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“He was a Northern man who was Southern in his views on race,” explains Finkelman. “He said he didn’t care whether slavery was voted up or down, but most Northerners did care. He may have been the only person in America who didn’t. Many Northerners, and Lincoln is a great example, thought the Missouri Compromise was just a notch below the Constitution as a fundamental part of the American political framework. They saw it as putting slavery on the road to extinction, and that was for them a sacred goal. Kansas-Nebraska betrayed this.” And so, the battle lines were drawn.
Douglas seemed unfazed at first, confident he could undo the damage. He soon discovered otherwise. Speaking in Chicago on behalf of his party to kick off the 1854 Congressional election campaign in Illinois—though he wasn’t on the ballot himself—Douglas was interrupted by “an uproar of shouts, groans and hisses,” reports Johannsen. “Missiles” were thrown, and “to the delight of the crowd, Douglas lost his temper, denouncing the assemblage as a mob and replying to their taunts by shaking his fist, which only intensified the din. . . . ” Douglas put up with the heckling for more than two hours, then angrily strode from the platform. “It is now Sunday morning,” he was said to have shouted back at his tormentors (though some historians doubt that he did). “I’ll go to church, and you may go to hell!”
The ensuing election confirmed the devastating impact of Douglas’ bill on his Democratic party. Opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act carried both houses of the Illinois legislature, which at that time still elected U.S. senators, and free-state Democrats lost 66 of their 91 seats in the House of Representatives. Suddenly, the Democrats found themselves a Southern party, one that would be able after 1856 to elect only one president in the remainder of the century.
Meanwhile, Abraham Lincoln, a former one-term congressman nearly five years out of office, had joined the fray. Stumping for Richard Yates, a candidate for Congress in the 1854 election, Lincoln tore into Kansas-Nebraska, calling it “covert real zeal for the spread of slavery.” In so doing, he was directly challenging Douglas, setting the stage for the crucial debates between them four years later that would make Lincoln a national figure. “I was losing interest in politics,” he wrote in a letter in 1859, “when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again.” Lincoln was capable of raising the slavery debate to a level at which Douglas seems profoundly disadvantaged, in retrospect (as he wasn’t then), by his obvious disdain for blacks, slave or free. “I care more for the great principle of self-government,” Douglas would one day declare, “. . . than I do for all the negroes in Christendom.” According to his biographer William Lee Miller, Lincoln quoted Douglas as saying that in all contests between the Negro and the crocodile, Douglas was for the Negro, but that in all questions between the Negro and the white man, he was for the white man.
While Douglas viewed popular sovereignty as a bedrock democratic value, Lincoln saw its application to slavery as a callous statement of moral indifference. And he equated revoking the Missouri Compromise with repudiating the Declaration of Independence itself. “Near eighty years ago,” he observed, “we began by declaring that all men are created equal; but now . . . we have run down to the other declaration, that for some men to enslave others is a ‘sacred right of self-government.’”
Though Lincoln’s feelings about what he called “the monstrous injustice of slavery” were sincere, he was no abolitionist, and he felt bound to accept slavery where it existed. He was, like Douglas, a practical man, with whom the Union always came first. He endorsed the spirit of compromise on which it depended, and which he believed Kansas-Nebraska subverted. “And what shall we have in lieu of [this spirit]?” he asked. “The South flushed with triumph and tempted to excesses; the North, betrayed, as they believe, brooding on wrong and burning for revenge. One side will provoke; the other resent. The one will taunt, the other defy; one aggresses, the other retaliates.”
That is precisely what happened. “Any plausible explanation of the failure to find another sectional compromise in 1860-61 would have to include the fact that [trust in such agreements] took a deadly hit with Kansas-Nebraska,” says Forgie. “Why would anyone sign on to a compromise again?” And once awakened, the South’s hope that Kansas might become the 16th slave state took on a tenacious life of its own. When the North proved equally determined to keep Kansas free, the territory turned into a battlefield.
Events quickly took an ominous turn. When New England abolitionists formed the Emigrant Aid Company to seed Kansas with antislavery settlers, proslavery Missourians sensed an invasion. “We are threatened,” an acquaintance complained in a letter to Senator Atchison, “with being made the unwilling receptacle of the filth, scum and offscourings of the East . . . to preach abolition and dig underground Railroads.”
In fact, most emigrants did not go to Kansas to preach anything, much less to dig. As likely to be antiblack as they were antislavery, they went for land, not a cause. Likewise, most proslavery settlers had neither slaves nor the prospect of having any. Yet these distinctions didn’t much matter. Kansas became part of the larger American drama, and the few thousand settlers who made their home in the territory found themselves surrogates, reluctant or not, of the inexorable issues that threatened the Union. “Kansas,” says Forgie, “much like Korea or Berlin in the Cold War, readily took form as the arena in which a battle was being waged for much larger stakes. Which section’s institutions would shape the future of the continent?”
What happened in Kansas has been called a bushwhackers’ war, and it began with a bushwhacked election. Defending themselves against what they saw as Yankee fanatics and slave stealers, thousands of Missourians, led by Senator Atchison himself, crossed the border into Kansas in March 1855 to elect, illegally, a proslavery territorial legislature. “There are eleven hundred coming over from PlatteCounty to vote,” Atchison shouted at one point, “and if that ain’t enough we can send five thousand—enough to kill every God-damned abolitionist in the territory!” When the new legislature promptly expelled its few antislavery members, the disenfranchised Free-Soilers set up their own shadow government. | <urn:uuid:d395f2af-55b6-4571-be9c-33eda2279cd6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-law-that-ripped-america-in-two-99723670/?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00024-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975597 | 1,506 | 3.171875 | 3 |
2.4.3 Advances in Modelling the Aerosol Direct Effect
Since the TAR, more complete aerosol modules in a larger number of global atmospheric models now provide estimates of the direct RF. Several models have resolutions better than 2° by 2° in the horizontal and more than 20 to 30 vertical levels; this represents a considerable enhancement over the models used in the TAR. Such models now include the most important anthropogenic and natural species. Tables 2.4, 2.5 and 2.6 summarise studies published since the TAR. Some of the more complex models now account explicitly for the dynamics of the aerosol size distribution throughout the aerosol atmospheric lifetime and also parametrize the internal/external mixing of the various aerosol components in a more physically realistic way than in the TAR (e.g., Adams and Seinfeld, 2002; Easter et al., 2004; Stier et al., 2005). Because the most important aerosol species are now included, a comparison of key model output parameters, such as the total τaer, against satellite retrievals and surface-based sun photometer and lidar observations is possible (see Sections 2.4.2 and 2.4.4). Progress with respect to modelling the indirect effects due to aerosol-cloud interactions is detailed in Section 2.4.5 and Section 7.5. Several studies have explored the sensitivity of aerosol direct RF to current parametrization uncertainties. These are assessed in the following sections.
Major progress since the TAR has been made in the documentation of the diversity of current aerosol model simulations. Sixteen groups have participated in the Global Aerosol Model Intercomparison (AeroCom) initiative (Kinne et al., 2006). Extensive model outputs are available via a dedicated website (Schulz et al., 2004). Three model experiments (named A, B, and PRE) were analysed. Experiment A models simulate the years 1996, 1997, 2000 and 2001, or a five-year mean encompassing these years. The model emissions and parametrizations are those determined by each research group, but the models are driven by observed meteorological fields to allow detailed comparisons with observations, including those from MODIS, MISR and the AERONET sun photometer network. Experiment B models use prescribed AeroCom aerosol emissions for the year 2000, and experiment PRE models use prescribed aerosol emissions for the year 1750 (Dentener et al., 2006; Schulz et al., 2006). The model diagnostics included information on emission and deposition fluxes, vertical distribution and sizes, thus enabling a better understanding of the differences in lifetimes of the various aerosol components in the models.
This paragraph discusses AeroCom results from Textor et al. (2006). The model comparison study found a wide range in several of the diagnostic parameters; these, in turn, indicate which aerosol parametrizations are poorly constrained and/or understood. For example, coarse aerosol fractions are responsible for a large range in the natural aerosol emission fluxes (dust: ±49% and sea salt: ±200%, where uncertainty is 1 standard deviation of inter-model range), and consequently in the dry deposition fluxes. The complex dependence of the source strength on wind speed adds to the problem of computing natural aerosol emissions. Dust emissions for the same time period can vary by a factor of two or more depending on details of the dust parametrization (Luo et al., 2003; Timmreck and Schulz, 2004; Balkanski et al., 2004; Zender, 2004), and even depend on the reanalysis meteorological data set used (Luo et al., 2003). With respect to anthropogenic and natural emissions of other aerosol components, modelling groups tended to make use of similar best guess information, for example, recently revised emissions information available via the Global Emissions Inventory Activity (GEIA). The vertical aerosol distribution was shown to vary considerably, which is a consequence of important differences in removal and vertical mixing parametrizations. The inter-model range for the fraction of sulphate mass below 2.5 km to that of total sulphate is 45 ± 23%. Since humidification takes place mainly in the boundary layer, this source of inter-model variability increases the range of modelled direct RF. Additionally, differences in the parametrization of the wet deposition/vertical mixing process become more pronounced above 5 km altitude. Some models have a tendency to accumulate insoluble aerosol mass (dust and carbonaceous aerosols) at higher altitudes, while others have much more efficient wet removal schemes. Tropospheric residence times, defined here as the ratio of burden over sinks established for an equilibrated one-year simulation, vary by 20 to 30% for the fine-mode aerosol species. These variations are of interest, since they express the linearity of modelled emissions to aerosol burden and eventually to RF.
Considerable progress has been made in the systematic evaluation of global model results (see references in Tables 2.4 to 2.6). The simulated global τaer at a wavelength of 0.55 µm in models ranges from 0.11 to 0.14. The values compare favourably to those obtained by remote sensing from the ground (AERONET, about 0.135) and space (satellite composite, about 0.15) (Kinne et al., 2003, 2006), but significant differences exist in regional and temporal distributions. Modelled absorption optical thickness has been suggested to be underestimated by a factor of two to four when compared to observations (Sato et al., 2003) and DRE efficiencies have been shown to be lower in models both for the global average and regionally (Yu et al., 2006) (see Section 188.8.131.52). A merging of modelled and observed fields of aerosol parameters through assimilation methods of different degrees of complexity has also been performed since the TAR (e.g., Yu et al., 2003; Chung et al., 2005). Model results are constrained to obtain present-day aerosol fields consistent with observations. Collins et al. (2001) showed that assimilation of satellite-derived fields of τaer can reduce the model bias down to 10% with respect to daily mean τaer measured with a sun photometer at the Indian Ocean Experiment (INDOEX) station Kaashidhoo. Liu et al. (2005) demonstrated similar efficient reduction of errors in τaer. The magnitude of the global dust cycle has been suggested to range between 1,500 and 2,600 Tg yr–1 by minimising the bias between model and multiple dust observations (Cakmur et al., 2006). Bates et al. (2006) focused on three regions downwind of major urban/population centres and performed radiative transfer calculations constrained by intensive and extensive observational parameters to derive 24-hour average clear-sky DRE of –3.3 ± 0.47, –14 ± 2.6 and –6.4 ± 2.1 W m–2 for the north Indian Ocean, the northwest Pacific and the northwest Atlantic, respectively. By constraining aerosol models with these observations, the uncertainty associated with the DRE was reduced by approximately a factor of two. | <urn:uuid:12251d51-84dc-407b-ab2b-58f38b665e2b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-4-3.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395992.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00196-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.893262 | 1,489 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Online Writing Lab
Because grammar can be complicated, some instructors are hesitant to teach and/or address grammar in their classrooms. Some instructors also believe that grammar should be taught in a composition class, not in the classroom of a non-English discipline. While it is certainly true that composition classes do teach grammar, students often need additional grammar practice in order to become better writers.
Furthermore, it is important to realize that it is likely that not all students in any particular class have successfully passed an English Composition class. Prerequisites and guidelines are often changing and, unfortunately, are not always followed. Even if a particular composition class is supposed to be a requirement for students to enroll in your class, you cannot assume that all of your students have done so.
Finally, keep in mind that if you expect your students to write grammatically correct, and a portion of their grade on a writing assignment is based on their ability to do so, it must be addressed in your class. Without any form of grammar practice, it becomes hard to justify assessing a student’s ability to write grammatically correct.
Tips for Teaching Grammar
Hold 5 minute grammar Lessons: Many instructors fail to cover grammar due to a lack of available class time. This is a legitimate concern, but addressing a few grammar issues doesn’t have to take a lot of time. Think about beginning class sessions with quick grammar sessions that explain one particular rule and provide a few, quick examples. Doing this frequently will allow for sufficient grammar review without disrupting important class content.
Focus on the errors you see the most: If, for example, students are creating far more comma splices than they should, spend a portion of the class discussing this issue and how to prevent it. This can be done for both common errors and ones that are irritating, even if not entirely common.
Focus on the guidelines that are particularly important to your discipline: Every discipline has different writing rules that need to be followed, and these differences across disciplines often confuse students. Because of this, focus on the rules that are most important in your discipline and explain why. This allows your students to better understand certain rules and why these subtle differences in different content areas exist.
Make it a part of content lessons and/or workshops: Every time you model a full essay or a partial one (a body paragraph, for example), quickly address the grammar issues in addition to the content ones. This can also be done as part of peer workshops, where students can help each other with grammar issues (more on peer workshops).
It is also important to keep in mind that grammar is dynamic and varies between disciplines. Because of this, don’t teach all forms of grammar as strict rules for your students to always follow in all of their writings, but instead emphasize why the rule is important to a given discipline. | <urn:uuid:ccb24714-7937-4b84-ae31-cc9b7e3ecd50> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.aims.edu/student/online-writing-lab/resources/teaching-grammar | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00021-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952392 | 575 | 3.34375 | 3 |
ATF National Laboratories
Types of Fingerprints
- creates a permanent record
- tracks criminal history
- fingers, palms, soles of feet
- establishes presence at the crime scene
Obtaining Inked/Rolled Prints
- Have subject wash hands prior to printing
- Print the fingers, palms, writer's palm
- Note all missing and unprintable fingers
- Make sure prints are clear & legible
- Use thinly rolled ink--not porlon ink pad
- Agent and suspect should sign & date card
- visible/ patent
- Prints are affected and effected by:
- person touching surface
- the receiving surface
- the conditions of the scene
- how item is packaged, shipped & processed at lab
- ATF Form 4473
- the original 4473
- original print card if available
photograph of printcard--not photocopy!
- include palm and "writer's palm" prints
Factors Concerning Prints
- Time between print deposit and development directly effects print recovery.
- Improper shipment techniques can wipe off or eliminate prints.
- Lab specialists have the training, equipment, and are willing to assist
in the field.
Packaging and Shipping
- Make sure all items are dry before packaging and transporting to lab.
- Plastic and visible prints: photograph before object is moved or print
- Invisible prints: with proper training/experience, agents may use superglue
method to fix prints prior to shipping.
- Non-porous evidence:
- Print lies on surface (examples: guns, pipe fragments, plastic fragments,
metal cans, plastic bags, drug scales, glass).
- Do not allow these types of items to come in contact with other objects.
- Do not allow item to shift inside packaging.
- Do not use styrofoam packaging materials.
- Remember to clear and render-safe all guns
before shipping (use wire or nylon tie downs to secure inside box).
- Always wear gloves & handle object as little as possible.
- Porous evidence:
- Moisture from print is absorbed into the matrix (examples: paper, untreated
- Wear gloves when handling object
- Use paper envelopes, document protectors, or heavy duty plastic bags
- Wrap wood & cardboard boxes in paper
Reprinted with permission. | <urn:uuid:42f6c4af-7dfb-4cd6-a9cb-c91d4905f461> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.interfire.org/res_file/atflabfp.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397111.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00113-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.838955 | 490 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Chair: Marlene DeVoe
Information Technology is an important tool to realize many strategies. This includes:
- Enhanced teaching and learning.
- Preparation of students for the rapidly-changing environment.
- Increased building and maintenance of relationships.
- Appropriate use of information technology to enhance safety and security.
- Widespread us of information technology to provide easy access and more "user-friendly" services.
- Increased levels of institutional research.
- Identification of resources to strengthen and support information technology infrastructure and use.
The technology subcommittee has released the Teaching Learning Technology Roundtable's plan: http://www.stcloudstate.edu/~tltr
The technology subcommittee is interested in your comments about the plan. Send your comments via email to: Techplan@stcloudstate.edu
Marlene DeVoe, Chair
WH 204, 654-5368 | <urn:uuid:67908624-b44b-4806-bf22-ebc9498eb759> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.stcloudstate.edu/ospe/planning/1999_2000/themes/technology.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00065-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.814883 | 181 | 3.140625 | 3 |
A recent piece in The Wall Street Journal noted that “Unintended pregnancies likely cost the federal and state governments more than $11 billion a year,” based on research published by the Brookings Institution.
A major reason for the cost to government, notes the author, is that “women who unintentionally get pregnant are more likely to be low-income” and thus “are more likely to be eligible for government-financed medical care.” The Brookings report also notes that the majority (57 percent) of these births are to women who are unmarried: one of the greatest predictors of child poverty in the United States today. The strong link between unwed childbearing and poverty creates little wonder that the majority of births to unmarried women are financed by Medicaid.
However, the costs don’t stop at birth. In fact, it’s only the beginning. As Heritage Foundation analyst Robert Rector asserts, “Once the taxpayer has paid for the childbirth, aid to the [low-income, single] mother and child will generally continue through a wide variety of programs for years to come.”
In fact, roughly 75 percent of all families on welfare are single-parent families. With the number of unwed births skyrocketing over the last five decades (more than 40 percent of births in the United States today are to single moms), the cost of federal welfare has mushroomed. Currently, Washington operates more than 70 welfare programs at a cost edging toward $1 trillion annually.
Yet poverty and government dependence aren’t the only problems connected to single-parent families. Children raised without fathers are at greater risk for a host of negative outcomes, such as poorer social and emotional behavior, delinquency, and lower academic outcomes.
However, the answer to preventing unwed births for these low-income women is not more birth control, as Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, proposes in The Wall Street Journal.
In fact, women from low-income neighborhoods report that a lack of access to birth control is not why they became pregnant. While some of these women say their pregnancies were indeed unintended, many report that they wanted to have a child or at least that their becoming pregnant was not completely unintentional.
However, while these women may be well versed in birth control, the message on the importance of marriage is often never heard. As Robert Rector notes:
“…young people in low-income communities are never told that having a child outside of marriage will have negative consequences. They are never told that marriage has beneficial effects. The schools, the welfare system, the health care system, public authorities, and the media all remain scrupulously silent on the subject.”
The growing rate of unwed childbearing is putting more families at risk for poverty, welfare dependence, and a host of other ill outcomes, leading to increased welfare spending and debt for the nation. Men and women in low-income communities must understand the critical importance of waiting to have children until marriage. Campaigns to promote marriage and warn of the risks associated with single parenting are an important step in strengthening marriages and communities. Furthermore, the United States must also take steps to eliminate marriage penalties prevalent in many welfare programs.
Without the secure bonds that marriage provides, communities will continue to struggle, and the cost of government welfare will continue to rise. | <urn:uuid:3887425f-eabf-49e6-90ea-c279ccfa4300> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://dailysignal.com/2011/05/25/price-of-unwed-births-far-greater-than-the-hospital-bills/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397873.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00155-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966106 | 689 | 2.6875 | 3 |
UNH Research Shows Land Cover
Changes Affect Summer Climate
Contact: David Sims
Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space
March 25, 2004
DURHAM, N.H. -- While climate may be impacted by carbon dioxide
emissions, aerosols, and other factors, a new study co-authored
by University of New Hampshire scientist George Hurtt offers further
evidence that land surface changes may also play a significant role.
Using data and computer models from NASA, the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration and other agencies, the study of
summer climate in the United States reported that changes in land
cover, particularly vegetation, over the past 300 years may have
impacted regional temperatures and precipitation.
“Independent studies have suggested that the U.S. has warmed
on average since the Industrial Revolution. Our research suggests
that this warming might have been even greater had certain land
cover changes not occurred, “ said Hurtt of UNH's Institute
for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space and the Department of
Natural Resources. Somnath Baidya Roy, a research scientist at Princeton
University, was lead author of the study that appeared in a recent
issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres. Co-authors
include Hurtt, Christopher Weaver of Rutgers University, and Stephen
Pacala, also of Princeton.
The study found that since 1700, land cover changes produced a
significant cooling effect of more than one degree Fahrenheit in
parts of the Great Plains and Midwest as agriculture expanded and
replaced grasslands. Farmlands tend to create lower temperatures
through increased evaporation. A warming effect was found along
the Atlantic coast where croplands replaced forests.
Compared to forests, croplands are less efficient in transpiration,
a daytime process where water evaporates from leaves during photosynthesis
and cools the air. A slight warming effect was also observed across
the Southwest, where woodlands replaced some deserts.
The study also found that land cover changes could impact local
precipitation, but not as significantly as they affect temperature,
because U.S. summer rainfall is not highly dependent on local land
cover and evapotranspiration. The relatively strong cooling over
the central U.S. has probably weakened the temperature difference
between land and the Gulf of Mexico, slowing the northward movement
of weather systems and resulting in enhanced rainfall across Texas.
Consequently, the air masses reaching the Central Lowlands region,
including Illinois and Indiana are drier, causing rainfall reductions.
“Land cover change is not uniform. Most people associate
land cover change with deforestation, but the changes in the U.S.
are more complex, creating a temperature signal that is more difficult
to study,” said Roy. The forest cover in the U.S. has actually
increased in the last 100 years mainly due to farm abandonment in
the East and fire suppression in the West. In addition, large parts
of the Great Plains have been converted into irrigated croplands,
which tends to produce cooling.
The research also carries additional implications. “It is
important to understand the effects of changing land cover, because
it can mitigate or exacerbate greenhouse warming,” said Roy.
“In the U.S. over the past 100 years, it seems to be offsetting
greenhouse warming. The opposite is probably true in most other
parts of the world. This finding has also been supported in previous
Unlike previous studies that simulated and compared past and present
climates with potential and current vegetation respectively, this
research used the Ecosystem Demography model in conjunction with
a regional climate model to track changes in land cover characteristics
for nearly 300 years. “The ED model is a technological breakthrough
and enables scientists to study the potential impacts of land use
and climate change across a wide range of scales, from individual
plants to continental regions,” said Hurtt. | <urn:uuid:7ef3629c-b957-4cf6-9008-e94fbe8dabc5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.unh.edu/news/news_releases/2004/march/ds_20040325eos_hurtt.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00076-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928435 | 840 | 3.546875 | 4 |
The monitor is an extension of early operating system designs. Early
operating systems provided resource control by running users programs
uninterruptedly, by having complete control of I/O
and by having exclusive use of some parts of memory.
This gothic monitor may be provided as a more decentralized tool for
the applications programmer:
A monitor is a collection of procedures with private data, plus an
Entry to the procedures in a monitor is defined to be mutually
exclusive (i.e. a strict monitor has only one client at a time).
To proved synchronisation between processes calling these routines,
are a pair of routines like semaphores. Since the monitor has private
(safe) data to count events with, we only require the blocking and
waking functionality. This is shown in figure #fnmon#367>. | <urn:uuid:7db719a4-4d06-43f4-be40-8011d34373d4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~jac22/books/ods/ods/node52.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393463.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00157-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.89981 | 172 | 3.359375 | 3 |
A Japanese engineer from Yasukawa Electric Company coined the term "mechatronics" in 1969 to reflect the merging of mechanical and electrical engineering disciplines. Until the early 1980s, mechatronics meant a mechanism that is electrified. In the mid-1980s, mechatronics came to mean engineering that is the boundary between mechanics and electronics. Today, the term encompasses a large array of technologies, many of which have become well known in their own right. Each technology still has the basic element of the merging of mechanics and electronics but now also may involve much more, particularly software and information technology.
For example, many early robots resulted from mechatronics development. As robot systems became smarter, software development, in addition to the mechanical and electrical systems, became central to mechatronics.
Mechatronics gained legitimacy in academic circles in 1996 with the publication of the first refereed journal: IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics. In the premier issue, the authors worked to define mechatronics. After acknowledging that many definitions have circulated, they selected the following for articles to be included in Transactions: "The synergistic integration of mechanical engineering with electronics and intelligent computer control in the design and manufacturing of industrial products and processes."1 The authors suggested 11 topics that should fall, at least in part, under the general category of mechatronics:
Despite the growth of interest in mechatronics, the field faces several dilemmas. For example, while interest in mechatronics is on the rise, many younger people in Japan's engineering community have never heard the term used. Also, a thorough study of all areas under mechatronics as defined in that initial issue of Transactions would be very broad, and would include topics that have very little in common. | <urn:uuid:ca696c37-ecbd-4d80-b672-3f4e6aba6ddf> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wtec.org/loyola/mechtron/01_02.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00013-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968253 | 358 | 2.890625 | 3 |
March 19, 2013 > Brain Awareness Week Celebrates Benefits of Brain Research
Brain Awareness Week Celebrates Benefits of Brain Research
New study shows earlier use of Gamma Knife radiosurgery can help prevent permanent hearing loss from non-cancerous brain tumor
This week is Brain Awareness Week, a global campaign to increase public awareness of the progress and benefits of brain research. Event sponsor the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives states, "disorders of the brain are a major cause of death and disability worldwide" so "finding ways to prevent, treat, and cure disorders of the nervous system is a primary goal of neuroscience research."
Here in the Tri-City area, the latest neuroscience research is having an impact on advanced medical care offered at Washington Hospital's Taylor McAdam Bell Neuroscience Institute. One example is a French study of treatment for acoustic neuroma, a non-cancerous brain tumor located on the main nerve leading from the inner ear to the brain.
Neurosurgeon Sandeep Kunwar, M.D., co-medical director of the Institute's Gamma Knife program, reports the study shows Gamma Knife radiosurgery for acoustic neuroma, when done at an earlier stage than recommended previously, can lessen the chance of a patient experiencing permanent hearing damage.
"Sometimes, people with acoustic neuroma have no symptoms, especially in the early stages. Until now, doctors believed simply monitoring the tumor was often the best strategy," explained Dr. Kunwar. "But, if the tumor grows, patients are at risk of being unable to recover their hearing."
"Data from this new study indicates radiosurgery with the Gamma Knife, when done at an earlier stage, increases the likelihood of preserving a patient's hearing," he continued. "For this reason and because the Gamma Knife has an excellent record of safety and effectiveness, we are becoming more aggressive in treating acoustic neuromas."
About 3,000 Americans are diagnosed with acoustic neuroma each year. This type of benign tumor represents from 5 percent to 10 percent of all brain tumors in adults. People in their 40s and 50s tend to be at higher risk of having an acoustic neuroma.
"Acoustic neuromas usually grow slowly, with symptoms appearing gradually," said Dr. Kunwar.
Symptoms may include ringing in the ear or increasing dizziness and problems with balance, sometimes accompanied by nausea or vomiting. There may also be hearing loss, usually in one ear, or a feeling of pressure in the ear.
"If you have these symptoms, especially hearing loss, ringing in your ear or difficulty with balance, you should see your doctor," recommended Dr. Kunwar.
Diagnosing an acoustic neuroma can be difficult, especially in its early stages, he added. One reason is that the symptoms are similar to those experienced by people who have middle or inner ear problems.
To check for an acoustic neuroma, doctors perform an ear exam and hearing test. An MRI, or magnetic resonance image, is taken to confirm the existence, size and location of the tumor.
When a neurosurgeon determines that the acoustic neuroma should be treated, options include traditional open surgery or minimally invasive endoscopic microsurgery to remove the tumor. With surgery, there is a risk that the patient's facial nerve or hearing may be damaged. Radiation therapy is another option to slow or stop tumor growth
"Gamma Knife radiosurgery is an excellent alternative to surgery and other forms of conventional radiation therapy," stated Dr. Kunwar. "Compared to surgery, the Gamma Knife controls tumor growth 97 percent of the time, and the chance of facial nerve injury is less than 1 percent. There is also a much lower risk of infection than with conventional surgery."
Gamma Knife radiosurgery is nearly painless, and patients usually return home the same day the procedures is done, resuming normal activities the day after that. Rather than making an incision to remove the tumor, the Gamma Knife uses precisely focused beams of radiation to stop the tumor's growth without the risk of harming nearby tissue. This is especially critical when tumors are located near sensitive areas of the brain.
Dr. Kunwar is part of a skilled team of experts at Washington Hospital that includes physicians and surgeons, a physicist, technologists, nurses and other health care professionals. At the Taylor McAdam Bell Neuroscience Institute, they treat adults and children with a wide range of neurological problems.
The Leksell Gamma Knife PERFEXION, which is the Institute's technological cornerstone, is the worldwide gold standard for non-invasive radiosurgical treatment of many conditions involving the head and neck. Besides benign brain tumors, the Gamma Knife is used to treat malignant tumors, brain aneurysms, epilepsy, neurovascular diseases, spinal conditions and movement disorders.
To find out more about the Gamma Knife Program at Washington Hospital, go to www.gammaknifeprogram.com. For more information about Washington Hospital, visit www.whhs.com. For more about Brain Awareness Week, visit the Web site of the Dana Foundation at www.dana.org. | <urn:uuid:beb272b1-cee1-45c4-93f6-7b26596eea2e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.tricityvoice.com/articlefiledisplay.php?issue=2013-03-19&file=Brain+Awareness+Week+FINAL.txt | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398216.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00131-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938843 | 1,036 | 2.734375 | 3 |
By Jeanne Rose
Hydrosols are that other product of distillation when plants are steam-distilled to release their essential oil. Hydrosol simply means, hydro or 'water' and sol or 'solution', that is, the water solution that contains some of the water-soluble micro-molecules of essential oil as well as water-soluble plant components. These micro-molecules of essential oil give the hydrosol its scent and the plant components give the hydrosol its herbal or floral therapy.
Remember that hydrosols are not just misters, water to which essential oils have been added. Hydrosols are a unique product, a true part of distillation and cannot be manufactured synthetically.
The micro-drops of essential oil are left intact in the hydrosol. The hydrosol is only the first part of the distilled non-alcoholic waters that will come over - not all of it. They can be bottled 100% pure as they come out of the still or can be manufactured into products.
They have a strong taste, strong scent and a perfect acid balance of 5.5
to match human skin.
Terroir of the Plants
This is a French word originally applied to wine but that can easily be applied to the factors that affect an essential oil and its hydrosol. The essential oil reflects the expression of the earth, or the particular planting site (its ecology), in the resultant essential oil. Terroir is a factor of soil, shade, wind, water, rain and terrain. In the hydrosol, the water used in the distillation can also have an effect.
One of the mystiques of essential oils is the variation available. First, let us consider some of the variables in agriculture.
Earth, Wind, Water, Rain, and Terrain
1.) Clonal selection of the variety: Clones are physically like identical twins, but even closer, yet they show some different chemical characteristics that can have a rather dramatic difference in the end product. As an example, there are over 25 different identified clonal selections of Basil.
2.) Location of the planting: Anyplace, while only a relatively small area in relation to other growing region of the area, may exhibit widely different soil types, depths, textures, drainage, fertility, slopes (from steep hillsides to flat land), sun exposure, etc. Even within a small property, we see differences in a small distance.
3.) Weather variations: Rainfall in the spring, as well as later can directly affect flower and seed size, chemical concentration and health of the plant. We can see a wide variation of rainfall within any area. Regarding local temperature, there are hot spots and cool spots in any area.
Location relative to the water or mountains and the amount of wind
present are also factors: Finally, there are the year-to-year
weather variations, which can be significant. In recent years, there can
be both unusually hot seasons and long cool growing seasons. A
significant number of variables have been covered already without even
touching on growing or distillation techniques, which are some of the
most important variables. From
Essential Oils and Hydrosols © Jeanne Rose, 1998
Quality Essential Oil &
By Jeanne Rose
In order to get a quality essential oil and hydrosol, you must first start with the correct cultivar type of plant and then plant it in the best location in the correct soil type (for Lavender this may be above 2500 feet in chalky soil). Then distil it, analyze the essential oil and if the numbers (GC/MS) are correct for that particular plant, then you can plant out this as a crop and be pretty much assured that the essential oil and hydrosol will be a quality product. Each species of plant will have different needs and requirements.
You will also need a three-year plan before you try to market your product:
1. Know Your Soil.
An Essential Oil/Hydrosol for Aromatherapy Should Be:
What are Hydrosols?
The name Hydrosol was first used for some of the waters resulting from distillation in 1990 by Jeanne Rose. They are the pure natural 100% non-alcoholic distillate that is produced during the distillation process that also extracts the essential oils. They are quite fragrant, strongly flavored and have a pH of 5 or so. If they do not follow at least these 3 criteria then they cannot be considered hydrosol.
Hydrosols are real aromatic therapy. You might consider them the homeopathy of aromatherapy. Just as herbs are to homeopathy so are essential oils to hydrosols. Hydrosols represent the true synergy of herbalism and aromatherapy.
When the plants or flowers are put into the still, they are subjected to either boiling water, steam or both. The steam hits the plant, softens the scent-containing cells; the essential oil that is contained within the cell escapes as a vapor. This vapor mixes with the steam and goes through the gooseneck of the still apparatus and through the condensing coil, which is surrounded, by water. This cools the steam and vapor, which pours into the receiver as water and essential oil. The best scented hydrosols are obtained when copper is used in the distillation.
Due to the difference in specific gravity of essential oil and water, the condensate cools, the essential oil separates, floats to the surface of the water (hydrosol) and is removed leaving the hydrosol behind. However, not all of the water that comes over into the receiver is the hydrosol only the first 25-50%. For every 1-2 lbs of plant material, only up to 1 quart of hydrosol is produced. The hydrosol is acid in nature, usually about 4.5 to 5 pH.
produce herbal hydrosols (Rosemary and Marjoram) and flowers produce
floral hydrosols such as (Lavender and
Hydrosols are good for the skin!
Author Bio: Since 1969, Jeanne Rose has authored over 22 books including the well-respected 375 Essential Oils & Hydrosols, a complete reference book of plant extracts and hydrosols with clinical and botanical indices. Recently, she has produced a workbook on copper and Distillation How-To, Hydrosols & Aromatic Waters, Blending Essential Oils and another on Natural Perfumery. Jeanne Rose has a unique and mindful approach as she reaches out into the hearts of thousands of readers through her work. In addition to teaching through books and her three home-study courses, Jeanne travels throughout the United States and Canada to teach weekend Seminars on various aspects of aromatherapy and herbalism.
Rights Reserved 2002 to Course, Books, Kits and Profile.
Plant Project · 219 Carl Street · San Francisco, CA 94117 | <urn:uuid:eeecf60d-cc5e-4e8b-82e7-902b60dada10> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.aromaticplantproject.com/articles_archive/hydrosol_standard.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396100.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00128-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938317 | 1,438 | 3.015625 | 3 |
int write(int fd, const void *buf, unsigned int count);
- Return value:
- On success, the number of bytes written are returned.
Zero indicates nothing was written. On error, -1
- fd is not a valid file descriptor or is not open for
- bufptr is an invalid pointer value.
- An attempt was made to write a file that exceeds the
host-specific maximum file size allowed.
- No space on device to write the data.
- The call was interrupted by the user. | <urn:uuid:91b63459-71ef-4c90-882b-031812c730d3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://sourceware.org/gdb/onlinedocs/gdb/write.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00127-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.882496 | 114 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Videos tagged with ShowMeDo
John adds some colour to the mandelbrot fractal, which makes things look much prettier. Rather than gray, now the applet fades from black through to red in the bacground, to yellow on the edges of the fractal and white for the heart of the the fractal.
In this ShowMeDo John builds on the foundation laid previously to generate and display the Mandelbrot fractal in a Java Applet, as a further example of how to perform pixel level rendering. This video shows how to build a gray-scale Mandelbrot (colour comes later). Some of the source code for this tutorial is available in our wiki(JavaMontgomeryAppletSeries).An example of an interactive Mandelb...
The standard Java graphics library does not contain a drawPixel method, but there are plenty of ways to render graphics at the pixel level in Java. In this ShowMeDo John makes use of a BufferedImage so that an array of integers can be used as pixels for rendering on screen. See additional information and source code in the wiki(JavaMontgomeryAppletSeries). Video is here.
Animation is an essential ingredient of a good demo applet. In this ShowMeDo John demonstrates using a thread for animation. See additional information and source code in the wiki(JavaMontgomeryAppletSeries). Video is here.
Double-buffering is a technique used to minimise flicker on the screen, by drawing to an offscreen buffer and copying the buffer to the screen in one operation. John demonstrates this technique to create a double buffered Java Applet. Video is here.
Expanding the on the basic "hello world" applet, John demonstrates how to receive mouse events for basic user input and shows how to use this to alter the position of objects drawn on screen. Video is here.
A demonstration of writing a very simple "hello world" applet in Java. In this ShowMeDo John demonstrates how to create a Java Applet and how to render a string of text within the applet. Video is here.
The PataPata project is an experiment focusing on taking ideas from Squeak and Self and moving them to Python, as well as trying to go beyond the ideas in a Pythonic and educational constructivist way. It also aspires to help people build microworlds and other learning tools for the Python platform, using a prototype-based programming approach.
In this ShowMeDo, André Roberge discusses the concept of recursion, starting from the simplest example and ending with a graphical solution of the Tower of Hanoi puzzle using RUR-PLE. The importance of ensuring a proper termination condition and the pitfalls associated with an overly large number of function calls in generating Fibonacci numbers are also covered, as is the topic of memoization.
RUR-PLE is a programming environment designed to teach Python, somewhat akin to what Karel the Robot did for teaching Pascal in the early '80s. RUR-PLE includes a series of tutorials with various programming exercises. In this ShowMeDo André Roberge gives a brief tour of RUR-PLE, introducing the lesson browser, the editor, the Python interpreter and the robot world. This ShowMeDo concludes with... | <urn:uuid:e72851b6-bb87-498e-9dea-21fd904cc06b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bestechvideos.com/tag/showmedo?page=4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397565.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00050-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.886399 | 677 | 2.671875 | 3 |
My position that Y-STRs are effectively dead for age estimation stands, but I thought it'd be a good exercise to do this, as my personal adieu to more than a decade of Y-STRs: they didn't live up to their promise, but, indirectly, they helped create an entire field of "genetic prehistory" that will live on after their demise.
The greatest contribution of the Busby et al. (2011) paper is that it has cured the naivete of some who bought into the "more STRs = more accuracy" scheme. After this paper all Y-STR based estimates (including my own, above) are suspect.
The non-linearity of the Y-STR mutation model is only one of the problems of Y-STRs. Over the last few years, I've examined many commonly held wrong assumptions about the way Y-STRs have been used:
- The "evolutionary" mutation rate and its inflated dates
- The lack of appreciation of the true confidence intervals of age estimates (even under a well-behaved, symmetric stepwise mutation model), which are wider than believed by many, once uncertainty about generation length, mutation rates, and the inherent stochasticity of the mutation process is taken into account
- A common conflation of haplogroup ages with migration events; a migration event may be actually much older or much younger than the Y-STR variance age, usually the latter, except in rare cases of the colonization of islands or remote regions of the world.
- Influence of foreigner contamination or relics in the estimation of population ages.
- Impact of population demography to age estimates, even "interclade" ones
But, on the whole, they are worse than useless for the prehistorian: not only do they produce estimates fraught with danger, but also, being the only game in town, are prone to over-interpretation and spurious associations.
Thankfully, it will only be a few years more until we can move past the Y-STR swamp, and into the more promising territory of well-behaved unique event polymorphisms that are currently too costly to type on a large number of samples. Archaeogenetics will also help, although that, too, has its own perils (namely contamination, and the inability to get data from the hot and humid regions of the world).
One way or another, we're bound to know more in the future, and destroying the Y-STR behemoth is the first step toward making some real progress in genetic prehistory. | <urn:uuid:4777432c-fea3-4e2e-8d34-8b571c0739d3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2011/08/y-str-variance-of-busby-et-al-2011.html?showComment=1314649819471 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00026-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947775 | 525 | 2.5625 | 3 |
A. Yamada, T. Yamamoto, H. Ikeda, T. Nishida and S. Doshita
This paper describes the use and the benefit of the spatial image of the world in natural language understanding process. The actual or purely imaginary image of the world heli)s us to understand the natural language texts. In order to treat the image of the described world, the attthors use a geometric representation and try to reconstruct a geometric nmdel of the global scene from the scenic descriptions (in Japanese) drawing spax'e. An exl)erimental coml)uter program SPRINT is made to reconstruct a model. SPRINT extracts the qualitative spatial constraints from the text and represents them by the numerical constraints on spatial attributes of the descril)ed entities in the world. This makes it 1)ossible to express the vagueness of the spatial concepts, to accumulate fragmentary information on the memory, and to derive the maximally plausible model from a chunk of such information. In this process, the view of the observer and its transition is reflected. One can haxdly treat the view without such geometric representations. The visual disappearance of the spatial entities is also discussed with respect to the view of the observer. By constructing a geometric representation of the world, these phenomena are reviewed. | <urn:uuid:5d0be173-a3be-40e1-80e9-b9022aa57d8f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://aaai.org/Library/Symposia/Spring/1992/ss92-02-045.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395613.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00156-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.881958 | 268 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Details about Encyclopedia of North American Railroads:
Lavishly illustrated and a joy to read, this authoritative reference work on the North American continent's railroads covers the U.S., Canadian, Mexican, Central American, and Cuban systems. The encyclopedia's over-arching theme is the evolution of the railroad industry and the historical impact of its progress on the North American continent. This thoroughly researched work examines the various aspects of the industry's development: technology, operations, cultural impact, the evolution of public policy regarding the industry, and the structural functioning of modern railroads. More than 500 alphabetical entries cover a myriad of subjects, including numerous entries profiling the principal companies, suppliers, manufacturers, and individuals influencing the history of the rails. Extensive appendices provide data regarding weight, fuel, statistical trends, and more, as well as a list of 130 vital railroad books. Railfans will treasure this indispensable work.
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Rent Encyclopedia of North American Railroads 1st edition today, or search our site for other textbooks by William D. Middleton. Every textbook comes with a 21-day "Any Reason" guarantee. Published by Indiana University Press.
Need help ASAP? We have you covered with 24/7 instant online tutoring. Connect with one of our History tutors now. | <urn:uuid:e7bd7215-22a6-432a-8a28-d6585d92777f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.chegg.com/textbooks/encyclopedia-of-north-american-railroads-1st-edition-9780253349163-0253349168 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00034-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90303 | 265 | 2.578125 | 3 |
A hundred years ago, there wasn't much of a Philadelphia neighborhood called Eastwick. The southwesternmost portion of the city was sparsely populated and at that time
commonly known as The Meadows, so named for the marshlands that the Darby Creek flowed through en route to the Delaware River. Then in the 1930s, the airport came along.
With construction of the airport came the dredging of Darby Creek, thereby creating new open space. For a number of years, that space was occupied by small farms,
scattered homes and junkyards. All this changed in the 1950s.|
When urban renewal was taking off, the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority earmarked Eastwick's open spaces and deteriorating old infrastructure for a massive project. In 1953, it announced the largest urban renewal project in the country would change the face of the neighborhood. Indeed it would. The 50s were a unique period in American history in which the automobile was celebrated and the landscape evolved to reflect that. Architecture was modernized as well, accentuating forms, lines and simplicity and frowning on ornamentation. These two ideals, and to a lesser extent the fascination with outer space, very much lend a timeliness to Eastwick's visible development.
The Korman Company, known for its residences and retail facilities all across the northeast, was to have developed 'New Eastwick' for the urban renewal project, but to date only a fraction of that exists. Still, they own the rights to much of Eastwick, and as Mayor, Ed Rendell renewed their lease on the land for 99 more years.
Interestingly, then, this post-war neighborhood took shape as post-war American cities were witnessing flight to the suburbs, especially in Southwest Philadelphia. In a sense, Eastwick never had a sense to build the greater sense of regional, neighborhood pride that so many across the city possess before it started to change. That is not to say Eastwick is in a poor and blighted state. It's not, and arriving in Eastwick by way of neighboring Elmwood and Paschallville help toward illustrating things aren't bad.
Still, truthfully a lot of Eastwick's history lies on the dubious side of the tracks. The Eastwick library was allegedly used by Al Qaeda operatives in the months preceding September 11, 2001. Darby Creek has repeatedly turned up Superfund violations for its pollution, which not only includes chemicals from nearby refineries and sewage treatment facilities, but also bodies disposed here by the mafia.
Darby Creek then passes through John Heinz Wildlife Refuge on its way to the Delaware. The last page of this photo essay features pictures from the Refuge, named for the late US Senator involved in environmental funding who died in a helicopter crash in Lower Merion in 1991. The primary entrance and public facility of the Refuge is accessed at the bottom end of Lindbergh Boulevard in Eastwick. It is indeed a beautiful natural asset to the region, but when hiking there, it's hard not to notice you're so close to the Airport (whose planes are as you'd expect very noisy), I-95 (which passes through the lower portion of the Refuge), and the refineries which remind you of their presence in occasional sirens and, um, scents.
Again, things aren't all bad in Eastwick. A good portion of the community (in particular, Korman's apartment rentals) is popular with a transient crowd, specifically pilots, attendants and other airline employees since the airport is just down Bartram Ave. And, with the opening of the new massive US Post Office facility, there's a wealth of new jobs and a renewed interest in nearby housing.
For what it's worth, this is Eastwick.
A special thanks to Nicole Gordon of the Eastwick Branch of the Philadelphia Free Library, and to Matt Wysong for sharing his college term paper on Eastwick's redevelopment. You can read the 47 page pdf HERE. | <urn:uuid:c479b8cf-15e0-4f37-a311-5334cc46a3d6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.phillyskyline.com/hoods/southwest/eastwick/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391634.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00056-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972234 | 804 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Dr. Steve Horton and Debi Kilb from the University of Memphis arrived in town shortly after 2 a.m. Saturday to study the area and wait for possible aftershocks.
"We would have loved to have been here before it happened, but we don't know when they are going to occur," Ms. Kilb said. "Typically aftershocks will occur within the first 24 hours and can possibly extend longer. Our goal is to record the aftershocks."
Ms. Kilb and Horton placed three seismographs throughout the area: one in Greenville, one in Jamestown, and one just west of the Pennsylvania state line in Ohio.
"We've just been running around trying to get our instruments out," Ms. Kilb said. "We're still in the early stages of our study."
As of Saturday evening, no aftershock activity was reported.
Dr. J. Henry Barton, a geology professor at Thiel College, spent the day showing Ms. Kilb and Horton around the area.
Ron Cole, a geology professor at Allegheny College in Meadville said two faults lie in and around northwestern Pennsylvania. The Clarendon-Linden Fault in New York state last had a quake in 1929, one that was between a magnitude of 5 and 6.
"When you look at the probability maps for seismic activity, there is about a 10 percent probability there would be a similar activity along that fault every 50 years or so," Cole said. "If that is what it was, it is right on schedule."
The other fault is the Bass Island fault, he said.
Seismologists from the United States Geological Survey in Golden, Co., and from Columbia University in New York City were also in the area to monitor for possible aftershocks.
The quake began 3.1 miles beneath the earth's surface most likely in West Salem Township north of Greenville. It had a magnitude of 5.2. The 1994 Northridge earthquake that caused at least $20 billion in property damage had a magnitude of 6.7.
Ms. Kilb said while people should not spend all of their time worrying about future earthquakes, they should start thinking about preparing for them.
"People should be prepared, not scared," she said. "This should be a wake-up call for everyone to get an earthquake preparedness kit." | <urn:uuid:cf670b15-79ea-4ec5-857c-7f834a616145> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www2.sharonherald.com/localnews/recentnews/9809quake/q092798a.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396538.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00155-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972005 | 484 | 2.578125 | 3 |
In this week Parsha, we learn about the destruction of Sedom, primarily because of their lack of chesed. The Gemora in Bava Basra 12B, says that one who does not allow a transaction where he doesn’t lose anything, and the other person will benefit, as Middos Sedom.
The Mishnah in Avos teaches that:
One Who Says: “My property is mine and yours is yours” is an average character type, but some say that this is the characteristic of Sodom.
The Maharal explains that a person has a perfect right to keep his property to himself according to Torah law. This person is average in that he is not scrupulously pious with his possessions, but at the same time he isn’t covetous of others’ things.
The people of Sedom hated giving to help others so much, that they were willing to forgo receiving help in their own time of need. According to the view that “what is mine is mine” is an evil trait the person will not lend his possessions even if it doesn’t cost him anything because he begrudges helping others. In the same vein he doesn’t say “What is yours is yours” out of respect for people’s property, but rather as a pretext to justify not helping others.
Whether “Mine is mine, yours is yours ” is average or evil depends on the intent of the person. The test of intent comes when someone wants to use something in a way that will not cause loss to the owner. The person with evil intent will not lend claiming “Mine is mine, yours is yours”. The average person doesn’t link respect for another person’s property to his own rights of ownership and will lend things if it causes him no loss.
In practice, the pothole here is calculating whether there really is a loss. There are situations in the Gemora where it looks like a loss, but it is really Middos Sedom. Perhaps we need to be careful and make sure that we don’t gently edge over the line and become people acting on the negative character trait of Middos Sedom. | <urn:uuid:1475fdbe-3fd7-49d7-a7fa-9a3cdcdbb0cb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.beyondbt.com/2008/11/13/avoiding-middos-sedom/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397565.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00186-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97581 | 466 | 2.59375 | 3 |
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Did You Know?
Humpback whales within a distinct population sing the same song, while the songs of whales from other populations are different.
The humpback whale is a baleen whale, and one of the largest members of the rorqual family. Adult females average 49 ft (15m) in length and weigh approximately 35 tons, with adult males being slightly smaller. Rorquals can be distinguished by having both a dorsal fin and ventral pleats running from the tip of the lower jaw back to the belly area. The humpback whale has a distinctive robust body shape that narrows to a slender peduncle. The head is broad and rounded when viewed from above, but slender in profile. The top of the head and the lower jaw contain a series of rounded fleshy knobs. Humpbacks are predominantly black, but have varying degrees of white on the throat, belly, flippers and flukes. Humpbacks can be distinguished from other whales by the extremely long flippers with large knobs on the leading edge. The flippers can reach 25 to 30 percent of the total length of the animal. The flukes are broad with sharp points and serrated edges. The shape and pattern of each whale’s dorsal fin and flukes are distinct and have been used by biologists to identify and monitor individual animals.
Growth and Reproduction
Humpbacks are believed to live 40-50 years. Aging of adult whales has proven to be difficult and studies on aging techniques are ongoing. Females reach sexual maturity at 5 years and males at seven years. Humpback whales utilize a polygynous mating system, with males competing aggressively to mate with estrous females. Breeding season takes place during the winter months when individuals inhabit tropical waters. Females have an 11.5 month gestation period and give birth to a single calf every one to three years. Calves nurse for 6-10 months on milk that is 45-60% fat (human milk is 2% fat). At birth, calves average 10-15 ft (3-5m) in length and weigh about 1.5 tons.
Filter Feeding Mechanism: Baleen whales take their name from the fringed plates called baleen which hang downward on either side of the upper jaw. Humpback whales have a series of 270-400 baleen plates that are dark in color and measure about 30 in (76cm) long. During feeding, large volumes of water and food can be taken into the mouth because the pleated grooves in their throat allow for a substantial amount of expansion. As the mouth closes, water is forced through the baleen plates, which act as a sieve, trapping the food inside the mouth.
Bubble Net Feeding: They are also known for utilization of bubble nets, created by releasing air bubbles while swimming in circles beneath their prey, then lunging, open mouthed, to the surface through the center of the concentrated prey.
Humpback whales rarely feed while migrating or during the winters in the tropical waters. Feeding occurs almost exclusively during the summer months and animals live off of fat reserves while breeding. During feeding, each humpback whale eats up to 1.5 tons of food per day that consists mainly of euphausiids (krill), and various small schooling fishes.
Humpbacks are usually observed alone or in small groups that persist for only a few hours. Groups may stay together a little longer in summer in order to forage and feed cooperatively. Long-term relationships lasting months or even years, have been observed, but are rare.
Humpbacks are renowned for their various acrobatic displays. One of the more spectacular behaviors is breaching, which researchers believe may be related to courtship or play. During mate selection, groups of 2-20 males can gather around a single female and exhibit a variety of behaviors in order to establish dominance. Breaching, spy-hopping, lob-tailing, tail-slapping, flipper-slapping, charging and parrying can be observed, and these displays can last for hours.
Song is also assumed to have an important role in mate selection; however, scientists remain unsure whether the song is used between males in order to establish identity and dominance, between a male and a female as a mating call, or a mixture of the two. Humpback whale songs are long, complex, and only sung by males. Whales within a distinct population sing the same song; while the songs of whales from other populations are different. A typical song lasts from 10-20 minutes, is repeated for hours at a time, and changes gradually over the years.
Range and Habitat
The humpback whale is a migratory species, spending its summers in temperate and subpolar waters, but mating and calving in tropical and sub-tropical waters closer to the equator. Humpbacks may be seen at any time of year in Alaska, but most animals winter in temperate or tropical waters near Mexico, Hawaii, and in the western Pacific near Japan. An exception to this rule is a population that remains year-round in the Arabian Sea. Migrations of up to 3,000 miles (4,800 km) each way are typical. In the spring, the animals migrate back to Alaska where food is abundant and tend to concentrate in several areas including Southeast Alaska, Prince William Sound, Kodiak, the Barren Islands at the mouth of Cook Inlet, and along the Aleutian Islands. The Chukchi Sea is the northernmost area for humpbacks during their summer feeding, although, in 2007, humpbacks were seen in the Beaufort Sea east of Barrow, which would suggest a northward expansion of their feeding grounds.
Status, Trends, and Threats
- NatureServe: G4
- IUCN: LC (Least Concern)
- ESA: Endangered
Throughout its range, the humpback whale has been listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Conservation Act of 1970, and as depleted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. Worldwide, humpback numbers were severely reduced during commercial whaling; some evidence suggests 90-95% of the population was removed. There are three separate populations of humpbacks, those living in the North Pacific Ocean, those in the Central North Pacific Ocean, those in the North Atlantic Ocean, and those roving the oceans of the Southern Hemisphere.
In the North Pacific, more than 23,000 animals were taken in the before this species was granted protection from whaling in 1966. Before whaling began, approximately 15,000 humpbacks are estimated to have existed in the north Pacific. Current population estimates for the North Pacific stock range from 20,000 individual animals, and 10,000 individuals in the Central North Pacific stock and an increase in numbers on the Hawaiian wintering grounds suggests that at least this portion of the North Pacific stock is growing by approximately 7% per year.
The primary source of mortality for humpback whales is most likely humans. Historically, most whales were killed through commercial whaling. Currently, whaling is strictly regulated by the International Whaling Commission, with only small numbers being allowed to be taken for aboriginal subsistence purposes. Since commercial whaling was banned, most human caused humpback deaths are through entanglement in fishing gear, boat strikes, or acute exposure to pollutants. Secondary effects of humans on humpback whales such as pollutants, contaminants, decrease in prey species, and decrease or alteration in habitat are difficult to estimate. Predators of humpbacks include killer whales, false killer whales, and large sharks; there have been very few documented attacks by these predators on humpback whales, including calves.
Weight: 35 tons
Length: 49 ft
Euphausiids (krill), and various small schooling fishes.
Females give birth to 1 offspring every 2-3 years.
Did You Know?
- Megaptera is Latin for great, or large winged because of their unusually long pectoral flippers (side flippers). The species name, novaeangliae, is Latin for New Englander, because of the location where humpbacks were first described by scientists.
- Humpback whales within a distinct population sing the same song, while the songs of whales from other populations are different.
- Worldwide, humpback numbers were severely reduced during commercial whaling; some evidence suggests 90-95% of the population was removed.
- Calves nurse on milk that is 45-60% fat (human milk is 2% fat).
Humpback whales formerly were subjected to heavy commercial harvest, primarily for oil; a very small harvest for local use still occurs in the Lesser Antilles. Subsistence hunting no longer occurs. Many people enjoy watching whales, and whale watching is an important and lucrative aspect of Alask's tourism industry.
The humpback whale is listed as endangered under the ESA and depleted under the MMPA: any harvest, including subsistence, is now prohibited, and other causes of human-caused mortality monitored and managed. Currently a draft petition to delist humpback whales is being reviewed. While delisting humpback whales will remove the protection from the ESA, recreational and commercial harvest would remain prohibited under the MMPA except with limited subsistence harvesting.
- Humpback Whale — Wildlife Notebook Series (PDF 48 kB)
- Humpback Whale — Federally Endangered Listing Information
- Humpback Whale — Marine Mammal Viewing
- Humpback whales of Southeast Alaska. This University of Alaska-hosted site has a fluke catalogue, information on research, and more information on Alaska whales.
- SPLASH: Structure of Populations, Levels of Abundance and Status of Humpback Whales in the North Pacific. This represents a major international collaboration studying humpbacks.
- Humpback Whales – Sounds Wild! Several Sounds Wild! episodes featuring humpback whales are available on the ADF&G multi-media library.
Special Status Information
P.O. Box 115526
1255 W. 8th Street
Juneau, AK 99811-5526 | <urn:uuid:f4baf068-f3b9-472f-995c-4c1af123654b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=humpbackwhale.printerfriendly | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403508.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00125-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929479 | 2,332 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Dear Readers: Today is Valentine's Day. Several readers have asked me to reprint a letter that ran in my column three years ago, explaining the story behind the holiday. Here it is:
Dear Ann Landers: I thought your readers might like to learn about the origins of Valentine's Day. According to material from my church, the real Valentine was a young Christian priest who lived in Rome in the 3rd Century A.D. He was martyred because of his faith, and a feast day was kept on the anniversary of his death. The date was Feb. 14.
The legend of St. Valentine says that while imprisoned in Rome, the young priest wanted to assure his loved ones of his well-being. Just beyond his cell window grew a cluster of violets. He picked some of the heart-shaped leaves, and on them, he scratched the words, "Remember your Valentine," and sent them off by a friendly dove. The next day, he sent more messages saying simply, "I love you."
That's the legend. The custom of sending valentines actually arose much later.
The feast of St. Valentine, which ushers in spring, eventually became identified with the expression of love.
A Romantic in Providence, R.I.
Dear Romantic: Thank you for that lovely story. Several years ago, a reader asked me how sending messages of love became associated with Valentine's Day. I checked with Sally Hopkins, then director of Hallmark's Historical Collection in Kansas City, Mo., who told me that Valentine's Day first appeared in England about the time of Queen Victoria. The first Valentine's Day cards were called "Penny Dreadfuls" and "Rude and Crudes" because they were insulting and obscene. As time passed, the mood changed completely, and the holiday became one of giving gifts, flowers, candy and cards to loved ones and sweethearts. You can be sure the merchants, Hallmark people, florists and jewelers were delighted.
Happy Valentine's Day to our veterans in VA hospitals around the country, to whom we owe so much. And a special thanks to all my readers who took the time to visit the vets and send valentines, especially the schoolchildren. Bless you.
Dear Ann Landers: My parents have been married over 50 years. I always thought they had a good marriage, but about six months ago, out of the blue, my father began accusing my mother of having affairs. He accused her of cheating with the mailman, the plumber and the roofer. I am positive that my mother has never been unfaithful. Both Mom and Dad tried counseling, but each one says the other is "crazy." They are now in the process of getting a divorce.
I am an adult, but I still find this situation extremely upsetting, and my father is making it worse. He has a new, young girlfriend, "Wanda," and he takes her everywhere. He refuses to visit me unless he can bring her along. I feel this would be disrespectful to my mother and have told him he cannot bring his girlfriend here.
He was always such a great father, and I am disturbed by his behavior. He says he will not come to see me without Wanda. I miss him terribly. What should I do?
Up Against It in Palatine, Ill.
Dear Palatine: It sounds as if your father has a bat or two in his belfry. Accept this possibility, but stick to your principles. If your father does, indeed, get a divorce and marry Wanda, you must then open your doors to them, if not your heart. But you need not offer them hospitality until their relationship is legal.
That first kiss, that first embrace. . . . Remember all those things that brought you and your loved one together? "How We Met" is a collection of sentimental love stories that will make a terrific gift for that special someone. For a copy, please send a self-addressed, long, business-size envelope and a check or money order for $5.50 (this includes postage and handling) to: How We Met, c/o Ann Landers, P.O. Box 11562, Chicago, IL 60611-0562 (in Canada, $6.50). To find out more about Ann Landers and read her past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com. | <urn:uuid:71db2bae-cda7-47cf-8ee3-0b37015289cf> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2001-02-14/features/0102140061_1_heart-of-valentine-s-day-candy-and-cards-st-valentine | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00187-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975817 | 917 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Flexible nanocircuits that can go on almost anything
January 15, 2013
Research scientists Stephen Bedell and Davood Shahrjerdi at IBM’s Thomas J Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York think that flexible nanoscale circuits can do just that, IBM Research reports.
The flexible nanoelectronic circuit Bedell and Shahrjedri designed is 10,000 times thinner than a piece of paper, and was peeled off of a silicon wafer and put onto plastic — an industry first.
These circuits are also easily transferrable at any size, arbitrary in shape, and compatible with any flexible substrate.
With a radius of curvature of only 6 mm, these sheets of circuits could cover or roll on top of almost anything.
“In certain applications such as space satellites and portable consumer electronics, weight of onboard devices is the key factor. Thin flexible circuits are so light that a large number of these circuits can be stacked to provide unprecedented computing power,” said Bedell.
The Controlled Spalling Technique that was used to create the flexible circuits can be applied to other materials as well. For instance, Controlled Spalling could also be used to replace the poor thermal conducting sapphire substrate on solid state lighting.
In this application the light (and heat) generating layers can be removed from the sapphire and mounted onto a higher thermally conducting material, such as metal.
New class of silicon-based high-performance electronics
These flexible chips are as powerful as any brittle chip sitting on silicon. More than 10 billion transistors can sit on the plastic substrate. And their ultra low-power needs — just 0.6 volts — make them perfect for novel mobile applications, wearable electronics and bioelectronics.
“For example, in healthcare, a physician could implant a self-powering flexible electronic chip comprised of many nanoscale silicon-based devices into a patient to deliver drugs, or provide analysis via something like a bluetooth signal” said Shahrjerdi.
Taking the high performance of a smartphone or smart television and making it ultra-lightweight and flexible can open up endless possibilities for new applications. | <urn:uuid:30079651-5356-4a41-b786-f423770f3ec7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.kurzweilai.net/flexible-nanocircuits-that-can-go-on-almost-anything/comment-page-1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393093.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00171-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921551 | 448 | 3.484375 | 3 |
Every convex quadrilateral can be regarded as the perspective projection of a unit square (Dörrie, 100 Great Problems of Elementary Mathematics, problem 72). A unit circle inscribed in the unit square projects to an ellipse inscribed in the quadrilateral. This ellipse can be drawn, and its parameters calculated, without reference to any particular configuration of the unit circle, the viewpoint, and the plane of projection. The ellipse is completely determined by the coordinates of the vertices of the quadrilateral.
It easy to find by construction the points where the ellipse touches the quadrilateral. The image of the centre of the unit circle is at the intersection of the diagonals. Opposite sides of the quadrilateral meet in two "vanishing points". A line from each vanishing point through the intersection of the diagonals intersects the quadrilateral at the points of tangency.
The centre of the ellipse can be found by another construction. Bisect the four chords joining the points of tangency. The lines through each mid-point and corresponding vertices of the quadrilateral meet at the centre of the ellipse.
The inclination of the major and minor axes has an inscrutable relationship with the the shape of the quadrilateral. In a figure which may be regarded as representing an array of circular discs, subtle changes of inclination occur between neighbouring ellipses, while tangency at the points of contact is maintained.
Such figures are hard to draw accurately by hand. To draw a circle in perspective, draughtsmen are usually advised to draw an ellipse freehand, tangent to the four points of contact. If the centre is constructed as above, the symmetry of the ellipse can be exploited by rotating the quadrilateral through 180° about the centre to give four additional points of contact.
It is possible to derive a matrix which transforms the unit square by a perspective projection to an arbitrary quadrilateral. The transformation of point p to point q is described by
where ρ is a scale factor (Beardsley, equation 19).
ρ [ ] = T [ ] = [ ] [ ] q0 p0 A B C p0 q1 p1 D E F p1 1 1 G H I 1
The unit square with homogeneous coordinates
is transformed to an arbitrary quadrilateral(-1, 1, 1) ( 1, 1, 1) (-1, -1, 1) ( 1, -1, 1)
by a matrix with these coefficients:-(W0, W1, 1) (X0, X1, 1) (Z0, Z1, 1) (Y0, Y1, 1)
A = X0 Y0 Z1 - W0 Y0 Z1 - X0 Y1 Z0 + W0 Y1 Z0 - W0 X1 Z0 + W1 X0 Z0 + W0 X1 Y0 - W1 X0 Y0 B = W0 Y0 Z1 - W0 X0 Z1 - X0 Y1 Z0 + X1 Y0 Z0 - W1 Y0 Z0 + W1 X0 Z0 + W0 X0 Y1 - W0 X1 Y0 C = X0 Y0 Z1 - W0 X0 Z1 - W0 Y1 Z0 - X1 Y0 Z0 + W1 Y0 Z0 + W0 X1 Z0 + W0 X0 Y1 - W1 X0 Y0 D = X1 Y0 Z1 - W1 Y0 Z1 - W0 X1 Z1 + W1 X0 Z1 - X1 Y1 Z0 + W1 Y1 Z0 + W0 X1 Y1 - W1 X0 Y1 E = -X0 Y1 Z1 + W0 Y1 Z1 + X1 Y0 Z1 - W0 X1 Z1 - W1 Y1 Z0 + W1 X1 Z0 + W1 X0 Y1 - W1 X1 Y0 F = X0 Y1 Z1 - W0 Y1 Z1 + W1 Y0 Z1 - W1 X0 Z1 - X1 Y1 Z0 + W1 X1 Z0 + W0 X1 Y1 - W1 X1 Y0 G = X0 Z1 - W0 Z1 - X1 Z0 + W1 Z0 - X0 Y1 + W0 Y1 + X1 Y0 - W1 Y0 H = Y0 Z1 - X0 Z1 - Y1 Z0 + X1 Z0 + W0 Y1 - W1 Y0 - W0 X1 + W1 X0 I = Y0 Z1 - W0 Z1 - Y1 Z0 + W1 Z0 + X0 Y1 - X1 Y0 + W0 X1 - W1 X0
Given the inverse matrix
the coefficients of the ellipse equation ax2 + 2bxy + cy2 + 2dx + 2fy + g = 0 are
T-1 = [ ] J K L M N O P Q R
a = J2 + M2 - P2
b = JK + MN - PQ
c = K2 + N2 - Q2
d = JL + MO - PR
f = KL + NO - QR
g = L2 + O2 - R2
The centre, angle of rotation, and semi-axis lengths of the ellipse can then be obtained from these coefficients (MathWorld ellipse article, equations 19-23).
Although these formulae allow the ellipse and its axes to be calculated and drawn programmatically, they do not illuminate the underlying geometry. The axes can be determined by some classical constructions (Eagles, problem 81), but the steps are complicated and indirect.
Here is a construction using projective geometry. It is based on a message from José H. Nieto posted to the sci.math newsgroup.
M, N, P, and Q are the points where the ellipse is tangent to the yellow quadrilateral (from the construction described above). Draw the circle through P with tangent m to the quadrilateral at M. This circle is homologous to the ellipse, with M as the centre of homology. Project N and Q on to this circle at N´ and Q´, where MN and MQ, respectively, meet the circle. The green line passing through P and the intersection of lines NQ and N´Q´ is the axis of the homology. The inclination of the ellipse axes is determined by the angle between the homology axis and the tangent m. The red line which bisects this angle is parallel to the major or minor axis of the ellipse.
This construction is interactive, thanks to the JavaSketchpad applet. Coding of the construction was facilitated by Hans Klein's JSPgenerator authoring tool. The applet dynamically updates the construction when a vertex (red dot) of the quadrilateral is dragged to a new position. Note that the homology axis passes through the the two points where the circle intersects the ellipse. This cannot be used to determine the axis, however, as the ellipse has not been drawn at this stage.
The 'Show' button shows the full construction for the endpoints of the major axis AB and the minor axis CD, which fully determine the shape and position of the ellipse. Let S´ be the point where N´Q´ intersects a parallel to NQ through M. The limit line parallel to the homology axis intersects the tangent m at X´. With centre X´ and radius X´M draw a circle which intersects the limit line at points Y´ and Z´. Let U´ and V´ be the intersections with this circle of the lines from the centre of the original circle to Y´ and Z´, respectively. Let Y´V´ meet the original circle at points A´ and B´, and let Z´U´ meet it at C´ and D´. The homologous projection of points A´, B´, C´, and D´ gives the vertices of the ellipse: A, B, C, and D.
Here is another construction to obtain the ellipse axes, based on Philippe Chevanne's construction (step 2).
Chords NM and MQ are bisected by blue and green lines from corresponding vertices of the quadrilateral. These lines intersect at the centre O of the inscribed ellipse. Blue and green lines at the centre parallel to the chords establish the directions of two pairs of conjugate diameters. They intersect a circle passing through O at four points on the circumference. The blue and green lines joining corresponding points intersect at W. The red line passing through W and the centre of the circle intersects the circumference at two points. The red lines through these two points and the centre of the ellipse are the major and minor axes. | <urn:uuid:3634bbe5-fe0d-45c5-a11c-2dbb97f9dc81> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://chrisjones.id.au/Ellipses/ellipse.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398873.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00158-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.872013 | 1,906 | 3.59375 | 4 |
"Abstraction in mathematics is the process of extracting the underlying essence of a mathematical concept, removing any dependence on real world objects with which it might originally have been connected, and generalizing it so that it has wider applications or matching among other abstract descriptions of equivalent phenomena.
Many areas of mathematics began with the study of real world problems, before the underlying rules and concepts were identified and defined as abstract structures. For example, geometry has its origins in the calculation of distances and areas in the real world; statistics has its origins in the calculation of probabilities in gambling; and algebra started with methods of solving problems in arithmetic.
Abstraction is an ongoing process in mathematics and the historical development of many mathematical topics exhibits a progression from the concrete to the abstract.
The advantages of abstraction are :
- It reveals deep connections between different areas of mathematics
- Known results in one area can suggest conjectures in a related area
- Techniques and methods from one area can be applied to prove results in a related area.
The main disadvantage of abstraction is that highly abstract concepts are more difficult to learn, and require a degree of mathematical maturity and experience before they can be assimilated.These persons we have placed in positions of economic authority simply CANNOT DO THIS... they do not possess the necessary degree of this cognitive skill.
I've heard it said that one of the WORST things a so-called "educator" can say to a student is: "How can you not understand this... IT IS SOOO EASY!... ".
An "educator" who would say something like that is perhaps not qualified to be an educator, perhaps politics would be a better field for that person to operate within. | <urn:uuid:d0817f13-0b2a-4a19-b7c9-24e41d2f1210> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2012/12/abstraction-mathematics.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393093.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00106-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956952 | 347 | 3.5 | 4 |
'Flipping' the way college students learn
Some faculty at Michigan State University are using a new model of teaching, one that is “flipping” the world of higher education on its head.
In fact, it is known as “flipping” a classroom. It’s called that because the students will listen to a lecture as the homework assignment and do the homework in the classroom setting.
Here’s how it works: Instead of the traditional students-listening-to-the-professor-lecture model, the students are expected to cover the lecture material out of class. Classroom time is then spent in groups, where the students discuss, with guidance from the professor, and problem solve.
“There is a lot to be said for the general model of collaborative learning,” said Jon Sticklen, who uses this model in teaching his College of Engineering class, “Sustainable Systems Analysis.” “It isn’t just about the material, getting it stuck in your head and regurgitating it. It’s about understanding it at the practical, I-can-apply-this level.”
To accommodate this new model, classrooms are undergoing some physical changes as well. Known as Rooms for Engaged and Active Learning, or REAL, the space is specifically designed to enable lively interaction, enhanced learning and increased faculty-and-student engagement.
“It’s a unique design, aimed at promoting more collaboration,” said Brendan Guenther, director of teaching and learning for MSU’s IT Services. “It can make for a deeper level of student-to-student learning because they can all share the work product.”
In this form of learning, Guenther said, the professor becomes more of a guide or facilitator. “They are responsible for setting up the exercise and managing it,” he said.
In Sticklen’s McDonel Hall classroom, groups of six students meet at workstations scattered about the room. The students work on solutions to the problems presented on a dedicated whiteboard and screen at their stations. When the students report their findings back to the entire class, the instructor can display each team’s work to the entire class on large screens.
“In a lot of ways it’s an easier way to convey difficult concepts to the students,” Sticklen said. “They do the homework ahead of time and come in prepared to be engaged and interact with me and their fellow students.”
The two REAL classrooms opened in McDonel Hall just this past year. Another is planned for the MSU Union, to open for classes next spring. | <urn:uuid:d908d5fe-8c22-47bc-b755-f3cd97c7138f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2013/flipping-the-way-college-students-learn/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00028-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957087 | 567 | 3.125 | 3 |
The worst violators, of course, are dictatorships of the Communist and Fascist type. Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler is notorious for murdering 6,000,000 Jews (see The Holocaust) and around 5,000,000 others.
Public opinion in America tends to focus on minor incidents of abuse perpetrated by our own military or CIA, while neglecting far worse and more widespread incidents abroad. Violations of international law and human rights are measured on a gradient.[Citation Needed]
- Throughout 1965, 1966, and 1967 the most grievous breaches of the Geneva Conventions continued to be those committed by the Communists, and there were several cases where U.S. troops were murdered and their bodies mutilated by the Viet Cong or North Vietnamese. The Viet Cong policy of kidnapping civilians, assassinating public officials, and terrorizing entire populations continued. Communist tactics against the Montagnards, indigenous mountain tribes, were particularly vicious. Prisoners of War and War Crimes, from an official US Army history website
- It is less well known (or accepted) that Josef Stalin and Mao Tse Tung each murdered ten times as many. | <urn:uuid:b5c777cb-a8cd-4ad3-a142-ab304e2697d5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.conservapedia.com/Prisoner_abuse | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00051-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960629 | 233 | 2.78125 | 3 |
In parshah Ki Tetzei, Moses teaches us, almost as an afterthought, “Do not hate an Edomite because he is your brother.” This teaching is understandable. After all, even an estranged brother who has wronged me is still my brother. But then, in a leap hard to grasp for many of us, the Torah goes on to teach, “Do not hate an Egyptian, because you were a stranger in his land” (23:8).
What? How can we help but hate those who enslaved us? Whose king demanded that “every male Israelite born be thrown into the Nile”? There must be a deeper meaning to these words. How can we be expected to develop good relations with such a mortal enemy? Which do we do? Do we recall our suffering in Egypt (l’maan tizkor et yom tzetcha m’eretz Mitzrayim) or do we “not hate an Egyptian”?
When I studied at Yeshiva University, hundreds of us would rush to the cafeteria after morning seder to quickly get our lunches so we could make it to our afternoon shiur on time. As you can imagine, the line could grow very long. There, standing behind the counter, dishing out daily helpings of whatever was on the menu was a gentle Holocaust survivor, Mr. Weber. To this day, so many years later, I can still hear his voice prompting us along: “Move de line, move de line.”
Over the many years of my life, his constant refrain has become integral to my personal philosophy. To me, he was not simply asking us not to slow down the line; he was telling us not to get stuck in a tough spot and, by extension, not to remain mired in the bitterness of the inevitable challenges and disappointments we all face – not to bear grudges for the rest of our lives.
We all have to “move de line.”
That means letting go of the negatives that hold us back – the things that enslave us, that humiliate us, that degrade us. Ironically, until we can let go of those things, we will remain enslaved, even long after our captors have set us free. We need to “move de line” if we are to forge new paths and realize new goals.
Hurt begets hurt. Anger begets anger. Hate begets hate. If you want to move de line, you have to let go of hurt and anger. If your “captor” allows you to go free, the least you can do is grant yourself the same grace. As long as you continue to be enslaved by negativity, you can know no freedom; you cannot embark on a new beginning. You are stuck.
As Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks eloquently teaches, “To be free, you have to let go of hate. That is what Moses is saying. If they continued to hate their erstwhile enemies, Moses would have taken the Israelites out of Egypt, but he would not have taken Egypt out of the Israelites. Mentally, they would still be there, slaves to the past. They would still be in chains, not of metal but of the mind – and chains of the mind are the most constricting of all.”
But what of all the mitzvot centered on Yetziat Mitzrayim – including those recalled on Shabbat, when laying tefillin, putting on our tzitzit or reciting the ancient truths at our Seders? In fact, there is no hate, no rage, no call for revenge or retaliation – not even a shred of negativity – in any of these mitzvot. Instead, they focus on the positive: Remember. Learn. Grow.
Move de line.
Rav Soloveitchik views the Egyptian exile and suffering as the “…experience which molded the moral quality of the Jewish people for all time.” Rather than embitter us, our experience in Egypt and subsequent emancipation teaches us not to hate and retaliate but rather “…ethical sensitivity, what it truly means to be a Jew. It sought to transform the Jew into a rachaman, one possessing a heightened form of ethical sensitivity and responsiveness.”
The most practical method of teaching compassion, sensitivity and concern for others, the most direct way of imparting a sense of mitgefiel, is to recall one’s own experience of tzarah. It should come as no surprise that it is often he who has suffered sickness who best understands the discomfort of the ill; he who has sustained loss who can best comfort the bereaved, and he who knew wealth and success but who suffered reversals who can best identify with a colleague or neighbor who confronts similar obstacles.Rabbi Eliyahu Safran | <urn:uuid:91e3bdc5-5cea-49c4-847a-49eb82cf6cab> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.jewishpress.com/tag/help/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00196-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958705 | 1,020 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Results of FTCE
Brief Overview of FTCE Scores and Results
The Florida Teaching Certification Exam (FTCE) is an aptitude test taken for candidates who aspire to work as teachers in the State of Florida. This certification test is conducted through standardized subtests designed by the Bureau of Educator Certification (BEC). It should be known that the results can have a huge impact on the career of potential candidates applying for teaching positions in the schools of Florida.
About the Test:
It should be known that this certification exam is made of three tests. These tests are the General Knowledge test, the Professional Education test and the Subject Area Examinations. These tests are designed to test the aptitude and competencies relevant to the teaching domains of the candidates.
The General Knowledge test contains four subtests and candidates are allowed to take a maximum of two subtests in one testing session. The General Knowledge subtests are the Essay Subtest, the English Language Skills (ELS) Subtest, the Reading Subtest, and the Mathematics Subtest.
Apart from this, there are two other tests conducted by the FTCE which aim to evaluate the know-how of the candidate in their respective domain. The Professional Education test contains 120 multiple-choice format questions. There are around 42 Subject Area Examinations conducted by BEA which cover domains from language to special educational areas.
It should also be known that the candidates need to apply at http://www.fldoe.org/edcert/apply.asp first, in order to know which tests have to be taken by them.
Understanding the Results:
In order to pass any test, it is important that candidates secure a score of 200 or more. After the completion of the test, the candidates would receive their scores and "Pass" or "Not Pass" would be mentioned on their screens. In order to understand the number of questions that the candidates need to answer correctly in order to pass the test, candidates can visit http://www.fldoe.org/asp/ftce/pdf/percentpass.pdf.
Also, for the tests with only multiple-choice questions, candidates will receive an unofficial score at the end of the test. However, if there is a performance component, then candidates would only receive a notification for test completion instead of an unofficial score. It should be known that the essays are scored separately by two different raters. The passing criterion for essay writing assignments is a minimum score of 6 on the scale of 12.
Interpreting the Scorecard:
In case any candidate receives "Not Pass" as his/her result, then he or she has to retake the test after 31 days again. Another passing criterion mentioned by the test guidelines is that candidates have to clear all the tests in order to be certified and be eligible to receive a valid teaching license. In order to understand the interpretation of the results, candidates can visit http://www.fl.nesinc.com/PDFs/FL_ScrInterGuide.pdf.
It should be known that the scorecard would not contain any numeric score. The results do not contain scores since there is no ranking system followed according to the guidelines for licensing and certification.
It should be known that the results would be available in your account created during the test registration. Moreover, these results would be available online for 60 days from the date on which the test would be taken.
Duplicate Score Card:
It should be known that candidates can avail a duplicate score card for a charge of $10. Candidates need to fill out a form mentioned at http://www.fl.nesinc.com/PDFs/FL_ScrInterGuide.pdf and mention the details of the test in order to get a duplicate copy of the results.
Additionally, candidates can request for the re-verification of their results through their account. It should also be known that there is a provision for retakes for the tests in which the candidates fail. Moreover, candidates who fail the test need to retake that particular test/subtest they had failed in, in order to gain FTCE certification. However, it is important to be well-prepared for this test. Candidates should utilize good quality study resources and strive to attain a high score on all the tests and be certified in the first attempt itself. | <urn:uuid:c38d8354-813e-43d2-bfda-dee1d8a224f1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.testpreppractice.net/FTCE/ftce-results.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00025-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948626 | 888 | 2.734375 | 3 |
|In contemporary usage, picnic can be defined simply as a
pleasure excursion at which a meal is eaten outdoors, ideally, taking place
in a beautiful landscape.
Formerly, picnic meant a potluck, an entertainment at which each person contributed some dish to a common table for all to share. The first usage of the word was traced to a 16th century French text, describing a group of people dining in a restaurant who brought their own wine. A theory has it that the word picnic is based on the verb piquer which means 'pick' or 'peck' with the rhyming nique perhaps meaning trifle.
The 1692 edition of Origines de la Langue Françoise de Ménage, which mentions 'piquenique' as being of recent origin, marks the first appearance of the word in print. The word picnic first appeared in English texts in the mid-1700s, and may have entered the English language from this French word or from the German Picknick. | <urn:uuid:bc10bb45-aef1-4aa8-bd2c-3377069c9b20> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.everythingpreschool.com/themes/picnic/encyclopedia.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964686 | 208 | 2.90625 | 3 |
We do not normally associate the province of Quebec with the achievements of Scots overseas. However when the Don de Dieu sailed up the St. Lawrence at the beginning of French Canada, it was piloted by a Scot, Abraham Martin (after whom the Heights of Abraham, scene of Wolfe's victory, are named). The first British governor of Quebec was also a Scot, General James Murray. He received the keys to the city gates from the French commander, Major de Ramezay, himself of Scotch descent. This is not surprising; when we remember "the Auld Alliance," during which the kingdoms of Scotland and France were allied for centuries and close links formed between the two countries.
Many of the kilted soldiers who conquered Quebec for Britain had been Jacobites and followers of Prince Charles Edward. It has been suggested that their victory at Quebec was sweet revenge for France's general indifference to and failure to help the Jacobite cause. It is with bitter irony that we learn that General James Wolfe, for whom the Scottish soldiers fought so well on the Heights of Abraham, had been an area commander during the military occupation of the Highlands following Culloden. The Fraser Highlanders undertook the main charge at Quebec, planting the British flag on the city ramparts. It was this same regiment that did so much to hold Canada for the Empire during the American Revolution.
A large group of Scots chiefly from Ross-shire arrived on the Nephton in 1802 to settle in the Quebec province. Many of their descendants have become prominent in the business, financial and religious activities of Montreal ever since. The great center of the Scottish Loyalists, however, was not in Quebec, but in Upper Canada the Glengarry Settlement, what is now Ontario. Many early settlers from Tryon County in New York State came here, in what was then wilderness. They were joined by many Highlanders during the Revolution, and after the War had ended, by a whole regiment of the "King's Royals."
The chief Scottish town in the Glengarry Settlement was Cornwall. It was reinforced in 1786, when the McDonald arrived at Quebec from Greenock with 520 new pioneers. Soon immigrants came from all parts of Scotland to make it one of the most important Scots-Canadian communities. The Glengarry clansmen managed to get away from their homelands before the British Government's embargo during the war with Napoleon. Many other retired officials from the Hudson's Bay Company joined the Glengarry Settlements.
Another famous Scottish area that came to exert great influence in Ontario was the Perth Settlement, another region of purely Scottish and military origin. Unemployment and suffering following the end of the Napoleonic Wars caused the British government to reverse its former policies and actively encouraged emigration. In 1815, three loaded transports set sail from Greenock for Upper Canada: the Atlas, the Baptiste Merchant and the Borothy. After the War of 1812 ended, many soldiers from the disbanded regiments joined them. In 1816, more arrivals from Ulster helped swell the Scottish element. Many Perth families became prominent in both state and national governments.
Other principal areas of Scottish immigration in Upper Canada during the 1820's included the Lanark Settlement, comprised mainly of people from the severely depressed area of Lanarkshire and the MacNab Settlement, mainly the idea of the Laird of the Clan. The city of Guelph was founded by the Scottish novelist John Galt and the Talbot and Middlesex Settlements. The first founded by Colonel Thomas Talbot, who sold his army commission to emigrate to his grant of 5,000 acres in 1800; the second by a group of Scots Presbyterians in the early 1830's.
In Western Ontario, Scotsmen were prominent in the founding of the Zora Settlement, where the Mackay brothers from Sutherland had set about building a home -- a little Scotland -- for many of their fellow Highlanders in 1820. Other Scottish settlements of note were the Huron and Bruce Settlements, both of which have given us many men and women of note in Canadian affairs.
Chapter 17: Scots in Canada continued | <urn:uuid:cf2d6506-e3d9-4954-8f90-3876e659e047> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.britannia.com/celtic/scotland/scot18a.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396100.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00020-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977704 | 831 | 3.1875 | 3 |
- write formatted output
printf format [argument]...
The printf command writes formatted operands to the standard output. The argument operands are formatted under control of the format operand.
The following operands are supported:
A string describing the format to use to write the remaining operands. The format operand is used as the format string described on the formats(5) manual page, with the following exceptions:
A SPACE character in the format string, in any context other than a flag of a conversion specification, is treated as an ordinary character that is copied to the output.
A character in the format string is treated as a character, not as a SPACE character.
In addition to the escape sequences described on the formats(5) manual page (\\, \a, \b, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v), \ddd, where ddd is a one-, two- or three-digit octal number, is written as a byte with the numeric value specified by the octal number.
The program does not precede or follow output from the d or u conversion specifications with blank characters not specified by the format operand.
The program does not precede output from the o conversion specification with zeros not specified by the format operand.
An additional conversion character, b, is supported as follows. The argument is taken to be a string that may contain backslash-escape sequences. The following backslash-escape sequences are supported:
the escape sequences listed on the formats(5) manual page (\\, \a, \b, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v), which are converted to the characters they represent
\0ddd, where ddd is a zero-, one-, two- or three-digit octal number that is converted to a byte with the numeric value specified by the octal number
\c, which is written and causes printf to ignore any remaining characters in the string operand containing it, any remaining string operands and any additional characters in the format operand.
The interpretation of a backslash followed by any other sequence of characters is unspecified.
Bytes from the converted string are written until the end of the string or the number of bytes indicated by the precision specification is reached. If the precision is omitted, it is taken to be infinite, so all bytes up to the end of the converted string are written. For each specification that consumes an argument, the next argument operand is evaluated and converted to the appropriate type for the conversion as specified below. The format operand is reused as often as necessary to satisfy the argument operands. Any extra c or s conversion specifications are evaluated as if a null string argument were supplied; other extra conversion specifications are evaluated as if a zero argument were supplied. If the format operand contains no conversion specifications and argument operands are present, the results are unspecified. If a character sequence in the format operand begins with a % character, but does not form a valid conversion specification, the behavior is unspecified.
The strings to be written to standard output, under the control of format. The argument operands are treated as strings if the corresponding conversion character is b, c or s. Otherwise, it is evaluated as a C constant, as described by the ISO C standard, with the following extensions:
A leading plus or minus sign is allowed.
If the leading character is a single- or double-quote, the value is the numeric value in the underlying codeset of the character following the single- or double-quote.
If an argument operand cannot be completely converted into an internal value appropriate to the corresponding conversion specification, a diagnostic message is written to standard error and the utility does not exit with a zero exit status, but continues processing any remaining operands and writes the value accumulated at the time the error was detected to standard output.
Notice that this printf utility, like the printf(3C) function on which it is based, makes no special provision for dealing with multi-byte characters when using the %c conversion specification or when a precision is specified in a %b or %s conversion specification. Applications should be extremely cautious using either of these features when there are multi-byte characters in the character set.
Field widths and precisions cannot be specified as *.
For compatibility with previous versions of SunOS 5.x, the $ format specifier is supported for formats containing only %s specifiers.
The %b conversion specification is not part of the ISO C standard; it has been added here as a portable way to process backslash escapes expanded in string operands as provided by the echo utility. See also the USAGE section of the echo(1) manual page for ways to use printf as a replacement for all of the traditional versions of the echo utility.
If an argument cannot be parsed correctly for the corresponding conversion specification, the printf utility reports an error. Thus, overflow and extraneous characters at the end of an argument being used for a numeric conversion are to be reported as errors.
It is not considered an error if an argument operand is not completely used for a c or s conversion or if a string operand's first or second character is used to get the numeric value of a character.
Example 1 Printing a series of prompts
To alert the user and then print and read a series of prompts:
example% printf "\aPlease fill in the following: \nName: " read name printf "Phone number: " read phone
Example 2 Printing a table of calculations
To read out a list of right and wrong answers from a file, calculate the percentage correctly, and print them out. The numbers are right-justified and separated by a single tab character. The percentage is written to one decimal place of accuracy:
example% while read right wrong ; do percent=$(echo "scale=1;($right*100)/($right+$wrong)" | bc) printf "%2d right\t%2d wrong\t(%s%%)\n" \ $right $wrong $percent done < database_file
Example 3 Printing number strings
example% printf "%5d%4d\n" 1 21 321 4321 54321
1 21 3214321 54321 0
Notice that the format operand is used three times to print all of the given strings and that a 0 was supplied by printf to satisfy the last %4d conversion specification.
Example 4 Tabulating conversion errors
The printf utility tells the user when conversion errors are detected while producing numeric output; thus, the following results would be expected on an implementation with 32-bit twos-complement integers when %d is specified as the format operand:
Notice that the value shown on standard output is what would be expected as the return value from the function strtol(3C). A similar correspondence exists between %u and strtoul(3C), and %e, %f and %g and strtod(3C).
Example 5 Printing output for a specific locale
In a locale using the ISO/IEC 646:1991 standard as the underlying codeset, the command:
example% printf "%d\n" 3 +3 -3 \'3 \"+3 "'-3"
Notice that in a locale with multi-byte characters, the value of a character is intended to be the value of the equivalent of the wchar_t representation of the character.
If an argument operand cannot be completely converted into an internal value appropriate to the corresponding conversion specification, a diagnostic message is written to standard error and the utility does exit with a zero exit status, but continues processing any remaining operands and writes the value accumulated at the time the error was detected to standard output.
See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables that affect the execution of printf: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES, LC_NUMERIC, and NLSPATH.
The following exit values are returned:
An error occurred.
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes: | <urn:uuid:4a6d3359-9503-4a8c-908c-4cc0b510b66e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E18752_01/html/816-5165/printf-1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396538.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00017-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.866684 | 1,683 | 4.03125 | 4 |
Insomnia is your worst nightmare. The ability to get sound, undisturbed, restful sleep is essential to cognitive function, cell renewal, hormonal balance, energy production, detoxification, a healthy immune system and so much more! If your sleep suffers, life’s stressors seem to snowball. Insomnia creates a vicious cycle of exhaustion and fatigue; a sure sign your body is trying to get your attention!
So what causes insomnia?
Usually it’s the result of a lifestyle imbalance, particularly nutrition and stress. When your body gets low in nutrients and becomes inefficient at producing energy, you rely strongly on stress hormones (adrenaline & cortisol) to get you through the day. These hormones are built in mechanisms designed to help you handle short-term stressors, but when your diet leaves much to be desired, it relies MORE on stress hormones to make up for the fuel deficit. “But in energy-deprived humans, increases of adrenalin oppose the hibernation reaction, alter energy production and the ability to relax, and to sleep deeply and with restorative effect,” Ray Peat, PhD.
The good news is, you can use food to down regulate these stress hormones to improve sleep and soothe insomnia!
- Get some calcium throughout the day from a source that agrees with you (bone broth, powdered eggshells, or dairy). This helps quiet your parathyroid, keeping parathyroid hormone (PTH) low. When your blood calcium levels decrease (from lack of dietary calcium), it triggers parathyroid hormone (which controls calcium metabolism in the body) to break down bone to buffer the pH of the blood. This increases stress, and is an INFLAMMATORY process that can play a role insomnia. “The parathyroid hormone (PTH) is an important regulator of calcium metabolism. If dietary calcium isn’t sufficient, causing blood calcium to decrease, the PTH increases, and removes calcium from bones to maintain a normal amount in the blood. PTH has many other effects, contributing to inflammation, calcification of soft tissues, and decreased respiratory energy production.” Ray Peat, PhD.
- Eat a calcium rich snack right before bed with a little bit of salt and carbohydrate to fight insomnia. Examples might be ice cream, warm milk with honey/salt, cheese and a piece of fruit, or bone broth and fruit for someone who avoids dairy completely. “Combining milk and cheese with fruits adds to the antistress effect. The additional sugar and potassium and other minerals allow the milk protein to be used more efficiently, by moderating the secretion of cortisol, and helping to inhibit the secretion of PTH,” Ray Peat, PhD.
- Keep a snack bedside if you tend to wake up in the middle of the night and find it hard to go back to sleep. A small sip of juice with gelatin or a little pinch of sugar and salt is a great place to start!
- Balance blood sugar throughout the day by always eating protein, fat, and carbohydrates together. Eat snacks as needed to keep blood sugar from falling (often every 2-3 hours for people with poor blood sugar regulation).
- Avoid allergic foods! Any food that causes anxiety, rapid pulse rate, or other immediate reactions can indicate your body’s stress response has been activated.
- Try an Epsom salt bath before bed using 1-4 cups in a bath. Soak for 15-30 minutes.
- Avoid using L-tryptophan and melatonin supplements for insomnia. These products increase serotonin which is a mediator of stress.
- Try diffusing or applying 1-2 drops of Lavender &/or Cedarwood essential oil at bedtime. You can apply 1 drops to the temples or soles of the feet before bed to support relaxation and a restful night of sleep.
Do you have any special strategies for fighting insomnia? If so, I would LOVE to hear them in the comments!
Photo Credit: Depositphotos.com/ GeorgeRudy
MEDICAL DISCLAIMER: This content is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease, or as a substitute for medical advice. Please consult with your advising physician before starting any treatment for a medical condition. Butter Nutrition, LLC shall not be held liable or responsible for any misunderstanding or misuse of the information contained on this site or for any loss, damage, or injury caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by any treatment, action, or application of any food or food source discussed in this site. | <urn:uuid:93c58215-9c33-408e-8873-8d1670861a0b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://butternutrition.com/insomnia-calcium-stress-hormones/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396459.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00124-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.899932 | 936 | 2.90625 | 3 |
E. Cobham Brewer 18101897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
The Romans divided the combatants in the circus into classes, called factions, each class being distinguished by its special colour, like the crews of a boat-race. The four original factions were the leek-green (prasina), the sea-blue (veneta), the white (alba), and the rose-red (rosea). Two other factions were added by Domitian, the colours being golden-yellow (aurata) and purple. As these combatants strove against each other, and entertained a strong esprit de corps, the word was easily applied to political partisans.
In the faction riots of Constantinople, A.D. 532, above 30,000 persons were killed. (Latin, factio.) | <urn:uuid:42b1ea45-0ba9-4176-a986-4d7a0226f812> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bartleby.com/81/6098.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00101-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9361 | 170 | 3.65625 | 4 |
More Nutcracker Fun!
It has been a week since I last posted here - whew! Life has gotten busy; as I am sure it has for you, too!
I thought I would post a few pictures of the nutcrackers that my students made. We had so much fun with our Nutcracker unit! It was such a unique way of studying introductory mapping skills. The nutcrackers brought mapping to life for my kinders and they really enjoyed creating maps for these fun characters. The skills covered were:
1. Understanding the differences and similarities between a map and globe
2. Identifying man made and physical features on a map
3. Identification of and understanding the purpose of a compass rose and map key
4. Locating cardinal directions on a map
5. Review of position words i.e. beside, above, next to, etc.
The kids created their own maps as well as the key symbols.
When the mapping was finished, they created their favorite nutcracker from paper scraps and wrote a few words about it. I am so impressed with their work! I gave them the basic directions for creating a nutcracker and that was all. I did not give them a pattern or a tracing template. They created EVERYTHING on their own! I did not give them any clue words for their writing, either.
They s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d the sounds they heard in their words. I continue to believe that this type of work is appropriate for a literacy center. Children must follow sequencing steps to create their picture. Then they must listen to the phonemes in the words that they want to use.
The following pictures are just a few examples. All my kinders did a great job in their nutcracker friend task!
Peace and blessings, Cindy | <urn:uuid:02fb2fb4-d9da-4921-a24c-5d6af590affc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://lovethosekinders-kinderkay.blogspot.com/2012/12/more-nutcracker-fun.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396222.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00144-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978733 | 381 | 3.515625 | 4 |
Drama is a unique literary form because they are designed to be acted out on a
stage before an audience. The word 'drama' comes from the Greek word 'dran' ...
Characteristics of Drama Genres. Drama is intended to reflect human behavior
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Protagonists often have a tragic flaw—a characteristic that leads them to their
onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/browse?type=lcsubc&key=Characters and characteristics in literature -- Drama
Filed under: Characters and characteristics in literature -- Drama ... Opera and
Drama , by Richard Wagner, trans. by William Ashton Ellis (HTML at belgacom.
Characteristics of Elizabethan Drama. From Elizabethan Drama. Janet Spens.
London: Metheun & Co. Of the three types of plays recognized in the ...
Jun 27, 2012 ... Technically and historically, while the Restoration began on Charles II's return to
the English throne in 1660, the “characteristics” of Restoration ...
May 10, 2016 ... Whilst there may be some funny moments, a Shakespearean comedy may
involve some very dramatic storylines. Usually what defines a ... | <urn:uuid:3f6eb9c9-3be7-4e4c-a6b9-7db1e316a122> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ask.com/web?qsrc=60&o=41647999&oo=41647999&l=dir&gc=1&q=Characteristics+of+Drama | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00191-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.819165 | 389 | 3.734375 | 4 |
Charter Service: Encasing the Magna Carta
ScienceDaily (Feb. 8, 2012) — You often hear about the Framers of the Constitution, but not so much the framers of the Magna Carta. They work for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Not the authors, of course; they've been dead 700 years. But a NIST engineering team, at the behest of the National Archives, designed and built a state-of-the-art encasement and transport cart to protect the Archive's prized copy of the 1297 Magna Carta. Their work -- and the freshly conserved Magna Carta -- were on display Feb. 2, 2012, at a special "behind-the-scenes" showing at the National Archives Conservation Lab. The enclosure is designed to visually enhance the parchment document while maintaining the interior environment so it does not degrade the document, which is the underpinning to Western Civilization and U.S. law.
The encasement is basically a controlled environment, explained NIST Project Engineer Jay Brandenburg, who regularly does similar tasks to isolate sensitive lab equipment.
The first Magna Carta was signed in 1215 by King John of England. He was forced by an assembly of barons to put in writing, for the first time, the traditional rights and liberties of the country's free persons. After another confrontation with barons, Edward I not only reissued the Magna Carta in 1297, but for the first time, it was entered into the official Statute Rolls of England and became the foundation of English law.
The owner of this copy of the Magna Carta, David M. Rubinstein, loaned the document to the National Archives and paid for its restoration and encasement.
While the Archives refurbished the parchment, NIST engineers and crafts people built a platform to hold the Magna Carta, the large encasement it sits in and a heavy-duty cart.
NIST worked from a three-dimensional laser scan of the document to support it on the platform and to create a nest to hold the original wax seal with Edward I's likeness, which is attached to the Magna Carta by a frail parchment ribbon.
The platform was created from a single 6-inch thick block of aluminum to minimize the number of joints or spots that could cause leaks in the encasement, explained Brandenburg. About 90 percent of the block was cut away with a computer-controlled milling machine based on the three-dimensional image to create the perfect fit.
The end result is an enclosure about 41 inches wide by 28 inches long and 6 inches deep. It weighs 225 pounds. The encasement cover is made of a special laminated glass with antireflective coatings to ensure maximum visibility of the document while protecting it. The encasement is sealed with close-fitting bolts that hold the frame against double O-rings that create the encasement seal. The case was filled with argon gas and will be monitored to avoid as much oxidation damage as possible.
The enclosure will likely never be seen in its entirety again. By mid-February it will be placed inside the new interactive display in the West Rotunda Gallery of the U.S. National Archives Building in Washington, D.C. There, alongside three other documents for which NIST built similar enclosures -- the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights -- it will be on display for the 1 million visitors that pass through the Archives each year.
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and Google +1:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120208132842.htm | <urn:uuid:d4a6961b-f3b8-4b33-be1d-5972b75b31aa> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/index.php?topic=30290.msg242718 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00041-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934462 | 765 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Italy has been making headlines over the past few weeks after the Greek crisis settled down, at least temporarily. Part of the PIIGS list of countries, Italy has the second-highest debt load at 119% of GDP, while Greece leads the euro zone at 142% of GDP.
The population of Italy is about 61 million and the size of the economy was about $1.7 trillion in 2010. The country is highly divided between the prosperous North and the poor South. The CIA World Factbook notes the following on the Italian economy:
Italy has a diversified industrial economy, which is divided into a developed industrial north, dominated by private companies, and a less-developed, welfare-dependent, agricultural south, with high unemployment. The Italian economy is driven in large part by the manufacture of high-quality consumer goods produced by small and medium-sized enterprises, many of them family owned. Italy also has a sizable underground economy, which by some estimates accounts for as much as 15% of GDP.
Italy lags other European nations in many areas. The following are some of the reasons why Italy finds itself in the current fiscal crisis situation:
- In the past decade, Italy has suffered from low economic growth, weak productivity, and declining competitiveness.
- Among OECD countries, Italy has one of the lowest levels of educational attainment in Italy.
- Italy’s excessive regulation hurts economic growth, especially in parts of the service sector, which remains highly protected from competition. For example, last year’s New York Times article Is Italy Too Italian? noted that an economics professor lamented how he was charged €20 by a taxi driver before he even started the ride to the Milan airport from his home. This type of daylight robbery occurs in Italy due to arbitrary rules set by the local taxi association, which has a monopoly on the local market.
- An economy dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises, which are unable to exploit economies of scale in this age of globalization and race to the bottom.
- The tax burden is one of the largest in OECD, but public expenditure is highly inefficient, especially in the South.
- The Italian judicial system is notorious for corruption and inefficiency. The time to resolve civil cases is the longest in all OECD countries.
- Scientific innovation is rare, with R&D investment one of the lowest in the OECD area.
- The large regional disparities in terms of per capita income and labor market performance, in particular between the developed Center-North and the lagging South. The per capita GDP in the South is almost half that in the North.
- Italy’s market share in world trade has declined significantly since the mid-1990s.
- Despite substantial improvements over the past decade, Italy’s labor market performance still lags behind other EU economies.
Source: Italy: Selected Issues, IMF, July 2011.
Currently Italy spends $3.6 billion annually on a fleet 86,000 official cars. Under a new law, only the President and four other national leaders will get high performance cars courtesy of the state. (Source: Bloomberg BusinessWeek.)
Italian lawmakers are among the highest paid politicians in Europe. In 2010, members of the lower house earned an average gross salary of more than $196K, which is nearly double of that of a U.K. lawmaker's salary. In addition, politicians in Italy get free lodgings in Rome, flights and even taxpayer-subsidized haircuts. (Source: The Wall Street Journal.) | <urn:uuid:9e772c72-8b61-40ae-bc87-5cd950369f6a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://seekingalpha.com/article/280237-why-italy-is-falling-behind | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00001-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964373 | 716 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Student Drop-off and Pick-up
Orangewood Elementary School, Phoenix, AZ.
Rogers Elementary School, CA.
The purpose of a Safe Routes to School (SRTS) program is to encourage and enable more children to walk and bicycle to school safely. Communities tailor a combination of engineering, enforcement, education and encouragement strategies to address the specific needs of their schools. This includes the walk or bicycle journey to and from school as well as the drop-off and pick-up process of children at school who are transported by motor vehicle. The drop-off and pick-up process must be safe and efficient for students and parents arriving by bus or private motor vehicle, as well as those who arrive on foot and bicycle.
Some parents are reluctant to allow their children to walk or bicycle to school due to the traffic congestion and perceived traffic danger during student arrival and dismissal. This often results in more parents driving their children to school which adds to the extra congestion and safety problems at the school, creating an increasing cycle of more traffic problems and less walking. By improving the drop-off and pick-up process, traffic conditions become safer for all, including pedestrians and bicyclists. Better organized and safer traffic conditions will ease the concerns of parents, making them more willing to allow their children to walk or bicycle.
This chapter will help readers identify problems associated with the drop off and pick up of students at school, and identify engineering, enforcement, education and encouragement solutions to these problems. The purpose of improving the drop-off and pick-up process is to increase the safety and attractiveness of traveling to and from school on foot or by bicycle. The drop-off and pick-up process, as with all components of a SRTS program, requires coordination with local government officials, law enforcement, school officials, parents, and the general public.
Improving the drop-off and pick-up process will:
- increase safety for everyone in route to and from school as well as on school grounds.
- employ engineering, enforcement, education and encouragement strategies.
- require a site-specific application of strategies as each school will have its own set of limitations and opportunities.
For more information on Student Drop-off and Pick-up see: | <urn:uuid:33449f7c-b447-491e-9296-398e9a74724b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://guide.saferoutesinfo.org/dropoff_pickup/index.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396147.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00101-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968871 | 458 | 3.265625 | 3 |
The report, which is intended to assist the new Human Rights Council, as well as members of Congress, journalists and other policymakers, includes detailed descriptions of the dire human rights situations in eight countries judged to have the worst records in the past year. These countries are Burma, Cuba, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Also included are two territories, Chechnya and Tibet, whose inhabitants suffer intense repression.
In addition, The Worst of the Worst includes nine other countries near the bottom of Freedom House's list of the most repressive: Belarus, China, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Laos, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and Zimbabwe. The territory of Western Sahara is also included in this group. While these states scored slightly better than the "worst of the worst," they offer very limited scope for political discussion and activity.
The report is available online."This report should be viewed as the minimal 'to do' list to be addressed by members of the UN Human Rights Council and those governments that profess to care about human rights," Jennifer Windsor, Executive Director of Freedom House | <urn:uuid:eed1613a-1dae-47d0-acbe-0e1a2d1346cf> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://makaipa.blogspot.com/2006/09/zim-one-of-most-repressive-regiemes-in.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394987.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00123-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955596 | 227 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Belonging to, spoken by, or resembling a chorus in drama or recitation.
- Where Brecht uses song or projected words upon a screen, Shakespeare is more likely to use choric characters who may utter highly wrought poetic speeches of some length only to disappear for the rest of the play.
- In the same way, the sight of his father defeated by unemployment provides Death of a Salesman with its Greek, choric universality.
- He praises her perfection in hyperbolic, mythological terms in the long speech which precedes the choric conclusion to the play.
Mid 19th century: via late Latin from Greek khorikos, from khoros 'chorus'.
Words that rhyme with choricaleatoric, allegoric, anaphoric, camphoric, categoric, Doric, euphoric, historic, metaphoric, meteoric, phantasmagoric, phosphoric, pyrophoric, semaphoric, sophomoric, theophoric, Warwick, Yorick
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Comments that don't adhere to our Community Guidelines may be moderated or removed. | <urn:uuid:1bc8db38-dd14-41ec-ae5f-68f9b0e145dd> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/choric | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00031-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.880567 | 256 | 3.46875 | 3 |
uuencode converts a binary file into an encoded representation that can be sent using mail(1) . It encodes the contents of source-file , or the standard input if no source-file argument is given. The decode_pathname argument is required. The decode_pathname is included in the encoded file's header as the name of the file into which uudecode is to place the binary (decoded) data. uuencode also includes the permission modes of source-file, (except setuid , setgid , and sticky-bits), so that decode_pathname is recreated with those same permission modes.
uudecode reads an encoded-file , strips off any leading and trailing lines added by mailer programs, and recreates the original binary data with the filename and the mode specified in the header.
The encoded file is an ordinary portable character set text file; it can be edited by any text editor. It is best only to change the mode or decode_pathname in the header to avoid corrupting the decoded binary.
The following operands are supported by uuencode :
The pathname of the file into which the uudecode utility will place the decoded file. If there are characters in decode_pathname that are not in the portable filename character set the results are unspecified.
A pathname of the file to be encoded.
See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of uuencode and uudecode when encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 231 bytes).
See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables that affect the execution of uuencode and uudecode : LC_CTYPE , LC_MESSAGES , and NLSPATH .
The standard output is a text file (encoded in the character set of the current locale) that begins with the line:
"begin%s%s\ ", <mode >, decode_pathname
and ends with the line:
In both cases, the lines have no preceding or trailing blank characters.
The algorithm that is used for lines in between begin and end takes three octets as input and writes four characters of output by splitting the input at six-bit intervals into four octets, containing data in the lower six bits only. These octets are converted to characters by adding a value of 0x20 to each octet, so that each octet is in the range 0x20-0x5f, and then it is assumed to represent a printable character. It then will be translated into the corresponding character codes for the codeset in use in the current locale. (For example, the octet 0x41, representing A , would be translated to A in the current codeset, such as 0xc1 if it were EBCDIC.)
Where the bits of two octets are combined, the least significant bits of the first octet are shifted left and combined with the most significant bits of the second octet shifted right. Thus the three octets A, B, C are converted into the four octets:
0x20 + (( A >> 2 ) & 0x3F) 0x20 + (((A << 4) ((B >> 4) & 0xF)) & 0x3F) 0x20 + (((B << 2) ((C >> 6) & 0x3)) & 0x3F) 0x20 + (( C ) & 0x3F)
These octets are then translated into the local character set.
Each encoded line contains a length character, equal to the number of characters to be decoded plus 0x20 translated to the local character set as described above, followed by the encoded characters. The maximum number of octets to be encoded on each line is 45.
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
|ATTRIBUTE TYPE||ATTRIBUTE VALUE|
The encoded file's size is expanded by 35% (3 bytes become 4, plus control information), causing it to take longer to transmit than the equivalent binary.
The user on the remote system who is invoking uudecode (typically uucp ) must have write permission on the file specified in the decode_pathname .
If you uuencode then uudecode a file in the same directory, you will overwrite the original file. | <urn:uuid:84a8215c-7e43-40e4-917d-587e73eb2282> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19455-01/806-0624/6j9vek5jv/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00114-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.870508 | 924 | 2.78125 | 3 |
2014•06•15 Borneo Post Online
Excerpt from the article by Joseph Masilamany:
Zafar Adeel of the UN University in Hamilton in Canada says: “We already know what could possibly happen when a big El Nino strikes. It means we can already identify vulnerable communities and have emergency plans put in place.”
However, he recommends that accurate local forecasts are crucial as large-scale regional forecasts can get the finer details wrong.
Read more: http://www.theborneopost.com/2014/06/15/bad-moon-rising-el-nino-ahead/#ixzz36x4egNod | <urn:uuid:5fc5fd46-b504-4655-8bf0-0bcbe2d856e8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://unu.edu/media-relations/media-coverage/bad-moon-rising-el-nino-ahead.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393518.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00161-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905911 | 141 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Trying to figure out the healthiest way to eat keeps getting more baffling. Recent news stories question the conventional wisdom that all fat is bad for you. Meanwhile, the old guidepost—the U.S. Department of Agriculture's food pyramid—has come under increasing fire.
Walter Willett, chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health, wants to throw out the USDA guidelines entirely and replace them with a science-based Healthy Eating Pyramid. A new study of 100,000 people shows that switching to Willett's dietary scheme—which emphasizes whole-grain foods, plant oils, and plenty of exercise—cuts the risk of cardiovascular disease in men by 39 percent and in women by 28 percent.
Willett, who put himself through college by selling home-grown vegetables, discusses the latest findings on nutrition with associate editor Josie Glausiusz.
Discover: Why do you want to throw out the USDA food pyramid?
At best, it's a lost opportunity to help people make important changes in their diet. At worst, some people are likely to die from following the USDA pyramid because they will be eliminating from their diet healthy fats, such as liquid vegetable oils, that actually reduce the risk of heart disease. The unhealthy fats are the animal fats, mainly from red meat and butter, which are high in saturated fats; even worse are the trans-fats from partially hydrogenated vegetable oils found in some margarines and deep-fried fast foods.
What does your Healthy Eating Pyramid look like?
At the base, we put regular physical activity and weight control. The next layer up emphasizes whole-grain, high-fiber healthy carbohydrates and healthy fats such as liquid vegetable oils and foods made from avocados and nuts. I also encourage eating an abundance of fruits and vegetables. Nuts and legumes are good sources of protein for vegetarians, but adding in fish and moderate amounts of poultry and eggs can also be perfectly healthy.
How does it differ from the USDA guidelines?
We put red meat and butter at the top of the pyramid as things to eat sparingly. Red meat is high in saturated fat, and is related to increased risks of colon and prostate cancer, as well as diabetes. The really big difference, though, is the refined starches and sugars--white rice, white bread, white pasta--which are the base of the USDA pyramid. Those things really are empty calories and have adverse effects on blood cholesterol, and we see a relationship to the risk of heart disease and diabetes. In our pyramid, those are things to be eaten sparingly.
Why are these carbohydrates bad?
First, they don't provide much in the way of nutrients. Second, refined carbohydrates tend to cause rapid, high spikes of blood glucose. The body doesn't like high amounts of glucose in the blood, so it pumps out a lot of insulin from the pancreas, and that brings the glucose crashing down. As a result, two or three hours later you often feel hungry. That tends to increase the frequency of snacking, which probably makes it harder to control weight in the long run. We also have evidence that it will increase the risk of Type II diabetes and heart disease.
How can eating healthy fats like olive oil improve your health?
In several ways. First of all, they help bring down the bad cholesterol and keep the good cholesterol--the HDL--high. And some of these polyunsaturated fats help to reduce or keep the blood from clotting by reducing the blood platelets' tendency to come together. They can also help prevent heart-rhythm disturbances that can lead to ventricular fibrillation, which in turn can lead to dying suddenly.
People are incessantly showered with diet advice. Why should anyone follow yours?
There is a very broad base of scientific evidence to support the Healthy Eating Pyramid, and that's important, because it shouldn't rest on any one study. We have both carefully controlled feeding studies and large epidemiological studies following many tens of thousands of people for many years that show that the type of fat, not the total amount of fat, is what's important for having a good balance of the types of cholesterol in the blood.
If the USDA food pyramid is so wrong, how did it come about?
The Department of Agriculture's first constituency is agribusiness: Big Beef, Big Milk, Big Sugar, Big Grain. Yes, the department has some interest in nutrition, but it's going to be extremely difficult for them to say, "Eat less red meat." The low-fat emphasis is also convenient. The meat people, the dairy people, the baking people, the grain people can all say, "We've got a low-fat version, and this is supported by the pyramid," which it is.
High-fat, low-carb diets are all the rage right now. Do they stand up to scientific scrutiny?
They seem to work better for controlling weight than the opposite, low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet. If you're going to be eating a high amount of fat, however, it's doubly important to make that healthy fat. I don't think this idea of eating all the red meat and cheese you want is a good diet. On the other hand, if you do go on a very-low-carbohydrate diet, it's okay if you emphasize things like nuts and fish and some legumes, like soy.
Does anyone know what the long-term effects of a high-fat, low-carb diet might be?
We don't have good long-term studies. However, there is one group, the Greenland Eskimos, that has had a very low carbohydrate intake, and they seemed to do all right from that, although their general health is not wonderful, mainly because of a lot of tuberculosis. Interestingly, carbohydrates are not an essential part of the human diet. We need glucose to fuel the brain, but we can generate enough, in small amounts, from protein and fat in the diet.
Why eat whole grains, then? What are the benefits?
Most incontrovertible is that they reduce constipation. But we also see lower risks of diabetes and heart disease with some whole-grain/high-fiber products in the diet. There are also some other micronutrients that come along in the whole-grain products--magnesium, chromium--that are stripped away in the refining process along with the fiber. I think for most people the optimal diet is not going to be either the very-low-fat or the very-low-carbohydrate diet, but something in between, which is more like the Mediterranean diet.
Almost one-quarter of Americans are obese. Why?
We've created the great American feedlot. Farmers have known for thousands of years that if you want to fatten up an animal, you put it in a pen so it can't run around and you feed it lots of grains. People are not too different. The vast majority get far too little physical activity. The average number of television hours we watch per week is about 30, and people say they don't have time to exercise, which I find completely incredible. We have a huge abundance of cheap food and a food industry that spends huge amounts of money doing every trick they can, trying to penetrate every human frailty, to get us to eat more of it.
Is there any hope of reducing the obesity epidemic?
It's certainly possible, if there is enough of a commitment to do it. But it will mean that almost every sector of society has got to get involved. The design of buildings and cities to make walking and bicycling more friendly has to be better supported. It also has to involve schools, health-care providers, and parents. If kids are allowed to watch 30 hours of television a week, it's just egregious.
You recommend taking a daily multivitamin. If one is eating a healthy diet, why is it necessary?
Some people may not need it, but there are a few nutrients that are marginal in many people's diets, even if they are very health conscious. One is folic acid. You've got to eat almost perfectly every meal to get the 400 micrograms of folic acid, which seems to be the minimal optimal amount. Vitamins B6 and B12 are short in many people's diets as well. In a mainstream diet, red meat and animal products are actually the major source of vitamins B6 and B12, so if people cut them out, they don't always eat enough legumes to get an adequate amount. Then many people, particularly in the northern half of the United States, are short on vitamin D, because we don't convert enough of it from sunlight when the sun is too low on the horizon in the winter.
What's a typical day's meals for you?
I usually have Kashi breakfast cereal. It's seven whole grains, and you cook it for 45 minutes, and then I usually add some nuts and some fruit that's in season or dried fruit in the winter. Sometimes I take a lunch with some Kashi and add nuts and salad to it. Or sometimes at school they have a stir-fry bar or a salad bar, so I'll use one of those. And for dinner, I usually have some salad, sometimes a bit of chicken or fish.
What's really important to know is that eating healthily is not a punishment, that it can be even more interesting, varied, and flavorful than the sort of mashed potatoes, meat, and gravy diet that I grew up with. There are all these grains--quinoa, barley, rice, wheatberries--that can give the diet a lot more variety, flavor, and texture compared to mashed potatoes. There are different kinds of vegetables and ways of preparing them and a variety of cooking oils and nuts that can give tremendous variety to food.
A group of teens recently sued McDonald's for failing to provide information on the health risks of burgers and fries. What's your opinion of the case?
I think there is some justification for it. Even if they don't win, the threat of lawsuits will have a good impact on the fast-food industry because suddenly they seem to be more interested in making their products healthy. You would like to think that food producers would try to make their products as healthy as they can. But it doesn't happen. To some extent, it's no big surprise, because if you look at the major food brands in the United States, many of them are owned by the tobacco industry. RJR-Nabisco is primarily a tobacco company. Philip Morris owns Kraft. There's this huge web of Big Tobacco and Big Food.
Isn't this a matter of personal decision making? It's no secret that eating hamburgers is bad for you.
You might make that case for adults. But children are really not in a position to make informed choices about long-term health consequences. That's why we don't allow them to buy cigarettes or drive cars or drink alcohol or have firearms. Yet the food industry exploits children who really need protection. They use TV advertising to promote their products to children without any limitation or concern, when it's clearly junk for the most part. | <urn:uuid:a60bce4f-0b4d-4674-90c8-4af4296abdbf> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://discovermagazine.com/2003/mar/breakdialogue | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00046-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970764 | 2,308 | 2.765625 | 3 |
The Parthenon in Athens and the Pantheon in Rome are two of the greatest surviving monuments of ancient civilizations. Though they came from very different cultures, the two buildings have a great deal in common. Both monuments were symbols of the political goals of the rulers who built them. Each building is also considered the ultimate achievement of a period in architectural history. But, the two monuments also demonstrate differences between Greek and Roman ideas about architecture and the state.
The two monuments have similar recent histories. Both are so well preserved because they were adapted by later cultures. The Parthenon was the only temple ever to be used by four different religions (ancient Greek, Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Islam). The survival of the Pantheon was due to its use by the Catholic Church's as a church, a function that continues today.
The Parthenon, a temple dedicated to Athena Parthenos (Athena the Maiden), is the largest building on the Athenian Acropolis. "Acropolis" was the name given to the highest point of the city. This was always the most easily defended spot, and the main temples, treasuries, and major civic buildings were placed there. The Athenian Acropolis still has large parts of several monumental structures from the building program initiated in the fifth century BC by the statesman Pericles.
There had been a temple on the same spot, but it was torn down in 488 BC to build a new temple. In 480 BC, in the war with the Persians, Athens was sacked and the beginnings of the new temple were destroyed. The Parthenon was built in its place, between 448 and 432 BC, as part of an ambitious attempt to establish a monument that was "both national and Panhellenic" (Martin 292). Following the terrible war, Pericles wanted a symbol of the greatness of Athens, "the chief victim and victor" in the war with the Persians (Janson 131). But, Pericles also believed that Greece could b... | <urn:uuid:7c232e14-ed32-40c4-b7b2-5dea67261166> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1713282.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00022-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980067 | 409 | 4.03125 | 4 |
A shrubby North American plant, typically having bell-shaped flowers and reputed to be poisonous to dogs.
- Genus Apocynum, family Apocynaceae: several species, including the common spreading dogbane (A. androsaemifolium).
- Blue stars are related to dogbanes, oleander, and periwinkles, and produce a similarly milky sap which can be messy.
- Tillage with a chisel plow, disk, or field cultivator may actually help spread perennials with creeping root systems, such as Canada thistle and hemp dogbane.
- Because some perennial broadleaf weeds, such as bindweeds, hemp dogbane, common milkweed, and Jerusalem artichoke, cannot be controlled effectively for relay intercropping, severely infested fields should be avoided.
For editors and proofreaders
Definition of dogbane in:
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Comments that don't adhere to our Community Guidelines may be moderated or removed. | <urn:uuid:54f2fc1e-16b0-4b5e-946d-37b1451a4915> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/dogbane | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00127-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.895182 | 218 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Who Doesn't love a good riddle or mystery? My students loved this foldable writing project. AND they wrote at least 16 original similes while completing it! Here's how to use it.
How I Used This Foldable:
1. Read a book about similes such as Crazy as a Fox, My Dog is as Smelly as Dirty Socks, or Muddy as a Duckpuddle. Discuss Similes and add examples to students’ writing resources.
2. Pass out the character cards from The Making It Teacher on TPT.com (and follow her!) http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Partner-Picking-Cards
3. Have the students write eight simile clues to describe their character.
4. If students finish early, have them select another card (this time, it’s their choice- they were very motivated to finish the first one so they could choose their own for the second simile.
5. Have students Simultaneous Roundtable (Kagan Structure) edit their papers for conventions (have all students in the pod of four correct all of the other students’ papers- use a timer.) They should also check to verify that their teammate’s riddle is guessable.
6. Have students publish their riddles on the folded and cut final draft paper. They can draw the character under the Who am I? Flap. Copy the pages so they’re double sided and students can publish two.
7. Have students Stand Up, Hand Up, Pair Up to share their Who Am I? Riddles. Switch several times so students get to guess several other students’ riddles.
I hope your students enjoy this as much as mine did! | <urn:uuid:80603c57-4471-48c2-bc6a-19f1107db307> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://schenkgr4.blogspot.com/2012/11/fun-descriptive-writing-figurative.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00174-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950557 | 365 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Persephone (Proserpine) in Persephone, Demeter, and Hades
Persephone (Proserpine to the Romans) was the beautiful daughter of Zeus, king of the gods, and Demeter, goddess of agriculture. Persephone also goes by the name of Kore or Cora, and she is thought of as the maiden goddess of spring and grain. In the most popular myth of Persephone, she's the unwilling wife of Hades, lord of the underworld, and must spend a few months out of the year with him in the land of the dead. Nothing grows on earth when Persephone is among the dead, because Demeter is so sad about her daughter's fate. And so the myth of Persephone is used to explain the seasons.
Interestingly, in earlier myths Persephone is depicted as the perfectly willing queen of the dead who rules the underworld beside her husband, Hades. In these myths, she wasn't depicted as an innocent maiden at all, but the stone-cold goddess of the dead. In The Odyssey, for example, Homer calls her the majestic queen of shades. This earlier version of Persephone was often called Despoina, which translates to "the mistress." People called her this because they were afraid to say her real name.
Eventually, it seems Persephone's two personas blended together, and so she was thought of as a goddess of both life and death. Whatever the case, Persephone is almost always associated with the death and resurrection of the earth through the cycle of the seasons. She and Demeter were the central figures in Eleusinian Mysteries, a cult practice which promised its initiates everlasting life. (See "Context" for more on the Eleusinian Mysteries.) | <urn:uuid:9b89d31c-b12a-4140-a056-99e2a87333ad> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.shmoop.com/persephone-demeter-hades/persephone-proserpine-character.html/quizzes.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00092-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976 | 351 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Health and Labor Force Participation over the Life Cycle
Evidence from the Past
To that end, this book draws on new data-an extensive longitudinal survey of Union Army veterans born between 1820 and 1850-to examine the factors that affected health and labor force participation in nineteenth-century America. Contributors consider the impacts of a variety of conditions-including social class, wealth, occupation, family, and community-on the morbidity and mortality of the group. The papers investigate and address a number of special topics, including the influence of previous exposure to infectious disease, migration, and community factors such as lead in water mains. They also analyze the roles of income, health, and social class in retirement decisions, paying particular attention to the social context of disability.
Economists and historians who specialize in demography or labor, as well as those who study public health, will welcome the unique contributions offered by this book, which offers a clearer view than ever before of the workings and complexities of life, death, and labor during the nineteenth century.
1. Reflections on the Early Indicators Project: A Partial History
2. The Rich and the Dead: Socioeconomic Status and Mortality in the United States, 1850-1860
3. Prior Exposure to Disease and Later Health and Mortality: Evidence from Civil War Medical Records
4. Seasoning Disease Environment, and Conditions of Exposure: New York Union Army Regiments and Soldiers
5. The Height of Union Army Recruits: Family and Community Influences
6. The Prevalence of Chronic Respiratory Disease in the Industrial Era: The United States, 1895-1910
7. The Significance of Lead Water Mains in American Cities: Some Historical Evidence
8. Internal Migration, Return Migration, and Mortality: Evidence from Panel Data on Union Army Veterans
9. Pensions and Labor Force Participation of Civil War Veterans
10. The Effect of Hernias on the Labor Force Participation of Union Army Veterans
Appendix A: Merged Mortality and Population Schedules from the U.S. Federal Censuses, 1850 and 1860
Appendix B: Properties and Availability of the Union Army Life-Cycle Sample | <urn:uuid:30d49e57-db00-440b-bf8b-ad1b006280ff> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo3614165.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393518.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00151-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903545 | 448 | 2.765625 | 3 |
One Million Seconds
Date: 09/10/2001 at 22:00:53 From: Alyson Erdman Subject: 1 million seconds What does 1 million seconds convert to in weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds? (Nanoseconds, etc. are not needed.) I have already found out at least 1 week and 12 hours, but I am stuck there. Please help!
Date: 09/11/2001 at 11:34:34 From: Doctor Ian Subject: Re: 1 million seconds Hi Alyson, There are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and 24 hours in a day, which means that there are 86,400 seconds in a day, and 604,800 seconds in a week. You probably know all this, which is why you were able to figure out that a million seconds is more than a week, but less than two weeks. Let's say we subtract a week from the total. That leaves us with 1,000,000 - (1 * 604,800) = 395,200 seconds to work with. The next smallest unit is a day, or 86400 seconds. 86,400 goes into 395,200 more than 4 times, but less than 5 times. So now we're down to 1,000,000 - (1 * 604,800) - (4 * 86,400) = 49,600 seconds. So all you have to do is keep going this way, for hours (3600 seconds) and minutes (60 seconds), and the remainder that you end up with will be the number of seconds. By the way, note that what you're doing here is converting from base 10 to a funky kind of 'base' in which the places are not powers of 10, but products of 60, 24, and 7. That is, you'll end up with something that looks like this: 1,000,000 = (a * 604,800) + (b * 86,400) + (c * 3600) + (d * 60) + (e * 1) Here, a is the number of weeks (which we know to be 1), b is the number of days (which we know to be 4), c is the number of hours, d is the number of minutes, and e is the number of seconds. Note that this is very much like what we do when we write a number like '209,534': 209,534 = (2 * 100,000) + (0 * 10,000) + (9 * 1,000) + (5 * 100) + (3 * 10) + (4 * 1) In each case, we have a series of 'places', each of which has some associated size. In the case of base 10 numbers, each 'place value' is a power of 10: 209,534 = (2 * 10^5) + (0 * 10^4) + (9 * 10^3) + (5 * 10^2) + (3 * 10^1) + (4 * 10^0) whereas in the case of weeks, etc., the 'place values' are 1,000,000 = (a * 60^2 * 24 * 7) + (b * 60^2 * 24) + (c * 60^2) + (d * 60^1) + (e * 60^0) The way the 'bases' are constructed is different, but it's really the same idea. Why do we care? Well, it's terrifically convenient to be able to write 209,534 instead of 2*10^5 + 0*10^4 + 9*10^3 + 5*10^2 + 3*10^1 + 4*10^0 isn't it? We can do this because we've all agreed on what the various place values mean. Similarly, we've all agreed that 12:31:46 means (12 * 60^2 seconds) + (31 * 60^1 seconds) + (46 * 60^0 seconds) All we're doing here is extending the notation to include days and weeks: a:b:c:d:e = (a * 60^2 * 24 * 7 seconds) + ... + (e * 60^0 seconds) Note that it's easy to make up notations like this - it's one of the things that mathematicians do all the time. The trick is getting everyone to _agree_ to use the same notation. (For example, some people might look at 'a:b:c:d:e' and think that 'a' represents months instead of weeks, which could make for interesting misunderstandings. International travelers already run into problems like this because Americans think that 6/9/01 means '6 months, 9 days, and 1 year' while Europeans think that it means '6 days, 9 months, and 1 year'.) Finally, note that if you r-e-a-l-l-y get what's going on here, then you already know how to convert between number bases, like base 8, base 16, base 5, and so on: You figure out what the place values are, then use repeated division to work your way down from the largest applicable place to the smallest place. Not coincidentally, this is the same process you would use to convert from a large number of ounces to gallons, quarts, pints, and cups, which form another non-uniform 'base': 1,000,000 ounces = (a * 1 gallon) + (b * 1 quart) + (c * 1 pint) + (d * 1 cup) + (e * 1 ounce) = (a * 2^7 ounces) 4 quarts in a gallon + (b * 2^5 ounces) 2 pints in a quart + (c * 2^4 ounces) 2 cups in a pint + (d * 2^3 ounces) 8 ounces in a cup + (e * 1 ounce) This may seem like more than you wanted to know, but this kind of thing shows up all over the place in math and science, so it's very useful to understand that what _seems_ at first to be an arbitrary collection of systems of weights and measures and number bases is really just the repeated application of a single, very powerful idea. I hope this helps. Let me know if you'd like to talk about this some more, or if you have any other questions. - Doctor Ian, The Math Forum http://mathforum.org/dr.math/
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© 1994-2015 The Math Forum | <urn:uuid:6579fa3b-f999-4a33-af13-27196438794f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/55752.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398209.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00059-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934081 | 1,384 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Excerpted from "When Risk Factors Unite," appearing in the Stroke Connection Magazine January/February 2005 (Science updated May 2014).
Common risk factors for coronary heart disease and stroke that can be controlled or treated include: high LDL cholesterol levels, low HDL cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes, physical inactivity, and being overweight or obese.Cholesterol
High levels of LDL cholesterol contribute to the development of atherosclerosis as the cholesterol is deposited in artery walls, increasing the buildup of plaque. Low levels of HDL cholesterol raise stroke risk because HDL cholesterol carries cholesterol away from the arteries and back to the liver where it is removed from the body.High Blood Pressure
High blood pressure, 140/90 mm Hg or higher, causes the heart to work harder than normal. Both the heart and arteries are then more prone to injury. High blood pressure increases the risk of heart attacks, strokes, CHF, atherosclerosis and kidney failure. High blood pressure damages the inner lining of the blood vessels, which promotes the formation of atherosclerotic plaques. Over time the arteries become narrowed, hardened and less elastic, contributing even more to the high blood pressure. African Americans are more likely to have high blood pressure. As a result, they have a greater rate of nonfatal stroke, fatal stroke, heart disease death and end-stage kidney disease. High blood pressure also increases the risk of hemorrhagic stroke by weakening blood vessels. Also increasing hemorrhagic risk are arteriovenous malformations (AVM) and aneurysms, which are both vascular diseases that can be affected by high blood pressure. “AVM and aneurysm are congenital anomalies rather than diseases with risk factors we can treat,” says Dr. Roach.
Learn more about the important relationship between blood pressure and stroke.
For smokers, the risk of developing coronary heart disease is two to four times higher than for nonsmokers. Smoking is also a significant risk factor for stroke. Exposure to other people’s smoke increases the risk of heart disease and stroke, even for nonsmokers. The nicotine and carbon monoxide in cigarette smoke damage the cardiovascular system in many ways. Nicotine causes a short-term increase in blood pressure, heart rate and the flow of blood from the heart. It also causes the arteries to narrow. Carbon monoxide reduces the amount of oxygen the blood can carry. This, combined with the nicotine effects, creates an imbalance between the demand for oxygen by the cells and the amount of oxygen the blood can supply. Toxic products in cigarette smoke can damage the arterial wall, contributing to atherosclerosis. Smoking can make blood platelets stickier, which means clots are more likely to form.Diabetes
Diabetes seriously increases your risk of developing cardiovascular disease. In fact, up to 75 percent of people with diabetes die of some form of heart or blood vessel disease, and their heart disease death rates are about two to four times higher than for adults without diabetes. Even when glucose levels are under control, diabetes increases your risk. If blood sugar is not well controlled, the risks are even greater. In addition, diabetes causes nerve damage that can make the pain of heart attacks harder to diagnose.
A physically inactive lifestyle is a risk factor for coronary heart disease and stroke. Physical activity can help control blood cholesterol, diabetes and weight, as well as help lower blood pressure in some people.
People who have excess body fat — especially if a lot of it is in the waist area — are more likely to develop heart disease and stroke even if they have no other risk factors. Excess weight increases the heart’s work. It also raises blood pressure and blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels, and lowers “good” cholesterol levels. It can also make diabetes more likely to develop.
“Scientists are beginning to understand that genetic influences go a long way in explaining why some families are more susceptible to strokes than others. Of course, genetic factors can influence the stroke risk itself, but genetics can also promote the other stroke risk factors,” added Dr. Roach.
The good news is that risk reduction for both CHD and stroke have a lot in common. Monitoring blood pressure and controlling it if it’s high, giving up smoking, eating a healthy diet, controlling diabetes, regular physical activity and maintaining a healthy weight all have a beneficial effect on risk of either condition.
This content was last reviewed on 05/01/14. | <urn:uuid:81642649-1d45-4c4c-a1cf-4e099b50df8c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.strokeassociation.org/STROKEORG/LifeAfterStroke/HealthyLivingAfterStroke/UnderstandingRiskyConditions/Converging-Risk-Factors-for-Stroke_UCM_310319_Article.jsp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00000-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926926 | 916 | 3.359375 | 3 |
Climate Change Will Erode Foundations Of Health, World Health Organization Warns
Scientists tell us that the evidence the Earth is warming is "unequivocal." Increases in global average air and sea temperature, ice melting and rising global sea levels all help us understand and prepare for the coming challenges. In addition to these observed changes, climate-sensitive impacts on human health are occurring today. They are attacking the pillars of public health. And they are providing a glimpse of the challenges public health will have to confront on a large scale, WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan warned on World Health Day.
"The core concern is succinctly stated: climate change endangers human health," said Dr Chan. "The warming of the planet will be gradual, but the effects of extreme weather events -- more storms, floods, droughts and heat waves -- will be abrupt and acutely felt. Both trends can affect some of the most fundamental determinants of health: air, water, food, shelter and freedom from disease."
Human beings are already exposed to the effects of climate-sensitive diseases and these diseases today kill millions. They include malnutrition, which causes over 3.5 million deaths per year, diarrhoeal diseases, which kill over 1.8 million, and malaria, which kills almost 1 million.
Examples already provide us with images of the future:
These trends and events cannot be attributed solely to climate change but they are the types of challenges we expect to become more frequent and intense with climate changes. They will further strain health resources that, in many regions, are already under severe stress.
"Although climate change is a global phenomenon, its consequences will not be evenly distributed," said Dr Chan. "In short, climate change can affect problems that are already huge, largely concentrated in the developing world, and difficult to control."
To address the health effects of climate change, WHO is coordinating and supporting research and assessment on the most effective measures to protect health from climate change, particularly for vulnerable populations such as women and children in developing countries, and is advising Member States on the necessary adaptive changes to their health systems to protect their populations.
WHO and its partners -- including the UN Environment Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and the UN World Meteorological Organization -- are devising a workplan and research agenda to get better estimates of the scale and nature of health vulnerability and to identify strategies and tools for health protection. WHO recognizes the urgent need to support countries in devising ways to cope. Better systems for surveillance and forecasting, and stronger basic health services, can offer health protection. WHO will be working closely with its Member States in coming years to develop effective means of adapting to a changing climate and reducing its effects on human health.
World Health Organization. April 2008.
rating: 0.00 from 0 votes | updated on: 2 Oct 2008 | views: 1959 | | <urn:uuid:c8c14fca-31ec-473b-b08e-8fa87feb254e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.biology-online.org/articles/climate-change-erode-foundations-health.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398216.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00143-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944328 | 582 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Did you know that when you purchased your home in Forest Heights, you automatically became a member of the Forest Heights Homeowners Association (FHHOA), also known as a community association? In order for a community association to operate smoothly, it is important to understand the basic concept of how a community association is governed.
There are many forms of government that are not applicable to a community association. As an example, some owners think they have bought into a democracy in which they are entitled to vote on everything.
A community association is not a democracy
Some owners think they bought into a social organization where owners discuss issues and make casual decisions.
A community association is not a social organization
Many owners have belonged to a civil organization or to a union and may think that a community association is similarity run. They may believe that a board makes a recommendation to the members, such as on an annual budget and the members vote for or against the budget.
A community association is not a civic organization
Occasionally, owners think they have bought into a dictatorship or monarchy where one board member, usually a president, makes all decisions individually.
A community association is not a dictatorship or monarchy as board members are elected, not appointed
So then, just what is a community association?
A community association is a business, and a very substantial business at that.
Virtually every association is subject to a corporate form of governance. Board members are volunteers elected by the community association members. If an owner is not satisfied with the association operations, that owner (member) has the right to seek proxies and votes of other owners to get himself or herself elected to the association board. After the election, the board runs the day-to-day affairs of the corporation/community association (FHHOA).
The board has also been elected to make decisions and act in a way it believes to be in the best interest of the entire community association (a fiduciary responsibility to the members). The members are encouraged to express their opinion, but the board ultimately makes the decision. An owner has the primary right of attending the annual meeting (May 1, 2012) at which the election of the association’s governing board takes place.
The community association lifestyle is successful because members have volunteered to take turns serving on the board and have cooperated with each other in the governance of the community association. Common sense and a sense of what is best for the entire community prevail. Individual rights giving way to the best interest of the community is the foundation of a successful association.
FHHOA is looking for a few good members to step forward and volunteer their time as a board member for the betterment of our community association. Please step forward and volunteer your time to lead this great community. Contact the association office for more details.
~ Stephen Herr,
FHHOA General Manager ~ | <urn:uuid:48e1a022-38d9-4a43-91b6-a37850399f9d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.fhhoa.com/news/volunteers-were-looking-for-you/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00062-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976317 | 581 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Establishing and maintaining a school garden can provide a valuable, hands-on learning environment that encourages students to apply what they learn in the classroom. Research shows that hands-on activities like gardening can improve academic performance in children while stimulating their desire to learn new concepts. Subjects such as math, science, reading/language arts, health, and social studies can all be presented in a new and exciting way. This integration of subject matter with an applied focus can invoke a myriad of learning opportunities that can help students to better retain, utilize, and apply the information they learn in the classroom.
outdoor education, planting, growing, classroom | <urn:uuid:5a352c7a-fb54-42a0-9888-015c36324236> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://njaes.rutgers.edu/pubs/publication.asp?pid=E348 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00097-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913735 | 128 | 3.734375 | 4 |
ok, the question reads:
An intriguing species of worm spends its time wandering around in search of food. A population of these worms is on a plate, 2% of which is covered with food. A point containing food contains worms with probability .1 and a point without food contains worms with probability .04 .
a.) draw a diagram illustrating the events and probabilities---- what kind of "diagram" is this supposed to be??
b.) find the probability that a 1-mm^2 region containing a worm also contains food --(no idea how to go about this one)
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE help me!! | <urn:uuid:1a9eff47-3b73-40ee-8c9c-66cd2babc3a6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mathhelpforum.com/advanced-statistics/32755-probability-problem-worms-plate.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00151-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941943 | 127 | 3.34375 | 3 |
Two Brains - One Thought
January 31, 2007
The nerve cells of the brain are inter-connected to a complex network. All brain activities are the result of the "firing" of nerve cells, when they send electrical pulses - like a Morse code - to other cells of the brain. This process depends on the exact dynamics of the neuronal activity. When the brain receives sensory input, calculates or remembers, it processes information encoded in a series of neuronal impulses in different nerve cells. Although no two people have the same brain, they can still share the same thought. Thus, only to a certain extent is the dynamics of neuronal activity dependent on the structure of neuronal networks. For networks far simpler than that of the human brain this idea also applies: different structures can display the same functionality. Raoul-Martin Memmesheimer and Marc Timme, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization and the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Göttingen, have developed a mathematical method to describe the set of all networks that exhibit a given dynamics. With this, they provide researchers with a tool which can be used to investigate the correlation between structure and function of a neuronal network.
A common approach in scientific research is to investigate the structure of a system in order to then draw conclusions about its function. Memmesheimer and Timme now took the reverse perspective. "For some simple networks we know the activity dynamics, that is, their function, but not their exact structure", explains Memmesheimer. "Any given dynamics can normally be created by a variety of different networks. We have developed a method to mathematically pin down this diversity". This procedure resembles juggling with many unknown quantities and requires great computational power. Already in a network of 1000 neurons (where each neuron can be connected to any other) there are a million possible contacts between any two neurons and consequently an unimaginably large number of possible networks. Each combination can have either an inhibiting or an activating effect on the downstream neuron and, in addition to this, can differ in its intensity and reaction time. The entirety of all possible networks of a defined dynamics resembles a complex figure in a multidimensional space. Here, every point on the surface specifies the data required to determine a network with the desired dynamics. Memmesheimer and Timme have now worked out a mathematical description for this figure.
The researchers examined the applicability of their model on the basis of a concrete question. They calculated all possible networks that generate a given dynamics and simultaneously fulfil a further condition: the structure of the network should be as simple as possible, that is, the number of connections and the strength of the synapses should be minimal. "Applied to a real network, one could for example analyse which structural optimisation principles function in evolution", says Timme. The dynamics of a number of very simple networks that generate repetitive patterns - like the insect walking pattern - are already well-understood. Has evolutionary pressure kept the structural complexity of such networks to a minimum - or could there have been other networks with an even simpler structure, yet possessing the same dynamics? Is it possible that many more networks fulfilling the same functional and structural conditions could have evolved? There is still no definite answer to these puzzles; however, with the help of the new methods developed by Memmesheimer and Timme, we are a step closer towards understanding them. | <urn:uuid:aa2a1607-27c1-4c5d-a173-31ddf8cf3e47> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ds.mpg.de/3908/news_publication_549358 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00125-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922596 | 685 | 3.203125 | 3 |
According to little-noticed research, pollution stemming from China and India is so severe that it is altering your local weather. Industrial power plants from these nations have been emitting high levels of sulfate and soot from industrial processes such as coal burning. As a result, the pollution is carried by the prevailing winds over the Pacific Ocean and eventually worldwide to a region near you.
Renyi Zhang is a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M who led the paper on the subject back in 2007. The research, funded by National Science Foundation and NASA, was the first of its kind to demonstrate how heavy pollution is adversely affecting the storm track over the Pacific Ocean — a major weather event that takes place during winter in the northern hemisphere. The Pacific storm track can affect weather all over the globe, which means that even regions outside of the northern hemisphere can experience a weather shift.
Due to certain climate conditions, the northern Pacific Ocean is more vulnerable to the aerosol effect in winter months. Aerosols can affect the droplets in clouds and can even change the dynamics of the clouds themselves, says the study authors. According to Zhang, the changes that occur can vary in nature. The pollution can lead to severe storms, or even droughts. “You might have more storms, and these storms might be more severe than usual,” he says.
“Or it could lead to the opposite — severe droughts in other areas. The Pacific storm track plays a crucial role in our weather, and there is no doubt at all that human activity is changing the world’s weather.”
Interestingly, Zhang also says that storms have risen anywhere from 20 to 50 percent in some areas since the onset of extreme pollution. Zhang derived these figures from comparing deep convective clouds from the 10-year period of 1984-1994 to the period from 1994-2005. Highly unnoticed by the mainstream media and other news outlets, this 2007 report highlights the serious nature of unregulated pollution from developing nations that are negatively impacting the environment so severely that it can actually increase the prevalence of storms and potentially trigger droughts.
||Anthony is a natural health and human empowerment writer, speaker, and entrepreneur whose writings have appeared in #1 USA Today and Wall Street Journal Best-Selling books and top 100 websites.
After overcoming Lyme Disease and nerve-related facial paralysis, Anthony's work now reaches several million readers per month through his highly prolific group of social media pages and websites.
Focused on self-development techniques and living a healthy lifestyle, Anthony currently sits on the Advisory Board to Natural Society in addition to managing and directing several other companies dedicated to enhancing social good.
Anthony's work routinely appears on both alternative and established websites and television programs alike, including Drudge Report, Thom Hartmann, Simple Reminders, RT, Infowars, Michael Savage, Gaiam TV, and many others. | <urn:uuid:051a6aae-3e05-4bf3-80ac-bf1a06a51cab> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://naturalsociety.com/pollution-so-severe-from-china-and-india-it-affects-your-local-weather/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00074-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948323 | 587 | 3.671875 | 4 |
TORONTO, ON – Healthy eating just got a little more complicated.
New research from the University of Toronto shows certain vegetable oils that claim to be healthy may actually increase the risk of heart disease.
And the results mean Health Canada should reconsider cholesterol-lowering claims on food labelling, says Dr.Richard Bazinet, lead author of the new study which is available online now at the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
“This is important information for people buying certain foods because of the heart benefits when really, that’s not accurate,” says Bazinet, of U of T’s department of nutritional sciences. “While most of these foods are a good choice, there are a few notable exceptions.”
Bazinet and his team report that replacing saturated animal fats with polyunsaturated vegetable oils had become common practice for consumers, based on the understanding that such oils reduce serum cholesterol levels and help prevent heart disease. Since 2012, Health Canada’s Food Directorate has allowed the food industry to use a label on the oils – and foods containing the oils – claiming “a reduced risk of heart disease by lowering blood cholesterol levels.”
But researchers say it’s more complicated than the label suggests – and the problem lies in the ratio of two kinds of polyunsaturates fatty acids found in the oils.
“Careful evaluation of recent evidence, however, suggests that allowing a health claim for vegetable oils rich in omega-6 linoleic acid but relatively poor in omega-3 α-linolenic acid may not be warranted,” write Bazinet and Michael Chu, Lawson Health Research Institute and Division of Cardiac Surgery at Western University in London, Ontario.
Corn and safflower oil, which are rich in omega-6 linoleic acid but contain almost no omega-3 α-linolenic acid, are not associated with beneficial effects on heart health, Bazinet says.
The authors cite a study published earlier this year in February 2013 in which “…the intervention group replaced saturated fat with sources of safflower oil or safflower oil margarine (rich in omega-6 linoleic acid but low in omega-3 α-linoleic acid). They found that the intervention group had serum cholesterol levels that were significantly decreased (by about 8%–13%) relative to baseline and the control group, which is consistent with the health claim.”
However, rates of death from all causes of cardiovascular disease and coronary artery disease significantly increased in the treatment group, says Bazinet.
“When the new results were added to a meta-analysis, the net result was a borderline 33 per cent increase in heart disease risk for oils rich in omega-6 and poor in omega-3, with absolutely no evidence of a benefit as is implied by the health claim,” Bazinet says.
In Canada, omega-6 linoleic acid is found in corn and safflower oils as well as foods such as mayonnaise, creamy dressings, margarine, chips and nuts. Canola and soybean oils, which contain both linoleic and α-linolenic acids, are the most common forms of oil in the Canadian diet.
“We suggest that the health claim be modified such that foods rich in omega-6 linoleic acid but poor in omega-3 α-linolenic acid be excluded,” conclude the authors.
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University of Toronto | <urn:uuid:bb545a3b-402f-4626-93aa-2750b44d6e2a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://media.utoronto.ca/media-releases/health-medicine/healthy-vegetable-oils-may-actually-increase-risk-of-heart-disease-researchers-say/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408828.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00133-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942809 | 725 | 3 | 3 |
WASHINGTON: In a landmark discovery for physics and astronomy, international scientists said Thursday they have glimpsed the first direct evidence of gravitational waves, or ripples in space-time, which Albert Einstein predicted a century ago.
When two black holes collided some 1.3 billion years ago, the joining of those two great masses sent forth a wobble that hurtled through space and arrived at Earth on September 14, 2015, when it was picked up by sophisticated instruments, researchers announced.
“Like Galileo first pointing his telescope upward, this new view of the sky will deepen our understanding of the cosmos, and lead to unexpected discoveries,” said France Cordova, director of the US National Science Foundation, which funded the work.
The phenomenon was observed by two US-based underground detectors, designed to spot tiny vibrations from passing gravitational waves, a project known as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, or LIGO.
It took scientists months to verify their data and put it through a process of peer-review before announcing it on Thursday, marking the culmination of decades of efforts by teams around the world.
“LIGO has ushered in the birth of an entirely new field of astrophysics,” said Cordova.
Gravitational waves are a measure of strain in space, an effect of the motion of large masses that stretches the fabric of space-time — a way of viewing space and time as a single, interweaved continuum.
They travel at the speed of light and cannot be stopped or blocked by anything.
Einstein said space-time could be compared to a net, bowing under the weight of an object. Gravitational waves would be like ripples that emanate from a pebble thrown in a pond.
While scientists have previously been able to calculate gravitational waves, they had never before seen one directly.
According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) David Shoemaker, the leader of the LIGO team, it looked just like physicists thought it would.
“The waveform that we can calculate based on Einstein’s theory of 1916 matches exactly what we observed in 2015,” David Shoemaker, the leader of the LIGO team, told AFP.
“It looked like a chirp, it looked at something that started at low frequencies — for us low frequencies means 20 or 30 hertz, that’s like the lowest note on a bass guitar, sweeping very rapidly up over just a fraction of a second… up to 150 hertz or so, sort of near middle C on a piano.”
The chirp “corresponded to the orbit of these two black holes getting smaller and smaller, and the speed of the two objects going faster and faster until the two became a single object,” he explained.
“And then right at the end of this waveform, we see the wobbling of the final black hole as if it were made of jelly as it settled into a static state.”
The L-shaped LIGO detectors — each about 1.5 kilometers (four kilometers) long — were conceived and built by researchers at MIT and Caltech.
One is located in Hanford, Washington, and the other is in Livingston, Louisiana.
A third detector, called VIRGO, is scheduled to open in Italy later this year.
Tuck Stebbins, head of the gravitational astrophysics laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center, described the detectors as the “most complex machines humans have ever built.”
Both LIGO and VIRGO have undergone major upgrades in recent years.
Physicist Benoit Mours of France’s National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), which is leading the VIRGO team along with Italian colleagues, described the discovery as “historic” because it “allows us to directly verify one of the predictions of the theory of general relativity.”
Physicists said the gravitational wave detected at 1651 GMT on September 14 originated in the last fraction of a second before the fusion of two black holes somewhere in the southern sky, though they can’t say precisely where.
Einstein had predicted such a phenomenon would occur when two black holes collided, but it had never before been observed.
An analysis by the MIT and Caltech found that the two black holes joined about 1.3 billion years ago, and their mass was 29-36 times greater than the Sun.
The wave arrived first at the Louisiana detector, then at the Washington instrument 7.1 milliseconds later.
The two instruments are 1,800 miles (3,000 kilometers) apart, and since both made the same reading, scientists consider their discovery confirmed.
“Black holes are interesting because they do not give off any light and that is why these particular objects had never been seen before — because all of the astrophysical instruments to date use light,” said Shoemaker.
“So this is one of the ways in which this tool is special and unique in the astronomical toolkit.”
He said the new data “can really help to explain the formation of galaxies and overall large scale structures of the material in the universe.”
Details of the discovery are being published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
Indirect proof of gravitational waves was found in 1974 through the study of a pulsar and a neutron star. Scientists Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor won the Nobel Prize for physics for that work in 1993.
“Humanity has now another tool for exploring the universe,” Stebbins told AFP.
“This is like the perfect outcome. The door is open to new discoveries,” he added.
“This is a new era in astrophysics.” | <urn:uuid:c743701c-7a25-46da-852c-dc8409527a64> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://tribune.com.pk/story/1045059/scientists-glimpse-einsteins-gravitational-waves/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403508.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00056-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95553 | 1,203 | 3.9375 | 4 |
Inside the brain of a chicken
A new atlas of the chicken brain by Australian researchers is set to help scientists better understand human brains.
The research by Professor George Paxinos of the University of New South Wales and Professor Charles Watson from Curtin University of Technology will be presented next month at the IBRO World Congress of Neuroscience in Melbourne.
Paxinos and Watson spent seven years combining the latest international brain research with old fashioned anatomy studies to create an atlas of the chicken brain.
The result is the most sophisticated map of a brain ever published, charting more than 100 new areas.
In particular, the atlas shows for the first time the 11 different units of the Rhombomeres area of the brain.
This area of the brain stem is home to the Hox genes, which are responsible for foetal development and control things like breathing and heart rate.
"Knowing where each of those units are is useful in analysing things like breathing disorders, and perhaps even autism, which is suspected to be related to the Hox genes," says Watson.
Similarities between human and chicken brains
Although humans have a large cerebral cortex, brains among mammals and birds tend to be remarkably similar.
Chickens, along with rats and mice, are commonly used in research aimed at understanding human brains, particularly early brain development, because scientists have easier access to the embryo in the egg.
"The research they do with the spinal cord in chickens is amazing and it simply couldn't be done on mice," says Watson.
"Because there's been no anatomy of the chicken bits, there have been fewer studies on the connections in the chicken brain. Now, with accurate coordinates, we're hoping that more can be done."
Low tech methods
Despite developments such as MRI, much brain mapping is still done using slices of the brain, photographs, 2B pencils and tracing paper, says Watson.
And he says mapping uncharted areas involves a fair bit of interpretation.
"You use any other information you can find, and you argue until you find consensus. Then we put lines around stuff and decide. But we've rarely been wrong." | <urn:uuid:83057ffa-4a9a-4e2d-9f23-8d83b4b35c8e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2007/06/18/1954058.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00099-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935967 | 441 | 3.328125 | 3 |
The LINGUIST List is dedicated to providing information on language and language analysis, and to providing the discipline of linguistics with the infrastructure necessary to function in the digital world. LINGUIST is a free resource, run by linguistics students and faculty, and supported primarily by your donations. Please support LINGUIST List during the 2016 Fund Drive.
Ask-A-Linguist Message Details
|Subject:||Child Language Acquisition & Difficulty of the Language|
|Question:||Hello, There seems to be agreement that some languages are more difficult to learn as a second language. But I'm wondering if children born into environments where the more ''difficult'' languages are spoken take longer to achieve a certain level of linguistic competency (acquire vocabulary or master the syntax). I read on one of your FAQ's that it does take children longer to learn to pronounce, for example, words that have multiple consonants in a row. But I'm curious about comparative learning rates other aspects of language. Thank you very much.| | <urn:uuid:5e3a56ee-fcea-4efc-a003-c8890aa9f558> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/message-details2.cfm?AsklingID=200481630 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00114-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921267 | 212 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Punnett Square Worksheet
This free printable worksheet features two large-sized monohybrid cross Punnett squares.
Students of Biology/Life Science can utilize each Punnett square to predict the possible outcomes of a genetic pairing of maternal alleles and paternal alleles.
The Punnett square is named for scientist Reginald C. Punnett.
It helps biologists to determine the probability of offspring expressing a particular genotype or trait.
Click here to print.
Click here for more free educational materials related to the sciences. | <urn:uuid:7db5f5cd-4081-4115-a4ab-4109734eacc1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.studenthandouts.com/01-Web-Pages/001-Pages/Punnett-Square-Printable.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00153-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.765936 | 116 | 3.65625 | 4 |
One of the reasons we like to look at paintings is that reality is filtered through someone's brain. Painters select the important elements out of the infinite detail that meets our eyes.
Here, Al Parker chooses to show us detail in the hands and face. He sinks everything else into a flat tone.
John Singer Sargent could have detailed every paving stone and roof tile in this Venice street scene. Instead he softened and simplified the background areas and put the focus on the faces.
This selectivity isn’t arbitrary. The detailed areas correspond with the parts of the picture that we want to look at anyway. As we’ve seen in previous posts, eye tracking studies have demonstrated the cognitive basis of selective attention. Viewers’ eyes consistently go to areas of a picture with the greatest psychological salience: things like faces, hands, and signs. We’re hard-wired for it.
What happens if you combine eye tracking data with computer graphics algorithms to automate the process of selective omission? Would the result look “expressive” or “artistic?”
(Click to enlarge) In his doctoral thesis for Rutgers University, Anthony Santella did just that. The photographs on the left include a set of overlapping circles showing where most people spent their time looking in each image. The larger the circle, the longer the concentration on those areas.
Santella combined that data with a rendering algorithm which simplified other areas of the image. In the top image, note the flattening of the far figures and the arches above them. In the bottom image of the woman, note how the wrinkles in the drapes and the textures in the sweater are rendered with flat tones. But her eyes, nose and mouth are still detailed.
The rendering algorithms can be designed to interpret the source photo in terms of line and color. Or the shapes can modulated in size according to the interest factor. Note how the outlying areas of each rendering is simplified.
Whichever rendering style one desires, the output image has a sense of psychological relevance, more so than rendering algorithms based merely on abstract principles such as edge detection. As a result these computer-modified photographs have a sense of something approaching true human artistry.
The results of this interaction between eye-tracking data and computer rendering algorithms suggests a heretical thought: What we think of as a rare gift of expressive artistic judgment is really something fairly simple and logical, something you can teach a machine to do.
"THE ART OF SEEING: VISUAL PERCEPTION IN
DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF
by Anthony Santella
Final two sets of images are courtesy this online graduate thesis.
Previous related posts on GurneyJourney:
Al Parker at the Rockwell
The Eyes Have It
Eyetracking and Composition, part 1
Eyetracking and Composition, part 2
Eyetracking and Composition part 3
Introduction to eyetracking, link.
How perception of faces is coded differently, link. | <urn:uuid:4c195e62-cefb-41a4-9af0-1c873ccaa42a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2011/05/automated-selectivity.html?showComment=1306423807621 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00012-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91064 | 621 | 2.875 | 3 |
( By Dr. H.K.Bakhru )
Pages: Index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61
Bronchitis means an inflammation of the mucous membrane lining the bronchi and bronchial tube. It is a breathing disorder affecting the expiratory function. In most cases , some infection also occurs in the nose and throat.
The bronchi are narrow tubes leading from the windpipe( or trachea) connecting the upper respiratory tract, nose, throat and sinuses, to the lungs. It is usually the spread of an infection downwards from the nose and throat to the bronchi, that causes bronchitis.
Bronchitis is the most common disease of childhood next to indigestion and diarrhoea. It is especially prevalent in children who are just starting to mix with other children at playgroup or nursery school. They have no in-built immunity till then to all the infections they are likely to contact for the first time. And, so, coughs, colds and bronchitis can occur with monotonous regularity in his age group, particularly in allergic children.
Bronchitis may be acurte or chornic. In chronic cases, the disease is of long duration. It is more serious than the acute type, as permanent changes may have occured in the lungs thereby interfering with their normal movements.
In most cases of bronchitis , the larynx, trachea and bronchial tubes are acutely inflammed. The tissues are swollen due to irritation. Large quantity of mucous is secreted and pourted into the windpipe to protect the inflammed mucous membranes. There is usually a high fever, some difficulty in breathing and a deep chest cough. Other symptoms are hoarseness and pain in the chest. The breathing trouble continues till the inflammation subsides and mucous is removed.
The chief causes of bronchitis in children is run-down condition of the system due to wrong feeding habits. The consumption of excessive quantities of starchy foods in their daily diet in the form of refined cereals, white bread, puddings, pies and cakes as well as sugary foods in the form of white sugar, jams and sweets, in particular, leads to weakening of the child's system. The impurities which arise in the system as a result of the daily excessive ingestion of foods of this nature invariably affects the mucous membranes of the upper part of the body, especially in the bronchial tubes, throat, nose and air passages. This gives rise to bronchitis and other diseases of lungs and throat.
The child-patient should be kept in a room with warm and even temperature. He should not be given any solid foods till the acute symptoms are present. He may be given plenty of fruit juices. Orange juice diluted with water will be especially beneficial. In case of constipation, the child-patient should be given warm- water enema to cleanse the bowels. If he shows reluctance, a glycerine suppository may be applied. Often this simple treatment is all that is needed for a mild attack. Steam inhalations will be valuable, if the wheezing is pronounced and particularly troublesome. A kettle of boiling water kept in the room for a while can moisten the atmosphere sufficiently to give relief.
After the acute symptoms are over, the child may be given milk, other liquid foods and fresh fruits for further one or two days and thereafter he may be allowed to gradually embark upon a well-balanced diet, according to his age. He should avoid meats, sugar, tea, coffee, condiments, pickles, refined and processed foods. He should also avoid soft drinks , candies, ice-cream and all products made from sugar and white flour.
Certain home remedies have been found useful in the treatment of bronchitis. One of the most effective of these is the use of the turmeric powder. A quarter teaspoon of this powder should be administered with 30 ml. of milk two or three times daily. It acts best when taken on an empty stomach.
Another effective remedy for bronchitis is the mixture of dried ginger powder, pepper and long pepper taken in equal quantities of a quarter teaspoon three times a day with honey. The powder of these three ingredients have anti-pyretic qualities and are effective in dealing with fever accompanied with bronchitis. They also tone up the metabolism of the patient.
Onion has been used as a food remedy for centuries in bronchitis. It is said to possess expectorant properties. It liquifies phelgm and prevents its further formation. The intake of half a teaspoon of raw onion juice first thing in the morning will be beneficial in such cases.
A soup prepared from drumstick leaves is also highly beneficial in the treatment of bronchitis. This soup is prepared by adding a handful of leaves to 150 ml. of water which has been heated to a boiling point. The water is allowed to boil further for five minutes. It should then be removed from fire and allowed to cool. A little salt, pepper and lime juice may be added to this soup. This drink should be taken first thing every morning.
Hydrotherapy can be employed beneficially in the treatment of bronchitis. Hot towels wrung out and applied over the chest are helpful. After applying three hot towels in turn for two or three minutes each , one should always finish off with a cold towel. A wet pack or heating compress may also be applied to the upper chest several times daily in case of acute conditions. The procedure for this application has been explained in Appendix . In acute cases, full warm bath for 10 to 15 minutes will be beneficial. In irritable cough with expectoration, sipping very hot water, and gargling with hot water will be useful. In painful cough, hot fomentation should be applied to the chest and throat every two hours, followed by heating compressed. Copious drinknig of hot water will also be beneficial in both acute and chronic cases of bronchitis. | <urn:uuid:8736cd85-b9ce-41cb-b15f-4ae95387f767> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://healthlibrary.com/book6_chapter42.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397695.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00188-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937033 | 1,353 | 3.75 | 4 |
Think nano has ethical problems? Just wrap your brain around neuroWhat new tools to improve human performance will emerge from the convergence of nanotech, biotech, infotech and cognitive science?
This was topic of discussion at the recent NBIC conference in New York, where several hundred scientists, ethicists, government officials and business executives gathered.
Like nanotechnology 10 years ago, speculating about potential NBIC applications is easy. Developing novel tools that solve real world problems remains hard. Always keeping this in mind, Mike Roco, conference co-chair and architect of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, performs the difficult task of distinguishing practical applications from mere conjecture, while cultivating an environment that encourages exploratory discussions. My goal was to explore the political and economic issues that might arise as these converging technologies make possible neurotechnology -- tools that can influence the brain.
In short, when data from nanobiochips that can analyze DNA, RNA and proteins is combined with data from next-generation brain imaging systems (IC), new tools for mental health will emerge. Nanobiochips that can perform the basic bioanalysis functions (genomic, proteomic, biosimulation and microfluidics) at a low cost will transform biological analysis and production in a very similar fashion as the microprocessor did for data.
Nano-imaging techniques will also play a vital role in making the analysis of neuro-molecular level events possible. Neurotechnology will be used for therapeutic ends and to improve human emotional, cognitive and sensory system performance.
Like any new technology, neurotechnology represents both promises and problems. On the upside, neurotechnology represents new cures for mental illness, new opportunities for economic growth and a potential flowering of artist expression. These benefits are countered by the potential use of neurotechnology for law enforcement purposes or its use as neuroweapons that can selectively erase memories. Here are some of the ways that neurotechnology will impact society:
New Industries: As brain imaging advances, neuromarketing will become a significant growth sector in years to come as the trillion-per-year advertising and marketing industries leverage brain scanning technology to better understand how and why people react to different market campaigns.
New Products: For example, neuroceuticals that can temporarily improve different aspects of mental health will become possible. Unlike today psychopharmaceuticals, neuroceuticals are neuromodulators that have high efficacy and negligible side effects. By being able to target multiple subreceptors in specific neural circuits, neuroceuticals will create the possibility for dynamic intracellular regulation of an individual neurochemistry. Neuroceuticals will be used for therapy and improvement.
Competitive advantage: Mental health is the ultimate competitive weapon. Mental health underpins the communication, creativity and employee productivity. Individuals who utilize neuroceuticals (say to forecast emotions) will become more productive and will attain neurocompetitive advantage. While some countries may choose to ban them, performance-enabling neuroceuticals will emerge as significant productivity tools.
Patterns in the location of production: India and China will likely develop regional clusters of neurotechnology firms as political and cultural views on human testing create the necessary conditions for technological experimentation and development.
Public policy: Neuroethicists, like Wrye Sententia from the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, are already confronting issues of brain privacy and cognitive liberty. As the competitive edge provided by neurotechnology becomes apparent, the ethical debate will evolve into a discussion of the right to enable individuals to use these new tools to improve themselves vs. uneven access to what others will describe as unfair performance improvement. In the legislative arena the competitive necessity of using these new tools will cause great concern over whether or not they will be required in order to just compete in tomorrow global economy.
While neurotechnology's impact on society may seem far-fetched to some, so was the idea of flying 400 people from Tokyo to London in 1900. Indeed, it was Lord Kelvin, the head of the British Royal Society, who in 1898, proclaimed that heavier-than-air flying machines were impossible, yet 50 years later people were doing it.
Whether or not neurotechnology emerges as I suggest it is clear that sustained investment in NBIC is critically important if we are to deal with the substantial economic, political and social change that lies ahead. | <urn:uuid:aa6aa9b5-2039-4808-a10f-2fe41316ba89> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://teamblack1.blogspot.com/2006/02/think-nano-has-ethical-problems-just.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397842.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00000-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926868 | 880 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Chile Earthquake one of the 10 strongest ever recorded
On February 27, 2010 a magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck Maule, Chile causing widespread damage and casualties. The quake ranks as one of the ten strongest earthquakes ever recorded and was the most powerful earthquake worldwide since the 2004 Sumatran quake that triggered the massive Indian Ocean tsunami. The Maule was the strongest earthquake to strike Chile since the magnitude 9.5 which hit Valdivia on May 22, 1960.
A tsunami warning from the Maule quake has been issued for the U.S. west coast, British Columbia, and Alaska. The tsunami amplitude is expected to be minor.
May 22, 1960: Magnitude 9.5 earthquake killed 1,655, injured 3,000, left 2,000,00 homeless, and caused $550 million damage in southern Chile; while the ensuing tsunami caused 61 deaths, $75 million damage in Hawaii; 138 deaths and $50 million damage in Japan; 32 dead and missing in the Philippines; and $500,000 damage to the west coast of the United States.
March 27, 1964: Magnitude 9.2 quake in Prince William Sound, Alaska, and ensuing tsunami killed 128 people (tsunami 113, earthquake 15) and caused about $311 million in property loss. Anchorage, about 120 kilometers northwest of the epicenter, sustained the most severe property damage.
Dec. 26, 2004: Magnitude 9.1 quake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra triggered a tsunami that killed an estimated 228,000 people in 12 countries.
Aug. 13, 1868: Magnitude 9.0 quake in Arica, Peru (now Chile) triggered tsunamis that killed more than 25,000 people in South America.
Article continues: http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0227-earthquake.html | <urn:uuid:19f49abc-8469-438c-874b-111e0898a858> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/41055/print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397696.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00125-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914757 | 377 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Overview for The Himalaya by the Numbers: A Statistical Analysis of Mountaineering in the Nepal Himalaya
What are the most dangerous peaks to climb? What are the safest? When is the best time of year to climb? These and many other questions are answered in this comprehensive statistical analysis of climbing activity, ascents and fatalities in the Nepal Himalaya. The analyses cover three periods of climbing: 1950-1969 - the expeditionary period, 1970-1989 - the transitional period, and 1990-2009 - the commercial period The data are analyzed in several categories including climbing season, expedition years (changes over time), geographical regions of Nepal, age groups, gender, citizenship, and team size and composition. In addition, fatalities are analyzed for both members and hired personnel by causes of death with special emphasis given to avalanches, falls and physiological factors. Time of day and distance from the summit also also examined for climbing accidents. Special emphasis is given to the most popular commercial peaks, Ama Dablam, Cho Oyu, and Everest. | <urn:uuid:969ec3d9-4a32-436f-988a-46641227b726> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bagchee.com/books/BB70386/the-himalaya-by-the-numbers-a-statistical-analysis-of-mountaineering-in-the-nepal-himalaya/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396875.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00082-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927967 | 209 | 2.671875 | 3 |
The Nation's first waterfowl refuge, the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, is in danger of drying up. Established in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt, the 47,000-acre refuge, located on the borders of Oregon and California, is home to more than 2 million birds representing a variety of waterfowl species. Pintails, mallards, gadwalls and canvasbacks are among the species that utilize the refuge during fall and spring migrations. Due to an increasingly dry season and short supply of water to the refuge, an estimated 20,000 migrating birds may die from avian cholera, a disease spreading fast in the large concentration of birds utilizing the shrinking marsh wetlands and open water habitat.
While the obvious answer is to allow more water into the refuge, the Interior Department's Bureau of Reclamation (the managing agency for water in the West) has other priorities for the life-sustaining liquid, putting wildlife habitat towards the bottom of the list of programs and agricultural initiatives competing for the limited supply. For now, the only plan for concerned volunteers is to remove and incinerate the dead birds to curtail further transmission.
The Lower Klamath Basin is included in the highly sensitive Southern Oregon, North Eastern California region known as SONEC. In recent years, the area has been plagued by a serious water shortage as well as a flawed water distribution system, causing huge problems for man and waterfowl alike. Ducks Unlimited is working diligently with its partners and landowners to explore water management issues and find resolutions from a waterfowl perspective. | <urn:uuid:cf4645a4-05d3-4a8e-8947-43287e922ce4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ducks.org/printPage.aspx?documentID=9035 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397562.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00102-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948082 | 319 | 3.59375 | 4 |
A new and comprehensive demographic study of more than 200 countries, finds that there are 1.57 billion Muslims of all ages living in the world today, representing 23 per cent of an estimated 2009 world population of 6.8 billion.
Released by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life, 'Mapping the Global Muslim Population' offers the most up-to-date and fully sourced estimates of the size and distribution of the worldwide Muslim population, including particularist identity.
Key findings from the survey are that:
* While Muslims are found on all five inhabited continents, more than 60 per cent of the global Muslim population is in Asia and about 20 per cent is in the Middle East and North Africa.
* The Middle East-North Africa region has the highest percentage of Muslim-majority countries. More than half of the 20 countries and territories in that region have populations that are approximately 95 per cent Muslim or greater.
* More than 300 million Muslims, or one-fifth of the world's Muslim population, live in countries where Islam is not the majority religion. These minority Muslim populations are often quite large. India, for example, has the third-largest population of Muslims worldwide. China has more Muslims than Syria, while Russia is home to more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined.
* Of the total Muslim population, 10-13 per cent are Shia Muslims and 87-90 per cent are Sunni Muslims. Most Shias (between 68 per cent and 80 per cent) live in just four countries: Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq.
Previously published estimates of the size of the global Muslim population have ranged from 1 billion to 1.8 billion. The new study is based on the best available data for 232 countries and territories.
Pew Forum researchers, in consultation with nearly 50 demographers and social scientists at universities and research centres around the world, analysed about 1,500 sources, including census reports, demographic studies and general population surveys, to arrive at these figures - the largest project of its kind to date.
The report includes an executive summary, maps and charts illustrating the geographic distribution of Muslims, explanations of the study's methodologies and a list of data sources by country. It is available online at: http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=450
The findings on the world Muslim population lay the foundation for a forthcoming study by the Pew Forum, scheduled to be released in 2010, which will estimate growth rates among Muslim populations worldwide and project Muslim populations into the future.
The Pew Forum plans to undertake similar demographic studies of the major global religions in the future.
The Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life aims to deliver "timely, impartial information on issues at the intersection of religion and public affairs. The Pew Forum is a nonpartisan, nonadvocacy organization and does not take positions on policy debates."
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Mosquitoes are a pest that are capable of ruining a great day at the park, a romantic evening on a deck or even just trying to get a little relaxation by spending time in a vegetable garden. People will do anything to avoid being bit but mosquitoes are very good at finding their prey. If you enjoy the great outdoors, get used to dealing with mosquitoes. They are here to stay and this article will explain methods of control you may use to help diminish their numbers around the home.
There are over 150 species of mosquito in the United States; over 3000 worldwide. Almost all fall into four common genre: anopheline, culex, culex pallens and anopheles. In the United States, regional mosquitoes are known as house mosquitoes, southern mosquitoes, northern mosquitoes, day-biting mosquitoes, asian tiger mosquitoes, yellow fever mosquitoes, salt water mosquitoes, salt water marsh mosquitoes, swamp mosquitoes, glades mosquitoes, dark rice field mosquitoes, black salt marsh mosquitoes and malaria mosquitoes. Some are able to fully develop from eggs in less than a week. Most take 10-14 days to reach maturity but what is important is that mosquitoes do grow rapidly. Mosquitoes need water and high levels of moisture to sustain themselves. Although female mosquitoes may live for up to a year, most die in the season they were born. Mosquito populations are able to continue from year to year because one stage is able to "overwinter" or hibernate and start their cycle again the next spring. It may be the adult, the pupa, the larva or the egg needed to continue the specie. Each species has different winter survivors but the following season, the problem is the same: biting mosquitoes.
Some adult females don't need a blood meal to begin to reproduce. In general, male mosquitoes live a short time. Most mosquitoes lay several hundred eggs and are able to generate huge populations within a short period of time. Although standing water is the prime location for them mosquitoes to reproduce, there are many locations around the home that afford fertile egg laying areas. Such places include water in the bottom of planters, drainage streams, street sewers which don't drain completely, rain barrels, buckets of water, swimming pools, drain lines from rain gutters, old tires, mulch around the home, shrubs, trees, firewood, slow moving water, small decorative ponds for pet fish, bird baths, water accumulating around windows or doors, water accumulating from an automatic sprinkler system, pet water dishes, leaks around water spickets and just about anywhere water is used or is able to accumulate during the warm summer months any where in the country. Mosquitoes need water to reproduce. They will readily move to moist, shady areas under decks, around pools, in garages, in dense shrubbery or flowers, any kind of ivy, holes or nooks of trees, water in a clogged rain gutter or simply the water on a leaf of shrubs which are being watered during the hot summer months.
MOSQUITO PROBLEMS AROUND THE HOME
Most people believe mosquitoes are coming from great distances to their yard in search of food. In fact, most mosquitoes migrate to a yard first and foremost because there is something about the yard which the mosquito finds attractive for living. In most cases, mosquitoes are finding a great place to live around the home and then take advantage of the free meals the homeowner or their children present when outside in the yard. Mosquitoes don't migrate far from where they will find shelter and protection from the hot sun. Shade and moisture are two ingredients needed for their survival and can be found around any home. If your home is on a lake or pond, the mosquitoes could be breeding in the water. Generally, they will do so close to shore. Don't expect to find them more than 10 feet from shore. They like shallow water and will keep themselves close to plant life and wet lands if possible. Open deep water which is moving is not the kind of water they like for reproduction.
MOSQUITO PROBLEMS ON THE FARM
Barns or sheds are another great location for reproduction or shelter. The underside of most decks which are built close to the ground offers great shady shelter and protection for weak mosquitoes susceptible to the hot sun. It is important to locate any area around the farm where mosquitoes may be seeking shelter or using for reproduction. On most any farm, such areas are quite common.
MOSQUITOES IN THE YARD
Currently there are many homeowners who are creating perfect breeding and shelter conditions which effectively attract mosquitoes. If you have any of the conditions described above, chances are you will have mosquitoes. Don't be placing the blame on someone else. Mosquitoes will stay where the breeding and shelter areas are best for them. If you are creating a moist shady area around your home, you will be luring mosquitoes. Once they find the shade and moisture to live and breed, expect them to find you and your family for their food! Mosquito control is easy if you are able to determine where they are living or breeding. Inspect around your home and locate where the mosquitoes are most prevalent. Although you may believe they are coming from an adjacent lot, be sure to inspect your property thoroughly. If you have any of the moist locations on your land listed above, chances are mosquitoes are taking advantage of such conditions. Another way to determine where the mosquitoes are living is to simply stand in certain areas and wait to see how long it takes for them to find you. Mosquitoes will not travel far away from where they are comfortable. The faster you have mosquitoes find you and the more that find you indicate a prime nest or shelter location which needs to be treated. Such "pockets" of mosquitoes exist around most any home and the secret of getting mosquito control is to find as many of these locations. Once found, there are several methods of treatment that can be used.
NATURAL MOSQUITO CONTROL
Since we get asked about natural mosquito control, the author felt it was important to point out there are a few things you can do around your property that can effectively reduce mosquito populations and in some cases help to control their numbers. Clearly the most important thing anyone can do is minimize moisture. Since it's well known mosquitoes are attracted to moist, shady environments, designing a yard that is both void of moisture and shade could be described as a type of natural mosquito control program. In fact, this clearly happens in arid climates like that which exists in our dessert states. These regions have low rainfall and generally a constant low humidity. Insects don't do well here and in particular, flying insects like mosquitoes are practically non-existent.
But what about the humid, moist regions like the Southeast? Since these regions commonly experience a lot of rainfall, keeping the yard free and clear of moisture won't help. It's only a matter of time before a good rain will hit. Additionally, you can do your part for your property but since you can't control what your neighbors do, most of your effort will be in vain unless it's a community effort. For these locals, something more aggressive or even interactive is needed. That being said, there is hope....
Natural mosquito control in regions where mosquitoes thrive can be accomplished. Though it's not an exact science, there is no doubt active bat populations can help to both minimize and control mosquitoes. Bats can eat hundreds of mosquitoes hourly and we have several species here in the States that rely on finding them nightly. Install a BAT HOUSE on your property and with a little luck, you'll get one to move in which in turn will start to feed on several night time pests like mosquitoes. This natural mosquito control isn't going to eradicate all your mosquitoes but it could have a profound impact. Over the years we have sold thousands of bat houses and it's fairly obvious to us that if you get bats to move in to a bat house you install on your property, you'll probably enjoy a reduction of the local nighttime pests. The only problem with this concept is that it can take a long time for your bat house to get occupied. In other words, bats just don't show up because you install a bat house. In most cases it will take a good 6-12 months of "bat house seasoning" before the house will even be considered. Clearly this won't do anything to control your current mosquito problem so it's not the most practical option if you want mosquito control right now. But getting a bat house installed could some day prove to be a big help and arguably the best option that falls into what is considered to be natural mosquito control. But if you can't wait and want immediate results, read on...
MOSQUITO CONTROL OPTIONS
Now that you have determined where to treat, you will need to choose the product best suited for your situation. Mosquito products are designed for treating different types of areas. There are five different treatment options or categories.
1) MOSQUITO CONTROL REPELLENTS
Repelling mosquitoes have long been the most common method of trying to control local infestations. In fact, there has never been any real "control" going on; repellents simply push unwanted mosquitoes to another area. Citronella, smoke and other compounds have been used over the years but all met with little if any success. However, we now have several repellents that work OK for certain types of applications under certain conditions. The key here is the type of repelling you are looking to achieve. Don't think you will be able to keep mosquitoes away from your yard if they are reproducing or nesting close to where you plan on sitting. You don't stand much of a chance for long term repelling under such conditions (as described above). However, you can achieve some temporary relief with mosquito repellents. No doubt they will help to reduce activity around your patio or picnic area so that you can better enjoy the outdoors for a picnic or summer party. MOSQUITO INSECT REPELLENT POWDER is a powdery material which can be applied over the turf and plant area when you want to keep mosquitoes away from a specific area. This repellent is easy to use, will last a week or more (under dry conditions) and poses no hazard to people or animals. In fact, it uses a high PH carrier which conditions the soil much like lime. This product offers short term relief and should not be used with the intention of "controlling" mosquito infestations. Mosquito Repellent is designed to be used right before a party or outdoor get together where a reduction in mosquito activity is desirable.
Alternatively, you may prefer a spray over the granules and if you do, the MOSQUITO, GNAT AND FLEA REPELLENT comes in a "ready to spray" container that's quite handy. Simply attach it to your garden hose and you're ready to use the power of your home's water supply to spray your yard with this organic and highly repellent spray. It's important to realize this product won't kill a thing; it's only a repellent. But treatments can work for weeks and when you need a spray safe enough to be used around other beneficial insects, this is the best one we know about.
Combine the Repellent Powder with some Linalool Candles and you will get far better results. Made with essential plant oils, these candles will effectively "block" you from biting pests like no-seeums, mosquitoes and biting flies. The burning process of these candles will release a nice odor to people which is citrus smelling. In the process of burning, Linalool will permeate the area making biting pests like mosquitoes and no-seeums not able to locate targets. The 4" MOSQUITO CANDLE will last over 30 hours, the 6" MOSQUITO CANDLE will last over 65 hours and the MOSQUITO INSECT REPELLENT JAR CANDLE will last 75-85 hours. Mosquito Candles are excellent for decks and patios. These candles can be brought on camping trips and picnics too.
If you want something stronger that uses a real chemical for the active, set out some of the MOSQUITO INSECT REPELLENT COILS. These are not the Citronella type you may have seen in the past. These are the newer formulated type which have a Synthetic Pyrethrin as the active ingredient (a known repellent to flying insects like mosquitoes).
MOSQUITO CONTROL REPELLENTS FOR PEOPLE
Personal repellents are products that you wear which help keep mosquitoes away. One such product is the BUG BAND. These are worn around the wrist and release a scent which actively confuses mosquitoes and prevents them from identifying you as a target. Bug Bands will last many hours, can be stored for long term reuse and can be worn by both adults and children. Another type of personal mosquito repeller is the PERSONAL BITE SHIELD. These devices are made of a strong durable plastic and feature a small fan which is powered by two AA batteries. The unit holds repellent cartridges which release an organic and natural mosquito repellent called Geraniol. This active is extracted from plants where it serves as a natural repellent that the plants themselves use to keep predatory insects away. Each cartridge is snapped onto the Bite Shield and the fan is turned on which disperses the Geraniol around the person wearing the device. It's about the size of a pager, fits on your belt or can be set on a table, ledge or other area where you are sitting. The pleasant light odor released will keep mosquitoes at bay naturally and it can even be hooked up to an external power supply.
Mosquito Repellent Lotions and Creams
If you want something for your skin, which is the most direct way of repelling mosquitoes, considerDEET. We've got several formulations of Deet and the 100% ODORLESS formulation is very effective.
Mosquito Repellent for Clothing
For complete clothing protection when traveling abroad or into areas where mosquitoes pose a health risk, use some PERMETHRIN to treat clothing, gear and shoes. Permethrin is odorless, labeled for many uses and will keep mosquitoes away since it acts as a detectable repellent they don't like. And since it works on other nuisance pests like gnats and no-seeums, it can provide much needed relief from several types of annoying pests.
Mosquito Netting and First Aid
Another option is to keep them off you altogether when going afield. This can be done with a MOSQUITO HEAD NET. These nets are lightweight and come with elastic bands. Simply pull them over your head and they will fit snug enough to keep mosquitoes off your face but loose enough so you will still be comfortable. These are an excellent item to bring along when fishing or camping and the pressure from mosquitoes or other biting pests is simply too great. The screen is pre-treated with Permethrin so it offers some repellency as well. If you want no chemicals on it simply wash it once and all the Permethrin will be gone. However, we suggest spraying it periodically with MOSQUITO PERMETHRIN AEROSOL to give it added repellency when going afield.
If you've sustained some mosquito bites and want to minimize the discomfort with some first aid ointment. The MOSQUITO STING RELIEF SWABS work great and offer immediate relief from annoying bites. They're small enough to bring afield and work on contact.
2) MOSQUITO LARVACIDE - Growth Regulator
MOSQUITO DUNKS look like a donut and are used in water where mosquitoes are reproducing. The dunk will slowly melt away releasing thousands of bacteria which kill mosquito larva when the larvae feed on the bacteria. By killing the larva, the mosquito reproduction will stop. This has been an effective and time tested control method over the years and the dunks are both easy to use and maintain. More importantly, Mosquito Dunks are so safe they can be used in ponds, bird baths and water holding tanks without being presenting a hazard to pets, wildlife or people. They can be used in retention ponds, catch basins for plants and drainage ditches. Use them anywhere you know that water will be held for 3 weeks or more. Because the bacteria is simply digested by mammals (which includes pets, people and wildlife), there is no hazard to this product being used in water used for drinking. If you have water which will only be available for 1-3 weeks, you can still treat with Mosquito Dunks but our MOSQUITO GRANULES will probably work better. Because they release quicker, Mosquito Granules will impact the developing mosquitoe larvae that much faster. Mosquito Granules have a short life; you may need to treat once a week since they break down so fast. However, they are perfect for small areas such as plant catch pans, bird baths and rain barrels. Made from the same bacteria as the original dunk, Mosquito Granules are able to stop developing mosquitoes from reaching adulthood and are an excellent option for small "mosquito pockets of moisture" commonly found around the home.
If you want something like the all natural Mosquito Granules but a little stronger, get the METHOPRENE GRANULES. These look like the other granules but use a growth regulator instead of just a bacteria to impact growing mosquitoes. The active ingredient in this granule is Methoprene. Commonly used for flea control, Methoprene will stop mosquitoes from being able to mature to reproducing adults. Since Methoprene is essentially a protein, this product is still very safe to use and is labeled for all the same areas as the other granules. However, these granules will work a lot better than the bacteria based Mosquito Dunks/Granules. For standing water, moist and wet compost or flower beds, water gardens, tree holes, roof gutters, pool covers and just about anywhere water can collect to invite mosquitoes which won't be used for consumption, the Methoprene Granules are a good fit. The other great thing about this form is that a little goes a long way making it more cost effective in the long run.
3) MOSQUITO SPRAY - Chemical Options to Spray
If you have a lot of plant life and landscape around the home that requires water throughout the growing season, chances are you will attract mosquitoes. Shrubs, annual flowers, thick Fescue and Bermuda grass or ground covering ivy all provide pockets of moisture where water can last and provide prime breeding locations for mosquitoes. As warm and hot summer months dry local wet lands, expect mosquitoes to migrate in search of moist, shady areas. Your landscaping becomes an excellent alternative nest site for these migrating mosquitoes. Many pool owners or homes with decks and porches provide perfect conditions for mosquitoes to nest and reproduce. The shade and moist areas are what mosquitoes need to survive and you will notice populations increasing as the hot summer sun diminishes local watering holes that were so abundant during the early spring rain seasons.
For small landscapes, the use of a residual concentrate can provide protection. If you have a really small area to spray, CYONARA RTS is one of the easiest materials to use which works quite well. Simply hook it to the garden hose and turn it on. There is no mixing needed and it's safe for use on lawns, plants and even vegetable gardens. Each quart will treat up to 15,000 sq/ft so it's quite cost effective too. For large areas, ESFENVALERATE will prove to be the more efficient concentrate to use. It is easy to apply, is labeled for use on turf, trees, shrubs and flowers and will provide residual for long term control. Mosquitoes are easy to control when you have a specific location that can be targeted and treated with Esfenvalerate. Expect most treatments to last several weeks on plants and maybe longer under decks, porches and other shady areas that aren't receiving direct sunlight. Use a DIAL-A-MIX applicator which hooks to your garden hose to apply Esfenvalerate as this treatment will require a lot of water. Expect to see immediate results following the initial treatment but it is hard to say how long you can expect to be mosquito free. Every area will experience different results based on weather, moisture, wind, local breeding conditions, rain, temperature and humidity. Expect to get 1-2 weeks of protection per treatment but the length will vary from region to region. Dry environments can expect longer lengths of residual; moist rainy areas will need to retreat more frequently. Retreat as necessary. To extend the length of residual and therefore reduce the frequency of treatments needed during mosquito season, consider adding a growth regulator to your tank mix. Long used for flea control, growth regulators have now found a niche for controlling mosquitoes as well. Earlier in this article, the Methoprene Granules were highlighted which feature the same technology. They use a growth regulator and are designed to be applied in water. Another growth regulator proven effective is called NYLAR. This product is newer then Methoprene but works much the same way. Basically it interferes with the mosquito larva's ability to grow properly so they are not able to fully develop to biting adults. Use it with the Esfenvalerate since Nylar won't kill any adults; it only works on eggs and larva stages. Though you can use a standard pump sprayer to apply the two materials, if you have larger areas to treat use another hose end sprayer that's best suited when mixing 2 or more chemicals during the treatment. For small areas, the 6 GALLON HOSE END will prove efficient; for large areas go with the 20 GALLON HOSE END. Adding Nylar to the tank mix really makes sense and will cut down on the frequency of treatments needed by about 75% so it's worth the extra cost. In most cases, Esfenvalerate by itself will have to sprayed at least twice a month. When used with the Nylar, you will only have to treat once every 1-2 months. Combining the two products will cost more at first but in the long run will end up saving you a lot of work, time and cost.
ORGANIC MOSQUITO CONTROL
If you want an organic mosquito control product, we now have some options which work pretty well. In the past few years there has been some products come to market which work well. The big problem with natural or organic chemicals in the past has been their efficacy (how well they kill the target pest). The bottom line is that they haven't been nearly as good as the man made compounds. Additionally, they didn't seem to last long. Recent efforts by most all the big chemical companies have shown us that an organic or alternative product can actually work. We have been selling these new "green" compounds (most all made from food extracts and oils) for the past couple of years and we're seeing good results. They actually kill mosquitoes well and can last providing residual action which is many times needed.
Organic products that bear the "organic gardening" logo like ORGANIC MOSQUITO KILLER RTS have been certified as compliant and organic by NOP and are generally very safe for use around the home. This product uses pyrthrin and insecticidal soap combined in a hose end sprayer ready to use. Just hook it up to the garden hose and you can get to work. Each quart will treat up to 2500 sq/ft. For inside the home, the ORGANIC FLYING INSECT KILLER can be used which wil provide a quick kill for any flying insect around.
The strongest liquid that falls in the "less toxic" category would be ECO IC EXEMPT CONCENTRATE. It will knock down mosquitoes and other flying pests effectively and can be applied to the landscape over plants, bushes, ground cover and grass without any special concerns or preparation. It does require more to mixed with water so the 20 GALLON HOSE END SPRAYER is a good option if you weren't going to be using a good PUMP SPRAYER.
4) MOSQUITO CONTROL FOGGER MISTER
Space spraying (misting and fogging) has long been the standard way to treat for mosquitoes when one has needed to cover a large area. Since mosquitoes are able to fly, they may be coming to your yard for food and living directly alongside your land in wet, swampy conditions that offer shade and moisture. Such conditions, when large, are hard to treat with Esfenvalerate or some other spray used with a Hose End Sprayer as described above. To penetrate dense foliage or cover large areas quickly, fogging or misting is the preferred method of application. You may be able to treat small air spaces with some PT-565XLO or FLYING INSECT KILLER. The 565 uses pyrethrin as the active ingredient and will kill mosquitoes quickly; Flying Insect Killer uses resmethrin and it too will kill on contact but is somewhat stronger acting and smelling. The organic choice is ECO KO AEROSOL which uses wintergreen oil, white mineral oil, eugenol and other plant extracts. Spray either of these around decks and picnic areas for a quick kill and a few hours of flying insect relief. Any of these are easy to use and great for around the garden, deck, patio or back yard area.
TIMED AEROSOL MACHINES are also good for small areas just outside the house (they can be used inside too). They can be hung on the wall, are battery operated and can be programmed to release a blast of pyrethrin based aerosol which works well on most all flying insects. Use some METERED PYRETHRIN AEROSOL in these machines and they will keep most any flying pest under control. Use of these products is for small areas only. They are great for barns, sheds, garages, around a deck or patio or a front porch. For larger areas, you'll need to get one of the true misting or fogging machines listed below.
MOSQUITO CONTROL MISTING MACHINES
For areas 2000 sq/ft or larger, the use of a misting machine will prove to be quite helpful. These machines come in many sizes and shapes. Essentially they take a liquid and convert it to a mist or aerosol form which is then shot into the air. This enables the applicator to reach a lot of area with little effort. It also enables the spray solution to be used more efficiently which over time will save a lot of money.
The smallest good machine is the FM MINI FOGGER. Ideal for areas from 0-5000 sq/ft, this electric hand held fogger can hold 1 quart of mixed product and can be used with both water and oil based formulations.
For yards in the 5000-10000 sq/ft range, the FM 6309 is next best machine. The 6309 is able to pump a lot of chemical over a large area in a short amount of time. It is able to treat 1/4 to 1/2 acre in 15-20 minutes. (The machine will pump a gallon of material in around 12 minutes, but it takes extra time to drag the extension cord to new treatment areas).
If you have a lot of small areas to treat, you may prefer the FM 6208. This fogger is a step up from the FM 6309 because it has a volume control switch which allows you to adjust the rate of flow. It still uses electricity for power, but unlike the FM 6309 it has a rotational switch which you control and can set to be "off", "low", "medium" or "high". Having a control to "set" the machine can be a real help for two reasons. First, you are able to turn it keep it low when treating around the home and only need a light mist. Such treatments can be tough with the FM 6309 because it only fogs at one speed - high. That means when using the FM 6309 to treat alongside a structure, the fog coming out is so strong it will bounce off the building and come back at you. If you have a lot of small, close locations to fog, get the FM 6208. It not only lets you turn it down for these types of delicate applications but the rotating switch will let you turn it to "off" when done fogging. Though the machine is still on and trying to fog, it will quickly run dry. This is handy if you are interrupted during treatment. Simply turn the switch to "off" and let the fogger use up what's in it's system. Now you can store it for a few days without worrying about the insides getting clogged.
Another model to consider is the FM 7807. The FM 7807 features the same controls as the FM 6208 but includes a long extension hose. This extension is great for reaching high, under and around things which other machines have difficulty covering. The FM 7807 also features a quick on/off control on the wand; great for when you need precise control of flow.
All the above foggers are great for jobs around the home but they do require electricity and are not nearly as portable as the BACKPACK MISTER/FOGGER. This fogger has over a 3 gallon tank and is gas powered so it's completely independent of power cords. Perfect for those large jobs where electricity is not available. Simply fill up the holding tank, make sure you have enough gas in the tank and you can go wherever the mosquitoes may be hiding! Great for property where being free from electric cords is necessary or if you have a lot of area to treat on a regular basis but need to move from one point to another and don't feel like dragging power cords every time you make a move.
If you need to fog an area larger than an acre, you should consider a true thermal fogger. Thermal foggers are "hot"; they heat the chemical being used before it is released which enables them to produce a true ULV or Ultra Low Volume fog. This type of fog is lighter and comprised of very small particles compared to the other misters. Thermal foggers can therefore penetrate better and cover large spaces more effectively but are really only needed when treating several acres at a time since they do have drawbacks. Besides being costly, you are limited in the chemical secelection you pump through them. Thermal foggers require an oil based chemical (see more on this below). These are quite expensive and very often limited in supply. Second, thermal foggers are more prone to breakdown and require a lot more care during handling and use. Though you can mix your own chemical, it's important that you get special "deodorized" oil only or risk damage to your fogger. And don't waste time with $100.00 to $200.00 units found commonly at some hardware stores. These devices will create a hot fog, but the flow is very weak and slow and therefore not efficient. You'll be able to get better results with our PT-565XLO Aerosol option listed above. Additionally, these inexpensive fogging machines almost always require you to purchase "their" chemical which will prove to be very costly. If you have anything larger than a few thousand feet to treat, these inexpensive hot foggeres are not a good option. Get our FM Mini Fogger instead. It will work better and be much less costly chemical wise. For more home owners with 1 acre or less to treat, one of our electric options listed above will do a fine job. If you have 1-2 acres to treat, the Back Pack Fogger will suffice but if you will be treating in excess of 2 acres a lot, you should consider the GE THERMAL FOGGER. This is a true Thermal or Hot Fogger featuring electric start, compact design and a fast rate of application. This means you'll be able to get the job done in a hurry. The drawback of this unit is it's high price tag and the limits on what you can pump through it. Like any other hot fogger, you can only pump oil based chemicals. This means you'll be spending more to get right "carrier" to insure you don't foul up the machine. Thermal Foggers are more likely to break down - especially when a bad batch of deodorized oil is used - so it's important to get the right grade tank mix or else face high repair costs.
MOSQUITO CONTROL CHEMICALS
Once you decide on which type of fogger will work well for the property you want to treat, you'll need to get some chemical. The following discussion will list the most commonly used concentrates today. All of these can be mixed with water or oil. Remember, all the Electric Foggers discussed earlier can use a water based product. Our Back Pack Fogger also uses water based products. However, the Thermal Fogger can only handle oil based solutions as explained below.
Though products like Malathion have been used over the years when fogging for mosquitoes, you will achieve much better results with some of the newer compounds. In the past 20 years, PYRETHRIN exciter has become one of the most common actives used on flying insect control. Pyrethrin by itself will kill mosquitoes immediately but it has no residual action. This means you will have to apply it over and over; once the treatment dries it's pretty much gone. Other negatives about pyrethrin include a slight odor, it's fairly common for people to be allergic to it and lastly, pyrethrin is generally expensive. Though pyrethrin is a natural pesticide (it's derived from the chrysanthemum plant) these negatives are something to consider. Currently there is a worldwide supply shortage so for now, pyrethrin is probably not the best choice. Fortunately there are several good alternatives.
Closely related to Pyrethrin and widely used around the world is an almost odorless active known as PERMETHRIN. This product is probably the most used active worldwide for several reasons. First, it's relatively safe around mammals. In fact it's so safe it's actually labeled for use on horses, cattle, dogs and other animals. Second, Permethrin provides some level of residual. This means there is some left after the treatment so you get lasting protection for a week or two per application. Third, it's almost odorless which many people appreciate. Applications can be done in the yard and people can enter treated areas in less than an hour with there is no lingering smell. Most importantly, it works well on mosquitoes and other flying pests so Permethrin is a good choice for use around the home. And there is also a label for use in gardens; VEGETABLES PLUS is the same odorless Permethrin with a label for vegetables and other garden plants covering a wide range of common pests.
Rounding out the list of good concentrates to use is BIFEN. Though relatively new compared to Pyrethrin and Permethrin, Bifen is odorless and highly effective on mosquitoes. It's not labeled for use in the garden but it's safe for the grass and other vegetation so it has quickly become a commonly used active for mosquitoes. It's big advantage is that very little goes a long way meaning you need a lot less chemical to get just as much coverage as the Permethrin. Additionally, the residual action of the Bifen is longer lasting sticking around for 2-4 weeks per application.
As good as Permethrin and Bifen are, you can improve their performance by adding some NYLAR to the tank mix. Nylar is the growth regulator which interrupts or prevents mosquito larvae from growing into biting adults. Use it side by side with any adulticide and you'll find treatments will last longer and in theory, a lot less treatments will be needed over the course of your mosquito season. This should save you both time and money.
NON TOXIC MOSQUITO CONTROL
In recent years, the demand for non-toxic organic pesticides has forced many of the chemical companies to expand their product line to include concentrates which incorporate naturally occurring active ingredients. The current federal law allows these "other" insecticides to be "exempt" from standard registration requirements when they fall into this classification which is considered to be exceptionally safe for use around people and pets. Over the last couple of years several of these products have proven to be quite effective. Though they tend to be a little more costly and usually won't last as long compared to their more traditional counterparts, these organic solutions do in fact work quite well. The big advantage they offer is based on the minimal amount of risk associated with their use. Mostly these products incorporate natural plant extracts and essential oils which means these alternative products have very little impact on the environment. It is for this reason many are gaining general acceptance as a viable choice when fogging.
Currently there are two such products we are confident in recommending. ECO EXEMPT IC is a concentrate which can be mixed with either water or oil and can be fogged for most any flying pest. It can be used inside or outside, won't hurt people or pets and seems to provide 1-2 weeks of control. It features a full label and can control many pests depending on where you spray it and the concentrate percentage you create. Use ECO EXEMPT IC in any of our fogging machines for safe and effective mosquito control.
If you are looking for an organic or non-toxic mosquito control concentrate that can be used in your Mosquito Misting System, the ECO EXEMPT MC will prove to be your best option. It should be combined with the ECO EXEMPT EMULSIFIER which will provide the stabilizing components so your tank mix will remain active for 90 days. Like the ECO IC, the MC formulation is very active on mosquitoes, biting flies and other flying pests and won't pose a hazard to people or pets who move about in the treated areas.
Remember, special Oil Based Carriers are needed for Thermal Foggers!!
As mentioned earlier in this article, thermal foggers require a special DEODORIZED OIL to be used as the carrier for their tank mix. This is one of the drawbacks when using a thermal or hot fogger but the good news is you can add the Permethrin, Bifen and Nylar to the Oil which will help save costs. In the long run, creating your own oil based spray is smart if you intend on treating a lot during mosquito season. But if you don't want to be bothered mixing chemicals or only need a little amount of product from season to season, our ready-to-fog OIL BASED INSECTICIDE 300 will prove to be a good choice. It uses Pyrethrin as the active ingredient and is every effective on most any flying pest. This product only needs to be shaken a little prior to use and can be added directly to your thermal fogger tank mix without any further preparation. For longer residual action, add some NYLAR to the mix.
Ready-to-Fog Water Based Option
Lastly, there is also a ready-to-fog water based option for all our electric foggers and Back Pack Mister. AQUACIDE uses Pyrethrin as it's active ingredient and like the Oil Based Insecticide, it only needs to be shaken a little prior to use. Nylar can be added to the tank mix for a longer residual action and will prove to be cost effective over time if you have an extended mosquito season or problem.
5) MOSQUITO CONTROL BLOCKER TRAPS
There are many new products that have come to market in recent years designed to provide mosquito control. This is relatively new technology but the logic behind it makes a lot of sense. It's kind of like the new allergy medicines. Most allergy medicine is designed to deal with the symptoms of the allergy - the itchy eyes, running nose and congestion. Newer medications are histamine blockers which essentially block the uncomfortable symptoms of having allergies. You still have the allergy - just not the symptom. This approach is very effective, relatively easy to administer and tends to be healthier in the long run. The same is true for these MOSQUITO BLOCKERS. These devices are small plastic machines which run on 2 AA batteries. They will operate at least 720 hours per set of average batteries that are used to power the onboard small fan. The fan blows out a product called Conceal. This is not a pesticide. Conceal is comprised of plant oils and other natural ingredients which bind to insect olfactory sensors. The impact of Conceal is that mosquitoes and several other biting insects are not able to detect Co2 or octenol - two gases which people (mammals) exhale all the time. By not being able to detect the presence of Co2 or octenol mosquitoes further than 30 feet away will not be able to track your presence. You will become invisible to them. Remember, mosquitoes have a limited range of sight. It is probably not more than 15-20 feet and certainly not more than 30 feet. Mosquitoes which are not able to see any targets will then begin to trail or track their prey by detecting Co2 and octenol. As they fly around they are constantly hoping to find some of these gases in the air. Any breeze will carry your exhaled breath several hundred feet and mosquitoes along this path will be able to trace it back to it's source - YOU! By installing a MOSQUITO BLOCKER about 10-20 feet downwind of where you are sitting, the Conceal will be carried with your exhaled gases. As mosquitoes cross this path they will be affected by the Conceal in such a way that they will not be able to detect the Co2 or octenol you or other family members are releasing. These units work best when there is a slight breeze. Simply place a unit close by, downwind, and go about your activities. You won't even know it's there after a few days. It's perfect for the front porch, decks, sitting areas out in the yard, pool or pond and is completely portable. Just remember to bring it back inside and to keep a fresh supply of CONCEAL REFILLS so you can replace them as needed. If there is no wind or breeze present, you will probably need to locate two or three machines around you. Remember, the more the better. If there is no real direction to the way the air is moving then try to keep one on any side where mosquitoes can approach or find you. This may mean having 2,3 or even 4 machines. As a general rule you need to have more machines as the number of people increases as well. This is due to the increase of gases being released with more people being present. The Mosquito Blockers are an excellent tool which can be set out easily and safely. They undoubtedly can provide additional relief from the pressure local mosquitoes will apply. When used in conjunction with Mosquito Killers or Foggers you can really reduce the amount of bites you, family and friends have to endure.
One way to enhance the performance of Mosquito Blockers is to give the local mosquitoes a reason to forage elsewhere, away from where you want to be outside. This can be accomplished with the MOSQUITO PHEROMONE TRAP. This trap is made with a small plastic jar which is about 1/2 gallon in size. The jar is filled with one quart of water and some "lure". These lures will attract female mosquitoes. The jar has a small tube that runs through its middle. It serves as an entrance as well as a holding area for the EGG LAYING PHEROMONE which is set out with the trap. Be careful not to touch the pheromone; human scent, natural oil from our fingers or some other contaminate will erode its effectiveness. The pheromone is a scent which mosquitoes naturally release in the wild when they find a good egg laying location. This "locator pheromone" is then smelled by local mosquitoes ready to lay eggs and will attract them to attempting to get as many as possible to enter. Once inside, they won't be able to escape. This will happen over and over during the course of the season which can have an astounding impact on local populations. Place out 2-4 traps for the average yard; about 6 per 1/2 acre. Be sure to place them along property borders or where people won't be active; preferably in moist shady areas.
Lastly, it doesn't hurt to equip yourself with some form of "mechanical" control. This can be accomplished with our HAND HELD ZAPPER. These little tools are really handy when dealing with mosquitoes inside around something where you don't want to make a mess or cannot administer the common "smash" motion. Simply wave the Zapper where the mosquito is flying in a gentle manner and if the mosquito makes contact with the Zappers metal grid work it will be dead. Don't try to swat them,; this Zapper is not designed to be used like a tennis racket. However, it is a great tool to keep at your side when mosquitoes are in the area and you want an easy and clean way to kill them. Since mosquito's are so slow when flying, you can even catch them with our BUG VACUUM/ZAPPER cordless tool. This device is generally best for crawling insects but works well for mosquitoes, flies or moths and just about any flying pest which likes to land on walls, windows or ceilings. Though these tools are effective at killing mosquitoes, don't expect the Zapper or Vacuum to provide any long term or lasting control. True, they are easy and handy to have around, but they should only be considered for spot situations and only when needed. As is the case with many insect pests, the best "control" approach is to incorporate as many tools and options you possibly can. Because mosquitoes fly, cover a large area and breed efficiently, this approach will provide better results.
Mosquitoes have long been an enemy of man and our lifestyle. To enjoy the great outdoors, you must first learn why they are attracted to your land. Once shelter and breeding locations have been identified, choose the best approach to make these locations largely ignored by your local mosquito population. Though Bug Bands and Deet will help out in the field, treatments with Repellent Granules, Dunks, Esfenvalerate or Fogging Solutions will be necessary for complete control. Be sure to get enough "machine" when fogging so the time you spend treating will be minimal and the time you are able to enjoy the great outdoors is maximized. Set out some Blockers for added protection and you just might be able to enjoy the great outdoors during the summer time once again!
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SITEMAP HOME CONTACT US ABOUT | <urn:uuid:d3784989-e86c-4752-bd8f-a93b3ace9fef> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bugspray.com/catalog/products/page335.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395992.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00017-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953236 | 9,861 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Physics collaborations such as those at large particle accelerator facilities at CERN or Fermilab are organic entities in themselves! Hundreds of minds gather together with the aim of producing results that the world has not seen before. Different cultures, different backgrounds and even different approaches help achieve the common goals in everyone’s sights.
It is important to understand how such a large group of people present their physics results to the rest of the community: A scientific paper written by a single person is the product of one mind; a paper by a collaboration the size of CMS is the product of over 2000 physicists.
Each paper goes through an exhaustive journey from early analysis to publication. This journey has several fixed waypoints, which exist so that every CMS member (who will sign the paper eventually) has the possibility to look at it. Everybody in the collaboration has the right and duty to contribute to the paper and must duly be informed when a paper is in production.
Beginning an analysis
As data for analysis starts to be collected from the LHC’s collisions, the life of a CMS paper typically begins with one of the many physics working groups such as those dedicated to studies of the Top quark, the Higgs boson, Supersymmetry, and so on. Each of these working groups has conveners who co-ordinate the analyses made by its members.
Physicists wishing to perform a particular analysis approach the conveners of the respective working group with a proposal in the form of a presentation. The conveners then decide whether to proceed with the analysis or not. If they decide to go ahead, the analysis topic gets added to the CMS Analysis Database and can be accessed via its Interface (CADI).
Any member of the collaboration can access CADI to find a list of the topics currently being analysed along with a list of authors responsible for them. The topics under analysis are not a mystery; it is known who the participants are, it is well known where more effort is needed and people are welcome to join.
The authors regularly present their studies at working group meetings and as the analysis makes progress it proceeds to the stage known as the pre-approval. The analysis must be ready for all members of the collaboration to see at least one week before the pre-approval meeting. The last leg before this pre-approval involves the Analysis Review Committee (or ARC), which is typically made up of three people appointed by the Physics Co-ordinator and the Publications Committee Chairperson.
Appointing a committee is not easy. The large collaboration has people with different skills and it is important that the right people be selected for the committees. Senior members are often asked to nominate others for this role.
The conveners decide to hold the pre-approval meeting when they are satisfied with the progress the authors have made. At this meeting, one of the authors presents their findings to other members of the collaboration.
Discussions during or after the presentation can sometimes get very heated. Yes, everyone might belong to the same team, but no punches are pulled when it comes to passing a critical eye over the work of one’s colleagues; perhaps this is so because everyone expects the papers to which they are signatories to be watertight. It is healthy that different people have different points of view.
Figure 1: The path from the proposal to the pre-approval talk is simple, but long.
While the working group is responsible for oversight of the analysis before pre-approval, after this crucial point the ARC assumes responsibility. When the authors have answered all the questions raised at the pre-approval and during the ARC review, and have made any necessary modifications, the analysis must be approved by the collaboration. The approval talk is announced two weeks before it is to occur. Preferably any discussion should happen before the meeting, not at the last moment. So, the documentation for the analysis is frozen and made available at the same time as the announcement so collaboration members can read it.
Documentation is important, including that which is only circulated internally. Ideally, other physicists should be able to reproduce the analysis themselves after reading the paper. Not everyone in the collaboration will look at all of it, but the level of scrutiny is sufficient that no paper produced would be rejected by a journal.
At the approval talk, CMS members ask questions after the presentation. The Physics Co-ordinator listens to questions and replies, and tries to understand if there are important points that need more scrutiny. The ARC then gives its opinion — to approve the analysis or do more work. After approval of the physics, if the paper as a whole is not ready but CMS would like to present analysis to a conference, a Physics Analysis Summary (PAS) is made available for distribution outside the collaboration.
There is another important stage before the paper is ready to be published. The draft of the paper is circulated for a collaboration-wide review (CWR) — which could happen in parallel with the analysis approval process or after it. In the CWR, signatories to the paper comment on text, and on the physics described in the text.
There is a distinction between these two, sometimes parallel, processes: While the physics approval is for CMS as a whole, the CWR includes all people who sign the paper — a set that overlaps with CMS members but includes others as well. There are a few people that sign the paper but who are no longer members of the CMS collaboration. When you join CMS, you start signing the papers one year after you have joined and you stop signing one year after you have left the collaboration. There are rules for people who have collaborated with CMS in the past, because work on the experiment started over 15 years ago.
After an analysis has been approved and the paper passes the CWR, the ARC, authors and others go over the entire paper in what is known as the Final Reading. This is the final stage of the paper before it leaves the collaboration and is done to ensure that all CMS papers communicate physics with clarity, have the same style and retain the same form. At the Final Reading, the paper is “blessed” by the Publication Committee, after which it is frozen and sent to a journal, where the CMS paper goes through an anonymous peer-review process, as would papers from smaller collaborations or individual scientists. Sometimes, there are suggestions from the referees although most papers are published without major changes.
Figure 2: The paper may take one of two routes, going from the pre-approval talk to being submitted to a journal.
- This text is a shorter version of an article that appreared in the CMS Times on 21st February, 2011, under the name Life of a CMS Paper. | <urn:uuid:94f00eb4-262e-410e-9501-299c2cab9f5d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://cms.web.cern.ch/content/how-does-cms-publish-analysis | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00139-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968787 | 1,374 | 2.609375 | 3 |
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Whole organs are homogenised in guanidinium isothiocyanate and then phenol-chloroform extracted to remove much of the protein and DNA content of the lysate. The partially purified lysate is then layered on to a dense caesium chloride cushion. The buoyant density of most RNAs in caesium chloride is much greater than that of other cellular components (> 1.8 g/ml). During ultracentrifugation, the RNA pellets at the bottom of the tube, the DNA bands in the caesium chloride cushion and the protein floats in the guanidinium lysis buffer. Small RNAs, eg 5s rRNA and tRNAs do not sediment well through CsCl.
Large amounts of very high quality total RNA in good yield can be obtained from adult organs. It is free of protein and DNA contamination. Intact RNA from RNase-rich tissues such as pancreas can be consistently isolated using this method. Although not as labour-intensive as the other methods, it is still not suited to the preparation of large numbers of samples.
Day 1 Homogenise tissues and assemble caesium chloride gradients
Day 2 Dissemble gradients, purify and quantitate RNA and check its integrity
Polytron or equivalent
Ultracentrifuge with swing-out rotor
Polyallomer 13 ml ultracentrifuge tubes (autoclaved if desired)
18 Store the RNA at -70oC
2 The ratio of the 260 : 280 UV absorbance readings (should be > 2.0 for clean RNA) is often poor for GIT-isolated tissues and the UV absorbance at 260 nm may bear little relationship to the amount of RNA present when checked by gel electrophoresis. Contaminating trace amounts of GIT or phenol interfere with UV absorbance by RNA at these wavelengths
A. Ullrich, J. Shine, J. Chirgwin, R. Pictet, E. Tischer, W. J. Rutter and H. M. Goodman (1977) Rat insulin genes : construction of plasmids containing the coding sequences Science 196:1313 -Reference #236 Tan Lab Library 07-94>
J. M. Chirgwin, A. E. Przybyla, R. J. MacDonald and W. J. Rutter (1979) Isolation of biologically active ribonucleic acid from sources enriched in ribonuclease Biochemistry 18:5294-9Reference #470 Tan Lab Library 07-94>
V. Glisin, R. Crkvenjakov and C. Byus (1974) Ribonucleic acid isolated by cesium chloride centrifugation Biochemistry 13:2633-7Reference #166 Tan Lab Library 07-94>
B. E. Faulkner-Jones, D. S. Cram, J. Kun and L. C. Harrison (1993) Localisation and quantitation of expression of two glutamate decarboxylase genes in pancreatic b-cells and other peripheral tissues of mouse and rat Endocrinol 133:2962 - 2972
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1 Phenol and GIT are miscible. Chloroform must be added to searate the two phases. Heating the GIT-phenol solution to 65oC increases the efficiency of the organic solvent extraction steps 2 Addition of CsCl to the GIT lysate allows a gradient to be established in the tissue lysate during ultracentrifugation. This helps prevent the interface from becoming blocked by cellular debris and increases the yield by up to 5 fold 3 If the RNA yield is expected to be high, the rotor can be stopped after 16 - 18 hours 4 High concentration CsCl precipitates out at <14oC when spun at 180 000 g 5 RNA partitions into the aquoeus phase and DNA partitions into the phenolic phase when the pH <8.0. Water saturated phenol has a pH of ~ 4.0 6 LiCl-RNA salts are insoluble in ethanol / isopropanol, whilst LiCl-DNA salts are relatively soluble. RNA from spleen and thymus particularly can become DNA contaminated and steps (5) and (6) reduce the amount of contamination | <urn:uuid:570565e5-309b-4045-ad4b-56aea0630bac> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.protocol-online.org/cgi-bin/prot/view_cache.cgi?ID=863 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.875656 | 912 | 2.8125 | 3 |
BREAM: Eastern Black & Southern Pikey
Sci: Acanthopagrus australis, A. butcherii and A. berda
Common Names: This vitally important family of angling fish is represented in Australian waters by several species, of which the three discussed here are best known. Referred to simply as "bream" by most anglers, they are also known as eastern black bream (A. australis), black bream (A. australis and A. butcherii), southern bream (A. butcherii) or silver bream. The eastern black bream is also be referred to as yellowfin bream at times, although this name more correctly belongs to a closely related, but less prolific, fish of Western Australian waters (A. latus). Very large bream of all species often exhibit a bluish tinge around the nose and upper jaw area, which earns them the nickname of "blue-nose bream".
Description: All three bream species under discussion here are deep-bodied, laterally-compressed fish with moderately large scales, a forked tail and a smallish mouth lined with strong, peg-like teeth. The colouration of each species varies considerably, depending upon it's habitat. Bream living in upper tidal estuaries or land-locked lagoons are often very dark - almost black - on the back and bronze or gold on the flanks. At the opposite extreme, bream taken from the surf, ocean rocks or lower estuaries are usually bright silver. The eastern black bream's pelvic and anal fins are often yellowish to bright yellow. This bream's tail is typically dusky-yellow with a black trailing edge. There is usually a small black blotch at the base of each pectoral fin, and this may also be evident on southern bream at times. In contrast, the pikey bream is generally much darker in hue than either the eastern black or southern variety, and its lips may also be thick and rubbery at times.
Size: Most bream landed by recreational anglers weigh between 0.2 and 1.2 kilos. Specimens over that weight are prize catches. An occasional specimen may top 2 kilos, and records for the species stand at weights in excess of 4 kilos. The eastern and southern species generally grow larger than the pikey bream of tropical waters.
Distribution: The eastern black bream's range extends
from about Townsville or Cairns, in northern Queensland,
southwards through New South Wales waters to about Lakes
Entrance in eastern Victoria, where the range of this fish
overlaps with that of the southern black bream. The southern
bream is primarily an estuary, lake and river dwelling fish,
ranging from the far south coast of New South Wales (rarely
north of Merimbula) to about Geraldton in Western Australia.
It is also found in the tidal rivers of Tasmania, the Bass
Strait islands and on Kangaroo Island. Pikey bream are a
northern species, ranging from central northern Queensland
to about Exmouth, in Western Australia. All three bream
species occupy a wide range of environmental niches; from
the freshwater reaches of rivers well above the upper tidal
limits, down through the estuaries and into harbours, inlets,
bays and tidal lakes. Eastern black bream also range extensively
along ocean surf beaches, rocky shorelines and into offshore
waters, although the other two species are mostly confined
to the estuaries.
Fishing Techniques: The most productive techniques for taking bream in estuaries, bays and harbours are based around the use of light, sensitive tackle and live or fresh baits of marine worms, shellfish, yabbies (nippers), crabs, prawns or small bait fish species. Bream also succumb to an array of less conventional offerings such as bullock's heart, tripe, steak, chicken intestines and various 'pudding' mixtures of flour, water, cheese, tinned sardines and the like. Estuary and river-dwelling bream of all three species are also taken with reasonable consistency on small lures and flies, often by anglers targeting other species such as flathead or tailor. In New South Wales and southern Queensland, surf, rock and inshore boat anglers target eastern black bream using the same range of baits as estuary anglers, as well as whole and cut pilchards, fish fillets, strips and cubes. All three species also respond well to the use of berley.
Eating Qualities: Bream are a much prized and highly rated food fish, although some people would argue they are somewhat over-rated in this department. Bream from lower estuaries, harbours and the open ocean have moist, while flesh with a clean, sweet flavour. Upper estuary or freshwater dwelling fish often exhibit slightly softer flesh, and can have a slightly weedy or muddy taint at times. | <urn:uuid:e31ed148-90da-47e2-9216-02f09d8fbc93> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://sportsfish.com.au/pages/fishing/fish-saltwater/bream.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391634.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00091-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944099 | 1,054 | 2.921875 | 3 |
April 21, 2009, Cambridge, UK - Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome (WHS) is a human disease caused by spontaneous genetic deletions. Children born with WHS have a characteristic set of facial features, including a wide flat nose bridge, downturned mouth, high forehead, and highly arched eyebrows. Other symptoms associated with this disease include heart defects, seizures, mental retardation, and skeletal abnormalities, and the severity of these symptoms varies between individual WHS patients.
While it was known that WHS is related to a genetic deletion in chromosome 4, the specific gene or genes affected were unknown. Now, a study by scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory demonstrates that a gene called Fgfrl1 (Fibroblast growth factor receptor-like 1) plays a key role in WHS.
This report published in Disease Models & Mechanisms (DMM), dmm.biologists.org describes how they modify the Fgrfrl1 gene so that it loses function, then express the gene in mice. Fgfrl1 in humans is located on the short arm of chromosome 4 and mice born with the modified Fgfrl1 gene have a variety of physical features that are similar to characteristics seen in WHS patients. For example, the mice are born with heart defects due to thickening of the cardiac valves, and they have abnormal facial and skeletal structures compared to normal mice. The mutant mice also have deformities in throat cartilage structures, which may provide insight to the swallowing and speaking difficulties experienced by many WHS patients.
This mouse model of WHS provides a valuable new tool for researchers studying this developmental disorder. It provides a new avenue for molecular research through study of Fgrf1 function, but also allows scientists to understand how structural defects might contribute to WHS symptoms, as is the case in the heart defects and swallowing difficulties.
The report, "Multiple congenital malformations of Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome are recapitulated in Fgfrl1 null mice" was written by Catarina Catela, Daniel Bilbao-Cortes, Esfir Slonimsky, Paschalis Kratsios, Nadia Rosenthal and Pascal te Welscher of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Monterotondo, Italy. The report is published in the May/June issue of Disease Models & Mechanisms (DMM), a research journal published by The Company of Biologists, a non-profit based in Cambridge, UK.
About Disease Models & Mechanisms:
Disease Models & Mechanisms (DMM) is a new research journal publishing both primary scientific research, as well as review articles, editorials, and research highlights. The journal's mission is to provide a forum for clinicians and scientists to discuss basic science and clinical research related to human disease, disease detection and novel therapies. DMM is published by the Company of Biologists, a non-profit organization based in Cambridge, UK.
The Company also publishes the international biology research journals Development, Journal of Cell Science, and The Journal of Experimental Biology. In addition to financing these journals, the Company provides grants to scientific societies and supports other activities including travelling fellowships for junior scientists, workshops and conferences. The world's poorest nations receive free and unrestricted access to the Company's journals. | <urn:uuid:b1b3d086-0fe4-4f52-be9e-110369244214> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/tcob-mmp041409.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00158-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939585 | 677 | 3.265625 | 3 |
Herb: Northern Dewberry
Latin name: Rubus flagellaris
Family: Rosaceae (Rose Family)
Medicinal use of Northern Dewberry:The root is astringent, stimulant and tonic. An infusion has been used in the treatment of diarrhoea, venereal disease and rheumatism. An infusion has been used as a wash in the treatment of piles. The root has been chewed as a treatment for a coated tongue. The leaves are astringent. An infusion has been used in the treatment of diarrhoea.
Description of the plant:
(7 3/4 inch)
Habitat of the herb:Dry fields, openings and borders of thickets in slightly acid soils.
Edible parts of Northern Dewberry:Fruit - raw or cooked in pies, preserves etc. A rich flavour. The fruit is about 15mm in diameter. Young shoots - peeled and eaten raw. They are harvested as they come through the ground in spring and whilst they are still young and tender. The dried leaves make a fine tea.
Other uses of the herb:A purple to dull blue dye is obtained from the fruit. A black dye is obtained from the green twigs.
Propagation of Northern Dewberry:Seed - requires stratification and is best sown in early autumn in a cold frame. Stored seed requires one month stratification at about 3°C and is best sown as early as possible in the year. Prick out the seedlings when they are large enough to handle and grow on in a cold frame. Plant them out into their permanent positions in late spring of the following year. Cuttings of half-ripe wood, July/August in a frame. Tip layering in July. Plant out in autumn. Division in early spring or just before leaf-fall in the autumn.
Cultivation of the herb:Dry fields, openings and borders of thickets in slightly acid soils.
Known hazards of Rubus flagellaris:None known
Plant information taken from the Plants For A Future. | <urn:uuid:68781d46-59c6-492b-a499-9261fabe1890> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.naturalmedicinalherbs.net/herbs/r/rubus-flagellaris=northern-dewberry.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00173-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930455 | 435 | 3.3125 | 3 |
As relations between Russia and the West grow frosty enough to qualify as Cold War II, many ask who is to blame for the new hostility — and quite a few point fingers at the West and the United States in particular.
The pundits, including Jack Matlock, former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, say that after communism fell, Western powers were more interested in humiliating a former enemy than in helping it become free and prosperous: Russia was trampled and insulted and turned into an enemy again.
But the argument is misguided. Whatever mistakes the West may have made, Russia’s course is the result of its inability to overcome its authoritarian and imperialistic legacy. And blaming the West is part of the problem.
The narrative of Russian humiliation is factually wrong. While some Western leaders spoke of “victory” after the Soviet Union’s dissolution, this was meant to be a defeat of communism, not Russia — whose first president, Boris Yeltsin, was treated as a friend. Bill Clinton’s first trip abroad as president in 1993 included a meeting with Yeltsin in Vancouver, British Columbia. Despite its economic woes, Russia was included in summits of the Group of 7, the forum for leaders of top economies, and formally became its eighth member in 1998.
Some critics, Western and Russian, contrast the treatment of post-Soviet Russia with that of post-World War II Germany, which received aid to rebuild its economy under the Marshall Plan. Yet Western aid to Russia just from 1992 to 1997 totaled $55 billion (not counting private charity); Marshall Plan aid to Germany was about $1.4 billion in 1949-1951, less than $10 billion in 1997 dollars.
It is often claimed that NATO expansion to Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics broke a 1990 promise to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. But a 2009 article in The Wilson Quarterly by Mark Kramer, director of Harvard’s Project on Cold War Studies, convincingly argues that there was no such pledge. Indeed, NATO’s eastward expansion was thought to include a path to possible Russian membership. To some extent, this was derailed by mutual misunderstandings. Still, NATO’s Partnership for Peace program and later the NATO-Russia Council not only allowed for military cooperation (and Western assistance to Russia), but required NATO to consult Russia about its security concerns.
The prospect of Ukraine and Georgia’s NATO membership is often said to threaten Russia with “encirclement” by hostile entities. Yet, as some Russian military experts admit, Russia’s nuclear arsenal makes a military attack by NATO forces near-impossible. Most likely, the Kremlin’s fear is that neighbors integrated into the democratic capitalist West may threaten its crony-capitalist regime at home — a direction in which Vladimir Putin made clear moves even in the early 2000s, when the Bush administration treated him as an ally.
Putin played on a very real sense of humiliation and resentment among the Russian masses by promising to restore Russia’s dignity as a “great power.” But the cause of that humiliation is not the West but Russia’s own failed communist experiment. The comparison to postwar Germany is ironic: Germany was forced by the victors to confront and repent for the crimes of its Nazi past. No such reckoning ever took place in Russia, enabling Putin’s propaganda machine to celebrate Soviet “achievements” and blaming the Soviet Union’s downfall on Western intrigue.
Anti-Western grievance is a major source of a dangerous authoritarian mentality in Russia. Western pundits should not be feeding that grievance with wrongheaded blame.
Cathy Young is a regular contributor to Reason magazine and the website RealClearPolitics. She wrote this for Newsday. | <urn:uuid:4095bfd6-1f4a-409f-8e81-f6e25b7f5112> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://columbiadailyherald.com/opinion/letters-editor/russia-victim-its-own-past | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397695.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00140-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970564 | 775 | 2.71875 | 3 |
This Saturday marks what would have been Dr. Seuss’ 109th birthday. The beloved children’s author wrote more than 40 children’s books and was deeply dedicated to children’s literacy. In fact, his popular title, The Cat in the Hat, was written using the 250 words he thought all first graders should be able to recognize.
In honor of Seuss’ contributions to improve children’s literacy, the National Education Association has always held its annual reading and motivation program, Read Across America Day, on or around Seuss’ birthday on March 2. This year, Read Across America will be celebrating its 16th year on March 1. Its goal is to share activities to encourage families and children to read 365 days a year.
Loads of free printables!
On the NEA website you can find free printable calendars, activity books, bookmarks, certificates of achievement and appreciation, posters, and even a variety of booklists. And because they have partnered this year with Renaissance Dental to help children learn about the importance of oral health, you can also download a reading and brushing log, as well as your own booklet full of fun tooth facts to keep your mouth healthy and a reading and brushing log.
Here at NBC Latino, we think it would be a great idea to celebrate children’s literacy and oral health by reading René Colato-Laínez’s book, The Tooth Fairy Meets El Ratón Pérez. A beautifully illustrated book, the story celebrates two cultures and tells what happens with two folk heroes come together to collect one tooth. You can read the amusing real-life story that inspired Colato-Laínez to write this book over on the Latin Baby Book Club.
Visit your local library
Many libraries are celebrating Read Across America Day by hosting Dr. Seuss-themed events. From story time to birthday cakes, libraries across the country are prepared to help children and their families get caught up in the excitement of reading. And librarians are a great resource to help parents find books that match their child’s age and reading level.
Throw a party!
If you can’t find any Read Across America events happening near you, then why not take matters into your own hands and throw a Book Swap Party? Invite family and friends over for a fun party. Here’s the catch: They have to bring at least one book (but more than one is fine!) to trade with each other. Your children may find a treasure in a book that another child has already read or outgrown. Any books left over can be donated to your local library, Head Start program, daycare, or preschool.
Check out The Cat in the Hat
The award-winning PBS KIDS TV series The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! teaches children in preschool through second grade about basic science and math concepts. This Friday they’ll be airing two new episodes in honor of Dr. Seuss’ birthday, and launching a new game on the show’s official website. In the game, “Swirly Whirly Pearl Hunt,” the Swirly Whirly Ocean is filled with aquatic creatures of all colors, shapes and sizes, and players can catch a ride on the Thinga-ma-jigger to travel deeper and deeper through silly, Seussian schools of fish. The Swirly Whirly Pearl is waiting somewhere far below, along with the chance to create a personalized school of mix-and-match sea creatures.
In addition, your kids might enjoy the PBS KIDS LAB and its educational games for kids that help them learn about things like measuring to deductive reasoning. The best part is that this site offers the activities in both English and Spanish.
Monica Olivera Hazelton, NBC Latino contributor and the founder and publisher ofMommyMaestra.com, a site for Latino families that homeschool, as well as families with children in a traditional school setting who want to take a more active role in their children’s education. She is the 2011 winner of the “Best Latina Education Blogger” award by LATISM. | <urn:uuid:04025aa1-04ce-4769-a8b0-df8abf981b4a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://nbclatino.com/2013/02/27/celebrate-dr-seuss-birthday-with-read-across-america-day/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00098-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956544 | 871 | 3.015625 | 3 |
April 12, 2012
Nearly 30% Of All College Athlete Injuries A Result Of ‘Overuse’
Overuse injuries — found most often in low-contact sports that involve long training sessions or where the same movement is repeated numerous times — make up nearly 30 percent of all injuries sustained by collegiate athletes.
And a majority of overuse injuries (62 percent) occurred in females athletes, according to a new study published in the current edition of the Journal of Athletic Training, the National Athletic Trainers' Association scientific publication."Overuse injuries may present not only physical challenges but also psychological ones that could significantly affect an athlete's recovery and performance," said study co-author Tracey Covassin, a certified athletic trainer at Michigan State University and a member of the Department of Kinesiology.
"Understanding the frequency, rate and severity of overuse injuries is an important first step for designing effective injury-prevention programs, intervention strategies and treatment protocols to prevent and rehabilitate athletes with these types of injuries."
According to the study, overuse injuries tend to occur gradually and are caused by repeated small injuries, without a single, identifiable event responsible for the injury, in sports such as long-distance running, rowing and swimming. By comparison, injuries occurring in high-speed and full-body-contact sports are more likely to be acute injuries, which result from a specific and identifiable event.
The study sample consisted of 573 male and female collegiate athletes from an NCAA Division I institution participating in 16 team sports. Participants reported 1,317 injuries during a three-year period. Of those injuries, 386 (29.3 percent) were overuse injuries and 931 (70.7 percent) were acute. A total of 319 male athletes sustained 705 injuries, and 254 female athletes sustained 612 injuries.
The most common overuse injuries were general stress (27 percent), inflammation (21 percent) and tendinitis (16 percent).
The long-term consequences of overuse injuries include loss of playing time, reduced function and psychological exhaustion. Overuse injuries also are associated with a gradual increase in symptoms, which means athletes may go undiagnosed and untreated for longer periods of time leading to long-term residual symptoms and chronic health consequences, including deformities and arthritis.
Wrestling, football, women's soccer and other contact sports were associated with a higher acute injury risk; while overuse injuries were found more frequently in rowing, softball, volleyball, cross country, track and field and other low-contact sports. The study noted that four women's sports - field hockey, soccer, softball, and volleyball - had the highest rates of overuse-injury rates.
"Better strategies for the prevention and early intervention of overuse injuries in all sports and for both sexes are imperative in order to reduce their number and severity," Covassin said.
On the Net: | <urn:uuid:f09d9e31-751d-40a4-949d-2e829f2c43ea> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1112512755/nearly-30-of-all-college-athlete-injuries-a-result-of-%E2%80%98overuse%E2%80%99/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00028-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959734 | 591 | 2.953125 | 3 |
The greeks that were around before had developed one, but not as terrifying as this. Around 919 A.D, the ancient Chinese developed a horrifying weapon that made soldiers fear for their lives. The chinese had built an ancient flamethrower, unique from the others. This new weapon could spray a continuous stream of flame into the opposing army. More often than not, the flamethrowers would be loaded onto ship decks to shoot at the enemy ships. The stream of flames would encircle the enemy armada in a fiery wreath, sending the ship and it's crew to watery graves.
In the Machine
The ancient chinese flamethrower was a piston powered mechanism, using a chemical similar to gasoline to spray the hot flame. It would spray "fiery hot oil" at the enemy, said Lin Yu. This is the first credible referance to the ancient weapon. The piston-bellows in the machine would pump flammable liquid up a tube, where a spark would ignite it just before sending the flame towards the enemy. For more info, go here
Physics Behind Flame
Basic physics apply, where the Potential Chemical of the gasoline gets ignited because of the heat and light energy given off of the spark. When these two combine, it is a fiery stream of death flying towards you!
From their creation in Ancient Greece, flamethrowers have been used by hundreds of nations for wartime weapons.
During WWII, flamethrowers were vital in Pacific Island assaults, used for burning forests or bunkers.
In WWII, flamethrowers could be mounted or built into tanks for an armored flame assault.
Experiments with flammable material finally led to the creation of the chemical Napalm in the early 1900's.
Ships succumbed to the flamethrowers might for centuries... until metal ships began to hit the waters of the world. | <urn:uuid:2f1c5da5-dbb7-429b-9eb5-20c32021bcd7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ojhsancient2.weebly.com/chinese-flamethrower.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403823.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00114-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957607 | 395 | 3.34375 | 3 |
|Quiet Revolutionaries - A Look at the Campaign by Agricultural Scientists to Fight Hunger (World Bank)|
The next step was to go back to the fields and find the natural enemies of those mealybugs. Some sixty species of predators and parasites were collected and sent off to the International Institute for Biological Control in Britain to be examined and put in quarantine .You want to make sure you're sending over just the pure species. Parasites have parasites-hyperparasites and we don't want those in Africa. It gets complicated'" Bellotti said.
Fifteen "natural enemies" were eventually released for trials. Two top candidates emerged: a beetle that had trouble surviving the rainy season, and the eventual winner, the one that proved to be the most effective, a tiny wasp called Epidinocarsis lopezi.
"What does this wasp actually do to the mealybug?" I asked
"It injects its eggs inside the mealybug. Then the wasps hatch out and develop inside the mealybug."
"How long does it take the mealybug to die?"
"About fifteen to sixteen days. The wasp is very effective," he said, showing slides that graphically and grotesquely proved his point. Nature is raw, not only in tooth and claw.
In Cotonou, Herren and his team had to overcome many hurdles. They first had to mass produce thousands and thousands of the wasps. This couldn't be like any other biological control program that had existed before, Herren said. It meant costly "machines of stainless steel. One of them cost $10,000 and we had eight of them"as well as air conditioning.
His critics thought that all this wasn't appropriate technology for Africa, and 1 hey were highly nervous about the costs. "My view is that what is appropriate technology is what is needed. Africans are running jumbo jets, all sorts of sophisticated machinery," he said. Eventually he got the support of some donors who believed in his ambitious largescale plans.
He then had a struggle to kind enough scientists to hire to work on this mass production. He needed scientists who understood insect behavior -who understood, for example, that if you have too many insects in one small space, they stop copulating and reproducing. "It's not a very academic subject," Herren explained. There's no publications. You don't make a career with this."
Ground and Air Release
Then, they had to figure out how to release all these wasps over an area one-and-a--half times the size of the United States. To release them on the ground, scientists earned from 5,000 to 20,000 wasps in vials to a number of fields and let them go in batches usually about 100 kilometers apart. The wasps spread rapidly. After twelve months, the fields were checked again. If the wasps were still there if they had survived a dry and a rainy seasonthen they were declared " established" in that area. But ground release was not enough. Because of the vast distances to be covered, there obviously also had to be some sort of release from the air.
Herren got a plane it cost him $800,000 a year-and in eight months worked out an imaginative system. Up to 210 wasps were packed in each vialthey were first cooled so they didn't move around too much anti taken aloft. At the right moment, air pressure blew out the vials' stoppers, and the wasps were propelled through a tube and out the back of the plane.
"They weren't damaged by this?" I asked.
"There was a mortality," he said. "But only about 2 percent of the wasps were killed."
"How high were you above the ground when you released them?"
"We flew anything between three meters and 100 meters. We had a former Royal Air Force pilot and he really enjoyed mowing the cassava with his propellers.''
From Cotonou, the aircraft flew out to western and central Africa. Sometimes it was based in Nairobi so it could fly out and back to areas in eastern and southern Africa. When that happened, the insects had somehow to get from their laboratories in Cotonou to meet up with the plane in Nairobi. This was no fob for an ordinary courier service. Herren said The cargo was far too precios. So technicians flew on commercial airlines "carrying the bugs on their laps." The wasps had to be released as quickly as possible, as their life span is only about one week. With this wellorganuled method, "we were able to release insects in Maputo, Mozambique, thirty-four hours after they were packaged in Cotonou," Herren said. "And we went into areas where there was war, where there was shooting"
Success was immediate. The South American wasps certainly found Africa to their liking, settling and multiplying in twentyfive countries of the cassava belt-over 2.7 million square kilometers. There they went to work on the mealybugs and saved the cassava crop. "It's under control in nearly 90 percent of the area," Herren said. One economist estimated that for every dollar spent by the control program, an African farmer had $149 in increased food productivity.
In addition, Herren said the experts now had a scientific base for biological control, a proper record of what they had done. Studies in the past were hardly ever done, which was one of the reasons why biological control was "always pushed aside as a method that didn't work. Out of 100 attempts, maybe only twenty worked in the past," he said. "And no one could tell you why the 80 percent didn't work because no one had done the proper studies. Now we really understand the system." | <urn:uuid:b02e99d7-05b8-44f8-8875-0e575133860e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nzdl.org/gsdlmod?e=d-00000-00---off-0aedl--00-0----0-10-0---0---0direct-10---4-------0-1l--11-en-50---20-preferences---00-0-1-00-0--4----0-0-11-10-0utfZz-8-10&a=d&c=aedl&cl=CL1.4&d=HASHeaf5b834723fa2d8ed118d.5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00201-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987978 | 1,207 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Childhood Negative Experience Taints Exercise Motivation
Apparently present-day humans are fragile when it comes to fitness motivation, or so says a University of Alberta researcher who believes humiliation in a physical education class as a child can turn people off fitness for good.
Billy Strean, a professor in the U of A’s Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, says a negative lifelong attitude towards physical activity can be determined by either a good or a bad experience, based on the personal characteristics of the coach or instructor.
For example, negative experiences may come from a teacher who has low energy, is unfair or someone who embarrasses students.
During his research, Strean heard from individuals who opened up about negative experiences with coaches and instructors, some from many years ago.
One study participant wrote, “I am a 51-year-old-woman whose childhood experiences with sports, particularly as handled in school, were so negative that even as I write this my hands are sweating and I feel on the verge of tears. I have never experienced the humiliation nor felt the antipathy toward any other aspect of life as I do toward sports.”
Strean hopes to raise awareness of such experiences so those who instruct children in sport will realize they have the ability to create either a fun and playful experience or an experience of humiliation.
Strean has tips for coaches and teachers, including putting attention on fun, connecting with friends and learning, and, until kids enter their teens, minimizing attention on outcomes.
Strean also found study participants had better experiences from minimally organized games such as street hockey, compared to the more organized activities. He suggests adults try not to over-organize sports and allow the children to explore sporting activities on their own, with minimal rules and no scorekeeping.
Source: University of Alberta
Nauert PhD, R. (2015). Childhood Negative Experience Taints Exercise Motivation. Psych Central. Retrieved on June 25, 2016, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/01/08/childhood-negative-experience-taints-exercise-motivation/10641.html | <urn:uuid:de6aede6-ebae-49d4-8bb2-04f2c4d4dfb2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/01/08/childhood-negative-experience-taints-exercise-motivation/10641.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00037-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956908 | 436 | 2.875 | 3 |
Hardcover: 142 pages
Publisher: Tribute Books (June 16, 2010)
American history has an eerie way of repeating itself.
In 1840, America needed coal to fuel its economy. Investors from throughout the country began offering farmers in Northeast Pennsylvania huge amounts of money for their land to gain access to coal hundreds of feet below ground.
In 2010, America needs clean energy to fuel its economy. Investors from around the world have begun offering landowners in Northeast Pennsylvania huge amounts of money for the right to recover the natural gas in the Marcellus Shale formation, almost a mile below ground.
Scranton, Pennsylvania, was the Silicon Valley of the nineteenth century. Driven by overwhelming demand for the coal, iron, steel, and steam technology that the city produced, Scranton grew from 100 to 100,000 people between 1840 and 1900. It was the “Electric City” at a time when electricity was the most exciting innovation in the world, and it was the face of industrialization and immigration in the United States.
By the mid-twentieth century, however, Scranton symbolized a decaying America. Its steel mills and factories were moving to other states. Lax regulations led to catastrophic environmental damage throughout the region and the unintentional flooding of area mines. The large corporations that supported the area’s economy moved away, and Scranton became, as a recent book title puts it, “the face of decline.”
What happened? What changed? What led Scranton to go from boom to bust?
Scranton’s early business leaders cared deeply about Scranton, and had a real stake in seeing the city grow. They made a point of attracting entrepreneurs, inventors, small businesses, and new technology to Scranton. They chartered the city’s gas and water companies, supported local businesses, and personally got involved in local politics. Perhaps most importantly, early business leaders actually lived in the city. Within this environment, the city flourished.
By the turn of the twentieth century, however, something had changed. When Walter Scranton decided to move his family’s steel business to Buffalo, New York, he simply remarked, “It’s tough on Scranton.” Professional managers appeared in the workplace, and strove to increase efficiency as much as possible. As corporations prioritized profits during this period, the communities in which they operated were often left behind. Scranton was no exception.
The natural gas in the Marcellus Shale represents a second chance for Scranton. Certainly, some residents of the area will sell their mineral rights and become very wealthy while natural gas is quietly pumped elsewhere. The larger question, however, is whether the region can leverage its natural resources to create the type of enduring prosperity that that drives a region’s economy for generations. Will Scranton attract entrepreneurs, inventors, and scholars? Will it create smart industry regulations? Will it become a hub for energy research and new technologies?
Residents of Scranton who know the history of the city have a roadmap for success. Will they use it?
Patrick Brown was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He graduated Magna cum Laude from Georgetown University, where he won the Morris Medal for best senior history honors thesis. He currently teaches high school social studies in the Mississippi Delta through Teach for America.
His latest book is Industrial Pioneers: Scranton, Pennsylvania and the Transformation of America, 1840-1902, a detailed history account of the town of Scranton, Pennsylvania. Purchase the hardcover from Amazon or Smashwords in E-Book format.
You can visit his website at http://www.industrialpioneers.com .
For USA followers of The Burton Review, Pump Up Yor Book Virtual Tours is offering a book giveaway of Industrial Pioneers: Scranton, Pennsylvania and the Transformation of America, 1840-1902. Giveaway ends on Sept 18th, I will email the winner.
Please leave us a comment here with your email address to be entered for one entry.
+2 entries: Blog post linking to this post
+1 entry: Facebook or Tweet this post | <urn:uuid:4cbc4d42-1c41-4e9b-9e36-53372a52a91b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.burtonbookreview.com/2010_08_10_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398873.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00125-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945556 | 866 | 3.328125 | 3 |
The LPI-JSC Center for Lunar Science and Exploration is excited to announce a student field camp opportunity coming this fall! The Field Training and Research Program at Meteor Crater is organized under the auspices of the NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI), which is designed, in part, to train a new generation of explorers for the Moon and beyond.
The Field Training and Research Program at Meteor Crater is a week-long geology field class and research project based at Barringer Meteorite Crater, Arizona, more popularly known as Meteor Crater. The goal will be to introduce students to impact cratering processes and provide an opportunity to assist with a research project at the crater. Skills developed during the field camp should better prepare the students for their own thesis studies in impact cratered terrains, whether they be on Earth, the Moon, asteroids, Mars, or some other Solar System planetary surface.
The field camp is designed for graduate college students in geology and planetary science programs, although advanced undergraduate students will be considered if they have successfully completed a summer field geology program and have a demonstrated interest in impact cratering processes. U.S. and international students are eligible to apply.
The field camp is offered October 4–October 12, 2014, and limited to sixteen participants. Interested candidates should apply by July 11, 2014, to be considered.
For more information, please visit http://www.lpi.usra.edu/exploration/mcFieldCamp/.
Posted by: Soderman/SSERVI Staff
Source: SSERVI Team | <urn:uuid:199cf280-ab87-44de-927d-ae9518d63591> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://sservi.nasa.gov/articles/student-field-camp-opportunity/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403508.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00104-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933436 | 326 | 2.703125 | 3 |
The Plains Indians are the Indigenous peoples who lived on the plains and rolling hills of the Great Plains of North America. They are often thought of as the archetypal American Indians, riding on horseback, hunting buffalo, wearing headdresses made with eagle feathers, and speaking in sign language. This is due at least in part to their lengthy and brave resistance to colonial demands, often violent resulting in suffering and death on both sides.
The nomadic lifestyle of these people, hunting the great buffalo herds without restriction, was incompatible with the lifestyle of the European settlers. Even religious efforts such as the Ghost Dance movement, failed to bring about harmony and even, as in the Wounded Knee massacre, led to greater bloodshed. In the end, both the buffalo (more correctly bison) and the Plains lifestyle reached a level close to extinction, with those that survived resigned to life on the reservation. Today, however, some remain and some form of revival is possible. The bison are no longer in danger of extinction and are found on private ranches, public parks including Yellowstone National Park, and wildlife preserves where they roam the tallgrass prairies again, albeit in smaller numbers and over a much smaller area. The Plains lifestyle may never return to its former glory. However, their great chiefs and their struggles, both the heroic and the simply violent, have been documented and have continued to provide material for entertainment as well as education.
Consisting of a large number of different tribes, the Plains Indians spoke a variety of languages. These include languages from the Algonquian, Siouan, Caddoan, Ute-Aztecan, Athabaskan, and Kiowa-Tanoan languages. Thus, for example, the Sioux, Crow, Omaha, Osage, Ponca, and Kansa spoke variations of the Siouan language while the Arapaho, Blackfoot, and Cheyenne spoke Algonquian languages.
Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL) is a sign language formerly used as an auxiliary interlanguage among these Plains Indians tribes whose spoken languages were so different. As nomadic peoples they encountered other tribes speaking other languages and the sign language developed to permit communication among them. Involving the use of hand and finger positions to represent ideas, PISL consists of symbolic representations that were understood by the majority of the tribes in the Plains. It has been suggested that this silent form of communication was of particular importance in their hunting culture, as it permitted communication without disturbing their prey. Given that their targets were buffalo living in huge herds that traveled great distances, many hunters were needed and they had to travel far to find them. Thus, the more universal sign language supported cooperation among different tribes without requiring a common spoken language (U.S. Department of the Interior 2003).
In 1885, it was estimated that there were over 110,000 “sign-talking Indians,” including Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Sioux, and Arapaho. By the 1960s, there remained a “very small percentage of this number” (Tomkins 1969). There are few PISL signers alive today.
Plains Indians are so called because they roamed across the Great Plains of North America. This region extends from the Mississippi River in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west, and from present-day Canadian provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta in the north to central Texas in the south. The area is primarily treeless grassland. In the wetter parts, in the Mississippi valley, there are tall grasses and this region is also known as the prairies.
The Plains Indians can be divided into two broad classifications, which overlap to some degree. The first group were fully nomadic, following the vast herds of bison, although some tribes occasionally engaged in agriculture—primarily growing tobacco and corn. The Blackfoot, Arapaho, Assiniboine, Cheyenne, Comanche, Crow, Gros Ventre, Kiowa, Lakota, Lipan, Plains Apache (or Kiowa Apache), Plains Cree, Sarsi, Sioux, Shoshone, and Tonkawa belong in this nomadic group.
The second group of Plains Indians (sometimes referred to as Prairie Indians as they inhabited the Prairies) were semi-sedentary tribes who, in addition to hunting bison, lived in villages and raised crops. These included the Arikara, Hidatsa, Iowa, Kaw (or Kansa), Mandan, Omaha, Osage, Otoe, Pawnee, Ponca, and Wichita.
Bison was essential to the survival of all the Plains Indians. It is estimated that there were about 30 million bison in North America in the 1500s. The National Bison Association lists over 150 traditional Native American uses for bison products, besides food (NBA 2006).
As Americans of European descent moved into Native American lands, the bison were significantly reduced through overhunting. Some of the reasons for this were to free land for agriculture and cattle ranching, to sell the hides of the bison, to deprive hostile tribes of their main food supply, and for what was considered sport. The worst of the killing took place in the 1870s and the early 1880s. By 1890, there were fewer than 1000 bison in North America (Nowak 1983). Zoologist William Temple Hornaday described what happened:
With the building of three lines of railway through the most populous buffalo country there came a demand for robes and hides … and then followed a wild rush of hunters … eager to destroy as many head as possible in the shortest time. … For those greedy ones, the chase on horseback was too slow and too unfruitful. That was a retail method of killing, whereas they wanted to kill by wholesale (Hornaday 1889).
There were government initiatives at the federal and local level to starve the population of the Plains Indians by killing off their main food source, the bison. The Government promoted bison hunting for various reasons: to allow ranchers to range their cattle without competition from other bovines and to weaken the Indian population and pressure them to remain on reservations (Moulton and Sanderson 1998). The herds formed the basis of the economies of local Plains tribes of Native Americans for whom the bison were a primary food source. Without bison, the Native Americans would be forced to leave or starve.
The railroad industry also wanted bison herds culled or eliminated. Herds of bison on tracks could damage locomotives when the trains failed to stop in time. Herds often took shelter in the artificial cuts formed by the grade of the track winding though hills and mountains in harsh winter conditions. As a result, bison herds could delay a train for days.
As the great herds began to wane, proposals to protect the bison were discussed. But these were discouraged since it was recognized that the Plains Indians, often at war with the United States, depended on bison for their way of life. By 1884, the American bison was close to extinction. Facing starvation, most tribes accepted confinement in reservations; and the traditional Plains Indians way of life was essentially over.
European expansion into the plains and mountains by miners, ranchers, and settlers led to increasing conflicts with the Plains Indians. Many tribes fought the whites at one time or another, but the Sioux provided significant opposition to encroachment on tribal lands. Led by resolute, militant leaders, such as Red Cloud and Crazy Horse, the Sioux were skilled at high-speed mounted warfare, having learned to ride horses in order to hunt bison.
Conflict with the Plains Indians continued through the Civil War. The Dakota War of 1862 was the first major armed engagement between the U.S. and the Sioux. After six weeks of fighting in Minnesota led by Chief Taoyateduta (Little Crow), over 300 Sioux were convicted of murder and rape by U.S. military tribunals and sentenced to death. Most of the death sentences were commuted, but on December 26, 1862, in Mankato, Minnesota, 38 Dakota Sioux men were hanged in what is still today the largest mass execution in U.S. history (Carley 1961).
In 1864, one of the more infamous Indian War battles took place, the Sand Creek Massacre in southeast Colorado. The Indians at Sand Creek had been assured by the U.S. Government that they would be safe in the territory they were occupying, but anti-Indian sentiments by white settlers were running high. A locally raised militia attacked the village of Cheyenne and Arapaho, killing and mutilating an estimated 150 men, women, and children.
In 1875, the last serious Sioux war erupted, when the Dakota gold rush penetrated the Black Hills. In 1876, after several indecisive encounters, General George Custer found the main encampment of the Lakota and their allies at the Battle of Little Big Horn. Custer and his men — who were separated from their main body of troops—were killed by the far more numerous Indians who had the tactical advantage. They were led in the field by Crazy Horse and inspired by Sitting Bull's earlier vision of victory.
The Ghost Dance, originally a peaceful spiritual movement, played a significant role in instigating the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890, which resulted in the deaths of at least 153 Lakota Sioux (Utley 2004). While most followers of the Ghost Dance understood Wovoka’s role as being that of a teacher of pacifism and peace, others did not. An alternate interpretation of the Ghost Dance tradition is seen in the so-called Ghost Shirts, which were special garments rumored to repel bullets through spiritual power. Chief Kicking Bear brought this concept to his own people, the Lakota Sioux, in 1890 (Kehoe 2006).
Performances of the Ghost Dance ritual frightened the supervising agents of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), who had been given the responsibility of supplementing the Sioux with food and hiring white farmers as teachers as they adjusted to reservation life. Kicking Bear was forced to leave Standing Rock, but when the dances continued unabated, Agent McLaughlin asked for more troops, claiming that Hunkpapa spiritual leader Sitting Bull was the real leader of the movement. Thousands of additional U.S. Army troops were deployed to the reservation. In December, Sitting Bull was arrested on the reservation for failing to stop his people from practicing the Ghost Dance (Kehoe 2006). During the incident, a Sioux witnessing the arrest fired at one of the soldiers prompting an immediate retaliation; this conflict resulted in deaths on both sides, including the loss of Sitting Bull himself.
Big Foot, a Miniconjou leader on the U.S. Army’s list of trouble-making Indians, was stopped while en route to convene with the remaining Sioux chiefs. U.S. Army officers forced him and his people to relocate to a small camp close to the Pine Ridge Agency so that the soldiers could more closely watch the old chief. That evening, the small band of Sioux erected their tipis on the banks of Wounded Knee Creek. The following day, during an attempt by the officers to collect any remaining weapons from the band, a deaf Sioux warrior refused to relinquish his arms. A struggle followed in which a rifle was discharged and the U.S. forces opened fire; the Sioux responded by taking up previously confiscated weapons. When the fighting was over, 25 U.S. soldiers lay dead, many killed by friendly fire, amongst the 153 dead Sioux, most of whom were women and children (Kehoe 2006). This ended the Indian Wars. The spirit of the Sioux was crushed, the Ghost Dancers soon stopped dancing, and the U. S. Census Bureau announced that there was no longer a frontier on the maps—the Great Plains (apart from a few scattered reservations) now belonged to the United States (Waldman 2006).
The nomadic Plains Indian tribes survived on hunting, and bison was their main food source. American buffalo, or simply buffalo, is the commonly used (but inaccurate) name for the American Bison, and this group are sometimes referred to as part of the "Buffalo Culture." Bison were the chief source for items which Indians made from their flesh, hide and bones, such as food, cups, decorations, crafting tools, knives, and clothing. Not a single part of the animal was thrown away.
The tribes kept moving following the bison on their seasonal and grazing migrations. Prior to the introduction of horses, they used dogs to pull their belongings loaded on simple V-shaped sleds, known as "travois." Native horses had died out in prehistoric times, and so the introduction of horses by the Spanish made a significant change in their lifestyle. When escaped Spanish horses were obtained, the Plains tribes rapidly integrated them into their daily lives, wealth, and hunting techniques. They fully adopted a horse culture in the eighteenth century (Waldman 2006).
Although the Plains Indians hunted other animals, such as elk or antelope, bison was their primary game food source. Before horses were introduced, hunting was a more complicated process. They would surround the bison, and then try to herd them off cliffs or into places where they could be more easily killed. The tribesmen might build a corral and herd the buffalo into it to confine them in a space where they could be killed.
Prior to their adoption of guns, the Plains Indians hunted with spears, bows and arrows, and various forms of clubs. When horses, brought by the Spanish to America, escaped and started breeding in the wild, the Indians quickly learned how to capture and train them. Their ability to ride horses made hunting (and warfare) much easier. With horses, they had the means and speed to stampede or overtake the bison. They continued to use bows and arrows after the introduction of firearms, because guns took too long to reload and were too heavy. Later, the adopted the lighter and more accurate rifles for hunting and warfare. In the summer, many tribes gathered for hunting in one place. The main hunting seasons were fall, summer, and spring. In winter harsh snow and mighty blizzards made it almost impossible to kill the bison.
The tipi, a conical tent originally made of animal skins or birch bark, was the traditional home of the Plains Indians. It was durable, provided warmth and comfort in winter, was dry during heavy rains, and was cool in the heat of summer.
Tipis consist of four elements: a set of poles, a hide cover, a lining, and a door. Ropes and pegs are used to bind the poles, close the cover, attach the lining and door, and anchor the resulting structure to the ground. Tipis are distinguished by opening at the top and the smoke flaps, which allow the dweller to cook and heat themselves with an open fire while allowing a source of fresh air, and the lining that is primarily used in the winter, providing insulation. Tipis are designed to be easily set up to allow camps to be moved to follow game migrations, especially the bison. The long poles could be used to construct a dog- or later horse-pulled travois. They could be disassembled and packed away quickly when a tribe decided to move, and could be reconstructed quickly when the tribe settled in a new area. Such portability was important to those Plains Indians who had a nomadic lifestyle.
Some tipis were painted in accordance with traditional tribal designs and often featured geometric portrayals of celestial bodies and animal designs, or depicted personal experiences, such as war or hunting. In the case of a dream or vision quest, “ceremonies and prayers were first offered, and then the dreamer recounted his dream to the priests and wise men of the community…. Those known to be skilled painters were consulted, and the new design was made to fit anonymously within the traditional framework of [the tribe’s] painted tipis” (Goble 2007). While most tepees were not painted, many were decorated with pendants and colored medallions. Traditionally these were embroidered with dyed porcupine quills. Bison horns and tails, tufts of buffalo and horse hair, bear claws, and buckskin fringe were also used to decorate tipi covers.
In addition to the tipis, earth lodges were also used as housing by the semi-sedentary tribes, most specifically the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara. Most earth lodges are circular in construction with a dome-like roof, often with a central or slightly offset smoke hole at the apex of the dome. They were significantly larger than tipis, and often housed three-generation families.
Earth lodges were typically constructed using a wattle and daub technique with a particularly thick coating of earth. During construction, an area of land was first dug a few feet beneath the surface, allowing the entire building to have a floor somewhat beneath the surrounding ground level. Posts were set into holes in the ground around the edges of the earth lodge, and their tops met in or near the middle. After a strong layer of sticks or reeds was wrapped through and over the radiating roof timbers, a layer of thatch was often applied as part of the roof, although the structure was then entirely covered in earth. This earth layer provides insulation against extreme temperatures, as does the partially subterranean foundation.
Plains Indian warriors won prestige, known as "counting coup," by acts of bravery in the face of the enemy. Any blow struck against the enemy counted as a coup, but the most prestigious acts included touching an enemy warrior, with the hand or with a "coup stick," and then escaping unharmed. Counting coup could also involve stealing from the enemy. Risk of injury or death was required to count coup.
Coups were recorded by notches in the coup stick, or by feathers in the headdress of a warrior who was rewarded with them for an act of bravery.
The term is of French origin from the word coup which means a hit, a blow or a strike. The expression can be seen as referring to "counting strikes."
Feathered war bonnets (or headdresses) were a military decoration developed by the Plains Indians. A chief's war bonnet was comprised of feathers received for good deeds to his community and worn in high honor. Each feather would represent a good deed. The eagle was considered the greatest and most powerful of all birds and thus, the finest bonnets were made out of its feathers.
The bonnet was only worn on special occasions and was highly symbolic. Its beauty was of secondary importance; the bonnet's real value was in its power to protect the wearer.
The bonnet had to be earned through brave deeds in battle because the feathers signified the deeds themselves. Some warriors might obtain only two or three honor feathers in their whole lifetime, so difficult were they to earn. A high honor, for example, was received by the warrior who was the first to touch an enemy fallen in battle, for this meant the warrior was at the very front of fighting. Feathers were notched and decorated to designate an event and told individual stories such as killing, scalping, capturing an enemy's weapon and shield, and whether the deed had been done on horseback or foot.
After about ten honors had been won, the warrior went out to secure the eagle feathers with which to make his bonnet. In some tribes these had to be purchased from an individual given special permission to hunt the bird. Others permitted a warrior to hunt his own eagles. This was a dangerous and time-consuming mission as it involved leaving the tribe and traveling to the high country where the bird could be found. When the destination had been reached, ceremonies were conducted to appeal to the spirits of the birds to be killed.
Plains Indians used traditional pictographs to keep historical records and serve as mnemonic reminders for storytelling. A traditional male art form, warriors drew pictographic representations of heroic deeds and sacred visions rocks and animal skins, which served to designate their positions in the tribe. This traditional form required an economy of means in drawing, such that delicate "stick figures" with limited detail are found in the earliest works. The influence of European artistic style as well as photography influenced later works resulting in finely elaborated lines, patterns, and landscapes (Berlo 1997).
In captivity following the Indian Wars, a number of Plains Indians, particularly the Lakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Kiowa, were able to use the lined pages of the white man's record keeping books (ledgers) for their artworks, resulting in "ledger art." At Fort Marion, St. Augustine, Florida Captain Richard Henry Pratt initiated an educational experiment as an alternative to standard imprisonment, culminating in his founding of the Carlisle Indian School in 1879. The Plains Indian leaders followed Pratt's rules and met his educational demands even as they remained true to their own identities, practicing traditional dances and ceremonies (Lookingbill 2006). In addition to regular studies Pratt encouraged them to pursue their native arts and to sell the products, keeping the profits for themselves. These artworks became an important source of chronicling the traditional ways, and resisting acculturation. Their drawings "speak on many levels about native history, oppression, resistance, autonomy, and the powerful human urge to draw" (Berlo 1997).
The Plains Indians followed no single religion. Animist beliefs were an important part of a their life, as they believed that all things possessed spirits. Their worship was centered on one main god, in the Sioux language Wakan Tanka (the Great Spirit). The Great Spirit had power over everything that had ever existed. Earth was also important, as she was the mother of all spirits.
There were also people that were wakan, or blessed, also called shaman. To become wakan, your prayers must be answered by the Great Spirit, or you must see a sign from him. Shamans were thought to possess great power. One of their jobs was to heal people, which is why they are also sometimes called "medicine men." The shamans were considered so important that they were the ones who decided when the time was right to hunt.
Plains Indians believed that some objects possessed spiritual or talismanic power. One such item was the medicine bundle, which was a sack carrying items believed by the owner to be important. Items in the sack might include rocks, feathers, and more. Another object of great spiritual power was the shield. The shield was the most prized possession of any warrior, and he decorated it with many paintings and feathers. The spirits of animals drawn on the shield were thought to protect the owner.
A peace pipe, also called a "calumet" or "medicine pipe," was used by many Plains Indians tribes as a ceremonial smoking pipe, traditionally as a token of peace. A common material for calumet pipe bowls is red pipestone or catlinite, a fine-grained easily-worked stone of a rich red color of the Coteau des Prairies, west of the Big Stone Lake in South Dakota. The quarries were formerly neutral ground among warring tribes; many sacred traditions are associated with the locality. A type of herbal tobacco or mixture of herbs was usually reserved for special smoking occasions, with each region's people using the plants that were locally considered to have special qualities or a culturally accepted basis for ceremonial use.
Plains Indians sought spiritual help in many aspects of their life; usually by means of a vision quest. This involved going to a lonely spot where the individual would fast and ask for aid. If successful, a spirit-being would appear in a dream or supernatural vision and give instructions that would lead to success in the individual's endeavor.
Commonly both men and women participated in vision quests; children would undertake their first vision quest at an age as young as six or seven years although the age of the first quest varied from tribe to tribe. In some tribes the first vision quest was a rite of passage, marking an individual's transition from childhood to adulthood. In some tribes only males participated in vision quests; menarche (the onset of menstruation) marking the transition to adulthood for females.
The Sun Dance is a ceremony practiced by a number of Native Americans, and was one of the most important rituals practiced by Plains Indians. Each tribe has its own distinct rituals and methods of performing the dance, but many of the ceremonies have features in common, including dancing, singing, praying, drumming, the experience of visions, fasting, and in some cases piercing of the chest or back. Most notable for early Western observers was the piercing many young men endure as part of the ritual. Frederick Schwatka wrote about a Sioux Sun Dance he witnessed in the late 1800s:
Each one of the young men presented himself to a medicine-man, who took between his thumb and forefinger a fold of the loose skin of the breast—and then ran a very narrow-bladed or sharp knife through the skin—a stronger skewer of bone, about the size of a carpenter's pencil was inserted. This was tied to a long skin rope fastened, at its other extremity, to the top of the sun-pole in the center of the arena. The whole object of the devotee is to break loose from these fetters. To liberate himself he must tear the skewers through the skin, a horrible task that even with the most resolute may require many hours of torture (Schwatka 1889).
In fact, the object of being pierced is to sacrifice one's self to the Great Spirit, and to pray while connected to the Tree of Life, a direct connection to the Great Spirit. Breaking from the piercing is done in one moment, as the man runs backwards from the tree at a time specified by the leader of the dance. A common explanation, in context with the intent of the dancer, is that a flesh offering, or piercing, is given as part of prayer and offering for the improvement of one's family and community.
The Ghost Dance was a religious movement incorporated into numerous Native American belief systems. At the core of the movement was the prophet of peace Jack Wilson, known as Wovoka among the Paiute, who prophesied a peaceful end to white American expansion while preaching messages of clean living, an honest life, and cross-cultural cooperation. The traditional ritual used in the Ghost Dance, the circle dance, had been used by many Native Americans since prehistoric times, but was first performed in accordance with Jack Wilson's teachings among the Nevada Paiute in 1889.
As the Ghost Dance spread from its original source, Native American tribes synthesized selective aspects of the ritual with their own beliefs, often creating change in both the society that integrated it and the ritual itself. The Sioux variation on the Ghost Dance tended towards millenarianism, an innovation which distinguished the Sioux interpretation from Jack Wilson's original teachings.
While the Plains Indian culture of hunting bison and roaming freely across the Great Plains is no more, many tribes of this group have found other ways to live. Limited to their reservations, they turned to agriculture, artworks, casinos, and other forms of support. While some aspects of their culture have been retained, and members of the different tribes often gather at pow-wows to celebrate their heritage, tribes have also diversified depending upon their circumstances. Many have attained federal recognition, or First Nation status in Canada, and some have fought long battles to regain the rights to their traditional homelands. For example, the Northern Cheyenne earned their right to remain in the north near the Black Hills and have a bison herd, for which they are preparing to expand the grazing land to increase and improve the genetic quality which has deteriorated through in-breeding. In this and many other ways, the different tribes of the Plains Indians culture work to retain the resources of the past as well as contribute to the world of the future.
All links retrieved May 6, 2015.
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The heart consists of four chambers -- two atria (upper chambers) and two ventricles (lower chambers). There is a valve through which blood passes before leaving each chamber of the heart. The valves prevent the backward flow of blood. They act as one-way inlets of blood on one side of a ventricle and one-way outlets of blood on the other side of a ventricle. The four heart valves include the following:
As the heart muscle contracts and relaxes, the valves open and close, letting blood flow into the ventricles and out to the body at alternate times. The following is a step-by-step illustration of how the valves function normally in the left ventricle:
Heart valve disorders can arise from two main types of malfunctions:
Heart valves can develop both malfunctions at the same time (regurgitation and stenosis). Also, more than one heart valve can be affected at the same time. When heart valves fail to open and close properly, the implications for the heart can be serious, possibly hampering the heart's ability to pump blood adequately through the body. Heart valve problems are one cause of heart failure.
Mild heart valve disease may not cause any symptoms. The following are the most common symptoms of heart valve disease. However, each individual may experience symptoms differently. Symptoms may vary depending on the type of heart valve disease present and may include:
Symptoms of heart valve disease may resemble other medical conditions and problems. Always consult your physician for a diagnosis.
The causes of heart valve damage vary depending on the type of disease present, and may include the following:
The mitral and aortic valves are most often affected by heart valve disease. Some of the more common heart valve diseases include:
|Heart Valve Disease||Symptoms and Causes|
Bicuspid aortic valve
|This congenital birth defect is characterized by an aortic valve that has only two flaps (a normal aortic valve has three flaps). If the valve becomes narrowed, it is more difficult for the blood to flow through, and often the blood leaks backward. Symptoms usually do not develop during childhood, but are often detected during the adult years.|
Mitral valve prolapse (also known as click-murmur syndrome, Barlow's syndrome, balloon mitral valve, or floppy valve syndrome)
|This disease is characterized by the bulging of one or both of the mitral valve flaps during the contraction of the heart. One or both of the flaps may not close properly, allowing the blood to leak backward. This may result in a mitral regurgitation murmur.|
Mitral valve stenosis
|Often caused by a past history of rheumatic fever, this condition is characterized by a narrowing of the mitral valve opening, increasing resistance to blood flow from the left atrium to the left ventricle.|
Aortic valve stenosis
|This type of valve disease occurs primarily in the elderly and is characterized by a narrowing of the aortic valve opening, increasing resistance to blood flow from the left ventricle to the aorta.|
|This condition is characterized by a pulmonary valve that does not open sufficiently, causing the right ventricle to pump harder and enlarge.|
Heart valve disease may be suspected if the heart sounds heard through a stethoscope are abnormal. This is usually the first step in diagnosing a heart valve disease. A characteristic heart murmur (abnormal sounds in the heart due to turbulent blood flow across the valve) can often indicate valve regurgitation or stenosis. To further define the type of valve disease and extent of the valve damage, physicians may use any of the following diagnostic procedures:
A person with heart valve disease will often need to take antibiotics before undergoing dental or other surgical procedures that cause bleeding. Antibiotics are also recommended by physicians and dentists before routine professional teeth cleaning and other procedures involving the gums or soft tissues of the mouth. Bacteria released during these and other procedures may enter the bloodstream and lodge in the heart on the vulnerable, diseased heart valve. The antibiotics help prevent against a potentially fatal infection called endocarditis, an infection of the heart's lining.
In addition, inform your dentist and other physicians if you are taking any anticoagulant medication (to prevent blood clots), because this medication can cause excessive bleeding during surgery.
Always inform your dentist and other physician(s) if you have heart valve disease.
In some cases, the only treatment for heart valve disease may be careful medical supervision. However, other treatment options may include medication, surgery to repair the valve, or surgery to replace the valve. Specific treatment will be determined by your physician based on:
Treatment varies, depending on the type of heart valve disease, and may include one, or a combination of, the following:
Medications are not a cure for heart valve disease but in many cases are successful in the treatment of symptoms caused by heart valve disease. These medications may include:
Surgery may be necessary to repair or replace the malfunctioning valve(s). Surgery may include:
Another treatment option that is less invasive than valve repair/replacement surgery is balloon valvuloplasty, a non-surgical procedure in which a special catheter (hollow tube) is threaded into a blood vessel in the groin and guided into the heart. The catheter, which contains a deflated balloon, is inserted into the narrowed heart valve. Once in place, the balloon is inflated to stretch the valve open. The balloon is then removed. This procedure is often used to treat pulmonary stenosis and, in some cases, aortic stenosis.
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Thermal Sources : Our most important natural source of light is the sun. Nearly all the natural sources of light we receive comes from the sun; moonlight is sunlight reflected from the surface of the moon. Distant stars provide an extremely small amount of light. Example of other thermal sources are a body at a given temperature emits a characterstic spectrum of black-body radiation, incandescent lamp, burning candle, etc. When object is heated until it glows or becomes incandescent, it emits all visible wavelengths along with large quantity of infrared radiation. Hence, as producers of visible radiation (i.e. luminous energy), they have a low efficiency. Generally, the efficiency of such light sources improves as the operating temperature is increased.
Gas Discharge Sources : Example of gas discharge source are neon lamp, sodium lamps, etc. In this case, light is obtained by maintaining electric current in a gas at low pressure. Such a source emits only a few wavelength. The color and intensity of light of light depends upon the nature of gas or vapor only. It may be noted that in case of light emitted by a thermal source, the spectrum is continuous. However, when light is obtained from a gaseous discharge, the spectrum is discontinuous i.e. it consists of one or more colored lines. For examples, in the case of sodium lamp, the spectrum consists mainly of two yellow lines very close together with wavelengths of 5890Ĺ. These wavelengths are so close to each other that light from a sodium lamp is said to be monochromatic i.e. a light having only one wavelength.
Luminescent Sources : The familiar example of such a source is the fluorescent tube. A fluorescent tube consist of a thin-walled glass tube with fluorescent substance coated on the inside of the tube. An electric current is maintained in mercury vapors at low pressure. It emits visible radiation as well as ultraviolet radiations (invisible). The fluorescent material absorbs ultraviolet radiation and re-emits them at longer wavelengths of the visible spectrum.
As the temperature increases, the peak shhifts to shorter wavelengths, producing first a red glow, then a white glow, and finally a blue-white color as the peak moves out of the spectrum and into the iltraviolet. These colors can be seen when metal is heated to "red hot" or "white hot". Blue-thermal emissions is not often seen, except in stars.
Atoms emits and absorb light at characterstic energies. Atoms produce "emission lines" in the spectrum of each atom. Emission lines are spontaneous as in light-emitting diodes, gas discharge lamps, and flames (light from hot gas itself - sodium is a gas flame that emits characterstic yellow light).
Properties of Visible Light
Primary properties of visible light (44% of the sun's electromagnetic radiation that reaches the ground is the visible light range) are
.speed in vacuum is 299,792,458 meters per second.
Visible light, as with all types of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) is experimentally found to move at exactly the same speed in vacuum. Visible light is emitted and absorbed by tiny packets called photons, and exhibits properties of both waves and particles. The study of light is known as optices. The study of light and interaction of light and matter is called optics. The observation and study of optical phenomina such as rainbows and aurora boredis offers many clues to the nature of the light. The effective velocity of lights in various transparent bodies containing ordinary matter is less than vacuum. Speed of light in water is 3/4th of that in vacuum slowing down due to absorption and re-emission.
Speed of Visible Light
The speed of light in a vacuum is defined to be exactly 186,280 miles per second. The fixed value of the speed in SI units from the fact that the metre is now defined in terms of speed of the light. All forms of EMR are supposed to move at exactly the same speed in vacuum.
EMR spectrum and visible light
The behavior of EMR depends on its wavelength. Higher frequencies have shorter wavelengths, and lower frequencies have longer wavelengths.
Refraction is bending of light rays when passing through a surface between one trasparent material to another. When a beam of light crosses the boundary between vacuum and another medium, or between two different media, the wavelength of light changes, but the frequency remains constant. If the beam of light is not orthogonal to the boundary, the change in wavelength results in a change in direction of r=the beam. This change in direction is known as refraction.
Types of Radiation
Deceleration of a free charged particle such as electron can produce following types of radiation:
.Cherenkov Radiation (parts moving faster than light)
Certain chemicals can produce visible radiation by chemoluminescence
Living organisms can produce visible radiation by bioluminescence
Boats moving through water can produce a glowing flake
Certain substances produce light when they are illuminated by energetic radiation, a process known as fluoroscence
Some substances emit light slowly after excitation by more energetic radiation, this is known as phosphoroscence
Certain other mecj=hanisms can produce light:
Units and Measures
Light is measured with two main alternative sets of units: radiometry consists of measurement of light power at all wavelengths, while photometry measures light with wavelength weighted with respect to standarised model of human brightness perception.
Table 1. SI radiometry units
Table 2. SI photometry units
Important Terms: Radiance, Spectral, Luminous
Importantant Parameters: Wavelength, Frequency, Surface Area
Importantant Attributes: Energy, Flux, Intensity, Emittance, Exposure, Density, Efficacy, Efficiencies
Light exerts physical pressure on objects in its path - particle photons strike and transfer their momentum.
Some Important Theories About Light
Light travels in straight lines
Beam from the eye
Light rays are taken to be stream of high velocity of atoms
Momentary flashes of light or energy
Light is a mechanical property of luminous body
Emitted in all directions from a source light travelled only in straight lines
Light was emitted in all directions as a series of waves in a medium call luminiferousether
The Light consists of waves
Different colors were caused bu different wavelengths of loight
Color vision in terms of three-colored recoptors in the eye
Behavior of light waves: reflection, refraction, diffraction, interference
The behavior between light and lighwaves is same as sound and soundwaves
Propagation of Light
The light is composed of tiny particles aw well as that it is made up of waves
Light is a form of electromagnetic radiation: light and similar forms of radiance are made up of moving electric and magnetic fields
Light radiates from its source in all directions until absorbed or diverted by some substance. The lines drawn from the light source to any point on one of these waves indicate the direction in which the waves are moving. These lines, called the radii of the spheres, are formed by the waves and are called light rays.
Although single rays of light do not exist, light "rays" as used in illustrations are convinient method to show the direction in which light is traveling at any point.
A large volume of light is called a beam; a narrow beam is called pencil; and the smallest portion of a pencil is called a light ray. A ray of light can be illustrated as a straight line. The straight line drawn from a light source will represent an infinite number of rays radiating in all directions from the source.
Frequencies and Color
The wavelength of a light deterines the color of the light. The light with a 700 millimicrons is red, and the light with a wavelength of 500 millimicrons is blue-green. The color of light depends upon frequency and not the wavelength.
Object absorbs all color except whose frequency corresponds to that particular color.
Those waves are reflected from the surface strike your eye and cause you to see the particular color.
The color of an object therefore depends on the frquency of the electro magnetic wave reflected.
Self-Luminous Bodies: Sun, flame, electric light filament
Non-Luminous Objects: become luminous in presence of other self-luminous bodies - they diffuse or reflect.
Black Objects: donot diffuse or deflect light. They are only visible only when outlined against a background of light from a luminous or diffusing body.
Property of Light
When light waves travel in straight lines through - transparent, translucent and opaque bodies.
In a medium
In a medium, light usually does not propagate at a speed equal to c; further, different types of light wave will travel at different speeds. The speed at which the individual crests and troughs of a plane wave (a wave filling the whole space, with only one frequency) propagate is called the phase velocity vp. An actual physical signal with a finite extent (a pulse of light) travels at a different speed. The largest part of the pulse travels at the group velocity vg, and its earliest part travels at the front velocity vf.
The phase velocity is important in determining how a light wave travels through a material or from one material to another. It is often represented in terms of a refractive index. The refractive index of a material is defined as the ratio of c to the phase velocity vp in the material: larger indices of refraction indicate lower speeds. The refractive index of a material may depend on the light's frequency, intensity, polarization, or direction of propagation; in many cases, though, it can be treated as a material-dependent constant. The refractive index of air is approximately 1.0003.] Denser media, such as water, glass,] and diamond,] have refractive indexes of around 1.3, 1.5 and 2.4, respectively, for visible light. In exotic materials like Bose-Einstein condensates near absolute zero, the effective speed of light may be only a few meters per second. However, this represents absorption and re-radiation delay between atoms, as does all slower-than-c speeds in material substances. As an extreme example of this, light "slowing" in matter, two independent teams of physicists claimed to bring light to a "complete standstill" by passing it through a Bose-Einstein Condensate of the element rubidium, one team at Harvard University and the Rowland Institute for Science in Cambridge, Mass., and the other at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, also in Cambridge. However, the popular description of light being "stopped" in these experiments refers only to light being stored in the excited states of atoms, then re-emitted at an arbitrarily later time, as stimulated by a second laser pulse. During the time it had "stopped," it had ceased to be light. This type of behaviour is generally microscopically true of all transparent media which "slow" the speed of light.]
In transparent materials, the refractive index generally is greater than 1, meaning that the phase velocity is less than c. In other materials, it is possible for the refractive index to become smaller than 1 for some frequencies; in some exotic materials it is even possible for the index of refraction to become negative. The requirement that causality is not violated implies that the real and imaginary parts of the dielectric constant of any material, corresponding respectively to the index of refraction and to the attenuation coefficient, are linked by the Kramers–Kronig relations. In practical terms, this means that in a material with refractive index less than 1, the absorption of the wave is so quick that no signal can be sent faster than c.
A pulse with different group and phase velocities (which occurs if the phase velocity is not the same for all the frequencies of the pulse) smears out over time, a process known as dispersion. Certain materials have an exceptionally low (or even zero) group velocity for light waves, a phenomenon called slow light, which has been confirmed in various experiments. The opposite, group velocities exceeding c, has also been shown in experiment. It should even be possible for the group velocity to become infinite or negative, with pulses travelling instantaneously or backwards in time.
None of these options, however, allow information to be transmitted faster
than c. It is impossible to transmit information with a light pulse any
faster than the speed of the earliest part of the pulse (the front velocity). It can
be shown that this is (under certain assumptions) always equal to c.
It is possible for a particle to travel through a medium faster than the phase velocity of light in that medium (but still slower than c). When a charged particle does that in a dielectric material, the electromagnetic equivalent of a shock wave, known as Cherenkov radiation, is emitted. | <urn:uuid:b5c18e14-e98a-4574-8cc1-f3f3890e37c0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sndgems.com/light-and-optics.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00147-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92753 | 2,696 | 3.796875 | 4 |
The Fraterville Mine disaster was a famous mining disaster in the United States.
On May 19, 1902, at 7:30 a.m., an explosion took place at the Fraterville Mine, a coal mine located between the towns of Coal Creek and Briceville, Tennessee. All 216 miners inside the mine lost their lives. Many miners were killed instantly by the explosion, while others attempted to stay alive by barricading themselves in side passages or going deeper into the mine. The small village of Fraterville located near the mine was devastated, with only three adult males surviving in the town after the disaster. Miners trapped inside left notes for their families. One of these notes indicated that as late as 2:25 p.m. some miners were still alive. Rescue efforts proceeded slowly because of the need to vent the mine of toxic fumes created by the explosion. All of the miners eventually succumbed to suffocation or by inhaling toxic fumes before the rescuers could reach them. Many of the deceased miners' bodies were not removed until four days later.
The cause of the explosion was a matter of controversy. Some suggested the cause was a shutdown of the mine's ventilation system over the previous weekend, which resulted in a dangerous build-up of methane gas. However, ventilation furnace operatorTip Hightower was acquitted of negligence. According to the Coal Creek Watershed Foundation, the most likely cause of the explosion was methane gas leaking from Knoxville Iron and Coal Company Mine No. 1, a neighboring abandoned mine that had been intercepted the previous year. Eighty-nine of the deceased miners are buried in a circle in Leach Cemetery on U.S. 441 just east of Lake City. A monument at the center of the circle bears the names of all 184 miners who were identified. On May 19, 2005, the Miner's Circle in Leach Cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Tipton's son James P Hightower was killed . Tipton's brother Leander, his son Bart Hightower was killed. There was another Hightower killed, Git , can't finf his relationship yet..
Hightower’s that were killed in the Fraterville Mine explosionMonday May 19, 1902 7:30 am James P. Hightower, son of Tipton Hightower.
Bart Hightower, son of Leander Hightower.
Charles Brooks son of Richard Brooks and Margaret Hightower.
John C McKamey and three sons, James, William and Andrew McKamey. John was the husband of Edith Ida Hightower.
Git Hightower, Can’t find him as of yet. | <urn:uuid:952ae12e-d9c9-45b8-946b-583a6b76c5d1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://harlancountyhightowers.webs.com/fratervillemine.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00038-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978906 | 557 | 2.953125 | 3 |
I see at least 7. 1 Outer pentagon. 1 inner central pentagon. 5 small pentagons forming the central pentagon. There may be more, but I doubt it.
I don't see those. The central pentagon is formed with quadrilaterals, isn't it? If the question is about rotational symmetry, then perhaps we're supposed to get five pentagons from each of the inner and outer ones by rotations through 360/5 degrees? I don't know, I'm just askin'. If this is true, you'd have 10 pentagons, right? I'm assuming we're not allowed reflections.5 small pentagons forming the central pentagon. | <urn:uuid:f5c4e87e-8f6e-4ca8-b605-6280c0aeca47> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mathhelpforum.com/algebra/153876-rotational-symmetry.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00120-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957184 | 140 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Center for Astrophysical Research in Antarctica (CARA)
John Carlstrom, University of Chicago.
Astronomers probe the infrared (IR) spectrum at submillimeter scales in search of data that
could suggest answers to some of the seminal questions about the formation of the Universe;
• How do stars form from interstellar gas?
• How did the planets form?
• What was the nature of primeval galaxies?
• How were matter and energy distributed in the early Universe?
Antarctica is an ideal spot for such research. The cold temperatures and lack of water
vapor in the atmosphere above the polar plateau make the infrared spectrum of sky in that region
consistently clearer and darker than anywhere else on Earth. These conditions enable scientists to
collect measurements that would be extremely difficult or impossible from other sites.
To capitalize on these advantages, the University of Chicago and several other collaborating
institutions in 1991 established the Center for Astrophysical Research in Antarctica (CARA),
one of 17 Science and Technology Centers funded by the National Science Foundation. CARA's
scientific mission is to investigate the conditions for astronomy at the South Pole and other sites on
the polar plateau, and to establish an observatory at the South Pole. Currently, CARA supports research
using three major telescope facilities:
• The Astronomical Submillimeter Telescope/Remote Observatory (AST/RO) project uses a 1.7-meter (m)
diameter telescope to survey interstellar gas in the galactic plane, the galactic center, and
the Magellanic Clouds.
• The South Pole Infrared Explorer (SPIREX) project uses a 0.6-m diameter telescope to observe
distant galaxies, cool stars, and heavily obscured star-forming regions.
• The Cosmic Background Radiation Anisotropy (COBRA) project helps researchers test current
theories of the origin of the Universe.
In addition to projects using these three telescopes, CARA's Advanced Telescopes Project
collects data on the quality of polar plateau sites for astronomical observations, and configures
plans for future telescopes and facilities. The following projects and principal investigators
are currently part of CARA: (AC-370-O)
Antarctic Submillimeter Telescope and Remote Observatory (AST/RO):
This austral summer, we will install a new array receiver called PoleSTAR, which will permit
high frequency (809 GHz) spectral line observations in four spatial channels simultaneously.
We will use PoleSTAR to map emissions from excited carbon atoms and carbon-monoxide molecules
in interstellar clouds. To characterize the properties of the polar atmosphere at far-infrared
and submillimeter wavelengths, we also will install a broadband Fourier Transform Spectrometer
in the AST/RO building. Antony Stark, Smithsonian Institution.
Automated Astrophysical Site Testing Observatory (AASTO):
Our objective is to categorize those conditions on the antartic plateau, from the
ultraviolet to the sub-millimeter, that are relevant to a future large telescope.
This season we will extend our sky monitors to the mid-infrared and sub-millimeter ranges,
and continue our measurements of the atmospheric turbulence and the sky emission in the
near-infrared. John Storey, University of New South Wales, Australia.
Degree Angular Scale Interferometer (DASI):
DASI is a 13-element interferometer designed to measure anisotropies in the
Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR), and to determine its angular power spectrum.
The unique imaging capabilities of DASI and its angular coverage (140 < l < 910),
complement the Viper telescope, especially its future millimeter and submillimeter capabilities
(to be provided by ACBAR), as well as the MAP satellite and other CMBR experiments.
John Carlstrom, University of Chicago.
South Pole Infrared Explorer (SPIREX):
The SPIREX telescope (60 centimeters in diameter) was built to exploit the unique observing conditions at the South Pole, and to develop and demonstrate the technology
needed to operate IR telescopes during the antarctic winter. This austral summer,
it will be dismantled and removed. Bob Lowenstein, University of Chicago.
Viper, a 2-meter class telescope, extends our observations to structures in the cosmic
microwave background having smaller angular scales. Our primary goal is to determine the
power spectrum of the CMBR anisotropy, over the range of angular scales where cosmological
models differ most in their predictions. This austral summer we are refurbishing the telescope
to allow for new cables and hoses for the ACBAR, Corona, and SPARO instruments. Also,
we will raise the elevation of the telescope by about 4 centimeters, and install a new cable
wrap, a new azimuth rind and new control wiring. Jeffrey Peterson, Carnegie-Mellon University.
Submillimeter Polarimeter for Antarctic Remote Observing (SPARO):
SPARO, which was deployed to the South Pole in 1999, operates on the Viper 2-meter telescope.
A 9-pixel, 450-micron polarimetric imager, it requires only infrequent cryogen refills,
thus simplifying maintenance during the winterover. The South Pole offers superb
conditions for SPARO observations, extending submillimeter polarimetry (measurement of
the polarization of thermal emission from magnetically aligned dust grains) to regions of
low-column density that cannot be studied from other sites. SPARO resembles polarimeters in
the University of Chicago array designed for other telescopes, but those instruments
(for example, at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory and the Owens Valley Radio Observatory)
provide much better angular resolution. SPARO's geographic location, however, yields a much
enhanced submillimeter sensitivity to extended emission. Giles Novak, Northwestern University.
Arcminute Cosmology Bolometer Array Receiver (ACBAR) Instrument:
We plan to install the ACBAR receiver on the Viper telescope, and get it ready for
winter observations. ACBAR, a 16-element, 300 mK bolometer array, will be used to map the
CMBR with high-angular resolution. We will try to characterize how the structure may have
formed and evolved by searching for clusters of galaxies, and also will study nearby clusters
with targeted observations. Preliminary observations and calibration will be done in the
2000-2001 summer season; the majority of the science data will be gathered during the 2001 winter. John Ruhl, University of California, Santa Barbara. | <urn:uuid:b0cc811d-a025-4065-a311-228f7d48a8e1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/antarct/treaty/projsum01/html/cara.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397695.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00083-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.828133 | 1,395 | 3.1875 | 3 |
The Classification of Secondary School Courses (CSSC), based on the 2000 HSTS, provides a general inventory of courses taught nationwide at the secondary school level (grades 9 through 12). The basic unit of instruction in the CSSC is the individual COURSE. Vocational, academic, and general courses are offered for credit and included in this listing.
The (CSSC) was designed to describe course offerings in secondary education and to provide a coherent means for classifying these courses. It was developed in response to a need for a classification system that addressed course-level data and focused on secondary school curricula. This provides school administrators, state and local education planners, and research scientists a resource to convert course offerings, information from transcripts, master teaching schedules, and other sources into formats appropriate for analysis and practical application. NCES uses the CSSC to classify courses transcribed from the high school transcript.
A six-digit numerical code is used to identify each course within a program area:
For example, the 6-digit code (270404), which represents Algebra in a Mathematics program, can be viewed as follows:
|27____||defines the main program of Mathematics.|
|2704__||defines the main program of Mathematics and the sub-grouping of courses related to Pure Mathematics.|
|270404||defines the main program as Mathematics, the sub-grouping of courses in Pure Mathematics, with a specific course in Algebra 1.| | <urn:uuid:0829f037-8585-4664-8085-94acb3b67fe4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/hst/courses.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398216.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00066-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919568 | 303 | 3.0625 | 3 |
FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. — A 3-D animated creature, affectionately named Gerald, appears to walk in circles while floating in front of an elaborate viewer that resembles something from an optometrist’s office. Though only half a foot high, and with four arms, he looks remarkably lifelike through lenses that transmit what computer scientists and optical engineers describe as a “digital light field” into the eyes of a viewer.
The technology, once downsized into a pair of glasses, is intended to overcome the most significant technical challenges blocking an explosion of virtual reality.
Though the industry could radically transform entertainment, gaming and other forms of computing, it has an Achilles’ heel: Many people become queasy after pulling viewing devices over their eyes and slipping into an immersive world that blurs the line between physical reality and computer-generated imagery.
Oculus Rift, the crowdfunded start-up acquired by Facebook for $2 billion in March, has been trying to correct this motion sickness. But it is a steep challenge. Nearly 50 years after the computer scientist Ivan Sutherland pioneered head-mounted computer displays, there are more than two dozen companies that have attempted to commercialize various forms of the technology, called near-eye displays, with little success.
“The near-eye-display market is a graveyard of broken dreams,” said David Luebke, senior director of research at Nvidia, a Silicon Valley computer graphics company.
Whether it comes in bulky goggles that block out the actual world (the virtual reality of Oculus Rift, for instance), or in sleeker glasses that allow users to see their true surroundings blended with computer images (known as augmented reality), the technology is based on showing images to both eyes at once.
Inevitably, though, many users endure “simulator sickness” and other kinds of discomfort, like headaches and fatigue. Some of it stems from a disorienting lag between the rapid turn of one’s head and the time it takes for the computer to catch up and generate a new set of images to reflect the changing scenery.
Another issue is the disconnect between where the images appear to be — picture a cloud in the sky far away — and where they actually are — on small screens only inches from the user’s eyes. Experts call this unsettling dissonance the “vergence-accommodation conflict.”
The consumer electronics industry has taken note of the problems. One Sony head-mounted stereo 3-D display even comes with a warning: “Watching video images or playing games by this device may affect the health of growing children.”
In a 2007 University of Minnesota study, nine volunteers used a head-mounted display to play the video game Halo, but eight of them complained of motion sickness severe enough to quit after playing for a short period.
“Visual head-mounted display devices are causing a variety of symptoms in patients,” said Dr. Joseph F. Rizzo III, a professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. “Prolonged use of devices that create symptoms might induce more chronic change.”
Google Glass gets around these issues by using a single display in the corner of one eye, not two. But it cannot produce 3-D images or create the immersive experience that many gamers and other kinds of users crave.
Gerald’s creator, the start-up Magic Leap Inc., is trying a different approach, using a digital light field. Unlike a conventional digital stereo image, which comes from projecting two slightly displaced images with different colors and brightness, Magic Leap says its digital light field encodes more information about a scene to help the brain make sense of what it is looking at, including the scattering of light beams and the distance of objects.
Magic Leap and other researchers in the field say that digital light fields will circumvent visual and neurological problems by providing viewers with depth cues similar to the ones generated by natural objects. That will make it possible to wear augmented-reality viewers for extended periods without discomfort, they say.
Light-field technology is already being used in a new generation of digital cameras that offer the ability to change the point of focus after a picture has been taken. Researchers at Nvidia demonstrated a head- mounted light-field system last year, and scientists at the M.I.T. Media Lab have shown an “autostereoscopic,” or glasses-free, 3-D display based on what they described as a “compressed light field."
So far, however, one of the principal obstacles facing light-field cameras and displays is that they require as many as five or six times as many pixels to create the resolution equivalent to a conventional digital image.
Magic Leap claims to have solved the resolution challenge with a proprietary technology that projects an image, which it describes as a “3-D light sculpture,” onto the viewer’s retina. Rony Abovitz, a biomedical engineer who founded Mako Surgical, a successful robotic surgery company, before creating Magic Leap in 2010, said that his system would even offer a resolution close to the power of the human eye.
Virtual- and augmented-reality aficionados foresee a world in which conventional computer screens and televisions are obsolete, and it is possible to project lifelike animations into meetings anywhere. They describe a next generation of technology beyond personal computing and smartphones based on a new set of approaches they call “perceptual computing.”
“Playing games is the dessert,” Mr. Abovitz said. “Our real market is people doing everyday things. Rather than pulling your mobile phone in and out of your pocket, we want to create an all-day flow; whether you’re going to the doctor or a meeting or hanging out, you will all of a sudden be amplified by the collective knowledge that is on the web.” | <urn:uuid:2b1e1de9-adf2-4f26-a951-fa8b9fde1240> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/07/15/science/taking-real-life-sickness-out-of-virtual-reality.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00161-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934087 | 1,222 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Saudi Arabia, the oil capital of the world, has recently revealed plans to rely on 100% non-fossil fuel and low-carbon energy. According to the statement made by 67-year-old Prince Turki Al Faisal Al Saud, one of the state’s main spokespeople, he hopes to see this transition take place within his lifetime.
This is a process that could take several decades, and that is with serious work put into it. The prince noted that the country is moving forward with nuclear power, investment renewables, and other fossil fuel alternatives.
“Oil is more precious for us underground than as a fuel source,” he said. “If we can get to the point where we can replace fossil fuels and use oil to produce other products that are useful, that would be very good for the world. I wish that may be in my lifetime, but I don’t think it will be.”
Today, almost all of Saudi Arabia’s energy is created through fossil fuels. About 12 million barrels of oil are pumped every day through one-fifth of the world’s proven oil reserves beneath Saudi Arabia’s ground.
Obviously there are skeptics over whether or not this is a genuine move or typical political greenwashing. If Saudi Arabia does make the switch to 100% non-fossil fuel energy within the next 20 years or so, it will definitely send a message to the rest of the world – if the biggest oil exporter on the planet can commit to it, why can’t the rest of us?
Image Wikimedia Commons: Kimgdon Centre, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, by RroadArrow | <urn:uuid:6ea1e573-f83d-4969-a3d0-9c40e56835c1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.the9billion.com/2012/10/22/saudia-arabia-to-rely-on-non-fossil-fuel-energy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396224.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00183-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956262 | 347 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Eating disorders – Anorexia Nervosa, Binge Eating, Bulimia Nervosa – all are thought to be strictly in the domain of teenage girls who want to look like the models on the covers of the glossy magazines, but you might be surprised to hear that eating disorders affect women, men and boys too.
Eating disorders aren’t really about eating! Well, eating (or not eating) is the symptom of the illness, but that really isn’t the cause.
Anorexia Nervosa – or “slimmers disease” as it is also known, is probably the most recognized eating disorder, with sufferers having an intense fear of gaining weight, often thinking of themselves as fat, even when they are so emaciated that you can count their ribs. This is a serious mental condition. As well as severely limiting their food intake, they will often couple that with an intense exercise regime to make doubly sure that they lose weight. Very often the symptoms of anorexia nervosa will start gradually, with a diet for example, but then spiral out of control. Sufferers of anorexia nervosa will often become completely obsessed with food and calorie counting, even though they have no intention of eating it.
Binge Eating – if you are obese or heavily overweight it doesn’t necessarily follow that you have a binge eating disorder, but if you have a binge eating disorder, the chances are that you will be overweight. To be honest, lots of us overdo things from time to time, you know the sort of thing, when you just feel like you could eat and eat and eat, so you do, and then you feel so full that you can’t move for hours. Well, that doesn’t mean that you have a binge eating disorder, but if you do any of the following then you might have a real problem:
- eat much quicker than you usually do, while you are binging
- eat and eat until you are uncomfortably full
- eat piles of food, even if you’re not hungry
- only eat alone, so that no-one else can see how much food you eat because you’re embarrassed about it
- end up feeling guilty and disgusted with yourself at what you’ve just done
Binge eating is actually the most common eating disorder, which most commonly affects men and women aged between 46 and 55. Binge eating is often associated with depression, but whether the depression causes the binging, or the binging causes the depression is often unclear. Many people who suffer from binge eating also say that they feel sad, bored, lonely, stressed or worried.
Bulimia Nervosa – this eating disorder is kind of like binge eating with a difference, because once they’ve eaten all of the food they embark on such a guilt trip that they’ll do anything they can to get rid of the food from their bodies – inducing vomiting or using laxatives, followed by fasting and doing extremely strenuous exercise after a binge. A repeated cycle of binge eating, purging, fasting and over exercise is a very dangerous method of weight control. | <urn:uuid:d0676fbd-bd3e-4b69-b3fd-7d7b6df6c4f7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.masculinity.com/nutritional-health/eating-disorders/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00036-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976905 | 656 | 2.671875 | 3 |
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The discussions and documents, including committee reports, hearings, and floor debates, surrounding and preceding the enactment of a law.
Legislative history includes earlier, similar bills introduced but not passed by the legislature; legislative and executive reports and studies regarding the legislation; transcripts from legislative committee hearings and reports from the committees; and floor debates on the bill.
The legislative history of a statute is a unique form of secondary legal authority. It is not binding on courts in the way that primary authority is. Federal and state constitutions, statutes, case law (judicial decisions), and agency regulations form the body of primary authority that courts use to resolve disputes. As secondary authority, legislative history is used only to decipher the precise meaning behind an ambiguous statute or statutory provision.
For example, suppose Congress passes a criminal law requiring that all persons under age 18 who appear in public after sundown must carry a federal identification card, which must be produced for law enforcement officers on demand. If the statute contains no definition of the phrase "in public," a court faced with a case brought under it may have to consult the legislative history to determine precisely where minors may venture without the identification card.
The value of legislative history in the law is similar to that of academic treatises: both are extrinsic aids. Lawyers may use favorable language from legislative history and academic treatises when they are presenting arguments to a court, and courts may use it when they are attempting to interpret a statute.
In some countries, such as England, courts may not consider secondary sources in making any decision. In these countries the potential for judicial abuse of a secondary source such as legislative history is considered an unacceptable risk to the legislative and judicial processes. The fear is that a judge could use one particularly unrepresentative statement from a lengthy legislative debate to incorrectly interpret a statute.
North Haven Board of Education v. Bell, 456 U.S. 512, 102 S. Ct. 1912, 72 L. Ed. 2d 299 (1982), illustrates why legislative history is of secondary importance. The question in Bell was whether a federal statute (Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 86 Stat. 373, 20 U.S.C.A. § 1681 et seq.) barred gender-based discrimination in employment by educational institutions. In answering the question in the affirmative, the majority opinion relied heavily on the remarks of Senator Birch Bayh, the sponsor of the legislation. The dissenting opinion relied heavily on remarks by the same senator in reaching a different conclusion.
Not all legislative history in the United States has the same value. Generally, committee reports have the most weight with the judiciary. Remarks of legislators during floor debates have the least value. Committee hearings and reports from the president or governor are given varying weight, according to the court's need for the information.
Legislative history is never the only consideration in a case. In all cases courts examine the plain meaning of the words in the statute before looking at any legislative history.
The legislative history of federal statutes can be found in the various publications of special legislative commissions and legislative committee hearings, and in the Congressional Record. The Congressional Record is published by Congress each day that it is in session. It summarizes the proceedings of the previous day in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Members of Congress also may publish unspoken remarks and all or part of their floor speeches. Collections of federal legislative history are maintained in law libraries and state government libraries. West Group issues a compilation of the statutes passed in each session of Congress and their legislative history. This compilation, called the United States Code Congressional and Administrative News, is available in state government libraries, in law libraries, and on West's online computer service, WESTLAW.
The Internet has become a reliable and useful source for locating legislative history for recent bills and laws. The U.S. Government Printing Office's website, known as GPO Access, provides the full text of congressional bills, House and Senate committee reports, committee prints, hearing transcripts, the Congressional Record, and several other documents. Availability of these documents depends on the individual document, but most are available from the mid-1990s onward. Another useful source is Thomas: Legislative Information on the Internet, produced by the LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. It provides access to recent bills, reports, debates, and other information.
Legislative materials on the state level are more difficult to acquire. In most states committee reports and transcripts of floor debates are stored at the state government library at the state capitol for a certain period of time, such as two years. After that period of time, they may be shipped to a state archives office. Some well-stocked law libraries may have history on state legislation. Most states now provide the text of recent legislation through their websites, but most do not provide access to legislative history.
The availability of the history of local laws varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Some large cities preserve committee reports and legislative comments on local laws; most small towns leave no trace of the intent behind their laws.
Methods for storing state and local legislative history vary widely. To find the legislative history of a particular state or local statute, consult the reference librarian at the appropriate state government library or at a law library.
Kunz, Christina L., et al. 2000. The Process of Legal Research. 5th ed. Gaithersberg, Md.: Aspen Law & Business.
——. 1992. The Process of Legal Research: Successful Strategies. 3d ed. Boston: Little, Brown. | <urn:uuid:963d807f-eb43-4b07-b317-46d668a902d9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://lawbrain.com/wiki/Legislative_History | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398075.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00020-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926461 | 1,147 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Developed in the 1920s vinyl has come to play a vital role in our everyday lives. Vinyl is used in many applications and is used every day to make products safer, easier to use, cleaner, more durable and more economical. The inherant versatility of vinyl helps make it the third-largest volume type of plastic produced in the U.S.
From the vinyl resin producers to those who extrude the resin into pipe, siding, flooring, wallcovering, toys, packaging and energy-efficient windows and roofs. WIth that said, the vinyl industry contributes more than 100,000 jobs annually to the U.S. economy.
Find out more about vinyl here: | <urn:uuid:947aa03d-5383-42c5-9fa5-5e8d50ba99d2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ntwindow.com/Knowledge-Center-Home/Window-Basics/glass-systems-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00044-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936665 | 140 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Picture of the Month Quiz
A 9-year-old boy presented for ophthalmologic evaluation. His medical history included chemotherapy for a juvenile pilocytic astrocytoma of the optic chiasm. He had also been diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
On examination, his visual acuity when wearing glasses was 20/20 in both eyes. Results of color vision testing were normal for each eye. Slitlamp examination revealed elevated pigmented lesions on the irides of both eyes and a misshapen pupil in the right eye (Figure). Slitlamp examination of the patient's mother revealed similar findings. Most of the iris lesions in the patient and his mother were located in the inferior portion of the iris.
What is your diagnosis?
For a complete discussion of this month's case, read next month's Picture of the Month—Quiz Case. For a complete discussion of last month's case, read this month's Picture of the | <urn:uuid:cda38586-d973-4663-a6f8-57a72ae5914c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/SS/Poll_April_2010.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398516.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00201-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957225 | 203 | 2.953125 | 3 |
When it comes to removing tumors, surgeons have always had to deal with a harsh reality: Cutting out all cancer cells is nearly impossible.
They’re just too well hidden. Even the most savvy, eagle-eyed surgeon can’t spot every tiny one. Especially considering that some tumors measure a mere three millimeters in diameter.
So that’s why researchers developed a new way to trick these tumors into becoming much easier to find.
And they’ve done it by feeding them “glow-in-the-dark” vitamins.
Here’s how it works…
Gaining An Edge Over Malicious Cancer Cells
It started with an astonishing discovery by Purdue University Professor of Biochemistry, Philip Low.
He realized that in order for tumors to wreak havoc in our bodies, they need folic acid – a form of vitamin B that helps cancer cells grow.
So researchers decided to infuse the folic acid with a fluorescent marker. Then, two hours before surgery, they injected it into the patient and watched the cancer cells absorb the acid and light up like glow-in-the-dark particles.
Granted, this isn’t the first time researchers have been able to illuminate cancer cells. Three researchers won a Nobel Prize in chemistry for discovering the green florescent protein (GFP) in 2008. And in 2009, doctors were able to use it to improve survival rates in mice.
But according to Low, his method can zero in on tumors that are “30 times smaller than the smallest they could detect using standard techniques.”
In fact, the glowing dye can help doctors spot cells as small as one-tenth of a millimeter. And you wouldn’t believe how well it’s working so far.
Try Playing Hide and Seek When You Glow in the Dark
Researchers tested this technique at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. They decided to focus on ovarian cancer in particular. Mainly because ovarian cancer cells are strong folic acid absorbers and are notoriously difficult to see.
During the trials, the fluorescent acid injection allowed doctors to spot an average of 34 tumors throughout 10 operations – a 385% improvement over the seven tumors found using traditional techniques!
As Professor Gooitzen van Dam says, “This technology will revolutionize surgical vision. I foresee it becoming a new standard in cancer surgery in a very short time.”
It’s hard to disagree. Especially considering that about 40% of cancers (including kidney, lung, colon and breast cancers) can be tracked down with this technique.
Bottom line: This technology helps doctors tell the difference between malicious cells and healthy tissue, minimizing the damage to surrounding organs.
So there’s no question that it will prove to be a strong ally to other treatments like chemotherapy and immunotherapy. Since you can bet that a few biotechs are already tuned in, we’ll keep you posted on potential licensing agreements that come to our attention. | <urn:uuid:1c82c7cf-ce5a-43c8-a2cb-ee2aba56c6c1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wallstreetdaily.com/2011/09/26/how-glowing-medicine-targets-tumors/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00010-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939768 | 618 | 3.3125 | 3 |
Research by the National Literacy Trust
, who interviewed some 18,000 children, have concluded in a survey report
that around 3.8 million children do not own a book of their own. According to the BBC
, the survey was undertaken in September with school-aged children (mostly between 11 and 13 years old) from 111 schools across the UK.
Assuming that the research is accurate, the proportion has dramatically increased since the survey was last run 10 years ago. In 2002 the number of children who did not own a book was only one in 10.
In reviewing the findings, as reported by The Daily Express
, the National Literacy Trust director Jonathan Douglas said the numbers of children without books were of "particular concern". It is indeed a worrying trend. A report The Guardian
in early December revealed that there is a rise in the number of adults in England who "do not have the number skills required to work out their change in a supermarket".
When the results of the survey are analysed further, the data indicates that children eligible for free school meals (a key measure of poverty
) are more likely to not own a book compared with children from more affluent families. The survey also reveals a gender divide for boys are more likely to be without books than girls.
Thus the survey reveals some interesting facts about modern society, especially the impact of poverty. What the survey does not reveal is what children are doing instead. No doubt some cannot afford many other options, whereas for others the lure of computer games maybe the greater competitor for the leisure time of children. To counter this, the National Literacy Trust has launched a Christmas Gift of Reading
fundraising appeal to encourage children to read. | <urn:uuid:06f166ec-bf83-4cdd-874a-1b3d7fb9cc1e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/315613 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00089-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96903 | 345 | 2.625 | 3 |
|Control (Con*trol") (?), n.
[F. contrôle a counter register, contr. fr. contr-rôle; contre (L. contra) + rôle roll, catalogue. See Counter and Roll, and cf. Counterroll.]
1. A duplicate book, register, or account, kept to correct or check another account or register; a counter register. [Obs.] Johnson.
2. That which serves to check, restrain, or hinder; restraint. "Speak without control." Dryden.
3. Power or authority to check or restrain; restraining or regulating influence; superintendence; government; as, children should be under parental control. "The House of Commons should exercise a control over all the departments of the executive administration." Macaulay.
-- Board of control. See under Board.
Control (Con*trol"), v. t.
[imp. & p.p. Controlled (?); p.pr. & vb.n. Controlling.]
[F. contrôler, fr. contrôle.]
[Formerly written comptrol and controul.]
1. To check by a counter register or duplicate account; to prove by counter statements; to confute. [Obs.] "This report was controlled to be false." Fuller.
2. To exercise restraining or governing influence over; to check; to counteract; to restrain; to regulate; to govern; to overpower. "Give me a staff of honor for mine age, But not a scepter to control the world." Shak. "I feel my virtue struggling in my soul: But stronger passion does its power control." Dryden.
Synonyms -- To restrain; rule; govern; manage; guide; regulate; hinder; direct; check; curb; counteract; subdue.
Authors Encyclopedia | Encyclopedia of the Self
Classical Authors Index | Classical Authors Directory | Classical Authors Library
Emotional Literacy Education | The Old Man of the Holy Mountain | Classical Authors Forums
Visitor Agreement | Copyright c 1999 - 2001 Mark Zimmerman. All Rights Reserved. | <urn:uuid:9b06d02c-cb7e-4b59-adde-43360a67f6fa> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://selfknowledge.com/20193.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396224.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00103-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.737169 | 441 | 2.734375 | 3 |
How do they live?
|Dani Men, 1991 Baliem Valley, West Papua.
© Jeanne Herbert/Survival
West Papua (made up of the two provinces of Papua and West Papua) is the western half of the island of New Guinea and is distinct from the independent country of Papua New Guinea. It is home to around 312 different tribes, including some uncontacted peoples. The central mountainous region of Papua is home to the highland peoples, who practice pig husbandry and sweet potato cultivation.
The lowland peoples live in swampy and malarial coastal regions, and live by hunting the abundant game, and gathering.
Some of the many Papuan tribal languages are related to others, but some are unique. The people are ethnically distinct from the Indonesians who control their country.
What problems do they face?
All the Papuan peoples have suffered greatly under the Indonesian occupation which began in 1963. The Indonesian army has a long history of human rights violations against the Papuans, and the racist Indonesian soldiers generally view the Papuan people as little more than animals.
|Korowai man baking sago over the fire, West Papua. |
Papua’s natural resources are being exploited at great profit for the Indonesian government and foreign businesses, but at the expense of the Papuan peoples and their homelands.
When international companies come to Papua, the Indonesian military accompanies them to ‘protect’ the ‘vital projects’. The military presence is almost always associated with human rights violations such as killings, arbitrary arrests, rape and torture.
Those Papuans who protest against the Indonesian government, the military or ‘vital projects’ are even more likely to experience abuses of their human rights.
How can I help?
How does Survival help?
Survival is supporting the right of the Papuan peoples to live on their land in peace, by exposing, and protesting against, the human rights violations they experience, and by campaigning for their land ownership rights.
|A Korowai man and child in West Papua |
© Survival International
We support Papuan opposition to any harmful projects on their land, such as the pulp plant which Scott Paper planned to build on Auyu land – the plan was abandoned after international protests.
Survival is calling on the Indonesian government to enter into dialogue with the Papuan people so that they are able to decide their own way of life and their future. | <urn:uuid:c5f21f88-07ac-4967-822c-919d597bc48e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.survivalinternational.nl/tribes/papuan | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00152-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948539 | 508 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Veteran physical educator Bev Davison knows how to get the biggest bang for her buck. In Creative Physical Activities and Equipment, she shares her secrets of how to expand a physical education or recreation program without exceeding the budget.
Davison's practical, ready-to-use strategies help you make the most of your budget, no matter how big or small. But the ideas in this book aren't just easy on the wallet; more equipment means less down time and more opportunities for children to participate and learn.
First, you'll discover how to make equipment using inexpensive, readily available materials and even trash! Need some pinnies? Grab a pair of scissors and some old towels and start creating! Are old dryer sheets accumulating in the laundry room? Turn them into juggling scarves! All of the equipment is easy to assemble-no mechanical skill is needed. In addition, the book describes dozens of unique games and activities that use this equipment to teach important skills.
Next, the book explains how to use traditional equipment-such as Frisbees and jump ropes-in nontraditional ways and how to extend the life of old or broken equipment, including flat tennis balls and broken badminton racquets. You'll also learn the art of obtaining free equipment. The book provides information on equipment that's free for the asking, items that can be obtained by collecting proofs of purchase, and general budget-stretching ideas.
Finally, since some equipment can be quite expensive, fundraising is an occasional necessity. Proving that fundraising does not have to be time-consuming and painful, the book presents ideas for 15 refreshingly creative fundraisers that are easy to organize and execute. Many of them don't require solicitation by students, which means greater parental support and participation.
A resource no physical education or recreation program should be without, Creative Physical Activities and Equipment can pay for itself after just one use!
Chapter 1. Making Equipment
Bean Bag Targets • Plastic Bottle Equipment • Streamers • Hockey Pucks, Sticks, and Goals • Pinnies • Football T-Stands • Bases • Whistle Holder • Time-Out Timer
Chapter 2. From Trash to Treasure
Old Panty Hose • Old Socks • Old Newspapers • Old Soda Bottles • Packing Peanuts • Old Coffee Cans • Old Dryer Sheets • M & M Minis Plastic Tube Containers • Empty Adding Machine Paper Rolls • Garden Hose • Empty Paper Towel Rolls • Cardboard Boxes • Plastic Trash Bags
Chapter 3. Same Old Stuff
Frisbees • Rubber Gloves • Jump Ropes • Stilts • Parachute • Folding Mats
Chapter 4. Don't Throw It Out Just Because It's Broken!
Beaded Jump Ropes • Popped Balls • Broken Badminton Racquets • Sound Paddles and Beach Balls • Broken Hula Hoops • Old Pinnies or Jerseys • Stick-a-Ball Paddles • Flat Tennis Balls • Old Racquetballs • Old Miscellaneous Equipment and Balls
Chapter 5. Acquiring Free Equipment
Section 1. Absolutely Free Equipment
Carpet Squares • Stuffed Animals • Balloons • Bowling Pins • Golf Tubes • Toilet Paper • Jar Openers • Plastic Buckets • Paper Plates • Feed Bags • Old Tires • Old Brooms • Plastic Drinking Straws • Old Bicycle Tires • Popcorn Buckets
Section 2. Equipment to Acquire by Collecting Proofs of Purchase
Campbell's Labels for Education • Power of Purchasing Program • Boxtops for Education • Little Debbie Points to Education Program • Kids in Gear Program by Fuji • Other Programs That May Be Available
Section 2. Fundraisers That Are a Little Painful
Show in the Gym • Valentine Serenade • Dog Wash • Teacher of the Year: Students' Choice • Birthday Cupcakes • School Dance • Grants • Powderpuff Football
Index of Games
About the Author
Reference for elementary and middle school physical education specialists and classroom teachers; physical education supervisors, directors, and administrators; recreation directors; athletic directors; YMCA directors; club sport leaders; and church group leaders.
Bev Davison is a veteran physical educator, having taught for ten years at the elementary and secondary levels. During those years she mastered the skill of creating a quality physical education program on a shoestring budget. She has shared her knowledge on this subject with fellow physical educators far and wide-from the Georgia Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (GAHPERD) state convention to a naval base in Cuba.
One of Davison's most significant career accomplishments was being named the 1995-96 Teacher of the Year by fellow teachers at her school for implementing the ideas in this book. Davison's contributions to her school's physical education program also led to a 1996 School of Excellence in Physical Education Honorable Mention Award from GAHPERD.
Davison is a member of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance and GAHPERD. She earned her master's degree in physical education from Eastern Kentucky University. In her free time she enjoys biking, fishing, and water sports. She and her husband, Ray, live in St. Mary's, Georgia, with their three children. | <urn:uuid:00b070c4-7258-4e49-8d3f-c02e7619d89c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.humankinetics.com/products/all-products/creative-physical-activities--equipment | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395548.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00048-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.899538 | 1,093 | 2.921875 | 3 |
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