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Online: Object of the Month
"The Spirit of Party ... stupefies even those whom it cannot deprave"
Images from the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Not to be reproduced without permission.
In a letter to his mother, Abigail Adams, written from St. Petersburg, Russia, on 25 July 1810, John Quincy Adams, the United States minister at the Court of the Czar, reflects upon the ferociously partisan politics of the day in Massachusetts, the complicated diplomatic scene in Europe during the Napoleonic Wars, and the tragic end to the disastrous reign of Gustav IV, the king of Sweden.
John Quincy Adams in 1810
Although he had accompanied his father, John Adams, to France during the American Revolution, travelled to Russia as a teenager with first American diplomatic mission to that country, served as the U.S. minister to the Netherlands and Prussia, been elected to the United Senate in 1803, and, while he served in the senate, been appointed the firsts professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard, John Quincy Adams dated the “really important period” of his life to the British attack on USS Chesapeake in 1807. Senator Adams split with his Federalist colleagues and supported President Thomas Jefferson’s embargo on foreign trade—a crushing blow to maritime commerce in his native Massachusetts. When he attended the Republican presidential caucus that nominated James Madison in January 1808, Adams’ Federalist supporters accused him of “apostasy.” He replied that they had “deserted their country.” Adams was driven from office: in a special election in May 1808, the Massachusetts legislature elected James Lloyd to succeed Adams six months before his senatorial term ended. Adams resigned a month later. In 1809, after briefly resuming his legal career and arguing two cases before the Supreme Court, he was nominated by President Madison to become the first minister plenipotentiary to represent the United States in Russia. You can follow Adams’s line-a-day diary account of his voyage to St. Petersburg in August 1809 and his life at the Russian court on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/JQAdams_MHS.
By 1810, John Quincy Adams had spent years in foreign diplomatic service, but through regular correspondence with his mother and father—and his voluminous diary entries—he remained a faithful reporter of all he observed both abroad and, from a distance, at home. From his diplomatic post in St. Petersburg, he wrote to his mother, Abigail Adams, decrying the state of politics in Massachusetts: “There is something in the Spirit of Party which stupefies even those whom it cannot deprave, and which blinds the eyes, when it cannot succeed to vitiate the heart.” Adams hoped that the election of Republicans Elbridge Gerry and William Gray as governor and lieutenant governor of Massachusetts would turn the policy of the “Eastern sages” (the “Anglo-federalist” leadership known as the Essex Junto), “if not to something useful and honourable, at least to something less pestilential to their Country and their Posterity—To any thing more pernicious, in my sincere opinion, the Prince of Darkness could not spur the most devoted of his instruments upon Earth.”
While Adams’ principled stand for the national interest against the wishes of his party is celebrated as a prime example of senatorial courage in John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage, his harsh views of his opponents may have robbed him of the ability to fully comprehend an increasingly tense political and diplomatic situation in the United States. Adams denigrated concerns in Massachusetts over the treatment of the British minister to the United States “Mr. [Francis James] Jackson” and the “panic terrors of a War, between the United States and England” less than two years before the War of 1812 began.
The murder of Axel von Fersen
In the second part of his long letter to his mother—almost a formal political and diplomatic report—John Quincy Adams described “the most remarkable political transactions of the present time … in Sweden—The late king of that Country [Gustav IV] laboured under the same prejudices as of late years have taken possession of almost all the New-England federalists—He not only hated Napoleon as he deserves, but he relied upon the friendship and protection of England….” After a disastrous war with Russia, the kingdom of Sweden was dismembered, losing its Finnish and Pomeranian territories, and the Swedish Diet “not only discarded him [the king], but his children—excluded all his descendants with him from the succession, and sent to Norway for a Prince of Holstein Augustenburg, to be the successor to the Swedish Throne.” When the new heir apparent, Crown Prince Karl August died suddenly and mysteriously on 29 May 1810, the populace rose up and—in scenes that Adams compared to the French Revolution—at the crown prince’s funeral a mob rioted and murdered Count Axel von Fersen, the grand marshal of Sweden.
What John Quincy Adams appears to have forgotten, or did not think he should include in a letter to his mother, is that many years before, in an entirely different context, he had taken note of Axel von Fersen. On 28 March 1785, seventeen-year-old Adams, then living in Paris, recorded in his diary that the son born to Marie Antoinette the day before had been given the title of the Duke of Normandy, and that rumors of a liaison between the queen and the gallant young von Fersen, a veteran of the American Revolution then commanding a Swedish regiment in French service, made the title doubly ironic. William the Conqueror, the “real” Duke of Normandy, had been both illegitimate and of Scandinavian descent and now, perhaps, the infant Duke was as well. Whatever the connection between von Fersen and Marie Antoinette, in 1791, during the French Revolution, he made a romantic but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to rescue the French royal family. The Duke of Normandy—by then the Dauphin of France—died in 1795, a child prisoner of the Revolution.
John Quincy Adams remained in Russia through the Napoleonic invasion of 1812, leaving in the spring of 1814 to travel to Ghent in Belgium where he led the negotiating team that brought an end to the conflict the New England Federalists had dreaded, the War of 1812, on Christmas Eve 1814—an event that he immediately analyzed and reported in another letter to his mother.
A new exhibition: "Mr. Madison's War: The Controversial War of 1812"
John Quincy Adams' 1810 and 1814 letters will be on display at the Massachusetts Historical Society from June 18-September 8, 2012, as part of a new exhibition, Mr. Madison's War: The Controversial War of 1812. The Historical Society will commemorate the bicentennial of the declaration of war on 18 June 1812, with an exhibition of letters, broadsides, artifacts, and images from the Society's rich collections. Mr. Madison's War will be on display, Monday-Saturday, 10:00 AM-4:00 PM, through 8 September 2012. Items from the exhibition, including John Quincy Adams' 24 December 1814 letter to his mother, also are on "virtual" display at the link to website.
For John Quincy Adams’ own writings:
Digital images of more than 14,000 manuscript pages in the 68 volumes of John Quincy Adams’ extraordinary diary are available at the Massachusetts Historical Society website: http://www.masshist.org/jqadiaries/.
A portion of the diary has been published as:
Memoirs of John Quincy Adams: Comprising Portions of his Diary from 1795-1848, ed. by Charles Francis Adams, 12 vols. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1874-1877.
Selections from Adams’ personal and diplomatic correspondence from this period have been published in:
Adams, Charles Francis. “Correspondence of John Quincy Adams, 1811-1814,” in Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, new ser., 23 (April 1913), p. 110-169.
Writings of John Quincy Adams, ed. by Worthington C. Ford, 7 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1913-1917.
Bemis, Samuel Flagg. John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy. New York: Albert A. Knopf, 1949.
Jorgensen, Christer. The Anglo-Swedish Alliance against Napoleonic France. Basingstroke, Hampshire; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
Kennedy, John F. Profiles in Courage. New York: Harper & Bros., 1956.
Lewis, James E. John Quincy Adams: Policymaker for the Union. Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 2001.
Scott, Franklin D. Sweden: The Nation’s History. Enlarged ed. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988. | <urn:uuid:132f4a2f-85b5-4e47-beba-b2ad4590eacc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.masshist.org/objects/2012june.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00111-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954519 | 1,918 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Researchers have found that individuals who carry a particular type of the gene Patatin-like phospholipase domain containing 3 (PNPLA3) have more fat in their livers and carry a greater risk of developing liver disease.
The investigators also noted that Hispanics in comparison to Caucasians and African-Americans are more likely to have this gene variation responsible for higher liver-fat content. The team suggests that these findings provide an explanation for a 2004 University of Texas Southwestern-led study that determined that the propensity to develop nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) differs among ethnic groups.
The researchers report that they are the first to analyze hepatic fat in a large population using a proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy. They screened more than 2,100 individuals across multiple ethnicities. They then correlated that data with DNA tests from the same people and found the link to the PNPLA3 gene.
The findings come out of the Dallas Heart Study, an eight-year-old investigation of cardiovascular disease that involves a large multiethnic group of participants. The $12 million study investigates the links between genetics, lifestyle, and the risks for heart disease. The next step is to investigate how the various forms of the PNPLA3 gene affect lipid metabolism, the scientists say.
Researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center, Perlegen Sciences, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the UT Health Science Center at Houston were involved in the study. The article can be found online in Nature Genetics. | <urn:uuid:c5ac22f6-9f0a-4414-b03d-0bdc588b6cee> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.genengnews.com/gen-news-highlights/gene-variant-found-that-causes-more-fat-in-liver-and-increases-risk-of-liver-inflammation/42522777/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399522.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00181-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938619 | 306 | 2.921875 | 3 |
When a woman is being treated for breast cancer, her major concern, as well as that of her care givers, must be survival. However, after treatment is completed and she is on the road to recovery, there are other health issues that should move to the top of her list. One of these is bone health. Many women, particularly those of northern European descent, are at risk for osteoporosis and bone fractures in their later lives.
The therapies that accompany breast cancer treatment put a woman at an even greater risk of developing this potentially debilitating problem, which can result in serious fracture and death. Those who have undergone certain chemotherapeutic regimens and treatment with aromatase inhibitors may be at particular risk. All women, but especially women who have been treated for breast cancer, should talk to their physicians about undergoing bone mineral density studies to measure and monitor the density of their bone structure as they get older. Medical care for osteoporosis includes treatment with bisphosphonates, calcium, Vitamin D, and other agents.
For an excellent review on bone health after cancer, visit the Journal of Cancer Research and Therapies.Tags: medical, research | <urn:uuid:3a3af936-0d2e-43ee-84a3-b80dfe4b2b08> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pabreastcancer.org/blog/2011/11/bone-health | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00041-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97253 | 239 | 2.984375 | 3 |
Universal access to health care might help to overcome racial and ethnic barriers to treatment for kidney disease, suggest two studies in the March 2008 issue of Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
The results should be seen as "yet another wake-up call as to how we as a medical community need to lead the health agenda for the nation, including the reduction and/or elimination of health disparities," according to an editorial by Dr. Keith Norris of Charles Drew University and Dr. Allen Nissenson of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
In one of the two new studies, Dr. Douglas Keith of McGill University, Montreal, and colleagues analyzed data on nearly 76,000 U.S. patients wait-listed for kidney transplantation between 2001 and 2004. The goal was to identify factors affecting time on dialysis before being placed on the waiting listthe less time a patient spends on dialysis, the better the results of transplantation.
During the four-year study period, there was a significant increase in the rate of "pre-emptive listing"that is, being placed on the transplant waiting list before starting dialysis. However, the median time spent on dialysis before wait-listing was essentially unchanged.
The rate of pre-emptive listing was lower, and time spent on dialysis was longer, for minority patients and for patients on Medicare (compared to those on private insurance).
Less-educated patients and those whose kidney disease was caused by high blood pressure also had a reduced rate of pre-emptive wait-listing and a longer time on dialysis. On average, a minority patient who was on Medicare and had less than a high school education spent 20 times longer on dialysis before being wait-listed, compared to a white patient with private insurance and at least a high school education.
The impact of insurance was greatly reduced after age 65. At that age, Medicare patients no longer have to go through a mandatory waiting period before being eligible for kidney transplantation. However, the disparities for racial and ethnic minorities and for less-educated patients persisted after age 65.
"The most important issue for timely access to the waiting list is insurance or the lack of it," Dr. Keith comments. "Our study suggests that a universal system of insurance coverage would improve access for those most disadvantaged by the current insurance system." The study is limited in that it includes only patients who actually made it to the waiting list.
In the second study, Dr. Sam W. Gao of Naval Medical Center Portsmouth (Virginia) and colleagues analyzed the quality of care for more than 8,000 patients with moderate to advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD) treated in the Department of Defense (DOD) medical system. Their goal was to determine whether universal access to health services in the DOD system avoids racial disparities in CKD care.
The results suggested that the care provided to black patients with CKD in the DOD system was very similar to that provided to white patients. In some cases, measures of kidney care were higher for black patients. The one significant difference was lower monitoring of cholesterol levels among black patients.
"We were able to show that blacks and whites received similar care, unlike some other aspects of medicine in the United States where blacks receive less care than whites," Dr. Gao comments. "This may be due to universal access to care provided to all DOD beneficiaries." The study is limited in its ability to show a cause-and-affect relationship, and by the fact that it included only DOD beneficiaries.
In their editorial, Drs. Norris and Nissenson call on the nephrology community to "take the opportunity as health leaders to ensure uniform health care to all citizens and move closer to eliminating the tragedy of health inequities, and the unacceptable morbidity and mortality associated with CKD." They note that the American Society of Nephrology (ASN), National Kidney Foundation (NKF), Renal Physicians Association (RPA), and American Society of Pediatric Nephrology (ASPN) are collaborating on a legislative agenda to improve care for patients with kidney disease, focusing on appropriate funding for CKD care. In conjunction with World Kidney Day on March 13, 2008, members from ASN and NKF will visit with congressional leaders on Capitol Hill to discuss the importance of improving care for patients with kidney disease through greater access, more research, and increased education.
|Contact: Shari Leventhal|
American Society of Nephrology | <urn:uuid:4cb610c7-83ec-4cee-add9-6cc97d090258> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news-1/Race--insurance-status-affect-access-to-transplantation-and-kidney-disease-treatment-12901-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395548.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00009-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964418 | 914 | 2.84375 | 3 |
From Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia
The Slab, sometimes known as the "Slabbity-Slab," is a nearly extinct creature that once thrived in American suburbs. Slabs can grow to over 30 feet in length, and were mainly used by people for transportation until they became endangered in the mid 1990s.A Texas slab is a car that has 30 spoked rims that simulate the 1984 and 1983 hubcaps. these are called "Swangas", "84'S", or "4's". This type of rims can be purchased at Texanwirwheels.com. The slabs come in all sorts of colors like candy blue, red purple, green, brown gold and etc. Please support the Texas Hip Hop movement. Which these "Slabs" are a big part of.
Slabs were a natural step in the evolutionary process of the automobile, with the first appearing sometime during the Not-Really-That-Great Depression. When Slabs first appeared, they resembled normal cars on steroids. Many people suspect that the very first Slabs were the children of a family of cars living in the yard behind Albert Einstein's house, where he was developing the first nuclear reactor leak. Slabs were one of the favorite family pets throughout the 1960s and 1970s, but with the national fuel shortage of the 1970s, many Slabs began to starve to death and a splode. Through the 1980s, many Slabs died off, and in the 1990s, several sick and malnourished Slabs were systematically destroyed by the government. Nowadays, Slabs are increasingly endangered and can only get jobs as taxis, and in some lucky cases, police cars. The award winning dramatic film Cars is noted for accurately depicting the hardships many Slabs face.
edit What's The Difference Between a Slab and All the Other Cars?
Good question. There are no set guidelines for a car to qualify as a Slab (other than being really big), but any Slab historian can point one out instantly. Some of the common traits of Slabs are:
- Tailfins. (50's & early 60's, but sometimes the 70's)
- 6 or more seats.
- No airbags.
- White Wall Tires.
- Way too patriotic.
- Negative gas mileage.
- Very hard to parallel park.
- Vinyl roof.
- Obsolete stereo system.
- Way too wide, way too long, and way too short.
- Physically impossible amount of interior space.
edit Types of Slabs
- Space Slab
- El Slabino
- Mega Slab
edit Slabs in the Future
In 2009, scientists discovered a way to clone slabs, and were able to repopulate the Slab population. Unfortunately, this caused global warming to return, even though it got bored and decided to quit bothering everyone in 2008. The return of global warming enraged Al Gore who retaliated by starting the slab wars, which lasted for almost 2000 days. In the end, the Slabs enslaved humanity, but people were unaware of this because they simply assumed taxis were just a lot easier to hail. After realizing that they didn't enjoy ruling the world, the slabs went bac to almost being extinct again, which no one bothered to notice or care about.
edit Famous Slabs
In their heyday, many slabs gained prominence. Here is a partial list:
- Every taxi in every movie ever.
- The Batmobile.
- KITT's cool big brother, William Shatner
- Your Mom's station wagon
- Them freaky claymation cars in the gas station commercials.
- The ugly thing from that National Lampoon movie.
- All the limos.
- My other Slab is the Millennium Falcon.
- All the cars in gangsta rap videos
- Most of the Transformers
and there are some others too. | <urn:uuid:5b2ee8cf-9db1-4b6b-a73b-0bf04ece2b12> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Slab | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00179-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96275 | 816 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Recycling has become popular over the past few years as a way to save space in landfills and cut down on the amount of new materials that have to be mined, harvested, or created. For decades before that, however, people thought of recycling as a way to make money. In fact, people have been reusing materials for centuries; there is even evidence of the Ancient Egyptians reusing building materials from the construction of the Pyramids.
Making money off of recycling isn’t as simple as collecting trash and turning it into the local recycling center. It’s important to know what items make money.
Aluminum cans are the most popular way for individuals to recycle, but there is typically a strong market for a lot of different types of scrap metal. Particularly in demand right now are iron and copper. In general, pure metals have a lot more value than alloys such as steel, since alloys typically have to be separated into their component parts and remixed.
To cash in, look carefully at the composition of metal in a lot of your everyday products. Aluminum and tin cans are the most common, but pure metal can also be found in plumbing components, nails, hardware, and silverware. Items can be turned in to any metal recycler.
Electronics recycling works by either fixing up and reselling a gadget as refurbished, or taking the electronics apart and selling the pieces. In the case of newer electronics (that is, those that are less than four years old) the items are typically checked for damage or other signs of wear at a central processing facility. Damaged parts are replaced, and the item is repackaged and sent to a wholesaler for resale. Depending on the item, an individual can typically get anywhere from ten to sixty percent of the original purchase price of the item.
Older electronics are disassembled and their parts are either recycled for the value of their materials, or the components are reused in other electronics. For example, some children’s toys can reuse the circuit boards from old computers and cell phones. To recycle your electronics, turn them into a retail store that offers electronic recycling (sometimes they run promotions offering store credit instead of cash), or look for a place to mail them to online.
Heavy and Precious Metal
Gold, silver, and other rare earth metals have a very high value per ounce. These metals can usually be found in jewelry or in small amounts inside electronics. Accessing them is hard to do, but it can very profitable.
What Doesn’t Make Money
Generally speaking, recycling plastic and paper will generate the least amount of profit. These items are very common, and the process to recycle them is very expensive. In fact, it can be difficult to even find a recycling center that is willing to accept less than a ton of these materials. | <urn:uuid:9d65624f-f076-4028-bd85-41510965bb4c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.examiner.com/article/quick-guide-recycling?cid=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00075-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952501 | 580 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Perceptual and Motor Development DomainCalifornia Infant/Toddler Learning & Development Foundations.
Perception refers to the process of taking in, organizing, and interpreting sensory information. Perception is multimodal, with multiple sensory inputs contributing to motor responses (Bertenthal 1996). An infant’s turning his head in response to the visual and auditory cues of the sight of a face and the sound of a voice exemplifies this type of perception. Intersensory redundancy, “the fact that the senses provide overlapping information . . . is a cornerstone of perceptual development” (Bahrick, Lickliter, and Flom 2004).
“Motor development refers to changes in children’s ability to control their body’s movements, from infants’ first spontaneous waving and kicking movements to the adaptive control of reaching, locomotion, and complex sport skills” (Adolph, Weise, and Marin 2003, 134). The term motor behavior describes all movements of the body, including movements of the eyes (as in the gaze), and the infant’s developing control of the head. Gross motor actions include the movement of large limbs or the whole body, as in walking. Fine motor behaviors include the use of fingers to grasp and manipulate objects. Motor behaviors such as reaching, touching, and grasping are forms of exploratory activity (Adolph 1997).
As infants develop increasing motor competence, they use perceptual information to inform their choices about which motor actions to take (Adolph and Joh 2007). For example, they may adjust their crawling or walking in response to the rigidity, slipperiness, or slant of surfaces (Adolph 1997). Motor movements, including movements of the eyes, arms, legs, and hands, provide most of the perceptual information infants receive (Adolph and Berger 2006). Young children’s bodies undergo remarkable changes in the early childhood years. In describing this development, Adolph and Avolio (2000, 1148) state, “Newborns are extremely top-heavy with large heads and torsos and short, weak legs. As infants grow, their body fat and muscle mass are redistributed. In contrast to newborns, toddlers’ bodies have a more cylindrical shape, and they have a larger ratio of muscle mass to body fat, especially in the legs.” These changes in weight, size, percentage of body fat, and muscle strength provide perceptual/motor challenges to infants as they practice a variety of actions (Adolph and Berger 2006). This dramatic physical development occurs within the broad context of overall development. As infants master each challenge, their perceptual and motor behavior reflects their ever-present interpersonal orientation and social environment.
The extent and variety of infant perceptual and motor behavior are remarkable. Infants and toddlers spend a significant part of their days engaged in motor behavior of one type or another. By three and a half months of age, infants have made between three and six million eye movements during their waking hours (Haith, Hazen, and Goodman 1988). Infants who crawl and walk have been found to spend roughly half of their waking hours involved in motor behavior, approximately five to six hours per day (Adolph and Joh 2007, 11). On a daily basis infants who are walking “. . . take more than 9,000 steps and travel the distance of more than 29 football fields. They travel over nearly a dozen different indoor and outdoor surfaces varying in friction, rigidity and texture. They visit nearly every room in their homes and they engage in balance and locomotion in the context of varied activities” (Adolph and Berger 2006, 181).
Early research in motor development involved detailed observational studies that documented the progression of infant motor skills and presented an understanding of infant motor behavior as a sequence of universal, biologically programmed steps (Adolph and Berger 2006; Bertenthal and Boker 1997; Bushnell and Boudreau 1993; Pick 1989). In comparison, current research in motor development often emphasizes action in the context of behavior and development in the perceptual, cognitive, and social domains (Pick 1989). In particular, contemporary accounts of infant motor development address (1) the strong relationship between perception and action (Bertenthal 1996; Gibson 1988; Thelen 1995), (2) the relationship between actions and the environment (Gibson 1988; Thelen 1995), and (3) the importance of motives in motor behavior, notably social and explorative motives (von Hofsten 2007). Although historical approaches may encourage professionals to focus on the relationship between growing perceptual/motor skills and the child’s increasingly sophisticated manipulation and understanding of objects, contemporary understanding suggests the value of observation of this progression. How these developing behaviors and abilities play a role in the social/emotional aspects of the child’s life and functioning, such as forming early relationships and building an understanding of others, may be noteworthy.
The contemporary view suggests that thinking about perceptual/motor development can be inclusive of infants and toddlers with disabilities or other special needs. Children whose disabilities affect their perceptual or motor development still want to explore and interact with the people and environment around them. Although the perceptual and motor development of children with disabilities or other special needs may follow a pathway that differs from typical developmental trajectories, sensitive and responsive caregivers can provide alternative ways in which to engage children’s drive to explore, building on their interests and strengths and supporting their overall physical and psychological health.
Pioneering researchers in infant motor development used novel and painstaking methods to study the progression of infant skill acquisition (Adolph and Berger 2005; Adolph 2008). Their findings were presented for both professionals and the public in the form of milestone charts that depicted motor skill acquisition as a clear progression through a series of predictable stages related to chronological age (Adolph 2008; Adolph, Weise, and Marin 2003). More recent research in the area of perceptual and motor development has indicated substantial variability between children in the pathways to acquiring major motor milestones such as sitting and walking (Adolph 1997; Adolph 2008). Each child may take a unique developmental pathway toward attainment of major motor milestones (Adolph and Joh 2007). Crawling, for example, is not a universal stage. Research clearly shows that not all children crawl before they walk (Adolph 2008). Although most children walk independently around age one, the normal range for acquisition of this behavior in western cultures is very broad, between 9 and 17 months of age (Adolph 2008). Age has traditionally been treated as the primary predictor of when landmark motor behaviors occur, but studies now indicate that experience may be a stronger predictor than age is in the emergence of both crawling (Adolph and Joh 2007) and walking (Adolph, Vereijken, and Shrout 2003).
It is important to recognize that, though developmental charts may show motor development unfolding in the form of a smooth upward progression toward mastery, the development of individual children often does not follow a smooth upward trajectory. In fact, “detours” and steps backward are common as development unfolds (Adolph and Berger 2006, 173). Infant motor development can be understood as a process in which change occurs as the infant actively adapts to varying circumstances and new tasks (Thelen 1995). Thelen (1994) demonstrated this experimentally in her well-known study in which three-month-old babies, still too young to coordinate their movements to be able to sit, reach, or crawl, learned to coordinate their kicks in order to engage in the novel task of making a mobile move. Cultural and historical factors, including caregivers’ behavior, also affect the ways in which infants engage in motor behaviors. For example, Adolph and Berger (2005) observed that mothers in Jamaica and Mali “train” infants to sit by propping up three- to four-month-old infants with pillows in a special hole in the ground designed to provide back support.
For years, researchers, educators, and early childhood professionals have emphasized the interrelatedness of the developmental domains. The current research supports an even greater appreciation of the profound role of interrelatedness and interdependence of factors, domains, and processes in development (Diamond 2007). The developmental domains are linked not only with one another, but also with factors such as culture, social relationships, experience, physical health, mental health, and brain functioning (Diamond 2007). In the case of perceptual and motor behavior, Diamond (2007) has observed that perception, motor behavior, and cognition occur in the context of culture, emotion, social relationships, and experience, which in turn influence physical and mental health as well as overall brain functioning. Bertenthal (1996) has proposed that perception and motor action are interrelated rather than autonomous processes. They may be best viewed as different components of an action system. Common behaviors such as reaching and turning the head for visual tracking illustrate the interrelatedness of the motor, perceptual, cognitive, and social-emotional domains in infant development. Even as very young infants, children are highly motivated to explore, gain information, attend, and engage their physical and social environments (Gibson 1987). As Gibson (1988, 5) explains: “We don’t simply see, we look.” Research by Berthier (1996, 811) indicates that “infant reaching is not simply a neural program that is triggered by the presence of a goal object, but that infants match the kinematics of their reaches to the task and their goals.”
Perception and motor action play a key role in children’s experiences and psychological processes (Thelen 1995). They also contribute to human psychological development in general, since ultimately “behavior is movement” (Adolph and Berger 2005, 223), and psychology can be defined as the study of human behavior. It has been proposed that infants’ use of social information to guide their motor behavior in physically challenging or unfamiliar situations provides an excellent means to study infant social cognition (Tamis-LeMonda and Adolph 2005).
Infants’ perceptual skills are at work during every waking moment. For example, those skills can be observed when an infant gazes into a caregiver’s eyes or distinguishes between familiar and unfamiliar people. Infants use perception to distinguish features of the environment, such as height, depth, and color. “The human infant is recognized today as ‘perceptually competent’; determining just how the senses function in infancy helps to specify the perceptual world of babies” (Bornstein 2005, 284). The ability to perceive commonalities and differences between objects is related to the cognitive domain foundation of classification. Infants explore objects differently depending upon object features such as weight, texture, sound, or rigidity (Palmer 1989). Parents and professionals may have observed young children exploring a slope, such as a slide, by touching it with their hands or feet before they decide whether to slide down it or not. Research by Adolph, Eppler, and Gibson (1993) suggests that learning plays a part in young children’s decision making in physically risky situations, such as navigating slopes, and that exploratory behavior may be a means to this learning. Perception is also strongly related to the social-emotional domain, such as when young children perceive the differences between various facial expressions and come to understand what they may mean.
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Gross motor development includes the attainment of skills such as rolling over, sitting up, crawling, walking, and running. Gross motor behavior enables infants to move and thereby attain different and varied perspectives on the environment. Behaviors such as pulling to stand and climbing present children with new learning opportunities. When infants push a toy stroller or shopping cart, they are also engaging in processes related to cognitive development, such as imitation. The gross motor behaviors involved in active outdoor play with other children are related to children’s development of social skills and an understanding of social rules.
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Through touching, grasping, and manual manipulation, infants experience a sense of agency and learn about the features of people, objects, and the environment. Fine motor development is related to the ability to draw, write, and participate in routines such as eating and dressing. Common early childhood learning materials, such as pegboards, stacking rings, stringing beads, and puzzles, offer opportunities for infants to practice their fine motor skills. Fine motor movements of the hands are coordinated with perceptual information provided through movements of the eyes, as when seven- to nine-month-old infants use visual information to orient their hands as they reach for an object (McCarty and others 2001).
Adolph, K. E. 1997. “Learning in the Development of Infant Locomotion,” Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, Vol. 62, No. 3, Serial No. 251.
Adolph, K. E. 2008. “Motor/Physical Development: Locomotion,” in Encyclopedia of Infant and Early Childhood Development. Edited by M. M. Haith and J. B. Benson. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Adolph, K. E., and A. M. Avolio. 2000. “Walking Infants Adapt Locomotion to Changing Body Dimensions,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, Vol. 26, No. 3, 1148–66.
Adolph, K. E., and S. E. Berger. 2005. “Physical and Motor Development,” in Developmental Science: An Advanced Textbook (Fifth edition). Edited by M. H. Bornstein and M. E. Lamb. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Adolph, K. E., and S. E. Berger. 2006. “Motor Development,” in Handbook of Child Psychology: Volume 2: Cognition, Perception, and Language (Sixth edition). Series Editors: W. Damon and R. Lerner. Volume Editors: D. Kuhn and others. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Adolph, K. E.; M. A. Eppler; and E. J. Gibson. 1993. “Crawling Versus Walking Infants’ Perception of Affordances for Locomotion over Sloping Surfaces,” Child Development, Vol. 64, No. 4, 1158–74.
Adolph, K. E., and A. S. Joh. 2007. “Motor Development: How Infants Get Into the Act,” in Introduction to Infant Development (Second edition). Edited by A. Slater and M. Lewis. New York: Oxford University Press.
Adolph, K. E.; B. Vereijken; and P. E. Shrout. 2003. “What Changes in Infant Walking and Why,” Child Development, Vol. 74, No. 2, 475–97.
Adolph, K. E.; I. Weise; and L. Marin. 2003. “Motor Development,” in Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science. London: Macmillan.
Alexander, R.; R. Boehme; and B. Cupps. 1993. Normal Development of Functional Motor Skills. San Antonio, TX: Therapy Skill Builders.
American Academy of Pediatrics. 2004. Caring for Your Baby and Young Child: Birth to Age 5 (Fourth edition). Edited by S. P. Shelov and R. E. Hannemann. New York: Bantam Books.
Apfel, N. H., and S. Provence. 2001. Manual for the Infant-Toddler and Family Instrument (ITFI). Baltimore: Brookes Publishing.
Bahrick, L. E.; R. Lickliter; and R. Flom. 2004. “Intersensory Redundancy Guides the Development of Selective Attention, Perception, and Cognition in Infancy,” Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol. 13, No. 3, 99–102.
Bai, D. L., and B. I. Bertenthal. 1992. “Locomotor Status and the Development of Spatial Search Skills,” Child Development, Vol. 63, 215–26.
Bayley, N. 2006. Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development (Third edition). San Antonio, TX: Harcourt Assessment.
Berthier, N. E. 1996. “Learning to Reach: A Mathematical Model,” Developmental Psychology, Vol. 32, No. 5, 811–23.
Bertenthal, B. I. 1996. “Origins and Early Development of Perception, Action and Representation,” Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 47, 431–59.
Bertenthal, B. I., and S. M. Boker. 1997. “New Paradigms and New Issues: A Comment on Emerging Themes in the Study of Motor Development,” Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, Vol. 62, No. 3, 141–51.
Bornstein, M. H. 2005. “Perceptual Development,” in Developmental Science: An Advanced Textbook (Fifth edition). Edited by M. H. Bornstein and M. E. Lamb. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Bushnell, E. W., and J. P. Boudreau. 1993. “Motor Development and the Mind: the Potential Role of Motor Abilities as a Determinant of Aspects of Perceptual Development,” Child Development, Vol. 64, 1005–21.
Campos, J. J., and B. I. Bertenthal. 1989. “Locomotion and Psychological Development in Infancy” in Applied Developmental Psychology. Edited by F. Morrison, C. Lord, and D.Keating. New York: Academic Press.
Coplan, J. 1993. Early Language Milestone Scale (Second edition). Austin, TX: Pro-ed.
Davies, D. 2004. Child Development: A Practitioner’s Guide (Second edition). New York: Guilford Press.
Diamond, A. 2007. “Interrelated and Interdependent,” Developmental Science, Vol. 10, No. 1, 152–58.
Fogel, A. 2001. Infancy: Infant, Family, and Society (Fourth edition). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.
Frankenburg, W. K., and others. 1990. Denver II Screening Manual. Denver, CO: Denver Developmental Materials.
Freeman, N. H. 1980. Strategies of Representation in Young Children: Analysis of Spatial Skill and Drawing Processes. London: Academic Press.
Gibson, E. J. 1987. “What Does Infant Perception Tell Us About Theories of Perception?” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, Vol. 13, No. 4, 515–23.
Gibson, E. J. 1988. “Exploratory Behavior in the Development of Perceiving, Acting and the Acquiring of Knowledge,” Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 39, No. 1, 1–41.
Haith, M. M.; C. Hazen; and G. S. Goodman. 1988. “Expectation and Anticipation of Dynamic Visual Events by 3.5-Month-Old Babies,” Child Development, Vol. 59, 467–79.
Introduction to Infant Development. 2002. Edited by A. Slater and M. Lewis. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lerner, C., and L. A. Ciervo. 2003. Healthy Minds: Nurturing Children’s Development from 0 to 36 Months. Washington, DC: Zero to Three Press and American Academy of Pediatrics.
McCarty, M. E., and others. 2001. “How Infants Use Vision for Grasping Objects,” Child Development, Vol. 72, No. 4, 973–87.
Meisels, S. J., and others. 2003. The Ounce Scale: Standards for the Developmental Profiles (Birth–42 Months). New York: Pearson Early Learning.
Mercer, J. 1998. Infant Development: A Multidisciplinary Introduction. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing.
Palmer, C. F. 1989. “The Discriminating Nature of Infants’ Exploratory Actions,” Developmental Psychology, Vol. 25, No. 6, 885–93.
Parks, S. 2004. Inside HELP: Hawaii Early Learning Profile: Administration and Reference Manual. Palo Alto, CA: VORT Corporation.
Pick, H. L. 1989. “Motor Development: The Control of Action,” Developmental Psychology, Vol. 25, No. 6, 867–70.
Reardon, P., and E. W. Bushnell. 1988. “Infants’ Sensitivity to Arbitrary Pairings of Color and Taste,” Infant Behavior and Development, Vol. 11, 245–50.
Ruff, H. A., and C. J. Kohler. 1978. “Tactual-Visual Transfer in Six-Month-Old Infants,” Infant Behavior and Development, Vol. 1, 259–64.
Squires, J.; L. Potter; and D. Bricker. 1999. The Ages and Stages Questionnaires User’s Guide (Second edition). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing.
Stiles, J. 1995. “The Early Use and Development of Graphic Formulas: Two Case Study Reports of Graphic Formula Production by 2- to 3-Year Old Children,” International Journal of Behavioral Development, Vol. 18, No. 1, 127–49.
Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., and K. E. Adolph. 2005. “Social Cognition in Infant Motor Action,” in The Development of Social Cognition and Communication. Edited by B. Homer and C. S. Tamis-LeMonda. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Thelen, E. 1994. “Three-Month-Old Infants Can Learn Task-Specific Patterns of Interlimb Coordination,” Psychological Science, Vol. 5, No. 5, 280–85.
Thelen, E. 1995. “Motor Development: A New Synthesis,” American Psychologist, Vol. 50, No. 2, 79–95.
Walk, R. D., and E. J. Gibson. 1961. “A Comparative and Analytic Study of Visual Depth Perception,” Psychological Monographs, Vol. 75, No. 15.von Hofsten, C. 2007. “Action in Development,” Developmental Science, Vol. 10, No. 1, 54–60. | <urn:uuid:cfda3cee-c6a7-425e-afdc-5fa4239203d1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/re/itf09percmotdev.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00002-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.894293 | 4,785 | 3.71875 | 4 |
Poor harvests in Niger and Mauritania could lead to a serious food crisis.
Failed harvest throughout the Sahel region of Africa could bring a devastating food crisis to the western part of the continent within the next two to six months.
Early warning systems like the Famine Early Warning Systems Network point to inconsistent rain, insect attacks, and the resulting poor harvest.
Some predict a food crisis that could eclipse the current drought in the Horn of Africa and hurt families already vulnerable to hunger and malnutrition after a severe drought swept through this region in 2009.
Last month, the government of Niger conducted a countrywide assessment and determined that up to 6 million people — almost 50 percent of the population — could be affected.
Most people reportedly have a food supply of between three weeks and three months. A World Vision assessment throughout Niger found that, in our programs alone, more than 290,000 people are, or will be, affected by the crisis.
“The Sahel region of Africa is in an area of the world where we can predict — with near-perfect accuracy — when drought and hunger will sweep through the communities here,” said Paul Sitnam, emergency coordinator with World Vision in West Africa.
“The problem is not a matter of resources; it’s a matter of political will to do what needs to be done to protect the children and families living here.”
Children, pregnant women, and the elderly are especially vulnerable.
“For me, the first signs of the oncoming disaster were the tiny children being brought to the clinic, already malnourished and with no prospect of much food,” said World Vision’s Seth Le Leu. “The clinics are teeming with mothers desperate to save their frail children.”
Yadou Adbou is one such mother in Niger, who walked more than nine miles to a World Vision clinic, seeking help for her newborn twin daughters. Food shortages left her unable to produce breast milk for the infants, and they became ill when she gave them cow and sheep milk in a desperate attempt to feed them.
Multiple agencies, including the United Nations, are sounding the alarm, calling on the global community to step up and prevent a full-scale disaster. World Vision is working in several countries throughout the region.
In Niger, we are:
In Mauritania, we are:
World Vision is also closely monitoring the situation in Mali, Chad, and Senegal to respond as needed.
Please pray for families in West Africa who impacted by this looming food crisis. Pray that they would find the sustenance they need. Pray that organizations like World Vision would be able to work together to help avert a major crisis.
Make a one-time gift to World Vision’s West Africa Food Crisis Fund. Your donation will help deliver emergency food aid, agricultural support, and more to children and families at risk from this impending disaster. | <urn:uuid:bdc81548-3821-4bbe-88cb-a6d8f51cb1e9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.worldvision.org/news/west-africa-food-crisis-looms | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00191-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951625 | 602 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Very little information is available on the biology of the Jordan limbless skink. However, like other skinks it is likely to feed mainly on arthropods (8).
During the breeding season, male skinks become aggressive and defensive displays are common, including head bobbing and even combat. The male will often lick the female before mating, and will usually hold the female in a mating grip during copulation. Most skinks lay eggs, with yolk deposits within the egg supplying energy to the developing embryo. Some species lay fairly large clutches of eggs, often in a protective crevice or cavity with high humidity (8). Although some species of skink guard their eggs until they hatch, most abandon them (8).
Like other skinks, the Jordan limbless skink is likely to rely on chemical and visual cues to communicate (8). | <urn:uuid:234d4ba0-c6f4-43dc-be84-286928ad36a5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.arkive.org/jordan-limbless-skink/ophiomorus-latastii/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395613.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00023-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958122 | 173 | 3.1875 | 3 |
US Commission No. ROCE-0584 -
The cemetery is located in Ser, 3978, com. Bogdand, judet Satu Mare, 4723 2258, 253.2 miles NW of Bucharest and 23 km from Cehu Silvaniei. Alternate name: Szer (Hungarian.) Present town population is under 1,000 with no Jews.
- Mayor Sipos Andras, Town Hall of Bogdand, judet Satu Mare
- The Jewish Community of Satu Mare, Decebal Street no. 4A, 3900 Satu Mare, Romania, tel. 0040-61-713703
- The Federation of the Jewish Communities of Romania, Sfintu Vineri street, no. 9-11, sect. 3, Bucharest, Romania
- "Dr. Moshe Carmilly" Institute for Hebrew and Jewish History, Universitatii Street no. 7-9, room 61, 3400 Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Director: Ladislau Gyemant,
- Key holder and caretaker: Varga Bandi, Ser, no. 246
The 1880 Jewish population by census was 18, by 1900 census was 16 and in 1930 was 16. In May 1944, the Jews were gathered in the ghetto of Satu Mare and on May 19, 22, 26, 29, 30, 31, and June 1 were deported to Auschwitz. The unlandmarked Orthodox cemetery was established at end of the 19th century. Last known burial was inter-war period.
The hill and hillside, separate but near other cemeteries, has no sign or marker. Reached via private property, access is open with permission. No wall, fence, or gate. Approximate pre-WWII size is unknown. Approximate post-WWII size is approximately 20 x 10 m. 1-20 stones are visible, all in original location. Location of stones removed from the cemetery is unknown. Vegetation overgrowth in the cemetery is not a problem. Water drainage is good all year. No special sections.
The oldest known gravestone dates from end of the 19th century. The 19th and 20th century sandstone flat shaped and smoothed and inscribed and double tombstones common gravestones have Hebrew inscriptions. No known mass graves. The local Jewish community owns the property used for Jewish cemetery only. Adjacent properties are residential and local cemetery. Rarely, private Jewish or non-Jewish visitors stop. The never vandalized cemetery maintenance has been cleaning stones and clearing vegetation. Current care is regular unpaid caretaker. No structures.
Claudia Ursutiu, Pietroasa Str. no. 21, 3400 Cluj Napoca, Romania, tel. 0040-64-151073 visited the site and completed the survey on 29 July 2000 using the following documentation:
- Recensamantul din 1880. Transilvania (1880 Transylvania Jewish Population Census.) coord.: Traian Rotariu, Cluj 1997.
- Recensamantul din 1900. (1900 Transylvania Jewish Population Census) coord.: Traian Rotariu, Cluj, 1999
- Recensamantul general al populatiei din 29 decembrie 1930 (The General Census of the Population from December 29, 1930), vol. II, Bucuresti 1938
- Recensamintul general al populatiei din Romania din 7 ianuarie 1992 (The General Census of the Population of Romania from January 7, 1992), vol. I, Bucuresti, 1994
- Zsido Lexicon, ed. by Ujvari Peter, Budapest, 1929
- Carmilly-Weinberger, Moshe. History of the Jews of Transylvania (1623-1944), Bucuresti, 1994, in Romanian
- Izvoare si marturii referitoare la evreii din Romania (Sources and Testimonies on the Jews in Romania), vol. III/1-2, coord. L. Gyemant, L. Benjamin, Bucuresti, Ed. Hasefer, 1999
- Ladislau Gyemant,
, Evreii din Transilvania in epoca emanciparii, 1790-1867 (The Jews of Transylvania in the Age of Emancipation 1790-1867), Bucuresti, Enciclopedica, 2000
- Coriolan Suciu, Dictionar istoric al localitatilor din Transilvania (The Historical Dictionary of Localities in Transylvania), vol. I-II, Bucuresti, 1967
- Otto Mitelstrass, Historisch-Landeskundlicher Atlas von Siebenburgen, Ortsnamenbuch, Heidelberg, 1992
- Microsoft Auto Route Express 1999
- Claudia and Adrian Ursutiu interviewed Rednik Vilmos, 29. 07. 2000, Lelei
Claudia and Adrian Ursutiu interviewed Varga Bandi, Ser. [January 2003] | <urn:uuid:5d173352-65c9-413a-b912-189f2f2c5459> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.iajgsjewishcemeteryproject.org/romania/ser-satu-mare-county-transylvania.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396455.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00189-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.821805 | 1,074 | 2.546875 | 3 |
American Toad (Bufo americanus)
Above Pictures: A male toad calling (top right). Two toads in the act of mating (amplexus)(bottom left). The differences in male and female toads (bottom right). The female toad is on the left.
Description: Toads are generally brown, tan or black. In most cases, females are larger than males and will occasionally have more of a mottled pattern of browns and tans. Males are generally solid brown. The belly is normally light with speckles around the chest. Toads are members of the family Bufonidae, which includes many toad species worldwide.
Habitat/Ecology: Toads can survive almost anywhere that there is a suitable amount of moisture and adequate vegetation. They are frequently found in marshes, ponds, woodlots, prairies, croplands, and even backyards. They are voracious predators that will consume many invertebrates, such as insects, making them desirable to have around. Toads are often eaten by larger animals, such as snakes, birds, and even mammals. Males call from late April to late June. Their call is a continuous trill that can last 5 to 10 seconds. Toads will breed virtually anywhere and it is not uncommon to find their tadpoles in large puddles that form after periods of prolonged rain.
Remarks: Toads are probably the most commonly seen amphibian in the LaCrosse area. They are very tolerant of urbanization and desiccation, and it is not unusual to see a toad hopping through your garden. Toads over-winter in burrows that they dig with the "spades" located on their hind feet. The large gland behind each eye (called a paritonoid gland) holds a noxious substance that is used to deter predators.
I have heard Toads calling in many areas throughout LaCrosse. They assuredly exist within the Myrick Park marsh, Goose Island, and possibly near the Green Island boat landing, to name a few places. Almost any wetland or water body within Wisconsin can probably make a suitable habitat for Toads to breed in. | <urn:uuid:cb4a51da-e9d5-4425-8af0-60dfb0f95359> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.angelfire.com/ab6/jnjkapfer/American_Toad.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00171-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969504 | 450 | 3.328125 | 3 |
A Brief History of Harvard University Press
Although Harvard may be said to have been a home to printing since 1643 when Henry Dunster, first president of Harvard College, inherited his wife’s printing press, plates, and paper, it was not until January 13, 1913, that the Harvard Corporation established the entity known as Harvard University Press.
The Press’s first Director was C.C. Lane, who had been the university’s publishing agent. On January 1, 1920, Lane was succeeded by Harold Murdock, a Boston banker. Murdock’s tenure saw the Press greatly expand the number of series it published and undertake the strategy of publishing books of general interest emanating from lectures given at Harvard.
A Home for Harvard’s Lectures
The first of the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, Gilbert Murray’s The Classical Tradition in Poetry, was published in 1927, and such luminaries as T.S. Eliot, Igor Stravinsky, e.e. cummings, Lionel Trilling, Leonard Bernstein, Umberto Eco, John Cage, Nadine Gordimer, Orhan Pamuk, and William Kentridge have followed.
In 1984 the Press began to publish the William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in the History of American Civilization, inaugurated by Eudora Welty’s bestselling One Writer’s Beginnings, and followed by Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark (also a bestseller), Gore Vidal’s Screening History, Alfred Kazin’s Writing Was Everything, Maxine Hong Kingston’s To Be the Poet, and Greil Marcus’s Three Songs, Three Singers, Three Nations.
A number of other distinguished lecture series bear the Press’s imprint, among them the Godkin Lectures on the Essentials of Free Government and the Duties of the Citizen and series honoring W.E.B. Du Bois, Nathan I. Huggins, Carl Newell Jackson, and William James.
The Loeb Classical Library
A signal event in the Press’s history occurred in 1934 when it became the American publisher of the Loeb Classical Library, which James Loeb (Harvard ’88) bequeathed to Harvard University upon his death in 1933. The Library, now undergoing a vigorous program of revision, totals well over 500 volumes of Greek and Latin texts, with facing English translations, and is today published worldwide by the Press, enjoying annual sales of well over 100,000 volumes. In 2014, the Press published the digital Loeb Classical Library, which puts 1,800 years of Classical works at the fingertips of scholars, teachers, students, and general readers throughout the world.
Dumas Malone, Editor-in-Chief of the Dictionary of American Biography, became the Press’s third director in late 1935, and saw as the Press’s mission the publication of “scholarship plus,” that is, not merely highly specialized works, but works for the general intellectual reader. It was Malone who hired the Press’s first manuscript editors, and established the high editorial standards for which the Press has become known.
Under Malone the Press published such prominent works as Arthur O. Lovejoy’s The Great Chain of Being, Chester I. Barnard’s The Functions of the Executive, and Susanne K. Langer’s Philosophy in a New Key. In 1939 it garnered its first Pulitzer prize for the second and third volumes of Frank Luther Mott’s A History of American Magazines. A second Pulitzer came in 1941 for Marcus Lee Hansen’s The Atlantic Migration, 1607–1860. In 1943 Malone tendered his resignation to pursue his work on Thomas Jefferson.
Uncertainty and Expansion
Roger Scaife (Harvard class of 1897), a professional publisher, was appointed full-time director for a 3-year term on January 1, 1944. During this period, HUP’s future was uncertain, because Harvard president James B. Conant had become unenthusiastic about the Press. But the Corporation came to the Press’s rescue and the future suddenly seemed less forbidding.
During Scaife’s administration the Press published, among other notable titles, Willi Apel’s Harvard Dictionary of Music, which sold some 155,000 copies in its original edition, over 200,000 in its 1969 revision, and lives on as The Harvard Dictionary of Music, Fourth Edition, edited by Don Michael Randel.
Thomas J. Wilson joined the Press as its fifth director in 1946, coming from his position as the director of the University of North Carolina Press. During his 20 years at Harvard, Wilson oversaw the expansion of the list, the number of employees, and the net income. But his achievement was perhaps greatest in his enhancement of the Press’s relationship with the university—faculty, administration, alumni, friends—and in his raising of the Press’s status within the general publishing world, both university press and commercial. In his memory, the HUP Board of Syndics awards the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize to outstanding new authors.
Among the authors published during Wilson’s term were John K. Fairbank, Paul A. Samuelson, John Kenneth Galbraith, Oscar Handlin, Edwin O. Reischauer, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Talcott Parsons, and Edward Shils. In 1953 another Press title, David John Mays’ Edmund Pendleton, 1721–1803 was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
In 1949 a bequest from Waldron Phoenix Belknap, Jr. was to have profound implications for the Press, for it established the Belknap Press imprint at Harvard University Press (modeled on the Clarendon Press imprint at Oxford University Press) which “was known for books of long-lasting importance, superior in scholarship and physical production, chosen whether or not they might be profitable.” Ten years later, Belknap’s mother, Rey Hutchings Belknap, added her fortune to the fund as well.
The first title published under the Belknap imprint was the Harvard Guide to American History, which appeared in 1954 and was edited by Harvard professors Oscar Handlin, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Samuel Eliot Morison, Frederick Merk, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and Paul Herman Buck. A 1955 Belknap publication, The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson, received the Carey-Thomas Award for Creative Publishing, as did the early volumes in the Adams Papers project, the diaries and correspondence of John Adams and his family. Yet another Belknap title published under Wilson, Bernard Bailyn’s The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, received the Pulitzer and Bancroft Prizes in 1967, following Walter Jackson Bates’s 1963 Pulitzer for John Keats and Ernest Samuels’s Pulitzer for his three-volume biography, Henry Adams, whose last volume appeared in 1964.
‘Readership Beyond the Academy’
Mark Carroll, who had joined the Press in 1956, became director in 1967. During Carroll’s four-year tenure the Press published such seminal works as John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice, E. O. Wilson’s The Insect Societies, and Notable American Women: 1607–1950, edited by Edward T. James and Janet W. James. But during the late 1960s and early 1970s the Press began to incur significant unforeseen deficits that caused alarm in the administration, and by February 1972 Carroll had left the Press.
After acting directorships by associate director David Horne and Harvard historian Oscar Handlin, Arthur J. Rosenthal took office on October 1, 1972. Rosenthal, founder and publisher of Basic Books, took up Dumas Malone’s notion of “scholarship plus” by making Harvard’s list more appealing to a wider general readership beyond the academy, and establishing a trend that many other university presses were to follow some years later. He reduced and reorganized staff, quickly improving the financial picture, launched new lists in science and psychology, and professionalized the marketing strategies of the Press.
Among the stellar titles published during Rosenthal’s tenure are Bernard Bailyn’s 1975 National Book Award winner, The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson; E. O. Wilson’s On Human Nature (1978), which received the Pulitzer Prize (as did Wilson’s 1990 The Ants, co-authored with Bert Hölldobler); Alfred Chandler’s The Visible Hand, which received both the Pulitzer and Bancroft Prizes in 1978; Carol Gilligan’s In a Different Voice (1982), which has sold over 500,000 copies; Thomas K. McCraw’s Pulitzer-winning Prophets of Regulation (1984); and Jane Goodall’s The Chimpanzees of Gombe (1986).
Arthur Rosenthal retired from Harvard University Press in 1990, and was succeeded by William P. Sisler, formerly vice president and executive editor for humanities and social sciences at Oxford University Press (USA). Under Sisler’s direction, the Press has expanded its tradition of publishing exceptional scholarship with broad appeal. Among many other highlights, during his tenure the Press has released such works as Bruno Latour’s We Have Never Been Modern (1993), Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project (1999), Stephen Jay Gould’s The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (2002), Mary Beard’s The Roman Triumph (2007), Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age (2007), Amartya Sen’s The Idea of Justice (2009), Sarah Blaffer Hrdy’s Mothers and Others (2009), Helen Vendler’s Dickinson (2010), and Martha C. Nussbaum’s Creating Capabilities (2011)—along with many Bancroft Prize–winning books, most recently Thomas G. Andrews’s Killing for Coal (2008), Daniel T. Rodgers’s Age of Fracture (2011), W. Jeffrey Bolster’s The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail (2012), Ari Kelman’s A Misplaced Massacre (2014), Mary Sarah Bilder’s Madison’s Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention (2015), and Deborah A. Rosen’s Border Law: The First Seminole War and American Nationhood (2015).
The Press published a six-volume History of Imperial China, and partnered with Harvard University’s W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research to revive and complete the monumental Image of the Black in Western Art series. The Press has also expanded its program of facing-page translation libraries, inaugurating the I Tatti Renaissance Library in 2001, the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library in 2010, and the Murty Classical Library of India in 2014.
As the Press embarks on its second century, it is striving to maintain its central place in the increasingly digital world of scholarly publication. To that end, the Press has collaborated on an open-access Emily Dickinson Archive and has introduced a digital edition of the Dictionary of American Regional English, as well as the Loeb Classical Library. The Press’s reach has been augmented by an expanded sales and marketing presence in India, the addition in 2011 of its first Europe-based editorial staff, and an ongoing effort to make its ebooks available as widely as possible. | <urn:uuid:e417463c-8284-434f-be93-897046d8a049> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.hup.harvard.edu/about/history.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397873.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00061-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929547 | 2,406 | 2.78125 | 3 |
• zeugma •
zug-mê • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: The synonym of syllepsis [sÍ-lep-sis], a syntactic construction in which one subject governs at least two predicate phrases even though its sense applies to them in different ways, e.g. "He flew off the handle and straight to Rio."
Notes: Zeugma (syllepsis) usually indicates that one of the words or phrases involved is used normally while the other is in an idiom. "To lose your marbles" is idiomatic (marbles were not actually lost) while the meaning of "to lose your hat" is straightforwardly literal. However, if you combine them as in, "He lost his mables and his hat," the result is an amusing zeugmatic expression, which is syntactically good but semantically mushy. As you can see, zeugmatic is the adjective of this noun; zeugmatically would be the adverb.
In Play: Let's look at an example of zeugma from Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens: "Miss Nipper shook her head and a tin canister, and began, unasked, to make the tea." Get the idea? Now let's see if we can do it: "Councilwoman Rankin would rather press flesh than clothes." You have probably already heard something similar to this, "He drove his car recklessly and his wife crazy." All these sentences suffer from inoperable zeugma.
Word History: Today's Good Word is a bare tracing of Greek zeugma "a bond, binding" from an earlier PIE root yeug-, also the origin of English yoke. Latin jugum "yoke" is another descendant, this one visible in English jugular, conjugate, and subjugate. The same root became jungas "yoke" in Lithuanian, while in Sanskrit it became yoga "union, a joining", which English speakers also enjoy today. English jostle is a former diminutive of joust, borrowed from the presumble Latin verb iuxtare "to be next to" from iuxta "nearby", another relative. (Now let's take the bull by the horns and the time to thank Mary Jane Stoneburg of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, for yoking us up with today's word.)
Come visit our website at <http://www.alphadictionary.com> for more Good Words and other language resources! | <urn:uuid:35d003f7-2161-442e-a560-feda91761abb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.alphadictionary.com/goodword/word/print/zeugma | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00030-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951215 | 528 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Baby pacifier study: Daytime use blocks key facial expression
The baby pacifier used in the daytime may disrupt emotional development, a University of Wisconsin study says, because baby can't mimic facial expressions. The twist? The problem seems only to show up in boys, not girls.
A new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggests frequent pacifier use during the day may disrupt the emotional development of baby boys because it limits their opportunity to mimic the facial expressions of others — a tool that may help them better understand emotions and learn empathy.
The study assumes babies can’t smile, pout or furrow a brow with a pacifier in their mouths, and many parents may beg to differ with that.
Girls appear to make sufficient progress emotionally, despite pacifier use, suggests the research published in Tuesday’s issue of the journal Basic and Applied Social Psychology.
Humans of all ages read each other’s emotions partly by mimicking their facial expressions, which helps them process what the person is thinking and feeling by creating some part of the feeling for themselves, says the study’s lead author, Paula Niedenthal, a University of Wisconsin psychology professor.
A baby with a pacifier in his mouth is less able to mirror expressions and the emotions they represent, she said.
In the first study, researchers found 6- and 7-year-old boys who spent more time with pacifiers in their mouths as young children were less likely to mimic the emotional expressions of faces in a video they were shown. In the next study, college-aged men who reported (by their own recollections or their parents’) more pacifier use as kids scored lower than their peers on common tests of perspective-taking, one of many components of empathy.
The third study involved a group of college students who took a standard emotional intelligence test measuring the way they make decisions based on assessing the moods of other people. The men in the group who had heavier pacifier use as babies scored lower.
“What’s impressive about this is the incredible consistency across those three studies in the pattern of data,” Niedenthal said. “There’s no effect of pacifier use on these outcomes for girls, and there’s a detriment for boys with length of pacifier use even outside of any anxiety or attachment issues that may affect emotional development.”
Why the gender difference?
“It could be that parents are inadvertently compensating for girls using the pacifier because they want their girls to be emotionally sophisticated,” Niedenthal said. “That’s a girlie thing.”
Suggesting that a pacifier can have lifelong consequences is far from popular among parents, Niedenthal acknowledged.
“They take the results very personally,” she said.
The study’s results are suggestive, and should be taken seriously, Niedenthal said. But she acknowledged further research is needed.
“It’s fascinating and challenging to many assumptions made about emotional development,” said Joseph Campos, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. “It makes students of emotional development take notice. But as professor, Niedenthal acknowledges, there is much more work to be done.”
Mothers report babies can show oral expressions of emotion, even with a pacifier in their mouth, Campos said. And there are other facial components of emotion, including eyebrows, cheeks and wrinkles around the eyes, not affected by a pacifier, he said.
Not all researchers agree there’s a connection between the ability to mimic facial expressions and the ability to perceive others’ emotions.
And then there’s the gender question.
Figuring out why girls seem to be immune — or how they compensate — is an important next step for researchers, Niedenthal said.
Ruby Natale, assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at the University of Miami School of Medicine, co-wrote the book “Pacifiers Anonymous: How to Kick the Pacifier or Thumb Sucking Habit.”
The book notes that roughly 75 percent to 90 percent of all infants suck a pacifier or thumb. In the past, thumb-sucking was the No. 1 choice. But the latest estimates of pacifier use in the U.S. puts it at about 74 percent. One study found 20 percent of children sucked pacifiers beyond age 3. They’re affectionately referred to as “paddicts” (pacifier addicts).
Natale, who has a 5-year-old daughter, became interested in the effects of pacifier use when she had concerns about its effect on breast-feeding. Both the World Health Organization and American Academy of Pediatrics recommend limiting pacifier use to promote breast-feeding and because of its connection to ear infections and dental abnormalities.
“There’s research that pacifier use can cause speech delays because they don’t mimic the parents’ speech,” Natale said in an interview Monday. “If a child can’t mimic the parents’ emotional expressions, it takes it one step further.”
She agreed that further research is needed. | <urn:uuid:7830c3af-5f8c-48d2-b528-d9d164fdab52> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Family/2012/0919/Baby-pacifier-study-Daytime-use-blocks-key-facial-expression | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397749.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00135-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948271 | 1,082 | 2.78125 | 3 |
In 1998, Hallmark unveiled a series of "One-Hundredth-Birthday" cards; by 2007 annual sales of the cards were at 85,000. America is rapidly graying: between now and 2030, the number of people in the U.S. over the age of 80 is expected to almost triple. But how long people live raises the question of how well they live.
The new book, Aging Our Way (Lessons for Living from 85 and Beyond) follows the everyday lives of 30 eldersranging in age from 85 to 102living at home (and mostly alone) to understand how they create and maintain meaningful lives. Drawing on the latest interdisciplinary scholarship on aging and three years of interviews, Professor Meika Loe explores how elders navigate the practical challenges of living as independently as possible while staying healthy, connected, and comfortable. With nearly 40 percent of Americans 85 or older living by themselves, this is important, timely research.
While most books on the subject treat old age as a social problem and elders as simply diminished versions of their former selves, Aging Our Way views them as they really are: lively, complicated, engaging people finding creative ways to make their lives as enjoyable and manageable as possible. In their own voices, elders describe how they manage everything from grocery shopping, doctor appointments, and disability, to creating networks of friends and maintaining their autonomy.
In many ways, these elders can serve as role models. The lessons they've learned about living in moderation, taking time for themselves, asking for help, keeping a sense of humor, caring for others, and preparing for death provide an invaluable source of wisdom for anyone hoping to live a long and fulfilling life. Through their stories, Loe helps us to think about aging, well-being, and the value of human relationships in new ways.
Written with remarkable warmth and depth of understanding, Aging Our Way offers a vivid look at a group of people who too often remain invisiblethose who have lived the longestand all they have to teach us.
|Contact: Professor Meika Loe|
Sociologists for Women in Society | <urn:uuid:9eb773a5-ee1a-44ce-af9f-4e84e29bb61e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news-1/What-can-we-learn-from-Americas-fastest-growing-and-least-understood-age-group-3F-86724-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00107-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959941 | 427 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Since the year 2000, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have anchored efforts to combat global poverty. As we near 2015, this article assesses ICTs’ role in reaching the goals, with an emphasis on urban poverty. Over the lifespan of the MDGs, debate about ICTs and development has grown. At one pole of this debate are those who see ICTs as enabling rapid growth and citizen empowerment; at the other pole are those who warn that “technical fixes” cannot overcome the historic and structural causes of poverty. In this article, using the organizing framework of the eight MDGs, we discuss these debates by reviewing examples of ICT projects that aim to further the goals’ realization. Many of these projects suggest that ICTs are useful, particularly with respect to increasing information and enhancing services, a common theme throughout this article. However, we also raise critical queries about the allure of “technology-boosterism” (Heeks, 2010, p. 629). These range from questioning the measurable impact and sustainability of ICT4D to the vision of development embedded in ICT4D and whether new technologies can subvert the underlying causes of global poverty. Our article shows that, while ICTs can be enablers for developmental processes, we must listen to communities in poverty when deciding how ICTs should feature in the post-2015 agenda. | <urn:uuid:ef3d906a-605d-48df-bfda-afb9f0eb0496> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://itidjournal.org/index.php/itid/article/view/1124/0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396872.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00095-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932205 | 287 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Extra Copy of Brain-Development Gene Allowed Neurons to Migrate Farther and Develop More Connections; Findings May Offer Clue to Autism and Schizophrenia
LA JOLLA, CA – May 3, 2012 - What genetic changes account for the vast behavioral differences between humans and other primates? Researchers so far have catalogued only a few, but now it seems that they can add a big one to the list. A team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute has shown that an extra copy of a brain-development gene, which appeared in our ancestors’ genomes about 2.4 million years ago, allowed maturing neurons to migrate farther and develop more connections.
Surprisingly, the added copy doesn’t augment the function of the original gene, SRGAP2, which makes neurons sprout connections to neighboring cells. Instead it interferes with that original function, effectively giving neurons more time to wire themselves into a bigger brain.
“This appears to be a major example of a genomic innovation that contributed to human evolution,” said Franck Polleux, a professor at The Scripps Research Institute. “The finding that a duplicated gene can interact with the original copy also suggests a new way to think about how evolution occurs and might give us clues to human-specific developmental disorders such as autism and schizophrenia.”
Polleux is the senior author of the new report, which was published online ahead of print on May 3, 2012 by the journal Cell. The same issue features a related paper on SRGAP2’s recent evolution by the laboratory of Evan E. Eichler at the University of Washington, Seattle.
Polleux specializes in the study of human brain development, and, several years ago, his lab began researching the function of the newly-discovered SRGAP2. He and his colleagues found that in mice, the gene’s protein product plays a key role during brain development: It deforms the membranes of young neurons outward, forcing the growth of root-like appendages called filopodia. As young neurons sprout these filopodia, they migrate more slowly through the expanding brain; eventually they reach their final position where they form connections. Most excitatory connections made on pyramidal neurons in the cortex are formed on spines, which are microscopic protrusions from the dendrite playing a critical role in integrating synaptic signals from other neurons.
Shortly after beginning the project, Polleux learned from other labs’ work that SRGAP2 was among the few genes (approximately 30) that had been duplicated in the human genome less than six million years ago after separation from other apes. “These evolutionarily recent gene duplications are so nearly identical to the original genes that they aren’t detectable by traditional genome sequencing methods,” said Polleux. “Only in the last five years have scientists developed methods to reliably map these hominid-specific duplications.”
Hardly any of the newfound human-specific gene duplications had been characterized functionally. SRGAP2, already being studied by Polleux’s lab, was an exception; its prominent role in brain maturation made its recent duplication a possible factor in human evolution. So Polleux and his colleagues set out to determine whether SRGAP2’s duplication had affected its function in the human brain.
It was a challenging task, since SRGAP2’s duplicates are nearly indistinguishable from the original and are found only in human cells so they can’t be studied in lab mice. As a first step, Polleux and his colleagues performed a detailed search of human cells’ chromosome 1, where SRGAP2 resides, and confirmed the presence of two nearby copies, which they named SRGAP2B and SRGAP2C, that are more than 99 percent identical with the original copy re-named SRGAP2A in humans. These preliminary results were subsequently confirmed by Eichler’s laboratory, which fully sequenced and assembled SRGAP2 gene duplicates as reported in an accompanying paper in the same issue of Cell.
After developing sensitive probes to distinguish these genes and their protein products from those of the original SRGAP2A, the researchers looked for their expression in human cell and brain-tissue cultures. The scientists determined that only one, SRGAP2C, was biologically active and expressed at high levels. The SRGAP2C protein turned out to be a truncated version of the original SRGAP2 protein. It lacks SRGAP2’s ability to promote neuronal spine maturation, but it is far from inert: it latches onto the original, full-length SRGAP2 protein and inhibits its normal functions.
Polleux’s team expressed human SRGAP2C in vivo in mouse cortical neurons throughout development and found that the effects on brain development were essentially the same as those they observed when the scientists blocked the expression of the original SRGAP2 gene. The affected neurons—pyramidal neurons, the major neurons of the cortex—migrated faster and took much longer to sprout their full complement of dendritic spines. This delayed spine maturation had an unexpected effect: pyramidal neurons ultimately formed many more spines when they finally matured—just like human pyramidal neurons.
Curiously, these dendritic spines also had the longer necks seen on human pyramidal neurons. “Other researchers have argued that as spine density increased during human evolution, longer spine necks might be needed to provide greater electrical and biochemical isolation and thus keep the neurons from becoming hyper-excitable and prone to triggering seizures,” Polleux said. “SRGAP2C seems to be important for that key evolutionary change.”
Interestingly, Polleux and colleagues found that mice with deleted SRGAP2 are prone to seizures. “A genetic study published by another laboratory in Japan last November found similar results in children born with rare SRGAP2 gene mutations,” noted Polleux.
Oddly enough, SRGAP2B, the relatively inactive duplication of SRGAP2, was the one that occurred first—roughly 3.4 million years ago, according to Eichler’s genomic dating techniques. The active SRGAP2C appeared even more recently through duplication of SRGAP2B, with about 1 million years separating the two duplications. SRGAP2C emergence occurred roughly 2.4 million years ago—corresponding approximately to the time when the Australopithecus and the Homo lineages separated. Taken together, the results from the Eichler and Polleux labs suggest that SRGAP2C duplication in the Homo lineage might have provided a selective advantage in part by slowing the rate of spine maturation allowing the emergence of more connections between cortical neurons.
About 30 other protein-coding genes were duplicated as the early hominid genome evolved towards the modern human one, and Polleux’s lab is now working with Eichler’s to characterize the ancestral copies of these genes and their human-specific duplications. “There was probably a co-evolution of these genomic changes that together made the human brain unique,” Polleux said.
The study of human-specific gene duplications could lead to a better understanding of human developmental disorders. Autism and schizophrenia, for example, are known to feature abnormal neuronal connectivity and affect synaptic development, but have been difficult to model accurately in mouse models. Gene duplications such as SRGAP2C, which normally don’t occur in mice, could provide important missing pieces of these puzzles. “We plan to augment existing mouse models by adding some of these human-specific gene duplications,” said Polleux. This approach, called “humanization,” has been used successfully in other fields such as immunology for the past two decades to model disease mechanisms but has so far not been applied to neuroscience. The Polleux and Eichler groups also plan to team up to conduct human genetic studies to determine if mutations or other copy-number variations in SRGAP2C or other human-specific duplications lead to neurodevelopmental disorders.
“This human-specific portion of the genome has not been looked at so far since it is poorly assembled, but we suspect that it might contain the answers to some long-standing mysteries about human diseases,” Polleux said.
The first authors of the paper, “Inhibition of SRGAP2 function by its human-specific paralogs induces neoteny of spine maturation,” were Cécile Charrier and Kaumudi Joshi of Polleux’s laboratory in the Dorris Neuroscience Center at The Scripps Research Institute; other contributors were Jaeda Coutinho-Budd and Jacqueline de Marchena Powell of the University of North Carolina; Ji-Eun Kim and Anirvan Ghosh of UC San Diego; Pierre Vanderhaegen of the Université Libre de Bruxelles; and Takayuki Sassa of Hokkaido University.
Funding for the research came from the National Institute for Health (NINDS) and ADI-Novartis funds.
About The Scripps Research Institute
The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) is one of the world's largest independent, not-for-profit organizations focusing on research in the biomedical sciences. TSRI is internationally recognized for its contributions to science and health, including its role in laying the foundation for new treatments for cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, hemophilia, and other diseases. An institution that evolved from the Scripps Metabolic Clinic founded by philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps in 1924, the institute now employs about 3,000 people on its campuses in La Jolla, CA, and Jupiter, FL, where its renowned scientists—including three Nobel laureates—work toward their next discoveries. The institute's graduate program, which awards PhD degrees in biology and chemistry, ranks among the top ten of its kind in the nation. For more information, see www.scripps.edu.
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Office of Communications | <urn:uuid:b7583242-2e1b-4b65-95b9-83695ebcb7de> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.scripps.edu/news/press/2012/20120503polleux.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396147.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00180-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944211 | 2,143 | 3.53125 | 4 |
Over the last two decades, the popularity of Living Trusts has skyrocketed. No longer a tool just for the rich, Living Trusts are one of the most common estate planning tools in use today.
This legal arrangement, usually drafted by an estate attorney, creates a separate entity called a Living Trust. A Living Trust is called that simply because it is created while you're alive (as opposed to a "testamentary" trust created after death).
The Parties Involved
The Living Trust document itself names three different parties. The individual (or couple) that establishes the Trust is named the Grantor (also referred to as the Trustor).
The Trustee is the person named by the Trust as the controller of the Trust's assets (and in many cases, the Trustees are the same people as the Grantors).
On the receiving end, the Beneficiaries are the heirs that will benefit from the Trust once the Grantor's have passed away.
History of Living Trusts
Living trusts date back to 16th century England, when landowners used trusts to circumvent the King. Constantly concerned with landowners owning too much land, the King made sure he could oversee the distribution of property when a landowner died. This process of overseeing transfers was the very first form of probate.
Trusts with the Church helped landowners skip the process altogether. Landowners would deed their property to their Church, in exchange for the promise that the Church would grant the land back to heirs when the landowner died.
In colonial times, the first settlers in America brought English custom and law with them across the Atlantic. This included the concepts of probate and trusts. Trusts were long considered the domain of the rich, since they were often expensive to create.
It wasn't until the 1960's that revocable living trusts gained popularity. And while the increased acceptance of living trusts ticked off many attorneys (since they stood to lose probate fees), the living trust was here to stay.
For a detailed history of Living Trusts, download our Living Trust Special Report.
Who Needs A Living Trust?
Almost anyone with an estate of $100,000 or more can benefit from having a living trust. Estates of $100,000 or more are often subjected to probate in their state of residence, which can cost anywhere from 2%-4% of the estate's value in court and legal fees.
The living trust also is useful for individuals subject to estate taxes. Through a living trust, a couple is able to maximize their Unified Credit to its fullest. It even accomplishes protection for individuals wanting to avoid conservatorship.
Advanced living trusts can be structured for complicated family situations. Re-married spouses, with children from a previous marriage, can use an advanced revocable trust to ensure kids receive their proper inheritance. Our FREE Living Trust Special Report offers a checklist for individuals to determine if the living trust is an appropriate strategy for them.
Living Trusts avoid probate, since they are completely private. Because a trust is recognized as a separate legal entity, distributions can be made by a Trustee to named beneficiaries without any involvement from the courts.
The courts maintain no control over the Trust's assets, and do not tie up the assets in a lengthy (and costly) probate process. The Trustee simply distributes assets to named heirs, but only if those assets have actually been placed inside the Trust.
Funding Your Living Trust
Once established, almost anything can be placed in a trust: savings accounts, stocks, bonds, real estate, life insurance, and personal property. In "funding" the trust, you simply change the name or title on your assets to the name of your Trust. Many people worry about losing control of assets; however, that is not the case within a carefully-constructed Living Trust.
Always There For You
Because the Trust is essentially controlled by one individual (the Trustee), that person can carry out your wishes when you're not able to. For instance, if you have children from a previous marriage and wish to leave them an inheritance, specific instructions to the Trustee will ensure that they receive what you had requested.
If you're institutionalized or unable to care for yourself anymore, the Trust can still function and make distributions as needed. The Trustee has a fiduciary responsibility to see that your requests are fulfilled exactly. He or she can even provide care and protection for disabled relatives or handicapped children in accordance with your wishes.
Reducing Estate Taxes
The Living Trust also minimizes estate taxes by fully utilizing every individual's Unified Credit. The Estate Tax Credit, as mandated by Congress, currently shelters up to $5.12 million from estate taxes. With only a will in place, a married couple will receive a single $5.12 million exemption.
However, if a Living Trust with "A-B Provisions" is in place and one spouse dies, the Living Trust separates into two separate trusts (commonly referred to as an A-B Trust).
In an A-B Trust, each of the two separate trusts receives its own $5.12 million exemption, meaning a total of $10.24 million is sheltered from estate taxes.
Any amounts over that $10.24 million will be subject to estate taxes, with rates climbing as high as 35%.
Living Trusts are easy to start-up and require little on-going maintenance. They afford an extra measure of protection against loss of control, and ensure that your assets remain out of the public record even after your death. However, they do not provide protection against creditors or divorce, and do not reduce estate taxes for estates over $5.12 million in value ($10.24 million if married).
FREE Special Report
Each family's situation is different. Some will benefit from a living trust, while others may not.
If you are married or have assets over $100,000, you owe it to your family to investigate the best means to preserve your hard-earned wealth.
And for estates over $2 million, you may want to combine a living trust with another advanced estate planning technique.
For a FREE Special Report on Living Trusts, or help in finding an attorney to draft one, click here! | <urn:uuid:cb3a6a39-115e-4c0e-9623-e3e4f710bb97> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.savewealth.com/planning/estate/livingtrusts/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395613.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00078-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959482 | 1,280 | 3.125 | 3 |
Lillooet is spoken in Southwestern British Columbia, westward from the town of Clinton along Highway 97 to the coast. The principal communities in which it is spoken are Fountain (near Lillooet), Pavillion (Ts'kwailax), D'Arcy, and Mount Currie (near Pemberton). It is bordered by Shuswap to the Northeast, Thompson to the Southeast, Chilcotin to the North, and Squamish to the South.
Lillooet is also known as St'at'imcets, though strictly speaking this is the name of the Upper dialect, spoken at Fountain. The name Lillooet comes from Lil'wat, the indigenous name for Mount Currie. The indigenous name for the Lillooet language is ucwalmícwts /uxwalmíxwts/.
The usual Lillooet writing system is unusual in one respect: the symbol t' does not stand for a glottalized alveolar stop as in most languages, but for a glottalized alveolar lateral affricate, commonly written tl'. This spelling works since there is no plain glottalized alveolar stop in the language.
Lillooet is a Salishan language.
Yinka Déné Language Institute © 2006 | <urn:uuid:007683c9-805f-446e-9dda-f41cdeb98090> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ydli.org/langs/lillooet.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00046-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926748 | 281 | 3.296875 | 3 |
Replacing Grass With Trees May Release Carbon
By Cat Lazaroff
WASHINGTON, DC, August 8, 2002 (ENS) - Previous estimates of the amount of carbon stored by trees and shrubs may have been too high, suggests a new study released today. The research could force climate experts to recalculate the benefits of growing trees as a way to offset human caused emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas linked to global warming.
The study by researchers from four universities explored whether the trees and shrubs now encroaching on former U.S. grasslands are helping to mop up some of the carbon dioxide emitted by vehicles, power plants and other sources. The team concluded that in many locations, the trees may be absorbing less carbon than what is emitted by soil once covered with grasses.
The researchers said their results may force a revision of previous carbon storage estimates, such as those published in the June 22, 2001 issue of the journal "Science."
That "Science" report highlighted "woody encroachment" as one of two important factors for its estimate that the atmospheric carbon "sink" - amounts of former carbon dioxide gas stored away in various natural repositories - had been "relatively stable" in the United States for more than a decade. The invasion of trees and shrubs formed between 18 percent and 34 percent of the total estimated North American carbon sink in the "Science" study - the largest non-forest sink.
But the current study found that in wet locations, the extra carbon saved in the wood of encroaching trees and shrubs was more than offset by the carbon lost from the underlying soil. In dry locations, the situation was reversed.
Policy makers have hoped that growing more trees would help slow or stop the addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, a process most scientists blame for ongoing global warming. Growing plants incorporate carbon from the atmosphere into their tissues, where it remains until the plants die and decay.
In the case of the wood in trees, carbon may remain sequestered for centuries. In the case of grasses, carbon from the plant matter will return to the atmosphere in only a matter of years.
Carbon stored in soil "can remain in the soil for centuries," explained Jackson. "Furthermore, the global soil carbon pool is about twice as large as the plant pool."
The rich black soils beneath many grasslands provide a long term carbon repository, Jackson explained. But much of the grasslands that once carpeted the southwestern U.S. are changing as a result of fire suppression and cattle grazing.
Many of those former grassland environments have been invaded by drought tolerant woody tree and shrub species. Jackson's research group - including Jay Banner of the University of Texas at Austin, Jackson's graduate student Esteban Jobbagy, William Pockman of the University of New Mexico, and Diana Wall of Colorado State University - focused on the soil underlying what had been southern and western grasslands.
"This kind of analysis for grassland soil carbon was something new," said Jackson.
In research supported by the National Science Foundation and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Jackson's group first examined global records comparing amounts of carbon in grasslands, shrublands and woodlands in various climates and environments worldwide.
That data search found that "as you move to increasingly wet environments, grasslands have a lot more soil carbon than shrublands and woodlands do," Jackson said. "That was somewhat of a surprise. The analysis suggested that sites with the potential to store the most plant carbon also had the potential to lose the most soil organic carbon."
The average precipitation levels at those plots spanned "the whole range of grasslands in North America," Jackson said, from the edge of the western deserts to the edge of the eastern forests.
The team probed soils more deeply than previous studies have with the aid of a drilling rig than can penetrate up to 10 meters beneath the surface. By analyzing different carbon isotopes, they were able to determine the original sources of the soil carbon, because carbon taken in by woody vegetation is different from that processed by grasses.
"We found a clear negative relationship," the authors wrote in "Nature," between the amount of precipitation and changes in soil organic carbon "when grasslands were invaded by woody vegetation." Drier sites consistently gained soil organic carbon, while wetter sites lost it.
Losses of "organic" soil carbon at the wetter sites were "substantial enough" to offset the increased "plant biomass" carbon stored in the growing wood, they reported.
Why this precipitation tied carbon loss is occurring is still unclear, Jackson noted.
"We don't know the exact mechanism yet, but we have some suggestions," he explained. One is that "grasslands send a lot of their carbon below ground, so that carbon goes immediately into the soil."
"In addition to changes in the amount of carbon entering the soil, the quality of the [plant] tissue also changes," he added. "Woody tissue is typically more difficult to decompose than herbaceous tissue."
"It had been proposed that the woody species might even increase soil carbon compared to the grasslands," Jackson explained. "People really didn't think that grasslands would store more carbon in the soil than woodlands."
In a "News and Views" article accompanying the study published in today's issue of "Nature," Christine Goodale and Eric Davidson of the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts note that the new study will make predicting the effects of carbon sinks on climate change much more complicated.
"Woodlands, savannas, shrublands and grasslands cover about 40 percent of the Earth's surface, and so their potential role as carbon sinks - or sources - is a key factor in the global carbon budget," they wrote. "Measuring the effects of woody encroachment at particular sites is one challenge; extrapolating the results to regional or larger scales is quite another. Particular sites are certainly large sinks for carbon, but the global extent of grassland replacement by shrubland is highly uncertain."
The authors said forming better estimates of the sink potential of various regions will require "comprehensive assessments of the extent to which shrubs are replacing grassland, along with field measurements and model simulations of the size and variability of plant and soil carbon stocks across a range of climate conditions." | <urn:uuid:886e15fe-7104-41b2-9ad3-cbd9a576b6a4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2002/2002-08-08-07.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403823.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00124-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965321 | 1,301 | 3.453125 | 3 |
Having set out the basics of Islam (more thoroughly and clearly than I have seen done elsewhere), Durie moves on to the main part of the book, an examination of what Islam means for non-Muslims. Part of how Islam defines itself is against other faiths and their followers: particularly Christians and Christianity and Jews and Judaism. People are graded according to their submission to Islam. In Durie's words:
Islamic legal terminology makes reference to four different religious categories:So Muslims are committed to the idea that the perfect Qur’an is being truthful when it makes a claim that is not true, since Judaism claims no such thing about Ezra.
1. First and foremost there are genuine Muslims.
2. Then there is another category called hypocrites, who are renegade Muslims.
3. Idolators were the dominant category among Arabs before Muhammad appeared. The word for ‘idolator’ is mushrik, which literally means ‘associater’. These are people who commit shirk ‘association’ (from which the word mushrik is derived), which means saying that anyone or anything is like Allah.
4. The ‘People of the Book’ are a subcategory of mushrik. This category includes Christians and Jews. They must be considered mushrik, because the Quran names both Christians and Jews as being guilty of shirk ‘association’ for claiming that Allah has a son:The Jews say, ‘Ezra is the Son of Allah’;
the Christians say ‘The Messiah is the Son of Allah.’(Q9:30) (Pp44-5).
Islam is regarded as the original and eternally true revelation. One that was given to Jews and Christians as well, but they distorted it and have strayed from the path. Muhammad was Allah’s gift to Christians and Jews to correct their misunderstandings. Hence, according to the Qur’an, genuine Jews and Christians will become Muslims (Q3:199). While both Jews and Christians are treated negatively in the Qur’an, the Jews fare worse. Either way, Durie writes:
Condemnation is manifested in key theological claims, and incorporated into the daily prayers of every observant Muslim (p.45)As Islamic commentary makes quite clear (Pp46-7).
Durie summarises the Qur’anic theology of non-Muslims in a series of propositions:
1. Christian and Jews who cling to their errors and fail to submit to Islam will go to hell (Q98:6).
2. Muslims are superior to other people and have the role of instructing them (Q3:110).
3. Islam’s destiny is to rule over all other religions (Q48:28).
4. To achieve this ascendancy, Muslims have to fight against Jews and Christians until they are defeated and humbled (Q9:29).
5. In the end-times, Christianity and Judaism will be destroyed (hadith).
6. There are also a range of (highly negative) theological claims about Jews (Pp47-9).
What this means for the attitudes and behaviour of individual Muslims will vary widely yet treatment of non-Muslims keeps returning to these Islamic foundations. In particular, Shar’ia requires an Islamized society: the consensus of Muslim scholars for centuries (p.49).
This flows from the nature of Muhammad as exemplar:
The simple theological explanation is that in his person Muhammad combined religious, political, juridical and military authority for the early Islamic community, and since Muhammad’s example is the best example, making no distinction between religion and politics has become normative for all Muslims (p.50).Hence orthodox Islam has always taught that Shar’ia should be the basis of the state: something most Muslims still believe:
From this perspective, Islam is not just a religion, but a total way of life for a nation (p.50)Which means that Islam does not conform to the standard Western notion of a religion, given that the religions Westerners have most experience with (Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Sikhism) do not make such claims. Islam needs to be seen in its own terms, not as we might complacently project onto it.
Of course, the mullahocracy of Iran, Afghanistan under the Taliban, Sudan and Saudi Arabia—the most emphatic modern examples of trying to make Shar’ia the basis of society—are hardly model societies. Yet there is a strong strain of contemporary Islamic thought which argues that Islam—and specifically Shar’ia rule—will solve the problems of modernity. The salafi claim that what is needed is to get back to the original forms of Islam, rejecting “human accretions” in the traditional schools of Islamic jurisprudence, Durie is deeply sceptical of as a practical project, arguing it will either fail or create more of the same “human accretions” (Pp50-51).
One of the profound differences between Christianity and Islam is that the Gospels are a “public truth”, able to be read in an afternoon. The exemplary life of Muhammad, by contrast, is much more scattered in sources and usually requires literacy in classical Arabic. Which means that Muslims are highly dependant on religious scholars for basic details of their religion. Durie points out that there is a tendency to sanitize aspects of Muhammad’s life in the derivative sources. Often, Muslims themselves are ignorant of details and react with shock and denial when they are publicised: this without direct spreading of disinformation, such as highly selective presentations of Muhammad’s relations with non-believers (Pp52ff).
Durie spends considerable effort detailing how Islam has (to use my term) an instrumental morality. That is, advancing submission to Allah is the overriding goal, so actions that facilitate that—including deception—are lawful. Durie makes it clear that deceptive behaviour towards non-Muslims is a recurring pattern and sanctioned by Islam (Pp56ff). As he points out, such a “utilitarian” ethic about truth-telling and lying is ethically damaging in its consequences (Pp8-9). A concern for truth not only connects one to how reality is, it creates a basis for common criteria of judgement. If truth as a norm is systematically sacrificed to some “higher goal”, there is no arbiter but power.
When Aristotelianism defeated its opponents in Latin Christendom and Judaism, the principle that truth is a criteria not properly sacrificed to the precepts of religion was also established. This has all sorts of consequences, not least of which is that the world can be investigated in its own terms: a necessary notion for science. But in Islam, Aristotelianism was defeated: so Islam acknowledges no basis for judgement outside itself—a reflection of both its whole-of-life nature and submission as its fundamental mode. This makes Islam’s interaction with others profoundly problematic since, even though Muslims may in practice (or even in belief), acknowledge such bases for judgement, it is always, in strict Islamic terms, an act of “bad faith” to do so.
The logic of belief versus that of believers
Durie wrestles with the distinction between Islam as a religion and what particular Muslims believes. Islam is a whole-of-life religion with a complex set of sources, hence the prolific nature of fatwa and the popularity of Islamic information websites. There are also Islamic teachings that are problematic in modern Western societies or otherwise awkward or embarrassing. Given the overriding need to present a positive image of Islam to promote submission to Allah, patterns of selective dissemination, or even active dissembling, develop aided by historical myths (such as the “golden age of Al-Andalus) and justified by the doctrine of lawful deception: processes that also affect Muslims leading to complex and uncertain patterns of belief and denial (Pp70ff).
Durie uses the case of female “circumcision” (i.e. female genital mutilation) and debates within Islam over it to examine the complex patterns involved. The Shafi’i school holds female genital mutilation to be obligatory, the other schools merely permitted: i.e. meritorious but not required. Durie notes the four responses typical of such debate: canonical support, canonical reform, simple denial, appeal to external criteria. These complexities mean that non-Muslims need to pay careful attention if they are to understand rather than being either credulously positive (“of course female genital mutilation has nothing to do with Islam”) or negative (“all Muslims support it”). Openness and careful attention to the truth is what Durie holds to be required (Pp74-7).
Having spent four chapters setting up the analytical structure, Durie then spends the next four chapters on the issue of Islam’s attitude and schema to non-Muslims. Starting, as one must, with the canonical example of Muhammad, whose interaction with non-believers Durie categorises as beginning and ending with rejection: the rejection Muhammad received and the rejection he ended up imposing on others (p.81). Durie notes the scholarly debate over the historical Muhammad but passes over it since his concern is with the theological construct of Islam: that is, the canonical teachings about the Prophet’s life which are the basis for Islamic doctrine and belief, not whether they are accurate renditions of the original events (p.82).
Durie takes the reader quickly through Muhammad’s family history, which had various painful elements (being orphaned, becoming a dependant poor relation, suffering hostility from more wealthier family members, having all his sons die young). At the age of 40, Muhammad began to have visions from the angel Jibril (Gabriel) that caused him great distress, but his older (and wealthy) wife Khadijah comforted him while her Christian cousin Waraqa declared him a prophet. Khadijah, followed by his young cousin Ali (who had been raised in Muhammad household) became his first converts.
After three years of secrecy, Muhammad began to preach openly. His tribe listened until he began to disparage their gods. Still, his preaching spread: mainly among the poor and dispossessed. At this stage, Muslims were a despised minority with only a few powerful defenders. Various travails followed which Muhammad turned into marks of authenticity, including the notion that God had chosen (in order) his people (the Arabs), his tribe (the Quraysh), his clan (the Banu Hashim) and him (p.88).
Deprived of protectors within the tribal system, Muhammad sought them elsewhere, eventually finding them when people from Medina asked him to lead their community, promising to accept his message of monotheism. Muhammad only accepted when they agreed a year later to fight on his behalf (Pp89-90). Durie points out that, even during the “peaceful” 10 years in Mecca, Muhammad used virulent rhetoric against those who rejected his message and foreshadowed his later “turn to the sword” (Pp91ff). This makes his holding out for military pledges more consistent. It is at this point the Islamic rhetoric about winners and losers begins to emerge (Pp95-6). As well as what Durie calls the ‘fitna worldview’ where Muslims are to fight until there is no persecution or slander (fitna) of Islam: it is at this point the theology of jihad is established with the aim of making submission to God, and so Islam and the Muslim community, universally dominant and so ultimately successful (Pp96ff).
From his Medinan power base, Muhammad waged war to establish submission to Allah, with verses extending the ambit of jihad until Muhammad eventually confronted all pagan Arabs with the choice of submission or the sword. In doing so, he abandoned various customary limitations on war (Pp100-1), becoming the first ruler to unite Arabia. Muhammad had former enemies killed when captured—particularly those who had mocked him personally or had left Islam—and mocked the bodies of those slain in battle against him (Pp101ff).
Durie points out the breadth of the doctrine of fitna such that anyone who opposes, criticises or contradicts Islam can be deemed guilty of fitna and so be targets of jihad (p.103). Muhammad also claimed the warrant of Allah to break a treaty he signed with Mecca, a city he proceeded to conquer on the grounds that they had breached the treaty (Pp103ff). The instrumental morality of Islam, where submission to Allah is the goal that justifies any action that advances it, is clearly in evidence.
The Medinan suras include description of non-believers as those who would seduce Muslims from their faith hence the injunction of enmity to unbelievers (Q60), thereby breaking the treaty they had signed with Mecca. Later, Muhammad attacked and conquered Mecca on the grounds they had broken the treaty: this established the canonical view that non-Muslims are inherently pact-breakers but Muslims can break any treaty if it advances Islam (Pp104-5).
The Meccan suras contain few references to Jews, mainly presenting Muhammad’s message as a blessing to them given he held himself to be completing their line of prophets. The original arrangement in Medina was one of mutual protection between Jews and Muslims. The Medinan rabbis are reported by the Qur’an to have pestered Muhammad with questions, who produced new revelations (i.e. Qur’anic verses) in response: one of his standard claims being they were deceivers who had distorted (or even falsified) the original message. One of the original biographers of Muhammad treats this questioning as fitna, an attempt to undermine Islam (Pp106-7).
Muhammad’s response to this questioning rejection was increasingly hostile. The Qur’anic verses against Jews become more and more severe and abusive of the Jews as deceiving, non-believers losers who had forsaken true guidance. Islam was both the first and final religion, Muhammad’s coming had not only abrogated Judaism, his message was what had always the true religion of Allah, the religion of Abraham. As Durie points out, Muhammad’s self-validation against Jewish questioning was total (Pp107ff).
Muhammad besieged the Jewish Qaynuqa for rejecting Islam, who surrendered unconditionally. A Muslim who was friendly with them interceded for them: a Quranic verse against being friends with Jews followed shortly thereafter (p.110).
There followed targeted assassinations against various Medinan Jews, then an injunction to kill Jews who fell into the hands of Muslims:
A profound shift had taken place in Muhammad’s understanding. Non-Muslims had rights to their property and lives only if they supported and honoured Islam and Muslims. Anything else was fitna, and a pretext for fighting (p.111).Muhammad declared that the Earth belonged to Allah and his Apostle (and, by subsequent extension, to the people of Allah and his Prophet), it was by accepting Islam that you could be safe. The caliph ‘Umar, for example, was reported to have declared the conquered lands of Syria and Palestine as property that God had restored to the Muslims (p.111).
Muhammad then turned on the remaining Jewish tribes in turn. The Banu Nadir were attacked and driven out of Medina, their property being confiscated. The Qurayza were besieged and, after they surrendered unconditionally, the men were beheaded (600-900 according to varying accounts, except a few who converted) and their women and children distributed to the Muslims. Muhammad then attacked the Jews of Khaybar, who were given a choice of convert or die. After their defeat, they were provided with a third choice: conditional surrender thereby becoming the first dhimmis. Since Jews and Christians were both “people of the Book”, this treatment of Jews became the model for treating Christians also (Pp112-3).
Durie argues that the theology of fitna has created an enduring pattern of Muslims insisting on their greater victimhood (Pp113-4). Since criticising or rejecting Islam is worse than killing unbelievers, this is a game Muslims can always win: the point is the pattern of continually playing it.
Durie analyses Muhammad’s career as one of him responding to rejection by imposing even greater rejection on others. This theology of rejection (and of dominance) became the basis of the Islamic theology towards unbelievers: one that insisted on imposing on non-believers silence (no criticism of Islam), guilt (for rejecting the Prophet and his message) and gratitude (for being exposed to the message of, and able to live under, the rule of the people of Allah) (Pp114-6). All of this:
… can be grounded in the evolution of Muhammad’s own responses to rejection, and his violent and ideologically comprehensive imposition of failure and rejection upon all who refused to confess, ‘I believe there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet’ (p.116).
This review will be concluded in my next post. | <urn:uuid:d2ae0e8e-fc8d-4eca-9191-0976dae75708> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://lorenzo-thinkingoutaloud.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395992.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00116-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967859 | 3,579 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Fluidization is a common phenomenon within the chemical process and pharmaceutical industries. It is the process by which particles under certain conditions are made to behave like fluid. This phenomenon is found in fluidized bed reactors, fluidized combustors, catalytic cracking and tablet coating.
Fluidization is a complex phenomenon to understand, visualize and perform experimental measurements. The design, operation and optimization of equipment using fluidization can indeed be difficult. A combination of observation, measurement and simulation can overcome and achieve this goal.
This webcast uses STAR-CCM+® to show two methods of simulating fluidized beds. The first method, based on the Eulerian approach with granular flow model, treats fluids as a continuous phase and solids as a dispersed phase. It is suitable for simulating equipment with wide ranging sets of conditions, including reactions. The discrete element modeling approach is a Lagrangian approach where the movements, particle-particle and particle-wall interactions, are modeled explicitly. It can include heat transfer as well as reactions.
Presenters review the basis and capabilities of these two different approaches with validation studies. A demonstration explores how a simulation with both of these methods can be setup. Also under review are some recent and future developments in the model capabilities to include complex physics in fluidization. | <urn:uuid:814e6ef8-c0c9-484c-a24c-45cabe9fc1dc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cd-adapco.com/webinar/understanding-fluidization-two-approaches-eulerian-and-lagrangian?page=48%2C1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00125-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940263 | 266 | 3.015625 | 3 |
The numerical medium:
on formerly undecidable propositions of mathematicians and related ilk.
To begin, the definitions of specialized terms used throughout this essay shall be presented before the main body of discussion. This is done for the sake of clarity in the description of ideas that would otherwise be rather cumbersome.
REALITY: the concept of the physical universe as perceived by general people.
AETHER: the concept of the mathematical universe as perceived by mathematicians.
EPHEMERALIZATION: the act of connecting Reality and Aether.
COSMOS: the resultant continuum where Reality and Aether are connected.
Ephemeralization is a term that was first coined by Robert Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) to describe the movement towards doing "more with less." For instance, the invention of radio has ephemeralized communication. As Fuller would say himself, it is the transition "from tracked to trackless, from wired to wireless, from visible to invisible." (Kenner, 56). This idea serves well to illustrate the main goal of mathematicians. They are a people driven towards a specialized from of ephemeralization, whereby the two microcosms of Reality and Aether are joined together harmoniously. For one person in particular, Paul Erdõs, ephemeralization is the "uncovering of mathematical truth." (Hoffman, 26).
What is mathematical truth? The doctrine of Platonic Realism states that mathematical truth is an entity that exists independent of anything perceptible by the senses. Mathematical notions "are disembodied eternal Forms or Archetypes, which dwell in a distinctive realm accessible only to the intellect." (Nagel, 99). Accessible perhaps, only to mathematicians. Paul Erdõs refers to the Aether as the Book; the keeper of the Book is the Supreme Fascist, SF. "I’m always saying that the SF has this transfinite Book—transfinite being a concept in mathematics that is larger than infinite—that contains the best proofs of all mathematical theorems, proofs that are elegant and perfect." (Hoffman, 26). Apparently it is the SF who, in the beginning, divided Reality and Aether by the creation of a great chasm that would only be traversable by His following creation, the mathematician. Thus, Paul Erdõs is a mathematician.
It takes a special kind of person to be a mathematician. They must have the ability to move between the imperfect mechanical world of Reality and the ephemeral universe of the Aether. This is the discerning quality that separates Mathematician from Man. It takes tenacity to exist within the utterly malleable fabric of Platonic Realism, and to return unscathed. It is not easy to explore the Aether: "A land of rigorous abstraction, empty of all familiar landmarks, is certainly not easy to get around in.” (Nagel, 13). More than once, it has thrown many mathematicians into revolutionary convulsions when its utterly malleable fabric has seen fit (perhaps by command of the SF) to reveal yet another Platonic Oddity.
Observe Euclid and his fifth postulate, interchangeable with the fifth postulates of Lobachevsky, Bolyai, and the many axioms of Riemann. Indeed, space seemed to be able to take on as many shapes as the non-Euclidean geometers could think up. This sounded quite dangerous indeed, and Bolyai’s father warned him of this in a letter from 1820:
You should detest it just as much as lewd intercourse, it can deprive you of all your leisure, your health, your reset, and the whole happiness of your life. This abysmal darkness might perhaps devour a thousand towering Newtons, it will never be light on earth. (Struik, 166)
And only in this way can the majesty of the Aether manifest itself in the physical. Mathematicians are quite courageous indeed. Even then, their discoveries are sullied by the imperfections of the corporeal. For, "the triangular or circular shapes of physical bodies that can be perceived by the senses are not the proper objects of mathematics." (Nagel, 99). In this sense, mathematicians could be risking the crossing of the chasm, the "abysmal darkness", only for their own personal enjoyment. To Realists, this seems incredibly inane, if not blatantly masochistic. It may come as no wonder that mathematicians are often assumed to be vagrant minds with an ultra-tenuous grasp on Reality. But this is not entirely true; they simply see more of the Cosmos and budget their time in either microcosm accordingly. That is not to say, however, that many do not spend most of their time suspended somewhere between the two.
Whereas Paul Erdõs was a "mathematical monk" (Hoffman, 25), certainly one who rationed his time in the microcosms rather poorly, Buckminster Fuller was one who could comfortably perch himself at the intersections of the Appolonius lines of the Cosmos. When it was said that only Eulclid could have perceived the splendor the geometric universe, Buckminster Fuller was the exception. Never has anyone before him seen the vector lines within the polyhedra that govern the laws of force in the universe, and then continued to apply the insight toward the betterment of humanity. "Shelter for everyone," he says. We now have "a corrugated aluminum geodesic Zulu hut." (Kenner, 44). The discovery of what he calls the "Tensegrity Sphere" is like a tangible portal between the Aether and Reality. A collection of sticks and wire arranged in such a way that the tension and compression forces of either are in complete harmony. It appears as ephemeral as is possible to imagine, but it is as solid as physical Reality demands. When one man called it an insult to God, Fuller replied, "I cannot do anything nature does not permit." (Kenner, 93). Apparently, he has done absolutely everything that nature could ever hope to permit. Thus, Buckminster Fuller is as well a mathematician (not to mention an architect, engineer, and poet).
Mathematicians are indeed a special type of people. They were born to discover, apply, adapt, and understand within a Cosmos split in two. They were born to build the bridge that connects the two microcosms of Mathematics and Physicality. They seek to break the laws of Platonic Realism; they are dealers on the Universal Black Market of Knowledge, for quite often do their insights seem shady to the unwitting customer. They are adventurers of the high abstract planes, trailblazers of number lines and the unending perimeters of objects that defy dimension. Whether their goal is to have no goal at all, to remain afloat in the Aether; or to anticipate and improve upon humanity; or to calculate one more digit of pi; theirs are no different than the artist or the writer, the humanist, or one who simply wants to memorize one more digit of pi. For they are simply the mediums of another world, communicating and interpreting that, though invisible, has and always will exist.
Beckmann, Petr. A History of Pi.
1971, The Golem Press. United States of America.
Hoffman, Paul. The Man Who Loved Only Numbers.
1998, Paul Hoffman. United States of America.
Kenner, Hugh. Bucky.
1973, Hugh Kenner. United States of America.
Nagel, Ernest and Newman, James R. Gödel’s Proof.
1958, 1986, Ernest Nagel and James K. Newman. New York and London.
Struik, Dirk J. A Concise History of Mathematics.
1967, Dover Publishing. New York. Third Edition. | <urn:uuid:7a207bcb-675d-4962-929b-76819adbb614> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://everything2.com/title/Mathematician | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00022-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957669 | 1,636 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Don’t worry – that hasn’t been my experience either. Investing is something many of us know we should do but it certainly isn’t easy to get started. First of all you have to learn how much you should invest, what types of investments there are, how you can even get your hands on those investments, and what a “good” rate of return is. It’s not quite as simple as opening a new bank account.
But if you’re looking to protect your future financial status and build wealth, then investing is a tool that can help tremendously – when done carefully. That’s why I’ve compiled information on investing from experts around the web. You won’t become an expert after reading this, but hopefully you will feel comfortable enough to get started and ask the right questions. Your future self will be happy you did.
Introduction to Investing
So… investing. Where to start? The best thing to do is read up on what investing really is. There are many things that can qualify as investments (such as purchasing real estate to rent out or buying commodities like gold to hold onto until they increase in value) but this post will focus on investing in the stock market. Take a look at the posts below for an introduction on what this type of investing really is.
Investing 101: Introduction (Investopedia)
5 Steps to Start Investing (Kiplinger)
Types of Investments
Once you have an idea for what investing is, the next thing to think about is what you want to invest in. There are many types of investments, but it’s probably best to talk about it in terms of expert level. If you’re a beginner, you’ll want to focus on mutual funds or index funds. If you’re at the intermediate level, you might want to focus on stocks and/or bonds. And if you’re an expert, you could look into options – although it should be mentioned that options are very risky.
Investing 101: Types of Investments (Investopedia)
Stock Types and Their Differences Explained (The Street)
How Do Mutual Funds Work? (The Street)
Chances are if you’re reading this then you’re at the beginner’s level. There’s a lot of information to take in so congratulations on beginning the research process. Luckily, there are many resources to help beginners expand their investing wings – and tips to keep you safe as you learn. Below are some can’t miss articles if you’re new to this process.
How to Invest Wisely: Investment Advice for New Investors (Money Under 30)
Five Questions to Ask Before You Invest (Investor.gov)
Here’s How to Pick an Online Broker the Right Way (Business Insider)
Once You Get More Comfortable with Investing…
If you are past the beginner level and want to optimize your investment strategy, then you can start taking matters into your own hands. But it’s still very important to be confident that you have the knowledge before you take any potentially risky steps. Things you can do once you’re ready to take your investment strategy to the next level are check against what brokers are telling you for better accuracy and look for funds that line up with the rate of return goals you’re trying to reach. Check out these articles below to point you in the right direction.
How to Figure Rate of Return on Investments (Money Smart Life)
Focus on Categories (Kiplinger)
Investing can be extremely complicated, but it’s also an important component in building wealth. And building wealth can help ensure that you never go into debt again. So how can you explore investing without losing your money? Remember that it’s not like gambling – you can manage risk by sticking to your level and then staying on top of your research. And the most important thing is to always go with your gut. If something doesn’t feel right or seems too good to be true, run – don’t walk – away! Only you know what you’re ready for and there’s no reason to be pressured into an investment level past your understanding.
Image credit first image: studiom1; Image credit second image: rufous | <urn:uuid:b8242385-fb55-498f-a7e0-3337705d2404> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blog.readyforzero.com/how-to-start-investing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00009-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936219 | 903 | 2.609375 | 3 |
They range from simple strategies such as reading to children daily, taking time to walk a mile and opening savings accounts to comprehensive campaigns to restore budget cuts to public education and to eliminate grocery story food deserts in low-income neighborhoods.
Those are among dozens of strategies and initiatives developed by the Colorado Black Round Table in a new report aimed at reversing decades of widening gaps between minority and white residents in Colorado in important measures of social progress. The measures include education, health, poverty, income and home ownership.
The report, entitled “Gaining ground in Colorado’s African American communities”, arose from last fall’s summit that brought community, political and education leaders from Colorado together to address the Rocky Mountain PBS I-News Losing Ground series.
The series found widening gaps in Colorado since the Civil Rights era in key economic and social measures.
“The admonishment to each one of us today and the shocking truth is that 50 years after (Martin Luther) King’s death, we are, on this very anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, still waging a war for fair and decent pay for workers in America,” Dorothy Hayden-Watkins, former head of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, writes in the introduction.
The 35-page report, compiled by Sharon Bailey, a round table leader and former Denver School Board member, lists recommendations for individuals, community groups and political leaders to pursue in each of the areas of education, voting rights, economic development, health and criminal justice.
Some of the key recommendations include:
- Quickly link students entering college with businesses for mentoring and internships.
- Help low-income residents gain sufficient resources for regular health checkups.
- Ensure that schools include financial literacy as a core curriculum and requirement for high school graduation.
In addition to the recommendations, the report includes a resource section listing studies, writings and links to organizations that are working to narrow the gaps.
The report stressed that the African American community is looking for solutions and not pointing fingers.
“We are engaged,” Hayden-Watkins wrote. “To be sure, ‘if not us, who? If not now, when?’ It is our solemn duty. It will be our legacy.” | <urn:uuid:3a8868d1-5295-4622-b005-17e80feff4e9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://inewsnetwork.org/2014/05/01/black-round-table-issues-strategies-for-retaking-lost-ground/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00120-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94457 | 468 | 2.90625 | 3 |
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Do you employ Teen Workers? Young teen workers are those new to the workforce, even up to age 24. Young workers
can be an asset to your workforce. However, it may be their first job or the first time they are operating equipment.
Child labor laws restrict the types of jobs, hours worked and equipment used by teens under age 18. Learn about the
Maryland State child labor laws that apply to young workers.
You can prevent or reduce workplace injuries and make work safer for all workers, including teens. Under the
Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSH Act), employers have the responsibility to provide a safe and healthful
work environment and comply with occupational safety and health standards. First-line supervisors have the greatest
opportunity to protect young workers and influence their work habits.
Employer Responsibilities: For Young Workers
- Understand and comply with the relevant federal and state
child labor laws. For example, these laws prohibit youth from working certain hours and from performing
- Ensure that young workers receive training to recognize hazards and are competent in safe work practices.
Training should be in a language and vocabulary that workers can understand and should include prevention of
fires, accidents and violent situations and what to do if injured.
- Implement a mentoring or buddy system for new teen workers. Have an adult or experienced teen worker
answer questions and help the new young worker learn the ropes of a new job.
- Encourage teen workers to ask questions about tasks or procedures that are unclear or not understood.
Tell them whom to ask.
- Remember that teen workers are not just "little adults." You must be mindful of the unique aspects of
communicating with young workers.
- Ensure that equipment operated by teen workers is both legal and safe for them to use. Employers should
label equipment that teen workers are not allowed to operate.
- Tell teen workers what to do if they get hurt on the job.
Employer Responsibilities: For All Workers
- Provide a workplace free from all recognized hazards and follow all MOSH/OSHA safety and health standards.
- Find and correct safety and health hazards immediately.
- Inform employees about hazards in the workplace and train them about applicable OSHA standards.
- Provide safety training on workplace hazards.
- Provide the required personal protective equipment (PPE) and pay for most types of required PPE.
MOSH Can Help! Call us on our toll-free number: 1-800-759-6297 or 410-527-2091 to get answers to your
questions. You can also submit a question to
email@example.com. MOSH's On-site Consultation
Program offers free and confidential advice to small- and medium-sized businesses in Maryland with priority
given to high-hazard worksites. Learn more about | <urn:uuid:bd328241-73b9-4f5f-988f-261a404db261> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dllr.maryland.gov/labor/mosh/teenemp.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403508.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00098-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925817 | 608 | 2.953125 | 3 |
MATLAB - Vector Dot Product
Dot product of two vectors a = (a1, a2, …, an) and b = (b1, b2, …, bn) is given by:
a.b = ∑(ai.bi)
Dot product of two vectors a and b is calculated using the dot function.
Create a script file with the following code −
v1 = [2 3 4]; v2 = [1 2 3]; dp = dot(v1, v2); disp('Dot Product:'); disp(dp);
When you run the file, it displays the following result −
Dot Product: 20 | <urn:uuid:26e28875-73ae-442c-ac80-9b0d947438e6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.tutorialspoint.com/matlab/matlab_vector_dot_product.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395992.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00093-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.757548 | 142 | 3.640625 | 4 |
The Obama administration announced it will not sign on to a proposal to give greater protection for Atlantic bluefin tuna, a move that environmental groups had said was necessary to keep the fish from becoming extinct, but one that was fiercely opposed by U.S. fishermen.
The administration said in a statement that it "strongly" supports the proposal, first introduced by Monaco, but will delay adding the United States as a co-sponsor of the measure until the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) takes further steps.
"ICCAT must take definitive action at its meeting next month for the conservation of Atlantic bluefin tuna. Failure to do so is not an option," said Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Atlantic bluefin tuna is the largest of the tuna species, weighing up to several hundred pounds, and a fish that can fetch more than $100,000 in some international markets, most notably Japan. The main populations of the fish are in the Gulf of Mexico, along the Atlantic coast of the United States, and in the Mediterranean. Since the early 1970s, the population of bluefin tuna from the Gulf of Mexico has declined by 82 percent, according to 2008 data from the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas. Environmental groups have been ringing the alarms.
"The science, which is extremely good on this species, indicates that the population has been so depleted that it's headed for commercial extinction," Josh Reichert, managing director of the Pew Environment Group, told ABC News.
Reichert called today's decision "a lost opportunity."
"The Obama administration veered drastically off its 'use science to guide decision making' course by not backing this proposal to protect Atlantic bluefin tuna," he said in a statement. "As a result, the common sense conservation measures that would help stave off commercial extinction for this species are even further from becoming a reality."
Rich Ruias, executive director of the American Bluefin Tuna Association which had lobbied against the measure, called the decision an "exceptionally smart move on the part of NOAA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service."
Scientists and environmental groups strongly urged the Obama administration to co-sponsor a measure that would list bluefin tuna on Appendix 1 of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
Giving the bluefin a CITES listing would have banned U.S. fishermen from selling bluefin in international markets, but allow them to continue to sell here in this country. It would not put the fish on an endangered species list.
CITES is a 1975 international treaty that has played a key role in helping threatened animals, like whales, elephants, tigers and rhinoceroses. In 1989, a CITES listing protected elephants by stopping the international ivory trade.
This would have been the first time a major commercial fish was given such international protections. Environmental groups and scientists said it would allow the bluefin to recover and repopulate.
White House Weighs Options
Reichert had said that if the Obama administration decides to not co-sponsor the bluefin listing, it would constitute "a significant departure from its stated commitment to use science as a guide to managing our natural resources.
"As a result, the best vehicle we have to save these fish from commercial extinction may not be deployed, further accelerating the demise of what some people call the 'world's greatest fish,'" he said.
The next meeting of the parties to CITES is March 2010 in Doha, Qatar, but the deadline to submit proposals and co-sponsorships was today.
Bluefin tuna is not what Americans eat on sandwiches for lunch. It is an expensive tuna, used mostly for sushi, in high-end restaurants.
Environmental groups say U.S. fishermen should have a vested commercial interest in seeing the bluefin stock recover, but leaders in that industry disagree.
Ruias, of the American Bluefin Tuna Association, said his organization would "fight to our last breath" against a CITES listing for the fish because of the damaging impact it would have on U.S. commercial and recreational fishermen.
"The CITES listing would ban U.S. fishermen from shipping fish to Japan and Japan is a very good market destination for us, especially when the yen is at the level it's at now," Ruias told ABC News. "A CITES listing would hurt us dramatically" because the domestic market is not strong enough to maintain profitability.
Ruias estimated the monetary damage of the international trading ban to the U.S. commercial and recreational fishing industry at over $100 million a year.
Reichert said that bluefin tuna is a classic example of fisheries mismanagement in which good science has been sacrificed to politics and money.
"It's perhaps the most valuable fish in the sea, it generates significant income for those who catch it, and is in huge demand in Japan where it is highly prized for sushi," Reichert said.
Bluefin Tuna Population at Risk
Ruias dismisses the evidence that the bluefin is threatened to the point of extinction.
"There is not a credible scientist, in our view, in the world that would suggest that fishermen could fish a fish like bluefin tuna to biological extinction," Ruias said.
Ruias said the U.S. has "religiously followed scientific advice" since 1974 on quota reductions and other measures to protect the bluefin, and points the finger at Mediterranean countries for not taking bluefin tuna conservation seriously.
"An Appendix 1 listing to bluefin would punish, inflict severe economic injury, devastate fishing families," in the United States, Ruias stated in a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last month. "What possible justification can be given for such a cruel and unfair treatment of U.S. and Canadian fishermen in the West Atlantic?"
The CITES imposed ban on international trading could have lasted indefinitely or until scientists determined that the stock had recovered sufficiently. | <urn:uuid:1fe2adb7-1f6a-475c-aef5-72816b7a4313> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-faces-pressure-environmentalists-atlantic-bluefin-tuna-protection/story?id=8821435&page=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00020-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961523 | 1,258 | 2.65625 | 3 |
About The Film
In 1943 a group of 1434 Polish refugees from the Soviet Russia, including a few hundred orphans, arrived in an abandoned ranch of Santa Rosa at the invitation of the Mexican President. Santa Rosa, near Leon, Mexico became their home for the few years to come. Earlier in December 1942, Prime Minister of Polish Government in Exile - General Władysław Sikorski arrived in Mexico to sign an agreement with President of Mexico Avila Camacho to set up such a camp. Mexico was the only country outside the British Commonwealth, which offered assistance in solving the humanitarian crisis of thousands of Polish civilians displaced in temporary camps in Iran.
The exile from deep Russia to Mexico led the first group of Polish refugees through Los Angeles, where their ship docked on June 25th, 1943. To their surprise, the Americans locked them up in an internment center for the Japanese immigrants, who were perceived as enemies of the state.
After the end of the war and the closing of Santa Rosa colony, only 87 refugees returned to Poland. Most of them emigrated to the United States. Those who settled in Chicago set up the Santa Rosa Club and once a year they gather to reminisce the good old daysto the sounds of music remembered from childhood. Currently, Santa Rosa houses an orphanage run by the Salesians of Don Bosco.
Joanna, who lives in Szczecin, Poland and her father Bogdan, who was the first child born in Santa Rosa take us for a journey to Santa Rosa. It takes a one kind of a journey to find a missing piece of a family puzzle.
Here is what Joanna writes in her diary:
"I've been hearing about Santa Rosa ever since I was a child. My father was born there. Words like Guadalajara, Guanajuato, Leon were pure poetry to me. Tales of leather chests, of a donkey that bit my dad, of rancheros were the most beautiful fables from the land of spicy dishes and tasty beans. Instead of the usual "and they lived happily ever after", they ended with "and we'll also go to Mexico one day"
I knew my family ended up in Mexico because of the war. I read about the deportations, Katyn and Starobielsk, the Anders' Army. But there was very little information on Santa Rosa. When my grandmother passed away, I realized I knew nothing about my grandfather, besides that he had died in Mexico at the age of 26. After the war, grandma remarried and never spoke a word about her first husband. We don't even know where he is buried.
I decided to solve the family mystery and I bought tickets to Mexico.
Will we be able to find the grandfather's grave?
At the airport we were welcomed by Mrs Anna Żarnecka and her grandson DanielaCarlos. The traces I encounter in old albums and diaries only raise more questions.
How did my family really get here? Was it only chance that determined their destiny?
Where did grandpa spend the last days of his life? Our first attempts to find the grandfather's grave were in vain. But thanks to Anna, we meet more people who can shed light on his story.
I'm hoping to get some information from Gloria Cereño and Celia Zak de Zuckerman, historians and authors of a book on Santa Rosa titled "The Illusory Agreement"
Joining us from Chicago is Teresa Sokołowska, who enjoys reminiscing her childhood years in Santa Rosa. Teresa joins us for the next leg of the journey tracing the mysteries of Santa Rosa. We're traveling 250 miles out of Mexico City, to Leon where the first train carrying Polish refugees arrived on June 1st, 1943.
I was hoping that in the reminiscings of the three veterans of Santa Rosa, who settled in Leon, I would find the key to the mystery about my grandfather Wierciński. They led us to the church where some Santa Rosa inhabitants are buried and to Don Juanito who was waiting for us under an old tree. As a child he helped his father who worked in the colony. Could he remember the Polish children from so far back?
My journey ends here. As I was following the memories of people whom I met along the way, as I was discovering my family history, I was searching for my own identity. The politicians might have invited the Polish refugees in an act of an illusory agreement but for my family, it was a jackpot in a lottery of life.
Find out more about Polish refugees in Santa Rosa at: | <urn:uuid:54379db5-48d1-48f7-a289-48723aab166c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.logtv.com/films/santarosa/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398628.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00087-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97861 | 951 | 2.625 | 3 |
From YouTube, produced by YourTeacher.com
Students learn the following customary units of measurement: inch, foot, ounce, ton, fluid ounce, pint, gallon, yard, pound, cup, quart, and so on. Students also learn to convert from one customary unit of measurement to another using the following conversion factors: 60 seconds = 1 minute, 7 days = 1 week, 3 feet = 1 yard, 16 ounces = 1 pound, 4 quarts = 1 gallon, and so on. Students are then asked to solve problems using conversion factors, such as 18 feet = ____ inches. Video is good quality and good for all students as a review or initial learning of the topic. | <urn:uuid:5cea0df9-0e3a-4e25-aeaf-9c7779e24f2f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.watchknowlearn.org/Video.aspx?VideoID=5893 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00051-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94619 | 140 | 4 | 4 |
January 8, 2013
Female Mice Tell Dads to Care for Kids
Dan Cossins, The Scientist
Non-monogamous male lab mice are not natural fathers, but they do provide parental care when housed together with their mates and pups for a few days. Now, scientists in Japan have demonstrated that when both parents are separated from the pups, the mother communicates through ultrasonic vocalisations (USVs) and odor cues to stimulate the father to provide parental care when the offspring are returned.
TAGGED: Parenting, Mice | <urn:uuid:70c3d32d-2e58-42ad-996f-6cdfa5e6507b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.realclearscience.com/2013/01/08/female_mice_tell_dads_to_care_for_kids_250877.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397744.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00174-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918513 | 114 | 2.625 | 3 |
- Rig Rundowns
- Premier Blogs
• Learn how to bend strings throughout a specific scale.
• Play double-stops that involve both half-step and whole-step bends.
• Construct inversions of G7 and C7 chords that include bends.
String bending: It's an elusive technique. Usually used in blues, rock, and country, bent notes can create a whole new sound for electric guitar. In country, bends are often used to enhance single-note lines and create crying double-stops. What many guitarists aren't able to do, however, is imply the harmony of each chord with a string bend.
In this lesson, I'll demonstrate how to work through a scale, in this case G Mixolydian (G–A–B–C–D–E–F). For each double-stop, you'll bend one note on the 2nd string, using either a half-step or a whole-step move, and you'll play the top note on the 1st string.
Technique is very important for these bends. I use hybrid picking. I'll hit the notes on the 2nd string with my pick and pluck the notes on the 1st string with my middle finger. When bending, it's important to attack the note directly. If you hesitate when you approach a note, it will sound more like blues or rock, rather than country. Remember that pedal steel players bend notes in one motion (their foot goes directly to the floor when hammering the foot pedal). Try to embrace that technique by bending directly to the note and holding it there.
Imagine you are playing a scale in thirds. Our first dyad, shown in Fig. 1, will be E and G. Instead of fretting the E, we'll bend from D up a whole-step to E. Make sure that you are bending all the way up to E and that it's in tune. Bend D up to E and then play G.
We'll use this same principle for every dyad within the scale. In Fig. 2, we use this idea to move up through the G Mixolydian scale on the top two strings. Note that some of these bends will be half-steps.
Once you've worked through a scale, you can then focus on the specific bends that create a G chord. Releasing a bend from E to D while fretting the G on the 1st string implies an inversion of the G chord. In Fig. 3, we move this up the neck with a G7 sound (using a b7-root bend) and finish with a bend from the 2nd degree (A) to the 3rd (B) against the sound of the root. | <urn:uuid:4973de68-d4ac-4bd9-a44d-7656b56487a6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/19583-twang-101-bending-through-a-scale?page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398209.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00078-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927943 | 564 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Kangaroo mother care to reduce morbidity and mortality in low-birth-weight infants
Every year, more than 20 million infants are born weighing less than 2.5kg – over 96% of them in developing countries. These low-birth-weight (LBW) infants are at increased risk of early growth retardation, infectious disease, developmental delay and death during infancy and childhood.
Conventional neonatal care of LBW infants is expensive and needs both highly skilled personnel and permanent logistic support. Evidence suggests that kangaroo mother care is a safe and effective alternative to conventional neonatal care, especially in under-resourced settings and may reduce morbidity and mortality in LBW infants as well as increase breastfeeding. Kangaroo mother care involves:
- early, continuous and prolonged skin-to-skin contact between a mother and her newborn
- frequent and exclusive breastfeeding
- early discharge from hospital.
Kangaroo mother care is recommended for the routine care of newborns weighing 2000 g or less at birth, and should be initiated in health-care facilities as soon as the newborns are clinically stable.
Newborns weighing 2000 g or less at birth should be provided as close to continuous Kangaroo mother care as possible.
Intermittent Kangaroo mother care, rather than conventional care, is recommended for newborns weighing 2000 g or less at birth, if continuous Kangaroo mother care is not possible.
Additional information can be found in the guidelines under 'WHO documents' below.
Other guidance documents
Pocket book of hospital care for children: second edition. Guidelines for the management of common illnesses with limited resources
Kangaroo mother care: a practical guide
Systematic reviews used to develop the guidelines
Related Cochrane reviews
Kangaroo mother care to reduce morbidity and mortality in low birthweight infants
Early skin-to-skin contact for mothers and their healthy newborn infants
Other related systematic reviews
Kangaroo Mother Care and Neonatal Outcomes: A Meta-analysis
'Kangaroo mother care' to prevent neonatal deaths due to preterm birth complications
Maternal satisfaction and clinical effect of kangaroo mother care in preterm infants: a meta‐analysis | <urn:uuid:51c2f10f-ad0d-449b-9c12-eeca1062a81e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.who.int/elena/titles/kangaroo_care_infants/en/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391634.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00117-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935648 | 450 | 2.734375 | 3 |
ATLANTA — Science teacher Adam Taylor is starting a new job at Dickson County School District in Tennessee, where some students live in rural areas and experience socioeconomic distress.
As part of his learning plan, he wants high school students to participate in monthly Twitter chats with scientists and science teachers — but they need Wi-Fi to do it.
"I knew not all of the students would have access," Taylor said.
To find out what he could do for these students, Taylor learned from the experiences that a Georgia school district shared at an ISTE session on Internet at home on July 1.
In Forsyth County Schools (FCS), Tim Clark worked in a school district that has focused on growing its bring your own technology (BYOT) initiative for the last seven years. But when students were expected to bring a device, equity issues arose, said the district's former instructional technology coordinator.
FCS started a BYOT equity task force to talk about these equity issues, but until students began bringing their devices, it was difficult to know what all the issues would be. While most people would think of device equity first, broadband connectivity at home provided more of a complex challenge.
"Our kids come to school with a device in their pockets, but when they go home, they don't have access," Clark said.
The task force came up with a multi-pronged strategy to deal with these equity challenges. First, schools that had Title I funding used it. Then, the district allocated its resources fairly and equitably. And fundraisers helped bridge the gap.
With the broadband challenge in particular, the instructional technology team worked with the communications staff to ask more than 400 businesses to provide free Wi-Fi access to students. United Way and parent-teacher associations also stepped up to share the idea.
Businesses that decided to participate received a sticker to put on their window that showed students it was a free Wi-Fi zone. And once a few businesses got on board, everyone else wanted the stickers, Clark said.
In rural areas, however, there weren't any businesses to go to for Wi-Fi. So the district looked for a way to increase home and on-the-go access. Since 2000, it's become normal for students in Forsyth County Schools to read teacher-posted content and participate in discussion forums on the learning management system, and they need Wi-Fi access outside of school to do their work.
The district looked at commercial service providers who had MiFi-type devices that basically provide a mobile broadband hotspot for multiple people. But the devices from the phone carriers were less cost-effective and didn't sit well with district leaders, said Jill Hobson, former director of instructional technology. Ultimately they ended up going with a 4G hotspot from Kajeet that includes filtering and reporting management options.
At first, the district didn't put too many limits on the data used through the devices. But after seeing one device go through an astronomical amount of data, the district set a limit of 2 gigabytes per month and 100 megabytes a day, Hobson said. In communications with families, leaders stressed that the devices were not meant to be used for entertainment purposes or streaming audio and video. They were meant only to use for education purposes.
As Taylor listened to Forsyth County Schools' story, he latched onto the idea of connecting with businesses and is considering how to bring Dickson County businesses on board with a free Wi-Fi zone for students. Eventually he may look at Kajeet, but the company would need to expand beyond Sprint network coverage to Verizon in order for that to work in his area.
Someone else suggested that he write a grant so that students could access Wi-Fi and grab a hamburger at a business. He's not sure whether that is doable, but it is a powerful idea, he said.
In the meantime, Taylor will continue exploring his options so that he can have a Wi-Fi access plan in place before the school year starts.
How are you handling broadband equity on the go in your school district? Let us know in the comments. | <urn:uuid:b6da1ac7-48d0-4e2f-903b-a7e81771ebd7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.centerdigitaled.com/news/Mobile-Broadband-Equity.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00125-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977866 | 847 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Report shows one in five Nebraska children live in poverty
A new report shows one in five Nebraska children lived in poverty in 2011.
Voices for Children released its 2012 Kids Count in Nebraska report Wednesday. The report looks at overall well-being based on health, safety, education, and economic stability.
According to the report, 14 percent of white children in Nebraska under age 17 live in poverty. Voices for Children Research Coordinator Melissa Breazile says that rate is significantly higher among minority populations. “We saw higher poverty rates, particularly for black and African-American children, and as well as for Native American children at rates of 40 or above. And then also looking at Asian children, about 38 percent, and then looking at Hispanic or Latino children we saw rates of 36 percent.”
Among the report’s findings in education are that 64 percent of third graders couldn’t read at grade level by the end of their school year. Breazile says children who can’t read on time are more likely to have social and behavioral problems, be held back in school, and are less likely to graduate on time.
Other findings in the report are that one in five Nebraska children under age 17 live in poverty. One in 12 are uninsured, and more than 24,000 children received health or substance abuse services funded by Medicaid in 2011.
More information and the complete report are available at www.voicesforchildren.com. | <urn:uuid:d6a315d0-7b31-4831-809f-f069eb898073> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://kios.org/post/report-shows-one-five-nebraska-children-live-poverty | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00031-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971033 | 297 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Getting behind the media hype: what are the practical facts about cartilage transplantation?
Recently several of the popular newspapers reported on cartilage transplantation as a 'miracle cure' for everyone with bad knees, including injured athletes. Here two experts present the scientific reality behind the media hype.
Traumatic articular cartilage injuries (the joint lining as opposed to the shock absorber inside the joint) in the knee are common and are a frequent cause of pain and loss of function leading to poor performance in athletes. When these cartilage injuries are full thickness, the potential long term problems include early osteoarthritis and its associated disability.
Although full-thickness articular cartilage defects constitute only a small portion of all cartilage injuries, their poor capacity for repair makes their treatment a great challenge. This has recently aroused media interest with regard to the use of a relatively new procedure - autologous chondrocyte transplantation (ACT) - which was commented on briefly in issue 12 of Sports Injury Bulletin.
Sports injuries account for 28% of all knee injuries. Chondral damage, including both partial and full thickness defects, has been documented in up to 61.5% of knee arthroscopies for knee symptoms. In the United States 650,000 reparative knee procedures are carried out each year, of which 20,000 to 40,000 could qualify for autologous chondrocyte transplantation.
Articular cartilage consists of chondrocytes (cartilage cells) embedded in a highly specialised extracellular matrix. This matrix which is composed of water (80%), collagen and proteoglycans gives articular cartilage its elasticity and provides resistance to tensile, compressive (up to 65 times body weight) and shear forces as well as a smooth , efficient surface for motion.
However articular cartilage lacks an arterial blood supply, venous and lymphatic drainage and derives its nutrition primarily from the synovial fluid and to some extent from the adjacent bone blood supply. This has implications in healing in that superficial lesions rely solely on chondrocyte mitosis for repair. This is known as intrinsic repair and as a rule is unsatisfactory. Extrinsic repair occurs in lesions which traverse the cartilage/bone region and communi-cate with blood, marrow and pluripotential stem cells in the underlying bone. The repair tissue formed is fibrocartilage, which may look like articular cartilage macroscopically at arthroscopy but does not have the same microscopic arrangement and hence biomechanical properties as articular cartilage. Fibrocartilage is mechanically insufficient as it cannot withstand the normal physiological loading and wear stresses on the knee during work or sports. This problem of poor repair material has led to the move from the more commonplace 'traditional cartilage resurfacing techniques' to the emerging and exciting 'new methods' of cartilage repair.
Traditional resurfacing techniques include knee lavage and debridement, defect drilling and microfracture and periosteal/perichondral grafting. These were described in issue 12 of Sports Injury Bulletin. The newer methods refer to osteochondral autografts where small matchstick-shaped grafts are taken from non-weight-bearing parts of the knee and planted into the predrilled defect, and autologous chondrocyte transplantation.
The patient is usually referred for autologous chondrocyte transplantation after already having had surgery for an articular cartilage problem. If the patient remains symptomatic, and the patient and the surgeon decide that autologous chondrocyte transplant is the best option, then an arthroscopic biopsy is planned.
Selection criteria for this procedure have yet to be definitively established. Ideally, the patients are between 15 and 55 years of age, have full thickness localised defects of the femoral condyles, have intact menisci, have no generalised chondrmalacia, have no limb malalignment and are willing and able to undergo vigorous rehabilitation. This procedure is not recommended for patients who have an unstable knee and for patients sensitive to materials of bovine origins or allergic to the antibiotic gentamicin. It is also not recommended for use in children, and not yet in any joint other than the knee.
The arthroscopy allows re-evaluation of the articular cartilage lesion to see if there has been any progression of the lesion, and then to precisely size it. After that, a small biopsy, the size of a raisin, is taken from the margin of the joint surface. This specimen of live articular cartilage is placed into a culture medium, which keeps the cells healthy during their transport to the laboratory. Under a strictly controlled environment the cells are separated from the cartilage. These cells are then multiplied using a cell-culture technique. They are stored in the frozen state and are thawed and have a final culturing process before they are shipped to the operating room on the day of the implantation. The interval period is usually six weeks. Approximately 12 million cartilage cells are present in the 0.4ml medium that is ultimately implanted into the defect.
Implantation and rehab
Currently, the implantation technique requires an open (rather than keyhole) approach to the knee. The first step of the surgery is to trim the defect to a stable rim and clear the bony base. A copy of the defect is made from sterile paper and used to trace out the desired cut for harvesting a periosteal patch from the proximal tibia. The periosteum is the living tissue on the outside of bone. It can be gently separated from the bone and has the consistency of a wet paper bag. The patch is then transferred to the defect and sutured such that it forms a water-tight seal. It is further sealed with fibrin (biologic) glue. The cultured chondrocytes are then injected under the patch and a final seal of the patch is performed. Newer techniques that use an artificial mesh rather than harvesting the patient's own periosteum are now becoming available.
The rehabilitation is long and demanding. Individual regimes vary with some centres recomm-ending early motion while others immobilise the knee in plaster for three weeks. Patients are typically allowed to put weight on their operated leg after eight weeks. Physiotherapy is continued for up to 12 months, and sporting activities are curtailed during this time.
Autologous chondrocyte transplants were introduced in Sweden in 1987 with the first results of clinical trials published in 1994. The original results were encouraging with an excellent outcome in 88% of patients (with isolated femoral defects) at 32 months. This fuelled interest in this procedure and further published trials at the end of the 90s gave similar results.
At present the two main groups publishing results are the Swedish group led by one of the pioneers, M. Britberg, and the U.S.A.-based Genzyme group.
The Swedish published their two to nine year follow up of over 100 patients last year. They evaluated outcome on based patient and physician clinical outcome scales, appearance at arthroscopy and microscopic analysis. The clinical results were good to excellent in a different proportion depending on the indications:
Isolated femoral condyle defects 92%
Ostoechondritis dissecans 89%
Femoral condyle defects with A.C.L. repair 75%
At arthroscopy good 'repair tissue fill' could be seen with good adherence to bone, hardness to probing and seamless integration. Microscopy of selected grafts showed a hyaline-like matrix lacking a fibrous component. There were 7 graft failures in this group.
The Genzyme group results show that 70% of patients improved, with 28% of patients 'resuming all activities' and 42% reporting 'some improvement'. 83% of patients with osteochond-ritis dissecans reported some improvement. The arthroscopic findings correlated very well with clinical outcome. There is still no apparent association of clinical outcomes with lesion size or cell dose administered.
In the UK results of this procedure are starting to emerge. At the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore, George Bentley's group report a short-term success rate of 80%. Moreover, patients treated with this type of cartilage cell transplant apparently show a greater improvement than those treated with osteochondral autografts (the other popular modern technique).
The efficacy of this treatment has recently been evaluated, and the National Institute for Clinical Excellence has published a guidance report. ACT raises a number of health economics issues as it appears to be rapidly gaining in popularity but costs between £5000 and £8000 per patient. On the other hand, these are typically young patients who present early in their sporting / working careers. Knee scores and quality of life scores show a dramatic enhancement of function which is maintained from 12 to 24 months after surgery.
The overall failure rate is at present quoted as being 10%. The two most common complications include loosening of the transplant tissue, formation of fibrous tissue at the repair site and adhesions with return of pain and locking. Neither of these complications usually leaves the patient in a worse condition than his/her pre-transplantation state. Other adverse events include post-op haematoma (big blood clot), hypertrophic synovitis (angry knee) and superficial wound infection.
At present there is no single, well-proven technique for repairing articular cartilage defects. Given the population group which is affected by such injuries, the concern is that patients who damage their articular cartilage in their teens or 20s will be facing knee-replacement surgery at a young age.
Autologous chondrocyte transplantation appears to be a promising technique for managing such defects. The results available thus far from well-controlled clinical trials are encouraging. This is not a first- line technique, is not applicable to everyone and is expensive. Patient selection criteria for ACT are still not clearly defined and long-term functional outcomes and benefits relative to alternative strategies remain unknown. Only well-designed, randomised, controlled trials will answer these questions and until such data is available, autologous chondrocyte transplantation will continue to be restricted to selected centres where patients are carefully followed-up.
Joseph Borg and Fares Haddad
Brittberg M, Lindahl A, Nilsson A, et al. 'Treatment of deep cartilage defects in the knee with autologous chondrocyte transplantation.' N Engl J Med 1994; 331:889-895.
Gillogly S, Voight M, Blackburn T. 'Treatment of articular cartilage defects of the knee with autologous chondrocyte implantation.' Jour of Orthop and Sports Physical Ther 1998; 28:241-251
Mont MA, Jones LC, Vogelstein BN, Hungerford DS. 'Evidence of inappropriate application of autologous cartilage transplantation therapy in an uncontrolled environment.' Am J Sports Med. 1999 Sep-Oct;27(5):617-20.
Minas T. 'Chondrocyte implantation in the repair of chondral lesions of the knee: economics and quality of life.' Am J Orthop. 1998 Nov;27(11):739-44
Bentley G, Minas T. 'Treating joint damage in young people.' BMJ. 2000 Jun 10;320(7249):1585-8. | <urn:uuid:24461b57-ec69-4b57-b864-28b65210574c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sportsinjurybulletin.com/archive/cartilage-transplants.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398075.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00042-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934384 | 2,408 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Whether your child is a toddler or an adult, there is always room to focus on personal hygiene. For many, taking care of one’s personal needs can be challenging and/or seen as unnecessary by the individual. It’s up to us to help them understand why proper hygiene is important while giving them the skills they need to guide them towards grooming independence.
When is a Good Time to Start?
NOW! If your child is a toddler, start with baby steps of hand-over-hand techniques or let them do it themselves and you come behind and finish the job. For example, with brushing the teeth, it’s great if they will try to do the job by themselves and then you say, “Let me help you finish.”
Hand washing is a great place to begin. Having a visual schedule breaking the task down into baby steps might be helpful including the following:
- Turn on water
- Get soap
- Make bubbles on hand
- Rinse bubbles off
- Turn off water
- Get towel
- Dry hands
Initially, you might not see much progress and you might be doing hand-over-hand. Gradually, remove your help in different areas and view the progress. Let your child do it all by himself and you might be surprised by the progress. Begin to back yourself out of the process.
Teaching Other Self Help Skills
As your child becomes comfortable with basic tasks, you can create a visual schedule (using home photos or google images) of each task. I work with adult transition students with severe challenges. We do grooming daily using a visual schedule including:
- Wash hands,
- Brush teeth,
- Put on deodorant,
- Brush hair and
- Wash face.
On the other side of this topic, I have many students at age 21, who have never given themselves a bath or washed their own hair. Perhaps they will always need assistance in these areas, but to not give them the “tools” they will need to attempt these tasks on their own, I believe, is a disservice to them. This does not include individuals who are physically unable to attempt the task.
Many areas – such as teeth brushing and potty training – can be challenging. There are many resources to help parents navigate these areas. Know that you are NOT alone in this journey and that each baby step you take to help your child learn personal hygiene skills will lead to their future success. | <urn:uuid:ed1c4daa-d6f1-402d-b688-3630d97a9d58> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://special-ism.com/lets-get-clean-routine-by-special-ed-expert-joanna-l-keating-velasco/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00157-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951709 | 508 | 3.28125 | 3 |
More and more on Vitamin D
Following are some new Vitamin Di abstracts by Holick. With 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D involved in regulating more than 200 genesi, you would think it might not be such a good idea to formulate treatment around Vitamin D starvation...
Mol Aspects Med. 2008 Sep 2. [Epub ahead of print]Click here to read Links
The vitamin D deficiency pandemic and consequences for nonskeletal health: Mechanisms of action.
Department of Medicine, Section of Endocrinology, Nutrition, and Diabetes, Vitamin D, Skin and Bone Research Laboratory, Boston University Medical Center, Boston, MA, United States.
Vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin, is important for childhood bone health. Over the past two decades, it is now recognized that vitamin D not only is important for calcium metabolism and maintenance of bone health throughout life, but also plays an important role in reducing risk of many chronic diseasesi including type I diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, deadly cancers, heart diseasei and infectious diseases. How vitamin D is able to play such an important role in health is based on observation that all tissues and cells in the body have a vitamin D receptor, and, thus, respond to its active form 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D. However, this did not explain how living at higher latitudes and being at risk of vitamin D deficiency increased risk of these deadly diseases since it was also known that the 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D levels are normal or even elevated when a person is vitamin D insufficient. Moreover, increased intake of vitamin D or exposure to more sunlight will not induce the kidneys to produce more 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D. The revelation that the colon, breast, prostatei, macrophages and skin among other organs have the enzymatic machinery to produce 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D provides further insight as to how vitamin D plays such an essential role for overall health and well being. This review will put into perspective many of the new biologic actions of vitamin D and on how 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D is able to regulate directly or indirectly more than 200 different genes that are responsible for a wide variety of biologic processes.
Curr Diab Rep. 2008 Oct;8(5):393-8.Links
Diabetes and the vitamin d connection.
Department of Medicine, Section of Endocrinology, Nutrition, and Diabetes, Boston University School of Medicine, 715 Albany Street, M-1013, Boston, MA 02118, USA. email@example.com<
Vitamin D deficiency, which is common in children and adults, causes rickets, osteomalacia, and osteoporosis. Most organs and immunei cells have a vitamin D receptor, and some also have the capacity to metabolize 25-hydroxyvitamin D to 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D. 1,25-Dihydroxyvitamin D is a potent immunomodulator that also enhances the production and secretion of several hormones, including insulin. Vitamin D deficiency has been associated with increased risk of type 1 diabetes. Glycemic control and insulin resistance are improved when vitamin D deficiency is corrected and calcium supplementation is adequate. 25-Hydroxyvitamin D (measure of vitamin D status) of less than 20 ng/mL is vitamin D deficiency and 21 to 29 ng/mL is insufficiency. Children and adults need at least 1000 IU of vitamin D per day to prevent deficiency when there is inadequate sun exposure. | <urn:uuid:8992d207-889f-430a-b4d9-0c7a67853763> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://cpnhelp.org/more_and_more_vitamin_d | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399522.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00081-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921642 | 748 | 3.09375 | 3 |
gnatchop command has the form:
$ gnatchop switches file name [file name file name ...] [directory]
The only required argument is the file name of the file to be chopped. There are no restrictions on the form of this file name. The file itself contains one or more Ada units, in normal GNAT format, concatenated together. As shown, more than one file may be presented to be chopped.
When run in default mode,
gnatchop generates one output file in
the current directory for each unit in each of the files.
directory, if specified, gives the name of the directory to which the output files will be written. If it is not specified, all files are written to the current directory.
For example, given a file called hellofiles containing
|procedure hello; with Text_IO; use Text_IO; procedure hello is begin Put_Line ("Hello"); end hello;|
$ gnatchop hellofiles
generates two files in the current directory, one called hello.ads containing the single line that is the procedure spec, and the other called hello.adb containing the remaining text. The original file is not affected. The generated files can be compiled in the normal manner.
When gnatchop is invoked on a file that is empty or that contains only empty lines and/or comments, gnatchop will not fail, but will not produce any new sources.
For example, given a file called toto.txt containing
|-- Just a comment|
$ gnatchop toto.txt
will not produce any new file and will result in the following warnings:
toto.txt:1:01: warning: empty file, contains no compilation units no compilation units found no source files written | <urn:uuid:b87fa268-fcbc-4067-9cb8-dbd95eb8edd9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4.3.6/gnat_ugn_unw/Command-Line-for-gnatchop.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00129-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.843485 | 371 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Actually the wording blue-yellow color blindness is misleading. People affected by tritan color blindness confuse blue with green and yellow with violet. So the term blue-green color blindness would be more accurate because the colors blue and yellow are usually not mixed up by tritanopes.
Tritan defects affect the short-wavelength cone (S-cone). There are two different types which can be observed:
- Tritanopia: People affected by tritanopia are dichromats. This means the S-cones are completely missing and only long- and medium-wavelength cones are present.
- Tritanomaly: This is an alleviated form of blue-yellow color blindness, where the S-cones are present but do have some kind of mutation.
Blue-yellow color blindness can be observed only very rarely. Different studies diverge a lot in the numbers but as a rule of thumb you could say one out of 10’000 persons is affected at most. In contrary to red-green color blindness tritan defects are autosomal and encoded on chromosome 7. This means tritanopia and tritanomaly are not sex-linked traits and therefore women and men are equally affected.
It can be observed that tritanopes usually have fewer problems in performing everyday tasks than do those with red-green dichromacy. Maybe this is because our society associates green with good/go and red with bad/stop, a pair of colors which accompanies us every day but a clear reason isn’t found yet by the researchers.
Tritan defects can not only be inherited but also acquired during one’s lifetime. In this case it even may be reversible and not permanent like an inherited color blindness. In the case of an acquired defect this is either evolving slowly for example simply through aging or coming instantly caused by a hard hit on your head.
- Because the eye lens becomes less transparent with age, this can cause very light tritanomalous symptoms. Usually they are not serious enough for a positive diagnosis on color blindness.
- Among alcoholics a higher incidence rate of tritanopia could be counted. Large quantities of alcohol resulted in poorer color discrimination in all spectra but with significantly more errors in the blue-yellow versus the red-green color range.
- Mixtures of organic solvents even at low concentrations may also impair color vision. Errors were measured mainly in the blue-yellow color spectrum.
- An injury through a hard hit to the front of back of your head may also cause blue-yellow color blindness. An example story can be found at Tritanopic after Heas Injury.
The two photographs below give you some impression what tritanopes see. On the left side the actual photograph is shown as it is seen by people with normal color vision. On the right side you see the tritan counterpart where you can spot how blue-yellow color blindness influences the view of colors. | <urn:uuid:e5494468-5fef-4e25-b86d-8b7c612090ef> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.color-blindness.com/tritanopia-blue-yellow-color-blindness/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00165-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947592 | 601 | 3.671875 | 4 |
Words ending with vocal, the most common words first
7 words found.
The most frequently occuring words ending with vocal
The first number (in bold) is the number of letters in the word, to make it easier to spot the most common words of the length you want.
The second number indicates the approximate number of times the word occurs per million words. The words occuring most frequently are shown first.vocal - 5, 9
unequivocal - 11, 3
equivocal - 9, 1
There are 4 less common words:nonvocal | <urn:uuid:3ef5ae9c-f58d-4cb2-9875-d6285a643807> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.morewords.com/most-common-ends-with/vocal/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00038-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.867142 | 119 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Read an Excerpt
Viewing the Ancestors
Perceptions of the Anaasází, Mokwic, and Hisatsinom
By Robert S. McPherson
UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS Copyright © 2014 University of Oklahoma Press
All rights reserved.
Identifying the Anaasází
Physical Proof, Evaluating Tradition
The primary focus of this study is to present how the Navajos and other nonpuebloan groups perceive the Anaasází. This beginning chapter, however, discusses the archaeological understanding of who these prehistoric people were, reviews how social scientists have defined cultural change over a two-thousand-year period, and examines the strengths and weaknesses of this approach when placed next to the oral tradition. This analysis is particularly important because it highlights inconsistencies in the present understanding of events affecting both the Anaasází and other groups of Native Americans, suggesting a shift in thinking about a much-studied topic. Who, then, were the Anaasází, when did they arrive in the Four Corners area, how did they live, and why did they depart? Some of these same questions need to be asked of other Indian groups, too, along with what evidence exists that defines their presence and activities.
As pointed out in the introduction, archaeology is a constantly shifting field of study that challenges itself with new understandings. Just how fluid this field can become is seen by a recent study that questions even how Native Americans entered into the New World, reconsidering the traditional hypothesis of hunters and gatherers moving across eastern Siberia on the thousand-mile-wide land bridge created in the vicinity of the Bering Straits (Beringia) up until ten thousand to twelve thousand years ago. Some archaeologists have challenged this conventional wisdom by pointing out that the pressure-flaked knives and spear points (Clovis) found throughout the United States do not resemble those found in Alaska and other areas where this migration was supposed to have taken place. The study does not deny that some Indians came across in that area but argues that there is a case to be made for questioning whether all did, particularly because the blades commonly found throughout the Americas seem much more closely allied with the Solutrean stone tool tradition associated with France and Spain during the same time period—more than twenty thousand years ago. A recent article in Newsweek quotes the Journal of Field Archaeology as saying, "We can no longer assume that we know the timing of early human migrations to the New World, any more than their frequency, their points of origin, or their modes of traversing land and sea.... We must now look at the archaeological record without prejudice." Smithsonian Science chimes in with "[t]hrough archaeological evidence, they [the authors] turn the long-held theory of the origins of New World populations on its head." While this is not to advocate for a particular thesis, it does illustrate how archaeology can shift from a well-accepted belief to something very different. This is not a weakness but a reality in a scientific world that encourages new ideas to be examined.
Even the names of this time period and later ones have changed. The term "prehistory," meaning a time before writing was available, as opposed to "history"—a written record—is no longer fully acceptable. In deference to oral traditions, rock art, winter counts, and other ways of recording and remembering past events, terms such as "deep history" or "distant past" or "oral history" now replace the distinction between written events and those recalled in other ways. For ease of description here, however, "prehistory" will be used to define the Native American cultures pre-Euro-American or Anglo-American contact and "history" to denote them postcontact.
Closer to home, archaeologists have accumulated a vast store of data and information about the Anaasází, a group of people who have been excavated and studied since the last quarter of the nineteenth century. As more information is accumulated through scientific and nonscientific means, a greater appreciation and understanding of these people has also developed. What follows is a brief, general survey of the different eras of Anaasází material culture in the northern San Juan region of the Four Corners area. In other geographical areas, time frames and cultural expressions may differ. What is found here is not meant to be comprehensive or specific, especially because the term "Anaasází" does not differentiate between various family, clan, or regional groups, which were much more likely in keeping with how the ancestral puebloan peoples thought of themselves. This composite picture is provided for a base understanding of one group under discussion.
Native American deep history extends back long before the Anaasází to a time when there was no horticulture, only highly mobile hunting and gathering groups, sometimes with a notable focus on big game hunting of megafauna such as mastodons, mammoths, camelids, and other now-extinct animals. Because these people rarely utilized dry alcoves for shelter, all that exists of these cultures to help archaeologists understand them is their stone tools, everything else having deteriorated beyond recognition. As the climate became warmer and drier following the end of the Pleistocene (Ice Age) epoch, the Archaic period began with a general shift in material culture that adapted to hunting smaller game and gathering plant materials in a changed environment. Because these Native Americans made much more use of dry alcoves, not only tools of stone but also woven baskets, blankets, cordage, and rock art have survived. For six thousand years, this way of life persisted, although given its length of time, relatively little exists of its material culture and only its rock art gives much of a hint of how they viewed their nonmaterial world.
Next enter the Anaasází, starting approximately 1000 B.C. Archaeologists still use the Pecos Classification system devised by Alfred Kidder and others at the Pecos Conference in 1927. The system is subdivided into two major categories—Basketmaker (Early and Late) and Pueblo (Periods I, II, III, IV, and V). Because of the difficulty of distinguishing between the Archaic hunter-gatherers and the first phase of Anaasází development during the Basketmaker I period, the latter is considered transitional between the two cultural expressions, and so only Basketmaker II, or Early Basketmaker, is discussed. This is instructive because it is the same issue with Navajo and Numic-speaking peoples—how does one prove that they were even in the area when depending on material remains that are not distinctively identified with that group?
The relationship between the Late Archaic and Early Basketmaker groups is unclear, with some archaeologists dating the start of Anaasází culture earlier than 1000 B.C. By that date the single most important element differentiating these two cultures was present—corn (which would serve as the basis for the entire Anaasází cultural tradition). In the Four Corners area, where the scarcity of water, plant, and animal resources results in a harsh ecosystem and reduced carrying capacity of the land, the effects of corn providing a staple source of food were significant. Slowly the culture of the hunting and gathering population gave way to a sedentary lifestyle dependent on crops, leading to more easily identifiable material remains.
Early Basketmaker life began to flourish as the people developed shallow pit houses, circular storage pits, skillfully crafted baskets and sandals, feather and fur robes, and a greatly expanded tool kit, much of which was stored in the rock overhangs of the canyon floors or amid the juniper and piñon groves of the lands above. By 500 B.C., Basket-maker II groups were heavily dependent on maize. The lifestyle of these people still reflected a partial orientation to the hunter-gatherer tradition in that the people seasonally moved to various sites to harvest their foods, returning at times to care for their crops. They continued to use the atlatl for hunting and foraged for wild plants as a supplement to their main diet of corn and squash. Bell-shaped underground chambers and shallow slab-lined storage cists located in protected rock alcoves held not only food supplies but also the Anaasází dead, some of whom met a violent death.
The Late Basketmaker period started around A.D. 450 and is distinguished from the earlier phase by the introduction of pottery and the use of larger, more elaborate pit houses with internal storage facilities and antechambers located to the south or east of the main room. These houses may be found alone, in small clusters, or in groups of a dozen or more dwellings. Another significant addition to the growing Anaasází culture was the introduction of beans to the larder. While corn served as the main food staple because of its ability to be stored, beans and squash added nutritional variety, constituting a complete diet. Garden plots were maintained through dry farming techniques utilizing runoff, with some crops planted on the moister floodplains of a river or nurtured by pot irrigation with water carried in jars to the plants. For over a thousand years this agricultural system supported a generally expanding Anaasází population base.
Other innovations that entered into the Late Basketmaker period were the appearance of pottery—gray utility and black-on-white painted ware—and the introduction of the bow and arrow to replace the atlatl. Arrowheads supplanted dart points as one of the primary stone implements, facilitating the hunting of small and medium-sized game. Another innovation, occurring by A.D. 700, was the use of wooden stockade fences around some residential sites, presumably for protection. Rock art persisted through all phases of Anaasází culture, each one having its own unique characteristics.
By A.D. 750 the Anaasází had reached the next stage of development, that of Pueblo I. As the name suggests, there were some significant changes in their dwellings, though elements from earlier phases persisted. For instance, they had begun to build their homes above ground in connected, rectangular blocks of rooms, using rocks and jacal (a framework of woven saplings and sticks packed with mud) and some stone and adobe masonry for construction materials. One or more deep pit houses have been found in each of the building clusters and may have served a ceremonial function. These rooms were equipped with a ventilator shaft that brought in fresh air, deflected around an upright stone placed between the shaft and the fire pit and then evacuated by the entryway in the roof, a technique used by the Anaasází for the remainder of their stay in the Four Corners region. Generally, Pueblo I communities were located along major drainages or on mesa uplands at elevations of 5,500 feet or more. Evidence of prolonged drought and a warming trend suggests that the Anaasází moved to areas where the growing season and water were adequate for this new climate regime.
The Pueblo II period started circa A.D. 900 and lasted for the next 150 years. During this period, a change in climate provided more-dependable precipitation, higher water tables that affected springs and seeps, and temperatures conducive to agriculture. The Anaasází reacted by moving from a pattern of clustering population in strategic locations to a far-ranging decentralization. Satellite work-and-living sites fanned out from the larger population bases. At no previous time had there been as many people spread over so much of the land.
An apparent link that unified different areas is evidenced by a new phenomenon—clearly constructed roads with associated specialized building sites. The most dramatic examples of road activity are found in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. Several of the Anaasází's roads converge on "great houses" (multistory room blocks) and great kivas—large, semi-subterranean ceremonial chambers—whose roofs were supported by pillars and spanned by long-beam construction. Unlike the smaller kivas found with most habitation sites, great kivas had a specialized ritual function not totally understood by Native Americans and researchers today. These structures were located where significant concentrations of people lived and worshipped, with satellite communities on the periphery.
Construction of smaller sites also underwent change. Homes were built primarily above ground with stone masonry, while rock-and-mud storage granaries perched high in cliff recesses. Underground chambers, first introduced in Basketmaker times and used for living space, served both as places for domestic activities and as kivas with religious and social functions, often with one associated with each household. A typical structure followed the Mesa Verde pattern of a rounded chamber with a shaft-deflector–fire-pit configuration, a small hole (sipapu/sipapuni) representing a place of emergence from the worlds below, and a three-foot-high bench that encircled most of the room. Upon this bench stood three-foot-high pilasters that supported a cribbed roof through which a ladder extended to the world above.
By the Pueblo III phase, the Chaco phenomenon had ended and Mesa Verde had become a bustling epicenter, spreading its construction and pottery characteristics over a large area of the northern Anaasází domain between 1150 and 1300. The dramatic cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde offer a good picture of buildings and lifestyle during this era. The general pattern of events is characterized as a shrinking or gathering of dispersed communities into a series of larger villages in more-defensible areas. Large communal plazas, tower clusters around springs at the head of canyons, evidence of decreased regional trade relations, and the introduction of the kachina cult prevalent during the historic period among the pueblo peoples are all indications that Anaasází society was undergoing change.
Archaeologists argue about what caused these cultural shifts and the subsequent abandonment of the San Juan drainage area by the Anaasází. Some people attribute the changes to environmental factors such as prolonged drought, cooler temperatures, arroyo cutting, and depleted soils. Others in the past suggested that nomadic hunters and gatherers—precursors to the historic Ute, Paiute, and Navajo people—invaded the area, although no concrete proof exists to suggest large-scale warfare with outside invaders. No single explanation satisfactorily answers all of the questions, but by 1300 the Anaasází had left the San Juan drainage on a series of migrations that eventually took them to their historic, present homes along the Rio Grande (Eastern Pueblos) and to the areas where the Acoma, Zuni, and Hopi villages (Western Pueblos) now stand. There they continued to evolve through the Pueblo IV and Pueblo V periods of the Pecos Classification system. Pueblo IV (1350–1600) was characterized by large pueblos built around a common plaza, the rapid expansion of the kachina cult, and a realignment of hierarchical government, while the Pueblo V phase includes the entrance of the Spanish through to events of today.
NUMIC SPEAKERS' ARRIVAL
This cursory overview of over two thousand years of prehistory and history is based on the archaeological record of the material culture left behind. What of other migrating hunter-gatherer groups such as the Numic-speaking Utes and Paiutes or the Athabascan-speaking Navajos and Apaches as they entered the Southwest? Since none of these people left clearly identifiable material remains, their early presence is disputed by archaeologists, frustrated by scant physical evidence. Historic linguistics, with its imprecise techniques such as glottochronology and theoretical supposition, provides some assistance. With both language groups, the tendency has recently been to support an earlier entrance, pushing back the time for potential interaction with the Anaasází, something to be discussed shortly.
The long-held conventional wisdom of archaeologists concerned with the Numic people suggests the possibility of many "waves" of migration. Most scholars agree that the initial starting point for this divisive splitting up was in the area of Death Valley in southern California. Approximately three thousand to five thousand years ago, members of the large Uto-Aztecan language family started to subdivide into nine smaller groups. Numic speakers composed one of these divisions, which includes today's Utes and Paiutes. Fanning out from southern California, they moved in a northeasterly direction but remained on the edge of the Great Basin until about one thousand years ago, when they entered rapidly into this area, then onto the Colorado Plateau. Linguist Sydney Lamb believes that "since the three branches of Numic [Paiute, Ute, and Chemehuevi] were already distinct, this great spread must have been undertaken independently by each of the three groups. The separation in all of them, however, may have taken place at roughly the same time." Their language became increasingly diversified as groups split from each other, another linguist suggesting that the Utes separated from the Southern Paiutes four hundred years ago as they settled in the Four Corners region.
Excerpted from Viewing the Ancestors by Robert S. McPherson. Copyright © 2014 University of Oklahoma Press. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site. | <urn:uuid:1ef28e05-16a7-4d69-88ae-f887e8d20a34> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/viewing-the-ancestors-robert-s-mcpherson/1117684714?ean=9780806145693&itm=1&usri=robert+s.+mcpherson | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393463.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00048-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951649 | 3,664 | 3.515625 | 4 |
Unknown and Young Adults
Unknown Cases and Young Adult Cases
Every year there are significant numbers of missing person reports made to police involving young adults (from early teens up to the age of 25) and often there is no explanation for their disappearance. If a child or young adult goes missing for no explainable reason, they are considered an ‘unknown case.’ According to the 2009 Missing Children Reference Report, the majority (23%) of missing child reports made to police in 2009 fell into the ‘unknown’ category.1 While most children and young adults who go missing are only gone for a short period of time, there are circumstances that require swift action from concerned parents. If you are the parent of a child, youth or young adult who has gone missing for unknown reasons, this section includes information about what important steps you need to take to help locate your child. Also included in this section is information about risks facing young adults, and suggestions on ways to help reduce these risks.
What Does an “Unknown Case” Mean?
While oftentimes parents or guardians know why their child has gone missing, there are cases where no one is certain as to why the child has disappeared. Such cases can be very difficult and often raise unanswered questions for everyone involved. Over the past ten years in Canada, there have been numerous cases where searching families have been unable to determine why their child has disappeared. While speculation is common, in many situations, the facts surrounding the disappearance combined with the known personality of the child do not point to any one reason for the child to have gone missing. It is important that if you are the parent of a missing child and you have no reasonable explanation or concrete opinion as to why your child is missing, that you make that very clear to the police. This information will be very relevant in the search for your child and will also prevent assumptions from being made that might limit the degree and type of police action and involvement.
What Might be the Reason for a Child, Youth or Young Adult to Go Missing?
There are many reasons why children, youth or young adults go missing. Sometimes when a child, youth or young adult goes missing, there are simple explanations, such as they forgot to call home, they lost track of time or they became temporarily lost. In these circumstances, children, youth or young adults are usually located quite quickly. In other, more concerning situations, the child, youth or young adult may have had an accident, run away, or someone has harmed or taken them.
In these types of cases, there are some common characteristics of children, youth and young adults, and as a searching parent, you may also benefit from reading the Runaway information sections of MissingKids.ca if your child is missing for unknown reasons.
If Your Child is Missing, You Must Act Quickly
If your child is missing, you have reason to believe that their disappearance seems out of character for them, and you nor anyone else has had contact with them, you need to immediately report your child missing to the police. You are in the best position to say if your child’s disappearance is out of character for them, and you may need to be persistent with law enforcement in order to make them understand the seriousness of your concerns. For example, if it is unusual for your child to stay out all night or not show up at work, this is something you need to emphasize when speaking with the police. Being able to assure the police that your son or daughter ALWAYS calls when they are going to be late or that your child NEVER misses work without calling, can go a long way in creating a more immediate response from law enforcement. Remember, the police receive thousands of missing children and missing person’s reports — they need to know what makes your case urgent. In the absence of any other information on where your child was going, and who your child was with, police will be relying on your knowledge of your child.
Dalley, Ph.D., Marlene, Canadian Police Center for Missing and Exploited Children, National Missing Children Services, National Police Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/pubs/omc-ned/an-ra/annrep-rappann-09-eng.htm, 2009. | <urn:uuid:be3b82ba-92c8-4083-8117-29c47a9ad301> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://missingkids.ca/app/en/unknown_and_young_adults | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00077-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963037 | 881 | 2.65625 | 3 |
A new type of coal fired power plant is set to be put into commission this week in Northen Germany, and will be the first coal fired power station to emit ZERO carbon emissions into the atmosphere. The Schwarze Pumpe power station will be the first to use carbon capture and storage (CCS).
The plant as its name suggests captures the 9 tonnes of carbon it produces per hour and compresses it to 500 times its size. This captured carbon is then injected 1,000m below the surface of the earth into porous rock, where it is supposed to stay, at least until the issue of Global Warming has been resolved! If such technology proves to be successful then it will soon be rolled out to many other power stations, and could have immediate impact in reducing green house gases in the atmosphere, but it is still heavily criticized by Green Peace for deflecting investment from renewable energy sources.
Carbon Capturing Power Plants
More Stats +/-
Boozy Coffee Popsicle Recipes
Top 65 Modern Trends in June
Sustainable Chinese Supercomputers
Airy Contemporary Apartments
Rustic Tiny Homes | <urn:uuid:04e5c32b-5618-45c2-8de9-88af5b127041> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/carbon-capturing-power-plant-turned-on-is-this-the-answer-to-global-warming | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398209.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00181-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937113 | 226 | 3.390625 | 3 |
Most hellebores, also known as Lenten roses, are an easy to care for plant and a must have in any garden. They are very hardy plants, grown in zones 4-8, and will survive the worst weather Mother Nature can throw at them. Hellebores are primarily European natives, growing in open meadows in Bosnia, Turkey and China. I was introduced to them a few years ago at the LaGrange County Master Gardeners Symposium.
This perennial plant typically flowers in late winter to spring. Their lantern-like flowers come in shades of white, green, dusky pink, and purple and can last from 10-12 weeks. They will grow well in most soils, even tolerating acidic soils. However, their preference is for a neutral to slightly limey soil – a pH of about 7 would be ideal. Most prefer semi-shade and are sometimes sold as shade loving plants. Plants in deep shade will survive, but will exhibit sparser growth and produce fewer blooms.
As with a hosta, the shade tolerance of these plants makes them suitable for developing a woodland garden or growing under trees and large shrubs. These plants do not like to have wet feet and will need protection from strong winter winds. My hellebore receives afternoon sun and has grown quite well.
Most parts of the Hellebores are toxic. A mild skin irritation has been known to occur in people that are especially susceptible after an extensive period of handling these plants without using gloves. Touted to be a deer-resistant plant, these may be a logical choice, possibly as a ground cover, for a deer infested landscape.
Here in the north the leaves may still remain green for much of the winter, but they tend to look rather ratty by the time spring arrives. Fortunately, by then, new leaves are well on their way. Trim off the old leaves when the “reinforcements” have arrived. Amending the soil with compost will improve the vigor of the hellebore plants as will fertilizing with a balanced 10-10-10 fertilizer in the spring. For the lazy gardener, do nothing at all and they will most likely survive rather well.
Mark your calendars for the 7th Annual LaGrange County Master Gardeners Spring Symposium, “DIY Gardening,” to be held at the LaGrange County 4-H Fairgrounds on Saturday, March 23. Reservations are required and due by March 8.
As always, happy gardening!
The Purdue University Cooperative Extension Service can be reached at 499-6334 in LaGrange County. | <urn:uuid:c984b32c-5215-4599-9b86-fbecb6a2ce03> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.lagrangepublishing.com/openpublish/article/knowledge-grow-karen-weiland-hellebores | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00132-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96255 | 543 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Geospatial data, including satellite images, digital maps, and other kinds of geospatial information in digital form represent our scientific, scholarly, and cultural heritage. Geospatial data and information often represent aspects of the physical environment and events that have been captured at a particulur moment and therefore, cannot be reproduced. In addition to their use in research, education, and decision-making, geospatial data are used in various professions to represent characteristics of our world. Preserving geospatial data and information resources will help to ensure that they can continue to be used in the future.
This Resource Center is being developed to offer capabilities for finding freely available web-based resources about the preservation of geospatial information. A variety of selected resources are being added, including reports, presentations, standards, and information about tools for preparing geospatial assets for long-term access and use. The resources are indexed to enable searching of titles and are categorized to facilitate discovery by choosing among topics, resource types, or both. Topics on the stewardship and management of geospatial data include appraisal and selection, citation, content standards, describing and preparing, depositing and documenting, digitized maps, Geographic Information Systems or GIS, preservation formats, satellite imagery, software dependencies, virtual environments, and many others.
The Geospatial Data Preservation Resource Center is a project of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP), which is working with a national network of partners on a strategy for preserving digital information for use in the future. Information about the NDIIPP, its partners, projects, and events can be found on the NDIIPP web site, which is accessible at http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/ | <urn:uuid:5dd9d830-5696-4400-ae18-cf6fe9505738> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://geopreservation.org/about.jsp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00049-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90533 | 352 | 3.390625 | 3 |
The CIA has a kid’s page. So does the CIA, for that matter, but I find the former much more disturbing. The kids’ page of the Central Intelligence Agency includes a “Bird’s Eye View of CIA History,” narrated by “Aerial, the ace photography pigeon.” There are links to the CIA “Hall of Fame,” which–disappointingly–includes only non-classified information (I know about Harry Truman and George H.W. Bush! Tell me cool secret things).
For those of you who can pledge to stay away from illegally and improperly using drugs and alcohol, there are student opportunities immediately available at the CIA for the best and brightest.
Finally, there are games. There are puzzles, word finds, and “break the code.” “Break the code” includes a challenge involving the “Enigma Code” which I’m pretty sure requires an invasion of Poland to solve. Additional games include the “Aerial Analysis Challenge,” and the “Photo Analysis Challenge,” which involve skills useful later for those interested in a career in Bomb Damage Assessment.
There are also resources for parents and teachers, including lesson plans. “Adaptable for students of any age,” these include “Examples of Problem Solving, Myths about the CIA vs. Reality, Intelligence’s Role in War, Code and Code Breaking, the Importance of Accurate Communications,” and my personal favorite “Gathering and Analyzing Information,” which includes the following:
To begin the lesson, the teacher will hand out the “Intelligence Cycle” print out and discuss its five steps: Planning & Direction, Collection, Processing, Analysis & Production, and Dissemination.
After the students understand the “Intelligence Cycle,” the teacher should write the following on the blackboard: “Back in my day….” Begin a discussion by asking students how many of them have heard their parents or grandparents use that phrase in conversation and what they learned about their family’s past from those reminiscences.
Next, the teacher should ask students to pick a parent or grandparent they can interview before the next class and write three paragraphs comparing the student’s current day-to-day life to their subject’s life at the same age. Discuss what kind of questions to ask to see the differences in the student’s life compared to their subject’s life at the same point.
Whether the child is allowed to use enhanced interview techniques on the chosen grandparent is not specified. | <urn:uuid:0dceb130-44dc-442e-a872-3192423d6fb3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/edgeofthewest/2009/05/14/cheap-shots-for-the-day/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00171-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942486 | 553 | 2.625 | 3 |
She at once quitted Nohant, taking with her Solange, and in 1831 an amicable separation was agreed upon, by which her whole estate was surrendered to the husband with the stipulation that she should receive an allowance of £120 a year.
But her political ardour was short-lived; she cared little about forms of government, and, when the days of June dashed to the ground her hopes of social regeneration, she quitted once for all the field of politics and returned to her quiet country ways and her true vocation as an interpreter of nature, a spiritualizer of the commonest sights of earth and the homeliest household affections.
On the death of this general Descartes quitted the imperial service, and in July 1621 began a peaceful tour through Moravia, the borders of Poland, Pomerania, Brandenburg, Holstein and Friesland, from which he reappeared in February 1622 in Belgium, and betook himself directly to his father's home at Rennes in Brittany.
On the 3rd of December 1564 he quitted Moscow with his whole family.
Alexander came within sight of the Persian host without having met with any opposition since he quitted Tyre.
How would you define quitted? Add your definition here. | <urn:uuid:7aaf5625-8e20-415c-95e8-967b2e69c6f7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.yourdictionary.com/quitted | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392069.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00173-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980215 | 265 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Walk into any tech company or university math department, and you'll likely see a gender disparity: Fewer women than men seem to go into fields involving science, engineering, technology and mathematics.
Over the years, educators, recruiters and government authorities have bemoaned the gender gap and warned that it can have dire consequences for American competitiveness and continued technological dominance.
It isn't just that fewer women choose to go into these fields. Even when they go into these fields and are successful, women are more likely than men to quit.
"They tend to drop out at higher rates than their male peers," said Toni Schmader, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia. "As women enter into careers, the levels of advancement aren't as steep for women as for men.
Schmader and a colleague, Matthias Mehl at the University of Arizona, recently came up with an innovative way to study one dimension of the gender gap in fields such as computer science and engineering.
Mehl often uses a device known as an Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) in his research. It's an audio recorder that the psychologist can attach to volunteers. The device automatically turns itself on and off.
"We program the device to record for 30 seconds every 12 minutes," Mehl said in an interview. "That gives you about 5 soundbites per hour, or 70 soundbites per day."
By "sampling" people's daily lives, Mehl said his recorder often picks up on things that people don't notice. Most of us remember only the highlights of our days — an interesting conversation or a ballgame. But much of the time, our lives run on autopilot, and we don't notice what's going on. Mehl said getting detailed information about what people do during the majority of their time is central to understanding them psychologically.
The sampling technique has revealed flaws in common stereotypes. Take the one about how women like to talk much more than men. When Mehl actually measured how many words men and women speak each day, he found there was practically no difference — both men and women speak around 17,000 words a day, give or take a few hundred.
Mehl and Schmader said in interviews that they felt the unobtrusive sampling technique could shed some light on why women who'd made it through grueling Ph.D.s and become science and math professors might feel like throwing it all away.
They had male and female scientists at a research university wear the audio recorders and go about their work. When the scientists analyzed the audio samples, they found there was a pattern in the way the male and female professors talked to one another.
When male scientists talked to other scientists about their research, it energized them. But it was a different story for women.
"For women, the pattern was just the opposite, specifically in their conversations with male colleagues," Schmader said. "So the more women in their conversations with male colleagues were talking about research, the more disengaged they reported being in their work."
Disengagement predicts that someone is at risk of dropping out.
There was another sign of trouble.
When female scientists talked to other female scientists, they sounded perfectly competent. But when they talked to male colleagues, Mehl and Schmader found that they sounded less competent.
One obvious explanation was that the men were being nasty to their female colleagues and throwing them off their game. Mehl and Schmader checked the tapes.
"We don't have any evidence that there is anything that men are saying to make this happen," Schmader said.
But the audiotapes did provide a clue about what was going on. When the male and female scientists weren't talking about work, the women reported feeling more engaged.
For Mehl and Schmader, this was the smoking gun that an insidious psychological phenomenon called "stereotype threat" was at work. It could potentially explain the disparity between men and women pursuing science and math careers.
What Is Stereotype Threat?
Several years ago, psychologist Claude Steele posed an interesting question about an everyday scenario: Let's say you stopped by a math classroom and saw boys and girls learning together.
"The teacher is the same; the textbooks are the same; and in better classrooms, these students are treated the same," Steele wrote. "Is it possible, then, that they could still experience the classroom differently, so differently in fact as to significantly affect their performance and achievement there?"
Steele and other psychologists said a psychological phenomenon could be influencing the performance of students.
When there's a stereotype in the air and people are worried they might confirm the stereotype by performing poorly, their fears can inadvertently make the stereotype become self-fulfilling.
Steele and his colleagues found that when women were reminded — even subtly — of the stereotype that men were better than women at math, the performance of women in math tests measurably declined. Since the reduction in performance came about because women were threatened by the stereotype, the psychologists called the phenomenon "stereotype threat."
Stereotype threat isn't limited to women or ethnic minorities, Steele wrote elsewhere. "Everyone experiences stereotype threat. We are all members of some group about which negative stereotypes exist, from white males and Methodists to women and the elderly. And in a situation where one of those stereotypes applies — a man talking to women about pay equity, for example, or an aging faculty member trying to remember a number sequence in the middle of a lecture — we know that we may be judged by it."
Mehl and Schmader said they believed the same psychological phenomenon was responsible for the different ways in which conversations between male and female scientists were leaving the scientists engaged or disengaged.
"For a female scientist, particularly talking to a male colleague, if she thinks it's possible he might hold this stereotype, a piece of her mind is spent monitoring the conversation and monitoring what it is she is saying, and wondering whether or not she is saying the right thing, and wondering whether or not she is sounding competent, and wondering whether or not she is confirming the stereotype," Schmader said.
All this worrying is distracting. It uses up brainpower. The worst part?
"By merely worrying about that more, one ends up sounding more incompetent," Schmader said.
Mehl and Schmader think that when female scientists talk to male colleagues about research, it brings the stereotype about men, women and science to the surface.
When the female scientists talked to men about leisure activities, it didn't activate the stereotype. It wasn't that women liked to talk only about their weekends and personal lives. When the women talked to other women about science, the stereotype wasn't activated. It was the combination — women talking to men, and women and men talking about science, that activated the stereotype threat.
Now, most scientists say they don't believe the stereotype about women and science, and argue that it won't affect them. But the psychological studies suggest people are affected by stereotype threat regardless of whether they believe the stereotype.
Mehl, for example, knows all about stereotype threat. He even studies it for a living. The psychological phenomenon affects even him. In Mehl's case, the stereotype that threatens his performance has to do with dancing — and the fact he's from Germany and his wife is from Mexico.
"When I go dancing in Mexico, the stereotype of Germans not being good dancers is very salient," he said. "So I find myself much more aware of the way I dance when I dance among a group of Latinos, compared to when I dance among a group of Germans."
I asked Mehl whether worrying about his performance could be undermining his dancing.
"It's, well, possible that it undermines my performance," he said. Mehl said he's tried to fight the stereotype by reminding himself about how the psychological phenomenon works.
"What takes place is really mostly in my head," he said he tells himself. "'Guess what? The Latinos around me don't really care about how I dance.'"
The Wrong Conclusion
Mehl and Schmader said the stereotype threat research does not imply that the gender disparity in science and math fields is all "in women's heads."
The problem isn't with women, Mehl said. The problem is with the stereotype.
The study suggests the gender disparity in science and technology may be, at least in part, the result of a vicious cycle.
When women look at tech companies and math departments, they see few women. This activates the stereotype that women aren't good at math. The stereotype, Toni Schmader said, makes it harder for women to enter those fields. To stay. To thrive.
"If people like me aren't represented in this field, then it makes me feel like it's a bad fit, like I don't belong here," she said.
Shirley Malcom, a biologist who heads education programs at the American Association for the Advancement of Science calls it a chicken and egg problem: "The fact that there are maybe small numbers in some areas keeps the numbers down."
It may sound like a Zen riddle, but Malcom, Schmader and Mehl's solution to the problem of stereotype threat in science, technology and engineering is actually simple.
In order to boost the numbers of women who choose to go into those fields, you have to boost the number of women who are in those fields. | <urn:uuid:bf7e6f19-5b7e-4c4a-962a-63e295acff8e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.npr.org/2012/07/12/156664337/stereotype-threat-why-women-quit-science-jobs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393146.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00190-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979664 | 1,951 | 3.296875 | 3 |
The recent lunch debate on Health and Wellbeing explored future scenarios for old age, medicine, care and the human body, asking what sort of future should we be preparing our young people for? Robots and Avatars brought together a range of experts including Professor Raymond Tallis (Emeritus Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Manchester) and Professor Kevin Warwick (Professor of Cybernetics at Reading University) to discuss and debate the issue.
As part of the debate participants visioned care being administered by and through robots and avatars, the development of implants that would alter the way the brain works in order to cure many common diseases, a greater life expectancy with a shorter period of ‘woe’ towards the end of peoples lives and the possibility of self diagnosis and treatment as a result of advances in medical technology.
Central to the debate were questions around the representation of humans in care scenarios. Some participants resolutely argued that there can be no replacement for human to human care, emphaising the importance of empathy in care. Others were keen to emphasise the relatively low uptake of new technologies such as telecare and mobile apps which help patients self-diagnose. Whilst participants’ personal trepidations about their own old age entered into the debate, it was also emphasized that a future of health and wellbeing where robots and avatars play an increasingly important role, is very unlikely to completely replace the human to human contact but instead would most likely serve to augment it. This area of the debate touched on many of the issues that Robots and Avatars has been exploring over the course of the Lunch Debate Series including the credibility of artificial intelligence, the need to address illusion within representational forms and thinking about the ways in which we adopt new technologies.
Another key area of the debate focused around increased life expectancy, new ways of thinking about ‘old age’ and how we might go about changing perceptions now? According to ‘most attractive model’ for the future of ageing put forward by Professor Raymond Tallis, today’s young people are expected to live longer and have better health for longer, significantly affecting the way the population ages. As such, it is clear that we will have to develop new ways of thinking about not just old age but age more generally. It’s interesting to note that the word ‘teenager’ originated in the early 20th Century and has given rise to a complex set of ideas that strongly inform the ways we relate to, provide for and deal with 13-19 year olds, now it is time for teenagers to start thinking about what they want to be called when they are fit and healthy and in their 80’s – and still with another 20 years to live.
We will be sharing video content from the Health and Wellbeing soon. To see video and reports from previous debates click here.
Thecla Schiphorst is a Media Artist/Designer and Faculty Member in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.
On sensory technologies and the future of education and can be used as an introduction for young people to Sensory Technologie
On behaviours and ethics in education. With Professor Anna Craft, Professor of Education at the University of Exeter and the Open University.
We have already blogged about Robotars – humanoid robots that are controlled virtually from a remote location – and NASA’s efforts in this field are developing further with their Robonaut 2.
At the recent Artifical Intelligence Lunch Debate the diverse group of experts discussed the implications of this sort of blended reality. This is particularly in relation to the use of sensory feedback technology which gives users a more heightened and tactile experience and that provides new and more tangible ways of behaving through and with new representational forms.
Commenting about the problems with traditional understandings of artifical intelligence at the Lunch Debate in June, Professor Noel Sharkey suggested that with robots and avatars we should not be saying “I think therefore I am” but instead, ‘I feel therefore I am’.
Daily Galaxy has a great article on the Robonaut 2 which is below:
NASA’s Robonaut 2, or R2, is getting ready to work on the International Space Station in November but it’s already tweeting about preparations under the account, @AstroRobonaut.
The humanoid robot — complete with a head, arms and an upper torso — will be the first dexterous humanoid robot in space and it assures its followers in one of its first tweets alluding to 2001: A Space Odyssey that, “No, no relation to Hal. Don’t know if I’d want to admit to having him on my family tree if I was. [Definately] don’t condone his actions.” It also tweeted that it’s not related to Boba Fett.
Is this another vivid sign that we have entered the dawn of the age of post-biological intelligence?
Although there are already several robots in space — including the famous now AI-enhanced Mars Rovers, which have been zipping around the red planet for years — NASA and G.M.have created the first human-like robot to leave Earth.
The robot is called Robonaut 2, or R2 for short, and it weighs in at 300 pounds, with a head, torso and two fully functional arms. At first, R2 will be monitored in space to see how it performs in weightlessness, but NASA hopes to eventually use R2 to assist astronauts during space walks and to work alongside engineers in the space station.
In a joint news release, John Olson, director of NASA’s Exploration Systems Integration Office, said, “The partnership of humans and robots will be critical to opening up the solar system and will allow us to go farther and achieve more than we can probably even imagine today.”
According to researchers on the project, “Robonaut systems are the first humanoids specifically designed for space.”
Robonaut is a collaboration between the Robot Systems Technology Branch at the NASA Johnson Space Center and the US military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to build a robotic ‘astronaut equivalent’. Robonaut looks a bit like a human, with an upper torso, two arms and a head – all controlled by a human operator through telerobotic technologies. Robonaut was designed with the concept of creating a robot for tasks that ‘were not specifically designed for robots.’ In order for the Robonaut to complete these ‘human-like’ tasks, it is equipped with hands that are actually more dexterous than those of an astronaut in a pressurized spacesuit.
In 2004, the second generation of Robonaut gained mobility when engineers attached its body to a Segway Robotic Mobility Platform (RMP) commissioned by DARPA. Using virtual reality instruments, a human operator was immersed in the Robonaut’s actual environment and was able to perform remote operations.
According to researchers on Robonaut, “As the project matures with increased feedback to the human operator, the Robonaut system will approach the handling and manipulation capabilities of a suited astronaut.”
With more ‘haptic technology’ which uses sensory feedback to recreate the sense of touch, a user might wear gloves that allow them to ‘feel’ objects in a virtual world. You could examine the texture and weight of rocks, or even experience the crunch of icy martian dirt.
Dr Grace Augustine’s Avatars on Pandora go well beyond current technologies. We’re not going to be growing any biological avatars for human explorers in the lab – but modern robotics are getting close to providing a ‘human’ experience through increased dexterity and mobility. Robotic avatars could allow humans to fully experience the environment of other worlds. Through the eyes of robotic avatars we could watch the sunrise over the rusty, red crater rims without having to “experience suffocation, the icy death of -200 degrees C on their skin or the sting of microscopic dust in their eyes.”
Even though NASA and others have come a long way in developing avatars, the technology still has a long way to go before we’re having adventures on Pandora-like planets. Perhaps more advanced civilizations on distant worlds have developed avatars just as good as those in the movie.
R2 will be a passenger on the Space Shuttle Discovery, which is scheduled to head to the space station in September.
We have just finished the first of our highlight videos which document the Lunch Debate on Artificial Intelligence, which took place on 28th June 2010. The Robots and Avatars Lunch Debates bring together a diverse and specialised group of professionals and experts to deepen the research and conversation around Robots and Avatars and ask ‘What sort of world are we educating our young people for?’
Lunch Debate #1 – Provocation by Professor Noel Sharkey
Provocation by Professor Noel Sharkey, University of Sheffield
Produced by body>data>space
Lunch Debate #1 – Artificial Intelligence – Highlights
At NESTA, June 28th 2010
Produced by body>data>space
Some of the key themes of the recent Robots and Avatars Lunch Debates on Artificial Intelligence and Behaviours and Ethics concern the relativity of humans to robots and avatars. We have been asking, how might we relate to these new representation forms in the future and what the implications might be of this? Central to this debate have been questions of authenticity, credibility, trust and security which have been highlighted due to the fact that, ultimately, it is currently impossible for an inanimate object or a graphical representation to ‘love you back’. In short, the relationships that we think we might be having with robots or avatars tend to be deceptive and illusory.
One area that this seems to have particular implications for is in the use of service or domestic robots, which is set to be a major growth area in the near future. Below is a great article by blogger Donald Clark about robots teachers, which surveys some of the the developments and issues around this sort of future.
Robot teachers – endlessly patient, CPD updates in seconds
The article in the New York Times will no doubt drive traditionalists to apoplexy, so there must be something in this report about the rise of robots in schools. Imagine a teacher that is endlessly patient, always teaches the correct skill in the correct way, provides lot of constructive feedback, can receive CPD updates in seconds, never gets ill and costs less than one month’s teacher’s salary? That’s the long-term promise.
What makes all this possible are advances in AI, motion tracking and language recognition. We have already seen what Microsoft have done with Natal in terms of speech, gesture and motion recognition. Plonk this into a robot and we’re really getting somewhere. The point in the short term is not to replace teachers but to replace the teaching of SOME TEACHING TASKS.
The focus, for the moment, is on early years education, playing to the ‘cute’ factor. This makes sense. We could see significant advances in early numeracy, literacy and second language skills in schools with software that provides guidance superior to that of many teachers. In addition, they can be updated, wirelessly, in seconds and can even learn as they teach.
The basic premise is sound and was shown convincingly by Nass and Reeves in The Media Equation – we treat technology as humans if it has the right affective behaviours – good timing, being polite, co-operative etc.. This is how computer games work. With the right movement, sounds and behaviour, avatars and robots seem real. Tens of millions use and experience this phenomenon every day. There’s even a touch of this in your ATM, where you’d rather deal with a hole in a wall than a live teller.
Robots don’t get hangovers, don’t take holidays, never discriminate on grounds of gender, race or accent. They’re patient, scalable and consistent. The ideal teacher!
Robots & language learning
The initial trials have been in learning tasks in autism and English as a second language. S Korea sees English as a key skill in terms of growth and its Institute of Science and Technology has developed Engey, to teach English. Their goal is to have an effective robot, that is better than the average teacher, in 3-5 years. This is part of a general push in robotics that sees robots do things humans do in areas such as production, military, health and education. Hundreds of robots are already in S Korea’s 8,400 kindergartens and the plan is to have one in every Kindergarten by 2013.
The University of California has been doing studies with a robot called RUBI, teaching Finnish. Initial studies show that the children do as well in tests as children taught by real teachers on specific language tasks. The retention was significantly better after 12 weeks with a reduction in errors of over 25%. Another interesting finding is that the robots need not look like real people, in fact hi-fidelity seems to be a little ‘creepy’ for kids. Although for an amazingly life like robot watch this.
CES 2010 featured a wonderful talking robot that follows you around the house and teaches you languages. It was remarkably sophisticated, with voice recognition, face recognition, picture recognition (show it a picture and it will say the word in your chosen language).l
Robots & autism
In a collaborative Japanese/US research project, children with autism have been shown to respond positively to synchronised behaviour from a robot. This is used to move the child on to other types of social interaction. In the University of Connecticut, a French robot is being used to with autistic children using mimicry to establish trust. Have a look at Beatbot’s Keepon robot designed for kids with autism.
Robots and personalised learning
Personalised learning can also be realised through one on one interaction and the robot engaging in conversations and learning from the learner. Work of this kind has been going on at the Georgia Institute of Technology, with a robot called Simon. The improvements in AI and natural language processing have led to results in the robotic world that promise one to one tuition in the future.
Robots & physical tasks
There’s also the teaching of physical tasks, such as setting a table, where Honda Labs have taught older children to complete the task without the aid of teachers. Robots can already complete physical manufacturing tasks way beyond the physical capability, speed and accuracy of a human. We’ve had 25 years of robotic surgery, with robots being used to do surgery at a distance, unmanned surgery and to minimise invasion. In May 2006 the first AI doctor-conducted unassisted robotic surgery on a 34 year old male to correct heartarrhythmia. The results were rated as better than an above-average human surgeon. The machine had a database of 10,000 similar operations, and so, in the words of its designers, was “more than qualified to operate on any patient.” The designers believe that robots can replace half of all surgeons within 15 years. In January 2009, the first all-robotic-assisted kidney transplant was performed at in the US by Dr. Stuart Geffner. The same team performed eight more fully robotic-assisted kidney transplants over the next six months.
It is only natural that robots, which have replaced highly skilled tasks in manufacturing, should be considered for teaching. Automating repetitive, difficult and dangerous tasks has always been technology’s trump card. If we know one thing about teaching, it’s that it is difficult and demanding, leading to unnatural levels of stress and illness. If we can, at the very least, relieve the pressure on teachers, that is surely a noble aim. In its own way, simple robotic, screen programmes like BBCBitesize and e-learning have already automated a lot of education and training. Robots promise to personalise this process. Every passing month sees improvements in movement, gesture and language recognition, with the technology appearing in the games world this year by Christmas. I have no doubt that robo-teaching will be common in schools in my lifetime.
Robots and Avatars are producing a series of vodcasts which will be available to view on this site. They explore the themes of the programme, including Artifical Intelligence, Behaviours and Ethics, Health and Wellbeing and the Future Workplace from the perspective of a diverse array of professionals and experts who share their expertise and insight in this series of interviews
Vodcast #1 – Professor Noel Sharkey
University of Sheffield
On artifical intelligence and the future of work and place. With Professor Noel Sharkey, professor of Robotics and Artifical Intelligence, University of Sheffield.
Vodcast #2 – Fiddian Warman
On artifical intelligence and the future of work and place. With Fiddian Warman – Artist/Director – Soda.
Between June and October 2010, Robots and Avatars are hosting a series of Lunch Debates which bring together a diverse and specialised group of professionals and experts to deepen the research and conversation around Robots and Avatars and ask ‘What sort of world are we educating our young people for?’ The Lunch Debates help focus the overall theme of the programme into a series of specific areas, which include:
- Artificial Intelligence
- Behaviours and Ethics
- Health and Wellbeing
- Future Workplaces
Content from these debates will be shared shortly after each event on this site and will include video and writing.
Artificial Intelligence – its evolution in Robots and Avatars – this will be a highly topical debate on the illusions and realisms of intelligence and cognition, free will and stand alone decisions by human agents such as robots and avatars, blended robots/avatars (robotars), M2M interfaces and communication developments of all types.
It will envision the involvement of a mix of robots, avatars, tele-presence and real time presence in the work place and examine the consequences of AI into future team space.
Provocateur – Professor Noel Sharkey BA PhD FIET, FBCS CITP FRIN FRSA – Professor of AI and Robotics / Professor of Public Engagement at University of Sheffield (Department Computer Science) Project Champion for Robots and Avatars.
Moderators – Ghislaine Boddington (Creative Director, body>data>space) and Benedict Arora (Programme Director Education, NESTA) | <urn:uuid:b5f58b15-8111-4be4-8d02-6d3daa176b76> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.robotsandavatars.net/category/lunch-debates/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397749.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00201-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944199 | 3,871 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Graphene is an interesting two-dimensional carbon allotrope that has attracted considerable research interest because of its unique structure and physicochemical properties. Studies have been conducted on graphene-based nanomaterials including modified graphene, graphene/semiconductor hybrids, graphene/metal nanoparticle composites, and graphene-complex oxide composites. These nanomaterials inherit the unique properties of graphene, and the addition of functional groups or the nanoparticle composites on their surfaces improves their performance. Applications of these materials in pollutant removal and environmental remediation have been explored. From the viewpoint of environmental chemistry and materials, this paper reviews recent important advances in synthesis of graphene-related materials and their application in treatment of environmental pollution. The roles of graphene-based materials in pollutant removal and potential research are discussed.
Keywordsgraphene graphene-based material environmental remediation pollution
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. | <urn:uuid:f00cbabd-2d40-4545-921c-320a4fb333ed> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11434-012-4986-5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00196-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915697 | 217 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Several nights ago I treated a very sweet, very tiny Himalayan. The hair on the front of her chest was continuously wet. I and the technicians would dry her, and she’d almost immediately become sodden again. This was because she elected to spend most of her time with her head hanging over her water bowl. The long hair on her chest wound up in the water bowl. Of course, I could have simply removed the water from her kennel. But that would have been cruel. She was thirsty — hopelessly thirsty.
In medicine the term pathognomonic refers to a sign or symptom that is distinctly associated with a certain disease. This thing that some cats do — hanging their heads over their water bowls — is nearly pathognomonic for one disease. Nearly, but not quite.
When a cat lolls her head over her water bowl, she is feeling overwhelmingly thirsty. She usually also is feeling nauseated simultaneously. There are a few conditions that can, in theory, make a cat feel this way. For instance, complications of diabetes can cause it to happen. But when a cat spends hours on end with her head over her water bowl, the overwhelmingly most common culprit is kidney disease.
Chronic kidney disease is the most common major illness of cats. Sadly, it is also the most common cause of death in well-cared-for cats. The condition has gone through several iterations of naming. Old-school types used to call the condition nephritis (which was not a good term, since it means kidney inflammation, and inflammation is not a feature of the most common forms of kidney disease). Then the name was changed to chronic renal failure, or CRF. Most recently ivory tower types have taken to calling it chronic kidney disease (CKD).
Chronic kidney disease is very common in cats. Any long-time cat person will have had experience with it.
Here’s what happens. In the course of normal metabolism, the various organs and tissues of the body metabolize nutrients, turning them into energy, cellular structures, and waste products. The waste products are released into the blood stream, where they circulate to the kidneys. The kidneys remove the waste products and excrete them in the urine.
Young, healthy feline kidneys can excrete prodigious quantities of waste products into very small quantities of urine. This is part of why cats’ urine smells so bad on carpet: It’s strong. But as the kidneys weaken, they lose their ability to produce such strong urine, and the urine gets weaker. To make up for this, cats start to produce more urine. This makes them thirsty.
Therefore, the first symptom of kidney disease is generally increased thirst and increased urine output. Because chronic kidney disease comes on slowly, this symptom can be subtle and many owners don’t notice it.
In the early stages of kidney disease the cat feels thirsty but otherwise feels fine. But here is the problem with CKD: It is progressive. The rate of progression varies wildly in different individuals, but over time chronic kidney disease gets worse.
As the disease progresses, the kidneys become unable to clear all of the metabolic waste products from the blood stream, and these products, which are toxic, begin to build up. At first, many cats are able to tolerate higher-than-normal levels of the toxins. However, if the process goes on long enough the cat reaches a tipping point and begins to feel sick.
High levels of the toxins cause a variety of clinical signs. Lethargy and weight loss are most common. Poor appetite (which might first manifest by becoming more “finicky”) is very common. The hair coat may become rough or malodorous (kidney disease causes bad breath, and this odor can spread over the coat during grooming). Vomiting may occur.
At the end stage, cats end up in very bad shape. The toxins in the blood stream may cause ulceration of the mouth. The kidneys are responsible for producing a hormone, erythropoeitin (also known as EPO, made famous by Lance Armstrong), that stimulates blood cell production. Cats with end-stage kidney failure don’t produce the hormone, and they wind up the opposite of Lance when he was doping: anemic and weak. They suffer from a complex condition called renal secondary hyperparathyroidism in which blood phosphorus levels build up. They become simultaneously thirsty and nauseated. They sometimes move to their water bowls and hover — sometimes for days.
Which brings us back to the Himalayan. She had the symptoms of kidney failure, and she was under treatment for kidney failure.
The most basic and readily available treatment for kidney failure is fluid therapy. The Himalayan in question was receiving aggressive intravenous fluids. These fluids give the kidneys more water with which to work, and if there is sufficient renal capacity, they help the kidneys to flush out the toxic metabolic waste products that have built up. Cats that show sufficient response to intravenous fluids are often able to go home, where they receive owner-administered injections of fluids under the skin.
There are many additional treatments that are used for cats with kidney failure. These include EPO injections, administration of so-called phosphate binders (to help reduce absorption of phosphorus from the intestines), dietary supplements, and diet changes (more on that in just a moment). However, fluids are by far the most effective practical treatment for kidney disease.
Sadly, kidney disease is a progressive problem. Not all cats will have sufficient renal capacity to respond to fluids, and even those that do will usually come to a point where they lose that capacity.
Advanced treatments for kidney disease such as dialysis and kidney transplants exist for cats. They are available at select tertiary referral centers such as elite veterinary schools. Sadly they are not practical for most owners, many cats are not good candidates for the procedures, and they cause certain ethical dilemmas (I can voluntarily give a kidney to a loved one, but it is not possible to obtain consent from a feline kidney donor).
The burning questions that many cat lovers have are what causes kidney failure, and what can be done to prevent it? The cause has not been definitively determined. There is a hereditary component, and some breeds are especially predisposed to the condition. (Although the condition is common in all cats, and not just domesticated ones. Remember Macho B?) Many experts simply surmise that cats have been engineered by nature for their kidneys to be the first organs to fail.
In a way this makes sense. Evidence suggests cats evolved in the deserts of north Africa and the Middle East. Wild cats’ reproduction and life strategies are very different from those of house cats. In the wild, cats only live a few years before they succumb to disease, starvation, aggression, trauma, or predation. They reproduce wildly during this time. Their kidneys, so the theory goes, are designed for the desert: They are very powerful and they conserve water. In this sense the kidneys are like engines running on redline: very powerful, but also at risk of burning out.
Burning out is not a problem for a wild cat living only a few years. But give that cat a good home and she may live 15 years beyond her life expectancy in the wild. That’s when kidney failure becomes a problem.
And then there is the matter of diet. This matter is a contentious one, to say the least. Could cat foods — especially dry foods, since they don’t have much water and help contribute to the kidneys running on “redline” — be contributing to high rates of kidney failure? At this point we don’t know but my hunch is that they might be. Ten years ago low-protein, high-calorie diets were recommended for cats to prevent and treat kidney failure. Now high-protein diets are being recommended, at least for cats with existing kidney disease, by some of the most respected veterinary nutritionists. Over the past decade cat diet recommendations have generally migrated away from carbohydrates and towards proteins. But when it comes to the effects of diet on feline renal failure, as in so many things, more research is needed.
You can read more about renal failure on my website.
Note that this article discusses chronic kidney disease, which is the most common form of kidney disease in cats. This article does not apply to other types of kidney disease, such as acute renal failure, renal failure secondary to toxins such as lilies or ethylene glycol, or polycystic kidney disease.
Learn more about your cat with Catster:
Got a question for Dr. Barchas? Ask our vet in the comments below and you might be featured in an upcoming column. (Note that if you have an emergency situation, please see your own vet immediately!)
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- A person who knows that she needs to make improvements in her life, who can recognize the situation and her problems and who makes plans to deal with them, is an example of a realist.
- Immaneul Kant, a German philosopher famous for the idea of the moral obligation which he called the "Categorical Imperative", is an example of a realist.
The definition of a realist is a person who can look at things as they are and deal with it in a practical manner, or an artist or philosopher who believes in showing and discussing realism rather than visionary thoughts.
- a person concerned with real things and practical matters rather than those that are imaginary or visionary
- a believer in or advocate of realism
- an artist or writer whose work is characterized by realism
- One who is inclined to literal truth and pragmatism.
- A practitioner of artistic or philosophic realism.
- (philosophy) An advocate of realism; one who believes that matter, objects etc. have real existence beyond our perception of them.
- One who believes in seeing things the way they really are, as opposed to how they would like them to be.
- (art, literature) An adherent of the realism movement; an artist who seeks to portray real everyday life accurately. | <urn:uuid:60014766-1023-4a29-938f-37cbe0b79545> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.yourdictionary.com/realist | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00177-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953664 | 267 | 3.375 | 3 |
The unique structure could theoretically provide the environmentally conscious city with solar energy and hydropower
Here’s an idea for energy sustainability that’s not mere quackery: A team of British designers and artists have proposed a floating tourist attraction that would gather solar energy in Copenhagen Harbor as the Danish city works to become carbon-neutral by the year 2025.
The 12-story-high structure just happens to also be in the shape of a giant sea duck.
Built from lightweight steel and covered in solar panels, the “energy duck” would by day collect the sun’s rays and by night bask the harbor in LED lights that change color in rhythm with the hydro turbines inside it, according to blog designboom.
Visitors wouldn’t just be able to admire the light show from a distance, they’d be able to board the energy duck and see the inner workings for themselves.
The supersized bird was developed by artists and designers Hareth Pochee, Adam Khan, Louis Leger, and Patrick Fryer as part of a competition run by the Land Art Generator Initiative, a project that aims to integrate art with sustainable design to come up with alternative energy solutions.
It’s just a concept, of course, but let’s hope this plan doesn’t go a-fowl. | <urn:uuid:a16bbf26-e65d-4a9a-918d-7c3e231829b4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://time.com/3076392/giant-floating-duck-proposed-to-bring-green-energy-to-copenhagen/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394937.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00064-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943349 | 277 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Dropping water levels imperil power flowing to Southern CaliforniaBy ERIC WOLFF - email@example.com
North County Times - Vista, Californian, 9/12/2010
After 75 years of steadily cranking out electricity for California, Arizona and Nevada, the mighty turbines of the Hoover Dam could cease turning as soon as 2013, if water levels in the lake that feeds the dam don't start to recover, say water and dam experts.
Under pressure from the region's growing population and years of drought, Lake Mead was down to 1,087 feet, a 54-year low, as of Wednesday.
If the lake loses 10 feet a year, as it has recently, it will soon reach 1,050 feet, the level below which the turbines can no longer run.
Those hydroelectric generators produce cheap electricity for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which is responsible for pumping water across the Colorado River Aqueduct to hydrate much of Southern California.
Without that power, Metropolitan's costs to transport water will double or even triple, a district executive said.
That could result in a $10 to $20 a month increase in annual costs for residential customers, but could have greater impacts on business customers who use more water.
Federal and state water managers have been working to stave off that day, and two scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla who study Lake Mead believe that managers will never allow levels to get below 1,050 feet.
But Pat Mulroy, who runs the Las Vegas Valley Water District and the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said she has to worry about the worst-case scenario.
One of two intake pipes that pump water to Las Vegas is at that same 1,050-foot level.
"We're teetering on the first shortage right now," Mulroy said. "How quickly Mead goes down depends on which hydrology you look at; the Bureau (of Reclamation, which runs the dam) bases it on probability. But the whole probability analysis, because of climate change, has been thrown out the window. We’re experiencing anomaly after anomaly."
The decrease in water already experienced at Lake Mead has reduced output from the turbines from 130 megawatts of peak capacity to 100, according to Peter DiDonato, who runs the Hoover Dam's hydroelectric generators.
Each megawatt could power 650 homes.
Megawatts per foot
For every foot of elevation lost in Lake Mead ---- about 100,000 acre feet of water, or enough for 200,000 households ---- the dam produces 5.7 megawatts less power.
That's because at lower water pressure, air bubbles flow through with the water, causing the turbines to lose efficiency.
"It was designed as a high-elevation dam," DiDonato said.
The bureau is preparing for reduced elevations by testing a different type of turbine starting in 2012, one that can handle levels down to 1,000 feet, he said.
DiDonato is concerned about falling levels, but not too concerned. The government's 24-month forecast shows lake levels returning to 1,100 feet next year.
"The drought can't last forever," DiDonato said. "Eventually, the lake is going to fill up again. You have to hope it does."
Actually, the drought may not be a short-term emergency so much as a feature of a new, drier American West.
"To blame this on a drought that’s going to be over next year or something, that’s not correct," said Tim Barnett, a marine physicist at the Scripps Intuition of Oceanography in La Jolla. "This looks like the first harbingers of man's impact on the climate."
Barnett and his Scripps colleague, climate researcher David Pierce, wrote several papers on the hydrology of Lake Mead.
In a 2009 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the pair calculated a 50 percent chance that by 2025, users would not receive their full request of water from the Colorado River.
That would create water problems for Arizona, Nevada, California and Mexico (which is at the end of the river), in addition to the lost megawatts from lower efficiency in the hydroelectric turbines.
Pierce recalculated their figures to determine the effects of increased demand from development and of climate change.
He determined that with no change in water management policy, there was a 20 percent chance that the turbines would have to shut off in 2025.
Wet century past
Also, natural cycles exacerbate the problem, Pierce and Barnett wrote.
The 20th century was the wettest in a millennium for the American West, based on research using tree rings.
If a reversion to historical water levels combines with climate change and continued increases in demand, there's a 20 percent chance that Lake Mead will fall below 1,050 feet next year, Pierce said in an interview.
But Pierce and Barnett don't think the government will allow that to happen.
Federal water managers can release more water from upriver Lake Powell, although no water was released this year.
And they can refuse to grant water requests in full, something that's never happened before, Pierce said.
Losing power from the Hoover Dam would raise expenses for Metropolitan and for Southern California Edison, both of which buy power for the dam at low rates. Edison has already begun preparations for lower power generation from the dam, which represents 0.3 percent of its portfolio, said Gil Alexander, a spokesman for the utility.
The dam supplies 60 percent of Metropolitan's power needs, said Brian Thomas, chief financial officer and assistant general manager of the agency.
Without power from the dam, Metropolitan would turn to the spot electricity market and pay double or triple the cost, depending on how much less power the dam is producing.
Government agencies aren't sitting around doing nothing.
When Lake Mead falls to 1,075 feet, an austerity plan kicks in that reduces water deliveries by 10 percent.
Metropolitan and the Southern Nevada Water Authority are storing excess water from other sources in Lake Mead, and the Mexican government is in negotiations to do the same thing.
Metropolitan initiated a new energy policy last month that includes more efficiency and construction of 10 megawatts of solar panels, to offset loss of power from the dam.
Still, Barnett and Pierce are worried.
"It would be very foolish to think this is a short-term aberration due to a drought of three, four, five or even 10 years," Barnett said. "It's a resource that’s fully utilized. You can't get any more out of it. And nobody's talking about curtailing development."
Call staff writer Eric Wolff at 760-740-5412. | <urn:uuid:bb1d88f0-cd88-46e8-b7b0-9cc51ca8ad73> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.hermes-press.com/hoover_dam.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00113-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953802 | 1,402 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Seems like science finally is catching up with what mother always knew: “If you want to be strong, you’d better eat your fruits and vegetables.” Bioflavonoids (generally, plant pigment compounds) are widely associated with reducing risk for cardiovascular disease, cancers, metabolic syndrome and a host of other ailments.
In the past, scientific research focused on finding a single compound or group of compounds responsible for good health. Turns out, the sum of the parts probably is more beneficial than the active ingredients alone, according to recent research conducted by Mary Ann Lila, Ph.D., at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Lila writes, “Many people don’t fully appreciate that it is not a single component in these plant-derived foods, but rather the complex mixtures of interacting natural chemicals, that produce such powerful health benefits." Lila’s lab has identified synergies of plant compounds that enhance their effectiveness in preventing and treating disease.
So rather than popping dried bilberry fruits in tablet form, why not enjoy some bilberry jam on a slice of bread? Better health benefits … and better flavor.
Steven Foster is an author, photographer and consultant, specializing in medicinal plants. | <urn:uuid:f368e416-fe7c-45d4-a340-77d866b30dc7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.motherearthliving.com/mother-earth-living/fresh-clips-bioflavonoids-what-mother-knows-best.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00084-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952481 | 258 | 2.953125 | 3 |
The picturesque old brick gateway of St. James’s Palace still looks up St. James’s Street, one of the most precious relics of the past in London, and enshrining the memory of a greater succession of historical events than any other domestic building in England, Windsor Castle not excepted. The site of the palace was occupied, even before the Conquest, by a hospital dedicated to St. James, for “fourteen maidens that were leprous.” Henry VIII. obtained it by exchange, pensioned off the sisters, and converted the hospital into “a fair mansion and park,” in the same year in which he was married to Anne Boleyn, who was commemorated here with him in love-knots, now almost obliterated, upon the side doors of the gateway, and in the letters “H. A.” on the chimney-piece of the presence-chamber or tapestry room. Holbein is sometimes said to have been the king’s architect here, as he was at Whitehall. Henry can seldom have lived here, but hither his daughter, Mary I., retired, after her husband Philip left England for Spain, and here she died, November 17, 1558.
James I., in 1610, settled St. James’s on his eldest son, Prince Henry, who kept his court here for two years with great magnificence, having It salaried household of no less than two hundred and ninety-seven persons. Here he died in his nineteenth year, November 6, 1612. Upon his death, St. James’s was given to his brother Charles, who frequently resided here after his accession to the throne, and here Henrietta Maria gave birth to Charles II., James II., and the Princess Elizabeth. In 1638 the palace was given as a refuge to the queen’s mother, Marie de Medici, who lived here for three years, with a pension of £3,000 a month! Hither Charles I. was brought from Windsor as the prisoner of the Parliament, his usual attend-ants, with one exception, being debarred access to him, and being replaced by common soldiers, who sat smoking and drinking even in the royal bed-chamber, never allowing him a moment’s privacy, and hence he was taken in a sedan chair to his trial at Whitehall.
On the following day the king was led away from St. James’s to the scaffold. His faithful friends, Henry Rich, Earl of Holland, the Duke of Hamilton, and Lord Capel were afterward imprisoned in the palace and suffered like their master.
Charles II., who was born at St. James’s (May 29, 1630), resided at Whitehall, giving up the palace to his brother, the Duke of York (also born here, October 25, 1633), but reserving apartments for his mistress, the Duchess of Mazarin, who at one time resided there with a pension of £4,000 a year. Here Mary II. was born, April 30, 1662; and here she was married to William of Orange, at eleven at night, November 4, 1677. Here for many years the Duke and Duchess of York secluded themselves with their children, in mourning and sorrow, on the anniversary of his father’s murder. Here also Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, died, March 31, 1671, asking, “What is truth?” of Blandford, Bishop of Worcester, who came to visit her.
In St. James’s Palace also, James’s second wife, Mary of Modena, gave birth to her fifth child, Prince James Edward (“the Old Pretender”) on June 10, 1688.
It was to St. James’s that William III came on his first arrival in England, and he frequently resided there afterward, dining in public, with the Duke of Schomberg seated at his right hand and a number of Dutch guests, but on no occasion was any English gentleman invited. In the latter part of William’s reign the palace was given up to the Princess Anne, who had been born there February 6, 1665, and married there to Prince George of Denmark July 28, 1683. She was residing here when Bishop Burnet brought her the news of William’s death and her own accession.
George L, on his arrival in England, came at once to St. James’s. “This is a strange country,” he remarked afterward; “the first morning after my arrival at St. James’s I looked out of the window, and saw a park with walks, and a canal, which they told me were mine. The next day Lord Chetwynd, the ranger of my park, sent me a fine brace of carp out of my canal; and I was told I must give five guineas to Lord Chetwynd’s servant for bringing me my own carp, out of my own canal, in my own park.”
The Duchess of Kendal, the king’s mistress, had rooms in the palace, and, toward the close of his reign, George I. assigned apartments there on the ground floor to a fresh favorite, Miss Anne Brett. When the king left for Hanover, Miss Brett had a door opened from her rooms to the royal gardens, which the king’s granddaughter, Princess Anne, who was residing in the palace, indignantly ordered to be walled up. Miss Brett had it opened a second time, and the quarrel was at its height when the news of the king’s death put an end to the power of his mistress. With the accession of George II. the Countesses of Yarmouth and Suffolk took possession of the apartments of the Duchess of Kendal. As Prince of Wales, George II. had resided in the palace till a smoldering quarrel with his father came to a crisis over the christening of one of the royal children, and the next day he was put under arrest, and ordered to leave St. James’s with his family the same evening: Wilhelmina Caroline of Anspaeh, the beloved queen of George II., died in the palace, November 20, 1737, after an agonizing illness, endured with the utmost fortitude and consideration for all around her.
Of the daughters of George II. and Queen Caroline, Anne, the eldest, was married at St. James’s to the Prince of Orange, November, 1733, urged to the alliance by her desire for power, and answering to her parents, when they reminded her of the hideous and ungainly appearance of the bridegroom, “I would marry him, even if he were a baboon !” The marriage, however, was a happy one, and a pleasant contrast to that of her younger sister Mary, the king’s fourth daughter, who was married here to the brutal Frederick of Hesse Cassel, June 14, 1771. The third daughter, Caroline, died at St. James’s, December 28, 1757, after a long seclusion consequent upon the death of John, Lord Harvey, to whom she was passionately attached.
George I. and George II. used, on certain days to play at Hazard at the grooms’ postern at St. James’s, and the name “Hells,” as applied to modern gaming-houses is derived from that given to the gloomy room used by the royal gamblers.
The northern part of the palace, beyond the gateway (inhabited in the reign of Victoria by the Duchess of Cambridge), was built for the marriage of Frederick Prince of Wales.
The State Apartments (which those who frequent levees and drawing-rooms have abundant opportunities of surveying) are handsome, and contain a number of good royal portraits.
The Chapel Royal, on the right on entering the “Color Court,” has a carved and painted ceiling of 1540. Madame d’Arblay describes the pertinacity of George III. in attending service here in bitter November weather, when the queen and court at length left the king, his chaplain, and equerry “to freeze it out together.”
When Queen Caroline (wife of George II.) asked Mr. Whiston what fault people had to find with her conduct, he replied that the fault they most complained of was her habit of talking in chapel. She promised amendment, but proceeding to ask what other faults were objected to her, he replied, “When your Majesty has amended this I’ll tell you of the next.”
It was in this chapel that the colors taken from James II. at the Battle of the Boyne were hung up by his daughter Mary, an unnatural exhibition of triumph which shocked the Londoners. Besides that of Queen Anne, a number of royal marriages have been solemnized here; those of the daughters of George II., of Frederick Prince of Wales to Augusta of Saxe Cobourg, of George IV. to Caroline of Brunswick, and of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert.
The Garden at the back of St. James’s Palace has a private entrance to the Park. It was as he was alighting from his carriage here, August 2, 1786, that George III. was attacked with a knife by the insane Margaret Nicholson. “The bystanders were proceeding to wreak summary vengeance on the (would-be) assassin, when the Bing generously interfered in her behalf. `The poor creature,’ he exclaimed, `is mad: do not hurt her; she has not hurt me. He then stept forward and showed himself to the populace, assuring them that he was safe and uninjured.” | <urn:uuid:3d4e9909-7450-4260-affd-6aa166002307> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://travel.yodelout.com/st-james-palace-great-britain-and-ireland/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00000-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981745 | 2,052 | 2.875 | 3 |
Q. I've heard that hydropower has a negative impact on biodiversity. Is that true? How so? - Aidan, MI
A. Water is one of the most powerful substances on earth. The stuff covers over 70% of the earth’s surface, and is essential to the survival of all living things. What’s more, it fulfills the electricity, heating, and cooling needs of millions of people around the world. In the U.S., hydropower supplies around 70% of the country’s renewable energy—that’s more than what’s provided by wind, solar, and geothermal power combined.
But any source of power, however renewable, can sometimes have negative impacts on the environment, and hydropower is no exception. When a hydropower dam is constructed, it blocks a flowing river and essentially turns it into a stagnant lake, and in many cases, fish are no longer able to follow their usual path. Some salmon and other fish populations have been decimated—and several even classified as endangered—as a result of dam construction.
Flooding is another problem that can come hand in hand with dam construction. Take the Three Gorges Dam in China—the largest hydropower facility in the world. It’s already displaced millions of people, and will certainly displace more in the future. The Three Gorges Dam has drowned thriving wetlands, home to countless plant and animal species, and has ruined archeological sites. This is an extreme case, but lots of other hydroelectric dams cause the same kinds of destruction on a smaller scale. Many in South America, for example, flood and degrade rainforests.
Luckily, some of the damage done to biodiversity by hydropower can be reduced by equipment upgrades, mitigation measures, and proper management. Developers can also turn their attention to other types of hydropower facilities that don’t rely on dams. “Run-of-the-river” systems—facilities that generate power from naturally flowing bodies of water—are one lower-impact way to capitalize on hydropower. Other smaller-footprint options include wave, tidal, and hydrokinetic power. For more info on these different ways to produce renewable energy, check out the National Hydropower Association.
If you’re interested in the impact of a particular hydropower facility near you, look it up on the Low Impact Hydropower Institute's website. LIHI is a non-profit organization dedicated to reducing the impacts of hydropower generation.
Story by Alyssa Kagel. This article originally appeared in Plenty in July 2008. | <urn:uuid:431a4c1e-8141-4c5c-976c-d915cd226aee> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/energy/stories/is-hydropower-bad-for-biodiversity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403823.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00014-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9404 | 548 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Early Commemorative Coins of The United States
During the past 120 years, the United States has released hundreds of commemorative coins. Commemorative coins are always minted for a specific reason such as to honor a person, institution, place or some historic event that has shaped America.
The U.S. first began to mint commemorative coins in the late 1800’s and stopped producing them for awhile back in 1954. It wasn’t until 1982 that the United States began minting commemorative coins again and any coins minted after this date are referred to as Modern Commemorative Coins.
Legislation instated in 1996 limited the number of commemorative coins that Congress could require the mint to produce to only two different coins annually. It also put a limit on the number of commemorative coins that could be minted during a year.
For some coin collectors, the first commemorative coin is considered to be the 2 1/2 dollar that was released in 1848 because it commemorated the famous gold strike in California. But, most standard coin lists note the 1892 Colombian half dollar that was minted to honor the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ voyage to America and to celebrate the Colombian Exposition in Chicago as the first commemorative coin.
Although the coins main purpose was to commemorate the exposition it wasn’t the only coin minted for the occasion. The following year, the first quarter dollar coin was issued to honor Queen Isabella of Spain, who had helped fund Columbus’s travels. The quarter coin was the result of a petition for a souvenir coin for the event made by the lady managers of the exposition.
The standard list ends with the second Booker T. Washington half dollar issue from 1951 to 1954 as the last early commemorative coin minted. The first commemorative coin Washington appeared on was the Booker T. Washington Memorial Half Dollar minted from 1946 until 1951. Washington holds the honor of being the first African American to ever be featured on a U.S. coin.
Many commemorative coins have been released to obtain money for various causes as an alternative to raising taxes to raise money. The sales from the 50 cent coin that was minted in 1924 was used towards having the Confederate monument at Stone Mountain carved. The coin depicted Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee and read “memorial to the valor of the soldier of the south”.
The George Washington commemorative coin produced in 1932 was minted to celebrate the 200th anniversary of his birth. The circulated coin became the regular issue coin in 1934 since there were no other quarters minted in 1933. The same design was also used to commemorate the bicentennial.
With the release of the new state quarter commemorative issues, the popular hobby has attracted a whole new group of collectors. These coins were minted for circulation as well as collecting. But, many commemorative coins are minted solely for the purpose of ending up in prized collections and are never seen in the every day world of money!
Written by Connie Corder, Copyright 2009 CoinCollectorGuide.com | <urn:uuid:c1277174-f2c5-4b37-9fd2-8dbe28326970> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.coincollectorguide.com/early-commemorative-coins-of-the-united-states/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00129-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972247 | 634 | 3.265625 | 3 |
- Hydrogen Peroxide
- What is hydrogen peroxide and what is it used for?
- What health effects of hydrogen peroxide have been observed?
- Oral hygiene products & tooth whiteners
- How is hydrogen peroxide used to whiten teeth?
- How much hydrogen peroxide is an individual exposed to when using dental products?
- Can tooth whitening products containing hydrogen peroxide harm teeth?
- How safe are products containing hydrogen peroxide?
- What should be considered before a tooth whitening treatment?
- Conclusion – Are oral hygiene products and tooth whiteners containing hydrogen peroxide safe and should they be freely available to consumers?
The answers to these questions are a faithful summary of the scientific opinion
produced in 2007 by the Scientific Committee on Consumer Products (SCCP):
"Opinion on Hydrogen peroxide, in its free form or when released, in oral hygiene products and tooth whitening products" Learn more...
1. What is hydrogen peroxide and what is it used for?
Hydrogen peroxide is used in some toothpastes, mouth rinses and tooth whitening products
Source: Sergei Krassii
Hydrogen peroxide is a highly reactive chemical containing hydrogen and oxygen. It is used mainly in the production of other chemicals and to bleach paper and textiles. Moreover, contact lenses can be disinfected with highly diluted hydrogen peroxide.
Both hydrogen peroxide and carbamide peroxide are used in cosmetics, mainly as bleaches in dental products such as tooth whiteners and some hair products. Low concentrations may also be used in toothpastes and mouth rinses as a disinfectant to prevent plaque and inflammation of the gums. More...
2. What health effects of hydrogen peroxide have been observed?
The use of contact lens solutions containing some hydrogen peroxide can irritate the eyes
Source: Free Software Foundation
2.2 Highly diluted hydrogen peroxide solutions are non-irritant or mildly irritant. However, animal tests have shown that, when exceeding certain concentrations, hydrogen peroxide can cause irritation of eyes, skin, and the inside of mouth, stomach, and intestine. The use of eye drops and contact lens solutions containing some hydrogen peroxide can irritate the eyes. Hydrogen peroxide is not considered to cause allergic reactions of the skin. More...
2.3 To test whether repeated exposure to hydrogen peroxide can harm health, mice and rats were given hydrogen peroxide solutions by various means. Above certain exposure levels, effects on body weight, blood and some organs were seen. Risks to humans can be assessed by comparing human exposures to the highest exposure at which no harmful effects were observed in any animal studies. More...
2.4 Hydrogen peroxide can act as a weak cancer promoter, meaning it can slightly stimulate the growth or multiplication of cancer cells. There is not enough data to evaluate potential effects of hydrogen peroxide on reproduction and development. More...
3. How is hydrogen peroxide used to whiten teeth?
Tooth whiteners can be applied to teeth using custom made mouthguards
Tooth whiteners and oral hygiene products – such as certain toothpastes and mouth rinses – use hydrogen peroxide or carbamide peroxide for its whitening and/or disinfecting properties. Peroxide whitens teeth by passing into the tooth and reacting with the molecules that cause stains or discoloration. In general, the more peroxide, the greater the whitening power.
Depending on their peroxide content, such products are either freely sold over the counter for home use, dispensed by dentists for home use, or exclusively applied by dentists in their offices. In the European Union, oral hygiene products may only be sold freely to consumers if they contain no more than 0.1% hydrogen peroxide whereas in the USA, whitening products are sold at higher concentrations. In-office bleaching generally uses products with higher levels of whitening agents.
Tooth whitening products can be applied at home in three different ways: using strips that are stuck onto teeth, custom made mouthguards that maintain the whitening product on the teeth, or gels that are painted directly on the teeth.
The length of treatment depends on the level of discoloration and the whitening product used. It ranges from short interventions in the dental office to applications at home lasting minutes/hours per day and repeated over a number of days. More...
4. How much hydrogen peroxide is an individual exposed to when using dental products?
4.1 Toothpastes and mouth rinses may also contain low concentrations of hydrogen peroxide as a disinfectant to prevent plaque and inflammation of the gums. Studies have shown that hydrogen peroxide from toothpastes or mouth rinses is rapidly broken down in the mouth by the saliva, but some of it is swallowed. Toothpastes and mouth rinses that contain small amounts of hydrogen peroxide and are used once or twice per day do not seem to harm the inside of the mouth ,when used up to 6 months for toothpastes or 24 months for mouth rinses. However, rinses that contain larger amounts of hydrogen peroxide or that are used more frequently can cause mouth irritation. More...
4.2 How much hydrogen peroxide is released into the saliva during tooth whitening treatments depends mostly on the amount of hydrogen peroxide in the product being used and the product type and only partly on the amount of saliva produced.
5. Can tooth whitening products containing hydrogen peroxide harm teeth?
5.1 The two most common side effects of using tooth whitening products containing hydrogen peroxide are mouth irritation and increased tooth sensitivity to temperature changes. Both effects are temporary. No information is available on long-term effects of the use of tooth whitening products or on the effects of repeated use of such products. More...
According to most studies, tooth whitening does not harm the enamel
5.2 Hydrogen peroxide passes easily through the tooth enamel. According to most existing studies, bleaching does not harm the enamel. However, a few investigations have reported that bleaching can harm the surface of the teeth, making the enamel more porous and leading to dents, scratches, and loss of minerals. More...
5.3 After crossing the enamel, hydrogen peroxide passes into dentin and pulp. In some cases, whiteners cause minor inflammations of the pulp, which might be the reason for the increased tooth sensitivity that sometimes occurs. However, generally, tooth whitening does not seem to harm dental pulp of healthy teeth, possibly because the levels of hydrogen peroxide are too low to cause damage. More...
5.4 Tooth whitening does not usually change the colour of fillings and other restorative materials. It does not affect porcelain, other ceramics, or dental gold. However, it can slightly affect restorations made with composite materials, cements and dental amalgams. More...
6. How safe are products containing hydrogen peroxide?
6.1 Solutions containing more than 5% hydrogen peroxide are labelled “harmful” and “irritating to eyes”. At higher concentrations other mentions are added, highlighting the risk of serious damage to eyes, irritation of the respiratory system and skin, and burns. More...
6.2 Oral hygiene products and tooth whiteners containing hydrogen peroxide are not very likely to affect the body as a whole, because the substance is rapidly broken down. But above certain levels effects have been seen in animals. In addition, there are concerns about direct effects like irritation in the mouth and in the gastrointestinal system after swallowing.
In the European Union, oral hygiene products may only be sold freely to consumers if they contain no more than 0.1% hydrogen peroxide.
Risks to humans can be estimated based on animal studies. For general effects on the body, the margin of safety is considered sufficient if human exposures are at least 100 times lower than the level at which no effects have been observed in any animal study. This is the case for toothpastes and mouth rinses containing 0.1% of hydrogen peroxide and tooth whitening products containing 6% of hydrogen peroxide, but not for tooth whitening products containing more hydrogen peroxide. More...
7. What should be considered before a tooth whitening treatment?
Before engaging in tooth whitening treatment, a dentist should be consulted
Above 0.1% hydrogen peroxide, tooth bleaching is not just a simple cosmetic procedure. Dentists should diagnose the cause of the staining, check whether patients have any other oral health problems, and counsel patients about the best way of dealing with this esthetical problem.
As already mentioned above, common undesirable side effects of tooth whitening treatment, such as increased tooth sensitivity and mouth irritation, usually disappear within a few days. The surface of fillings and other restorations can be affected.
Hydrogen peroxide can act as a weak cancer promoter, meaning it can slightly stimulate the growth or multiplication of cancer cells. Tobacco use, alcohol abuse, and specific genetic predispositions increase the risk of oral cancer. Hydrogen peroxide may therefore further increase this risk, especially when the treatment is repeated. This may be of concern as smokers are likely candidates for tooth whitening. The risk of harmful effects may be greater for people who have pre-existing oral diseases. More...
8. Conclusion – Are oral hygiene products and tooth whiteners containing hydrogen peroxide safe and should they be freely available to consumers?
To conclude, the SCCP (Scientific Committee on Consumer Products) of the European Commission expressed the following opinions:
- The use of toothpastes, mouth rinses and tooth whiteners containing up to 0.1% hydrogen peroxide does not pose a risk to the health of the consumer. Toothpastes and mouth rinses should not contain more than 0.1% hydrogen peroxide.
- The use tooth whitening products containing 0.1 to 6 % hydrogen peroxide entails potential risks for the consumer. These risks increase with increasing concentration of hydrogen peroxide and frequency of application.
Potential risks of the use of tooth whiteners containing between 0.1 and 6 % hydrogen peroxide can be limited if tooth whitening is done properly with the approval and under the supervision of a dentist. The specific situation of each individual should be taken into account prior to treatment.
Additional research is needed on the use of tooth whitening products over longer time periods.
- Use of tooth whitening products containing more than 6% is not considered safe for use by consumers. | <urn:uuid:b17917cc-e501-4ff7-aba3-4820b0cced69> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/opinions_layman/en/tooth-whiteners/index.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00169-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930477 | 2,189 | 3.5 | 4 |
A few months ago Doris and I announced that we would award the first Stringfellow Bell Modern Day Abolitionist award. The award would recognize those individuals or businesses that helped individuals break free from bondage. The first award went to Tim & Elizabeth Beeton for their philanthorpic contributions to one of the oldest African American churches on the island, St. Paul UMC. Without the support of couples like the Beeton's St. Paul would not survive.
Many families have supported St. Paul over the years, but as the congregation has aged and the membership fallen, the Beeton's support has become more vital to the survival of the church. Not only have they given to the church, but they are members and have been for many years. The 11am hour on Sunday morning is the most segregated times in America. It is refreshing to see a couple like the Beeton's think outside the box and join a predominately African American church. It was surprising to me, how long they have been actual members of the church.
Abolitionists of course helped slaves break free from slavery. After slavery there were men and women that helped recently freed slaves break free from other forms of bondage. The Stringfellow family was one of those families that helped the African American community. They were paying 30 black men one dollar a day when the going rate was fifty cents per day. The Stringfellow family was accused of driving up wages and encouraged to reduce those wages, but the Stringfellows did not.
The 1880's and 1890's was a period of great oppression in the south for blacks after reconstruction. Employment at Stringfellow Orchards made not only a difference in the lives of the men working there, but also for many generations of those families. One of those families, the Bell Family was a benefactor of Mr. Stringfellow's fairness. I say fairness and not generosity because Mr. Stringfellow paid what he thought was fair and these men worked for their wages. The 30 black men were not looking for handouts, they were only looking to be paid an honest day's pay for an honest day's work. Mr. Stringfellow also had the most successful orchard in the area, once considered "The Showplace of the Gulf Coast" in the early 1890's. Mr. Stringfellow thought enough of one of his workers Frank Bell Sr. to mention him by name in his book "The New Horticulture" written in 1896.
Samuel Collins, III | <urn:uuid:52ee4553-424e-494a-b5da-144c451baf72> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.guidrynews.com/story.aspx?id=1000010139 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00030-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98669 | 508 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Why does copper turn green?
Have you ever wondered why copper does copper turn green? When left outdoors to the elements, copper transforms from a bright, shiny new penny shade, to a burnished brown, and finally to a distinct green color and makes it such a great choices for products such as copper awnings.
This unique characteristic of copper is completely natural and is often referred to as the “patina” – which referrers to the way copper changes color and turns green as it ages. This natural process actually preserves the copper and protects it from the outside elements.
Copper Patina Color Chart
Over time copper will naturally change colors – transforming from a shiny brown color to darker browns, then blues and finally greens after a number of years. When exposed to the natural elements such as wind and rain, copper develops this “patina” which actually protects and preserves the metal underneath.
Just like rust develops on iron, patina develops on copper when the copper sulphate on the surface interacts with oxygen in the environment. Importantly, unlike rust which corrodes iron, patina actually protects and preserves the copper underneath.
The patina process of copper is completely natural and one of the big draws for people who like its look. However, some people prefer the newer look of copper and this can be restored with the help of products and a little “elbow grease.”
Buffing is a big part of the cleaning process. There are also many commercial products as well as homemade concoctions, including those made with vinegar and lemon juice. You should always start by washing the copper with warm water and gentle soap. Avoid using abrasive cleansers or cloths, as they may scratch the copper. | <urn:uuid:654a8ae6-2bdc-4e1e-b710-058797d2d5c8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.crescentcitycopper.com/why-does-copper-turn-green.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399106.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00078-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947086 | 355 | 3.296875 | 3 |
Arthur Carhart National
Wilderness Training Center
The United States Congress designated the Salmo-Priest Wilderness (map
) in 1984 and it now has a total of 41,307 acres
All of this wilderness is located in Washington
and is managed by the Forest Service.
Tucked among the Selkirk Mountains in the extreme northeastern corner of Washington, the U-shaped Salmo-Priest Wilderness extends its borders along those of Idaho and British Columbia. Its most prominent features are two very long ridges, generally running southwest to northeast, connected near their northern ends by a ridge crowned by 6,828-foot Salmo Mountain. The eastern ridge stands lower, more wooded, more rounded off and more accessible than the steep-sided, rocky-crested western ridge. Streams have cut deep drainages into both ridges. Water from the eastern side of the eastern ridge ends up in Idaho's Priest River. The remaining wilderness drains generally westerly via Sullivan Creek and the Salmo River into the Pend Oreille River. Below the ridge tops of this well-watered Wilderness (at 50+ inches of precipitation annually) you'll find the largest growth of virgin forest left in eastern Washington: western red cedar, western hemlock, Douglas fir, grand fir, larch. The forest houses mule deer and white-tailed deer, elk, black bears, cougars, bobcats, badgers, pine martens, lynx, bighorn sheep, and moose. Though rarely sighted, threatened and endangered species including woodland caribou, grizzly bears and gray wolves also roam through this region. Winter snows may blanket the ground until early July at higher elevations. The Shedroof Divide Trail, the longest path in the area at 21.8 miles, follows the extent of the eastern ridge through open timber and subalpine meadows. It traverses several miles of non-wilderness ridgeline into Idaho, where another 17,585 acres of roadless terrain has been proposed for addition to the Salmo-Priest. The 7.8-mile Crowell Ridge Trail traces the narrower western ridge, offering splendid overviews of trailless backcountry to the north. Several other feeder trails ascend drainages to interconnect the two primary ridge trails. | <urn:uuid:3e4417dd-0f79-4b97-a552-61b3461dbead> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wilderness.net/NWPS/wildView?wid=515 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00179-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930423 | 474 | 2.90625 | 3 |
What's it like to live more than 900 miles (nearly 1,500 kilometers) from McMurdo Station in West Antarctica? The video podcast Life @ Byrd Surface Camp, Podcast #5 in a series produced by the POLENET project, describes life at the camp during the 2009-2010 field season.
The Polar Earth Observing Network (POLENET) is a network of Global Positioning System (GPS) and seismic stations in Antarctica and Greenland that measures changes in the ice sheets as they respond to climate change. The measurements will help answer critical questions about ice sheet behavior in a warming world and can be used to predict sea level rise accompanying global warming and to interpret climate change records.
The GPS stations measure vertical and horizontal movements of bedrock, while the seismic stations characterize physical properties of the ice-rock interface, lithosphere, and mantle. Combined with satellite data, the data offer a more complete picture of the ice sheet's current state, potential changes in the near future, and its overall size during the last glacial maximum. These data will also be used to infer sub-ice sheet geology and the terrestrial heat flux, critical inputs to models of glacier movement.
The project is an International Polar Year project with 29 countries participating. The Ohio State University leads the international consortium. | <urn:uuid:b8cea981-7c88-4119-9487-b54458e4846c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.usap.gov/News/contentHandler.cfm?id=2131 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00093-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.889964 | 263 | 3.109375 | 3 |
It’s tick season. And mosquito season. And chigger season. Is there any bug that isn’t causing us trouble these days? If we’re soaking up the summer sun, we’re also easy targets for all sorts of disease-carrying insects.
Parents wonder what they should do to protect their kids from these pests. The easy thing would be to keep them out of an environment that exposes them to bugs. But that’s not realistic or healthy.
Pediatricians frequently field questions from parents who want to know if it’s safe to use insect repellent on their children. Honestly, a repellent with DEET is one of the only prevention methods that’s been proven to deter biting bugs. Research backs up that the stronger the DEET concentration in an insect repellent, the longer it lasts and more effective it is.
But it’s important to be careful about how you use insect repellent. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that the highest concentration of DEET used on children should be 30 percent. They also suggest that parents only use a repellent if their child is over 2 months old. There are several brands of repellent with lower DEET concentrations that are marketed as being more kid-friendly.
There are other repellents available, including those that use picaradin, but research indicates they’re much less effective than DEET.
Some families also prefer natural alternatives like essential oils found in citronella and eucalyptus. And don’t forget good old-fashioned Skin So Soft. All of these are options, but they may last only a couple of hours, require reapplication and still won’t prevent those creepy crawlers from infiltrating your patio time.
There are some important guidelines for families looking to fend off insects with repellents:
• Never apply bug spray directly to a child’s face. You can avoid this by spraying some on your own hands and gently rubbing it on your child’s face, being careful to keep it away from the eyes and mouth.
• Spray insect repellent in an open area so neither you nor your child inhales it.
• Using more repellent doesn’t make it work better; only use enough to lightly cover exposed skin and clothing.
• Be sure to wash kids’ skin with soap and water using repellent.
• Don’t use bug sprays on skin that is cut or irritated. (That means keep it off the skinned knees or sunburns we see this time of year!)
• If your child has an allergic reaction to the repellent, immediately wash the area where it was applied with soap and water. Then call the Arkansas Poison Center at 1-800-222-1222 for additional guidance.
There are some simple actions your family can take to reduce the likelihood of coming in contact with disease-transmitting insects, as well. The best strategy is to avoid areas that attract them – so stay away from any sort of stagnant warm water, ranging from puddles to dog bowls. It may also be a good idea to avoid garbage cans, compost piles and flowers beds.
Dressing in long pants and sleeves, as well as heavy-duty socks and sturdy shoes, can also protect us from biting insects.
And while it’s not a prevention method, it is important to examine your child’s skin after he or she has spent a day playing outside. Look for any raised red marks and be especially vigilant for ticks that might hide under skin folds or shaggy summer haircuts.
After such an intense winter, I think we were all hoping that the mosquito – which I’ve heard referred to as “Arkansas’ state bird” – would take a hiatus this summer. But it looks like they’re here to stay until that next freeze. Let’s do our best to keep our kids free of them until then.
• • •
Dr. Sam Smith is surgeon in chief at Arkansas Children’s Hospital and a professor of Surgery at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He writes a column each week covering a variety of kids’ medical concerns. If you have a topic you’d like him to consider addressing, email email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:d30e004e-bac6-47f5-87c4-91125b1ace25> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://pbcommercial.com/sports/columns-and-blogs/bugging-out-protecting-your-kids-creepy-crawlers-summer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00178-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946148 | 912 | 2.671875 | 3 |
The more time your infant or toddler spends listening to the television, the less likely he is to hear your voice, or to speak himself, a new study asserts.
The findings strengthen a suspected link between infant TV exposure and delayed language development, according to a report in the journal Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.
This sets up an interesting paradox. While some researchers think audible TV is linked to decreased communication in young children, an entire market of educational DVDs geared toward babies has sprouted under the opposite theory that TV programs can help promote interaction between parent and child.
Whatever the connection, infants are spending an increased amount of time in front of the TV, according to a team led by Dr. Dimitri A. Christakis of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at the University of Washington.
A 2003 report from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation found that each day, 68 percent of American infants viewed some type of electronic medium: TV programming, DVDs or video tapes, computers or video games.
To determine the impact of infant TV watching, the Christakis group recruited parents who agreed to equip their 2- to 24-month-old kids with a wire for one day a month in order to record every sound for a 12- to 16-hour period.
Using noise-detection software that analyzed at least one recorded session from each of the 329 youngsters, files were sorted into sounds the kids heard and sounds the kids made.
The researchers used a statistical model to determine the association between audible television and the number of words spoken by each adult and each child. They also examined how many meaningful vocal interactions were shared by the child and adult while the TV was on.
They found that each hour spent with a TV was associated a significant reduction in a child's own attempts to talk.
Likewise, for each hour in front of the tube, the child heard 770 fewer words from an adult. That's 7 percent fewer than the average number of words a child hears in a household when the television is off.
TV May Present Toddlers With Distractions
"Some of these reductions are likely due to children being left in front of the television screen, but others likely reflect situations in which adults, though present, are distracted by the screen and not interacting with their infant in a discernible manner," the researchers concluded.
The authors said 30 percent of households have a TV on at all times, which brings up the question, How many opportunities for child-parent communication are being missed?
Previous research has shown that when adults are watching their own programs -- even a show like Jeopardy, which would be mere background noise to an infant -- the grownups communicate less with their children, and the kids make less noise themselves, said Deborah Linebarger, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania who has studied the effects of media on young children.
Linebarger was not affiliated with the study.
The authors of the latest report acknowledged that their findings seem obvious: More TV time equals less human interaction. But they say it might also debunk the claims of companies that market DVDs for infants suggesting that their products promote child-parent interaction.
Those claims are not backed by evidence, the authors said, adding that communicating with a child while the TV is on may be more important than the type of program to which the child is exposed.
Linebarger said her biggest criticism of the Christakis study is that it did not take into account what effect various types of programs have on parent-child communication.
She said her research indicates that television shows designed for young kids that mimic the storytelling approaches of books are best at promoting language development.
The battle is likely to go on, with plenty of ammunition on both sides.
Since 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics has discouraged the watching of TV or other screen media by children younger than 2.
In addition to its adverse effects on body weight, attention and sleep, watching TV before age 2 may restrict a child's cognitive development and the uptake of language, a variety of studies have found.
TV Exposure May Not Increase Baby's Intelligence
But research published in Pediatrics as recently as March found that the amount of time spent watching TV before age 2 was not associated with cognitive development at age 3.
The latest study by Christakis was supported by the LENA Foundation, a nonprofit that develops technology for language research. Three of the study authors were employed by the LENA Foundation. | <urn:uuid:40b3f3d6-e338-4ce8-888b-0c773a1da3b6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/story?id=7733749&page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00139-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969399 | 902 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Dewhurst, S. A. and Hitch, J. G. and Barry, C. (1997) Separate effects of word frequency and age-of-acquisition in recognition and recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 24 (2). pp. 284-289. ISSN 1939-1285Full text not available from this repository.
Three experiments investigated word frequency and age of acquisition (AoA) effects in recognition and recall. Experiments 1 and 2 used the "remember-know" procedure developed by J. M. Gardiner (1988). In Experiment 1, recognition performance was higher for low-frequency words than for high-frequency words and higher for late-acquired words than for early-acquired words, but only in "remember" responses. Experiment 2 replicated the AoA effect by using a different set of early- and late-acquired words. Experiment 3 found advantages for low-frequency and late-acquired words in recall, but only when words were presented in mixed lists. The frequency effect was reversed, and the AoA effect was eliminated, when participants studied pure lists. Findings were attributed to the more distinctive encoding of low-frequency and late-acquired words. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved)
|Journal or Publication Title:||Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition|
|Subjects:||B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology|
|Departments:||Faculty of Science and Technology > Psychology|
|Deposited On:||07 Nov 2008 13:11|
|Last Modified:||18 Jun 2016 00:10|
Actions (login required) | <urn:uuid:7dab0fef-1814-4164-9a97-52dd67cba9c7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/18955/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397744.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00165-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.889898 | 359 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Brown Spots on Skin That Itch
Melanin is a natural pigment that gives people their skin color. If too much melanin is produced in one area, hyperpigmentation or a "brown spot" can occur. Brown spots can be flat or raised, round or oval, and can appear anywhere on the skin, alone or in groups. Common brown spots include freckles, moles and age spots. While usually harmless, brown spots can cause concern when they suddenly become itchy. Identifying the cause of the itch is important. Prolonged itching can not only lead to lack of sleep and fatigue, but it could signal worsening of a condition that can be better treated if caught early.
Various types of itchy brown spots exist. Some are round and raised as seen in seborrheic keratoses (SKs) and dermatofibromas; others, such as tinea versicolor, are flat. Some spots can have a patchy appearance such as lichen planus; others, such as age spots or melanomas, can have irregular borders. Location on the body also helps classify spots. Some favor oily areas such as the upper back or chest, while others tend to occur in more distal areas such as wrists and ankles.
Knowing the cause of brown spots is important because some cannot be ignored and are dangerous if left untreated. Spots can appear for a variety of reasons. They can be due to excessive sun exposure, aging, genetics, hormones, fungi or disease. Sometimes the cause is unknown.
Some persistently itchy brown spots, such as melanomas, can be deadly. Melanoma is a serious form of skin cancer that can spread to almost any organ in the body, especially the brain, lungs, liver and bones. The first signs of melanoma are often a change in the shape, size, color or texture of an existing mole or the development of a new, strange-looking one. Unusual characteristics of moles that may indicate melanoma include an asymmetrical shape, irregular border, uneven distribution of color and a large diameter.
The type of brown spot determines the course of treatment. Some require surgery while others simply need an over-the-counter (OTC) cream. Benign spots such as SKs can be surgically removed using cryotherapy (freezing), curettage (scraping) or electrosurgery (burning). Those that are caused by a fungus, as in the case of tinea versicolor, can be treated with OTC anti-fungal creams such as clotrimazole and miconazole. Spots where self-treatments do not exist, as in the case of lichen planus, require prescription-based steroids (topical or oral). More dangerous spots such as melanoma require more attention. If caught early, the growth can be removed by surgery alone or in combination with a sentinel lymph-node biopsy. Widespread, late-stage melanoma treatments vary based on a patient's conditions and may include surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
Most brown spots are more of a cosmetic nuisance than they are dangerous. For instance, the tinea versicolor fungus is not contagious, and dermatofibromas are not cancerous. For the spots that are dangerous, however, the prognosis is usually very good in its beginning and middle stages. To play an active role in preventing spots from becoming worse, examine all areas of the skin monthly for spots that are growing, changing or itching. It is advisable to see a physician before attempting to treat or remove brown spot by yourself.
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Overview Overexposure to sun and UV rays can cause brown spots to appear on your skin, particularly ... | <urn:uuid:dbf72937-c9e7-4b3b-bbd4-eb01111efe79> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://acner.org/brown-spots-on-skin-that-itch/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402699.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00073-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943216 | 888 | 3.421875 | 3 |
The Canadian Prairies might face a new boar war as the number and destructive capacity of feral pigs increases.
Provinces need a co-ordinated response to the threat before the numbers of this imported pest grow too large.
The call to arms against wild boars is best laid out by Ryan Brook, a researcher at the University of Saskatchewan’s agriculture college.
After years of researching wild boars using trail cameras triggered by passing wildlife, Brook and colleague Floris van Beest from Aarhus University in Denmark have concluded that wild boar populations are larger and more dispersed than originally thought.
Populations are still small in most areas, but that could change quickly.
A breeding female can have two litters of six or more piglets a year and, with few natural predators, most mature to adults, Brook says.
If not controlled, there is the potential for numbers to explode and cause problems like in the United States, where damage tops $1 billion in lost crops, livestock harassment and damage to the ecosystem.
The boars, native to Europe, were introduced to the Prairies in the 1980s and 1990s when struggling farmers experimented with alternative livestock in a search for profitable diversification options.
Hunt farms sprang up but it was difficult to keep the intelligent and resourceful boars fenced in. A number escaped and established free roaming populations.
They eat most things, from plants to small creatures such as salamanders to bird eggs. Brook likens them to rototillers for their practice of rooting up acres of ground with their tusks.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says feral swine are highly mobile disease reservoirs and can carry at least 30 viral and bacterial diseases in addition to 37 parasites that affect people, pets, livestock and wildlife.
All three prairie provinces encourage hunting of these animals.
There is no restriction on shooting them aside from getting the landowner’s approval.
Alberta also has a $50 a head bounty. Saskatchewan provides $50,000 a year to the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities to help municipalities eradicate the animals.
Manitoba has declared the whole province a wild boar control area with wide open hunting throughout the year.
However, it is nearly impossible to control populations with sport hunting alone. Wild boars are difficult to spot. They are mostly nocturnal and evade humans.
Experts say the entire boar cell must be killed or survivors become more evasive.
Aggressive control techniques are needed, including spotting and hunting from aircraft and using bait to attract the entire cell into a corral trap where they can be shot.
The USDA is testing the use of sodium nitrite as a humane poison. Australia has used it to sharply reduce populations.
Alberta just introduced new fencing requirements for commercial boar farms and ranches to be phased in over five years. Such standards are needed in every province.
The number of wild boar operations still operating in Western Canada is now down to a handful, but they must be monitored. By next year, feral pigs will be included in the federal livestock identification program and will need to be ear tagged. This should help identify and fine operations that allow animals to escape.
It would be wise for all prairie provinces to adopt similar controls for wild boar operations.
They should also fund monitoring and eradication efforts similar to Alberta’s successful rat eradication plan.
A modest investment today will avoid much larger costs down the road.
Bruce Dyck, Terry Fries, Barb Glen and D’Arce McMillan collaborate in the writing of Western Producer editorials. | <urn:uuid:76235ebd-37f5-429f-b984-594b56f0b589> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.producer.com/2014/07/threat-from-feral-wild-boar-requires-concerted-govt-effort/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397696.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00036-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945771 | 746 | 3.046875 | 3 |
4.1. Savarkar’s definition
The ideological contours of the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS-BJP are usually summed up in the term Hindutva, literally “Hindu-ness”, meaning Hindu identity as a unifying identity transcending castewise, regional and sectarian differences within Hindu society. The term was coined by the Freedom Fighter and later HMS president V. D. Savarkar as the title of his book Hindutva, written in prison and clandestinely published in 1924. Inspired by the doctrines of the Italian liberal nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini, he tried to give a nationalist content to the concept of Hinduness. Incidentally, non-Hindutva nationalists including Jawaharlal Nehru equally recognized the influence which Mazzini had had on their ideological orientation during their student days.1
While there may be good reasons to reject the very attempt of capturing Hinduism in an essentialist definition, and while most attempts to capture it in a doctrinal definition are failures omitting large numbers of de facto Hindus, Savarkar devised his definition as very inclusive but still meaningful: “A Hindu means a person who regards this land of Bharatavarsha, from the Indus to the Seas, as his Fatherland as well as his Holyland, that is the cradle-land of his religion.”2
This means that a non-Indian cannot be a Hindu, even if he considers India as his “Holyland”; while a born Indian cannot be a Hindu if he considers a non-Indian place (Mecca, Jerusalem, Rome) as his “Holyland”. Since Jainism, Buddhism, Veerashaivism, Sikhism, and all Indian tribal cults have their historical origins and sacred sites on Indian soil, all Indian Jains, Buddhists, Veerashaivas, Sikhs and so-called “animists” qualify as Hindus.
Following Savarkar, the RSS-BJP and other Hindu parties including Savarkar’s own Hindu Mahasabha use the term “Hindu” in the broad sense: as including Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Veerashaivism, Arya Samaj, Ramakrishna Mission, Indian tribal “animists”, and other sects and movements which elsewhere are sometimes described as separate religions in their own right. This merely follows the historical usage of the ancient Persians and of the medieval Muslim invaders, and the “legal Hindu” category of modern Indian legislation. The inclusive usage by Savarkar and the RSS-BJP has better legal and historical credentials than the insistently restrictive usage by India’s secularists, who try to narrow the term’s referent down to cow-worshipping non-tribal upper-caste Sanâtanî (“eternalist”, here in the sense of “nonreformist”, “non-Arya Samaji”) Hindus, if at all they admit that Hinduism exists.
4.2. Can geography define religion?
A problem with Savarkar’s definition is that certain communities may consider only their own area as fatherland and holyland, and do not identify with India as a whole. The horizon of many tribal communities is limited to a small area; they may say that they only consider that small area as their own, and that they feel like foreigners in other parts of India. This might even be claimed on behalf of the Sikhs, whose separatism is sometimes rationalized in secular terms as “Panjabi nationalism” (in spite of the pan-Indian pilgrimages of some of the Sikh Gurus). But Savarkar was satisfied that at any rate, their loyalty would be to an area within India, rather than to one outside of it.
That leaves us with the more fundamental problem that genuine Hindus may not bother to consider India as a kind of “holyland”, holier than other pieces of Mother Earth. Hinduism has become international, and increasingly includes people who have never seen India or have only been there once or twice on a family visit, appalled at the dirt and lack of efficiency, and anxious to get back home to London or Vancouver. Further, many people with no Indian blood take up practices developed by Hindu culture without being very interested in the geographical cradle of their new-found “spiritual path”. They may not be inclined to call themselves “Hindu” because of the term’s geographical connotation, but they do commit themselves to the Hindu civilization, using terms like “Vedic” or “Dharma”.3
The values of Sanatana Dharma are not tied up with this piece of land, and the Vedas or the Gita, though obviously situated in India, are not bothered with notions of “fatherland” and “holyland”. As Dr. Pukh Raj Sharma, a teacher of Ayurveda and Bhakti-Yoga from Jodhpur once said: “The country India is not important. One day, India too will go.”4 So, we may question the wisdom of defining a religious tradition by an external characteristic such as its geographical location, even if the domain of this definition admirably coincides with the actual referent of the term Hindu in its common usage.
4.3. The Sangh Parivar’s understanding of Hindutva
The RSS-BJP try to make Savarkar’s term Hindutva even more inclusive than Savarkar intended. They claim that any Indian who “identifies with India” is thereby a Hindu. A Muslim who satisfies this condition (what Gandhians called a “nationalist Muslim”) should call himself a “Mohammedi Hindu”. As L.K. Advani explains: “those residing in the country are Hindus even if many of them believe in different religions.(…) those following Islam are ‘Mohammedi Hindus’. Likewise, Christians living in the country are ‘Christian Hindus’, while Sikhs are termed ‘Sikh Hindus’. The respective identities are not undermined by such a fonnulation.”5 in this sense, they would be just as much at home in a Hindu Rashtra as a Vaishnava or Shaiva Hindu.
Thus, veteran journalist M.V. Kamath writes in the Organiser. “Hindutva, then, is what is common to all of us, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists... whoever has Indian heritage. Hindutva is the engine that pulls the nation and takes us into the future. It is cultural nationalism that has the power to unite.(…) Hindutva is not Hinduism, it does not ask anyone to follow a particular creed or ritual. Indeed, it does not speak for Hinduism, it is not a religious doctrine.”6 Remark that an acknowledged spokesman of Sangh Parivar ideology includes Indian Christianity and Indian Islam in his understanding of Hindutva. This would reduce the meaning of Hindutva to the casual reasoning of a Sikh couple in Defence Colony interviewed during the 1989 elections: “Ham Hindustân men rehte hain, bam Hindû hî to hue. (We live in Hindustan, that makes us Hindu).”7
Both the nationalist definition of Hindu-ness developed by Savarkar and the clumsy notion of “Mohammedi Hindus” brandished by the RSS and BJP are elements of an attempt to delink the term Hinduism from its natural religious or cultural contents. In Savarkar’s case, the definition restores a historical usage, but the RSS definition extends the meaning even further: the opposition between “Indian secular nationalism” and “Hindu communalism” is declared non-existent, essentially by replacing the latter’s position with the former’s: Kamath’s conception of Hindutva is entirely coterminous with Jawaharlal Nehru’s secular patriotism.
To support the non-doctrinal, non-religious, non-communal usage of the term Hindu, RSS joint secretary-general K. S. Sudarshan relates some anecdotes in which Arabs and Frenchmen refer to any Indian (including the imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid when he visited Arabia) as a “Hindu”.8 So what? A linguist would say that in that case, the word Hindu is a “false friend”: though sounding the same and having the same etymology, it has a different meaning in Arabic or French on the one and English or Hindi on the other hand. This is obviously no sound basis for denying the operative (and historical, and legal) meaning of Hindu as “any Indian except Muslims, Christians and Parsis”.
A point of comparison for this overextended definition of Hindu identity is the now-common understanding of “Christian civilization” as encompassing more than just the believing Christians. Christian-Democrats after World War 2 have argued that “Christian values” have since long become a common heritage of Europe (and the Americas), shared by non-Christians as well.9 And some non-Christians also accept this view.10 If Christianity, which has strictly defined its own contours with precise beliefs, can be definitionally broadened to coincide with a “value system”, the same could legitimately be done with the much less rigidly self-defined Hinduism.
4.4. Equality of religions
Some Hindu activists insist that “all religions are equally true”, a logically untenable sentimentalist position now widely shared in Western-educated Hindu circles as well as among some “progressive” Christians and “New Agers” in the West. As an explicit position, this is marginal in the Hindutva movement, though the Gandhian phrase “equal respect for all religions” (sarva-dharma-samabhava), invoked in the BJP Constitution, comes close to the same meaning. At any rate, as an implicit guideline, the acceptance of all religions as equally good can be found all over the Hindutva literature.
Official publications of the BJP and even of the RSS studiously avoid criticism of Islam and Christianity as belief systems. Even the Rushdie affair, when the BJP put up a rather perfunctory defence of Salman Rushdie, did not trigger any debate on the basic doctrines of Islam in the pages of the Hindutva papers. The position of both RSS and BJP, and even of Hindutva hard-liners like Balraj Madhok, is that Islam and Christianity are alright in themselves, but that in India, they constitute a problem of disloyalty. As soon as these foreign-originated religions agree to shed their foreign loyalties and to “indianize” themselves, the problem vanishes.11
In theory, and at first sight, the doctrine of the equal validity of all religions could be intellectually defensible if we start from the Hindu doctrine of the ishta devatâ, the “chosen deity”: every Hindu has a right to worship the deity or divine incarnation or guru whom he chooses, and this may include exotic characters like Allah or Jesus Christ. In practice, however, anyone can feel that something isn’t right with this semantic manipulation: Muslims and Christians abhor and mock the idea of being defined as sects within “Hindutva”, and apart from a handful of multi-culturalist Christians who call themselves “both Hindu and Christian”, this cooptation of Muslims and Christians into the Hindu fold has no takers.12 It is an elementary courtesy to check with the people concerned before you give them labels.
4.5. The impotence of semantic manipulation
If the attempt to redefine Indian Muslims as “Mohammedi Hindus” is received with little enthusiasm by non-Hindus, it is criticized even more sternly by Radical Hindus, who point out that the attempt to get Muslims and Christians under the umbrella of an extended Hindu identity constitutes a retreat from the historical Hindu position vis-à-vis the proselytizing religions: it confers an undeserved legitimacy upon the presence of the “predatory religions”, Islam and Christianity, in India. The time-length of the presence of the colonial powers in their colonies (nearly five centuries in the case of some Portuguese colonies, and more than seven centuries in the case of the Arab possessions in Spain) did not justify their presence in the eyes of the native anti-colonial liberation movements. Likewise, the fact that Islam and Christianity have acquired a firm and enduring foothold in India does not, to Hindu Revivalists, make them acceptable as legitimate components of Indian culture. As Harsh Narain argues: “Muslim culture invaded Indian culture not to make friends with it but to wipe it out. (…) Hence Muslim culture cannot be said to be an integral part of Indian culture and must be regarded as an anticulture or counter-culture in our bodypolitic.”13
Moreover, these semantic manipulations undermine the credibility of Hindu protests (regularly seen in the RSS weeklies and sometimes even in the BJP fortnightly BJP Today) against Christian and Muslim proselytization activities. After all, if there is nothing wrong with these religions per se, then why bother if Hindus convert to them? Now that the Catholic Church uses “inculturation” as a mission strategy, why object to Hindus adopting this duly “indianized” version of Christianity?
semantic manipulations about “Mohammedi Hindus” invite contempt and ridicule.
They have never convinced anyone, and it is typical of the RSS’s refusal
to learn from feedback that it still propagates these notions. Defining
India’s communal conflict in terms of secular nationalism, as a matter
of “nationalist” vs. “antinational” loyalties, is mostly the effect of
Hindu escapism, of the refusal to confront Hinduism’s challengers ideologically.
Such exercises in self-deception are understandable as a symptom of Hindu
society’s lingering psychology of defeat, but after half a century of independence,
that excuse has worn out its validity.
2D. Savarkar: Hindutva, p. 116. In some editions this definition is also given as motto on the title page
3E.g. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s projects are all called “Vedic”, partly at least because the term “Hindu” would repel many Westerners; ISKCON has a publication series Veda Pockets (Amsterdam); David Frawley’s institute in Santa Fe is called American Institute of Vedic Studies, etc.
4Speaking in Mechelen, Belgium, 1991.
5“Advani wants Muslims to identify with ‘Hindutva’”, Times of India, 30-1-1995.
6M.V. Kamath: “The Essence of Hindutva”, Organiser, 28-4-1996.
7“Voters in a dilemma”, Times of India, 24-11-1989.
8In H.V. Seshadri et al.: Why Hindu Rashtra?, p. 5. In French, the usage of hindou for “Indian” is obsolete. An anecdote not included though well-known is that HMS leader B.S. Moonje was asked in America whether “all Hindus are Muslims?”
9The founding “Christmas Programme” (1945) of the Belgian Christian-Democratic Party says: “The human values which form the basis of our Western civilization (…) were contributed by Christianity, yet today they are the common property of the faithful and the unbelievers”; quoted in L. Tindemans: De toekomst van een idee (Dutch: “The future of an idea”, viz. of Christian-Democratic “personalism”), p.32.
10Thus, in 1994, the Dutch Liberal Party leader Frits Bolkestein, an agnostic and secularist, affirmed that the European polity could only be rooted in Christian values.
11This is the central flies of Balraj Madhok: Indianisation.
12About Christian syncretism with Hinduism, see e.g. Bede Griffiths: The Marriage of East and West, and Catherine Cornille: The Guru in Indian Catholicism. A very critical Hindu comment on this trend is S.R. Goel: Christian Ashrams: Sannyasins or Swindlers?
13H. Narain: Myth of Composite Culture, p.29. | <urn:uuid:254d9978-4c51-4e7c-bec1-d02906d1a618> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://voiceofdharma.org/books/wiah/ch4.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397797.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00115-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939848 | 3,574 | 3.3125 | 3 |
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If we are given the graph of f(x) then:
(a) the graph of g(x)=f(x)+5 is the graph of f(x) translated (shifted) 5 units up (vertically).
(b) the graph of g(x)=2f(x) is the graph of f(x) with a vertical stretch of factor 2. (Multiply each y coordinate of f(x) by 2 to get the corresponding y-coordinate of g(x).)
(c) the graph of g(x)=f(-2x) is the graph of f(x) reflected across the y-axis and then compressed horizontally with a factor of 2.
(d): g(x)=-3f(-x)+2 is reflected over the y-axis (the -x) and reflected over the x-axis (since the 3 is negative). Then a vertical stretch of factor 3 followed by the vertical translation of 2.
1. g(x) shifted by 5 unit from f(x)
2. g(x) shift by f(x) from f(x). or can say double of f(x)
3. g(x) reflected by y-axis and horozontzal doubled
4. g(x) ,reflected by y-axis and x-axis ,triple the stretch and shift by 2 units.
We’ve answered 327,613 questions. We can answer yours, too.Ask a question | <urn:uuid:28064708-4c57-4bb5-98a4-88fa9b1b7aa3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-transformations-used-obtain-g-x-from-f-x-g-x-442572 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00000-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.869405 | 328 | 3.859375 | 4 |
It was a secret everybody knew at Monticello: Thomas Jefferson was the father of Beverly, Harriet, Madison and Eston Hemings, and their mother was Sally Hemings, a slave owned by Jefferson.
Most people now have a vague idea of this story and the issues it raises about Jefferson, the author of the words that founded a nation: “All men are created equal.” Bradley offers the first fully realized novel for young readers and tells it from the points of view of Beverly, Madison and another enslaved boy on the plantation. The characters spring to life, and readers will be right there with Beverly when his mother scolds him for referring to Master Jefferson as “Papa.” Readers may wonder why, when three-quarters through the novel, the point of view shifts from Beverly and Madison to Peter Fossett, a slave but not one of Jefferson’s sons. But this additional perspective becomes crucial to the wrenching conclusion of this fascinating story of an American family that represents so many of the contradictions of our history. The afterword is as fascinating as the novel, telling what later happened to each of the characters, and a small but excellent bibliography will lead readers to books and websites for further study.
A big, serious work of historical investigation and imagination; the tale has never before been told this well. (Historical fiction. 9-14) | <urn:uuid:dca0cf81-dab4-46c8-8ce8-012f2f86cf4a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kimberly-brubaker-bradley/jeffersons-sons/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00190-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965537 | 281 | 3.171875 | 3 |
O'Donnell, Kathleen (2010) "The Crisis of Housing : The Crisis in Housing" In: Whatever Happened to the Twentieth Century: Modernity and its Discontents, 15-16 April 2010, Netherlands. (Unpublished)Full text not available from this repository.
I consider the decision to construct two phases of Chicago Public Housing as a Capitalist response to the Crisis of Housing in America during the 30’s and the 50’s in context of the intellectual, Scientific, and Active thought of the Pragmatic Reformers from the University of Chicago with their imposed system of consumer ‘values’ of land; the economic, the social and the moral, on the abstract figurative grid of the City. In the 80’s those same Housing communities become ‘the Crisis’. ‘The Projects’ become ‘valueless’ ‘no longer viable’ with the decision to ultimately demolition of these communities. Who was at threat? The origin of ‘value’ is first defined as the abstract concept of space and time assigned to the land of Chicago’s Grid as part the intellectual project of the Chicago School of Social ecology and School of Political Science including the authorship of zoning laws that intent to actively reduce the social disorder of neighborhood through uniformity of building appearance and use around uniform land values of neighborhood blocks much in the same way the Taylor mapped separation of labor on the factory grid to equalize labor and to make efficiency in processes defined with his work on the Scientific Method. ‘The Crisis of Housing’ is shown to produced both local and federal responses to the emergency through three types of housing; 1]the private sector single family bungalow of the 20’s; 2] the early pre WW2 public housing units exemplar of the Ida B. Wells Homes; and 3] the technical/specialist response of highrise housing exemplar of the Robert Taylor Homes. Each housing type reflects difference in: 1] modern views of the urban subject in relationship to the production of capitalism and; 2] land ‘value’ types and 3] the spatial intentionality in relationship of the grid. The land ‘value’ generated by difference is shown to drive the placement of housing throughout Chicago and to drive patterns of community mobility. ‘The Crisis in Housing’ arises when the public housing communities evolve as informal economies with no perceived measurable values and the ‘valueless land’ reduces the value of the grid beyond the neighboring blocks. Recent histories of public housing assign blame to this last ‘Crisis in Housing’ on the moral and social behavior failures of individual residents, the economic and class homogeneity of the communities or the failure of the housing authorities to provide adequate maintenance to name a few. All may contribute, but fail to reflect on the transformative impact of these 25,000 family homes on Chicago’s urban systems. The collapse of the Capitalist economy in Chicago not only includes abandonment of parts of the city from loss of production, such as the stock yards and steel industries, but follows the collapse of the ‘value’ of Land and the subsequent injustice of the civitas. I expose these ‘values’ as constructive elements of the city through the understanding the subject and spatial intention and utilizing Chicago’s abstract grid as a framework.
|Item Type:||Contribution to conference proceedings in the public domain ( Full Paper)|
|Subjects:||K000 Architecture, Building and Planning > K400 Planning (Urban, Rural and Regional)|
|Faculties:||Faculty of Arts > School of Architecture and Design|
|Depositing User:||Ms. Kathleen O'Donnell|
|Date Deposited:||04 May 2010|
|Last Modified:||18 Jun 2010 11:41|
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Februrary 1968 | Volume 19, Issue 2
In 1919 the U.S. Attorney General swooped down on a alleged Bolshevik revolutionaries and deported them by the boatload. For a while he was a national hero; he dreamed of the White House. But then…
If, as some have said, A. Mitchell Palmer was “a nervous man,” he had a great deal of company in the spring and summer of 1919. Only a year later, William Alien White was to write a friend, “What a God-damned world this is! … If anyone had told me ten years ago that our country would be what it is today … I should have questioned his reason.” It was a sentiment that many Americans had known in the months following World War I; for amidst the normal but unsettling confusions that marked the nation’s transition from war to peace, there had appeared signs of deep-seated dislocations seemingly unlike any the country had experienced before.
There was, to begin with, considerable uncertainty over the peace treaty that Wilson had brought back from Versailles. As the Senate and the nation argued over its terms, a bitter debate on the League of Nations unleashed political passions lately held in check by a wartime truce. A business recession had set in, and although it was not unexpected, its crippling effects were intensified by a series of explosive industrial disputes.
Labor and management had been uneasy partners under federal controls during the war; now they were again familiar antagonists in what, by the year’s end, totalled 3,600 separate strikes. Collective bargaining, higher wages, shorter work days, and union recognition were generally the issues at stake, but as violence and instability mounted—riots were common that year—the labor unrest took on a sinister cast. Inevitably there were those who remembered the old slogan of the discredited and now nearly defunct Industrial Workers of the World: “Every strike is a little revolution and a dress rehearsal for the big one.” Typical headlines of the day proclaimed: “Red Peril Here” … “Reds Directing Strike” … “Test for Revolution.” By autumn, the widely respected Literary Digest warned, “Outside of Russia, the storm center of Bolshevism is in the United States.”
There seemed to be, indeed, cause for alarm. Communism had triumphed in Russia and in Hungary; semi-anarchy reigned in postwar Germany; and there was political unrest in Poland, Italy, India, and China. The Third International had been organized in the spring of 1919 with world-wide revolution as its goal, and in the summer not one but two Communist parties were formed in the United States.
A far more frightening phenomenon had also appeared. On April 20, Mayor Ole Hanson of Seattle, Washington, had received a package containing sulphuric acid and dynamite caps. The triggering device had failed to operate, however, and Hanson, an outspoken foe of the I.W.W. and other radical groups, survived; lie told reporters that the infernal machine was “big enough to blow out the side of the County-City Building.”
Hardly had the papers carried that story when a brown-paper parcel, bearing the return address of (Umbel Brothers in New York, arrived at the Atlanta, Georgia, home of Senator Thomas W. Hardwick. The Senator, chairman of the Committee on Immigration, was not in, and a maid unwrapped the package. This time the detonator functioned properly and the parcel exploded, lipping off her hands.
By nightfall, the Hardwick bombing was front-page news, diaries Kaplan, a New York postal clerk on his way home by subway, was alerted by the newspaper description of the package delivered to the Senator’s home. He quickly changed trains and hurried back to the General Post Office, where he remembered having seen sixteen small, brown-paper boxes set aside on a shelf because of insufficient postage. They were there, all with counterfeit Gimbel labels, and each addressed to a high-ranking government official or a well-known private citizen. Included were Attorney General Palmer, Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, John D. Rockefeller, and J. P. Morgan, Jr. Every package contained a bomb.
During the next week, watchful postal inspectors elsewhere in the country turned up sixteen more, eacli in its distinctive wrapper and addressed to a prominent person. The identity of the sender was never learned, but the newspapers and probably a majority of the public believed that the parcels had come from a Red bomb shop.
A month later, on June 1, seven explosions in five eastern cities ripped apart homes, public buildings, and a rectory, killing one man. In Washington that same night, an assassin came after the Attorney General again. Palmer had been reading in the first-floor library of his home in a quiet residential section of the city. At about eleven o’clock lie put aside his book and went upstairs. He and Mis. Palmer had just retired when the thump of something hitting the front porch echoed through the house and a violent explosion shattered windows throughout the neighborhood. The Palmers were unhurt, but the downstairs front of the house, including the library, was ruined. On the lawn, in the street, and on the sidewalk of Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s home opposite, “great chunks of human being” told the story. What had saved the Palmers from death was the clumsiness of the bomber, who evidently had stumbled and fallen, dropping the bomb before it could do serious damage to anyone but himself. Near the shattered body on Palmer’s lawn and scattered along the street lay some fifty copies of Plain Words , an anarchist pamphlet that promised death to government officials (“There will have to be murder; we will kill.…”) and proclaimed the triumph of the revolution.
Although, according to a reporter, Palmer remained “the coolest and most collected person” in the crowd that gathered to examine the wreckage, by morning he was understandably a badly frightened man. As lie learned of the other bombings elsewhere on the eastern seaboard, he saw it all as part of a Red conspiracy to destroy the American way of life. He must act to save it.
The Attorney General had little difficulty persuading Congress to grant the Justice Department funds for the task. Yet as the summer of 1919 came un, Palmer appeared to be hesitating. The slowness ol his preparations came as no surprise to his friends; he had always been a meticulous and somewhat cautious planner. But to many editors who daily ran stories of new Red plots, the Attorney General seemed reluctant to (rush the threat the nation faced.
In truth, Palmer was at this point uncertain about the course he should follow. Alter the excitement of the bombings had died down, and despite the speed with which he had sought congressional aid, he became increasingly skeptical that the Reds were as active as many people claimed. Several of his close advisers predicted that the bombers would strike again and again; nothing of the kind happened. They warned that the Fourth of July would bring Bolshevik uprisings in major cities; the day passed quietly. Palmer adopted a policy of watchful waiting.
In part, his liberalism restrained him. A Wilsonian to the core, he believed strongly in the constitutional protections of the Bill of Rights, which as Attorney General he had sworn to uphold. Hc had been elected to Congress in 1908 with support from Pennsylvania steelworkers, coal miners, and clay-pit laborers, many of whom were recent immigrants. Now, years later, lie continued to think of himself as “a radical friend of labor,” and despite public pressures to the contrary, he had thus far refused to intervene in the strikes that were crippling the economy.
That kind of liberal restraint had marked his entire political career and. lie was sure, had helped him move with comparative ease from the obscurity of a Pennsylvania law practice to the prominence of a Cabinet post. Given the right set of circumstances, it might conceivably carry Iiim on to greater power and prestige in the White House itself.
Such a thought was not an idle dream, for at fortyseven the Attorney General was superbly equipped for the part. Tall, trim, and handsome, Palmer used his many talents with skill and grace. Besides his commanding physical presence, he had a quick and active mind, self-assurance in abundance, and above all, boundless energy. If—as one biographer has written—he was at times “too combative, too dogmatic, and too conceited” for his own good, lie nevertheless had made more friends than enemies in high places. And if—as another has noted—his major weakness lay in his effort always “to win power by carefully attuning himself to what lie felt were the strong desires of most Americans,” he was no mere opportunist. He chose the issues he would support as much from deep personal belief as from political expediency.
Born of Quaker parents of mwleratc means, lie was determined, he once wrote, “to be somebody,” and his drive for power did not slacken as the years wore on. Graduating summa cum laude from Swarthmore before he was nineteen, he read law in the office of a former congressman, entered a lucrative practice at Stroudsbuig, and soon became embroiled in the freewheeling political life of the local scene. By 1909 he was in Washington, where he swiftly rose to a position of leadership. At the end of his first year in the House, he secured a seat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee, placed himself in the forefront of the progressive Democratic wing, and during three successive terms became identified with tariff reform and the cause of labor.
At the Baltimore convention of 1912 he delivered his state’s delegation to Woodrow Wilson, hoping for the post of Attorney General as a reward. But the expected appointment fell through: instead, Wilson decided to name him Secretary of War. “I am a man of peace,” Palmer said, declining the offer, and lie returned to (he House once more. Two years later he suffered his first major setback when, acceding to the President’s blandishments, lie entered a hopeless Senate race in Pennsylvania and went down to defeat.
With America’s entry into World War I, Palmer was again in the national news. Despite his professed pacifism he was fiercely patriotic; “I made up my mind that I just must get into it somehow, even if I had to carry a gun as a private,” he told a friend. His change of heart, however, never carried him to that extreme, and he accepted Wilson’s appointment as custodian of property in the United States owned by enemy aliens. For over a year he worked with such vigor and aggressiveness that the press labelled him the “Fighting Quaker,” a title he wore as a badge of honor. Some of his critics suspected that his prowar views were tied to his political hopes, but Palmer emerged from the war with his popularity intact.
In March, 1919, he claimed his long-awaited reward, appointment as Attorney General of the United States.
He had been three months on the job when the bomb burst outside his home. Despite his uncertainty about the seriousness of the Red threat, Palmer did proceed to reorganized the Department of Justice to cope with the problem. By August he had created the General Intelligence Division, a special arm within the Bureau of Investigation, to root out the Communist conspiracy if one existed. He gave charge of the new bureau to J. Edgar Hoover, a twenty-four-year-old lawyer who, in the summer of 1917, had come fresh from George Washington University Law School to serve in the Department of Justice as an aide in charge of Enemy Alien Registration. Now as a special assistant to Palmer, Hoover with his G.I.D. put together an elaborate filing system of over 200,000 cross-indexed cards containing information on 60,000 persons, several hundred newspapers, and dozens of organizations considered dangerous to the national interest.
But this quiet, systematic preparation did nothing to allay the fears of the public, or to satisfy their panicky desire for drastic action. For if the nation had been alarmed by the riots and bombs of the spring, it was terrified by the events of late summer and early fall.
July brought race riots in Cleveland and in Washington, D.C. Labor unrest continued without letup all summer long. Then, during the first week of September, the Communist party and the Communist Labor party emerged from separate Chicago conventions. Almost immediately there were reports that their combined memberships exceeded 100,000; some accounts placed the number at six times that figure. Recent studies have shown that the most modest of these estimates was greatly exaggerated; but in the fall of igi() it was the rumors that counted.
Already groups like the National Security League had published stories to the effect that most labor unions, the leading universities, some churches, the League of Women Voters, and a host of other organizations were under Red control or sympathetic to the cause. Some newspapers asserted that outspoken reformers like John Dewey, Roscoe Pound, Jane Addams, Robert M. La Follette, and Thorstein Veblen were linked to the growing Red menace.
In such an atmosphere and at such a time, it was difficult to know what was true and what was not. But as Bolshevism in Russia hardened into tyranny, and as magazine articles by the score rang continuous changes on the same terrifying theme of it must not happen here , even those who had discounted the earlier scare headlines became alarmed.
In September the Boston police went on strike. Two days of limited violence and looting followed before volunteers and some 5,000 National Guardsmen restored order. Governor Calvin Coolidge, who had done little to correct the situation, then sent his famous telegram to the A.F. of L.’s Samuel Gompers saying, “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time” (see “The Strike That Made a President” in the October, 1963, AMERICAN HERITAGE). Later in the month federal troops were sent to quiet the nation’s steel towns, where a bitter dispute had just begun. When 394,000 coal miners left the pits on November 1, the public feared the beginning of a nationwide general strike, or worse.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Palmer had been suffering under a terrific barrage of public criticism. “I was shouted at from every editorial sanctum in America from sea to sea,” he complained later. “I was preached upon from every pulpit; I was urged to do something and do it now, and do it quick and do it in a way that would bring results.” In mid-October of 1919, the Senate took up the cry; it unanimously demanded an explanation for Palmer’s inaction, and in a censure resolution implied that lie might well face removal from his post.
The Senate’s censure was a harsh blow, especially in the light of Palmer’s presidential dreams. Woodrow Wilson’s debilitating stroke in mid-autumn had already awakened speculation among many men about possible successors in the election year ahead. How seriously Palmer took his own candidacy at this point is anybody’s guess (he did not mention it openly until February, 1920); but he was too experienced a politician not to know that once he lost the public’s favor he would be hard pressed to regain it. It is not surprising that a man of his ambition began to react profoundly to the clamor that he “do something.”
Moreover, Palmer was surrounded by men who had long since become convinced that the Red menace was real. Among his Cabinet colleagues, Secretary of War Newton D. Maker, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, and Secretary of State Robert Lansing had been writing and speaking about the threat of revolution from early summer on. Even President Wilson had inserted antiradical themes in his speeches on behalf of the League a few days before he fell ill. Hut it was the men whom Palmer numbered among his closest advisers in the Department of Justice itself whose influence was greatest. They had taken the Reds very seriously from the start. To be sure, almost all the information they possessed had come from theoretical discussions in radical newspapers and books; there was little worthwhile evidence of active preparation for revolt. Nonetheless, to these advisers, where there was smoke there was probably fire. They were ready to act.
By November, Palmer was ready too. Now convinced by his own reading of anarchist literature that the nation was besieged by “thousands of aliens, who were the direct allies of Trotsky,” he declared that the time had passed when it was possible or even desirable to draw “nice distinctions … between the theoretical ideals of the radicals and their actual violations of our national law.”
The time for watching and waiting was over. “Like a prairie-fire,” he himself wrote in Forum magazine the next year, “the blaze of revolution was sweeping over every institution of law and order.… It was eating its way into the homes of the American workman, its sharp tongues of revolutionary heat were licking the altars of the churches, leaping into the belfry of the school bell, trawling into the sacred comers of American homes, seeking to replace marriage vows with libertine law, burning up the foundations of society.” To put out the fires, Palmer decided to enforce a part of the immigration code, introduced during the war, that outlawed anarchism in all its forms. Aliens who violated that code, even if only by reading or receiving anarchist publications, could be arrested and, if found guilty, deported.
There was a beautiful simplicity to Palmer’s solution. Deportation hearings were neither lengthy nor complex. They were handled as executive functions by the immigration officers of the Department of Labor. Although the aliens were supposed to be protected by the procedural safeguards of the Bill of Rights, only minimum proof (usually a warrant of cause) was needed to show that some part of the immigration code had been violated. The rulings of the hearing officers were, in effect, arbitrary, checked only by the construction of the deportation statutes, a possible appeal to the Secretary of Labor, or, in rare instances, by a writ of habeas corpus, which led to a federal court trial. Palmer decided to test both the effectiveness of deportation as an anti-Red measure, and the public’s response.
On the night of November 7, 1919, federal agents from the Bureau of Investigation and city policemen quietly surrounded the Russian People’s House on East Fifteenth Street in New York. Inside the four-story brownstone that served as a meeting place and recreation center for Russian aliens, some two hundred men and boys were at work in night-school classes. That evening was the anniversary of the Bolshevik uprising in Petrograd two years before, but the directors of the school had planned no special observance, even though the school’s sponsor, the Federation of Unions of Russian Workers in the United States and Canada, had been a leading publisher of anarchist tracts.
Shortly after nine o’clock the agents swarmed into the building. “The harsh command to ‘shut up, there, you,’ brought silence” in the classrooms, the New York Times reported next day, and in the hush that followed, the agents announced that all present were under arrest. A teacher who asked why (for no warrants had been produced) took a blow in the face that shattered his glasses. Then, while some agents searched the bewildered suspects for weapons, city policemen tore open locked files, overturned desks, pulled down pictures from the wall, and rolled up rugs in an unsuccessful hunt for incriminating evidence. At last, no weapons having been found, they herded the prisoners toward the stairs and—as an investigator from the National Council of Churches reported later—forced them to run a gantlet of officers who lined the stairwell armed with blackjacks. By the time the suspects reached agents’ headquarters, thirty-three of them required medical treatment. Their bandaged heads and blackened eyes, the Times remarked, were “souvenirs of the new attitude of aggressiveness which had been assumed by the Federal agents against Reds or suspected Reds.”
Elsewhere in the nation that night, federal officers in nine other cities east of the Mississippi raided other Russian centers. In all, about four hundred and fifty persons were rounded up. Before the night was over, more than half of them were released as innocent, but Attorney General Palmer was distinctly pleased with the results.
For by morning he was a national hero, praised by the very press that only the week before had been railing at him and demanding his resignation. Now, as one paper put it, he was “a tower of strength to his countrymen.” He new answer to the Reds, said another, was “S.O.S.—Ship or Shoot.” Still another suggested that the new year might bring a three-point trade program of “import—export—deport.”
By December, Palmer was riding the crest of enthusiastic public support. Working quickly now, he secured deportation orders for 199 Russians who had been found guilty under the immigration law. Taken to Ellis Island, they were joined by fifty other deportees, including Alexander Berkman, the would-be assassin of Henry Clay Frick in the Homestead Strike twenty-seven years before, and Emma Goldman, a well-known anarchist writer whose work had allegedly inspired Leon Czolgosz to murder President McKinley. All 249 aliens were to be deported to Russia by way of Finland, the Finnish government having agreed to act in this case as the agent for the United States, which had yet to recognize the Bolshevik regime.
Although immigration officials had promised that no married men would be deported and that ample time would be given the aliens to settle their affairs, neither pledge was honored. In the early hours of December 21, the aliens boarded the Buford , an ancient army transport now nicknamed “the Soviet Ark.” Two hundred fifty armed soldiers patrolled the decks, but, with the exception of a short-lived hunger strike, the voyage passed uneventfully. In mid-January, 1920, the Buford docked at Hango, Finland, and under a flag of truce—the Finns were now at war with Russia—the deportees passed into Soviet hands.∗
∗ After the furor attending their departure from the United States and the news of their arrival in Russia, the Buford deportees dropped out of sight. The majority apparently remained in Russia, hut two, at least, did not. Berkman, ever the anarchist, was quickly disillusioned by what he found in the Communist state, and by 1925 had published two highly critical books, The Bolshevik Myth and The Anti-climax. He had, of course, left Russia by then, and he spent the remaining years of his life wandering aimlessly through Europe. He committed suicide in Nice, France, in 1936.
Following disagreements and an open break with the Bolsheviks in 1921, Emma Goldman too left the country and two years later wrote My Disillusionment in Russia. In 1924 she was permitted to re-enter the United States for a lecture tour under the terms of a curious arrangement whereby she was not permitted to discuss politics in public. She was not allowed to remain, however, and crossed the border into Canada. She died in Toronto in 1940.
Meanwhile Palmer readied a second attack on the Reds. If the November raid had netted hundreds, the new series would bring in thousands. Hoping to speed the process, Palmer asked Secretary of Labor Wilson to change that part of the deportation rules that permitted the aliens to secure counsel, and at the same time he requested a blanket deportation warrant to cover any aliens who might be arrested once the raids began. Wilson refused both requests, emphasizing that the immigrants, despite their lack of citizenship, were nonetheless entitled to the protection of the Bill of Rights. Palmer, no longer sounding like a confirmed liberal, insisted that all too often it was lawbreakers, not the innocent, who were protected by these legal safeguards, but Wilson held firm.
For the moment, the Attorney General was stymied. Then, in mid-December, Secretary Wilson went on sick leave. His duties were divided between Louis F. Post, his assistant, and John W. Abercrombie, the Labor Department’s solicitor and a Palmer appointee. To Palmer’s relief, Post, whom the press had labelled a “Bolshie coddler,” took up the Secretary’s main duties, while Abercrombie assumed control of immigration. On December 29, Abercrombie consented to a change in Rule 22 of the deportation-hearing procedure so that it no longer required the arresting officers to inform aliens of either their right to counsel or the charges against them. Two days later he issued some 3,000 mimeographed warrants for the arrest of aliens whose names were to be entered in the blanks.
The night of January 2 was chosen for a new set of raids. Agents who had infiltrated Communist cells were asked to arrange meetings for that evening “to facilitate arrests.” The others were instructed to bring in as many aliens as they could find. Their orders, issued over the signature of Frank Burke, the assistant director of the Bureau of Investigation, said, in part, “I leave it entirely to your discretion as to the method by which you gain access to such places [where aliens might be].… If, due to local conditions in your territory, you find that it is absolutely necessary to obtain a search warrant for the premises, you should communicate with the local authorities a few hours before the time for the arrests is set.” Otherwise plans for the raids were to be kept secret. The aliens were to be held incommunicado, and the agents were urged to secure “confessions” as quickly as possible.
The all-out raid went off on schedule in thirty-three cities in twenty-three states. Palmer’s men were joined by local police, and in a few instances, though Palmer had earlier refused their help, by volunteer members of patriotic societies like the National Security League. By midnight of January 2 they had collected well over 3,000 suspects from the eastern industrial states, and from California, Washington, and Oregon in the West. The true number will never be known, for the records of that evening are hopelessly confused and in some areas nonexistent. All 3,000 mimeographed warrants were used—the names in many instances being added after the arrests were made—and an estimated 2,000 other suspects were picked up and held for some time without being charged.
Whatever the number, the results were spectacular. Editorial pages swiftly echoed the praises of public officials, and Palmer’s reputation was at an all-time high. The effect of the raids, said the New York Times , should be “far-reaching and beneficial.” Even the Washington Post , which had called the November arrests “a serious mistake,” urged that the deportation of the new suspects take place as speedily as possible. “There is no time to waste,” it said, “on hairsplitting over infringement of liberty.” The Philadelphia Inquirer ran a jovial headline: ALL ABOARD FOR THE NEXT SOVIET ARK.
It was not, however, to be all that easy. After the initial enthusiasm had died down, and as complaints of wanton disregard of the aliens’ civil rights found their way into print, a number of people began to question whether Palmer had not done more harm than good. The National Council of Churches started an investigation of the events of January 2. So did the Department of Labor. In Detroit a group of businessmen that included dime-store magnate S. S. Kresge looked into the raids that had taken place in that vicinity. Elsewhere other organizations did the same.
Their combined evidence revealed some shocking particulars. One man in Newark had been apprehended simply because—as the arresting officer put it—he “looked like a radical.” Boston agents with drawn pistols had broken into the bedroom of a sleeping woman at 6 A.M. and dragged her off to headquarters without a warrant, only to find that she was an American citizen with no Communist connections. Attracted by the commotion on East Fifteenth Street, where the Russian People’s House had again been raided, a New Yorker questioned a policeman about what was going on and shortly found himself on his way to jail. Police in Detroit arrested every diner in one foreign restaurant, and jailed an entire orchestra. Philadelphia agents booked a choral society en masse, and in Hartford, Connecticut, sympathetic aliens who were inquiring about some imprisoned friends were themselves held as suspects for nearly a week. Of 142 persons arrested in Buffalo, thirty-one turned out to be cases of “mistaken identity.” In Detroit, where nearly eight hundred were arrested, less than four hundred warrants were served; four hundred and fifty warrants arrived to cover the other suspects two weeks after the raids had taken place.
Treatment of the aliens after the roundups was in many cases harsh. Four hundred men rounded up in New England were jammed into an underheated and overcrowded prison on Deer Island in Boston Harbor; there, in the next few weeks, one of them went insane, another jumped to his death from the fifth floor of the main cell block, and several others attempted suicide. When they were finally released, as most of them were, many were ill and a number showed signs of beatings. In Detroit, eight hundred suspects were lodged in a corridor of the United States Post Office building, without exterior ventilation, beds, or blankets. No food was distributed for twenty-four hours, and there was one toilet for the entire group. After two days of questioning, 340 of them were released, but over a hundred were imprisoned for more than a week in a detention cell 24 by 30 feet in the basement of the Municipal Building, where they lived on coffee and biscuits.
But the investigating committees discovered more than just dramatic instances of physical mistreatment. Twelve nationally known lawyers, including the Harvard Law School’s Felix Frankfurter, Roscoe Pound, and Zechariah Chafee, Jr., issued at the end of May “A Report on the Illegal Practices of the United States Department of Justice.” It was a sweeping indictment, solidly supported by evidence, of Palmer and his raids.
The real danger to the country, the lawyers wrote, lay not in the possibility of Red revolution, but in Palmer’s obvious misuse of federal power. The Department of Justice, they said, had ignored due process of law in favor of “illegal acts,” “wholesale arrests,” and “wanton violence.” Although the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protects against arrest without prior warrant, Palmer’s men had obtained only 3,000 writs for the more than 5,000 aliens eventually detained. Most of the warrants were defective, in any case; either they lacked substantiating proof, or they were unsworn and unsigned. All too frequently, they were unserved as well. “Instead of showing me a warrant,” one suspect complained, “they showed me a gun.” In the majority of cases, the federal agents carried no search warrants, either.
The twelve lawyers charged in their report that the raiders had violated the Fifth Amendment by making use of illegally obtained or hearsay evidence, or by resorting to dubious or fraudulent proof. At least two of the accused, for example, were held to be radicals on the grounds that they had been photographed reading Russian-language newspapers. Tickets to Socialist and Communist social functions, magazine subscription lists, post cards and letters from avowed Communists, and group photographs were introduced by the agents as acceptable evidence that suspected aliens belonged to revolutionary organizations. A New Jersey man was held because agents found plans for “an infernal machine” in his home; the mysterious drawings turned out to be blueprints for a phonograph. One agent turned in a stack of mock rifles from a dramatic society’s prop room, but these and three .22 caliber target pistols were the only firearms Palmer’s men found in any of the raids.
The lawyers’ report went on to cite violations of the Sixth and Eighth Amendments. In many cases, counsel had been denied; no witnesses had been produced; interpreters had not been provided though few of the prisoners spoke fluent English; confessions had been obtained under the “third degree”; and bail had often been set at an excessively high figure.
Palmer at first refused to concede that any of this was true. But as the evidence mounted, he finally admitted that “some” illegal acts might have taken place. “Trying to protect the community against moral rats,” he declared some time afterward, “you sometimes get to thinking more of your trap’s effectiveness than of its lawful construction.” Hearing this, Louis Post ruefully noted that whatever Palmer might think, “the traps had been wretchedly put together.” Judge George W. Anderson of the district court in Boston added, “A mob is a mob, whether made up of government officials acting under the instructions of the Justice Department, or of criminals and loafers.”
By the spring of 1920, Palmer’s anti-Red crusade was beginning to fall apart. In March, Abercrombie left the Department of Labor, and Post took his place. He immediately cancelled 2,000 of the original warrants as defective, and with the assistance of federal judges like Anderson, expedited hearings for those prisoners who remained in custody. Although Palmer had predicted that 2,720 aliens from the January raids would be deported, in the end only 556 were. In all, more than 4,000 suspects were released.
Shattered, the Attorney General urged Congress to impeach Post as a Communist sympathizer whose failure to press for convictions had let many dangerous radicals go free. After a month-long hearing, Post was found innocent and returned to his duties. Two months later, in June, Palmer himself was called before the House to answer charges that he had misused his office. The hearings ended inconclusively, but the charges were revived by the Senate Judiciary Committee the following year.
In a stormy committee session that began in January, 1921, Palmer stubbornly defended what his men had done. “I apologize for nothing,” he told the committee. “I glory in it. I point with pride and enthusiasm to the results of that work.… [If my agents] were a little rough and unkind, or short and curt, with these alien agitators … I think it might well be overlooked in the general good to the country which has come from it.”
By the time Palmer made his final statements on the raids, he was finished politically. He had flatly predicted a Communist uprising in May, 1920, and again on the Fourth of July. At first the press took him seriously, but when nothing happened the papers took to greeting his remarks with derision instead of alarm. For many people that summer, the Fighting Quaker had become a Don Quixote attacking an enemy that did not exist.
But he made one last, bold effort. In February, 1920, he had announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination, and when the convention opened in San Francisco late in June he had considerable support from the party regulars who remembered his long years of faithful service and who had benefited from his use of patronage when it was his to give. Others in the party, however, gravely doubted his ability to win, especially in the cities. It was clear to all that he had now lost the labor vote (one union magazine accused him of having used “the mailed fist of the autocratic tyrant”), and his own failure to define his stand on the League and on Prohibition worked against him. When the balloting began on July 2, he held the lead over his closest rival, William G. McAdoo, Wilson’s Secretary of the Treasury and son-in-law, but he failed to get a majority. Thirty-seven ballots later, Palmer conceded the nomination, released the delegates who still supported him, and retired as the convention nominated Ohio’s governor, James M. Cox.
His presidential dreams were over, and so was the Red Scare. Had the raids of January not fallen into disrepute by June, Palmer might have gone on to win in San Francisco. As it was, he returned to Washington a beaten man, and when he left the Cabinet in the spring of 1921, his departure was almost unnoticed by the papers that only a year before had bannered his name in their headlines. With the advent of the new administration, the Senate committee that was still investigating Palmer’s work ended its deliberations; when its report was finally published two years later, no one much cared that the committee had passed no judgments but had merely offered a transcript of the testimony it had heard.
By then a general calm had settled on the nation and the world. Europe was rebuilding. Lenin had pulled back from his program of immediate world revolution and was turning his Russian people toward the quasi-capitalism of the New Economic Policy. The American economy was slowly coming back to normal, and management and labor had achieved a temporary peace. The press, which had done much to keep the public alerted to the activities of the domestic Reds, had found other topics to pursue.
There were still to be anti-Communist crusades in the years ahead, and the anti-alien sentiments that had led to the Palmer raids in the first place found expression in restrictive immigration laws and in the public uproar during the Sacco-Vanzetti trial. But most Americans were content to feel that the crisis had passed, if indeed there had been a crisis at all. In 1924 J. Edgar Hoover moved on to become the first (and thus far, only) director of the F.B.I, an I periodically issued warnings that a Red threat was abroad in the land, but he never again resorted to the slap-dash techniques that he and his associates had developed in the days of the G.I.D.
In 1922 Palmer suffered the first of several heart attacks and retired from the political scene. A decade later, in an act that some have construed as making amends, he returned briefly to draft a Democratic program of moderate reform that served as one basis for F.D.R.’s New Deal campaign. Four years later, A. Mitchell Palmer was dead.
His old associates in government gathered for his funeral and paid homage for the progressive role he had played in his congressional days. But the nation as a whole remembered him only as the man they had goaded into a series of discredited raids that struck at the heart of American freedom. Perhaps that is the way it should be. For if Palmer at times displayed the best that was in the American tradition, in 1920 he very nearly gave it all away in succumbing to the hysteria of the great Red Scare. | <urn:uuid:43c7b367-4d16-467c-b450-88a47acd8df7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.americanheritage.com/print/52226?page=7 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00106-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984809 | 8,215 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Nothing provides a better forum for learning to understand what the new media is all about than the discussion tabs on Wikipedia articles related to current events. Here's a starting point, for example:
Hello students, today's topic is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Osama_bin_Laden
Objective: Students will be able to demonstrate digital media literacy by analyzing and explaining the discussion that has surrounded the decision-making process in the editing of the Wikipedia article on Osama Bin Laden in the wake of his death.
I'd like to know what you all could/would do with this sort of thing. I'd love to see a wiki resource developed to help teachers use the Wikipedia discussion tabs in planning and facilitating lessons designed to help students learn new media and develop their digital literacy.
Anyone interested in a project? | <urn:uuid:e1ed3576-1c0d-4de5-a2da-e3deb2dbc5a8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://teachpaperless.blogspot.com/2011/05/digital-literacy-objectives-starting.html?showComment=1304399925574 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00082-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939538 | 170 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Red River Cart
par Barkwell, Lawrence J.
The French Canadian traders and the Métis developed a wide network of trading routes across the Prairies using routes that were based on the Indian trails, which often followed buffalo trails. Crucial to the expansion of these trade routes, Métis craftsman of Red River settlements created a unique cart: the Red river cart. This cart is the best-known symbol of Métis culture. It is a symbol of the ingenuity, their nomadic way of life, and their trade skills that contributed in the development of the Prairies economy. Carts are still being made today by the Red River Metis Heritage Group at St. Norbert, Manitoba.
Characteristics of the Red River cart
The Metis were responsible for the development of the versatile Red River cart used to transport goods over the prairie terrain. In effect, the Metis commercialized the buffalo hunt with the invention of the Red River cart. Today, the Red River cart is one of the best-known symbols of Metis culture. The legacy of the Red River cart is still found in cities such as Winnipeg, Manitoba, which have very broad roadways. Portage Avenue in Winnipeg is wide because it is the original cart trail west, and carts used to travel from three to twenty carts abreast. The cart, drawn by either an ox or horse, was used to transport meat, buffalo hides, pemmican, trade items and personal belongings to and from the bison hunt and centres of trade in the United States.
As the West developed, settlements sprang up far away from the river transportation routes. Red River carts, which had been used for years by the Metis, became the chief mode of land transport to service these otherwise unreachable communities. As the need for larger and stronger carts increased, they became more refined. A much lighter spoked wheel gradually replaced the solid wheel. Made in a dish shape, these new wheels did not sink as far into the earth, making them easier to pull. The rawhide (green shaganappi) which bound the entire cart together became as tough as steel when dry and so strong, it would support a 450-kilogram load. One drawback to the carts was the loud noise the carts made because of the screeching of wood rubbing against wood as the wheels turned on unlubricated axles. Grease could not be used because this would pick up dust and dirt, which would wear out the hub and axle in no time.
The cart and Metis commercial operations
On November 15, 1801 at Pembina in the Minnesota Territory, Alexander Henry reports that his Metis employees are using carts with solid one-piece wheels. By September 20, 1802 they have:
"…a new sort of cart which facilitates transportation, hauling home meat, etc. The wheels are about four feet high and perfectly straight; the spokes are perpendicular, without the least bending outward, and only four to each wheel. These carts carry about five pieces (of 90 pounds), and are drawn by one horse (NOTE 1)."
By March of 1803 the men were building carts with more spokes and larger dished wheels of French-Canadien design. Cart making itself became a Metis industry and being a teamster replaced employment as a voyageur in the boat brigades. From the early 1800s to the advent of the railways in the west the Metis dominated the transportation industry. A number of Metis families in the Selkirk and Pembina districts began raising oxen to haul Red River carts. In the mid-1800s, the number of carts in use had increased as trade increased.
"[Metis] caravans or trains have annually increased in number, and now two hundred carts make the yearly pilgrimage across the prairies, six hundred and fifty miles, to St. Paul…They are laden with buffalo hides, pemmican, peltries, fur, embroidered leather coats, moccasins, saddles, &c. these they sell or exchange in St. Paul and return again to their secluded home… (NOTE 2)"
The size of Metis commercial operations was huge. Metis buffalo hunts were of colossal size. In 1865, Alexander Ross, a settler in Red River, reported in detail on an expedition that left the Red River Settlement on June 15, 1840. When the role was called at Pembina, 1,630 people were present with 1,210 Red River carts. In 1869, it was reported that at least 2,500 carts had passed through St. Cloud, MN carrying 600 tons of freight for the Hudson’s Bay Company (NOTE 3).
A versatile cart
The versatility of the cart was unmatched. With its high wheels, the cart could transverse the rutted prairie, be disassembled and floated as a raft across streams, or covered with waterproof hide and transformed into a boat. The wheels were simply removed and lashed to the bottom to form a raft. At day’s end, the cart could then be both covered with hide and used to provide shelter for the traveler, or when dozens were encircled, form a portable corral for livestock. In winter, the cart frame could be used as a sled pulled by a horse. The first Mace used in the Manitoba Legislature was constructed from part of a Red River Cart axle with the hub on the end.
The most experienced Metis freighters could handle ten carts, provided they were in a caravan. Normally, one man would handle six carts, with three being the minimum. In contrast, a teamster could only handle two wagons with ease.
George Dawson, a member of the 1872-1875 Boundary Commission, made notes on the difficulties met when traveling over the prairies in the vicinity of the Milk River:
"Red River Country Carts are little use in this part of the country to anybody but the Half-Breeds. When broken there is no hard wood to repair them and from the stony and rough character of the “roads” breaks are necessarily frequent. The sand and grit also rapidly wears away the axles unless iron bushes are used and then a poplar axle has to be substituted at risk of breakdown any moment. The extreme dryness of the air causes them to split and crack in all directions, especially the hubs, and when this happens the spokes work loose and nothing will save the wheel. By keeping the wheel always wet this may be avoided but water is scarce. With the Half-Breeds time is no object and cheapness is everything. They put on light loads and travel in large trains so that if one cart breaks down the load may be distributed and the fragments retained for future repairs(NOTE 4)."
By 1812 there were cart trails all across the west and the Metis were able to provide the provisions, without which, the Selkirk Settlers would have starved. Later, the major commercial trails were Pembina to Red River and Pembina to St. Paul, Minnesota, Red River to Fort Ellice, Red River to Carlton and Fort Carlton to Fort des Prairies (now Edmonton).
With the demise of the great buffalo herds and the arrival of the railway, the Metis were reduced to using their carts to pick buffalo bones. These were sold for processing sugar and making fertilizer and buttons.
The use of the cart today
The use of the carts slowly disappeared by the end of the 19th century with completion of the transcanadian railroad. Still, a group of people around the Red River Metis Heritage Group at St. Norbert, Manitoba are building the original carts. They use original tools and techniques to insure the authenticity of the Red River cart. This group made a cart trek from Pembina to Winnipeg for the opening of the North American Indigenous Games in 2002 and over 2004-2005, they made the trek from Winnipeg to Batoche Saskatchewan. In 2005 another group from Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta made a trek from Batoche to Metis Crossing in Alberta to celebrate the opening of the Metis Crossing historic site. Carts can be seen on display at the St. Norbert Cultural Centre, the St. Boniface Museum and at the Manitoba Metis Federation.
Lawrence J. Barkwell
Coordinator of Metis Heritage and History Research
Louis Riel Institute
Note 1 : Elliot Coues (éd.), The Manuscript Journals of Alexander Henry and David Thompson, 1799-1814, Minneapolis, Ross & Haines Inc., 1965, p. 191.
Note 2 : Frank Blackwell Mayer, With Pen and Pencil on the Frontier in 1851 : The Diary and Sketches of Frank Blackwell Mayer, St. Paul, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1986, p. 237-238.
Note 3 : Alexandria Post, 7 août 1869.
Note 4 : George M. Dawson, « General Diary and Note Book »,1874, p. 44. [On line] (Consulted on Novembre 20, 2007).
Barkwell, Lawrence J., Leah M. Dorion and Darren R. Préfontaine. Metis Legacy: A Metis Historiography and Annotated Bibliography. Saskatoon: Gabriel Dumont Institute, Winnipeg: Pemmican Publications and Louis Riel Institute, 2001.
Barkwell, Lawrence J., Leah M. Dorion and Audreen Hourie. Metis Legacy, Volume Two: Michif Culture, Heritage and Folkways. Saskatoon: Gabriel Dumont Institute, Winnipeg: Pemmican Publications, 2007.
Brehaut, H.B. “The Red River Cart and Trails, The Fur Trade”, Historical and Scientific Society of Manitoba, Series III, No. 28, 1971/72: 5-35.
Coues, Elliot, ed., The Manuscript Journals of Alexander Henry and David Thompson, 1799-1814. Minneapolis, MN: Ross & Haines, Inc., 1965: 191.
Gilman, R.R., C. Gilman and D.H. Stultz. The Red River Trails, 1820-1870. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Publications, 1979.
Knox, Olive. “Red River Cart”. The Beaver, Outfit 272, 1942: 39-43.
Mayer, Frank Blackwell. With Pen and Pencil on the Frontier in 1851: The Diary and Sketches of Frank Blackwell Mayer. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1986.
Vrooman, Nicholas C.P. “The Metis Red River Cart,” in Journal of the West, Vol. 42, No. 2, Spring 2003: 8-20.
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Metis buffalo bone pi
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Portage Avenue Pièce
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Is ADHD in boys different from ADHD in girls?
The short answer is yes; ADHD is diagnosed in boys three to four times the rate of girls.
A huge factor in the gender difference of ADHD diagnoses is how we, as a society (parents, teachers, doctor, etc.), interpret similar behaviors based on gender, but I'll elaborate more on that below.
But a more accurate response is that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is complex, and every month new research emerges shedding more light on the causes and treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Before we go any further, we must break down the different types of ADHD symptoms.
1) Hyperactive-Impulsive Type
This type typically affects boys three to four times the rate of girls. Symptoms include extreme activity as if driven by a motor, fidgeting, inability to sit still, and impatience.
It also includes blurting out answers, frequently interrupting others, difficulty waiting in lines or waiting ones turn, risk-taking behaviors, not considering the consequences prior to acting.
Obviously, such outward and often disruptive behavioral symptoms easily gain the attention of parents, teachers, and treatment providers.
2) Inattentive Type ADHD
Those with Inattentive ADHD have challenges focusing and sustaining attention. They are forgetful, disorganized, often lose or misplace things, have messy rooms, and have difficulty following directions and paying attention to details.
This type of ADHD leads to errors and results in poor grades. Those with Inattentive type ADHD have challenges fulfilling school and work responsibilities.
Girls are more likely to suffer from Inattentive ADHD compared to boys. Rather than present with obvious disruptive behaviors, these girls tend to present as "daydreamers" or appear "spacey." As a result, they tend to fall under the radar of teachers and parents are thus at higher risk of being misdiagnosed or not diagnosed at all.
3) Combined Type
As the name implies, this type of ADHD is a combination of the first two. For a comprehensive list of the diagnostic criteria for ADHD, visit ADHD criteria.
Boys tend to suffer from ADHD at a rate of three to four times that of girls.
However, because girls tend to manifest the inattentive rather than the hyperactive and often disruptive aspects of the condition, they do not tend to attract the attention of parents and school officials. As a result, they are often under-diagnosed and untreated.
If you suspect your child is suffering from ADHD, seek an ADHD assessment from a mental health treatment provider who specializes in diagnosing and treating ADHD.
Treatment for ADHD can include ADHD medications, ADD natural remedies, the ADHD diet, and behavioral programs such as the Total Focus Program for children and the 30 Days To Better Focus Program for adults. | <urn:uuid:ec0bfb44-6314-47ee-a270-bcb1c04c810e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.add-treatment.com/adhd-in-boys.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00184-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946191 | 581 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Crafts: "Stained-Glass" Mobile
Teach a lesson on the science of melting in this fun project.
- Grades: PreK–K, 1–2, 3–5
Here's a great way to use up old crayons—and create a beautiful classroom decoration.
Watch Jim Noonan's video demonstration...
What you’ll need:
Craft paper or paper grocery bag
Iron and ironing board
Floss or thread
Hanger or dowel
1 Remove paper from crayons and use pencil sharpener to create shavings. Mix colors in the same family to create a mottled effect. Cut two pieces of 12-inch-square waxed paper.
2 Place a piece of craft paper on ironing board to protect surface (adults only, near the iron). Then, lay a piece of waxed paper over craft paper and sprinkle shavings onto it evenly. Cover with the other piece of waxed paper and then a final piece of craft paper.
3 On medium heat, iron over craft paper, checking to see that shavings are melting evenly. Once shavings have melted and desired color/texture of “stained glass” is achieved, set aside to cool.
4 Create templates in various shapes (star, diamond, etc.) out of card stock. Trace shapes onto sheet of “stained glass.”
5 With scissors, cut out shapes, and use hole punch to create a hole on the top of each shape.
6 Tie thread through hole in each shape and tie other end to hanger or dowel to create mobile. | <urn:uuid:e32f3dae-027d-4df4-b044-a69ba4288072> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/crafts-stained-glass-mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00082-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.849553 | 339 | 3.34375 | 3 |
(According to Beristain de Souza, Muñoz should be the surname).
Born of a Spanish father and Indian mother soon after 1521; died at a very advanced age, the exact date unknown. He acquired the knowledge of letters and rudimentary acquaintance with other branches of learning from the Franciscans at Mexico in the first half of the sixteenth century, and diligently inquired into the traditions and antiquities of the Nahuatl Indians, chiefly of the tribe of Tlaxcala, in which investigations he was encouraged and sustained by the clergy and the higher Spanish officials. For many years he acted as official interpreter. He wrote the "historia de Tlaxcala ", first published in a French translation in the "Annales des voyages" and but lately in the Spanish original. It is the only chronicle specially devoted to the past of the tribe Tlaxcala thus far accessible in print, except one, printed 1870, and which yet prove to be a fragment of Camargo's work. Torquemada's "Monarquia" is largely based on Camargo, and the history is of course partial, as all tribal chronicles are, extolling the Indians of Tlaxcala, and placing them above all others of Nahuatl stock. This does not, however, detract from its value. It presents a view differing from that of other Indian writers, and furnishes elements of useful criticism.
The Catholic Encyclopedia is the most comprehensive resource on Catholic teaching, history, and information ever gathered in all of human history. This easy-to-search online version was originally printed between 1907 and 1912 in fifteen hard copy volumes.
Designed to present its readers with the full body of Catholic teaching, the Encyclopedia contains not only precise statements of what the Church has defined, but also an impartial record of different views of acknowledged authority on all disputed questions, national, political or factional. In the determination of the truth the most recent and acknowledged scientific methods are employed, and the results of the latest research in theology, philosophy, history, apologetics, archaeology, and other sciences are given careful consideration.
No one who is interested in human history, past and present, can ignore the Catholic Church, either as an institution which has been the central figure in the civilized world for nearly two thousand years, decisively affecting its destinies, religious, literary, scientific, social and political, or as an existing power whose influence and activity extend to every part of the globe. In the past century the Church has grown both extensively and intensively among English-speaking peoples. Their living interests demand that they should have the means of informing themselves about this vast institution, which, whether they are Catholics or not, affects their fortunes and their destiny.
Copyright © Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company New York, NY. Volume 1: 1907; Volume 2: 1907; Volume 3: 1908; Volume 4: 1908; Volume 5: 1909; Volume 6: 1909; Volume 7: 1910; Volume 8: 1910; Volume 9: 1910; Volume 10: 1911; Volume 11: - 1911; Volume 12: - 1911; Volume 13: - 1912; Volume 14: 1912; Volume 15: 1912
Catholic Online Catholic Encyclopedia Digital version Compiled and Copyright © Catholic Online | <urn:uuid:9695d025-0a2d-4bb7-ae4d-0859d47d4d24> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=2426 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397749.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00125-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946922 | 672 | 3.171875 | 3 |
This short movie shows how data from two different instruments on the Cassini spacecraft can be combined to give an integrated view of Titan's surface.The first frame -- a mosaic of near-infrared images from Cassini's Imaging Science Subsystem -- shows a 1,150-by 900-kilometer (715-by 560-mile) region near Titan's equator. North is up. At the bottom right is the edge of the large bright feature named Xanadu, which was first seen in NASA Hubble Space Telescope images in 1994. At the left is a smaller bright area named Shikoku Facula. The dark plains in between, called Shangri-La, are punctuated by numerous smaller bright features. This mosaic (PIA07754) was made from images acquired during Titan flyby in October 2005.
The second movie frame shows the full extent of a radar image acquired with the Synthetic Aperture Radar during a flyby of Titan on April 30, 2006. Some bright and dark areas of the radar image correlate to the visible-light camera view, such as the bright 90-kilometer (60-mile) diameter ring feature to the right of center named Guabonito, but others do not. The radar images reveal that many of the large dark areas appear to be covered in dark streaks, which are also seen elsewhere on Titan. The streaks seem to be dunes of some kind of granular material (see PIA03567).
Some particularly interesting areas include a dark spot at the northeastern end of Shikoku, which is not obvious in the Imaging Science Subsystem data. What appear to be channels across Shikoku are seen in the Imaging Science Subsystem data as very dark, and are perhaps filled with the same dark material that makes the dunes. Within Shangri-la, many of the small spots that look bright to the Imaging Science Subsystem are very prominent as bright spots in the radar image, suggesting they may be rugged hills poking up above the dark plains.
In the third frame, two segments of the radar image are highlighted, which have been more strongly enhanced (see PIA08425 and PIA08426 for these two images). Guabonito and Shikoku Facula are labeled.
There are artifacts present in the view once the radar image fades in -- these are due to the asymmetrical shape of the overlaid radar image.
Multiple sets of data are needed to understand a complex world like Titan. As the Cassini mission continues to fly by Titan and observe different regions of its surface, there will be more and more areas where comparative analyses can be done.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the United States and several European countries. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org. | <urn:uuid:0aa90574-c769-4e56-8a5b-38f65a224656> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07785 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403823.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00063-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939867 | 711 | 3.640625 | 4 |
angioplasty & stenting
Atherosclerotic plaques narrow the arteries and restrict blood flow to the coronary arteries. Angioplasty is often required to restore the blood flow to the coronary arteries. This same technique is used for treating peripheral artery disease that restricts blood flow to other parts of the body. Recuperation from angioplasty occurs generally in a relatively short period since only local anesthesia and mild sedation is used for the procedure. Although many patients spend one night in the hospital, they are able to return to their normal activity in a day or two.
The most common form of angioplasty is known as balloon angioplasty. In this procedure, a thin tube or catheter is inserted into an artery in the groin. A tiny balloon passes through the catheter and is guided to the restricted or narrowed area(s). The balloon is then expanded until the atherosclerotic plaque is pressed against the artery wall, thus stretching open the formerly restricted artery.
A stent often follows angioplasty because it structurally supports the narrowed part of the artery. A stent is a mesh-like cylinder that can be placed in the coronary artery, carotid arteries and other (peripheral) parts of the body. The Bon Secours heart surgeons at the Heart & Vascular Institute provide drug-eluting stents, meaning that these stents used may reduce the potential for the artery to become narrowed again.
A stent comes in various sizes, allowing correct placement in coronary arteries, carotid arteries, and peripheral arteries in other parts of the body. The stent remains in the artery and is not removed. | <urn:uuid:720967fa-586b-4ec7-8a25-32bd69143337> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bonsecours.com/our-services-heart-and-vascular-treatments-and-surgeries-angioplasty-and-stenting.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00139-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938533 | 342 | 2.734375 | 3 |
It is essential that every motorist strive to
obtain the best possible fuel economy. Reducing fuel consumption puts more cash
into your pocket and curbs the amount of environmental pollution. Although electric
cars are an option, their limited driving range presents a challenge for some
drivers. Luckily, most car owners can improve their gas mileage by making a few
changes. Here are some ways to save on gas and drive more efficiently.
Keep the vehicle properly maintained.
The upkeep of a vehicle has a direct impact on its fuel consumption. If the spark plugs are beginning to wear down, the combustion of the fuel will not be as efficient. A worn oxygen sensor can also cause a vehicle’s gas mileage to plummet.
Reduce your traveling speed.
Gas mileage tends to decline when traveling at speeds in excess of 55 miles-per-hour. Lowering your average highway speed from 70 mph to 60 mph can improve gas mileage by up to 15 percent.
Maintain the optimal tire pressure.
Each day, thousands of motorists will hit the road on a set of under-inflated tires. The increased friction against the pavement forces the engine to expend more energy. Always remember to check the tire pressure while the tires are cold.
Many drivers unnecessarily punch the gas pedal upon accelerating. If the tachometer gauge rises past 3000 rpm, this is a good indication that too much pressure is being applied to the accelerator. When accelerating, try to keep the engine speed between 2500-3000 rpm on the tachometer.
Learn to coast.
Instead of racing from one stop light to the next, allow the vehicle to coast to a stop. This task can be accomplished by simply releasing your foot off the accelerator. The momentum will enable the vehicle to roll without using any fuel. The key is to always be looking ahead for slowing traffic.
Consider public transportation and walking.
Although there is nothing wrong with owning a fuel efficient Toyota Corolla, try to limit the use of your vehicle as much as possible. If your destination is not within walking or biking distance, feel free to take advantage of the public transportation system. Public transportation is very affordable. When taking the train or bus, the risk of being involved in a traffic accident also declines. | <urn:uuid:0a41ee70-e0ab-499d-ab56-8d5b0d21aff1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dailyfueleconomytip.com/creative-ideas/ways-to-save-on-gas-and-drive-more-fuel-efficiently/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00189-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932917 | 459 | 2.96875 | 3 |
DLTK's Educational Crafts
Squire Square Shapes Buddy
Squire Square is an easy paper craft to help young children learn about squares. See if you can count how many squares there are in the craft (we counted 11 -- not counting the square-ish teeth).
We also have a basic square craft if you prefer something simpler.
You can make this craft a bit simpler, by only using the first template or you can go all out and use all three.
- something to color with (crayons, paint, markers, etc)
- print template of choice.
- You can mix and match the color and B&W Templates to save yourself ink.
- The 3rd template (the legs and feet) lends itself especially well to printing out the B&W version on brown construction paper.
- cut out the template pieces. This may require adult assistance. If you have a beginning user of scissors, let them cut out the easy (large) pieces (like the head, legs, feet and body) while you cut out the harder ones (mouth, eyes, neck, arms and hat).
- glue the pieces together:
- If you get stuck, use the small image at the top of this page to give you an idea of how it goes together.
- If you are working with a large group of children, you may wish to pre-make an example Squire Square to display during craft time.
- use the feet (rectangles) to launch a brief discussion about the difference between a square and a rectangle (both have 4 sides and 4 corners, but the square's sides are equal).
- Close the template window after printing to return to this screen.
- Set page margins to zero if you have trouble fitting the template on one page (FILE, PAGE SETUP or FILE, PRINTER SETUP in most browsers). | <urn:uuid:26ea6d58-35cc-4687-baf9-3650bc928086> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://dltk-teach.com/shapes/msquare.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00098-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.868026 | 387 | 3.6875 | 4 |
Blueberry bushes are attractive ornamental shrubs that will be covered with tiny white flowers in the spring, bright green foliage in the summer and will light up the yard in autumn when the leaves turn bright orange and red. Best of all, in mid-summer, you can pick handfuls of the delicious, tiny berries. Eat them straight from the bush, stir them into yogurt or cereal, or incorporate them into your favorite muffin or pancake recipe.
Purchase young blueberry bushes from a garden center or nursery. Young bushes may cost a bit more but will have a much better chance of survival than bare-root plants. Blueberry bushes should be planted in early spring as soon as the danger of frost has passed.
Remove all weeds, then hoe an area measuring about two feet wide and two feet deep for each blueberry bush. Work into the site several shovels of organic matter, such as peat moss, compost or straw. This will enrich the soil and improve the drainage. Blueberries have shallow roots, and even two or three days of standing water can kill young plants. The soil should be prepared about two weeks before planting.
Dig a large hole that's deep enough to accommodate the root and that's twice as wide. Plant the blueberry bush, put a hose in the hole and let the water run until the hole is filled. When the water has soaked in, fill the hole with soil and tamp it down with the shovel. If you are planting more than one blueberry bush, leave at least five feet between each plant.
Keep the area around the blueberry bush free of weeds. Because blueberry bushes have shallow roots, weeds will rob them of needed water and nutrients. A two- to three-inch layer of mulch will control weeds and conserve moisture.
Give the blueberry bush about an inch of water each week during the growing season--slightly more in hot weather. Several light waterings are preferable to one deep watering.
Prune blueberry bushes lightly for the first eight years, the time it takes for the plants to reach full maturity. A light pruning means that you will remove only dead branches, and branches that look thin and weak. After eight years, continue to rid the plant of weak or dead branches, but also prune off about a third of the oldest branches each year. Prune blueberry bushes in late winter or early spring, before you see any new growth. | <urn:uuid:3049cb97-cc1e-4193-9765-3571abb62a58> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.gardenguides.com/75604-plant-blueberry-bushes.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00155-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948489 | 497 | 2.9375 | 3 |
The incidence of breast cancer is rising in every country of the world especially in developing countries such as India. This is because more and more women in India are beginning to work outside their homes which allows the various risk factors of breast cancer to come into play. These include late age at first childbirth, fewer children and shorter duration of breast-feeding. Of these, the first is the most important.
In addition, early age at menarche and late age at menopause add to the risk to some extent. Family history of breast cancer increases the risk as follows: if a woman has a mother who has suffered from breast cancer her risk increases about 3 fold while having a sister with cancer, the risk increases by about 2-3 fold. About 5% of breast cancers are hereditary, i.e. due to a gene being transmitted either from the father or from the mother. Typically, these families have many members who fall victim to the disease, which tends to occur at a relatively young age and often affects both breasts. Two genes namely BRCA1 and BRCA2 have been identified although genetic testing, because of ethical, emotional and social implications that they carry, is still in the sphere of research in most developed countries except the U.S. Thankfully, the incidence of breast cancer is much lower in India compared to western countries. The incidence varies between urban and rural women; the incidence in Mumbai is about 27 new cases per 100,000 women per year while in rural Maharashtra it is only 8 per 100,000. The chances of cure in women who develop the disease is related to early diagnosis.
There are 3 methods for early detection of breast cancer. Mammography i.e. X-ray of the breast, done at regular intervals, say every 2 years, is popular in the west. However, mammography is expensive, technology driven and requires stringent quality control and extensive experience on the part of technicians and doctors involved. If these are not available, mammography can do more harm than good by falsely diagnosing cancer or missing it when it is actually present. I would personally recommend mammography only in women who have a family history of breast cancer or other risk factors. The second method is for a woman to get herself examined clinically be a breast specialist. It appears that if clinical examination is done properly it may be as effective as mammography. The third method is self-examination whereby a woman examines her own breasts once a month after taking lessons from an expert. Many women however do not like doing self-examination often out of fear of finding cancer.
Nevertheless evidence suggests that if the examination is done properly and regularly, it may help to detect breast cancer early. Typically, breast cancer arises from cells lining the milk ducts and slowly grows into a lump. It is thought that it takes about 10 years for a tumour to become 1 cm in size starting from a single cell. Once breast cancer develops, surgery is the usual treatment. If detected early enough, the breast can be conserved by removal of the lump alone without a mastectomy. In this case, the glands in the armpit are also removed. This treatment is followed by radiotherapy to the breast. Chemotherapy is usually given as an adjunct to surgery to kill any stray cells that might have escaped and lodged elsewhere. Anti-oestrogen drugs are also used very effectively in women whose tumours are responsive to hormones. The latter is determined by a laboratory test called oestrogen receptor test. Sometimes chemotherapy is given first to reduce the size of the tumour so that breast conserving surgery can be performed. Once breast cancer spreads to other organs the disease usually becomes incurable and the treatment is directed at relieving symptoms, if any. Nevertheless, much can be achieved with treatment by anti-hormone medications as well as chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Many young women experience pain in their breasts, especially before their periods. Pain in the breast is usually not related to cancer and often settles down on its own. If severe, painkillers can be taken. Pain in the breast is rare after menopause.
Many women have lumpy breasts which in medical jargon is called “fibroadenosis”. This again is not a precursor of cancer. Lumps in the breast in premenopausal women may sometime be caused by cysts containing fluid. This can be aspirated with a needle which usually cures the condition. Younger women sometimes have solid non-cancerous lumps called “fibroadenoma” which usually requires removal under local anaesthesia. Discharge from the nipple is not uncommon, but if it is bloody, this may sometimes indicate the presence of early cancer. To conclude, do not ignore a lump in the breast – see a doctor. | <urn:uuid:50517d50-ad76-4c97-b963-30945c5f3e9c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://doctor.ndtv.com/storypage/ndtv/id/3617/type/feature/breast_cancer_in_india.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00185-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967471 | 966 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Swapfile is commonly refers to a file backed storage for paging. (aka swapping)
Modern operating systems can use disks (or other IO) to temporarily store in memory information. This allows them to write this information and reuse the main memory which contained it, with the ability to recover this information.
Any modern OS can do this with chunks of memory and it is called paging.
However historically only whole processes could be swapped out. Hence the traditional use of 'swap partition' or 'swap file'. In the case of a 'swap-file' the data is stored on a file, incurring extra filesystem overhead. | <urn:uuid:e00ab80a-02ed-47c0-8cbb-01cda91876f6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://superuser.com/tags/swap-file/info | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392069.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00032-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900439 | 132 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Forecasting: principles and practice
Welcome to our online textbook on forecasting. This textbook is intended to provide a comprehensive introduction to forecasting methods and to present enough information about each method for readers to be able to use them sensibly. We don’t attempt to give a thorough discussion of the theoretical details behind each method, although the references at the end of each chapter will fill in many of those details. The book is written for three audiences: (1) people finding themselves doing forecasting in business when they may not have had any formal training in the area; (2) undergraduate students studying business; (3) MBA students doing a forecasting elective. We use it ourselves for a second-year subject for students undertaking a Bachelor of Commerce degree at Monash University, Australia.
For most sections, we only assume that readers are familiar with algebra, and high school mathematics should be sufficient background. Readers who have completed an introductory course in statistics will probably want to skip some of Chapters 2 and 4. There are a couple of sections which require knowledge of matrices, but these are flagged.
At the end of each chapter we provide a list of “further reading”. In general, these lists comprise suggested textbooks that provide a more advanced or detailed treatment of the subject. Where there is no suitable textbook, we suggest journal articles that provide more information.
We use R throughout the book and we intend students to learn how to forecast with R. R is free and available on almost every operating system. It is a wonderful tool for all statistical analysis, not just for forecasting. See Using R for instructions on installing and using R. The book is different from other forecasting textbooks in several ways.
- It is free and online, making it accessible to a wide audience.
- It uses R, which is free, open-source, and extremely powerful software.
- It is continuously updated. You don’t have to wait until the next edition for errors to be removed or new methods to be discussed. We will update the book frequently.
- There are dozens of real data examples taken from our own consulting practice. We have worked with hundreds of businesses and organizations helping them with forecasting issues, and this experience has contributed directly to many of the examples given here, as well as guiding our general philosophy of forecasting.
- We emphasise graphical methods more than most forecasters. We use graphs to explore the data, analyse the validity of the models fitted and present the forecasting results.
Use the table of contents on the right to browse the book. If you have any comments or suggestions on what is here so far, feel free to add them on the book page. | <urn:uuid:d98765e7-4d8e-4cb7-a599-f4684354584c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.otexts.org/fpp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00175-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940307 | 544 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Glossary of Musical Terms
Our glossary of musical terms lets you look up any musical term unfamiliar to you, and comes to us courtesy of our good friends at Naxos.
The Latin word Missa, the Catholic Mass or Eucharist, is found in the title of many polyphonic settings of the liturgical texts. The phrase Missa brevis, short Mass, was at first used to indicate a Mass with shorter musical settings of the Ordinary. It later came to be used on occasion for settings that included only the first two parts of the ordinary of the Mass, the Kyrie and the Gloria. Mass titles, particularly in the 16th century, are often distinguished by the musical material from which they are derived, sacred or secular, as in Missa Adieu mes amours, or Missa Ave Regina. The Missa Papae Marcelli, the Mass of Pope Marcellus, is the setting of the Mass written by Palestrina, supposedly to preserve polyphony from condemnation by the Council of Trent.
Modal scales are found in various forms. Plainchant, the traditional music of the Catholic liturgy, makes use of eight modes, the church modes, with names derived from very different, earlier Greek modes. The first church mode is the Dorian, the third the Phrygian, the fifth the Lydian and the seventh the Mixolydian. These are the so-called authentic modes, their range from D to D, E to E, F to F and G to G respectively. Each authentic mode has an associated plagal mode using the same final note, but within an octave range that starts a fourth below the final and extends a fifth above it. These plagal modes take the Greek prefix hypo-, as in Hypodorian, Hypophrygian, Hypolydian and Hypomixolydian. Theorists later distinguished two further pairs of authentic and plagal modes, the Aeolian, A to A, and the Ionian, C to C. The Locrian mode, B to B, is inaccurately named, but was early distinguished as Hyperaeolian. Early polyphony, reaching a height of perfection in the 16th century, is modal, and its techniques continue to be studied as modal counterpoint, a necessary element in the training of a musician. These listed modes and a variety of other modes may be distinguished in folk-music, while composers of the 20th century have constructed their own synthetic scales or modes.
Moderato (Italian: moderate) is used as an indication of the speed to be adopted by a performer. It may be used to qualify other adjectives, as allegro moderato, moderately fast.
Molto (Italian: much, very) is often found in directions to performers, as in allegro molto or allegro di molto, molto vivace or molto piano.
Mosso (Italian: moved, agitated) is generally found in the phrases più mosso, faster, and meno mosso, slower.
A motet is generally a choral composition for church use but using texts that are not necessarily a part of the liturgy. It is the Catholic equivalent of the anthem of the Church of England. Motets appear in very different forms from the 13th century onwards.
The word motif, coined from French, is used in English instead of the German Motiv, or English and American motive. It may be defined as a recognisable thematic particle, a group of notes that has a recognisable thematic character, and hence longer than a figure, the shortest recognisable element.
Moto (Italian: motion, movement) is found in the direction 'con moto', with movement, fast. A moto perpetuo is a rapid piece that gives the impression of perpetual motion, as in the Allegro de concert of Paganini or the last movement of Ravel's Violin Sonata.
A movement is a section of a more extended work that is more or less complete in itself, although occasionally movements are linked together, either through the choice of a final inconclusive chord or by a linking note, as in the first and second movement of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto.
Mutes (= Italian: sordino; French: sourdine; German: Dämpfer) are used to muffle the sound of an instrument, by controlling the vibration of the bridge on a string instrument or muffling the sound by placing an object in the bell of a brass instrument.
Nachtmusik (German: night-music) is best known from Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik, A Little Night Music, a serenade.
A natural is a note that is neither a sharp nor a flat. The adjective is used to describe the natural horn or natural trumpet, without valves.
Neoclassical style in music indicates a 20th century eclectic return by some composers to various styles and forms of earlier periods, whether classical or baroque. The style is exemplified in the score for the ballet Pulcinella by Stravinsky or by the same composer's opera The Rake's Progress.
A nocturne is a night-piece, music that evokes a nocturnal mood. It was developed as a form of solo piano music by the Irish pianist and composer John Field in the early 19th century, leading to its notable use by Chopin. The title has been used more recently by other composers for both instrumental and vocal compositions.
A nonet is a composition for nine performers.
Notation is the method of writing music down, practices of which have varied during the course of history. Staff notation is the conventional notation that makes use of the five-line staff or stave, while some recent composers have employed systems of graphic notation to indicate their more varied requirements, often needing detailed explanations in a preface to the score. Notation is inevitably imprecise, providing a guide of varying accuracy for performers, who must additionally draw on stylistic tradition.
A note in English is either a single sound or its representation in notation. American English refers to a single sound as a tone, following German practice.
Obbligato (Italian: obligatory) is often used virtually as a noun in English, in spite of its derivation. It is used to indicate an additional instrumental part that cannot be omitted, particularly when a solo instrument adds an accompanying melody in some baroque vocal forms. There is, for example, a well known violin obbligato to the mezzo-soprano aria Laudamus te, in the B minor Mass of Bach.
The oboe is a double-reed instrument, an important part of the woodwind section of the modern orchestra. The mechanism of its keys underwent considerable development in the 19th century. In earlier times it formed an important part of the outdoor military band, but the Western symphony orchestra normally uses a pair of instruments. The oboe d'amore is the alto of the oboe family, used in the baroque period, and the tenor is found in the cor anglais or, in the mid-18th century, in the oboe da caccia. The tone of the instrument, much affected by different methods of cutting the reeds, can impart a characteristic sound to a whole orchestra.
The octave is an interval of an eighth, as for example from the note C to C or D to D. The first note can have a sharp or flat providing the last note has the corresponding sharp or flat (i. e. C sharp to C sharp).
An octet is a composition for eight performers.
The ondes Martenot, an electronic instrument invented by the French musician Maurice Martenot, produces single sounds by means of a keyboard that controls the frequencies from an oscillator. It has a wide range and offers the possibility of glissando. It became popular among French composers, including Milhaud, Honegger, Koechlin, Schmitt, Ibert, Jolivet, Messiaen and Boulez. Varèse also wrote for it, as he did for the less versatile electronic instrument, the theremin.
An opera is a drama in which most of the actors sing all or most of their parts. The form developed at the end of the 16th century in Italy, from where it spread to other regions of Europe, although it never became a regular part of London musical life until the early 18th century. Internationally Italian opera has proved immensely important and popular, while opera in France underwent independent development in the later 17th century under the Italian-born composer Lully. The 19th century brought particular developments in German romantic opera and in the innovative music-dramas of Wagner. The word opera covers a wide variety of musico-dramatic forms, from the Orfeo of Monteverdi to The Threepenny Opera (Dreigroschenoper) of Kurt Weill and Berthold Brecht of 1928, derived from the English anti-heroic Beggar's Opera two centuries earlier.
Opéra buffa is Italian comic opera, particularly in the form it took in early 18th century Italy.
Opéra bouffe is the French term for comic operetta of composers such as Offenbach in 19th century France. | <urn:uuid:62606b7a-6212-45dd-b312-de6c0e7e2e29> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sfcv.org/learn/glossary?page=8 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00161-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943374 | 1,956 | 4.15625 | 4 |
Safety factor is the structural strength divided by the minimum structural strength required. The greater the safety factor, the lower the likehood of structural factor and the more stress cycles the structure can take. Small structures often have large safety factors because of the minimum gauge that can be crafted.
Very thin sheets often cost the same or even more than thick sheets because of the tighter tolerances required, so sheets are often chosen that are thicker than necessary. Generally, the greater the safety factor, the lower the cost of crafting, designing, handling and testing the structure; but, this is a vague relationship which is not modeled in these scripts. The safety factor is used to calculate the effective tensile.
effective tensile = tensile dimensionality * tensile energy / safety factor / ( 1.0 + 0.13 * log( reusability ) )
This is used in astropolis, pumped rocket and rocket cost.
Contact Rocket GNU Free Documentation License | <urn:uuid:b406e642-be4d-4c53-8dd2-8e1c9e561b10> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://members.axion.net/~enrique/space_safetyfactor.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394414.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00042-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.890842 | 192 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Ebola Risk to Schools Low, Experts Say
Even as worries about Ebola have prompted school closings and other K-12 precautions in recent weeks, medical experts are advising school officials to take a measured approach in response to the handful of U.S. cases of the virus.
Districts in Solon, Ohio, and Belton, Texas, closed several schools after learning that students, parents, or staff members were either on the same flight or had flown on the same plane as one of two Dallas nurses who became sick with the virus this month after treating the United States’ first Ebola patient. The nurse had not yet shown symptoms or been diagnosed with the virus.
And the Akron, Ohio, district closed one elementary school after learning that a student’s parent may have had contact with the nurse while she was in the area.
But infectious-disease experts and public-health officials say those closings, and steps taken elsewhere by education officials to approve emergency-closure protocols for schools far from any Ebola cases, go beyond what is necessary.
Ebola patients must show symptoms to be contagious, and leaders in the districts, which reopened the schools after cleaning them, said none of the potentially exposed people showed any signs of the virus.
“You’re talking about hypothetical risks that are almost too low to measure,” said Dr. Robert L. Murphy, the director of the Center for Global Health at Northwestern University’s Institute for Public Health and Medicine. “It’s almost riskier being in schools where they don’t have mandated regular preventative vaccines [for other illnesses]. Some of that stuff can be lethal.”
People can contract Ebola only by making contact with the bodily fluids of a person who has the virus and is demonstrating symptoms, including a fever, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said. If a person is infected, those symptoms will appear within 21 days, the incubation period of the virus, the agency said.
And while health officials work to contain the largest ever outbreak of the virus in West Africa—where about 9,200 cases have been reported, about half of them fatal—they say the likelihood of Ebola spreading beyond a few, isolated cases in the United States is low.
The two nurses who were infected had assisted in treatment that included invasive medical procedures, including dialysis, and had contact with fluids such as vomit, CDC officials said. Their hospital followed protocols that have since been updated to provide more thorough protection during such exposure.
“For the individuals who are potentially exposed to either of the two patients in Dallas, you need to monitor intensively for that 21-day period,” CDC Director Thomas Frieden said in a call with reporters last week. “For everyone else, there’s no risk of exposure to Ebola unless you go to West Africa. That’s why we’re going to West Africa to stop that risk there.”
But those assurances haven’t stopped some schools from responding, many acting well beyond the recommendations of national public-health officials and epidemiology experts.
In Maple Shade, N.J., for example, a family that had recently come to the United States from Rwanda—which is roughly 3,000 miles from countries where Ebola has spread and which has no documented cases—agreed to keep their children home for 21 days before enrolling them in school. The school changed course after a flood of media criticism and offered to enroll the children sooner.
The school district in Phillips, Maine, put a teacher on paid administrative leave for 21 days after parents “expressed concern” that the teacher had recently traveled to Dallas.
“At this time, we have no information to suggest that this staff member has been in contact with anyone who has been exposed to Ebola,” said a statement posted on the district’s website. “However, the district and the staff member understand the parents’ concerns.”
A handful of other districts have taken similar steps, such as rescinding invitations to guest speakers who had recently traveled to Africa or holding emergency evacuations after students became sick with other illnesses.
And the Louisiana state school board approved emergency-closure procedures that give local administrators authority to close quickly in cases of Ebola exposure.
State officials said they wanted to set procedures early to give schools guidelines for how to respond should it become necessary.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not released specific guidance for schools related to the Ebola virus. The agency says health care workers in all settings should consider these factors if they suspect a patient has been exposed to the virus.
Exposure to bodily fluids: The virus can only be transmitted through contact with the bodily fluids of a symptomatic patient, infected animals, or items like needles that have been exposed to infected bodily fluids. Those who have been exposed to Ebola, but are not showing symptoms are not contagious.
Fever: The first symptom of the Ebola virus is usually a fever. Other early symptoms include diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain, and unexplained bleeding or bruising.
Time of exposure: Ebola’s incubation period can be between 2 and 21 days, but the average patient shows symptoms 8 to 10 days after exposure. Nurses should ask patients who have a fever or other symptoms if they have traveled to an affected area within the last 21 days.
On the advice of health officials, schools around the country have also been taking more routine precautionary measures. Those include asking new students about their travel history upon enrollment or if they are sick with symptoms like those of Ebola. The virus can eventually lead to extreme exhaustion, severe muscle pain, and excessive vomiting and diarrhea. There is no approved medicine to treat Ebola. Patients have recovered after medical monitoring and administration of intravenous fluids.
If school nurses see students who have fevers, they should ask them if they have traveled to Guinea, Liberia, or Sierra Leone within the past 21 days, Dr. Murphy of Northwestern University said. If the answer is yes, he said, the nurse should assume the student “has Ebola until proven otherwise.”
That means the school should isolate the student and call the local health department, but a full evacuation would still not be necessary, Dr. Murphy said.
The CDC has monitored dozens of people who were exposed to the initial U.S. patient in non-health-care settings, and none of them has tested positive for Ebola, he noted. They include family members, who were quarantined in an apartment with the patient’s dirty bed linens for several days before being transferred to a clean place.
That family recently passed the 21-day threshold virus-free, and the children in the family were allowed to return to Dallas schools.
“That whole family was living with that sick guy, and they’re all fine,” Dr. Murphy said. “That puts it all in perspective.”
‘Stick With the Facts’
The CDC’s directions to health-care providers have largely focused on hospitals, where public-health officials say the threat of transmission is the greatest.
Nursing organizations have asked the agency to release more specific guidance for nurses in all practice settings, including schools, said Carolyn Duff, the president of the Silver Spring, Md.-based National Association of School Nurses.
“School nurses—there’s no question that we’re all on high alert, but we’re educated in surveillance of infectious disease,” Ms. Duff said.
School nurses are trained in universal precautions and containing contagious illnesses, she said.
Should schools consider closing if they suspect a student has been exposed to Ebola?
“That really is up to school administrators,” Ms. Duff said. “They are under pressure from their communities to do something. And most schools stay in contact with local health departments, who are in contact with the CDC.”
Polling data show that public concern about Ebola is growing. In a survey conducted Oct. 15-20 by the Pew Research Center, 41 percent of 2,000 respondents said they were "very worried" or "somewhat worried" that "you or someone in your family will be exposed to the Ebola virus." Fifty-four percent of respondents said they had "a great deal" or a "fair amount" of confidence in the federal government's ability to prevent an Ebola outbreak.
Dr. Murphy urged administrators to take only steps recommended by health officials as schools respond to concerns about Ebola.
“I think it’s very important that we stick with the facts and try to reduce the hysteria,” he said.
Vol. 34, Issue 10, Pages 1,13 | <urn:uuid:21a8a66d-fb74-467e-b6b7-56f114cb28e7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/10/22/10ebola.h34.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00156-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970518 | 1,803 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Organic Molecules, Laboratory Notes for BIO 1003 . McMush Lab
1 Explain why all sugar containing materials do not show a positive test for sugar when Benedicts. bonds that connect amino acids together to make a Protein.
Benedicts test for reducing sugars. grind up sample. add Benedicts solution. heat. colour change from blue to red/brown indicate reducing sugars. protein. grind up sample.
Testing Foods for Carbohydrates, Lipids and Proteins. Results of Tests for Carbohydrates. Tube. contents. Benedict’s Test
Nutrient solutions to be tested (made from foods you wish to test for sugar, starch, protein, fat, and vitamin C content). Click on the food test you would like to experiment with... Sugar with Benedict's solution. Protein with Biuret solution.
In this lab you will test for the presence of protein using the Biuret Test. Like the Benedict’s Reagent, Biuret Reagent contains copper ions. These copper ions reflect off closely clustered amide groups of proteins casting a violet color to a...
A qualitative test for proteins involves the use of Benedict's reagent.
Definition of Benedict's test from The American Heritage Medical Dictionary. blue solution containing sodium carbonate, sodium citrate, and copper sulfate, producing a red...
Meats, dairy products, and oily plants such as olives are rich in lipids. Question: How do you test for carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids? 1. Test: Under the Benedict test, click Test.
Enzymes amylase, temp, pH, substrate concentration. Benedicts test for reducing sugar - image of result. Amylase How does it work? Amylase - starch hydrolysis.
You will learn how to test for the presence of proteins using the Biuret test, to test for the presence of monosaccharides using the Benedicts test, to test for the presence of starches using Lugol’s solution and to detect the presence of lipids...
The Gizmo has two tests for carbohydrates. Benedicts test only for monosaccharides. To determine if there are starches or polysaccharide? Proteins, lipids and carbohydrates are...
Fill each of the test tubes (1 through 6) to the 3 cm mark with Benedicts reagent and put the tubes in a boiling water bath for 5 minutes. the "Nucleic Acids" section, then push...
Biuret Test Demonstration of the biuret test for proteins. A purple color is a positive result to show that protein is present. Benedict Test for Reducing Sugars.
What chemical is in the test for protein? Biuret. What is the original colour in the starch test? … What is the positive test colour in the Benedicts test? Orange.
Benedict’s Testing: Sample Question 2. Four sugar solutions were tested with a standard Benedicts solut. for Polypeptides (proteins) Biuret’s Reagent.
Fehling's solution tests for reducing sugars or aldehydes, similar to Benedict's reagent. Molisch's test for carbohydrates. Proteins and polypeptides.
The world's most accurate protein assay is available only from Pierce. www.PierceNet.com. Dictionary.com Free Toolbar. Define Benedict's test Instantly. Faster Page Loads With Fewer Ads.
Complex carbohydrates such as starches DO NOT react positive with the Benedict's test unless they are broken down through heating or digestion Testing for proteins. ◦ Buiret test.
Benedict's test - for simple (reducing) sugars : (does not work with ordinary cane/beet sugar: sucrose!) proteins) Emulsion test (fats)
You have seen how to determine the presence or absence of various organic molecules with specific testing reagents such as Benedicts (tests for reducing sugars) or Lugol’s Iodine (tests for starch) or even Biuret (tests for proteins). | <urn:uuid:cab2ee13-7e9d-4640-bd3b-928e2492e002> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://tgabsvfer.latinowebs.com/freejt/benedi205.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00057-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.83809 | 856 | 3.15625 | 3 |
This magnificent pheasant is classified as Near Threatened owing to a suspected moderately rapid population decline resulting from unsustainable exploitation and a reduction in the extent and quality of its evergreen forest habitat.
del Hoyo, J.; Collar, N. J.; Christie, D. A.; Elliott, A.; Fishpool, L. D. C. 2014. HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World. Barcelona, Spain and Cambridge UK: Lynx Edicions and BirdLife International.
Rheinartia ocellata Collar and Andrew (1988)
Male 190-239 cm, female 74-75 cm. Large pheasant with enormous tail. Male blackish-brown, peppered whitish all over. R. o. nigrescens has buff supercilium and throat and drooping, blackish-brown and white crest. R. o. ocellata has shorter, mostly brownish crest, white supercilium and throat, chestnut-brown foreneck, more numerous, smaller, buffier upperpart markings and more dark chestnut and grey on tail. Female is smaller, shorter-tailed and warm brown with blackish and buff bars, speckles and vermiculations. Somewhat paler below. Voice At dancing ground, very loud woo'o-wao. Also series of far-carrying oowaaaa phrases.
BirdLife International. 2001. Threatened birds of Asia: the BirdLife International Red Data Book. BirdLife International, Cambridge, U.K.
Further web sources of information
Detailed species accounts from the Threatened birds of Asia: the BirdLife International Red Data Book (BirdLife International 2001).
Text account compilers
Davidson, G., Benstead, P., Keane, A., Mahood, S., Taylor, J.
Brickle, N., Eames, J.C., Wells, D.
IUCN Red List evaluators
Butchart, S., Symes, A.
BirdLife International (2016) Species factsheet: Rheinardia ocellata. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 27/06/2016. Recommended citation for factsheets for more than one species: BirdLife International (2016) IUCN Red List for birds. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 27/06/2016.
This information is based upon, and updates, the information published in BirdLife International (2000) Threatened birds of the world. Barcelona and Cambridge, UK: Lynx Edicions and BirdLife International, BirdLife International (2004) Threatened birds of the world 2004 CD-ROM and BirdLife International (2008) Threatened birds of the world 2008 CD-ROM. These sources provide the information for species accounts for the birds on the IUCN Red List.
To provide new information to update this factsheet or to correct any errors, please email BirdLife
To contribute to discussions on the evaluation of the IUCN Red List status of Globally Threatened Birds, please visit BirdLife's Globally Threatened Bird Forums.
Additional resources for this species
|Current IUCN Red List category||Near Threatened|
|Family||Phasianidae (Pheasants, Partridges, Turkeys, Grouse)|
|Species name author||(Elliot, 1871)|
|Population size||6000-15000 mature individuals|
|Distribution size (breeding/resident)||99,700 km2|
|Links to further information|
|- Additional Information on this species| | <urn:uuid:de03d877-d081-4730-ba11-e7ed5a2053b5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/species/factsheet/22679412 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00123-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.668225 | 752 | 2.796875 | 3 |
|Scientific Name:||Scaphirhynchus suttkusi|
|Species Authority:||Williams & Clemmer, 1991|
|Red List Category & Criteria:||Critically Endangered A4cde ver 3.1|
|Assessor(s):||Parauka, F.M. (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service)|
|Reviewer(s):||St. Pierre, R. & Pourkazemi, M. (Sturgeon Red List Authority)|
The Alabama sturgeon’s historic range once included 1,600 km of the Mobile River system in Alabama and Mississippi, however, it is believed that Alabama sturgeon currently occupy only about 216 km of the lower Alabama River. The decline of the Alabama sturgeon is believed due to over-fishing, the loss and fragmentation of habitat as a result of navigation-related development, and degradation of water quality.
Although the Endangered Species Act provides considerable protection of listed species the proposed classification recognizes that the population of Alabama sturgeon has seriously declined over the past three generations and may continue to decline into the future due to habitat alterations that may not be reversible.
|Previously published Red List assessments:||
|Range Description:||The Alabama sturgeon’s historic range once included 1,600 km of the Mobile River system in Alabama and Mississippi, however, it is believed that Alabama sturgeon currently occupy only about 216 km of the lower Alabama River below Robert F. Henry, Millers Ferry and Claiborne Locks and Dams, and the lower Cahaba River, Alabama.
For a more detailed description of this species’ range see the NatureServe Explorer database.
Native:United States (Alabama, Mississippi - Regionally Extinct)
|Range Map:||Click here to open the map viewer and explore range.|
|Population:||There are no population estimates for the Alabama sturgeon however, intensive collection efforts by state and federal fishery biologists beginning in the spring of 1997 through the spring of 2001 resulted in the capture of only four Alabama sturgeon which further substantiates the rarity of the species. Efforts to induce spawning of the captive Alabama sturgeon held at the Marion State Hatchery, Alabama have so far been unsuccessful. Status of the population appears to be declining.|
|Current Population Trend:||Decreasing|
|Habitat and Ecology:||Freshwater.|
|Major Threat(s):||The decline of the Alabama sturgeon is believed due to over-fishing, the loss and fragmentation of habitat as a result of navigation-related development, and degradation of water quality.|
The Alabama sturgeon was listed as endangered in 2000 under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA). The decision was based on the species apparent inability to sustain a viable population.
State and federal agencies and the private sector formalized a Conservation Agreement and Strategy for Alabama Sturgeon (2000) that originated as a informal voluntary plan for the conservation and enhancement of the Alabama sturgeon and its habitat. The goals of the conservation effort are to increase the numbers of Alabama sturgeon through a captive breeding program and release of propagated fish, genetic conservation, protect existing habitat quantity and quality, develop information on life history and habitat needs, and use this information to develop and implement conservation and adaptive management strategies for the species and its habitat.
It is listed on CITES Appendix II.
|Citation:||Parauka, F.M. (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service). 2004. Scaphirhynchus suttkusi. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2004: e.T19942A9111703. . Downloaded on 26 June 2016.|
|Feedback:||If you see any errors or have any questions or suggestions on what is shown on this page, please provide us with feedback so that we can correct or extend the information provided| | <urn:uuid:f1c50631-7f17-4694-8b4e-3b16afd24d1f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/19942/0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00016-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.850232 | 831 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Breast cancers that lack estrogen receptors are more difficult to treat than ER+ cancers. Research presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2013 demonstrates an investigational drug, Paragazole, that makes triple-negative breast cancer cells express estrogen receptors, and that increases the sensitivity of these cells to chemotherapy.
"Basically what we're trying to do is use triple-negative breast cancer models to develop targeted drugs for treatment. Paragazole is an especially exciting candidate," says Jennifer Diamond, MD, investigator at the University of Colorado Cancer Center and medical oncologist at the University of Colorado Hospital.
Paragazole is a novel histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor developed at CU Boulder in the laboratories of Xuedong Liu and Andy Phillips, being tested at the CU Cancer Center. In this study, Diamond and colleagues tested the drug against a range of breast cancer cell lines with and without combination with chemotherapies paclitaxel, gemcitabine or carboplatin. Interestingly, it was specifically the cell lines that didn't express estrogen – the aggressive, triple-negative cells – that were most affected by paragazole. Sure enough, the researchers saw increased expression of CARM1 mediated estrogen receptors in these especially sensitive cells.
It was as if paragazole set up these triple negative cells so that chemotherapy could be more effective.
"This really is a case in which the result was greater than the sum of its parts. Paragazole with chemotherapy was more effective than the combined effects of both drugs, alone," Diamond says.
Studies with the drug are continuing with the eventual goal of moving the therapy from the lab to the clinic in selected patients.
Explore further: Novel technique switches triple-negative breast cancer cells to hormone-receptor positive cells | <urn:uuid:a73f545d-152a-40b1-9917-676ad1019334> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-paragazole-excels-preclinical-triple-negative-breast.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398516.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00119-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95501 | 367 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Category: Sponges view all from this category
Description Spreads between 4"-12" (10-30 cm) to a thickness of 3/8" (1 cm). Thin, transparent skin produces cone shaped projections. Red, orange, or (less commonly) yellow. Soft and fragile tissue encrusts large surfaces and grows 12" (30 cm) in height. Produces a burning sensation when touched.
Warning Highly toxic. This sponge causes severe blistering and pain if touched with bare hands. Since this and the Do-not-touch-me Sponge, another stinger, are both red, it is wise to avoid touching any red sponge in subtropical waters.
Habitat Rocks, Coral reefs.
Discussion Fire Sponge emits toxins on contact that result in painful rash and swelling. | <urn:uuid:3e6f51b1-0e15-4038-a512-91b5200ff966> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://enature.com/fieldguides/detail.asp?foo=0&curGroupID=8&lgfromWhere=&curPageNum=4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00028-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.872229 | 165 | 3.0625 | 3 |
As Ireland marks the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising, the country's bishops have said there needs to be a renewed commitment to peace
One hundred years after the Easter Rising, 2016 needs to be the year for “a radical culture of peace”, Irish bishops have said.
The comments came in the Irish episcopal conference’s message marking the 100 year anniversary of the Easter Rising of 1916 as well as the Battle of the Somme, which began the following July.
The Easter Rising was an armed insurrection during Easter Week by republicans aiming to end British rule and establish an independent Ireland.
The bishops said both events had a “profound impact on national identity and shaped the political landscape in ways that can still be felt” today.
They added upcoming commemorations “have the potential to stimulate much-needed reflection on where we are as a society and what we want to achieve for the future.”
There had been fears that the ‘decade of centenaries’ marking such events would ‘reopen old wounds’ but bishops said, “thankfully these fears have not materialised.”
Instead, they maintain the anniversaries have allowed Ireland to maturely reflect on the past.
Part of this they say is a chance to “challenge” themselves and “reflect on whether we have been sufficiently courageous in promoting a radical culture of peace.”
The bishops added the Church has an important role in “nurturing healing conversations” which comes to the forefront when we remember such events.
The message ends with a call to renew commitment to peace and provide clear steps society needs to take to address the obstacles in the way. | <urn:uuid:19d5c0af-dc76-4d0d-82d3-d423d0d6b328> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2016/01/05/irish-bishops-call-for-radical-culture-of-peace-as-country-marks-100-years-since-easter-rising/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00152-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962905 | 354 | 2.71875 | 3 |
The Boston Globe:
Drive for long enough in America, and you’re bound to see someone texting behind the wheel. Maybe it’ll be the guy ahead of you, his head bobbing up and down as he tries to balance his attention between his screen and his windshield. Or maybe it’ll be the woman weaving into your lane, thumbing at her phone while she holds it above the dashboard. Maybe it’ll be you.
A recent study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute showed that drivers who are texting are twice as likely to crash, or almost crash, as those who are focused on the road. It’s a disturbingly common habit: According to a survey analyzed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly one-third of American adults had e-mailed or texted on their phones while driving at least once during the previous month. And while most get away with it unscathed, many do not. The National Safety Council estimates that 213,000 car crashes in the United States in 2011 involved drivers who were texting, up from 160,000 the year before.
Read the whole story: The Boston Globe
Leave a comment below and continue the conversation. | <urn:uuid:bef34917-6fd7-44ba-b14c-d9df424c5096> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/why-you-cant-stop-checking-your-phone.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00070-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976397 | 246 | 2.53125 | 3 |
For most of the 1990s Sierra Leone was best known for its diamonds — and the devastating civil war that the scramble for those precious gems helped to sustain. But a decade after the end of that conflict, the West African nation is tapping a different kind of wealth: the crops that can grow on its fertile land.
For Marie Kargbo, who cultivates rice on a six-hectare farm in Kambia district in northwestern Sierra Leone, bountiful harvests are a direct result of increased government support. "Before now, life for women farmers was very difficult," she told a reporter for the Inter Press Service news agency. "But now rice production has been fruitful, as we have been receiving supply from the government, ranging from seed rice [to] power tillers, fertilizers and pesticides."
In 2009, according to the latest estimates of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Sierra Leone grew 784,000 tonnes of rice, well above the 550,000 tonnes needed for domestic consumption and a third higher than the previous five-year average. The absence of war is one factor, since it allows farmers to tend their crops in peace. Rainfall, while erratic, has generally been sufficient as well.
But perhaps the most important element has been the government's enhanced support for agriculture. In 2008 President Ernest Bai Koroma, who had just been elected the year before, declared that agriculture would be his administration's second-highest development priority (after energy).
The government put money behind that talk by increasing agriculture's share of the 2009 budget to 7.7 per cent, a dramatic leap from just 1.6 per cent the previous year. The 2010 budget pushed up the share further, to 10 per cent.
With that step, Sierra Leone became just one of a dozen African countries to reach the target for agricultural spending recommended by African governments at a 2003 summit meeting in Maputo, Mozambique. That summit also approved a detailed plan for African agriculture known as the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP), which is part of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), the African Union's continental development programme (see Africa Renewal, January 2004).
Sierra Leone's own agricultural initiative was directly inspired by CAADP. When the government formally signed a CAADP Compact in September 2009 to mark its commitment to the programme, President Koroma declared, "This is an important historical moment not only for Sierra Leone, but for Africa as a whole. We regard CAADP as being pivotal to our poverty and hunger eradication efforts."
Averting a food crisis
For Sierra Leone and the rest of Africa, this is a critical time. In early February the FAO reported that its food price index had increased for the seventh consecutive month. It was not only higher than during the peak of the 2007–08 global food crisis (see Africa Renewal, July 2008), but also the highest since the UN agency began tracking global prices in 1990.
Africa, cautioned UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a November 2010 report* on the "social dimensions" of NEPAD, is especially vulnerable to such price increases. Since most African countries do not produce enough food of their own, he estimated, the continent spends about $33 bn annually importing food. Poor people, who spend a disproportionate share of their meagre incomes on food, are hit especially hard. "The state of food and nutrition security across much of Africa remains fragile," Mr. Ban emphasized.
President Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi, who served as chairperson of the African Union in 2010, pointed to the broader implications of food insecurity when addressing a conference of African agriculture ministers in Lilongwe, Malawi, in October. "Without food," he said, "children cannot learn well in schools; without food, the labour force cannot be productive; without food, you cannot maintain the police service and national defence forces...."
But Africa need not remain hungry. With increased investment, better agricultural policies and more support for Africa's farmers, the continent can achieve an agricultural revolution, says Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, the chief executive officer of the NEPAD Planning and Coordination Agency. "Africa has the potential to become a major food producer, ensuring food security on our continent and beyond."
Boosting agricultural production is not only vital for reducing hunger in Africa, notes the CAADP programme, "but it also makes economic sense." In virtually every African country — including most of those blessed with oil and minerals — agriculture constitutes the backbone of the economy. The size of the harvest is often the most decisive factor in overall economic growth, and CAADP recommends that the farm sector should grow by an average of at least 6 per cent a year.
Yet for decades African agriculture suffered from neglect. Many governments devoted only a minuscule percentage of their budgets to farming, and donor funding shifted away from agriculture to other sectors.
In recent years donors have promised more financing. At a 2009 summit of the Group of Eight industrial powers in L'Aquila, Italy, their leaders pledged some $22 bn in international agricultural aid, much of it for Africa, within three years. But with the global economy still suffering from the impact of the 2008 financial crisis, that promise is materializing only very slowly.
That makes it even more important for African governments to do their part, argues Mr. Mayaki. "We all have to make the necessary funding available. We need to increase our levels of investment into agriculture in Africa."
In 2007, CAADP's promoters launched a campaign to get African governments to publicly commit themselves, at the highest levels, to the targets set by the Maputo summit. As of that point, according to an African Union/NEPAD survey, only eight African governments (Comoros, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Zimbabwe) were devoting 10 per cent or more of their budgets to agriculture.
That year, Rwanda became the first country to sign a formal CAADP Compact. Under it the ministers of finance and agriculture vowed to increase the share of government spending for agricultural development from 4 per cent to more than 10 per cent within five years (it had reached 7 per cent by 2010). The ministers, as well as signatories from the private sector and civil society, also pledged to be guided in their activities by CAADP's four thematic "pillars" (expanding land area and water systems under sustainable management, increasing food supply, improving rural infrastructure and market access, and promoting agricultural research).
Slowly at first, other African governments also signed compacts. The campaign accelerated in 2009, as 12 signed that year. By late 2010 the total had increased to 22, with another six governments expected to sign by April 2011. In November 2009 the first regional compact was signed, by the Economic Community of West African States.
Signing the compacts is just a first step. Most governments subsequently hold consultations with farmers' organizations, technical experts, researchers, donor officials, business representatives and others to develop detailed, multi-year investment plans.
More inputs equal bigger harvests
However much governments spend on agriculture, the real test is whether those funds reach farmers on the ground, to help them increase their productivity. In country after country, experience has shown that farmers' access to key inputs — especially fertilizer, high-yielding seeds and irrigation — can be crucial in boosting their harvests. Government subsidies may be helpful in making such inputs affordable for poor farmers, an approach pioneered by Malawi (see box).
In 2009 Mozambique distributed 7,300 oxen as part of a programme to expand the use of animal traction, a measure that should enable families to cultivate at least five hectares each, instead of the current average of just one. Also in 2009 Uganda recorded its best-ever maize harvest. "We distributed enormous quantities of good-quality high-yielding seeds," explained Opolot Okasai, the government's commissioner for crop resources. In 2010, thanks to continued seed distribution, the maize harvest was even higher, nearly twice domestic consumption needs. Much of the remainder was exported to South Sudan and the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In Tanzania, greater use of hybrid seeds and fertilizers enabled farmers to produce a surplus rice crop in 2010. That same year Senegalese rice farmers, who generally produce only about 150,000 tonnes annually, were able to grow 350,000 tonnes, about half the country's rice consumption. In addition to more seeds and fertilizers, a well-funded farm irrigation programme proved decisive.
Particular care must be taken that such assistance reaches women farmers, experts point out. Whether agricultural services are to provide quality seeds, affordable fertilizers, marketing assistance or credit, they "must give the necessary support to the women farmers, who produce the majority of Africa's food," says Namanga Ngongi, president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, a non-governmental rural development initiative launched by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
More generally, farmers' groups must gain a greater voice in helping to decide and implement agricultural policies and programmes, Mr. Mayaki, the NEPAD chief executive, said at the first Pan-African Farmers Forum, held in Malawi in October 2010. The participants included representatives of national farmers' unions and five regional farmers' organizations. "Farmers," Mr. Mayaki said, "have an important role in ensuring the good application of the NEPAD fundamentals — transparency, accountability and local ownership."
Most African farmers are too poor to afford essential agricultural inputs. So Malawi, beginning in 2005, embarked on an innovative solution: to provide government subsidies to reduce the retail costs of fertilizers and high-yielding maize seeds for smallholders (see Africa Renewal, October 2008).
Despite scepticism from the World Bank and some Northern donor agencies, President Bingu wa Mutharika persisted, and maize harvests grew dramatically. A country that once suffered periodic food shortages is now producing far more maize than it consumes, and can even give food aid to other African countries.
This turnaround has also boosted rural incomes. In 2009 Malawi's Ministry of Finance estimated that during the previous four years the share of Malawians living below the poverty line fell from 52 per cent to 40 per cent.
Other African countries have followed Malawi's example in subsidizing inputs for poor farmers. When President Mutharika became chair of the African Union in 2010, he used that platform to urge African governments to increase their agricultural budgets and provide more farm inputs. A March 2010 meeting of African ministers of finance, economic planning and development, held in Lilongwe, Malawi, recommended that governments subsidize small-scale farmers and stabilize markets for those who produce surpluses.” | <urn:uuid:13b3cbea-2a2c-4a35-b2a8-6317744e4c21> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/april-2011/investing-africas-farms-%E2%80%94-and-its-future | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397749.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00150-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95153 | 2,229 | 3.265625 | 3 |
Of Rats And Men: Edward C. Tolman
You've probably never heard of Edward C. Tolman, unless you're an experimental psychologist. If you're a Berkeley alumnus, you might be familiar with Tolman Hall, home to my office and lab. It's an unappealing and outdated homage to a man who was neither.
In classic experiments, Tolman convincingly demonstrated that you need some notion of mental representation — like a mental map — to explain rat behavior. This idea challenged behaviorist dogma and paved the way for cognitive science.
In my favorite experiment, rats were placed in a maze like that below (left), and had to make their way from point A to point G, where they found a treat.
After four nights of practice, the familiar maze was replaced with a new one (right). The rats typically tried the top path first, generalizing what they'd learned from the initial maze. But this familiar path was blocked. The question was: which path would they choose to pursue instead?
If the rats had formed only associations about which behaviors were or weren't reinforced, they wouldn't have a spatial map to guide them. Instead, they would likely choose the path most similar to the one that had originally lead to food and take path 9 or 10.
In contrast, if the rats had formed something like a mental map of the original maze, they'd know that the food was ahead and to the right, and should choose a path like 6, which pointed in that direction. And that's exactly what they did. Clever, no?
But what I admire most about Tolman isn't clever experiments with rats — it's that he didn't stop with experiments or with rats. In a paper that summarizes the study just described, "Cognitive maps in rats and men" (1948), Tolman concludes with an argument that he calls "cavalier and dogmatic," proposing that humans have cognitive maps that not only situate them in space, but within a broader network of causal, social and emotional relationships. A narrow map can lead one to discount outsiders; a broader map to understanding and empathy. Tolman wrote:
Over and over again men are blinded by too violent motivations and too intense frustrations into blind and unintelligent and in the end desperately dangerous hates of outsiders. And the expression of these their displaced hates ranges all the way from discrimination against minorities to world conflagrations.
What in the name of Heaven and Psychology can we do about it? My only answer is to preach again the virtues of reason—of, that is, broad cognitive maps.
Tolman took this attitude beyond the pages of scholarly journals. In the 1950s he lead opposition to a loyalty oath at Berkeley requiring faculty to state that they were not members of the communist party. He was fired for failing to sign the oath (Tolman was reinstated two years later).
Perhaps if more of us shared Tolman's broad thinking and social engagement, we'd be in a better position to navigate what he called "that great God-given maze which is our human world."
You can keep up with more of what Tania Lombrozo is thinking on Twitter: @TaniaLombrozo | <urn:uuid:b1158141-00e3-49df-b877-62869c55d4ff> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://wwno.org/post/rats-and-men-edward-c-tolman | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403823.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00191-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974951 | 657 | 3 | 3 |
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