to the HBC posts along the Pacific coast as well as to Alaska and Hawaii, and in the course of the land settlement that such operations would entail, it would strengthen Britain's claim to the region north of the Columbia.
Chief Trader William Tolmie, 1874
But by 1845 American settlers arriving into Puget Sound were encroaching onto the Company's lands. Despite specific clauses of the Oregon Treaty of 1846 which guaranteed both HBC's and PSAC's lands to them, the establishment of the border at the 49th parallel spelled the end to both companies' operations in Washington and Oregon. HBC's strategy was to formally notify squatters of their trespass but not to pursue any harsher means: in Chief Factor James Douglas' words "... to warn off all new comers, in a pleasant way, and keep always on the right side of the law." Meticulous records of the notifications were kept with a view to using these at a later date to claim damages from the United States. But Nisqually and Cowlitz increasingly functioned as "beleaguered garrisons"
Settlement by the British also had limited success. HBC policy was designed to promote settlement north of the Columbia, whereas the most attractive area, the Willamette valley, lay to the south. Moreover, PSAC reserved all the best lands to its commercial farming enterprise. And last, but not least, British settlers were constrained by policies that favoured the Company at the expense of the settler. Farmers were to receive 1,000 acres on leasehold, 20 cows, 1 bull, 500 sheep, 8 oxen, 6 horses and a few pigs, leases to run for 5 years. Each farmer would be provisioned for the first year until his harvest came in. At the end of the lease the land and buildings would revert to the Company, it would have the sole right and duty of marketing the produce, and half of the increase from the stock would belong to the company. Although this degree of 'regulation' was not at all unusual in an era of emigration largely organized by private enterprise, other destinations - particularly New Zealand - gave the PSAC/ HBC initiative stiff competition. And there was little publicity: ironically, both companies were afraid of attracting too many emigrants!
Map of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, submitted by Dr. William Tolmie, 1855
In 1855 war broke out with the natives as a direct response to the increased number of settlers. The Americans viewed Tolmie's harmonious relations with the natives, especially prior to the arrival of settlers, as complicity. Running the business, particularly at a profit, became more and more difficult. Tax assessors of the new Washington territorial legislature set high levies on the PSAC lands, not only to generate revenue, but perhaps also to encourage the British to leave. Tolmie left for a new position on Vancouver Island in 1859; one can only imagine he was glad to go.
The U.S. and Great Britain agreed to negotiate a final settlement of the claims of both HBC and PSAC in 1863. The Joint Commission finally awarded PSAC $200,000 for its properties south of the 49th parallel in 1869. That the final amount was so high is due in no small way to Tolmie, his fellow servants and their meticulous accounts. | <urn:uuid:c5a1cfb6-3079-41d1-aca5-a80fc8a16083> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://hbcheritage.ca/hbcheritage/history/business/other/pugetsound | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00198-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979953 | 1,214 | 3.1875 | 3 |
A utopian future of digital entertainment is being stalled by the lack of consensus on digital copyright control, according to a special report in the May 2003 issue of IEEE Spectrum magazine.
With the advent of recordable CDs, DVD burners, MP3 players, peer-to-peer (P2P) services, and high-speed broadband Internet, significant infighting has developed between the entertainment industry, consumer electronics manufacturers and consumer groups over copy protection. IEEE Spectrum visited this war on its many fronts including legal, legislative, technical and consumer interest.
Today, there is no standard means of ensuring that artists, musicians, studio owners, distributors and others involved in the development of creative content - such as music and movies - get their fair share of royalties every time their work is downloaded or copied. Yet, the technology needed to deliver that content anywhere, any time is more or less already available. The consumer electronics industry wants abundant content to be readily and cheaply available to drive the sale of new entertainment hardware needed to download, record and/or play it. But the entertainment industry is terrified of the prospect of cheap digital copies of movies, music and software proliferating beyond its control.
The current legal concept of fair use allows consumers to duplicate copyrighted material for specific purposes without permission from the copyright holder. For example, individuals have the right to copy a CD for listening in various locations, such as in a car or at work, and to make a reasonable number of backup copies. However, copying content for commercial purposes is not allowed without permission. With steady pressure from the entertainment industry and Congress, consumer groups, such as DigitalConsumer.org, are concerned about losing existing fair use rights. | <urn:uuid:bc245935-1138-4819-86a4-2de13908ae55> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=7774 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396147.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00081-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932136 | 338 | 2.703125 | 3 |
(James) CEMETERY, Spring Hill, MAURY COUNTY TENNESSEE
A lone Red Oak tree marks the spot where the James Black Cemetery is located. This tree is decaying and in a few years will be gone.
From Carter's Creek Station, go north on Cleburne Rd. for two miles. Cemetery is in the midst of a large
pasture, under a large oak tree, across the valley from the site of the Saturn plant. [1987 directions by F.L.H.]
Locator Maps Cemetery area views
BLACK, James, 2(5)? Jun 1778 - 8 Mar 1849. "Mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end
of that man is peace." (Marker not found in 1987 or 2009.)
BLACK, Mary, wife of James Black, (unknown dates married James Black 1843. no marker found in this cemetery for her in 2009.)
BLACK, Dr. William Mortimer, 19 Nov 1807 - 15 Apr 1835. "In his death his parents lost an only son,
society one of its most valued members, and the Faculty one of its brightest ornaments." (son of James & Mary Black.)
BLACK, Theresa Jane, 15 Oct 1816 -15 Oct 1833. (Tumbled.) "Here under this earth lies as much virtue as could be, who when alive did pleasure give to all whom our friend did live. Sleep safe in deep wait the Almighty's will."
Unknown crumbling stone (may be the crumbling stone for James &./or Mary Black.)
Of the three box tombs listed here in 1962,
by the authors in They Passed This Way only one remains partially standing. One
has fallen and its top slab placed on top of the other and the third has
crumbled or disappeared. One very old oak tree still stands while another has
broken off and fallen in recent years. F.L.H. 16 Feb 1987. 2009:Today only a
lone Oak tree marks the spot at the top of a small hill. There is a crumbling
box tombstone here with parts scattered around.
I did make a search of the area for slave graves but could not tell the difference between an abandoned grave location and the residual area of a phosphate mining operation without a very intense research effort. There are many old sections of that land that were strip mined in that area, and really all over Maury County.
James Black and community
James Black was one of the early pioneers of Maury County and in particular the Carter's Creek Area. He was one of the original settlers on the tract of land granted to Gen. Daniel Carter, Revolutionary soldier, by the N. C. government. He moved to his property in Maury County in the 1814. There is an early record of him being sequestered for jury duty and his corresponding complaint that he had not yet been able to build a dwelling for his family. In 1830 he built a fine plantation style home. He was married to his wife Mary in 1843. It is known they were the parents of several daughters and according to these cemetery records at least one son William Black who died as a young Doctor. James Black became prominent in County government and served as the counties most powerful member of the court for a time.
He owned the first pleasure carriage in his area. When he drove it to Old Brick Church or then known as the Bethesda Presbyterian Church it created quite a stir when the carriage spooked the other member's horses. The church committee soon drew up a ruling that stated pleasure carriages could not come within 300 feet of the church building to appease the brethren.
The daughters of James Black had strange names. Barcenia married Levi Ketchem a brick mason who did work on some of Maury County finest homes. Panthea married James Dew. Almira married Philip B. Johnson. Talithacumi married Harvey Watterson in 1832. A romantic story is told that young Watterson came to Maury County to study at nearby Jackson College. Watterson & Ann Sanford the daughter of James Sanford who was one of the founders and on the board of the nearby Jackson College became romantically involved. Harvey went to Bedford County to secure his parents permission to marry Ann, but upon his return he discovered Ann had married another and moved to Alabama. Ann later died in childbirth during Aug 1833. Harvey meanwhile had met Talithacumi Black and married her in June 1832. Their son Henry Watterson became the nationally prominent newspaper editor of the Louisville Courier. Harvey himself became a US Senator for Kentucky after the family relocated to Louisville.
Another daughter Mary Almedia Black married Thomas Stanley Matthews at their home in Maury County in 1843. Stanley Matthews became a U.S. Senator after removing to Ohio. His speech before the electoral college won Rutherford B. Hayes the Presidency of the U.S. He was subsequently appointed justice of the U.S. Supreme Court by President Hayes. Stanley & Mary A. Matthews had ten children. One son Paul married Elise Proctor, whose grandfather and great uncle James Gamble were the business partners after the namesake Proctor & Gamble, a large US company still active today in the household products market. The final daughter that I know of was Theresa Jane Black who lies in this cemetery beside her only brother and parents.
KLEBURNE - The little extinct Village of Kleburn sprung up near the rails years later. It was very near the old home of James Black. When the railroad line was built through Maury County, many small stations were built for the convenience of the passengers or for the use of the railroad line itself. One of these was named for Gen. Patrick Cleburne, one of the Confederate officers killed in the Battle of Franklin a few miles north of here. The name was spelled Kleburne in order to facilitate the work of the telegraphers. This station today was immediately behind the site of the main buildings of the Saturn Corporation's Spring Hill Plant and just north east of the site where the plantation home of James Black stood. The James Black home was destroyed in 1963 by a Tornado during the night. The James Black home, then known as the Walton Home, was swept away one midnight on January 10, 1963 by a vicious Tornado. The triple brick walls were revealed along with other evidences of a home well built. James Black died in 1849 and his wife and at least two of his children are buried or at least it is known they are interred in this cemetery revealed on this site. Today we find no monuments for James nor his wife Mary.
BLACK, JAMES. Little is recorded about this pioneer in the Carter's Creek area. He was one of the original settlers on the tract of land granted to Gen. Daniel Carter, Revolutionary soldier, by the N. C. government. Others who settled on this 5,000 acre tract were: Robert Campbell, Seth Gordon, W. Witherspoon, Frank, Jackson and Armstead Polk, and many others. Carters Creek Station was an area of first quality soil and by 1850 had extensive cotton plantations. A gin and general store were established in the neighborhood and when the railroad vas built from Nashville to Columbia, they built a station here. Other businesses were added and Carter's Creek Station was an important community for many years. After the Civil War, however, it gradually experienced decline. Cotton production and prices fell.
One by one the businesses closed, the railroad closed its station, the gin ceased to function but it was not until
the 1970's that the final general store closed its doors. Several of the buildings still stand (1980), some being used as residences, but, as a village, Carter's Creek Station is no more.(2009). However the name remains on several landmarks such as the Columbia to the north pike named Carter's Creek Pike and other reminders of the Revolutionary Soldier Daniel Carter.
This cemetery was compiled by
Wayne Austin from a visit there 24 Feb 2009. Other sources for the writings was from
Maury County Tennessee Cemeteries, by Fred Lee Hawkins, Jr. page 134. Jill
Garret's Hither & Yon writes much about this man and reveals a photo of his
old home before it was destroyed by the tornado mentioned.
Added here 22 Sep 2009 by Wayne Austin. Other sources are Hither & Yon by Jill Garrett Vol II, page 37. Century Review of Maury County by Robbins, 1906. | <urn:uuid:36f45d89-f916-4017-99ba-3339454c6d81> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~maury/cemetery/Black(James)Cem/Black(J)CemList.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00182-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979681 | 1,735 | 2.625 | 3 |
Not domesticated: I never cook for him and I am totally undomesticated
More example sentences
- There are still undomesticated dogs living in the wild today.
- The scene where he battles the wolf especially emphasizes his transformation into that good dog, as the wolf represents Yeller's undomesticated forebears and the wild animal he resembled so closely at the beginning of the story.
- Perhaps worst of all, buying undomesticated animals encourages people to capture them from the wild.
For editors and proofreaders
Definition of undomesticated in:
What do you find interesting about this word or phrase?
Comments that don't adhere to our Community Guidelines may be moderated or removed. | <urn:uuid:7b7f41b6-caef-499c-9ce8-5dad78942d95> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/undomesticated | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00123-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919846 | 151 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Upon the completion of Moses special scouting mission of spying out the Promised Land, the scouting party of twelve returned unto Israel after spending 40 days evaluating the land and its defenders. However their highly anticipated return unfortunately did not produce a high degree of hope for occupying the Promised Land. In fact the quotation from the fourteenth chapter of the book of Numbers says it all, “And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.” and moreover we saw the children of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south: and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains: and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan. And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it. But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we. And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. And there we saw the giants,, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.
The reason the people wept was not because the scouts had returned with information indicating that they'd had been misled by God almighty about the goodness of the land.
Rather, they wept because the occupiers of the land that God had promised unto them were mightier, stronger, and were in fact giants, men of legendary exploits. These giants presented an intimidating obstacle. They were descendants of the infamous Nephilim, (Nephiyl) whose physical exploits and deeds were insurmountable. Their legend was acquired not only through the mere fact of their immense size and strength, but also because of their horrible reputation as bullies and tyrants. These giants were notoriously known for their feats of power, and enormous cruelty in warfare. The children of Israel quickly surmised that extracting the Promised Land from their possession was a hopeless venture, and could not believe that a sovereign God would entreaty them into encroaching upon these enormous people, nor upon a particular land of promise that they already occupied.
Numbers 13:25-33 And they returned from searching of the land after forty days.
And they went and came to Moses, and to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought back word unto them, and unto all the congregation, and shewed them the fruit of the land. And they told him, and said, We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it. Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great:
Genesis 6:4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
In essence, the giants then residing in the Promised Land symbolized the epic historic supernatural conflict between the God of Israel and the god of this world, and the conflict between the seed of Israel and the seed of the serpent. (Gen. 3:15)
Indeed, it must have been a frightful thing to behold the giants that occupied the land, and to reflect upon the task of extracting the land from their possession. The children of Israel were completely overcome with anxiety and hopelessness, as they could envision no possible way to contend with the tribes of the Canaanites, the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Perizzites, Jebusites and the Hivites that dominated the landscape before them.
The fact that Israel lifted up its voice against Moses and God, and wept all that night is circumstantial evidence that the children of Israel simply lacked faith in Jehovah. It is also emblematic of the fact that they failed to surmise that God's power and providence superseded the power and strength of any enemy that might be encountered in possessing the land that God had promised unto them. I can easily imagine the accusations and criticism that Moses encountered that fateful night. Undoubtedly, Moses relived the contentious incidents of the wilderness where God categorized the children of Israel as a stiff-necked people, and Moses had to plead with God to remember his promise. (Deut. 9:6,13, Exodus 32:9, 33:3, 34:9)
As their fathers in the wilderness before them lacked faith in God, and thus wondered about in a barren land for forty years, now the stiff-necked children of Israel and the 10 reluctant scouts recoiled in faithlessness. Their lack of faith would result in another forty year delay in the acquisition of the Land, and in their own deaths outside of the Promised Land. Because they had not hearkened unto the voice of the Lord, through his manifold miracles since Egypt, they provoked him to anger. Their murmuring against the Lord, and their preoccupation with fabricating an evil report of the land brought a curse upon them.
The military geo-politics of the hour kept them from expressing their faith in God. They sought to dissuade the chosen people from following God's command to take the land and rid it of the evil tribes that possessed it. As a result, the Lord preserved only Caleb and Joshua, the faithful scouts, and brought them forth victoriously into the Promised Land!
Deuteronomy 7:1-7 When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them: Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly. But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire. For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people:
Deuteronomy 9:1-3 Hear, O Israel: Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and fenced up to heaven,
A people great and tall, the children of the Anakims, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can stand before the children of Anak! Understand therefore this day, that the Lord thy God is he which goeth over before thee; as a consuming fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down before thy face: so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, as the Lord hath said unto thee.
The Lord promised to deliver the Anakim, and the rest of the Canaanite tribes unto the hands of Israel. That was all the children of Israel should have ever been concerned with. Victory was assured! All that was necessary to win the land was to follow God. The giants in the land were simply just a test of Israel's faith in God. God had already decreed that the land was theirs! And indeed, God had already weighed the enormous iniquities of the Canaanite peoples, and judged that their sins had finally come to the full. (Genesis 15:16)
Today, within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, and the ongoing Middle East Peace Processes, Israel stands at the threshold of another supernatural conflict over the possession of the Promised Land. Once again, the faith of the children of Israel are being put to the test. However this time instead of the Giants being within the borders of the Promised Land, the Giants are positioned all around the world, and with one voice (United Nations) raises a cry of opposition to Israel's re-occupation of the Land. The US is forcing Israel to concede portions of the Covenanted Land. Russia, the EU, and China all demand that Israel comply with UN resolutions that dictate that Israel transfer land to agitating Middle East nations, in return for an overture of peace with security. Once again, the children of Israel are weeping in the night, and once again raising a voice against God, and yet gain expressing its own lack of faith in God to overcome the Giants that today deny Israel's Covenant with God almighty! Once again, Israel is preoccupied with negotiating away its Biblical right to the Promised Land in lieu of the overwhelming superiority and numbers among the giants in the world that incessantly work on behalf of the Satanic conspiracy against Israel. Therefore, Israel continues to be inhibited by the giant nations in the world from realizing the promise of God to simply restore the land unto them.
But God has decreed that he will bring all the giants down into the valley of Jehoshapat and once again deliver the giants into the hand of Israel. The Giant forces of Gentile dominion in this present age will not prevail against the Deliver, Jesus Christ, when he returns unto Israel! And Israel will find delight in the Lord's eyes on that Day!
Joel 3:9-16 Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.
Author: Darrell G. Young | <urn:uuid:f3d711f4-ab5b-45a7-a25e-ec040a97c367> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://focusonjerusalem.com/giantsintheland.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397695.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00152-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964348 | 2,421 | 2.75 | 3 |
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 pointed up potential risks associated with a variety of facilities both in the United States and abroad. The security of plutonium, which is highly radioactive and can also be used to make nuclear weapons, surely belongs in any short list of the top priorities for attention. Yet, while the U.S. government has taken some action to increase the security around plutonium storage installations, it has done nothing to do restore the most important single program that could greatly reduce plutonium storage risks. That program is called plutonium immobilization. Its proposed budget stands at exactly zero, as it was before September 11.
A great deal of plutonium that became surplus to military requirements after the end of the Cold War is stored in a variety of forms and buildings at several nuclear weapons production sites in the United States. The same is true of Russia, which also has a large stock of commercial plutonium, also usable for nuclear weapons. While prevention of attack through improved security is imperative, it is also necessary to minimize the consequences of an attack should one occur. By the latter criterion, current methods of plutonium storage are sorely inadequate. It is necessary to put plutonium into a different physical form that would (i) limit to as small an area as possible and (ii) enable easier recovery with less danger to workers and the public, even in case of an attack similar in scale to that of September 11.
Immobilization is an approach that mixes plutonium with a non-radioactive material and puts the mixture into a ceramic form that is highly resistant to fire and dispersal in the form of fine particles. The ceramic hockey-puck like storage form is put into a steel cylinder and molten glass is then poured around it. The resulting steel canisters with glass logs containing the plutonium-laced ceramics can then be stored underground on-site at one or more large nuclear weapons plants in silos a few tens of feet deep. With carefully thought out technical specifications, the offsite consequences could be minimized even in case of an attack on the scale of September 11. Minimizing the potential for severe offsite impacts would also be the best preventive measure against attack, since it would make plutonium storage sites unattractive as terrorist targets. The risk of theft or illicit sale would also be greatly reduced.
Plutonium immobilization uses technology that is reasonably well understood and is similar to that now used for high-level radioactive liquid waste, which is, in some ways, more difficult to process than plutonium. For instance, glass logs containing high-level waste are produced and stored in individual silos at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
The Bush administration eliminated funding for immobilization of plutonium because it wanted to focus on the conversion of surplus weapons plutonium into a nuclear reactor fuel. Not only that, the U.S. also proposed to finance a similar plutonium fuel program in Russia. The entire policy was already problematic before September 11. But to persist now with in a plan that would put plutonium fuel on the highways and in commercial nuclear power sites in the United States and Russia is very risky, to say the least. It is to ignore one of the most important lessons of September 11 worst case scenarios that are plausible should not be ignored.
The problem of current U.S. plutonium policy goes even deeper. The Bush administration is not only persisting with a plutonium fuel program it inherited from the Clinton administration, but it proposes, as part of its energy plan, to spend money on developing commercial plutonium fuel as a normal part of the U.S. nuclear power system. This would reverse a quarter century of bipartisan nuclear non-proliferation policy though five previous administrations and exacerbate both proliferation pressures and vulnerabilities to terrorist attack.
It is stunning that the terrible events of September 11 have not led to an urgent reappraisal of plutonium storage, fuel, and plutonium-related energy policies. Cancellation of plutonium fuel programs and the re-institution of a plutonium immobilization program are among the most compelling needs of the time. The urgency is heightened by the upcoming summit of Presidents Bush and Putin, which will be occurring in a climate of cooperation not seen in some years. A change of direction at home would create a unique opportunity for President Bush to begin discussing with President Putin the terms of cooperation for a new joint U.S.-Russian plutonium security initiative based on immobilization that would reduce nuclear dangers for both countries and for the world.
Arjun Makhijani is president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park, Maryland.
He wrote this in October 2001. | <urn:uuid:33808661-74a3-4c9f-bd41-6f4692d53ce2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ieer.org/resource/commentary/reducing-plutonium-storage-risks-in-light-of-september-11-2001/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394937.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00029-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961471 | 929 | 3.65625 | 4 |
Understanding the Risks of Stress & Anxiety
Stress can be caused by a variety of sources, from a job change to the loss of a family member or loved one.
Stress is a normal part of life. Everyone experiences it to some degree. Sometimes it actually helps us study harder, be a better employee, or do more around the house to help.
When not properly managed, stress can cause a variety of physical and emotional problems. These include:
- Muscle tension
- Skin problems
- High blood pressure
- Chest pains
Although you may not be able to live a life that is completely stress-free, you can develop positive methods to cope with stress. These include:
- Exercising regularly
- Maintaining a proper diet
- Avoiding excessive alcohol consumption
- Getting adequate sleep
- Having a strong social support network can help you deal with stress and minimize stress-related illness
Back to top | <urn:uuid:0f15649d-fe67-44d9-8276-4ac9542044f2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pamf.org/teen/life/trauma/problems/risks.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395613.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00098-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939121 | 192 | 2.625 | 3 |
Sources: The Library of Congress Country Studies; CIA World Factbook
Most of the natural forests of the Iberian Peninsula had long since disappeared because of erosion and uncontrolled harvesting for firewood, timber, or the creation of pastureland. In the 1980s, about 7 million hectares, or 14 percent of the land in Spain, could be considered usable forest, although another 3.5 million hectares of scrub growth were often included in forestland statistics.
A reforestation program had been under way in Spain since 1940. The aims of the program included meeting market demand for forest products, controlling erosion, and providing seasonal employment in rural areas. Eucalyptus trees, Lombardy poplars, and a variety of conifers were emphasized because of their fast growth.
Lumber output was approximately 12.3 million cubic meters in 1986, compared with 11.8 million cubic meters in 1985. Output could conceivably triple if 5.8 million hectares of the best forestland, which accounted for 50 percent of the total woodlands area, were properly developed and managed. Existing forestation programs were inadequate, however. For example, in the 1975-84 period, the balance between reforestation and the loss of forestland as a result of fires favored the latter by about 148,000 hectares. A report issued by the Forest Progress Association reported that, by the year 2000, Spain's wood deficit could reach between 8.5 and 16.9 million cubic meters.
The value of Spain's forest products in 1985 was US$302 million. Pine trees grown in the north and the northwest as well as oak and beech trees grown in the Pyrenees accounted for most of the total. Commercial forestry products produced in Spain included cork, turpentine, and resins.
Spain was the world's second largest producer of cork after Portugal. The best quality of cork, used for bottle stoppers, was grown in Catalonia. More plentiful lower grades, which went into linoleum, insulating materials, and other industrial products, came primarily from Andalusia and Extremadura. Cork production was declining, after reaching a high in the 1970s of 97,000 tons per year; only 46,000 tons were produced in 1985, as the widening use of plastics and other cork substitutes reduced demand.
Data as of December 1988
NOTE: The information regarding Spain on this page is re-published from The Library of Congress Country Studies and the CIA World Factbook. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Spain Forestry information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Spain Forestry should be addressed to the Library of Congress and the CIA. | <urn:uuid:f9091206-15e9-4199-8194-740ac4613302> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.photius.com/countries/spain/economy/spain_economy_forestry.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00194-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965508 | 542 | 3.390625 | 3 |
Spitzer observes youngest brown dwarfs
DR EMILY BALDWIN
Posted: November 24, 2009
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope may have uncovered the youngest pair of brown dwarfs ever seen, a discovery that could help solve the mystery of how these cosmic misfits are formed.Artist impression of a star being born from a dark, swirling cloud of dust and gas. The new results suggest that brown dwarfs form in a similar way to stars, rather than planets. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
Brown dwarfs fall between planets and stars in terms of their temperature and mass; they are cooler and more lightweight than stars but more massive and warmer than planets. Answering the question of 'do brown dwarfs form like planets or like stars?' is one that is much debated by astronomers. Often called failed stars because they are unable to trigger nuclear fusion in their cores, they are difficult to detect because they are much less luminous then their fully fledged stellar counterparts. To complicate matters further, they also evolve relatively rapidly, making it difficult to capture them in the first throes of youth when they heat up the nearby gas and dust.
By using Spitzer’s heat-sensitive infrared vision, an international team of astronomers found a so-called “proto-brown dwarf” while it was still cocooned in its natal star-forming region in the dark cloud Barnard 213. “We decided to go several steps back in the process when brown dwarfs are really hidden,” says David Barrado of the Centro de Astrobiologia in Madrid. “During this step they would have an opaque envelope, a cocoon, and they would be easier to identify due to their strong infrared excesses. We have used this property to identify them. This is where Spitzer plays an important role because Spitzer can have a look inside these clouds. Without it this wouldn’t have been possible.”The closely-spaced purple-blue (A) and orange-white (B) objects in this image are likely the two youngest proto brown dwarfs ever seen. The surrounding envelope of cool dust surrounding this nursery can be seen in purple. This image combines near-infrared observations from the Calar Alto Observatory (wavelengths of 1.3 and 2.2 microns, rendered as blue), Spitzer's infrared array camera (4.5-micron (green) and 8.0-micron (yellow) wavelengths), and its multiband imaging photometer (24-micron (red) wavelength), and far-infrared observations from the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (350 microns (purple)). Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Calar Alto Obsv./Caltech Sub. Obsv.
Spitzer’s longer-wavelength infrared camera penetrated the dusty star-forming cloud to observe a baby brown dwarf named SSTB213 J041757. The observation was confirmed with near-infrared imaging from the Calar Alto Observatory in Spain, which revealed not one, but two faint, cool brown dwarfs.
Ploughing through archived data and following up with telescopic measurements from around the world yielded more information about the dusty cocoon in which the proto-brown dwarfs are embedded, enabling the astronomers to build up a picture of the conditions prevailing inside the cloud.
“We were able to estimate that these two objects are the faintest and coolest discovered so far,” says Barrado. The findings potentially solve the mystery about whether brown dwarfs form more like stars or planets. The authors conclude that they form like low-mass stars, the evidence based on their observations of the change in brightness of the objects at various wavelengths that matches that of other very young, low-mass stars.
While further study will confirm whether these two celestial objects are in fact proto brown dwarfs, they are the best candidates so far. “It is a story that has been unfolding piece by piece,” says Barrado. ”Sometimes nature takes its time to give up its secrets.”
The observations were made before Spitzer ran out of its liquid coolant in May 2009, and were backed up with data from the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory in Hawaii, the Calar Alto Observatory in Spain, the Very Large Telescope in Chile and the Very Large Array in New Mexico. Decade-old data was also pulled from the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre archives to provide measurements of how the two objects are moving in the sky. The full details of the study are presented in a paper by Barrado et al in the Astronomy & Astrophysics journal.
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© 2014 Pole Star Publications Ltd. | <urn:uuid:3a5e89f5-4e66-4b1a-adde-fd674eb77e34> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://astronomynow.com/news/n0911/24browndwarf/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00142-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936081 | 1,002 | 3.515625 | 4 |
Getting kids to eat healthy has become the Mount Everest of parenthood. Every day is a rocky, uphill battle with daily obstacles thwarting parents’ best intentions: bake sales, kiddie menus, birthday parties and vending machines are everywhere. It doesn’t help that kids are still wired like their early ancestors to gravitate towards sweet foods to maintain their weight in case of a famine and avoid unfamiliar foods that may be poisonous. Fast forward to the twenty-first century with easy access to store-bought processed products and introducing kids to cauliflower can sound as daunting as climbing a mountain.
The good news is that there are plenty of tactics to encourage healthier eating habits in kids.
Involve kids in the meal preparation. When kids help make the meal, they are more likely to eat it. Ask them to wash produce, chop vegetables with a safe butter knife, and help with other kid-friendly tasks like whisking, mashing, mincing, grating, seasoning and garnishing.
Modify recipes. In order to make foods more palatable, modify recipes to be kid-friendly but still sophisticated enough for adult eaters to enjoy. Offer new foods as miniature versions, on a skewer, or in taco shells and Asian wrappers. Add naturally sweet foods like mangos and limit spicy flavors by allowing adventurous eaters to add their own hot sauce or spices directly to their dish.
Schedule structured meals at the same time every day. If kids don’t graze all day or eat a snack right before dinner time, they’ll be more likely to try something new. Hungry kids are much more experimental than satiated children.
Expand their palates. Eating an entire portion of any food can be daunting. Ask them to try just one bite — no pleading or bribing. Even if they say they don’t like it, they have still introduced a new flavor to their taste buds.
Reintroduce foods often. Many kids must be exposed to a new food several times before developing a taste for it. Sometimes they will surprise you and suddenly like something they previously disliked. Keep in mind that children’s taste buds and food preferences fluctuate as they age.
Stay relaxed. Don’t give kids a strong emotional reaction when they are trying a new food. Staying positive and low key keeps the process relaxed instead of escalating into a power struggle. If they start using food as a way to rebel, break the cycle and stop offering new foods for a few months. Then start it back up again casually (without announcing what you’re doing) when things have been calm at the dinner table
Serve as a role model. Let them see how much you enjoy a wide variety of foods. Make exaggerated comments like “This is soooooo good—I LOVE roasted cauliflower. I could eat it all day long.” Rub your stomach, moan and make it really obvious how much you love the foods you are serving. You can also take advantage of peer pressure by offering new foods around kids who are adventurous eaters who are modeling good eating habits.
Create your Family Food Rules. Don’t be afraid to set rules. Telling kids that they can’t eat a snack after dinner or that they must eat part of their dinner will not traumatize them for life. Rather, giving them boundaries and rules allows them to learn healthy eating habits so that they can make smart decisions as they get older and eat on their own. If they ask for some flexibility on the rule, say yes sometimes and no other times. They need to learn how to say yes and no to themselves when you’re no longer there to guide them.
Don’t give up. They will eventually eat like the rest of the family. It may not happen until they are 10 years old, 15 years old, or sometimes after they’ve been away at college and miss your home cooking. But one day, your perseverance will pay off. They might even surprise you and offer to cook dinner for you!
Julie Negrin, M.S. is a nutritionist, kids cooking instructor, and author of Easy Meals to Cook with Kids. Her new book, How to Teach Cooking to Kids, will be available later this year. Her website is www.julienegrin.com; you can follow her on Twitter and Facebook. | <urn:uuid:e974020f-2b7d-4218-a5a9-92284cbb9794> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blog.foodnetwork.com/healthyeats/2012/06/28/7-tips-for-feeding-picky-kids/comment-page-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00044-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962888 | 905 | 2.96875 | 3 |
2016 Challenge & Enrichment Poster
2015 High School Mathematics Problem Solving Program
2015 AIMO paper and solutions
2015 AIMO Certification form
2015 AIMO Student cover sheet
2015 Mathematics Contests – The Australian Scene Part 1: MCYA
(contains problems, solutions, statistics and some results of the 2015 MCYA Challenge Stage and AIMO).
2015 Mathematics Contests – The Australian Scene Part 1 and 2
(contains problems, solutions, statistics and some results of the 2015 MCYA and invitational competitions. The file is 2MB).
The Mathematics Challenge for Young Australians (MCYA) is a staged program designed to help teachers motivate, stimulate, encourage and develop mathematically interested students in Years 3 to 10 to bring forth the talent and potential within. The MCYA is an ideal program for extension studies and for students who would benefit from greater challenge.
The first two stages of the MCYA provide problems and course work to extend and develop students in mathematical problem solving, while teachers receive detailed solutions and support materials. Teachers in larger schools find the materials valuable, allowing them to better assist a greater number of students in their care. The MCYA program may be particularly useful in schools where teachers work in isolation and have a handful of talented students spread out over a number of classes.
There are three independent stages in the Mathematics Challenge for Young Australians: the Challenge Stage, the Enrichment Stage and the Australian Intermediate Mathematics Olympiad (AIMO).
The aims of the MCYA
Encouraging and fostering…
- a greater interest in and awareness of the power of mathematics
- a desire to succeed in solving interesting mathematical problems
- the discovery of the joy of solving problems in mathematics
Identifying talented young Australians
- recognising their achievements nationally and providing support that will enable them to reach their own levels of excellence
Providing teachers with…
- interesting and accessible problems and solutions as well as detailed and motivating teaching discussion and extension materials
- comprehensive Australia-wide statistics of students’ achievements in the Challenge Stage.
March – June (Term 1 & 2)
MCYA Challenge is held during a consecutive 3-week period between March and June. It comprises four problems for students in the primary levels and six problems for students in secondary levels. Problems can be discussed in groups of two or three registered students before individual submission of solutions. There are separate problem sets for Middle Primary (Year 3–4), Upper Primary (Year 5–6), Junior (Year 7–8) and Intermediate (Year 9–10) students.
The problems for the Challenge stage are designed by the MCYA Problems Committee, a voluntary committee of Australian teachers and academics.
April – September
About MCYA Enrichment
MCYA Enrichment is a 16-week program held flexibly between April and September. It comprises six parallel stages of comprehensive student and teacher support notes. Each student participates in one stage. These programs are designed for students in upper primary and lower to middle secondary school (Years 4–10).
Each stage includes Student Notes designed to be a systematic structured course over the duration of the program, which students can keep for ongoing reference. The support of the Australian Government enables this program to be offered to Australian students at an entry fee lower than the cost of buying the notes independently. This enables schools to timetable the program to fit in with their school year.
The Enrichment stage is independent of the earlier Challenge stage; however, they have the common feature of providing challenging mathematics problems for students, as well as accessible support materials for teachers.
The stages are in order of difficulty with general year level recommendations: Ramanujan (Years 4–5), Newton (Years 5–6), Dirichlet (Years 6–7), Euler (Years 7–8), Gauss (Years 8–9), Noether (very able students in Years 9–10) and Polya (top 10% Year 10). Newton and Dirichlet have 8 problems, Euler and Gauss have 12 problems, and Noether and Polya have 16 problems.
Ramanujan includes estimation, special numbers, counting techniques, fractions, clock arithmetic, ratio, colouring problems, and some problem-solving techniques. » Ramanujan sample excerpt
Newton includes polyominoes, fast arithmetic, polyhedra, pre-algebra concepts, patterns, divisibility and specific problem-solving techniques. » Newton sample excerpt
Dirichlet includes mathematics concerned with tessellations, arithmetic in other bases, time/distance/speed, patterns, recurring decimals and specific problem-solving techniques. » Dirichlet sample excerpt
Euler includes primes and composites, least common multiples, highest common factors, arithmetic sequences, figurate numbers, congruence, properties of angles and pigeonhole principle. » Euler sample excerpt
Gauss includes parallels, similarity, Pythagoras’ theorem, using spreadsheets, Diophantine equations, counting techniques and congruence. This stage follows on from Euler. » Gauss sample excerpt
Noether includes expansion and factorisation, inequalities, sequences and series, number bases, methods of proof, congruence, circles and tangents. Follows on from Gauss. » Noether sample excerpt
Polya has been completely revised and covers functions, symmetric polynomials, geometry, inequalities, functional equations, number theory, counting and graph theory. » Polya sample excerpt
Student Notes are available for purchase from our Shop.
Tuesday 6 September 2016
What is the AIMO?
This four-hour examination is an open event for talented students up to Year 10 level, appropriate for those who have completed the Gauss or Noether stage, high achievers in the Australian Mathematics Competition and students who have acquired knowledge of Olympiad problem solving.
The AIMO is one of the competitions used to determine which students are selected to a number of invitation only events, including other mathematics competitions, enrichment classes and training schools. It gives talented students an opportunity to be recognised and to participate in activities which will enhance their enjoyment and knowledge of mathematics.
Running the AIMO
The AIMO is conducted in schools under exam conditions. It runs for four hours. Students work on their own and may not use calculators, electronic devices or other aids. | <urn:uuid:67c9e5f7-aeb9-467e-9f93-43c4560c369f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.amt.edu.au/mathematics/mcya/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00147-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927939 | 1,310 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Meet a new breed of flying robots, from tiny swarming vehicles to giant unmanned planes.
Airing January 23, 2013 at 9 pm on PBS
Drones. These unmanned flying robots–some as large as jumbo jets, others as small as birds–do things straight out of science fiction. Much of what it takes to get these robotic airplanes to fly, sense, and kill has remained secret. But now, with rare access to drone engineers and those who fly them for the U.S. military, NOVA reveals the amazing technologies that make drones so powerful as we see how a remotely-piloted drone strike looks and feels from inside the command center. From cameras that can capture every detail of an entire city at a glance to swarming robots that can make decisions on their own to giant air frames that can stay aloft for days on end, drones are changing our relationship to war, surveillance, and each other. And it's just the beginning. Discover the cutting edge technologies that are propelling us toward a new chapter in aviation history as NOVA gets ready for "Rise of the Drones." | <urn:uuid:12c0b1ea-6687-44b7-ad0f-96b32e2a9432> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.democraticunderground.com/101793760 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00096-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94853 | 227 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Russia's Star City is so named not because it is home to movie stars or pop stars, but to cosmonauts, the heroes of the Soviet and Russian space programs.
Today Star City is a sort of space explorer's utopia, where cosmonauts of the past and present have lived with their families since Yuri Gagarin became the first human to visit space in 1961.
Formerly a secret Air Force facility, Star City was highly guarded even by Soviet standards. Not listed on any Soviet-era maps, the closed urban-type settlement is hidden in the woods some twenty miles northeast of Moscow.
As the Soviet space program developed, the need for a cosmonaut training center became evident and so Star City was born. And with the arrival of prospective cosmonauts and their families, the military facility became a legitimate city, at least by rural standards.
A post office, movie theater, railway station, and a couple of schools are all within the confines of Star City. The site even captured the imagination of sophisticated city-dwellers with rumors of its impressive selection of shops.
In the 1990s, however, the curtain of secrecy over Star City was lifted and the site was opened to the public. For the first time, visitors could catch a glimpse of the tank where cosmonauts practice their space walks under water, or the gigantic centrifuge where the soon-to-be spacemen are swung around at dizzying speeds, experiencing forces eight times the force of gravity in the process.
Today, a handful of companies offer special tours of the facility and visitors can even jump into a mock-up space suit, hop in the centrifuge, or board a "zero-gravity" flight that simulates weightlessness through a parabolic trajectory. But for those who prefer to keep their feet on the ground, Star City also offers more down-to-earth activities.
In fact, the cosmonaut simulation experience does not even require you to leave your seat at the planetarium, where you can learn to navigate using thousands of stars as your reference. Meanwhile, the museum of space travel and exploration has an impressive collection of vintage spacesuits, capsules charred from reentering the atmosphere, and a replica of Gagarin's office, which holds a book that is routinely signed by every crew before launch.
And if you're fortunate enough to visit on the Fourth of July, you might experience Star City's celebration at the homes built for NASA personnel in the 1990s. Just look for the American-style tract houses among the sea of Khrushchev-era concrete buildings.
Know Before You Go
Star City (Zvyozdny Gorodok) is located near Shchyolkovo, about an hour's drive northeast of Moscow. The nearest airport is Chkalovsky Airport and the nearest rail station is the Tsiolkovskaya stop off the Yaroslavl Railroad. | <urn:uuid:0baa77ca-8845-407e-b378-1e3e278e9c12> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/star-city | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00067-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966028 | 593 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Posted on 25 March 2014.
This is the second blog post in a series of three blog posts proposing that the Smart Grid is a possible contributing remedy to fighting global climate change. This post analyzes the Smart Grid on a more country-specific level and discusses how the United States, the European Union, and China define and value the Smart Grid. The first blog in this series provided context about global climate change in general and detailed what the Smart Grid is. The final blog in this series will address potential obstacles and developments of the Smart Grid within the United States, the European Union, and China and will touch on international collaborations amongst those three countries.
Part II: What “Smart Grid” Means in the United States, the European Union, and China
No global definition of Smart Grids exists, but the basic concept is universal. One scholar has defined Smart Grids as “electricity system[s] that [use] information technology (IT) to connect those who generate and transmit electricity with those who consume it.” The United States (“U.S.”), the European Union (“E.U.”), and China share similar developmental rationales, which include increasing energy capacity, reliability, efficiency, affordability, security, and global competitiveness; decreasing energy-related environmental impacts; and integrating renewable energy into the grid. With those considerations in mind, the U.S. and the E.U. most similarly define the Smart Grid, and China has a slightly different perspective.
Currently, the U.S. electrical grid is centrally planned and fossil fuels predominantly feed it. The utility controls the process in a centralized manner when providing electricity to consumers. One way the grid becomes “smart” is when appliances and electricity meters on homes and businesses become digital allowing for two-way interactive communication between utilities and consumers. Therefore, electricity generation becomes distributed from multiple energy sources, which is more efficient. Additionally, the Smart Grid includes “a broad array of electric system capabilities and services [that are] enabled through pervasive communications and information technology, with the objective to improve reliability, operating efficiency, resiliency to threats, and our impact to the environment.”
A household uses a smart meter to view their energy consumption (Hugh Nutt/Alamy)
The E.U. also has a centrally planned grid where fossil fuels dominate. The E.U.’s Smart Grids Task Force (“SGTF”) defines the Smart Grid as “an electricity network that can cost efficiently integrate the behaviour and actions of all users connected to it – generators, consumers and those that do both – in order to ensure [an] economically efficient, sustainable power system with low losses and high levels of quality and security of supply and safety.” It also focuses on the dynamic communication between consumers and utilities through “intelligent metering and monitoring systems.” Smart Grids in the U.S. and E.U. rely upon smart meters to achieve energy efficiency.
Similar to the U.S. and E.U., China’s Smart Grid refers to “an intelligent system capable of seamlessly integrating” alternative, renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, into the electricity grid. The State Grid Corporation of China (“SGCC”) describes Smart Grids as delivering more reliable and powerful electrical transmission and distribution to the whole country. China’s National Climate Change Programme defined its “intelligent system” as “DC transmission technology and super high voltage transmission technology and equipment, grid transmission and distribution technology for intermittent power sources[,] . . . large-scale interconnected grid security technology[,] . . . grid management automation technology, [an] information technology and efficient management of supply and distribution system[,]” and phasing out technology that is inconsistent with new and enhanced energy efficiency standards.
Motivations for Adopting the Smart Grid
As top emitters and energy consumers, the U.S., the E.U., and China have strong motivations for adopting the Smart Grid and have already implemented some of its components, like the smart meters.
The current grid’s primary function is to ensure lights stay on, but modern concerns include reliability, efficiency, affordability, and the environment. The U.S. is the world’s largest energy consumer, and in 2009, energy from fossil fuels totaled more than 50% of energy consumption while renewables made up about 9%. Also, the U.S. represents about 4% of the global population, but emits nearly a quarter of its greenhouse gases. Based on 2014 data, the U.S. population hovered over 318,000,000, and its 2011 electricity consumption per capita was 13,246 kWh compared to 3,298 kWh in China and 5,516 kWh in the United Kingdom.
Thus, President Barack Obama suggested clean energy would compose 80% of the U.S. energy mix by 2035. He proposed increasing clean energy production twofold by 2020 while encouraging energy efficiency and confronting climate change. The U.S. strives to use Smart Grids “to reduce energy demand by 20 percent, improve system efficiency by 40 percent, and incorporate 20 percent of renewables for electricity capacity by 2030.”
Clean energy is slowly gaining ground in the U.S.
Smart Grids began in the U.S. around 2001. Congress enacted the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (“EISA”), which declared the U.S.’s modernization of its electrical transmission and distribution, to address these new concerns in the form of the Smart Grid. EISA established the Smart Grid Task Force “to insure awareness, coordination and integration of the diverse activities” of Smart Grid practices, policies, and technological components. EISA also directed each state’s electric utilities and other related entities to consider investing in and implementing the Smart Grid. Thus, states could require utilities to implement aspects of the Smart Grid. For instance, some utilities must replace obsolete residential meters with smarter, digital ones. EISA directed the National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”) to organize the Smart Grid’s interoperability framework to ensure consistency of all related entities and technologies.
In 2005, there were about 150 million traditional energy meters in the U.S., but less than two million were “smart.” In 2009, President Obama injected $3.4 billion into the Smart Grid Investment Grant awards for system investments, trial implementations, and capacity building. Private industries matched this funding making for a total of $7.8 billion. Estimates now suggest that by 2015, 50 million more smart meters will be implemented. A few states, like California7 and Maryland, have already widely implemented smart meters. Many cities have Smart Grid projects.
In 2006, the European Community (“the Community”) recognized a need for energy efficiency and renewable energy to assuage energy usage, greenhouse gas emissions, and climate change effects, and to help wean the Community from reliance on foreign energy sources. Nuclear and coal dominated the electricity energy mix. Therefore, the Community enacted the energy end-use efficiency directive to achieve those needs. The directive stated that human activity in the energy sector had caused around 78% of greenhouse gas emissions in the Community, and therefore, Member States were required to “adopt national indicative targets to promote energy end-use efficiency.” Additionally, the directive required each Member State to complete an action plan outlining strategies for satisfying the directive.
In 2009, the European Commission first mentioned smart meters in a mandate for establishing E.U. standards “that [would] enable interoperability of utility meters (water, gas, electricity, heat), which [could] then improve the means by which customers’ awareness of actual consumption [could] be raised in order to allow timely adaptation to their demands.” In the Third Energy Package, the Community specifically addressed Smart Grids in efforts to modernize its electrical distribution system by decentralizing generation and increasing energy efficiency. This directive described that implementing smart meters to 80% of the E.U. by 2020 was the most pivotal stride for Smart Grids.
The European Commission tasked the SGTF with advising it on policy and regulations to implement Smart Grids at the community level. The SGTF organized expert groups that considered creating and revising standards, creating proposals for smart meter data privacy, and defining regulatory recommendations for business models that encourage grid deployment.
In 2011, the European Commission mandated E.U. standardization organizations to improve upon and create Smart Grid standards by 2012’s end. This mandate recognized that Smart Grids are essential to the Community achieving its 20/20/20 targets. The targets are: (1) reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the E.U. to a minimum of 20% under 1990 levels, (2) reducing “primary energy use compared with projected levels” by 20% using energy efficiency measures, and (3) “guaranteeing high security, quality and economic efficiency of electricity supply in an open market environment.”
The Energy Roadmap 2050 reiterated these goals in light of a “sustainable and secure energy system.” A smarter grid promotes energy efficiency and integrates renewables, which are more intermittent in generation than fossil fuels. It also makes the E.U.’s goal of reducing emissions to 80-95% of 1990 levels by 2050 more attainable.
China is the world’s second largest energy consumer and strives to be a global contender in all respects, which includes being the alternative energy leader. With the world’s largest population at 1,317,000,000, China’s electricity consumption per capita in 2011 was 3,298 kWh. One of the government’s goals is lowering “energy consumption per unit of GDP by 15 percent” by 2015. Also, the Renewable Energy Law of 2005 stated a goal of a 10% renewables mix by 2020. Because China derives most of its power from coal and its electricity meters are “relatively low” quality, China is motivated to transition into cleaner energy. Complicating the shift is that Chinese citizens are rapidly migrating from the country to cities, which increases energy demand threefold.
In 2007, the Chinese government pledged to “make great efforts to develop new and renewable energy technologies and new technologies of energy conservation” in China’s National Climate Change Programme (“CNCCP”). The CNCCP envisioned elements of the Smart Grid. Also, China’s 2007 Energy Conditions and Policies report enunciated some grid-related goals that have Smart Grid implications: modernizing the grid, increasing energy efficiency and energy conservation, strengthening power transmission and distribution, creating “emergency response system[s] for power safety and reliability,” enforcing the Renewable Energy Law, and enhancing rural grids.
In its Twelfth Five-Year Plan, the government committed itself to developing “intelligent power grids” and performing system trials. The SGCC established a strategy for creating and implementing Smart Grids by 2020:
- 2009-2010 – The planning and testing phase included creating a development plan, “technical and operational standards,” technology, and trial implementations.
- 2011-2015 – Smart Grid framework for actual operation will be created and, after technological improvements occur, the Smart Grid will be deployed countrywide.
- 2016-2020 – The Smart Grid will be upgraded and completed “with [the] most advanced technology and equipment.” By 2016, China is expected to have implemented 280 million smart meters.
In 2009, SGCC, the “largest State-owned utility” company worldwide, declared its intention to construct a grid that is strong and smart by 2020. China has at least 15 city demonstration projects. In 2010, a Chinese power company implemented various Smart Grid technologies into one smart community that included 655 homes and 11 commercial buildings.
The highly centralized structure of China’s government allows for faster policy development and implementation. Smart Grids have enabled local governments to exercise more power over their respective regions by investing in local Smart Grid projects. As a byproduct of China accomplishing its goal of providing strong energy countrywide, its electrical distribution and transmission system must necessarily become efficient in order to sustain that increased energy demand.
As of 2014, investments in Smart Grid technologies globally totaled $14.9 billion. China leads the pack having spent $4.3 billion in 2013 compared to the U.S. at $3.6 billion. Estimates state that currently China has over two times as many installed smart meters as the number of U.S. households. Also, “Asian and European markets will drive growth through 2020, while in North America the focus will continue to shift from hardware to software as utilities look to squeeze additional value out of the vast amounts of grid data now available.”
The U.S., China, and the E.U. have acknowledged their present and future energy needs and are taking measures to ensure that their people have electricity. However, their adoption of environmental policies and Smart Grid initiatives demonstrate that they are also taking the environment into account. As energy efficiency technologies like the Smart Grid continue developing, the larger benefits remain to be seen through collaborative technology transfer between countries.
Jaclyn Cook is a 3L and a staff editor for the Denver Journal of International Law & Policy.
Mariusz Swora, Intelligent Grid: Unfinished Regulation in the Third EU Energy Package, 28 J. Energy & Nat. Resources L. 465, 466 (2010).
Litos Strategic Commc’n, The Smart Grid: An Introduction 7-8 (2008), available at http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/oeprod/DocumentsandMedia/DOE_SG_Book_Single_Pages(1).pdf; EU Comm’n Task Force for Smart Grids, Expert Group 1: Functionalities of Smart Grids and Smart Meters 22 (Dec. 2010), available at http://ec.europa.eu/energy/gas_electricity/smartgrids/doc/expert_group1.pdf.
Miranda A. Schreurs, Henrik Selin & Stacy D. VanDeveer eds., Transatlantic Environment and Energy Politics: Comparative and International Perspectives 151 (2009).
See Jaclyn Cook, The Smart Grid: How the International Community is Combating Climate Change (Part 1 of 3), The View from Above (Feb. 25, 2014), URL to Part I (describing smart meters).
Richard Cowden, Obama, Congress Could Work Together on Pragmatic Energy Efficiency Programs, BNA, Feb. 15, 2013, http://www.climate.bna.com/climate/summary_news.aspx?ID=231636.
7 Pacific Gas & Electric, Getting Your SmartMeter Device, http://www.pge.com/en/myhome/customerservice/smartmeter/installation/index.page (last visited Jan. 31, 2014) (installed around 9.5 million smart meters); San Diego Gas & Electric, Smart Meter Deployment Metrics, Q1 2013 January 1, 2013 – March 31, 2013, http://www.sdge.com/residential/about-smart-meters/smart-meter-deployment-metrics-0 (last visited Jan. 31, 2014) (installed about 2.2 million smart meters).
Schreurs, supra note 3, at 148.
Joel B. Eisen, China’s Renewable Energy Law: A Platform for Green Leadership?, 35 Wm. & Mary L. & Pol’y Rev. 1, 1 (2010).
John Copeland Nagle, How Much Should China Pollute?, 12 Vt. J. Envtl. L. 591, 613 (2011). | <urn:uuid:f644acde-247e-4474-94e1-2f71b5b3b135> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://djilp.org/tag/sustainability/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396887.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00130-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91434 | 3,289 | 3.140625 | 3 |
August 25, 2008 – WASHINGTON – Beginning this September, the Marian Koshland Science Museum of the National Academy of Sciences is offering an array of public programs designed to engage curious minds of all ages in a variety of activities. A schedule of public events follows.
Arts on Foot with the Koshland
Saturday, September 13, 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Continuing an annual tradition, the Koshland Museum will participate in Arts on Foot, a daylong neighborhood festival in the hip Penn Quarter district that incorporates visual art, music, theater, dance, film, and creative cuisine. Stop by our booth and participate in activities exploring DNA and microbes. For more information about Arts on Foot, visit www.artsonfoot.org.
Antibiotics: Is a strong offense the best defense?
Thursday, September 18, 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Cost: $8, $5 for students
Public health officials have long sounded the alarm that the overuse of antibiotics could create resistant germs which are almost impossible to treat with existing medications. Now, those concerns are becoming a reality; according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more people in the United States die from the antibiotic-resistant, mostly hospital-acquired staph infection MRSA than from AIDS. Join renowned antibiotics expert Stuart Levy, director of the Center for Adaptation Genetics and Drug Resistance at Tufts University, and Linda Tollefson, assistant commissioner for science at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as they debate the best ways to optimize antibiotic use and minimize the emergence of drug-resistant pathogens.
Free Family Weekend: The Green Hunt and the SSP Middle School Challenge
Saturday, October 18, 10 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Sunday, October 19, 1 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Exploration and innovation are on the agenda for this weekend of family-friendly activities. On Saturday, discover science in the city by taking part in the Green Hunt, the Koshland Museum's science-inspired scavenger hunt. Individuals or teams can search for clues in the Penn Quarter neighborhood that focus on ecosystems, climate change, minerals, and more. The Green Hunt is being held in conjunction with the American Geophysical Institute’s international Earth Sciences Week celebration and its No Child Left Indoors campaign. And on Sunday, come back to view the innovative science projects created by 30 middle school students around the country who are finalists in Science for Society & the Public’s Middle School Program 2008. This highly acclaimed program’s past projects have included studies of alternative fuels and stream runoff. Students will be on hand to answer questions about their projects.
Admission for both days is free; please note that the museum will open at 1 p.m. on Sunday.
Wednesday, November 19, 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Can you create something of value from ordinary objects such as paper clips or Post-it notes in just 30 minutes? Test your skills for on-the-spot innovation by participating in a mini-challenge modeled after Stanford University’s Global Innovation Challenge, a weeklong competition for teams of students from around the world. In addition, view the entry of the team sponsored by the Koshland Science Museum and the Singapore Science Centre. The activities are part of Global Entrepreneurship Week -- a week of activities planned in 56 countries to promote the spirit of entrepreneurship among young people.
The Marian Koshland Science Museum engages the general public in an exploration of the current scientific issues that affect their lives. The museum's state-of-the-art exhibits, public events, and educational programs provide information that stimulates discussion and provides insight into how science supports decision-making. Located at 6th and E streets, N.W., the museum is easily accessible by metro at the Gallery Place/Chinatown and Judiciary Square stops.
Tickets and additional information are available through the museum at 202-334-1201 or the events page; advance ticket purchase is recommended for all events. Reporters who wish to cover these programs should pre-register. | <urn:uuid:5f8c1a7a-caeb-4844-8014-558c3edc71ce> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://koshland-science-museum.org/news/koshland-science-museum-announces-fall-programs-0?mini=2013-12 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00196-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928673 | 871 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Elements of Criminal Battery
Locate a Local Criminal Lawyer
What Is Criminal Battery?
Battery is a crime defined as the unlawful or unauthorized application of force to another person, resulting in contact that is either harmful or offensive to the victim. The crime of battery is usually connected with the crime of assault, which is an incomplete or attempted battery.
The crime of battery is usually classified as a misdemeanor crime, which results in the legal consequences of monetary fines and/or jail time of up to one year. Some types of battery crimes are considered felonies, such as aggravated battery.
Battery is also considered to be a general intent crime. This means that the defendant need not intend any specific type of harm to the defendant. Rather, they must simply demonstrate a general intent to harm or offend the person in order to be found guilty. For example, if the defendant intended to strike the victim’s head but instead struck their arm, they could still be found guilty of battery.
What Are the Elements Required to Prove Battery?
If a defendant is facing criminal charges of battery, the prosecution must present evidence that proves their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The prosecution must persuade the jury that the following elements have been satisfied:
- “Unlawful or unauthorized application of force”: The defendant’s acts must be unlawful or unauthorized. If the victim has consented to the defendant’s actions, it will negate this element. Also, the application of force need not be severe; even a minimal application of force or contact will often satisfy this requirement.
- “to another person”: The crime of battery only refers to contact with another person, although in some instances the victim recover damages to property which was attached or connected in some way to their body (for example, if they received damage to their suitcase which they were holding during the battery).
- “Resulting in harmful or offensive contact”: The defendant’s acts must result in some form of harm or conduct that is considered to be offensive. Obvious examples of this are if the defendant has struck the victim’s body, or if they have engaged in inappropriate contact such as unwanted kissing or hugging.
When proving battery in a court of law, the jury must also consider the victim’s background when analyzing the above elements. Certain conditions may make the defendant’s actions harmful or offensive, even if they would not normally be considered to be so under normal circumstances.
For example, giving a close friend or relative a hug might not considered a battery, as this is not normally thought of as offensive contact. However, hugging a stranger or a co-worker may be considered a battery, because in that social context a hug might be considered offensive.
Are There Any Defenses to a Battery Charge?
One of the basic requirements of battery is that the defendant intended to commit the act in question. Therefore, any conduct or circumstances that would negate or cancel out the defendant’s intent would serve as a defense to battery. Some types of defenses that operate in this way include intoxication or insanity (the defendant is unable to make an intentional act due to the intoxication or insanity).
Another defense that may be available in a battery claim is self-defense or defense of property. According to this defense, it is possible that the above elements may have all been fulfilled and the victim may have actually suffered injury. However, the defendant will not be found guilty if they acted while defending themselves or their property. It is usually required that the defendant apply the same amount of force that they have been threatened with.
Should I Hire a Lawyer to Pursue or Defend My Battery Charges?
If you have been the victim of a battery, you should contact a lawyer immediately. Your lawyer will be able to review the elements for battery and determine whether or not your claim would survive in court. Likewise, if you are being charged with battery, a criminal attorney can review the facts of the case in relation to the elements described above.
Consult a Lawyer - Present Your Case Now!
Last Modified: 12-22-2014 10:36 AM PST
Link to this page | <urn:uuid:c914fd0c-ab76-491a-9921-7c437e0cb8ed> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/elements-of-criminal-battery.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399522.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00142-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959215 | 856 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Nasa says work on the Atlantis space shuttle's problematic fuel sensor system will push back the launch of the Columbus lab to perhaps February.
February is looking more probable
The European module was supposed to fly to the space station on the orbiter in December before erratic sensors led to the lift-off being scrubbed.
There is now an option for a 24 January launch, but February looks more likely.
The space agency says engineers need more time to fix a suspected faulty electrical connector in the system.
The sensors, which sit at the base of the shuttle's giant external tank, are part of a backup emergency system to cut off the orbiter's three main engines if they run out of hydrogen propellant before the ship reaches orbit.
Running the engines without fuel could trigger a catastrophic explosion.
For more than two years now, these eco-sensors, as they are known, have intermittently given out false readings.
Technicians think they know the source of the problem but admit to being puzzled over why a "design fault" should only recently start to create issues after many years of normal behaviour.
Nasa flight control teams and ground operations teams have been told to be ready for a 24 January launch date. As work progressed on the fuel sensor system, that date would be modified as required, said John Shannon, deputy manager for the space shuttle programme.
"Everything has to go exactly right for us to make the 24th," he warned.
Engineers continue to test modifications to the system connector in a simulator as they make those changes on the Atlantis tank itself. The modifications are expected to be in place by 10 January.
"We're fairly confident that if the problem is where we think it is, that this will solve that," Mr Shannon added.
Officials stressed 24 January was a "no earlier than" date.
"I think it's much more likely that we'll be going to be ready somewhere in the February 2 to 7 timeframe, given that we don't have any more findings as we go through our testing," said programme manager Wayne Hale.
Columbus is Europe's major contribution to the science endeavours on the International Space Station (ISS).
The 12.8-tonne, $1.3bn euro ($1.8bn; £0.9bn) module will carry out studies that would be impossible in the gravity experienced at the Earth's surface.
The laboratory will be delivered and installed by a joint US-European crew on Atlantis.
February is also the current scheduled launch month for Europe's other major ISS venture - the Automated Transfer Vehicle. The 20-tonne space truck will haul supplies to the orbiting outpost on a regular basis, and will become the station's main re-supply vehicle once the shuttle is retired.
The ATV will also have the task of re-boosting the ISS, which has a tendency to drift back to Earth as it drags through the top of the atmosphere. | <urn:uuid:79034792-0e54-4fd3-bcc7-3d7ae13e3415> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7170577.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393146.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00064-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96551 | 605 | 2.59375 | 3 |
New York State
- Heavy Metals Registry
- Contains information on the reporting of elevated levels of heavy metals, including lead, in adults in New York State with a link to the registry's most recent report. Elevated blood lead levels are shown by county, industry, and occupation.
- Lead Exposure in Children
New York State Department of Health Annual Reports on Childhood Lead Poisoning.
- New York City Lead Poisoning Prevention Program
- Popular publications related to childhood lead and lead poisoning prevention including reports containing data.
Data source: New York City Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program
Dates: Annually updated
Geographical area: Borough and United Hospital Foundation neighborhood | <urn:uuid:43714c5b-a8cd-409b-8ee2-78ba2e566df5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.health.ny.gov/statistics/environmental/public_health_tracking/exposure/lead.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00115-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.896094 | 137 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Today, an implausible airplane. The University of
Houston's College of Engineering presents this
series about the machines that make our
civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity
You've seen them, I'm sure —
in magazines, at air shows, or maybe off in a
distant corner of some airport. They are the
strangest flying machines. They'd pass for
four-engine propeller-driven airliners from the
1950s, except for the fuselage — the body swollen
up to gigantic proportions. You'd think there'd be
no way these great, inflated monsters could ever
get off the ground.
This airplane, called a Super Guppy, has a shape
that seems to violate every rule of sensible
design. And yet, it is an important link in
America's space program. But, let's back up a
moment. The antecedent of this weirdly-proportioned
beast was the B-29 Stratofortress, which
began replacing B-17 bombers in the late days of
WW-II. The B-29 was a big airplane with great range
In a modified cargo version, it became the KC-97,
whose body had a figure-eight
cross-section. From that emerged the last great
propeller-driven airliner, the Boeing
Stratocruiser. Only 56 Stratocruisers were
built, but they were the most comfortable of the
propeller-driven airliners. The passenger seating
was in the upper lobe of the figure eight, with a
lounge in the lower lobe.
But, by the late 1950s, propeller driven airliners
were being put out of business by the new Boeing
707 jets. And that might have been the end of the
Stratocruiser. However, NASA faced a serious
problem in the late 1950s. The rockets they were
launching at Cape Canaveral, in Florida, were being
made in California. How to move large rocket parts
across the country?
Science writer Robert Trip tells us they wouldn't
fit on highways or on railways. And, after a
fifteen-day ocean voyage through the Panama Canal,
they usually arrived damaged.
So, some developers gambled on a radical plan.
They formed a company and began buying surplus
Stratocruisers and KC-97s. They cut a Stratocruiser
in half, lengthened the body by sixteen feet, then
grossly increased its diameter. They called it the
It was all done in remarkable haste. Trip tells how
the de-velopers got away with flying Werner von
Braun in a seriously-flawed, not-yet-ready, version
of the airplane. The Pregnant Guppy was followed by
the Very Pregnant Guppy, later renamed
Super Guppy. They also made a smaller
version -- the Mini Guppy.
The Super Guppy
has a twenty-five-foot diameter empty space into
which NASA loaded huge components of Gemini,
Apollo, and Skylab. It's done other jobs as well,
like moving the fuselage of a Concorde SST. The
inside is so large it could house the Olympic pole
vault event. And Super Guppies have recently moved
sections of the International Space Station.
So, the next time you see one of those superbly
weird airplanes, know that they really do fly. And
know that function is not always obvious in the
machines we build. Sometimes the most unexpected
things really do function.
I'm John Lienhard, at the University of Houston,
where we're interested in the way inventive minds
R. S. Tripp, Pregnant Guppy: The Strange Epic of the
Ugly Airplane that Got Us to the Moon. Invention
and Technology, Vol. 17, No. 4, Spring 2002, pp.
For some excellent images of the superguppy,
For images of Stratocruisers and KC-97s,
Except as noted, all images are courtesy of NASA.
Dimensions of the Super Guppy.
Mini Guppy, Evergreen Flight Museum (Photo by John Lienhard)
The Engines of Our Ingenuity is
Copyright © 1988-2003 by John H. | <urn:uuid:71402732-e359-48c4-890d-eec6784c3347> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1815.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395992.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00050-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933047 | 919 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Making Music Out Of Trash: Landfill Harmonic Orchestra
Much has been made over the past few centuries of the amazing quality of the stringed instruments created by the Stradivarius family. Speculation still rages about exactly how the amazing instruments were made. However, there is a new contention for the most valuable instruments out there. They are the instruments belonging to a group of young musicians from Paraguay who perform together as the Landfill Harmonic Orchestra. Their instruments are made from the trash that they live with every day.
These young people all come from Cateura, a slum of the capital city of Asuncion. Their homes are built on the trash dump site for the area. Their lives are economically impoverished and difficult. Music has been their saving grace thanks to Favio Chavez, a local musician.
Musical instruments are expensive and these kids do not have the money for such luxuries. A violin alone can cost more than a house in this place. Chavez looked at where they were living as saw possibilities.
Chavez got together with Nicolas Gomez, a garbage picker, to recreate items from the landfill into musical instruments -- cellos, violins, flutes and many others. The cello played by Juan Manuel Chavez is made from an oil can, a tool for tenderizing meat, and an old pasta making gadget. A saxophone can be made from old tin pipes, buttons, bottle caps, and the handles of spoons and forks.
These instruments may not look at all like what you would expect, but they sound like the real deal. Who said they all had to be made of wood and brass?
There are currently about 20 kids in the orchestra, ranging in age from 11 to 19. As with any orchestra they play classical music, but they have also learned to play some contemporary Latin music and some Beatles music. The music is lifting these young people up out of the garbage they have been living in, giving them new skills, and opening new doors. They have already made trips to Brazil and Colombia. They have been invited to play in many more countries.
One of the musicians has already moved on to play for the national orchestra of Paraguay. The Miami Symphony Orchestra has also offered scholarships to two more of the musicians.
Two film producers, Alejandra Amarilla Nash and Juliana Penaranda-Loftus, have been working on a documentary to trace the life of the orchestra. Their Kickstarter project to find funding for their film exceeded their request. Now in addition to the film, they plan to use the extra funds to take these young musicians on a world tour and fund expansion of the Landfill Harmonic Movement.
The message of the movement is not just one of music and hope, but of how much more we can do with recycling -- for the planet and the people who live on it. | <urn:uuid:4490c44c-7a11-4052-9e2a-96bd14229221> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://inventorspot.com/articles/making_music_out_trash_landfill_harmonic_orchestra | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00056-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972015 | 582 | 3.140625 | 3 |
On June 31, 1864 General Hunter, retreating from defeat at Lynchburg by General Early, met Confederate forces led by General John McCausland. After losing some of his artillery here, Hunter continued his withdrawal northwest through New Castle to . . . — Map (db m3843) HM
Welcome to the Hanging Rock Battlefield Trail. This 1.6 mile linear park is the Roanoke Valley’s first rails-to-trails project converting a former railroad right-of-way into a hiking and biking trail. The project’s master plan presents an . . . — Map (db m15104) HM
Near the site, on the morning of June 21, 1864, Union Major General David Hunter’s ambulances, artillery, and supply and munitions wagons crossed the ford at Mason’s Creek. The wagon train stalled, and was left unprotected because U.S. Brig. General . . . — Map (db m15100) HM
On June 21, 1864, following two days of fighting at Lynchburg, Confederate Gen. Robert Ransom’s cavalry, pursuing Union Gen. David Hunter’s retreating column, engaged in a conflict that would ultimately become known as the Battle of Hanging Rock. . . . — Map (db m4012) HM
The Hanging Rock coal trestle functioned as a coal unloading facility, and was built by the Norfolk and Western Railway in 1943 from a standard plan used for this type of structure.
At the turn of the century, most industries utilized a . . . — Map (db m15094) HM
On June 21, 1864, two future presidents marched with Major General David Hunter’s Army of Western Virginia on its retreat from Lynchburg to West Virginia by way of Hanging Rock and the old New Castle Turnpike.
Colonel Rutherford Birchard . . . — Map (db m15101) HM
When Miss Massie Garst died in 1960, she bequested the Hanging Rock and Buzzard’s Roost to the Virginia Division United Daughters of the Confederacy. She will that this site be preserved as memorial to the brave soldiers who fought and died in the . . . — Map (db m15103) HM | <urn:uuid:2175c5b9-c114-4c1d-897c-5649dea20360> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.hmdb.org/results.asp?County=Hanging%20Rock&State=Virginia | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00185-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937031 | 472 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Hinduism is one of the world’s oldest religions, and has over 900 million followers worldwide. Though most of the Hindus live in India there are substantial numbers present in Nepal, Bangladesh and Indonesia.
Temple construction in India started nearly 2000 years ago and marked the transition of Hinduism from the Vedic religion. The architecture of Hindu temples has evolved ever since resulting in a great variety of styles. They are usually dedicated to one primary Hindu deity and feature a murti (sacred image) of the deity. Although it is not mandatory for a Hindu to visit a Hindu temple regularly, they play a vital role in Hindu society and culture.
Situated on a large rock, Tanah Lot is one of the most famous Hindu temples in Bali, and probably the most photographed. The Tanah Lot temple has been a part of Balinese mythology for centuries. The temple is one of 7 sea temples, each within eyesight of the next, to form a chain along the south-western coast of Bali.
The City of 1000 Temples, Kanchipuram is one of the oldest cities in South India, and known for its ancient Hindu temples and silk sarees. The city contains several big temples like the Varadharaja Perumal Temple for Lord Vishnu and the Ekambaranatha Temple which is one of the five forms of abodes of Lord Siva.
The Brihadishwara Temple, located in Thanjavur, India, was built by the Chola king Rajaraja I in the 11th century. The world’s first complete granite temple, Brihadishwara is a brilliant example of the Dravidian style of temple architecture. The temple tower is 66 meters (216 feet) high making it one of the tallest temples in the world.
The village of Khajuraho is one of the most popular tourist destinations in India. It’s numerous Hindu and Jain temples are famous for their erotic sculpture. The temples were built over a span of 200 years, from 950 to 1150. A few of the temples are dedicated to the Jain pantheon and the rest to Hindu deities, to Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, and various Devi forms.
Although officially part of the Angkor Wat complex, Banteay Srei lies 25 km (15 miles) north-east of the main group of temples, enough to list it separately here. The Hindu temple was completed in 967 AD and is built largely of red sandstone, a medium that lends itself to the elaborate decorative wall carvings which are still clearly visible today. Banteay Srei is the only major temple at Angkor not built for a king, instead it was constructed by one of king Rajendravarman’s counselors, Yajnyavahara.
Dedicated to Lord Ranganatha (a reclining form of Lord Vishnu), the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple in Srirangam, India is an important shrine that receives millions of visitors and pilgrims every year. With an area of 156 acres (6,31,000 m²), the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple is one of the largest religious complexes in the world. The oldest structure of the temple dates back to the 10th century.
The Virupaksha Temple in the city of Hampi in India started out as a small shrine and grew into a large complex under the Vijayanagara rulers. It is believed that this temple has been functioning uninterruptedly ever since the small shrine was built in the 7th century AD which makes it one of the oldest functioning Hindu temples in India. The largest entrance tower of the temple is 50 meters high.
Prambanan is the largest and most beautiful Hindu temple complex in Indonesia. Located about 18 km east of Yogyakarta, it is somewhat overshadowed by the even more awe-inspiring Borobudur situated just next door. The two sites are quite different in style though, with Prambanan being a collection of tall and pointed Hindu temples, instead of the single large Buddhist stupa of Borobudur.
Prambanan has three main temples dedicated to Vishnu, Brahma, and Shiva and was built around 850AD by the Mataram Kingdom, rulers of central Java.
The Meenakshi Amman Temple is one of the most important Indian Hindu temples, located in the holy city of Madurai. The temple is dedicated to Sundareswar (form of Lord Shiva) and Meenakshi (form of Goddess Parvati). The complex houses 14 magnificent towers including two golden Gopurams for the main deities, that are elaborately sculptured and painted.
The temple is a significant symbol for the Tamil people, and has been mentioned for the last couple of millennia, though the present structure was built in the early 17th century.
Angkor is a vast temple complex in Cambodia featuring the magnificent remains of several capitals of the Khmer Empire, from the 9th to the 15th century AD. These include the famous Angkor Wat temple, the world’s largest single religious monument, and the Bayon temple (at Angkor Thom) with its multitude of massive stone faces. During it’s long history Angkor went through many changes in religion converting between Hinduism to Buddhism several times. | <urn:uuid:b649a263-6d9f-4f50-9e82-661d0f00ff56> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.touropia.com/amazing-hindu-temples/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397864.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00097-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962852 | 1,108 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Birch trees (Betula spp.) naturally grow with a single trunk, but odd numbers of single-stemmed trees can be planted together in a clump in which the roots weave together to form what appears to be a single specimen. Alternatively, a single young birch tree can be pruned to grow multiple trunks. The trunks grow outward, leaving an open center, to make room for the tree canopy. Common clump birch species that will thrive in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 8a to 10b include river birch (B. nigra) and gray birch (B. populifolia). Birch trees require minimal pruning.
Clean and disinfect all pruning tools with a disinfectant such as isopropyl alcohol, chlorine bleach or a household disinfectant. You will need bypass pruners for small branches, lopping shears for medium branches, a pruning saw for large branches and a pole pruner to reach the higher branches.
Plant a single-trunk birch tree in spring and allow it to grow for one year or until the trunk is at least 1 inch in diameter. Cut back the entire tree in the following spring, leaving only about a 2-inch stub in the ground. Given plenty of water, the tree will grow several shoots that become the trunks. Allow another year for the shoots to grow. Alternatively, you can plant three to five single trees together in one hole, using a rock or block of wood to keep the spacing between the trunks.
Wait until midsummer to early fall, when the birch is dormant, to prune to reduce the amount of sap that drains from the cuts. This helps reduce disease and infestation that are attracted to the oozing cuts.
Remove any sucker sprouts that grow from the base of the tree after the new trunks are well established. Cut these as close to the ground as possible so they don't steal moisture from the clump.
Cut or pinch off any branch shoots that develop low on the trunks so the colorful gray or cinnamon bark and the clump of trunks are on display.
Eliminate any branches with weak-angled crotches, allowing only branches with 70- to 90-degree angle branch crotches to grow, which leads to strong, healthy branches in the tree. You must remove these branches in young, developing trees to train the main scaffold branches, but you should also remove any weak-angled, smaller branches throughout the tree's life.
Cut all rubbing, crossing or inward-growing branches from the tree canopy to allow open airflow within the canopy and encourage an open framework in the upper branches. It is okay for branches to grow on the insides of the trunks, but you want to avoid branches that interfere with other branches from other trunks within the clump.
Cut diseased branches from the tree as they occur. Make the cut about 6 inches outside the diseased area to ensure all the disease is removed. Disinfect any pruning tools used to cut diseased branches immediately.
Remove dead or broken branches as they occur, cutting the branches back to just above the branch union with a healthy branch or just outside the branch collar if you must remove an entire branch back to one of the trunks. Dead, dry wood will not bleed when cut like green wood, so you can remove these at any time.
Things You Will Need
- Isopropyl alcohol, chlorine bleach or household disinfectant
- Bypass pruners
- Lopping shears
- Pruning saw
- Pole pruner
- Gray birch grows in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 3 through 8, while river birch grows in zones 4 through 9.
- If one of the trunks spreads out so far that it appears in danger of splitting, you can tie it to the other trunks with soft twine to hold it up until it grows strong. As the trunk grows and is trained in this position, you can untie the tree and allow it to grow on its own.
- Clemson Cooperative Extension: Birch -- Betula Spp.
- Arbor Day Foundation: Birch, River Betula Nigra
- USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service: Gray Birch
- University of Minnesota Master Gardener: Avoiding the Clump White Birch Curse
- North Dakota State University Extension: Questions On: Birch
- Pat Welsh: Planting a Clump of Three Birch Trees. European White Birch (Betula Pendula)
- The Arbor Day Foundation Blog: How to Create Clumps of Birch Trees
- North Carolina State University Extension: Pruning Trees
- Ryan McVay/Lifesize/Getty Images | <urn:uuid:70319941-d82a-4a3d-a039-66c1b847c08c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://homeguides.sfgate.com/prune-clump-birches-54349.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00169-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905549 | 972 | 3.5625 | 4 |
“One Former Captive Knows”
By Tim Korte, Sanostee, New Mexico
By the close of World War II, Army Sgt. Joe Kieyoomia shared something with the secret words employed by the Navajo Code Talkers: both were like granite against Japanese efforts to break them.
Captured after the fall of the Philippines in 1942, Kieyoomia lived 43 months in Japanese prison camps. A member of New Mexico’s famed 200th Coast Artillery unit, he survived the notorious Bataan Death March that killed thousands of starved U.S. soldiers.
As a POW, Kieyoomia lived on meager meals of rice laced with weevils. He says he watched as weakened Americans were ordered to dig their graves, then were shot by Japanese guards.
“At the end of one week, they told me I was going to be next,” says Kieyoomia, 72. “But a few days later, I was sent to the Japanese mainland.”
Kieyoomia says his captors at a Nagasaki prison initially tortured him because – judging from his surname – they thought he was Japanese-American.
“I told them I was Navajo,” Kieyoomia says, his crystal-blue eyes turning defiant behind a wrinkled face and a pair of bifocals as he sat outside his remote home on the Navajo reservation and told his war story.
“They didn’t believe me,” he says, shaking his head. “The only thing they understood about Americans was black and white. I guess they didn’t know about Indians.”
After months of beatings, Kieyoomia says, the Japanese accepted his claim to Navajo ancestry. But he says the torture that followed was worse.
“One day two Japanese women visited me,” he says. “They wrote Navajo words in English and asked what they meant. So, I told them: “This means bird, this means turtle, this means water.”
Kieyoomia says he now thinks the Japanese were baffled after hearing the Navajo Code Talkers speak in their language, which was unwritten at the time. Unable to comprehend the sounds they turned to their captive Navajo.
The code, used by Navajo Marines to relay information across the Pacific, had the Navajo language as its basis, but developed a secret vocabulary in which armaments were renamed as everyday Navajo words.
When the Japanese questioned Kieyoomia his translations were useless.
“I didn’t know about the code,” he says.
One winter day, a guard marched Kieyoomia – stripped naked – from his tiny cell onto an icy parade ground. Kieyoomia says the Japanese told him he couldn’t return inside until he revealed the Navajo code.
“It was 27 degrees outside. They made me stand one hour in snow this deep,” he says, spreading his hands six inches. “The guard said if I moved, he would shoot me.”
Finally granted permission to return Kieyoomia says he couldn’t walk because his feet had frozed to the ground. He says the guard shoved him, causing the skin on the bottom of his feet to tear. “I left my soles on that parade ground,” he says.
Beatings continued almost daily. Kieyoomia says at one point, he could not longer use his right leg.
“I wanted to die,” he says softly. “Many times, I thought I was close.”
But Kieyoomia lived.
He survived the second atomic bomb dropped by the Americans on Nagasaki at war’s end, saying he was protected by the concrete walls of his cell. He was abandoned for three days after the bombing, but says a Japanese officer finally freed him.
Years later, Kieyoomia says, he learned of the Code Talkers and their accomplishments.
“I salute the Code Talkers,” he says as he displays his 12 service medals, framing a handsome portrait of his Army youth. “And even if I knew about their code, I wouldn’t tell the Japanese.” | <urn:uuid:5c645385-9bfb-4470-b50c-e77d7f352b0b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.thepeoplespaths.net/articles/navcode.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00046-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989491 | 909 | 3.3125 | 3 |
Lirula needle blight
Photo by P.Hennon USDA FS
Lirula needle blight is caused by the fungus Lirula macrospora.
This disease can occur in Colorado blue spruce, Picea pungens, and white spruce, Picea glauca. White spruce, including Black Hills spruce, is the more susceptible species.
- In late summer second year needles become discolored, yellow to brown.
- In the following year (third year needles) a raised black line forms along the midrib of infected needles, mostly on the lower surfaces.
- In some cases horizontal black bands form across infected needles.
- Needles on lower branches are commonly infected first.
- Infected needles turn grayish brown after spores are released but remain
attached to tree for several years.
Photo by P.Hennon USDA FS, Bugwood.org
It takes several years for Lirula macrospora to complete its lifecycle. The fungus overwinters in infected needles on the tree. During late spring through midsummer infected needles release spores that spread in splashing and dripping rain to new needles. First year needles appear to be the most susceptible. On second year needles, a raised black line, which is a spore producing structure created by the fungus, forms on the midrib on the underside of the needle. Spores are released from these structures on third year needles.
- Avoid planting spruce where Lirula needle blight already occurs.
- Inspect new seedlings and trees for signs of infection prior to purchase.
- Apply Chlorothalonil or Bordeaux mixture when new needles are half the length of mature needles and a second time, one month later. Since the disease cycle is 3 years long, fungicide application must occur for 3 consecutive years to be effective.
- Remove the most heavily infected trees in the landscape to protect neighboring spruce trees. | <urn:uuid:3a65fea6-c75f-4ee4-b278-84f8a9e28e0d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.extension.umn.edu/garden/yard-garden/trees-shrubs/spruce-tree-diseases/lirula-needle-blight/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394414.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00151-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907477 | 399 | 3.46875 | 3 |
What are the different kinds of metrical feet used in lines 1, 2, and 5 of this limerick by Edward Lear:
There was a young lady of Wilts,
Who walked up to Scotland on stilts;
When they said it is shocking To show so much stocking,
She answerd, "The what about kilts?"
I'm having a hard time determing which syllables are stressed and unstressed. If you could help me determine the stressed syllables, I can easily figure out the metrical foot used. :/ I'd really appreciate it.
1 Answer | Add Yours
Meter in poetry is a lot like time signature in music. If you can read music, you can figure out poetic meter! In order to show the meter, I am capitalizing the syllables that are stressed in each line. What you will notice is that in each line, two patterns emerge.
There WAS a young LAdy of WILTS
Who WALKED up to SCOTland on STILTS...
She ANswered, "Then WHAT about KILTS?"
The first pattern that you notice in each line is in the first two syllables: an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed (there WAS... who WALKED... she AN). If you were to bang the rhythm of each line on a desk, the second syllable would get the beat. This pattern is called an iamb.
The second pattern you will see in each line is a three-syllable pattern, and the pattern is repeated (a young LA... dy of WILTS, up to SCOT...land on STILTS, swered, "Then WHAT...about KILTS?"). In each case, the THIRD syllable gets the beat while the first two are unstressed. These are called anapests.
The SOUND for each line is as follows:
da DA da da DA da da DA (or for those who wish to use numbers) a ONE and a TWO and a THREE
Since the most prominent poetic foot is the anapest (the one used most frequently throughout the poem), then the meter is considered anapestic. Three beats is TRImeter. Limericks are mostly anapestic trimeter.
I hope this is not too confusing!
We’ve answered 327,672 questions. We can answer yours, too.Ask a question | <urn:uuid:cc3eb169-deb6-4d6a-94e3-ff09de7a8c18> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-different-kinds-metrical-feet-used-lines-1-2-41761 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00103-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950688 | 501 | 3.375 | 3 |
Whether it is gun control or same-sex marriage, voting rights or affirmative action, some of the most compelling news stories of the day lead to the U.S. Supreme Court and a lot of talk about the Constitution. It almost goes without saying in these discussions that the issue involves the federal Constitution and often the federal Bill of Rights.
Less noticed or discussed is the Oregon Constitution, which has its own Bill of Rights. However, as residents of Oregon, we should all pay more attention than we usually do to what the Oregon Constitution says, as it can significantly impact our rights. While the Oregon Constitution cannot take away any rights granted by the federal Constitution, it can give us more rights.
For example, the federal Constitution's First Amendment provides briefly, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press...."
By contrast, the Oregon Bill of Rights has five separate provisions dealing with religion, and another one offering a much broader statement regarding free speech: "No law shall be passed restraining the free expression of opinion, or restricting the right to speak, write, or print freely on any subject whatever; but every person shall be responsible for the abuse of this right."
This free speech provision has been interpreted by the Oregon courts to give more rights than the federal provision. For instance, the Oregon Constitution protects activities such as nude dancing and live sex shows, which are considered expressive activities, more than the First Amendment does.
For another example, the federal Constitution's Second Amendment states: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." This has resulted in much debate about the meaning of the reference to the "militia."
This debate is less relevant in Oregon, where the constitution states, "The people shall have the right to bear arms for the defence [sic] of themselves, and the State, but the Military shall be kept in strict subordination to the civil power[.]" The Oregon Supreme Court has held that this provision guarantees an individual's right to bear arms, regardless of a militia. Oregon has held, however, that this right is not unlimited.
For a third example, the Oregon Bill of Rights has a search and seizure provision that sounds similar, in many ways, to the federal Fourth Amendment. However, one major difference in interpretation is that the federal provision is designed to deter police misconduct; for this reason, evidence obtained with a potentially invalid warrant may be allowed in court if the police executed the warrant in "good faith." By contrast, the Oregon provision is designed to protect the individual's rights; consequently, Oregon does not have a "good faith" exception to obtaining a warrant.
Many other provisions in the Oregon Constitution have no parallel in the U.S. Constitution. These include two provisions regarding victims' rights, several provisions regarding the lottery, and the controversial provision defining marriage as between a man and a woman. The last of these may, of course, be affected by the current U.S. Supreme Court cases regarding gay marriage, likely to be decided in the next few months.
There is much more to the Oregon Constitution than has been briefly noted here. Perhaps, however, this summary will encourage Oregonians to respect and find out more about their state Constitution. One place to start is simply by reading it. You can find the Oregon Constitution on the Internet in the online Oregon Blue Book, http://bit.ly/YyjJrc
Disclaimer: This column is not legal advice, but only general information about the law. It may not apply to your individual situation. If you need legal advice, please consult an attorney.
Tracy J. White, a resident of Hillsboro and a practicing attorney, writes a monthly column on legal affairs for the Argus. Reach her at firstname.lastname@example.org or through her website at tracyjwhite.com. | <urn:uuid:58497247-3824-47ad-b602-79486f088675> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.oregonlive.com/argus/index.ssf/2013/04/why_the_oregon_constitution_ma.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408828.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00137-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947572 | 823 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Human population is increasing at an alarming rate. A brief survey of world population shows that human population is ever increasing.
1 A.D. - 0.25 billions
1000 A.D. - 0.50 billions
1750 A.D. - 1.00 billions
1965 A.D. - 3.30 billions
2000 A.D. - 7.00 billions estimated.
Above table indicates that after 1750 A.D. Population increase is taking less time to become double. Recent periods have seen the population explosion.
Factors for Growth of Population:
In the early periods the human population was checked by environmental hazards and diseases. In later period's invention of tools for hunting, agriculture revolution, industrial revolution, modern medicine form the primary factors for growth of population. Advancement of scientific technology, in 1950's resulted in better conditions, more food, and less death rate, caused increase in population.
Population Growth in different countries:
Growth of human population varies in different countries. Nations are divided into 2 categories.
These are industrialised or advanced countries and included U.S. A, Canada, Japan and European countries. These countries have low population rate, more per capita income and better life facilities. The population growth is almost nil since 1950 but per capita income has increased almost- doubled or tripled.
Under developed countries:
There are under developed less advanced countries. They include India, African countries, Egypt, Latin America etc. They have high rate of population growth, and worst life facilities. Developed countries constitute about 1/3 of the world population but still control the rest of the world. Problems of developing countries are linked with their high rate of population growth. All their national income is spent on food and shelter and less funds are available for other developmental activities.
Developing countries, instead of looking for aid, must check their population growth, then only they will have funds for farm machinery, industry, education, medical care and other facilities.
Consequences of Population growth:
Increase in population creates many consequences or problems, which affects basic necessities of life like space, food etc.
Increase in population requires more accommodation. This results in conversion of agricultural land into urban land for habitation and clearing of forests. This has other effects like soil erosion, less rainfall etc.
Families with more children and less income, similarly & thickly populated nations with less, per capita income face the problem of food. Their main-problem is food and hence cannot give interest in any other directions. People suffering from malnutrition develop into less fit members of the society.
Population increase leads to large scale under employment. All schemes of Government are made useless by the over population.
Larger families cannot afford better medical aid because of their less income, similarly it is very difficult to provide better medical facilities to ever increasing population in any country.
Increase in population or urbanisation has caused the problem of sanitary disposal and resulted in pollution. | <urn:uuid:1b8c4301-0531-4b73-85e4-1894d70f5079> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.preservearticles.com/2012040429875/what-are-the-evil-effects-of-population-explosion.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399522.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00058-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930107 | 606 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Map showing the schools across the nation that have gone solar
You are here
As of early 2013, there are more than 130 megawatts (MW) of solar photovoltaic (PV) energy systems powering Navy, Army and Air Force bases in at least 31 states and the District of Columbia. See what states have the most solar installed on our interactive map.
See the locations of the major solar systems that we monitor as a part of our research on the Major Solar Projects List. | <urn:uuid:7527e4eb-24a2-473d-98e4-c16b13e52a2b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.seia.org/research-resources/resource-library?f[0]=field_resource_type%3AMap | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00132-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921055 | 100 | 2.515625 | 3 |
The latest news from academia, regulators
research labs and other things of interest
Posted: Jul 10, 2012
NanoMech and Cameron Announce Breakthrough in Lubrication Science
(Nanowerk News) Citing a major breakthrough, NanoMech, Inc. and Cameron announce an agreement to utilize TriboTuff® lubricant in some of Cameron’s valves and flow equipment used extensively in the worldwide gas and oil supply chain. This innovation dramatically extends performance, durability and reliability of critical mechanical components.
Friction is one of the major reasons for failure of vital engineering components and systems used in aerospace, military, and industrial applications. The annual cost of friction and wear-related energy and material losses is estimated to be over $700 billion - 5% to 7% of the United States’ $14 trillion gross national product.
Cameron, the global leader in the valve and flow equipment industry provides advanced mechanical valves which are the control gates of much of the world's hydrocarbon supply chain for both oil and gas. These valves are under tremendous pressure and extreme environmental conditions and are complex mechanical devices that deliver mission-critical functions where friction and wear challenge their reliability.
NanoMech's patent-pending macro-molecular nano-manufactured solution, TriboTuff, reduces friction to near zero for the first time in history, driving performance of machines and vehicles up, while significantly decreasing the amount of fossil fuel used.
The nGlide® technology platform product, TriboTuff, is a great example of NanoMech's patented nano-inspired combinatorial material science it has pioneered in TuffTek® coatings that is also revolutionizing the cutting tool manufacturing industry.
The international NanoMech engineering team led by Dr. Ajay P. Malshe, has devised a bio-inspired breakthrough solution engineered using newly discovered design rules of architecting multicomponent chemistries at molecular scale, to deliver advanced lubrication under the most extreme operating conditions.
The teams of Cameron and NanoMech engineers have been working together for the past 18 months to move this discovery forward, which has its origin with Dr. Malshe and the University of Arkansas through National Science Foundation funded research, to full commercialization by NanoMech Inc., as an innovation that improves the performance of organic and inorganic lubricants and safely extends the life of the Earth's hydrocarbon supply chain.
nGlide has been accelerated life tested in commercial valve applications demonstrating that the patent pending architectures provide defense against energy intensive mechanical friction and resultant wear.
This breakthrough nGlide technology platform can be expanded through blending into many lubrication products as a drop-in concentrate solution for hundreds of applications for the crucial oil and gas sector economy.
John Bartos, VP Development and Technology of Cameron, stated that, "Cameron has always strived to provide leading edge innovations to our marketplace and customers that contribute to our goal of delivering the best, most reliable and durable flow related equipment for the global oil and gas industry. It has been a pleasure to work with NanoMech on such an important breakthrough innovation that can provide Cameron increased competitive performance on our industry leading valves and flow products."
James Phillips, Chairman and CEO of NanoMech Inc., stated, “We appreciate the support of Governor Beebe and the Arkansas Economic Development Commission in providing us continued assistance to advance the nGlide technology platform to commercial status and full scale production in various products such as TriboTuff, resulting in a tremendous technology advance as well as creating more knowledge jobs at our Springdale manufacturing plant and laboratories. The partnership with Cameron has helped fast-forward our nGlide innovation into the largest industry in the world."
The agreement will result in 10 to 20 new knowledge jobs initially in NanoMech’s Springdale facility, with additional jobs possible in the near future.
Dr. Ajay Malshe added, "The nGlide technology platform provides unmatched lubrication solutions and is customizable for thousands of applications. nGlide's proprietary and multiple patent-pending technology also addresses the global need to save energy, increasing machine and vehicle performance by enhancing durability, operability, and the life of components. nGlide is architectured to provide immediate lubrication advantages."
Governor Mike Beebe said, "Cameron and NanoMech’s partnership is a testimony to the State’s outstanding scientific research and commercialization breakthroughs leading to vital knowledge job creation and American innovation and global competitiveness. This is the kind of end result we look for when we invest in research. We hope that this partnership between Cameron and NanoMech will be an example of many more to come as breakthroughs continue in nanotechnology.”
NanoMech Inc., (www.NanoMech.biz), was founded in 2002 and offers advanced engineering materials through nano-inspired and nano-manufactured product development. Today the company has given to the world breakthrough nano-engineered innovations in machining and manufacturing, lubrication and energy, and strategic military applications. NanoMech brings ideas from innovation to implementation, introducing nanomanufactured products to market. NanoMech is a member of President Obama’s Materials Genome Initiative, a public/private collaboration with the aim of doubling the speed and reducing the cost of discovering, developing, and deploying new advanced materials. NanoMech is also a member of the U.S. Manufacturing Competitiveness Initiative (USMCI) and the U.S. Technology Leadership and Strategy Initiative, (www.Compete.org) both based in Washington, DC.
With almost $7 billion in sales, Cameron (www.c-a-m.com) is a leading provider of flow equipment products, systems and services to worldwide oil, gas and process industries. Leveraging its global manufacturing, engineering and sales and service network, Cameron works with drilling contractors, oil & gas producers, pipeline operators, refiners and other process owners to control, direct, adjust, process, measure and compress pressures and flows. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Cameron employs over 23,000 people worldwide, with major locations in Houston and Little Rock, Arkansas.
About nGlide and TriboTuff
nGlide is a proprietary patent pending technology platform. The TriboTuff formulation is a new product solution drop-in concentrate formulated to fight friction and wear between mating components under boundary lubrication. The nano- inspired multi-component additives enable TriboTuff to enter tight tolerances and into the asperities, which on a microscopic scale appear as hills and valleys. Designed as an open architecture macro-molecular dispersion for hydrocarbon supply chain, nGlide creates flexible commercial solutions like TriboTuff to meet end-user applications. nGlide provides three lines of defense by attaching to the surface owing to the polar organic capping chemistries, forming robust and adherent tribofilms that are sacrificed preferentially to the underlying material, and providing physically-active transfer films due to the shearing of unique macro-molecular architectures. This additive is architectured to provide instant tribological advantages. This characteristic is unlike the traditionally used anti-wear, extreme pressure additives that require a certain temperature and/or pressure for the molecule to decompose and form products that deposit on the metal surface as films. Our macro-molecular lubricant innovation uses a nano-inspired unique and multiple patent pending manufacturing synthesis technique that transforms simple molecules into multicomponent, multifunctional, active macromolecules to fight friction and wear between mating mechanical components. | <urn:uuid:269f7d2e-9ccd-4b9c-a687-f884ec757e8a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nanowerk.com/news2/newsid=25882.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399522.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00033-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929003 | 1,540 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Lead by the likes of Jerry Falwell, Tim LaHaye, Tom DeLay and Karl Rove, an army of misguided Christian fundamentalists, the Religious Right, continues to push for tearing down the “wall of separation” established by America’s founding fathers. They claim there is no “wall of separation,” and that the framers of the Constitution intended that America be a Christian nation, implying that America’s laws should reflect biblical law. A brief survey of America’s history, taken from Robert Boston's Why The Religious Right Is Wrong, reveals what life in America was like before our Constitution was adopted when in fact Christian theocrats did rule the colonies.
In Massachusetts the Puritans supposedly came to America seeking religious freedom, but freedom for whom? The only freedom they promoted was freedom for themselves. They established a theocratic rule regulating every aspect of life based upon their interpretation of the bible.
The iconoclastic preacher Roger Williams complained that the state should have no place enforcing orthodoxy and argued for freedom of conscience. His view of the Puritan rule was that “no tenant…is so heretical, blasphemous, seditious, and dangerous…as persecution for the cause of conscience.” The Massachusetts civil authorities decided every citizen including Williams should take a loyalty oath to the governor. Williams refused! The Puritan leaders took Williams to court and found him guilty of “disseminating new and dangerous opinions” and banished him from the colony.
Anne Hutchinson was expelled by Governor Winthrop because she dared to hold unauthorized meetings in her home. John Wheelwright was tried, found guilty, and banished because his preaching was heretical. A band of Quakers were hanged by these Puritan Christians. Massachusetts’ most notable act of church/state theocratic rule was the Salem witch trials of 1692. Nineteen women were accused of witchcraft. Since the bible states “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” (Ex 22:18) the state’s obligatory punishment was obvious. State authorities in conjunction with church leaders hanged eighteen women and crushed the nineteenth to death with stones.
Quakers were cruelly persecuted in almost every colony. William Penn founded Pennsylvania to establish religious toleration. Though the toleration was a step forward, it was extended primarily to Protestants. Roman Catholics could conduct religious services, but were subject to periodic raids from neighboring Maryland.
In Virginia, the Anglican Church was the state church. Quakers and Catholics were barred. Baptists were often imprisoned or publicly whipped. Those who spoke impiously of the Trinity or Christian faith could be executed. Parents who failed to have their children baptized were fined. Non-attendance at church merited a fine for the first offense and a whipping for subsequent offenses. Those who cursed got the “bodkin” treatment, a sharp dagger thrust through the tongue.
Outside of Roger William’s Rhode Island, true religious liberty and respect for an individual’s conscience was not practiced in any of the colonies. Citizens were taxed to support churches, strict Sunday Sabbath laws were enforced, blasphemy was a capital offense, and public office was available only to those men who acknowledged certain Christian doctrine.
This was America, the Christian nation without a “wall of separation” between church and state, where clergy used their infallible bible to dictate who was an offense to the theocracy so civil authorities would carry out the necessary punishments. This was the America that spawned the thinking of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison that sought an answer to how true religious freedom could be achieved without hindering the practice of religion. Their conclusion: a secular nation that showed no favoritism toward any religion.
Their initial legislative effort was in Virginia. Presbyterians appealed to Madison to deliver them from “a long night of Ecclesiastical bondage” asking that church establishments be “pulled down, and every tax upon conscience and private judgment be abolished” so that Virginia might become an “asylum for free inquiry.” Patrick Henry, famed for the phrase “give me liberty or give me death,” still biased to Christianity, sought legislation to levy a tax to support ministers of the Christian religion. Opposition from Baptists and other minorities was swift and angry. Madison called Henry’s proposal “obnoxious on account of its dishonorable principle and dangerous tendency.” Henry’s proposal favoring Christianity was soundly defeated in 1785.
Baptist minister John Leland reflected the thoughts of Christians fighting for religious freedom. In response to Jefferson’s letter explaining the “wall of separation” to Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut, Leland wrote, “Government should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely…all should be equally free.” On another occasion Leland wrote, “Let man worship one God, twenty Gods, or no God, be he Jew, Turk, Pagan, or Infidel, he is eligible to any office in the state.”
The Constitution fashioned in 1787, largely by Madison, is a secular document. It makes no mention of God, Jesus Christ, a Supreme Being, or the Ten Commandments. Thus, the Constitution’s Article 6 reads, “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any public office.” The First Amendment reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” It is this secular document showing no religious favoritism which is responsible for freedom of religion and conscience unique to America.
Today’s Christian fundamentalist preachers and politicians rejecting the “wall of separation,” preaching the Christian nation myth, detest everybody’s freedom but their own. Like their arrogant “busy body” Puritan forefathers, they seek to interfere in an individual’s private decisions by imposing their religious dogma. They constitute the most insidious, immoral, destructive movement in America and must be taken to task.
Deathbed Dollars by Bill Berkowitz
Other Articles by Lee Salisbury
Fundamentalist Christian Mindset and the Problem it Presents for America | <urn:uuid:f3bc90ac-3413-4b70-94ca-1c57b0b358cf> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dissidentvoice.org/May05/Salisbury0503.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396147.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00068-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959085 | 1,269 | 3.0625 | 3 |
In Search of the Emerald Grail
In the old-town portion of Genoa, Italy, the city where Christopher Columbus was born, stands the great Romanesque-Gothic cathedral of San Lorenzo (Saint Lawrence).1 Here in the subterranean Museum of the Treasury—which houses reputed pieces of the True Cross, relics of John the Baptist, and other religious objects—is displayed Il Sacro Catino, “The Holy Basin.” This is one of the most famous embodiments of the legendary “Holy Grail,” and I was able to study both it and its legend there in the fall of 2009 (figure 1), attempting to resolve some of the mysteries and controversies concerning it.
Romantic stories about the quest for the San Gréal, or “Holy Grail”—reportedly the cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper—have proliferated for centuries. Popularly, the Grail (originally the word meant “dish”) is the talisman sought by the knights of King Arthur’s Round Table. The quest is known to English audiences largely though French romances compiled and translated by Sir Thomas Malory in his Morte d’Arthur in 1470. Therein the Grail is represented as the chalice from which Jesus and his disciples drank at the Last Supper and which was subsequently used to catch and preserve his blood from the Crucifixion. This act was usually attributed to Mary Magdalene or Joseph of Arimathea (the latter having claimed Jesus’s body for burial—see Mark 15:43–46).
The earliest Grail romance is Le Conte du Graal (“The Story of the Grail”), which was composed by Chrétien de Troyes around 1190. It describes how, when a girl “entered holding the grail, so brilliant a light appeared that the candles lost their brightness like the stars or the moon when the sun rises…. The grail... was made of fine, pure gold, and in it were precious stones of many kinds….” Two other grail stories, both written by Robert de Boron circa 1200, were Joseph d’Arimathie and Merlin. These gave the Grail quest a new Christian focus, representing it as a spiritual rather than chivalrous search. This epic constitutes the most important and best-known English version of the Arthurian and Grail adventures (Barber 2004, 19; Cox 2004, 75–76).
Other legends represent the Holy Grail variously as a silver platter, a miraculous cauldron or dish of plenty, a salver bearing a man’s severed head (like that of John the Baptist in Matthew 14:3–12), or a crystal vase filled with blood. Over time the Grail has also been represented as a reliquary (containing the Sacred Host or holy blood), a secret book, an effigy of Jesus, the philosopher’s stone, and many other portrayals. Around 1205 in a Bavarian poem titled Parzival, it was described as a magical luminous stone, more specifically as an emerald from Lucifer’s crown that had fallen to earth during the struggle in heaven. The term Holy Grail now popularly refers to any object of a quest, usually an unattainable one (Nickell 2007, 50–53).
The Historical Evidence
Unfortunately, there is no story about Joseph of Arimathea and the Holy Grail in any text until the close of the twelfth century, when Robert de Boron penned his romance. Notably, the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s death do not suggest that Joseph or anyone obtained a dish or other vessel from the Last Supper and used it or any other receptacle to preserve Jesus’s blood. Records of the Holy Blood—the reputed contents of the cup Joseph possessed—are also of late vintage, perhaps the earliest coming from Mantra, Italy, in 804 (Nickell 2007, 53–56).
Nevertheless, several vessels lay claim to being the true Holy Grail—some twenty of which had surfaced by the sixteenth century. John Calvin ( 2009, 62, 63) reported on several of the rival claimants for the title of “the cup in which Christ gave the sacrament of his blood to the apostles” (at the Last Supper). Calvin mentioned one at Notre Dame de l’Isle, near Lyons; another was in a monastery in the Albigéois; still another could be found at Genoa. This was “a vessel or cup of emerald” so “costly,” says Calvin sarcastically, that “our Lord must have had a splendid service on that occasion.” (See also my introduction to Calvin 2009, 32–33.)
The Emerald Bowl
Calvin is clearly referring to Il Sacro Catino, “The Holy Basin.” Most sources allege that this vessel—actually an emerald-green, hexagonal bowl—was brought to Genoa by Guglielmo Embriaco, following the conquest of Caesarea in 1101.2 A fresco on the main façade of the Palazzo San Giorgio (figure 2) depicts crusader Guglielmo (“William” in English) holding as war booty the distinctive Catino. Twelfth-century writers acknowledged the purported intrinsic value of the bowl. For example, William of Tyre noted circa 1170 that it was “a vase of brilliant green shaped like a bowl” and that “the Genoese, believing that it was of emerald, took it in lieu of a large sum of money and thus acquired a splendid ornament for their church.” He adds, “They still show this vase as a marvel to people of distinction who pass through their city, and persuade them to believe it is truly an emerald as its color indicates” (quoted in Barber 2004, 168).
Others have seemed even more skeptical. States George Frederick Kunz in his The Curious Lore of Precious Stones ( 1971, 259):
A queer story has been told regarding the Genoese emerald. At one time when the government was hard pressed for money, the Sacro Catino was offered to a rich Jew of Metz as pledge for a loan of 100,000 crowns. He was loath to take it, as he probably recognized its spurious character, and when Christian clients forced him to accept it under threats of dire vengeance in case of refusal, he protested that they were taking a base advantage of the unpopularity of his faith, since they could not find a Christian who would make the loan. However, when some years later the Genoese were ready to redeem this precious relic, they were much puzzled to learn that a half-dozen different persons claimed to have it in their possession, the fact being that the Jew had fabricated a number of copies which he had succeeded in pawning for large sums, assuring the lender in each case that the redemption of the pledge was certain.
Be this anti-Semitic folktale as it may, the Catino was pawned in 1319 and redeemed in 1327 (Marica 2007, 7; “The Dish of the Last Supper” 2010). It is still owned by the municipality of Genoa (Marica 2007, 12).
In any event, the Catino is not made of emerald—no matter how much its color and hexagonal shape give it the appearance of a faceted gemstone. At about fifteen inches in diameter it would have been an immense emerald indeed! Actually, according to the museum’s guidebook (Marica 2007, 12), it is simply of “mould-blown green glass.” Its manufacture is said to be Egyptian (Barber 2004, 168) or ninth-century Islamic (Marica 2007, 12), or possibly later.
Its glass composition was revealed when it became broken (figure 3). According to the 1910 Encyclopedia Britannica (s.v. “Genoa”), the Catino “was long regarded as an emerald of matchless value, but was found when broken at Paris, whither it had been carried by Napoleon I., to be only a remarkable piece of ancient glass.” (Another view is that it was broken on its return to Genoa [Marica 2007, 7], and a 1914 New York Times story claimed—possibly because of erroneous translation—that it had just been “accidentally broken” and was “beyond the possibility of repair” [“‘Holy Grail’ Shattered” 1914].) In any case, the bowl was restored in 1908 and again, finally, in 1951, when it received the metal armature that holds the pieces together (“The Dish of the Last Supper” 2010; Marica 2007, 7). (A rumor claims that the missing piece—again see figure 3—was kept in Paris in the Louvre [“The Dish of the Last Supper” 2010].)
When the belief that the Catino was made of emerald was broken to pieces, so was the claim that it was the Holy Grail. Its alleged Christological link was asserted long after the bowl arrived in Genoa, and it was predicated on the basis of its supposed emerald composition. This leap of faith was made by Jacopo da Voragine, archbishop of Genoa and author of Legenda Aurea (Golden Legend).
In a chronicle of Genoa written at the close of the thirteenth century, Jacopo, believing the vessel was indeed made of emerald, linked it to one of the Grail traditions. He cited certain English texts that claimed that Nicodemus had used an emerald vessel to collect Jesus’s blood when his body was placed in his tomb and that these texts called it “Sangraal”—that is, “Holy Grail” (Marica 2007, 7; Barber 2004, 168).
Alas, there is nothing to credibly connect the Sacro Catino to a first-century Grail, and the same may be said of other supposed Grail vessels. Indeed, observes Barber (2004, 170), “there is little or no evidence that anyone claimed in the thirteenth century to possess the Grail.” Certainly, claims for all such vessels date from after the period when most of the Grail romances were penned: between 1190 and 1240 (Nickell 2007, 60). This realization should put an end to fanciful Grail quests, but it probably will not: witness the popularity of such books as The Da Vinci Code (Brown 2003) and the book on which its author drew heavily, Holy Blood, Holy Grail (Baigent et al. 1996)—silliness all.
I appreciate the help I received from Massimo Polidoro, who in 2009 not only saw to it that I was invited to Italy’s largest science festival, held in Genoa, but who, with other skeptics including Luigi Garlaschelli, accompanied me to the Cathedral of San Lorenzo. CFI Libraries Director Timothy Binga and CFI visiting scholar Christina Stevens provided valuable research assistance.
1. St. Lawrence was a deacon of the Roman Church, martyred during the persecution of Valerian in 258.
2. Another source reports that the bowl was booty from Almeria, Spain, taken in 1147. (See Marica 2007, 7.)
Baigent, Michael, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln. 1996. Holy Blood, Holy Grail. London: Arrow.
Barber, Richard. 2004. The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Brown, Dan. 2003. The Da Vinci Code. New York: Doubleday.
Calvin, John. (1543) 2009. Treatise on Relics, from a translation of 1854. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books (introduction by Joe Nickell).
Cox, Simon. 2004. Cracking the Da Vinci Code. New York: Barnes and Noble.
The dish of the Last Supper. 2010. Available online (in Italian) at http://www.cicap.org/new/articolo.php?id=102013. Accessed January 26, 2010.
Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed. 1910. New York: The Encyclopedia Britannica Co.
‘Holy Grail’ shattered. 1914. The New York Times (April 18.)
Kunz, George Frederick. (1913) 1971. The Curious Lore of Precious Stones. New York: Dover Publications.
Marica, Patrizia. 2007. Museo del Tesoro. Genoa, Italy: Sagep Editori Sri.
Museum of the Treasury of the Cathedral of St. Lawrence of Genoa. N.d. Museum handout in English. Copy obtained by author, October 31, 2009.
Nickell, Joe. 2007. Relics of the Christ. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. (Additional sources given in this source.) | <urn:uuid:f68399c7-9448-46c2-b021-72d7b423b784> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.csicop.org/si/show/in_search_of_the_emerald_grail | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397565.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00138-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956636 | 2,733 | 2.625 | 3 |
The advent of deep-sea exploration using video cameras has uncovered extensive sponge aggregations in virtually all oceans. Yet, a distinct type is herein reported from the Mediterranean: a monospecific reef-like formation built by the lithistid demosponge Leiodermatium pfeifferae. Erect, plate-like individuals (up to 80 cm) form bulky clumps, making up to 1.8 m high mounds (1.14 m on average) on the bottom, at a 760 m-deep seamount named SSS. The siliceous skeletal frameworks of the lithistids persist after sponge death, serving as a complex 3D substratum where new lithistids recruit, along with a varied fauna of other sessile and vagile organisms. The intricate aggregation of lithistid mounds functions as a “reef” formation, architecturally different from the archetypal "demosponge gardens" with disaggregating siliceous skeletons. Leiodermatium pfeifferae also occurred at two additional, close seamounts (EBJ and EBS), but, unlike at SSS, the isolated individuals never formed accretive clumps. The general oceanographic variables (temperature, salinity, dissolved nutrients, chlorophyll, and oxygen) revealed only minimal between-seamount differences, which cannot explain why sponge abundance at SSS is about two orders of magnitude higher than at EBJ or EBS. Large areas of the dense SSS aggregation were damaged, with detached and broken sponges and a few tangled fishing lines. Satellite vessel monitoring revealed low fishing activity around these seamounts. In contrast, international plans for gas and oil extraction at those locations raise serious concerns over the need for protecting urgently this unique, vulnerable habitat to avoid further alteration. Modern lithistids are a relict fauna from Jurassic and Cretaceous reefs and the roots of the very genus Leiodermatium can be traced back to those fossil formations. Therefore, understanding the causes behind the discovered lithistid aggregation is critical not only to its preservation, but also to elucidate how the extraordinary Mesozoic lithistid formations developed and functioned.
Citation: Maldonado M, Aguilar R, Blanco J, García S, Serrano A, Punzón A (2015) Aggregated Clumps of Lithistid Sponges: A Singular, Reef-Like Bathyal Habitat with Relevant Paleontological Connections. PLoS ONE 10(5): e0125378. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0125378
Academic Editor: Fabiano Thompson, ufrj, BRAZIL
Received: December 17, 2014; Accepted: March 23, 2015; Published: May 27, 2015
Copyright: © 2015 Maldonado et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
Data Availability: All relevant data are available from the CSIC Open Science database at the following URL: http://digital.csic.es/handle/10261/113385.
Funding: This study was made possible through the generous funding support by Adessium Foundation, Georg Waechter Memorial Fund, and Pictet Foundation to OCEANA. The study also benefited from a CTM2012-37787 grant of the Spanish Government to MM.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interest exist.
Sponges are long recognized as important members of many marine communities. Under circumstances that remain poorly understood, they are able to aggregate in unusually high abundances, often becoming major habitat builders. Aggregated sponges offer substrate for attachment, shelter, and feeding of other organisms, also modify benthic boundary layers, and impact significantly local and regional fluxes of organic carbon and dissolved inorganic nutrients [1–8].
During the past two decades the advent of deep-sea exploration using Remote Operated Vehicles and submersibles has uncovered extensive aggregations at deep-shelf, bathyal, and abyssal bottoms, often being referred to as "sponge gardens" or "sponge grounds" [4–5,9–15]. Among the several types of deep-water discoveries, the most shocking one were accumulative aggregations of hexactinellid sponges at the shelf-slope transition (150 to 260 m deep) off the coast of British Columbia, Canada . The aggregations consist of 3 species of hexactinellids characterized by a massive skeleton of fused silica pieces (informally referred to as "dictyonine skeletons"), which dissolves very slowly and provides a substratum on which new sponge individuals settle. This accretive process results in up to 20 m high reef formations. These sponge reefs are thought to constitute a living formation analogous to extinct Mesozoic sponge reefs [16,18–19]. Interestingly, in Paleozoic (542–252 mya) and Mesozoic (252–65 mya) oceans, two phylogenetically unrelated types of siliceous sponges ("dictyonine" hexactinellids and "lithistids") were major builders of reefs and sponge aggregations (i.e. sponge facies) in reef environments. These two ancient sponge archetypes have survived to Recent time, being the "dictyonines" classified into the modern subclass Hexasterophora of the class Hexactinellida and the "lithistids" as part of the class Demospongiae. Both sponge types share a skeletal feature: a massive siliceous skeleton in which the original, discrete pieces (spicules) become fused or articulated into a rigid silica framework. This skeletal hypersilicification has no phylogenetic value, being well established that rigid silica skeletons arose independently both in several orders within hexasterophorid hexactinellids and in different demosponge orders. Therefore, the terms "dyctionine" and "lithistid", rather than respectively reflecting a particular phylogenetic assignation within Hexactinellida and Demospongiae, informally allude to a skeletal condition (i.e., fused or articulated, rigid skeletons) of some hexactinellids and demosponges.
Hexactinellids and lithistids commonly co-occurred as reef builders on Late Jurassic (163–145 mya) and Early Cretaceous (145–100 mya) shelves, particularly at the "European" coasts of the Tethys Sea [20–21]. Those Mesozoic sponge reefs became extinct. However, from the joint analysis of the fossil record in the Paleogene (65 to 23 mya) and present-day distributions, it has been concluded that recent dictyonine hexactinellids and lithistids are relict faunas from the Cretaceous Tethyan assemblages [21–24]. These survivors, now inhabiting mostly bathyal bottoms and/or caves, were thought not to retain their ability to produce silica reef constructions any longer, until, to everyone's surprise, the living equivalent to the extinct Mesozoic hexactinellid reefs was discovered at British Columbia. It has taken over a decade to elaborate a comprehensive physical description of that unique silica reef habitat and its oceanographic setting [18–19,25–27], and almost two decades to realize about its role as an essential habitat in need of protection . Only very recently have investigations focused on the functional implications that the phenomenal nutrient fluxes across the hexactinellid reef may have in the benthic pelagic-coupling at the regional scale [17,29].
Here we are reporting on the discovery of another extant reef-like aggregation with relevant paleontological connections. It is not built by hexactinellids, but by lithistid demosponges, the one other existing type of relict sponges having a massive skeleton made by a rigid silica framework. The biology and ecology of present-day lithistid fauna remain poorly known. It can be summarized: 1) that these sponges are virtually absent from high latitudes (only 1 species known); 2) that a few species grow in shallow caves at tropical and temperate latitudes; and 3) that most species occur at bathyal depths, typically on rocky slopes and seamounts, and rarely deeper than 1700 m, although some abyssal species are known [22,30–32]. Most of the scarce biological data come from shallow caves [33–34], with information on bathyal lithistid assemblages being poorer and more fragmentary. The richest bathyal lithistid fauna known in modern oceans is probably that described from a South-Pacific chain of seamounts (200 to 700 m deep) at the Norfolk Ridge in New Caledonia [22,24,31,35–37]. That lithistid fauna has been interpreted systematically as relict from the Cretaceous, with elevated species diversity and abundance values comparable only to those in fossil assemblages from the Mesozoic.
The newly discovered lithistid aggregation, by its monospecific condition and its architectural organization, has no equivalent among the present-day lithisthid assemblages from New Caledonia or elsewhere. We are aware that the current report, because of logistic and gear limitations, does not provide a full-detail habitat characterization and that much multidisciplinary work is still required for a comprehensive understanding of the extension, oceanographic setting, and functioning of this newly discovered type of sponge formation. Nevertheless, given the offshore location and depth of the discovered habitat, it is likely that further investigations will not be conducted before new research expeditions are arranged, in years or decades. Therefore, the present study has to be understood as an initial communication aiming to inform about the existence and location of this singular, vulnerable habitat in order to attract scientific attention and, more importantly, awareness for its immediate preservation.
Materials and Methods
Study site and sampling
During 2013 and 2014, two research expeditions were carried out to investigate the fauna associated with deep bottoms around the Balearic Islands (Spain, Western Mediterranean; Fig 1). The study was conducted using the "Oceana Ranger" catamaran, a 71-feet sailing boat re-adapted to use a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV), but unfortunately lacking laboratories and any type of geological and oceanographic equipment. Bottom inspection was carried out using a Saab Seaeye Falcon DR ROV equipped with a HDV camera of 480 TVL with Minimum Scene Illumination 2.0 LUX (F1.4), Pick Up Device ½” CCD, Image Sensor, and spherical ½ of 3.8 mm and wide angle lens. A total of 32 transects were run at depths ranging from 100 to 1,000 meters, particularly focusing on escarpments, canyons, and seamounts. In this study, we are reporting on particular findings at 3 seamounts around the Balearic Islands, one located in the Gulf of Valencia-Ibiza Channel and two others south of the Mallorca Channel (Fig 1). The former seamount, herein baptized as "Stone Sponge" (SSS; 39°21.345’N, 000°51.417’E), rises from a 1,300 m-deep surrounding bottom to a minimum depth of 730 m below ocean surface. The two others are small pinnacles relatively close to each other on the east and south sides, respectively, of the Emile Baudot seamount (Fig 1), being herein named as Emile Baudot Junior (EBJ; 38°42.879’N, 002°36.254’E; top located at a depth of 495 m) and Emile Baudot South (EBS; 38°37,3580’N—002°26,2047’E; top located at a depth of 600 m). The surveyed bottom depths at SSS ranged from 730 to 890 m, at EBJ from 495 to 735 m, and at EBS from 615 to 665 m.
The inset shows the location of the Western Mediterranean surveyed area. The large map indicates the location of the 32 ROV transects. The framed squares (Stone Sponge Seamount = SSS; Emile Baudot Jr. Seamount = EBJ; Emile Baudot South Seamount = EBS) indicate the 3 seamounts reported in this study where the lithistid sponges grew abundantly.
Except for limited ROV collections, most faunal data derived from video transects and photography. All digital video and still images were geo-referenced using the USBL data from the ROV and analyzed subsequently in the laboratory. The size of the collected organisms, sponge portions included, was also used as additional scaling reference to estimate dimensions of individuals and small-scale distances of interest.
Whenever possible, representatives of the dominant benthic fauna were collected using the ROV’s arm to complement the visual information acquired by the ROV surveys. The sampling area—located in Mediterranean’s high seas, 12 nautical miles outside of territorial waters—is a non-protected zone where specific collection permits are not required under either international or national legislation. Likewise, the conducted research did not involve impact upon protected species listed under any international or national law.
Samples of the lithistid sponge were preserved in 70% ethanol upon collection. Photographs of body parts of fixed individuals were taken through an Olympus SZX2 dissecting microscope connected to a ProgRes C7 digital camera.
For the skeletal description of the dominant sponge species, tissue was cleaned in boiling nitric acid, rinsed in distilled water, dehydrated in 70% and 100% ethanol for 15 minutes at each step, and dried at 50°C. For the light microscopy study, dried skeleton samples were mounted on glass slides and examined under an Olympus IX51 inverted microscope connected to a digital camera. Additionally, uncoated, acid-cleaned samples were mounted on aluminum stubs and studied through a HITACHI TM3000 Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM).
Vouchers of the collected lithistid material have been stored at the National Museum of Natural History of Madrid (NMCN—CSIC).
General oceanographic setting
The general oceanographic conditions around the sites of interests were characterized using data available from the Mediterranean Hydrographic and Biological Data Archiving Project (http://modb.oce.ulg.ac.be/backup/medar), exploring particularly the -800 m isobath of the Balear Sea over a year cycle. The magnitudes of between-site differences in concentration of dissolved nutrients (silicate, ammonium, nitrate, nitritie, phosphate), chlorophyll a, dissolved oxygen, temperature, and salinity have been examined in order to assess their potential relevance in the development and/or maintenance of the sponge aggregations.
Because of the lack of adequate geological and coring gear during the cruises, the geomorphological setting at and around the sponge aggregations could not be herein characterized.
Vulnerability to deep-sea human activities
To assess the risk posed by the fishing fleet on the sites of interest, we examined the spatial distribution of demersal fishing effort by the Spanish fishing fleet, which is the only one operating in the area. Satellite information on vessel monitoring system (VMS) was made available to us by the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Environment (MAGRAMA) for the period 2007 to 2010. The VMS database provides information on the position (at 2h intervals), speed, and course of each vessel larger than 15 m in length. To focus on relevant fishing activity exclusively, we filtered out from the global VMS database irrelevant information relative to navigation periods, time in harbor, etc. For this data filtering [38–39], 1) the time interval and the Euclidean distance between successive signals was used; 2) the average vessel speed was calculated from the interval between successive signals; 3) vessels with less than ten signals in a year were removed; and 4) signals recorded within a distance of three miles or less from the closest fishing harbor were eliminated. The type of fishing gear used by the monitored Spanish vessels was found out by linking the VMS data to national logbook data using the vessel identifier, date, and landing species. Based on the frequency distribution of average speeds, a working range for each fishing gear was defined, and all signals out of the working range were eliminated . Finally, the fishing activity of 1,045 vessels was considered in the analysis, generating estimates of fishing effort (fishing hours) with a 5' (i.e., 5 nautical mile) grid resolution. Because this approach does not include every demersal fishing activity but only those by vessels emitting VMS data, we are expressing fishing activity (pooling together otter trawls, set gillnets, set longlines, and traps) as relative fishing effort (%), calculated on the maximum effort obtained in a spatial cell.
To further identify potential threats and damaging human activities, we examined the public records available at the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism for information on enterprises developing deep-sea activities at the Balearic Sea or having recently requested permissions to do so. Using that information, which is published in the Boletin Oficial del Estado (BOE) and at the Ministry the web page (http://www6.mityc.es/aplicaciones/energia/hidrocarburos/petroleo/exploracion2014/mapas/inicio.html), we have elaborated maps summarizing the threat posed by planned seismic surveys and hydrocarbon extraction on the 3 studied seamounts.
Description of the lithistid aggregation
In 3 out of the 32 ROV transects, a high abundance of the lithistid demosponge Leiodermatium pfeifferae (Carter, 1873) was found. This is a species never recorded before in the Mediterranean (Fig 2A; see section on "Taxonomic Remarks"). In all 3 cases, the sponge populations were located around the top of seamounts (namely, SSS, EBJ, and EBS; Fig 1). The sponge individuals grew with a foliose body shape, forming erect, contorted plates that were 0.3 to 0.9 cm thick, up to about 80 cm in height, and up to 100 cm across (Fig 2A). On the convex side, 0.1–0.2 mm wide, in-going orifices (ostia) were scattered at high density (Fig 2B), forming a feeding (inhalant) surface through which the water enters the sponge carrying food (i.e., picoplankton) and oxygen. Scattered on the concave side of the plates, there were slightly elevated, 0.5–0.6 mm wide, out-going orifices (oscula; Fig 2C), through which seawater is expelled from the sponge body after being depleted from picoplankton and oxygen, also carrying the metabolic wastes away.
(A) In situ view of an isolated, small group of individuals. (B) Detail of the convex, inhalant side of a dried individual, showing punctiform ostioles (ot). (C) Detail of the concave, exhalant side, showing small elevated oscules (os). (D) General view of the framework of spiny rhizoclone desmas. At the internal (en = endosome) region of the body plate, packs of oxeas (ox) and the aquiferous canals (ac) run from side to side of the sponge, passing through the network of desmas (rh). Note that at the inhalant side (in), desmas are thinner and smaller, making a more denser network that functions as a dermal skeleton among the ostia (ot). (E) Detail of rhizoclones (rh) around an aquiferous canal, showing large spines (sp). (F) Detail of contacts (z = zygoses) between adjacent desmas. (G) SEM view of the inhalant side of a dried specimen, showing abundant hispidating oxeas (ox) and ostia (ot) provided with a poral membrane (mb) that allows these pores to be closed if required. (H) Detail of hispidating oxeas forming a subterminal fringe at the free edge of the plates.
The sponges were hard as stones, because their body contains a massive skeletal framework made of articulated/fused siliceous spicules, the rhizoclone desmas (Figs 2D–2F and 3A). The rigid skeleton of these spiny and irregularly-shaped desmas is complemented with long (up to 1.9 mm), very thin (1 to 8 μm), flexuous, needle-like spicules, called oxeas (Figs 2D, 2G, 2H, and 3A). Oxeas run from one side to another of the sponge body, passing through the network of desmas (Figs 2D, 3A, 3B, and 3G), and piercing out the body surface at the inhalant side (Fig 2G) and also at the margin of the plate, where they form an hispidating fringe (Fig 2H). The mass of the siliceous skeleton is so important in these sponges that it represents about 95± 2% of the body dry weight. As in the case of the Canadian hexactinellid reefs , the massive lithistid skeletons do not disaggregate and appear to persist in place for long periods after sponge death.
(A) General view of the desma (rh) network, with oxeas (ox) and aquiferous canals (ac) passing through. (B) Pack of oxeas (ox) running through the desma (rh) network. (C-D) Detail of the round, spiny (sp) ends of the thickest strongyloxeas occurring in the marginal fringe. (E) Detail of a very thin oxea (ox) on the typical multifurcated spine (sp) of a rhizoclon desma. (F) View of the triangular axial canal (ax) at the core of a broken oxea. (G-H) Broken arms (ba) of desma showing no internal axial canal.
The densest and largest aggregations of L. pfeifferae occurred at SSS (S1–S3 Videos) and were discovered when a 2,260 m long and 1.5 wide ROV transect intersected the sponge aggregation at 2 different sites (sites A and B in Fig 4). We do not know the exact extension of the sponge field beyond the narrow ROV pathway. Preliminary explorations at site B by running random trajectories perpendicular to the main ROV pathway revealed no additional extensive sponge aggregation (Fig 4). Nevertheless, a more detailed, systematic bottom exploration at this seamount is required to establish the real extension of the sponge aggregation, particularly at the isobath of site A, where the lithistid formation is suspected to extend as a subterminal crown around the seamount.
Substrate coverage by lithistid sponges along the track is indicated by the color scale. A and B sites refer to the two areas where the lithistid reef was intersected by the track.
The exact number of superimposed sponge layers below the sediment remain undetermined from the current, non-coring approach, but two or more sponge layers semi-buried by sediment were often evident (Fig 4A and 4B; S1–S8 Videos). Many individuals grew as large plates, being usually 30 to 50 cm across, with the largest individuals reaching about 1 m across and up to 80 cm in height. These sizes are striking, given that the individuals of this species (and even those of most other species in the genus) have never been described growing larger than 35 cm across and 30 in height. Accretive, clumped growths produce sponge mounds on the bottom (Fig 5A), conservatively estimated to reach a maximum height of 180 cm, being on average 114 ± 35 cm (n = 12). Because at SSS the individuals grew partially superimposed to each other and intertwined (Fig 5), it was difficult to quantify density with accuracy. Tentative counts at the top layer of the sponge formation indicated that densities may range from a single large individual per m2 in some areas to about 15–16 in others, with 5 individuals of diverse size per m2 being the modal value.
(A-B) General view of the lithistid mounds, showing intertwined growth and a complex 3D structure. Translucent "a-b" and "c-d" lines indicate sponge clumps measuring respectively 118 cm and 94 cm, relative to sediment bottom. Note the occurrence of dead sponges (d) and bare skeletal remains (sr) buried in the sediment. A squat lobster (s) is also shown. (C) View of sponge plates, showing how the sediment rain accumulates on the convex (in = inhalant) side, while the concave (ex = exhalant) side has no silt. The abundant hispidating spicules on the inhalant side appear to facilitate the accumulation of sediment on the sponges. Note the presence of the starfish Peltaster placenta, thought to be also a suspension feeder. (D) Common invertebrates growing on the lithistid are hydroids (h), the alcyonacean octocoral Muriceides lepida (m), and the scleractinian coral Desmophyllum dianthus (c) with abundance of newly settled recruits (r). (E) Group of lithistid individuals laying on the sediment. Note the superimposing structure of the clump. One of the individuals is already dead (d), buried in sediment. On the other sponges, growth marks (g) are seen on the bodies, probably reflecting periodical pulses of food and silicate in the sponge habitat. (F) Aggregation area seriously damaged, with large sponges broken and laying on the side (arrows) while being buried under the sediment rain.
Substrate occupancy at SSS was monitored in more detail for about 330 m2 of the sponge bed, revealing that sponges covered from 5% to virtually 100% of bottom within the ROV trail (Fig 4), averaging about 41.6±29.5%. At EBJ and EBS, the lithistid L. pfeifferae was a common species, but never forming the dense, accretive aggregations found at SSS. For comparative purposes, a 300 m2 transect was run at EBS between the sites 38°37.3580’N—002°26,2047’E at 615 m and 38°37.4820’N—002°26.0757’E at 665 m. It resulted in a total count of 50 scattered individuals, averaging a density of 0.1 ± 0.3 ind m-2, that is, between one and two orders of magnitude lower than at SSS.
At those bottom areas where substrate coverage by the sponges was not continuous, small patches of blackish rock were occasionally seen, being likely volcanic basalt, which is the main constituent of the Emile Baudot Seamount System, created by Pleistocenic vulcanism . More often, the substrate was exposed to a continuous sediment rain, under which rocks, living sponges and skeletal remains of dead individuals were slowly buried (Fig 5A and 5B). Probably because of the shortage of hard bottom, the body and the skeletal remains of the lithistids were often chosen as settlement substratum by many sessile organisms (Fig 5D; S4 Video), typically hydroids, alcyonid and scleractinian corals, bryozoans, and, more rarely, other sponges. The scleractinian coral Muriceides lepida was particularly common at the SSS aggregation, growing on both sponges (Fig 5D) and rock. More importantly, the aggregation of L. pfeifferae individuals at SSS formed a complex 3D "reef-like" habitat that attracted a diverse vagile fauna dominated by fish, crustaceans and echinoderms, with common occurrence of conger eels, shrimps, squat lobsters, crabs, starfish, and sea urchins (Figs 5B, 5C, and 5D, Table 1; S5 and S6 Videos). The EBJ and EBS bottoms were slightly shallower and less silted than the SSS site, therefore offering a larger diversity of substrata and benthic environments, forming a faceted landscape of sediment-clean and silted rocks, crevices, coral frameworks, cobble beds, tanatocenose of the gryphaeid mollusc Neopycnodonte zibrowii, fine-sand bottoms, etc. At these two sites, the gorgonians Bebryce mollis and Nicella granifera formed gardens, dominating the landscape. The lithistid L. pfeifferae typically occurred interspersed among the other fauna, but preferentially occupying heavily silted bottom zones that, in turn, appeared to be avoided by the dominant gorgonians. At EBJ and EBS sites, the accompanying sponge community appeared to have a somewhat higher species richness than at SSS, where L. pfeifferae largely dominated the available hard substratum for sponge settlement. Common accompanying sponge species were Stylocordila pellita, Pachastrella monilifera, Thenea muricata, and Tetrodictyum tubulosum (Table 1).
General oceanographic setting
The mean concentration of silicate, a crucial nutrient used by sponges to build their silica skeleton, ranges from 7.50 to 9.50 ± 0.60 μM over the year at the -800 m isobath of the SSS area, being only 1 to 1.5 μM higher on average than values around the two others seamounts where the sponge occurs in far lower abundance (Fig 6A). The slightly higher values around SSS, which is the seamount closest to mainland, probably reflect the coastal origin of silicate inputs, as suggested by the silicate concentration at the -50 m and -300 m isobaths (not shown). The other dissolved inorganic nutrients (ammonium, nitrate, nitrite, and phosphate) are less significant to the sponge biology, but, likewise, no marked between-seamount differences in their concentration were detected. Nitrate concentration at the -800m isobath remains almost invariable over the year, with similarly low concentrations at both areas (SSS: 7.60 ± 0.25 μM; EBJ-EBS: 7.72 ± 0.25 μM). A similar pattern, but with much lower concentrations, was detected for ammonium (SSS: 0.36 ± 0.27 μM; EBJ-EBS: 0.1 ± 0.27 μM), nitrite (SSS: 0.07 ± 0.03 μM; EBJ-EBS: 0.05 ± 0.03 μM), and phosphate (SSS: 0.43 ± 0.03 μM; EBJ-EBS: 0.42 ± 0.05 μM).
(A) Silicate concentration (μM) at the -800 m isobath of the Balearic Sea. (B-C) Chlorophyll concentration (mg m-3) at the -800 m and -300 m isobaths; the latter one indicates the coastal origin of the sinking phytoplankton. (D) Oxygen concentration (ml l-1) at the -800 m isobath. To illustrate between-mountain comparisons in the various variables of interest, we are depicting only the spatial distribution during the season in which differences between the SSS area and the EBJ-EBS area were the greatest for each variable. In general, between seamount differences were very small over the year cycle, with the winter season causing the larger differences, except for oxygen concentration, which took place in summer.
Temperature and salinity values at the -800 m isobath keep quite stable, with negligible between-seamounts differences over the year. The average concentration of Chl a at the -800 isobath, which could inform about inputs of organic matter from the euphotic zone, ranges from 0.025 to 0.33 ± 0.01 mg m-3 around SSS over the year, being systematically these figures about 0.01 mg m-3 lower than the average concentrations at EBJ and EBS sites (Fig 6B). These values are one order of magnitude lower than the chlorophyll concentration measured at the -300 m isobath (Fig 6C) and about 2 orders of magnitude lower than those in the chlorophyll maximum located in the euphotic layer at a depth of 50 m (not shown). Chlorophyll distribution at -300 m illustrates the sinking of coastal phytoplankton bloom, which should deliver about 2 or 3 times more organic matter to SSS than to EBS-EBJ (Fig 6C). Nevertheless, the complex hydrodynamic taking places around and between these deep seamount chains (see Discussion) causes the SSS site to finally receive even lower Chlorophyll inputs than EBS and EBJ seamounts (Fig 6B). Oxygen concentrations, a potential indicator of decomposition of sunk organic matter through bacterial proliferation, confirmed the chlorophyll patterns at -800 m. Oxygen varied minimally around the 3 seamounts, ranging from 4.36 to 4.48 ml l-1 over the year cycle, and with between-seamount differences being always smaller than 0.09 ml l-1 (Fig 6C).
Habitat damage and vulnerability
Our ROV survey at SSS documented areas where the lithistid aggregation was seriously damaged, with many detached and broken sponges laying in unnatural position on the bottom while being slowly buried under a lethal sediment rain. From S7 and S8 Videos, in which two damaged reef areas are shown, it is estimated that approximately about 90 and 60% of sponge individuals were broken down, respectively. Damaged areas showed an evident loss of tridimensional structure (Fig 5F). As the living tissue represents a minimal portion of the sponge body and the external surfaces of broken-down sponges are heavily covered by sediment, it was difficult to quantify live vs. dead individuals in those damaged areas. By conducting sporadic video zooms during the ROV transects, we corroborated that nearly all individuals laying on the bottom in an unnatural (i.e., non-erect) position had signs of necrosis (Fig 5E). Therefore, it was assumed that broken-down sponges will necessarily die in the long run.
The reasons for such a damage remain intriguing. We corroborated that fishing boats (> 15 m in length) geared with otter trawl, set gillnets, set longlines, and/or traps displayed intense activity along the continental margin of Spain and on the shelf and slope of the Balearic Islands during the 2007 to 2010 period (Fig 7). Nevertheless, no traceable fishing effort was recorded within a 20 nautical mile-2 area around the SSS site for the examined time period (Fig 7). It is likely that the fishing trip to this relatively offshore, small seamount was not economically profitable for either vessels based at the coast of Spain or for those at the Balearic Islands. Such an "in-between" geographical condition has probably favored the preservation of the lithistid formation so far. Yet, we detected a few fishing lines tangled around the sponges at SSS (S1 Fig), which could derive from fishing activities out of the 4-year time window investigated in this study or, more rarely, from fishing boats smaller than 15 m in length. In summary, it remains uncertain that recent fishing activities caused the documented damage at the SSS site. Some benthic fishing activity is detectable within the EBS-EBJ area. Yet it is moderate to low, representing fishing effort values lower than 5%.
Summary of a vessel monitoring system (VMS) analysis involving the fishing activity of 1045 vessels geared with otter trawls, set gillnets, set longlines, and/or traps during the 2007–2010 period. Results are expressed as relative (%) fishing effort (i.e., comparative numbers of fishing hours at a 5' x 5' grid cell). Crosses (+) refer to the location of the seamounts of interest (SSS, EBJ, EBS), each being surrounded by a 20 x 20 nautical mile quadrat.
A more serious threat is currently posed on the reef-like lithistid habitat by the plans of several international companies prospecting for gas and oil at extensive areas of the Balearic Sea, including the specific locations of SSS, EBS, and EBJ sites (S2–S3 Figs)
In the Mediterranean, lithistids can be said to be rare, with only 13 species (2.4%) out of the 533 living demosponges known to date in this sea. Such a well-known scarcity makes the occurrence of a Mediterranean deep aggregation exclusively built by the lithistid L. pfeifferae surprising. Even more surprising is that the species had never been described in the Mediterranean so far (see the section on "Taxonomic Remarks"), being only occasionally reported from bathyal depths at both sides of the Atlantic .
It remains unclear the particular conditions that have favored the impressive aggregation of L. pfeifferae at the SSS site and not at other seamounts of the Balearic Sea where the species has also been detected to occur (i.e., EBJ and EBS). As this sponge is characterized by a poorly developed organic body portion relative to a massive silica skeleton, it would be expected to require large amounts of dissolved silicon to growth and build its skeletal framework. However, average silicate concentrations at the -800 m isobath around the SSS area (about 8 μM over the year) were only 1 to 1.5 μM higher than values around the two others seamounts where the sponge occurs in far lower abundance. Concentrations at SSS are also consistently lower than those at the Atlantic side of the Gibraltar Strait, where the complex hydrodynamics makes silicate at the -800 m isobath to vary largely from around 10 to 17 μM over a year cycle, according to MEDAR data base. Concentrations at SSS are also far lower than average concentrations around the Pacific hexactinellid reefs at 200 m deep, typically being higher than 40 μM . Altogether, these data suggest that: 1) dissolved silicon availability in the Balearic Sea may not be particularly responsible for the dense lithistid aggregation at SSS; 2) this lithistid sponge is able to build efficiently its massive silica skeleton in much lower silicate ambient concentrations than hexactinellid sponges, probably having a Si uptake system with efficient Si transport below the high silicate thresholds (100 to 200 μM) determined for other demosponges [6,41–42].
Regarding the others inorganic dissolved nutrients (ammonium, nitrate, nitrite and phosphate), temperature, and salinity, marked between-seamount differences did not occur. Food availability (i.e., bacterioplankton) is another major factor that could favor the sponge aggregation. Unfortunately, there are not detailed data around the SSS area relative to bacterial concentrations. It has been demonstrated that the concentration of the bathypelagic bacterioplankton has an enormous spatial variability that is coupled to complex local patterns of particulate organic carbon delivery from the euphotic zone . The average concentration of Chl a at the -800 isobath around SSS site is 0.01 mg m-3 lower on average than concentrations at EBJ and EBS sites. Therefore, differences in concentration of sinking phytoplankton cannot account for the denser SSS aggregation. We have double-checked on this "food availability" hypothesis by examining dissolved oxygen values. The prokaryotic production and enzymatic activities in Mediterranean deep waters are among the highest reported worldwide at similar depths, indicating that the peculiar physical-chemical characteristics of the Mediterranean Sea, characterized by warm temperatures (typically 13°C around the studied seamount depths), would support high rates of organic carbon degradation and incorporation by prokaryotic assemblages . Since prokaryotic production and enzymatic activities in deep water masses are known to be inversely related with oxygen concentration, we examined the -800 m isobath for drop anomalies in oxygen concentration, but, again, it varied minimally (0.12 ml/l) among the 3 seamounts over the year cycle (Fig 6C). In summary, from the available oceanographic data, we have detected only very minor between seamount differences, the magnitudes of which are too small to explain the astonishing dense lithistid aggregation at only SSS site but not at the two other seamounts where the species also occurs.
Interestingly, L. pfeifferae seems to be able to cope with heavy sediment deposition. In the particular zones where L. pfeifferae abounded at both SSS, EBJ, and EBS, the substratum was systematically covered by a thick sediment layer, suggesting that this sponge benefits somehow from regular and intense sediment deposition (S1–S3, S7 and S8 Videos). The location of the ostia on the silt-exposed side of the body, along with these ostia having a poral membrane (Fig 2H) that allows them to close, are two traits suggesting an adaption to cope with siltation and prevailing horizontal currents, and it may have favored the dominance of this particular sponge species at deep-water sites characterized by heavy sediment rain. While most other sponges minimize exposure to sediment [e.g., 45,46–47], the abundant needle-like spicules protruding at the inhalant side of the body and at the plate margin of L. pfeifferae (Fig 2G and 2H) appear to facilitate the retention and accumulation of sediment on the sponges (Fig 4C). These deposits of decaying silt may act as microorganism culturing medium, facilitating the proliferation of a self-regenerating bacterial community right on the feeding side of the sponge body, and it may represent an important food source to the sponges. To grow, these sponges may rely much on inputs of organic matter and dissolved silicon, the origin of which remains uncertain from the available oceanographic data. The interaction of seawater currents with the complex topography of seamounts usually creates intricate patterns of local circulation that may include both stationary ascending eddies (Taylor columns) and downstream eddies, along with trapped waves and internal wave reflection. Whatever the mechanism of food and silicate delivery to these lithistid populations is, it seems to happens in episodic pulses. This is deduced from the growth marks evident on the sponge bodies (Fig 5E), where the position of the free margin of the laminar body during successive growth stages can be easily retraced. Whether growth marks account for seasonal, annual, or other periodicity remains to be elucidated.
It cannot be ruled out that at least part of the development and/or maintenance of this sponge aggregation could result from a local hydrodynamic pattern around the SSS site avoiding gametes, embryos and/or larvae escaping from the parental habitat, and increasing local recruitment. Additionally, the SSS could function as concentration site for reproductive propagules emitted from other nearby sponge populations of the Balearic Sea. However, little more than mere speculation can be offered at the current stage of knowledge, because virtually nothing is known both about the local circulation around the SSS site and about the reproductive biology and dispersing ability of this group of lithistid sponges [48–49].
From our current, non-coring approach, it also remains unclear if the accumulation of buried skeletal silica frameworks makes a thick, true "bioherm", that is, with fossilized or sub-fossilized skeletal remains of dead individuals progressively accumulating while being buried by the sediment.
Unequivocal fossil remains indicate that early representatives of hexactinellid and lithistid sponges occurred in the Cambrian (>540 mya). Soon lithistids became major reef framework builders (Early Ordovician; 485 mya) that irregularly expanded through the Paleozoic, while dictyonine hexactinellids did not build reefs until about 240 million years later, in the Mesozoic [18,50–55]. Although many of the Paleozoic lithistid and hexactinellid lineages did not make it through the Permian (252 mya) massive extinction [21,50–51], those few reaching the Mesozoic experienced a second major radiation and diversification through the Middle Jurassic. As a result, by the Late Jurassic (163–145 mya), sponge-dominated reefs thrived on continental shelves at varying depth within the photic layer, typically with the collaboration of cyanobacteria that produced a calcareous crust that further cemented the massive sponge silica skeletons [20,51,53,56–57]. On Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous shelves (particularly at the "European" coasts of the Tethys Sea), hexactinellids and lithistids commonly co-occurred, often the former ones dominating in the deepest zones and the lithistids at the shallowest ones [20–21]. These sponge-dominated, silica reefs started declining in the Late Cretaceous (93 to 65 mya) and they progressively disappeared through the lower Tertiary (i.e., Paleogene: 65 to 23 mya) [20–21,53]. The most likely reason is that the evolutionary radiation of diatoms, coupled to a phenomenal ecological expansion and proliferation of this new group of silicon consumers, drastically decreased the availability of dissolved silicon in shallow water of the global ocean [58–59]. As a consequence, silicon became limiting to the sponges , with many reef building species becoming extinct and others migrating from the shelf to the aphotic slope, caves and other dark environments where diatoms could not exhaust dissolved silicon. Both the demise of sponge reefs and the bathymetrical migration of the hexactinellids and lithistids over the lower Tertiary are reflected in the fossil record [21,61–63]. The diatom-triggered silicate crisis also impacted the diversity and abundance of the siliceous lineages of radiolarians [64–65]. The fierce competition for dissolved silicon initiated around the Mesozoic-Tertiary boundary has reached Recent time and it is still affecting negatively the skeletal development of many modern shallow-water sponges, which outcompeted by diatoms, suffer a severe chronic silicon limitation [41–42,60]. Such a persisting silicon limitation would probably prevent sponge silica reefs and other silica-rich sponge aggregations to re-conquer the photic zone, even if increasing ocean acidification will negatively affect the viability of coral reefs in future oceans.
It is worth noting that the general lithistid lineage to which Leiodermatium belongs (palaeontologically referred to as "Rhizomorina" and characterized by rhizoclone desma) has survived the amazing journey from the Cambrian to Recent time. Remains of the genus Leiodermatium can be traced back with reliability to the middle Jurassic, as proved by the occurrence of the bodily preserved Leiodermatium (originally described as Azorica) calloviensis [21,66–67]. Therefore, because members of the genus Leiodermatium were already part of the Mesozoic sponge-dominated reefs, the uncovered Leiodermatium reef-like formation at SSS is foreseen as a unique living laboratory. The identification of the geomorphological, oceanographic and biological circumstances that favored and maintain such a modern lithistid aggregation may teach us about the contribution of lithistid sponges to the development and functioning of the Mesozoic reefs.
With relatively few morphological and skeletal characters available in the genus Leiodermatium to discriminate among species, Leiodermatium pfeifferae (Carter, 1873) [68–69] and Leiodermatium lynceous Schmidt, 1870 are currently regarded as distinguishable, but very similar species. They also have largely overlapping bathymetrical and distribution ranges. Leiodermatium pfeifferae has been reported from both sides of the Atlantic (Brazil, Portugal, Açores, Madeira) and in the Western Mediterranean (this work). Likewise, L. lynceous has been reported from both sides of the Atlantic (Brazil, Caribbean, England coasts, Portugal, Strait of Gibraltar, Canary Islands) and in the Mediterranean (Tyrrhenian , the Ionian , and the Aegean Sea).
Whether these two species are indeed valid and distinguishable from each other, it has been questioned from the very first description of L. pfeifferae by Carter in 1873 [68–69] until the last review of the genus by Kelly in 1997 ; some authors have also regarded them as synonyms . At present, the species discrimination could be said to rely on several characters of arguable phylogenetic value. Unlike L. lynceus, L. pfeifferae bears the oscula on the concave side of the plates, makes thicker (>4 mm) and larger plates, and has more abundant needle-like spicules (oxeas), making a microscopically hispid fringe at the margin of the plates. In this regard, our collected individuals, having the oscula on the concave side (Fig 2C), forming thick plates (4 to 9 mm), and with abundant oxeas (Fig 3A and 3B) at the inhalant side and the marginal fringe (Fig 2G and 2H), match completely the description of the holotype of L. pfeifferae by Carter [68–69]. Additionally, Carter described the "oxeas" of L. pfeifferae being up to 1,800 μm long and x 8.5 μm thick, noting that the largest ones, typically at the marginal fringe, were not oxeas, but strongyles or strongyloxeas, because the acerate points became round, slightly inflated ends that could even bear tiny spines. Those details, which have not been reported from specimens of L. lynceus so far, do also occur in the material that we collected from SSS site (Fig 3C and 3D). We have found that the oxeas hispidating the inhalant side of the sponges are very thin (1–2 μm) and flexuous (Figs 2G, 3A, 3B, 3E, and 3G), while those making the marginal fringe of the plate are thicker (up to 8 μm), less flexuous, and with slightly spiny round ends, that is, becoming strongyloxeas or strongyles (Fig 3C and 3D). We also noticed that these oxeas and strongyloxeas have a triangular axial canal at their core (Fig 3F), while no axial canal was ever found within the arms of broken rhizoclone desmata (Fig 3G and 3H).
The large, erect, plate-like bodies of L. pfeifferae are seen as particularly susceptible to be broken by tangles with fishing gear and telecom cables, but also by landing incorrectly ROVs and deploying benthic scientific or mining equipment. Neither can aggressive seismic exploration be ruled out as a putative damaging factor. Because deep-sea erect, plate-like sponges are often suited to exploit horizontal prevailing currents, the individuals that are broken and fall to the bottom in an unnatural position are thought to have minimum chances of surviving. Therefore, the architectural organization of this sponge aggregation makes it particularly vulnerable to physical damage. It is worth noting that, according to the VMS data, the area where the densest lithistid aggregation is known (SSS) does not appear to be a significant target of the demersal fishing fleet. Nevertheless, a few fishing lines were found tangled around the sponges (S1 Fig) and ample areas with detached and broken sponges were noticed as well (S7 and S8 Videos). The latter finding indicates that some human or natural agent or process, unidentified from the current approach, is already damaging this singular lithistid formation.
The glass sponge reefs in the Canadian Pacific and, in general, sponge aggregations on deep shelves and slopes are currently recognized as essential marine habitats, with growing concerns over the need for effective and urgent preservation [5,11,14,28,74–77]. Currently, when seamounts are becoming more attractive and accessible to benthic fishing [78–79], and when the Mediterranean continental margin of Spain is being targeted for extensive drilling, prospection aimed at commercial gas hydrate extraction, fracking of natural gas and oil, and mineral mining [80–81], urgent conservation measures are required to prevent further damage of the newly discovered lithistid aggregation. More specifically, the imminent plans for extraction of gas and oil in extensive areas of the Balearic Sea, including the three studied seamounts pose a serious, major threat on the discovered lithistid aggregations (S2–S3 Figs). It would be regrettable to have the singular habitat at SSS altered or destroyed even before it can be studied in detail and its lessons to the past extracted.
S1 Fig. Examples of fishing lines tangled on the sponges.
(A-B) Fishing lines tangled around some of the sponges were documented. Fishing lines were often buried in the sediment, and mostly noticed by the lineal marks (arrows) they left on the bottom around the sponges.
S2 Fig. Map summarizing current projects for prospection and exploitation of bathyal bottoms at the Balearic Sea.
The map has been elaborated using public information available from the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism, published in the Spanish Boletín Oficial del Estado (BOE) and at the Ministry webpage: http://www6.mityc.es/aplicaciones/energia/hidrocarburos/petroleo/exploracion2014/mapas/inicio.html. The company Spectrum Geo Limited has requested permission (i.e., Spectrum project) to the Spanish Government to conduct seismic survey of extensive bathyal bottoms aimed to a subsequent exploitation of hydrocarbon deposits. The activity will be conducted in two phases, with stage 2 (green grid) involving the areas where EBJ and EBS seamounts are located. The company Cairn Energy has requested permission (i.e., Cairn project) to seismic prospecting, to research, and to extract hydrocarbons at an area of the Balearic Sea that includes the SSS location, that is, the seamount where the unique lithistid reef-like aggregation occurs (see a detail of the Cairn project in S3 Fig). The global impact area is estimated as an outer, 30 km-wide belt around the zone of activity.
S3 Fig. Summary of permits requested to conduct deep-sea activities in the vicinity of the SSS habitat.
The map shows the area requested for a variety of planned activities by the enterprise Cairn Energy. It also shows the location of relevant topography features and benthic communities, including the singular lithistid reef at SSS. The global impact area is estimated as an outer, 30 km-wide belt around the zone of activity. The map has been elaborated using public information available from the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism, published in the Boletin Oficial del Estado (BOE) and at Ministry the web page: http://www6.mityc.es/aplicaciones/energia/hidrocarburos/petroleo/exploracion2014/mapas/inicio.html
S1 Video. Views of the lithistid reef at SSS.
S2 Video. Views of the lithistid reef at SSS.
S3 Video. Views of the lithistid reef at SSS.
S4 Video. Views of epibiont fauna on a lithistid sponge.
S5 Video. Views of benthic macrofauna associated to the reef.
S6 Video. Views of benthic macrofauna associated to the reef.
S7 Video. Views of a damaged reef area 1 at SSS.
S8 Video. Views of a damaged reef area 2 at SSS.
The authors thank C. Sitjà for help with SEM sample preparation. C. Sitja, M. López-Acosta, and E. Ballesteros provided useful comments on the manuscript. We thanks to the GHER research group (http://modb.oce.ulg.ac.be/) and MEDAR EC Project (http://www.ifremer.fr/medar/) for compiling and making their oceanographic data available.
Conceived and designed the experiments: MM RA. Performed the experiments: MM RA JB SG AP AS. Analyzed the data: MM RA AP. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MM RA JB SG AS AP. Wrote the paper: MM RA AP AS. Responsible for the taxonomic study and the oceanographic setting: MM. Collected, processed and mapped field data: RA JB SG. Helped collect, process and map field data: AS. Filtered and analyzed VMS data: AP AS. Collected information on plans for exploitation of hydrcarbons at the Balearic Sea: MM RS.
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Since 1977, the percentage of kindergartners enrolled in full-day (in contrast to half-day) programs has nearly tripled, increasing from 28 to 77 percent between 1977 and 2013.
Overall, children who spend time in full-day kindergarten programs are more likely than children who spend time in half-day kindergarten programs to devote time every day to reading, mathematics, and social studies. Full-day kindergarten allows teachers more time to promote formal and informal learning, reduces the number of transitions in a child’s day, and allows children to get used to a schedule similar to that which they will have in first grade. In the short-term, children attending full-day kindergarten programs tend to do better in school than do children attending half-day kindergarten programs, and show stronger academic gains in kindergarten.,, Full-day kindergarten programs may be especially beneficial for children from low-income families, especially if class size remains small. However, a study using nationally representative data found little evidence that full-day programs are particularly beneficial for poor as opposed to non-poor children.
Research is inconclusive on longer-term impacts. A nationally representative study, using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey-Kindergarten Cohort, found that academic gains of full-day programs had largely disappeared by the end of first grade. However, another study found that children in full-day kindergarten programs scored higher on standardized math and reading tests through the second grade. Additionally, some research finds that children in full-day programs have more behavior problems than do children in half-day programs, with differences especially large when comparing half-day programs that met in the afternoon with full-day programs. A recent meta-analysis found that kindergarteners in full-day programs were more likely to have good attendance, self-confidence, and the ability to work and play with others, but less likely to have a positive attitude towards school.
Since 1977, the percentage of kindergartners enrolled in full-day rather than half-day programs has more than doubled, increasing from 28 percent of all kindergartners in 1977 to 77 percent of all kindergartners in 2013. Increases were especially steep between 1996 and 1998, and between 2002 and 2006. (Figure 1)
Differences by Race and Hispanic Origin
Asian and Pacific Islander kindergartners are less likely than other kindergartners to be enrolled in full-day programs. In 2013, 67 percent of Asian or Pacific Islander kindergartners were in full-day programs, compared with76 percent of Hispanic, 78 percent of white, and 81 percent of black kindergartners. Seventy-three percent of American Indian kindergartners were enrolled in full-day programs, which was not significantly different from children of other races and ethnicities. (Figure 2)
Differences by Region
In 2013, Kindergartners in the West are the least likely to be enrolled in a full-day program (42 percent, compared with 23 percent in the Northeast, 18 percent in the Midwest, and 15 percent in the south). Kindergarteners in the Northeast were also less likely than those in the South to be in a full-day program. (Figure 3) However, differences between regions have been decreasing. (Appendix 1)
Differences by Family Income
In 2013, kindergarteners in low-income families and those in higher-income families were equally likely to be in full-day programs. (Appendix 1)
Differences by Type of School
In 2013, kindergarteners in public and private schools were equally likely to be in full-day programs. Prior to 2004, however, students in private schools were more likely to be in full-day programs. (Appendix 1)
State and Local Estimates
The Education Commission of the States maintains an on-line database of information on states’ policies (statutory and finance) affecting kindergarten.
- Preschool and Prekindergarten
- Child Care
- School Readiness
- Kindergartners' Social Interaction Skills (archived)
- Public Schools with Pre-K and Special Education Pre-K Programs (archived)
This indicator includes those kindergartners, ages four to six, who are enrolled in a full-day kindergarten program, either public or private.
Data for 1994-2013: Child Trends' original analyses of data from the Current Population Survey, October Supplement.
Data for 1977-1992: Wirt, J., Choy, S., Rooney, P., Provasnik, S., Sen, A., and Tobin, R. (2004). The Condition of Education 2004 (NCES 2004-077). U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Available online at: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/2004/pdf/03_2004.pdf
Raw Data Source
Current Population Survey, October Supplement
Appendix 1 - Percentage of Kindergartners, Ages Four to Six, Enrolled in Full-day Kindergarten: Selected Years, 1977-2013
|Asian or Pacific Islander||-||-||-||-||-||-||56.6||49.7||60.4||66.5||67.9||60.2||62.0||63.1||60.1||69.5||68.4||66.7|
|American Indian or Alaska Native||-||-||-||-||-||-||75.9||60.3||68.0||76.0||49.7||86.8||86.3||67.5||62.0||74.0||85.1||72.5|
|Less than a high school degree||-||-||-||-||-||-||52.1||53.4||64.8||69.3||76.3||75.1||73.5||74.9||71.9||84.6||74.7||67.3|
|High school degree/equivalent||-||-||-||-||-||-||48.5||51.9||60.2||73.8||71.7||74.2||74.8||77.6||73.3||77.1||73.1||79.0|
|Some college/technical vocational degree||-||-||-||-||-||-||45.5||51.3||60.3||70.0||74.2||71.6||75.1||76.4||73.2||78.4||79.0||80.5|
|Bachelor's degree or more||-||-||-||-||-||-||46.3||48.1||54.1||65.6||65.9||67.6||66.9||68.8||71.5||73.3||75.4||75.5|
|Two native-born parents||-||-||-||-||-||-||47.1||52.3||60.4||71.1||72.7||71.8||72.5||74.3||74.0||76.8||78.1||78.3|
|Native-born with at least one foreign-born parent||-||-||-||-||-||-||58.5||46.7||59.2||65.9||69.5||68.9||71.5||73.0||68.7||77.9||69.2||73.4|
|Foreign-born with at least one foreign-born parent||-||-||-||-||-||-||39.6||40.2||58.8||66.9||67.0||77.2||60.4||68.6||78.1||73.4||82.0||79.3|
|Less than $15,000||-||-||-||-||-||-||53.2||61.5||72.4||76.1||77.0||79.5||78.1||80.1||78.5||80.7||78.9||77.7|
|Type of School|
|“-“ data not available.
Sources: Data for 1977-1992: Wirt, J., Choy, S., Rooney, P., Provasnik, S., Sen, A., and Tobin, R. (2004). The Condition of Education 2004 (NCES 2004-077). U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Data for 1994-2013: Child Trends' original analyses of data from the Current Population Survey October Supplement.
Walston, J. T., and West, J. (2004). Full-day and half-day kindergarten in the United States: Findings from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class 1998-99. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES 2004–078). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Available at: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2004/2004078.pdf
Finn, J. D. & Pannozzo, G. M. (2004). Classroom organization and student behavior in kindergarten. Journal of Educational Research, 98(2), 79-92.
Kauerz, K.. (2005). Op cit.
Guarino, C. M., Hamilton, L. S., Lockwood, J. R., & Rathbun, A. H. (2006). Teacher qualifications, instructional practices, and reading and mathematics gains of kindergartners (NCES 2006-031). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics. Available at: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/2006031.pdf.
Zvoch, K., Reynolds, R. E., & Parker, R. P. (2008). Full-day kindergarten and student literacy growth: Does a lengthened school day make a difference? Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 23(1), 94-107.
Cannon, J. S., Jacknowitz, A., & Painter, G. (2006). Is full better than half? Examining the longitudinal effects of full-day kindergarten attendance. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 25(2), 299-321.
Gullo, D. F. (2000). The long term educational effects of half-day vs full-day kindergarten. Early Child Development and Care, 160(1), 17-24.
Finn, J. D. & Pannozzo, G. M. (2004). Op cit.
Cooper, H., Batts, A., Patall, E. A., & Dent, A. L. (2010). Effects of full-day kindergarten on academic achievement and social development. Review of Educational Research, 80(1), 54-70.
Hispanics may be of any race. Estimates for whites and blacks in this report do not include Hispanics.
Child Trends Databank. (2015). Full-day kindergarten. Available at: http://www.childtrends.org/?indicators=full-day-kindergarten
Last updated: February 2015 | <urn:uuid:7abec4c4-c4fc-4905-b5ad-bef73ed3d2fe> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.childtrends.org/?indicators=full-day-kindergarten | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403508.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00036-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.806976 | 2,415 | 3.25 | 3 |
Q: What was the point of baseball researchers studying 4,566,468 pitcher-batter matchups covering 57,293 Major League games since 1952?
A: Richard Larrick and colleagues were interested in finding the exact probability of a batter being hit by a pitch under various circumstances, says David G. Myers in "Exploring Psychology, Ninth Edition."
Lab experiments have shown that people made miserable will often resort to making others miserable -- called the "frustration-aggression principle." Frustration creates anger, which in turn can spark aggression. In one study of 27,667 hit-by-pitch incidents from 1960 to 2004, batters were most likely to be hit when:
1. Pitchers were frustrated due to the previous batter hitting a home run;
2. Current batter had hit a home run on his previous at bat;
3. A teammate of the pitcher had been hit by a pitch in the previous half inning.
Other aversive stimuli triggering hostility: heat, physical pain, insults, foul odors, cigarette smoke, crowding, and more. In fact, overheating is such a volatile trigger that simply thinking about words related to hot temperature can be enough to increase subjects' hostile thoughts, Myers adds.
It is not surprising, then, that in games, the number of hit batters rises with the temperature.
Q: A rather unloving group has revealed some "broken hearts" going back thousands of years. What group is that?
A: Randall Thompson and colleagues at the University of Missouri-Kansas City analyzed CAT scans of 137 mummies from ancient Egypt, Peru, Utah and the Aleutian Islands of the north Pacific Ocean, representing "human populations dating from 3000 BC to the 20th century," reports New Scientist.
Many of the mummies had calcified plaque in artery walls -- often in the aorta or the neck's artery -- hinting at atherosclerosis, a major cause of heart attacks ("The Lancet").
Among the premoderns were farmers or hunter-gatherers, the team discovered, raising possibilities of early human predisposition to the disease. And, said Eric Brunner at University College London, people who were mummified were likely of high status, "and therefore had a higher-fat, more sedentary lifestyle."
Q: When might dimples on a golf ball help you "run like the wind"?
A: When they inspire a major sporting-goods company to engineer a new lightweight "dimpled" track suit, answers Scientific American.
Made from recycled plastic bottles, the suit had tiny patterns and surface architecture woven into the polyester fabric to maximize speed and distance, much like dimples on a golf ball. "On average, runners on Team USA [a few years ago] finished two hundredths of a second faster per 100 meters than they did wearing the company's previous materials."
Q: If it's not literally a "dog-eat-dog" world, then what might it be?
A: It's more a "cat-eat-bird" world, with other small animals included in the kill, says Susan Milius in Science News. According to Peter Marra of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, the estimated death toll was between 1.4 to 3.7 billion birds killed by cats every year, plus 6.9 to 20.7 billion small mammals -- numbers far greater than many scientists had previously thought.
"The majority of these doomed mammals and birds fall into the jaws of cats that live outdoors full time with or without food supplements from people." This cat kill-off "may rank as the biggest immediate danger that living around people brings to wildlife," say the researchers.
"The big message here," Marra offers, "is responsible pet ownership." Even though full-time outdoor cats may be a bigger problem, cats with indoor homes still catch 1.9 billion wild animals a year. He hopes these new numbers will help encourage dialogue between wildlife conservationists and cat-welfare advocates -- "people who love animals on both sides."
Brothers Bill and Rich Sones are Cuyahoga County residents who research and write the Strange But True column. Send questions to email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:391198bb-8c1b-46ff-929e-e67822f43f8b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cleveland.com/pdq/index.ssf/2013/06/hit_by_pitch_analysis_broken_h.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00006-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954087 | 867 | 2.96875 | 3 |
This photomontage of a crowd of people with a shadow of man hanging from tree superimposed over them was created between 1920 and 1940. Learn more »
From 1882 to 1936 alone, an estimated 4,673 lynchings took place across America. Of that number, at least 389 occurred in Louisiana, of which 333 were committed against African Americans; only Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas witnessed more lynching violence during the period. For a time, the top four lynching counties in America were Ouachita, Caddo, Bossier, and Morehouse parishes in north Louisiana. Even these shocking numbers fail to tell the whole story, however, since many lynchings went unreported or were treated as regular homicides instead of racially charged mob activities.
Lynching represents an extralegal form of punishment undertaken by a group of individuals for perceived transgressions handled outside of legal system. While, in the American West, cattle rustling often served as the trigger for violent mob action, in the South lynching most often occurred following a violation of regional racial etiquette. Frequently, alleged criminals awaiting their date before a judge were forcibly removed from a jail by a mob, often while local law enforcement officials looked on, and taken to a remote location where they faced execution. Although the hangman’s noose was the preferred tool, many other brutal methods, including immolation, were utilized. Far from spur-of-the-moment affairs, many lynchings were premeditated events witnessed by large crowds, whose members frequently took home “souvenirs” from the spectacle.
Lynching in Late Nineteenth-Century Louisiana
In Louisiana, as in the South in general, the number of lynchings spiked following Reconstruction, though signs of the problem emerged far earlier. As Louisiana struggled with the new political order imposed during Reconstruction, many disenfranchised whites struck out at Republican Party faithfuls regardless of their race. Terrorist groups such as the White League spread fear throughout the state, mixing threats with violence. In an 1884 incident known as the Coushatta Massacre, members of the league lynched four blacks and six white Republicans. The violence that engulfed the state and the South as a whole played a pivotal role in turning Northern opinion against Reconstruction.
When Reconstruction finally ended in 1877, Louisianans faced a different sequence of challenges and a more aggressive and racially motivated spate of lynchings. As the 1880s dawned, a new era of violence ensued as Bourbon Democrats strengthened their hold on power in Louisiana. White supremacy represented a central tenant of their platform and led to even greater levels of violence as they tried to reverse the advances made by African Americans during Reconstruction. Capitalizing on rumors that black crime had expanded after the abolition of slavery, Bourbon leaders and their followers demanded that whites take extraordinary steps to prevent black “retrogression” to their innate state of “barbarism.” As a result, the number of lynchings soared across the South and, for a twenty-year period, hundreds of lives were taken. Lynch mobs often justified their actions as attempts to defend white Southern womanhood from “libidinous” black males, but statistics reveal that even at the height of lynch law in America, only about 25 percent of all lynchings were for alleged rapes.
Although most lynching victims were African Americans, other “outsiders” sometimes ran afoul of Louisiana’s white ruling class. In 1891, at the height of the lynching epidemic in Louisiana, the lynching of eleven Italians in New Orleans for allegedly killing Police Chief David Hennessey garnered the most attention. It marked the first of several attacks on the rapidly expanding Italian community in southeastern Louisiana. Further north, in the Madison Parish village of Tallulah, five Sicilians were killed because of little more than rumors that the men possessed fiery and violent tempers. Scant evidence existed that the men, all of whom sold fruits and vegetables, were anything but law-abiding citizens. At a time when outsiders were viewed with suspicion, however, the economic success of the Sicilians—when many in the surrounding community suffered—heightened hostility toward them.
Lynching in Twentieth-Century Louisiana
In the early twentieth century, the number of lynchings generally decreased as state and local authorities began cracking down on the crime, partly because of outside pressure. The establishment of a legally sanctioned system of racial segregation, known as Jim Crow, decreased contact between the races and contributed to this reduction, albeit unintentionally. Once this system was firmly ensconced, the need for frequent demonstrations of terror gradually dissipated. With the ratification of the Louisiana Constitution of 1898, blacks had been effectively removed from the political process, their voices silenced by a series of laws and voting requirements that made it virtually impossible for them to participate in state politics. At the same time, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), segregation statutes were extended and formalized, further codifying a new Southern social order predicated on white supremacy. Even as violence lessened, however, the threat of further bloodletting remained close to the surface. Transgressions, whether large or small, could prompt a return of lynch law. From rape to catcalling and everything in between, violence often became the answer when blacks “stepped out of line.”
By the end of World War II, lynching, as understood in the context of the 1880s and 1890s, had been dramatically reduced, a fact that helped undermine federal efforts to enact anti-lynching legislation in the period. The specter of racial violence nonetheless remained, but the carnival quality of the prototypical late nineteenth-century lynching gave way to brutal clandestine murders committed away from the glare of large crowds in the mid-twentieth century. As the push for racial equality expanded during the civil rights movement, racial violence and intimidation grew along with it. Though the form this lawlessness differed from that of previous eras, its origins were firmly rooted in the age when lynch law reigned supreme.
Cite This Entry
Chicago Manual of Style
Finley, Keith. "Lynching." In KnowLA Encyclopedia of Louisiana, edited by David Johnson. Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, 2010–. Article published December 21, 2012. http://www.knowla.org/entry/736/.
Finley, Keith. "Lynching." KnowLA Encyclopedia of Louisiana. Ed. David Johnson. Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, 21 Dec 2012. Web. 29 June 2016.
Would you like to learn more about this topic from books and other reading materials?
Ayers, Edward L. The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Baiamonte, John V. Spirit of Vengeance: Nativism and Louisiana Justice, 1921–1924. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999.
Dray, Philip. At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America. New York, NY: Modern Library, 2003.
Finley, Keith M. Delaying the Dream: Southern Senators and the Fight Against Civil Rights, 1938–1965. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008.
Hair, William Ivy. Bourbonism and Agrarian Protest: Louisiana Politics, 1877–1900. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969.
Pfeifer, Michael J. “Lynching and Criminal Justice in South Louisiana, 1878–1930.” Louisiana History 40, no. 2 (Spring 1999): 155–77.
Wood, Amy Louise. Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890–1940. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009.
Woodward, C. Vann. Origins of the New South, 1877–1913. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1951.
Work, Monroe N., ed. Negro Year Book: An Annual Encyclopedia of the Negro, 1937–1938. Tuskegee, AL: Negro Yearbook Publishing Co., 1937. | <urn:uuid:55f5a27e-bb4f-49d6-b251-9da45fb09452> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.knowla.org/entry/736/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00127-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950301 | 1,691 | 3.890625 | 4 |
Geography as a subject is in decline and needs to be made more relevant with a greater focus on global issues, England's schools inspectors have said.
Inspectors believe that field trips are 'essential'
Climate change, sustainable development and trade disputes could all be studied to increase interest, Ofsted said.
Its report, based on inspections and surveys between 2004 and 2007, said geography was the worst-taught subject and that pupils saw it as "boring."
The government said teaching of the subject was being revitalised.
The report concluded that growing numbers of pupils were opting to drop the subject after the age of 14, when it is no longer compulsory.
It was especially critical of geography teaching at Key Stage 3 (age 11 to 14), saying lessons at this level were too often taken by non-specialists because schools focused more on the GCSE years.
Inspectors have called for a shake-up with more fieldwork plus lessons on climate change, trade and the concepts of sustainable living and environmental footprints.
Chief inspector of education Christine Gilbert said: "Geography is at a crucial period in its development.
"More needs to be done to make the subject relevant and more engaging for pupils."
Health and safety
The report was based on inspections from 2004 and 2005 and from specific surveys of geography in schools between 2004 and 2007.
"Recent annual subject reports by Ofsted have highlighted weaknesses in geography in primary and secondary schools and have provided some evidence of decline in the overall quality of provision," the report said.
Most primary and secondary schools surveyed did not recognise the value of fieldwork and "did not fulfil the requirement to provide it".
Schools were concerned about health and safety, time, expertise and budgets, inspectors found.
The report said: "It is important that the citizens of tomorrow understand the management of risk, appreciate diversity, are aware of environmental issues, promote sustainability and respect human rights and social inclusion.
"If the aspiration of schools is to create pupils who are active and well-rounded citizens, there is no more relevant subject than geography."
Schools Minister Jim Knight said: "Last year we made radical reforms to the geography curriculum to make it more engaging and more relevant to young people's lives - bringing in topics like environmental change and sustainable development, but keeping the essential basics of maps and globes and atlases.
"An innovative new GCSE is being piloted that captures the relevance and excitement of contemporary geography.
"Geography is an important subject which helps young people analyse, explore and question the world in which we live. We know we need to enthuse young people about geography."
The director of the Royal Geographical Society, Dr Rita Gardner, said many of Ofsted's concerns were already being addressed.
"Fundamentally, the provision of good geography teaching lies with the teachers themselves," she said.
"Whilst there are many examples of good geography teaching, we need non-specialist and the less-motivated specialist teachers to be encouraged to raise their game.
"We will do all that we can to support teachers in achieving that."
Liberal Democrat children, schools and families spokesman, David Laws, said a lack of specialist teachers and a failure to recognise the value of fieldwork was turning pupils away from the subject.
"Geography can be a practical and varied subject, but this report suggests it is at risk of becoming too dry," he said.
"Overly bureaucratic health and safety concerns should not be allowed to prevent schools from involving pupils in engaging and interesting fieldwork projects." | <urn:uuid:1d0db199-d508-4293-80b5-27c4b95483e0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7192330.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00178-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974191 | 734 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Gospel of Life -- Study Guide
Why did our Founding Fathers separate from Great Britain? Most people
remember the phrase "taxation without representation," but do not remember any
of the other reasons. This indicates a distortion in the way our history has
been taught, a distortion that gives undue importance to economic concerns.
Certainly "taxation without representation" was one of the reasons for the
separation, but that was reason number 17 out of 27 grievances that our Founding
Fathers had. Among other greater grievances was the abuse of military and
judicial powers, the latter being mentioned four times more frequently than
"taxation without representation."
Authors such as Charles Beard, who wrote The Economic Basis of Politics
(1922), and many voters today, say that economics is more important than
morals. Americans need to be aware of how this exaggerated emphasis on economics
distorts our view of history.
Samuel Adams, for example, joined the revolution to fight for religious
freedom. Another major factor in the thinking of many Founders was the abolition
of slavery. The colonies, in fact, attempted to end slavery, but George III, who
favored it, vetoed those efforts.
As Henry Luce did in his book The American Century, so the bishops in
this document, and the Holy Father in his remarks during his US visits, point to
the founding principles of our nation. Those principles, referenced in
the many writings of our Founding Fathers, and in the founding documents of
America, are Christian principles. Many of the Founders asserted that
explicitly, including Washington, Hamilton, Adams, Carroll, Chase, John Jay,
Storey, and others. Presidents and educators have said the same. Congress
itself, in 1854, and the Supreme Court, in 1892, after a review of US history,
affirmed that ours is a Christian nation from its founding (See Holy Trinity
Church V. U.S., 143 U.S. 457, 12 S.Ct. 511, 36 L.Ed. 226, Feb. 29, 1892).
But false, revisionist history denies that the Founders were Christians.
We've been trained to know Franklin and Jefferson, who were the two least
religious of the founders. Yet even so, Franklin recommended Christianity in the
schools, issues prayer proclamations, established chaplains, and so forth.
Jefferson authorized federal funding for evangelization efforts! Of the 56
signers of the
Independence, nearly half were educated in seminaries, Bible schools, or
their equivalents. Some were Bible translators, others edited hymnals.
Researchers have analyzed some 15,000 writings of our Founding Fathers, and
have found that the single source quoted the most is the Bible. In fact,
specific principles and provisions found in the Constitution can be traced
directly to provisions in Scripture.
The US Constitution is a
unique document, and was not borrowed from other Constitutions. It is, in fact,
the longest surviving Constitution, in contrast to so many other modern nations
whose constitutions have been replaced numerous times.
Why is America's success more than its economic strength?
What are the "founding principles" to which the bishops refer, and the "moral
vision" of our founding documents, to which the Pope refers?
How did this moral vision express itself in the reasons why the Founding
Fathers separated from Great Britain?
Do the Church and its leaders take a positive view of our country and its
Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion (Aledo, TX:
Table of Contents | <urn:uuid:885d69ad-aacf-4f9b-927d-c6f1cbbafd57> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.priestsforlife.org/gospel/studyguide/paragraph01.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00023-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941508 | 760 | 3.640625 | 4 |
IN THE BOOK OF GENESIS
by Doug Ward
In Genesis 26:4-5, God affirmed to the patriarch Isaac the promise that he had originally made to Isaac's father Abraham:
"And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws" (KJV).
The statement in verse 5 about Abraham's obedience has intrigued many readers over the centuries. The language used here for the laws that Abraham obeyed ("my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws") is very similar to that employed elsewhere in the Pentateuch for the Torah that God later gave to the children of Israel.1 This language raises the question of what laws are in view in Genesis 26:5.
In proposing answers to this question, some interpreters have examined Gen 26:5 for clues (see for example [7, pp. 250-251]). The Kabbalah uses numerological clues, including the fact that there are ten Hebrew words in the verse, to conclude that it refers primarily to the Ten Commandments [7, p. 250]. One rabbinic tradition goes much further, extrapolating from the fact that the word for "laws" in Gen. 26:5 is plural to assert that Abraham kept two "Torahs"-the written Torah preserved in the Pentateuch and the "oral Torah" of Jewish traditions that spell out how to apply the written Torah ([6, p. 706], [5, chapter 9]). This tradition seems to be reflected in the Mishnah, where R. Nehorai is quoted as saying, "We find that the patriarch Abraham kept the entire Torah even before it was revealed, since it says, `Since Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws' " (m. Qiddushin 4:14; see also b. Yoma 28b).
These traditions give what might be called a "maximalist" reading of Gen 26:5. There are other interpreters who adopt more of a "minimalist" stance-e.g., those from Christian traditions that uphold a strict law vs. gospel dichotomy. One way for a modern minimalist to deal with Gen 26:5 is to claim that it was added to the text of Genesis by an editor writing much later in Israel's history.2
The broad range of interpretation of Gen 26:5 is noted by Christian scholar James K. Bruckner in his doctoral dissertation . Bruckner observes a tendency for interpreters to see this verse through the lenses of their theological presuppositions. He suggests that a more fruitful approach would begin with a study of the bigger picture of what the book of Genesis has to say about the laws of God, and he goes on to explore this bigger picture. The present article is based on his findings.
Paying Attention to Genre
At first glance, it might appear that the book of Genesis contains little information on the subject of law, since it includes few explicit statements of the "Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not" varieties. Indeed, in the traditional list compiled by Maimonides of the 613 commandments of the Torah (see for example ), only two are referenced to passages in the section of scripture from Genesis 1 through Exodus 11. Those two are the commandment to "be fruitful and multiply" in Gen 1:28 and the circumcision commandment in Gen 17:10.
One reason that there are relatively few direct commands in the book of Genesis is that this part of the Bible is a narrative rather than, say, a covenant document like the book of Deuteronomy. In the course of telling its story, this beginning portion of the Bible actually has quite a lot to say about legal matters. However, it often addresses these matters indirectly rather than in the form of explicit commandments.
It is instructive to go through the book of Genesis, keeping track of the different ways in which the text implies that certain actions are right and others are wrong. I will next present the results of such a survey. My list is not exhaustive, but it is extensive enough to give an idea of the wealth of moral teaching contained in Genesis. Subsequent examination of the list will suggest a unified rationale for much of this teaching.
Right and Wrong in Genesis
I have grouped my compilation of the legal and ethical information conveyed in the book of Genesis into five main categories. Since God is the ultimate authority in these matters and the main character in the Genesis narrative, we first examine God's words and actions.
1. Divine Commands
Some divine commands in Genesis are intended strictly for particular individuals-e.g., the command that Noah build an ark (Gen 6:14-16), or the directives that Abram leave his homeland (12:1) and later sacrifice his son Isaac (22:2). Other instructions from God are intended to apply more broadly. Two examples mentioned already are the commandment to be fruitful and multiply (1:28; 9:1,7), given to the first humans and repeated to Noah; and the circumcision commandment (17:10-14) that is the sign of a covenant with Abraham and his descendants. Additional instructions that may belong to this category include the following:
· The fact that Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden "to dress it and to keep it" (2:15) would seem to imply a more general responsibility of stewardship over creation.
· The instruction that "a man ... cleave unto his wife" (2:24) is clearly directed toward men in general, not just to Adam.
· The "cursing of the ground" in Gen 3:17-19 carries with it an implicit commandment that people work in order to earn a living.
· The command in Gen 7:2 that seven pairs of each clean animal and one pair of each unclean animal be put on the ark was, of course, only applicable to Noah. However, this command also communicates the more general fact that God has deemed some animals to be ceremonially clean and others to be unclean.
· The prohibition against eating meat from which the blood has not been drained (Gen 9:4) is meant for Noah's descendants as well as Noah himself. So is the stipulation of capital punishment for murder (9:5-6).
2. Divine Judgment
At various junctures in the Genesis narrative, God intervenes to judge the actions of individuals or groups. These incidents supply further information about the content of divine law in Genesis:
· Adam and Eve are removed from the Garden of Eden when they yield to the serpent's temptation and disobey God's direct order (Gen 3).
· God deems Abel's offering to be acceptable and Cain's unacceptable (4:4-5).
· When Cain kills Abel, God punishes Cain (4:8-15).
· When wickedness, corruption and violence fill the earth, God sends a flood (6:5-17).
· After the flood, God intervenes at Babel to scatter the people and "confound their language"(11:1-9).
· God sends plagues upon Pharaoh (12:17) when Pharaoh attempts to take Sarai as a wife. Later, God closes the wombs of the women of Gerar and sentences Abimelech to death when that ruler undertakes a similar action (20:3-7,18).
· God destroys the cities of the plain after failing to find as many as ten righteous men there and turns Lot's wife into a pillar of salt (Gen 18-19).
· God puts wicked Er to death (38:7). Then Onan, who disobeys his father and fails to carry out the responsibility of levirate marriage on behalf of his deceased brother, receives the same penalty (38:8-10).
3. Divine Example
One concise summary of the God's commandments, repeated in both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Greek New Testament, is given in Lev 19:2: "Ye shall be holy: for I the LORD your God am holy" (cf. Lev 11:44-45; 20:26; I Peter 1:15-16). This simple statement implies that the people of God are to emulate him. God's example, then, carries a great deal of weight.
In Gen 2:1-3, God follows six days of creation with a day of rest, setting a precedent for human Sabbath-keeping. To those who deny the importance of this example, Seventh-day Adventist scholar Dr. Samuele Bacchiocchi asks a series of questions:
"What is it that makes any divine precept moral and universal? Do we not regard a law moral when it reflects God's nature? Could God have given any stronger revelation of the moral nature of the Sabbath than by making it a rule of His divine conduct? Is a principle established by divine example less binding than one enunciated by a divine command? Do not actions speak louder than words?" [1, p. 78]
4. Actions Acknowledged as Right or Wrong
In a number of places in the book of Genesis, people state either directly or indirectly that certain actions are right and others are wrong:
· Lot characterizes the desire of the men of Sodom to sexually assault his guests as "wicked" (19:7).
· Abraham's insistence that his servant take an oath "by the LORD, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth" (24:3) implies both men agreed that it would be wrong to "take God's name in vain."
· Abimelech of Gerar describes adultery as "a great sin" and Abraham's deception as something that "ought not be done" (20:9). A later Abimelech makes a similar statement to Isaac (26:10).
· Jacob denounces Laban's deception (31:7). After Laban accuses Jacob of theft, Jacob agrees that theft is wrong, stating that the perpetrator should die (31:30-32).
· Jacob's sons are outraged at the behavior of Shechem toward their sister Dinah (34:2,7,31). Jacob, in turn, condemns Simeon and Levi for their cruel retaliation (34:30; 49:5-7).
· Jacob tells the members of his household to discard their idols in preparation for his reunion with Esau (35:2).
· Judah orders Tamar to be burned for harlotry (38:24). When he learns that he was Tamar's "customer," he acknowledges his own guilt in not providing a husband for his widowed daughter-in-law (38:26).
· Joseph resists the advances of Potiphar's wife, describing adultery as "great wickedness" and a sin against God (39:9).
· When Joseph tells his brothers that one of them will be held prisoner until they bring their youngest brother to Egypt, the brothers believe they are being punished for selling Joseph into slavery (42:21-22).
· Joseph's scheme involving his silver cup is founded on a common understanding that theft is wrong (44:1-17).
· Jacob predicts that the descendants of Reuben will "not excel" because Reuben had slept with Jacob's wife Bilhah (49:4; 35:22).
5. Human Actions and their Consequences
In many cases the narrator of Genesis does not pass judgment explicitly upon the actions of the human characters in the book.3 However, there are often implicit connections between actions of the characters and subsequent events in the narrative. For instance, the harm done by the false testimony of Potiphar's wife against Joseph is easy to see, since it results in Joseph's undeserved incarceration.
Some of these connections are less straightforward but probably still intended by the text. It is fairly standard, for instance, to see the deceptions suffered by Jacob at the hands of his father-in-law Laban as a fitting recompense for Jacob's earlier trickery involving Esau's birthright and Isaac's blessing. Similarly, the strife among the sons of Jacob is often seen as a warning against the consequences of polygamy. Such implicit judgments carry less weight than those mentioned explicitly, but they are still worth considering.
The biblical data on Abraham's life are especially relevant, since it is Abraham who is said to be law-abiding in Gen 26:5. Here are some examples of Abraham's virtuous actions:
· Abraham seeks peace in his dealings with Lot (13:8-9) and with the inhabitants of Canaan (14:21-24; chapter 23).
· In his rescue of the kidnapped Lot (Gen 14), Abraham follows the divine guidelines for conducting warfare later spelled out in Deut 20.4
· After Lot's rescue, Abraham gives thanks for the successful outcome by presenting a tithe to Melchizedek, "priest of the most high God" (14:17-20).
· Abraham shows hospitality to the strangers who visit him (Gen 18).5 He subsequently intercedes on behalf of the cities of the plain (18:23-33).
· Abraham passes the ultimate test of faith in his willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac (Gen 22).
The Decalogue and More
An examination of our list indicates that all of the Ten Commandments are included in one way or another in the Genesis narrative, as demonstrated in the following summary (cf. , p. 82):
· The judgments at Eden (Gen 3) and Babel (Gen 11) and the punishment of Lot's wife involved situations where people were placing something else above the true God. On the other hand, Abraham's faith was anchored in God.
· Jacob's order that the members of his household get rid of their idols (35:2) implies that one cannot be blameless before God while in possession of these objects.
· As mentioned previously, Abraham's servant must have believed that one should not "take God's name in vain." Otherwise his oath would have given Abraham no comfort.
· God's creation week example establishes Sabbath observance as an ideal.
· The sins for which Onan received judgment included a failure to honor his father.
· The judgment on Cain, the Flood, and God's instruction in Gen 9:6 all condemn murder.
· Adultery is characterized as "great wickedness" in Gen 39:9. Rape and prostitution are also condemned.
· Theft is understood to be a crime (31:30-32; 44:1-17).
· False witness (39:17-20) and deception in general (20:9) are shown to be wrong.
· Covetousness results in judgment from God in Gen 12:17; 20:3-7,18.
In addition to the principles of the Decalogue, we also find in Genesis the practices of levirate marriage, circumcision, and tithing, along with the distinction between clean and unclean meats. The example of Cain and Abel gives instruction in how and how not to prepare an offering. The account of Abraham's life includes lessons about peacemaking, hospitality, and faith and even an example of how to conduct a military operation. Our data give strong support to Bruckner's conclusion that in the book of Genesis, we observe "a full range of law implied and functioning from the beginning of God's creating, sustaining, and providential work" [2, p. 205].
A Creational Ethic
Bruckner sees the ethical standards of the book of Genesis as rooted in creation. This is, of course, not a new idea in Christian thought. According to the Reformed tradition of Christian theology, God set down standards at creation that are required of every person who is in covenant with God. These "creation ordinances" include dominion over creation, marriage and replenishment of the earth with children, work and Sabbath observance.
The rest of the Bible lends support to the principle of looking to creation for ideal standards. The book of Exodus points back to creation as the rationale for the Sabbath commandment (Exod 20:8-11), enjoining Israelites to follow God's example set at the beginning. Later, Jesus appealed to the creational ideal of Gen 2:24-25 in his condemnation of divorce (Matt 19:3-9).
Evidence for a creational standard goes beyond the first three chapters of Genesis. In explaining why murder is an offense worthy of capital punishment (Gen 9:5-6), God reminds Noah's family that people are created in the image of God (Gen 1:26-27).6 More broadly, in the world of the book of Genesis certain laws seem to be hard-wired into creation, so that when those laws are violated, creation itself is violently damaged. The catastrophe of the Flood, the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the closing of the wombs of Abimelech's house (20:18) are examples of the upheaval in creation produced by sin. The characters in Genesis apparently are aware of this principle. In Gen 18:23, Abraham understands that the whole region of Sodom and Gomorrah is in jeopardy because of the sins committed there, even though God has not explicitly mentioned it. Similarly, Abimelech understands that his coveting another man's wife could have consequences for all of his people (20:4).
The moral standards of Genesis seem to be understood by everyone, not just Abraham's family, giving further evidence that a basic law is imbedded in the structure of creation. Both Pharaoh and Abimelech are well aware that one should not covet the wife of another, so they are outraged when Abraham does not explain that Sarah is his wife. Abimelech gives Abraham a mini-lecture on morality: "What hast thou done unto us? and what have I offended thee, that thou hast brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? thou hast done deeds unto me that ought not to be done" (Gen 20:9).7
The existence of a universal moral standard is upheld by the rest of the Bible. In Exodus 16:4, the existence of divine law is mentioned before the giving of the Torah at Sinai. Then in Exodus 18, Moses settles disputes among the Israelites, which presupposes a standard of judgment. Moreover, Moses takes advice on how to carry out this responsibility from Jethro, his Midianite father-in-law. Later, prophets like Jonah and Amos announce God's impending judgment on Gentile nations, which implies that they are accountable to God according to some moral requirements. And in the New Testament, the apostle Paul upholds this universal accountability in the second chapter of his epistle to the Romans.
Our study of the book of Genesis supports a "maximalist" reading of Gen 26:5. Although there is no proof that Abraham knew the rabbinic oral law in advance, as some of the Talmudic sages contended, there is strong evidence for the existence of a universal moral law that is in some sense built into creation.
Since the book of Genesis is a narrative rather than a formal legal code, it does not spell out all the details of the creational law. Questions about how God's laws should be lived out in our modern world by today's communities of faith still have to be worked out by those communities, as guided by the Holy Spirit (see Matt 16:19; 18:18-20). However, I believe our data suggest the following conclusions:
· The universal, creational law includes the principles of the Decalogue.
· Christian theologies that posit a sharp law vs. gospel dichotomy are seriously flawed. Abraham, singled out in the New Testament as an example of faith, was also an example of obedience. The two are not in conflict (James 2:14-26).
· In deciding how to apply the law of God, faith communities should not take lightly any principle of the Torah, which rightly can be described as spelling out the details of what was already implicit in Genesis.
As Walter Kaiser declares,
"So endemic is the moral law to the whole of the Mosaic law that evidences for its abiding nature can be found in the fact that even before it was given on Sinai it was held to be normative and binding on all who aspired to living by faith. In fact every one of the Ten Commandments is already implicitly found in the Genesis record even before their publication on Sinai. Moses did not invent the moral law; God did, and he had already been holding men and women responsible for heeding it millennia before he finally wrote it on tablets of stone" [4, pp. 299-300].
Finally, it will be we wise to remember one of the major lessons of Genesis: Prolonged disregard for God's commandments can lead to catastrophe. In light of this lesson, I hope in particular that as a society, we will soon repent of our collective failure to protect the lives of the unborn.
1. Samuele Bacchiocchi, The Sabbath under Crossfire: A Biblical Analysis of Recent Sabbath/Sunday Developments, Biblical Perspectives, Berrien Springs, Michigan, 1998.
2. James K. Bruckner, Implied Law in the Abraham Narrative: A Literary and Theological Analysis, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 335, Sheffield Academic Press, London, 2001.
3. Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Toward Old Testament Ethics, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1983.
4. Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., "God's Promise Plan and His Gracious Law," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 33 (1990), 289-302.
5. David Klinghoffer, The Discovery of God : Abraham and the Birth of Monotheism, Doubleday, New York, 2003.
6. James L. Kugel, Traditions of the Bible : A Guide to the Bible As It Was at the Start of the Common Era, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1998.
7. John H. Sailhamer, "The Mosaic Law and the Theology of the Pentateuch," Westminster Theological Journal 53 (1991) 241-261.
8. John H. Sailhamer, The Pentateuch as Narrative: A Biblical-Theological Commentary, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1992.
1See for example Deut 4:40; 5:31; 6:1-2, 17; 7:11; 8:11; 10:13; 11:1; 26:17; 27:10; 28:15, 45; 30:10, 16.
2Walter Kaiser [4, p. 299] notes that even Franz Delitizsch, a conservative Lutheran scholar of the late nineteenth century, took this approach.
3For example, the circumstances surrounding the conception of Lot's sons Moab and Benammi (19:30-38) are simply reported without additional comment.
4This is observed by Sailhamer in . Specifically, Abraham does not hesitate despite being outnumbered (Deut 20:1). He leads a select group of "trained" men, in accordance with the spirit of Deut 20:5-9. He allows his men a portion of the spoils of victory over their distant foe but refuses to become entangled with his wicked neighbors in Sodom (cf. Deut 20:14-18).
5According to Jewish tradition, he is still recovering from his circumcision when the strangers arrive .
6Walter Kaiser elaborates on this reasoning in [3, p. 167]: "The person who destroys another person, who bears the image of God, does violence to God himself-as if he had killed God in effigy."
7Ironically, it is Abraham who does not exhibit the fear of God in this instance, even though Abraham had worried that there was no fear of God in Gerar (v.11).
translated from TEX by TTH,
On 27 Dec 2008, 18:10. | <urn:uuid:6af9df01-3dab-4245-9e7b-b7ef1f3eb219> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://graceandknowledge.faithweb.com/gen26v5.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00180-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950473 | 5,022 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Medical Definition of thyrocervical trunk
: a short thick branch of the subclavian artery that divides into the inferior thyroid, suprascapular, and transverse cervical arteries
Seen and Heard
What made you want to look up thyrocervical trunk? Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible). | <urn:uuid:64f27da5-26d9-4183-8564-b5f847a276e1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/thyrocervical%20trunk | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396887.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.854741 | 75 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Day of Honour an opportunity for reflection
To the Editor,
Ottawa designated May 9 as the National Day Of Honour commemorating the end of Canada’s military commitment in Afghanistan; nobody should ever forget any of the Canadian Forces who fought there, nor their families waiting anxiously at home. The monetary cost of the mission has been estimated as around $18 billion; there were 40,026 military personnel deployed; 158 paid the ultimate sacrifice; 2,179 suffered physical wounds of varying degrees; an estimated 8,000 developed or will develop mental health conditions.
While never forgetting those people, we have a right to question the result of those years of war. Afghanistan is in a lengthy process of electing a new president, corruption is still rampant and there are still many warlords as powerful as they always were with heroin poppy cultivation in full bloom. The Taliban awaits the remaining stragglers of NATO personnel to vacate their country, dead set on reclaiming the positions they had before 9/11.
Was it really all worth it? Will the schools that were installed still be thriving in a few years time, and will women have some kind of rights?
The history of the Pashtun people, in what has become present-day Afghanistan, has always been about repelling those who dare invade. Chances are an Afghani Day of Honour would have a completely different meaning to ours in Canada. | <urn:uuid:b9ede5ee-920d-478c-bc0b-19da05d94c7a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nanaimobulletin.com/opinion/letters/259294731.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396538.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00086-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97478 | 284 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Halfman Assesses Nutrient Loading
Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2012
Since he began working at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in 1994, Professor of Geoscience John Halfman has been monitoring the water quality of the Finger Lakes. In the beginning, Halfman monitored Seneca Lake and the major streams that flow into it. In 2005 his research expanded to include eight of the 11 Finger Lakes.
This summer, Halfman is assisted by several students who are helping him collect, analyze, and record hundreds of water samples each week. The research focuses on monitoring the relative levels of certain contaminates and nutrients in the lakes' and streams' water to determine how the lakes themselves are dealing with the human use of land in their watersheds. Two such nutrients are nitrates and phosphates, which can enter groundwater systems, move into streams and then deposit in the lakes. This artificial introduction of nutrients into the lake system is known as nutrient loading or eutrophication.
Laura Carver-Dionne '13, Carly Ellis '14 and Phillip Hackett ‘14 are a few of the summer research students who recently traveled to Canandaigua Lake with Halfman to study its water.
"I think it's important for people to have information about the fresh water sources they live around," says Ellis. "I am interested in water quality because of the limited availability of freshwater. I would like to work in this field, helping to resolve these problems."
When collecting samples from the Finger Lakes, Halfman and his research group travel to two predetermined locations on each lake. "The locations are picked based on depth, and if they serve as a good average for the lake as a whole," says Halfman. At each location a surface water sample as well as a sample from the bottom of the lake are collected and analyzed.
"Working with Professor Halfman on water quality in the Finger Lakes is great because, not only do I get to spend time in the lab analyzing samples, I get to go out in the field and collect samples," says Carver-Dionne.
Aboard the Colleges' pontoon-research boat, the 25-foot JB Snow, or on the 65-foot, steel hulled research vessel the William Scandling, the samples are analyzed for the amount of oxygen dissolved, alkalinity, pH, temperature, and the conductivity of the water. When the bottom water sample is collected, a device known as a CTD is used to collect the same information in a vertical profile. Water samples are bottled and taken to the geoscience lab on campus where they are analyzed for nutrient content using a technique known as spectroscopy.
Students also use a device called a Secchi disk to measure the depth to which light can penetrate the lake. This gives a good reference for the amount of nutrients present in the lake water.
The outcomes for student researchers are impressive. Many students who work with Halfman during the summer and the academic year present results at national conferences, others perform an Honors Project based on the research, and some write and publish papers with Halfman. | <urn:uuid:b4ec7b35-f6a3-4e1e-a20d-86c98dd20216> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.hws.edu/dailyupdate/NewsDetails.aspx?aid=15684 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398516.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00101-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963162 | 636 | 2.75 | 3 |
|dc.description.abstract||Many arthropods exhibit behaviours precursory to social life, including adult
longevity, parental care, nest loyalty and mutual tolerance, yet there are few examples of
social behaviour in this phylum. The small carpenter bees, genus Ceratina, provide
important insights into the early stages of sociality. I described the biology and social
behaviour of five facultatively social species which exhibit all of the preadaptations for
successful group living, yet present ecological and behavioural characteristics that seemingly
disfavour frequent colony formation. These species are socially polymorphic with both
solitary and social nests collected in sympatry. Social colonies consist of two adult females,
one contributing both foraging and reproductive effort and the second which remains at the
nest as a passive guard. Cooperative nesting provides no overt reproductive benefits over
solitary nesting, although brood survival tends to be greater in social colonies.
Three main theories explain cooperation among conspecifics: mutual benefit, kin
selection and manipulation. Lifetime reproductive success calculations revealed that mutual
benefit does not explain social behaviour in this group as social colonies have lower per
capita life time reproductive success than solitary nests. Genetic pedigrees constructed from
allozyme data indicate that kin selection might contribute to the maintenance of social nesting
as social colonies consist of full sisters and thus some indirect fitness benefits are inherently
bestowed on subordinate females as a result of remaining to help their dominant sister. These
data suggest that the origin of sociality in ceratinines has principal costs and the great
ecological success of highly eusociallineages occurred well after social origins.
Ecological constraints such as resource limitation, unfavourable weather conditions
and parasite pressure have long been considered some of the most important selective
pressures for the evolution of sociality. I assessed the fitness consequences of these three ecological factors for reproductive success of solitary and social colonies and found that nest
sites were not limiting, and the frequency of social nesting was consistent across brood
rearing seasons. Local weather varied between seasons but was not correlated with
reproductive success. Severe parasitism resulted in low reproductive success and total nest
failure in solitary nests. Social colonies had higher reproductive success and were never
extirpated by parasites. I suggest that social nesting represents a form of bet-hedging. The
high frequency of solitary nests suggests that this is the optimal strategy when parasite
pressure is low. However, social colonies have a selective advantage over solitary nesting
females during periods of extreme parasite pressure.
Finally, the small carpenter bees are recorded from all continents except Antarctica. I
constructed the first molecular phylogeny of ceratinine bees based on four gene regions of
selected species covering representatives from all continents and ecological regions.
Maximum parsimony and Bayesian Inference tree topology and fossil dating support an
African origin followed by an Old World invasion and New World radiation. All known Old
World ceratinines form social colonies while New World species are largely solitary; thus
geography and phylogenetic inertia are likely predictors of social evolution in this genus.
This integrative approach not only describes the behaviour of several previously
unknown or little-known Ceratina species, bu~ highlights the fact that this is an important,
though previously unrecognized, model for studying evolutionary transitions from solitary to | <urn:uuid:31c1d0b0-5270-48a0-8d1b-ab300e2a8856> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://dr.library.brocku.ca/handle/10464/4080?show=full | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927513 | 699 | 3.28125 | 3 |
Medical Definition of almond oil
1a: a colorless or pale yellow bland and nearly odorless nondrying fatty oil expressed from sweet or bitter almonds and used as an emollient in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics—called also expressed almond oil, sweet almond oilb: a colorless to yellow essential oil owing its characteristic odor and flavor to benzaldehyde and its toxicity to hydrocyanic acid that is obtained from bitter almonds and is used in medicine as an emollient and after removal of the hydrocyanic acid as a flavoring agent—called also bitter almond oil
2: any of several essential oils very similar in properties and uses to bitter almond oil and obtained from amygdalin-containing kernels (as of the peach or apricot) other than almonds—called also bitter almond oil
Seen and Heard
What made you want to look up almond oil? Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible). | <urn:uuid:785ed252-7b5b-4d10-93fe-4df54cb364a5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/almond%20oil | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00044-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949745 | 193 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Copyright in the digital age
(Associate General Counsel, CUNY)
November 11, 2010
As more faculty post course materials on Blackboard, teach with a rich variety of media, and author their own digital works, more questions arise about how copyright law and academic traditions apply to these new forms of publishing. In this session, Jane Davis presented an overview of US copyright law, discussing the TEACH Act and the Fair Use exception, which allow some copyrighted materials to be used for educational purposes. We discussed common scenarios encountered by faculty using digital materials in their courses and saw examples of the thinking process a faculty member might go through when applying a fair use checklist to determine whether their intended use of a work favors fair use.
- CUNY copyright guidelines
- University of Texas TEACH Act checklist
- Columbia University Fair Use checklist
- Hunter College Things to consider when using copyrighted materials in Blackboard
- Creative Commons
An organization working to increase the body of work available for free and legal sharing. Provides a simple way for you to grant copyright permission for certain uses of your work and a way of searching for materials that are available under Creative Commons licenses. | <urn:uuid:b5e846ea-1b33-4f11-87ce-88688ed7e8e5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/ttlg/tech-thursdays/previous/fall-2010/copyright | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00056-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.87662 | 236 | 2.5625 | 3 |
The education methods talk by teenage boy Logan LaPlante analyzes the role of happiness and health in the American educational system. Given at a TEDx conference, the speech is centralized around the concept that North American or even Western society prepares youth to make a living, but not a life. LaPlante is a part of a subculture that believes in making health and happiness a much bigger focus of education.
In his education methods talk, LaPlante explains his alternative curriculum called 'hackschooling.' Rather than the familiar notions of computer hacking, the hack mindset is about being innovative and challenging systems to make them better. This is vital to hackschooling, as is practicing being happy and healthy. Other components include online resources, experiential learning and getting involved in likeminded community organizations.
This young speaker makes incredibly intelligent remarks concerning not just education, but well-being. This is especially relevant to parents looking to encourage passion and creativity in their children.
Wellness in the Education System
More Stats +/-
Passion in Teaching
Raising Resilient Children
Diverse Education in the 21st Century
The Art of Self-Education
Logan LaPlante Keynotes
The Logan LaPlante talks focus on his alternative take to education. The teenage boy aims to make...
Get inspired by our collection of 2,000+ keynote speaker videos and 100+ courses of innovative content. | <urn:uuid:583f3b28-7666-4015-a3e5-ce238f984f78> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.trendhunter.com/keynote/education-methods-talk | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396459.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00121-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945184 | 287 | 2.65625 | 3 |
The taste of soda may be sweet, but the potential consequences of those empty calories — obesity, diabetes, higher mortality, and skyrocketing health care costs — are not. In response, many states and cities in recent years have proposed taxes or other measures intended to reduce consumption of sodas and other sweetened drinks.
One initiative commanding a lot of attention is New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s recent soda ban, which prohibits the sale of sweetened beverages greater than 16 ounces in restaurants, food carts, delis, and concession stands at movie theaters, stadiums and arenas.
“There is a huge likelihood that the ‘soda ban’ will be the next McLean” — a healthier burger option added to the McDonald’s menu in 1991 that failed to catch on with customers, says Brian Wansink, a Cornell marketing professor and director of the school’s Food and Brand Lab. “For 10 years after [that product was introduced], fast food companies were hesitant to come out with new [health-conscious] products because they didn’t want to be the next McLean.”
The soda ban is a similar gamble, he notes, because “it’s visible, it’s controversial and if it doesn’t overwhelmingly succeed, people will look at all subsequent public health efforts with tremendous disdain and distrust.” And the odds are not stacked in favor of the ban, or a growing number of efforts in other cities to tax sugary beverages, Wansink adds. As evidence, he cites 150 years of economic research that shows “if people really want something, they are going to find a way to buy what they want.”
Some experts argue that bans or taxes could give consumers pause — either due to a raised consciousness about the health risks associated with too much soda, or, in the case of a tax, because the drinks will become more expensive. But others worry that such methods of curbing obesity will have a number of unintended consequences — even hurting low-income Americans, many of whom already suffer from a lack of affordable food options.
“It’s a Catch-22,” says University of Pennsylvania nursing and epidemiology professor Karen Glanz. “The [food] industry, in this case, is selling legal products that we can’t say are ‘all bad,’ as we could say about tobacco…. If [health advocates] don’t team up with the food industry,” and instead continue to just push back at it, “[the industry] will become more committed to undermining health initiatives.”
Unlike the soda ban, levying taxes on sugary drinks serves a second purpose — combating many cities’ budgetary woes. “The good news is that in some ways, sweetened-beverage taxes can help” to mitigate health and budget problems, notes Wharton health care management professor Mark Pauly. But the effect will be limited. The taxes “won’t raise all the money that cities need nor make a major dent in the obesity problem.”
Sharing the Pain
Currently, 30 states levy a sales tax, averaging about 5%, on soda purchases. In Richmond, Calif., city officials are taking a different approach: Included on the ballot in November will be a proposed penny-per-ounce excise tax on sugar-sweetened drinks sold, served or otherwise provided by stores, restaurants and other businesses. The proposal is structured as a business license fee, meaning it would be up to merchants to decide how, or if, they would pass the tax on to consumers. If voters approve it, the initiative would be the first of its kind in the U.S., according to The Wall Street Journal. Other cities may follow Richmond’s lead: Most recently, the city of El Monte, Calif., has also placed a soda tax measure on its November ballot.
Opponents of the bills in Richmond and El Monte, led by the American Beverage Association (ABA), have argued that the legislation would hurt low-income residents and local businesses, while unfairly targeting only one in a sea of unhealthy products that are for sale on the nation’s grocery and convenience store shelves. According to Reuters, critics have also noted that while obesity rates in the U.S. are going up, overall consumption of full-calorie soda has declined.
According to Kelly D. Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University, an excise tax would conceivably affect the sticker price of sugary beverages, which could make it more effective than a sales tax at reducing consumption. “With a sales tax, you don’t get to see the added cost until you get to the cash register,” says Brownell, who, in a 1994 op-ed in the New York Times, was one of the first to bring the idea of a tax on unhealthy foods into a public forum. However, Glanz notes that “whether the tax actually achieves a reduction in sugary soda purchases may depend on how it is implemented.” Facing pressure from the beverage industry, retailers may purposely undermine the taxes — for example, by passing them on through increased prices for vegetables or other staples while keeping the price of sugary drinks low. “I don’t think the laws would [include] any accountability to the public or government as to how they recover the ‘back-end tax,'” she says. | <urn:uuid:a338f763-8c97-47db-8629-a7641e1738a7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://business.time.com/2012/09/25/will-banning-or-taxing-soda-really-make-us-healthier/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399106.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00182-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954864 | 1,137 | 2.515625 | 3 |
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one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. The first.
Jan 4, 2014 ... Here's a little-known fact: January 4th is National Trivia Day! Here are some fun
facts to impress your neighbors. | <urn:uuid:86425a86-142b-49a8-ae83-7c3405b28d29> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ask.com/web?qsrc=6&o=102140&oo=102140&l=dir&gc=1&q=January+Facts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00133-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940666 | 289 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Turn any Surface into a Virtual iPhone Keyboard
While most people speculate and theorize about the future, some others make it obsolete by achieving today what seems to be improbable or even impossible, hence making the future a thing of the past. This time, the defendant is University of London’s student Florian Kraeutli, who developed a (wait for it !) Virtual keyboard for iPhone , using an accelerometer to teach each tapping made on a surface to the iPhone so the gadget can remember it. Sounds like a wacky but useless application at the first time, doesn’t it? Maybe it is. And maybe we’re wrong!
I think I’ve seen this approach somewhere else
Looking back some time, there were virtual laser keyboards that you could use on any flat surface. The motion sensors detect a key being pressed on the virtual keyboard, and this movement is then transmitted to the connected device. It didn’t get that much of a hype as it was too expensive and didn’t also perform in the best conditions if you were traveling, as the movement could cause you to stroke a wrong key, even though it could be used virtually with any device like a mobile phone or a tablet. This new invention is somewhat different though, as it uses key stroke strength and vibration patterns to tell the device which key is being pressed.
Status of the application
Using it is rather simple: you put the iPhone on top of a paper sheet with a delimiting area, with all the keyboard keys below. The idea is to have it near the keys so when you tap them the phone will receive the vibrations and transform each into a character, then a word (that is presented through a dictionary on the phone) and then it is inserted. So far, the accuracy rate is in the 80% outskirts, which is encouraging on one hand but still not enough, as Florian says. Besides being a cool app, so far it’s only intended for the iPhone, but if released for other devices it may well be something to watch | <urn:uuid:b75095ed-5180-4f15-a0c9-523796a197fe> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://plus.google.com/103328681694871892483 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00112-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960853 | 421 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Fifty Years Ago, Strange Bedfellows Helped Break The Back Of Jim Crow
Half a century ago, Tennessee and other Southern states looked a little different. If you were a person of color, signs dictated the right building entrance to use, the correct water fountain, the right restroom, and more importantly, the wrong places. The places you couldn’t go. Those areas were reserved for white people only. Fifty years ago this summer – less than a lifetime ago – all that began to change. That was the summer a headstrong president and a divided Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a landmark piece of legislation chronicled in Todd Purdum’s new book, An Idea Whose Time Has Come.
On April 23, WUOT All Things Considered host Brandon Hollingsworth spoke with Purdum about this historic law and the people who helped shape it.
Links to speeches referenced in the conversation:
Vice President Johnson at Gettysburg, May 30, 1963
LBJ addresses Congress five days after taking office, November 27, 1963
Johnson's statement on signing the Civil Rights Act, July 2, 1964 | <urn:uuid:b2743315-bd2e-47d9-85da-bae2f51d5d22> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://wuot.org/post/fifty-years-ago-strange-bedfellows-helped-break-back-jim-crow | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395613.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00198-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948707 | 234 | 2.640625 | 3 |
30 Nations Move to Deter Boat People
By STEVEN ERLANGER, Special to the New York Times
Published: March 10, 1989
BANGKOK, Thailand, March 9— Stiffer requirements to discourage Indochinese from seeking refuge in other countries seem inevitable after a three-day conference of 30 nations in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The conference, held under the auspices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, ended today. It endorsed draft proposals for dealing with the steady flow of boat people, especially from economically depressed Vietnam, which is straining the resources and patience of nearby non-Communist countries like Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Hong Kong.
The proposals will be refined and considered further at an international conference on refugees scheduled for mid-June in Geneva. The last such conference was held in 1979 after Vietnam's political unification of the north and south and its invasion of Cambodia prompted a mass exodus. New Surge of Boat People
In the last two years, a new surge of boat people has caused countries like Thailand to discourage the refugees from landing, sometimes with fatal consequences. The Thais and the other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, known as the countries of ''first asylum,'' have also complained that Western countries that have traditionally accepted refugees for resettlement have grown tired of the burden, leaving the boat people to linger indefinitely in camps intended only for temporary stays.
The draft proposals, diplomats said , are meant to prompt Western countries to accept more refugees, the Indochinese countries to better regulate their populations and stop encouraging their citizens to flee, and countries like Thailand to reaffirm the principle of first asylum.
The proposals would set up rapid screening for new arrivals, as Hong Kong did last June, to determine whether they qualify legally as refugees and thus are eligible for resettlement. Under a 1951 Geneva convention, refugees are defined as those with a ''well-founded fear of persecution'' because of race, religion or political beliefs. The wish to improve one's economic circumstances is not sufficient ground for refugee status, and if the Hong Kong experience is any guide only a small proportion of those who arrive will qualify. #75 Refugees Return Home What to do with the others remains a considerable problem. The members of the Association of Southeast Asian nations want to ship them back home as illegal immigrants while Vietnam refuses to accept anything other than voluntary repatriation. About 75 Vietnamese voluntarily returned home from Hong Kong on March 2, but few of the 150,000 or so Indochinese refugees already in the region are willing to do the same.
The draft proposals call for Western resettlement countries to take in these refugees and for the screening procedure to be put into effect quickly for new arrivals. Thai officials want those who do not qualify as refugees to be moved immediately to a holding center somewhere outside the region, perhaps on an island off Vietnam, where they will be encouraged to return home.
''If they do not want to return home voluntarily, we should put them in a place sufficiently uncomfortable that they decide they do want to go home,'' a Thai official said.
The draft proposals also call on Vietnam to stop illegal departures from its shores, to publicize the dangers and hardships of fleeing by boat and to make legal exits easier through the Orderly Departure Program sponsored by the United Nations.
Of the 150,000 Indochinese in the refugee camps of Southeast Asia, roughly 60,000 are boat people. Hong Kong has the largest number of boat people, about 25,000, followed by Thailand and Malaysia. Thailand, with about 17,000 boat people, is also host to 76,000 Laotians and about 330,000 Cambodians, who are considered ''displaced'' by war and thus not refugees.
Since 1975, about 1.5 million people have been resettled, mainly in North America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The United States alone has accepted about 800,000 Indochinese refugees and will take 25,000 more this year. | <urn:uuid:0387d38e-a4e1-4b7b-a04a-cd8653933ece> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/10/world/30-nations-move-to-deter-boat-people.html?src=pm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396100.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00012-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954652 | 809 | 2.546875 | 3 |
One recent morning, I watched in complete horror as my toddler had a shrieking fit in the grocery store because I wouldn’t let her push the cart (her driving skills are worse than those of a texting teen). At first, I tried to look nonchalant, deluding myself with “If I pretend I don’t notice, maybe no one else will, either.” But when my daughter continued to flail like a human helicopter, we were forced to proceed from Aisle 4 straight to the car. That night, as I wrestled on her pajamas and she did her trademark Toddler Back Arch, I knew another meltdown was imminent. Each of us were in our beds by 8 p.m.
It comes as no surprise, then, that I was eager (okay, desperate) to unravel the mysteries of toddler tantrums. Why do kids have them? Can you stop one? What’s the worst way to react to a meltdown? Experts offer their best advice so there will be fewer tears—for both of you.
The 5 Stages of a Tantrum
Anger behaviors, such as screaming and throwing things, typically spike in the beginning of the tantrum, says Michael Potegal, Ph.D., pediatric neuropsychologist at the University of Minnesota, and James A. Green, Ph.D., psychology professor at the University of Connecticut. They fitted toddlers with special one-pieces kitted out with built-in microphones and recorded more than 100 tantrums. The loudest outbursts were the equivalent of the incessant horns of rush-hour traffic.
2: Anger and Sadness
A long-held theory about tantrums is that they have two distinct stages: anger, followed by sadness. But when Drs. Green and Potegal analyzed videos of meltdowns, they found that anger and sadness (which is manifested by crying, whining, and whimpering) actually overlap in time. We tend to only notice anger’s fireworks, explains Dr. Potegal. “You don’t always see that in fact the crying and whining start at the beginning, go all the way through the end, and don’t change all that much.”
3: Anger Levels Drop
If you still see signs of anger, don’t try to soothe your child yet. Her fury has to subside first; anger suppresses her ability to be comforted. “When kids are mad and an adult picks them up, they arch their back,” says Dr. Potegal. “The anger drives them, so they reject comfort.” (It’s the same don’t-touch-me reaction as when a spouse tries for a post-fight hug when his partner is still fuming.)
4: Wanting a Cuddle
Once the tsunami has fully passed, kids are ready to accept your help. “They feel bad when they’re so out of control, and they’re needy afterwards,” says Claudia M. Gold, M.D., director of the Early Childhood Social Emotional Health program at Newton-Wellesley Hospital, in Massachusetts. Offer a hug and a kiss and a simple, “Well, that was really not much fun.” This acknowledges that it happened, and it was upsetting, but now it’s over. The words themselves don’t matter as much as your reassuring presence, says Dr. Gold.
5: Moving On
Kids switch gears and change emotions much more quickly than adults do. So if you find you’re still twitching an hour later while your tot is happily playing with blocks, don’t worry: That’s perfectly normal behavior. “It comes under the heading of what’s called ‘lability,’ or being adaptable,” says Dr. Potegal.
Tactics That Never Work
“A 2-year-old often doesn’t have the cognitive resources, and the language, to express what he’s feeling,” says Dr. Green. So firing questions at a child when he’s in mid-freak-out (like, “Why did you do that to your sister?” or “What do you want?”) may just prolong that rage and overload his system even further.
Don’t bother explaining to a hysterically crying kid that she can’t peel the banana because Mommy already peeled it. “In the middle of a tantrum, the child is functioning in the limbic centers of the brain, which are run by emotion,” explains Dr. Gold. “The higher cortical centers that are responsible for reasoning are not working properly, so trying to rationalize with a child while she’s having a tantrum is completely impossible.”
Toddlers crave a reaction from their parents, even a bad one. Take away the payoff. Silently count to ten, take deep breaths, and remind yourself that you’re the grown-up. Losing your cool can have long-term effects: Researchers at Oregon State University found that parents who anger easily and overreact are more likely to have toddlers who do the same.
If you tell your screeching child that you’re going to turn off the TV, switch it off. If you warn him that he’ll get a time-out the next time he yells at you, follow through—quietly, quickly, and without emotion. Consistency is key: If your kid knows what is coming when he has a fit, he is less likely to do it.
Children are feeling helpless when they’re having a tantrum, so ignoring them is like abandoning them in their moment of weakness, says Dr. Gold. In a calm voice, say, “Go ahead, I’m going to sit here with you until you’re done.” The idea is to contain your child’s anger, not make it go away.
Tantrum types, decoded
Meltdowns are divided into these distinct categories, behavior experts agree. Which is your child’s tantrum of choice these days?
This insistent demand for intangibles, often food and treats, usually occurs in the kitchen or at the grocery store. This makes sense to Dr. Gold, author of Keeping Your Child in Mind. Kids are bombarded with visual stimulation in a supermarket, she says, and Mom’s attention is diverted by shopping (and, frequently, running into people she knows). “It actually can be sort of a stressful place for a kid, and if you think of a child having a tantrum as being ‘stressed,’ rather than ‘difficult,’ that can help you to be more empathic,” Dr. Gold explains.
tantrum-stopper At home, stow objects that bring on a beg-fest out of sight. Before embarking on shopping or other excursions, make sure your child is well rested and well fed; take an interactive toy or a book with you, and have him participate by helping him pick out a few things. Meltdowns often start when a child is denied a treat, so try this strategy from Alan Greene, M.D., clinical professor of pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine (and father of four): Bring paper and a pen, and when your toddler asks for something, say “Let’s write that down.” Make a list, and at the end of the trip, read back some of the healthier choices, and let your child pick one or two things. List-making will distract him, make him feel included, and promises a reward at the finish line.
Mom’s preoccupied—time to unleash the beast! The best example: Your kid is doing fine by herself, but then you get on the phone, and suddenly she has to have your attention.
tantrum-stopper Advance warning is key. Try, “Mommy has to talk on the phone now. Play quietly in your room, and then we’ll color together.” Try stashing away toys which only come out during phone calls. And if it’s a serious call that involves, say, banking information, you might park her in front of a video for a little while. In general, young kids are easily diverted. Tantrums can sometimes be cut short with early commands that are brief and easy to follow, which quickly grab a toddler’s interest. “The more specific, the better,” says Dr. Potegal, “like, ‘Don’t hit the dog.’” Or distract with short, specific invitations—“Let’s color” rather than a vague “Be good.” A quick change of location can also be effective (“Time to water the flowers!”).
The power struggle
Refusing to get into bed or to leave the playground is your child’s way of asserting herself.
tantrum-stopper It’s tempting to cave, especially at the end of the day. Don’t. When you give in, this teaches your child that tantrums get results. In these instances, your child wants control, so give a little ground by offering choices within the limits you have set. For example, you can ask, “What would you like to do first, brush your hair or brush your teeth?” And toddlers don’t like surprises, so defuse a potential eruption by giving a child plenty of advance notice before you leave the park or a friend’s house. Toddlers are comforted by knowing exactly what’s going to come next, so saying “You can ride your scooter two more times around the park, and then we have to go home” gives them a sense of control. Avoid promises like, “You can ride your scooter for five minutes.” Since most toddlers can’t tell time, they’ll feel ambushed when their time is up.
Dr. Potegal has also devised a simple solution, which he says works after only two or three tries. Explain to your child ahead of time that if she doesn’t do what you ask—say, put on her pajamas—you’re going to count to three, and if she still doesn’t comply, you’ll put your hands on her hands and guide her through the task. Then do it. “She’ll hate this approach, because it’s a challenge to her autonomy,” he says. “But then she’ll comply.”
Tantrums Are Universal!
When Australian toddlers lose it, they spit the dummy (their word for pacifiers) or throw their toys out of the cot. French children have a crise de colère (a “crisis of anger”). The British use the evocative term throwing a wobbly. And the Spanish have multiple names, among them pataleo, which translates to “kicking legs” and rabieta, which originates from the word … rabies. (Hey, it is sort of apt.)
How Other Moms Handle Freakouts
“My boy likes to help, so if I see a meltdown coming, I quickly grab one of his stuffed animals and the toy starts throwing a ‘tantrum.’ My son knows it needs help calming down, so he will count to 11 with the toy and take deep breaths until the animal feels better. Engaging in his tantrum, instead of reacting after, helps!”
“I record my kids during a tantrum, and show them the video later so they see how they look. Now my kids talk about what’s going on, without the crying and hitting.”
“Whenever my daughters and I were out and another kid had a tantrum, I’d pull my girls aside and whisper, ‘That child is not behaving. I’m glad you don’t do that.’ They loved feeling superior and I think it cut down on the tantrums.”
Cranford, New Jersey
“We made what we call a ‘calming jar’—a plastic bottle with a lid, filled with 1 tablespoon of clear glue to each cup of hot water in the jar, as well as glitter and food coloring. When my daughter’s really worked up, she gets to shake the jar to mix up all the glitter, then sets it down and watches until all the glitter settles to the bottom and she has found her happy self.” | <urn:uuid:0f6a724f-cc73-4caa-bf10-16759bef2975> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://janceedunn.typepad.com/wwwjanceedunncom/2013/03/article-on-taming-tantrums-in-parents-magazine-april-2013.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00044-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957215 | 2,685 | 2.625 | 3 |
Locate a Local Business Lawyer
What Is Antitrust Law?
Antitrust laws are designed to ensure free competition in the U.S. marketplace by regulating the ways in which companies conduct their business. Antitrust law prohibits practices that stifle free competition, such as monopolies, lockup agreements, certain types of mergers, and price-fixing.
How Do Antitrust Laws Apply to Business Practices?
Much of the antitrust law is found in the Sherman Act, which is a federal statute that prohibits "every contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade," and any "monopolization, attempted monopolization, or conspiracy or combination to monopolize."
However, the Supreme Court decided that the Sherman Act does not prohibit every restrain on trade, but only those that are unreasonable. Unreasonable restraints of trade include:
- Forcing or coercing someone to quit doing business or to change their business so that they won’t compete in the market.
- Agreeing to fix prices to force other competitors out of business.
- Creating a monopoly.
- Creating a non-compete clauses or other contract provisions to keep another out of business.
- Tortious interference with a contract or business agreement that negatively affects another’s ability to do business freely.
How Do Antitrust Laws Apply to the Health Care Industry?
Antitrust law in the health care industry have only developed recently, within the past thirty years. Before the 1970s, antitrust laws were generally not applied to "learned professions" like medicine and law. During that time, however, health care expanded from a local profession to a national service. In 1975, the Supreme Court ruled that antitrust law is applicable to the practice of medicine, and other "learned professions."
Do I Need a Business Attorney?
An antitrust attorney will advise you on whether the business practice you are associated with complies with competition and trade regulation. In doing so, an attorney will undertake a broad range of different legal activities, including litigation, government investigation, merger advice, and counseling.
Consult a Lawyer - Present Your Case Now!
Last Modified: 05-02-2014 11:26 AM PDT
Link to this page | <urn:uuid:18fb26d6-99ce-4e8e-a06d-89fffdfa4c3b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/antitrust-laws.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395613.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00083-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944759 | 460 | 2.671875 | 3 |
LM317 Adjustable Power Supply
LM317 Adjustable Power Supply
Find out how to build an adustable power supply with an LM317T voltage regulatorhome > electric circuit | electronics | general | education
In our article LM317 Voltage Regulator we introduced the LM317 which can provide a regulated output voltage from 1.2-37V from an input voltage of 3-40V, with the output voltage set simply with a couple of resistors.
In this article we will show how this IC can be used to make an adjustable power supply by replacing one of the two voltage setting resistors with a potentiometer (variable resistor).
Adjustable Power Supply with LM317
Pictured above is the circuit diagram from an adjustable power supply. The two resistors used to set the output voltage from the LM317 are called R1 and R2. In this adjustable supply, R1 is fixed at 220 Ohms, and R2 is a 4k7 potentiometer which means that R2 has a range of 0-4,700 Ohms which can be selected by rotating the potentiometer.
Using our LM317 Voltage Calculator it can be seen that if R1 = 220 and R2 = 0 the output voltage is 1.26V, and if R1 = 220 and R2 = 4700 the output voltage is 28V. These figures alone do not tell the full story though as the output voltage will always be 2-3 Volts lower than the input voltage. Therefore for example, if the input voltage is 15V the highest output voltage possible will be around 12-13V.
High Current Power Supply with LM317T
The LM317T with correct heatsinking (see our article LM317T Heatsinking) can output a maximum constant current of around 1.5 Amps. If you need more current, then the circuit has to be extended to incorporate one or more power transistors to take the majority of the load away from the LM317T.
In our article High Current Voltage Regulator we showed one way in which an LM317 could be coupled with a transistor to supply high currents. Replacing R2 in that circuit with a potentiometer would make a high current adjustable power supply.
An alternative high current adjustable power supply ciircuit design is shown below:
Here the adjustable power supply circuit has been modified with the addition of a diode (6a4) and an NPN power transistor (2N3055). Different types of 2N3055 (pictured below) are available with different maximum current carrying ratings.
For a low to medium sized power supply, it is usually possible to put together the power supply with just the one NPN power transistor with heatsinking. If however a high current power supply is required, this circuit design can be further extended simply by adding more transistors in parallel with the first. The more transistors there are, the higher the current that can be supplied.
The circuit diagram above shows an adjustable power supply with three NPN power transistors, but even more transistors can be added if required for more current.
Article Last Modified: 22:21, 24th Sep 2014
Comment on this ArticleIf you have any comments on this article, please email them to email@example.com.
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electric circuit, electronics, general, education. | <urn:uuid:c64b128e-b933-46d3-9e0e-fa3af778d37e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.reuk.co.uk/LM317-Adjustable-Power-Supply.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397695.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00033-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.873955 | 905 | 3.203125 | 3 |
This chapter examines issues surrounding the design of research in educational technology and teacher knowledge. The National Research Council proposed a set of principles for education research that has not been applied consistently to teacher knowledge and education technology research. Although some studies address reliability of measures, few adequately address validity or threats to validity or the trustworthiness of their designs or findings. Special attention is given to the need for explicit connections between the study purpose and guiding theoretical frameworks and previous research. This volume provides examples of studies addressed these design issues and includes a checklist of questions and additional resources to aid future researchers in developing rigorous, scientific research.
This handbook shares a variety of educational technology research studies to demonstrate not only current trends in educational technology, but also current practices of educational research. Education research is a highly contested field (Shavelson & Towne, 2002) and has been criticized for a lack of structure and rigor (Brickhouse, 2006; Levine, 2007; National Academy of Sciences –National Research Council [NAS-NRC], 1999): “In no other field are personal experience and ideology so frequently relied on to make policy choices, and in no other field is the research base so inadequate and little used” (NAS-NRC, 1999, p.1). This chapter examines evidence standards for reporting research and presents a checklist to help future researchers adhere to the National Research Council’s six principles for conducting rigorous, scientific research. | <urn:uuid:9a773abf-2c64-46c4-9c68-0e72df198e75> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.igi-global.com/chapter/making-grade-reporting-educational-technology/55369 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00181-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926893 | 289 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Every hotel has a story. Some are built new from the ground up. Some are historical buildings that are renovated and remodeled. But once in awhile, while digging a foundation, we uncover history. In Peru, while building the new JW Marriott Hotel Cusco, the construction site turned into an archeological dig. What happened next makes this hotel story one of the most interesting ever. But first, a brief history about the region.
Cusco, Peru, sits high atop the Andes Mountains near Machu Picchu. It’s the former capital city of the Incas and the oldest continually inhabited city in South America. The hotel is located in the center of the city on the same spot as the ancient St. Augustine convent that dates back hundreds of years. Heavy machinery can’t enter this historic area. Digging is done by hand, with crews carefully sifting through dirt in search of relics.
And they discovered a whole lot of them – Incan pottery, sculptures and other remains dating back to the 13th Century. A large stone wall was preserved and remains in place inside the hotel. Take a look at this video to see how the archaeological team uncovered an ancient road, a canal and many religious items.
The archaeological work has added to the knowledge of Incan life, and it’s a great example of how Marriott works with local communities to preserve their cultural heritage. Gustavo Diaz Salazar is the general contractor for the JW Marriott Hotel Cusco project. He said, “The most important part is not the economic value of this project. We believe value of this kind is priceless.” Other workers were thankful that the hotel is displaying the many objects they excavated in its own museum. It’s not often that a hotel project turns into an archeological dig and museum, but this one certainly did. It’ll be a landmark for Marriott.
I’m Bill Marriott and thanks for helping me keep Marriott on the Move. | <urn:uuid:8b77b109-3332-4b79-9840-15a2ba09aac0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.blogs.marriott.com/marriott-on-the-move/2012/10/unearthing-incan-relics-in-cosco-peru.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394414.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00016-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955521 | 411 | 2.828125 | 3 |
» Enjoy our Liturgical Seasons series of e-books!
Old Calendar: St. Joseph the Worker; St. Peregrine, priest & religious (Hist)
The feast of St. Joseph the Worker was established by Pope Pius XII in 1955 in order to Christianize the concept of labor and give to all workmen a model and a protector. By the daily labor in his shop, offered to God with patience and joy, St. Joseph provided for the necessities of his holy spouse and of the Incarnate Son of God, and thus became an example to all laborers. "Workmen and all those laboring in conditions of poverty will have reasons to rejoice rather than grieve, since they have in common with the Holy Family daily preoccupations and cares"(Leo XIII).
St. Joseph the Worker
"May Day" has long been dedicated to labor and the working man. It falls on the first day of the month that is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Pope Pius XII expressed the hope that this feast would accentuate the dignity of labor and would bring a spiritual dimension to labor unions. It is eminently fitting that St. Joseph, a working man who became the foster-father of Christ and patron of the universal Church, should be honored on this day.
The texts of the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours provide a catechetical synthesis of the significance of human labor seen in the light of faith. The Opening Prayer states that God, the creator and ruler of the universe, has called men and women in every age to develop and use their talents for the good of others. The Office of Readings, taken from the document of the Second Vatican Council on the Church in the modern world, develops this idea. In every type of labor we are obeying the command of God given in Genesis 2:15 and repeated in the responsory for the Office of Readings. The responsory for the Canticle of Zechariah says that "St. Joseph faithfully practiced the carpenter's trade. He is a shining example for all workers." Then, in the second part of the Opening Prayer, we ask that we may do the work that God has asked of us and come to the rewards he has promised. In the Prayer after Communion we ask: "May our lives manifest your love; may we rejoice for ever in your peace."
The liturgy for this feast vindicates the right to work, and this is a message that needs to be heard and heeded in our modern society. In many of the documents issued by Pope John XXIII, Pope Paul VI, the Second Vatican Council and Pope John Paul II, reference is made to the Christian spirit that should permeate one's work, after the example of St. Joseph. In addition to this, there is a special dignity and value to the work done in caring for the family. The Office of Readings contains an excerpt from the Vatican II document on the modern world: "Where men and women, in the course of gaining a livelihood for themselves and their families, offer appropriate service to society, they can be confident that their personal efforts promote the work of the Creator, confer benefits on their fellowmen, and help to realize God's plan in history" (no. 34).
— Excerpted from Saints of the Roman Calendar
by Enzo LodiPatron:
Against doubt; against hesitation; Americas; Austria; diocese of Baton Rouge, California; Belgium; diocese of Biloxi, Mississippi; Bohemia; diocese of Buffalo, New York; bursars; cabinetmakers; Canada; Carinthia; carpenters; China; Church; confectioners; craftsmen; Croatian people (in 1687 by decree of the Croatian parliament) dying people; emigrants; engineers; expectant mothers; families; fathers; Florence, Italy; happy death; holy death; house hunters; immigrants; interior souls; Korea; laborers; diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin; archdiocese of Louisville, Kentucky; diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire; married people; Mexico; diocese of Nashville, Tennessee; New France; New World; Oblates of Saint Joseph; people in doubt; people who fight Communism; Peru; pioneers; pregnant women; protection of the Church; diocese of San Jose, California; Sicily; diocese of Sioux Falls, South Dakota; social justice; Styria, Austria; travellers; Turin, Italy; Tyrol, Austria; unborn children; Universal Church; Vatican II; Vietnam; diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia; wheelwrights; workers; working people.Symbols:
Bible; branch; capenter's square; carpenter's tools; chalice; cross; hand tools; infant Jesus; ladder; lamb; lily; monstrance; old man holding a lily and a carpenter's tool such as a square; old man holding the infant Jesus; plane; rod.Things to Do:
- May 1 is celebrated in Communist countries as the Day of the International Solidarity of Workers. Today would be a good day to pray for athesistic Communism's influence to cease and a proper application of the principles explained by Leo XIII in Rerum novarum and John Paul II in Centesimus annus to be the guide used by nations.
As a young man St. Peregrine was a member of an anti-papal party until he encountered St. Philip Benizi, the head of the Servite order, who had been sent to try to reconcile the divided community. While trying to preach in Forli, Philip was heckled and even struck by Peregrine, who was overcome by momentary political fervor. But that moment also changed Peregrine. He began to channel his energies in new directions, engaged in good works and eventually joined the Servites in Siena and went on to be ordained a priest. Returning to his home town, he founded a new Servite house there and became well known for his preaching and holiness as well as his devotion to the sick and poor.
One of the special penances he imposed on himself was standing whenever it was not necessary to sit. Over time, Peregrine developed varicose veins and, in turn, cancer of the foot. The wound became painful and diseased and all medical treatment failed. The local surgeon determined amputation of the leg was called for.
Tradition has it that the night before surgery was scheduled, Peregrine spent much time in prayer before the crucified Jesus, asking God to heal him if it was God’s will to do so. Falling asleep at one point, Peregrine had a vision of the crucified Jesus leaving the cross and touching his cancerous leg. When Peregrine awoke, the wound was healed and his foot and leg, seemingly miraculously cured, were saved. He lived another 20 years.
Peregrine was canonized in 1726.
Excerpted from Saint of the Day: Lives, Lessons and Feast
by Leonard Foley, O.F.M.Patron:
AIDS patients; cancer patients; open sores; skin diseases; sick people | <urn:uuid:c1ff879a-a697-4c5e-b05f-2713c512ad34> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2012-05-01 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00005-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961679 | 1,482 | 3.171875 | 3 |
In June, isee systems and IBM sponsored a new technical committee in OASIS, a large standards organization. This committee is developing a new system dynamics modeling standard called XMILE. This blog post will answer some important questions about XMILE.
1. What is XMILE?
XMILE is an open XML protocol for the sharing, interoperability, and reuse of system dynamics models and simulations.
2. What’s the difference between XMILE and SMILE?
XMILE is the XML representation of a system dynamics model. SMILE is the underlying system dynamics language that is represented in XML using XMILE. In this way, it is very similar to the DYNAMO language originally used to create system dynamics models. SMILE could eventually be encoded using something other than XML.
3. How does XMILE benefit iThink and STELLA users?
There are several immediate benefits to iThink and STELLA users:
- XML files can be reformatted and styled with XSLT files. There are programs available that generate reports directly from XML files.
- Model files can be examined and edited in a text editor, facilitating searches and simple replaces.
- Because XMILE is a text file format, proper versioning of model files, showing meaningful differences between revisions, can be done with version control software such as SVN and Git.
- Because XMILE is textual, platform-neutral, and descriptive, rather than a binary representation of the implementation, it is more resilient to possible file corruption.
- As the standard becomes more widely adopted additional benefits will include a broader market for models and the ability to share models with colleagues working in different modeling software packages.
4. How will the adoption of the XMILE standard benefit the field of system dynamics?
The benefits of this standard are:
- System dynamics models can be re-used to show how different policies produce different outcomes in complex environments.
- Models can be stored in cloud-based libraries, shared within and between organizations, and used to communicate different outcomes with common vocabulary.
- Model components can be re-used and plugged into other simulations.
- It will allow the creation of online repositories modeling many common business decisions.
- It will increase acceptance and use of system dynamics as a discipline.
- It will help ISVs make new tools that help businesses to develop and understand models and simulations.
- It will enable vendors to develop standards-based applications for new markets such as mobile and social media.
5. What is the connection to Big Data?
XMILE opens up system dynamics models to a broader audience and for new uses, including embedding models within larger processes. System dynamics models provide a new way to analyze Big Data, especially when pulling live data streams into a running model to determine the impacts of our decisions in real time against future outcomes, to hopefully avoid unintended consequences of our actions. Note, however, that the presumption of Big Data, or the addition of Big Data, does not automatically lead to large, complicated models. You do not have to create giant models just because you have a lot of data. We’re aggregating the data and looking at it in a more homogenous way, so the models can still stay relatively understandable.
6. Can I adapt existing iThink and STELLA models to XMILE?
All of the isee systems products (version 10 and later) already use the XMILE standard in its draft form. As the standard evolves, isee systems products will be updated to meet the changing standard and your models will be translated forward so they remain XMILE-compatible
7. Do you plan to extend XMILE to include discrete event or agent-based simulations?
XMILE focuses on the language of classic system dynamics, rooted in DYNAMO. While we anticipate the language to expand to include both discrete simulation and agent-based modeling, version one of the XMILE specification is restricted to system dynamics modeling.
8. Could you show an example of how XMILE is used in a model?
XMILE is used to describe the model and is the format used for saving it. A model snippet is shown below with the XMILE that completely describes both its simulation and its drawing properties (in the display tag).
9. A big part of system dynamics is graphical, will XMILE include this part of models?
Yes, all graphical information is stored within the display tag, as shown in the earlier example.
10. Why would you want to store visual layout in Xmile? Why not separate structure from layout?
The structure is actually separate from the layout in the XML file. All visual information is embedded within display tags and can be ignored. XMILE defines three separate levels of compliance, with the lowest level being simulation information only (i.e., structure). A model does not need to include display information and any application is free to ignore it.
11. Will XMILE include data from running the model?
XMILE only represents the model structure, so no data is included.
12. Where can I get more information?
The OASIS technical committee for XMILE maintains a public record at https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/xmile/. This page is regularly updated with new information.
The draft standard can be found in these two documents:
In addition, isee systems maintains a web page, http://www.iseesystems.com/community/support/XMILE.aspx, that will be updated periodically with new information about XMILE. | <urn:uuid:7724f2ca-a188-415a-a0b6-635ff7bc10b1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blog.iseesystems.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00053-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900242 | 1,170 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Sites - Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs)
email a friend
Kenya, Coast Province
39o 28.00' East 4o 6.00' South
140 - 200m
Year of IBA assessment
Site description The Kayas are small, relict patches of forest that once sheltered the fortified villages of the Mijikenda people on the Kenyan coast. They have spiritual and ceremonial significance and are customarily protected by a Council of Elders. Kaya Gandini (also known as Takawa or Duruma, and sacred to the Duruma people) lies c.15 km east-north-east of Mombasa, near the town of Gandini, and overlooking the Mambome river. It is dry deciduous Cynometra–Terminalia forest. Kaya Mtswakara (247 ha), which is similar floristically, is situated c.2 km away across the Mambome river, and is in turn adjacent to Mwache Forest Reserve (c.345 ha), a somewhat wetter forest across the Mwache river. The Kaya was gazetted as a National Monument under the care of the National Museums of Kenya in 1992.
Key Biodiversity See Box and Table 2 for key species. This is a potentially important site for the threatened Zoothera guttata (a non-breeding visitor from March to October) and the threatened and restricted-range Anthus sokokensis (recently recorded and presumably resident in small numbers). The avifauna is not well studied but is typical of East African coastal forests. Species of regional concern include Pachycoccyx audeberti, Pogoniulus simplex, Campethera mombassica and Prionops scopifrons.
Non-bird biodiversity: The threatened small mammal Rhynchocyon petersi (EN) occurs here. | <urn:uuid:7f7a152a-282e-4c39-94a0-e9fb3d644967> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/sitefactsheet.php?id=6402 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00126-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910111 | 394 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Lecturer, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department, University of Massachusetts
Ph.D.: Duke University
Plant Cell Walls, Bioenergy, Grass Developmental Biology
Grasses have for millennia provided humans with food, feed, and fiber. In addition, grasses are increasingly becoming a source of fuel. To replace a substantial portion of our current petroleum usage, species such as switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) and Miscanthus (Miscanthus x giganteus) are being developed as dedicated bioenergy crops. The photosynthetically fixed carbon in plant tissues can be converted into liquid fuels compatible with the current transportation infrastructure. Achieving cost-effective and environmentally sustainable production of plant-derived biofuels will, however, require advances in our understanding of plant biology, as well as genetic improvements of the plants themselves.
Traits desirable for biofuel crops have largely not been the targets of human selection. Domestication, for example, led to cereal grains which are large and easy to harvest. In contrast to the historic focus on seeds, breeders of future bioenergy crops seek to produce an abundance of vegetative biomass. This biomass – essentially the cell walls of the plants – should also be readily convertible into fuel and other high-value chemicals. The cell wall characteristics most critical for conversion have yet to be defined, but they likely involve the type, amount, and interactions of major cell-wall components, including cellulose, hemicellulose plus other matrix polysaccharides, and lignin.
Research in our lab centers on achieving a clearer understanding of bioenergy-relevant traits, including cell wall composition, structure, and dynamics. To elucidate the genes controlling these traits, we use the model plant Brachypodium distachyon. Related to wheat and native to the Mediterranean region, Brachypodium is a small, annual grass with a compact, sequenced genome and abundant genetic resources. Brachypodium also exhibits tremendous natural variation in traits important for bioenergy. To mine this diversity, we are performing extensive phenotyping, including a microbial, simultaneous saccharification and fermentation assay to test how well plant material is converted to ethanol and other products. We are combining these data with an emerging wealth of genome sequence information to map the genetic loci underlying the phenotypic diversity. By elucidating biomass quantity and quality traits in a model grass, we aim to contribute to the knowledge base necessary to improve plants for sustainable bioenergy production.
Tyler, L., Bragg, J.N., Wu, J., Yang, X., Tuskan, G., and Vogel, J.P. (2010) Annotation and comparative analysis of the glycoside hydrolase genes in Brachypodium distachyon. BMC Genomics. 11:600
International Brachypodium Initiative (2010) Genome sequencing and analysis of the model grass Brachypodium distachyon. Nature. 463, 763-768. | <urn:uuid:dd8ac799-1291-4ec6-885b-ce06c3a95b55> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bio.umass.edu/mcb/faculty/Tyler.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00115-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.877697 | 605 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Cook's death in Hawaii
Cook's third voyage ended in tragedy, prematurely bringing to a close an exceptional career.
After an unsuccessful search for the Northwest passage the Resolution and Discovery arrived back in the Hawaiian Islands (then known as the Sandwich Islands) in 1779.
Although welcomed at first by the indigenous people, relations later became strained and Cook left Hawaii on 4 February 1779. However, gales forced the ships back for repairs on 11 February, when the voyagers were subject to a hostile reaction from the local peoples.
Within a short while the cutter from the Discovery went missing and it was presumed by the crew of the Discovery to have been stolen by the Hawaiians. Cook expressed great uneasiness in relation to the stolen cutter and he was quoted as saying "I am afraid…that these people will oblige me to use some violent measures…they must not be left to imagine that they have gained some advantage over us" (Cook, 1842, Vol II, p. 385).
Cook then made the fateful decision to lead a landing party to retrieve the cutter. A fight developed which resulted in multiple deaths, including that of Cook himself and several of his marines.
Cook’s death came as a huge shock to the expedition: "How sincerely his loss was felt and lamented by those who had for so long found their general security in his skill and conduct, and in every consolation, under their hardships, in his tenderness and humanity, it is neither necessary or possible for me to describe; much less shall I attempt to describe the horror with which we were struck, and the universal dejection and dismay which followed so dreadful and unexpected a calamity" (Cook, 1842, Vol II, p. 387).
A fascinating account of Cook's death from the perspective of the Hawaiians is found in 'Tour through Hawaii' by William Ellis, 1827. "After his death, we all wailed. His bones were separated - the flesh was seared off and burnt, as was the practice in regard to our own chiefs when they died" (Ellis, 1827, p. 117).
Cook's remains were buried at sea in Kealakekua Bay in February 1779.
Charles Clerke took command of the expedition after the tragedy at Kealakekua Bay but he too was to die an untimely death six months later. After Clerke’s death, John Gore commanded the expedition on its homeward journey to England in 1780.
The Macmillan Brown Library holds a number of editions of the seminal work 'The Journals of Captain James Cook 1768-1771'. In addition to the original and edited publications of Cook's journals, the Macmillan Brown Library also holds a number of key reference works relating to Cook's voyages, including "The Captain Cook Encyclopaedia" (John Robson ed) which provides a comprehensive overview of the three expeditions. | <urn:uuid:7a4d8437-0b98-474d-b1e9-9f41e68825a1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/voyages/resolution/death.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00126-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977829 | 603 | 3.703125 | 4 |
Brazil the Low-carbon Economy of the FutureEconomics / Brazil Dec 12, 2010 - 08:37 AM GMT
study by the British economist Nicholas Stern, who advises the UK government on climate change, has highlighted how Brazil can be a perfect example for the future, making the transition from being the fifth greatest polluter to becoming a leader for countries wishing to create low-carbon economies.
Nicholas Stern was the author of a report published in 2006 which outlined the costs of climate change. For developing countries this currently runs at 100 billion USD a year, every year. For this specialist, Brazil has all the characteristics enabling it to make the transition from a leading producer of carbon to a low-carbon economy in the near future.
In an interview with BBC Brasil, Nicholas Stern declared that Latin America has all the conditions necessary to create tremendous advantages from new technologies, a process which has already begun. Declaring that "The region will be one of the engines of change", he pointed out that Brazil is already a leading producer of biofuels, and considers that it can also become a leader of second generation biofuels. There are derived from lignocellulosic crops which produce lignin and cellulose which in turn can be fermented into alcohol. These products are abundant in sugar cane and corn, both of which Brazil has in large quantities.
Stern also considers that Brazil can take advantage of the production of biofuels from seaweed, due to its long coastline (7,500 km) quite apart from having all the conditions for sustainable fuel production from a good management of its forests. However, this will mean an immediate stop to the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.
"There is no way to combat climate change without ending deforestation. However whatever the way in which this is achieved, it will have to be in partnership with the rest of the world, led by the countries where the forests are".
For Stern, the elimination of poverty and combating climate change are intrinsically linked: "We have to combat poverty and climate change -if we fail in one, we fail in the other", he said.
Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.
© 2005-2016 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. | <urn:uuid:d7409b91-c3c9-4e3f-936d-bba98a03b28f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article24956.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397565.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00074-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954099 | 532 | 2.875 | 3 |
|Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute||Home|
Myths and plays from African, Mexican, American Indian and Greek mythology make up the content of this unit. The unit discusses the commonalty among various cultures, as shown through the commonalty in their myths. Activities included are geared toward social learning. More specifically, they aim at sharing common experiences and building respect for individual and cultural differences among the students. This unit makes use of reading, summarizing analyzing and evaluating myths through writing, role playing and stage production.
The myths that were selected from each culture are those that tell about how man got fire, whose central theme is sacrifice of oneself to help another. The unit engages students in a classroom community theatre group, whose purpose is to present the myths through role play and prepare a reader’s theatre production of Aeschylus’ play, “Prometeus Bound.” Students are also asked to write an original play, which focuses on the lives of the various cultural groups, who make up the classroom community. Additionally, students will research one culture in preparation for a small-scaled cultural festival in culmination of the unit.
(Recommended for Drama, Literature or Social Studies, Grades 4-7)
Ancient Greek Mythology Mexican Native American | <urn:uuid:69a991ce-be3c-46e1-adb0-c4122927f52b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/guides/1993/3/93.03.02.x.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396100.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00064-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954611 | 260 | 3.875 | 4 |
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Despite the intense skepticism, a small community of scientists is still investigating near-room-temperature fusion reactions. The latest news occurred last week, when Italian scientists Andrea Rossi and Sergio Focardi of the University of Bologna announced that they developed a cold fusion device capable of producing 12,400 W of heat power with an input of just 400 W. Last Friday, the scientists held a private invitation press conference in Bologna, attended by about 50 people, where they demonstrated what they claim is a nickel-hydrogen fusion reactor. Further, the scientists say that the reactor is well beyond the research phase; they plan to start shipping commercial devices within the next three months and start mass production by the end of 2011.
Rossi and Focardi say that, when the atomic nuclei of nickel and hydrogen are fused in their reactor, the reaction produces copper and a large amount of energy. The reactor uses less than 1 gram of hydrogen and starts with about 1,000 W of electricity, which is reduced to 400 W after a few minutes. Every minute, the reaction can convert 292 grams of 20°C water into dry steam at about 101°C. Since raising the temperature of water by 80°C and converting it to steam requires about 12,400 W of power, the experiment provides a power gain of 12,400/400 = 31. As for costs, the scientists estimate that electricity can be generated at a cost of less than 1 cent/kWh, which is significantly less than coal or natural gas plants.
“The magnitude of this result suggests that there is a viable energy technology that uses commonly available materials, that does not produce carbon dioxide, and that does not produce radioactive waste and will be economical to build,” according to this description of the demonstration.
Rossi and Focardi explain that the reaction produces radiation, providing evidence that the reaction is indeed a nuclear reaction and does not work by some other method. They note that no radiation escapes due to lead shielding, and no radioactivity is left in the cell after it is turned off, so there is no nuclear waste.
Originally posted by Raelsatu
Already posted. Unfortunately the chances of this being/becoming real is slim. For one, Rossi was supposedly a scammer at one point. Also, I've heard nothing of this story apart the article; I fear it;ll just die out really fast and never be heard of again...like usual. | <urn:uuid:13621154-5a52-455d-ae30-734c880441de> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread654717/pg1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00025-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944914 | 550 | 3.453125 | 3 |
A debt spiral refers to a situation where a country (or firm or individual) sees ever-increasing levels of debt. This increasing levels of debt and debt interest becomes unsustainable, eventually leading to debt default.
Types of Debt Spirals
- Public sector debt. This is debt that the government owe to the private sector (e.g. UK public sector debt). Some government debt may also be sold to overseas investors.
- External debt. This is debt that a country owes to other countries. It includes both government external debt and private external debt.
A debt spiral could occur with just government debt. However, if a country also has high levels of external debt, it makes a debt spiral more likely because foreign investors are more likely to withdraw funds at signs of difficulty; this is termed ‘capital flight’.
Stages in debt spiral
- Debt Levels increase. (This could be due to overspending, inefficient tax collection, bank bailouts or economic slowdown)
- Markets become concerned about debt levels leading to higher bond yields (higher rate of interest)
- Higher cost of servicing debt. Rising debt increases debt interest payments. But, also Governments have to pay higher interest payments on debt because of rising bond yields. This increases government spending even more.
- To reduce bond yields, governments need to cut spending and increase tax.
- Trying to reduce debt can cause a recession. The Impact of spending cuts leads to lower aggregate demand more unemployment and lower economic growth. Lower economic growth leads to lower tax revenues.
- The shrinking economy means it is harder to meet debt repayments. Confidence falls. Bond yields remain high despite the spending cuts.
- With a shrinking tax payments, the government struggles to meet interest payments. Also markets no longer want to buy more government debt, leading to partial or total default.
Debt Spiral and Lose-Lose
It is argued, some countries in a debt spiral are pursuing options known as lose-lose. This means you cut government spending (trying to reduce the deficit). However, this leads to lower growth, and therefore, the debt to GDP ratio may continue to grow. Therefore, you fail on two fronts – you get the same high level of debt to GDP, but also lower economic output.
Research has suggested that countries which pursued austerity have seen an increase in their debt to GDP ratios.
See also: ‘Panic driven austerity‘. This argued that the ‘debt crisis’ in Europe wasn’t a real problem of insolvency. At the start of the crisis, debt levels were not excessively high. But, because there was no Central Bank to intervene in the bond market and shore up confidence, governments were ‘panicked into austerity.
How to Break a Debt Spiral
- Cut Fiscal deficit but monetary mnjection. If a country cuts spending and increases tax (fiscal austerity) This leads to lower demand and could cause a recession. However, the economy can avoid a downturn if there is something else to increase demand (e.g. loosening of monetary policy, for example, quantitative easing or devaluation of exchange rate which boosts domestic demand.
- Cut Government Spending which won’t harm economic growth. If you increase the retirement age, the government will save pension spending, but also people may work longer, helping to maintain income tax receipts. Therefore, economic growth may not fall, but the government can reduce its spending.
- Increase efficiency of tax collection. Prevent tax loopholes, e.g. collect tax from off shore tax havens. Collect more inheritance tax.
- Foreign bailout. A foreign agency like the IMF could give a temporary loan, which reduces necessity for spending cuts.
- Devaluation. A devaluation can help boost exports by making them cheaper. This provides a source of economic growth to offset the fiscal tightening. (However, a devaluation may lead to capital outflows, which is a problem with external debt.
Rising bond yields can soon create a debt spiral.
Examples of Debt Spirals
Since 2008, Greece has seen an increase in its debt to GDP ratio. This is despite a period of austerity measures and spending cuts. The spending cuts in Greece have contributed to a prolonged recession which has led to falling tax base.
Greece Debt to GDP ratio
- 2005 – 100% of GDP
- 2010 – 144.9% of GDP
Spain has announced more spending cuts, but this may be insufficient to prevent debt to GDP increasing. Unemployment in Spain is over 23%, austerity measures have led to a fall in economic growth.
Debt Spiral and the Euro
Countries in the Euro are more susceptible to a debt spiral for three reasons.
- Bond Yields more likely to rise. Because Eurozone countries don’t have a lender of last resort, markets are more concerned about liquidity; this has led to rising bond yields.
- Lack of Independent Monetary Policy. Countries in the Eurozone who pursue fiscal tightening, cannot pursue monetary expansion (e.g. increasing money supply)
- No ability to devalue. Countries in the south of Europe have high unemployment and low growth because they are uncompetitive. But, in the Euro, they can’t devalue. | <urn:uuid:36f34452-322b-42e9-aa92-5d495bd0b936> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/5118/economics/debt-spiral-explained/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399425.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00153-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943229 | 1,077 | 3.796875 | 4 |
This paper has been prepared by Dr JW Knott, BA (LaT), PhD (ANU), Head of History, School of Social Sciences, the Australian National University and historical consultant to the National Archives.
The year of 1952 was one of change and some uncertainty for many Australians. In February the death of King George VI and the accession of Queen Elizabeth II were announced. March saw severe import restrictions introduced to prevent the nation's balance of payments from deteriorating further. In May the Minister for External Affairs, Richard Casey, fuelled anti-communist paranoia in the community by referring to a 'nest of traitors' in the public service. Then, in August, concern about rising unemployment caused the government to announce severe cuts to its immigration program. That month there were disturbances at the Bonegilla migrant camp near Albury. Traditional Labor anti-immigration views resurfaced in the Senate in October when Queensland ALP Senator Archie Benn compared immigrants to cane toads and suggested they should never have been introduced. That same month Australia entered the Atomic Age when Britain exploded its first atom bomb on the Montebello Islands off the northwest coast of Western Australia. And throughout the year Australian troops remained on active duty in Korea. A mass bombing campaign of North Korean cities by the United States and its allies did little to resolve the military and political stalemate on that troubled peninsula.
Despite such uncertainties Australians could still find pleasure in their cricket team's 4–1 Test Series victory over the West Indies and the six gold medals (including two by the 'Lithgow Flash', Marjorie Jackson) that the nation's athletes won at the Helsinki Olympics. A year of sporting triumph was rounded out in November when bantamweight Jimmy Carruthers became the first Australian to win a world boxing title.
In Canberra the Liberal-Country Party's euphoria over its electoral victory in April 1951 had begun to fade. There were concerns that, as the coalition entered its third year in government, its reform agenda had stalled. The Government's attempt to ban the Communist Party had been rejected in a referendum, its financial reforms were in limbo and now the economy had taken a sudden downturn. Nervous coalition backbenchers were beginning to focus on their re-election prospects. Rumblings of discontent were first detected while Prime Minister Menzies was visiting the United States and Britain in May and June. There were claims that the opportunities presented by Menzies' victory in 1949 had been frittered away, that the Government had lost direction, and that Ministers were under the influence of public-service Mandarins inherited from Chifley. The nerves of government backbenchers (and Ministers for that matter) were not soothed by drastic swings against the Government in two by-elections late in the year. The ALP wrested the Victorian seat of Flinders from the Liberals, and EG Whitlam entered federal parliament with a substantially increased Labor vote in the western Sydney seat of Werriwa.
These newly released Cabinet notebooks touch on most of the important political and policy issues of 1952 and reveal much (albeit often in abbreviated form) about the thinking of individual Cabinet Ministers on particular issues. As one would expect, most attention was given to economic policy. After having had to cope with an overheating economy for the past two years, Cabinet was taken by surprise by the sudden economic downturn. In their scramble to understand what was going on, some Ministers focused on unusual economic indicators. The Minister for Labor and National Service, Harold Holt, for instance, thought that a '20% fall in attendance on race tracks' might be significant. The notebooks also show Cabinet giving serious consideration to dismantling the wartime tax reforms (uniform taxation) and returning the power to collect income tax to the States. In the end, nothing came of the proposal.
Other matters that reveal much about Australia in 1952 are touched on in the notebooks as well. The Liberal Minister for the Army, Josiah Francis, for instance, was opposed to admitting the Japanese wives of Australian servicemen into Australia because it could cause unrest. Cabinet as a whole was also unhappy with Japan's choice of Haruhiko Nishi as their first post-war Ambassador to Australia. Nishi had been Head of the Japanese Foreign Office at the time of the bombing of Pearl Harbour. The Minister for Defence Production, Eric Harrison, wondered why the Japanese could not send a 'clean-skin' and warned of a bad response in RSL circles.
Cabinet Ministers also agonised over their responsibilities when petitioned to commute death penalties imposed by courts in the Northern Territory and Papua New Guinea. In one of the cases the convicted murderers were 19- and 20-year-old 'New Australians', who had originally come to Australia as unaccompanied children, displaced persons from Czechoslovakia. Cabinet eventually accepted the Attorney-General's advice that their petitions for commutation should not be granted.
Of all the Cabinet deliberations that took place in 1952, however, two broad topics stand out as being of particular significance. The first concerned Australia's role in the age of the Atom: the facilitation of nuclear weapons testing and the development of the nation's uranium deposits. The second concerned Cabinet's attempts to deal with Cold War fears at home: the alleged subversive activities of Australian communists and communist sympathisers.
In September 1950, Menzies had secretly agreed to a request from Britain to conduct atomic weapon tests in Australia. Only a few people were told of the agreement: the then Acting Minister for Defence, Philip McBride, and the Secretaries of the Prime Minister's, Defence and Supply Departments. Menzies neither informed nor consulted his Cabinet over the decision. The absurd situation eventually arose whereby the Minister for Supply, Howard Beale, was telling Parliament that rumours of atomic tests in Australia were 'completely false', while his own department head was cooperating with the British to arrange the tests.
With the atomic tests scheduled for October 1952 and press speculation mounting, it was agreed that identical press statements revealing plans for the test would be issued by the British and Australian Governments at 12.30 GMT on 18 February 1952. Menzies intended to inform his Cabinet a few hours prior to the announcement. Even this brief courtesy was thwarted, however, when for some inexplicable reason British cables containing the joint statement reached the Australian press before Cabinet had even met.
We do not know what Cabinet thought of Menzies' explanation that morning because any discussion that took place is not recorded. The Cabinet notebook entry simply reads: 'The PM mentioned the press statement about test of atomic weapons'. As it happened, Beale had been confidentially (and one might add illegally) informed by his own departmental head about what was going on a few days earlier. Naturally enough he was very angry that he had been kept in the dark for so long.
Menzies did not particularly like Beale – 'not on the same wavelength' he told a colleague – but it is unlikely that this was the reason he never informed his Minister of Supply that an atomic bomb test was to take place. The development of atomic weapons was one of the most closely guarded secrets of the age. The 'need to know' principle governed who was informed and who was not. Cold War tensions can only have added to this culture of secrecy. In recent decades it has become fashionable to make much of Menzies' eagerness to agree to the British request to test their bomb in Australia and his failure to consult his Cabinet over the issue. As Menzies' biographer, the late Allan Martin, has pointed out, such criticism is anachronistic. In the context of the early 1950s, Menzies did nothing unusual: it is inconceivable that any Australian Prime Minister at the time (regardless of political party) would have turned down such a request from Britain. The dangers of the atmospheric testing of atomic weapons would only become apparent to scientists later in the decade. Nor would anyone have expected top secret matters (such as the information that Britain was building its own atomic bomb) to be brought before, much less discussed by, Cabinet. There was also nothing unusual in abiding by the British insistence that knowledge of the proposed tests be restricted to a small circle of Ministers and officials. What is difficult to understand is that the Minister for Supply – who had Cabinet responsibility for developing Australia's uranium reserves, building Australia's first nuclear reactor and (as it turned out) controlling the Australian end of the atomic bomb testing program – was judged to be someone who did not 'need to know'.
Apart from facilitating atomic weapons testing, Australia's other major contribution to its allies' nuclear weapons programs was the mining and processing of uranium. In April 1952 an agreement was signed between the Combined Development Agency, the South Australian Government and federal government for the development of uranium deposits at Radium Hill. The Combined Development Agency, a joint US–UK authority created to ensure an adequate supply of uranium for the Western allies' weapons programs, would be the sole customer of the mine.
Menzies believed that selling to the Combined Development Agency was 'a matter of importance to the free world'. Nevertheless this did not stop some of his Ministers from openly questioning whether Australia was obtaining the best financial return from such an arrangement. The issue came up in July 1952 when Cabinet discussed proposals to develop the even larger uranium deposits discovered at Rum Jungle in the Northern Territory. The proposal once again was for Australia to develop and operate the mine and for the Combined Development Agency to purchase the entire output. Cabinet was told that the United States was expanding its atom bomb building program so that 'the Western World could smash the Russians' in the event of war. The Combined Development Agency's offer was to pay 70 per cent of the cost of production, plus £2/5/0 per pound of ore for a period of 10 years. Harold Holt, the Minister for Labor and National Service, thought contributing to 'mutual defence' was all well and good, but he was concerned Australia was 'not making much of a profit'. Defence Minister Philip McBride agreed, and claimed that Canada was getting a much better price for its uranium. External Affairs Minister, Richard Casey, put an even more bizarre twist on the discussions: because Australia was 'putting something into the kitty of great value' in the West's fight against communism, they should 'get credit for it – perhaps fighter planes'.
During these deliberations General Jack Stevens, Secretary of the Department of Supply, was brought into the Cabinet Room to address the various concerns raised. He assured Cabinet the agreement offered 'a very favourable deal', although 'not a Father Xmas deal for us'. Cabinet subsequently set up a sub-committee to explore the issue in even greater detail and eventually recommended acceptance of the original offer. A 10-year agreement between the federal government and the Combined Development Agency for the development and sale of uranium deposits at Rum Jungle was signed in January 1953.
The 'red menace'
Concern about the alleged subversive activities of Australian communists and their sympathisers reached a peak in Australia in the early 1950s. In September 1951 the federal government had seen the proposed constitutional changes that would have allowed it to ban the Communist Party of Australia narrowly rejected by the electorate. This left the coalition government without a clear policy for dealing with the presumed subversive threat from communism. This did not, of course, stop anti-communist zealots both inside and outside the federal parliament from engaging in a communist witch-hunt. Chief Government Whip Henry 'Jo' Gullett, Liberal backbencher WC Wentworth, and the fiercely anti-communist Labor MHR Stan Keon led the way. In May 1952, for instance, Wentworth asked the Minister for External Affairs, Richard Casey, whether secret documents had been passed to a journalist working for the Communist Party's Tribune newspaper by a senior public servant. He then implied that the former head of the Department of External Affairs, Dr John Burton, who had resigned from the public service to stand (unsuccessfully) as an ALP candidate in the 1951 federal election, was the source of the leak. Casey said he thought it improbable that Burton had passed on the documents, but then fuelled paranoia by referring to a 'nest of traitors' flourishing in the public service.
What induced Casey to make such an inflammatory claim is unclear. And Burton was certainly not the source of any leak. We now know that a woman working for the Australian security services leaked the information to the Tribune. 'Mrs A', who subsequently gave in camera evidence to the Petrov Royal Commission, had been instructed by the head of the Commonwealth Investigation Service (CIS) to form a friendship with the Tribune journalist. She had then been provided with confidential material to pass on to him in the hope that the CIS would learn something useful in return. It never did.
There may not have been a 'nest of traitors' in the Commonwealth public service, but there were some Communist Party members and left-wing sympathisers working for the Commonwealth. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) maintained a register of them. There were three categories: category A were known members of the Communist Party of Australia, category B were secret or suspected members of the party, and category C were those who had been reported as expressing left-wing opinions or views. Should such people be considered a security risk and be purged from the public service? In September 1952 Cabinet considered a report from the Director-General of ASIO, Colonel Charles Spry, into the matter. In his report, Spry indicated that there were a handful of people working for the Commonwealth who might be considered serious security risks. None, however, were working in sensitive areas and none had access to classified material. He thought the introduction of a formal purge procedure – with tribunals and the right of representation for those suspected of communist sympathies – would not serve any useful purpose; too few communist sympathisers were likely to be dismissed. Better, Spry recommended, to keep the existing informal arrangements whereby known security risks within the public service were transferred to an area where they had no access to sensitive material and were kept under surveillance. Cabinet accepted the advice.
Parliamentary attacks on alleged communist sympathisers in universities and in the arts community were given short shrift by Menzies in particular. In August 1952, Labor MHR Daniel Mulcahy had placed a question on notice regarding the appointment of communist sympathisers Dr Robin Gollan and Michael Lindsay to the staff of the Australian National University (ANU). This came on top of revelations that the Minister for Territories, Paul Hasluck, had earlier denied a research student at the ANU access to Papua New Guinea on the grounds of his 'political affiliations'. At a subsequent Cabinet meeting, Menzies said he thought 'academic freedom must be maintained' and that one 'should not examine the political view of appointees'. On the other hand he admitted that the ANU was a resource that the government would want to make use of in the event of war and then they 'would have to kick these fellows out'.
Before Cabinet could take a position on this issue the Chief Government Whip, Henry 'Jo' Gullett, and Labor MHR Stan Keon sensationally raised the matter on the floor of Parliament. Gullett claimed the ANU had become 'more famous for its left wing politics than for its research' and Keon joined in by asserting that a 'nest of Communists' existed at the ANU. Keon also went on to attack the Commonwealth Literary Fund, of which Menzies was a board member, for funding left-wing writers Judah Waten, Eric Lambert and John Morrison.
One of the ANU academics attacked, Michael Lindsay, had recently inherited an earldom, and Keon claimed that this was the reason the Government was unconcerned by the ANU appointments. They 'were so anxious to be rubbing shoulders … with a genuine belted earl that they were not worried … this gentlemen was doing the work of the Communist party'. In his reply Menzies poured scorn on the claim – 'The honourable member said … I invited Lord Lindsay … because I wanted to see what an earl looked like. Good Heavens, I have seen hundreds of earls!' – before taking the moral high ground and asserting the principles of academic freedom and non-interference by his government in the affairs of the ANU. In his speech, Menzies made no mention of the fact that he had already spoken to the Director-General of Security, Colonel Spry, and the Vice-Chancellor of ANU, Douglas Copland, about this very matter.
Consistency was not always Menzies' or his Cabinet's strong point. The Government was determined, for instance, that a delegation of activists be stopped from attending an Asian-Pacific peace conference in Beijing. Why they were so intent on stopping people from travelling to this particular conference is not clear. No restrictions were placed on the issuing of passports to attend other communist conferences that year in Jakarta, Vienna and Moscow. Even ASIO advised that there were no security issues involved and the only concern was that the conference might be used for 'propaganda' purposes. Perhaps, in the end, Cabinet believed it had to act in order to satisfy the expectations of its anti-communist supporters. Some Ministers attempted to rationalise the decision by arguing that (because of China's support of North Korea) Australia was in a state of de facto war with China. 'We should not let people go to China' claimed Minister for Commerce and Agriculture, John McEwen, because it is 'the enemy's country'. But as the Minister for the Navy and Minister for Air, William McMahon, pointed out, legally Australia was 'not at war with China' and to stop people from attending would be viewed as 'an arbitrary act of government'. He argued that the Government should limit its actions to simply urging people not to attend. Although the British, New Zealand, Pakistani and Indonesian governments decided not to stop its citizens from travelling to Beijing for the conference, the Australian Government stood by its decision 'that facilities should be withdrawn from persons wishing to attend this conference'. In the end the Government's actions had little effect. Dr John Burton, the former Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, led the Australian delegation at the conference.
Australia did not succumb to the rampant McCarthyism that was experienced in the United States in 1952. Although communist witch-hunting occupied the attention of a good many members of Parliament (on both sides of politics), these Cabinet notebooks suggest that Menzies was not the Cold War warrior that he is occasionally portrayed as. Certainly Menzies and a majority of his Cabinet were not prepared to abandon basic civil liberties in order to deal with the perceived threat of communist subversion. Proposed changes to the Official Secrets Act, for example – which were to include powers to search without a warrant, arrest on suspicion and reverse the onus of proof – were rejected as too draconian.
The perceived threat of communist subversion was, of course, largely a problem of the Government's own making. It was the Liberal and Country Parties who had raised the spectre of an internal communist threat in the first place. And it was Menzies' government that had promised to deal with the problem. 'We must do something', the Minister for Defence Production, Eric Harrison, reminded Cabinet in September 1952, because we 'said we did not have sufficient powers at the time of the anti-Communist bill'. Menzies remained unconvinced, however, that being seen to do something justified the introduction of extreme measures. There was some red baiting, and wild claims were occasionally thrown about in Parliament, but there were no purges of the public service and nothing like the witch-hunting which accompanied hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee in the United States Congress.
These and many other issues are documented in the formal Cabinet submissions and decisions which were released after 30 years, but the 1952 Cabinet notebooks provide additional insight into the personal views and opinions of the Ministers of the Fifth Menzies Cabinet.
- Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates (CPD), vol. 219, p. 2769.]
- Sydney Morning Herald, 3 July 1952. For an extended account, see AW Martin, Robert Menzies: A Life, Volume 2, 1944–1978, Melbourne University Press, 1999, pp. 209–12.
- National Archives of Australia (NAA): A11099, Cabinet Notebooks, 1/14, 17 March 1952, p. 62.
- NAA: A11099, 1/14, 17 March 1952, p. 62; A11099, 1/15, 4 July 1952, p. 16; A11099, 1/16, 12 November 1952, p. 77.
- NAA: A11099, 1/14, 27 March 1952, p. 93.
- NAA: A11099, 1/16, 23 September 1952, p. 23.
- NAA: A11099, 1/29, 3 July 1952, p. 26 & p. 30; 27 August 1952, p. 38; A11099, 1/30, 2 December 1952, p. 30.
- NAA: A4909, Fifth Menzies Ministry – Cabinet Decisions, volume 3, nos 298 & 342.
- CPD, vol. 213, p. 718 & vol. 214, pp. 643–4. For Beale's own account of how he was kept in the dark, see H Beale, This Inch of Time: Memoirs of Politics and Diplomacy, Melbourne University Press, 1977, pp. 78–9.
- AW Martin, Robert Menzies: A Life, Volume 2, 1944–1978, Melbourne University Press, 1999, p. 223.
- NAA: A11099, 1/14, 18 February 1952, p. 26.
- Beale, op. cit, p. 78.
- Ibid, p. 109.
- Report of the Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests in Australia, AGPS, Canberra, 1985, makes much of this for instance.
- AW Martin, Robert Menzies: A Life, Volume 2, 1944–1978, Melbourne University Press, 1999, pp. 167–8.
- NAA: A11099, 1/15, 5 July 1952, pp. 33.
- NAA: A11099, 1/15, 5 July 1952, pp. 33–6.
- NAA: A4933/XM1, volume 28, RJ52/1, AEC Record of Discussions, 19 June 1952.
- NAA: A11099, 1/15, 5 July 1952, pp. 33–6.
- NAA: A11099, 1/15, 5 July 1952, p. 36.
- CPD, vol. 217, pp. 808–9 & 870–5.
- The agent worked for the Commonwealth Investigation Service (CIS), an arm of the then Commonwealth Police Force. CIS had a close association with ASIO.
- Report of the Royal Commission on Espionage, Transcript of Proceedings, Government Printing Office, Sydney, 1955, vol. 9, p. 2703. Alan Ashbolt, claims 'Mrs A' was Mercia Masson, who later worked as an arts reporter for the ABC (see Alan Ashbolt, 'The Great Literary Witch-Hunt of 1952', in Ann Curthoys & John Merritt (eds), Australia's First Cold War 1945–1953, vol. 1, Society, Communism and Culture, George Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1984, pp. 157–8).
- NAA: A6122/47, 1886-1888 – Security – personnel security risks in the Commonwealth Public Service, NSW returns, volumes 1–3.
- NAA: A11099, 1/6, 5 September 1952, p. 5.
- NAA: M1509/1, 10 – Communists in Commonwealth Public Service.
- NAA: A11099, 1/15, 19 August 1952, pp. 72–3.
- CPD, 28 August 1952, vol. 218, pp. 710, 717 & 719.
- CPD, 28 August 1952, vol. 218, pp. 724–5. Press reports of the proceedings, with lurid headlines about 'Red Professors', are to be found in Melbourne Herald, 28 August 1952 and Sydney Morning Herald, 29 August 1952. See also SG Foster & MM Varghese, The Making of the Australian National University, 1946–1996, Allen & Unwin, 1996, pp. 120–22.
- NAA: A4909/1, Fifth Menzies Ministry – Cabinet Decisions, volume 5, no. 520.
- NAA: A4909/1, Fifth Menzies Ministry – Cabinet Decisions, volume 5, nos 544 & 554.
- NAA: A11099, 1/16, 9 September 1952, p. 1.
- NAA: A11099, 1/15, 2 September 1952, p. 82.
- NAA: A11099, 1/15, 19 August & 2 September 1952, pp. 72 & 82.
- NAA: A4909/1, Fifth Menzies Ministry – Cabinet Decisions, volume 5, nos 517, 528 & 531.
- NAA: A11099, 1/16, 5 September 1952, pp. 1–4. See also NAA: A4905 – Fifth Menzies Cabinet Submissions, submission no. 434.
- NAA: A11099, 1/16, 5 September 1952, p. 2. | <urn:uuid:ba458a98-1e51-42bf-a56c-3626545bd37b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/explore/cabinet/notebooks/events-issues-1952.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00030-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968997 | 5,287 | 2.75 | 3 |
OF LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE EOLSS
“A life support system is any natural or human-engineered (constructed or made ) system that furthers the life of the biosphere in a sustainable fashion. The fundamental attribute of life support systems is that together they provide all of the sustainable needs required for continuance of life. These needs go far beyond biological requirements. Thus life support systems encompass natural environmental systems as well as ancillary social systems required to foster societal harmony, safety, nutrition, medical care, economic standards, and the development of new technology. The one common thread in all of these systems is that they operate in partnership with the conservation of global natural resources.”
“In the past, equipment in the intensive care units of hospitals were referred to as ‘life support systems’ until global concerns about human activities and their impact on our planet came to the fore. The first Earth Summit of 1992, held in Rio de Janeiro, issued a document that is now famous as Agenda 21. This document refers to the Earth’s life support systems, considering the whole of our planet as a grand intensive care unit which supports all forms of life. The EOLSS is based on this concept and the above definition of ‘life support systems’.
Knowledge of the Earth’s life support systems encompasses diverse fields such as: the natural sciences (like chemistry and biology); social sciences (such as history, economics, law, psychology, archeology, etc.); humanities (literature, civilizations, etc); engineering, and technology. It also deals with interdisciplinary subjects, like earth and atmospheric sciences and environmental economics as well as the most effective approaches for managing natural resources like renewable and non-renewable energy, biodiversity, ecology, hydrology, health and agriculture. Pathways and interchange need to be established between disciplines in order to address contemporary problems. Transdisciplinary aspects of the relationship between nature and human society (the anthroposphere) are essential in this context.
Knowledge of life support systems builds on the best of our culture to engender a new attitude towards the quality and sustainability of life on earth. Development of this knowledge is based on the following paradigm: knowledge should be at the service of humanity as a whole, and should contribute to providing everyone with a deeper understanding of nature and society, a better quality of life and a sustainable and healthy environment for present and future generations.
OF SIXTEEN ENCYCLOPEDIAS
The EOLSS is unique in many ways. Unlike most encyclopedias, the contents of which are alphabetically arranged, EOLSS has a thematic organization. It can almost be regarded as an ‘encyclopedia of encyclopedias’, presenting a wide range of major core subjects in a process of gradual development, from broad overview to great detail.
The EOLSS attempts to forge pathways between disciplines in order to show their interdependence and help foster the transdisciplinary context required to fulfill the vision of sustainable development. It deals in detail with interdisciplinary subjects, but it is also disciplinary as each major core subject is covered in great depth, by world experts.
Every chapter is reviewed to ensure that the contributions meet the required standards of comprehensiveness, clarity, coherence, and consistency and that the material is factually correct and helpful in self study.
The EOLSS is self-contained and very suitable for self study, as all the elements required for understanding any subject are available within it.
See also:Outlines of the Component Encyclopedias
Science for the Twenty-First
See also: WORLD SCIENTISTS' WARNING TO HUMANITY (1992)
See also: WORLD SCIENTISTS' Call for Action (1997)
See also:Sample Chapters | <urn:uuid:053fba9f-658c-4038-aa33-9b24a7b00127> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.eolss.net/eolss_definition.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00072-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93281 | 784 | 3.484375 | 3 |
- Simplified header format. IPv6 has a fixed length header, which does not include most of the options an IPv4 header can include. Even though the IPv6 header contains two 128 bit addresses (source and destination IP address) the whole header has a fixed length of 40 bytes only. This allows for faster processing.
Options are dealt with in extension headers, which are only inserted after the IPv6 header if needed. So for instance...Step 2 of 2:
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if a packet needs to be fragmented, the fragmentation header is inserted after the IPv6 header. The basic set of extension headers is defined in RFC 2460.
- Address extended to 128 bits. This allows for hierarchical structure of the address space and provides enough addresses for almost every 'grain of sand' on the earth. Important for security and new services/devices that will need multiple IP addresses and/or permanent connectivity.
- A lot of the new IPv6 functionality is built into ICMPv6 such as Neighbor Discovery, Autoconfiguration, Multicast Listener Discovery, Path MTU Discovery.
- Enhanced Security and QoS Features
I hope this answers your question. Kind regards, Silvia
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The Power of Parable: How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction about Jesus (edition 2013)
The Power of Parable: How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction about Jesus by John Dominic Crossan
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"One of the main ways Jesus taught people was through the use of parables. Through an exploration of the literary genre popular in the ancient world, distinguished Jesus scholar John Dominic Crossan dissects the versions we read in the Gospels to get back to what Jesus really intended to teach. Next, Crossan reveals how Jesus's use of parables inspired the Gospel writers themselves to come up with meaningful, metaphorical stories of Jesus to help them explain their own views of who they thought this Messiah really was. By unlocking the meaning and purposes of the Gospel's parables, we can arrive at a better portrait of this enigmatic and charismatic Jewish figure who transformed his world and the next two thousand years of history"--
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The Lyons Fire Protection District encourages all of it residents to be informed and be ready when a disaster strikes. Useful tips will be covered in this section as well as links to inform and educate residents on Emergency Preparedness.
It is highly recommended that residents visit Boulder Office of Emergency Management at the following link: www.boulderoem.com
Residents are encouraged to stop by the fire house or Lyons town hall to pick up an emergency preparedness guide. This guide is also a useful tool to prepare. Due to the location of Lyons, we are very susceptible to natural and man-made disasters, some of these possible threats include; wildfire, flooding, winter storms, hail, hazardous materials spill or release, high wind events, lightning storms and many other possible threats.
LFDP recommends that residents buy a NOAA weather radio for all hazards. This useful tool will help residents with early warnings when a threat is Imminent.
Following are a list of notifications you can receive from the weather radio:
Winter Storm – Watch Winter weather may affect your area.
Winter Storm Warning – Severe winter weather conditions are imminent.
Blizzard Warning – Large amounts of falling or blowing snow, with winds of at least 35 miles per hour; these conditions are expected to last several hours.
Flash Flood Watch – Issued when a heavy rain may develop and result in flash flooding. Be aware of your surroundings.
Flash Flood Warning – Flash flooding in the warning area has developed or is imminent. Move to high ground immediately!
Urban and Small
Flood Advisory – Localized flooding of small streams, intersections and low lying areas. Avoid driving through standing water.
Tornado Watch – Weather conditions are favorable for tornadoes to develop.
Tornado Warning – A tornado has been spotted or is indicated on Doppler radar. This is usually issued for a shorter time period. Take cover right away!
Watch – Weather conditions are favorable for thunderstorms to develop, with wind gusts of at least 58 miles per hour, and/or to produce ¾” sized hail.
Warning – Radar or a trained weather spotter has detected a severe thunderstorm.
High Wind Watch – Weather conditions are favorable to produce high winds.
High Wind Warning – Sustained winds of 40 miles per hour or greater for at least 2 hours, or gusts of at least 58 m.p.h.
Fire Watch – Conditions are favorable for red flag conditions for the next 12 to 48 hours.
Red Flag Warning – Fire danger is very high or extreme, and may include conditions such as sustained winds of at least20 miles per hour, relative humidity of less than 20%, and thunderstorm activity after a prolonged dry period, and abrupt changes in wind speed and direction.
Residents are encouraged to sign up for emergency Notifications. Because the Lyons Fire Protection District is set in both Boulder and Larimer counties, citizens should follow the appropriate link to the county they live in. Residents may sing onto the Everbridge system through the Boulder Office of Emergency Management web page. Information regarding this system is listed below.
In the event of a major wildfire, weather event, fire, Hazardous Materials spill / incident, terrorist attack, flood event, or other emergencies, residents may be notified by this Everbridge system which is similar to a reverse 911 call. Resident will hear a message telling them what the event is and what actions they should do next.
You are encouraged to update this system in the event you change any of your personal information such as a new phone number or e-mail address.
Public safety agencies throughout Boulder County are switching to a new emergency notification system. This system will allow residents of the county and all cities within the county to be notified of an emergency situation in a variety of ways, including on their cell phone, home and work phones and by text messaging and email.
You wil receive time-sensitive messages wherever you specify, such as your home, cell or business phone, email, text messages, hearing impaired receiving devices and more. You pick where, you pick how.
Residents living in the Larimer County portion of the Lyons Fire Protection District are reminded when they call 911 or sign up for any of these notifications to let the dispatch center know they live in the Lyons Fire Protection District!
Links for Emergency Notifications can be found at the following:
Flash Flood Information
Lyons sits in a very large drainage basin known as the St. Vrain Creek. At different times of the year, there is a great potential for flood events. The Lyons Fire Protection District works very closely with officials from the Boulder County Office of Emergency Management, (OEM) Boulder County Sheriff’s Department, the Town of Lyons and the City of Longmont; to monitor the stream levels throughout our District during heavy rainfalls, high runoff times as well as monitoring isolated storms in our area.
The information below was gathered from the OEM website which is available to the public. It is highly recommended that you look at the information on this site as well as download an Emergency Preparedness Guide. These guides are also available at the fire station located at 251 Broadway, as well as at the Lyons Town Hall. More information regarding flooding can be obtained at the links listed at the bottom of this page. Being unaware of flood conditions can lead to serious injury of death.
Emergency Medical Services (EMS)
Lyons Fire Protection District serves a variety of roles in the Emergency Medical Service. Approximately 70% of our calls are of a medical nature. These calls can range from a simple small cut on a finger, then leading up to the more serious calls such as a heart attack or stroke victim. Because our district has two major highways leading to Rock Mountain National Park, we also have a large amount of visitors traveling through and sometimes unfortunately; these people end up in an auto mobile accident resulting in some type of EMS need.
Our firefighters also respond to a variety of rescue type calls requiring different levels of EMS training, some examples of these calls include: water rescue, injured parties in the back country, snake bites, altitude sickness, allergic reactions and everything in between!
Our firefighters are trained in basic life support (BLS) operations. We have different skill sets throughout our ranks starting with BLS- C.P.R, Emergency Medical Responder and Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). All of our responders attend a monthly medical training that consists of a minimum of 3 hours. All EMT’s are required to complete 72 hours on continuous training every 2 years for the National Registry. All new members are required at a minimum to obtain a -BLS CPR and AED certification.
We currently have 2 BLS ambulances one which is stationed at Station 1 in downtown Lyons, and the other which is at station 2.
Both ambulances are 4 wheel drive and have a variety EMS tools on board which include: on board suction units, on board O2, multiple trauma supplies, Automated External Defibrillator (AED).
All EMS calls that we run in the district are backed up by an Advanced Life Support (ALS) ambulance. These ambulances usually have one Paramedic and one advanced EMT. These folks are crucial on a vast majority of our calls. The ALS services include such things as advanced air way management, heart monitors, narcotics for pain, and rapid transport capabilities.
Because EMS calls are a large portion of our call base, Lyons Fire Protection District strives to stay on top of the most current polices, procedures and supplies that may be required when responding to a emergency in our district. We also work hard to make sure our firefighters have the best training, skills and personal protective equipment that can be provided! | <urn:uuid:e8c2ed4a-1718-47b4-8125-c33388fd777b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://lyonsfire.org/need-to-know/emergency-information/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397795.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00129-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938498 | 1,574 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Carbon emissions from transportation are becoming America's largest source of climate pollution.
China can tap just 10 percent of its wind resources to supply a quarter of its power by 2030.
Nearly 400 scientists are asking President Obama to halt oil and gas leasing in the Arctic Ocean.
Carbon dioxide passed a notable symbolic threshold in Antarctic for the first time in 4 million years.
Through a vast ecological analysis, scientists found reef fisheries that were healthier than expected.
As the energy sector starts to clean itself up, greenhouse gases released by farming continue to rise.
Global warming and the whims of the weather mean California remains in drought despite the El Niño.
Carbon dioxide could play a significant role in the climate impacts of thawing permafrost.
Wildfires have forced a drastic cut to oil sands production in Canada, exposing a growing climate risk.
For the first time, carbon dioxide emissions from an electric power plant have been solidified.
Overfishing, sewage and farm pollution pose a threat to reefs around the world.
Arctic sea ice shrank to its fourth-lowest level in 50 years last month, setting a new record low for May.
Scientists say there's a problem with the way they account for methane's effect on the climate.
Climate change could boost the carbon sequestration potential of Alaska's temperate forests.
The easing of California's drought has boosted the state's ability to produce hydropower.
Happy Birthday from the Shum Show to the National Park Service!
A new study finds that the Canadian tar sands are a major source of secondary organic aerosols.
New research shows acidification caused by carbon dioxide kills and stunts baby Dungeness crabs.
The U.S. led the world in oil production last year for third year in a row, ahead of Saudi Arabia and Russia.
A slowdown in Atlantic currents that worsened blizzards, floods and hurricanes may have been natural. | <urn:uuid:733006bd-70f3-4d13-a5da-ff1b4ebc2b3e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.climatecentral.org/topics/greenhouse-gases | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00023-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928016 | 395 | 2.90625 | 3 |
A group consists of two or more people who interact over time, have a
sense of identity and belonging, and have norms that make them act differently from
An aggregrate is a collection of people who just happen to be in the
same place at the same time.
A category is a collection of people who share a particular
characteristic. They do not necessarily interact with one another and have nothing else in
Primary groups tend to be small and are characterized by emotional
intimacy among members.
Secondary groups tend to be larger and meet primarily for the purpose of
accomplishing some kind of task.
An in-group is a group to which we belong and to which we feel a sense
An out-group is a one to which we don’t belong and to which we don’t
feel a sense of loyalty.
For purposes of self-evaluation, people often turn to reference groups.
Reference groups can be either primary or secondary in nature, or they can be general
categories or even celebrities.
It’s important to feel an emotional connection to one’s group or to one’s community.
Such a feeling is called social integration.
Émile Durkheim coined the term anomie to indicate a lack of
social integration. He concluded that anomie was one factor in putting single, male
Protestants at greater risk for suicide.
Sociology also studies group dynamics, which is the term that implies
that our thoughts and behaviors are influenced by the groups of which we are members. In turn,
our thoughts and behaviors can influence those of other group members.
Georg Simmel studied how group size affects interactions between group
members. He found that a dyad, a group of two people, is less stable than a
triad, a group of three people.
Irving Janis coined the term groupthink to refer to the
tendency of people in positions of power to follow the opinions of the group and to ignore any
Groups Within Society
Each society is made up of smaller groups and associations.
According to C. Wright Mills, the power elite, a small
group representing the most powerful and influential people, runs the United States.
A voluntary association is a group that we choose to join, in which the
members are united by the pursuit of a common goal. These associations can be temporary or
As societies modernize, groups change in size and purpose. A feature of modernized
societies is the formal organization, a secondary group organized to achieve
A bureaucracy is an example of a formal organization that arises as a
result of modernization. Weber argued that bureaucracies gain increasing power over everyday
life in a process called rationalization of society.
A bureaucracy is characterized by a division of labor, written rules, hierarchy,
official communication, and impersonal relationships within the organization.
Bureaucracies appear to be the most rational approach to accomplishing the stated
goals, but human beings are not always rational. This conflict makes bureaucracies
Sociologist Robert Michels theorized that bureaucracies tend to be run
by an oligarchy, a small, ruling group. | <urn:uuid:7b19b8ea-60b5-465e-89d4-62a079d78a47> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sparknotes.com/sociology/social-groups-and-organizations/section5.rhtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396455.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00114-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939678 | 666 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Breast cancer in men is rare, but it does happen (about one percent of all breast cancer cases in the U.S.) .
Men have much less breast tissue compared to women and are not routinely screened for breast cancer. Breast cancer screening is only recommended for some men at higher risk due to an inherited gene mutation or a strong family history of breast cancer. For these men, screening may increase the chances that breast cancer is found early, when the chances for survival are highest.
If you have concerns about your risk of breast cancer, talk with your health care provider.
Some men may have a higher risk of breast cancer, including those with a :
Learn about BRCA2 and BRCA1 gene mutations and breast cancer risk in men.
Learn about family history of breast cancer and breast cancer risk.
Learn about genetic testing for BRCA2 or BRCA1 mutations.
Breast cancer screening recommendations for men at higher risk are different from recommendations for women. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) recommends that men at higher risk for breast cancer :
Men at higher risk for breast cancer should also be aware of the warning signs of breast cancer (learn more).
Men with a BRCA2 gene mutation should also have prostate cancer screening starting at age 40 .
Men with a BRCA1 gene mutation should consider prostate cancer screening starting at age 40 .
The most common sign of breast cancer in men is a painless lump . However, any change in the breast (or chest area) or nipple can be a warning sign of breast cancer in men, including [48-49]:
Men tend to have much less breast tissue compared to women, so some of these signs can be easier to notice in men than in women.
These symptoms may also be signs of a benign (not cancer) breast condition. If you notice any of these signs or other changes in your breast or nipple, see your health care provider.
Learn about benign breast conditions in men.
BRCA2 (BReast CAncer gene 2) is one of the most well-known genes linked to breast cancer in both men and women. Men with a BRCA2 mutation are also at an increased risk for other types of cancer, such as prostate cancer .
A man can inherit a BRCA2 mutation through either parent. And, a man who has a BRCA2 mutation can pass the mutation on to his daughters and sons.
BRCA2 mutations increase the risk of breast cancer in men [15,50-51]. The lifetime risk of breast cancer (up to age 70) is about one percent for men in the general population and about seven percent for men with a BRCA2 mutation [50-51]. This means in a group of 100 men without a mutation, about one will develop breast cancer by age 70. While in a group of 100 men with a BRCA2 mutation, about seven will develop breast cancer by age 70. Note that this risk is not 100 percent. Most men with a BRCA2 mutation will never have breast cancer.
However, breast cancer in men is more likely than breast cancer in women to be related to an inherited gene mutation. Up to 40 percent of breast cancers in men may be related to BRCA2 mutations, while only five to 10 percent of breast cancers in women are considered to be due to an inherited gene mutation . For this reason, it’s usually recommended that men diagnosed with breast cancer have genetic testing for BRCA2 mutations (learn more about genetic testing).
Other genes (including BRCA1) are under study for possible links to breast cancer in men .
Learn about genetic testing.
Find statistics on breast cancer in men.
Learn more about risk factors for breast cancer in men.
Learn about treatment for breast cancer in men.
Komen Support Resources
1-877 GO KOMEN(1-877-465-6636) | <urn:uuid:88b0b915-bef7-4004-ab13-be9c19a9cb7c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ww5.komen.org/BreastCancer/ScreeningRecommendationsforMenatHigherRisk.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392069.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00052-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949449 | 819 | 3.390625 | 3 |
I am sure that the title of this poem will immediately remind the name of Rudyard Kipling to most of this blog post readers. Who is Kipling? If you wondered, is a sign of lack of general knowledge. Kipling was famous author and poet who coined the historical phrase “The White Man’s Burden" in his poem of the later name. Kipling actually won the Nobel prize in literature in 1907. This is not a post about Kipling, thought I strongly suggest you read this Wikipedia article if I have aroused your interest. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudyard_Kipling
“If”, today’s poem, was written by the forgotten African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. Dunbar was truly a creative genius though lesser known than Kipling due to racial prejudices of his time (which I will not discuss here.) Please read this Wikipedia article about Dunbar,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Laurence_Dunbar
There are many things I could say about Dunbar, though I fear I might not be able to do him justice but his work will. Let us judge is genius by his verses.
If by Paul Laurence Dunbar
IF life were but a dream, my Love,
And death the waking time;
If day had not a beam, my Love,
And night had not a rhyme, —
A barren, barren world were this
Without one saving gleam;
I'd only ask that with a kiss
You'd wake me from the dream.
If dreaming were the sum of days,
And loving were the bane;
If battling for a wreath of bays
Could soothe a heart in pain, —
I'd scorn the meed of battle's might,
All other aims above
I'd choose the human's higher right,
To suffer and to love! | <urn:uuid:bd5d0990-f095-4224-b78c-3183204a1c66> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://teslawall.blogspot.com/2011/08/if-poem.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396538.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00082-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97253 | 401 | 2.859375 | 3 |
THE NATURE OF LEARNER LANGUAGE -Rod Ellis- Ridha Ayu Karisma Dewi 2201410050
WHAT IS LANGUAGE LEARNER?• Learner language is the written or spoken language produced by a learner. It is also the main type of data used in second-language acquisition research. Much research in second-language acquisition is concerned with the internal representations of a language in the mind of the learner, and in how those representations change over time.
• The main way of investigating L2 acquisition is by collecting and describing samples of learner language. The description may focus on the kinds of errors learners make and how these errors change over time, or it may identify developmental by describing in the grammatical features.
Errors and error analysisReason for focusing on error They are a conspicious It is useful for teacher to know what error learners make. Paradoxically= making error help the learner to learn
Identifying errors• How to analysing learner errors ??• To identify errors we have to compare the sentence learners produce with what seem to be the normal or ‘correct’ sentences in the target language with correspondent with them.
Example:• A man and a little boy was watching him. It is not difficult to see that the correct sentence should be:• A man and a little boy were watching him.
Describing Error• Errors that have been identified can be described and classified into some types.1. To classify errors into grammatical categories by gathering all the errors relating to verb and then identifying error in our sample.2. Try to identifying general ways in which the ‘learners’ utterance differ from the the reconstructed target-language utterances.
3. Include ‘ommision’ (i.e. Leaving out an item that is required for an utterances to be considered grammatical.4. Misinformation (i.e. Using one grammatical form in place of another grammatical form).5. Misordering (i.e. Putting the words in an utterance in the wrong order).
Explaining error• The identification and description of errors are preliminaries to the much more interesting task of trying to explain why they occur.
Error Evaluation• Where the purpose of error analysis is to help leanrners learn an L2, there is a need to evaluate errors.
There are two errors:1. Global errors.2. Local errors.
Developmental Patterns• We have seen that many of the errors that L2 learners make are universal. We can also explore the universality of L2 acquisition by examining the developmental pattern learners follow.
1. The Early Stage of L2 Acquisition• Silent period: they make no attemp to say anything to begin with.• Their speech is likely to manifest two particular characteristics (formulaic chunks and performinguseful language functions such as greetings and requests)• The speech is proporsitional simmplification.2. The Order of Acquisition• Rank the feature according to how occurately learners.
3. . Sequence of acquisition where particular grammatical features in a language have a fixed sequence of development, but the overall order of acquisition is less rigid.Example:• Plural –s = Girls go.• Progressive –ing = Girls going.• Copula forms of be = Girls are here.
Variability in learner language1. Linguistic context: in one context they use one form while in other context they use alternate forms.2. Situational context: learners are no different from native speaker. When native speaker of English are talking to friends, they tend to speak informally, using colloquial expression.
3. Psycolinguistic context: It is more likely to use target –language forms when he has time to plan.4. Free variation A small fraction of variation in interlanguage is free variation, when the learner uses two forms interchangeably. | <urn:uuid:b8ada942-2d25-41c5-aefd-46c9c825c4d0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.slideshare.net/IntanSulistianto/the-nature-of-learner-language-14345983 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397864.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00024-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91125 | 809 | 3.46875 | 3 |
Despite assimilation, many Hispanics in Rhode Island continue to practice a
form of worship that mixes West African folk religion with Catholicism
by Ana Cabrera
Walking into the Botanica San Pedro on Broad Street in Providence, a man
and a woman in their early 30s quickly focus their attention on a two-foot tall
statue of St. Michael the Archangel. "This is the one I told you about," the
woman says in Spanish to her male companion, but he expresses frustration.
"It's too big," he says to her. "I don't have that much room."
The woman explains to Milly Mieses, the botanica's owner, that her companion
already has a large statue of St. Francis on his bedroom bureau, and wants a
smaller one to place next to it. Mieses replies that the statue of St. Michael
is the only such image in her shop right now.
The man walks back out onto Broad Street, but before dashing after him, the
woman quickly runs over to a shelf and grabs two small bottles, which Mieses
places into a brown paper bag after accepting payment. "She bought a couple of
despojos," the proprietor confides in a mix of Spanish and English. "I
think she wants him to change his mind."
Despojos, or baths, are a staple in the rituals of Santeria, a form of
worship that mixes African and Catholic religious influences and, despite
assimilation, continues to be practiced by many Rhode Islanders who trace their
roots to the Hispanic cultures of the Caribbean. The tradition's strength can
be seen at places like Botanica San Pedro, where the shelves are lined with
despojos labeled Quiereme (love me), Gran Poder (great
power), and Libertad (liberty, in a package featuring a line drawing of
the island of Cuba).
Santeria, also known as Le Regla de Lucumi, originated with the Yoruban people
in West Africa, who were enslaved and shipped to the Dominican Republic, Cuba
and Puerto Rico as early as the 16th century. Forced by their Spanish captors
to convert to Catholicism, the Yorubans devised a method which allowed them to
continue their old ways while purportedly adapting the new. They "syncretized"
their own gods to correspond with Catholic saints, effectively duping their
owners. A master who thought he had converted his Yoruba slaves never realized
they were still actually praying to their own deities instead.
It should come as no surprise that Santeria, whose origins were secret, is
still shrouded in silence and confusion almost 500 years later. But glimmers of
the practice are becoming more evident, from a song by the California band
Sublime to the distinctive ritual candles sold at Stop & Shop and other
mainstream supermarkets. A case in Hialeah, Florida, made national headlines in
1993 when a ruling barring ritual animal sacrifices was overturned in favor of
a Lucumi church there. In an effort to dispel myths, information about Santeria
is also being disseminated more freely, even on the Internet. (For example,
www.home.earthlink.net/~clba/ offers information on the animal sacrifice case
In the five centuries since the Yorubas were first brought to the Caribbean,
the line between Santeria and Roman Catholicism has blurred considerably for
many Hispanics. Although there remains an element of secrecy and mysticism
about Santeria, it would not be unusual for an avowed Catholic who does not
consider himself a Santero to be devoted, for example, to such Santeria deities
as St. Barbara or St. Lazarus.
There are varied reasons for Santeria's staying power among many Hispanics in
America. It's basically a simple religion to some, combining deeply rooted
cultural beliefs with the recognizable icons of an essentially worldwide modern
church. A practitioner can find a statue of St. Barbara in the most remote
corners of the planet, and the herbs which form the essence of most of the
despojos are readily available. For a person transplanted here from another
country, Santeria is a connection to his or her own past, and an easy
introduction into a new community.
"I know a lot of people who don't consider themselves Santeros, but they still
go to botanicas to buy herbs and candles anyway," says Lucy Santa, a social
worker at St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church in Providence. "Even some of the
younger people who consider themselves more modern participate in a few of the
traditions. That's because Santeria is an easy religion, and it's very
familiar. If someone has a problem, they can build an altar to a saint quickly
and feel that they have done something."
In Africa, the Yorubas worshipped archetypal figures which represented the
forces of nature. The highest ranked of these beings was Olorun or Olodumare,
the God Almighty, who was the source of ashe, the spiritual energy of the
universe. Olodumare sent out many emissaries called orishas, each of
which had certain gifts and their own signature color. The most powerful are a
group called the Seven African Powers: Obatala, Chango, Eleggua, Oshun, Oggun,
Orunia and Yemaya. Believers say orishas are approachable beings with
whom humans can communicate by means of prayer, divination, music or ritual
sacrifices, known as ebo.
Such sacrifices are relatively rare in Rhode Island these days, although they
may involve killing a chicken or dove, which must be well cared for before the
ebo. At times, the orishas prefer that the practitioner simply
keep the animal near the home. Simple offerings of candles, fruit, candy and
small coins are said to be more commonplace.
Followers hope to benefit by tapping into an orisha's particular power
depending upon a given situation. For example some would pray to Chango, the
god of fire, in hopes of conquering their enemies; devotion to his sister
Oshun, goddess of the waters, could pave the way to success in love and
Initiation into Santeria is complex and involves a person's community.
Godparents are chosen to guide the initiate, a role which was exceptionally
poignant during the slave era, when natural families were torn apart. A
practitioner's godparents or godparent's house (known as ile) served as
an extended family when the real one was no longer available.
Santeros, also known as Lucumis, believe each person is born with a special
connection to a particular orisha, something the practitioner will find
out only through meditation and the help of godparents. As a result, initiates
initially wear bead necklaces (ilekes) representing their godparents'
special orishas until further rituals give them knowledge about their
Santeria, says the Rev. Hugo Carmona, assistant pastor of St. Edward's Roman
Church in Providence, "is a pseudo-religion which combines Catholicism with the
beliefs of pre-Columbian times, indigenous practices and some African cultural
elements. It suits the needs of those who are superstitious. It's easy to keep
a talisman in your pocket without anyone knowing." While most parishioners at
St. Edward's are Mexican-American and, as a result, do not traditionally
practice Santeria, Carmona says that in terms of emigrants from the Caribbean,
"I would guess most of the Hispanics here are practicing some form or another
of it, even in a small fashion."
Broad Street, where the Botanica San Pedro is located, is home to a large
Hispanic community, many of whose members have come from Puerto Rico, the
Dominican Republic and, to a lesser extent, Cuba. The shop is an oasis from the
noises of the street. Inside, shelves are stocked with aromatic oils and
lotions, as well as assorted religious images of all shapes and sizes. The
store is one of several such establishments in the area. Down the street a few
blocks is the Botanica San Lazaro, where a nearly life-sized image of St.
Lazarus almost overwhelms the place.
At Botanica San Pedro, it's possible to see, through the open rear doorway of
the botanica, a small wooden pen where a single pet rooster, angrily crowing
its displeasure at captivity, is housed. Right within the door is a three-foot
tall statue of St. Barbara, wearing a red robe and holding a silver sword.
There is a dish of pennies at her feet, an apple on top of the sword and a red
scarf, trimmed in white scalloped lace, wrapped around the head.
Mieses, the botanica's owner, a diminutive woman who won't say how old she is,
has a sprinkle of freckles across her face which give her a youthful air. She
left her native Santo Domingo and eventually settled in Providence, opening up
her botanica about a dozen years ago. Mieses admits that some people do
purchase supplies to perform what she termed "bad rituals," but not very often.
She says she does not want to know much about that, preferring to recommend
that a customer purchase a despojo or ritual candle instead.
Some of the despojos are in oil form, while others are lotions. All
of the bottles, however, bear the word "alleged" in large letters across the
top of the labels. "There are no guarantees," laughs Mieses, that pouring any
of the aromatic potions into a tubful of water will produce the desired
results. Some of the other products in the botanica carry little explanation:
small manila envelopes labeled "dog shit," (for use in a kind of black magic);
packets of white powder "espanta muerto -- $1.00" (frighten away the
dead); and "Go Away Evil" aerosol room fresheners. "People buy some weird
stuff," Mieses observes.
A typical customer might buy an image of a given saint and set up a small
altar in a private section of the house, usually the bedroom. Flowers, candles
and incense may be part of the altar, depending upon the taste of the
individual. One of the reasons for constructing an altar lies in the concept of
"making a promise." Take the case of a person who has a family member who is
seriously ill. The relative might begin a series of prayers to St. Jude, who is
patron of the sick. An altar might be built in the home, and daily offerings
made. And if the sick person recovers, the motivation for long-term devotions
to the saint are instilled, along with an increased tendency to repeat the
practice in the future.
Some officials in the Catholic church look at elements of Santeria with a
jaundiced eye. "I see a lot of people who are looking for quick answers," says
Jose Rico, deacon and pastoral assistant at St. Charles Borromeo Church in
Cranston. "You want a boyfriend, you need more money, so you perform the right
ritual. It gives you a feeling of control, of protection. And that need is
The Roman Catholic Church, which has a tradition of commissioning statues of
saints by some of the world's leading artists, has also long held that
believers should look upon those statues only as physical representations of
the actual saints and, as such, the statues should not be worshipped. Santeros
remain plagued, in particular, by the perception that constructing a devotional
altar to a certain saint in one's home is a form of idolatry.
But Lydia Perez, president of Puerto Ricans in Rhode Island, disputes the
Catholic church's view that devotional altars represent a form of idolatry.
PRRI is a non-profit group which is sponsoring an exhibition called "Past and
Present: Saints of Puerto Rico." More than 100 wood carvings, some centuries
old, are in the collection which will be exhibited starting on September 5 at
the Warwick Museum of Art.
Perez believes that the Hispanic people's need to maintain religious icons in
their homes is part of a custom which dates back centuries. She hopes the
exhibition will educate people about the richness of the Hispanic
"Ours is a culture born out of religious fervor," says Perez. "In the 15th
century, times were precarious, there was a lot of poverty. The people had no
access to churches, so they carved their own images of what they believed the
saints would look like. The people did not worship the carvings themselves, but
whoever it was that the statues represented. This is an artistic experience,
part of our tradition."
Ana Cabrera can be reached at IndianaMC@yahoo.com. | <urn:uuid:a299f8d1-0772-4d8d-bcc6-a5d0c3154fca> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.providencephoenix.com/archive/features/99/08/26/SANTERIA.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00180-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955282 | 2,805 | 2.75 | 3 |
Study also finds that lesbians, bisexual women report poorer health than straight women after surviving cancer
DAVID TAFFET | Staff Writer
A new study released this week in Cancer, a journal published by the American Cancer Society, suggests that gay men have a higher prevalence of cancer than heterosexual men.
Data came from interviews done in 2001, 2003 and 2005 of cancer survivors in California and was the largest state health survey to include questions about sexual orientation.
Lesbian and bisexual women who survived cancer reported poorer health, but in this study did not contract cancer at a higher rate. Male cancer survivors do not report a difference in health levels.
Researchers were not sure if gay men were developing more cancerous tumors or if their survival rate was actually higher. The survey interviewed more than 122,000 survivors. No study has tracked people who died of cancer by sexual orientation.
The study did not look into causes for the differences, but a number of reasons have been suggested.
Gay men smoke at a higher rate than the general population, which may account for some of the higher cancer rate.
Bret Camp, associate executive director of health and medical services at Nelson-Tebedo Clinic, suggested two causes for the difference in rate between gay and straight men.
Certain cancers develop as opportunistic infections related to HIV, which might partially explain the difference, he said. The study did not factor in HIV or track how many participants were HIV-positive.
Camp also suggested that another factor might be the human papillomavirus. HPV is sexually transmitted and can cause anal cancer.
Physician assistant Trew Deckard said, “Ano-rectal cancer is highest among HIV-positive gay men [some literature points to at least 35 times the general population], and the second highest rate of ano-rectal cancer is found in HIV-negative gay men.”
He said that ano-rectal cancer found in greater rates in both HIV-positive and -negative gay men is related to the presence of high-risk HPV types found in these populations.
While smoking traditionally has caused most oral cancer, the rate has jumped 225 percent since 1974. A 2007 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that people who had oral sex with six or more different partners in a lifetime are almost nine times more likely to contract oral cancer.
According to the report, gay men also developed cancer on average 10 years younger than straight men. Cancers that result from sexually transmitted diseases may account for that difference as well.
Cancer in lesbians
The difference in reported levels of health among women may be a result of a number of factors.
According to Andra Baker who ran a lesbian support group for cancer survivors at Gilda’s Club in Dallas, now known as Cancer Support Community, lesbians tend to access regular health care less frequently than straight women.
“Lesbians don’t go to the doctor as much,” she said.
That may mean that many lesbians and bisexual women are not as likely to detect their cancers at an early stage, making recovery for them more difficult.
The study did not collect information on stage of diagnosis or whether straight women on average report better health because they are recovering from a smaller tumor.
Baker said social support does affect survival and was somewhat surprised by the results showing worse health among lesbian and bisexual survivors.
“Women who attended my group didn’t have lower health or rates of survival,” she said.
But she was working with women who did seek out support, she said.
Baker, who is a survivor herself, said that people who jump into the fight are the ones who do better. She cited Lance Armstrong as an example of someone who adopted a competitive attitude to beat his cancer.
“Stress has a negative effect on the immune system,” she said.
Ulrike Boehmer, one of the study’s authors, put forward the idea of minority stress. Discrimination, prejudice and even violence experienced by lesbians and bisexual women take their toll on psychological health, which can affect overall well being, according to Boehmer.
Just having to come out to each health care provider can be stressful. Hiding people in a survivor’s support system can have a negative effect on recovery, Boehmer said.
She suggested that the study should be used to develop new services for the LGB population including cancer prevention and early detection programs for men and well being programs for women. | <urn:uuid:0040b8a6-c719-4061-8030-e183624ee746> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dallasvoice.com/tag/american-cancer-society | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397749.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00188-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970853 | 923 | 2.859375 | 3 |
The most pragmatic reason to use DSM is simply the increased productivity. Industrial experiences have consistently shown DSM to be 5-10 times more productive than current software development practices. But why is DSM so fast?
According to Software Productivity Research, the average productivity in Java is only 20% better than in BASIC. C++ fares no better than Java. In fact, with the exception of Smalltalk, not a single programming language in general use today can show a substantial increase in productivity over BASIC.
So after all of the language wars, objects, components, and frameworks, we are still scarcely more effective than 20 years ago. However, go back a couple of decades more and there is a radical change: a leap in productivity of 400% from Assembler to BASIC. Why was that leap so big, and how can we achieve it again today?
The 400% increase was because of a step up to the next level of abstraction. Each statement in C++, BASIC or Java corresponds to several statements in Assembler. Most importantly, these languages can be automatically translated into Assembler. In terms of productivity, this means you effectively get five lines of code for the price of one.
Traditional modeling languages like UML have not increased productivity, since the core models are on the same level of abstraction as the programming languages supported. One day of UML modeling produces a day's worth of code - but you still need to go in by hand and add or edit the majority of the code. You're trying to maintain the same information in two places, code and models, and that's always a recipe for trouble. Ever seen anybody hand edit Assembler and try to keep their C++ code in synch with it?
Of course, UML has its benefits: the visual presentation can be read much faster to get an overview, for instance. But one look at the ongoing development of UML speaks volumes. Half of the world finds that UML cannot represent what they need in their models, and so want to add something to it. The other half says UML is too complex, and want to reduce it down to its core elements. UML tries to be all things to all men, and thus cannot raise the level of abstraction above the lowest common denominator.
Current MDA tools are based on UML, and thus suffer from its problems. Even a tool vendor sponsored study only found an increase in productivity of 35% compared with hand coding.
How then can we raise the level of abstraction? The last OOPSLA, the leading software engineering conference, put forward Domain-Specific Modeling as a solution. Similar statements have been uttered recently by Bill Gates and Grady Booch, among others.
Domain-Specific Modeling raises the level of abstraction and hides today's programming languages, in the same way that today's programming languages hide assembler. Symbols in a domain-specific model map to things in the domain - the world in which the application is to run. This is a whole level of abstraction higher than UML, and makes each symbol worth several lines of code. The application is automatically generated from these high-level specifications with domain-specific code generators, aided where necessary by existing component code.
As the name suggests, Domain-Specific Modeling is only possible because it narrows down the design space or domain, often to a single range of products for a single company. This is bespoke tailoring rather than UML's "one size fits all", and it results in significantly higher quality. Unlike traditional bespoke tailoring, though, the process can be automated. Standard 'tailors' can simply enter the information in the form laid down by the master tailor, and the product can be automatically created.
The master tailor - an expert developer - defines a domain-specific language containing the chosen domain's concepts and rules, and specifies the mapping from that to code in a domain-specific code generator. In effect, all he is saying is "this is how I look at the world of our products, and this is how I write code for them." The other developers then make models with the modeling language, guided by the rules, and code is automatically generated. As an expert has specified the code generators, they produce products with better quality than could be achieved by normal developers by hand.
Most importantly, making the models is much faster than writing the code by hand. Industrial experiences at leading-edge players like Nokia and Lucent have consistently shown development becoming 5-10 times faster. For the first time since the step up from Assembler, companies can make a major productivity leap. For those doing it first, the competitive advantage is substantial.
Want to know more? See How to get started with DSM. | <urn:uuid:fb3a7c4b-3c5d-42a0-85a7-8e803c33f8d8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dsmforum.org/why.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00043-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939964 | 972 | 2.625 | 3 |
Immune response in human pathology: hypersensitivity and autoimmunity
- Jacques DescotesAffiliated withPoison Center and Pharmacovigilance Unit
- , Thierry VialAffiliated withPoison Center and Pharmacovigilance Unit
The immune system is a complex network and inadvertent immunological reactivity can result in HYPERSENSITIVITY or autoimmunity. Nearly every chemical can induce HYPERSENSITIVITY reactions which can affect nearly every organ or tissue of the body. One organ or tissue, however, is often a predominant target. Anaphylactic shock, skin reactions, and cytopenias are the most frequent reactions. HYPERSENSITIVITY reactions can be either immunemediated or non-immune-mediated (pseudoallergy). A number of different mechanisms are involved and risk factors can serve as triggers. Autoimmunity is still a mystery even though autoimmune diseases are relatively common. Spontaneous autoimmune diseases as well as drug- and chemical-induced autoimmune reactions are divided into systemic and organ-specific. Our current understanding of the mechanisms involved in these adverse reactions is very limited.
- Immune response in human pathology: hypersensitivity and autoimmunity
- Book Title
- Principles of Immunopharmacology
- Book Part
- pp 117-127
- Print ISBN
- Online ISBN
- Birkhäuser Basel
- Copyright Holder
- Birkhäuser Verlag
- Additional Links
- Industry Sectors
- eBook Packages
- Editor Affiliations
- 1. Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmacology and Pathophysiology
- 2. PLIVA Research Institute Ltd.
- Author Affiliations
- 3. Poison Center and Pharmacovigilance Unit, 162 Avenue Lacassagne, 69424, Lyon Cedex 03, France
To view the rest of this content please follow the download PDF link above. | <urn:uuid:e9f75a06-f934-41ef-8a43-99bd41f7f833> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/3-7643-7408-X_8 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397748.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00095-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.828183 | 402 | 2.515625 | 3 |
This papyrus fragment from the British Library contains the remains of lines 297–348 of Sophocles' Trackers (about 440–420 B.C.), the second most completely preserved Greek satyr play.
Satyr plays are named for their chorus of satyrs, the irreverent human-horse companions of Dionysos. Although arousing laughter, satyr plays are not comedies. They subvert the serious world of myth and epic by mixing a bawdy satyr chorus with important events of the gods and heroes.
The Trackers tells of the search for Apollo's stolen cattle by a group of satyrs; Hermes, the messenger of the gods, is discovered to be the thief. This fragment includes an exchange between the nymph Kyllene (Hermes' nurse) and the satyrs, who, terrified by a mysterious noise, have begun to shout and stamp their feet. Kyllene explains that the noise is the sound of an instrument made by Hermes from tortoiseshell and cowhide. This detail provides the satyrs with a vital clue; they suspect that the hide came from one of Apollo's cows. The play probably ended with Hermes giving his musical invention, the lyre, to Apollo.
The Flash plugin is required to view this content. Please visit the Adobe Web site for a current Flash player. | <urn:uuid:6c49d26c-9123-429e-9a24-fc69e34b7d43> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://getty.edu/art/exhibitions/ancient_theater/trackers.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396872.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00055-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946219 | 274 | 2.96875 | 3 |
The Small Farms/Small Acreage program in Central Oregon provides research-based educational programming and resources to help commercial and non-commercial small farm entrepreneurs and small acreage landowners achieve their goals.
Central Oregon's landscape is rapidly changing as properties are divided into smaller units. People move to the country to enjoy a rural lifestyle and are interested in learning how to be good stewards of their land. Some also pursue the idea of "niche" farming. They are exploring options of what can be produced on their land as well as learning about specialty markets, production practices and business and financial planning.
Through the OSU Extension Service Small Farms/Small Acreage program, educational workshops, materials, consultation and resources are provided to help clientele become better informed.
Deschutes County Extension Service
Oregon State University
3893 SW Airport Way
Redmond, Oregon 97756-8697
"Central Oregon Agriculture" is a bi-monthly newsletter produced by the Central Oregon Extension offices and the Central Oregon Agriculture Research Center. The intent of this newsletter is to extend agricultural research-based information to solve problems, develop leadership, and manage resources wisely.
If you would like to receive this free newsletter, please call the Deschutes County/OSU Extension Service at (541) 548-6088.
Mar/Apr 2010 (Corrected Copy)
Acreage has varied from a high of well over 2,250 acres in 1969, to a low of about 230 acres in 1992. The yields have increased from around 200 cwt/acre to over 300 cwt/acre. The bulk of the potato production takes place north of Highway 126 in the Cloverdale, Terrebonne, north Redmond, and Lower Bridge areas. Most of the potatoes are grown for seed potatoes rather than commercial.
Due to the relative isolation of the area, a few seed crops are grown. Major seed production since the early 1970's has been grass seed---primarily bluegrass. Until the early to mid 1970's about 15 acres of strawberries and raspberries could be found. The strawberries were grown for certified plant stock, not berry production. Peppermint was first grown in the late 1960's and has been produced yearly since then, primarily for oil, with root stock acreage fluctuating from 5 to 100 acres. The production of peppermint oil has fluctuated from 60 to 600 acres. The average being 250 acres. A number of various crops have been grown in Deschutes County over the past 25 years. With the need to diversify, new crops come and go. A given acreage of grain crops are always present, primarily used in rotation with alfalfa or potatoes.
For further information, please contact:
Central Oregon Crop Faculty/Research
Jefferson County Extension Service
Oregon State University
34 SE D St.
Madras OR 97741 | <urn:uuid:aab71ca5-2e8e-4459-b70d-dd447e26e785> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://extension.oregonstate.edu/deschutes/book/export/html/70 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00091-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933883 | 587 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Study: Racial inequities limit access to education
(Calif.) The state’s African American, Latino and American Indian children lag far behind their white and Asian counterparts when it comes to accessing health and education opportunities, according to a report released today.
The new national and state scorecard from Baltimore’s Annie E. Casey Foundation reveals that white students in California are more than three times as likely as African American students to be reading-proficient in fourth grade, and Asian students are more than five times as likely as African American students to score at or above proficient in eighth grade math.
These inequities continue well into adulthood: white young adults ages 25-29 are nearly twice as likely as African Americans to have completed an associate’s degree or higher and Asians are more than three times as likely as Latinos.
“While these results around racial inequities are very unsettling, the good news is that a mountain of research shows state investments in high quality programs for kids can make a difference,” said Ted Lempert, president of Children Now, a non-profit child advocacy group touting the study’s findings as a call for systemic change in the way California prioritizes childrens’ needs.
“In addition to ensuring a more equitable society, they more than pay for themselves in terms of increased earnings and revenues, result in a stronger overall economy and a decrease in other public costs later on,” he said. “To course correct, we have to acknowledge the facts and take the bold steps needed together.”
“Race for Results: Building a Path to Opportunity for All Children,” unveils new Race for Results index, which compares how children are progressing on key milestones across racial and ethnic groups at the national and state levels. A project of the Casey Foundation’s Kids Count program, the findings for the new index were calculated by collecting data from all 50 states for 12 indicators that fall within four categories: early childhood, education and early work, family supports and neighborhood context.
The indicators, which measure data such as percentage of babies born at normal weight and percentage of eighth graders who scored at or above proficient in math, were chosen by the foundation based on the goal that all children should grow up in economically successful families, live in supportive communities and meet development, health and educational milestones.
Overall, the Race for Results index shows that at the national level, no one racial group has all children meeting all milestones. Using a scale of one (lowest) to 1,000 (highest), Asian and Pacific Islander children have the highest index score nationally at 776 followed by white children at 704. Scores for Latino (404), American Indian (387) and African American (345) are significantly lower, and this pattern holds true in nearly every state, including California, according to the study.
Based on the information presented in “Race for Results: Building a Path to Opportunity for All Children,” Children Now has launched the Children’s Movement of California – a partnership of some 850 business, education, parent, civil rights and other organizations “that recognize the need to make children the state’s top priority” and will lobby state lawmakers to do so.
“We know there is strong consensus in this state to ensure that all children have an opportunity to succeed, but too often kids lose out in Sacramento,” said Lempert. “the Children’s Movement of California is changing that: We are sending California policymakers a message – you need to put kids first.” | <urn:uuid:f0d52f4f-f094-40f1-ae69-4da137fb3cb6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.cabinetreport.com/human-resources/study-racial-inequities-limit-access-to-education | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00104-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958519 | 734 | 3 | 3 |
1. The amount of oil in storage tanks around the world is near all-time highs.
2. Supply below ground is abundant. The world's proven reserves are now at 1.4 trillion barrels, up 12% in the past 10 years.
3. Production is set to increase. Sustained high oil prices have encouraged drilling. There are 45% more oil rigs in service today than there were three years ago.
4. The cost of production is much less than $100 a barrel, about $4-30 per barrel. Oil prices can fall heavily without making any of this production uneconomic.
5. Iranian exports aren't likely to be cut.
6. High prices are pulling back demand. Oil consumption in the U.S. fell by 1.3% in 2006 and world-wide demand grew only 0.60%.
7. High prices are forcing governments to cut subsidies (Iran, China), which should curb demand growth.
8. On a relative basis — comparing the amount of energy bought with a dollar’s worth of oil with a dollar’s worth of natural gas — the price for natural gas is now about half that of oil, further suggesting that $100 oil is not sustainable (see chart below from today's NY Times).
9. A weak dollar doesn't justify $100 oil. Since Aug. 22, the dollar is down by only 8% against a basket of currencies while the oil price has risen by 40%.
10. Speculation is artificially boosting prices.
Source: Wall Street Journal article "Why $100 Oil Can't Float" | <urn:uuid:60713894-6d00-48db-8b44-0415933139d5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2007/11/top-ten-reasons-that-100-oil-wont-last.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396455.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00138-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954857 | 328 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Help support New Advent and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more all for only $19.99...
Early in the fifteenth century religious women began to be affiliated to the Alexian Brotherhood. These sisters adopted the Rule of St. Augustine and devoted themselves to the same corporal works of mercy as those of the Brothers of St. Alexius, or Cellites. Their habit is black, with a mantle of the same colour and a white cap, whence their common name of "black sisters." The black, or Cellitine, sisters at present have their mother-house at Cologne. They are not represented in the list of religious women established in the United States and Canada.
SCHLOSSER in Kirchenlex.
APA citation. Alexian Nuns. (1907). In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01306a.htm
MLA citation. "Alexian Nuns." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01306a.htm>.
Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Laura Ouellette.
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is webmaster at newadvent.org. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads. | <urn:uuid:b5a8cb05-a607-4feb-a7bf-3669ca3df5bd> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://newadvent.org/cathen/01306a.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00194-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.893939 | 381 | 2.578125 | 3 |
From the heights of analytic philosophy, the epistemic battles in the house of medicine must seem quaint. They are not. They are real and highly consequential, pitting different factions within medicine against each other, asserting the primacy of their method or approach. Medicine is riddled with different ways of knowing and evidentiary hierarchies about data and discovery, a proverbial Babel of approaches, which has implications for clinical care, research, health policy and medical education.
In her book, Miriam Solomon provides an account of this epistemic cacophony, attempting to explain how theories of knowledge inform medical practice, research and health policy. Utilizing methods from the philosophy of science and history of medicine, Solomon traces how medical practice has been transformed over the past several decades as professional expertise and experience have been replaced by more systematic sources of knowledge. The arc of her analysis traces the rise of the consensus panel, the emergence of evidence-based medicine, the move to translational medicine and the corrections of a medical humanism under the aegis of what has been called narrative medicine.
This epistemic journey is a fascinating story, and Solomon tells it admirably as a history of ideas, all the while demonstrating the paradox that even as medicine sought to become more objective, and in large part did, the subjectivity of the proponents of one school or another informed the political context in which these debates took place. Who ever said that science was neutral?
Solomon's story starts with the emergence of the consensus panel, an initiative begun by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Consensus Development Conference Program in 1977. This program, which lasted until 2003, sought to bring coherence to medical practice by standardizing practice through august expert panels, whose deliberations would help disseminate new knowledge, just emerging in the wake of the tremendous growth in biomedical research after the Second World War with the establishment of the NIH. Despite this spectacular progress, Congress expressed concern that biomedical advances, supported by federal funds, were not reaching the clinic and patients in need.
Instead of a more scientific approach, it was business as usual. Medicine continued being practiced with practitioners appealing to anecdotal experience and their knowledge of anatomy and physiology. While this method was not without its virtues, it could lead to rather idiosyncratic and outdated practice. More standardized approaches were needed, especially when new discoveries were having difficulty gaining traction in the clinic.
To remedy this, enter the consensus panel at the NIH in 1977. It made good sense: have the experts decide on the best approaches and have their judgment direct and inform the care provided by less skilled or informed doctors. The standing of these experts would have authoritative appeal and help catalyze dissemination of new knowledge, improving care. These bodies would resemble Arthur Kantrowitz's "science court", adapted here for government use. The distinction: the NIH panels would seek consensus where Kantrowitz's science courts sought unbiased decision judgment.
The consensus model had an odd mix of influences. Beyond the science court, it drew inspiration from: courts of law with testimony, judges and majority and minority opinions; the peer review process with rigorous evidentiary standards; neutral scientific meetings; democratic town meetings; and expert peer review panels. In their formation these panels were organized to achieve a balance of powers akin to three branches of government. Meeting planners, speakers and panelists each had a role to play in the deliberative process. The model also borrowed from collective bargaining and technology assessment. Given its heterogeneity, and over the course of the evolution of this program, it is hard to say whether there was a paradigmatic consensus process or many variations on a broad theme.
The purview of consensus panels were limited to making objective judgments without the confounding of any messy ethical or political considerations. "Technical" consensus panels would address objective questions as distinguished from "interface" panels which would address broader societal issues. And ironically, despite their name, the NIH Consensus Development Conference panels were not independent of the research community. They neither discovered new truths, which cannot be the subject of negotiation or consensus (as can questions of public policy), nor persuaded the scientific community over areas of disagreement. How could that be achieved over a three-day meeting, especially when uncertain results needed additional data to address unknowns? Even august panels cannot determine scientific truth if the evidence is not there.
Instead, as Solomon observes, the consensus panel was best positioned to help catalyze the dissemination of what was known, or was thought to be known, and to give its endorsement to agreed upon practices that had yet to make their way into practice. It was less about reaching a consensus than getting the word out as a trustworthy source of information for a broader clinical and public audience. Instead of creating new knowledge, consensus panels through "epistemic rituals" (61) "conferred a stamp of epistemic approval on results of research and translated the results" (59) already agreed upon.
But even when playing this more limited role something was amiss. The consensus process was limited by biases such as groupthink, testimonial injustice and the risk of prematurely settling open scientific questions. And then there was the premise of the authority of the panelists: even the experts were not so expert, or at least not equally so. They weren't all equally informed or drawing upon the same data sources. In the aggregate these deficits made their rational deliberations impeachable.
As a remedy, by the late 1990's consensus panel staff began to prepare systematic bibliographic reports for the panelists so they would have a common evidentiary base. It was a strategy reminiscent of the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan's most oft-cited quip that each of us are entitled to our own opinions, but not to our own facts. And it raised the question, once the experts had the facts, what was left to decide? Won't the facts themselves be dispositive?
The important question then hinged, not on what experts thought, but rather how one assessed the quality of information and determined, at a more fundamental level, what counted as a fact? These were questions that the nascent field of evidence-based medicine (EBM) was positioned to answer. Birthed at McMaster University by Gordon Guyatt and colleagues in the early 1990's, and having roots in clinical epidemiology and the work of pioneers like Archibald Cochrane and Iain Chalmers, EBM became a powerful international epistemic movement.
EBM relies upon data from randomized clinical trials (RCT), hailed as being the methodology least likely to produce biased results. With proper blinding, the RCT -- it was argued -- could distinguish a medication from a placebo effect and overcome selection, salience, availability and confirmation biases.
EBM had a transformative effect on how medicine was practiced. Consider a simple example from my own experience. As a medical house officer, I was taught that we could convert atrial fibrillation, an aberrant heart rhythm, to a normal one with the use of a drug called digitalis. We used it regularly and sometimes it worked. When it did, it was rather heroic: we were young doctors prompting a cure (!) with our ministrations. We ascribed causality to our actions and the efficacy of digitalis.
What we did not appreciate, but what EBM revealed, was that some episodes of atrial fibrillation reverted to normal on their own, with or without digitalis. What we had observed was coincidental not causal, a random event. EBM revealed that digitalis was no better than placebo. So much for anecdotal experience or physiologic reasoning about the effects of digitalis on the heart, which hypothesized that it would slow conduction across the upper chambers. No matter the speculations, if the data did not sustain our physiological ruminations as an outcome.
With legions of examples and growing international databases like the famed Cochrane Collaboration, EBM created an evidence-based hierarchy about the quality and reliability of medical information. At the top of the list were blinded randomized clinical trials, followed by prospective and retrospective observational trials, cohort studies, case control studies, case series, case reports and anecdotal evidence. Near the bottom of the list were expert opinion (the death knell of the consensus panel) and pathophysiological reasoning of the sort that made medical trainees of my generation believe that digitalis could convert atrial fibrillation.
EBM, as empiric medicine, has helped to standardize and protocolize medical care, prompting patient safety and better outcomes. It has transformed how doctors think, or at least should think, and deeply informed the culture of medical education. Medical residents now talk about the latest clinical trials, when considering diagnostic strategies or emerging treatments. It has been a boon to modern medicine, but it has not been, as Solomon notes, as methodologically sound as its proponents asserted.
In a stunning chapter entitled, "The Fallibility of Evidence-Based Medicine", Solomon argues that EBM is more fallible than generally acknowledged. She argues that RCTs are not without bias and do not always provide reliable data because of differences in trial design, study populations, publication bias, time to publication, funding mechanisms and other variables. In addition, she challenges the implied argument that a hierarchy of absence of biases, with the strongest EBM methodology on the top, can be equated with a hierarchy of reliable evidence. Bias carries a potential for error, not necessarily the actuality of error, with differing types of bias having differing magnitude of error.
Solomon's cogent appreciation of EBM's limitations and fallibility is especially necessary for the realm of health care policy. She trenchantly observes, "evidence-based medicine plays a hegemonic role that may not always be justified." (133) This line was worth the price of the volume!
Despite its absolute dominance of health policy, EBM has had its critics among those in clinical practice who pejoratively describe it as "cookbook medicine," depriving them of the opportunity to use their expertise, experience and physiological reasoning. Many practitioners worry that applying population-based data to actual patients does not always accommodate the needs of individual patients. For example, if there was an evidence-based rationale to treat condition x with intervention y, but the patient had a confounding condition z, which might introduce a complication or even a contradiction to the equation, how is a practitioner to decide? Besides, the clinical reasoning went, no two patients were alike.
From my perspective as a sometime clinical investigator, EBM's greatest liability is its discounting of physiological and scientific reasoning. This has always been important at the frontiers of new knowledge. There is a need for hypothesis generation when the evidence ends. Along those lines, EBM's dichotomization between discovery and evaluation is a false one. As Solomon notes, "we do not have the option to use evidence-based medicine everywhere and thereby get more reliable and less fallible science. Evidence-based medicine cannot get going unless a therapy is proposed." (124) Basic science, animal research and Phase I and Phase II safety and efficacy trials all precede Phase III trials when EBM evidence can first be generated. Moreover, a mechanistic approach becomes even more critical when a trial fails and the clue to discovering the source of failure often resides in understanding basic scientific mechanisms. This can be the predicate for new hypothesis generation. These limitations make EBM an incomplete epistemology and one dependent upon the basic sciences, which it so derisively discounts.
And here is a central point that Solomon makes throughout the volume, there must be a plurality of methods to use and make medical knowledge. Here the distinction is between implementation and discovery. EBM is better positioned to confirm or discount treatments that have made it to the clinical arena. It is ill-suited to the development of new ideas, which by their nature are oppositional to prevailing practices. To break out of the proverbial Kuhnian paradigm is to oppose current norms, to see their flaws, or possibilities. EBM is not designed to prompt this critical leap from basic science to clinical possibility.
This gap in medicine's epistemology is addressed by the emergence of translational medicine, an approach that seeks to move ideas from bench to bedside and translate basic science hypotheses into potential clinical practices. It works bidirectionally in the space between basic science and discerning clinical observation to generate discovery and next generation science.
Translational medicine gained political traction when it was adopted as part of the 2004 NIH Roadmap for Medical Research establishing Clinical Translational Science Centers at the nation's leading academic medical centers. The goal was to help overcome what has been aptly described as "the valley of death" (160) between proof of principle Phase I studies and formal clinical trials.
If translational medicine was science's reaction to the over-reach of EBM, the reaction of the humanities was, in Solomon's view, through the emergence of what has been described as narrative medicine. This approach prizes the stories of patients and those who care for them, using literary methods of analysis. Through thick descriptions, individual patients emerge out of the fog of guidelines as diseases are understood as illness that have a bearing of people who are sick, suffering or in recovery. It is the humanist's response to the quantitative or scientific impersonality of both EBM and translational medicine.
And beyond the poetry, narratives have a clinical utility, helping practitioners take a proper medical history, rich in detail and sound in chronology or, to view it narratively, plot. This exercise is the predicate to diagnostic reasoning, which if incomplete could mean the misapplication of a treatment found sound by EBM. (Too bad it was the right treatment for the wrong patient.)
Sadly this relationship between the patient's individual story and statistical reasoning still eludes many EBM proponents despite David Sackett's wise admonition linking population data to the care of individual patients. As early as 1996, he maintained that
Evidence-based medicine is the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. The practice of evidence-based medicine means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research. (144)
It is curious that Solomon would choose narrative medicine, a rather fringe academic element, as the representative of humanist thinking in medicine. I think this choice weakens the volume and is paradoxical because the very analytical arguments Solomon uses to deconstruct medical knowledge would have been my choice as the fourth element in her epistemology. While her critique may seem orthogonal to making medical knowledge, it is, as this volume forcefully shows, central to understanding and improving this complex, yet worthy, endeavor. As such, her critique, more properly grounded in the history or philosophy of science, or in the broader realm of bioethics, would have been a far better humanistic counterweight to other epistemic approaches. But this is a quibble. Making Medical Knowledge is a valuable contribution that carefully untangles important epistemic questions in medicine. | <urn:uuid:1110e183-1783-4045-bce4-68fbf582d568> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/65137-making-medical-knowledge/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00066-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958829 | 3,053 | 2.640625 | 3 |
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Rosa Parks: MA
US History (Grade 10 or 11):
- Cold War America at Home: Economic Growth and Optimism, Anticommunism, and Reform, 1945-1980
- Analyze the origins, goals, and key events of the Civil Rights movement.
- Martin Luther King, Jr .
- Rosa Parks
- the 1955-1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott | <urn:uuid:49204014-e2e4-4469-bc29-f7f25398b454> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://historicalthinkingmatters.org/rosaparks/1/standards/MA/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404382.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00037-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.890762 | 169 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Doctors in (the midwestern U.S. state of)) Indiana say a patient hospitalized with the first confirmed U.S. case of the MERS virus could be released soon, but will have to be isolated at home.
The doctors said Monday that no hospital worker or relative who came in contact with the patient tested positive for MERS. But they will be re-tested when the maximum 14-day incubation period ends.
This is the first time doctors have dealt with MERS in the United States. Indiana Health Commissioner William VanNess calls the situation "very scary."
The male patient is a health worker who is employed at a hospital in Saudi Arabia, where MERS was discovered in September 2012.
About 400 people in six Mideast countries have tested positive for Middle East Respiratory Virus. At least 100 have died.
Doctors know little about MERS, but say it is related to the SARS virus, which infected about 8,000 people in 29 countries. Around 800 cases were fatal.
Experts believe the MERS virus may have originated in camels. | <urn:uuid:1b088a68-b75f-405a-84ca-eb8f62d60ef1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.voanews.com/content/us-mers-patient-getting-ready-to-leave-hospital/1908326.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396887.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00116-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966636 | 223 | 2.578125 | 3 |
|Application of Biomass-energy Technologies (Habitat, 1993)|
|I. Woodfuel production technologies|
The United Republic of Tanzania is located in East Africa and, based on a 1988 census, its population was estimated to be around 25.3 million in 1992 with an annual growth rate of 2.8 per cent.
Woodfuel is the principal source of energy, quantitatively accounting for 91 per cent of the total energy consumed. The dependency on woodfuel is expected to continue for the foreseeable future but the supply of woodfuel potential is dwindling in all regions.
Since the welfare of the people of Tanzania depends, to a large extent, on the sustainable management of its land resources, the Government has accorded high priority to the production of woodfuel and to environmental protection (MWEMT, 1991).
The main woodfuel-production technologies used include establishment of communal woodlots, combination of land reclamation with woodfuel production, central and individual nurseries, use of cuttings and self-germinating seedlings, individual tree-planting based on agroforestry, intensification of women involvement in the programmes, adoption of a multisectorial approach and monitoring of past efforts in order to learn from models of best practices.
1. Establishment of communal village woodlots
Considerations of woodfuel as a major source of energy and the need to sustain its production started in 1967, when the Government adopted a policy with a major emphasis on rural development. In 1968, regional tree-planting efforts were started in all regions with seedlings being raised in government nurseries and issued free to villages for establishing communal woodlots for woodfuel production. Exotic species were planted, based on the availability of seeds and ease of raising seedlings.
Village governments set aside land for establishing communal woodlot and provided free labour for land preparation and planting the trees. However, after planting, most village governments did not tend or protect the woodlots from grazing animals which led to mass failures (Mnzava, 1983).
Research on arid zone afforestation to find suitable tree species for woodfuel was initiated in 1970 with SIDA financial and technical assistance. Trial plots, which consist mainly of exotic species, are now the main sources of seeds to farmers.
2. Combination of land reclamation with woodfuel production
In 1973, the first large-scale National Soil Conservation Project (Hifadhi Ardhi Dodoma HADO) was started, with the objectives of reclaiming eroded land and producing woodfuel. It was jointly funded by the government of the United Republic of Tanzania and SIDA.
The main activities of the project in the initial phase were soil conservation, establishment of woodlots and encouragement of people to plant trees on farmland for environmental conservation and for woodfuel.
Achievements attained in the initial 10 years of project implementation were:
Establishment of woodlots. A total of 2624 ha of woodlots were established as demonstration areas to villagers on growing trees and on Land conservation.
Individual tree-planting. A total of 3.4 million seedlings were distributed to individual farmers for planting on their farms.
Conservation of natural woodlands. After 10 years, the project area of 114,000 ha was satisfactorily covered with shrubs, small trees and grass. Due to this success it was decided to allow villagers to collect fodder and dead wood from the area for fuelwood.
The success of HADO encouraged other regions to initiate similar land-reclamation programmes. In addition, a second phase of HADO, based on a multi-sectorial management team, has been initiated with the main objective of integrating forestry, agriculture, livestock and environmental protection as a sound Land-use system for the project area.
3. Monitoring of tree-growing efforts and learning from models of best practices
In 1981 a small community forestry unit was established by the Forestry Division to monitor and disseminate models of best tree-growing practices in the United Republic of Tanzania and in other African countries. The main impacts of the unit to woodfuel production include:
· On-going systematic monitoring and follow-up of tree-growing efforts in the regions which were initiated in 1981. Data on seedlings distribution, field survival rates and technologies used for growing trees are collected, analysed and lessons learned communicated back to tree-growers to facilitate sharing of field experiences.
· A national mass awareness campaign on tree-growing and environmental protection is being conducted in order to cover grass root problems adequately.
· Sociological studies on farmers' needs for tree-growing and analysis of traditional methods for growing trees were conducted in 1982/83 with FAO assistance (FAO, 1984; Mnzava, 1983; Mascarenhas et al, 1983).
· The first Tanzania Five Year National Village Afforestation Plan 1982/83 to 1986/87 was compiled in 1983 (Kaale, 1983) which emphasised the need to give high priority to individual and school tree-growing. It also emphasized the need to intensify management of natural forests and adoption of a multi-sectorial approach in implementing woodfuel production programmes.
4. The Shinyanga region soil conservation project (HASHI)
The project was stated in 1986 with the Government and NGOs providing catalytic support in terms of finance and technical assistance. The bulk of the project activities are undertaken by village governments and individuals on a self-reliance basis. Between 1987 and 1989 the HASHI project distributed 2.1 million seedlings from forest nurseries to 113 villages for individual planting on farm lands (Mnzava, 1990).
5. Establishment of nurseries
Tree seedlings are raised in a few government nurseries, located close to water reservoirs and distributed to individual farmers and schools. Self-germinating trees and shrubs on farmland are protected by farmers and are assisted to grow through weeding and mulching. Through this system, millions of self-germinated trees are now available on farmlands.
Individual farmers are also planting trees for shade by using wildings obtained from pioneer species which were planted in some villages a few years ago through a World Bank-funded project. The existing trees also provide seeds for direct sowing on farm land.
Cuttings are widely planted as shade trees and as fence for animal kraals; however' et the end they are used for woodfuel.
6. Intensifying women's role in tree-planting
To intensify tree-planting by women, the project associates women in its village treeplanting. The project facilitates Women Organisation branches in their mobility for implementing development programmes like child health care, clean water and treeplanting. Through this catalytic support, women's organizations in Shinyanga have become effective extension agents and more importantly, they understand the role of trees in their society and how to promote treegrowing, by utilizing local knowledge.
7. Management of natural woodlands
The main actions taken include exclusion of livestock, restricted tree-cutting and eradication of wild fires to encourage natural regeneration. By the end of 1989, village governments had set aside 26,285 ha of natural forests for conservation. Customary laws and beliefs are used for protecting the forests (Mnzava, 1990).
Woodlots have been established on a few strategic areas by the Forest Department for demonstration purposes and for testing the performance of new tree species. Between 1987 and 1989 a total of 410 ha of woodlots were established. Government institutions, such as prisons and schools, have also established woodlots for meeting their own woodfuel demand.
9. Tree-planting by individual farmers
Provided with appropriate opportunities, individual tree-planting has proved to be an important contributor to woodfuel supply and environmental protection in the Babati district. Instead of concentrating trees in one area, as with plantations or woodlots, individual planting has facilitated to scatter trees over a large area, consequently enhancing supply of woodfuel close to consumers and improving the macro climate. Due to people's participation, costs of establishment and protection are very low as compared to woodlots or plantations. Women and children play a major part in tending and protecting trees, during farming and grazing.
10. Individual tree -planting in Bashnet village
Bashnet village is one of the few villages in the semi-arid zone of Tanzania which has managed to grow trees and meet its demand for woodfuel and poles from individually planted trees.
Successes were achieved with the initial planters, and the number of villagers growing black wattle increased slowly. By 1960, it had picked up involving the whole village community. Currently each household has a black wattle plot, sufficient to supply its needs of fuelwood and building materials. | <urn:uuid:ba16817b-5b04-4df8-90ee-5559cac3ad7a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nzdl.org/gsdlmod?e=d-00000-00---off-0envl--00-0----0-10-0---0---0direct-10---4-------0-1l--11-en-50---20-about---00-0-1-00-0--4----0-0-11-10-0utfZz-8-10&a=d&c=envl&cl=CL1.1&d=HASH1cdc6b471ccaffad38f96c.4.7 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397696.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00011-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959694 | 1,791 | 3.21875 | 3 |
This rectangular dielectric resonator antenna was designed for a target resonant frequency of 3 GHz, with computer simulations and measured results showing good agreement.
Dielectric resonators (DRs) are commonly associated with high-quality-factor (high-Q) oscillators, although they can also be used to form compact antennas. To demonstrate the effectiveness of antenna design with DRs, a rectangular dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) was developed with target frequency range between 2 and 4 GHz and center resonant frequency around 3 GHz. The design goal was to achieve antenna return loss of less than 10 dB to accommodate an efficient antenna feed. As will be shown, the final design obtained an impedance bandwidth between 2.7125 and 2.7641 GHz with high gain and efficiency.
Low-loss DR materials offer a more compact alternative to the waveguide cavity resonator and also a more adaptable technology for printed circuit integration. Compact antenna size is particularly critical for portable wireless applications. In addition, DRA shapes and hybrid antennas show promise to meet the requirements for the promising broadband and ultrawideband systems.1-3
A DRA can be considered a better choice than antennas based on conventional low-gain elements such as dipoles, monopoles, and microstrip patches. A DR exhibits resonance for a narrow range of frequencies, generally in the microwave band.4 Resonators such as DRs are useful in RF communication equipment in connection with filters, low-noise oscillators, cavity resonators, and other circuits. In an antenna, a DR offers many benefits. It has no metallic loss and offers high radiation efficiency through millimeter-wave frequencies. In addition, a DRA can be made much smaller than conventional metal antennas.5 Also, a DR features mechanical simplicity and simple coupling schemes to all commonly used transmission lines. The DRA has high radiation efficiency due to the absence of con duction or surface losses and the ease of excitation. The DRA is also more resistant to proximity detuning when it is placed adjacent or close to another object.6
In this study, a DRA was designed with a rectangular cross-sectional area, and will be termed a rectangular DRA. Various other DRA shapes have been implemented in the past, but the rectangular shape was chosen since it is the easiest shape to fabricate.7-9 The rectangular shape offers a second degree of freedom, which is more than a cylindrical DRA (one degree of freedom) or a hemisphere DRA (zero degree of freedom), making it the most versatile among the basic shapes.10,11
The DRA in this study was positioned symmetrically with its Y-axis in the direction of the feedline. A vertical copper strip of height, H and width, W was attached to the DRA's flat surface. This copper strip is connected electrically to the feedline at length L1 from its open end. Among the parameters that would affect the resonant frequency are the height of the vertical copper strip (H), the length of the transmission line (L1), and the width of the transmission line (W). In addition, the DRA's dimensions will greatly affect the resonant frequency and the Q-value.
The DRA is designed using RO4003C low-dielectric-constant substrate material from Rogers Corp. with a dielectric constant of only 3.38. The choice of the dielectric material plays a significant part in the design of the DRA. Due to varied research, a ceramic dielectric was chosen to be implemented in the design of the DRA. The ceramic dielectric uses high dielectric constant bismuth titanate, Bi3Ti4O12, which has a dielectric constant of 90. After fabrication, the antenna was tested for performance, using appropriate test equipment, such as a material analyzer and a vector network analyzer (VNA). Comparisons are then conducted to observe the efficiency of the designed antenna. The transmission line uses copper, which is a conducting material, in order to function as a feeding channel. The width, W, of transmission line was calculated to be 1.9 mm. This width of the transmission line will provide an input impedance of 50 Ω .
With the objective of designing a DRA with a 3-GHz resonant frequency, the project was completed successfully with the resonant frequency around 2.7 GHz both in computer-simulated and measured results. At a resonant frequency of 2.7 GHz, the return loss differs only by 3.4 percent between simulated and measured results. Other parameters, such as gain, directivity, and efficiency, were also in close agreement between simulations and measurements.
The simulated and measured results are plotted on the same graph in Fig. 3. Figure 3 shows a graph of S11 log magnitude in dB (-20logS11). The simulation shows the resonant frequency at 2.735 GHz. It is clearly seen that the return loss is the lowest at 30.96 dB. For the measured results, the reflection coefficient is lowest between 2.67 and 2.72 GHz. At 2.69 GHz, the reflection signal of -48.1dB is lowest at the receiver. The results between the measured and simulated graph of S11 log magnitude (dB) were found to match closely. Meanwhile, the -10-dB impedance bandwidth of this rectangular DRA is 0.05 GHz. The simulated and measured results agree well over the whole operating frequency range. Thus, the bandwidth of this rectangular DRA was found to be around 50 MHz. The slight mismatches between these two results are due to variations and deviations in the fabrication process of the ceramic dielectric and the microstrip transmission line. Also, an SMA connector is attached to the microstrip by means of soldering, which may cause extra conductivity and disturb the surface current of the DRA.
The gain and the directivity of the proposed antenna were also examined. Gain is closely related to directivity, while directivity is influenced by the radiation pattern. Due to the antenna losses, such as Ohmic losses, the gain is usually less than the directivity. From Fig. 4, it can be seen that the gain of the DRA is around 3.642 dB. This means that at 2.735 GHz, the DRA's radiation has a gain of 3.642 dB, which is satisfactory for an antenna. Figure 4 also shows the directivity at 5.310 dBi, and efficiency is around 68 percent, which is considered acceptable performance to deliver 68 percent of received power to a receiver. As in Eq. 1, the efficiency, ?e, can be calculated as
This is in conformance with the simulated value of 68 percent in Fig. 4.
Figure 5 shows the simulated and measured results for the phase of the designed DRA. The simulated S11 phase differs from the measured results. The simulated result has two phase changes, unlike the measured results where there are three phase changes from 2 to 4 GHz. In the simulated graph, the phase change at 2.735 GHz is 19.09 deg. while the measured phase change at 2.735 GHz is 150.44 deg, or a difference of 131.35 deg. between the two results in Fig. 5.
Figure 6 shows a Smith Chart of the simulated and the measured impedance for the rectangular DRA. The port impedance, Zo, is 50 Ohms. The input impedance is the impedance presented by the antenna at the terminal. In Fig. 6(a), the resonant frequency of 2.735 GHz has an input impedance of (49.16-j3.556) Ohms. This means that the antenna poses an input resistance, Rin = 49.16 Ohms at its terminal. Meanwhile, the input reactance, Xin, is the power that is stored within the near field of the antenna. In this DRA design, Xin = 3.556 Ohms.
Figure 6(b) shows the measured input impedance to be (49.06+j0.58) Ohms. There is only 0.10 Ohms and 0.20 percent difference between both the simulated and measured results. The simulated and measured input resistance is almost the same, which is about 49 Ohms. Both the simulated and measured DRA is approximately equal to the characteristic impedance of 50 Ohms.
The ideal VWSR would be one where the antenna will have perfect impedance match and a maximum power transfer from the source to the load or antenna. Figure 7(a) illustrates VWSR at 2.735 GHz with its amplitude to be 1.058:1. From Fig. 6(b), with a VSWR value of 2.0:1, the obtained impedance bandwidth is 0.055222 GHz from 2.71 to 2.76 GHz. This bandwidth is in accordance with the bandwidth obtained from the S11 log magnitude graph in Fig. 6(b).
Figure 7(b) shows the VSWR measured with a network analyzer. From 2 to 4 GHz, the VSWR was found to be 1.04:1, or greater than unity. Figure 7 compares the VSWR for the simulated and measured results. As observed, the resonant frequency measured rejection was more than -30 dB at the midband frequency of the notched band and upper stopband with 15-dB attenuation to 20 GHz. A metallic enclosure used with the filter had little effect on the filter's response, with only a slight shift downward in frequency for the cutoff frequency of the upper stopband.
Continue to page 2
In conclusion, a compact UWB bandpass filter with a highly rejected notched band and improved out-ofband performance was proposed and implemented. By tuning the parameters of these units, the proposed UWB bandpass filter can achieve a wideband passband while also offering a narrow notch within the passband. The measured results for the fabricated filter were in good agreement with simulated performance. The filter's simple planar geometry makes it compatible with existing microwave-integrated-circuit (MIC) fabrication methods.
1. United States Federal Communications Commission, "Revision of Part 15 of the commission's rules regarding ultra-wideband transmission systems," Tech. Rep. ET-Docket 98153, FCC0248, Federal Communications Commission, April 2002.
2. W. Menzel, M. S. R. Tito, and L. Zhu, "Low-loss ultrawideband (UWB) filters using suspended stripline," in Proceedings of the 2005 Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference, Vol. 4, 2005, pp. 21482151.
3. K. Li, D. Kurita, and T. Matsui, "An ultra-wideband bandpass filter using broadside-coupled microstrip-coplanar waveguide structure," in IEEE MTT-S International Digest, 2005, pp. 675678.
4. N. W. Chen and K. Z. Fang, "An ultra-broadband coplanar- waveguide bandpass filter with sharp skirt selectivity," IEEE Microwave and Wireless Component Letters, Vol. 17, No. 2, February 2007, pp. 124126.
5. N. Thomson and J. S. Hong, "Compact ultra-wideband microstrip/coplanar waveguide bandpass filter," IEEE Microwave and Wireless Component Letters, Vol. 17, No. 3, March 2007, pp. 184186.
6. L. Zhu, W. Menzel, K. Wu, and F. Boegelsack, "Theoretical characterization and experimental verification of a novel compact broadband microstrip bandpass filter," in Proceedings of the Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference, 2001, pp. 625628.
7. L. Zhu, S. Sun, and W. Menzel, "Ultrawideband (UWB) bandpass filters using multiple-mode resonator," IEEE Microwave and Wireless Component Letters, Vol. 15, No. 11, 2005, pp. 796798.
8. L. Zhu and H. Wang, "Ultra-wideband bandpass filter on aperturebacked microstrip line," Electronics Letters, Vol. 41, No. 18, 2005, pp. 10151016.
9. H. Wang, L. Zhu, and W. Menzel, "Ultra-wideband (UWB) bandpass filters with hybrid microstrip/CPW structure," IEEE Microwave and Wireless Component Letters, Vol. 15, No. 12, 2005, pp. 844846.
10. H. Shaman and J. S. Hong, "Ultrawideband (UWB) bandpass filter with embedded band notch structures," IEEE Microwave and Wireless Component Letters, Vol. 17, No. 3, 2007, pp. 193195.
11. H. Shaman and J. S. Hong, "Asymmetric parallelcoupled lines for notch implementation in UWB filter," IEEE Microwave and Wireless Component Letters, Vol. 17, No. 3, 2007, pp. 516-518. | <urn:uuid:e02893ab-9b2e-407b-a8c4-181e0e6c44be> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mwrf.com/components/rectangular-dr-antenna-resonates-3-ghz | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00084-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935436 | 2,718 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Tracking Dementia in Parkinson's Disease
If Dementia Occurs, Mental Abilities Can Fall Like Alzheimer's Disease
Dec. 13, 2004 -- Parkinson's disease patients with dementia can lose their mental abilities at almost the same rate as people with Alzheimer's disease, say Norwegian researchers.
Parkinson's disease belongs to a group of conditions called movement disorders. Symptoms of Parkinson's disease include tremors, rigidity, and imbalance. Symptoms vary from person to person, and not everyone is affected by all of the symptoms.
Not all people with Parkinson's disease have dementia. However, dementia isn't unusual with Parkinson's disease, although it may take a decade to appear after Parkinson's begins.
Parkinson's disease occurs when brain cells that produce the chemical dopamine die. As a result, dopamine levels drop, garbling the brain's movement signals to the body.
Parkinson's is usually diagnosed in people aged 50 or older (though it can occur in adults as young as 30). Advanced age is also the main risk factor for dementia. Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia.
The latest study on Parkinson's and dementia comes from scientists including Dag Aarsland, MD, PhD, of the geriatric psychiatry department at Norway's Central Hospital of Roagland. Aarsland and colleagues studied 129 Parkinson's patients who did not have dementia when they joined the study.
Participants took tests measuring thinking and memory skills three times: at their initial visit, and four and eight years later. They were screened by a neurologist, a geriatric psychiatrist, and a research nurse.
All participants lost at least some of their mental abilities over the years. But those with dementia had a steeper decline.
At the second visit, four years into the study, 49 patients were diagnosed with dementia. By the end of the eight-year study, 36 participants still did not have dementia. Participants were then about 73 years old, having had Parkinson's for around 16 years, on average.
Patients without dementia lost little ground. Their average mental exam scores dropped about one point per year, on average. That's about the same as healthy people, say the researchers.
"Forty-three percent of those who survived the eight-year study had no significant decline on the [tests] during the eight-year follow-up period," they write in the December issue of Archives of Neurology.
Those with dementia weren't as fortunate. Their test scores dropped an average of 2.3 points per year. Researchers say this rate of decline is similar to the rate seen in patients with Alzheimer's disease.
The decline was even faster among Parkinson's patients in their first four years of dementia, say the researchers.
A few risk factors emerged. Old age, hallucinations, and more severe motor problems predicted faster mental decline in Parkinson's patients.
More studies are needed, but the findings may help patients and caregivers prepare for future needs, say the researchers. | <urn:uuid:19a552f0-b6b8-4bb3-aad7-e359cf98fe98> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.webmd.com/parkinsons-disease/news/20041213/tracking-dementia-in-parkinsons-disease | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00176-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963577 | 605 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Child in Ramdan Lantern Family Workshop [Photographs]
In the weeks and months before the start of Ramadan, the ninth lunar month when Muslims fast, traditional workshops like the one on Ahmad Maher Street in the medieval quarter of Cairo, turn recycled tin cans into glittering lanterns. In this "Street of the Lanterns," skills in cutting, hammering, perforating and framing colored glass that have been passed down through artisan families (who usually make ordinary items for the household), are set to the task of making the traditional Ramadan lanterns for children. Brass and tin strips cut from cans of cooking oil, fish, kerosene and cheese become the base, top, and frames for colored glass panes formed into numerous shapes. Many of the lanterns conform to a simple, tapered form like a carriage lamp. Others are shaped like multi-pointed stars, crescents called “a big slice of watermelon,” or simply very large and elaborately decorated versions of the smaller ones, but nearly as tall as an adult. Many of the artisans began making the lamps when they were 10 or 15 years old, like the boy in the photograph. Sitting cross-legged on the floor next to the older workers—likely a father, and uncle or grandfather—the youngest workers carry out the simple task of preparing the metal strips with tin snips and simple vice-like tools for drawing the metal straight and smooth. The older, more skilled artisans pierce designs, solder the metal strips, and frame the cut pieces of glass with tin or brass. A base for the candle, a lid, and a ring for hanging complete the lantern. In the second photograph, partly-finished lamps are visible. In the days before Ramadan, the lamps are hung in the shop on long poles for purchase.
While the sharp metal edges can injure young workers, the child labor nevertheless falls within the International Labor Organization guidelines. Acceptable work includes children helping parents around the home, earning pocket money after school and on holidays, and even helping in a family business. Such activity is viewed as beneficial to children's development and socialization. Unacceptable child labor, in contrast, is harmful to physical and mental development, to children's dignity, and "deprives children of their childhood." 1
Mohamed Ali Eddin, "Fanos Making," Flickr, http://www.flickr.com/photos/turtle-t6er/4081558160/ (accessed November 20, 2009). Annotated by Susan Douglass.
How to Cite This Source
"Child in Ramdan Lantern Family Workshop [Photographs]," in Children and Youth in History, Item #370, http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/370 (accessed July 1, 2016). | <urn:uuid:ff0b3d46-93c0-4a5d-af64-3d8beee3bb5e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/370 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00088-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934338 | 578 | 3.375 | 3 |
Henry VIII becomes Head of Church in England,
The 15th of January 1535 AD
Henry VIII’s desire for an unchallenged heir and his lust for Anne Boleyn pushed England inexorably away from papal authority. He had an illegitimate son Henry FitzRoy Duke of Richmond, and his daughter Mary with Catherine of Aragon , but worried that Mary’s legitimacy could be doubted given Catherine’s previous marriage to his brother Arthur.
When the pope refused to cooperate over the annulment of Henry’s marriage to Catherine Cardinal Wolsey fell from grace and the union was nullified anyway. The church, and papal power, became a threat, dealt with by various acts of Parliament new and old. First the clergy were held to ransom, accused of treason under the 14th century praemunire acts; then Thomas Cromwell rapidly steered through Parliament The Act in Restraint of Appeals, preventing clerical appeals to Rome; and the in 1533 The Appointment of Bishops Act, putting that task in regal hands. The following year The Acts of Supremacy removed any doubts about the break with Rome. On January 15 1535 Henry’s style changed to Henry the Eighth , by the Grace of God, King of England and France, Defender of the Faith, Lord of Ireland and of the Church of England in Earth Supreme Head. He remained anti-Protestant in terms of doctrine, but politically England would be drawn towards Protestant allies - ‘my enemy’s enemy’ - opening the doors to future religious evolution.
More famous dates here
6015 views since 8th January 2010
On this day: | <urn:uuid:0e45f766-54f7-4908-b64e-601029576775> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.information-britain.co.uk/famdates.php?id=850 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00076-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966554 | 343 | 3.625 | 4 |
LOS ANGELES (LALATE) – A moderate Puerto Rico earthquake 2012 has struck moments ago, set northwest of San Juan. The terremoto en Puerto Rico today Monday, September 10, 2012 was centered off the coast but delivered a relatively shallow epicenter. No reports of damage have yet to be indicated by local news. Red Sismica De Puerto Rico is, however, reporting a far different magnitude in initial readings compared to the USGS.
Officials tell news that the Puerto Rico earthquake struck roughly ten minutes ago but was centered close to Isabela. USGS indicates to news that at 6:03 PM EST a 4.1 magnitude quake struck Puerto Rico. The quake however erupted at a depth of only twenty-six miles below sea level. As result, the quake was felt on-land to the west.
USGS indicates to news the quake was seventy-five miles northwest of Isabela. The quake was also northwest of Caban. Officials report that the quake was roughly one hundred miles from La Romana, Dominican Republic. The quake’s epicenter, additionally, was only one hundred twenty-miles from San Juan.
Official confirm that no tsunami threat has been issued. In a news statement, Red Sismica De Puerto Rico indicates “tsunami threat for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands” has been issued.
In November, a large 5.2 terremoto struck the region. USGS reported to news at the time that the quake had a nominal depth, striking only nine miles below the earth’s surface. The quake was forty-three miles from Carrizales and Hatillo. | <urn:uuid:ec564f6a-895a-468a-a38f-02a937127058> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://news.lalate.com/2012/09/10/puerto-rico-earthquake-today-2012-erupts-west-of-san-juan/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397695.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00001-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952781 | 335 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Echinocactus horizonthalonius Lem.
Devilshead, Eagle claws, Turk's head, Devil's head
Cactaceae (Cactus Family)
USDA Symbol: echo
Although mostly a plant of the Chihuahuan Desert of New Mexico and Texas, Devilshead is also found in far south Arizona (the nicholii variety), in and around Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, where specimens are generally larger than in the east - up to 12 inches tall. Six inches is more typical. The attractive, slow growing species has broad ribs bearing clusters of (5 to 8) radial spines growing close to the body, and a curved central spine pointing downwards, giving a generally stout, compact appearance. The greenish-gray surface is not obscured by the spines. Bright pink flowers form at the top in early summer, growing out of a dense mat of woolly hairs.
Description provided courtesy of The American Southwest.
From the Image Gallery
Plant CharacteristicsDuration: Perennial
Size Notes: Globular plant up to 10 in high, 1 ft 3 in diameter.
Flower: Rose pink, with a reddish center.
Size Class: 0-1 ft.
Bloom InformationBloom Color: Red , Pink
Bloom Time: Apr , May , Jun , Jul , Aug , Sep
Bloom Notes: diurnal blooms
DistributionUSA: AZ , NM , TX
Native Distribution: South Arizona (Pinal and Pima counties), south New Mexico, west Texas.
Native Habitat: Arid limestone terraces and hillsides, up to 5,000 feet elevation.
Growing ConditionsWater Use: Low
Light Requirement: Sun
Soil Moisture: Dry
Drought Tolerance: High
Wildflower Center Seed BankLBJWC-PM-14 Collected 2006-10-20 in Presidio County by Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
BibliographyBibref 1140 - Cacti (1991) Clive Innes and Charles Glass
Search More Titles in Bibliography
Web ReferenceWebref 15 - The American Southwest (1994) John Crossley
Additional resourcesUSDA: Find Echinocactus horizonthalonius in USDA Plants
FNA: Find Echinocactus horizonthalonius in the Flora of North America (if available)
Google: Search Google for Echinocactus horizonthalonius
MetadataRecord Modified: 2013-07-01
Research By: TWC Staff | <urn:uuid:da29d794-3edb-415e-aeae-35467817b019> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=echo | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00144-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.780427 | 515 | 2.8125 | 3 |
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