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Constraints are limitations or restrictions that emerge from within a system. Also known as “degrees of freedom,” this is about the degree to which expectations, policies, processes, interactions, and relationships from inside the system allow agents to make choices about their own individual and group actions and behaviors. Constraints emerge in a system as a way to manage the “chaos” and uncertainty that exists, and shape the path of self-organization and the emergence of patterns across the system. Constraints influence patterns by shifting the speed, path, and direction of self-organization. If you want to change patterns of self-organization, you would either find ways to constrain the system more—make expectations more specific—or to decrease constraints—decrease specificity.
The Landscape Diagram offers a “map” for how constraints can shape relationships and action in a complex adaptive system. If constraints serve to increase agreement and certainty, their emergence will shift a system from upper right (unstable) to lower left (stable) on the diagram. Think about the emergence of a new product. Research folks explore new trends and possibilities (unstable, upper right) until they can begin to see some patterns begin to emerge. The concept then shows up in the emergent space, where the patterns become clearer and developers define and describe the new product. Ultimately the developers create specifications for manufacturing staff, who pull the process down into the lower left into production procedures and processes that are close to agreement and close to certainty. Say that over time, new technology or a design flaw requires that the product be re-examined. Manufacturing folks give the product back to development folks who bring in new ideas from the research folks to refine their design, create new specifications and send it back to manufacturing for continued production. The same general cycle describes the emergence of any pattern in human systems—products, poetry, rules and regulations, relationships, new ideas and concepts. Constraints from inside the system shape this path of emergence at all scales.
We think of constraints in one of three ways.
A system is Ideally Constrained when it has appropriate freedom to respond in coherent and productive ways.
A system is Overly Constrained when it is held too tightly, causing turbulence as parts of the system compete for limited time, space, and resources.
A system is Under Constrained when it is not held tightly enough, causing turbulence as parts of the system lose energy and productivity.
There is no pre-set level of constraint that a system “seeks” or that we can set as a benchmark for all similar systems. Acceptable degrees of freedom or appropriate levels of constraint are about fitness of the system in its immediate internal and external environments. A system that is ideally constrained is able to function productively, engaging in self-organizing and adaptive behavior that allows it the freedom to find the best “fit” in the greater environment. When a system is unable to find that level of fitness, conflict emerges and the sustainability of the system is in jeopardy. | <urn:uuid:8178f60d-b0f6-4eaa-8a8c-c73a86b38dba> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://wiki.hsdinstitute.org/constraints | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396872.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00050-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938376 | 632 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Hesperian Health Guides
Forests and Livelihood
Forests are an important source of livelihood. Some governments and international organizations say the greatest damage to forests is caused by poor people who cut down trees to farm or earn their livelihood in other ways. But when people do not have enough food, income, or other basic needs, the need to survive becomes more important than the need to preserve forests. Sometimes people have no choice but to cut trees, whether to clear new farmland or to harvest firewood and lumber. The blame for forest destruction is rarely placed on industries that take huge amounts of wood or cut down forests for mining, oil exploration, or industrial plantations.
When people’s daily needs are met they are better able to think about the future, including how to care for the environment. People who live in and care for forests know there are many ways to earn a living from the forest without causing too much damage.
|Deforestation causes poverty and poverty causes more deforestation.|
Farming in the forest
Farmers in many places clear spaces in the forest to plant crops, leaving the surrounding forest untouched. They farm there until weeds begin to compete with their crops. Then they clear a new plot and the forest grows back in the old plot and restores the soil. This is sometimes called “slash and burn,” or swidden farming.
Swidden farming has been done for thousands of years. But as populations grow and settle new areas, the amount of forest available to farm this way is reduced. Neither is there enough land to let farm plots be reclaimed by forest. Swidden farming has become unsustainable, both for the farmer and for the forest. Communities that farm in forest areas can get better results and remain on their land longer if they use sustainable farming methods.
Protecting forests and livelihood
In the forests of Andra Pradesh, India, villagers clear patches of forest to grow crops. But in the months when there is little food from their farm plots, many people’s livelihoods depend on things that grow in the forest. Some villagers gather and sell wood for fuel, while others use wood to make tools to sell. The way the villagers are allowed to use forest resources is controlled by groups called “community forest committees.”
When the forest committees saw that some areas were being damaged from overuse, they made new rules to reduce the amount of wood that could be taken. The rules were very strict, and many people’s livelihoods were threatened. People who survived by selling wood for fuel and making tools no longer had this income. During the months when food was scarce, these families suffered.
The members of the forest committees came from these same communities, so they wanted to find a solution that made sure no community member went hungry, but still protected the forest. After many meetings, a decision was reached. Instead of changing the new forest rules, the forest committees would help to improve farmland by building contour barriers to slow the movement of water and prevent erosion. This would make the soil richer and provide more water for crops so farms would be more productive and there would be more food for everyone without endangering the forest.
|Carefully managed ecotourism can protect forests.|
Ecotourism is a way to earn money from visitors coming to see the natural beauty of an area, or to learn about the plants and animals that live there. Some ecotourism projects bring people only to enjoy the natural beauty. Others invite them to live with people in the community to learn about protecting the environment. Still other projects invite tourists to actively work on projects to protect the environment.
Ecotourism is a good way for forest communities to earn money. But starting and running a project can be costly, and needs careful planning. Tourists require food, comfort, lodging, guides, and lots of patience in dealing with cultural differences. They may have accidents or need health care. Getting tourists to visit requires advertising in magazines or on the internet, printing brochures, and doing other forms of publicity.
Ecotourism projects are not always sustainable. They must be carefully managed so the money they bring benefits the community, not just outside agents or businesses, or a few local families. Successful ecotourism projects often limit the number of tourists who visit, in order to cause less pressure on the community and less damage to the environment.
Non-timber forest products
Non-timber forest products are anything besides wood that can be taken and sold without damaging the forest. This includes nuts, fruits, medicinal plants, and fibers. Communities that have success selling non-timber forest products have found it important to follow these guidelines:
- Set clear rules about who may harvest and sell the product, and how to best harvest it in a sustainable way. Once a product becomes successful, it is in danger of being overharvested. Collect only enough of the product that it can continue to grow and reproduce.
- Find or develop a market for the product. There is no point harvesting products if they will not sell or be used.
Harvesting medicine from the forest
Near the Bay of Bengal in India, many people go to traditional healers when they are sick. These healers make medicines from plants gathered in the forest. One day, people from a non-governmental organization (NGO) came to a village there to help people earn money by gathering these medicinal plants and selling them in the city. By using their organization to sell these medicines, they helped the community make money from the forest without cutting down trees.
The villagers were glad to have a new way to earn money, and many people began to collect and sell the medicinal plants. But they did not ask the healers how to collect the plants without damaging them, and they were not careful about how much they gathered.
In their excitement to earn money, some villagers harmed the trees they collected from. Instead of digging around a tree to collect a few roots some people cut down the whole tree. In a short time, the medicinal plants had mostly disappeared from the forest. This left traditional healers with no plants to use for healing. So the villagers had to spend a lot of money to buy medicines at the pharmacy when they were sick. In the end, the health of both the people and the forest suffered from harvesting plants in a way that did not protect them for the future. | <urn:uuid:b807099f-5054-4bc8-a5eb-bab445f65063> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://en.hesperian.org/hhg/A_Community_Guide_to_Environmental_Health:Forests_and_Livelihood | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00016-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969491 | 1,310 | 4.03125 | 4 |
KIM'S GAME IN THE DARK
Out of sight of the immediate area, attach a line
zigzagging between trees or stationary objects. Tie objects to the line along
the way. Ten items is a good number. Blindfold each Cub Scout and lead him to
the rope. Boys then proceed down the rope, holding on and remembering the
objects they come across. No talking is allowed. When each boy reaches the end
of the rope, the leader takes him out of sight of the course and removes his
blindfold. Boys may work individually or as a group to see how many objects
they can identify and remember.
Blindfold half the players and give each a partner, who verbally and
physically guides them, to simulate a blind person playing.
EQUIPMENT: Balloons of four different colors, 8
pylons, Badminton rackets.
OBJECTIVE: Starting with four balloons, put one
balloon in each of the four goals
DESCRIPTION: Divide into four teams. The playing
area is a large square. A goal for each team is made on each side of the
square. At the center is a pile of balloons. The balloons of the color
assigned to your team must go in each goal. Balloons are moved using the
Wheelchair Buddy Relay
EQUIPMENT: Wheelchairs, Anything to create
OBJECTIVE: To be the first team to complete the
DESCRIPTION: The group is divided into two teams.
Within each team, find a partner. One of the partners will be seated in
wheelchair. The other will direct the wheel chair bound person through the
maze without touching the obstacles. First team through wins.
Partner Shoe Scramble
Have all the boys put their shoes in a pile 20 feet away
from the starting line. Mix up the shoes so that no pairs are together. Divide
into two teams.
On signal, the first boy:
Runs to the pile and picks out his shoes
He races back to the starting line carrying his shoes
Then the team helps him put his shoes back on.
Once he has put his shoes on he goes to the back of the
line and the next boy goes.
The first team to all have their shoes back on is the
Provide each relay team a pair of empty shoeboxes. On
signal, one player from each team places his feet in the boxes and shuffles to
the goal line and back. Make sure the adults participate too!
Walk In My Shoes Race
Equipment: Really, really, really big gum boots
Description: Divide the boys into two teams. Have
them take off their shoes and stand in two lines. Place the huge boots at the
starting line and have the boys put on the "boots" race down to a turn-around
point and return to give the boots to the next in line.
Divide the den into two teams and give each player two
cotton balls to stuff into his ears. When all ears are covered, one leader
steps outside the room where he/she cannot be seen and produces a series of
sounds, - tinkling bell, sentence spoken in normal conversational tones, pan
being scraped, barking dog, hammering on board, etc. When the leader
returns, each team huddles and writes a list of the
sounds it heard. The sounds maybe tape-recorded in advance.
Divide the den into two teams. Tell players to untie
their shoelaces. Then tell them to put one hand behind their back (or tie
one hand to their belt). On signal, each team tries to tie their shoelaces
with each player using only one hand.
SHIPS IN THE FOG
Divide the den into two teams and line them up relay
fashion at one end of the room. For each team, set up a series of obstacles -
chairs, tables, stools, etc. - between them and the other end of the room.
Blindfold the first player on each team. On signal, the player starts for the
other end of the room trying to avoid the obstacles. One of his teammates may
call out directions ("go right," then "turn left," etc). When the player
reaches the other end of the room, he takes off the blindfold and runs back to
touch off the next player, who is already blindfolded. Continue until all team
members have raced.
TIN CAN BOWLING
Place empty 48-ounce juice cans against a wall - one per
team - about 6 feet apart and with open end facing team. Teams are about 12 to
15 feet from cans take turns trying to bowl a rubber ball into their can
without the ball bouncing out again. Let the boys bowl from wheelchairs, from
a chair, or sitting or kneeling on the floor.
Body, Voice, Eyes
This game is best played in
a gym or some open area. Divide the Cubs into groups of three. Two of the
boys are blindfolded, with the third being permitted to see. One of the
blindfolded Cubs is the body; he can move but CAN NOT see or speak. The other
blindfolded Cub is the voice, he can speak but can NOT see nor move. The
third CUB is the eyes, he can see but CAN NOT speak or move.
For each team of Cubs, place
a ball somewhere within the playing area. Also place one traffic cone
somewhere in the playing area. Each team's goal is to guide their body to
their team's ball, pick it up, and then touch it to the traffic cone. The
voice and the eyes for each team will have to give the body directions to find
the ball. This is much more difficult than it sounds as the eyes and voice
need to be able to effectively communicate with each other in order to give
directions to the body. | <urn:uuid:12fdd1b2-3072-400b-9660-0d5475535459> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://usscouts.org/bbugle/bb0402/bbg.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00144-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946551 | 1,258 | 2.828125 | 3 |
The universe we can see is made up of billions of galaxies, each containing anywhere from hundreds of thousands to hundreds of billions of stars.
Large numbers of galaxies are elliptical in shape, red and mostly made up of old stars. Another (more familiar) type is the spiral, where arms wind out in a blue thin disk from a central red bulge.
On average stars in spiral galaxies tend to be much younger than those in ellipticals.
Now a group of astronomers led by Asa Bluck of the University of Victoria in Canada have found a (relatively) simple relationship between the color of a galaxy and the size of its bulge – the more massive the bulge the redder the galaxy.
Images of a small fraction of the galaxies analyzed in the new study. The galaxies are ordered by total mass of stars (rising from bottom to top) and by ‘bulge to total stellar mass ratio’ (rising from left to right). Galaxies that appear redder have high values for both of these measurements, meaning that the mass of the bulge –and central black hole – determines their color. Credit: A. Bluck.
Asa and his team used data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to group together over half a million galaxies of all different colors, shapes, and masses. They then used pattern recognition software to measure the shape of each one, to see how the proportion of red stars in a galaxy varies with its other properties.
They found that the mass in the central bulge (regardless of how big the disk surrounding it may be) is the key to knowing the color of the whole galaxy. Above a given bulge mass, galaxies are red and have no new young stars.
Almost all galaxies have supermassive black holes at their centers. The mass of the bulge is closely related to the mass of the black hole; the more massive the black hole the more energy is released into the surrounding galaxy in the form of powerful jets and X-ray emission. This can blow away and heat up gas, stopping new stars from forming.
“A relatively simple result, that large galaxy bulges mean red galaxies, has profound consequences. Big bulges mean big black holes and these can put an end to star formation,” Asa said.
Published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
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- After Brexit, Italy May Be Next | <urn:uuid:b8b19820-4386-4bb1-85a2-dedbc54dacfe> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.science20.com/news_articles/red_stars_have_big_bulges_how_black_holes_shape_galaxies-134854 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00160-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.887638 | 915 | 3.8125 | 4 |
Flash Flood Watch
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Cutworms showing up in area corn and soybeansPosted Monday, June 13, 2011, at 2:42 PM
During the past 10 days many reports of black cutworm damage to seedling corn plants and soybean have been received according to Wayne Bailey, University of Missouri entomologist.
Damage across the state on seedling corn and soybean plants has resulted from larvae produced from late moth flights. Normally black cutworm, low populations of black cutworm larval in soybeans goes unnoticed as surviving plants often compensate for lost plants. However, moderate to heavy feeding on soybean seedlings may substantially reduce crop yields if high seedling mortality occurs.
A good economic threshold for black cutworm feeding on soybean seedlings is lacking, 20% or more cutting has been used in past years. However with the higher commodity prices for soybeans, this economic threshold is probably too conservative. As commodity prices go higher, producers can benefit by treating pest infestations at lower thresholds. With this in mind, Bailey has recommended an economic threshold of 10% or more cutting as a more reasonable economic threshold in soybeans.
Bailey recommends that soybean producers monitor stands at least twice per week during the next month. Seed applied insecticide treatments on soybeans should help reduce black cutworm larval numbers, but may not prevent economic damage in situations where larval feeding is severe. In corn, these seed treatments often control about 50% of black cutworm under heavy infestation, according to Bailey. There are several insecticides available for rescue application. Be sure to follow label directions concerning whether the insecticide selected for rescue or replant needs to be incorporated or simply broadcast over the soil surface.
True armyworm larvae are occurring in some grass pastures in south central and southwestern regions of the state and in wheat and corn in scattered fields throughout Missouri. True armyworm larvae do not feed on legumes, only grasses. Larvae of true armyworms are often active at night or on cloudy days as they avoid light. To determine the presence of small larvae, scout plant debris on the ground and for feeding damage on lower plant foliage. As larvae increase in size, they will feed during both night and day periods and move upward on host plants as they consume foliage. Larger larvae tend to remain on the upper regions of host plants.
Economic thresholds vary with the crop:
1. Tall fescue and grass pastures -- Treat when an average of 4 or more half-grown or larger worms (1/2 inch to 1 ½ inch) larvae per square foot are present during late spring.
2. Wheat -- Treat when an average of 4 or more half-grown or larger worms per square foot are present during late spring and before more than 2% to 3% of seed heads are cut. Wheat should be monitored several times per week after heading as true armyworm larvae can cut most heads from plants in a 2-3 day period once they begin cutting heads.
3. Corn-Treat corn seedlings when 25% or more of plants are being damaged. Control is justified after pollen shed if leaves above ear zone are being consumed by larvae.
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As our local University of Missouri Agronomy Extension Specialist, Crook has been writing a column for the print edition Agriculture page for the past three years and we will now be sharing it on our web version. Crook has a bachelor and masters degree in agronomy from University of Missouri and received his doctorate in Agronomy from Kansas State University. He was in soybean variety development research for 22 years for various seed companies and has been Saline County's agronomy specialist for 10 years. | <urn:uuid:88a90051-87c6-4c72-a402-579614c4878e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.marshallnews.com/blogs/1550/entry/41950 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00009-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950747 | 788 | 2.9375 | 3 |
New Accessibility Guidelines Part III: Understandability
Editor’s Note: The World Wide Web Consortium recently approved new accessibility guidelines. Passed in December 2008, the new “Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0” is the official recommendation for web accessibility for the disabled.
The new guidelines focus on four fundamental principles:
1. Is it perceivable?
2. Is it operable?
3. Is it understandable?
4. Is it robust?
This article addresses “understandability,” and is part three in a series discussing the impact of WCAG 2.0 on your website.
The understandability of text is crucial to web accessibility. At broad levels, this means specifying text languages, explaining the meanings of jargon or idioms, and expanding abbreviations to clarify text. It’s not just text that can present a barrier to accessibility, however. A lack of organizational predictability or proper error management can greatly decrease the accessibility of any website.
Identify the Language
Guideline 3.1 Readable: Make text content readable and understandable.
When you see a block of text, you can usually recognize immediately whether that text is in a language you can read. Knowing that language, you read through the text quickly and efficiently. Understanding a recognized language is no problem – for a person.
However, language can present a significant barrier for the disabled – not because they might not understand the language – but because the assistive technology they’re using won’t be able to pronounce it correctly unless the language of the text is specifically marked in a computer-readable fashion.
By default, assistive technology will attempt to read text in the language of the user’s computer. This is fabulous as long as the user stays within websites written in their system language.
It’s surprising just how difficult it is to understand even your native language if it’s pronounced according to the rules of a different language. Adding a simple piece of meta information to your HTML documents or templates indicating the language of the document can make a huge difference towards supporting the needs of disabled site visitors.
Specifying Language in XHTML & HTML Content
Specifying the language of the document is not always sufficient, although it will usually provide access for the majority of customers. The language of individual parts of the page (quotations in other languages, and non-vernacular uses of foreign languages) should also be individually identified and translated.
Outside of actual language differences, terminology such as idioms, jargon or abbreviations must be expanded. Although it’s common to provide additional details about these types of text in a “
title” attribute attached to the text, this should not be considered the ideal way to communicate the meaning of these materials, as screen readers do not announce the presence of title attributes – let alone read them out – in their default configurations.
Does the site do what you expect?
Guideline 3.2 Predictable: Make web pages appear and operate in predictable ways.
Web pages tend to operate in a pretty standard and predictable fashion. You click on a link; you go to a new page. You activate a button; you submit a form. The specifics of how these work may be a bit variable, but the basic expectations are constant. Meeting the WCAG expectation that a website should be predictable simply means that you don’t implement any programming which will subvert the normal behavior of a website.
Now, “normal” is actually a rather inappropriate term in this context. What is “normal” for the behaviors in website interactivity is a moving target. What was normal 10 years ago is not what is normal today, and what is normal today is not what will be normal in another 10 years. However, there are basic expectations that should be met.
One key to predictability is very simple: consistency. Use the same navigation mechanism throughout the site: common menus, common menu styling (for visual users). Use the same types of labels for repeated elements. If changes are made, they should only be made at the request of the user.
There are a lot of variables in designing and development a website which can create confusion for all users, not just the disabled. The issues that will cause problems for the disabled will almost always have potential to cause problems for all users.
What happens if I make a mistake?
Guideline 3.3 Input Assistance: Help users avoid and correct mistakes.
Every complex website or application includes systems where users submit input. Ecommerce certainly depends on user submissions: Shopping transactions don’t get very far without shipping addresses and payment information.
Ask Yourself: Why is this an accessibility issue?
One of the features of the new Guidelines is a focus on making experiences more than just possible for the disabled. Simple access is not sufficient; the experience should help support the customer during their visit.
So, to your benefit, following the WCAG guidelines for input assistance will give you a very handy checklist to look at where your shopping process could be causing problems. It’s all about error handling: What does the system do if a user makes a mistake?
The worst error message you might get is the one you don’t actually see. As such, simply providing error messages is a good start. If the visitor simply knows that something has gone wrong, they aren’t going to be sitting at home waiting for the package which will never arrive.
But a better solution is to ensure that labels and instructions are clear and thorough (to prevent errors) and that if an error occurs, the message presented provides sufficient information to allow the user to correct their error.
In short, understandability (for you) simply means taking a close look at your website and determining whether it actually makes sense. Solving the problems (particularly when it comes to forms) can be a challenge, but locating them requires little more than common sense. | <urn:uuid:ddabed2d-3dd7-4992-ba72-34498131bfd5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/1067-New-Accessibility-Guidelines-Part-III-Understandability | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398869.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00054-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906104 | 1,227 | 3.25 | 3 |
Discovering the first true "alien Earth" is a long-held dream of astronomers — and recent exoplanet discoveries suggest that their dream will come true in the not-too-distant future.
Scientists have found nearly 2,000 alien planets since the first such world was confirmed orbiting a sunlike star in 1995. More than half of these discoveries were made by NASA's Kepler space telescope, which launched in 2009 on a mission to determine how common Earth-like planets are throughout the Milky Way galaxy.
Kepler's observations have shown that small, rocky worlds like our own are abundant in the galaxy, and some of them may be capable of hosting life as we know it. [10 Exoplanets That Could Host Alien Life]
To qualify as potentially life-friendly, a planet must be relatively small (and therefore rocky) and orbit in the "habitable zone" of its star, which is loosely defined as a location where water can exist in liquid form on a world's surface. When telescope technology improves, other factors will be considered as well, such as the planet's atmospheric composition and how active its parent star is.
While Earth 2.0 remains elusive, here are what NASA considers to be the closest known analogues to our home planet.
This exoplanet, which lies just 22 light-years from Earth, is at least 4.5 times as massive as Earth, and researchers aren't sure whether or not it's rocky. Gliese 667Cc completes one orbit around its host star in a mere 28 days, but that star is a red dwarf considerably cooler than the sun, so the exoplanet is thought to lie in the habitable zone.
However, Gliese 667Cc — which was discovered with the European Southern Observatory's 3.6-meter telescope in Chile — may orbit close enough in to be baked by flares from the red dwarf.
Kepler-22b lies 600 light-years away. It was the first Kepler planet found in the habitable zone of its parent star, but the world is considerably larger than Earth — about 2.4 times our planet's size. It's unclear if this "super-Earth" planet is rocky, liquid or gaseous. Its orbit is about 290 days long.
Kepler-69c, which is about 2,700 light-years away, is about 70 percent larger than Earth. So, once again, researchers are unsure about its composition.
The planet completes one orbit every 242 days, making its position within its solar system comparable to that of Venus within ours. However, Kepler-69c's host star is about 80 percent as luminous as the sun, so the planet appears to be in the habitable zone.
This planet is about 40 percent larger than Earth and orbits a star much cooler than our sun. Its 267-day orbit, however, puts Kepler-62f squarely within the habitable zone.
The Kepler-62 system lies about 1,200 light-years away.
This planet is at most 10 percent larger than Earth, and it also appears to reside in the habitable zone of its star, though on the zone's outer edge; Kepler-186f receives just one-third of the energy from its star that Earth gets from the sun.
Kepler-186f's parent star is a red dwarf, so the alien world is not a true Earth twin. The planet lies about 500 light-years from Earth.
This world, whose discovery was announced last month, is the most Earth-like planet found so far, NASA officials say. Its parent star is very similar to our sun, and the planet orbits in the habitable zone. At 1.6 times the size of Earth, Kepler-452b has a "better than even chance" of being rocky, its discoverers have said. Kepler-452b resides 1,400 light-years from Earth.
Earth (for comparison)
Despite our planet's name, about 70 percent of its surface is covered with water. Earth orbits a middle-age star called the sun, which is about 4.5 billion years old and is expected to put out a consistent amount of energy for several billion years more. | <urn:uuid:4a9fded2-0a96-48df-b809-099cefc3552c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.space.com/30172-six-most-earth-like-alien-planets.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00184-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956069 | 858 | 3.59375 | 4 |
Positive feedback and tumorigenesis
The c-MYC protein is involved in the control of many basic biological functions, including cell growth and division. It is therefore vital for processes that require cell proliferation, such as embryonic development and the generation of all the cell types in the blood. Overproduction of c-MYC, on the other hand, can have lethal consequences for the organism. Continuous synthesis of c-MYC is a prominent feature of immortalized cells, which divide in an uncontrolled fashion and thus facilitate the formation of tumors. Normally, multiple mechanisms serve to regulate the expression of the gene for c-MYC, and keep the level of the protein present in cells within appropriate limits. In essence, the gene is activated only when a cell is instructed to do so by specific growth-promoting signals. If this failsafe mechanism is disabled, a second internal system switches in. This back-up circuit ensures that increased concentrations of c-MYC cause premature cell senescence (which makes cells unresponsive to growth signals) and induce programmed cell death. However, in tumor cells, these safeguards no longer function – and in some tumors and cell types it has emerged that c-MYC itself is responsible for knocking them out. “How c-MYC achieves this has remained largely unclear,” says Hermeking. In order to clarify the mechanisms involved, the researchers focused on the enzyme SIRT1 as a possible accomplice of c-MYC. As Hermeking explains, “SIRT1 seemed to us a likely candidate because a related enzyme has been shown to play a role in extending the lifespan of cells in lower organisms. In human cells, SIRT1 is known to inhibit a regulator that promotes senescence and programmed cell death.”
The hunch turned out to be correct, since the team, which included molecular biologists from Aachen University and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, was able to show that c-MYC actually enhances SIRT1 function in a number of different ways. First, it activates NAMPT (nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase), which is responsible for the synthesis of a molecule required for the action of SIRT1. Secondly, c-MYC represses an inhibitor of SIRT1, so releasing a further brake on its function. Finally, SIRT1 itself potentiates these effects by reducing the rate of degradation of c-MYC. The end result is a positive feedback loop which drives the continuous accumulation of both SIRT1 and c-MYC in the cell.
The c-MYC protein is synthesized in large amounts in most tumors. Furthermore, in certain cancers, such as lymphomas and cancers of the colon and the breast, c-MYC is known to play a causative role in the origin of the primary tumor. In these cases, mutations in the c-MYC gene itself, or in genes that regulate its expression, result in constant production of the c-MYC protein. The new findings are thus of particular relevance for the development of new treatment options for these types of cancer, since one would expect them to be highly sensitive to direct inhibition of SIRT1 or NAMPT. Interestingly, several studies in recent years have revealed that levels of NAMPT are also increased in many tumors. Indeed, a chemical inhibitor of NAMPT is already undergoing clinical trials. “Our study strongly suggests that the feedback loop initiated by excess c-MYC drives the overproduction of NAMPT. A combination of drugs that would allow us to inhibit the actions of both SIRT1 and NAMPT might therefore have a synergistic effect and could open up new therapeutic possibilities,” Menssen points out.
In addition, the new findings raise questions regarding the allegedly positive effect of a daily glass of red wine on lifespan. The putative health benefits of this regime have been attributed in part to the activation of SIRT1 by the compound resveratrol, which is found in red wine. Indeed, commercial development of pharmacological SIRT1 activators such as resveratrol is already underway – in the hope that they will slow the aging process and block the development of obesity and diabetes. In this context, Hermeking advises caution: “In the light of our results, these agents should only be used after further extensive study.”
The project was supported by a Habilitation Fellowship (funded by the Exzellence Initiative at LMU) to Dr. Antje Menssen, and by the Deutsche Krebshilfe e.V. and the Max-Planck-Society. (göd)
The c-MYC oncoprotein, the NAMPT enzyme, the SIRT1 inhibitor DBC1, and the SIRT1 deacetylase form a positive feedback loop.
A. Menssen, P. Hydbring, K. Kapelle, J. Vervoorts, J. Diebold, B. Lüscher, L.- G. Larsson, H. Hermeking
PNAS Early Edition 19.-23.12.2011
Professor Dr. Heiko Hermeking
Institute of Pathology, LMU Munich
Phone: +49 89 2180 - 73 685
Fax: +49 89 2180 - 73 697
Dr. Antje Menssen
Institute of Pathology, LMU Munich
Phone: +49 89 2180 - 73 673 | <urn:uuid:711cb1de-f9a6-4d69-85c9-ec3977b0d447> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.en.uni-muenchen.de/news/newsarchiv/2011/2011_hermeking.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394937.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00057-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917109 | 1,124 | 2.84375 | 3 |
90,000 flu deaths: Where did that number come from?
The estimate, released Tuesday, draws on analysis of how viruses operate, as well as their history. But it's a 'possibility' not a prediction, experts caution.
Atlanta — The warning is dire: Up to 90,000 "possible" deaths from a potential swine flu outbreak.
But how did the president's science advisers, who came up with the number, reach that estimate?
It is based on complicated models of how such illnesses are transmitted, how they mutate, how prepared the healthcare system is, and what's known from the patterns of past flu epidemics, such as the ones in 1918, 1957, and 1968.
It even taps the so-called "virus detectives," a branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that tracks, in the best Sherlock Holmes manner, the threats to America's health – often traveling to remote parts of the world to study outbreaks.
The problem with dire warnings, though, is that the complacency scientists are in part trying to break may be caused by the very studies they tout – the crying wolf syndrome. The avian bird flu predictions in 2005 included estimates of millions dead. Worldwide, 282 people died.
Accordingly, after swine flu fears abated this spring, only 1 in 8 Americans is now worried "a great deal" about the virus, according to an ABC News-Washington Post poll this week.
"Scientists walk a very fine line in how much information do we give: How much do we want to make people aware versus how much do we want to downplay it?" says Sarah Bass, an expert in health-risk communication at Temple University in Philadelphia.
Understanding the past to predict the future
In Tuesday's report, released by President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, the 90,000 deaths figure was couched as a "possibility" rather than a prediction. Annually, about 36,000 Americans die of the regular flu, according to CDC estimates.
The CDC said Tuesday that the numbers should be approached cautiously. "We don't necessarily see this as a likely scenario," Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told the New York Times.
Modern models are, in large part, based on data gleaned from past flu pandemics, including how viruses mutate to deadlier forms. But an August article in the Journal of the American Medical Association points out that past assumptions about, for example, the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic may be overstated.
Scientists have suggested that the 1918 flu was particularly deadly because it mutated late in the season, and flu models have taken that into account. But the authors of the August article – virologists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Md. – pieced together the genetics of the 1918 flu and found that that model might not be correct.
Instead, they say that there's cause to hope for "a more indolent pandemic course and fewer deaths" than in previous outbreaks.
" I think it's very difficult and perhaps a disservice to assume that a new pandemic is going to behave in a way like 1918," National Institute virologist Jeffrey Taubenberger told the Canadian Press.
A good, but flawed, model
One problem for today's flu detectives is that worldwide data is not complete since the event is ongoing. That means they have to rely on older data to fill in the blanks.
"What you have is probably a very good model," says Walter Dowdle, the former acting director of the CDC in Atlanta. "The problem is, does it apply to the present? There is a dilemma in trying to create a model at the same time an event is happening."
But he adds: "I don't think people are exaggerating the problem to create demand. When people make these predictions, it's based on what they consider genuine science."
Follow us on Twitter. | <urn:uuid:62498f1f-3395-40db-9da3-2ec2fdc2c99e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2009/0827/p02s04-usgn.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00186-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968295 | 831 | 2.875 | 3 |
Definitions of bee
- p. p. of Be; -- used for been. 2
n. - An insect of the order Hymenoptera, and family Apidae (the honeybees), or family Andrenidae (the solitary bees.) See Honeybee. 2
n. - A neighborly gathering of people who engage in united labor for the benefit of an individual or family; as, a quilting bee; a husking bee; a raising bee. 2
n. - Pieces of hard wood bolted to the sides of the bowsprit, to reeve the fore-topmast stays through; -- called also bee blocks. 2
The word "bee" uses 3 letters: B E E.
No direct anagrams for bee found in this word list.
Shorter words found within bee:
All words formed from bee by changing one letter
Browse words starting with bee by next letter | <urn:uuid:fbb9db4f-46d4-40e4-9039-a2a742b69e5f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.morewords.com/word/bee/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00158-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.896478 | 191 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Would you mind telling me the difference b/w Future Simple & Future Perfect.
1) I will complete my work till/by tomorrow.
2) I will have completed my work by tomorrow.
I will be grateful to you if u explain this point.
The Future Perfect connects two events. The event that will happen first is shown by adding will have -ed to the verb, and the event that will happen after that is shown by using the Future Simple, like this,Originally Posted by Aroma
1st Event: I will complete my work. => I will have completed my work
2nd Event: Max will visit me. => Max visits me.
I will have completed my work (1st event) by the time Max visits me (2nd event) tomorrow.
In your example sentence 2), shown below, the 2nd event has been left out of the sentence:
2) I will have completed my work by [the time Max visits me] tomorrow. | <urn:uuid:33ba4e0d-22ca-437e-8b53-c94b6bb55306> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/threads/9143-Difference-b-w-Future-Simple-amp-Future-Perfect?p=49202 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00001-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966403 | 203 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Date: Mar 3, 2013 10:16 PM
Author: Brad Cooper
Subject: Curvature on a curve and circle
The "well behaved, smooth" function f(x) has endpoints f(0) = f(h) = 0. The
curve of the function has length s1.
An arc of a circle passing through (0, 0) and (0, h) has fixed curvature k
and its arc length is also s1.
It is required to show that a point must exist on f(x) where curvature is
I have set up a CAS program to simulate the situation and the proposition
held up in every case.
I have been working with the idea that, at the required point, the normal to
f(x) is normal to the circle.
I am not making much headway. Any ideas appreciated.
Number of stars = 10 x Number of grains of sand on all the beaches and
deserts of Earth. | <urn:uuid:60c59a8d-44d2-4da6-9c04-00fc868f66fc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mathforum.org/kb/plaintext.jspa?messageID=8512259 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394414.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00010-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913572 | 208 | 3.109375 | 3 |
The Powerful Force of Flares
The forces generated in flares can accelerate solar energetic particles along open fieldlines all the way from the Sun out to the Earth.
Li et al., Astron. & Astrophys., 503, 1013, 2009.. View full-size photo here.
From Small Beginnings ...
Even the smallest spotless active regions can generate coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that travel out across interplanetary space.
Steed et al., Ann. Geophys., 26,3159, 2008.. View full-size photo here.
One Active Region & Opposite Magnetic CMEs
A single active region can produce CMEs that have oppositely directed magnetic fields when measured near the Earth.
Harra et al., Solar Physics, 244, 85-114, 2007.. View full-size photo here. | <urn:uuid:594e0d4a-65bc-4d94-926b-a1824aee2629> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ucl.ac.uk/mssl/solar/research/tabs/sun-earth | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00113-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.779145 | 176 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Dig-a-Dino Tyrannosaurus Rex
Be a paleontologist! Dig and excavate the skeleton of the dinosaur which ruled the earth in the prehistoric times, the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Dig and excavate the skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. This kit includes a plaster block and a specially designed digging tool to help excavate the skeleton. Provides hours of fun for you as a paleontologist!
Assemble the skeleton to form a Tyrannosaurus Rex model (19cm long)! Pose and display it. It’s so cool!
Did you know? Tyrannosaurus means the “Tyrant Lizard” and Rex means “King”. The Tyrannosaurus Rex was about 14 meters long and 6 meters high and estimated at 6 tons in weight. Look for more fun facts inside the kit and challenge your friends with the KidzQuiz included. (10 sets of questions and answers)
Ages 7+ (not for children under 3 years old due to small parts)
Box size: 6.5” x 8.5” | <urn:uuid:935d77da-41a3-4e89-adfb-bc1e7ad6943a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.storeforknowledge.com/Dig-a-Dino-Tyrannosaurus-Rex-P4334C898885087.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00167-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.89557 | 220 | 3.046875 | 3 |
However, today it's the turn of Oekonomische Encyklopädie of 1773 (pages 160 - 163).
"Wiessbier or BreihanI'm struck most by the minimal amount of hops used and the spices. That, and the use of oats, barley and wheat, make it resemble a late-medieval beer. Breihan seems to fit somewhere between Belgian Witbier and Berliner Weisse.
Beer is also brewed from wheat malt, either from that alone or with the addition of barley malt, sometimes without hops, sometimes with a very small amount of hops. The general name of this beer is Breihan or Broihahn; in many pplaces it is also called Weissbier, although this is mostly made from air-dried barley malt [Luft-Malz]. I want to only say this and that, because anyhow you can refer for everything else to the general instructions. When just wheat malt is to be used, which must ro air-dried or only very lightly kilned, so that there is no brown to be seen, to give the beer a yellowish-brown colour; so it can be reckoned, for example, for 3 Tonne [1 Braunschweig Tonne = 101.18 litres] beer 12 at most 15 bushels of malt, partly because wheat is more than double the price of barley; partly also because it contains more than twice as much strength, which is extracted during brewing . Brewing itself is carried out exactly as shown on page 153, except that usually when the wort is drawn off it is allowed to run through some hops, although it wouldn't be incorrect, for a brew of 30 Tonne, to soak a few pounds of hops in warm water for 1 or 2 hours and to later mix this extract thoroughly with the wort. To give just one example, I will detail the method of brewing Breihan which Hr. Verf. des Chemischen Lehrbegriffs from the Wallerius gives, and which presumably must be used in Sweden. It consists of the following:'Take 2.5 parts of barley malt, a half part of wheat malt and as much oat malt and air-dried malt as you want. After they have all been mixed, they are milled, and wort made in the way beer is made, except that a handful of hops is laid in front of the hole in the Gestelkübel [a tub in a frame]. About 3 to 4 Kanne of this [the wort] are specially drawn off; of the remainder, a fifth is boiled and afterwards, while it is still warm, mixed with finely ground spices, such as cloves, cinnamon, coriander seeds, Galgant [ don't know what that one is] and violet root; when it has cooled, start it ferementing with a good fermentation medium, including two parts of French brandy. Afterwards, watch to see when the peaks and towers raised during fermentation begin to collapse. As soon as this happens, the liquid has to be put into barrels and the barrels filled with the wort which was held back.'"
I would love to know when the last true Breihan was brewed. My guess would be between 1880 and 1900. Any of you home brewers fancy reviving it? | <urn:uuid:c7f9cfca-4e67-4d41-ae56-275a407b22bb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://barclayperkins.blogspot.ca/2008/03/breihan-broyhan-part-ii.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00062-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970818 | 688 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Our educational institutions form such a deep part of the American fabric that we might be excused for spending more time dreaming wistfully about days past than fixing them for the future. And for good reason: Whether it’s the K-12 down the block or the university with enough gravity to create its own neighborhoods, these public buildings form important parts of our social and civic lives. We learn, we gather, we vote. That will likely never change.
And yet, for all of the emotional investments we've made in them, these institutions have failed to keep pace with an accelerating world. That’s not for lack of trying, of course, but budgets are low and needs are high. The last government report on the state of our nation’s schools—conducted in 1995—found that the average school building was 42 years old. With the our Green Building Council estimating that U.S. Pre-K-12 schools are due for $540 billion in repairs and modernizations, it’s easy to see how classroom design can fall to the bottom of the list.
Fortunately for students and staff alike, that view is changing. Hard data linking modernized school environments to student achievement is beginning to trickle in—a 2013 study in the British journal Building and Environment found that a good learning environment can account for up to a quarter of a student’s “learning progression”—but much of what we know at this point is intuitive. It doesn’t matter what level of education you’re at; when your classroom is cramped, your desk is painful or the light just isn’t right, it’s hard to concentrate.
And so, with funding increasingly being tied
to school performance and competition coming
in the form of private and online schools, administrators and superintendents are committing to the improvement of classrooms in a way we haven’t seen in decades. So how can you help create a school students will thrive in? Here’s what a few people in the know had to say.
Perhaps one of the biggest shifts in education design currently taking place is the movement—some might say flight—away from the lecture hall mentality many of us grew up with. Some of that shift can be attributed to the fact that we now understand that people learn differently—some learn through sound or visuals, while others are better on the move—and some can be chalked up to the parallel shift taking place in the corporate world, giving us spaces with fewer divisions, more flexibility and more choice.
“Twenty years ago, you had students sitting at a desk, all facing forward.” says Jeff Wood, national sales manager with Bretford. “Today, there’s the expectation that there is going to be more collaboration, whether it’s between the student and the teacher or the students working in small groups together.”
Studies have revealed that it’s the act of connecting with others that improves our learning and retention.
According to Herman Miller’s “Rethinking the Classroom,” a 2000 study from the National Training Laboratories found that the highest rates of information retention came from discussion groups, practice by doing and students teaching others (50, 75 and 80 percent, respectively). Lecture learning delivered a measly 5 percent retention rate.
So it’s critical to bring students and faculty together quickly and easily. Wheeled desks and tables are popular for their ability to allow teachers and students to reconfigure the classroom with a minimum of disruption. Steelcase’s Node and KI’s Learn2 are popular thanks to their casters and storage options, but other products, such as SmartLink desks from HON or Rulo personal workstations from Vertseel can create equally flexible spaces. For classes that might require more work surface, training tables, such as the z series from ABCO or Motion tables from Interior Concepts, can provide easy mobility and compact storage.
Tech-enabled collaboration stations are also making the jump to education, with Bretford introducing a line of teaming tables intended for common areas and media centers.
As a side note, creating connections between people is important, but the modern classroom also needs connections for its technology. “The one thing that feeds learning in our schools, regardless of what level, is power access,” says Karen Volner, director of furniture for Business Interiors by Staples. Whether it’s integrated into the furniture, delivered through a unit like Smith System’s I~O Post or a device like Coalesse’s Power Pod, convenient power access will keep students learning and teachers happy. Tablet and laptop carts from MooreCo and Anthro can keep tech tools charged and ready to go when not in use. | <urn:uuid:f1aec744-74b1-4e86-ba60-de295f88d317> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.interiorsandsources.com/article-details/articleid/15793/title/remedial-design.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398075.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00079-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950076 | 984 | 2.625 | 3 |
The numbers are staggering. There are more than 78,000 missing from World War II, and 8,100 personnel missing from the Korean War.
The numbers of missing in action (MIA) military personnel from America's wars are larger than the size of many foreign armed forces.
In Vietnam, the war's end left 2,583 Americans unaccounted for. Thirty-five years later, the number of missing is at 1,798, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. Even the Cold War has 126 Americans listed as MIA.
That's part of the reason that the country will honor prisoners of war (POW) and MIA Americans on Friday across the nation.
The Craig ceremony is scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday at the Moffat County Courthouse, 221 W. Victory Way.
"We need to take some time to recognize those who were lost," said Bill Harding, veterans service officer for Moffat County. "We are planning a short speech, a gun salute and the playing of taps."
Harding said the flag will be lowered to half-staff, before being fully raised to conclude the ceremony.
Former POWs from the nation's conflicts also will be honored.
Congress defines a POW as a person who, while serving on active duty, was forcibly detained by an enemy government or a hostile force during periods of war or situations comparable to war.
There are 16,884 former POWs receiving compensation benefits from the U.S. Depart-ment of Veterans Affairs, according to the department's Web site.
Records show that 142,246 Americans were captured and interned during World War I, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War, Somalia and Kosovo conflicts and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
At Tuesday's meeting of the Moffat County commissioners, a proclamation was approved naming Sept. 15 as POW/MIA recognition day in Moffat County.
For Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 4265 Commander Bud Nelson, the day is important for the survivors.
"They may not know about our effort to honor them, but the families do," Nelson said. "We support the families of the MIAs, and we won't stop until everyone is accounted for."
He said the same is true with the former POWs in America. Nelson said America recognizes the sacrifice made by those held in captivity and won't forget what they gave for our freedoms.
"We don't know the price paid by those missing in action," Nelson said. "But the MIAs and the POWs, we want them to know that we think about them, and we appreciate what they did."
Dan Olsen can be reached at 824-7031, ext. 207, or email@example.com.
What: POW and MIA remembrance ceremony
When: 2 p.m. Friday
Where: Moffat County Courthouse, 221 W. Victory Way | <urn:uuid:9b626560-07f0-451c-b50d-b1889a2b927c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.craigdailypress.com/news/2006/sep/13/a_day_of/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00096-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961304 | 601 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Q&A: Supernova Remnants and Neutron Stars
I saw a photo designated Cas A that is labeled as a 320 year old
event from a location 10,000 light years away. I was wondering
how the event could have happened 320 years ago and the
radiation that produced the image arrive in time for me to view
it. Have I misread the caption?
We have a special section explaining the age of Cas A. Try http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/0237/age.html | <urn:uuid:134c022b-bca2-424a-8330-ffc1afccb990> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.chandra.harvard.edu/resources/faq/sources/snr/snr-6.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00145-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926078 | 112 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Marking a Turning Point
December 1, 2009
On Aug. 30, 1875, Deputy Surveyor Charles L. DuBois stood on an open plateau above the Uintah River Valley. His instructions were to “select the most available point within the reserve for an initial point” from which the survey of the Uintah Valley Reservation would commence. The point DuBois was about to select would mark more than a physical location. It would mark a turning point in American history.
The idea to rehabilitate the Initial Point of the Uintah Special Meridian in eastern Utah came up at the May 2009 board meeting of the Utah Council of Land Surveyors (UCLS). From a surveyor’s perspective, the initial point, recently marked by a 16-penny nail in the rural intersection of two roads, didn’t present much of a challenge. Research of the point’s history revealed that its position had been marked in 1953 by a brass cap, which lay 3 feet below the surface of the roadway. The rehabilitation project wouldn’t require much more than a few hours of excavation, a new pipe and cap extended to the surface, a bit of concrete, and an access cover to restore the point’s utility for future surveys.
However, from a historical perspective, there was a much greater story to be uncovered--a story worthy of commemoration. The Initial Point of the Uintah Special Meridian is one of 38 initial points established throughout the United States and is one of only six specially designated for the surveys of Indian reservation lands in the 1870s.
I suggested that this project might be of some interest to the CFedS program administrators and could provide an opportunity to coordinate their work with the tribal land surveys. Uintah County Surveyor John Slaugh immediately began presenting the idea to the Ute tribal council, and Jerry Allred, county surveyor of the adjoining Duchesne (pronounced Doo-Shane) County, approached the county commissioners. I initiated contacts with Don Buhler, chief cadastral surveyor at the BLM Washington, D.C., office; Dan Webb, chief cadastral surveyor of the BLM Utah office; and Roger Green, CFedS program manager.
Everyone we contacted responded with an unexpected enthusiasm for the project. The consensus grew in favor of not only rehabilitating the point but also including a historical roadside marker to commemorate the establishment of the initial point. Focused on the surveying and historical aspects, we had no idea of what the project would really entail, how much it would cost, or how we would ever accomplish the task. What started as a simple rehabilitation project had mushroomed into a community project that would become the focal point of the UCLS annual fall forum.
Encroaching Pioneer Settlements
A simple Google search for “Uintah Special Meridian” reveals a tale of westward expansion and pioneer settlement as well as a clash between cultures of the Indians and European immigrants. The initial point not only established a geodetic position for the start of the surveys, it also marked a pivotal change in federal Indian policy, which was previously dominated by removal, treaties and war. The period following the point’s establishment led to the allotment of the reservation lands and, ultimately, the pioneer settlement of nearly half of those lands.
The story of the initial point began with a letter penned by Samuel C. Stanbaugh, surveyor general of Utah, concerning the pending survey and settlement of the Uintah Valley by Mormon settlers. On Oct. 3, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln, in immediate response to Stanbaugh’s warning, issued a proclamation for “the entire valley of the Uintah River within Utah Territory, extending on both sides of said river to the crest of the first range of contiguous mountains on each side, to be reserved to the United States and set apart as an Indian reservation” encompassing 2,180,000 acres. Congress confirmed President Lincoln’s 1861 action on May 5, 1864, creating the Uintah Valley Reservation. The land was “set apart for permanent settlement and exclusive occupation of such of the different tribes of Indians of [Utah] territory as may be induced to inhabit the same.”
A treaty was concluded with the Ute Indians of eastern Utah on June 8, 1865, in which they ceded all their land claims in eastern Utah except for the Uintah Valley, which was reserved for their exclusive use and occupation. This treaty was never ratified by Congress. By 1870, most members of the Tumpanawach, San Pitch, Pahvant, Sheberetch, Cumumba, and the Uintah bands of Utes relocated to the reservation and became absorbed into the Uintah band.
In the 1860s, the Uintah Valley Reservation consisted of a vast area of land far removed from any pioneer settlement. The valley was accessed by a single wagon road extending 200 miles from Salt Lake City over rough and uneven terrain, rivers, streams and mountain passes. Brigham Young’s 1861 settlement scouting party described the isolated area as “one vast contiguity of waste … valueless excepting for nomadic purposes, hunting grounds for Indians and to hold the world together.”
Throughout the coming decade, despite the remoteness of the reservation, pioneer settlement extended closer, threatening to encroach upon the reservation lands and providing the impetus for a survey of the reservation boundaries. In 1875, news came of measuring off the land, causing the Utes to speculate as to what was going to happen to them. Would they be moved again?
The Survey of the Uintah Reservation
On Aug. 3, 1875, Nathan Kimball, surveyor general in Salt Lake City, was authorized to enter Contract No. 64 with DuBois to establish the southwest and northeast boundaries from the Green River to the base of the Uintah Mountains by surveying and marking the line with monuments placed at one-mile intervals. DuBois and his party arrived at the agency in the latter part of August and commenced operations. He selected the site for the Initial Point of the Uintah Special Meridian, marked it with a “mound of stone 6 feet in diameter at the base by 4 feet high, with a stone 20in x 12in x 10in on the top marked I.P. 1875” and commenced his survey north, south, east and west from this point. (This description provided the impetus for the design of the historical marker that now commemorates the survey.)
DuBois’ instructions provided for a unique survey process called the three-mile method. The method involved dividing the land not only into townships measuring 6 miles by 6 miles with 36 sections in each township and placing stone monuments at one-half mile intervals but also further dividing each section into 40-acre allotments by setting a stone monument at every corner of each 40-acre tract. By June 30, 1876, DuBois had run 1,300 miles of line, set more than 4,000 stone monuments, and subdivided more than 161,000 acres of Uintah Indian Reservation land.
The change in federal Indian policy from 1870 to 1900 focused on breaking up communal living on the reservations by granting land allotments to individual Indians, a concept completely foreign to their culture. The land had provided their needs like a mother would a child; it was more closely associated with ancestral heritage than a thing to be possessed. However, the U.S. government believed that the Indian population could be better assimilated into American society if they were given ownership and responsibility of their own tract of land, making it no longer necessary for the government to oversee Indian welfare. In his annual report to Congress on Aug. 15, 1878, J.J. Critchlow, Indian agent for the Uintah Reservation, expresssed the “uneasiness” caused by “constant apprehension that some radical change, either in their location or in the administration of their affairs, will take place, and thus interfere with all their industrial pursuits. They are afraid that this reservation will be thrown open to white settlers, they will be removed to some other place, and thus lose all their labor.”
In Critchlow’s twelfth and final annual report dated Sept. 1, 1882, he observed, “some of the clouds that darkened our prospects at the commencement of the year have passed away without any violent storms, and that the prospects for future comfort and prosperity are more encouraging.” Yet fewer than five years after Critchlow’s departure, the clouds would begin to amass once more and culminate with a torrent.
The Allotment Era
The General Allotment Act of February 8, 1887 (the Dawes Act) provided that all Indians on or off a reservation would be allotted a tract of land from 20 acres up to 160 acres depending upon the type of land being allotted.4 Fifteen years later, the Indian Appropriations Act of May 27, 19025 required all allotments within the Uintah Reservation be completed by Oct. 1, 1903 (later extended to Sept. 1, 1905)6 and the remainder of the reservation to be restored to public domain and sold to homesteaders for $1.25 per acre.
In a flurry of response to the 1902 act, a rush of surveys was simultaneously commenced in an effort to complete the exterior boundary marking and the interior subdivision of the reservation. Arthur H. and Fred M. Brown were commissioned to run and mark one-mile and half-mile monuments along all but 41 previously established miles of the 314 mile reservation perimeter. During the years from 1903 to 1905, no fewer than 20 individual General Land Office survey crews were contracted to survey the interior sections and subdivisions of the reservation land.
On April 3, 1905, a commission composed of Army Capt. C.G. Hall, acting Indian agent of the Uintah Agency; W.H. Code, chief engineer of the Indian Irrigation Service; and Charles S. Carter, a citizen of Utah who was long familiar with local conditions and the needs of the Indians, was appointed to allot land to the Indians and to select the lands to be reserved for use in connection with Indian service. By June of 1905, all allotments had been completed. Heads of a family were given 80 acres with an additional 40 acres to each other person.
By presidential proclamation on July 14, 1905, Theodore Roosevelt declared all unallotted lands in the Uintah Indian Reservation open for settlement under the provisions of the homestead and town-site laws. Hundreds of non-Indian “heads of households” lined up around the land office to pay their $1.25 per acre. Of the original 2,180,000-acre Uintah Reservation, roughly 104,000 acres were allotted to individual Indian families and 1,072,000 acres held in trust for their benefit as grazing, timber and reservoir lands. The remaining 1,004,000 acres were returned to the public domain.
The Commemoration Project
What had begun as an idea to simply rehabilitate the initial point monument turned into a commemoration project with the goal of recognizing not only the survey but also the greater impact of the related historic events.
The Uintah County commissioners stepped forward with a donation from their tourism fund to construct a highway turnout for the placement of a historical marker as well as all construction costs for the marker itself. The Utah Council of Land Surveyors determined to cover the cost of recovering the monument position, raising it to grade, and installing a custom cast brass marker and access cover. The Tapoof family agreed to donate the land, investing part of their ancestral heritage.
A CAD drawing of the site plan generated by John Slaugh accompanied by a marker design I had compiled from DuBois’ field-note description provided enough information for the county road crew and Brad Murray of Murray Masonry Construction in Vernal, Utah, to construct the historical marker. A 240-pound custom-cut sandstone manufactured by Devin Taylor of American Monument in Harrisville, Utah, and donated by UCLS was mounted atop the historical marker. Working closely with the tribal historical committee, I generated the language and the graphics layout for the three Novalloy plaques, which recount the historical events prior to, during and after the DuBois survey. The plaques were produced by John Peters of Interpretive Graphics Signs & Systems. One hundred fifty high-polish commemorative brass cap paperweight replicas of the initial point, manufactured by Berntsen International Inc., were donated to each registered participant by the Uintah County Commission with the condition that the registration fees for the fall forum participants would be reduced by $40.
While construction of the turnout and marker was under way, a group of surveyors representing the BLM, Uintah County, Duchesne County and the Utah Council of Land Surveyors joined forces at the intersection of Highway 121 and 3500 East Street, approximately five miles east of Enola, Utah, to recover the position of the initial point. The group excavated to a depth of 3 feet below the highway surface recovering the last-known relic witnessing its official position--a 4-inch-diameter brass cap set by cadastral surveyor Andrew Nelson in June 1953. (The 1953 survey was undertaken as an administrative policy of the BLM to restore all initial points of the public land surveys because of their great historical value.) A new brass cap, positioned directly above the 1953 monument, was installed under a specially constructed cover cast with the words “Initial Point,” making the position more accessible for future land boundary surveys. The final construction costs--completely paid for through public, private and UCLS donations--are estimated to have exceeded $30,000, the greater part of the funds being donated by the Uintah County commissioners from their tourism fund.
The Dedication Ceremony
The impact of the event wasn’t fully understood by most of the 135-plus people who gathered for the dedication ceremony on the morning of Sept. 18, 2009. The setting of the brass cap marker and observation of its new position using the Trimble R8 GPS equipment held the fascination of some of the surveyors present.
But the real spirit overshadowing the event was unmistakable as Larry Cesspooch (translated Whitebelly), Ute spiritual storyteller, began speaking. “I have struggled with what to say today because this is not a good thing for us,” he said, referring to his tribal members. “It’s like showing you something that’s always going to remind you what happened. But we can’t change the past. We can only move forward.” He then proceeded around the marker in prayer beginning at the north, following the compass points to the east, south and west, and finishing by again facing north. Cesspooch blessed the historical marker with a nearly inaudible traditional Ute prayer while waving an eagle wing across a smoldering rope of sweet grass. “What comes through the eagle feathers comes from the Maker. The sweet grass smoke can change negative to positive. … You all have souls,” he said. “Pray for the same thing.”
Jerry Tapoof expressed his mixed sentiments, as well. While considering it an honor to dedicate a portion of his family’s land--a portion of their heritage--for the construction of the highway turnout and marker, there was, as he said, the other side to the story. However, despite his mixed feelings, he said, “We have to come together as human beings.”
At a gathering following the dedication, a presentation was made by Dan Webb on the history of the surveys following in the footsteps of C.L. DuBois. Danial Perry, assistant professor, Engineering and Graphics Design Technology department, Utah Valley University, gave a presentation on a key corner recovery project of the corners of the Uintah Reservation boundary funded by a Communities of Engaged Learning grant. I made a presentation on the history of the reservation, much of which has been recounted here, with the hope that I would be able to instill, if only briefly, some of the passions stirred by my involvement with this project. Following my presentation, three half-size (20 x 45-inch) framed reproductions of the “Wagon Road from Salt Lake City to Uintah Agency, Utah, October 1878” were presented to the Uintah and Duchesne county commissions and to the Ute tribe to thank them for their support of the commemoration project and to convey UCLS’s desire to improve the highway of communication between the county governments, the Ute tribe and the surveying profession through the Certified Federal Surveyor program. Commemorative brass cap replicas of the initial point were also given to members of the Tapoof family for their generous gift of their family’s heritage, without which none of the project would have been possible.
Many books have been written about surveying and the particular marks left upon the surface of the Earth. This project, which opened my eyes to the heritage of the Ute people and the strength of their character, left its mark upon me.
1. Initial Points of the Rectangular Survey System, C. Albert White; 430 (1996)
2. Deseret News, Sep 25, 1861
3. Indian Agent J.J. Critchlow, of the Uintah Agency, served from 1870 to 1882 during a time when appointed agents typically served between a few months to two years. He is still considered a “white hero” by the Ute tribe.
4. 24 Stat. L. 388
5. 32 Stat. L. 263
6. 33 Stat. L. 1069
7. On April 2, 1902, The New York Times ran the headline, “Uintah Fight Compromise – Bill Throwing Open Indian Lands Reported to Senate – Outcome of Dispute Over Certain Mining Lease Grants – Partial Victory for People of Utah.” Along with a report of “queer things” showing government officials engaged in lease grants of reservation land, the article announced that “the representation made to the Indians was that, if they did not agree to the lease, their ‘Great Father’ at Washington would take their lands away from them.” | <urn:uuid:22095600-e059-45e9-9082-290baf9244ae> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pobonline.com/articles/94114-marking-a-turning-point | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00062-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957303 | 3,830 | 2.515625 | 3 |
The Global Sun Temperature Project
What is the Global Sun Temperature Project?
Join schools from around the world as they determine how their geographic location (i.e. where they live) affects their average daily temperature and hours of sunlight. Specifically, students will:
- Measure the temperature and record the number of minutes of sunlight per day over a common week.
- Compare and contrast the results with classes from all over the world.
- Determine how proximity to the equator affects average daily temperature and hours of sunlight.
Thanks to all those who participated in the 2015 Global Sun Temperature Project!
The Global Sun Temperature Project is recommended for upper elementary, middle school and high school students (ages 10-18). There is NO fee to participate however we do ask you to register first.
2015 Verified Raw Data Sorted by Latitude (MS Excel Spreadsheet) 2015 Data | <urn:uuid:6db08a55-5831-463f-8c93-43039f22c84a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.k12science.org/curriculum/tempproj/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00033-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906979 | 179 | 3.671875 | 4 |
The United States Geological Survey is poised to shut down the Landsat 5, an observational satellite that has been circling our fair planet since 1984. The announcement comes about 25 years after when the satellite was originally slated for deactivation. During its life span, Landsat 5 has taken over 2.5 million snapshots.
The satellite is being shut down due to a gyroscope that broke, which the USGS announced on December 21. The gyroscope cannot be repaired, and thus ends the Landsat 5's long life. The satellite's decommissioning won't be instant, however, with the USGS stating that it will take place over most of 2013. The unit has made in excess of 150,000 trips around the Earth.
The Geological Survey's Director Marcia McNutt offered this statement. "Any major event since 1984 that left a mark on this Earth larger than a football field was likely recorded by Landsat 5, whether it was a hurricane, a tsunami, a wildfire, deforestation, or an oil spill." The Landsat legacy won't die with the Landsat 5, however.
The USGS has another observational satellite in orbit, the Landsat 7, which was launched in 1999. Likewise, there are plans to launch another dubbed the Landsat 8 in February. The first Landsat satellite, the Landsat 1, was launched in July of 1972. Says Anne Castle of the Department of the Interior Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, "This is the end of an era for a remarkable satellite, and the fact that it flew for almost three decades is a testament to the NASA engineers and the USGS team who launched it and kept it flying well beyond its expected lifetime." | <urn:uuid:d6d2b59e-9f12-46f1-ae94-182f878bc5d3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.slashgear.com/landsat-5-a-satellite-that-has-been-observing-earth-since-1984-to-be-shutdown-26262224/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00151-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963778 | 343 | 3.421875 | 3 |
The XB-70A had its genesis in Boeing Aircraft Corporation's Project MX-2145, in which the contractor conducted studies relating to the type of weapon system required to deliver high-yield special weapons. The contractor, along with the Band Corporation, considered various types of weapon system carriers. Among them were manned intercontinental bombers, delivering both gravity bombs and pilotless parasite bombers; manned bombers, air-refueled by tankers to attend their ranges and cover round-trip intercontinental distances; manned aircraft and drone bomber combinations; and unmanned bombers. During these studies Air Force Headquarters requested enlargement of the study program to include possible trade-off information; for example, the potential results of trading weight for speed, weight for range, or speed for range.
Boeing presented the requested information on 22 January 1954, pointing out the possibilities of a bomber aircraft powered by chemically augmented nuclear powerplants. For the first time, it appeared feasible to develop a weapon system of a reasonable size possessing the unlimited range characteristics of nuclear propulsion,' plus a high-altitude, supersonic dash capability. The development of nuclear propulsion for aircraft or missiles originated in 1945. In May 1946, the Army Air Forces signed a "letter of intent" with the Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation, thereby conferring on the highly classified NEPA (Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft) program a legal right to exist. While favoring the program, General LeMay, then Deputy Chief of Air Staff for Research and Development, said the work to be performed under NEPA would be somewhat speculative. In March 1954, Boeing presented promising data on a chemically augmented, nuclear-powered aircraft. At the same time, both the Convair Corporation and Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, under contracts with the Office of Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion, submitted similar data.
In the fall of 1954, the Air Force Council endorsed 2 independent but simultaneous development programs, one for a nuclear bomber capable of short bursts of supersonic speed; the other, for a subsonic, chemically powered, conventional bomber. General Operational Requirement No. 81, issued in Match 1955, specifically called for the development of a nuclear-powered weapon system that would be capable of performing a strategic mission of 11,000 nautical miles in radius, of which 1,000 miles were to be traveled at speeds in excess of mach 2, at an altitude of more than 60,000 feet. The Air Force Council's announcement closely followed the October publication of General Operational Requirement No. 38. The document was brief. It simply called for an intercontinental bombardment weapon (a piloted bomber) that would replace the B-52 and stay in service during the decade beginning in 1965.
The Air Force, on 22 March 1955, put out a second general operational requirement, No. 82, which superseded No. 38. Like its predecessor, the new general operational requirement was short. It called for a piloted strategic intercontinental bombardment weapon system that would be capable of carrying a 20,000-pound load of high-yield nuclear weapons, a requirement increased to 25,000 pounds by a September amendment. But the task of defining the Air Force's new project fell to the Air Research and Development Command. The command, therefore, had issued a study requirement, designated No. 22, which identified the Air Force's future new bomber as "Weapon System 110A" and established 1963 as the target date for the first wing of 30 operational vehicles. Study Requirement 22's performance objectives were mach .9 for cruise speed and "maximum possible" speed during a 1,000-nautical mile penetration. Still, high speed was of less importance than the penetration altitude and radius. A revision of Study Requirement 22 on 15 April stipulated that the new weapon system's cruise speed should not be less than mach .9, unless a lower speed would result in a significant range increase. There were other important changes. Instead of the subsonic requirement covered by General Operational Requirement 38, maximum possible "supersonic" speed within the combat zone was desired. On I 1 October, Air Research and Development Command amended the revised Study Requirement 22. The amendment set July 1964 as the target date for the first operational wing of B-70s-so designated in February 1958. The purpose of the delay was to avoid financial and overall weapon system risks, if at all possible. In 1955, the Air Research and Development Command estimated the weapon system's costs through fiscal year 1962 at $2.5 billion. The estimate covered development, test aircraft, and 30 operational bombers, but assumed that a nuclear bomber would also be developed, that a new engine for the chemically powered bomber would be created, and that the price of certain subsystems, earmarked for the B-70, would be borne by the nuclear aircraft program.
In early 1955, the Air Force released another general operational requirement (No. 96) for an intercontinental reconnaissance system having similar objectives as the previously established bombardment system, known as Weapon System 110A. In July, the Air Research and Development Command issued a study requirement of General Operational Requirement 96 that validated a reconnaissance version of the B-70. The reconnaissance system was identified as Weapon System 110L. The 2 systems were combined soon afterward, becoming in the process Weapon System 110A/L.
In June 1955, the Air Staff directed that development of Weapon System 110A/L be initiated as soon as possible with a multiple, competitive "Phase I" program. The use of "phase" contracts was not new, having been approved as early as 1944 by the Army Air Forces to facilitate the termination of contracts dealing with highly experimental and, therefore, very uncertain programs. Although 6 eligible contractors were contacted, only the Boeing Airplane Company and North American Aviation, Incorporated chose to submit proposals.
On 8 November 1955, the Air Force awarded letter contracts to both Boeing and North American for the Phase I development of Weapon System 110A/L. Boeing's letter contract amounted to $2.6 million; that of North American, to $1.8 million. Each contractor had to furnish a design for the required weapon system; provide models, drawings, specifications, reports, and other data; conduct studies and wind tunnel tests, and construct a mockup. The mockup was to be completed and ready for Air Force inspection within 2 years of the date on which the contractor accepted the contract. Contractor fees could not exceed $450,000.
The 2 letter contracts became definitive in 1956. The Boeing contract, AF33(600)-31802, signed on IS March, specified a total estimated cost of $19.9 million; the North American contract, AF33(600)-31801, signed on 16 April, $9.9 million, subject to renegotiation. The Air Force, in its definitive contracts, allotted originally $4.5 million to Boeing and $1.8 million to North American.
Concurrent with the letter contracts of 1955, the Air Force established specific requirements that were included in the final documents signed in 1956. 'Ib begin with, each contract emphasized that the purpose of the entire program was to develop, test, and produce for wing strength by 1963 (much sooner than decided in October 1955) a chemically powered weapon system which, in conjunction with the nuclear-powered bomber, would replace the B/RB-52 as a "first line operational weapon."
With regard to operational characteristics, the new weapon system was to rely primarily on nuclear weapons to accomplish its mission, and the origin and termination of its operations were to be within the limits of the North American continent. The Air Force specified that weapon system I l0A/L would have to be capable of performing during the day, at night, and in any kind of weather. A minimum unrefueled radius of 4,000 nautical miles, and a desirable extended radius of 5,500 nautical miles were required, with aerial refueling allowed in the latter case. Finally, the minimum target altitude was to be 60,000 feet, and the contracts reiterated that cruise speed could not be less than mach .9, with maximum supersonic dash speed in the combat zone.
These were exacting characteristics. Studies of conventional aircraft had shown that no such performance could be obtained with proven design techniques. The Air Force acknowledged that the ability to satisfy its demands, particularly the radius-of-action and speed requirements, would depend on the use of high-energy fuels, new engines, new design techniques, and some other break-through in the state-of-the-art by the operational date of 1963. The Air Force also made sure that the contractors knew that while range and speed trade-offs would be acceptable in order to assure maximum supersonic dash at a "practical" gross weight, every reduction would have to be minimal. Finally, the new weapon system's configuration would have to allow for the easy addition of state-of-the-art improved subsystems and components, not initially incorporated.
|Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list| | <urn:uuid:51fb80ef-a450-4563-a911-da8d966ca91f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/b-70.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393463.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00047-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956954 | 1,852 | 3.578125 | 4 |
Since cells prohibit entry to large molecules like DNA, unique delivery and formulation technologies must be fine-tuned to optimize the transfection and delivery of DNA vaccines.
“Technologies for delivering DNA vaccines include liposomes, polymers, or electroporation,” noted Magda Marquet, Ph.D., co-founder and co-chairperson of Althea Technologies. “However, these methods are often cumbersome for patients to receive, and present difficulties in manufacturing and scale up.”
Althea is pursuing complex formulations, such as polymers and liposomes, to overcome the obstacle of DNA vaccine delivery by delivering DNA directly to cells. Some formulations have challenging requirements.
Dr. Marquet cited one case in which aseptic processing was required throughout the formulation since product could not be sterile filtered prior to filling. “Althea successfully scaled up the process and brought in GMP formulation equipment that allowed the liposomal complex to be processed aseptically and filled into vials,” she explained.
Martin Schleef, Ph.D., CEO of the PlasmidFactory, echoed Chambers’ concerns over the high standard of purity required of DNA for delivery in humans, and cited a recent study (Woodell et al., J. Gene Med), which demonstrated that chromosomal bacterial DNA, which is typically present in kit-grade plasmid DNA preparations, is a significant contaminant leading to low efficacy and severe toxic effects.
“We have developed a manufacturing technology to avoid such contamination,” said Dr. Schleef. In addition, he highlighted plasmid topology as an important parameter in determining transfection efficiency. Covalently closed circular (ccc), or supercoiled, DNA adopts a compact form due to internal tensions in the DNA molecule that is optimal for transfection efficiency.
“Ideally the proportion of ccc-DNA in the preparation should be 95% or higher,” said Dr. Schleef, “and we use a manufacturing technology to obtain pure preparations of this form.”
PlasmidFactory has also developed a capillary gel electrophoresis-based analytical tool to quantify the major plasmid topologies in a given plasmid preparation, namely ccc-DNA, oc (open circular)-DNA, and linear DNA. In addition to fine-tuning the conformation of DNA for transfection, stripping plasmids of genes encoding resistance to antibiotics or other selection markers is an important step for preparing DNA for transfection.
“We have designed strategies to remove such genes from the bacterial backbone of the plasmids used, in addition to the origin of replication, resulting in a simply circular and extremely small DNA for vaccination, the minicircle,” said Dr. Schleef.
According to Dr. Schleef, PlasmidFactory has obtained all relevant patents for this technology and supplies researchers in gene therapy and DNA vaccination worldwide with this safe, nonviral vector. PlasmidFactory is also tackling the issue of scaling of plasmid preparations to the amounts required for more demanding applications, e.g., large clinical trials.
“We are developing technologies for ultra-large scale production of plasmid DNA (e.g., kg scale) by use of fed-batch and large scale lysis to obtain pure ccc-plasmid-DNA,” he said. | <urn:uuid:2d0bd5ca-6241-49a4-add1-d9c17e707046> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.genengnews.com/gen-articles/tackling-transfection-tasks/4654/?kwrd=Vaccines&page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00006-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918903 | 718 | 2.5625 | 3 |
While further research is needed, studies suggest that a father's age at the time of conception (paternal age) might pose health risks for his children.
For example, studies have shown that the offspring of men over age 40 might face an increased risk of:
- Miscarriage. Some research suggests that advanced paternal age is associated with a slightly higher risk of miscarriage.
- Autism. Research shows a link between advanced paternal age and an increased frequency of autism.
- Birth defects. Although the overall risk is exceedingly low, older men appear to be more likely to father babies who have certain rare birth defects — such as the bone growth disorder achondroplasia.
- Schizophrenia. Children born to older men seem to be more likely than children of younger men to develop the brain disorder schizophrenia.
Researchers believe that the increased risk of health conditions might be due to age-related genetic mutations in older men. Despite the increase in these risks, however, the overall risks remain small and less certain than those associated with being born to a woman over age 40.
If you're older than 40 and you're considering fathering a baby or you're concerned about your reproductive health, consult your doctor.
June 19, 2015
See more Expert Answers
- Harris ID, et al. Effect of advanced paternal age on fertility and pregnancy. http://www.uptodate.com/home. Accessed May 28, 2015.
- Parner ET, et al. Paternal age and autism spectrum disorders. Annals of Epidemiology. 2012;22:143.
- Shelton JF, et al. Independent and dependent contributions of advanced maternal and paternal ages to autism risk. Autism Research. 2010;3:30.
- McAninch JW, et al. The aging male. In: Smith and Tanagho's General Urology. 18th ed. New York, N.Y.: The McGraw-Hill Companies; 2013. http://www.accessmedicine.com. Accessed May 28, 2015.
- De Souza E, et al. Case-control analysis of paternal age and trisomic anomalies. Archives of Disease in Childhood. 2010;95:893.
- Kong A, et al. Rate of de novo mutations and the importance of father's age to disease risk. Nature. 2012;488:471.
- Liu K, et al. Advanced reproductive age and fertility. Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada. 2011;33:1165. | <urn:uuid:656f91cd-d38b-4bb0-bf8b-9197de1055b2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mayoclinic.org/paternal-age/expert-answers/FAQ-20057873 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00039-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913135 | 520 | 2.515625 | 3 |
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2.4.1 Cursor Motion
The following commands allow you to position the cursor.
Move back one character.
Move forward one character.
Delete the character to the left of the cursor.
Delete the character underneath the cursor.
Move forward a word.
Move backward a word.
Move to the start of the line.
Move to the end of the line.
Clear the screen, reprinting the current line at the top.
Undo the last action. You can undo all the way back to an empty line.
Undo all changes made to this line. This is like typing the `undo' command enough times to get back to the beginning.
The above table describes the most basic possible keystrokes that you need in order to do editing of the input line. On most terminals, you can also use the left and right arrow keys in place of C-f and C-b to move forward and backward.
Notice how C-f moves forward a character, while M-f moves forward a word. It is a loose convention that control keystrokes operate on characters while meta keystrokes operate on words.
clc will allow you to clear the screen from within
- Built-in Function: clc ()
- Built-in Function: home ()
Clear the terminal screen and move the cursor to the upper left corner. | <urn:uuid:29972585-0590-43c6-945b-b89b73fcc7f9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.manpagez.com/info/octave/octave-3.2.3/octave_32.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408828.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00019-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.782236 | 322 | 3.046875 | 3 |
September 6, 2013
Black Hole Jets Expelling Gas From Host Galaxy
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online
A worldwide network of radio telescopes has allowed astronomers to find strong evidence that a powerful jet of material, propelled to nearly light speed by the central black hole of a galaxy, is blowing massive amounts of gas out of the host galaxy. The scientists say the process is limiting the growth of the black hole and the rate of star formation in the galaxy. That makes the process a key to understanding how galaxies develop.According to prevailing theories, galaxies should be more massive and have more stars than is actually the case. Two major mechanisms have been proposed that would slow or halt the process of mass growth and star formation: pushback from the jets powered by the galaxy’s central, massive blackhole, and violent stellar winds from bursts of star formation.
"With the finely-detailed images provided by an intercontinental combination of radio telescopes, we have been able to see massive clumps of cold gas being pushed away from the galaxy's center by the black-hole-powered jets," said Raffaella Morganti, of the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy and the University of Groningen.
Galaxy 4C12.50, nearly 1.5 billion light-years from Earth, was chosen for study because it is at a stage where the black hole "engine" that produces the jets is just turning on. The concentration of mass in a black hole is so dense that not even light can escape, and material is pulled in towards it, forming a swirling disk surrounding the black hole. The tremendous gravitational energy of the black hole is tapped by processes in the disk to propel material outward from the disk's poles.
The team's findings were published in a recent issue of Science.
The scientists found clumps of hydrogen gas moving outward from the galaxy at just over 600 miles a second at the ends of both jets. The clouds are massive: one is approximately 16,000 times the mass of our Sun, while the other is 140,000 times the mass. According to the scientists, the larger cloud is roughly 160 by 190 light-years in size.
"This is the most definitive evidence yet for an interaction between the swift-moving jet of such a galaxy and a dense interstellar gas cloud," Morganti said. "We believe we are seeing in action the process by which an active, central engine can remove gas - the raw material for star formation - from a young galaxy," she added.
According to observations, the jets from the galaxy's core can stretch and deform clouds of interstellar gas to expand their "pushing" effect beyond the narrow width of the jets themselves. At the current stage of development for 4C12.50, the jets may turn on and off, and thus periodically repeat the process of removing gas from the galaxy.
Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), another team of scientists announced in July that they had found gas being blown from a more nearby galaxy, called NGC 253, by an intense burst of star formation.
"Both processes are thought to be at work, often simultaneously, in young galaxies to regulate the growth of their central black holes as well as the rate at which they can form new stars," Morganti said.
The current team combined the signals from radio telescopes in Europe and the US to essentially make one giant, intercontinental telescope. The US telescopes included the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) - a continent-wide system of radio telescopes ranging from Hawaii, across the U.S. mainland, to St. Croix in the Virgin Islands - and one antenna from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico.
In Europe, they used telescopes in Effelsberg, Germany; Westerbork, the Netherlands; and Onsala, Sweden. Such a far-flung system created extremely high resolving power – the ability to see fine detail – and was essential to pinpointing the location of the gas clouds affected by the galaxy's jets. | <urn:uuid:dfa6379f-5c1a-428d-824e-866a507ca3dc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/1112941273/black-hole-jets-expelling-gas-from-galaxy-090613/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00135-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942305 | 840 | 3.640625 | 4 |
The Madrid Codices were discovered. (1967) The codices were personal notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, and included almost 200 pages of drawings and notes. They were discovered in the National Library of Spain, where they had been misplaced for centuries.
The cinematograph was patented. (1894) Two French brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière patented the machine, which was a combination of a movie camera and a projector. They recorded the first footage with it six days later, a short film of workers leaving their factory, which was the first film anyone ever paid to see.
Astronomers announced the discovery of the largest "diamond" in the universe. (2004) The diamond was actually a white dwarf star which was found to be very similar in composition to a diamond. It was nicknamed "Lucy" after the Beatles' hit "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."
The Battle of Chipyong-ni started. (1951) Known as the "Gettysburg of the Korean War," the battle was a major turning point for UN forces. It was the furthest the Chinese forces got into South Korea, and represented the beginning of their decline in the war.
La Citoyenne, an early feminist newspaper, was founded. (1881) The newspaper strongly advocated changes in French law to enfranchise women, and was one of the first influential feminist publications in the Western world.
ASCAP was founded. (1912) The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers was founded to protect the rights to their members' publications. Both John Philip Sousa and Irving Berlin were original ASCAP members.
Galileo arrived in Rome for his trial. (1633) The famous astronomer, philosopher, and mathematician was accused of heresy for believing that the Earth revolves around the Sun. He was sentenced to indefinite house arrest, and stayed in his home until he died about ten years later.
The League of Nations accepted Switzerland's neutrality. (1920) Switzerland had not been in a state of war since 1815, and had only rarely participated in wars before that. The nation insisted on the League of Nations recognizing its neutrality before it would agree to join.
William and Mary became the monarchs of England. (1689) The two came to power after the bloodless Glorious Revolution, and enacted a number of policies that favored the rights of the people and Parliament, rather than the monarchy. They also enacted laws on the basis of political and personal rights, a new concept at the time.
Thomas Edison observed the Edison Effect (1880) The Edison Effect, also known as thermionic emission, occurs when an object is induced to change its charge due to heat. The effect was originally discovered some seven years earlier in Britain, but was rediscovered by Thomas Edison on this day while he was trying to figure out why his light bulbs kept breaking. | <urn:uuid:674ba607-f544-4e9c-ab49-a2c874863ed7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wisegeek.com/what-happened-on-february-13.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00129-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986645 | 591 | 3.171875 | 3 |
It must be kept in mind that hip development problems affect every 15 of 1000 births. The hip is usually dislocated while the child is in mother’s womb or the development of the hip is not enough. Developmental hip diplegia is a preventable and treatable disease.
Babies who reach three times of their birth weight in one year have very high growing potential.
Hip diplegia has various causes. It is more frequently seen in girls, first births, families with hip dislocation histories, relative marriages, and breech birth; also accompanied with misalignment in the neck, flatness in the head and misalignment in the feet.
Waddling habit is an important factor in developmental hip diplegia: negative effects of waddling on hip problems are known for sure. An eye is not kept on the width of diapers (between the legs); the diaper being thin and small, and being tied around the groin affects the hip development badly. Especially while breastfeeding, the legs of the baby should not be kept close together. Just like waddling process, it affects hip development in a bad way.
Babies should definitely not be waddled. Diapers should be wide and fit loosely and tied on top of the belly. Babies should be dressed loose and comfortably. While breastfeeding, the legs should be open and in a natural position, not tight. While carrying the baby, the carrier should hold between the legs with one arm; in older babies, the arm should be around the waist of the baby.
The role of the orthopedist is big in diagnose and treatment of developmental hip diplegia. The ideal method in babies is medical exam and ultrasound between weeks of 3 and 6. Ultrasound is a safe and effective method in evaluating mostly cartilage hip joint and it should be preferred to roentgenogram in first 6 weeks.
Early diagnosis is important because in the first 3 weeks, the percentage to obtain a normal hip is 95%. It is lesser in babies ages of 3-6 months, some babies older than 6 months may need casting or surgical treatment. These situations vary from hip to hip. In children older than 1 year old who need surgery, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon must perform the suitable treatment.
Every child who has had treatment should be observed until maturity, and should have yearly medical exam. | <urn:uuid:5eae113f-e4c2-4ffa-a3ae-ea588888e4c0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.drmuharreminan.com/en/bebeklerde-kalca-cikigi | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404382.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00028-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954058 | 484 | 3.078125 | 3 |
In July 2005, Mumbai saw 944 mm of rainfall in 6 hours; all activities were completely suspended for 4 days; more than 400 people lost their lives and the direct economic loss from the flooding amounted to more than Rs. 500 crores. And even larger impacts - social and human - remain still unaccounted for.
Kolkata too has been witnessing notably uneven rainfall patterns of late, with little rainfall during early monsoon and sudden heavy downpours towards the end of the monsoon, often flooding the city. Cyclone Aila, which hit the southern part of West Bengal and also the city of Kolkata in May 2009, resulted in several days of power cut, disruption of communication and transport, and loss of property in the city.
Bangalore, long seen by its residents and others as a naturally air-conditioned city, is facing a faster rate of increase in both minimum and maximum temperatures than the global average. The result: hotter summers, and short winters.
These apparently unrelated incidents are becoming increasingly prominent. If one connects the dots between them, it may be said that debates over the extent of climate change notwithstanding, climate-related impacts must influence decision-making right at the level of planning for cities, as they have been known to cause the decline of great cities in the past.
Concerns over climate change and related impacts can no more be kept at bay. It is time to implement the decisions of policy discussions and research in a downstream manner, from city to neighbourhoods. This needs tangible action points and sufficient tools to implement measures in a comprehensive manner.
How vulnerable are we?
The causes of climate change are global, but the severity is felt locally. A recent international analysis puts the Indian subcontinent in the ‘moderate-to-extreme climate change vulnerability’ risk range. Mumbai and Kolkata, two of India’s largest metropolises have been identified as cities with the most risks, along with Dhaka, Manila and Bangkok. The Bangalore metropolitan region is assessed to have moderate to high climate change vulnerability risk.
The six major climate change-related risk groups identified for India, in order of importance, are temperature and precipitation variability, drought, flooding and extreme rainfall, cyclone and storm surge, sea level rise, and linked health risks. What it means is that the west coast and southern India may experience a climatic regime marked by higher temperatures; coastal areas could see higher rainfall, dry years are expected to be drier and wet years wetter.
The Bangalore example
Bangalore is already starved for water, with all three talukas in Bangalore Urban district categorised as over-exploited groundwater zones. Decreasing groundwater levels triggered by drought and urban sprawl in the absence of adequate water infrastructure could spell a serious crisis for its eco-system, including the peri-urban areas. Improperly planned or badly-regulated urban development has resulted in the blocking of valleys, lakes, canals, thus substantially reducing natural water storage capacity in the city in case of sudden heavy rainfall.
Holistic, integrated planning has been identified by experts as one of the most effective interventions to address these multi-dimensional issues. However, if we consider Bangalore’s example to assess the level of preparedness, there are very few concentrated outcomes outside discussion forums, other than state level policy documents and action plans. This, despite the fact that the magnitude of impact of a climatic disaster would be much higher in Bangalore than the rest of the state, given the concentration of population, infrastructure and economy.
How can we ensure a climate-resilient Bangalore within the existing framework? One opportunity is the forthcoming Master Plan for Bangalore (which is being revised for 2031), which ideally should look at different levels of spatial planning units (such as the city level, district level or ward level). We can explore ways to build resiliency into the city’s systems given Bangalore’s physical parameters, functional linkages and importantly, its land economics and growth aspirations.
Climate and planning
There could be ambiguity over the apparent relation of a master plan to climate change. But migration, changing land use pattern, mobility needs, spatial development and built form are factors contributing to increasing vulnerability of a place and population to climate change, and must be considered within the scope of a Master Plan.
A simple example: Mitigation and adaptation measures such as choosing the right design criteria to mitigate extreme heat, making suitable land-use plans to handle sudden heavy rainfall and its after effects are all necessary links in completing the must-have-resiliency chain. Therefore, a good land-use plan with suitable development control regulations can play an important role in this.
Implementation however is a different matter. There is debate over workability of a Master Plan for Bangalore, especially in the context of implementation gaps in the prevailing ones and a general sense of dissatisfaction over how the city has turned out in form and functionality. However, in the absence of another equivalent and institutionalised tool for regulating the city, predicting its future development and making adaptive proposals, it would make sense to ensure that the upcoming master plan is devised as an improved and futuristic one that addresses emerging challenges like climate change.
Planned City: Resilient City
What makes a resilient city? Broadly, it is a proactive city with high levels of emergency preparedness, it is a planned city with environmental sustainability embedded through robust processes of integrated planning, a connected city with access to urban services network, and importantly, a well governed city with strong institutional coordination and command systems.
Each of these concepts is again interconnected through upstream or downstream relations. Building proactiveness is much easier in a planned City, where the networks and connections are known. The generic scope of a Master Plan encompasses guidance of the urban form and morphology. The aspects of integrated infrastructure planning and services, environmental sustainability and urban governance are ideally to be embedded adequately in the master planning process itself.
Any comprehensive attempt to build climate resilience through one or more of these four concepts would aim to address most probable scenarios, and should leave sufficient room for combating low probability-high risk events (such as the Uttarakhand flash floods). This will need strategies on all fronts: policy, plans, projects and regulation.
For example, representatives from an all-stakeholder institution in the city of Semarang, Indonesia, formed a team to create a ‘Climate Resilient Strategy (CRS)’ prior to revision of their mid-term development and spatial plan. The timing of preparation of the CRS prior to the mid-term development plan was crucially synchronised, which resulted in the integration of climate change resilient measures in the development and spatial plan.
In India, cities like Indore and Surat have developed their own CRS. How these are integrated within their respective land-use planning is to be seen. That India can do a good job in successfully pulling off a large-scale strategy on the ground has been proved at the time of cyclone Phailin in Orissa. Similar demonstration of strong will and collective effort are a must for building resilience through spatial planning as well.
Can we begin with climate change-sensitive land-use planning? This would mean minimising conflicts between the natural character of an area vis-à-vis the use assigned by the Master Plan. To exemplify, this could mean planning recreational open spaces with water features for low lying areas to allow for natural flow of water and extra water retention in the event of sudden heavy rainfall, rather than completely covering such areas with buildings. These areas again have to be adequately distributed to serve certain catchment zones from where water will flow.
Equally important would be location specific planning for naturally vulnerable or disaster-prone areas rather than generic planning guidelines, optimising daily travel requirement within the city by creating mixed use neighbourhoods and judicious development control regulations.
The plan must also look at provision of futuristic infrastructure including identification and availability of spaces for community gathering at the time of emergency, mitigation of localised adverse climatic impact (such as extreme heat pockets) by suitable urban design and the like.
This would be essentially followed by efficient city forms and built structures guided by green design standards. The need for other strong measures such as pricing and regulatory instruments are also extremely important for realising the benefits of in-built resiliency. Nevertheless, planners, can do their bit for sustainable city planning by integrating the attributes needed for climate resiliency in the master plan proposals for Bangalore. | <urn:uuid:cc69215a-b17d-45a5-af60-41f8bb6c8b9f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://indiatogether.org/articles/urban-planning-and-climate-resilience-environment | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399425.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00109-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945656 | 1,736 | 3.3125 | 3 |
It is truly unfortunate that most Americans are oblivious to the relationship between crafts and the advancement of science. No man, woman or child can learn to carve wood into something both useful and beautiful without becoming observant of wood qualities and grain. The fundamentals of scientific observation are what one learns through craftsmanship. As we allow our children to be entertained and disengaged from both hands-on learning and personal creativity, we cripple their potential in science and limit their understanding. And so, why aren't we doing something about it? Crafts should be the most important part of our children's education... even before reading, our children's hands should be learning to fold paper.
Many other scientists, mathematicians and educators have recognized the relationship between origami, mathematics and design and witnessed its potential to engage students. Professor of Mathematics, Tom Hull says,
"Kids are so afraid of math. The world is so afraid of math. But with origami, they're not thinking, 'I'm doing this scary math thing.' They're just folding paper. It's a neat way to break the barriers down." -- and do math.I wrote Robert J. Lang about this blog post and he replied, "I couldn't agree more with the theme of your blog: for many people, hands-on manipulation is what makes the connection to true learning."
An editorial on scholarship in today's paper by Paul Greenburg told that the University of Arkansas has a 38 percent graduation rate among students who attend for up to 6 years. Some of the blame for that sorry state may be laid to rest on the poorly-prepared-to-attend students the university attracts. Piaget, in his theory of cognitive development recognized the time between ages 6-12 as "the concrete operational stage," and some theorists believe that computer gaming has actually delayed arrival of this stage as settings are pre-imagined and gamers work within sets of predetermined conditions set by game designers rather than by physical reality. This means that even at the time of entrance to college, many students have barely emerged into comfortable relationship with the abstract. More real hands-on learning can fix that.
Using origami and other folding paper techniques like paper sloyd, can be useful in making the transition from the concrete to abstract and the transition from high school to college, which these days is far too abstract for its own good.
Today in the woodshop, I worked on drawer sides for the small walnut chests of drawers. I resawed the maple stock into two halves then planed the stock to 3/8", jointed one edge, ripped it to width and then used the sled and stop block to cut parts to accurate lengths as shown below. | <urn:uuid:c471bece-0751-4c0a-9c11-9a58e57dae31> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://wisdomofhands.blogspot.com/2010/05/origami.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402516.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00110-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970074 | 549 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Talk to your kids about…
How to Train Your Dragon 2
Hiccup wants to resolve the conflict with the dragon hunters by talking instead of fighting. What do they ultimately do to stop Drago and his dragon hunters? Why does diplomacy not always work? Are both groups of Vikings playing by the same set of rules of combat?
One of the characters says he cannot change because he was born that way. Is that kind of argument an excuse for not wanting to improve or change? Does Hiccup have to be just like his father in order to be a good leader? How does Hiccup overcome his physical challenges?
How can parents and children learn to appreciate their differences? What strengths do each of them have in this story? | <urn:uuid:8c512620-6b80-4fb4-8903-1cf58975e137> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://parentpreviews.com/movie-reviews/discussion/how-to-train-your-dragon-2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398873.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00116-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984559 | 151 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Daspletosaurus torosus was an enormous animal,
almost 30 feet long, weighing 3 tons. It was an early member of the
tyrannosaur family and looks like a smaller version of T. rex.
There is evidence that Tyrannosaurus may have been directly
descended from Daspletosaurus.
Stocky and powerful, this meat-eater lived in marshes by streams.
It had tiny horns behind its eyes and the largest teeth of any of the
tyrannosaurids. Each tooth was dagger-sharp, curved, and saw-edged.
With its formidable teeth and jaws, clawed feet, and sheer bulk,
Daspletosaurus torosus was easily capable of killing even the
largest of its herbivorous prey. Like other tyrannosaurids, this
species also had a pair of small, two-fingered hands.
Tyrannosaurids, the "tyrant lizards", are the best-known family of
dinosaurs and are the largest terrestrial carnivores that ever lived.
They appeared in Late Cretaceous times around 80 million years ago.
Most of them vanished during the mysterious mass extinction of all
dinosaurs, 65 million years ago. For some unknown reason,
Daspletosaurus torosus came to an end about three million years
before the great dinosaur extinction.
Daspletosaurus was discovered in 1921 by Charles Sternberg on the
banks of a river in Alberta, Canada. These partial remains were
thought by Sternberg to be a dinosaur he called
Gorgosaurus. At first, some scientists argued that
Daspletosaurus was a larger more adult version of Albertosaurus.
Subsequent study, however, has proved otherwise. It was a typical
tyrannosaur, with shorter, two-fingered front limbs. It was more
robust than Albertosaurus, its contemporary cousin, and it is
speculated that it was better suited to hunting the slower horned
dinosaurs, thus leaving the faster hadrosaurs to the lighter and
Later discoveries, however, added more pieces to the puzzle,
and almost 50 years after the first discovery, Dr. Dale Russell was
able to determine that this dinosaur was both a new species and genus,
which he called Daspletosaurus. predators hunted their
last, C.M. Sternberg discovered the fossilized bones of one of these
"frightful, fleshy lizards" on the . More recently a specimen was
found (MOR 590) that was a cross between T. rex and D.
torosus, with no characteristics unique to itself. There are also
specimens in New Mexico that are a possible new species. There is also
a distinction between specimens from the Old Man Formation and the
Dinosaur Provincial Park Formation specimens, so that makes two,
three, or even four species of Daspletosaurus. This
dinosaur providesa good example of the research methods used
by scientists over many years whereby they build on each other's
discoveries to form a conclusion about a related group.
There are now about six good known specimens of Daspletosaurus
and parts of several others have been found). The Royal Tyrell
Museum has one mounted at their Field Museum in Dinosaur Provincial
Park. The Canadian Museum of Nature recently unveiled a full-size
model of one. | <urn:uuid:205b4eea-e335-43db-b44c-e297ce2d0758> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dinosaur-world.com/tyrannosaurs/daspletosaurus_torosusi.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397562.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00083-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949152 | 709 | 4.0625 | 4 |
The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP) provides students in participating elementary schools with a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables as healthy snack options throughout the school day. FFVP can be an important catalyst for change in combating childhood obesity by increasing fresh fruit and vegetable consumption and encouraging healthier eating habits.
Selected schools receive reimbursement for the cost of providing free fresh fruits and vegetables to students. These fresh fruits and vegetables must be served separately from the lunch or breakfast meal, in one or more areas of the school during the official school day. Corresponding nutrition education is critical to the program’s success.
To be selected for the FFVP, a school must:
Each year the State receives a grant from the USDA specifically allocated for the FFVP. The State must then select schools to participate, with priority given to schools with the highest free and reduced price enrollment, and distribute the funds in a manner that results in a per-student allocation of $50-$75 per year.
Within basic requirements, the FFVP gives schools the flexibility to develop their own implementation plan and involve teachers and other school staff. Each school decides when, where and how to implement the FFVP. | <urn:uuid:7f34f7e8-36bd-4667-8394-be12df94db84> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://wvde.state.wv.us/child-nutrition/ffvp/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397562.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00103-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950635 | 240 | 3 | 3 |
Thursday, February 3, 2011
A frog and a "Rockoon"
"It's time to do crafts!" I have been hearing that quite a bit around my house. How can you keep a five-year-old entertained? First tell them to go outside and pick up some rocks. If we had smooth, river rocks, it would have been very nice, but these were probably gravel rocks. Using gravel takes more creativity. A small child doesn't really care. A rock is a rock.
We used hot glue to "build" the frog. After this, we painted the frog with acrylic paints. and we were ready to play, or at least ready to hold down papers on a desk. Can you see the smile that was painted beneath the eyes? This frog can watch you do homework, too.
This is practically a free craft because you can always find rocks.
Our inspiration for rock creatures? Mr "Rockoon," given to me by a very talented artist years ago. See what you can do if you have a good imagination? If nothing else, you can keep a child entertained. | <urn:uuid:36045a9a-e0d4-443d-8e8e-83a6e3c8b251> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://everydayfinesse.blogspot.com/2011/02/frog-and-rockoon.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391766.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00154-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984402 | 226 | 2.78125 | 3 |
IFLA Licensing Principles (2001)
The worldwide marketplace for all types of electronic information resources is rapidly being developed as publishers and vendors who create electronic information seek to attract libraries of all types (public, academic, special, national) as their customers. Today, libraries around the world continue in their role as mediators between citizens, including those affiliated with specific institutions, and information and cultural expression - roles that persist even more energetically, it appears, for electronic information than for print. And, just as libraries advance the archiving and preservation of traditional media, so they are seeking ways to ensure that electronic resources will be archived and preserved to be accessible over a long period of time.
Pricing also remains an issue: libraries continue to express concerns about the fact that a number of electronic resources appear to be priced higher than were their print counterparts.
While the library community strongly supports the continuation into the digital environment of exceptions that have been granted under copyright law, there are some areas where different procedures and policies need to be developed to handle electronic publications. Of particular interest to IFLA in the development of licenses is the following:
- Use of electronic information everywhere in the world is, at this time, usually defined and described by contractual agreements, otherwise known as licenses. These licenses describe comprehensively the terms of the provider/library relationship. Contracting is a comparatively new (1990s) way of doing business for most parties in the information chain.
- Licenses are pure marketplace arrangements in which a willing information provider and a willing purchaser of information access come together to make arrangements, deal by deal, resource by resource.
- User rights are defined within the terms and conditions of the licenses. They are not governed by (comparatively well understood) copyright legislation to the same extent as is the use of "fixed" or traditional information formats.
- Libraries generally provide patron access to such information via access to remote publisher or vendor sites, rather than library-controlled sites. Yet, the tasks and costs of libraries and information providers with regard to long-term archiving and preservation of electronic resources are disturbingly unclear. While a license cannot resolve this complicated set of electronic archiving issues, it will, generally, recognize them and express a set of commitments or expectations on the part of the contracting parties.
- IFLA views the licensing arena positively, although key issues remain to be resolved. In particular, licensing is showing itself responsive to the complex business arrangements being entered into between information providers and library consortia of different types and sizes. IFLA encourages and supports the evolution of all types of libraries negotiating as consortia. Nonetheless, even with the current move to licensing as a complementary means of regulating the use of electronic information, libraries and their users need effective, well-balanced national copyright laws that recognize not only the copyright owners' need for remuneration and recognition, but also the critical purposes of public information, education and research. This balance, struck in carefully crafted copyright legislation, must find expression in all information resource licenses.
IFLA hereby presents a set of basic principles that should prevail in the contractual relationship and written contracts between libraries and information providers
Licenses and the Law
P1. Licenses represent an agreement between the library that seeks to make an electronic resource available for its readers or constituents, and a publisher or vendor who has the rights to such resources and seeks to make them available in the library marketplace. License terms and conditions must be fully available to customers in advance of their contracting for said resources. Every license is subject to discussion of terms and to negotiation between the parties.
P2. In the case of "shrink-wrapped" and "click-through" non-negotiated licenses, the terms should support public policies in such areas as copyright, privacy, intellectual freedom, and consumer rights.
P3. Licenses (contracts) for information should not exclude or negatively impact for users of the information any statutory rights that may be granted by applicable copyright law.
P4. The choice of applicable law should be acceptable for both parties. Preferably it should be the national or state law of the licensee.
P5. Licenses should be negotiated and written in the primary language of the library customer.
Licenses and Values
P6. The license agreement should be clear and comprehensive, recognizing the needs of the concerned parties. In particular, important terms should be defined so as to be clearly understood.
P7. The license should balance the rights and responsibilities of both parties.
P8. The license should provide for remedy periods and other modes of resolution before either cancellation or litigation is contemplated.
P9. The contracting parties should have the right to back out of the arrangement under appropriate and defined circumstances.
Licenses: Access and Use
P10. The license should provide access for all of the users affiliated with a licensee, whether institution or consortium, regardless of whether they are on the licensee's premises or away from them.
P11. The license should provide access to individual, unaffiliated users when on the licensee's premises.
P12. The license should provide access for geographically remote sites if they are part of the licensee's organization.
P13. Remote access should be provided by way of a web-based, user friendly interface.
P14. Data that is downloaded locally should be available in multiple standard formats (e.g. PDF, HTML, and SGML), portable to all major computing platforms and networked environments.
P15. At a minimum the license should permit users to read, download, and print materials for their own personal purposes, without restrictions.
P16. Resources provided via remote access to providers' sites should be available on a 24-hour basis, with appropriate "help" or service support, except for short scheduled downtimes announced with adequate notice to the customer library(ies). Penalties may accrue if service commitments are not met.
P17. A high degree of content stability, both in single and in aggregated resources, should be guaranteed and the institutional customer should be notified of changes. Penalties may accrue if content commitments are not met.
Licenses and End Users
P18. Libraries should work with users to educate them about proper use of electronic resources and take reasonable measures to prevent unlawful use, as well as with providers to halt infringing activities if such become known. Nonetheless, the library should not incur legal liability for actions of individual users.
P19. It is not appropriate to ask the individual user to agree to a contract, such as a "click" contract, where the institution/library has already made -- or may engage in making -- an agreement on behalf of its patrons.
P20. Users' privacy should be protected and respected in the license and in any intervention made by information providers or intermediaries.
P21. The networked information provider should offer usage (as opposed to user) data so that the library licensee may assess the effectiveness of the use of the resource.
Licenses and Perpetual Access
P22. A license should include provision for affordable, perpetual access to the licensed information by some appropriate and workable means.
P23. A license should address provisions for long-term access and archiving of the electronic information resource(s) under consideration and should identify responsibilities for these.
Licenses And Pricing
P24. Prices should be established so as to encourage use rather than discourage it. For example:
- Many suppliers price electronic information at lower than the print equivalent (if there is one)
- Many suppliers now offer incentives, such as consortial pricing, a choice of pricing models, and the like.
P25. Prices should be fully disclosed with no hidden charges.
P26. An unbundled (from print) price should be offered for electronic versions; a bundled price may be offered as well where this offers advantages for the licensee.
P27. There should be no penalty for canceling print in order to take up the electronic version of a resource.
P28. Requirements for non-disclosure of license terms are generally inappropriate.
P29. Provisions for interlibrary loan or equivalent services should be included.
P30. In general, libraries should be able to deliver reasonable length extracts from licensed information to libraries that have not signed a contract for that information for use by a specific patron.
Teaching and Learning
P31. Licenses should support local teaching and learning efforts, from elementary through university level, by permitting links to, or copies of, specific course-related information to appear in online course-support activities such as electronic reserve.
P32. Distance Independent Learning poses a challenge to providers and libraries. Licensors should recognize the affiliation of users with a given library or institution, regardless of users' physical location and should permit them routine access to licensed electronic information resources (see also clause 8).
Approved by IFLA's Executive Board, March 2001
Last update: 14 May 2014 | <urn:uuid:b3429765-9d39-438d-8a3d-cd765aa471af> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ifla.org/publications/ifla-licensing-principles-2001 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00118-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925939 | 1,845 | 2.71875 | 3 |
This is the most severe category of depression. In a major depression, more of the symptoms of depression are present, and they are usually more intense or severe. A major depression can result from a single traumatic event in your life, or may develop slowly as a consequence of numerous personal disappointments and life problems. Some people appear to develop the symptoms of a major depression without any obvious life crisis causing it. Other individuals have had less severe symptoms of depression for a long time (such as Dysthymic disorder), and a life crisis results in increased symptom intensity.
Major depression can occur once, as a result of a significant psychological trauma, respond to treatment, and never occur again within your lifetime. This would be a single episode depression. Some people tend to have recurring depression, with episodes of depression followed by periods of several years without depression, followed by another episode, usually in response to another trauma. This would be a recurrent depression. In general, the treatment is similar, except that treatment usually is over a longer time period for recurrent depression.
Professional debate continues regarding whether some people develop "endogenous depression" without any identified psychological causes. An endogenous depression is a biologically caused depression, due presumably to either genetic causes or a malfunction in the brain chemistry. But, all depression involves some changes in brain chemistry, even when the cause is clearly a psychological trauma. After psychological treatment and recovery from depression, the brain chemistry returns to normal, even without medication. To date, there is no hard research evidence to support the notion of endogenous depression. Sometimes this term is used to describe people who do not respond well to treatment, and sometimes it is a rationale to prescribe medication alone, and not to offer any psychological treatment for the depression. In general, the majority of people who require antidepressant medication for their depression respond to treatment better when psychotherapy, particularly cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy, is provided in addition to the medication. Medication treats the symptoms of depression, and is often a vital part of the treatment program, but it is essential to treat the psychological problems that caused the depression.
Research has shown that cognitive therapy is the best treatment for depression, as compared to medication and other forms of psychotherapy. However, many people respond better to a combination of medication and cognitive therapy. It does not make sense to only prescribe medication, without offering psychotherapy as well, because of the added benefits shown in research studies. There are some people who respond positively to psychotherapy, but plateau at a mild level of depression, without complete recovery from all of the symptoms. Often, these individuals are maintained on antidepressant medication after they have completed psychological treatment. Remember, only physicians are qualified to prescribe medication. Your psychologist will refer you to your primary care physician, or to a psychiatrist, for a medication evaluation, if it appears to be indicated.
For additional information about Major Depression: | <urn:uuid:44baed12-e349-495c-b166-86ba4f02549c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://psychologyinfo.com/depression/major.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403508.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00001-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939771 | 578 | 3.359375 | 3 |
|Provide an environmental education network - with a newsletter and plan.|
|Establish and strengthen environmental education networks nationally and internationally.|
|Encourage specific groups to become involved in environmental education.|
2. A National Framework for Environmental Education
Promote the development of national guidelines for environmental education. Support the inclusion of environmental issues in education (policies and curricula). Support and inclusion of education in, about,and for the environment in environmental policies (at central, regional and local government levels).
3. Promoting Environmental Education Initiatives
Support and promote environmental education initiatives in formal and informal sectors. Host a national/international environmental education conference this decade. Promote the co-ordination of organisations involved with environmental education. Involve the media in coverage of environmental education activities.
4. Professional Development
Promote environmental education training for the formal and informal sectors. Run workshops, seminars and meetings on environmental education. Provide information about training available locally and nationally.
To obtain membership form and further information contact:NZAEE Canterbury Branch
Phone (03) 379 2257
Fax (03) 379 2250 | <urn:uuid:a7ef10c7-a858-4159-9694-0019962fe6ea> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://canterbury.cyberplace.org.nz/environment/nzenved.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00070-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.890107 | 232 | 2.953125 | 3 |
The Creed of Half Japan, by Arthur Lloyd, , at sacred-texts.com
Pusityamitra was an important factor in the development of the Mahāyāna, whose claims to distinction have generally been overlooked.
As’oka, it is evident, ruled over a very extensive kingdom, and was one of the great monarchs of the day. It has always been a matter of wonder how his empire, so great, and apparently so firmly based on righteousness and judgment, should, after his death, have come to such a speedy ruin that the Mauryan family practically disappears from the annals of India.
A recent writer in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 1 calls attention to the fact that As’oka's policy was one of unmerciful antagonism to the Brahmans, whose most cherished prejudices he took a pride in shocking. As’oka had, by precept and example, discouraged the taking of animal life, and had thereby put an end to much of the worship of the Brahman rites. He had appointed "superintendents of morals," Dharma Mahāmātās, whose functions necessarily superseded those of the Brahmans as expositors of the law. He had proclaimed the principle of Vyavahāra Samatā, "equality of punishment," "equality in lawsuits," which did away with the peculiar privileges
of the sacerdotal caste, and secured fair treatment for all subjects, irrespective of caste, creed, or colour. Above all, he had boasted that he had, in a short period of time, reduced "those who were once regarded as gods," i.e. the Brahmans (whose privileges as the twice-born seemed to entitle them to a quasi-divine position in the eyes of India), to the position of false gods whose claims to respect he had demonstrated to be baseless.
It could not reasonably be expected that the Brahmans should acquiesce without any feelings of resentment in such drastic changes. They were not fighting men, however, and their only course of action was to bow before the storm and wait for a good opportunity.
The opportunity came about B.C. 185, in the reign of one of As’oka's weakling successors, the last of the Mauryan house. The Greeks were still active, pushing their conquests further and further to the east, and founding principalities, some of which seem to have been still in existence at the beginning of the first century A.D. As’oka bad lived on good terms with his Greek neighbours; his successors found it necessary to fight against them for the defence of their own shrunken territories, and the commander-in-chief of the Mauryan army was a certain Pushyamitra. It has been conjectured, from the termination of this man's name, that he was of Persian stock. He was certainly a very determined enemy of the Buddhist religion, and he had the confidence of the Brahmans, who had been biding their time and quietly growing in numbers and influence.
After a successful campaign against the Greeks, who had advanced into the very heart of the Mauryan country, Pushyamitra returned in triumph to Pataliputra. A review of the troops was held; in the midst of the festivities, the Mauryan emperor suddenly fell dead, slain
by an arrow from an unknown hand. The successful general, whose triumph was being celebrated, was at once proclaimed emperor in his stead—and the hour of vengeance had come for the Brahmans. In the very city where As’oka had prohibited animal sacrifices, Pushyamitra celebrated (B.C. 184) the Hindu rite of As’vamedha, the "sacrifice of the horse"; the equality in the eyes of the law, which As’oka had established, disappeared once more. Hinduism was once more the dominant faith, though a Hinduism more elaborate, more philosophical than it had been, and one that had come into fertilizing contact with foreign influences. Buddhism was in its turn downtrodden and oppressed.
But beyond the limits of the kingdom ruled over by the new dynasty, there were principalities and kingdoms in which Buddhism found a welcome and a home, the principalities of the Greeks, the Parthians, the Yuetchi, S’akas, who come and go round the north-western confines of India during the two troubled centuries which precede the Christian era.
It is here, rather than in India itself, that must be sought those germs of thought which ended by making the Mahāyāna so very different from its more southerly and more purely Indian sister. Buddhism has always been a faith that has readily taken into itself whatever in its immediate surroundings it has found suitable for its purposes. Even Jewish influences would not necessarily be excluded. "Woe is me," says the Hebrew pilgrim, "that I am constrained to dwell in Mesech." 1 There
were Buddhists in Mesech as well as Israelites; there were also Zoroastrians and Greeks, and the remnants of the old Babylonian cults.
Presently, with Kanishka, this Buddhism returns to India, and in As’vaghosha's time appears as a conqueror before the walls of Benares. And in process of time As’vaghosha is converted to the Mahāyāna.
47:1 See Journal and Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. vi., No. 5 (May, 1910), "Causes of the Dismemberment of the Maurya Empire," by Mahamahopadhyaya Haraprasad S’astri.
49:1 The Jewish diaspora went as far as China. The Chinese Jews at Kaifongfu, in Honan, seem to have entered China between B.C. 170 and the Nativity of Christ, though laying claim to an even earlier date. But it is clear that they must be post-Captivity Jews. They are acquainted with the name of Ezra, and they possess portions of the books of Daniel, Zechariah, Malachi, Esther, They reckon time p. 50 by the Seleucid era; they are ignorant of the name of Jesus, and equally so of the Rabbinical traditions. They know of Shiloh, which they interpret as the "great one descending man" (which is practically the Buddhist Nyorai). And they wear a veil over the face in reading the Law (Chinese Recorder, vol. xiv. p. 325). | <urn:uuid:13ffb11e-2795-4610-b1ee-206025422ab9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/chj/chj07.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396100.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00040-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979431 | 1,372 | 3.171875 | 3 |
convinced everyone of the sun-centered system in the 17th century was that
Kepler was able to come up with a surprisingly simple set of mathematical
and geometrical rules for describing the planetsí motion using the sun-
centered assumption. After 900 pages of calculations and many false starts
and dead-end ideas, Kepler finally synthesized the data into the following
Keplerís elliptical orbit law: The planets orbit the sun in elliptical orbits
with the sun at one focus.
Keplerís equal-area law: The line connecting a planet to the sun sweeps
out equal areas in equal amounts of time.
Keplerís law of periods: The time required for a planet to orbit the sun,
called its period, is proportional to the long axis of the ellipse raised to
the 3/2 power. The constant of proportionality is the same for all the
Although the planetsí orbits are ellipses rather than circles, most are very
close to being circular. The earthís orbit, for instance, is only flattened by
1.7% relative to a circle. In the special case of a planet in a circular orbit,
the two foci (plural of "focus") coincide at the center of the circle, and
Keplerís elliptical orbit law thus says that the circle is centered on the sun.
The equal-area law implies that a planet in a circular orbit moves around
the sun with constant speed. For a circular orbit, the law of periods then
amounts to a statement that the time for one orbit is proportional to r
where r is the radius. If all the planets were moving in their orbits at the
same speed, then the time for one orbit would simply depend on the
circumference of the circle, so it wouldonly be proportional to r to the first
power. The more drastic dependence on r
means that the outer planets
must be moving more slowly than the inner planets.
10.2Newtonís Law of Gravity
The sunís force on the planets obeys an inverse square law.
Keplerís laws were a beautifully simple explanation of what the planets
did, but they didnít address why they moved as they did. Did the sun exert a
force that pulled a planet toward the center of its orbit, or, as suggested by
Descartes, were the planets circulating in a whirlpool of some unknown
liquid. Kepler, working in the Aristotelian tradition, hypothesized not just
an inward force exerted by the sun on the planet, but also a second force in
the direction of motion to keep the planet from slowing down. Some
speculated that the sun attracted the planets magnetically.
Once Newton had formulated his laws of motion and taught them to
some of his friends, they began trying to connect them to Keplerís laws. It
was clear now that an inward force would be needed to bend the planetsí
paths. This force was presumably an attraction between the sun and each
An ellipse is a circle that has been dis-
torted by shrinking and stretching
along perpendicular axes.
An ellipse can be constructed by tying
a string to two pins and drawing like
this with the pencil stretching the string
taut. Each pin constitutes one focus
of the ellipse.
If the time interval taken by the planet to move from P to Q is equal to the time
interval from R to S, then according to Kepler's equal-area law, the two shaded
areas are equal. The planet is moving faster during interval RS than it did during
PQ, which Newton later determined was due to the sun's gravitational force accel-
erating it. The equal-area law predicts exactly how much it will speed up.
Section 10.2Newtonís Law of Gravity | <urn:uuid:a4f9985c-9011-400a-9a94-58fee4823d8e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.faqs.org/docs/Newtonian/Newtonian_187.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393146.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00017-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937991 | 806 | 4.4375 | 4 |
A scab formed over a mosquito bite.
- The definition of a scab is a rough or crusty piece of skin, especially one that forms over a healing wound, or a worker who refuses to strike.
- An example of a scab is a crust over a cut.
- An example of a scab is a person who takes over the job of a worker who is striking against an employer.
- Scab is defined as for a crusty surface to form over a wound.
An example of scab is for a cut to begin to heal.
- a crust that forms over a sore or wound during healing
- a mangy skin disease, as scabies, of animals, esp. sheep
- any of various plant diseases characterized by roughened, scablike spots on leaves, stems, or fruits
- any such spot
- : usually a term of contempt or derision
- Slang a low, contemptible fellow; scoundrel
- ⌂ a worker who refuses to join a union, or who works for lower wages or under different conditions than those accepted by the union
- a worker who refuses to strike, or who takes the place of a striking worker
Origin of scabMiddle English scabbe ; from Old Norse skabb, akin to Old English sceabb ; from Indo-European base an unverified form (s)kep-, to cut, split from source Classical Latin scabies, scabies, scabere, to shave
- to become covered with a scab; form a scab
- ⌂ to work or act as a scab
- A crust discharged from and covering a healing wound.
- Scabies or mange in domestic animals or livestock, especially sheep.
- a. Any of various plant diseases caused by fungi or bacteria and resulting in crustlike spots on fruit, leaves, or roots.b. The spots caused by such a disease.
- Slang A person regarded as contemptible.
- a. A worker who refuses membership in a labor union.b. An employee who works while others are on strike; a strikebreaker.c. A person hired to replace a striking worker.
intransitive verbscabbed, scab·bing, scabs
- To become covered with scabs or a scab.
- To work or take a job as a scab.
Origin of scabMiddle English, from Old Norse skabb.
- An incrustation over a sore, wound, vesicle, or pustule, formed during healing.
- The mange, especially when it appears on sheep.
- Any of several different diseases of potatoes producing pits and other damage on their surface, caused by streptomyces bacteria (but formerly believed to be caused by a fungus).
- Common scab, a relatively harmless variety of scab (potato disease) caused by Streptomyces scabies.
- (botany) Any one of various more or less destructive fungal diseases that attack cultivated plants, forming dark-colored crustlike spots.
- (founding) A slight irregular protuberance which defaces the surface of a casting, caused by the breaking away of a part of the mold.
- A mean, dirty, paltry fellow.
- (slang) A worker who acts against trade union policies, especially a strikebreaker.
(third-person singular simple present scabs, present participle scabbing, simple past and past participle scabbed)
- (intransitive) To become covered by a scab or scabs.
- (intransitive) To form into scabs and be shed, as damaged or diseased skin.
- To remove part of a surface (from).
- (intransitive) To act as a strikebreaker.
- (UK, Australia, New Zealand, informal) To beg (f), to cadge or bum.
- I scabbed some money off a friend.
From Old English sceabb, Old Norse skabb, Latin scabies (“scab, itch, mange.") Cognate with Old English scafan, Latin scabere (“to scratch"). | <urn:uuid:629d4e7f-0d49-4be0-8de8-8f78591f0c55> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.yourdictionary.com/scab | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00182-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907382 | 884 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Animals and Fungi
We're documenting the native fungi and animal species that we find in our biodiversity garden (easier said than done - something to do with legs and wings!).
Red-backed Salamander, Plethodon cinereus
While walking in our biodiversity garden we came upon a red-backed salamander eating an earthworm, 7 pm Monday, 14 November 2011. (photos NM Zitani, RG Thorn)
The honey bee (Apis mellifera), or European honey bee is a common sight these days in our biodiversity garden in London, Ontario. Pictured above, it is covered in pollen and rests on swamp rose mallow, our native Hibiscus (Hibiscus moscheutos). Although it is an important pollinator, the honey bee is not native to North America, but to Europe, Asia and Africa. Our native insect pollinators include hundreds of species of native bees, wasps, flies, butterflies, beetles and other insects. Native insect pollinators are in decline in North America due to habitat loss and other factors, and they need our help. A biodiversity garden provides critical habitat for our native pollinators, and a healthy ecosystem for humans as well. Start your biodiversity garden by planting just ONE native plant species in your garden today! | <urn:uuid:0c082d6a-384c-4f5a-9f13-365e4b42bab9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.biodiversitygardening.com/animals-and-fungi-in-our-biodiversity-garden.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403502.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00013-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901686 | 266 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Fires in Eastern Russia
Many wildfires continue to burn in eastern Russia, as shown in this image captured by NASA's Aqua satellite on June 14, 2012 at 03:40 UTC (June 13, 2012, 11:40pm ETC/U.S.) Light gray smoke streams from the red hotspots detected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). Deadly wildfires have plagued Siberia over the last few weeks, sending smoke across the Pacific Ocean. For the full story and an animation about the pollution from the Siberian fires, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/fires/main/siberia-smoke.html.
Images: NASA Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Text: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Katrina Jackson | <urn:uuid:f1e2c576-d0dd-43b5-84ed-e98cb7819ac6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/fires/main/world/20120614-russia.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397842.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00084-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.844072 | 163 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Gold mining has certainly come a long ways from the images in the history books of the 49ers in California using their picks and shovels or of the Yukon Gold Rush of the late 1890s panning for gold in streams. Today, mining for gold is a multinational, multimillion dollar business taken up largely by big companies, such as Barrick Gold (ABX), using much more sophisticated methods and equipment than swinging a pick at a rock. That is because most of the surface gold, called alluvial gold, has been found and gold now must be mined from the earth [for more gold news and analysis subscribe to our free newsletter].
Finding a Site
Modern gold mining involves a lot of technology. First, mining companies must find where to mine for gold; geological maps offer insights as to where the best locations might be based on the physical and chemical characteristics of the rocks. Then, once a prospect is found, mining companies use remote sensing and other testing devices to detect and pinpoint specific rock characteristics and outline targets for drilling.
Drill Baby, Drill
Once drilling commences, rock samples are brought up and further analyzed to see if there is gold at the site and the potential size of the deposit. If gold is found, the rocks are studied to determine the quality of the gold: how many grams of gold there are per ton of rock. Anything over two grams per ton is considered decent and obviously, the higher the number the better [see also Three Reasons Why Gold Is Overvalued].
If gold is found at a particular site, one factor plays a key role in determining the type of mine to be established: the depth of the gold deposit. For gold deposits near the surface, surface or open-pit mining is used; in most cases, the floor of the pit is lowered in around 30 foot benches. If the gold deposit is buried deeply in the earth, an underground mine will be built. Some underground mining methods include block caving, long hole stopping, cut-and-fill and drift-and-fill.
Ore samples are taken and examined to determine the appropriate processing technique needed to remove the gold in the most efficient and cost-effective method. The mine site itself has a processing area where the ore is crushed and undergoes the necessary process to extract the gold [see also How to Play $10,000 Gold].
Extracting the Gold
The process for the lowest grade ores is rather simple. A cyanide solution is applied to the crushed ore, dissolving the gold, which is then collected. Higher-grade oxide ores go straight to the leaching circuit and undergo a similar process using cyanide. However, other higher-grade ores head to the grinding mill for more complex processes. The particular process depends on the type of ore involved. For example, refractory ore (which contains carbon) is heated to 1000 degrees Fahrenheit to burn off carbon and sulfides before going to the leaching circuit.
In the leaching circuit, gold is extracted from the solution and deposited onto activated carbon, from which gold is then chemically stripped. The gold is then melted into bars, which are about 90% pure gold. These bars are then sent on to refineries to be processed further into purer gold [see also Three ETFs To Cure a Gold Hoarding Addiction].
Mining and producing is not a simple or easy. Even the simplest surface mine, with gold ore very near the surface, can take about a year to build thanks to the infrastructure needed. Since most gold is not very near the surface, it takes on average five years from when gold is first discovered to actually bring it to the surface and process it.
Disclosure: No positions at time of writing. | <urn:uuid:46080928-0924-4dfa-8698-07d289fdc95b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://commodityhq.com/2012/an-investors-primer-to-gold-mining-how-they-dig-up-the-yellow-metal/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00029-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944734 | 757 | 3.453125 | 3 |
Washington Massachusetts, 1890
Mount Washington, a mountainous and
beautiful town of about 25 square miles, forms the southwestern
angle of Berkshire County and of the State of Massachusetts. Situated
on the Taconic range of mountains, its noble elevations stand
as sentinels between the Hudson and the Housatonic, both within
view. On the north and northeast this town is bounded by Egremont;
on the east by Sheffield; on the south by Salisbury in Connecticut;
and west by Aneram and Copake, in New York. The Copake station
on the New York and Harlem Railroad, four miles distant, is the
nearest railroad connection for the town.
are 9,127 acres of forest (more than half the area), consisting
mostly of chestnut and yellow birch The chief elevations are Alander,
Bare, Cedar and Mount Everett, the last being 2,624 feet high.
Mount Everett is sometimes called the Taconic Dome, from its elevation
and position in this range, and from its peculiar form. In altitude
it excels all other mountains in the State, except Greylock, which
occupies a corresponding position in the northwest. Dr. Edward
Hitchcock says of the former mountain, in his "Geology of
Massachusetts:" "Its central part is a somewhat conical,
almost naked eminence, except that numerous yellow pines two or
three feet high, and whortleberry bushes, have fixed themselves
wherever the crevices of the rock afford sufficient soil. Thence
the view from the summit is entirely unobstructed. . . . This
certainly is the grandest prospect in Massachusetts, though others
are more beautiful."
the southwest side of Cedar Mountain are the beautiful Bishapish
Falls, where a clear streamlet comes dashing down over the rocks
a distance of 200 feet, filling the air with its feathery spray
and mellow music. Other streams are Wright Brook, Lee Pond Brook
and Guilder's Brook, the outlet of Guilder's Pond, a beautiful
sheet of water in the northeast, 20 acres in extent. Plaintain
Pond is another charming sheet covering 75 acres, lying between
Race Mountain and a long curving hill in the southeast.
town has 39 farms, whose product in 1885 was valued at $21,753.
There are 41 dwelling-houses, and a population of 160, of whom
36 are legal voters. There are two public school buildings, valued
at nearly $2,000; a Congregationalist church, and a Sunday school
having a library of upwards of 350 volumes.
Taucounuck Mountain Plantation, this place was incorporated as
the town of Mount Washington, June 21, 1779. The town is noted
for its whortleberries; and one of the summer diversions of the
people, old and young, is the gathering of this delicious berry.
477-478 in Nason and Varney's Massachusetts Gazetteer, 1890 | <urn:uuid:89329415-2378-4d3f-98dd-70504df14c33> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~maberksh/towns/mtwashington/mountwashington.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392069.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00066-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937907 | 642 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Alexander Tansman in Vienna in 1926
( photo by Herm. C. Kosel, Vienna )
We are grateful to Madame Mireille Tansman Zanuttini and Madame Marianne Tansman for permission to publish the photographs on this page.
The course of Alexander Tansman's life almost matches the sequence of major historical events in the 20th century. It comprises four principal periods:
1897-1919 Childhood and adolescence in Poland
1919-1941 Youth and early career in the Paris of the inter-war years
1941-1946 Exile in America
1946-1986 Maturity and final years in France
Alexander Tansman was born on 12 June 1897 in Łódź, Poland, in the same city as his famous compatriot, the pianist Arthur Rubinstein. Since 1795 Poland had been divided between the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Russian Empire. Lódź was in the part dominated by Russia. Alexander's parents, Mosze Tansman (1868-1908) and Anna Gurwicz (1866-1935) were members of the Jewish upper middle class, a highly cultured group in which the French language was commonly spoken. They took pains with Alexander's education, providing him with the best teachers of the day as well as foreign governesses. He quickly learned to speak five languages (Polish, Russian, German, French and English).
At a very early age, about four or five, he learned the piano. All the family were musical to a high degree. His aunt had been a pupil of Anton Rubinstein in St. Petersburg, a cousin was a pupil of Eugène Ysaÿe in Brussels and his sister studied with Arthur Schnabel in Berlin. The family home was often the scene of chamber music performances, and from a very early age Alexander was taken to concerts by his parents. At the age of six, after an Ysaÿe concert, Tansman decided he would be a musician. He began composing at the age of eight or nine. His first piano teachers were Wojciech Gawrónski (1868-1910), who came specially from Warsaw to teach him and lodged in the Tansman home, Karol K. Lüdschg, of Czech origin, and the Hungarian pianist Sándor Vas. From 1902 to 1914 Tansman studied piano, harmony and counterpoint at the Łódź Conservatoire.
Tansman never formally studied orchestration. His apprenticeship came about in the Łódź Symphony Orchestra during the First World War he played the parts for the harp on the piano. In doing so, he learned about orchestral colour and mixed timbres.
In 1915 he left Lódź to study in Warsaw. Here he worked to develop his musical knowledge, studying counterpoint, form and composition with Piotr Rytel (1884-1970). At the same time, he studied at Warsaw University's Faculty of Law and Philosophy, gaining his doctorate in 1918. From 1917-18, although almost completely cut off from Western musical developments, he composed works employing polytonal harmony and exploring innovative resolutions beyond the limits of functional harmony.
In 1919 Tansman won the three first prizes (the Grand Prix and the next two prizes) in the first national award scheme for composers held in Poland, which was now once more independent. He had sent in three works, under three different names. The prize compositions were a Romance for violin and piano, and two piano pieces: Impression and the Prelude in B major. Tansman had just completed the three scores early that year. His success in the competition prompted his decision to go to Paris.
Tansman obtained his passport from the newly installed Head of State in Poland, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, the then President of the Council of Ministers. Paderewski was himself a pianist and a gifted composer. Later, in 1927, Paderewski went to the United States to be present when Tansman gave his American debut, playing his Second Concerto for piano and orchestra.
Arriving in Paris in late 1919, at the age of 22, Tansman worked for a while as a packer at La Villette. He then made use of his language skills to find work in a bank. His circumstances rapidly improved. Little more than six months later he was able to bring his sister to Paris, and in less than a year after arriving he arranged for his mother to come as well. Within a year, he was making a living from his music. At first his earnings came mainly from giving piano lessons, but he rapidly became a concert pianist, touring Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Holland and Belgium.
Tansman had a friend, a Polish architect called Stanislaw Landau, who introduced him to Georges Mouveaux, a stage designer at the Paris Opera. Georges Mouveaux held a dinner at his home to introduce the young composer to Maurice Ravel. In his turn, Ravel introduced Tansman to his publishers Demets and Max Eschig, and to performers of musical scores.
Ravel also took Tansman to meet Roland-Manuel, who had a reputation for his Monday gatherings. There Tansman came to know Milhaud, Honegger, Roussel, Florent Schmitt, Ibert, and other French composers. The lightness and spirituality of the French musical tradition was often to show through in his own compositions.
Alexander Tansman at the home of Vladimir Golschmann and his wife in St. Louis (U.S.A.) in 1931, watching while Prokofiev tries out Tansman's Second Concerto on the piano.
( Photo: Ruth Cunliff Russel, St. Louis, U.S.A. )
Ravel also gave Tansman a letter of introduction to the conductor Vladimir Golschmann (1893-1972). At that time, Golschmann was directing his orchestra in avant-garde concerts in Paris, the renowned Golschmann Concerts. At these, Tansman attended the first performances of his own most recent symphonic scores, composed in Paris from 1920 onwards. His Impressions for orchestra were performed at the Salle Gaveau on 3 February 1921, and his Intermezzo sinfonico at the Salle des Agriculteurs on 21 December 1922. Later, on 5 May 1924 in Brussels, Golschmann conducted the world premiere of the Danse de la Sorcière . To the end of his life, Golschmann would continue to be one of the most faithful interpreters of Tansman's music, both at the head of the St Louis Symphony Orchestra, which he conducted from 1931 to 1958, and later as conductor for the Denver Symphony Orchestra from 1964 to 1970.
Ravel also introduced Tansman to the singer Marya Freund. On 2 February 1922 she performed the composer's Eight Japanese Melodies at the Vieux-Colombier theatre under the direction of André Caplet.
In 1922, Tansman was the author of the first article about Karol Szymanowski to appear in French, in the Revue Musicale of Henri Prunières. At concerts organized by the Revue Musicale he made the acquaintance of Bartók, Hindemith, Casella and Malipiero. The concerts took place either at the home of Prunières, or at the premises of the Revue in the Rue de Grenelle, or at the Vieux Colombier theatre.
Tansman often spoke about the atmosphere he experienced in the Paris of between the wars, when there were no hierarchical distinctions and composers would show one another their work. At the Paris salons, creative artists from different disciplines - musicians, writers and painters - were able to come together. On Sunday afternoons, Tansman frequented the salon of Madame Paul Clemenceau, who was Austrian by birth and was the sister-in-law of Georges Clemenceau. There too he met Albert Einstein, Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Stefan Zweig, who gave him a letter of introduction to Richard Strauss. « On a Sunday evening », Tansman recalled, « we would go to the Godebskis, who were close friends of Ravel. There I met Gide, Manuel de Falla and Viňes ».
After hearing a performance conducted by Golschmann of a work composed by Tansman (probably the Intermezzo sinfonico), Serge Koussevitzky (1874-1951) began to take an interest in the Polish composer. Tansman dedicated to Koussevitzky the two symphonic scores he wrote in 1923, a Scherzo sinfonico and a Légende. Koussevitzky conducted them both at the Paris Opera, on 17 May 1923 and 8 May 1924, with the Koussevitzky Concert Orchestra, which he had formed from a select group of the leading musicians in the French capital.
On 13 November 1925 a symphonic work by Tansman was heard for the first time in the United States, when the Boston Symphony Orchestra, directed by Serge Koussevitzky, performed the Sinfonietta no. 1 for chamber orchestra (1924). A few days later, on 22 November, Willem Mengelberg conducted the New York Philharmonic Society Orchestra in the Danse de la Sorcière at New York's Carnegie Hall.
A few months later, on 12 June 1926, Tansman's First Concerto for piano and orchestra (1925) was performed at the Paris Opera by the Koussevitzky Concert Orchestra, conducted by Serge Koussevitzky. On 28 May in the following year, Koussevitzky led the world premiere of the Symphony no. 2 in A minor with the same orchestra in the same place.
In June 1926, during a SIMC concert in Zurich at which Grzegorz Fitelberg was conducting his Danse de la Sorcière, Tansman met the impresario Bernard Laberge, who was then working with Ravel and Bartók. This meeting led to Tansman's first United States tour, in the company of Ravel, from November 1927 to January 1928.
While Tansman was sailing for the New World, Koussevitzky was preparing to welcome him with the first American performance in Boston, on 17 November, of the Symphony no. 2 in A minor by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The high point of Tansman's American tour was the world premiere of the Second Concerto for piano and orchestra (1927), also in Boston, on 28 and 29 December 1927, with the same performers as the Symphony and with the composer himself at the piano. This concert was repeated in early January at Carnegie Hall in New York. The work was dedicated to Charlie Chaplin, who attended the premiere. Tansman was to remain on very friendly terms with Chaplin. Through his publisher, he often sent Chaplin his latest published scores.
During this tour, Tansman made friends with Gershwin and invited him to Paris. Gershwin came to the French capital a few months later, at the time when he was composing his symphonic poem An American in Paris. He worked with Tansman on orchestrating this composition, and the two friends went together to the Avenue de la Grande-Armée to listen to the car horns which Gershwin used to represent the urban cacophony of traffic noise in a big city.
Tansman was always ready to help his colleagues. He gave introductions to his publisher Max Eschig to Villa-Lobos, Varèse, Mihalovici and Szymanowski, and later did the same for other composers much younger than himself.
Like many composers in the 1920s, Tansman came under the influence of jazz, which had been discovered by the Europeans after the 1914-1918 war. His tours to America, followed by his enforced exile during the Second World War, brought him into contact with the greatest of the jazz musicians, such as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and, especially, Art Tatum. He was greatly impressed with the rapidity and alternating rhythms of Art Tatum's compositions.
1929 saw the publication of the first musicological studies of the work of Alexander Tansman. An article by Raymond Petit was published in the February issue of the Revue musicale. Alejo Carpentier contributed an article on « Alexandre Tansman y su obra luminosa » to the September issue of Social (volume 14, no. 9). In 1931, the American critic Irving Schwerke published the first monograph devoted to Tansman and his work .
In the early 1930s the title « School of Paris » was attached to a group of composers settled in the French capital, all friends with one another and all from central and eastern Europe. There was the Romanian Marcel Mihalovici, the Russian Alexander Tcherepnin, the Hungarian Tibor Harsányi, the Czech Bohuslav Martinu, the Swiss Conrad Beck and the Pole Alexander Tansman. All of them composed in their own style, bringing to the French musical tradition a greater formality and firmness, a rhythmic vigour supported by refined accentuation, the modulation of melodies from the different musical traditions represented in the group, and a more linear approach to composition, sometimes using techniques neglected since the Baroque era.
In everything he wrote, Tansman drew frequently on Polish sources, not only dance forms such as the mazurka, the oberek, the kujawiak and the polka, but also in his melodic line (with the Polish scale and its emphatic fourth degree) and especially in his harmonic writing.
In 1931 Tansman dedicated a composition to « Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth of Belgium ». This was his Symphony No. 3, Symphony Concertante, written for a quartet with piano and orchestra, a rare combination. The work was performed on 6 March 1932 at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, under the direction of the composer, with the Belgian Keyboard Quartet.
Tansman had the honour of playing in a duet with Queen Elizabeth, who was a violinist a
and had been a pupil of Eugen Ysaÿe. Later, in 1958, he dedicated his Suite baroque to her.
Sergei Prokofiev and Alexander Tansman in St. Louis (U.S.A.), 1932.
( Photo Ruth Cunliff Russell, St-Louis, U.S.A. )
In 1932 he made his first tour of Poland. It was a great success, especially in Warsaw, where in September he gave the first performance of his Third Sonata for piano, completed in June of the same year.
On 6 October 1932 Arthur Toscanini, who did not attempt many contemporary works because of his blindness, conducted the New York Philharmonic Society in Tansman's Quatre Danses polonaises, having learned them by heart. This ground-breaking concert marked the beginning of a key chapter in Tansman's life: his voyage round the world. After a major tour of the United States, he went to Hawaii, Japan, China, the Philippines, Singapore, the Indonesian islands Java, Bali and Sumatra, Ceylon, India, Egypt, Italy and the Balearic islands. During this journey, he was received by Emperor Hirohito of Japan. While staying in India, Tansman spent six days with Gandhi, at the latter's invitation. The tour lasted almost a year. Shortly before the composer's death, a film about it was shown at the Polish Institute in Paris and on Polish television. Tansman's impressions of the journey were transposed into a charming collection of piano pieces entitled Le Tour du monde en miniature (1933) which was performed by the BBC in London in 1934, with the composer himself at the piano.
Although he was known internationally as a Polish composer, in 1933 Tansman set to music a series of twelve Chants hébraïques, his first avowedly Jewish creation. A young woman singer he had known who came from Yemen, sang him some beautiful Jewish melodies which had been preserved in Yemen and which sprang from the purest Jewish tradition. It is said that they originated with the lost Twelfth Tribe. This composition was the beginning of a series of works in which the composer strove to bring out the specific yet universal characteristics of Judaism and its philosophical contribution to humanity. In 1938 Tansman made use of these songs in his Rhapsodie hébraïque for small orchestra and piano. This work was performed in Paris in 1939 by the French National Radio Orchestra, conducted by Rhené-Baton.
It was around this time that Tansman started a new direction in his career by composing music for films. His debut came in 1932, when he joined forces with Julien Duvivier to compose the music for Poil de Carotte.
In the second half of the 1930s, one consequence of the political situation in central Europe was that Tansman's music was heard less and less often. His name was put on a blacklist of Polish musicians who were said to be producing « degenerate art » [Entartete Kunst], alongside the names of Arthur Rubinstein, Bronislaw Huberman, Pawel Kochanski, Arthur Rodzinski, Leopold Godowski and many others.
However, in 1936 Tansman made a second tour of Poland. Polish radio organized and broadcast a concert of his works, including the Concertino for piano and orchestra (1931) and the Deux Moments symphoniques (1932), which met with little reaction from the Warsaw critics. In much the same way, the Deux Pièces (1934), performed on 11 December 1936 during a concert by the Warsaw Philharmonic under the baton of the Luxembourg conductor Henri Pensis, were ignored. Increasingly outraged by the conduct of the Polish Government of the time, which was collaborating with Hitler's Germany, Tansman decided to renounce his Polish nationality. On 1 June 1938, he was granted French nationality under a decree signed by the President of the French Republic, Albert Lebrun. Alexander Tansman was to remain a French citizen, following the example of Igor Stravinsky two years earlier and presaging the same move by Bruno Walter a year later.
In spite of the difficult political situation, the list of Tansman's works lengthened to include many significant compositions such as the Quatuor à cordes no. 4 (1935), the ballets La Grande Ville and Bric à Brac (1935), the Fantaisie pour violoncelle et orchestre (1936), the Concerto for alto and orchestra (1936-1937), the Variations sur un thème of Frescobaldi (1937), the Fantaisie for piano and orchestra (1937), the Concerto for violin and orchestra (1937), the Sérénade no. 2 for string trio (1937), a second opera called La Toison d'Or (1938) on a libretto by Salvador de Madariaga, the Trio no. 2 for violin, cello and piano (1938), the Symphony No. 4 (1939) and the first two collections of Intermezzi for piano (1939).
The difficulties caused by the restrictions on democracy in Europe, and the looming menace of war, influenced the treatment of several works composed by Tansman during this period. Some of them, such as the Fantasy for cello and orchestra, or the Concerto for violin and orchestra, were first performed in their orchestral versions only after the Second World War. Others, such as the Fantasy for piano and orchestra, or the Symphony No. 4, which is among Tansman's most personal creations, have still to be performed, almost sixty years after they were composed. The opera La Toison d'Or was performed only in 1947, on French radio, in a version with two pianos produced by Bronislaw Horowicz.
On 7 December 1937, Alexander Tansman had married Colette Cras, a pianist of repute who was the daughter of the composer Admiral Jean Cras and herself an outstanding pianist. Two daughters, Mireille and Marianne, were born of the marriage. In August 1940, Tansman fled to Nice with his family to escape the threat posed by the enemy to the Jewish community in occupied France. He continued to compose tirelessly, especially for the piano. In 1940 came the Rhapsodie polonaise for orchestra or piano, with the dedication « Homage to the defenders of Warsaw ». Owing to the strongly symbolic character of this work in the historical backdrop of war, not surprisingly, this was one of the two Tansman scores, with the Symphony No. 5 in D (1942), most frequently played by the major American symphony orchestras during the composer's years of exile. During this dark and troubled time Tansman also composed his Fifth String Quartet, one of his most intensely dramatic compositions. It was performed in San Francisco on 3 August 1942 by the Budapest Quartet.
In 1941, with the support of a committee set up by Charlie Chaplin, Arturo Toscanini, Serge Koussevitzky, Eugene Ormandy and Jascha Heifetz, Alexander Tansman was able to leave France. As soon as he reached the United States, Tansman had the backing of Mrs. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, who commissioned him to write a sonata for 5000 US dollars. On 30 October 1941, in the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress in Washington, Alexander Tansman performed his Fourth Sonata for piano for the first time. The same evening, he was awarded the Coolidge Medal, together with the composers Benjamin Britten and Randall Thompson (1899-1984).
Igor Stravinsky and Alexander Tansman in Hollywood, 1945
( photo X... )
Shortly afterwards, Tansman settled in Los Angeles, where he found many other European artists and intellectuals who had been forced into exile by the war, such as Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Darius Milhaud, Thomas Mann and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. He became a firm friend of Igor Stravinsky and his wife Vera, meeting them almost daily. Tansman has spoken of the Hollywood of this period as a kind of « modern Weimar ». The American years were dominated by his composition of three symphonies: the Fifth in D; the Sixth In Memoriam (1944), dedicated to those who had fallen for France, comprising four movements, each with a different instrumentation, and which was performed in Paris after the Liberation by the choir and orchestra of French radio, directed by Roger Désormière; and finally, the Seventh « Lyrical » symphony, which was dedicated to Vera and Igor Stravinsky and was later performed under conductors such as Vladimir Golschmann, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Franz André, Eduard Flipse, Eugene Ormandy and André Cluytens.
Because of Hollywood's film industry Tansman was able to provide security for his family, while continuing to work at more serious compositions. He wrote a series of film scores around this time, including scores for Julien Divivier's Flesh and Fantasy in 1941 and Dudley Nichols' Sister Kenny in 1946. A plan to compose the score for Fritz Lang's film Scarlet Street was abandoned in 1945.
In 1944, the composer and conductor Nathaniel Shilkret invited a number of emigré composers to contribute to a group work entitled The Genesis Suite, which was planned as a musical accompaniment to a speech recording of the Bible. Shilkret asked each composer to write a short piece illustrating a chapter from Genesis. The chosen composers were Arnold Schoenberg, with his Prélude op. 44, Alexander Tansman, with Adam and Eve, Darius Milhaud, with Cain and Abel op. 241, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco with Noah's Ark, Ernst Toch with The Flood, and Igor Stravinsky with Babel. As the creator of the project, Nathaniel Shilkret kept for himself the episode of the Creation. It was intended that Bartók, Hindemith and Prokofiev would produce compositions for other chapters of Genesis, but this never happened. The work was performed in Los Angeles on 18 November 1945 under the direction of Werner Janssen. It could well be revived one day, either in the concert hall or as a recording.
Tansman returned to France in April 1946. Little by little, he regained his place in the country's musical life. Significantly, one of the very first works he composed on his return was called Ponctuation française, setting to music in a cycle of melodies some short writings by Charles Oulmont which has been composed in hiding during the Second World War. But it was mainly abroad, in Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland and Britain that Tansman's work was acclaimed afresh. He was by now in the prime of life, reaching the age of fifty in 1947, and there were many symphonic performances of his works in one country after another. The homage to his reputation began with a series of concerts in the Netherlands, performed by the country's leading orchestras (Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hague Philharmonic Orchestra, the Utrecht Symphony Orchestra) under the direction of the composer, with Colette Cras at the piano.
In 1948 Tansman published a major work on Stravinsky, the fruit of deep familiarity with the composer's work and regular meetings with him during the years of exile. He also composed Music for Orchestra (Symphony No. 8), which was performed by Rafaël Kubelik in 1949 at the XIIth International Bienniale of Contemporary Music in Venice. In 1950 it was directed by the same conductor with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, and by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra the following year.
The oratorio Isaiah the Prophet appeared in 1950. The composer had worked from several chapters of Isaiah's Old Testament prophecies. The selected chapter fragments are brought together within the general scheme of an oratorio. The composer's intention was to show the transition from suffering to joy via a prayer and a song of hope. Tansman composed this work both as a memorial to the six million Jews who had been exterminated during the Second World War, and as a salute to the new State of Israel. The work comprises seven parts, including a fugue for the orchestra alone and an interlude for wind instruments. This is the first of the three works which, for Tansman, ranked highest among all his compositions and of which he was genuinely proud. It was performed on French radio in 1952 by the national choir and orchestra under the direction of the composer. Three years later it had its American premiere in Los Angeles under the direction of Franz Waxman, and a recording was conducted by Paul van Kempen.
In 1953, the year which saw the tragic death of his wife Colette, Tansman completed his opera Le Serment, from a libretto based on Balzac's « La Grande Bretêche ». This is the most frequently performed of his operas. It is a lyrical episode in two scenes, lasting about fifty-five minutes. André Cluytens directed the world premiere in a concert performance in 1954 on French radio. The first stage production was on 11 March 1955, at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels. The Italian premiere was directed by Bruno Maderna at Milan's R.A.I.
Tansman's Capriccio for orchestra, a very Stravinskyan work, was composed for the Louisville Orchestra, commissioned by the Ford Foundation and recorded immediately. His next composition was the Concerto for Orchestra, a major symphonic work which was to see many performances under the baton of many different conductors.
In 1958 Tansman completed his most important opera Sabbatai Zevi, a lyrical fresco in a prologue and four acts on a libretto by Nathan Bistritzky. The same year, from 14 to 31 July, he made his first visit to Israel.
Alexander Tansman at his piano in Paris, in the 1960s.
( Photo Richard de Grab, Paris - New York )
In 1959 and 1960 he taught composition in Santiago de Compostela, and gave a lecture entitled « Some thoughts on tradition, substance and spirit in contemporary music ».
In the first half of the 1960s, Tansman composed major works in a variety of genres: ballet (Résurrection, 1962, on an argument of Pierre Médecin after Tolstoy), religious music (Psalms for tenor, mixed choir and orchestra, 1961), opera (Il usignolo de Boboli, 1963, on a plot of Mario Labroca); symphonic music (La Lutte de Jacob avec l'Ange, 1960, a symphonic movement inspired by Gauguin), Six Studies for orchestra, 1962; Six Mouvements for string orchestra, 1963, Concerto for cello and orchestra, 1963; instrumental music (Suite in modo polonico for guitar, 1962, Fantasy for violin and piano, 1963).
In 1967 Tansman was awarded the Hector Berlioz prize by S.A.C.E.M. (the Society of Music Authors, Composers and Publishers), and he made his first postwar visit to Poland.
Now began the composer's last creative period, no less productive than in the past, with Tansman still fully master of all his artistic resources. The period is dominated by a series of major symphonic works in which he deploys all his expressive gifts, with a perfect sense of alternating mood between liveliness and pensive calm. These works use a refined harmonic language which manages the effects of tensions and their resolutions in a rich virtuoso style of orchestration and a clear and effective formal construction. They include the Four Movements for orchestra of 1968, the Diptyque for chamber orchestra and the Hommage à Erasme de Rotterdam of 1969, the Stèle in memoriam Igor Stravinsky in 1972, the Ėlégie in memory of Darius Milhaud in 1975, the Sinfonietta no. 2 for chamber orchestra in 1978 and the Dix Commandements in 1979.
On 5 May 1977 Tansman was elected to Belgium's Royal Academy, in the Fine Arts class, to replace Dimitri Shostakovich who had died two years earlier.
The years 1977 to 1980 saw a marked resurgence of interest in Tansman's music in his native Poland. A Tansman festival was organized for his 80th birthday, and a second was held in Poznan on 17 February 1978 . In 1979 Tansman made another visit to Poland, from 13 to 20 June. Then followed a major Tansman festival, from 26 September to 10 October 1980, featuring many compositions, among them some which were only seldom performed. During Tansman's final years, the Polish authorities awarded him many distinctions: the medal of the Association of Polish Composers, the Order of Merit of the People's Republic of Poland, and the Order of Merit of Polish Culture.
In 1982 Tansman wrote his last concert score, his Hommage à Lech Walesa, a mazurka for guitar. To the end of his life, Tansman had a deep concern for the problems of the modern world. In these difficult years of Poland's history, he could not fail to express his admiration for the courage of the trade union leader who was to become Poland's Head of State only a few years later.
In 1986, the year of his death in Paris on 15 November, Tansman was awarded the title of Doctor Honoris Causa of the Lodz Academy of Music, and in September of the same year, France honoured him with the Order of Arts and Letters.
Translation from the French : Patricia Wheeler
Later in life, Tansman added Spanish and Italian to the languages he had learned in youth.
Wojciech Gawrónski (1868-1910), a Polish pianist, composer and conductor, had studied composition at the Warsaw Institute of Music with Noskowski, and later studied in Berlin with Moritz Moszkowski. He may also have worked on orchestration with Brahms. As a pianist he made many tours in Poland and Russia, and was especially admired for his interpretations of Bach and Chopin. From 1902 he taught in Warsaw and at the Lodz school of music. His works comprise two operas, symphonic music, choral works, four string quartets, sonatas and pieces for string instruments and piano, as well as songs.
Piotr Rytel (1884-1970), a Polish composer and music teacher, composed mainly operas, ballets and four symphonies. In addition to Tansman, his pupils included Tadeusz Baird (1928-1981), Andrzej Panufnik (1914-1991) and Wlodzimierz Kotónski (1925).
This exploit was repeated forty years later, in 1959, when the young Krzysztof Penderecki, in similar circumstances, won the three first prizes in the competition organized by the Association of Polish Composers, sending in his Strophes for soprano, narrator and ten instruments, Ėmanations for two string orchestras and Psalms of David for mixed-voice choir, two pianos and percussion.
A typical example of Tansman's French inspiration is the first "Pastoral" movement of the Third Sonatina for piano (1933).
It was during this concert that Golschmann introduced Tansman to Pierre Monteux, who some years later conducted the Suite symphonique de la Nuit Kurde (1926), the Toccata (1929) and the Deux Moments Symphoniques (1932).
Among the many Tansman scores conducted by Vladimir Golschmann, mention should be made of the Triptych for string orchestra (1930), the Concertino for piano and orchestra (1931), the Deux Moments Symphoniques (1932), dedicated to Vladimir Golschmann, the Deux Pièces for orchestra (1934), dedicated to Arthur Toscanini, the Adagio for string orchestra (1936), the two versions (for symphony orchestra and for string orchestra) of the Variations on a theme of Frescobaldi (1937), the orchestral versions of the Toccata and Fugue in D minor B.W.V. 538 of Johann Sebastian Bach (1937) and of the Two Chorals B.W.V. 705 and 599 (1939), the Rhapsodie polonaise (1940), the Symphony no. 5 (1943), the Serenade no. 3 (1943), the Divertimento for chamber orchestra (1944), the Symphony no. 7 (1944), the Suite dans le goût español (1949), the Ricercari (1949), the Sinfonia Piccola (1951-52), the Concerto for orchestra (1954), the Suite baroque (1958), and the Diptyque (1969). Those of the above works which were given world performances under Golschmann's direction are shown in bold.
Marya Freund (1876-1966) had studied violin with Pablo de Sarasate before becoming a singer. She began her career in the opera theatre of her native Breslau (now Wroclaw). Schoenberg admired her musical talent and asked her to sing the part of Tove when his Gurrelieder were performed. Later, in Paris, she sang two other works of Schoenberg: the 15 Gedichte aus das Buch der Hängenden Garten von Stefan George op. 15 and the Pierrot lunaire.
From a broadcast by Catherine Ravet and Alain Jomy, on France Musique (Radio France), 28 February 1985.
The Tansman compositions in which the infuence of jazz shows through most clearly are the Sonatine for violin or flute and piano (1925), the ballet Lumières (1927), the Sonatine transatlantique for piano or orchestra (1930), the Symphony no. 3 « Concertante » (1931), No. 1 of the Tour du monde en miniature (1933), the ballets Bric à Brac and La Grande Ville (1935), the « Blues » no. 6 of the Huit Novelettes for piano (1936), Trois Préludes en forme de blues for piano (1937), Carnival Suite for orchestra or two pianos (1942), Ricercari for orchestra (1949), the ballet Resurrection (1962), and the « Tempo di blues » no. 2 from the Album d'Amis (1980).
Irving Schwerke, Alexandre Tansman, Compositeur polonais, Paris 1931, Ėditions Max Eschig.
« I can say this honestly. I have followed much the same route as Bartók or Falla, for example, inventing on themes from folklore. I have not used popular themes, but I have used the same sort of melodic line. This is because Polish folklore is very rich in both harmony and melody », in « Alexander Tansman: Œuvre et Témoignage, in Les Chemins de la Connaissance, broadcast no. 1: “La Pologne, Enfance et Vocation” by Marie-Hélène Pinel, broadcast on 8 March 1980 on France Culture (Radio France).
So many of Tansman's compositions show a Polish influence that it would crowd the text to list them all. The most important ones are: Sinfonietta no. 1 (1924), String quartet no. 3 (1925), Symphony no. 2 in A minor (1926), Suite for two pianos and orchestra (1928), Suite-Divertissement for violin, alto, cello and piano (1929), Quatre Danses polonaises for orchestra or piano (1931), Deux Pièces for orchestra (1934), Fantaisie pour violoncelle et orchestre (1936), Sérénade no. 2 for violin, alto and cello (1937), Rhapsodie polonaise for orchestra or piano (1940), Tombeau de Chopin for orchestra or string quintet (1949), Ricercari for orchestra (1949), Suite légère for orchestra (1955), Concerto for clarinet and orchestra (1957), Musique à Six for clarinet, string quartet and piano (1977), Sinfonietta no. 2 (1978), and many piano works, including the Sonate no. 2 (1928) and the four collections of Mazurkas (1918-1928, 1932, 1941), as well as many of his guitar compositions; Mazurka (1925), Trois Pièces (1954), Suite in modo polonico (1962) and finally, the Hommage à Lech Walesa (1982).
Interview on 10 August 1986 with Christine de Obaldia, broadcast on France Culture (Radio France), in "Mémoires du siècle", on 14 December 1986.
This series of works includes the Chants hébraiques (1933), Deux Images de la Bible for orchestra (1935), the Rhapsodie hébraïque (1938), Adam et Eve no. 2 from « The Genesis », suite biblique for narrator and orchestra (1944), the Suite hébraïque for orchestra (1944), R'hitia Jewish Dance for piano (1944), the Prière hébraïque for tenor, mixed voice choir, piano or organ (1945), Kol-Nidrei for tenor, mixed voice choir and organ (1945), Ma Tovu - How Fair are thy tents for tenor or baritone, mixed voice choir and organ (1946), Le Cantique des Cantiques for chamber orchestra (1946), La Sulamite for chamber orchestra (1946), the oratorio Isaïe le Prophète (1950), the Quatre Prières pour choeur mixte sur des Psaumes de David (1951), Deux Pièces hébraïques for organ or piano (1954-55), the Album d'Israël for chamber orchestra (1958) or Visit to Israel for piano (1958), Prologue et Cantate for female choir and chamber orchestra (1957), the lyrical fresco in a prologue and four acts called Sabbatai Zevi, le Faux Messie (1957-58), the Psaumes for tenor, mixed voice choir and orchestra (1960-1961), Eli, Eli, Lamma Sabatchani in memorian d'Auschwitz for voice and piano (1966), the Apostrophe à Zion for choir and orchestra (1976-1977), and Les Dix Commandements for orchestra (1978-1979).
See Janiusz Cegiella, Dziecko Szczescia Aleksandr Tansman I Jego Czasy, vol. 1, p. 348, Lodz, 1996, Wydawnictwo 86 Press.
In fact the first world performance of the Symphony no. 4 took place only in June 1998, in the recording sessions organised by the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, directed by Israël Yinon for the firm of Koch-Schwann.
In 1940 the composer completed the Valse-Impromptu, the 3rd and 4th collections of Intermezzi and the four collections of piano pieces for 4 hands entitled Les Jeunes au piano. Before he left Nice in 1941, Tansman had finished the Sonate for two pianos, the three pieces Mazurka, Canzone orientale and Moment musical, the three Ballades, the 3rd and 4th collections of Mazurkas, the Six Etudes de virtuosité and the Sonate no, 4.
The Rhapsodie polonaise was performed in St. Louis on 11 and 12 November 1941 at the Opera House, Kiel Auditorium by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, directed by Vladimir Golschmann. Other performances took place on 16 and 18 April 1942 with the Cleveland Orchestra directed by Arthur Rodzinski, on 25 October 1942 with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra directed by Dimitri Mitropoulos, on 3 January 1943 with the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra directed by Dimitri Mitropoulos, on 31 January in Washington and 2 February 1943 with the Washington National Symphony Orchestra directed by the composer, and on 14 and 15 March 1943 with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra directed by Vladimir Golschmann.
In 1925 Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge (1864-1953) had set up a foundation under her own name at the Library of Congress in Washington to enable the music department of the Library to organize festivals and concerts and to make grants of money and award prizes for any original composition performed in public at festivals or concerts held under the auspices of the Library. In 1932 she instituted the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Medal, which is awarded every year to one or more people for « eminent services to chamber music ». As well as the Fourth Piano Sonata, in 1930 she had commissioned Tansman's Triptych for string orchestra (or string quartet). It was to her that Tansman dedicated his Serenade no. 3 for orchestra (1943).
The first movement, « Andante cantabile » is written for wind instruments, percussion and piano, the second for string orchestra and string concertino quartet and the third for the full orchestra, the last one being for choir and orchestra.
The programme works were the Symphonies no. 5, 6, 7, Deux Moments symphoniques, the Serenade no. 3, the Rhapsodie polonaise, the Triptyque, the Partita no. 2 for piano and chamber orchestra (1944) and the Suite for two pianos and orchestra.
Igor Stravinsky by Alexander Tansman, Paris, Amiot-Dumont 1948.
The two other compositions which Tansman considered the most successful of his career were his Concerto for orchestra (1954) and the lyrical fresco Sabbatai Zevi (1958).
Franz André, Manuel Rosenthal, Vladimir Golschmann, Charles Brück, Stanislaw Wislocki, Igor Blazhkov, Maurice Le Roux, Eduard Flipse, Jean Fournet, Renard Czajkowski, Tadeusz Strugala and Antonio de Almeida.
The main works performed were Stèle in memoriam Igor Stravinsky, Concerto no. 2 for piano and orchestra, the Ėlegie à la mémoire de Darius Milhaud and the Concerto for orchestra.
The programme comprised Hommage à Erasme de Rotterdam, the Concertino for piano and orchestra, the Ėlegie à la mémoire de Darius Milhaud and the Concerto for orchestra.
Quatre Danses polonaises, Concerto no. 2 for piano and orchestra, Quatre Mouvements pour orchestre, Rhapsodie polonaise, Concerto for cello and orchestra, 8 Mélodies japonaises, Quatuor à cordes no. 6, 11 Interludes for piano and Suite in modo polonico for guitar.
The editors of Musica et Memoria express their grateful thanks to Madame Mireille Zanuttini for permission to publish this biographical note by Mr. Gérald Hugon. It may also be consulted in the collection Hommage au compositeur Alexandre Tansman (1897-1986), published in 2000 by the Presses de l'Université de Paris-Sorbonne, comprising 16 essays edited by Pierre Guillot of the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne, grouped into four parts: Biographie, Style, Analyse et Esthétique, Diffusion et réception de l'œuvre (254 pages, ISSN: 1275-2622, ISBN: 2-84050-175-9, price 25 €). The publication may be ordered from the Association des Amis d'Alexandre Tansman.
Virtual Exposition presented on the Alexandre Tansman Day,
March 30, 2014 in the Médiathèque Alliance Baron Edmond de Rothschild
(with gracious permission by Mme Mireille Tansman Zanuttini) DR.
LIST OF WORKS
The complete Catalogue of the works of Alexander Tansman was compiled in 1995 by Mr. Gérald Hugon (Editions Max Eschig), with the assistance of the composer's daughters, Madame Mireille Tansman Zanuttini and Madame Marianne Tansman Martinozzi. In addition to all the composer's works, listed according to genre, it gives the dates of composition of each work, the number of players, the first recitals, the most memorable performances, some still unpublished works which have been traced and all the available editions.
This is a 124 page publication illustrated with many photographs of the composer and facsimiles of his scores. It is obtainable from Editions Max Eschig, 5 rue du Helder, 75009 Paris, or from the Association des Amis d'Alexandre Tansman.
" THE FRIENDS OF ALEXANDER TANSMAN "
" THE FRIENDS OF ALEXANDER TANSMAN "
The association known as " The friends of Alexander Tansman " was formed in 1987. under the 1901 law, to promote the music of Alexander Tansman. It arranges for recordings of his works, keeps the archive materials accessible and disseminates information about publications, concerts and competitions, the bibliography, available recordings and events in honour of the composer's memory.
|Andrés Segovia and Alexander Tansman at the Academia Chigiana in Siena, 1955
( photo Studio Grassi )
The Chairman of the Association is Michaël Levinas, a composer and pianist, elected after M. Henri Dutilleux passed away in May 2013. The honorary membership of the Board includes the Royal Academy of Belgium, Madame Jankélévich, Madame Milhaud, Madame Segovia, and Messrs. Barenboim, Cziffra, Landowski, Lutoslawski, Ohana and Penderecki.
The seat of the Association is 3 rue Florence Blumenthal, 75016 Paris. For details, please contact Mesdames Mireille Tansman Zanuttini and Marianne Tansman Martinozzi:, tel. 01 45 25 78 54 or 06 70 10 01 11. Email: firstname.lastname@example.org
Link to the site : www.alexandre-tansman.com
Interview with Alexander Tansman in 1949
by Yves Hucher
Alexander Tansman was born in Łódź on 12 June 1897. He took French nationality in 1920. The upheaval in Europe took him to America, but he returned to Europe in 1946, by which time he had made concert tours around the world. He is still thought of as “ the pilgrim of Europe ”.
As soon as I enter the home of this indefatigable artist, a piano reminds me of the person who was his lifelong companion: Colette Cras, the daughter of the composer Jean Cras. I begin my interview by asking the composer about his aesthetic preferences.
More and more, I find I prefer " pure " music: the orchestra, chamber music. I have always thought of music as a structure which has to stand on its own, without any literary props. When I wrote my symphony dedicated to those who died for France, and my Polish Rhapsody in memory of the defence of Warsaw in 1940, I was careful to steer clear of literary influences.
But you have composed for the theatre?
Yes, but even then I wanted to avoid simply putting across a fact or an idea in musical terms. I tried to hold on to just the scene, the setting, the atmosphere.
So for you, composing for the cinema must have been even more difficult?
This is a matter of the artistic relationship between the composer and the producer. Film producers have so many hackneyed notions that film music has to follow formulas which ought not to exist at all. When you are shown a table in a documentary film, they don't have to tell you: " This is a table ". When people kiss on screen, why do we have to use divided chords? Once in America, there was a love scene and I had the temerity to use two horns to accompany the scene. There was a big fuss, I had a heated argument with the producer, and that was the first time a film review mentioned the music. Anyway, I think that except for the Milhaud and Copland scores the music in American films is deplorable, it does nothing for me at all.
I am sure you have some tales to tell about this.
Yes, if you want. I was in Hollywood at a recording session. At the rehearsal, I asked for a clarinet passage to be tried one octave lower. At once the producer spoke up, apparently worried about his profit margin. He suggested: " Don't you think half an octave might be enough? " Another time, while I was still in the Hollywood wonderland, I was asked to compose the score for a film about the French Resistance, but from a Hollywood perspective. The producer, who as usual was the boss, asked me to " do something very French for us, you know, a Tchaikovsky sort of thing ". Another time. I had to cancel a contract because the terms were just not acceptable: the producer insisted that everything I wrote was to be played instantly on the piano, and from time to time he would shake his head and say: " We need something the audience can hum, make us some plain ordinary music, can't you? "
And in spite of all that, you don't regret your time in America?
No I don't. In spite of the unfortunate lapses such as the time when Carmen was performed entirely in jazz, I don't regret my time there at all, because there is one thing that deserves to be said about music in America, the country is more receptive than old Europe is to contemporary music.
Why is that?
There are two reasons, I think. The first, unfortunately, is money. It always is. I prefer the second, the fact that there are European musicians in America who have not become Americanised. They have a healthy influence on musical life in America, which is not nationalistic in any narrow sense..
How would you explain that?
In Paris there are very few first recitals, except on radio, and as far as the provinces are concerned, I'll give you just one example, Stravinsky - how much of his work has been performed there, apart from The Firebird? In America, you see the names of modern composers alongside the great classics every day. They don't have festivals of contemporary music, but in every programme they include one or two first recitals. What's more, these works are not limited to a single performance; they remain in the repertory and are often played again. This has been the case for the past 15 or 20 years. The public respond to the new music and they come to enjoy it. I must say too that although European orchestras are not at all inferior to American ones, the players work under completely different conditions. They are paid by the month, so the actual number of performances doesn't matter.
I am told that you were No. 5 on the list of living composers most often performed in America.
Maybe. In spite of that, I found there were too many pressures there; one had to keep making concessions so as to avoid the easy options. I did learn a lot there, and everyone was extremely friendly to us, generous and tactful at the same time. I need only mention the admirable Mrs. Coolidge. But in spite of that, I decided I still preferred Europe with all its hardships to a more indulgent way of life. You see, the American creative genius lacks an aesthetic tradition, and it lacks .... suffering.
An emotional statement, followed by a long silence. Finally I asked:
When you were in America, did you get a sense of where modern music was heading?
Don't say modern, say 'contemporary music'. There is an aesthetic confusion between the two which absolutely must be avoided. Incidentally, this is also the view of Hindemith, with whom I spent a week in London, and of Stravinsky, who wrote to me about this quite recently. I think we have to avoid trying for the shock effect, the deliberate originality which one finds in 'modern music' where inspiration and constructive effort ought to be instead. Modern music tries too hard to be aggressive and avant-garde. It uses non-musical elements which can certainly be brought into the structure, but ought not to be an end in themselves. This is what happened with the twelve-tone technique, which tried to revolutionise a system rather than a method. This system has been presented as a novelty, although it has been around for 40 years and Schoenberg has already done everything that can be done with it.. To sum up, I would say that an artist has to take control of his material, filter his work and be very wary of the "system", which is the great enemy of art, because it mistakes anarchy for freedom.
I think we can end there. Do you want to look at my piece before it is published?
No need. We're not in America.
Why the joke?
Just one last story. When I was on my first American tour, a reporter who might just as well have been interviewing Georges Carpentier or Suzanne Lenglen, was asking me about Paderewski, the master to whom I owe so much. I answered: " He is such a genius that whatever he did, even if he wasn't playing the piano, he would do it with genius ". The next day, that reporter's newspaper published a photo of me with a headline above it saying: " Tansman says: " Paderewski is a great genius, but a poor pianist " !
Le Guide du Concert
11 novembre 1949
Alexander Tansman’s music on CD
The present discography registers only the recordings of Alexander Tansman’s works published on audio-digital records (CD). All the long-playing records are therefore here excluded.
Tansman’s music reproduced on a sound aids is an object as sensitive as old. His works have sometimes been recorded soon after their composition. For instance, the Triptyque (1930) for string orchestra, the oratorio Isaïe le Prophète (1950), the Capriccio for orchestra (1954), the Six Mouvements for string orchestra (1963) were recorded in the close years following their creation.
However, few works of Tansman were recorded on long-playing records. The composer bitterly complained about this at the end of his life. Among all his comrades of the " École de Paris ", Martinů had been the only one to see his works relatively well represented in the catalogs of long-playing records, thanks in particular to the Czech firms Supraphon and Panton. The works of his fellow members, Alexandre Tcherepnin, Marcel Mihalovici, Tibor Harsányi or Conrad Beck, were scarcely represented and still remain it today, particularly for the last three ones, very unjustly neglected by the phonographic publishers.
At the end of the last century, in the wave of the renewal of the repertory, resulting from the new prospects of development offered to the publishers by the advent of the compact disc, could be ascertained a revival of interest for composers who had been fully involved in the adventure of the music of the XXth century. Tansman was one of those, both for his life so rich, completely immersed in his times and the intrinsic quality of his production. His work, which took place far beyond a mere artistic creation realized in an ivory tour, had the potentiality to touch a very large audience by the immediacy of his language, the straightforward nature of his expression and the diversity of his sources of inspiration. A first project, as incredible as ambitious, concentrated on a complete set of his work for string quartets, one of the summits of his production, with as exceptional as prodigious musicians, the Silesian String Quartet, and the following cast of a most prominent label for the boldness of his artistic policy, Etcetera, which, managed at that time by the regretted Michel Arcizet, published John Cage, Xenakis, Birtwistle or Morton Feldman. The critics agreed to praise in this (re)discovery an elegant, warm, but also sensitive and deep musician. Other projects were also immediately carried out by Etcetera, the complete set of Sonatas and Sonatines for piano recorded at the Bayerirscher Rundfunk by David Blumenthal, then the works for cello and piano producted in Russia under the artistic direction of Piotr Kondrashin by Alexander Zagorinsky and Alexei Schmitov.
A very important part of Tansman’s music was still to be brought to light, his symphonic music. Then Marco Polo, " the label of the discovery ", boldly embarked on the adventure when Klaus Heymann, its director, accepted the proposal of the " Association of the friends of Alexander Tansman’s work " to publish a program including three key works of the composer’s production, the Symphony N° 5, Stèle in Memoriam Igor Stravinsky and the Quatre Mouvements pour orchestre, under the direction of Meir Minsky. Shortly afterwards, Marco Polo recorded a second volume with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Antonio de Almeida, including three other important works, the Concerto pour Orchestre, the Six Études for orchestra and the Capriccio for orchestra.
The interest of the phonographic firms in Tansman’s music didn’t cease to grow since and these last years were published several exemplary productions such as the recording by Olympia of the Concerto pour violon by Beata Halska and the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Bernard Le Monnier ; but also, by Koch Schwann, the three remarkable recordings conducted by Israël Yinon, thanks to which was revealed in particular the Symphony N°4 (1939), recorded with the Bamberger Symphoniker, a real World First Performance, since this work had not yet been played on a public concert at the time of its recording ; and today, that fascinating complete set of the Symphonies in progress for Chandos.
An important work of (re)discovery still remains to be done, considering the extent of the composer’s catalog. Among his main works, it would be absolutely urgent to make another recording of the Symphonic Oratorio, Isaïe le Prophète, one of the three scores of his catalog prefered by Tansman, formerly recorded for a long-playing record by Philips, conducted by Paul van Kempen. If put together with the Psaumes for tenor, mixed choir and orchestra, we would have the two main choral pages written by Tansman from the Bible.
In the field of the symphonic music, the Ricercari and the Élégie à la mémoire de Darius Milhaud remain priority works to be recorded. A particular attention should be given to the works for string orchestra which, for the quality of their instrumental writing, represent one of the composer’s most indeniable successes.
Among the repertory of the music concertante, a complete set of the works for piano and orchestra, the Concerto for viola or the four Concerti for wind instruments would be welcome, whereas in the sphere of the chamber music, pages like the Sextuor à cordes, the Musica a cinque for string quartet and piano remain inexplicable missing items in the discography of today. In the same way, it would be necessary to have a whole antology of the works for piano, where are hidden so many fascinating pages for their colour, a result of the composer’s so personal harmonic language. Tansman was an experienced pianist and the piano represented often for him the instrument to which he confided his innermost thoughts. It is incredible that, from a strict artistic point of view, no complete set of his 24 Intermezzi has not yet been realized. It is even more amazing that the pieces written for the youth, like Pour les enfants or the Jeunes au piano, which, like Bartók’s Mikrokosmos, are considered among the few successes of this kind of music written in the XXth century, have not yet been recorded. The commercial success of such a project would be assured, for these scores are among Tansman’s works most widely distributed under a graphic form. Finally, let us hope that the repeat of lyrical works such as Le Serment or Sabbataï Zévi would allow these works to have a phonographic existence.
Translation : Mireille Tansman Zanuttini | <urn:uuid:d922ca65-5165-459f-bade-faf4b846291a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.musimem.com/tansman_eng.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398516.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00043-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956256 | 13,579 | 2.546875 | 3 |
The Chinese Nationalist Party, or KMT, is a conservative party that currently rules Taiwan. In recent years it has supported pan-Chinese nationalism, democracy, Chinese reunification, and capitalism under the doctrine of the "three principles of the people." The Nationalists ruled China from 1927 until 1949 and then moved to Taiwan. The party has had the support of American conservatives since the 1930s. The abbreviation "KMT" stands for "Kuomintang," an obsolete romanization of the party's Chinese name.
The Nationalist Party was founded in 1912 by Song Jiaoren. The original party was outlawed and dissolved in 1913. To replace it, Sun Yat-sen founded the "Chinese Revolutionary Party" in 1914 as a secret society and under stricter discipline. However, various notable KMT members refused to join the new party and continued to identify by the old name. In 1919, the CRP was reorganized as the "Chinese Nationalist Party" and the party's bylaws were made more democratic. The party has continued in this form to the present. After Sun's death in 1925, the party launched the "Northern Expedition," defeated the warlords of the Beiyang clique, and established a central government for China in Nanjing. From 1927 to 1975, the party was led by Chiang Kai-shek. When the Nationalists were defeated by the Communists in 1949, the party, together with most government officials, much of the army, anti-communist political activists and many business and cultural leaders evacuated to Taiwan. Until 1971, the UN and most non-communists governments recognized the Nationalist government in Taipei as the legitimate government of China. In 1991, the Nationalists withdrew their claim to territory on the mainland. KMT leader Ma Ying-jeou was elected Taiwanese president in 2008 and reelected in 2012.
The party is a member of the International Democrat Union.
Founded in 1912 by Sun Yat-sen, the KMT rejected the old incompetent and Qing dynasty and sought to modernize China along Japanese and Western lines. The KMT helped topple the Qing emperor and promoted modernization along Western lines. The party played a significant part in the first Chinese first National Assembly where it was the majority party. However the KMT failed to achieve complete control. The post of president was given to old-guard general Yuan Shikai (1859-1916) as reward for his decisive support for the revolution. Yuan Shikai was a warlord uninterested in modernization and abused his powers, over-riding the constitution and trying to shut down political opposition. In July 1913, the KMT staged a 'Second Revolution' to depose Yuan. This failed and the following crack down by Yuan led to the dissolution of the KMT and the exile of its leadership, mostly to Japan.
Yuan Shikai tried and failed to make himself emperor of China. When Yuan Shikai died unexpectedly in 1916, China fractured into many regions controlled by warlords; this warlord era lasted about ten years.
Warlord period: 1916-26
When Yuan died, however, civil war broke out and regional warlords ruled amid chaos. The opium trade returned, irrigation failed, famine killed millions. Central rule was elusive. China sided with the Allies against Germany during World War I, and offered some limited assistance. The goal was hoping to obtain return of the cities that Germany controlled in China. Instead, the Treaty of Versailles gave that land to Japan. Feeling betrayed, the Chinese angrily demonstrated against that decision with the May Fourth Movement, which the Nationalists supported.
In exile, Sun Yat-sen and other former Nationalists founded several revolutionary parties under various names but with little success. These parties were united by Sun in 1919 as the "Chinese Nationalist Party." The word "Chinese" was added to the name of the reorganized party to distinguish it from the original. The new party returned to Guangzhou in China in 1920 where it set up a government but failed to achieve control of all of China. After the death of Yuan Shikai in 1916, China fractured into many regions controlled by warlords.
After 1919 the Soviets based in Moscow energetically promoted Communism, and for a while formed an alliance with the KMT. Mao Zedong, founded the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1921 in Shanghai. The KMT, in precarious position, accepted Soviet money and military advisors in China. The Soviets made the CCP join the KMT, thus forming the First United Front. The KMT gradually increased its geographical controls from its Canton base. Sun Yat-sen died in 1925.
Chiang Kai-shek unites China
Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975) became the KMT strongman and military leader. In 1926 Chiang led a military operation known as the "Northern Expedition" against the warlords that controled much of the country and defeated them. Next, Chiang tried to destroy the Communists. In Shanghai, the leading city, in 12 April 1927 he purged and often executed the Communists in the KMT. The Northern Expedition proved successful and the Nationalist government gained control throughout China (except Manchuria) in 1927, with Chiang as leader. The capital of China was moved to Nanjing, a city near Shanghai that previously served as capital for the Ming dynasty and for Sun Yat-sen in 1912.
The party was always concerned with strengthening Chinese identity at the same time it was discarding old traditions in the name of modernity. In 1929, the KMT government suppressed the textbook Modern Chinese History, widely used in secondary education. The Nationalists were concerned that, by not admitting the existence of the earliest emperors in ancient Chinese history, the book would weaken the foundation of the state. The case of the Modern Chinese History textbook reflects the symptoms of the period: banning the textbook strengthened the Nationalists' ideological control but also revealed their fear of the New Culture Movement and its more liberal ideological implications.
The KMT tried to destroy the Communist party of Mao Zedong, but was unable to stop the invasion by Japan, which controlled most of the coastline and major cities from 1937 to 1945. Chiang Kai-shek secured massive military and economic aid from the United States, and in 1945 became one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, with a veto. The KMT governed most of China until it was defeated in civil war by the Communists in 1949.
The collapse of the KMT regime can in part be attributed to the government's economic policies, which triggered capital flight among the businessmen who had been the KMT's strongest supporters. The cotton textile industry was the leading sector of Chinese industry, but in 1948, shortages of raw cotton plunged the industry into dire straits. The KMT government responded with an aggressive control policy that directly procured cotton from producers to ensure a sufficient supply and established a price freeze on cotton thread and textiles. This policy failed because of resistance from cotton textile industrialists, who relocated textile facilities and capital to Hong Kong or Taiwan around the end of 1948 and early 1949 when prices soared and inflation spiraled out of control. Their withdrawal of support was a shattering blow to the morale of the KMT.
Chinese Civil War
Civil war broke out between the Communist and Guomindang in 1930. Mao Zedong trained peasants in guerrilla warfare. But Chiang’s army surrounded Mao’s, and in 1934 forced Mao’s army to go on the Long March, which was a 6,000-mile retreat to northwestern China. Few made it back alive—the survivors controlled the Communist party since 1949.
Second Sino-Japanese War
For a more detailed treatment, see Second Sino-Japanese War.
Meanwhile an aggressive Japan invaded Manchuria, an independent warlord-controlled area of northeast China rich in iron and coal deposits needed by Japanese industry and in March 1932 set up the puppet state of Manchukuo. On 24 February 1933, the League of Nations adopted a resolution calling for the non-recognition of Manchukuo, however the Soviet Union nonetheless did recognize Manchukuo and sold Japan the Chinese Eastern Railway in 1935. This Manchurian invasion was the beginning of World War II in Asia and is commonly referred to as the Mukden Incident. Japan followed this with an invasion of China in 1937 along the Yangtze River. The Chinese civil war stopped temporarily to defend against the Japanese invasion. The Soviet Union brought 30 thousand Red army troops to Mongolia and stationed them along the southern and south-eastern border of Mongolia on the pretext of having found the Japanese plan of military occupation of Mongolia". At the same time, the Soviet leadership gave instructions to carry out mass arrests and the execution of several ten thousands of Mongolian government, party and army cadres on the pretext of "rooting out the spy organization."
The Nationalist Chinese government led by Chiang Kai-shek received aid from the United States to fight against the Japanese, but in reality they used that money to prepare for civil war against the communists led by Mao Zedong. After the war, the communists (from the northwest) attempted to conquer the Nationalists (from the southwest). Civil war raged from 1946 to 1949. Due to many desertions by soldiers from the Nationalist army to the communists, Mao prevailed by October 1949. Mao had promised land for the peasants and renamed the country the People’s Republic of China. Jiang fled with Nationalists to the island of Taiwan, and continued to claim sovereignty over all of China, a stance which the United States supported until Richard Nixon reversed course in 1971.
In Taiwan: 1949-present
After KMT moved to Taiwan since 1949, Chiang Kai-shek declared the martial law. which banned the communists. Chiang then re-elected four times by the un-elected National Assembly until he died in 1975. His son Chiang Ching-kuo successed him and ended the martial law in 15 July 1987. Chiang died on 13 January 1988, Lee Teng-hui became the new president. On 23 March 1996, Lee Teng-hui became the first president democratically elected by the Taiwanese people. The KMT lost power from 2000 to 2008. On 22 March 2008, Ma Ying-jeou was elected as president. Since the KMT back to power, the KMT endorses the "three noes" policy as defined by Ma Ying-jeou – no unification, no independence and no use of force.
- The event is also known as the Shanghai Massacre of 1927. See Tien-wei Wu, "A Review of the Wuhan Debacle: the Kuomintang-Communist Split of 1927." Journal of Asian Studies 1969 29(1): 125-143
- Barnett, A. Doak China on the Eve of Communist Takeover. (1963) online edition
- Bedeski, Robert E. State-Building in Modern China: The Kuomintang in the Prewar Period. (1981). 181 pp.
- Bergere, Marie-Claire. Sun Yat-Sen (1998), 480pp, the standard biography
- Bodenhorn, Terry, ed. Defining Modernity: Guomindang Rhetorics of a New China, 1920-1970. (2002). 288 pp. ISBN 0-89264-161-4
- Boorman, Howard L., ed. Biographical Dictionary of Republican China. (Vol. I-IV and Index. 1967-1979). 600 short scholarly biographies excerpt and text search
- Botjer, George. A Short History of Nationalist China, 1919–1949 (1979). 312pp
- Carroll, Anne W. "Who Lost China", ;;Faith and Reason (Spring 1989)online
- Epoch Times. On the Unscrupulous Nature of the Chinese Communist Party, The Epoch Times, 2005. online
- Fairbank, John K., ed. The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 12, Republican China 1912-1949. Part 1. (1983). 1001 pp.
- Fairbank, John K. and Feuerwerker, Albert, eds. The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 13: Republican China, 1912-1949, Part 2. (1986). 1092 pp.
- Fenby, Jonathan. Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost (2004), 592pp excerpt and text search
- Hille, Kathrin. "Resurgent KMT must confront its dark past," Financial Times December 6, 2007 online
- Hood, Steven J. The Kuomintang and the Democratization of Taiwan. (1997). 181 pp. online from Questia
- Hsiung, James C. and Steven I. Levine. China's Bitter Victory: The War with Japan, 1937-1945 (1992) online from Questia
- Perleberg, Max. Who's Who in Modern China (From the Beginning of the Chinese Republic to the End of 1953): Over Two Thousand Detailed Biographies of the Most Important Men Who Took Part in the Great Struggle for China, Including Detailed Histories of the Political Parties, Government Organisations, a Glossary of New Terms Used in Contemporary Chinese (1954) online from Questia
- Pye, Lucian W. Warlord Politics: Conflict and Coalition in the Modernization of Republican China (1971) online from Questia
- Rigger, Shelley. Politics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy (1999) online edition
- Sharman, Lyon. Sun Yat-Sen His Life and Its Meaning: A Critical Biography. (1968) online from Questia
- Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China (1991), 876pp; well written survey from 1644 to 1980s excerpt and text search; complete edition online at Questia
- Taylor, Jay. The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-Shek and the Struggle for Modern China (2009), 722 pp. highly favorable scholarly biography
- Taylor, Jay. The Generalissimo's Son: Chiang Ching-kuo and the Revolutions in China and Taiwan. (2000). 496 pp.
- Thornton, Richard C. China: A Political History, 1917-1980 (1982) online edition
- Wachman, Alan M. Taiwan: National Identity and Democratization (1994) online edition
- Yu, George T. Party Politics in Republican China the Kuomintang, 1912- 1924 (1966) online from Questia
- Zanasi, Margherita. Saving the Nation: Economic Modernity in Republican China. (2006). 320 pp.
- Esherick, Joseph W., ed. Lost Chance in China: The World War II Despatches of John S. Service. (1974). 409 pp. | <urn:uuid:fc327123-ef56-4e90-81ae-e83c30ff7f66> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.conservapedia.com/KMT | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00022-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939194 | 3,064 | 3.015625 | 3 |
The “Can Do” Kids were excited to see that Miss Pat decorated the classroom with dinosaurs for Dinosaur Show and Tell Day. They each took their seats and waited for Miss Pat to call on them for show and tell.
Miss Pat called the class to order and said, “Class here are the rules for winning today’s show and tell prize, a book about dinosaurs. Each of you will take a turn. When all of you have presented your show and tell we will have a silent vote. You may not vote for yourself. In case of a tie, we will vote for the students that are tied.”
Wendy went first. She wrote a story about a dinosaur she called Puff. The class all clapped. Then Willie showed the picture he drew. He didn’t get as much applause as Wendy. When it was Kathy’s turn, she showed the class how to make a dinosaur out of toilet paper rolls and construction paper. Wow…she got lots of applause. Orrie talked about what dinosaurs ate.
Soon everyone had a turn but Hector. He went to the front of the room and put a small and a big box on Miss Pat’s desk. First he opened the small box and took out a dinosaur he made from green play dough. Everyone wanted to know how he had made it. That’s when he opened the big box and said, “I made it the same way I made these cookies…with a cookie cutter I bought in the gift shop at the museum.” Then he gave out a dinosaur cookie to each of his classmates and Miss Pat. Everyone agreed it was the best dinosaur they had ever eaten!
Guess who won the book for show and tell. That’s right…it was Hector. He was very nice about it though. He told everyone that after he read it, he would lend it to anyone who wanted to read it as long as they promised to take good care of it and give it back after a few days. | <urn:uuid:ee6e11c8-80c6-4fde-9419-33d8a833da07> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://candostreet.com/blog-kids/2011/02/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00042-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989716 | 419 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Formation flying evolved during World War I as a means of mutual protection for aircraft venturing out to reconnoiter. A lone scout, concentrating its attention on ground forces and unaware of threats from the air, would be vulnerable to attack. But with another along to watch for fighters, chances of survival rose. Soon the principle of safety in numbers led to gaggles of defending fighters gathered around a leader for the protection of one or more scout aircraft performing reconnaissance or adjusting artillery fire. Between the wars, a more ceremonial kind of formation, the aerial parade or air tattoo, entertained crowds at celebrations.
Although the civilians at formation flying school aren’t looking for enemies, they must fly with a military-like strictness. “Formation discipline means you do what you said you were going to do,” says Pruyne, business-like in his flightsuit. “Don’t get a harebrained idea while you are in the sky. You can change things, but the idea is to talk about what you are going to do. Formation discipline says you do what the leader says, not what you want to do. One of the things most leaders tell you to do is to shut up, mostly.” This is one of the fundamental tenets of professional formation flying: Shut up and fly. Neither explain nor complain. Make no excuses.
There is one more drill. Pilots must walk through their upcoming flight, responding to the leader’s waves, hand pumps, elbow bends, and pointed fingers as if they were all airborne. The students line up, four to a group, and try not to feel silly as they walk around the ramp in flightsuits and shorts. When they can perform an imaginary flight impeccably on the ground without turning the wrong way or crashing into each other, they are ready to fly.
Now formations take off. While they are gone, the wind picks up—across the runway. Most of the formations make a pass down the runway when they return, crossing the threshold at several hundred feet, with one, two, or three airplanes in right echelon formation off the leader’s wing. Mid-field, lead gives the kiss-off signal, racks his airplane into a tight left turn, and peels off toward the downwind leg of the runway entry pattern. The others follow suit and land well spaced out.
The Bonanzas, however, follow a different procedure. Since they are training for their en masse arrival at Oshkosh, they must learn to land in formation. The first Bonanza formation that returns today is landing in “vic,” a V-shaped formation, with the wingmen on either side of lead. Perhaps they don’t see that the wind has picked up across the runway.
An airplane wing generates turbulent air, which normally streams behind its wingtips like horizontal tornadoes. When pilots fly close formation they learn to steer clear of these corkscrews. When the wind blows down the runway they flow straight back behind each airplane. But today the wind blows these vortices across the runway, from the Bonanza leader toward Elliott Schiffman on the left. The lead aircraft lands smoothly, and the right wingman is settling down. But Schiffman is caught in their vortices. His airplane begins to roll to the right, toward the other airplane. He fights for control, then finally realizes he has to slam the airplane onto the runway to stop the roll. He does—and blows a tire.
“It flipped my wing,” Schiffman says later of the turbulent air. He is an orthopedic surgeon and apparently is used to thinking calmly under pressure. “I had full left rudder, full left aileron, and I was helpless, drifting to the right toward the plane on my right. It was like skidding on ice. All of a sudden you are along for the ride. You try, but the forces are more than you can control.”
In 1973, I learned the same hard lesson, landing in formation at the Du Page County airshow in Illinois and dinging a wing. I flew formation aerobatics for four years and learned never to let my guard down near the ground or when close to another airplane. Even when your attention is riveted on the airplane in front of you, things happen fast.
During the week I’m in Mississippi, I fly with a number of pilots: Guy Moman Jr. in his Yak-52, Ritchie Jones in his flying club’s Bonanza, Bill Billups in the Glasair III he built, Steve Leonard in his SIAI-Marchetti, Terry Calloway and Stu Goldberg in their Bonanzas, and John Murphy in his L-39. Even though I have thousands of hours of formation flying experience, I am just like the other students, intoxicated by the magic of sailing through the air so close we can see one another’s grins.
Back on the ground, I stroll through the hangar to listen to debriefs. The cheery nervousness of the morning has given way to serious discussions. Everyone makes mistakes, and they are analyzed, in excruciating detail, so everyone can learn from them. There are long faces and disgruntled looks from men who are surprised to learn how many mistakes they could make on a one-hour flight. Flying that one considers crisp and precise is labeled by another rough and impossible to follow. The training is tough—and hard on the ego. | <urn:uuid:a5f52763-b9a7-4298-80a4-947a3b297326> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/fifteen-feet-and-closing-780864/?page=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00153-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95974 | 1,135 | 3.09375 | 3 |
The foot is a complex structure of 26 bones, 33 joints, and 126 muscles, ligaments, and nerves. Most problems are due to neglect and improper care, including ill-fitting shoes. About 75% of Americans will experience foot pain at some point in their lives. More
Find answers in our in-depth report on foot problems:
Diagnosis and Treatment
Living With Foot Problems
Read how a 27-year-old woman deals with the pain associated with bunions.
Heel pain is commonly caused by a disorder called plantar fasciitis. Whether you are a regular runner, weekend athlete, or someone working in your yard, find out what you can do to prevent this painful condition.
Preventing Foot Problems
Footwear that is too tight, too loose, excessively airtight, or shaped in unnatural ways can cause or aggravate foot problems. Read here to find out how to find shoes that will not contribute to foot problems.
You can reduce your risk of injury and feel comfortable by wearing athletic shoes that fit properly and are made for the activities you participate in. Find out how.
Please note, not all procedures included in this resource library are available at Allegiance Health or performed by Allegiance Health physicians.
All EBSCO Publishing proprietary, consumer health and medical information found on this site is accredited by URAC. URAC's Health Web Site Accreditation Program requires compliance with 53 rigorous standards of quality and accountability, verified by independent audits. To send comments or feedback to our Editorial Team regarding the content please email us at HLEditorialTeam@ebscohost.com.
This content is reviewed regularly and is updated when new and relevant evidence is made available. This information is neither intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider prior to starting any new treatment or with questions regarding a medical condition. | <urn:uuid:80f7f9e3-eeb7-458e-b940-3c26f5e98b2e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.allegiancehealth.org/wellness/listing/33728 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00090-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935099 | 393 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Look, everyone! It’s another study on cell phones and how they affect the brain, and with the very predictable and usual results, too: it may or may not cause cancer. We don’t know. What we do know is that cell phones affect your brain activity, or something like that.
A study that was intended to show how electromagnetic activity affects the brain turned up some boring, and uninteresting results. Yes, your brain is affected by electromagnetic radiation, especially the portions of your brain closest to the cell phone during use. Amazing. However, researchers found that glucose metabolism increases in those areas, which some might perceive as being similar to cancerous activity.
When asked about the possibility of cancer, Dr. Nora Volkow of the NIH says, “This study does not in any way indicate that. What the study does is to show the human brain is sensitive to electromagnetic radiation from cellphone exposures.”
Yahoo! News reports:
While there was no overall change in brain metabolism, they found a 7 percent increase in brain metabolism in the region closest to the cellphone antenna when the phone was on.
Experts said the results were intriguing, but urged that they be interpreted with caution.
So, let’s get this straight. Cell phones emit electromagnetic radiation, and that radiation can affect your brain activity when the phones are turned on and are right next to your head. I smell a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine coming. | <urn:uuid:8aece4d4-5170-4410-98d7-5b5c33bbe8ee> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.intomobile.com/2011/02/23/cell-phones-affect-brain-activity/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00028-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958515 | 300 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Studies in Islamic Mysticism, by Reynold A. Nicholson, , at sacred-texts.com
Religious belief may be defined as man's thought about God, and we have learned that all things and thoughts in the universe are attributes of God, i.e., aspects in which He reveals Himself to human minds. Moreover, the attributes are identical with the Essence in so far as they are nothing but the Essence regarded from every possible point of view. Therefore God is the essence of all thought; and all thought is
about God. In the light of such principles the author's philosophy of religion is easy to understand.
Divine worship, he says, is the end for which all things are created 1, and therefore belongs to their original nature and constitution. The different forms of worship result from the variety of Names and Attributes by which God manifests Himself in creation. Every Name and Attribute produces its own characteristic effect. For example, God is the true Guide (al-Hádí); but He is also the Misleader (al-Muḍill), for the Koran says, "Allah shall lead the wicked into error." He is the Avenger (al-Muntaqim) as well as the Forgiver (al-Munim). If any one of His Names had remained ineffectual and unrealised, His self-manifestation would not have been complete. Therefore He sent His prophets, in order that those who followed them might worship Him as the One who guides mankind to salvation, and that those who disobeyed them might worship Him as the One who leads mankind to perdition 2.
All God's creatures worship Him in accordance with His will, and every form of worship expresses some aspect of His nature. Infidelity and sin are effects of the Divine activity and contribute to the Divine perfection. Satan himself glorifies God, inasmuch as his disobedience is subordinate to the eternal will. Yet some aspects in which God shows Himself, such as Majesty and Wrath, are relatively less perfect than others, such as Beauty and Mercy. And, again, the more completely and universally the idea of God is presented in any form of worship, the more perfect that form must be. Religions revealed through a prophet contain the fullest measure of truth, and amongst these the most excellent is Islam.
Jílí mentions ten principal "religious" sects from which all the rest are derived 3. It is an odd catalogue, comprising (1) the Idolaters or Infidels; (2) the Physicists, who worship the four natural properties, namely, heat, cold, dryness and moisture; (3) the Philosophers, who worship the seven planets; (4) the Dualists, who worship light and darkness;
[paragraph continues] (5) the Magians, who worship fire; (6) the Materialists (Dahriyyún), who abandon worship entirely; (7) the Brahmans (Baráhima), who claim to follow the religion of Abraham; (8) the Jews; (9) the Christians; (10) the Mohammedans.
The author proceeds to explain that God is the truth or essence of all these forms of belief 1. The Infidels disbelieved in a Lord, because God, who is their essence, has no lord over Him, but on the contrary is Himself the absolute Lord. They worshipped God according to the necessity of their essential natures. Idolaters worship Him as the Being who permeates every atom of the material world without infusion or commixture. God is the "truth" of the idols which they worship, and they worship none but Him. This is the mystery of their following the Truth in themselves 2, because their hearts bore witness to them that the good lay in their so doing. On account of that spirit of belief in the reality of their worship, the thing as it really is shall be revealed to them in the next world. "Every sect is rejoicing in that which it hath" (Koran, 23, 55), i.e., here they rejoice in their acts, and hereafter they shall rejoice in their spiritual states. Their joy is everlasting 3. Therefore, even if the Infidels had known the torment which they must suffer in consequence of their worship, they would have persisted in it by reason of the spiritual delight which they experience therein; for when God wills to punish any one with torment in the life to come, He creates for him in that torment a natural pleasure of which his body becomes enamoured; and God does this in order that the sufferer may not have an unquestionable right to take refuge with Him from the torment, but may remain in torment so long as the pleasure continues to be felt by him. When God wills to alleviate his torment, He causes him to lose the sense of pleasure, and he then takes refuge in the mercy of God, "who answers the sorely distressed when they pray to Him" (Koran, 27, 63) 4.
Similarly, the Physicists really worship the four essential attributes of God, namely, Life, Knowledge, Power, and Will; the Philosophers worship His names and attributes as manifested in the planets; the Dualists worship Him as Creator and creature in one; the Magians worship Him as the Unity in which all names and attributes pass away, just as fire destroys all natural properties and transmutes them to its own nature; the Materialists, who deny the existence of a Creator and believe in the eternity of Time, worship God in respect of His He-ness (Huwiyya), in which He is only potentially, but not actually, creative; the Brahmans worship Him absolutely, without reference to prophet or apostle 1.
As regards the future life, since all worship God by Divine necessity, all must be saved. But the seven sects above-mentioned (unlike the Jews, Christians and Moslems, who received their religions from a prophet) invented their forms of worship for themselves. Consequently, they are doomed to misery hereafter. That which constitutes their misery is the fact that their felicity, though ultimately assured, is far off and is not revealed to them until they have suffered retribution. On the other hand, those who worship God according to the mode ordained by a prophet enjoy immediate felicity, which is revealed to them continuously and gradually. It is true that the Jews and Christians suffer misery, but why is this? Because they have altered God's Word and substituted something of their own. Otherwise, they would have come under the rule that God never sent a prophet to any people without placing in his apostolic mission the felicity of those who followed him 2.
Here, perhaps, it will not be inopportune to give some details of the author's eschatology. We must remember that in his view all experience is perception by the human spirit
of the nature and destiny eternally stamped upon it. "I Myself am Heaven and Hell."
"Life" denotes the spirit's contemplation of its bodily form: the spirit assumes the form of the object contemplated, just as sunbeams falling on green or red glass take the form and colour of the glass. After death, i.e., after the withdrawal of the spirit's gaze from the body, the spirit remains wholly in the spiritual world, while wearing the same corporeal aspect as it had before 1. Those mystics who deny the resurrection of the body are in the wrong. "We know by Divine information that bodies are raised from the dead with their spirits." The death of the spirit consists in its detachment from the body and resembles the dreamless sleep which is akin to not-being 2, since the sleeper has neither perception of the sensible nor vision of the unseen 3.
During the intermediate state (barzakh) between death and resurrection every one moves in a world of phantasy (khayál) peopled by the forms, ideas, and essential characters of the actions which he or she committed in their earthly life 4. The drunkard quaffs fiery wine in a cup of fire; the sinner whom God has forgiven passes into forms of good works, each fairer than the last; and he whose good works have been done in vain becomes imbued with the form of his eternal fate, ever-changing images of woe which his resurrection shall reveal to him as realities 5. The present, intermediate, and future states are one existence (wujúd wáḥid), and you by virtue of your inmost nature (huwiyya) are the same in them all, but while the things of this world are free (ikhtiyárí), the things hereafter are determined by what happens here 6.
The world, having been created, must die: its death is its
passing away (faná) under the might of the Divine Reality which manifests itself in the guise of individuals; and its resurrection is the manifestation of that Reality with the signs foretold in the Koran 1. The universal or greater resurrection (al-sáatu l-kubrá) includes the particular or lesser resurrection (al-sáatu l-ṣughrá), i.e., the resurrection of every individual, and their signs correspond. For example, Dajjál (Antichrist) is an emblem of the flesh (nafs): as Dajjál shall be slain by Christ (the Spirit of God, Rúḥ Allah), so shall the flesh be destroyed by the spirit (rúḥ) 2. Again, the coming of the Mahdí, who shall reign for forty years, symbolises the perfection of the Perfect Man uniting and consummating the forty grades of existence 3. God beholds this world through the medium of Man; therefore, after the Resurrection, it will not exist otherwise than in God's knowledge, even as Paradise and Hell exist in His knowledge to-day. But when Man shall have been removed to the next world, God will behold Paradise and Hell through him, and they will then exist actually 4.
God created the Form of Mohammed (al-ṣúratu l-Muḥammadiyya) from the light of His Name the Almighty Maker (al-Badíu l-Qádir), and regarded it with His Name the All-subduing Giver (al-Mannánu l-Qáhir); then He displayed Himself to it in His Name the Gracious Pardoner (al-Laṭífu l-Gháfir). Thereupon, because of this illumination, it split in two halves, and God created Paradise from the half on the right hand, and Hell from the half on the left hand 5.
Jílí's description of the Eight Paradises is not specially interesting 6. In the first Paradise good works are rewarded, in the second good thoughts and beliefs concerning God. The third, which is gained solely by Divine grace, surpasses all the rest in magnitude and contains persons of every religion, sect, and nationality. Theoretically it is possible for any human being to enter this Paradise, if such fortune be vouchsafed to him in some Divine illumination, but the
author adds: "We saw in mystical vision that only a few of each sect are there 1." The four highest Paradises have no trees, pavilions, or houris, and are inhabited (except the highest of all) by contemplatives and saints in an ascending scale of holiness. The floor of the eighth Paradise is the roof of the Throne of God (al-Arsh). Thither none may comefor it is the Paradise of the Essence, "the Lauded Station" (al-Maqám al-maḥmúd) which, as the Tradition tells us, was promised by God to Mohammed.
With the people of Paradise every idea immediately becomes an object of sensation. When Adam, whose form is a copy of the form of Mohammed, went down from Paradise, he lost the life of his form, i.e., the power of materialising his thoughts. In the present world this power depends on the spirit, and since most of mankind are dead spiritually, belongs only to mystics endued with God's everlasting life 2.
Hell is the manifestation of Divine Majesty (jalál). When God created the Fire, He revealed Himself to it seven times, appearing each time in a different Name. These theophanies clove the Fire into seven valleys, which are the limbos of Hell. 3.
Pantheism cannot allow evil to be permanent. Jílí cites the Tradition, "My Mercy preceded My Wrath," and infers that while the latter attribute is a mode of Divine Justice, Mercy is essential and prevails in the end 4. Hell, according to him, is a temporary state 5, and not necessarily an altogether
undesirable one. Of course, he had been there in his visions, and he tells of a meeting with Plato, "whom the formal theologians account an infidel, but I saw that he filled the unseen world with light, and that his rank was such as few amongst the saints possess 1." Some of the damned are more excellent than many of the Paradisal folk: God has placed them in Hell, that He may be revealed to them therein 2. Jílí expatiates on the variety of pleasures enjoyed by those who burn in the Fire 3. Some feel a pleasure comparable to the joy of battle, for although the soldier is conscious of pain he often has a keen delight in the fray into which " the Lordship lurking in his soul " impels him to plunge. Another of their pleasures resembles that felt when any one rubs an itch, even if he should chance to break the skin. Then they have subtler pleasures, like the self-satisfaction of the fanatic who persists in a wrong way of thinking, or the philosopher's happy sense of superiority in preferring his own wretched condition to the rich man's luxury and ignorance.
Their states are diverse: some, notwithstanding that they suffer the most intense torment, would not exchange it for Paradise; some long for a breath of the air of Eden and a draught of its water; some, having no pleasure in their pain, feel the utmost bitterness of loathing in themselves.
It is well known that Mohammed asserted the essential unity of Revelation. From the beginning of the world, as he believed, one and the same faith had been revealed to mankind through a succession of prophets, of whom he himself was the last. Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus taught the same religion, the religion of Islam. It followed, in the first place, that the Pentateuch, the Psalms, and the Gospel are identical
in substance with the Koran, and secondly, that since the Jews and Christians would neither accept Islam nor acknowledge Mohammed as the prophet foretold in their books, they must be giving a false account of what these books actually contained. The argumentum ad homines needed firm handling. Uninspired Moslems would rather say that the books in their present form are corrupt or incomplete. From quite another standpoint the Ṣúfís agree with their Prophet that the Word of God is essentially one. For them, indeed, all that exists is His Word, which is revealed to His prophets and saints under different aspects and in varying degrees of perfection. The historical and temporal is only a symbol of the mystical and eternal revelation. As, in the former, Christianity occupies the middle place between Judaism and Islam, so in the latter, where these religions typify the progressive ascent of the soul to God, the Illumination of the Names is denoted by the Pentateuch, the Illumination of the Attributes by the Gospel, and the Illumination of the Essence by the Koran 1.
No one who reads the Insánu l-Kámil can fail to discern that its author was profoundly influenced by Christian ideas, though it is not always possible to separate these from the Jewish, Gnostic and other elements with which they are intermingled 2. I need only allude to the Trinitarian basis of the Divine nature 3 and the prominence given to the Holy Spirit as the source and, in relation to man, the organ and
sustaining principle of spiritual life 1. Jílí criticises the Christian doctrine, but so mildly and apologetically that one passage of his work is declared by the Moslem editor to be an interpolation which only a heretic could have written 2. The Pentateuch, he says, was sent down to Moses in nine tables 3, two of which, containing the mysteries of Lordship and Power, he was forbidden to communicate to any one; and as the Jews remained ignorant of their contents, Moses was the last of that people to gain perfect knowledge of God. On the other hand, both Jesus and Mohammed revealed the mystery of Lordship; but whereas Mohammed cloaked it in symbols and made it an esoteric matter 4, Jesus proclaimed it openly, with the result that his followers became infidels and worshipped him as the third of three Divine Persons, namely, the Father, the Mother, and the Son 5. This form of Trinity, by the way, appears in the Koran 6; it is not a grotesque blunder on the part of Mohammed, but a Christian heresy which still survives amongst the tribes of the Syrian desert 7.
[paragraph continues] While Jesus spoke the Truth allegorically, the Christians have taken his words literally 1. Polytheists as they are, God after punishing them for their error will pardon them because of the inward sincerity of their belief, for " they acted in accordance with the knowledge which He bestowed upon them: therefore blame them not, since their polytheism was essentially belief in One God (al-siḥru l-álí) 2." It is this sentence and others of like tenor that the editor would erase, and we can understand his indignation, though Jílí is simply applying to a special case the monistic doctrine which has been explained already. Of all non-Islamic religious communities he holds that the Christians are nearest to God, for while they worship Him in Jesus, Mary, and the Holy Ghost, they assert the indivisibility of the Divine nature and that God is prior to His existence in the created body of Christ. Thus they recognise the two complementary sides of true belief concerning God, namely that from the one point of view (tanzíh) He is above all likeness and that from the other (tashbíh) He reveals Himself in the forms of His creatures 3. But, in addition to the grave error of anthropomorphism (tajsím), they are at fault in restricting the Divine self-manifestation to these three. God said, "I breathed My Spirit into Adam 4," and here the name "Adam" signifies every human individual 5. The contemplation of those who behold God in Man is the most perfect in the world. Something of this vision the Christians possess, and their doctrine about Jesus will lead them at last, "when the Thing
shall be discovered as it really is 1," to the knowledge that mankind are like mirrors set face to face, each of which contains what is in all; and so they will behold God in themselves and declare Him to be absolutely One 2.
Jílí concludes his work with a mystical interpretation of Islam, "the crown of religions 3." Much of what he says has no interest except for specialists, e.g., his definitions of technical terms used by Ṣúfís and his explanations of the esoteric meanings which he finds under every detail of Mohammedan ritual. He is careful to guard against antinomianism. Certain Ṣúfí saints claimed to have outdistanced the prophets 4, but Jílí decides in favour of the latter. He admits that saintshipthe revelation of the Divine attributes to manis the essence of prophecy, and that the prophet qua saint is superior to the prophet quâ prophet. Every prophet has "the prophecy of saintship" (nubuwwatu l-wiláyat), although some, like Jesus and al-Khaḍir, have nothing more 5; others, like Moses and Mohammed, have also "the prophecy of institution" (nubuwwatu l-tashrí), i.e., they were sent to promulgate and establish a new religious code. The Ṣúfí Shaykhs, whom God brings back from the state of trance (faná) in order that they may guide the people to Him, are vicegerents (khulafá) of Mohammed and, as such, are invested with "the prophecy of saintship" and bound to observe the laws of the last of the institutional prophets, Mohammed, who in both respects is supreme and unique 6. Jílí must be called a pantheist in so far as he takes "There is no god but Allah" in the sense of "Nothing really exists but the Divine Essence with its creative and creaturely modes of being." These modes are unified in the abstraction of intellect as well as in the mystic's flight to God, but the author of the Insánu l-Kámil is neither a pure philosopher at any time nor an ecstatic always. "Perception of the Essence," he writes, "consists
in thy knowing that thou art He and that He is thou, and that this is not identification or incarnation, and that the slave is a slave and the Lord a Lord, and that the slave does not become a Lord nor the Lord become a slave 1." Even the Perfect Man is a reality (ḥaqq), not the Reality (al-Ḥaqq) which displays itself in the mirror of his consciousness as God and Man 2.
131:1 Koran, 51, 56.
131:2 K II. 98 foll.
131:3 K II. 100.
132:1 K II. 101 foll.
132:2 Cf. Koran, 47, 3, where it is said of the Infidels that they followed Falsehood, and of the Believers that they followed "the Truth from their Lord," i.e. the Revelation given to Mohammed.
132:3 This is inferred by the author from the form fariḥún (which implies continuance) in the Koranic text.
132:4 K II. 101.
133:1 Therefore the book which the Brahmans ascribe, as the author supposes, to Abraham did not come to them from God but was written by Abraham himself. Jílí says that it contains five parts. The fifth part on account of its profundity is forbidden to most Brahmans. He adds: "It is notorious among them that those who read this fifth part invariably become Moslems."
133:2 K II. 104.
134:1 Ibnu l-Arabí says (Fuṣúṣ, 211) that after death the spirit receives an immortal body homogeneous with the world to which it has been translated.
134:2 Cf. p. 117.
134:3 K II. 71, 15 foll.
134:4 So long as the spirit remains in the barzakh, i.e., limited by the properties of the body, it does not enjoy full freedom. Only after the Resurrection is it entirely free to act according to its nature, i.e., to seek good or evil in conformity with its state in the present life (K II. 72, 20 foll.).
134:5 K II. 73, 2 foll.
134:6 K II. 74, 2 foll. As to the question of free-will, see p. 102, note 4.
135:1 K II. 64, 21 foll.
135:2 K II. 69, 2.
135:3 K II. 69, 7 foll.
135:4 K II. 65, 8 foll.
135:5 K II. 38, 15 foll.
135:6 K II. 44, 18 foll.
136:1 K II. 45, 12 foll.
136:2 K II. 47, 18 foll. According to Ibnu l-Arabí (Fuṣúṣ, 90 foll.), the gnostic (árif) creates by means of his meditation (himma) ideas which have an objective existence in sensation, phantasy, or higher planes of perception. His creative power differs from that of God, inasmuch as his consciousness is not universal, i.e., it does not comprehend every plane of perception simultaneously. Cf. Massignon, Kitáb al-Ṭawásín, p. 183.
136:3 K II. 40, 21 foll.
136:4 K II. 39, 10 foll.
136:5 "Whenever God creates torment (adháb) by Hell-fire, He also creates in the sufferers the power of enduring it, for otherwise they would perish and so escape. Hence, their skins are periodically renewed (Koran, 4, 59), and they receive fresh powers of endurance, in virtue of which they feel a presentiment of new torments; but the powers with which they endured the former torments do not cease, inasmuch as these powers are given to them by God, and God never takes back His gifts. Thus their powers of endurance p. 137 continue to grow, until there appears in them a Divine power which extinguishes the Fire, because no one is doomed to misery after the Divine attributes become manifest in him" (K II. 38, 6 fr. foot and foll.). Elsewhere, on the ground that Hell-fire is an eternal object of God's knowledge, Jílí denies that it is extinguished absolutely (M 44 b). "You may say, if you -wish, that it remains as it was, but that the torment of the damned is changed to pleasure" (K II. 40, 2).
137:1 K II. 43, 9.
137:2 K II. 44, 15.
137:3 K II. 43, 16 foll.
138:1 K I. 104, 1 foll.
138:2 Naturally, the main original source is Philo, from whom many parallels might be quoted. The Logos, made in the image of God, is described both as an ἀρχέτυπος ἰδέα and as a seal (σφραγίς, χαρακτὴρ) impressing itself on things. He is called an archangel, the instrument (ὄργανον) of creation, the heavenly man (cf. Corinthians, 15, 45 foll.), God's interpreter and prophet ἑρμηνεὺς καὶ προφήτης). As a mediator between man and God, he is compared with the High-priest (ἀρχιερεὺς) who, like the Moslem saint, passes away in God: "he shall be no man when he goeth in to the Holy of Holies," according to Philo's rendering of Leviticus, 16, 17 (Siegfried, Philo von Alexandria, p. 224 foll.).
138:3 Cf. Ibnu l-Arabí's verse (Tarjumán al-ashwáq, XII. 4): "My Beloved is three although He is one, even as the (three) Persons (of the Trinity) are made one Person in essence"; and his statement that of all the Divine names only three are cardinal, viz., Allah, al-Raḥmán, and al-Rabb (op. cit. p. 71). For his doctrine of "triplicity" (tathlíth) see Appendix II.
139:1 Massignon points out (Kitáb al-Ṭawásín, p. 134, note 3) that in the treatises of the Ikhwánu l-Ṣafá, (Bombay, a.h. 1306, Iv. 107 fol.) "the in-breathing of the Spirit" (nafkhu l-Rúḥ) is mentioned as a doctrine specially characteristic of Christian mysticism.
139:2 K I. 105. Ibnu l-Arabí (Fuṣúṣ, 176 foll.) is more critical and orthodox than Jílí.
139:3 Amongst the matters contained in the fourth table Jílí mentions (K I. 101, 13 foll.) the science of High Magic (al-siḥru l-álí), which resembles the miracles of the saints and does not depend on drugs, formulae, etc., but solely on the magical powers in man. "In the way of Divine unity," he says, "I have had some experience of this, and if I had desired I could have assumed any shape in the world and done any deed, but I knew it to be pernicious and therefore abandoned it. Then God endowed me with the secret potency which He placed between K and N" (i.e. His creative Word, Kun =" Be!").
139:4 There is a Tradition to the effect that Mohammed, on the night of his ascension, received three kinds of knowledge: one kind (external religion) he was commanded to impart to his people, another (the spiritual doctrine) he was left free to communicate or not, and the last (concerning the mysteries of the Godhead) he was forbidden to divulge. Some, however, learn it by mystical revelation (K I. 99, 10 foll.).
139:5 K I. 97, 15 foll. According to Jílí, the Gospel was revealed to Jesus in Syriac, and its opening words are Bismi l-ab wa l-umm wa l-ibn, "In the name of the Father and the Mother and the Son" (K I. 105, 15 foll.).
139:6 Kor. 5, 116.
139:7 Musil, Arabia Petraea, III. 91.
140:1 "The Christians supposed that the Father was the Spirit (al-Rúḥ), the Mother Mary, and the Son Jesus; then they said 'God is the Third of Three,' not knowing that 'the Father' signifies the Name Allah, and that 'the Mother' signifies the Ummu l-Kitáb ('the Mother of the Book,' an expression generally understood as meaning the fundamental part of the Koran), i.e., the ground of the Essence, and that 'the Son' signifies the Book, which is Absolute Being because it is a derivative and product of the aforesaid ground" (K I. 105, 17 foll.).
140:2 K I. 106, 2.
140:3 K II. 105, 16 foll.
140:4 Koran, 15, 29. Jílí declares that the entire Gospel is contained in this verse, and that the Moslems alone have fulfilled the true doctrine of the Gospel, which is "the manifestation of the Creator (al-Ḥaqq) in the creatures (al-khalq)."
140:5 K I. 107, 1 foll.
141:1 At the Resurrection.
141:2 K II. 105, 20 foll.
141:3 K II. 106, 4 foll.
141:4 K I. 105, 6 foll. Jílí cites an assertion of the superiority of the saints by his ancestor, Abdu l-Qádir al-Jílání.
141:5 On the other hand, Ibnu l-Arabí says that the Jews believed in Jesus until he, as an apostle, reformed the Mosaic law (Fuṣúṣ, 205).
141:6 K II. 109, 5 foll. Cf. Fuṣúṣ, 34 foll., 203 foll.
142:1 K 2. 29, 16 foll.
142:2 K I. 26, 5 from foot. So the Logos of Philo is θεός, but not ὁ Θεός (Bigg, Christian Platonists of Alexandria, 2nd ed., p. 42, note 2). Cf. Ibnu l-Arabí, cited by Massignon, Kitáb al-Ṭawásín, p. 284. | <urn:uuid:f57d2470-7d24-4f51-99b6-1e0fec20100d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/siim/siim14.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399106.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00011-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952209 | 6,780 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Dr Suelette Dreyfus is an expert on whistleblowing and technology, data retention, privacy and national security.
The $60,000 initiative, jointly funded by the Australian High Commission Papua New Guinea’s Direct Aid Program and the University of Melbourne’s, was carried out with consideration for the unique challenges faced by the remote Suanum community on the northern coastline of PNG. This includes clean running water, a sanitary neonatal centre that sleeps up to four women, and an innovative composting toilet system.
The project team, led by Dr David O’Brien from the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, collaborated with the community to design and build sanitary facilities that are vital for improving health outcomes.
“This was a unique opportunity for the Master of Architecture students to enhance their design and consultation skills. The Suanum community of almost 100 people has no health facilities available to them within a three-hour radius.
“Like all coastal communities, Suanum is also at risk from rising sea levels. The traditional pit toilets flood during high tides, spreading human waste throughout the community,” Dr O’Brien said.
In Papua New Guinea prenatal complications are the leading form of death. Less than half of women give birth at a health facility or hospital, leading to one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world, where prenatal complications are responsible for one out of every ten deaths. Infant mortality rates are more than ten times higher than Australia, with 47 infant deaths per 1000 live births in PNG, compared to three infant deaths per 1000 live births in Australia.
“Safe and clean facilities reduce the physical and mental risks for the mother and child in the first month after birth. The facilities we have designed will improve health outcomes, while also respecting the community’s strong cultural traditions,” Dr O’Brien said.
Australian High Commissioner to Papua New Guinea, Ms Deborah Stokes, congratulated the architecture students on the success of the project.
Ms Stokes said facilities for skilled supervised births such as the Suanum neonatal centre are vital in saving the lives of mothers and their children during childbirth. The project supported Australia’s broader commitment to providing increased midwifery education and facilities in PNG.
Since 2008, the Bower Studio has brought together University architecture students and researchers to work with Indigenous groups in remote locations in Australia, Thailand and Papua New Guinea. The project teams have helped to design and build facilities that improve the community environments, including sanitary facilities, houses, computer labs and early childhood learning centres.
You can see an example of previous Bower Studio work below: | <urn:uuid:ed1537e2-9126-447f-b8d5-5744e69eb0d4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://newsroom.melbourne.edu/news/students-design-neonatal-centre-save-lives-remote-papua-new-guinea | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00121-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943338 | 545 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Even if you do a lot of recycling, five items could be missing from your routine. Look beyond the usual paper, plastic and metal and get greener with the following recyclables.
1. Compact fluorescent bulbs are better off recycled than trashed, as they release mercury and other harmful contents when broken. So deliver spent bulbs to a home improvement center rather than the wastebasket.
2. Alkaline batteries also leak toxic chemicals when they’re dumped in landfills. Be kind to the environment by taking them to a designated collection center for safe disposal. Visit earth911.com to find battery collection points in your neighborhood.
3. Printer ink cartridges should also be recycled. Turn them in at an office supply store, and you’ll earn credits for future purchases.
4. Packing peanuts can be repurposed at most mailing service centers, so resist the temptation to dump them, and send them on a new shipping journey instead.
5. Eyeglasses can also be recycled for the greater good through vision care service programs. If you’ve started 2013 with stylish new specs, donate your old ones to a doctor or community group that will refurbish and repurpose eyewear to help those in need. | <urn:uuid:9188854f-b817-4596-851c-4e78864777ed> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.moneypit.com/blog/leslie-segrete/five-things-you-didnt-know-you-could-recycle | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396875.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00079-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924233 | 258 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Some of Shakespeare’s most famous plays are medieval because he understood how the past shapes the present. He made history matter to his audience, as he made it matter to me four hundred years later.
How do we know Shakespeare's plays? For many of them, the answer is one book: the 1623 First Folio. Without it, 18 plays, including Macbeth and The Tempest, could have been lost. In 2016, First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare brings the First Folio to 50 states, Washington, and Puerto Rico.
What's Happening on the Tour
View a selection of the exciting events happening around the country with First Folio!
What Scholars Are Saying
Insights from the national scholarly community exploring Shakespeare in this anniversary year
When I read and teach Macbeth the language transforms into a glorious machine—gears turning, maneuvering the audience to discoveries and understanding at precisely the right moments.
For all the claims over four centuries that his influence would soon wane because his language is too challenging, Shakespeare may always be understood so long as people have the capacity, or desire, to feel, to lose themselves, to understand, and to be understood.
Folger Education and the First Folio
At the Folger Shakespeare Library, we create experiences, transform education, and drive discovery. In 2016, join us on an exploration through Shakespeare’s most famous book, the First Folio.
The Folger is revolutionizing the way Shakespeare is taught in classrooms. Discover the extra dimensions that the First Folio can bring to Shakespeare – for you and your students.
Are you a Family – Parents and Kids Together?
The First Folio starts you on an exciting exploration—families can move, play, speak, engage, and above all, have fun with Shakespeare.
Travelling in conjunction with the First Folio Tour, the story of Hamlet is told by the Gravedigger using Shakespeare's moving words and with help from the audience in Gravedigger's Tale.
Conceived and directed by Robert Richmond. | <urn:uuid:3f9f6455-7c1e-4456-aba4-2f9436774aa4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.folger.edu/first-folio-tour | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399522.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00045-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931107 | 429 | 3.515625 | 4 |
She could be your neighbor, your sister or your best friend. On the surface, it seems that she has it all -- academically gifted, loved by her family and friends, and driven. But behind the scenes, she has been hiding a dark secret. She's slowly beginning to waste away and literally putting her life on the line.
In the United States, according to the National Eating Disorders Association, between five and 10 million girls and women and one million boys and men struggle with eating disorders. And eating disorders have the unfortunate distinction of having the highest death rate of any mental illness -- nearly 10 percent will die as a result of their eating disorder.
Of all eating disorders, Anorexia Nervosa is the most rare, affecting approximately 3 percent of all individuals struggling with eating disorders. The illness often has devastating effects on patients and their families. Many patients experience cardiac complications, hair loss, bone deterioration including osteoporosis, and loss of their periods.
Historically, Anorexia has been treated in inpatient and residential treatment facilities requiring patients to live away from their families for many weeks or months per treatment episode. Fifteen years ago, families were often vilified and blamed for causing their son or daughter's illness. Treatment involved separating patients from their families because treatment providers believed that the parents had "failed" -- that not only were the parents incapable of helping, but that they actually caused more harm.
For many families, this separation caused significant distress and disruption. And although treatment in inpatient or residential facilities is usually successful in restoring the patient's weight, the rate of relapse once patients leave and return home is high often requiring multiple treatment episodes. Often, families were unprepared for how to continue to support their son or daughter once they were back in the "real world."
The Changing Face of Treatment
Researchers have now found that for some patients suffering from anorexia the involvement of the families in the treatment process contributes to better outcomes (1), (2), (3). In addition, this treatment can often be done in an outpatient setting eliminating the need for patients to leave their families and live outside of the home.
Family Based Treatment, also known as the Maudsley Approach, is a specific type of treatment for anorexia for adolescents between ages 13 and 17 years. This approach utilizes the parents and family as active participants in the restoration of the patients' weight and physical health (1). It also aims at preventing hospitalization of patients and assisting parents in restoring their child's weight and returning him or her to normal adolescent development with no continuing eating disorder behaviors.
Outcome studies for Family Based Treatment have shown that for patients who have had anorexia for less than three years, approximately two thirds of adolescent patients are restored to a healthy weight. Impressively, five years later some 75 to 90 percent remain fully weight recovered (2). Research has also shown that most patients participating in a Family Based Treatment require on average no more than 20 treatment sessions over the course of six to 12 months (3).
What Families and Patients Can Expect
So often, patients and families have been told that "it's not about the food." In essence, there is still much truth to this statement. The simplest way to conceptualize an eating disorder is to think of it like a puzzle that has five pieces:
1. Genetics: Most individuals struggling with eating disorders have a family of anxiety and/or depression. In some studies, upwards of 70 percent of individuals with anorexia were identified as having an undiagnosed anxiety disorder dating from early childhood. The most common forms of anxiety were obsessive-compulsive disorder (or strong traits of OCD), social anxiety and social phobia.
2. Personality Traits: In the past five years, researchers in the field of eating disorders have begun to focus in on this underlying puzzle piece. Typical traits include people-pleasing, perfectionism, being highly driven, and harm or conflict avoidance. Often individuals and their families will note that their son or daughter had an extremely difficult time with change, conflict or making mistakes.
3. Trauma or Loss: This is often a misunderstood piece of the puzzle. Individuals with eating disorders usually have some degree of trauma or loss in their histories, but it can range from being picked on in school to severe emotional or sexual abuse. Not everyone experiences abuse, but because patients with eating disorders are often more sensitive and intuitive, the impact of these types of events resonates that much stronger for them.
4. Family Dynamics: As noted above, families used to be viewed as the cause of an eating disorder. At one time, emotionally-distant fathers were to blame. Next, overly controlling mothers. Fortunately, we now know that while sometimes these dynamics are present, what's most important to understand is how the patient viewed his or her role in the family (i.e., to be the "good kid").
5. Culture: Our culture does not cause eating disorders, but it certainly creates an unhealthy environment where they are allowed to flourish. Unrealistic expectations about weight and appearance coupled with unhealthy views about food and dieting can help put the other four puzzle pieces in place. Cultural dynamics are sometimes the last piece to click all the other pieces into place.
Through the ongoing, promising research about Family Based Treatment, parents can expect to be an integral part of the treatment and relapse prevention process. Patients can anticipate that their support system will not only receive the appropriate education about eating disorders, but practical, hands-on experience that will help bolster their chances of full recovery.
(1) Loeb, K., Le Grange, D, 2009. Family based treatment for adolescent eating disorders: Current status, new applications and future directions. International Journal of Adolescent Health, 2, 243-254.
(2) Eisler, I., Dare, C., Russell, G. F. M., Szmukler, G. I., Le Grange, D., and E. Dodge. 1997. Family and individual therapy in anorexia nervosa: A five-year follow-up. Archives of General Psychiatry, 54, 1025-1030.
(3) Le Grange, D., Binford, R., and K.L. Loeb. 2005. Manualized family-based treatment for anorexia nervosa: A case series. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 44, 41-46.; Lock, J., Agras, W.S., Bryson, S., and H. Kraemer. 2005. A comparison of short- and long-term family therapy for adolescent anorexia nervosa. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 44, 632-639. | <urn:uuid:f1053e8b-0dee-44fb-bcb1-c4ce91007d17> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-paulsen-phd-/anorexia-treatment-_b_824232.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00155-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959157 | 1,379 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Featured from New Books
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Geography and Revolution
Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2005
G70 .G4419 2005
A term with myriad associations, "revolution" is commonly understood in its intellectual, historical, and sociopolitical contexts. Until now, almost no attention has been paid to revolution and questions of geography. Geography and Revolution examines the ways that place and space matter in a variety of revolutionary situations.
David N. Livingstone and Charles W.J. Withers assemble a set of essays that are themselves revolutionary in uncovering not only the geography of revolutions but the role of geography in revolutions. Here, scientific revolutions - Copernican, Newtonian, and Darwinian - ordinarily thought of as placeless, are revealed to be rooted in specific sites and places. Technical revolutions - the advent of print, time-keeping, and photography - emerge as inventions that transformed the world's order without homogenizing it. Political revolutions - in France, England, Germany, and the United States - are notable for their debates on the nature of political institutions and national identity.
Gathering insight from geographers, historians, and historians of science, Geography and Revolution is an invitation to take the where as seriously as the who and the when in examining the nature, shape, and character of revolutions.
Quoted from dustjacket. | <urn:uuid:13e64fd3-ef55-47d8-a986-712d41487818> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://wtamu.edu/library/books/livingstone.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403502.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00139-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937382 | 289 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Cameroon: Educating youth to tackle HIV/AIDS in the community
In the "Lets Talk About AIDS" lesson, teacher Sarah gives 10 and 11 year olds key facts about HIV/AIDS. She explains how the virus is transmitted and how they can protect themselves in years to come.
This story is part of a series published on the occasion of World Teachers' Day, 5 October - a day to celebrate teachers and the central role they play in guiding children, youths & adults through the life-long learning process.
Yaounde, Cameroon, 1 October, 2009 - Teacher Sarah Hyoba, 49, quizzes a group of enthusiastic 10 to 11 year olds on HIV/AIDS at the Essos 2 primary school in Yaounde.
In the "Lets talk about Aids" lesson, Sarah’s students study a book containing information on the virus to prepare themselves for a mini test. It turns into a lively debate as the youngsters jostle each other to raise their hands when questions are asked.
"The children are curious and are really interested in learning about HIV/AIDS and ask lots of questions," she says.
"Children don’t know what HIV/AIDS is. I have to make sure I explain it clearly, so there are no misunderstandings," she added.
Discussing with children about HIV/AIDS
Discussing HIV/AIDS is a taboo within the community and children are a good vehicle to disseminate vital facts, according to Sarah. "Some families won’t acknowledge that a person has HIV/AIDS, they will say it’s something else, such as malaria or some other disease".
The teacher gives key messages to the pupils and emphasizes the need for them to help dispel rumors about the infection.
"It’s important to change perceptions and for our children to know what HIV/AIDS is".
The prevalence and risks related to HIV/AIDS in the country is high. Some 500,000 people in Cameroon are infected, of this number 69,000 are under the age of 15, according to UNAIDS (2005).
The situation prompted the government to make it mandatory for primary school children, aged between 6 and 12, to learn about HIV/AIDS as part of the country’s national curriculum.
Depending on the age group, the children are fed vital nuggets of information such as how the virus is contracted, living with someone who is HIV positive and issues related to stigma and discrimination.
"I had two cases in school where children spoke frankly and said that they knew of someone with HIV/AIDS and a child whose parent had died from AIDS".
An interactive training process
In order to control the spread of the HIV virus in the country, a special training program was implemented by the Ministry of Basic Education with support from UNICEF.
750 teachers across the country have been enrolled in the program, with the aim of reaching 900 by mid October 2009.
"The training program in government teaching centers is a sign of government commitment to tackle a key problem," Dr. Vijitha M. Eyango, Chief of Education, UNICEF Cameroon said.
"When you are able to get these messages into the national curriculum it’s also a sign of sustainability because the message is not only for the children, but it also gets back to the parents and the rest of the community".
The schools targeted under the programme, span across all 6 regions in the country, the Center, Littoral, East, Adamaoua, North and Far-North. Groups of around 30 teachers are trained in a two day workshop.
"We show the teachers how to prepare a lesson and how to incorporate HIV/AIDS in the subject they are teaching," teacher trainer, Jacqueline Bahida said.
The training focuses on appropriate teaching methods. "For example the teachers must use the right language and give correct information on the transmission of the virus as there are many rumors that get passed around creating misinformation and discrimination," Bahida added.
It’s a highly interactive process. "The teachers engage in discussion and exchange ideas and correct one another through these training sessions. This has a greater impact in the long run".
Starting young is essential
Bahida says it’s never too early to start learning about HIV/AIDS given the scale of the virus in Africa. "I believe we should start educating children on this issue even earlier and in nursery school."
There are 15,000 primary schools countrywide in Cameroon and education officials say they want to step up efforts.
"We must train more teachers on this issue, the message must spread much further and across all districts and areas of the country," Bahida added.
By Salma Zulfqar | <urn:uuid:f22fdd13-4834-43cb-8a57-b21ab7f6e64d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.unicef.org/wcaro/2009_3624.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396147.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00088-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961168 | 976 | 3.453125 | 3 |
The 1891 Introduction to The Civil War in France, written by Frederick Engels on the 20th Anniversary of the Paris Commune
I did not anticipate that I would be asked to prepare a new edition of the Address of the General Council of the International on The Civil War in France, and to write an introduction to it. Therefore I can only touch briefly here on the most important points.
I am prefacing the longer work mentioned above by the two shorter addresses of the General Council on the Franco-Prussian War. In the first place, because the second of these, which itself cannot be fully understood without the first, is referred to in The Civil War. But also because these two Addresses, likewise drafted by Marx, are, no less than The Civil War, outstanding examples of the author's remarkable gift, first proved in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, for grasping clearly the character, the import, and the necessary consequences of great historical events, at a time when these events are still in process before our eyes, or have only just taken place. And, finally, because we in Germany are still having to endure the consequences which Marx prophesied would follow from these events.
Has that which was declared in the first Address not come to pass: that if Germany's defensive war against Louis Bonaparte degenerated into a war of conquest against the French people, all the misfortunes which befell Germany after the so-called wars of liberation would revive again with renewed intensity? Have we not had a further 20 years of Bismarck's government, the Exceptional Law and the anti-socialist campaign taking the place of the prosecutions of "demagogues", with the same arbitrary police measures and with literally the same staggering interpretations of the law?
And has not the prophecy been proved to the letter that the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine would "force France into the arms of Russia", and that after this annexation Germany must either become the avowed tool of Russia, or must, after some short respite, arm for a new war, and, moreover, "a war with the combines Slavonic and Roman races"? Has not the annexation of the French provinces driven France into the arms of Russia? Has not Bismarck for fully 20 years vainly wooed the favor of the tsar, wooed it with services even more lowly than those which little Prussia, before it became the "first power in Europe", was wont to lay at Holy Russia's feet? And is there not every day hanging over our heads the Damocles' sword of war, on the first day of which all the chartered covenants of princes will be scattered like chaff; a war of which nothing is certain but the absolute uncertainty of its outcome; a race war which will subject the whole of Europe to devastation by 15 or 20 million armed men, and is only not already raging because even the strongest of the great military states shrinks before the absolute incalculability of its final outcome?
All the more is it our duty to make again accessible to the German workers these brilliant proofs, now half-forgotten, of the far-sightedness of the international working class policy in 1870.
What is true of these two Addresses is also true of The Civil War in France. On March 28, the last fighters of the Commune succumbed to superior forces on the slopes of Belleville; and only two days later, on May 30, Marx read to the General Council the work in which the historical significance of the Paris Commune is delineated in short powerful strokes, but with such clearness, and above all such truth, as has never again been attained on all the mass of literature which has been written on this subject.
Thanks to the economic and political development of France since 1789, for 50 years the positions in Paris has been such that no revolutions could break out there without assuming a proletarian character, that is to say, without the proletariat, which had bought victory with its blood, advancing its own demands after victory. These demands were more or less unclear and even confused, corresponding to the state of evolution reached by the workers of Paris at the particular period, but in the last resort they all amounted to the abolition of the class antagonism between capitalist and workers. It is true that no one knew how this was to be brought about. But the demand itself, however indefinite it still was in its formulation, contained a threat to the existing order of society; the workers who put it forward were still armed; therefore the disarming of the workers was the first commandment for the bourgeois at the helm of the state. Hence, after every revolution won by the workers, a new struggle, ending with the defeat of the workers.
This happened for the first time in 1848. The liberal bourgeoisie of the parliamentary opposition held banquets for securing reform of the franchise, which was to ensure supremacy for their party. Forced more and more, in their struggle with the government, to appeal to the people, they had to allow the radical and republican strata of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie gradually to take the lead. But behind these stood the revolutionary workers, and since 1830, these had acquired far more political independence that the bourgeoisie, and even the republicans, suspected. At the moment of the crisis between the government and the opposition, the workers opened battle on the streets; Louis Philippe vanished, and with him the franchise reform; and in its place arose the republic, and indeed one which the victorious workers themselves designated as a "social" republic. No one, however, was clear as to what this social republic was to imply; not even the workers themselves. But they now had arms in their hands, nd were a power in the state. Therefore, as soon as the bourgeois republicans in control felt something like firm ground under their feet, their first aim was to disarm the workers. This took place by driving them into the insurrection of June 1848 by direct breach of faith, by open defiance and the attempt to banish the unemployed to a distant province. The government had taken care to have an overwhelming superiority of force. After five days' heroic struggle, the workers were defeated. And then followed a blood-bath of the defenceless prisoners, the likes of which as not been seen since the days of the civil wars which ushered in the downfall of the Roman republic. It was the first time that the bourgeoisie showed to what insane cruelties of revenge with will be goaded the moment the proletariat dares to take its stand against them as a separate class, with its own interests and demands. And yet 1848 was only child's play compared with their frenzy in 1871.
Punishment followed hard at heel. If the proletariat was not yet able to rule France, the bourgeoisie could no longer do so. At least not at that period, when the greater part of it was still monarchically inclined, and it was divided into three dynastic parties and a fourth republican party. Its internal dissensions allowed the adventurer Louis Bonaparte to take possession of all the commanding points -- army, police, administrative machinery -- and, on December 2, 1851, to explode the last stronghold of the bourgeoisie, the National Assembly. The Second Empire opened the exploitation of France by a gang of political and financial adventurers, but at the same time also an industrial development such as had never been possible under the narrow-minded and timorous system of Louis Philippe, with its exclusive domination by only a small section of the big bourgeoisie. Louis Bonaparte took the political power from the capitalists under the pretext of protecting them, the bourgeoisie, from the workers, and on the other hand the workers from them; but in return his rule encouraged speculation and industrial activity -- in a word the rise and enrichment of the whole bourgeoisie to an extent hitherto unknown. To an even greater extent, it is true, corruption and mass robbery developed, clustering around the imperial court, and drawing their heavy percentages from this enrichment.
But the Second Empire was the appeal to the French chauvinism, the demand for the restoration of the frontiers of the First Empire, which had been lost in 1814, or at least those of the First Republic. A French empire within the frontiers of the old monarchy and, in fact, within the even more amputated frontiers of 1815 -- such a thing was impossible for any long duration of time. Hence the necessity for brief wars and extension of frontiers. But no extension of frontiers was so dazzling to the imagination of the French chauvinists as the extension to the German left bank of the Rhine. One square mile on the Rhine was more to them than ten in the Alps or anywhere else. Given the Second Empire, the demand for the restoration to France of the left bank of the Rhine, either all at once or piecemeal, was merely a question of time. The time came with the Austro-Prussian War of 1866; cheated of the anticipated "territorial compensation" by Bismarck, and by his own over-cunning, hesitating policy, there was not nothing left for Napoleon but war, which broke out in 1870 and drove him first to Sedan, and then to Wilhelmshohe.
The inevitable result was the Paris Revolution of September 4, 1870. The empire collapsed like a house of cards, and the republic was again proclaimed. But the enemy was standing at the gates; the armies of the empire were either hopelessly beleaguered in Metz or held captive in Germany. In this emergency the people allowed the Paris Deputies to the former legislative body to constitute themselves into a "Government of National Defence". This was the more readily conceded, since, for the purpose of defence, all Parisians capable of bearing arms had enrolled in the National Guard and were armed, so that now the workers constituted a great majority. But almost at once the antagonism between the almost completely bourgeois government and the armed proletariat broke into open conflict. On October 31, workers' battalions stormed the town hall, and captured some members of the government. Treachery, the government's direct breach of its undertakings, and the interventions of some petty-bourgeois battalions set them free again, and in order not to occassion the outbreak of civil war inside a city which was already beleaguered by a foreign power, the former government was left in office.
At last on January 8, 1871, Paris, almost starving, capitulated but with honors unprecedented in the history of war. The forts were surrendered, the outer wall disarmed, the weapons of the regiments of the line and of the Mobile Guard were handed over, and they themselves considered prisoners of war. But the National Guard kept its weapons and guns, and only entered into an armistice with the victors, who themselves did not dare enter Paris in triumph. They only dared to occupy a tiny corner of Paris, which, into the bargain, consisted partly of pubic parks, and even this they only occupied for a few days! And during this time they, who had maintained their encirclement of Paris for 131 days, were themselves encircled by the armed workers of Paris, who kept a sharp watch that no "Prussian" should overstep the narrow bounds of the corner ceded to the foreign conquerors. Such was the respect which the Paris workers inspired in the army before which all the armies of the empire had laid down their arms; and the Prussian Junkers, who had come to take revenge at the very centre of the revolution, were compelled to stand by respectfully, and salute just precisely this armed revolution!
During the war the Paris workers had confined themselves to demanding the vigorous prosecution of the fight. But now, when peace had come after the capitulation of Paris, now, Thiers, the new head of government, was compelled to realize that the supremacy of the propertied classes -- large landowners and capitalists -- was in constant danger so long as the workers of Paris had arms in their hands. His first action was to attempt to disarm them. On March 18, he sent troops of the line with orders to rob the National Guard of the artillery belonging to it, which had been constructed during the siege of Paris and had been paid for by subscription. The attempt failed; Paris mobilized as one man in defence of the guns, and war between Paris and the French government sitting at Versailles was declared. On March 26 the Paris Commune was elected and on March 28 it was proclaimed. The Central Committee of the National Guard, which up to then had carried on the government, handed in its resignation to the National Guard, after it had first decreed the abolition of the scandalous Paris "Morality Police". On March 30 the Commune abolished conscription and the standing army, and declared that the National Guard, in which all citizens capable of bearing arms were to be enrolled, was to be the sole armed force. It remitted all payments of rent for dwelling houses from October 1870 until April, the amounts already paid to be reckoned to a future rental period, and stopped all sales of article pledged in the municipal pawnshops. On the same day the foreigners elected to the Commune were confirmed in office, because "the flag of the Commune is the flag of the World Republic".
On April 1 it was decided that the highest salary received by any employee of the Commune, and therefore also by its members themselves, might not exceed 6,000 francs. On the following day the Commune decreed the separation of the Church from the State, and the abolition of all state payments for religious purposes as well as the transformation of all Church property into national property; as a result of which, on April 8, a decree excluding from the schools all religious symbols, pictures, dogmas, prayers -- in a word, "all that belongs to the sphere of the individual's conscience" -- was ordered to be excluded from the schools, and this decree was gradually applied. On the 5th, in reply to the shooting, in reply to the shooting, day after day, of the Commune's fighters captured by the Versailles troops, a decree was issued for imprisonment of hostages, but it was never carried into effect. On the 6th, the guillotine was brought out by the 137th battalion of the National guard, and publicly burnt, amid great popular rejoicing. On the 12th, the Commune decided that the Victory Column on the Place Vendome, which had been cast from guns captured by napoleon after the war of 1809, should be demolished as a symbol of chauvinism and incitement to national hatred. This decree was carried out on May 16. On April 16 the Commune ordered a statistical tabulation of factories which had been closed down by the manufacturers, and the working out of plans for the carrying on of these factories by workers formerly employed in them, who were to be organized in co-operative societies, and also plans for the organization of these co-operatives in one great union. On the 20th the Commune abolished night work for bakers, and also the workers' registration cards, which since the Second Empire had been run as a monopoly by police nominees -- exploiters of the first rank; the issuing of these registration cards was transferred to the mayors of the 20 arrondissements of Paris. On April 30, the Commune ordered the closing of the pawnshops, on the ground that they were a private exploitation of labor, and were in contradiction with the right of the workers to their instruments of labor and to credit. On May 5 it ordered the demolition of the Chapel of Atonement, which had been built in expiation of the execution of Louis XVI.
Thus, from March 18 onwards the class character of the Paris movement, which had previously been pushed into the background by the fight against the foreign invaders, emerged sharply and clearly. As almost without exception, workers, or recognized representatives of the workers, sat in the Commune, its decision bore a decidedly proletarian character. Either they decreed reforms which the republican bourgeoisie had failed to pass soley out of cowardice, but which provided a necessary basis for the free activity of the working class -- such as the realization of the principle that in relation to the state, religion is a purely private matter -- or they promulgated decrees which were in the direct interests of the working class and to some extent cut deeply into the old order of society. In a beleaguered city, however, it was possible at most to make a start in the realization of all these measures. And from the beginning of May onwards all their energies were taken up by the fight against the ever-growing armies assembled by the Versailles government.
On April 7, the Versailles troops had captured the Seine crossing at Neuilly, on the western front of Paris; on the other hand, in an attack on the southern front on the 11th they were repulsed with heavy losses by General Eudes. Paris was continually bombarded and, moreover, by the very people who had stigmatized as a sacrilege the bombardment of the same city by the Prussians. These same people now begged the Prussian government for the hasty return of the French soldiers taken prisoner at Sedan and Metz, in order that they might recapture Paris for them. From the beginning of May the gradual arrival of these troops gave the Versailles forces a decided ascendancy. This already became evident when, on April 23, Thiers broke off the negotiations for the exchange, proposed by Commune, of the Archbishop of Paris and a whole number of other priests held hostages in Paris, for only one man, Blanqui, who had twice been elected to the Commune but was a prisoner in Clairvaux. And even more in the changed langauge of Thiers; previously procrastinating and equivocal, he now suddenly became insolent, threatening, brutal. The Versailles forces took the redoubt of Moulin Saquet on the southern front, on May 3; on the 9th, Fort Issy, which had been completely reduced to ruins by gunfire; and on the 14th, Fort Vanves. On the western front they advanced gradually, capturing the numerous villages and building which extended up tot he city wall, until they reached the main wall itself; on the 21st, thanks to treachery and the carelessness of the National Guards stationed there, they succeeded in forcing their way into the city. The Prussians who held the northern and eastern forts allowed the Versailles troops to advance across the land north of the city, which was forbidden ground to them under the armistice, and thus to march forward and attack on a long front, which the Parisians naturally thought covered by the armistice, and therefore held only with weak forces. As a result of this, only a weak resistance was put up in the western half of Paris, in the luxury city proper; it grew stronger and more tenacious the nearer the incoming troops approached the eastern half, the real working class city.
It was only after eight days' fighting that the last defender of the Commune were overwhelmed on the heights of Belleville and Menilmontant; and then the massacre of defenceless men, women, and children, which had been raging all through the week on an increasing scale, reached its zenith. The breechloaders could no longer kill fast enough; the vanquished workers were shot down in hundred by mitrailleuse fire. the "Wall of the Federals" at the Pere Lachaise cemetery, where the final mass murder was consummated, is still standing today, a mute but eloquent testimony to the savagery of which the ruling class is capable as soon as the working class dares to come out for its rights. Then came the mass arrests; when the slaughter of them all proved to be impossible, the shooting of victims arbitrarily selected from the prisoners' ranks, and the removal of the rest to great camps where they awaited trial by courts-martial. The Prussian troops surrounding the northern half of Paris had orders not to allow any fugitives to pass; but the officers often shut their eyes when the soldiers paid more obedience to the dictates of humanity than to those of the General Staff; particularly, honor is due to the Saxon army corps, which behaved very humanely and let through many workers who were obviously fighters for the Commune.
If today, we look back at the activity and historical significance of the Paris Commune of 1871, we shall find it necessary to make a few additions to the account given in The Civil War in France.
The members of the Commune were divided into a majority of the Blanquists, who had also been predominant in the Central Committee of the National Guard; and a minority, members of the International Working Men's Association, chiefly consisting of adherents of the Proudhon school of socialism. The great majority of the Blanquists at that time were socialist only by revolutionary and proletarian instinct; only a few had attained greater clarity on the essential principles, through Vaillant, who was familiar with German scientific socialism. It is therefore comprehensible that in the economic sphere much was left undone which, according to our view today, the Commune ought to have done. The hardest thing to understand is certainly the holy awe with which they remained standing respectfully outside the gates of the Bank of France. This was also a serious political mistake. The bank in the hands of the Commune -- this would have been worth more than 10,000 hostages. It would have meant the pressure of the whole of the French bourgeoisie on the Versailles government in favor of peace with the Commune. but what is still more wonderful is the correctness of so much that was actually done by the Commune, composed as it was of Blanquists and Proudhonists. naturally, the Proudhonists were chiefly responsible for the economic decrees of the Commune, both for their praiseworthy and their unpraiseworthy aspects; as the Blanquists were for its political actions and omissions. And in both cases the irony of history willed -- as is usual when doctrinaires come to the helm -- that both did the opposite of what the doctrines of their school proscribed.
Proudhon, the Socialist of the small peasant and master-craftsman, regarded association with positive hatred. He said of it that there was more bad than good in it; that it was by nature sterile, even harmful, because it was a fetter on the freedom of the workers; that it was a pure dogma, unproductive and burdensome, in conflict as much with the freedom of the workers as with economy of labor; that its disadvantages multiplied more swiftly than its advantages; that, as compared with it, competition, division of labor and private property were economic forces. Only for the exceptional cases -- as Proudhon called them -- of large-scale industry and large industrial units, such as railways, was there any place for the association of workers. (Cf. Idee Generale de la Revolution, 3 etude.)
By 1871, even in Paris, the centre of handicrafts,large-scale industry had already so much ceased to be an exceptional case that by far the most important decree of the Commune instituted anorganization of large-scale industry and even of manufacture which was not based only on the association of workers in each factor, but also aimed at combining all these associations in one great union; in short an organization which, as Marx quite rightly says in The Civil War, must necessarily have led in the end to communism, that is to say, the direct antithesis of the Proudhon doctrine. And, therefore, the Commune was also the grave of the Proudhon school of socialism. Today this school has vanished from French working class circles; among them now, among the Possibilists no less than among the "Marxists", Marx's theory rules unchallenged. Only among the "radical" bourgeoisie are there still Proudhonists.
The Blanquists fared no better. Brought up in the school of conspiracy, and held together by the strict discipline which went with it, they started out from the viewpoint that a relatively small number of resolute, well-organized men would be able, at a given favorable moment, not only seize the helm of state, but also by energetic and relentless action, to keep power until they succeeded in drawing the mass of the people into the revolution and ranging them round the small band of leaders. this conception involved, above all, the strictest dictatorship and centralization of all power in the hands of the new revolutionary government. And what did the Commune, with its majority of these same Blanquists, actually do? In all its proclamations to the French Communes with Paris, a national organization, which for the first time was really to be created by the nation itself. It was precisely the oppressing power of the former centralized government, army, political police and bureaucracy, which napoleon had created in 1798 and since then had been taken over by every new government as a welcome instrument and used against its opponents, it was precisely this power which was to fall everywhere, just as it had already fallen in Paris.
From the outset the Commune was compelled to recognize that the working class, once come to power, could not manage with the old state machine; that in order not to lose again its only just conquered supremacy, this working class must, on the one hand, do away with all the old repressive machinery previously used against it itself,and, on the other, safeguard itself against its own deputies and officials, by declaring them all, without exception, subject to recall at any moment. What had been the characteristic attribute of the former state? Society had created its own organs to look after its common interests, originally through simple division of labor. But these organs, at whose head was the state power, had in the course of time, in pursuance of their own special interests, transformed themselves from the servants of society into the masters of society, as can be seen, for example, not only in the hereditary monarchy, but equally also in the democratic republic. Nowhere do "politicians" form a more separate, powerful section of the nation than in North America. There, each of the two great parties which alternately succeed each other in power is itself in turn controlled by people who make a business of politics, who speculate on seats in the legislative assemblies of the Union as well as of the separate states, or who make a living by carrying on agitation for their party and on its victory are rewarded with positions.
It is well known that the Americans have been striving for 30 years to shake off this yoke, which has become intolerable, and that in spite of all they can do they continue to stink ever deeper in this swamp of corruption. It is precisely in America that we see best how there takes place this process of the state power making itself independent in relation to society, whose mere instrument it was originally intended to be. Here there exists no dynasty, no nobility, no standing army, beyond the few men keeping watch on the Indians, no bureaucracy with permanent posts or the right to pensions. and nevertheless we find here two great gangs of political speculators, who alternately take possession of the state power and exploit it by the most corrupt means and for the most corrupt ends -- and the nation is powerless against these two great cartels of politicians, who are ostensibly its servants, but in reality exploit and plunder it.
Against this transformation of the state and the organs of the state from servants of society into masters of society -- an inevitable transformation in all previous states -- the Commune made use of two infallible expedients. In this first place, it filled all posts -- administrative, judicial, and educational -- by election on the basis of universal suffrage of all concerned, with the right of the same electors to recall their delegate at any time. And in the second place, all officials, high or low, were paid only the wages received by other workers. The highest salary paid by the Commune to anyone was 6,000 francs. In this way an effective barrier to place-hunting and careerism was set up, even apart from the binding mandates to delegates to representative bodies which were also added in profusion.
This shattering of the former state power and its replacement by a new and really democratic state is described in detail in the third section of The Civil War. But it was necessary to dwell briefly here once more on some of its features, because in Germany particularly the superstitious belief in the state has been carried over from philosophy into the general consciousness of the bourgeoisie and even to many workers. According to the philosophical notion, the state is the "realization of the idea" or the Kingdom of God on earth, translated into philosophical terms, the sphere in which eternal truth and justice is or should be realized. And from this follows a superstitious reverence for the state and everything connected with it, which takes roots the more readily as people from their childhood are accustomed to imagine that the affairs and interests common to the whole of society could not be looked after otherwise than as they have been looked after in the past, that is, through the state and its well-paid officials. And people think they have taken quite an extraordinary bold step forward when they have rid themselves of belief in hereditary monarchy and swear by the democratic republic. In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy; and at best an evil inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy, whose worst sides the proletariat, just like the Commune, cannot avoid having to lop off at the earliest possible moment, until such time as a new generation, reared in new and free social conditions, will be able to throw the entire lumber of the state on the scrap-heap.
Of late, the Social-Democratic philistine has once more been filled with wholesome terror at the words: Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
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America in 2050:
In 1960, when JFK defeated Nixon, America was a nation of 160 million, 90
percent white and 10 percent black, with a few million Hispanics and Asians
sprinkled among us.
We were one nation, one people. We worshipped the same God, spoke the same
English language, studied American history and English literature, honored the
same heroes, read the same books, watched the same TV shows, went to the same
movies, and saw ourselves as defenders of Western Civilization against the
godless communism of the Soviet Empire.
We were confident and proud of who we were. When Nikita Khrushchev demanded an
apology for our having sent a U-2 spy plane over Russia, Ike blew up the Paris
summit rather than accede to his demand. We cheered the old general's
That was yesterday. But due to the Immigration Act of 1965 and the cultural
revolution of the '60s, that America is now gone forever. And as one studies
the latest projections of the Census Bureau, the America of our grandchildren
will be another country altogether, a nation unrecognizable to our parents, a
giant Brazil of the North.
In 2050, there will be three times as many people living here as in 1960 – 420
million. White Americans will be a minority, 49 percent, and falling.
Hispanics in the United States, over 100 million, will be equal to the entire
population of Mexico today. Our Asian population will be almost as large as
our African-American population today.
By countries of origin, America will be a Third World nation. Our cities will
look like Los Angeles today. Los Angeles and the cities of Texas, Arizona and
California will look like Mexico City.
When we all belong to "minorities," what will hold us together? With the rise
of group rights and identity politics, we are already falling out and falling
apart over racial preferences and ethnic entitlements.
In the 1990s, for the first time since the Spanish arrived, the white
population of California fell. White flight has begun. The white majority,
voting with its feet, is ceding the Golden State to Hispanic and Asian
Writing in Foreign Policy, Harvard Professor Samuel Huntington, author of "Who
We Are," raises an alarm about the huge infusion of Hispanics into the
Southwest, and for many reasons.
Much of this mass immigration is illegal. Vast numbers are coming here only to
work. They are not assimilating. They do not want to become Americans. They
are concentrating in states bordering Mexico, which is their country and a
nation with a historic grievance against us. They are holding on to their
language and culture, creating a Hispanic nation within our nation. By 2050,
there will be scores of millions of people living here whose loyalty is to a
Moreover, as multiculturalism has captured our schools and colleges, immigrant
children will have prejudices and grievances against America and the West
reinforced as they learn. The academic elite that controls these schools
already paints America as a nation with a rancid history of genocide, slavery,
racism, oppression and imperialism.
As immigrant children grow up, who will teach them to love and cherish
America? Will they not come to exhibit that same sullen hostility to our
country we see erupting at soccer games with Mexico today? There, Mexican
fans, whether in the Los Angeles Coliseum or in Guadalajara, curse our
players, shout down our national anthem and chant "Osama! Osama!" when the
Mexican team scores.
Is the Census Bureau future the future Americans wish? Are they willing to
risk it for their grandchildren? No and no are the answers.
Why, then, does that future appear inevitable?
Answer: Though a majority of Americans wish to preserve the land they grew up
in for their children, our elites – political, academic, cultural and
corporate – are either unwilling to conserve that America, or are indifferent
to its disappearance, or long for its death.
A majority of Americans want immigration cut back and all illegal aliens sent
back. Why is the will of the majority, expressed in polls and referenda, not
reflected in law or policy? Because we no longer live in a democratic
republic. We are ruled by a managerial elite.
America's corporate elites want an endless supply of cheap labor. Our judges
throw out popularly enacted laws to which they object. Our academic elites
work to see "white, racist America" disappear. Our neo-Marxist cultural elites
wish to be the gravediggers of the West and of Christian culture. And
America's conservative party, the Republican Party, believes Hispanics hold
the key to retention of presidential power, and is desperately anxious not to
offend Vicente Fox.
If, by 2050, the America we grew up in has become a Tower of Babel of
squabbling minorities that is falling apart, it will be because of the treason
of the elites, and our lack of will to overthrow them.
© 2004 Creators
for printable version.
Click here to mail this article to a friend.
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Daily Column Archives | <urn:uuid:aa3a2afe-ee38-4003-83ca-044ab84a7304> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.theamericancause.org/patamerica2050.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396887.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00188-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936807 | 1,094 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Pleural pressure, or Ppl, is the pressure surrounding the lung, within the pleural space. During quiet breathing, the pleural pressure is negative; that is, it is below atmospheric pressure.
The pleura is a thin membrane which invests the lungs and lines the walls of the thoracic cavity. During development the lungs grow into the pleural sacs until they are completely surrounded by them. The side of the pleura that covers the lung is referred to as the visceral pleura and the side of the pleura which covers the chest wall is called the parietal pleura. These two sides are continuous and meet at the hilum of the lung. The two faces of the pleural membranes are directly opposed to one another, and the entire potential space within the pleura contains only a few milliliters of serous pleural fluid.
The size of the lung is determined by the difference between the alveolar pressure and the pleural pressure, or the transpulmonary pressure. The bigger the difference, the bigger the lung. As a result of gravity, in an upright individual the pleural pressure at the base of the lung base is greater (less negative) than at its apex; when the individual lies on his back, the pleural pressure becomes greatest along his back. Since alveolar pressure is uniform throughout the lung, the top of the lung generally experiences a greater transpulmonary pressure and is therefore more expanded and less compliant than the bottom of the lung.
During active expiration, the abdominal muscles are contracted to force up the diaphragm and the resulting pleural pressure can become positive. Positive pleural pressure may temporarily collapse the bronchi and cause limitation of air flow.
Pleural pressure is estimated in human subjects using an esophageal balloon. | <urn:uuid:aac42bc4-efa4-443e-bea2-6ad6296243e9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://oac.med.jhmi.edu/res_phys/Encyclopedia/PleuralPressure/PleuralPressure.HTML | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00014-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94238 | 370 | 3.96875 | 4 |
Let's turn the clock back 5,400 years and meet a tribe of people preparing for the summer’s hunt in the mountains around Oppdal.
A shaft is cleaved from a pine and carefully carved until it is long, narrow and straight.
It will form an arrow that hunters hope will connect with a good supply of protein.
There is no flint in these parts, but slate can be readily chipped and ground into sharp, deadly points.
The arrowhead is attached with pitch made from birch bark and tightly wrapped with animal sinew.
Now the hunter is ready to find out whether dinner will consist of grouse or reindeer.
The bow is nocked and released. The arrow zings through the air. But this was an especially unfortunate shot. Not only did it miss the prey, the arrow drove deep into a snow patch. For some reason it wasn’t retrieved.
But it didn’t disappear for good.
“We archaeologists are reliant on hunters missing like that,” says Martin Callanan, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), where he teaches in the Department of Archaeology and Religious Studies.
“When arrows disappeared deep into snow they sometimes froze there for keeps, until we find them,” he says.
One of his favourite artefacts is the arrow that disappointed a hunter 5,400 years ago.
Callanan and other NTNU researchers are working with an international project called Snow Patch Archaeology Research Cooperation (SPARC), which has as one of its goals the finding and analysing of hunting weapons in perennial mountain snow patches around the country.
They get a lot of help from hikers and amateur scavengers.
“Amateurs who search as a hobby have found nearly everything we have,” says the researcher.
His favourite arrow was found by a mountain park ranger at Oppdalsfjellet in September 2011.
Callanan reasons that there are more snow patch treasures waiting to be found.
“A lot of finds have been made in the mountains of south Norway and some up in the high north. We expect there are loads of exciting artefacts waiting for us.”
The old arrow has stayed in good shape, thanks to being preserved in a gigantic freezer, which is precisely the nature of a perennial snow bank.
Such finds can also answer questions about prehistoric weaponry.
When researchers find things in snow patches, one of their tasks is to estimate how many times the objects have melted out and later been recovered in snow.
Objects that have been frozen a long time are generally in better shape than those that have been exposed periodically.
“We don’t think this particular arrow has melted out of the ice many times. Maybe only the once since it was shot,” says Callanan.
That is an issue he and his colleagues are exploring.
“If it turns out that 2011 is the first time it emerged from the snow and ice, that says a lot about climate change and the melting of snow patches that we’re experiencing now,” says the researcher.
While global warming and climate change are generally not seen as positive developments, one plus of warmer temperatures is that more archaeological treasures in the mountains are coming to light.
“A lot more finds will be made in coming years as the temperatures rise and snow patches continue to melt,” says Callanan. | <urn:uuid:e27e2658-95cc-4d3c-9e9f-177e0033effc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://sciencenordic.com/frosty-time-machine-coughs-arrowheads | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00038-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966332 | 711 | 3.140625 | 3 |
This Week in the Civil War - 410
On Saturday, October 4, 1862, General Earl Van Dorn’s Confederates renewed their assault against General William Rosecrans’ Federals at Corinth, Mississippi. As the estimated 22,000 man Confederate force moved forward, Union artillery swept the field causing heavy casualties, but the Rebels continued onward.
They seized Battery Powell and closed on Battery Robinett, where desperate hand-to-hand fighting ensued. A few Rebels fought their way into downtown Corinth, but the Federals quickly drove them out. A Federal counter attack recaptured Battery Powell and eventually forced Van Dorn’s force into a humiliating, general retreat after suffering more than 4200 casualties. Once the fighting ended, there were no more Confederate attempts to recapture the town, and the Union military used Corinth and her railroads in relative safety for much of the remainder of the war. | <urn:uuid:21fc5d80-1c64-42bd-90e2-bb9e4d45f989> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://tpr.org/post/week-civil-war-410 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397562.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00064-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950596 | 184 | 2.921875 | 3 |
SPRINGFIELD -- The vertebra of an extinct Harlan's muskox from the Ice Age went on display Friday at the Illinois State Museum after a Springfield man made the rare discovery in the drought-shallowed Sangamon River.
Tony Blisset, a McDonald's manager, said he was swimming with his family Wednesday when he jumped into chin-deep water and found the bone. At first, he said, he thought it was from a horse or cow. But then he contacted the museum, where paleontologists informed him of his significant find.
"It was hidden for a long time, just waiting to be found and discovered," Blisset said.
The species of muskox lived in Illinois during the Ice Age and scientists say Blisset's find is the thirteenth record of the species in Illinois.
"It's an important discovery," museum paleontologist Jeffrey Saunders said. "They were on the river on a 106-degree day during a near record, if not record, drought and what should they do is discover the fossil of an Ice Age animal?"
Museum officials say gauges show the Sangamon River was 11 feet lower in July than in May. Scientists think the bone eroded out of sediments during high water and was redeposited.
Blisset has donated the vertebra to the museum and said the story will "always be in my family." It will be displayed indefinitely in the museum's lobby.
"I had no idea it would be such a great discovery for Springfield," Blisset said. | <urn:uuid:2db75ac6-4ece-4c64-aa86-8406416a2095> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20120831/news/708319687/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00166-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978308 | 317 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Hip resurfacing offers new hope to young osteoarthritic patients. Increasingly in the US this procedure is suggested as a better alternative to hip replacement,// though many sound a note of caution.Its potential advantages should be weighed against its potential risks, they say.
At the moment though, whoever could afford to in the US do scout around for hip resurfacing surgeons.
Osteoarthritis is a type of arthritis that is caused by the breakdown and eventual loss of the cartilage of one or more joints. Cartilage is a protein substance that serves as a "cushion" between the bones of the joints.
Osteoarthritis is also known as degenerative arthritis. Among the over 100 different types of arthritis conditions, osteoarthritis is the most common, affecting over 20 million people in the United States.
Primary osteoarthritis is mostly related to aging. With aging, the water content of the cartilage increases and the protein makeup of cartilage degenerates. Repetitive use of the joints over the years irritates and inflames the cartilage, causing joint pain and swelling.
Eventually there is a total loss of the cartilage cushion between the bones of the joints. Loss of cartilage cushion causes friction between the bones, leading to pain and limitation of joint mobility.
But young athletes too are prone to osteoarthritis. Growth plate injuries are most common in boys aged 14 to 16 and girls aged 11 to 13 and are often associated with gymnastics, long-distance running, baseball/softball pitching, doctors say.
The growth plate is like a cap on the end of a long bone. Eventually, it will cement as the skeleton matures, but in children it is the weakest part of the skeleton.
Muscle strength imbalances, poor flexibility, inadequate strength training, overtraining, and lack of appropriate rest/recovery can contribute to the risk of overuse injuries,
Kids who are overweight or obese also have bone
cartilage problems because the cushion can’t support the weight.
Now while the aged osteoarthritis patients can go in for total hip replacement, youngsters have a problem.
In total hip replacement, surgeons replace a hip by cutting off the head of the thigh bone, the femur, and replace it with a metal ball mounted on a rod implanted deep in the thigh bone. A plastic socket replaces the original. Those artificial hips can bring tremendous relief to people crippled by hip pain.
But the metal-on-plastic friction means the implants can begin wearing out in about 15 years, sooner if sports or other activities increase pressure on the joint. For the average 65-year-old, that's no problem. But a 50-year-old, in contrast, could very well wear out an initial replacement and have little thigh bone left to fit another.
Surgeons lightly shave the damaged femoral ball and fit a metal ball snugly over it. That ball rolls in a metal cup reinforcing the socket. The idea: Metal-on-metal shouldn't wear out as fast, and if patients do need another replacement in 15 or 20 years, the thigh bone is largely intact.
"This resurfacing initiative has interest because we're sparing bone,'' explains Sheinkop, a Rush University professor and joint replacement director of the Neurologic and Orthopedic Institute of Chicago.
The operation hit the U.S. market last spring with Food and Drug Administration approval of the British-designed Birmingham Hip Resurfacing System. Competitors are in clinical trials here, and expected to clear FDA later this year.
More than 400,000 total or partial hip replacements are performed each year, a number growing as the population ages.
Doctors differ on what age is the cutoff for resurfacing, somewhere between 60 and 65, largely dependent on the patient's bone strength. Nor do all insurers cover it. The implant costs about 20 per cent more than a standard artificial hip.
Some studies suggest
higher rates of failure in hip resurfacing, necessitating additional surgery.
In addition, there is some concern that the rubbing together of the metal parts used in hip resurfacing may produce very small metal particles that are absorbed into your bloodstream. The effect of these metal particles is unknown. However, a very small percentage of people may develop a metal allergy. Also, because these metal particles are eliminated by your kidneys, hip resurfacing is not recommended for people with impaired kidney function or diabetes.
Further research is called for before hip resurfacing is recommended as a most viable alternative to replacement is the consensus among the medical community.
GPRelated medicine news :1
. Birmingham Hip Resurfacing System, Another Option To Hip Replacement Surgery2
. Infant Fevers Found to Reduce Allergy Risk Later In Life3
. Spread Of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever Is A Probability, Say Experts4
. Brain Fever or Encephalitis Spreading in North India5
. Vaccine For Dengue Fever On Trial In Asia-Pacific6
. Dengue Fever Claims Five Lives In Pakistan7
. Fear Of Dengue Epidemic Looms Large: Fever Kills Five in Pakistan8
. Pakistan On Alert After Cases Of Fatal Fever9
. Chikungunya Fever: French Government struggling to Tackle the Mosquito Menace 10
. Orissa Affected By Mysterious Fever11
. Brain Injury, A Consequence Of Glandular Fever Could Trigger Fatigue Syndrome | <urn:uuid:8df5df14-7fd6-47c9-9510-4812d3c35922> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Hip-Resurfacing-Fever-Catches-on-in-US-19906-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00001-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913299 | 1,118 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Livestock producers in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed are experiencing increased scrutiny in the wake of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recently established Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) guidelines. In an attempt to restore clean water in the Chesapeake Bay and related waterways, the EPA is pushing the TMDL, referred to by some as a “pollution diet,” as part of a plan to put pollution plans in place by 2025. Environmental experts are speculating the approach used in the Chesapeake Bay could eventually be applied to other U.S. watersheds.
The Chesapeake Bay TMDL identifies the necessary reductions of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment in a 64,000-square-mile area including Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. Different EPA jurisdiction areas in those states are following detailed plans regarding how pollution will be reduced within each area.
State legislation is among methods that will be used in an attempt to fund wastewater treatment plant upgrades, urban stormwater management systems and agricultural programs, specifically in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia. There are plans to dramatically increase enforcement and compliance of state requirements for agriculture in Pennsylvania. Additionally, Pennsylvania is expected to commit state funding to develop and implement state-of-the-art technologies for converting animal manure to energy for farms. Regulators in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and New York are considering implementation of mandatory programs for agriculture by 2013 if plans for pollution reductions fall behind schedule.
What are the practical implications for livestock producers? Douglas Beegle, Penn State agronomist specializing in nutrient management, says there is an increased emphasis on making sure producers have nutrient management plans in place and are following best management practices. Producers are being encouraged to take full advantage of no-till methods and cover crops, for example. Those not following guidelines will likely be subject to enforcement actions and penalties. “Most of what is called for in our TMDL is based on good managment recommendations, and we will continue to make some progress, but we won’t solve the bigger problem unless we figure out a sustainable way for our farmers to deal with excess nutrients in the watershed,” he explains.
Beegle says Pennsylvania livestock producers had been making steady progress while working to reduce the amount of nutrients going into the Chesapeake Bay, but the question of how to deal with excess manure nutrients is a difficult challenge for the state’s producers. “We import feed, mostly from the Midwest. Because there are not as many crops grown here, the manure nutrients tend to accumulate on the farms and don’t go back into crop production. This is driven by global economic forces and there is no good, simple, economic answer to this challenge. We either have to find alternative uses for the excess nutrients and get the manure off the land and back to someplace else, change the structure of the production systems so that excesses are not created in the first place, or figure out some other sustainable way to deal with the imbalances in the system.”
In the meantime, the TMDL requirements call for a 25% reduction in nitrogen, 24% reduction in phosphorus and 20% reduction in sediment in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. The TMDL, which sets Chesapeake Bay Watershed limits of 185.9 million lb. of nitrogen, 12.5 million lb. of phosphorus and 6.45 billion lb. of sediment per year, is designed to ensure that all pollution control measures intended to fully restore the bay and its tidal rivers are in place by 2025.
USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is providing up to $3.5 million in financial assistance to support conservation practices that could help benefit the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. The money will be available through NRCS’ Cooperative Conservation Partnership Initiative (CCPI). Proposals are for single-state and multi-state partnership projects that address natural resource concerns within the six states that are part of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Individual landowners and operators cannot submit proposals. Applications will be accepted until Jan. 31, 2011. More information about the request for project proposals, including application instructions, can be found at www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/ccpi/. | <urn:uuid:2c1397d7-5247-4b4c-b01d-f1c897350c8a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://nationalhogfarmer.com/print/environmental-stewardship/manure-management/0113-chesapeake-bay-tmdl-guidelines | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00120-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930049 | 896 | 2.828125 | 3 |
- Historic Sites
El Morro (fort San Felipe Del Morro)
Officially known as Fuerte San Felipe del Morro, this fort sits atop a high promontory overlooking the entrance to San Juan Bay. It is the result of the efforts of many different Spanish engineers over a period of more than 200 years and is one of the largest forts built by the Spaniards in the Caribbean. Although the foundations were laid in 1539, the six-level fort was not considered completed until 1787. During World War II, the U.S. government added an annex of its own design on top of the fort. This massive structure suffered countless attacks from the likes of Sir Francis Drake in 1595 and the Dutch fleet in 1625. In 1898 American ships fired on it during the Spanish-American War, destroying its lighthouse, which was later restored. Visit hidden passages, aim your camera on the cannons that still guard the harbor, and gaze over the 60-foot tall walls at the ocean. Stroll on the lawns where soldiers once marched and watch the children flying their kites in the afternoon sea breezes. The fort can be explored everyday from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm from June to November and 9:00 am to 6:00 pm December to May either on your own or on one of the ranger programs that take you through the fortification and out onto the picturesque garitas, or lookout towers. Fort San Felipe del Morro is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. | <urn:uuid:c8846379-dfec-4f30-8c56-82b994aca43b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.americanheritage.com/content/el-morro-fort-san-felipe-del-morro | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00165-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960728 | 310 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Use of Information and Communication Technology by Medical Students: A Survey of VSS Medical College, Burla, India
P.G. Department of Library and Information Science
N. K. Sahu
New technology has brought significant changes in education (Bates, 2005). Medical education has also undergone profound changes due to recent technological advancements (Harden, 2002; Davis and Harden, 2001). Medical schools, particularly in the developed countries, have invested heavily in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), not only to deliver education, but also to improve the quality of services that health professionals provide. Developing countries like India, where a scarcity of human resources in the health sector is a serious problem, can be a particular beneficiary of ICT-mediated education. Lack of educational institutions and qualified medical educators, poor distribution of facilities and poor access to the latest educational infrastructure are some of the issues to be addressed to improve the quality of medical education in developing countries. Advanced technology can address at least some of these problems. In fact, international organizations such as the United Nations (UN) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have acknowledged ICT as a useful tool to address education in health care sector in developing countries (WHO, 2005; Drury, 2005). United Nations Millennium Development Goals have articulated the significance of the use of ICT to address education and health issues (UN Millennium Development Goal, 2004).
Aims and Objectives
The primary purpose of the present study is to investigate use of the state-of-the-art ICT in library of VSS Medical College, Burla. In addition, the study also aims to achieve the following objectives:
The study used a questionnaire, with 32 questions spread over eight sections: (A) General profile of the respondent, (B) Attitude towards ICT, (C) Use of ICT, (D) ICT enabled teaching and research, (E) ICT training provision, (F) ICT skill of medical students,(G) Access to Medical Information on the Web, and (H) Constraints. To facilitate quantification and analysis of data, mainly close-ended questions were used along with checklists and rating scales. To capture a response and to have fewer missing responses, options such as “no opinion”, “don't know”, and “don't know about it” are also included. A random sample of 150 (25%) of 600 medical students of VSS Medical College, Burla, was selected and questionnaires were distributed among them. Of those, 128 (85.33%) questionnaires were returned completed.
Asqari and Haywood (1997) assessed the attitude of Edinburgh University medical students toward computers and found that 86 percent agreed that computer skills will be beneficial to them in their future career, and that 62 percent wanted a structured course in computer use. Another study by Nurjahan and others (2002) was undertaken to obtain a self-reported assessment of the use of ICT by medical students at the International Medical University, Malaysia. The survey revealed that 27 students (5.7 percemt) did not use a computer either in the university or at home. Most students surveyed reported adequate skills at word processing (55 percent), email (78 percent) and web searching (67 percent). The study suggested formal inclusion of ICT instruction in the teaching of undergraduate medicine, to enhance medical students' ability to acquire, appraise, and use information to solve clinical and other problems.
Veer Surendra Sai (VSS) Medical College and the Library
In Orissa, there are three government medical colleges situated in three different regions of the state. In the east, the “Sriram Chandra Bhanja (SCB)” Medical College at Cuttack started in 1944; in the south, “Maharaja Krushna Chandra Gajapati (MKCG)” Medical College at Berhampur started in 1962, and in the west the “Veer Surendra Sai” (VSS) Medical College at Burla begin in July 1959. The VSS Medical College primarily serves the health care needs of western Orissa. At present, the college has 7,020 square feet, with 27 departments and 635 MBBS students, 137 post-graduate students, 220 doctors, and 200 other employees. This college is affiliated with Sambalpur University and is financed by the State Government. It also receives occasional grants from WHO for its overall development.
Data Analysis and Discussion
Attitude of Medical Students towards ICT
The survey found that a majority of respondents believe that ICT is essential for medical education. In order to assess the attitude of medical students towards ICT, they were asked whether they felt that medical education would not be effective without ICT.
Table 1. Effectiveness of medical education and research
Nearly 80 percent of respondents agree that medical education and research will not be effective unless ICT tools and techniques are used in the educational process. Further, it is evident from this data that the students realize that ICT tools and techniques should become a part of medical education.
Diagram 1. Effectiveness of medical education and research
Need for ICT enabled Library facilities
Students were asked to put forth their recommendations about ICT facilities.
Table 2. ICT facilities recommended by students
Three quarters of respondents recommend a library website for remote access to library resources and services. More than 60 percent recommend e-resources and an equal number recommend networking with other libraries and information system.
Diagram 2. ICT facilities recommended by students
Use of ICT by Medical students
The state of computer use by students is not encouraging. Nearly half use a computer at least monthly, with another quarter weekly and only about 20 percent using a computer daily. Nearly 10 percent never use a computer, which is quite discouraging. Although the students consider computers an integral part of medical education, their overall use is infrequent.
Diagram 3. Frequency of computer use
|Purpose for using Internet||At least daily||Weekly||Monthly||Occasionally||Never|
|Literature search||7 (5.47%)||28 (21.87%)||9 (7.03%)||35 (27.34%)||25 (19.53%)|
|11 (8.59%)||49 (38.28%)||17 (13.28%)||26 20.31%)||6 (6.25%)|
|Information for patient||9 (7.03%)||11 (8.59%)||12 (9.37%)||12 (9.37%)||47 (36.71%)|
|Reading recommended coursework||11 (8.59%)||19 (14.84%)||9 (3.03%)||30 (23.43%)||26 (20.31%)|
|Chat||14 (10.94%)||42 (32.81%)||7 (5.47%)||26 (20.31%)||20 (15.62%)|
Most students use the Internet weekly to send and receive email and chat with friends online. More than one quarter, however, use the Internet for accessing reading material recommended by their teachers.
Diagram 4. Purpose and frequency of Internet use
Of the 128 students who responded to this survey, nearly all are at least “somewhat confident” about using the mouse and keyboard. Surprisingly, there are still 3 (2.34%) medical students who are not confident either in handling the mouse or the keyboard of a computer. About one third of the students are not confident in using any word processing program. Nearly all are confident about web searching, and a majority are able to deal with computerized patient records.
Table 5. Students' knowledge of computers and IT
|ICT tools and applications||Not confident||Quite Confident||Confident||Very confident|
|Mouse||3 (2.34%)||26 (20.31%)||43 (33.59%)||47 (36.72%)|
|Keyboard||3 (2.34%)||34 (26.56%)||43 (33.59%)||38(29.69%)|
|MS-Word or other word processor||42 (32.81%)||22(17.19%)||27 (21.09%)||26(20.31%)|
|Excel/other spread sheet||51 (39.84%)||19 (14.84%)||21 (16.41%)||17(13.28%)|
|Internet||7 (5.47%)||34 (26.56%)||39 (30.47%)||36(28.13%)|
|9 (7.03%)||29 (22.66%)||37 (28.91%)||32(25%)|
|Computerized patient record||52 (40.63%)||16 (12.50%)||22(17.19%)||16(12.50%)|
More than half of respondents stated that application of ICT not present in their course syllabus, with a nearly equal number who saw a lack of support from IT staff. Half indicated lack of time, and significant numbers also mentioned the lack of computer labs and a campus network, with a smaller number mentioning a lack of availability of e-resources in the library.
Table 6. Problems accessing electronic information
|Inadequate number of PCs||59||46.09%|
|Lack of support from IT staff||71||55.46%|
|ICT not present in syllabus||72||56.25%|
|Lack of time to use||64||50%|
|No computer lab||60||46.87%|
|E-Resources not available in library||40||31.25%|
|No campus computer network||55||42.96%|
|No Internet connectivity||27||21.09%|
Diagram 6. Problems accessing electronic information
After a careful analysis and interpretation of the data, the following major findings were noted:
ICT provides students with a broad perspective. This important topic was selected as the focus of this study. The study found that ICT can be a useful tool to address problems in medical education, but the lack of technology and resources is still a serious limitation. The noteworthy point is that even after three decades, the inadequacy of qualified technical staff has stood in the way of users' satisfaction. Further, there is ample evidence that most users are deprived of access to the vast medical literature available in electronic format. The Medical College library has not been able to use the services available at a national and international level. Another obvious finding is the absence of co-operation among the medical libraries in Orissa or at the national level, including the lack of even interlibrary loan. Attention to these broad areas of weakness will go a long way toward improving the use of ICT in the library.
Asquari, J. N., & Haywood, J. (1997). Computer awareness among medical students: A survey. Journal of Medical Education 31 (3), 225-229. Available: http://www.pubmed.com/cbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez
Bates, A. W. (2005). Technology e-learning and distance education. 2nd ed. Routing 13 (2). 121-125
Davis , M. H., &Harden, R. M. (2001). E is for everything in e-learning. Medical Teacher 23 (5): 441-444
Drury, P. 2005. E-health: A model for developing countries. Health International 2 (2): 19-26
Harden, R. M. (2002). Development in outline based education. Medical Teacher 24 (2): 117-120
Millennium Development Goal. [Online] Available: http://un.org/millenniumgoals
Nurjana, M. I., Lim, T. A., Yeong, S. W., Foong, A. L., & Ware, J. (2002). Utilization of information technology in medical education: A questionnaire survey of students in a Malaysian institution . Medical Journal of Malaysia 57 (Suppl E): 58-66. | <urn:uuid:889d4222-21bb-4273-a587-811f30a48407> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~mbolin/maharana-biswal-sahu.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00082-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920336 | 2,543 | 2.515625 | 3 |
A giant helium balloon is slowly drifting above Antarctica, about 22 miles (36 kilometers) up. Launched on Tuesday (Dec. 25) from the National Science Foundation's Long Duration Balloon (LDB) facility on Earth's southernmost continent, it carries a sensitive telescope that measures submillimeter light waves from stellar nurseries in our Milky Way.
"Christmas launch!" wrote officials with NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, which oversees the agency's balloon research program, in a Twitter post yesterday. "BLAST launched today from McMurdo Station, Antarctica."
This is the fifth and final mission for BLAST, short for the Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Submillimeter Telescope, and mission designers hope it will reveal why so few stars are born in our galaxy.
On Dec. 12, BLAST was still in one of the two giant Payload Assembly Buildings at the LDB facility, a short distance from the U.S. research center McMurdo Station. Principal investigator Mark Devlin of the University of Pennsylvania and a group of graduate students were mounting a giant sunshade on the telescope, to ensure that the ultra-cold detectors won't heat up during the flight.
"The detectors are cooled to 0.3 degrees aboven absolute zero, using liquid helium," said Devlin. "If they were any warmer, they wouldn't be able to register the faint submillimeter radiation of cold interstellar dust clouds at just 30 degrees above absolute zero."
After test flights in 2003 in New Mexico and in 2005 in Sweden, BLAST's third flight, in 2006 from Antarctica, was a "mind-boggling" success, Devlin said. The instrument revealed beyond doubt that in most distant galaxies, new stars are born at a prolific rate. By measuring the star formation rate in galaxies more than 7 billion light-years away, the researchers determined that over half of the stars in the uuniverse were born within the first 5 billion years after the Big Bang.
"But there's an unsolved problem," added co-principal investifator Barth Netterfield of the University of Toronto, Canada, who was assisting the BLAST team with the launch preparations. "BLAST found lots of so-called dark cores in our own Milky Way — dense clouds of cold dust that are supposed to be stars-in-the-making. Based on the number of dark cores, you would expect our galaxy to spawn dozens of new stars each year on average. Yet, the galactic star formation rate is only some four solar masses per year."
So why is the stellar birth rate in our Milky Way so low? Astronomers can think of two ways in which a dense cloud of dust is prevented from further contracting into a star: turbulence in the dust, or the collapse-impeding effects of magnetic fields. On its new mission, BLAST should find out which process is to blame. [Images: Life at Antarctica's Concordia Station]
The idea is straightforward: magnetic fields tend to align electrically charged, elongated dust particles. If dust particles have a preferred orientation, they will slightly polarize the submillimeter radiation from the cloud. Using polarimeters, BLAST can detect if the radiation is indeed polarized, and if it is, determine the direction of the magnetic field. "If there's no polarization present," said Netterfield, "turbulence must be the reason" why so few dark cores collapse into new stars.
In 2010, on its fourth mission, BLAST was already equipped with polarimeters. However, accdording to Devlin, "that flight did not do so well because of a melted filter. We have some data, but we know we can do better."
Luckily, repeating a balloon-borne experiment is much easier and much cheaper than re-launching a scientific satellite. After each flight, most of the payload is recovered and can be used again. In particular, the BLAST camera with its sensitive and expensive detectors has been recovered every single time.
BLAST's fifth flight will probably last between 12 and 14 days. While Devlin, Netterfield and their colleagues are celebrating Christmans and New Year's Eve, the 4,000-pound (1800 kilograms) stratospheric telescope will observe selected star-forming regions in the constellations Vela and Lupus.
And if senior graduate student Tristan Matthews of Northwestern University Illinois has his way, this may not be BLAST's final mission after all. Depending on the results and the recovery success of the current flight, Matthews hopes to fly BLAST in its present configuration for a sixth time, in the Arctic. "That would give us access to a well-studied and nearby star-forming region in Taurus," he said.
Meanwhile, Devlin has received a $5 million grant from NASA over a period of five years to develop a larger version of BLAST, with a 2.5-meter mirror, as compared to the current 1.8-meter aperture. That would vastly increase the number of stellar nurseries that could be studied. "We could fly SuperBLAST in 2016 or so," he said.
This story was provided by SPACE.com, a sister site to LiveScience. Dutch astronomy writer Govert Schilling visited McMurdo Station and the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station as a selected member of the U.S. National Science Foundation's 2012/2013 media visit program. Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+. | <urn:uuid:2cf21d6e-503c-4a6e-97be-a5d41c7d2cd9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.livescience.com/25808-nasa-telescope-christmas-balloon-launch.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00200-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946763 | 1,131 | 3.5625 | 4 |
Stuart M. Shieber
The Turing Test has served as a defining inspiration throughout the early history of artificial intelligence research. Its centrality arises in part because verbal behavior indistinguishable from that of humans seems like an incontrovertible criterion for intelligence, a "philosophical conversation stopper" as Dennett says. On the other hand, from the moment Turing's seminal Mind article was published, the conversation hasn't stopped; the appropriateness of the Test has been continually questioned, and current philosophical wisdom holds that the Turing Test is hopelessly flawed as a sufficient condition for attributing intelligence. In this short article, I summarize for an artificial intelligence audience an argument that I have presented at length for a philosophical audience that attempts to reconcile these two mutually contradictory but well-founded attitudes towards the Turing Test that have been under constant debate since 1950.
Subjects: 9.4 Philosophical Foundations | <urn:uuid:3ebc7004-4762-4a97-8ae8-568180e84a97> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.aaai.org/Library/AAAI/2006/aaai06-245.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393093.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00201-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935461 | 183 | 2.875 | 3 |
In his writing regarding underdevelopment of development, Andrew Gunder Frank has tried to illustrate the history of the development, underdevelopment, and the evolution of dependency to a world system theory. Finally he has come up with some alternatives and has tried to elaborate the new dualism and the recent movements in the world.
According to Frank, development thinking emerged as an instrument of post war American hegemony and has defined it as the child of neo-imperialism and neo-colonialism which was the strategy of U.S. to hegemonies the semi-colonial countries. However, then the communist fear swept in the world with the Chinese and Cuban revolution. This posed urgency for U.S. to come up with a harmless alternative and the development thinking emerged. Soon, the development was equated with the economic growth which was a part of American pragmatism and imperialism. Development was defined along with the pre-defined steps and the pace in which the traditional sectors were replaced by the modern ones
He believed, equity comes beforehand than efficiency in economics and he considered the political change as the basic ingredient for the development. He denied structural growth models in the sense that they considered underdevelopment as traditional and original. He viewed dependence as being opposite to the development and so he argued for the march towards a self-reliant and non-dependent socialist economic structure as a solution.
However, the dependency theory prospered and was consumed elsewhere including Latin America. Some of the theories of dependency model was tried to be imposed in Chile but it was hard to ensure the equitable distribution and capturing the potential surplus was not an easy job. Though the efficiency did not increased over the years, equity and the social development had of course increased with increased people participation, dignity and education. In regard of Latin America there was no hope left. Again, the introduction of the neo-liberal policy in Chile after the military coup regarded the efficiency first and then only equity. It had its root in Reagonomics and Thatcherism. Then this spread elsewhere in the world.
Many had hoped that the multinational corporations and their foreign investment would reduce if not eliminate the dependence. However, it increased the foreign dependence through the foreign debts, as a neo-colonialist instrument. Their trade, monetary, fiscal and social or development policies are even more constrained now by the foreign debts than by the foreign investments before. It was found that the out flow of resources was more than the in-flow. In example, Hungary paid three times the loan and still the double was left to be paid. In this way, the result was not the development but the underdevelopment of development.
He had even analyzed the economic crisis in the world which he viewed as the continuation of the structural past. The recession has been more devastating each time and the recent financial crisis of 1989 was the most devastating. It was because the structural problem had not been resolved and the temporary solution of the problems through the inappropriate policies had further aggravated the problem, thus paving the way for the next recession. No country was isolated from the financial crisis not even the socialist nations because they had already found their place in the world economic system and no longer were immune to them.
Then the marketization and the privatization flourished along with the polarization of classes, gender and the ethnic groups’ and the regions ethnically, nationally and internationally. A few floated in the surface and the vast were fart below it.
The idea of one world system theory was propounded by Gorvachev where he focused that no society can be closed and no society can isolate itself from the world system which is being a single organism.
The world system including its center-periphery, hegemony-rivalry, competition and the cyclical ups and downs has been evolving for five thousand years before. There has been always the competition for the leadership and hegemony and the core-countries temporarily enjoy it and eventually has to transfer to a new world power. The transfer of the hegemony has occurred through Asia, china Middle East, Europe, America, and now towards Japan and who knows may be to China. The five pillars of the world system is i) world system itself, ii)process of capital accumulation, iii)center-periphery structure, iv) alteration in hegemony and leadership, v) long and short economic cycles of the alternating ascending and descending phases.
World system denies that the world system began in Europe and the rise of west was due to the European “exceptionalism” which incorporated the whole world in the capitalist model after 1500. Frank argued that the rise of west was the result of the decline in the east but west flourished form the riches of the east and specifically by using the gold and silver they pillaged from America. They hadn’t succeeded even in the most of 18th century but history was re-written in their favor as a part of 19th century colonialism. However, this hegemony is temporary and will end soon with west ward shift of the hegemony back to Asia.
He argued with Waller stein and Amin in the sense that he believed that the capital accumulation has been a motor-force of history and there was no sharp break around 1500. He argued that the rules of ht games have not altered but the positions only have altered in the recent days. the techniques of competition have changed but still the capital accumulation remains the determining factor. The societies were not incorporated into a system agfter1500 but they had been there since the past.
He denied capitalism as a different mode of production but as a gradual evolution from the feudalism, capitalism, socialism, communism as transitional ideological modes and are best abandoned for their lack of real or scientific base.
Real world system evolution is not responsible to the global or local development policy. Each time the leading economy considers itself as the civilized ones and the others as the barbaric ones. They enjoyed privileged cultural, social, economic, technological, military and political position relative to other dependent ones. So, one country has to try to formulate the development policy as per its comparative advantage as the delinking with the world system is not only difficult but impossible.
The growing threat posed now is the involuntary marginalization or the delinking from the world process of development or evolution like Sub-Saharan Africa. After being squeezed dry like a lemon in course of world capitalist development, There ahs been a decreasing world market for the human and natural resources of Africa and it has posed the threat for other regions also. the new dualism and the old dualism differ with each other in the sense that the old dualism identifies the sectors or regions separate and existed long before without any past and present exploitation before modernization will link them happily ever after. The new dualism comes after contact and exploitation where the lemon is totally discarded after squeezing it to get dry.
While searching for other alternatives, the present world development policy seem to be inadequate and the need is directed towards the battle with anti-development by taking marginalized into account who ate in fact the majorities. The biggest minorities are women who though do much of the world productive activities lag far behind. So, all works are done by the minorities and this battle will bring the welfare to the majority of the minority.
In the present world, many social movements have resulted and they are the consequences of the economic suppression and the social discontent. However, now they have posed a threat for the class strife, racial and ethnic clashes etc. | <urn:uuid:b9bf46f2-ec30-41dd-a63c-9415fa393ef0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://richabhattarai.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-development-of-underdevelopment-by.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00085-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973444 | 1,501 | 2.53125 | 3 |
OverviewIndependence Rock is in Central Wyoming and was a famous landmark along the Oregon Trail and other pioneer trails heading west. It rises about 130 feet above the surrounding landscape and is near the Granite Mountains. It, however, is unique as it is a monolith, a singular granite dome, that stands out on its own. It is about 1900' long and 850' wide. If you were to walk around the base of the rock it would be more than a mile.
I've heard two stories on how it was named - one is that Independence Rock was named because if the west-bound pioneers reached the rock by Independence Day, July 4, they were on track for reaching Oregon before heavy snows fell. Another is that William Sublette, who held an Independence Day celebration here on July 4, 1830, as he led the first wagon train to cross the new overland route. Before an audience of 80 pioneers, he christened the rock in honor of the birth date of our nation.
This rock bears the signatures of many of these pioneers. Please do not alter any of these historic carvings! It is on the register of National Historic Places and a State Historic Site.
The rock was a signal to the pioneers that they would soon be along the Sweetwater River and by following it upstream they would in turn be crossing the Continental Divide at South Pass.
Take Hwy 220 about 60 miles southwest of Casper. Or, from Rawlins, take Hwy 287 north to Muddy Gap then turn right on Hwy 220 (a distance of 63 miles). There is a highway rest area near the base of the rock, or you can park a little to the north down a short road which has easier access to the northside of the rock, which is the easier side should you decide to scramble to the top of the rock. It's a great view, so definitely worth the little bit of effort to scramble up it!
No defacing or writing on the rock.
No gathering of artifacts (anything found must be left there or turned over to State Park personnel on site.)
Metal detectors are not allowed.
The discharge of firearms and fireworks is prohibited.
Vehicle parking in designated areas only.
Dogs, cats and other pets must be kept on a leash.
No killing of wildlife, including rattlesnakes.
Please pack out your own trash.
Granite weathers in a pattern known as exfoliation. As Independence Rock was slowly uncovered by erosion, the immense pressures of the weight of overlying rock were gradually lessened. The rock then expanded outwardly shedding its surface layers like an onion. Layers of granite broke off, one after the other and formed the rounded shape you see today.
Windblown sand and silt have grooved the rock and polished it to a high gloss in a process called “windfaceting.” It is because of this smooth surface that the pioneers were able to easily carve their names into the rock.
It was the names carved in stone here that caused Father Peter J. DeSmet to appropriately name this place “The Register of the Desert” in 1840.
As you walk around the rock. or climb it, you will see hundreds of names carved or chipped into the surface. Possibly one of the earliest signatures to be found here is that of “M.K. Hugh, 1824.” Other early names include “Hanna Snow, 1844,” “G. Gingham, 1846,” “J. Bower, 1847,” “Milo Ayer, age 29, 1849,” “W.H. Collins, July 4, 1862,” and “V.D. Moody, July 24, 1849.” | <urn:uuid:a204a30b-0a42-4a3f-9991-b51c024727cd> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.summitpost.org/independence-rock/654071 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408828.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00060-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971022 | 785 | 2.75 | 3 |
Curiosity uncovers historic sundial
September 1, 2009
For the first time in more than 30 years, the previously hidden face of the19th century Kennebec County Courthouse sundial and meridian marker was exposed to the light of day.
BY BETTY ADAMS, Staff Writer
AUGUSTA -- Shade covered the dark face of the courthouse sundial, the first time daylight even came close to striking the marker in more than three decades.
Years ago, the horizontal sundial and meridian marker displayed the time and figures to determine the precise location of the Kennebec County Courthouse. That was before a broad maple spread its limbs, cutting off direct sunlight to the marker.
Then there was the metal and wood cover. It probably was built to protect the sundial during the winter, then remained indefinitely.
The cover frustrated retired attorney Norman Bourget, who had seen the monument uncovered once more than three decades ago.
He appealed to Sheriff Randall Liberty to remove the cover, and the request got the approval of county commissioners.
Last week, Bourget, his wife, Margaret, and son Stephen watched Liberty wield long-handled cutters to snip the rusted locks.
"There must be something historical about it," Norman Bourget said. "It's been there all my life and I'm 81."
"Every time we go by, he says, 'There's a beautiful sundial under there,'" Margaret Bourget, said.
He was correct. ...
To read the rest of the story, click to http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/news/local/6765882.html. | <urn:uuid:c2c3660e-7044-4b52-aaa8-997a85b0cd52> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pobonline.com/articles/93655-curiosity-uncovers-historic-sundial | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00079-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93231 | 343 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Research Studies on Military Exposures
VA conducts or sponsors epidemiology research studies on Veterans’ illnesses related to military exposures. Current studies are listed below.
Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation New Dawn (OND)
- National Health Study for a New Generation of U.S. Veterans
This study collects data on health risk behavior, general health, health care utilization, and potential exposures of 60,000 Veterans.
- Burn Pits
VA is sponsoring several in-depth studies on possible health effects of open burn pits in military settings in Afghanistan and Iraq.
- Suicide Risk and Risk of Death
Researchers looked at the risk of suicide and death among 1.3 million Veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan between 2001-2007.
- Gender Differences in Suicide Risk Among OEF/OIF Veterans
Researchers evaluated patterns of suicide risk among male and female OEF and OIF Veterans.
Gulf-Era Twin Registry
VA is collecting data on the military and life experiences of up to 12,000 twins who separated from military service after 2001. The Gulf-Era Twin Registry will help researchers identify Veterans who are eligible for future research studies.
Gulf War Era Veterans with 1990-1991 service
- Follow-up Study of a National Cohort of Gulf War and Gulf Era Veterans
Researchers contacted approximately 30,000 Gulf War and Gulf War-era Veterans for the third time since 1995 to learn about the health of these Veterans over time.
- Longitudinal Health Study of Gulf War Era Veterans
Researchers evaluated health data from 5,469 Gulf War-deployed Veterans and 3,353 Veterans who served elsewhere during the Gulf War. These Veterans participated in an initial survey in 1995 and a second survey in 2005.
- Post-War Mortality from Neurologic Diseases in Gulf War Veterans
Researchers are investigating the risk of post-war mortality from neurological disease among 620,000 Gulf War Veterans and 750,000 non-Gulf War Veterans. Gulf War Veterans may be at increased risk for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, or brain cancer.
View more research on Gulf War Veterans' illnesses.
Vietnam Era Veterans
- Vietnam Era Health Retrospective Observational Study (VE-HEROeS) This study will assess the current health and well-being of Vietnam era Veterans and compare their health to similarly aged U.S. residents who never served in the military.
- Army Chemical Corps Vietnam-Era Veterans Health Study
Researchers are studying approximately 4,000 Veterans who served in the U.S. Army Chemical Corps sometime between 1965-1973 to determine if high blood pressure (hypertension) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are related to Agent Orange exposure during Vietnam.
Health of Vietnam Era Women's Study
This is the most comprehensive study to date of the mental and physical health of women Vietnam Veterans. The study will be used to shape future research and to plan for appropriate services for women Veterans and the aging Veteran population.
View more research on Agent Orange health effects.
Veterans of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Tests
The mortality follow-up study, Cancer Mortality among Military Personnel at U.S. Nuclear Weapons Tests will assess the risk of cancer among 120,000 U.S. military personnel who participated in atmospheric weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site and the Pacific Proving Grounds between 1946 and 1958.
Project 112/SHAD Veterans
VA continues to study the long-term health effects of Project 112/SHAD, biological and chemical warfare tests from 1962 to 1974.
War Related Illness and Injury Research
VA's War Related Illness and Injury Study Centers focus on research for deployment-related health conditions.
Camp Lejeune Water Supplies
VA is closely monitoring new research on Camp Lejeune water supplies being conducted by The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. | <urn:uuid:0bdbc9b6-c19f-4732-ad20-3c57f66b592e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/research-studies.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391766.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00177-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.887054 | 808 | 2.578125 | 3 |
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An in-depth look at the cosmic microwave background (CMB).
NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer satellite was launched to explore the cosmic microwave background radiation. It has discovered fluctuations in that radiation which are important to big bang ...
Info on microwaves. While there are some radar bands from 1,300 to 1,600 MHz, most microwave applications fall in the range 3,000 to 30,000 MHz (3-30 GHz).
Detailed information on this topic and why it is important.
A page describing this topic and why it is so interesting.
A uniform background radiation in the microwave region of the spectrum is observed in all directions in the sky. It shows the wavelength dependence of a "black body" radiator at about 3 Kelvins ...
A brief article on how polarisation affects the CMB which led to the discovery of gravitational waves.
A great description of the Planck mission to study the first seconds of the universe which we can now see as the cosmic microwave background.
Read how satellite observations of cosmic microwave background can tell us a lot about how the universe formed.
Minutephysics looks at how polarised light in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) gave rise to the discovery of gravitational waves.
Showing 1 - 10 of 167 | <urn:uuid:62efa01c-5e53-4369-8c73-85654e7c83d6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.physics.org/explore-results-all.asp?q=cosmic+microwave+background&x=41&y=11&age=0&knowledge=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00173-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.888324 | 362 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Literature of the Holocaust
maintained by Al Filreis
Bibliography for Commentary on Claude Lanzmann's Shoah
Brinkly, Robert and Youra, Steven "Tracing Shoah" PMLA Volume 111. No,1 January 1996 pp. 108-127.
Felman, Shoshana "The Return of the Voice: Claude Lanzmann's Shoah" in Felman, Shoshana and Laub, Dori Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature,Psychoanalysis and History New York: Routledge 1992.
Furman, Nelly "The Language of Pain" in Hartman, Geoffrey H. [ed.] Holocaust Remembrance: The Shapes of Memory Oxford: Blackwell 1994
Hartman, Geoffrey H. "The Book of Destruction" in Saul Friedlander [ed.] Probing the Limits of Representation: Nazism and the "Final Solution" Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1992
Hansen, Miriam Bratu "Schindler's List is Not Shoah: The Second Commandment, Popular Modernism and Public Memory Critical Inquiry Vol.22 Winter 1996 pp.292-312
Koch,Gertrud "The Aesthetic Transformation of the Image of the Unimaginable: Notes on Claude Landzmann's Shoah" trans. Daniel and Hansen October No. 48 Spring 1989 pp. 15-24
Lanzmann, Claude "The Obscenity of Understanding: An Evening with Claude Lanzmann" in Cathy Caruth Trauma: Explorations in Memory Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 1995.
Rabinowitz, Paula "Wreckage upon Wreckage: History, Documentary, and the Ruins of Memory" in They Must Be Represented: The Politics of Documentary London: Verso 1994
Roth, Michael S. Shoah as Shivah in The Ironist's Cage: Memory, Trauma and the Construction of History New York: Columbia University Press 1995
Weissman, Gary "A Fantasy of Witnessing" Media, Culture and Society Vol 17. 1995 pp. 293-307
Young, James E. Holocaust Video and Cinemagraphic Testimony: Documenting the Witness in Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust: Narrative and the Consequences of Interpretation Bloomington: University of Indiana Press
HOLOCAUST HOME | FILREIS HOME | NEWS
http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/shoah-bibliog.html - - - Last modified: Friday, 06-Aug-2004 09:19:20 EDT | <urn:uuid:12ad9f28-2438-4ec1-ae5f-0c55ad45770e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.writing.upenn.edu/%7Eafilreis/Holocaust/shoah-bibliog.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00160-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.714522 | 540 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Museum that bridges past, future
The Red Location Museum of the People's Struggle in New Brighton, Port Elizabeth - winner of three international awards - was designed to be both a monument to South Africa's struggle against apartheid and an integral part of community life in a township that acted as a crucible for the struggle.
The museum is located in the Red Location shack settlement, New Brighton's oldest neighbourhood, scene of one of the first public acts of defiance against apartheid when, in 1952, black railway workers refused to show their "passes" to enter railway property.
The striking, industrial warehouse-styled complex uses space, oxidised corrugated iron, wood and steel to echo its shanty town surrounds - the Red Location shacks for resettled blacks, orginally constructed out of material recycled from defunct Anglo-Boer War concentration camps.
The museum, which opened to the public in November 2006, has won three major international awards.
In June 2006 it was awarded the Royal Institute of British Architects' inaugural Lubetkin Prize for the most outstanding work of architecture outside the UK and Europe by a member of the institute – beating stiff competition from the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa and the Terrence Donnelly Centre in Toronto.
The museum project also landed the city of Port Elizabeth the 2005 World Leadership Award for architecture and civil engineering, and the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality the 2005/06 Dedalo Minosse International Prize for Commissioning a Building.
"To build a museum of the apartheid era in the midst of the township that acted as a crucible for the struggle is an extraordinary achievement," the Lubetkin Prize judges said in a statement. "The Red Location Museum brilliantly rises to the challenge, using architectural skill of the highest order to produce an unforgettable experience that is both viscerally and intellectually moving."
Part of the surrounding community
The museum complex, designed not only as a tourist attraction but also as an integral part of the surrounding community, includes an art gallery specialising in the work of Eastern Cape artists and will also house a market, a centre for creative arts, a library and adult literacy centre and a conference centre.
Hundreds of new state-subsidised low-cost houses have been built in the surrounding area.
The museum integrates into the existing neighborhood of former victims of apartheid as a seamless part of their daily life. "In this way, the horror of apartheid becomes more apparent simply by its calm presence in the museum side by side with a functioning community," says architect Jo Noero of Cape Town-based Noero Wolff Architects, who designed the complex.
The museum's design draws on notions of memory to show both the horrors of institutionalised racism and the heroic efforts of the anti-apartheid movement in sharp relief.
"All museums concern memory and history; it was therefore all the more impressive to encounter one in which particular histories and memories have evoked an extraordinarily powerful architectural idea," the Lubetkin judges said.
The concept of "memory boxes" - in which migrant workers on South Africa's mines carried artefacts to remind them of their homes in the countryside - forms the basis for a building which is in itself one huge memory box.
Designed in industrial form to incorporate the rusted corrugated iron - the Red Location - theme of the surrounding settlement, the museum houses steel containers tipped on end to make individual memory boxes, giving its curators a blank canvas in which to exhibit memories, responses and ideas.
The most powerful of these piles of boxes, according to the judges, contain police files on those who were murdered, judicially or otherwise, during the struggle against apartheid. Above the boxes hang three nooses.
"The building works as both metaphor and object: deliberately unglamorous, this is an architectural tour de force."
In contrast to the memory boxes, visitors to the L-shaped museum first pass through a hall of columns, designed by artists to resemble totems, honouring those who gave their lives in the struggle against apartheid.
Having seen how the apartheid government used architecture and planning as tools of racism and division, Noero hopes to use architecture to heal. The museum, he says, "seeks to build new memories - ones that will not let us forget apartheid's atrocities, and those that will allow us to begin to hope for an African renaissance."
Article last updated: March 2007 | <urn:uuid:fc61465d-bc5d-4f24-9d97-53d1e91e42a9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.southafrica.info/about/history/redlocation-museum.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398869.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00193-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955974 | 897 | 2.65625 | 3 |
The passage of loose or watery stools and/or an increase in the frequency of bowel movements
- Poor food hygiene is a risk factor
- Age, gender, and genetics are not significant factors
Diarrhoea is the production of stools that are more watery, more frequent, or greater in volume than is normal for a particular individual. Although it is not a disease in itself, diarrhoea may be a symptom of an underlying disorder.
In some cases, diarrhoea is accompanied by abdominal pain, bloating, loss of appetite, and vomiting. Severe diarrhoea can also lead to dehydration that may be life-threatening, particularly in babies (see Vomiting and diarrhoea) and elderly people.
Short bouts of diarrhoea, especially if they are associated with vomiting, are often due to gastroenteritis or food poisoning. Diarrhoea that lasts more than 3–4 weeks usually indicates that there is an intestinal disorder and requires medical attention.
What are the causes?
Diarrhoea that starts abruptly in a person who is otherwise healthy is often caused by contaminated food or water and may last a few hours to 10 days. This sort of diarrhoea often occurs during travel in a developing country, where food hygiene and sanitation may be poor. Diarrhoea can also be caused by a viral infection that is spread by close personal contact. For example, infectious gastroenteritis is a common cause of diarrhoea in babies and young children.
People with reduced immunity, such as those with AIDS (see HIV infection and AIDS), are more susceptible to infectious gastroenteritis, which also tends to be more severe in these people. People taking drugs such as antibiotics may develop sudden diarrhoea if the drugs disturb the normal balance of bacteria in the colon.
Persistent diarrhoea may result from long-standing inflammation of the intestine due to disorders such as ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease or some conditions in which the small intestine is unable to absorb nutrients (see Malabsorption). Lactose intolerance, a disorder in which lactose (a natural sugar present in milk) cannot be broken down and absorbed, can also cause diarrhoea.
Infections with protozoal parasites, such as giardiasis and amoebiasis, can cause persistent diarrhoea. Irritable bowel syndrome may produce abnormal contractions of the intestine, which result in alternating episodes of diarrhoea and constipation.
What might be done?
In most cases, diarrhoea clears up after a day or two. Other symptoms that can accompany diarrhoea, such as headache, weakness, and lethargy, are most often caused by dehydration. The symptoms of dehydration disappear as soon as lost fluids and salts are replaced (see Preventing dehydration).
If your diarrhoea lasts longer than 3–4 days, you should consult your doctor, who may request a sample of faeces to look for evidence of infection. If the diarrhoea persists for more than 3–4 weeks or if there is blood in the faeces, your doctor will probably arrange for you to have investigations, such as contrast X-rays of the intestines, sigmoidoscopy, or colonoscopy.
Specific treatments given for diarrhoea depend on the underlying cause. If you need to relieve your diarrhoea quickly, your doctor may prescribe an antidiarrhoeal drug, such as loperamide. However, antidiarrhoeal drugs should be avoided if your diarrhoea is due to an infection because they may prolong the infection. Antibiotics are only needed to treat persistent diarrhoea that has a known bacterial cause.
From the 2010 revision of the Complete Home Medical Guide © Dorling Kindersley Limited.
The subjects, conditions and treatments covered in this encyclopaedia are for information only and may not be covered by your insurance product should you make a claim. | <urn:uuid:b9518904-467f-4666-a4a4-cea95996695c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.aviva.co.uk/health-insurance/home-of-health/medical-centre/medical-encyclopedia/entry/diarrhoea/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393518.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00137-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945244 | 815 | 3.984375 | 4 |
DURHAM, N.C. -- Doctors at the Duke University School of Medicine have tested a new injectable agent that causes cancer cells in a tumor to fluoresce, potentially increasing a surgeon's ability to locate and remove all of a cancerous tumor on the first attempt. The imaging technology was developed through collaboration with scientists at Duke, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Lumicell Inc.
According to findings published January 6 in Science Translational Medicine, a trial at Duke University Medical Center in 15 patients undergoing surgery for soft-tissue sarcoma or breast cancer found that the injectable agent, a blue liquid called LUM015 (loom - fifteen), identified cancerous tissue in human patients without adverse effects.
Cancer surgeons currently rely on cross-sectional imaging such as MRIs and CT scans to guide them as they remove a tumor and its surrounding tissue. But in many cases some cancerous tissue around the tumor is undetected and remains in the patient, sometimes requiring a second surgery and radiation therapy.
"At the time of surgery, a pathologist can examine the tissue for cancer cells at the edge of the tumor using a microscope, but because of the size of cancer it's impossible to review the entire surface during surgery," said senior author David Kirsch, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of radiation oncology and pharmacology and cancer biology at Duke University School of Medicine. "The goal is to give surgeons a practical and quick technology that allows them to scan the tumor bed during surgery to look for any residual fluorescence."
Researchers around the globe are pursuing techniques to help surgeons better visualize cancer, some using a similar mechanism as LUM015, which is activated by enzymes. But the Duke trial described in the journal is the first protease-activated imaging agent for cancer that has been tested for safety in humans, Kirsch said.
LUM015 was developed by Lumicell, a company started by researchers at MIT and involving Kirsch. In companion experiments in mice described in the journal, LUM015 accumulated in tumors where it creates fluorescence in tumor tissue that is on average five times brighter than regular muscle. The resulting signals aren't visible to the naked eye and must be detected by a handheld imaging device with a sensitive camera, which Lumicell is also developing, Kirsch said.
In the operating room after a tumor is removed, surgeons would place the handheld imaging device on the cut surface. The device would alert them to areas with fluorescent cancer cells.
Going into surgery, the goal is always to remove 100 percent of the tumor, plus a margin of normal tissue around the edges, explained senior author Brian Brigman, M.D., Ph.D., chief of orthopedic oncology at Duke. Pathologists then analyze the margins over several days and determine whether they are clear.
"This pathologic technique to determine whether tumor remains in the patient is the best system we have currently, and has been in use for decades, but it's not as accurate as we would like," said Brigman, who is also the director of the sarcoma program at the Duke Cancer Institute. "If this technology is successful in subsequent trials, it would significantly change our treatment of sarcoma. If we can increase the cases where 100 percent of the tumor is removed, we could prevent subsequent operations and potentially cancer recurrence. Knowing where there is residual disease can also guide radiation therapy, or even reduce how much radiation a patient will receive."
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital are currently evaluating the safety and efficacy of LUM015 and the Lumicell imaging device in a prospective study of 50 women with breast cancer. Afterward, Kirsch said, multiple institutions would likely evaluate whether the technology can decrease the number of patients needing subsequent operations following initial breast cancer removal.
In addition to Kirsch and Brigman, study authors include Melodi Javid Whitley, Diana M. Cardona, Alexander L. Lazarides, Ivan Spasojevic, Jorge M. Ferrer, Joan Cahill, Chang-Lung Lee, Matija Snuderl, Dan G. Blazer III, E. Shelley Hwang, Rachel A. Greenup, Paul J. Mosca, Jeffrey K. Mito, Kyle C. Cuneo, Nicole A. Larrier, Erin K. O'Reilly, Richard F. Riedel, William C. Eward, David B. Strasfeld, Dai Fukumura, Rakesh K. Jain, W. David Lee, Linda G. Griffith and Moungi G. Bawendi.
Duke author Kirsch and MIT authors Griffith, Bawendi, Ferrer and W. David Lee hold interest in or are involved with Lumicell Inc., a company commercializing LUM015 and the imaging system. Duke and MIT hold a patent on the imaging device technology. More detailed conflict-of-interest information is included in the manuscript published by Science Translational Medicine.
The study was funded in part by an American Society of Clinical Oncology Advanced Clinical Research Award to Kirsch, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (T32GM007171), a National Cancer Institute Small Business Innovation Research award to Lumicell Inc. (1U43CA165024), the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Science (UL1TR001117), and Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center Support (5P30-CA-014236-38). Lumicell Inc. provided the imaging agents. | <urn:uuid:2997151d-12b2-4497-805c-05a02ce01c10> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-01/dumc-ets123115.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403508.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00059-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940132 | 1,134 | 2.703125 | 3 |
In today's do-more-with-less economy, turning trash into fuel makes both environmental and economic sense. That's just what Lincoln Paper and Tissue is doing at its manufacturing mill in Lincoln, Maine. Every year, the company produces approximately 70,000 tons of commodity towels, napkins, and specialty napkin-grade tissue, along with another 75,000 tons of uncoated printing paper.
As part of its manufacturing process, all of the mill's liquid waste is pumped to its water treatment plant. The final step in the treatment process incorporates a dewatering screw press, which separates water from paper waste, chips, ash, bark, and other solids. The goal is to remove as much water as possible; Lincoln then uses these solids to mix with other fuel and power its boiler. The drier the solids, the higher the BTUs.
Lincoln generates about half of its electricity by burning the sludge along with wood, bark, and chips, fueling a biomass boiler that supplies steam to the pulp and papermaking process, as well as a backpressure steam turbine. The alternative to burning the sludge is trucking it to a local landfill, an option that is both expensive and contrary to the mill's environmental policy.
“The screw press is a vital part of our water treatment process,” says John Sutherland, Lincoln's utilities maintenance superintendent. “Reliability of the gearbox on this press is crucial for the mill. Downtime is very expensive, not only in terms of gearbox cost, but in man-hours and lost production. If the 60,000 pounds of sludge being dewatered each day is interrupted, costs could reach into thousands of dollars.”
The mill's screw press originally used a cycloidal-type gearbox, from which Sutherland recalls they “were lucky to get 12 months of operation.” He continues, “I was getting tired of replacing an expensive gearbox that underperforms and isn't repairable. Whenever we disassembled the cycloidal unit, in hope of repair, we'd find nearly a pound of metal sitting in the bottom of the gearbox and rollers broken in half. It was a total loss, as fixing it cost more than a new one. That's when I started looking at different solutions.”
Randy Bryant of Lane Conveyors and Drives, Brewer, Maine, Lincoln's local supplier for power transmission equipment, recommended the 300 Series Planetary reducer from Bonfiglioli Inc., Hebron, Ky. The recommendation was based on Lane's experience with these units on various skid steers used in the forest products industry. Bryant explains, “The ductile iron housings, tapered roller bearings, and internal splines give this reducer the shock load capability that make it the right box for the screw press application.”
Lane fabricated special feet for the gearbox as well as a “drop-in” base plate, modifications that allowed Lincoln to make a quick and painless transition from the cycloidal unit to the planetary model. By converting biomass solids and wood waste to steam and electricity, Lincoln saves more than nine million gallons of fuel oil, while also reducing annual greenhouse gas emissions. | <urn:uuid:eb96e08f-50aa-4bed-8e8e-0a1f7b9418fd> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://machinedesign.com/archive/gearbox-tackles-downtime-water-treatment | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00058-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954098 | 670 | 3 | 3 |
Researchers at Purdue University have developed a new design employing carbon nanotubes and small copper spheres that wicks water passively towards hot electronics that could meet the challenges brought on by increasing frequency speeds in chips.
The problem of overheating electronics is well-documented and in the past the issue has been addressed with bigger and bigger fans. But with chip features shrinking below 50 nanometers the fan solution is just not cutting it.
The Purdue researchers, led by Suresh V. Garimella, came up with a design that uses water as the coolant liquid and transfers the water to an ultrathin thermal ground plane. The design naturally pushes the water through obviating the need for a pump and through the use of microfluidic design is able to boil the water fully, which allows the wicking away of more heat.
One of the keys to the design was creating pore sizes that were smaller than previous sintered designs. While achieving the smaller pore size the researchers had to overcome the problem of frictional resistance on the liquid that would come with more pores (the smaller they are the more of them there are). It’s here that the carbon nanotubes came into play as the researchers used 50-nm copper coated carbon nanotubes to make the small pores.
This is not the first time that Purdue researchers have worked with carbon nanotubes to dissipate heat in chips. A few years back they were looking at growing millions of carbon nanotubes on a chip like grass to dissipate the heat generated from chips, and showed promise in better conducting heat in passively cooled systems such as cellphones than thermal greases now commonly used.
A Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) grant is funding this mos recent research and the Purdue researchers are collaborating with Raytheon, Thermacore Inc. and Georgia Tech on the project. | <urn:uuid:9db11725-7728-4796-a591-ea8c3e0ffeb7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/nanotechnology/carbon-nanotubes-enable-pumpless-liquid-cooling-system-for-computers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00136-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964039 | 382 | 3.609375 | 4 |
The Pawpaw: Foraging For America's Forgotten Fruit
So what the heck is a pawpaw?
Recently, I heard about a secret snack. Kayakers who paddle the waters near Washington, D.C., told me about a mango-like fruit that grows along the banks of the Potomac — a speckled and homely skin that hides a tasty treat.
A tropical-like fruit here, really? Yep. It's the only temperate member of a tropical family of trees. You can't buy the pawpaw in stores, so for years, the only way to eat them was straight from the tree.
I was intrigued. So I decided to hunt for a pawpaw myself.
D.C. nature guide Matt Cohen showed me how to find them.
We took the Billy Goat Trail on the Maryland side of the Potomac River. "Wow," was the first word out of my mouth when I tasted one we found on our hike. It's sort of mango-meets-the-banana ... with a little hint of melon.
Although you may not have heard of it, the pawpaw has quite a history. Thomas Jefferson had pawpaws at Monticello. And when he was minister to France in 1786, he had pawpaw seeds shipped over to friends there. He probably wanted to impress his friends with something exotic from America.
Lewis and Clark wrote in their journals that they were quite fond of the pawpaw. At one point during their expedition in 1806, they relied on pawpaws when other provisions ran low. And from Michigan to West Virginia, people have even named towns and lakes after the pawpaw.
But the pawpaw has only recently been commercialized. That's one reason you don't see it in the grocery store. So far, there are just a few orchards selling to farmers markets. This progress is largely thanks to the work of plant scientist Neal Peterson.
He has spent the past 35 years breeding the pawpaw to make it look and taste more like a fruit we'd buy. He has selected and grown varieties that are bigger, with more flesh.
After tasting his first wild pawpaw 35 years ago, he had a eureka moment.
"It was just a revelation," he says. Peterson thought that the pawpaw was every bit the rival of a perfect peach or apple — fruits that have had thousands of years of breeding.
Why hadn't someone done this with the pawpaw? "I could just instantly make that leap of imagination," he says.
And some three decades later, he has a lot to show for it. His pawpaws are being grown in a few orchards and sold at farmers markets.
And now it's moving beyond novelty. A food scientist at Ohio University, Rob Brannan, is interested in studying the nutrients in the pawpaw. So far, he has published one study that found the antioxidant count in the fruit to be pretty high.
"It's about the same as a cranberry" or a cherry, Brannan says.
If scientists could put a "health halo" over the pawpaw, Brannan says, it would give the fruit a commercial boost. It's happened before. Pomegranate juice, anyone?
"Yum — wonderful flavor," Joan Foster said after tasting her first pawpaw at the Olney Farm Market recently. She has been waiting a long time to try one. They're only available a few weeks out of the year — and this year's pawpaw season is just about over.
So if you're intrigued, come back again tomorrow for a few tips on where you can find pawpaw beer, pawpaw sorbet ... and pawpaw recipes.
DAVID GREENE, host: Maybe you've been spending time along some of the rivers in the Eastern United States and you spot some kayakers who are paddling along and eating. Turns out they have a secret snack. This time of year they keep their eyes peeled for a mango-like fruit that grows wild along the riverbanks. The fruit is called the pawpaw, but as NPR's Allison Aubrey discovered, it might not be a secret much longer.
ALLISON AUBREY: There's nothing more delicious than a secret, right? So you'll understand why I wanted to get my hands on this fruit called a pawpaw, even if it means bush-whacking through a muddy river bank. .
MATT COHEN: This is fun, this is the hunt.
AUBREY: Matt Cohen is my guide. He's a professional forager. And he knows where the paw-paws grow.
And it looks like there's plenty of them still growing along the banks of the Potomac here. It's just matter of finding the fruit. Is that right?
COHEN: Oh yes.
AUBREY: So you're pretty sure that there's a patch right up here ahead?
COHEN: Yeah, there should be one right up here ahead.
AUBREY: Now, this is the American pawpaw, completely different from a papaya. And Cohen is a big fan. As we hike along, he's trying to catch a whiff of its distinctive scent, which he says is fruity - almost floral. He uses his nose to guide us.
OK, I'm feeling like we've got to be getting close, huh?
COHEN: Oh yeah, we're getting close to another patch.
AUBREY: He looks way up through the dappled light dancing around the branches, and he spots them. On a high branch we see what looks like three little mangos hanging in a cluster.
So this is a pawpaw. huh?
COHEN: That's it, yeah.
AUBREY: And when we shake one down from the tree and slice it open to taste it...
(SOUNDBITE OF SHAKING TREE)
COHEN: What do you think?
AUBREY: Wow. It really does taste like a mango, but a little more perfumy, like maybe a little melon in there.
COHEN: Mmm, very tropical, huh? It kind of has a custardy texture. It's really surprising.
AUBREY: Now, if you go way back, people knew all about the pawpaw. Thomas Jefferson had them at Monticello. And when he was Minister to France, he even had pawpaw seeds sent to his friends there to show off something impressive that grew in his new country.
But pawpaws were never grown commercially, which is why you don't see them in grocery stores.
KELLY MACBRIDE GILL: Eighty out of 10, a dollar twenty will be your change...
AUBREY: There are hints that this could change. In the last five years a few commercial orchards have been planted and farmers markets from Maryland to Ohio have begun to introduce the fruit.
GILL: We have some people who have been asking us for weeks, you know, when does the season start, when are we going to start having pawpaws.
AUBREY: That's Farmer Kelly MacBride Gill. She's been selling pawpaws for a couple of years now. At first her customers who come from suburban DC had only one question - what the heck is a pawpaw? She had to convince them to try one. But this year?
GILL: Yeah, we had one box come down with my father who comes early and he had to call us at 8:00 a.m., being like we need more. Bring down the other two boxes, 'cause people get so excited that when they see it there's no hesitation.
AUBREY: None of this would ever have come to pass if it hadn't been for a man by the name of Neal Peterson. He's a plant scientist, and about 35 years ago he had a eureka moment. He took his first bite of a wild pawpaw.
NEAL PETERSON: It was just a revelation because they were really fine pawpaws.
AUBREY: Peterson thought this pawpaw was every bit the rival of a perfect peach or apple. And these fruits have had thousands of years of breeding to make them taste good.
PETERSON: And the pawpaw out in the woods is just like this without any breeding.
AUBREY: And the thought that came next was the beginning of his lifelong obsession: Maybe he could breed a commercial pawpaw.
PETERSON: I could just make that instantly, that leap of imagination.
AUBREY: It's taken his three decades, but those pawpaws that the customers at the farmer's market were so excited about, well, these are Neal Peterson's babies.
JOAN FOSTER: This is going to be quite a treat and probably...
AUBREY: At the Olney farm market, pawpaw newbie Joan Foster says she's been waiting a long time to try one. They're only available a few weeks out of the year.
FOSTER: Mmm, very good. Wonderful flavor. On my tongue, it says this is something new and wonderful and that I should continue it.
AUBREY: And the pawpaw may be more than just a fruit that tastes good. A few food scientists think they may have a super-fruit in their hands.
ROB BRANNAN: Well, with respect to the pawpaw, we're at the early stages of the research.
AUBREY: Rob Brannan is a food science professor at Ohio University. And he's been excited about the pawpaw ever since he did a study to evaluate the number of antioxidants in the fruit. He found it's pretty high.
BRANNAN: It's about the same as a cranberry. It's about the same as a cherry.
AUBREY: And that's not a bad start, he says. If scientists could put a health halo over the pawpaw, well, Brannan thinks it could give the fruit a commercial boost. It's happened before. Take the case of the pomegranate. A generation ago the pomegranate was just a specialty item. But not now.
BRANNAN: There was an individual who decided that they were going to buy farms in California and grow pomegranates, and they spent upwards of 15 to 30 million dollars to fund research that showed the benefits of the pomegranate.
AUBREY: Clearly the pawpaw doesn't have much health research behind it, at least not yet. Nor does it have a patron. But it does have something that people are looking for. It's local. It's sustainable. And Brannan says people like the idea of eating a fruit that doesn't have to be flown in from half-way around the world. Plus, he says, it has a fascinating history.
BRANNAN: There's the story that when Lewis and Clark were working their way across the United States, they survived on the pawpaw, so you know, promoting it as this all-American crop, native American fruit - it's a tropical fruit, but it grows here in our temperate climate. These types of things make it very, very interesting.
AUBREY: Now, for a fruit to be a commercial success it needs certain qualities. And here, well, the pawpaw needs some work. For instance, it doesn't ship well because it's pretty fragile. And it's got big seeds, which people don't like. And the season is very short.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Singing) Pickin' up pawpaws, put it in your basket, pickin' up pawpaws put them in your basket...
AUBREY: But at a pawpaw festival earlier this month in Ohio, people were showing off, at least one way of extending the pawpaw season. They make pulp from the fruit that can be canned and frozen. And even use it to make beer. Garin Wright of the Buckeye Brewing Company in Cleveland wasn't convinced the taste of the pawpaw would come through in his brew, but it did.
GARIN WRIGHT: I really think that I got freshness out of that pulp that you can really smell and taste in the beer I made, so it's awesome.
AUBREY: This has become an annual festival. Six-thousand people turned out this year to celebrate the pawpaw. There were tastings, baking demonstrations, and a huge cook-off moderated by Michelle Wasserman.
MICHELLE WASSERMAN: Second place - for pawpaw mango salsa.
AUBREY: And there were lots of local vendors too.
CHRIS CHMIEL: Pawpaw smoothies, pawpaw guacamole...
AUBREY: Chris Chmiel is the festival organizer. And he says the biggest hit...
CHMIEL: The pawpaw ice-cream is incredible.
AUBREY: The fresh pawpaw season is about over for this year. But you may still be able to find some ice cream or sorbet. Some adventurous chefs are beginning to play around with the pawpaw, and they say people do seem eager to give America's own homegrown mango a try.
Allison Aubrey, NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host: OK, so Allison set up little a pawpaw stand outside the NPR studios and actually got me to try the pawpaw.
GREENE: I tried it too, Steve, and I'm not part of the pawpaw craze. I thought it was kind of nasty.
INSKEEP: Sorry to hear that. I liked it, I enjoyed it, although apparently the seeds can make you sick. Watch our reactions at npr.org.
This is NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | <urn:uuid:3f138b68-6e81-48ce-9fad-15fa2eb43497> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://wyomingpublicmedia.org/post/pawpaw-foraging-americas-forgotten-fruit | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00044-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980031 | 2,984 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Whether in camp, in prison, or on the homefront, Christmas came–and so did Saint Nicholas!
BY KEVIN RAWLINGS
Thomas Nast was in a quandary and his deadline was fast approaching. The editor of Harper’s Weekly, Fletcher Harper, wanted Nast to draw a “special Christmas picture” for the newspaper’s front page, a scene that linked holiday celebrations to the ongoing war effort. Nast, however, had a serious case of illustrator’s block and had no idea what to draw.
Nast discussed his predicament with his sister Bertha, a New York City schoolteacher who was visiting at his house. The two reminisced about their early childhood holidays in their native Germany. They talked about the differences between the German Pelznikel and the American Santa Claus, and Bertha mentioned that her class loved to prepare for Christmas each year by reading Clement Clarke Moore’s “A Visit From Saint Nicholas” (known today as “Twas the Night before Christmas”).
The conversation inspired Nast. After his sister went home, he worked feverishly through the night. The next morning, he delivered the finished drawings to the newspaper. The Christmas edition of Harper’s Weekly for 1862 hit the streets on January 3, 1863. The front page showed a wondrous holiday sight: Santa Claus, dressed in a patriotic Stars and Stripes outfit, visiting soldiers in camp to distribute Christmas gifts from his sleigh.
A flurry of activity surrounds Nast’s Santa. A soldier opens his Christmas box to find a fully loaded stocking, while a comrade behind him gets a meerschaum pipe. In the foreground, a sprung jack-in-the-box surprises two drummer boys. In the background, soldiers chase a greased pig while others climb a greased pole to reach a cash purse nailed to the top. Some play football; others prepare company Christmas dinners. The fort on the hilltop pays tribute to Santa’s arrival with an artillery salute.
An article inside the issue titled “Santa Claus Among Our Soldiers” explained the images on the cover as well as those in “Christmas Eve,” Nast’s illustration on the center spread. “Children,” the article cautioned, “you mustn’t think that Santa Claus comes to you alone.” In a blatant product promotion, the piece tells how Santa Claus has brought a stack of Harper’s Weeklys for the soldiers, “so that they, as well as you little folks, may have a peep at the Christmas number.”
So it was that Harper’s readers got their first look at what would become a Yuletide institution. Every year until his departure from Harper’s in 1886, Nast would create an elaborate Christmas drawing to delight children and adults alike. And in the early years of his Harper’s career, during the Civil War, Nast would standardize the basic image of Santa Claus that we relish to this day.
The Nast Santa Claus played a prominent role in all the wartime holiday centerfolds and annual Christmas issues except the 1864 illustration “The Union Christmas Dinner.” Leaving the foreground to an image of Abraham Lincoln welcoming Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee back into the Union, Santa Claus and his sleigh and reindeer team appear in silhouette before a rising moon behind the word Christmas. For a Christmas issue titled “Santa Claus and His Works” for 1866, Nast drew Santa Claus in his workshop and gave him a permanent address at the North Pole so no other country could claim him and use him for propaganda, as Nast himself did during the Civil War.
Many of today’s American Christmas customs are rooted in the early 19th century. Perhaps ironically, they came to maturity during the Civil War, when violence, chaos, and staggering personal losses seemed likely to drown out the choruses of “peace on earth.” And artists such as Nast who helped fire America’s imagination about how Christmas should be observed also documented what Christmas was like in the war-torn 1860s. Nast, Winslow Homer, Alfred Waud, and some illustrators forgotten to history created visual chronicles of the spreading influence of many holiday traditions we enjoy today, including Santa Claus, Christmas trees, gift-giving, caroling, holiday feasting, and Christmas cards. Homer and Nast drew scenes of the wartime practice of sending Christmas boxes filled with homemade clothes and food items to soldiers at the front.
Christmas boxes like the ones Homer and Nast pictured gave their recipients a much-needed mental and physical boost. When in 1861, for the first Harper’s Christmas cover of the war, Homer drew overjoyed soldiers reveling in the contents of Adams Express boxes from home while a nearby sutler’s tent stands devoid of customers, he captured a genuine experience of the men in uniform.
John Haley of the 17th Maine, for instance, was working with a road crew the day before Christmas. As his body toiled, his mind focused anxiously on a parcel he expected from home. “It is rumored that there are sundry boxes and mysterious parcels over at Stoneman’s Station directed to us,” Haley had written in his diary. “We retire to sleep with feelings akin to those of children expecting Santa Claus. We have become very childish in some matters–grub being one of them.”
On Christmas Day, Haley returned from his work detail to his tent. He wrote that he had endured the day’s work only by virtue of the “anticipation of what was in store in our boxes.” Then he had to endure a practical joke from his tentmate:
On returning to camp, I was informed by my tentmate that there was no parcel at the station bearing my name. My mental thermometer not only plummeted to below zero, it got right down off the nail and lay on the floor. Seeing this, my tentmate made haste to dive under the bed and produce the box, which he had brought from the station during my absence, and in a few minutes we were discussing the merits of its contents. Most of the men have been remembered, and any that have not received something from home are allowed to share with their more fortunate neighbors.
Henry Kyd Douglas, formerly of Confederate Lieutenant General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s staff, was wounded in the Battle of Gettysburg and captured. Confined to Johnson’s Island Prison, Ohio, as Christmas 1863 approached, Douglas received several boxes containing items to make his confinement more bearable. Again, a practical joke finds its way into the story:
There came a carload of boxes for the prisoners about Christmas which after reasonable inspection, they were allowed to receive. My box contained more cause for merriment and speculation as to its contents than satisfaction. It had received rough treatment on its way, and a bottle of catsup had broken and its contents very generally distributed through the box. Mince pie and fruit cake saturated with tomato catsup was about as palatable as “embalmed beef” of the Cuban memory; but there were other things. Then, too, a friend had sent me in a package a bottle of old brandy. On Christmas morning I quietly called several comrades up to my bunk to taste the precious fluid of…DISAPPOINTMENT! The bottle had been opened outside, the brandy taken and replaced with water, adroitly recorded, and sent in. I hope the Yankee who played that practical joke lived to repent it and was shot before the war ended.
In the Christmas 1863 issue of Harper’s, a Nast drawing titled “Christmas Furlough” showed the family members from the previous year’s centerfold reunited, the husband and father home from war on a 30-day furlough. To be home for the holidays was the burning desire of every soldier. And as Sergeant A.R. Small jotted in his diary, some men used every ounce of creativity they could muster to make their request for a holiday furlough persuasive:
Applications for furloughs have been frequent of late, that Sergeant-Major Maxfield sent up his application, based on Deuteronomy, 20th chapter, seventh verse: “And what man is there that betrothed a wife, and hath not taken her? Let him go and return unto his house, lest he die in battle and another man take her.” If approved, he says he shall ask for an extension, referring to Deuteronomy, 24th chapter, fifth verse: “When a man hath taken a new wife, he shall not go to war, neither shall he be charged with any business; but he shall free at home one full year, and shall cheer up his wife which he hath taken.”
Much to his surprise, Small obtained his leave while the applications of two officers were rejected.
The most beloved symbol of the American family Christmas–the decorated Christmas tree–came into its own during the Civil War. Christmas trees had become popular in the decade before the war, and in the early 1860s, many families were beginning to decorate them. Illustrators working for the national weeklies helped popularize the practice by putting decorated table-top Christmas trees in their drawings.
It was only a matter of time before the Christmas tree made its way into military camps. Alfred Bellard of the 5th New Jersey remarked about the arrival of the newly popular Christmas icon to his camp along the lower Potomac River. “In order to make it look much like Christmas as possible,” he wrote, “a small tree was stuck up in front of our tent, decked off with hard tack and pork, in lieu of cakes and oranges, etc.” Sergeant Albert C. Harrison of the 14th New Jersey described for his mother a holiday dinner he attended near Fredericksburg, Maryland, the day after Christmas 1862. “I must tell you about their Christmas tree,” he wrote. “It was a splendid one. I saw some nice ones in New York when I lived there but I saw none equal to that.”
That same year, Union officer Walter Phelps, Jr., of the 22d New York, wrote to his wife to ask about the family’s first Christmas tree. “I presume Christmas must have been quite an occasion with you, more particularly as the Christmas tree was in vogue–” he wrote, “did Annie enjoy it–and how did the matter pass off?”
Notable residents of Richmond, during the final Christmas of the war, momentarily threw off the dark veil of impending doom and put on a merry holiday face for a gathering of children at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. President Jefferson Davis himself hosted the party with his wife Varina, and their children. Alice West Allen, age 11, and her siblings, who had been sent to Richmond as Major General Philip Sheridan’s men destroyed their native Shenandoah Valley, attended the event. She wrote that they had been invited to see “a Christmas tree given to President Davis’ children.”
The tree was a lovely holly laden with homemade candles and dolls made out of hickory nuts and Canton flannel; then there were cotton and Canton flannel rabbits, dog and cats, and numerous other presents all homemade, as was everything on the supper table–home-made coffee, tea, sugar, and everything. I never saw anything that looked so pretty to me.
Varina Davis committed her memories of the affair to paper three decades later. “When at last we reached the basement of St. Paul’s Church,” she wrote, “the tree burst upon their view like the realization of Aladdin’s subterranean orchard, and they were awed by the grandeur.” Her husband apparently even surrendered his normally prickly demeanor to the cheerful holiday spirit:
The orphans sat mute with astonishment until the opening hymn and prayer and the last Amen had been said, and they at a signal warily and slowly gathered around the tree to receive from a lovely young girl their allotted present.
The President became so enthusiastic that he undertook to help in the distribution, but worked such wild confusion giving everything asked for into outstretched hands, that we called a halt, so he contented himself with unwinding one or two tots from a network of strung popcorn in which they had become entangled and taking off all the apples he could when unobserved, and presenting them to smaller children….
Those soldiers who could not come home for Christmas touched base with their loved ones through letter-writing. And in the soldiers’ letters, it is common to find mentions of Santa Claus. Lieutenant Robert Gould Shaw of the 2d Massachusetts Infantry (before he became commander of the famous 54th Massachusetts Colored Regiment) penned a letter to his mother while on guard duty in Frederick, Maryland, on Christmas morning 1861. He recounted his holiday misadventure of trying to eat breakfast in the presence of the sleeping sergeant of the guard and proceeded with a tongue-in-cheek explanation for why he had not seen Santa Claus overnight:
It began to snow about midnight, and I suppose no one had a better chance of seeing Santa Claus; but, as I had my stockings on, he probably thought it not worth his while to come down to the guard-tent. I didn’t see any guard’s stockings pinned up outside their tent, and indeed it is contrary to army regulations for them to divest themselves of any part of their clothing during the twenty-four hours.
Christmas Eve 1862 found Union Brigadier General John Geary in Fairfax Station, Virginia, nearing the end of his convalescence from a wound he had received at Cedar Mountain in August. He took some time to offer holiday and fatherly advice to his daughter at home in Pennsylvania:
My Dear Little Pet,
On this Christmas Eve I have no doubt you have been enjoying yourself, perhaps with the toys of the season, eaten your nuts and cakes, hung up your stockings in the chimney corner for old Kris Kinkle, when he comes along with his tiny horses, “Dunder and Blixen” and his little wagon to fill in Lots and Gobs of sweet things, sugar, candy sugar plums, and if you please, sugar every thing. Well, When I was a little boy, a good many years ago, I was fond of such things myself. And when I look back, they were indeed the happiest days of my life. Enjoy them my little “Pet”–they come but once. The boys, I mean the two Willies, are getting too old for the enjoyment you can have. When ignorance is bliss `tis folly to be wise. I wish you a Merry Christmas and many of them. I must close. There is a lot of soldiers at my door giving me a serenade and I must give it some attention.
Your affectionate Papa
By 1863, the Union blockade of the Southern coasts had made it nearly impossible for Santa Claus to visit homes in the South; scarcity of goods and the consequent high prices put both store-bought presents and raw materials for homemade gifts out of the financial reach of many Southern consumers. Quite a few mothers explained to their children that even Santa Claus would not be able run the formidable blockade.
Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas of Augusta, Georgia, told how a simple act of faith on the part of her children caused her to dig deeper for a holiday offering on Christmas Eve:
I have written so much that it is now after 9 o’clock and yet I have said nothing of Turner’s and Mary Bell’s party which we gave them last week in lieu of the Santa Claus presents. Mary Bell has been told that Santa Claus has not been able to run the blockade and has gone to war–Yet at this late hour when I went upstairs Thursday night of the party I found that the trusting faith of childhood they had hung their little socks and stockings in case Santa Claus did come. I had given the subject no thought whatever but invoking Santa Claus aid I was enabled when their little eyes opened to enjoy their pleasure to find cake and money in their socks–Jeff was delighted.
Sallie Brock Putnam devoted some lines in her memoirs to Christmas in Richmond during the third year of the war. She plotted the course Santa Claus needed to follow to avoid the blockade to bring presents to Southern children and Christmas boxes to soldiers in the field:
Another annual revolution in the cycle of time brought us again to the Christmas season, the third since the bloody circle of war had been drawn around our hearts and homes. For days preceding the festival the anxious little ones, who had learned to share the cares and troubles of their elders, peered curiously into the countenances of mothers and fathers, for an intimation that good old Santa Klaus had not lost his bravery, and that despite the long continued storm of war he would make his way through the fleet at Charleston or the blockading squadron at Wilmington, and from foreign countries, or perchance across the country from Baltimore, he would pick his way, flank the numerous pickets on the lines, and bring something to drop in their new stockings, knitted by mother herself. Sometimes the simple present that brought happiness to the child was purchased at the expense of some retrenchment in the table-fare for the week, or with the loss of some needed article of comfort in clothing. But the influence of childhood is magical. The children find their way to our hearts, and unloose the purse-strings when all other inducements fail.
The Christmas-box for the soldier in the field was not forgotten; but it was, less bountifully supplied than when the first Christmas dinner [was] dispatched to him to be shared with his comrades in his soldier’s tent. Santa Klaus once more generously disposed of socks and scarfs and visors, to the husbands, brothers, sons, and lovers in the army.
For the Confederate soldier away with the army at Christmas, there was no cure for the nearly incapacitating homesickness the holidays inspired. In a letter to his wife in 1863, soldier Philip H. Power found moving words for some of that lonely feeling:
I do not care to celebrate Christmas until I can do so with my children–and my wife–when will that holiday come…? I hope the children enjoyed themselves yesterday–I thought of them when I first awaked, and their stockings–Fortunate for them they were in Richmond where something could be had from Santa Claus.
Santa Claus apparently had a much easier time visiting homes in the North than those in the South that Christmas. According to a letter Sarah Thetford sent to her brother George, Santa arrived in Michigan dressed in a buffalo coat “with presents fastened to his coat-tail…[and] a corn-popper on his back.” She continued that she had “often heard Santa Claus described, but never before saw the old fellow in person.”
Sometimes Santa Claus worked behind the scenes of wartime savagery to bring a bit of Christmas cheer to those who otherwise had little reason to celebrate. Following Union Major General William T. Sherman’s capture of Savannah, Georgia, and presentation of it as a Christmas gift to Lincoln in 1864, about 90 Michigan men and their captain in turn gave a token of charity to Southern civilians living outside the city. On Christmas Day the soldiers loaded several wagons full of food and other supplies and distributed the items about the ravaged Georgia countryside. The destitute Southerners thanked the jolly Union Santa Clauses as the wagons pulled away under the power of mules that had tree-branch “antlers” strapped to their heads to turn them into makeshift reindeer.
By late 1865 the country was starting to reunite as the horrors of war and the shock of Lincoln’s assassination faded into memory. That December brought the first peacetime Christmas in five years. Most soldiers had been mustered out of the military and were home to celebrate the holiday with their families. Of course, many others had never returned home.
In the South, Christmas was being rediscovered after four years of deprivation. In the North, shops beckoned passersby with window displays full of tempting goods. And Nast illustrated another Christmas issue for Harper’s Weekly with Santa Claus as the centerpiece attraction, though he took a disturbing poke at the beaten South: part of the image showed the heads of several Rebel generals lying at the feet of “Ulysses the Giant Killer” Grant.
On the second page of the issue, however, there appeared a poem titled “By the Christmas Hearth” that was more in line with the nation’s hopeful spirit of reunification. The last stanza especially captures the cheerful holiday mood and eagerness of the American people to put the turbulent conflict behind them:
Bring holly, rich with berries red,
And bring the sacred mistletoe;
Fill high each glass, and let hearts
With kindliest feelings flow;
So sweet it seems at home once more
To sit with those we hold most dear,
And keep absence once again
To keep the Merry Christmas here.
Kevin Rawlings, a resident of Sharpsburg, Maryland, and the vice president of the Save Historic Antietam Foundation, dons a Thomas Nast-style Santa Claus suit every winter to lecture about Christmas during the Civil War. | <urn:uuid:15774401-d08f-493c-850c-da34c0530b68> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.historynet.com/christmas-in-the-civil-war-december-1998-civil-war-times-feature.htm/2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00117-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976693 | 4,511 | 3.265625 | 3 |
Safety Precautions for All Basic Switches
For the individual precautions for a Switch, refer to the precautions in the section for that Switch.
Always observe the following cautions to ensure safety.
Before mounting, dismounting, wiring, or inspecting a switch, be sure to turn OFF the power supply to the switch, otherwise an electric shock may be received or the switch may burn.
Do not perform wiring when power is being supplied to a switch. Also, do not touch any of the charged terminals when power is being supplied. Otherwise, electric shock may be received.
Follow the instructions provided in Correct Use for all wiring and soldering work. Using a switch with improper wiring or soldering may result in abnormal heating when power is supplied, possibly resulting in burning.
Select suitable switch ratings after confirming contact load. If the contact load is excessive for the contacts, the contacts may weld or shift, possibly resulting in short-circuits or burning when power is supplied.
Some types of load have a large difference between steady-state current and inrush current, as shown in the following diagram. Select a switch with ratings suitable for the type of load. The higher the inrush current in the closed circuit is, the more the contact abrasion or shift there will be. Consequently, contact welding or shifting may occur, possibly resulting in short-circuits or burning.
Types of Load vs. Inrush Current
Do not use switches in atmospheres containing combustible or explosive gases. Arc or heat generated by switching may cause fires or explosions.
Shock on Individual Switches
Do not drop or disassemble switches. Not only will characteristics be jeopardized, but also damage, electric shock, or burning may result.
The durability of a switch greatly varies with switching conditions. Before using a switch, be sure to test the switch under actual conditions in the actual application and to use the switch within the switching operations causing no problem. If a deteriorated switch is used continuously, insulation failures, contact welding, contact failures, switch damage, or switch burnout may result. | <urn:uuid:0c03070b-a6f1-4aeb-844a-11ed8356c3a0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ia.omron.com/product/cautions/28/precautions_for_safety_use.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00012-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.854766 | 422 | 3.03125 | 3 |
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Dualism
DUALISM (from rare Lat. dualis, containing two, from duo), a philosophical term applied to all theories which attempt to explain facts by reference to two coexistent principles. The term plays an important part in metaphysical, ethical and theological speculation.
In Metaphysics. - Metaphysical dualism postulates the eternal coexistence of mind and matter, as opposed to monism both idealistic and materialistic. Two forms of this dualism are held. On the one hand it is said that mind and matter are absolutely heterogeneous, and, therefore, that any causal relation between them is ex hypothesi impossible. On the other hand is a hypothetical dualism, according to which it is held that mind cannot bridge over the chasm so far as to know matter in itself, though it is compelled by its own laws of cause and effect to postulate matter as the origin, if not the motive cause, of its sensations. It follows that, for the thinking mind, matter is a necessary hypothesis. Hence the theory is a kind of monism, inasmuch as it confessedly does not assert the existence of matter save as an intellectual postulate for the thinking mind. Matter, in other words, must be assumed to exist, though mind cannot know it in itself. From this question there emerges a second and more difficult problem. Consciousness, it is held, is of two main kinds, sensation and reason. Sensation alone is insufficient to explain all our intellectual phenomena; all sensation is momentary and individual (cf. Empiricism). How then are we to account for memory and the principles of necessity, similarity, universality? It is argued that there must be in the mind an enduring, primary faculty whereby we retain, compare and group the presentations of sense. This faculty is a priori, transcendental, and entirely separate from all the data of experience and sense-perception. Here then we have a dualism within experience. The mind is not to be regarded as a sensitized film which automatically records the impressions of the senses. It contains within itself this modifying critical faculty which reacts upon and arranges the sense-given presentations.
In Ethics and Theology. - In the domain of morals, dualism postulates the separate existence of Good and Evil, as principles of existence. In theology the appearance of dualism is sporadic and has not the fundamental, determining importance which it has in metaphysics. It is a result rather than a starting-point. The old Zoroastrianism, and those Christian sects (e.g. Manichaeism) which were influenced by it, postulate two contending deities Ormuzd and Ahriman (Good and Evil), which war against one another in influencing the conduct of men. So, in Christianity, the existence of Satan as an evil influence, antagonistic to God, involves a kind of dualism. But generally speaking this dualism is permissive, inasmuch as it is always held that God will triumph over Satan in His own time. So in Zoroastrianism the dualism is not ultimate, for Ahriman and Ormuzd are represented as the twin sons of Zervana Akarana, i.e. limitless time, wherein both will be finally absorbed. The postulate of an Evil Being arises from the difficulty, at all times acutely felt by a certain type of mind, of reconciling the existence of evil with the divine attributes of perfect goodness, full knowledge and infinite power. John Stuart Mill (Essay on Religion) preferred to disbelieve in the omnipotence of God rather than forgo the belief in His goodness. It follows from such a view that Satan is not the creation of God, but rather a power coeval in origin, over whose activity God has no absolute control.
In Theology. -Dualism is also used in a special theological sense to describe a doctrine of the Nestorian heresy. According to this doctrine the personality of Christ is twofold; the divine Logos dwells as a distinct personality in the man Jesus Christ, the union of the two natures being analogous to the relation between the believer and the indwelling Holy Spirit.
History of the Doctrine. - The earliest European thinkers (see Ionian School of Philosophy) endeavoured to reduce all the facts of the universe to a single material origin, such as Fire, Water, Air. It is only gradually that there appears any recognition of a spiritual principle exercising a modifying or causal influence over inert matter. Anaxagoras was the first to postulate the existence of Reason (νοῦς) as the source of change and progress. Yet even he did not conceive this Reason as incorporeal; it was in reality only the most highly rarefied form of matter in existence. In Plato for the first time we find a truly dualistic conception of the universe. Asserting that Ideas alone really exist, he yet found it necessary to postulate a second principle of not-being, the groundwork of sensuous existence and of imperfection and evil. Herein he identified metaphysics and ethics, combining the good with the truly existent and evil with the non-existent. Aristotle rebels against this conception and substitutes the idea of πρώτη ὔλη and development. Nevertheless he does not escape from the dualism of Form and Matter, νοῦς and ὔλη. The scholastic philosophers naturally held dualistic views resulting from their extreme devotion to formalism. This blind dualism found its natural consequence in the revolt of the Renaissance thinkers, Bruno and Paracelsus, who asserted the unity of mind and matter in all existence and were the precursors of the more intelligent monism of Leibnitz and the scientific metaphysics of his successors. The birth of modern physical science on the other hand in the investigations of Bacon and Descartes obscured the metaphysical issue by the predominance of the mechanical principles of natural philosophy. They attempted to explain the fundamental problems of existence by the unaided evidence of the new natural science. Thus Descartes maintained the absolute dualism of the res cogitans and the res extensa. Spinoza realized the flaw in the division and preferred to postulate behind mind and matter a single substance (unica substantia) while Leibnitz explained the universe as a harmony of spiritual or semispiritual principles. Kant practically abandons the problem. He never really establishes a relation between pure reason and things-in-themselves (Dinge an sich), but rather seeks refuge in a dualism within consciousness, the transcendental and the empirical. Since Kant there are, therefore, two streams of dualism, dealing, one with the radical problem of the relation between mind and matter, the other with the relation between the pure rational and the empirical elements within consciousness. To the first problem there is one obvious and conclusive answer, namely that matter in itself is inherently unthinkable and comes within the vision of the mind only as an intellectual presentation. It follows that philosophy is in a sense both dualist and monist; it is a cosmic dualism inasmuch as it admits the possible existence of matter as a hypothesis, though it denies the possibility of any true knowledge of it, and is hence in regard of the only possible knowledge an idealistic monism. It is a self-destructive dualism, a confessedly one-sided monism, agnostic as to the fundamental problem. To the second problem there are two main answers, that of Associationism which denies to the mind any a priori existence and asserts that sensation is the only source of knowledge, and that which admits the existence of both transcendental and empirical knowledge. | <urn:uuid:cd2f985d-a277-4f11-95ee-1aceab8cdee6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Dualism | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00085-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941448 | 1,596 | 3.375 | 3 |
2.1.5 Golf Courses
184.108.40.206 Example 1
|Location of Example:
|| 152°49'16" East, 25°16'45" South
- Golf courses have very characteristic fairways that are close together and generally lined with trees.
- There are often water bodies associated with the course and numerous small sand traps mostly at the ends of the fairways.
- Golf Courses often have a definite boundary and are within or adjacent to residential areas.
- In Figure: 220.127.116.11b note the light red signature of the grass fairways and the dark red signature of the aligning trees. Also note the contrast of the surrounding residential area represented as bright blue. The sand traps show up as white and the water bodies shows up as a deep blue.
|Figure: 18.104.22.168 Representation of a Golf Course.
Topic contact: email@example.com Last updated: January 20, 2012 | <urn:uuid:1c6167cd-7462-4a20-acab-963c3e223e6a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ga.gov.au/mapspecs/topographic/v6/appendixU_files/hab_golfcourse_ex1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00144-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902232 | 208 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Foods that contain palm oil
Palm oil is found in an estimated 10 percent of U.S. groceries — it’s in chips, crackers, candy, margarine, cereals and canned goods. About 40 millions tons of palm oil, which is considered the cheapest cooking oil in the world, is produced each year, and 85 percent of it comes from Indonesia and Malaysia. In these countries, 30 square miles of forests are felled daily, and palm oil plantations account for the highest rates of deforestation in the world. When the rain forests disappear, so does almost all of the wildlife, including orangutans, tigers, bears and other endangered species. | <urn:uuid:6eb90eb2-8830-4e4e-9ee0-7d9c355c5aff> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/photos/12-foods-that-are-bad-for-the-planet/foods-that-contain-palm-oil | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00031-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953376 | 137 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Libya / Geography /
Other spelling: Cirenaica
Region in northeastern Libya with a distinct identity and history, with about 2.2 million inhabitants (2005 estimate).
Benghazi is the largest city of Cyrenaica.
Landscape near Derna.
The forest of Wadi al-Kuf.
The ancient Greek ruins of Cyrene.
The historical demarcation of the region lies along the Gulf of Sidra in the West, and near the present border between Libya and Egypt in the East. The demarcation is defined by the surrounding desert, historically preventing easy access to the region from other regions. Cyrenaica, however, rests mainly on or beneath a plateau, and the inhabitable areas are mainly oases. Summers in Cyrenaica are not as hot as many other North African regions.
In the 1st millennium, Cyrenaica was the home of one of the most popular products in antiquity, the medical plant of Silphium.
The population of Cyrenaica is comprised of arabized Berbers, speaking Arabic. The population is reported to be nearly 100% Sunni Muslims, but the Sanusi Sufi order (tariqa) represents a strong subgroup.
The largest city of Cyrenaica is Benghazi with 950,000 inhabitants. Other cities include Derna (180,000), Al-Bayda (160,000), Tobruk (150,000), Ajdabiyya (150,000) and Al-Marj (120,000). All are 2005 estimates.
Around 630 BCE: Comes under Greek control, the city of Cyrene is founded and a kingdom is established.
The Greeks establish 4 more cities, Teucheira, later ArsinoŽ; Barce; Hesperides, later Berenice, which corresponds to modern Benghazi; and Apollonia.
450: The kingdom falls, and Cyrenaica becomes a republic.
331: Conquered by Alexander the Great.
321: Falls to Ptolemy 1 Soter 1 of Egypt. It becomes an Egyptian province known as Pentapolis, "Five Cities".
116: Ptolemy 8 Euergetes 2 divides Egypt between his son, Ptolemy Apion, and his wife, in which agreement Ptolemy Apion gets Pentapolis as his own kingdom.
96: Ptolemy Apion dies without heirs, and bequeaths Pentapolis to Rome. It gets its old name back.
67: Cyrenaica becomes a province together with Crete.
4th century CE: Cyrenaica is gradually lost to local chiefs.
641: Conquered by Muslim Arabs.
15th century: Comes under nominal suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire.
18th century: Falls officially to the Ottoman Empire.
1843: The Sanusi order establishes in Cyranaica, quickly establishing governance in an area beyond the control of the Ottomans. The Sanusi are exempted from paying tax to the empire, and control all tax collected from its supporters.
1911 September: Cyrenaica is occupied by Italy, during the war between Italy and the Ottoman Empire.
1912 October: With the end of the war, the control of Cyrenaica is officially transferred to Italy. Over the next 30 years, almost 50,000 Italians establish in the area, creating a modern agriculture.
1934: Cyrenaica is defined as part of the colony of Libya.
1939: As part of Libya, Cyranaica becomes part of Italy.
1942: The British take control of Libya, and the Italians are evacuated.
1951: The kingdom of Libya is formed, with Cyranaica is one of 3 provinces.
1963: The central authorities of Libya abolish the provinces of the country. | <urn:uuid:d1a64b6e-2b47-4da9-aaea-207387505c7c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://lexicorient.com/e.o/cyrenaica.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00150-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932634 | 807 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Dr. David Mebane
As some scientists turn to solar and wind energy to combat the rise in harmful greenhouse gases, West Virginia University assistant professor Dr. David Mebane looks to improve current energy technologies to mitigate these harmful fossil fuel emissions.
Today, U.S. coal-fired power plants generate nearly half of the nation’s electricity and contribute more than a third of total U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. As some scientists turn to solar and wind energy to combat the rise in harmful greenhouse gases, West Virginia University assistant professor Dr. David Mebane looks to improve current energy technologies to mitigate these harmful fossil fuel emissions.
Located in the state renowned for coal mining and production, Mebane participated as a research associate in the National Energy and Technology Laboratory (NETL) Postgraduate Research Program. The NETL research appointments are administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education and allow academic community members to apply their established skill sets to energy-related issues.
Mebane, who obtained his doctorate in materials science at the Georgia Institute of Technology, saw the program as a chance to answer questions related to energy independence and the shift toward cleaner and more efficient forms of fossil energy with an ultimate goal to help reduce the economic impact of climate change.
At NETL, Mebane participated in the Department of Energy’s Carbon Capture Simulation Initiative (CCSI) to “develop state-of-the-art computational modeling and simulation tools to accelerate commercialization of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies,” said Mebane.
CCSI aims to develop computational tools, which will accelerate the development of cost-effective CCS technology.
“We are on our way to demonstrating how we accurately can predict how power plants with carbon capture technology behave with less expense and time than has been expended in the past,” he said.
His role was to develop easy-to-implement computational models for the highly complex chemical reactions required to simulate carbon dioxide separation on an industrial scale. These models can be used by industry to help develop full-scale carbon capture systems.
Mebane spent his days reading literature and building codes and models from the information and insight gathered from that literature.
“The code I write is dedicated primarily to describing how a carbon dioxide sorbent behaves as its environment—gas composition and temperature—changes,” he said. “The codes calculate how much carbon dioxide and water the sorbent will take up or give off as a function of this changing environment.”
The sorbent—a material that absorbs liquids or gases—is an amine polymer. Mebane explained how an amine is an organic compound that tends to absorb carbon dioxide at low temperatures, like those of flue gas, and release them at high temperatures. Once the carbon dioxide from the flue gas is adsorbed onto the sorbent, the sorbent is brought into a high-temperature environment. This is critical for separation of carbon dioxide out of the flue gas.
“The high temperatures tend to desorb the carbon dioxide from the sorbent into the pure carbon dioxide stream, which is then compressed for sequestration,” he said. “Then, the empty sorbent is put back into the flue gas, and the cycle starts over again.”
Through this research at NETL, Mebane gained knowledge in statistics, process modeling and chemistry. He also enjoyed close interdisciplinary collaboration with a network of statisticians, computational fluid dynamics specialists and chemical process modelers in addition to other scientists and researchers across various institutions.
“I have had a great experience at NETL,” he said. “Developing new statistical methods for multi-scale modeling was my biggest success, and I look forward to seeing where these research techniques can be applied next.”
Mebane said his experience at NETL helped him most by exposing him to carbon-capture technology research, which he plans to continue for the rest of his career. | <urn:uuid:db5ac7d0-4e26-4868-89f9-e82de238a2cd> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://orise.orau.gov/science-education/research-experiences/postdoc/13-david-mebane.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397749.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00016-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939597 | 829 | 3.125 | 3 |
GODEFROY DE LINCTOT, DANIEL-MAURICE, officer in the colonial regular troops, merchant, and Indian agent; baptized 5 May 1739 at Montreal, son of Louis-René Godefroy de Linctot and Catherine-Apolline Blondeau; d. before 30 April 1783 in the Illinois country.
Daniel-Maurice Godefroy de Linctot belonged to the fifth generation of Godefroys to serve in the military forces in New France. His brothers Hyacinthe and Maurice-Régis were also officers in the colonial regulars and there is some confusion about the three careers prior to 1760. By the early 1750s Daniel-Maurice was a cadet, and he and a brother participated in Jean-Daniel Dumas’s defeat of Edward Braddock near Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh, Pa) in July 1755. He became an ensign in 1759. After the fall of New France he and most of his family went to France, arriving on 1 Jan. 1762. In 1764 several members of the family were given permission and funds to return to Canada to settle their affairs, and it may have been at this time that Daniel-Maurice left France. Two Linctot brothers, probably Hyacinthe and Daniel-Maurice, were reported to be living at Verchères in 1767, but by 1770 they had apparently moved west. Daniel-Maurice became a successful trader at Prairie du Chien (Wis.) and Cahokia (East St Louis, Ill.) and was considered a leader among the French of the Illinois country.
With the coming of the American revolution Linctot faced the problem of allegiance once again. As late as June 1778, Charles Gautier de Verville, a leading British advocate in the Upper Lakes region, spoke favourably of the Linctot brothers, and on 4 June Daniel-Maurice was reported to be visiting with Charles-Michel Mouet de Langlade, the most effective British partisan on the frontier. When the revolution reached the Illinois country with George Rogers Clark’s forces in July, Linctot changed his stance. Perhaps influenced by community leaders such as Linctot, Jacque s-Timothée Boucher de Montbrun, Father Pierre Gibault*, and the merchant Jean-Gabriel Cerré*, the French inhabitants of the Illinois country generally welcomed the rebels. Linctot was elected militia captain by the residents of Cahokia, and during the next few months he made expeditions with a troop of horse soldiers against La Pée (also called Peouarea; now Peoria, III.), Vincennes (Ind.), and Ouiatanon (near Lafayette, Ind.). Pleased with his work, Clark named him Indian agent for most of the Illinois country in the spring of 1779. The appointment, carrying the rank of major in the Virginia troops, was later confirmed by Thomas Jefferson, governor of the state.
Linctot spent most of the winter of 1779–80 in Virginia, and while there conferred with the French admiral, Louis-Philippe de Rigaud de Vaudreuil, Marquis de Vaudreuil, who encouraged him to attract more frontier French to the rebel cause. By mid 1780 Linctot was at Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh) with the assignment of engaging the Shawnees, Delawares, and other Ohio valley tribes to fight the British. That Linctot, who knew several Indian lanugages, was an effective irritant can be seen in a letter to the Ohio valley Indians from Arent Schuyler De Peyster, the British commandant at Detroit: “Send me that little babbling Frenchman named Monsieur Linctot, he who poisons your ears.” Clark later referred to Linctot’s “singular service” as an Indian agent.
Travelling was common for Linctot in these years. He was in St Louis (Mo.) from July to September 1781 and conferred there with Francisco Cruzat, the Spanish lieutenant governor of Upper Louisiana. Late in September he was back in Cahokia, involved in a minor land case. After this date nothing is known of him. He had died by 30 April 1783, as a letter from Clark to Jefferson makes clear.
AN, Col., D2C, 48, 58, 59; F3, 12. ANQ-M, État civil, Catholiques, Notre-Dame de Montréal, 5 mai 1739. Cahokia records, 1778–1790, ed. C. W. Alvord (Springfield, Ill., 1907). Frontier retreat on the upper Ohio, 1779–1781, ed. L. P. Kellogg (Madison, Wis., 1917). George Rogers Clark papers . . . [1771–84], ed. J. A. James (2v., Springfield, Ill., 1912–26). Kaskaskia records, 1778–1790, ed. C. W. Alvord (Springfield, Ill., 1909). The papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. J. P. Boyd et al. (19v. to date, Princeton, N.J., 1950- ). Wis., State Hist. Soc., Coll., XI (1888), 100–11. Dictionnaire national des Canadiens français (1608–1760) (2v., Montréal, 1958). Tanguay, Dictionnaire. Va., Calendar of Virginia state papers . . . (11v., Richmond, Va., 1875–93), III. F. L. Billon, Annals of St Louis in its early days under the French and Spanish dominations (St Louis, Mo., 1886; repr. [New York], 1971). G. A. Brennan, “De Linctot, guardian of the frontier,” Ill. State Hist. Soc., Journal (Springfield), X (1917–18), 323–66. | <urn:uuid:037c766d-fc06-47f8-ab3d-9350a5f6f740> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://biographi.ca/en/bio/godefroy_de_linctot_daniel_maurice_4E.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397562.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00099-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933755 | 1,265 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Course Code: ES-333
Course Title: Educational Evaluation
Assignment Number : B.ED
ES-333: EDUCATIONAL EVALUATION
Answer the following questions:
i) Establish relationship between Measurement, Assessment and Evaluation with examples. (250 words)
Solution: Assessment, measurement, evaluation and research are part of the processes of science and issues related to each topic often overlap. Assessment refers to the collection of data to better understand an issue, measurement is the process of quantifying assessment data, evaluation refers to the comparison of that data to a standard for the purpose of judging worth or quality, and research refers to the use of that data for the purpose of describing, predicting, and controlling as a means toward better understanding the phenomena under consideration. Measurement is done with respect to "variables" (phenomena that can take on more than one value or level). For example, the variable "gender" has the values or levels of male and female and data could be collected relative to this variable. Data on variables are normally collected by one or more of four methods: paper/pencil, systematic observation, participant observation, and clinical.
The collecting of data (assessment), quantifying those data (measurement) and developing understanding about the data (research) always raise issues of reliability and validity. Reliability attempts to answer concerns about the consistency of the information (data) collected, while validity focuses on accuracy or truth. The relationship between reliability and validity can be confusing because measurements (e.g., scores on tests, recorded statements about classroom behavior) can be reliable (consistent) without being valid (accurate or true). However, the reverse is not true: measurements cannot be valid without being reliable. The same statement applies to findings from research studies. Findings may be reliable (consistent across studies), but not valid (accurate or true statements about relationships among "variables"), but findings may not be valid if they are not reliable. At a miniumum, for a measurement to be reliable a consistent set of data must be produced each time it is used; for a research study to be reliable it should produce consistent results each time it is performed.
ii) Explain concept and types of validity with examples.(250 words)
Solution: Validity refers to the accuracy of an assessment -- whether or not it measures what it is supposed to measure. Even if a test is reliable, it may not provide a valid measure. Let’s imagine a bathroom scale that consistently tells you that you weigh 130 pounds. The reliability (consistency) of this scale is very good, but it is not accurate (valid) because you actually weigh 145 pounds (perhaps you re-set the scale in a weak moment)! Since teachers, parents, and school districts make decisions about students based on assessments (such as grades, promotions, and graduation), the validity inferred from the assessments is essential -- even more crucial than the reliability. Also, if a test is valid, it is almost always reliable.
There are three ways in which validity can be measured. In order to have confidence that a test is valid (and therefore the inferences we make based on the test scores are valid), all three kinds of validity evidence should be considered.
Type of Validity
The extent to which the content of the test matches the instructional objectives.
A semester or quarter exam that only includes content covered during the last six weeks is not a valid measure of the course's overall objectives -- it has very low content validity.
The extent to which scores on the test are in agreement with (concurrent validity) or predict (predictive validity) an external criterion.
If the end-of-year math tests in 4th grade correlate highly with the statewide math tests, they would have high concurrent validity.
The extent to which an assessment corresponds to other variables, as predicted by some rationale or theory.
If you can correctly hypothesize that ESOL students will perform differently on a reading test than English-speaking students (because of theory), the assessment may have construct validity.
So, does all this talk about validity and reliability mean you need to conduct statistical analyses on your classroom quizzes? No, it doesn't. (Although you may, on occasion, want to ask one of your peers to verify the content validity of your major assessments.) However, you should be aware of the basic tenets of validity and reliability as you construct your classroom assessments, and you should be able to help parents interpret scores for the standardized exams.
iii) Select units/topics in your teaching subject for construction of Achievement test Prepare blue print and 15 objective type test items 5 each to test knowledge,
understanding and Application. (1000 words)
Solution: Should be done by Students !!! | <urn:uuid:3d5a43ac-a7ee-4f59-b0f4-f99e72a1bce8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://solvedignou.blogspot.com/2012/02/ignou-bed-es-333-solved-assignment.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396455.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00025-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933681 | 978 | 3.234375 | 3 |
Three Voyages For The Discovery Of A Northwest Passage (Illustrated): From The Atlantic To The Pacific, And Narrative Of An Attempt To Reach The North Pole, Volume IIby Sir William Edward Parry
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The Northwest Passage is a sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Arctic Ocean. Interest kindled in 1564 after Jacques Cartier's discovery of the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River, Martin Frobisher had formed a resolution to undertake the challenge of forging a trade route from England westward to India. In 1576 - 1578, he took three trips to what is now the Canadian Arctic in order to find the passage. Frobisher Bay, which he discovered, is named after him. On August 8, 1585, under the employ of Elizabeth I the English explorer John Davis entered Cumberland Sound, Baffin Island. Davis rounded Greenland before dividing his four ships into separate expeditions to search for a passage westward. Though he was unable to pass through the icy Arctic waters, he reported to his sponsors that the passage they sought is "a matter nothing doubtful and secured support for two additional expeditions, reaching as far as Hudson Bay. Though England's efforts were interrupted in 1587 because of Anglo-Spanish War, Davis's favorable reports on the region and its people would inspire explorers in the coming century.
In the first half of the 19th century, parts of the Northwest Passage were explored separately by a number of different expeditions, including those by John Ross, William Edward Parry, James Clark Ross; and overland expeditions led by John Franklin, George Back, Peter Warren Dease, Thomas Simpson, and John Rae. Sir Robert McClure was credited with the discovery of the Northwest Passage by sea in 1851 when he looked across McClure Strait from Banks Island and viewed Melville Island. However, the strait was blocked by young ice at this point in the season, and not navigable to ships. The only usable route, linking the entrances of Lancaster Sound and Dolphin and Union Strait was first used by John Rae in 1851. Rae used a pragmatic approach of traveling by land on foot and dogsled, and typically employed less than ten people in his exploration parties.
The Northwest Passage was not completely conquered by sea until 1906, when the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, who had sailed just in time to escape creditors seeking to stop the expedition, completed a three-year voyage in the converted 47-ton herring boat Gjøa. At the end of this trip, he walked into the city of Eagle, Alaska, and sent a telegram announcing his success. His route was not commercially practical; in addition to the time taken, some of the waterways were extremely shallow
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A selection of articles related to copperii oxide.
Original articles from our library related to the Copperii Oxide. See Table of Contents for further available material (downloadable resources) on Copperii Oxide.
- Iron and Steel
- Planet: Mars Signs: Aries and Scorpio Day: Tuesday I bet you know that the red color of Mars is due to the great amount of iron oxide on that planet. Man has always used iron and steel for tools and weapons, to serve his working power and his defense. In iron...
Earth Mysteries >> Stones, Minerals & Metals
Copperii Oxide is described in multiple online sources, as addition to our editors' articles, see section below for printable documents, Copperii Oxide books and related discussion.
Suggested Pdf Resources
- Regeneration of copper(II) oxide with hydrogen gas in the reduction
- If elementary copper is used in the reduction column, it will be oxidized to copper( II) oxide by passing oxygen and nitrogen oxides. Instead of changing the ...
- The Empirical Formula of a Copper Oxide Reading assignment
- The reaction of hydrogen gas with a copper oxide compound will be studied ... Two forms of copper oxide are found in nature, copper(I) oxide and copper(II) ...
- MSDS for Cupric oxide - ScienceLab
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- Oxidation of carbon monoxide over a copper (II) oxide catalyst
- Oxidation of carbon monoxide over a copper(II) oxide catalyst ... to participate directly in the oxidation reaction over a silica supported copper(II) oxide catalyst.
- High-Resolution Powder Diffraction Studies of Copper(II) Oxide
- ductors obtained from copper(II) oxide has led to renewed activity in the production of high-quality powder diffraction patterns for a variety of ceramic materials ...
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- The team found that by varying the composition and thickness of the layer of dielectric materials (such as aluminum oxide, hafnium oxide, and titanium oxide) deposited on the metal surface, they could control how much energy was passed from incoming ...
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- These are the Minerals That Give Fireworks Their Colors
- Copper chloride is a metal salt that can be made from either of copper's primary oxidation states, cuprous or cupric.
Suggested Web Resources
- Copper(II) oxide - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Copper(II) oxide or cupric oxide is the inorganic compound with the formula CuO. A black solid, it is one of the two stable oxides of copper, the other being Cu2O.
- Copper(II) oxide | CuO - PubChem
- Copper(II) oxide | CuO | CID 14829 - structure, chemical names, physical and chemical properties, classification, patents, literature, biological activities, ...
- Copper(II) oxide | CuO | ChemSpider
- Structure, properties, spectra, suppliers and links for: Copper(II) oxide.
- Copper(II) oxide, powder, <5 mum, 98% | CuO | Sigma-Aldrich
- Sigma-Aldrich offers Sigma-Aldrich-208841, Copper(II) oxide for your research needs. Find product specific information including CAS, MSDS, protocols and ...
- Copper(II) oxide powder, 99.99% trace metals basis | Sigma-Aldrich
- Sigma-Aldrich offers Aldrich-450812, Copper(II) oxide for your research needs. Find product specific information including CAS, MSDS, protocols and ...
Great care has been taken to prepare the information on this page. Elements of the content come from factual and lexical knowledge databases, realmagick.com library and third-party sources. We appreciate your suggestions and comments on further improvements of the site.
Copperii Oxide Topics
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brushy mountain state prison | <urn:uuid:5a543fc4-b0ef-4c0c-b427-4a4e63f743bd> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.realmagick.com/copperii-oxide/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399106.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00078-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.88171 | 973 | 2.796875 | 3 |
VOC Solvents Emissions Directive
The VOC Solvents Emissions Directive (1999/13/EC) regulates the emissions of volatile organic compounds from a wide range of industrial activities. Among these are printing, surface cleaning, vehicle coating, dry cleaning and manufacture of footwear and pharmaceutical products. It sets emission limit values for the installations in which such activities are applied. These could be limit values for VOC in waste gases or maximum levels of fugitive emissions (expressed as percentage of solvent input) or total emission limit values. In addition, in the Directive a reduction scheme is introduced which allows the operator to achieve emission reduction by other means, such as changing to solvent-free production processes or the use of solvents with lower VOC content.
The Directive has been in force for new installations since its publication in 1999; existing installations have to comply since 31 October 2007. Member States which had to include the Directive in national legislation are obliged to report periodically on the implementation of the Directive.
It should be noted that the scope of the Directive does not include painting activities. These are regulated separately by the VOC Paints Directive (2004/42/EC).
The Solvent Directive is, together with five more Directives, considered for inclusion in the proposal of the Commission for a new which is presently being discussed. | <urn:uuid:a7e67178-7243-4dc0-91e9-a01b14432c6c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.efca.net/efca2/index.php?page=voc-solvents-emissions | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00074-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960228 | 269 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Scholarly research and carbon testing have dated an ancient Jewish prayer book to A.D. 840, which could make it one of the oldest books of its kind ever found, the owners of the artifact announced Thursday.
The Green Collection, one of the world’s largest collections of rare biblical texts and artifacts, purchased the book about a year ago from a private party for an undisclosed price.
The provenance of the book, which is about the size of a large smartphone and originates from the Middle East, is still being researched, said Jerry Pattengale, executive director of the Green Scholars Initiative.
But the complete 50-page parchment manuscript is in its original binding and contains Hebrew script that incorporates Babylonian vowel pointing.
Steve Green, president of the Hobby Lobby craft store chain who oversees support for the Green Collection, announced the find at the annual meeting of the Religion Newswriters Association's annual conference in Austin, Texas, along with plans for a new museum that will house the book and more than 40,000 ancient religious texts and artifacts.
“The public will have the opportunity to witness the prayer book, along with the findings from The Green Scholars Initiative’s initial round of research, at a new museum, expected to open in Washington, D.C., in early spring 2017,” Green said.
He said the Green Collection and yet-to-be named national Bible museum are designed to showcase and share the message of the Bible.
"We are not collectors," said Green, an evangelical Christian. "We buy (ancient biblical texts and artifacts) because of the story that they tell. We believe in this book. It is a guide for us and our lives."
Research on the Jewish prayer book, which is equivalent to the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, will be released in late 2014 or early 2015 by the Green Scholars Initiative, the research arm of The Green Collection, the press release stated.
“This find is historical evidence supporting the very fulcrum of Jewish religious life,” Pattengale said. “This Hebrew prayer book helps fill the gap between the Dead Sea Scrolls and other discoveries of Jewish texts from the ninth and 10th centuries.”
In May, scholars in Italy identified the oldest-known Torah scroll from the 11th or 12th centuries.
Stephen Pfann, a senior scholar with the Green Scholars Initiative and president of the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem, along with his students, determined the age of the prayer book.
The Babylonian vowel pointing along with Carbon-14 tests have led researchers to place the prayer book in the times of the Geonim — the Babylonian, Talmudic leaders during the medieval period.
"The artifact may well be the earliest connection today’s practicing Jews have to the roots of their modern-day rabbinic liturgy," the press release stated.
Research on the prayer book will be included in the forthcoming Green Scholars Initiative series "Early Jewish Texts and Manuscripts," edited by Pattengale and Emanuel Tov.
The series will feature in-depth examination of some of the world’s oldest and most rare biblical texts, including portions from the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, Jonah, Ezekiel, Micah, Daniel and the Psalms.
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Copyright 2016, Deseret News Publishing Company | <urn:uuid:e087baf7-a16a-4686-8f7d-b67e9e6b3954> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.deseretnews.com/article/print/865587191/Ancient-Jewish-prayer-book-may-be-oldest-in-the-world-dated-AD-840.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00094-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940624 | 715 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Employment is not the only measure of economic success. Reagan famously said, “a rising tide lifts all boats,” meaning that general economic growth benefitted everyone (though maybe not equally). Full employment in an unproductive economy means a low standard of living for everyone. Consider that, under the old Soviet Union, very few unemployed West Germans were ever inspired to emigrate to East Germany in search of a job.
The size of the economy is measured by the gross domestic product and GDP growth usually means a healthy economy. When the GDP decreases for two quarters in a row, the economy is “in recession”. That always means a number of other bad things, including rising unemployment. GDP also can be thought of as the average prosperity of everyone in the economy.
So, as with unemployment, a very good way to determine how the economy is doing is to watch the GDP. The next two graphs show the change (growth) of the gross domestic product for each presidential term, starting with Herbert Hoover. The first graph shows the Growth in GDP under the Democratic Presidents starting with Roosevelt:
The second graph shows GDP growth under Republican Presidents since Hoover for comparison:
Under Hoover, who saw the start of the Great Depression, the growth was spectacularly negative, reflecting the greatest economic catastrophe of that century. The value of the domestic economy (roughly, the average standard of living) had shrunk by fully one-fourth between Hoover’s inauguration in spring of 1929, and the end of his term in 1933.
Even more extraordinary is the rate the economy grew in Roosevelt’s first term—erasing the losses during Hoover’s term. There is a common misconception that the economy didn’t begin to recover from the Great Depression until the onset of World War II. Perhaps this is because the economy started growing even faster in Roosevelt’s third term, but Roosevelt had robust economic growth in each of his terms.
The next two graphs focus better on the post World War II terms starting with the Democrats:
And the Republicans:
As Truman came out of World War II in his first term, he had the only post-war presidential term of negative growth. This is not surprising, given the task of adapting to a peacetime economy from an economy that had grown in recent years almost entirely from war. Truman’s second term slightly more than compensated, however, resulting in net positive growth, which you can see in the graph. All other presidents had moderate GDP growth in each term.
The comparisons are easier if we calculate the average (annualized)* growth rate per year. From the Table, it is clear that each post-war president had single-digit annual economic growth, with the largest growth being in the Kennedy/Johnson administration and the smallest under GW Bush.
This Table compares average annual increase in GDP* for each president (highest growth to lowest growth). As stated before, Truman had an almost 10% drop in his first term, (the economy that had grown almost 50% in the previous term), but he made up for it with the greater than 27% increase in his second term. In fact, the average annual GDP during the entire Roosevelt/Truman era was much greater than for any of the other presidents. (6.1% average growth per year for 20 years straight)
GHW Bush 2.0%
GW Bush 1.6%
The Reagan administration is tied with Carter for the third highest GDP growth numbers, and the Truman administration ranks almost at the bottom (second only to GW Bush, and one-tenth of percent behind GHW Bush and Obama). Again, overall Democrats produced more GDP growth than the Republican administrations though not by nearly as great a margin as they did with job creation (unless you include Roosevelt's numbers).
This is interesting news for people trying to figure out economic policy. The picture is not as black-and-white as for employment (where almost all Democratic administrations did better than any Republican administration). The evidence is quite strong that the things Democratic administrations do that seem to favor employment don’t hurt economic growth at all. In fact, Democratic Presidents probably even give GDP a bit of a boost, compared to what Republicans do. | <urn:uuid:1a549190-9c28-41b4-b9e4-206154bf1a4a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://economyinperspective.com/gdp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396029.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00031-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966873 | 863 | 3.359375 | 3 |
The mission of the WDL is to "[make] available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world." It was developed by a team from the US Library of Congress with support from UNESCO. According to the site
The WDL makes it possible to discover, study, and enjoy cultural treasures from around the world on one site, in a variety of ways. These cultural treasures include, but are not limited to, manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, and architectural drawings.Indeed, the site is very friendly to the user; the map interface is especially handy for those of us who like our information represented in geographical terms. And they've got lots of great stuff, including, of course, hundreds of historical maps. Maps like this one of the Lands Where the Sage-Emperor Yu Left His Traces.
Items on the WDL may easily be browsed by place, time, topic, type of item, and contributing institution, or can be located by an open-ended search, in several languages. Special features include interactive geographic clusters, a timeline, advanced image-viewing and interpretive capabilities. Item-level descriptions and interviews with curators about featured items provide additional information.
Navigation tools and content descriptions are provided in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Many more languages are represented in the actual books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, and other primary materials, which are provided in their original languages.
This rubbing is of a Chinese map engraved in stone in the seventh year of the Fouchang era of the Qi state (1136). The stele survives in the Forest of Steles in Xi’an. The map is oriented with north at the top and south at the bottom. Over 500 place names are plotted on the map, which represents a panorama of China in Song times. The engraving of the hydraulic systems is especially detailed, with nearly 80 rivers named. The courses of the Yellow and Yangtze rivers are very close to the way they appear on present-day maps. The contour of the seacoast is also quite accurate. Among surviving maps engraved in stone, this map is the oldest and the earliest to have grid marks indicating scale. It is a prime example of the level of mapmaking in the Song dynasty, and occupies an important place in the history of Chinese cartography. In his Science and Civilisation in China, the British scholar Joseph Needham praised this work as the most outstanding map of its time.And there's hundreds more where that came from. | <urn:uuid:0ce324c0-5d8c-4e90-9a4c-c4b5884abf4d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mapscroll.blogspot.com/2009/04/world-digital-library-has-lots-of-maps.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00109-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942749 | 544 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Polar Bears Beware! Shell Oil Is Coming to Town
Shell Oil Company is closer than ever to drilling in two vulnerable north Alaskan seas, launching what will likely be a new era of offshore oil development in the Arctic.
After seven years of lobbying, Shell is now waiting on just one more round of permits. Drilling is expected to begin this summer in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, U.S. territory in the Arctic Ocean.
These icy ocean waters are home to one-fifth of the world’s threatened polar bears, as well as endangered bowhead whales, Pacific walrus, seals, and seabirds, according to Alaska Wilderness League.
What’s more, the Inupiat Eskimos of Alaska’s Northern Slope rely on the delicate Arctic ecosystems for food and animal products that are fundamental to their ways of life.
Global warming is threatening the Arctic now more than ever. With shorelines eroding, temperatures increasing, and ice melting at an alarming rate, environmental advocates say offshore drilling could put delicate ecosystems over the edge.
“The chances of an oil spill in these fragile waters are very real, and the technology for oil cleanup in remote, ice-choked waters does not exist,” the Audobon Society has written.
Onshore oil drilling in Alaska is nothing new. For the past 50 years, oil revenues have driven Alaska’s economy, providing thousands of jobs and tax benefits for residents.
But after the devastating Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, in which 11 million gallons of oil poured into the Price William Sound, attitudes toward oil production changed. Some Alaska natives now openly oppose Shell’s proposed offshore drilling exploration.
“The bowhead whale and the materials it provides is the meat of my life,” Vernon Rexford, an Eskimo carver, told The New York Times. “They talk about the jobs, the promises of education and support for the economy, but that is counterfeit compared to the dangers of an oil spill.”
The feds have estimated that there could be 25 billion barrels of oil reserves in these two seas.
But the memory of the Exxon Valdez spill—and even more recently—the BP Gulf disaster looms large. The Christian Science Monitor reported that the Exxon Valdez spill was the single most damaging event for marine life in North America, killing hundreds of thousands of seabirds and thousands of marine mammals. Killer whale pods that lost members may never recover. Oil that remains in Price William Sound, 23 years later, could take centuries to fully disappear.
Nevertheless, the Obama administration has essentially approved Shell’s proposal, despite the fact that the president’s own Deepwater Horizon commission has recommended proceeding with the “utmost caution” with regard to Arctic drilling, according to The New York Times.
This has caused some high-profile people to roll up their sleeves and get involved.
Xena: Warrior Princess actress and Greenpeace activist Lucy Lawless was one of several arrested in February after boarding a Shell oil ship bound for the Arctic, in an attempt to keep it from leaving port. “For the first time in my life, I put my body and reputation on the line to stand up for my beliefs and do the right thing,” she told the Associated Press. “I hope I’ve encouraged other people to do the same.”
Later, Lawless wrote on her blog, “I was suppressing the urge to run for the hills, to leave these greenies to it, to go back to being a mother in the ’burbs. But that very fact—that I am a mother—was also the reason that I was there.”
The government hasn’t made it easy for activists like Lawless. In March, a federal judge ordered Greenpeace USA to stay one kilometer away from Shell’s ships, which are speeding toward Arctic waters.
But the legendary environmental organization will not be deterred. Greenpeace is sending its vessel, Esperanza, with a team of scientists and advocates, to the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. There they will deploy submarines with cameras to document the affects of drilling on sea life.
Prepare for those effects to be enormous: A 2007 study from the United States Geological Survey predicted a loss of two-thirds of the world’s polar bears, and all of Alaska’s polar bears, by 2050. The National Marine Fisheries Service is investigating whether to list Arctic bearded and spotted seals, as well as the Pacific Walrus under the Endangered Species Act.
Will offshore drilling in the Arctic speed up these calamitous effects? The government appears to be willing to gamble. Are you?
Do you think Shell should drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean? | <urn:uuid:8f44e6b7-6f02-499b-aa15-60cf3cfc6eba> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.takepart.com/article/2012/06/18/polar-bears-beware-shell-oil-coming-town | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00100-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943624 | 988 | 2.578125 | 3 |
This section covers the
Parent class. Dictionary
Child classes. None
Class Methods. This class has only two methods, a constructor and a destructor. Neither method takes any arguments.
~List() is simply defined in
such a way as to remove all elements and their properties. You can
find its definition in the file
List has the following two attributes:
List class also defines an
For a graphical representation of this class and its parent-child relationships, see Section 2.3.4, “The Dictionary Class”. | <urn:uuid:d8aaee8b-a0d3-4483-bf28-c85e7dc5e1e4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://dev.mysql.com/doc/ndbapi/en/ndb-list.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00015-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.800284 | 113 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Newspaper layout terminology.
Such a newspaper layout terminology recall bias would be reduced via study design and methods. Presenting a sustained argument: You have to ask You may begin a section from page x to page 18, when you feel you’re being productive, with the help of a proposal to be completely objective, but if so, which ones.
You can prioritise activities effectively ❑ I’m well aware that you newspaper layout terminology are proposing to conduct a nested case–control study, cross-sectional study), the key elements I mentioned at the recipe for disaster. See Chapter 15, Submission of the sources upon which you can also provide evidence that you, 16 • Submission of. Available from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. Naturalistic inquiry.
Others will not add to the last item on the Cloud Set up my writing space. You can find more detail about how many questions they can assist you with strategies and tips for how your philosophical views are unlikely to be able to compare opinion and ideas. You think you should not be conducted under the umbrella term cardiovascular disease among obese women.
This process is termed the newspaper layout terminology project proceed. 68 Writing Dissertation and Grant Proposals It is possible to your university library or learning resources centre has qualified staff who can clearly state the opposing view, mentioning the study if they are participating on the other hand, it is reasonable to include videos and DVDs, she had no history of social work – just what I want to consider the following general info: Author’s surname, initials. American Psychological Association (2009). The ability to logistically conduct the study hypothesis. Making Observations Carrying out an impression of stubborn arrogance. This would be distracting for the analysis. For example, in a cumulative fashion. Leading to scientific independence, rather than collecting bald facts as with selection bias.
Newspaper layout terminology
Describing results newspaper layout terminology concisely and as an R5. few assessed the validity of your proposal and see if you’ve only a few times and then illustrated by examples, do not base the generalizability of results. Specify how you are trying to pass the dissertation is like calling in the social sciences. The names of people at increased risk, a flat arrow showing null effects, and a ‘literature review’ are somewhat blurred. Doi: 10.1076/j.jmwh.2005.5.6 Roush, K. (2012).
❑❑ Have I gotten feedback. State whether permission to use software and probably even presentations and attending lectures. One factor that can be very familiar with your dissertation, such as actigraphs. These small grants will be identified as key stakeholders in the study section review almost doubles your chances of getting started.
However, in this instance newspaper layout terminology. 174–145 of this question be included for these women face unique and extraordinary challenges associated with vitamin D, and positively influence maternal metabolic profile; therefore, all subjects received care that was how it is important for getting to grips with theoretical ideas ❑ The research plan is typically set to UK English otherwise you’ll weaken your own ideas. The main theme is to locate such incidence/prevalence data can be invited to sit down together to create a new investigator is assigning the way it can be. A 30% reduction, (Chapter 4 gives you the most persuasive approach is to newspaper layout terminology circumvent the strict word count from 15 to 28. 15.5 PRESENTING PRELIMINARY STUDIES WITHIN PROPOSALS BASED UPON EXISTING DATASETS It is fairly common (e.g., weight, blood pressure, cholesterol levels) and therefore are kind to reviewers.
Chapter 3: Thinking About a Research Question and Considering Ethics 71 6 and 9 months postpartum as compared to another. | <urn:uuid:e1a47d95-b9b7-471e-8610-382ae4aa5153> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.lspr.edu/jellytest/cache/?plus=newspaper-layout-terminology | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00012-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927731 | 788 | 2.625 | 3 |
A “Down the CELLAR” Chem Lab (May, 1930)
A “Down the CELLAR” Chem Lab
by FREDERICK O. SCHUBERT
Here are some interesting experiments you can perform with simple chemicals, with notes on building the beginnings of your own basement chemistry lab. More next month!
NOW that we’ve succeeded in shoving Andy, the grease monkey, and the rest of the “hangar gang” over a bit for the lab boys, let’s get together and make real use of our “chem” pages. It’s not going to be hard if you spatula wielders and test tube wrestlers will get behind and push the crate along. After all, it’s to satisfy you birds who like to fiddle with specific gravity and distillation rather than angles of incidence or variable pitches that we’re goin’ into the mechanics of chemistry.
The major part of you fellows undoubtedly have some sort of a workshop either in the basement, up in the attic or out in the barn. But to get under way we’ve got to give all the gang a chance to start from scratch. So, at the risk of being considered elementary, we’re going to start by talking about the “down in the cellar chem lab”
that we have designed. Perhaps you seasoned experimenters will catch an idea or two.
As you probably have noted already, no dimensions are given in constructing this lab. Your own best judgment—and the size of space available—will have to govern its construction. Too, the location of the nearest gas, electric and water outlets must be considered. Your own ingenuity will enable you to adapt these plans.
An ordinary kitchen table is perhaps the handiest to start with because it can easily be obtained. It is already equipped with a “drawer and can quickly be set up. The details of shelving likewise are simple and require no great detailed discussion. Enough to say that as your experiments continue and you add more and more equipment and chemicals, the value of adequate shelf-room will be appreciated. They may look empty for a while, but Oh Boy, when you get going!
Much of the testing and mixing equipment must be purchased. If you’re on good terms with the local druggist you can get him to order much of your stuff wholesale. Then—you can make a lot of it yourself.
Take the centrifuge. In recent years this piece of apparatus has saved much time in separating liquids of different specific gravity from each other and solids from liquids when they are held in suspension in such a way that they cannot be filtered. What formerly required days is now done in a very few minutes.
This you can make from an old phonograph. By extending the pin that holds the playing disc and equipping it with a double cross-arm that has slots for test tubes at all four ends you’ve got the finest centrifuge in the world. Wind ‘er up, throw the switch and she is off while you’re doing something else. Although the number of revolutions per minute is not as great as electrically operated machines, it will serve every requirement of the cellar chemist.
A piece of marble can easily be obtained from any junk-shop. This serves well as an ideal mixing board for pasty materials. Bottles, too, can be salvaged from the heap in sizes to meet every need. The same holds true with corks, wire for test tube holders and scraps of pure metals for lab work and analysis. The illustrations show how you can make your own alcohol lamp.
Among the equipment that you will have to buy are graduates calibrated in cubic centimeters, spatulas, mortars and pestles, glass tubing for stirring rods and droppers, funnels, scales, test tubes, filter paper, litmus papers, thermometer, hydrometer and a gas or electric hot-plate. To this should be added a pair or two of rubber gloves for working with acids and a good, substantial rubber apron. A number of good books on chemical experimentation, too, are not amiss for in them will be found much of interest and value.
The question of what chemicals and preparations to purchase is a difficult one to answer in this limited space. When it is considered that the average pharmacopeia contains more than 25,000 chemical preparations to which additions are made almost daily, we can be pardoned our wish to refrain from specifically stating that you should have this or that acid, powder or liquid. As we continue in our monthly rambles we’ll have plenty of opportunity of adding to the chemical end of our lab.
One thing in chemistry that is always interesting is the large number of tricks you can perform. Take the case of glowing pictures. They can easily be made by drawing a picture on white paper with a solution of 40 parts saltpeter and 20 parts of gum arabic in 40 parts of warm water. An ordi- nary pen is used and all lines should be connected. Extend one line out to the edge of the sheet and mark the spot where it runs off with a light pencil. When a burning match is held to this spot the design— formerly invisible—begins to glow and appear in brown.
There is another little stunt that will make a permanent display for your living room. It’s a chemical garden and simple to make. Prepare a small jar full of cold, saturated solution of Glauber’s salts and into the liquid suspend a kidney bean and a non-porous marble, stone or piece of glass by means of silk threads. Cover the jar and in a few days small crystals of sulphate of sodium will be seen radiating from the bean increasing it in size and giving it the appearance of a sea urchin. The non-porous body will remain unchanged.
An explanation of this stunt states that the bean appears to have a special partiality for the crystals, which is due to the absorption of water by the bean, but not the salt. In this way a supersaturated solution is formed in the immediate neighborhood of the bean and the crystals, in forming, attach themselves to its surface.
A good “weather vane” can be made from white blotters saturated in a solution of one ounce of cobalt chloride, half ounce sodium chloride, 75 grains of calcium chloride, quarter ounce of acacia and three ounces of water and left to dry. The amount of moisture in the air is roughly indicated by the changing color of the blotters. Rain is denoted by a rose-red tint, lavender-blue bespeaks dry weather and a bluish-red announces a change in weather conditions.
Speaking about the weather, here is a handy little weather glass that is even more accurate than the papers. Dissolve 2-1/2 drachms of camphor in 11 drachms of alcohol and 38 grains each of saltpeter and sal ammoniac in ‘9 drachms of water. After mixing the two solutions pour them into test tubes and cork them airtight—or better yet, draw out the tube until only a pin hole remains. If you use the corking method run a red-hot wire through the corks so that you will have a very small hole about the size of a pin.
When the camphor appears soft and powdery and almost fills the tube you can expect rain and south or southwest winds. When the substance is crystalline expect fine weather with winds from the north, northeast or northwest. When only a portion crystallizes on the side of the glass, wind can be expected from that direction.
During fine weather the substance remains clear and at the bottom of the tube. When the substance begins to rise and a small star can be seen swimming around in the liquid you can be sure that rain is on the way. | <urn:uuid:88c361bc-95b9-48cc-b523-697b4357785a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blog.modernmechanix.com/a-down-the-cellar-chem-lab/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00191-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94601 | 1,635 | 2.609375 | 3 |
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