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Tagging Along With Whale Sharks
The sea's largest fish has been a mystery until recent decades. Thanks to electronic tags, researchers are uncovering some of the secrets of the whale shark (Rhincodon typus Smith, 1828). One tagged animal, dubbed "Rio Lady," swam some 5,000 miles during a span of 150 days. Another dove to a depth of 6,324 feet in the Gulf of Mexico. These sharks are attracting scientists and tourists alike to places like the Yukatan Peninsula. Environmental journalist Juliet Eilperin traveled to one Mexican island to swim with the whale sharks and writes about her journey in the June 2011 issue of Smithsonian Magazine. Spoiler alert: Eilperin was a bit too slow for the spotted sharks. | <urn:uuid:a2cce756-028d-4dad-82e5-3808f38b2c52> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ocean.si.edu/ocean-photos/tagging-along-whale-sharks | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394414.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00041-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936887 | 153 | 3.046875 | 3 |
“My main job was developing talent. I was a gardener providing water and other nourishment to our top 750 people. Of course, I had to pull out some weeds, too.” ~ Jack Welch, G.E.
Management styles are characteristic ways of making decisions and relating to the organization, managers, and subordinates. Different management styles can be employed dependent on the culture of the business, the nature of the task, the nature of the workforce and the personality and skills of the leaders. Every style has its own characteristics, strong points, shortcomings, and methods for getting work done.
There are four basic types of leadership styles, further classified as per specific methods of management. They are autocratic, democratic, participative, and laissez faire.
Democratic Management Style: Manager delegates authority to subordinates in the decision making process.
Autocratic Management Style: Manager is completely responsible for making the decisions with no participation by subordinates.
Participative Management Style: Manager allows subordinates and staff to get involved in the decision making process.
Laissez-faire Management Style: Similar to democratic management style, but less communication between the manager and staff.
Other management styles, including;
- Charismatic Management
- Situational Management
- Transformational Management
- Bureaucratic Management
- Task-oriented Management
- Transactional Management
- Relation-oriented Management
In the article “Are We Entering an Era of European Management Leadership?” by James Heskett, Baker Foundation Professor, Emeritus, at Harvard Business School, he writes there are marked differences in the social environment for management in Europe and the United States. In some parts of Europe, they foster management policies that may encourage more balance in a manager’s life, between work & private activities and risk & stability. Whether this will produce sustained economic superiority or a model to be emulated in the U.S. is debatable.
Antonio De Luca, Warner International NV, describes important differences this way: “If one has to generalize, it is fair to say that Americans pursue risk and Europeans seek stability … (leading) to fewer opportunities with more limited financial rewards, but possibly more balance for Europeans. The solution, as usual, is a sensible convergence of these two nuanced cultural approaches.”
Roy Bingham, Managing Director/Partner, Health Business Partners, LLC, points out that “American management seems to work best when the key needs are speed, aggression, last-minute genius, and take-chance, inspiring leadership. In boom times when it’s expand at all costs–pick the American style. At other times the more deliberate, consultative European approach is your ally. Maybe this is why we are hearing more from the Europeans these days.”
Jose Pedro Goncalves, Managing Partner DecisionMaster, Lda, takes issue with the idea of a “European” style of management, pointing out that there is no one style. In some parts of Europe “(as a manager) I’m a human being”. In other parts, “I’m just a number”. In general “we (Europeans) are more human, but less flexible…”
Dr. B. V. Krishnamurthy, Professor M. P. Birla Institute of Management, India, picks up this theme by commenting “to argue that Europe might be snatching the lead in management is a little far-fetched. When one looks at the very successful organizations anywhere in the world, one discerns striking similarities—emphasis on efficiency, innovation, quality, and responsiveness to customers—even as one also finds adaptations to cultural differences.”
These comments tend to question whether management leadership has a “geographic home” as opposed to a winning set of behaviors in part fostered by the competitive, social, cultural, and legal environment. Given the prospect for continued movement toward competition and the propagation of “best practice” management ideas on a global scale; is the question largely academic?
Dr. B. V. Krishnamurthy writes: “The Triad countries have dominated international business to such an extent that after Japan’s amazing success story, followed by the resurgence of American companies, it is perhaps natural that the focus should now shift to Europe. The catalyst for this might have been the economic union that Western Europe has achieved. The search for that elusive concept of the “best style of management” continues, although one could argue on the basis of lessons learned that there may not be a best style. Centralization and decentralization can go together, flex-time and tele-working are meant to improve productivity, and many of the “either/or” concepts can be treated as complementary, to be used with discretion…
Gunasekar C Raharatnam, manaagement consultant, writes about the India Management Style: ‘I doubt if there is clear approach that can be described today. Some might point towards the many family owned and managed business organisations in India, some of these are large corporate entities and leaders in their industry but most are small tightly controlled family businesses. Even such family business are increasingly being controlled by the recent generations of well educated inheritors. The management “styles” are changing and perhaps shifting more towards Western “styles” that are being pushed by management schools.”
India is an enormously hierarchical society and this, obviously, has an impact on management style. It is imperative that there is a boss and that the manager acts like a boss. The position of manager demands a certain amount of role-playing from the boss and a certain amount of deferential behavior from his subordinates… Anglo-Saxon concepts of egalitarianism where the boss is the primus-inter-pares are virtually incomprehensible in a society still dominated by the historical conventions of the caste system… Managing people in India requires a level of micro-management which many western business people feel extremely uncomfortable with but, which is likely to bring the best results.
In Brazil a manager’s personal style is considered to be of great significance and it could almost be said that his or her vision/bearing is viewed as of great an importance as their technical abilities… Relationships are of key importance in this Latin culture and the boss and subordinates work hard to foster a relationship based on trust and respect for personal dignity. First and foremost, managers are expected to manage. The boss is expected to give direct instructions and it is expected that these instructions will be carried out without too much discussion or debate (if there is debate it should be done in private to avoid showing public disrespect to the hierarchy).
Decision-making in Brazil is often reserved for the most senior people. Taking the time to build the proper working relationship is crucial to success. Coming in as an outsider is often difficult, so it is advisable to have a third-party introduction… Often the people you negotiate with will not have decision-making authority. Decisions are made by the highest-ranking person.
China management style tends to follow Confucian philosophy: Relationships are deemed to be unequal and ethical behavior demands that these inequalities are respected: Older person should automatically receive respect from the younger, the senior from the subordinate. This is the cornerstone of all the China management thinking and issues such as empowerment and open access to all information are viewed by the Chinese as, at best, bizarre Western notions… Management is directive, with the senior manager giving instructions to their direct reports who in turn pass on the instructions down the line. Subordinates do not question the decisions of superiors – that would be to show disrespect and be the direct cause of loss of face (mianzi) for all concerned.
Japan management style emphasis the need for information flow from the bottom of the company to the top: Senior management is largely a supervisory rather than “hands-on” approach. Policy is often originated at the middle-levels of a company before being passed upwards for ratification. The strength of this approach is obviously that those tasked with the implementation of decisions have been actively involved in the shaping of policy.
The higher a Japanese manager rises within an organization, the more important it is that he appears unassuming and not ambitious. Individual personality and forcefulness are not seen as the prerequisites for effective leadership. The key task for a Japanese manager is to provide the environment in which the group can flourish. In order to achieve this he must be accessible at all times and willing to share knowledge within the group. Manager is seen as a type of father figure who expects and receives loyalty and obedience from colleagues. In return, the manager is expected to take a holistic interest in the well-being of those colleagues. It is a mutually beneficial two-way relationship….
Russian management style tends to be centralized and directive. The boss, especially the ‘big boss’, is expected to issue direct instructions for subordinates to follow. Little consultation will be expected from people lower down the company hierarchy. Indeed too much consultation from a senior manager could be seen as a sign of weakness and lack of decisiveness. Middle managers have little power over strategy or input in significant strategic decisions. The most powerful middle managers are the ones who have the most immediate entree to the decision-maker at the top of the organization. There is little point in wasting time debating with middle managers who do not have an easy access to the top. The most significant reason for delay in reaching a decision in Russia is that the decision has not been put in front of the real decision-maker…
Management “Theory Z” is a name applied to three distinctly different psychological theories. One was developed by Abraham H. Maslow in his paper Theory Z and another is Dr. William Ouchi’s so-called “Japanese Management” style popularized during the Asian economic boom of the 1980s. The third was developed by W. J. Reddin in Managerial Effectiveness.
Abraham Maslow, a psychologist and the first theorist to develop a theory of motivation based upon human needs produced a theory that had three assumptions. First, human needs are never completely satisfied. Second, human behavior is purposeful and is motivated by need for satisfaction. Third, these needs can be classified according to a hierarchical structure of importance from the lowest to highest (Maslow, 1970).
Maslow’s “Theory Z” in contrast to Theory X, which stated that workers inherently dislike and avoid work and must be driven to it, and Theory Y, which stated that work is natural and can be a source of satisfaction when aimed at higher order human psychological needs.
Theory X and Theory Y were both written by Douglas McGregor, a social psychologist who is considered to be one of the top business thinkers of all time. In McGregor’s book The Human Side of Enterprise (1960), McGregor describes Theory X and Theory Y based upon Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, where McGregor grouped the hierarchy into a lower order (Theory X) needs and a higher order (Theory Y) needs. McGregor suggested that management could use either set of needs to motivate employees, but better results could be gained from Theory Y, rather than Theory X (Heil, Bennis, & Stephens, 2000).
For Dr. William Ouchi, “Theory Z” focused on increasing employee loyalty to the company by providing a job for life with a strong focus on the well-being of the employee, both on and off the job. According to Ouchi, Theory Z management tends to promote stable employment, high productivity, and high employee morale and satisfaction.
Ironically, “Japanese Management” and Theory Z itself were based on Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s famous “14 points”. Deming, an American scholar whose management and motivation theories were rejected in the United States, went on to help lay the foundation of Japanese organizational development during their expansion in the world economy in the 1980s. Deming’s theories are summarized in his two books, Out of the Crisis and The New Economics, in which he spells out his “System of Profound Knowledge“. He was a frequent advisor to Japanese business and government leaders, and eventually became a revered counselor. Deming was awarded the Second Order of the Sacred Treasures by the former Emperor Hirohito, and American businesses ultimately tried unsuccessfully to use his “Japanese” approach to improve their competitive position.
Professor Ouchi spent years researching Japanese companies and examining American companies using the Theory Z management styles. By the 1980’s, Japan was known for the highest productivity anywhere in the world, while America had fallen drastically. The word “Wa” in Japanese can be applied to Theory Z because they both deal with promoting partnerships and group work. The word “Wa” means a perfect circle or harmony, which influences Japanese society to always be in teams and to come to a solution together. Promoting Theory Z and the Japanese word “Wa” is how the Japanese economy became so powerful. And also because the Japanese show a high level enthusiasm to work, some of the researchers claim that ‘Z’ in the theory Z stands for ‘Zeal’.
Ouchi wrote a book called Theory Z How American Business Can Meet the Japanese Challenge (1981), in this book; Ouchi shows how American corporations can meet the Japanese challenges with a highly effective management style that promises to transform business in the 1980’s. The secret to Japanese success, according to Ouchi, is not technology, but a special way of managing people. “This is a managing style that focuses on a strong company philosophy, a distinct corporate culture, long-range staff development, and consensus decision-making”(Ouchi, 1981)…
Another commentary on management is by bhattathiri, management consultant, who writes: The Western idea of management centers on making the worker (and the manager) more efficient and more productive…but it has failed in ensuring betterment of individual life and social welfare. It has remained by and large a soulless edifice and an oasis of plenty for a few in the midst of poor quality of life for many. There is an urgent need to re-examine prevailing management disciplines – their objectives, scope and content. Management should be redefined to underline the development of the worker as a person, as a human being, and not as a mere wage-earner. With this changed perspective, management can become an instrument in the process of social, and indeed national development. | <urn:uuid:14acd9f3-6c2c-46b5-817d-b88a9040cc75> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://bizshifts-trends.com/2011/01/10/management-styles-u-s-europe-japan-china-india-brazil-russia/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391634.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00121-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958912 | 3,007 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Why I Love Franz Boas (And You Should, Too!)
One of the great heroes of the skeptical/atheist/humanist communities is Charles Darwin, who is often cited as one of the most influential scientists in history. Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection forms the foundation of the discipline of biology, but his theory has also impacted most academic disciplines in some form or fashion.
In anthropology, one of the ways Darwin’s theory was used was to create a theory of unilineal social evolution, which is no longer recognized as valid today (and, as far as I know, something Darwin himself did not buy into as he was only interested in biological evolution). In fact, this “social Darwinism” was used to further many racist and ethnocentric ideologies of the late 19th century.
One person who worked against this understanding of human social evolution was Franz Boas. In this article, I’m going to tell you a little bit about who Franz Boas was and why I think he should be a well known figure in skeptical and humanist circles.
Franz Boas (1858-1942) was a German-born Jewish man. He received his PhD in physics from the University of Kiel in 1881. His interest in human culture and geography led him to conduct fieldwork among the Inuit of Baffin Island. This fieldwork was pivotal to Boas’s evolving understanding of human culture. After earning his PD in geography, Boas struggled to find academic work in Germany. In early 1887, he began working as assistant editor at the journal Science and decided to permanently emigrate from Germany to the United States due to the increasingly hostile environment in Germany towards Jewish people.
After a stint at the American Museum of Natural History, Boas joined the faculty at Columbia University. When he arrived, anthropologists were spread all across the campus, so Boas worked with the university to form a Department of Anthropology where all of the anthropology professors could be housed. This department would go on to become the first to offer a PhD in anthropology in the United States. At Columbia, Boas mentored many of the most famous American Anthropologists who then spread out across the country, and this lineage is why Boas is now considered the “Father of American Anthropology.”
Now that I’ve given a little bit of biographical background information, let me tell you why I am enamored with “Papa Boas.”
First, Boas encouraged what is known as the four-field approach in anthropology. The idea behind four-field training is that the anthropologist wants a holistic (meaning “whole” or big picture, not as in holistic medicine quackery—see the main definition at that link) understanding of what it means to be human. To do this, American anthropologists are trained in the four subfields of biological (physical) anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, and cultural anthropology. In England, archaeology is usually considered separate from anthropology, and the English generally refer to their brand of anthropology as social anthropology instead of cultural anthropology.
One of the things I love most about Boas’s work is his introduction of historical particularism and cultural relativism into anthropological inquiry. Historical particularism is the idea that societies have particular or unique histories that inform how their cultures evolve. This concept is in direct opposition to the prevailing unilineal evolutionist paradigm of that time, which stated that all societies evolve teleologically through the same stages (as explicitly laid out by E.B. Tylor’s progressive stages from “primitive” to “civilized”).
I know “relativism” is often a dirty word among many skeptics, but I find that this is generally based on a conflation of any kind of “relativism” with “moral relativism.” Cultural relativism as introduced by Boas is simply a method of anthropological inquiry that says that the best way to understand why a culture is the way it is (or why people within a society do things in a certain way) is to gain an emic (or insider’s) understanding. Cultural relativism as a method is the rejection of ethnocentrism when trying to learn about other societies. Cultural relativism should not be conflated with moral relativism, which is the idea that there are no objective or absolute moral or ethical standards such that morals should never be judged as objectively good or bad. Cultural relativism is a method that seeks to suspend value judgments in order to understand a particular phenomenon. Anthropologists also draw on an eitc (outsider’s) understanding, not during the process of data collection but during data analysis and writing the ethnography.
Moral relativism has very little to do with Boasian cultural relativism. Boas himself held very strong views about the morality of racism and human rights. For Boas (and for American anthropologists today), an attempt to approach other cultural systems with dispassionate objectivity (i.e., cultural relativism) did not entail moral disengagement from the world (i.e., moral relativism). In this way, Boasian cultural relativism is an attempt to apply scientific objectivity to the study of human culture.
An example of Boas’s methodological cultural relativism can be found in his 1889 article “On Alternating Sounds” (open access link, click on “Get PDF” link on the right to view the full article). In this article, Boas addresses the problems that linguists had when recording languages with radically different phonetic systems than their own native language. Linguists at the time (particularly Daniel Garrison Brinton, to whom the article was responding) argued that Native American languages had certain sounds that regularly alternated and that these alternating sounds were not a function of individual accents or mispronunciations. Drawing on the prevailing social evolutionary theories of the time, Brinton suggested that the extensive inconsistency of sounds within these languages signaled linguistic inferiority and thus evidenced Native Americans’ lower position on the social evolution ladder.
Boas recognized what Brinton was talking about as he, too, encountered this phenomenon while conducting fieldwork among the Inuit on Baffin Island as well as the Kwakiutl Indians of the Pacific Northwest. But the more Boas considered this problem, the more uneasy he was with such conclusions. So Boas applied his cultural relativist approach. He shifted attention away from the Indian languages to the linguists themselves and concluded that the issue was not with the language but with the ways that linguists apperceived (perceive a new experience in relation to past experiences) the sounds of the languages they were studying. In other words, there were no alternating sounds. The linguists were mishearing.
As evidence, Boas applied this thinking to his own studies of Inuit languages. He provided a list of a variety of spellings for given words, noting how researchers had interpreted differences based on their own native languages (for example, native English-speaking linguists will apperceive the pronunciations differently than native German-speaking linguists, thus they will spell the words in uniquely English or German ways). Further, Boas also found that Native American speakers also misheard the sounds produced by the linguists’ native languages, demonstrating that the apperception went both ways. These findings about sound perception are analogous to the way language affects color perception. It’s not that language makes people color-blind or “sound-blind” (i.e., physically incapable of perceiving colors or sounds), it just instills an apperception that makes it difficult to perceive colors/sounds in the same way as people from other cultures with radically different languages.
Finally, Boas was well known for being an activist. He felt that the first obligation of a scientist is to truth and that scientists have a responsibility to speak out on social and political problems. Boas is considered a bellwether of the shifting views of race and racism in the United States in the early 20th century. Boas passionately fought against the reigning understandings of people of color as “primitives” that were biologically and culturally inferior to whites. Boas also trained some of the most well known and influential early anthropologists, including Zora Neale Hurston (a woman of color who was a folklorist and wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God), Margaret Mead (who wrote Coming of Age in Samoa and gave George W. Bush a B+ in anthropology at Yale), and Ruth Benedict (who advocated a passionate humanism and continued Boas’s fight against racism in her work Patterns of Culture).
Franz Boas’s commitment to scientifically informed social justice and his dedication to bringing empiricism into cultural anthropology are just some of the reasons that I love Papa Boas. His methodological skepticism towards ethnocentrism, his passionate criticisms of pseudoscientific racist ideologies, and this silly photo below (background story here) are just a few of the reasons that you should love him, too. | <urn:uuid:7b32681b-71b9-48c0-a99d-3521a76b6b41> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://skepchick.org/2012/08/why-i-love-franz-boas-and-you-should-too/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00139-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96741 | 1,891 | 2.65625 | 3 |
The wonderful month of May is considered as a “feel-good month”. This month is not only full of the promise of summer, but also brings green lushness of spring. It even brings fresh crop of superfoods, which are very nutritious. Superfoods are loaded with vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants, which provide many health benefits. They help to prevent or decrease the risk of diseases and promote overall health. Including superfoods in your diet is the best and easiest way to optimize your health. You can get fresh superfoods at your local grocery stores and farmers market. Here are listed the top 7 Superfoods that you must try for the month of May.
SuperFoods of May
The summertime treat, fresh boysenberries look almost like raspberry and a blackberry. They have reddish-purple color and a sweet-tart taste similar to raspberry. They are excellent source of Vitamin C, anthocyanins, Vitamin K and fiber. They are also great source of folate, manganese and ellagic acid. They are low in fat and calories. They also contain calcium, protein and iron. They help to decrease the risk of cancer, protect against oxidative damage, prevent damage to nerves, prevent neural tube defects in babies, fight free radical damage, prevent bone related & Alzheimers disease, promote bowel regularity, regulate blood sugar levels and lower cholesterol levels. As per recent study, consumption of berries may slow cognitive degeneration in the elder people.
Fresh boysenberries are accessible from grocery stores and farmers’ markets in the end of May and starting of June. Always buy shiny, firm and plump boysenberries and avoid bruised, moldy or leaking berries. After purchasing, you should use boysenberries as soon as possible. You can use fresh boysenberries in pies, jellies, desserts, syrups or jams or just add them in oatmeal, fruit salads or yogurts.
Dandelion greens are among the healthiest leafy vegetables. The taste of these greens is somewhat bitter and tangy. Dandelion greens are excellent source of iron, calcium, Vitamin A, potassium and Vitamin C. They are also high in protein, manganese, Vitamin E, magnesium, Vitamin B1 and Vitamin K. They contain very few calories. Potassium helps to regulate heart rate and blood pressure; Vitamin A maintains healthy mucus membranes, prevents age related macular degeneration skin, improves the skin texture and good for skin & eyes; Iron is very important for RBC productions while Vitamin C is necessary for optimum health. Other benefits of these greens are decreased risk of multiple sclerosis, cancer, cataracts and stroke. Anti-inflammatory property of dandelion helps the people suffering from asthma and other inflammatory diseases.
Choose fresh, succulent, firm, tender and bright green leaves while buying dandelion greens. Avoid any discolored or wilted leaves. You can add them in sandwiches, salads, soups, stews & juices or enjoy raw/cooked like spinach (sautéed, steamed, braised or boiled). You can also substitute them in recipes that need kale, chard or collard greens.
Apricots are one of the nutritious and healthiest fruits. This golden fruit is packed with lots of nutrients and low in calories. They are rich source of fiber, Vitamin C, Vitamin A and Vitamin B17. Vitamin A helps to prevent age related macular degeneration; fights against rashes, pimples & acne; improves the skin texture and good for eyes while fiber helps to prevent constipation and digestive disorders. They have beta-carotene (that helps to protect against Alzheimer’s disease as well as prevent heart disease), iron (which prevents anemia) and lycopene (that fights against cancer, blocked arteries, joint degeneration free radicals and nervous system problems). They also contain calcium, copper, phosphorus, Vitamin E, magnesium and potassium.
Fresh apricots are available from May to September, but you can get dried and canned apricots throughout the year. While purchasing fresh ones, go for well ripe apricots with uniform golden-orange color and rich aroma. Never buy apricots that have pale yellow color. You can add them in syrup, salads, jam, cereals, marmalade, desserts, pancakes and jelly or eat as a whole.
Avocados are among the healthiest foods in the world as they have about twenty five essential nutrients. They are loaded with Vitamin E, monosaturated fats, potassium, fiber and lutein. Monounsaturated fats decrease inflammation in the body, lutein protects the eyes against macular degeneration, oxidative stress and cataracts, potassium helps in regulating blood pressure and prevents circulatory diseases, fiber helps to decrease blood cholesterol levels and prevent constipation while Vitamin E retains the skin moisture as well as protects body tissue from free radical damage. Avocados are also good source of Vitamins A, B, B6, C, D & K and beta-carotene. They are also high in calories so you must eat them in moderation. There are also many other benefits of avocados such as they prevent prostate & breast cancer, prevent circulatory diseases, reduce nausea in pregnant women, decrease the risk of oral cancer and prevent aging symptoms.
You will get avocados year-round. While buying them, pick medium size, totally ripe avocados that have nice aroma. Never buy avocados that are excessively ripened, very hard or have blemishes, cuts and spots. Avocado can be added to salad, shakes, sandwich or burgers. You can eat the fruit on its own or make guacamole or dip.
Radishes are brightly colored root vegetables, which come in various sizes, shapes and colors. You will find red, black and purple colored radishes, but the most common are red radishes. Radishes contain more than 94% of water in them, so you will feel fuller for longer period of time. They are loaded with Vitamin C, dietary fiber, potassium and folate. They also contain calcium, beta carotene, thiamin, iron, phosphorous, riboflavin, fluoride, lutein, magnesium, zinc and vitamin K in good amount. Compared to the roots, radish greens have more calcium, protein and Vitamin C. Radishes help to detox and purify blood, treat constipation, provide relief in piles, treat urinary & skin disorders, prevent many types of cancer as well as cure leukoderma and problems related to respiratory system.
The peak season of radishes is during winter and spring. Buy radishes that have stout, fresh and firm roots along with fresh crispy greens. Don’t buy radishes with cracked roots. Radishes can be added to tacos, salads and sandwiches. You can also eat radishes raw or just make juice of them.
Morel mushrooms are just like other mushrooms. These unique type of mushrooms are found in forests (where there is moist soil). They have conical shape and honeycomb-like caps. They are rich in Vitamin E, copper, Vitamin D, iron and potassium. They have low amount of fat, sodium and calories. They also contain manganese and phosphorous. Selenium and niacin are contained in high amount. They both help to reduce the risk of cancer, particularly prostate cancer. Morel mushrooms help to lose weight, improve heart conditions, boost immune system and lower blood sugars. Morel mushrooms have some toxins, which are destroyed when they are cooked. So, one should consume them after cooking.
You will get fresh morels only in the spring but dried and canned are accessible throughout the year. While purchasing, buy morels with fresh and earthy smell and stay away from morels with bruising, soft spots or slime. You can add fresh or dried morels in recipes. They can also be added in cream and wine sauces, soups and stews. You can make morel paté for puff pastry. You can bake sauté, fry, stew broil, grill or stuff them.
Arugula is another healthiest leafy vegetable. It has peppery taste and low calories. It is very high in Vitamin A, calcium, Vitamin C, folic acid, magnesium, Vitamin K and manganese. It also contains riboflavin, potassium, cancer-preventing phytochemicals, iron, chlorophyll, copper and zinc in high amount. It helps to increase sexual performance and potency, promote bone health, boost immunity, promote weight management and a healthy digestive tract, protect against Alzheimer’s disease & various types of cancers, prevent neural tube defects in the newborns as well as decrease the risk of heart disease, type II diabetes & stroke.
Always go for fresh, crisp and bright green leaves that have no brown spots. You can add arugula in soup, sandwiches, pasta dishes, wraps, stews, salads and pizzas. You can also add it to juices or cook arugula as vegetable. | <urn:uuid:9d69b754-3436-4e7b-bb3f-1b0929cbfb74> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sweetadditions.net/health/superfoods-to-eat-in-month-of-may | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00188-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936524 | 1,883 | 2.5625 | 3 |
It's tick season again in Connecticut. Covering up and using repellent spray are commonly known things to do to protect yourself, but there are some myths about ticks that need to get set straight.
"After this winter I met a lot of people who said, 'well it's been so cold and so frozen for so long, surely the ticks are gone.' Wrong, absolutely wrong! The ticks simply go into a dormant state, and if the temperature is less than 32 degrees about, they become dormant, but they don't die," said Executive Director of the Lyme Research Alliance Peter Wild.
How deep a person goes into the woods also does not change the chances of getting a tick.
"Ticks need high humidity to survive. They need 80 percent humidity. They are going to be in a place where those conditions are around, so tall grass, wet leaves, pachysandra, long grass on the lawn, and shady areas are where ticks will be," said Director of the Greenwich Department of Public Health Lab Doug Serafin.
"And actually the place where ticks thrive the most is around the edges of forests and boarders of forests. If you look at typical suburban areas, they sort of mimic that because every home is like the edge of the forest," said Wild.
To clean clothing after leaving the outdoors, most people think to just throw them in the washer machine, but that's something that could help a tick survive longer.
"What will kill them is do the same thing, take your clothes off, but put them in the dryer. Put them in the dryer on high heat for five or ten minutes, and no ticks will survive that. Then you can put them in the washer," said Wild.
If you do find a tick on your body, do not squeeze it.
"The best way to remove it is with a pair of pointy tweezers. The tick does not burrow into the skin, another myth. Some people think it goes in, but only the mouth parts of the tick attach," said Serafin.
Once a tick is removed, it can be sent to the Greenwich Department of Health to be tested for Lyme Disease. | <urn:uuid:78e0bb60-8bf4-4879-9b62-db419bd1c53c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://greenwich.itsrelevant.com/content/19149/Tick-Myths-Debunked- | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397695.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00054-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969943 | 451 | 2.84375 | 3 |
-- Water, water, water! Lawn and flowers need about 1 inch of water a week to stay green and healthy. Use a rain gauge to make sure they're getting enough. If using a sprinkler, set out a pan or tuna can on the lawn to measure how much water falls. (Best time to water: early morning. It prevents evaporation and allows foliage to dry quickly to prevent disease.)
-- Weed, weed, weed! When the weather is hot, it's easy to avoid getting out in the garden. But work in the cool of morning or evening so the weeds don't take over.
-- Top off beds and other plantings with more mulch, if you want. It slows the return of weeds, conserves moisture, and prevents soil-borne diseases from spreading. Just remember: Mulch should be 1 to 3 inches deep, no deeper.
-- Start thinking about structural projects you might want to tackle this fall. Plan a path or an arbor that you want to build when the weather cools.
-- Water containers often. In hot weather, they usually need watering daily and may even need watering twice a day -- especially thirsty plants such as fuchsia, impatiens and hibiscus.
If the container soil dries out and gets so hard that water runs rapidly down the inside surface of the pot, set the pot in a bowl or bucket of water halfway up the container's sides. After a couple of hours, the soil will rehydrate.
-- Every time you water container plants, pinch off yellowing or problem foliage and spent flower blooms to encourage more lush growth and flowers.
-- Fertilize containers every two weeks to assure plenty of growth and bloom. Use a bloom-booster fertilizer with flowering plants.
-- Petunias getting ratty-looking? It's a good idea to cut all your annuals back by one- to two-thirds to encourage fuller, bushier growth with more flowers.
In Zones 3-5, if your cool-season annuals such as snapdragons and lobelia have made it through summer's heat (they often die out in July and August), cut them back by about half to encourage a fresh flush of growth and bloom in the cooler temperatures of fall.
-- Deadhead flowers regularly. Deadheading not only keeps your landscape tidy-looking, it also encourages certain flowers to bloom more.
-- Tackle diseased plant areas. If the plant is an annual and badly damaged, consider just tearing it out. This time of year, it's not likely to recover and will only look bad and possibly spread the problem to its neighbors.
Otherwise, trim off an affected part of the plant and take it to a quality local garden center. They'll be able to diagnose the problem and recommend a solution.
-- In Zones 4-6, stop fertilizing roses and any other trees and shrubs. Fertilization will encourage new, tender growth that will get zapped by winter cold.
-- Mow high this time of year. Longer grass will shade the soil, conserving moisture and discouraging weeds. Mow 3 inches high for cool-season grasses such as Kentucky bluegrass and 2 inches for most warm-season grasses, such as Bermudagrass and zoysia. But don't let your lawn grow too high before you mow - the rule of thumb is never to remove more than one-third of the grass blade at a time, or you'll stress your grass.
-- Keep vegetables harvested. Harvesting encourages vegetables to keep producing well until fall. This is especially true with green beans, but also with green peppers, hot peppers, cucumbers, squash, eggplants and tomatoes.
-- In Zones 3-4, in late August or in early September, plant cool-season veggie crops such as lettuces, spinaches and radishes. Be sure to keep them moist.
-- Set tuna cans, wire racks or other supports under small ripening melons to prevent them from rotting or attracting slugs from contact with the soil. Harvest cantaloupes after they turn from green to yellow and come off the vine with a gentle tug. Pick watermelons when they have a dark and crisp stem, shriveled tendrils close to the melon and a dull look with yellowish underside. Ripe watermelons also produce a dull thud when thumped. | <urn:uuid:1bde2e2d-1838-49fa-8030-f7b9fe486317> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.midwestliving.com/print/45465/page/1/0/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395613.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00196-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927825 | 913 | 2.8125 | 3 |
“Once there were islands all a-sprouts with palms: and coral reefs and sands as white as milk. What is there now but a vast shambles of the heart? Filth, squalor, and a world of little men”.
Mervyn Peake in Titus Alone, describing how we have destroyed the beauty of this Earth to fit in our extravagance.
Pollution refers to the contamination of the Earth’s environment with materials which interfere with human health, quality of life and the functioning of various ecosystems. With the population on the rise and the resulting rise in demands, it is becoming increasingly difficult to control/reduce pollution. Therefore, the implementation of programs aiming at reducing the pollutants is of prime importance.
Conventional approaches focus on dealing with pollution control, cleaning up the environment after the deposition of pollutants. In contrast, pollution prevention (often called P2) works towards reducing the amount of pollutants that are discharged into the environment right at the level of the source and through the process. Pollution control measures require huge investments and liabilities and that makes the system rather inefficient. More often than not, efforts of cleaning one particular area results in dumping the filth elsewhere, thereby resulting in the pollution of that area. Instead, if we could direct some efforts at cutting down the source of pollutants, it would be a wiser approach.
Proper disposal of electronic wastes, reducing environmental footprint, controlling litter, encouraging green buildings and other household alternatives to toxic products are a few ways of reducing pollution. One of the major reasons for pollution is the use of plastics. Since these are non-biodegradable, they reduce the fertility of the soil, reduce water table levels and also potentially harm aquatic life. The use of conventional petroleum based plastics should be limited and the use of the recently discovered biodegradable plastics should be encouraged. P2 does not call for cutting down needs, but it urges finding alternatives and cutting down on greed.
At an industrial level too, P2 saves on-site storage space of harmful wastes, disposal costs and most of all, improves the quality of life of the employees thereby increasing their productivity. Source reduction is definitely a better way to save on expenditure than an end-of-pipe control of the harmful pollutants. A comprehensive pollution prevention program encourages the concept of ‘reduce, recycle, reprocess and reuse’ – a concept that has to reach the masses and needs to be implemented at all levels of production and usage.
Pollution prevention is something that begins at the grass-root level and the initiative has to come from within. Campaigns and programs can merely attract attention but implementation is successful only when the people involved practice these prevention measures in their day to day lives. As someone correctly put it, “Saying that sulfates won’t cause acid rain is like saying smoking won’t cause cancer!” Pollution is a chronic disease of the planet and we have been the cause. Therefore it is now our moral responsibility to initiate its prevention and control. | <urn:uuid:bdedf0c0-0a4f-4173-aabd-fe453181d81e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.greenpassport.us/pollution-chronic-malady.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394605.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00011-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941042 | 622 | 3.375 | 3 |
Breeding For The Heat Resistant Rhododendrons
Part II: Differences Among Species And Hybrids
Ken-ichi Arisumi, Eisuke Matsuo, Yusuke Sakata and Tsutomu Tottoribe
Laboratory of Ornamental Horticulture and Floriculture
Kagoshima University, Kagoshima, Japan
Reprinted from The Memoirs of The Faculty of Agriculture, Kagoshima University
Vol. XIX (Whole Number 28), March 1983, Kagoshima, Japan.
Editor's note: Part I appeared in the ARS Journal, Vol. 39:4, Fall 1985.
The distribution of elepidote rhododendrons is almost entirely confined to the wetter, high mountain regions. The centre of origin is said to be in the area where Tibet, Burma and Yunnan meet. The areas ranging from the Himalayas through eastern Tibet, upper Burma to western and central China have been inhabited by a great number of species.
From these areas they have extended their distribution, eastwards to Taiwan, north-eastwards through Japan and Siberia to the north-western and north-eastern United States, westwards to the Caucasus and the Pyrenees, or southwards to Ceylon or Malaya and Sumatra. In the mountain regions of these areas blest with cool summers, sporadic species are found.
Moreover, the hybridizations to create the garden forms have been mainly conducted in the areas with cool summers, i.e., in north-western Europe and the north-eastern or north-western United States.
Therefore, it has been very difficult to grow rhododendrons successfully in the lowlands of the southwestern part of Japan; almost all of the natural species and their garden hybrids of foreign origin have never given good results in this region where the summer is exceedingly hot and radical changes between rainy and sun scorching weather prevail.
In the previous paper, (1) the hybrid seedlings derived from the cross between 'Ruby Hart' and R. metternichii were revealed to grow more vigorously, tolerating more heat than either parent and a major cause was attributed to heterosis.
The present investigation was conducted to get some clues to breeding for heat resistant rhododendrons from the comparisons of the growth-differences in the seedlings of various species and hybrids.
Materials and Methods
Seeds used were chiefly obtained from the Seed Exchange System of the Japanese Rhododendron Society and H.L. Larson Rhododendrons of the U.S.A. Some seeds were also obtained from Yoshioka Nursery and the other seeds such as; R. yakushimanum x R. simiarum and R. yakushimanum x (R. yakushimanum x R. wrayi) were due to the courtesy of Dr. P.G. Valder of Sydney University; R. metternichii var. hondoense f. brevifolium and its hybrid with 'Gil's Crimson' were from Mr. T. Nagami; R. wrayi was from our collection at Malaya.
Seeds were sown from late January to early February in 1980 and the seedlings obtained were transplanted into 36 x 45 x 10 cm plastic boxes from April 20 to May 3, 1980. The media used was a mixture of fine pumice, peat and shredded sphagnum moss, 6:3:1 by volume. They were grown in a vinyl-house covered with black lawn, two layers in 1980 and one layer in 1981. Liquid fertilizer containing N, P and K, 50, 25 and 40 ppm, was given every 3-4 days in the growing season of 1980 and that containing 100, 50 and 80 ppm was given every 7 days in 1981. In the majority of cases the number of individuals in each seedling group at the start of the experiment was 150 plantlets, but ranged from some hundreds in the promising species or hybrids to some tens for those which we could not obtain sufficient seeds.
The mean maximum and minimum temperatures in the vinyl-house in the summer half of 1981 were as follows; May, 34.4 and 13.4°C; June, 36.9 and 18.9°C; July, 40.1 and 24.8°C; August, 38.7 and 23.6°C; September, 34.0 and 20.6°C and October, 31.0 and 14.7°C, respectively.
The measurements of seedling growth were done every 45 days in both the growing seasons, but for plant survival only the final data of Nov. 20, 1981, and for vigour, plant height and leaf size those of Jan. 4-7, 1982, were summarized and presented in Figs. 1-3. In these figures each corner of square was survival ratio (left), vigour (top), plant height (right) and leaf size (bottom), respectively. The survival ratio was the percentage of individuals that finally survived. The degree of vigour was based on a five grade estimation from ±, through +, ++, +++ to ++++. The plant height was measured of the largest 30 individuals selected within each seedling group and the leaf size was based on the measurement of length and width of the largest leaf in each individual of these 30 plantlets selected. In Figs. 1-3, both measurements were presented on the percentage basis to the largest seedling group, i.e., in the plant height the percentage to the value of 'Purple Splendour' x 'Scandinavia', and in the leaf size to the value of 'Blue Peter' x 'Scandinavia'.
| Fig. 1. The survival ratio, vigour and growth of the seedlings in the species of foreign origin. Each
corner of square was survival ratio (left), vigour (top), plant height (right) and leaf size (bottom),
Results and Discussion
1. Species of foreign origin
As seen in Fig. 1, there occurred a considerable difference in the heat resistance between series, sub-series and species. A large number of species displayed poor behaviour for use as the cross parent for future breeding. Especially in R. auritum of Boothii series, R. haemaleum of Neriiflorum series and R. wardii of Thomsonii series, all plantlets died. However, the species belonging to Fortunei series, subseries Fortunei gave fairly consistently good results as seen in R. chlorops, R. decorum, R. diaprepes, R. discolor and R. fortunei, although no good results were obtained in R. houlstonii belonging to the same subseries and in the following species belonging to the other subseries of the same series, i.e., in R. sutchuenense of subseries Davidii, in R. cardiobasis and R. orbiculare of subseries Orbiculare and in R. oreodoxa of subseries Oreodoxa. The results of R. praevernum of subseries Davidii and R. griffithianum of subseries Griffithianum were intermediate.
In others, R. elliottii of Irroratum series and R. ponticum of Ponticum series gave satisfactory results. However, R. wrayi of Irroratum series whose habitat is in the mountain regions of Malaya and, thus, being one of the most southern species among the elepidotes, displayed unexpectedly poor behaviour, probably because it could not readily prevail over the water-logged state of the growing medium.
Of particular interest was R. formosanum, which is distributed in the mountain regions of middle altitudes throughout Taiwan (5). This species belongs to the Arboreum series, subseries Argyrophyllum. From the distribution pattern of various species within this subseries, the centre of origin of Argyrophyllum is assumed to be in west Szechuan. Therefore, R. formosanum is one of the most remote, marginal species.
The struggle in the evolutionary processes during species formation, in other words, the emulation in the dispersal processes from the high mountains of Szechuan towards the east to Taiwan, might afford this species a sort of capacity to tolerate unfavourable circumstances. This would also be the reason why the distribution of this rhododendron could remain in broad-leaved forests at the middle altitudes throughout the island and pass off without climbing up to the tops of the mountains.
Similar but somewhat inferior results were obtained with R. morii and R. pseudochrysanthum of the Barbatum series of Taiwan origin. When compared with R. formosanum, it would be of interest that the species from higher altitudes gave consistently more inferior results. However, the results of these two species were superior to those of R. barbatum and R. strigillosum. As in the case of R. formosanum, this would indicate the similar acquisition of tolerance by these two species during their geographical dispersal, although this phenomenon is not necessarily a general rule as seen in R. wrayi, R. aureum, R. catawbiense and R. maximum.
As compared with the results of its hybrids, mentioned later, R. hyperythrum didn't give as good a result as initially expected. The reason is not clear. The seed source of this species was from the United States, accordingly further investigations with other seed sources will be needed.
Hoitink etal. (3, 4) studied the resistance of various rhododendrons to root rot caused by Phytophthora cinnamomi, the most serious disease of rhododendrons, and revealed that the majority of species and cultivars are highly susceptible and can succumb to this disease. The fungus is furious in soils of high temperature with high water content. Thus, it will be practically impossible to exclude the resistance to this fungus from the breeding for heat resistant rhododendrons in the south-western part of Japan.
Although Hoitink etal. (3, 4) did not study the resistance of R. morii and R. formosanum to this fungus, they evaluated R. pseudochrysanthum and R. hyperythrum to be highly and moderately resistant, respectively. It would be fairly reasonable to assume that the former two species might also be resistant, because Taiwan is known to be inside the centre of origin of P. cinnamomi (6) and they, especially R. formosanum, could tolerate the high water content of the growing medium. They would be worthy of particular attention as the cross parent for heat resistant rhododendrons.
| Fig. 2. The survival ratio, vigour and growth of the seedlings in the species of Japanese origin.
For details see Fig. 1.
2. Species of Japanese origin
The results are shown in Fig. 2. As compared with the foreign species, the characteristic growth pattern of the Japanese species was a projection in the direction to survival and vigour, indicating the rosette type-early growth of seedlings. This tendency was also seen in the species of Taiwan origin.
Concerning heat tolerance there occurred similar variations in the species of Japanese origin to those of foreign origin. As for R. aureum, only one form from Kitadake of Yamanashi Prefecture could be tested, but the result was the worst as initially expected from its general lack of heat tolerance. In other species, great intraspecific variation was encountered with the difference of seed sources concerned. If this variation is based on the genetic difference within each species, more detailed and systematic surveys throughout Japan will be needed, including the clarification of the following two issues, namely where the best seed source is and what individual is the most promising as the cross parent for future breeding.
As far as the present experiment is concerned, however, R. metternichii var. hondoense f. brevifolium was the most heat tolerant Japanese species. This form is an inhabitant of Oki-islands, the small island of Shimane Prefecture located at the southern part of the Sea of Japan, where it grows from almost sea level to the mountain tops, the highest of which is only 608 m.
This geographical isolation without high mountains might afford heat tolerance to this form, as compared with the typical R. metternichii and R. yakushimanum which have high mountains to climb (1700 m or over). Furthermore, some of the finest individuals of this form show compact growth with very shiny, shorter leaves that are elegantly curved down at the edges. One of the authors (K.A.) rates this form rather higher than R. yakushimanum combining heat resistance with excellent foliage and flowers.
| Fig. 3-1. The survival ratio, vigour and growth of the seedlings in the hybrids including R.
yakushimanum within their pedigree. For details see Fig. 1.
As in the case of species rhododendrons, the hybrids also showed great diversity in their heat tolerance in accordance with the difference of cross-combinations (Figs. 3-1 and 3-2). Dostălek etal. (2) had found similar variations especially in vigour and uniformity, in the hybrid seedlings obtained from the diallele cross and self-pollination of a few species and a cultivar ('Cunningham's White'), although the main purpose of their investigation was to disclose the combining ability to produce F1 hybrid seed of rhododendron rootstocks.
It was difficult, however, to draw general conclusions from the present data obtained, mainly because, as expected from the seed sources, each cross combination was not so elaborately planned to compare each other systematically, and the individual used for the cross parent was not necessarily the same individual in such species as R. yakushimanum, R. degronianum and R. hyperythrum.
In some cross combinations, however, consistent results were obtained; the hybrids derived from R. hyperythrum and those from 'Scandinavia' gave consistently good results, whereas all of those from 'Crest' were rather poor. This might suggest that some specific species or cultivars inherently have high heritability for heat tolerance and the others have not.
As in the other countries, the special emphasis on R. yakushimanum and its derivative hybrids to be used as the cross parent, prevails in this country, chiefly because of their excellent ornamental values (Fig. 3-1). In this country, however, it is rather desirable that this emphasis should be turned to R. hyperythrum, as far as the heat tolerance is concerned.
In the other combinations the followings gave good results; R. yakushimanum x 'Elizabeth', R. yakushimanum x 'Ruby Hart', 'Mrs. Furnival' x R. yakushimanum, 'Scintillation' x R. yakushimanum, 'Venus' x R. yakushimanum, ('Britannia' x R. yakushimanum) x R. yakushimanum, (R. yakushimanum x 'Vulcan') x 'Jock', R. degronianum x 'Bow Bells' and R. metternichii var. hondoense f. brevifolium x 'Gill's Crimson'. The definite reason why these combinations gave good results is not clear. As mentioned before, R. metternichii var. hondoense f. brevifolium showed good performance. The descendants of this form also gave consistently good results in several other combinations than that of 'Gill's Crimson', although the detailed data is not presented here. Therefore, this form appears to provide promising material for heat resistant rhododendrons.
| Fig. 3-2. The survival ratio, vigour and growth of the seedlings in the hybrids not including R.
yakushimanum within their pedigree. For details see Fig. 1.
The present investigation was conducted to get some clues to breeding for heat resistant rhododendrons from the comparisons of the growth-differences in the seedlings of various species and hybrids. In both species and hybrids, the great diversity in the seedling growth was encountered with the difference of series, subseries, species, varieties, seed sources or cross-combinations.
A large number of species were revealed to be inappropriate to be used as the cross parent for future breeding. Some species, however, seemed to be promising on the basis of the performance of their own and, in some cases, together with their descendants. They were R. formosanum, R. hyperythrum, R. metternichii var. hondoense f. brevifolium and R. ponticum and, to a lesser extent, R. decorum, R. diaprepes, R. discolor, R. elliottii, R. fortunei and R. morii.
In some species, the possibility was suggested that heat tolerance had been secured by the geographical dispersal of long distances from the centre of origin and/or the isolation into small islands without high mountains to climb. It was also suggested that some specific species or cultivars inherently have high heritability for heat tolerance and the others have not.
1. Arisumi, K., Matsuo, E. and Sakala, Y.: Breeding for the heat resistant rhododendrons. Mem. Fac. Agr. Kagoshima Univ. 15, 73-78 (1979)
2. Dostălek, J. and Dostălokovă, A.: Unterlagen für Rhododendron aus Hybridsaatgut. Z. Pflanzenzüchtg. 67, 120-130 (1972)
3. Hoitink, H.A.J. and Schmitthenner, A.F.: Relative prevalence and virulence of Phytophthora species involved in rhododendron root rot. Phytopathology 64, 1371-1374 (1974)
4. Hoitink, H.A.J. and Schmitthenner, A.F.: Resistance of Rhododendron species and hybrids to Phytophthora root rot. Bull. Amer. Rhod. Soc. 29, 37-41 (1975)
5. Kanehira, R.: Formosan trees, p. 538-539, Inoue Book Co., Tokyo (1936)
6. Ko, W.H., Chang, H.S. and Su, H.J.: Isolates of Phytophthora cinnamomi from Taiwan as evidence for an Asian origin of the species. Trans. Br. Mycol. Soc. 71, 496-499 (1978) | <urn:uuid:8f5cfbb8-720a-434a-879e-be5ed4de5574> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JARS/v40n4/v40n4-arisumi.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397562.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00089-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943148 | 3,969 | 2.65625 | 3 |
School behaviour policy
Every school has a behaviour policy, which lists the rules of conduct for pupils before and after school as well as during the school day.
The policy should also say what the school does to prevent bullying.
You can ask the school for a copy of the policy document.
Schools can punish pupils if they behave badly.
Examples of punishments (sometimes called ‘sanctions’) include:
- a telling-off
- a letter home
- removal from a class or group
- confiscating something inappropriate for school , eg mobile phone or MP3 player
Schools don’t have to give parents notice of after-school detentions or tell them why a detention has been given.
School staff can use reasonable force to control and restrain pupils. This could include leading a pupil by the arm into a classroom.
Complaining about a punishment
If you disagree with the way your child’s been punished, first talk to the headteacher. If you’re not satisfied, ask for a copy of the complaints procedure. | <urn:uuid:dadd23c8-e890-457d-a64a-74d7b918bbe8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.gov.uk/school-discipline-exclusions/discipline | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00104-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959854 | 222 | 3.0625 | 3 |
A fertilizer drill, which distributes fertilizer in a row at the desired quantity.
The Little Red Hen carries her sack of wheat with a wheelbarrow.
"The lever of the second class has the weight between the power and the fulcrum." Examples: a nutcracker,…
A small agricultural tool used to carry heavy loads.
Commandeered Chinese wheelbarrow train. | <urn:uuid:3be8cd63-f7f2-40db-a2fa-fe83c1541fa0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/keyword/wheelbarrow | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392069.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00054-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.886795 | 81 | 2.71875 | 3 |
ATHENS, Ohio – Presenting documents that help Ohio’s history come alive in the minds of readers, The Documentary Heritage Of Ohio, published by Ohio University Press Jan. 31, also includes eyewitness, first-person narratives that will keep readers turning pages.
What’s in it.
The editors include constitutions, laws and ordinances that have shaped Ohio’s institutions and the lives of its people and that are basic to understanding the development of the state.
The second volume in the Ohio Bicentennial Series, published in association with the Ohio Bicentennial Commission, the book is a valuable record for Buckeye bookshelves.
The inaugural volume of the Ohio Bicentennial Series, Ohio on the Move: Transportation in Buckeye State, was published in March 2000.
The first systematic scholarly account of the transportation history of Ohio explores intercity bus and truck operations, commercial aviation, river and lake transport, canals, steam railroads, electric interurbans, and mass transit.
In all, 10 books are planned for the Ohio Bicentennial Series, which will give the public, scholars, and students a comprehensive picture of the state’s development.
Other tentative titles in the series are: Ohio Political and Social Humor; Women in Ohio History; Historic Ohio’s First Peoples; Governors of Ohio; Ohio: A Pictorial History; Ohio Utopian Communities; Ohio’s Underground Railroad; and Ohio Migration and Immigration. | <urn:uuid:6e729f93-fc77-4a15-b9a2-b86257c03f85> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.farmanddairy.com/news/new-book-reveals-ohios-history/4063.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403823.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00112-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922385 | 303 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Definition of Homo heidelbergensis
1. Noun. A type of primitive man who lived in Europe.
Homo Heidelbergensis Pictures
Click the following link to bring up a new window with an automated collection of images related to the term: Homo Heidelbergensis Images
Lexicographical Neighbors of Homo Heidelbergensis
Literary usage of Homo heidelbergensis
Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:
1. The Britannica Year Book by Hugh Chisholm (1913)
"The title of Homo heidelbergensis, conferred on the skeleton by its ... We come now to the problem of the relation of Homo heidelbergensis (Mauer) to ..."
2. The Origin and Evolution of the Human Dentition by William King Gregory (1922)
"The phyletic relationship of Homo heidelbergensis is discussed in my "Studies ... The dentition of Homo heidelbergensis differs from that of H. sapiens only ..."
3. The Racial Anatomy of the Philippine Islanders: Introducing New Methods of by Robert Bennett Bean (1910)
"This man has been called Homo heidelbergensis, and the jaw is peculiar in that it unites ... Homo heidelbergensis belongs to the earliest paleolithic age, ..."
4. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences by New York Academy of Sciences (1916)
"Homo heidelbergensis. ... The fauna associated with Homo heidelbergensis is of an ancient char- ..."
5. Christian Belief in God: A German Criticism of German Materialistic Philosophy by George Wobbermin (1918)
"... see in this "homo Heidelbergensis" the universal root form from which, on the one hand, man, and on the other hand, the man-like apes, have developed. ..."
6. Organic Evolution by Richard Swann Lull (1917)
"Jaws, left outer aspect, of chimpanzee, Pan sp.; fossil chimpanzee, Pan vetus; Heidelberg man, Homo heidelbergensis; and modern man, H. sapiens 678 249. ..." | <urn:uuid:8ac48de8-8751-4f29-b5e5-e674b94a99fb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.lexic.us/definition-of/Homo_heidelbergensis | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399522.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00161-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.825095 | 463 | 3.34375 | 3 |
Pat Shingleton: "Today, Was THE Day..."
This date in 1944 marks the greatest military operation in history. If the weather was unfavorable for Operation Overlord, it would have postponed the invasion for two weeks until tides were suitable for the landing. In 1944 there were no meteorological observations or the use of computer models. Years ago, predicting weather conditions over the English Channel was challenging. Weathermen depended on secretive ship and plane reports and from spies on the European mainland. These observations were coded, forwarded to England and tediously plotted to maps by hand. Numerous groups extrapolated data, including: a civilian group in Dunstable, England, The British Meteorological Service, U.S. Forecasters called, "Widewing," and the British Navy. | <urn:uuid:527cbbdf-3742-47c7-b33f-9fa16f669dea> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wbrz.com/news/pat-shingleton-today-was-the-day-/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00037-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962602 | 156 | 3.171875 | 3 |
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – New York City is full of little nuggets of history that have long been abandoned. Among them is the small, artificial Swinburne Island, located in New York Bay east of Staten Island.
WCBS 880’s Tom Kaminski had the chance to fly over it Tuesday morning in Chopper 880.
It is only four acres in size and was constructed in the late 1800s, along with the much larger Hoffman Island to the north.
Both served as quarantine zones for incoming infected passengers.
That continued into the early 20th Century and included the 1910-1911 cholera outbreak.
Eventually, better and more efficient ways of controlling disease were developed and there was no need to use the islands for that purpose.
In World War II, they were used as United States Merchant Marine training sites.
They were also used as anchorages for anti-submarine nets.
They are now managed by the National Park Service, but are generally off-limits to the public.
If you ever end up going near the islands, you’re likely to find plenty of waterfowl to squawk at you. The Staten Island Advance reported that seals have been spotted near them as well.
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- AAA: Independence Day Travel To Break Record | <urn:uuid:03f2e7b7-e3f5-4cda-89c0-7313b6671c24> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/07/10/check-it-out-nycs-abandoned-swinburne-island/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00023-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972611 | 317 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Meet Linhenykus monodactylus, the dinosaur that gave the world the finger. This parrot-sized theropod isn’t being surly. It just doesn’t have a choice: it’s the first single-digit dinosaur ever discovered.
In this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Xu Xing and colleagues document their find, which turned up in a fossil-rich part of northern China. Linhenykus is probably about 80 million years old.
Linhenykus monodactylus is a member of the theropod dinosaurs, the group of two-legged carnivores that includes Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor. Most theropods had three fingers on each hand. But Linhenykus belongs to a family known as the alvarezsauroids: small, long-legged dinosaurs that had one big finger alongside two barely functional nub fingers. [National Geographic]
For humans, losing fingers is a serious hindrance. For theropods, though, fingers weren’t particularly useful. So as theropods spread around the world over the years, they began to lose them.
The earliest carnivorous dinosaurs had five fingers, although only four were actually functional. Many later meat-eaters had only three, and evolution left the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex with only two. Now researchers have unearthed the first known dinosaur with only one finger. [ScienceNOW]
If this little nub had any purpose, Xu speculates, it was likely for scratching up termite mounds to expose and eat the termites. But given the adaptations for the consumption of termites that nature has come up with, Linhenykus‘ one little finger seems a little sad.
DISCOVER: Dino Hunter, on paleontologist Phil Currie
80beats: T. Rex May Have Been a Hot-Blooded, Sweaty Beast
80beats: Miniature T. Rex Was a Man-Sized Monster
80beats: Bone Bite Marks Suggest That T. Rex Dabbled in Cannibalism
80beats: New Fleet-Footed Diminutive Dino May Be a T. Rex Ancestor
Image: Julius Csotonyi | <urn:uuid:e0ac8ba5-b662-4248-9654-69f8c959d748> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2011/01/24/found-a-funny-looking-dinosaur-with-just-one-puny-finger/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397749.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00045-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936391 | 468 | 3.46875 | 3 |
Page 2/3 - Posted January 29, 2010
Belgica is a member of the order Diptera, which includes mosquitoes and flies. They are found only on the Antarctic Peninsula and in a variety of diverse microhabitats, from the small clumps of Prasiola and grasses found on the rocky islands to the well-fertilized mud near penguin rookeries and elephant seal wallows.
Belgica enjoys such a wide range of habitats, filling every conceivable niche, by virtue of its lone terrestrial supremacy. “There are no other competitors down here, nothing even closely related,” Lee says. “They have no predators, no parasites that we know of.”
The midges have a two-year life cycle. They spend most of it as worm-like larvae, up to 6 millimeters long, eating all the bacteria, detritus and algae they can. They molt into adults in the summer, enjoying a brief flowering, two weeks at most, to mate and lay eggs. The eggs, looking like tiny dried tomato seeds, hatch after a week and the new larvae begin feeding.
The team’s arrival in the first year of its new grant timed remarkably well with the emergence of the adults. The scientists have never encountered this kind of abundance before.
“The party will be over pretty soon for them,” says Denlinger, who, like Lee and probably most entomologists, enjoyed a childhood fascination for insects. “Most people I know outgrow that at some point; some of us don’t.”
The team’s research has shown that midges can tolerate the loss of up to 70 percent of their body water. But its major finding from the first grant period between 2005 and 2007 was that Belgica could keep feeding and growing despite the fact that it is in cellular survival mode 24/7. Its heat shock proteins — proteins whose “expression” increases when cells are exposed to elevated temperatures or other stress — are working all the time. [See previous article from Nov. 26, 2006 ]
“That’s absolutely not the dogma everywhere else in the world,” Lee says while making a final walk around the northeastern half of Torgersen. “When you turn on those proteins, you stop making everything else. You’re in a survival mode … Down here they’re obviously growing and feeding. At the same time, they’re producing high levels of heat-shock proteins.”
Denlinger adds, “We think having those heat shock proteins on all the time is probably a very important thing for them to survive in these types of environments.”
Weathering the winter
Now Lee and Denlinger are back after about a two-year hiatus with two graduate students and a former member of Lee’s lab with a new grant to collect new specimens to answer a new set of questions.
Foremost among the fresh mysteries for the entomologists is learning more about how Belgica spends the winter in Antarctica. Its freeze tolerance is at work year-round, but possibly enhanced in the colder, dark winter months.
Freeze tolerance in another Antarctic arthropod, Cryptopygus antarcticus, involves cryoprotective dehydration. The tiny springtail, which jumps around like a flea but is not a true insect, gradually loses water and dries out, lowering its freezing point. In the lab, Belgica demonstrates a similar ability.
“That’s never been shown before in a true insect,” Lee notes. The lab is one thing; but does it happen in nature? Perhaps it varies by the microhabitat, he suggests, so that in wetter areas the polar midge simply freezes while in drier patches it cryoprotectively dehydrates.
In a future field season, he says, someone from the team will return to the islands after the summer season, perhaps as late as May, to learn more about that process.
The finch effect
Another goal is to determine just how genetically homogenous Belgica is among the different islands it inhabits. Being wingless, its ability to disperse geographically is pretty limited but not impossible. The wind could help spread it across the closely spaced islands. And they can float on the water as well as a lifejacket.
But it’s more likely that Belgica is a homebody, having probably lived in Antarctica for millions of years, fragmented geographically. The scientists want to know if the relative isolation between islands produces significant genetic differences among the populations.
“It’s sort of like what Darwin saw with his finches, where you have little populations on different islands that are in some ways evolving into different species. We’re going to look for evidence of that occurring in Belgica,” explains Nick Teets, a PhD student who works with Denlinger.
“We’re trying to get populations from as [distant] islands as we can to see if there might be some incipient speciation going on,” Denlinger adds, saying that the team hopes to sequence the Belgica genome in the next year or so to target their research on specific genes involved in over-wintering adaptations.Back 1 2 3 Next
About the Sun | <urn:uuid:c7466d98-cbd8-4db2-be29-1b607780c6d2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/contentHandler.cfm?id=2019 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00199-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953002 | 1,104 | 3.125 | 3 |
First, the name! Sahastra is the sanskrit word for 1,000. Linga is the aniconic representation of the Lord Shiva. Apparently, at one time, there were many small temples dedicated to Shiva in the area. These were razed to facilitate construction of a rauza (mausoleum) - when, and to whom, and exactly where I have been unable to discover.
Second, the complex is a large water reservoir extending over 17 heactares, attributed to the Solanki Siddh-Raj Jay-Singh who ruled 1094 - 1143 AD. It is located less than 500 metres northwest of the Rani ni Vav.
Third, in overall conception, water is (was) taken from the Saraswati River (now dry) to the north along a channel to the south and stored in a cistern, known as the Rudra Kupa, 40 metres in diameter. The distance travelled about 400 metres. Water was then extracted from the cistern and directed easterly along an inlet channel for about 200 metres before hanging a right south. This is all best viewed in Google Earth at an eye altitude of 750 metres. The water channels featured sloping embankments reinforced with brick and stone.
This photo is of the western end of the southern section of the complex.
Nobody has marked this note useful | <urn:uuid:8c06219b-f98b-4b83-a965-8f9aad357ef8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Asia/India/West/Gujarat/Patan/photo1271525.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399106.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00128-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971183 | 284 | 2.859375 | 3 |
SOURCE: Scientific American Magazine
Article By Nancy Y. Kiang
Last July astronomers confirmed the presence of water vapor on an extrasolar planet by observing the passage of starlight through the planet’s atmosphere. The world’s space agencies are now developing telescopes that will search for signs of life on Earth-size planets by observing the planets’ light spectra.
The way plants harvest sunlight is a marvel of nature. Photosynthetic pigments such as chlorophyll are not isolated molecules. They operate in a network like an array of antennas, each tuned to pick out photons of particular wavelengths. Chlorophyll preferentially absorbs red and blue light, and carotenoid pigments (which produce the vibrant reds and yellows of fall foliage) pick up a slightly different shade of blue.
To learn more: | <urn:uuid:7476a4bd-e0ba-4595-b91e-9463c394ba46> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://newearthplanets.blogspot.com/2010/06/shocking-colors-of-alien-plants.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398628.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00124-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.868598 | 172 | 4.125 | 4 |
Both Clustered and Nonclustered Indexes have same physical structure in SQL Server. Both are stored as a B-Tree structure in SQL Server.
1. The leaf node of a Clustered Index contains data pages of the table on which it is created
2. Clustered Index enforces a logical order on the rows. Rows are ordered based on Clustering Key
3. If the table does not have Clustered Index it is referred to as a "Heap"
4. A Clustered Index always has Index Id of 1
5. A Table can have ONLY 1 Clustered Index
6. A Primary Key constraint creates a Clustered Index by default *
* A Primary Key constraint can also be enforced by Nonclustered Index, You can specify the index type while creating Primary Key
1. The leaf nodes of a Nonclustered Index consists of Index pages which contain Clustering Key or RID to locate Data Row *
* When Clustered Index is not present leaf node points to Physical Location of the row this is referred to as RID. When a Clustered Index is present this points to Clustering Key (Key column on which Clustered Index is created)
2. Nonclustered Index does not order actual data, It only orders columns present in the Nonclustered Index based on Index Key specified at the time of creation of Nonclustered Index.
3. A table may not have any Nonclustered Indexes
4. Nonclustered Indexes have Index Id > 1
5. Prior to SQL Server 2008 only 249 Nonclustered Indexes can be created. With SQL Server 2008 and above 999 Nonclustered Indexes can be created
6. A Unique Key constraint created a Nonclustered Index by default *
* A Unique Key constraint can also be enforced by Clustered Index, You can specify the index type while creating Unique Key
Hope This Helps!
Filed under: SQLServer, SQLServer 2005, SQLServer 2008, SQLServer 2008 R2, SQLServer 2012 | <urn:uuid:fbcd8408-784a-4ea6-a582-bc8c0063924c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sqlservercentral.com/blogs/sqlandme/2013/04/19/sql-server-differences-between-clustered-and-non-clustered-indexes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397695.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00003-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.822702 | 446 | 3.359375 | 3 |
A pioneering new study shows the rate fish are captured by predators can double when boats are motoring nearby.
Professor Mark McCormick of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University was part of an international research team that found noise from passing motorboats increases stress levels in young coral reef fish and reduces their ability to flee from predators. As a consequence they are captured more easily and their survival chances are halved.
It's the first study to show that real-world noise can have a direct consequence on fish survival. "It shows that juvenile fish become distracted and stressed when exposed to motorboat noise and predators capitalise on their indecision", said Professor McCormick. The team hope the findings will inspire better environmental noise management in coastal areas.
"We found that when real boats were motoring near to young damselfish in open water, they became stressed and were six times less likely to startle to simulated predator attacks compared to fish tested without boats nearby," said Dr Stephen Simpson, of the University of Exeter who led the study, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
The team of scientists included Australian and Canadian researchers specialising in predator¬-prey interactions and bioacousticians from the University of Bristol.
They combined laboratory and field experiments, using playbacks and real boat noise, to test the impact of motorboat noise on survival of young Ambon damselfish during encounters with their natural predator the dusky dottyback.
"We found that when real boats were motoring near to young damselfish in open water, they became stressed and were six times less likely to startle to simulated predator attacks compared to fish tested without boats nearby," said Dr Simpson.
The team is optimistic about the possibilities for management of noise and its potential impact. "If you go to the Great Barrier Reef, there is a lot of noise from motorboats in some places. But unlike many pollutants we can more easily control noise. We can choose when and where we make it, and with new technologies, we can make less noise. For example, we could create marine quiet zones or buffer zones, and avoid known sensitive areas or times of year when juveniles are abundant," said Professor McCormick. Managing local environmental stressors such as noise is an essential first step in protecting the marine environment.
"You might argue that climate change is a bigger threat to reef life, but if we can reduce the effect of local noise pollution we build greater resilience in reef communities to looming threats such as global warming and ocean acidification," said collaborator Dr Mark Meekan, Australian Institute of Marine Science. | <urn:uuid:e4a85c7c-40b5-4e93-b63c-384a5e705833> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-02/acoe-mng020316.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396538.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00180-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963325 | 535 | 3.515625 | 4 |
There are tons of studies about how to improve learning, but what happens when we want to unlearn is less clear. Research on learning by association goes back to Pavlov’s famous experiments in which he taught a dog to expect food at the sound of a bell, but scientists have found that getting a dog — or human — to forget an association once they’ve learned it is really hard.
A new paper published in Perspectives on Psychological Science describes how scientists have attempted to change associations. In one study, scientists reported that they had been able to reverse subjects’ racial bias by getting them to associate black faces with smiling, and in another investigation, researchers got familiar names to feel less familiar by changing how clearly they could be read. But Marc Coutanche (University of Pennsylvania) and Sharon Thompson-Schill (University of Pennsylvania), the authors of the Perspectives study, suspected there might be something else going on when people appeared to have lost an association. It just isn’t likely, they insist, that a lifetime of learning can by reversed by 45 minutes in the lab.
So they delved into the field of associative learning to find out more about what happens when associations are “unlearned.” The fact that the subjects are encountering the situation in a lab instead of in the real world might set the stage for learning a new association, he says. Or they might be learning to associate some other cue in the lab environment with a feeling.
It may not always matter what people are learning as long as they’re changing their reactions. In clinical practice, for example, the goal is often to give people new associations; when you’re helping someone get over a phobia, the precise mechanism is less important than the result. Whether they’re changing an old association or learning a new one, as long as they don’t turn to jelly in the presence of a spider, the therapy is a success. But for psychologists who are doing science, Coutanche says, “We need to be careful about drawing strong interpretations of these kind of studies.”
Coutanche, M., & Thompson-Schill, S. (2012). Reversal Without Remapping: What We Can (and Cannot) Conclude About Learned Associations From Training-Induced Behavior Changes Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7 (2), 118-134 DOI: 10.1177/1745691611434211
Leave a comment below and continue the conversation. | <urn:uuid:301342a3-b177-483d-8acf-ae75db41976a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/obsonline/the-perils-of-trying-to-unlearn.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00156-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94872 | 515 | 3 | 3 |
|Memo to Students||Needs Assessment||Greenhouse Basics||Building Design||Funding|
|Project Approval||Construction||Leadership||Student Assessment||General Resources|
At some point in the project, each participant will be required to take the role of group leader/facilitator. As the leader, you are responsible for ensuring:
all members of your group have an important role in the project work communication occurs within the group and between physical science and building trades students (if it is a mixed group) communication occurs between groups vertically: i.e. lean to building design group communicates with science dept needs assessment group laterally: i.e. lean to building design group communicates with the bay window and detached other design groups communication occurs with instructors (Ms. Ahern, Mrs. Badger, Mr. Ross) work progresses according to the established timeline final product is completed by deadline
The first assignment you and your group will need to undertake is to plan how you will accomplish your task. A good technique to use is known as "backwards planning." Begin by looking at the deadline for project completion. What must be done by then? What intermediate steps will need to be completed in order to prepare those things? What can be done now?
Once you have a handle on the tasks which need to be completed, individuals or small groups of 2-3 people can be assigned to complete each task. Set intermediate deadlines. Determine how often and when you need to meet again as a large group to make decisions. Decide how you will communicate with each other between these large group meetings.
As the group leader, you are ultimately responsible for delivering the following items to the teachers at the designated points during the work on your project component.
Item Due Date First Meeting Agenda Two Days Prior to Meeting Timeline & Assignments Two Days After Initial Meeting Midterm Progress Report Half way between first meeting and final deadline Final Progress Report Two days after project due date
As you work on these pieces, you may want to refer to the leadership component rubric. The leadership component is worth 50 points of the final project grade.
Some links that may help you with "backwards planning" are:
University of Lincolnshire & Humberside's Student's Union Goal Setting, Planning, and Implementation Page provides a great overview of the planning process. Emerging Leader Top Ten Lessons Learned describes the importance and effectiveness of backwards planning. Weber State University Student Activities Time Management provides hints on managing time, planning effective meetings, and backwards planning.
Quality leadership is a fine art. It requires you to set an example and support and motiviate your group members. Threats, intimidation, and dictorial demands will generally not result in production of quality work. Some relevant resources you may want to review include:
Student Leadership Guide of the University of Lincolnshire & Humberside provides a number of useful pages including suggestions for working in groups, time management, communication, and preparing for meetings. Some Thoughts on Effective Leadership Lists key characteristics of leaders and points they should keep in mind. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Leaders & Characteristics of Visionary Leaders Brief look at some interesting facets of leadership The Functions and Characteristics of Leadership A Powerpoint presentation covering such topics as what makes people leaders, a dozen guidelines to effective leadership, and leadership approaches. Leadership Characteristics and Skills Survey A rubric where you can self-evaluate your leadership skills--lists 50 points that leaders should keep in mind. Leadership by the South Carolina 4-H club. Easy to read overview of leadership skills Big Dogs Leadership Page--Links A comprehensive list of resources including some of those listed above.
Created for the Fermilab LInC program sponsored by Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Education Office and Friends of Fermilab, and funded by United States Department of Energy, Illinois State Board of Education, North Central Regional Technology in Education Consortium which is operated by North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL), and the National Science Foundation.
Authors: Ina Ahern, Mardean Badger, and Doug Ross
School: Plymouth Regional High School, Plymouth, NH
Created: March 21,1999 - Updated: May 03, 1999 | <urn:uuid:891f0706-fb32-444f-8dd4-842820c8c592> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ed.fnal.gov/lincon/w99/projects/greenhouse/studentpages/leader.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00021-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930552 | 854 | 2.546875 | 3 |
The seasonal occurrence, soil distribution and flight characteristics of Curculio sayi (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) in mid-Missouri
Metadata[+] Show full item record
Chestnut trees were once a dominant sight across the deciduous forest of the eastern and central United States, but following a devastating blight in the early 1900's much of the native range for this tree species has been lost. As interest in the restoration of the American chestnut tree increases, and as commercial production of chestnut fruit is being developed using blight resistant cultivars from Asia, a large quantity of both native and hybridized trees are coming into maturity and nut production across the United States. The two weevil species in the United States, the greater chestnut weevil (Curculio caryatrypes, Boheman) and the lesser chestnut weevil (Curculio sayi, Gyllenhal) attack ripening chestnut fruit, and they can devastate a chestnut operation. Of these two species, the lesser chestnut weevil (C. sayi) has long been reported as the most common and most damaging chestnut pest insect species. Our study shows a bimodal emergence pattern for C. sayi, a finding not previously documented for this species of chestnut weevil. Emergence patterns were consistent over the three years of this study, with the largest numbers of adults appearing in May and September each year. Underground study results indicate a minimum of 15 months in larval diapause prior to adult development for C. sayi. Most of the larvae emerged as adults in the second year, though some may hold over to emerge the third year. The flight ability of C. sayi allows them to travel up to 3 kilometers in a single flight, though average distances per flight were closer to 500 meters. There were no major differences in flight ability between the genders. This study lays the basic biological and ecological ground work required for continued research into C. sayi, and for the establishment of educated pest management. | <urn:uuid:1c9389aa-b688-43c2-a63e-e0cdd7227096> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/handle/10355/5028 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00111-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950778 | 418 | 3.28125 | 3 |
View Full Version : Load Meter For Lathe
03-25-2001, 12:08 PM
I'm in the process of making V-belt pulleys for my South Bend 10K lathe as shown in MW a couple months ago. Without belt slip, the motor will be working to its limit. I have seen on new CNC machining centers a gauge that tells the operator what percentage load capacity the motor is working at. I would like to have a similar feature on my lathe. Is it an amp meter? does anyone have an idea as to how this works? Thanks!!
03-25-2001, 06:38 PM
I am not sure what you saw, but for measuring
amps, a simple technique is to use one of those meters that clamp over one of the lines feeding the motor. The one I have has a locking switch so the reading you have will be saved.
Also, the one I have has a interconnect that goes between a 110v outlet and a plug, so you can read that way (also with a 10 times) section to get precise amps for low readings.
Of course if you are using 220v, this won't work, but then the exposing of one lead is needed. I find this method is quite nice for other things, such as seeing what a welder takes under varying outputs.
Good luck, Cliff Lawson
04-04-2002, 09:14 PM
you can't determine the motor load by measuring the input amperes and voltage. You need a wattmeter and they are expensive. Probably the best way of measuring how loaded a motor is is to take its temperature when it has been run under constant load for a long time (long enough to stabilize its temp). For short term loads, measure the RPM (for fixed speed motors).
For intermittant use, if the motor can pull it, the motor isnt overloaded - but that doesnt mean it wont get hot and fail. Its hard to define what the HP rating of a motor is. You can pull lots of power for short times (duty cycle rating) or less power for longer times.
Running the motor unloaded and measuring the amps will give near the same figure from no load to full load until the motor begins to slow too much, at which time it will develope LESS horse power and more heat and draw more current.
This is all related to "Power Factor" and PF explains why you need a watt meter not an amp meter to measure AC power
04-04-2002, 10:19 PM
Docsteve66 is correct. Measuring current only work for purely resistive load. Motor is highly inductive so the phase relationship of the current and the voltage will largely determine the power consumption.
04-05-2002, 11:27 PM
Load meters are generally driven by a circuit in a speed control for the motor.The speed control measures the current the motor draws and compares it against what it should be for a given speed. It is not just a straight current measurement of motor draw, although it is a good approximation.
04-06-2002, 01:32 AM
All you have to remember is if it starts to grunt or the belts start screaming or smoking - back off. Since you do not have to worry about production times a load meter is a waste of money.
However, some VFD units can drive a 0-100mA. meter from a special circuit or display the load on the front panel or programming unit. If you have a fully progammable VFD your might have that feature - but don't sweat it, you don't need it.
04-09-2002, 09:11 PM
Thanks all for the informative responses! After having it done shortly after my original post- check the date- I have to say that this is a great upgrade! Thrud- you are right to say I don't need a load meter. The 1/2 horse 110volt motor pulls well until it slows to the point that the starter switch engages. It is very easy to tell when it slows even a small amount as well. Don't worry, I rarely load it that far! But, I still worry about production times! Tomorrow's job is 100 aluminum bearing housings 2.5 inches in dia with the bearing fit to be within .00005! Thanks again for all the replies and all the great knowledge found in this board!!
04-10-2002, 06:17 AM
1/2 HP is a little light for that machine. Scrounge up a 1 or 1-1/2 HP, and you will really take advantage of the V-belt drive. | <urn:uuid:99de3ff8-ded7-49b9-a511-d64a16e95be4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/archive/index.php/t-16654.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00073-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938115 | 959 | 2.578125 | 3 |
There are 55 small airports that benefited from a Congressional exemption meant to protect airports that suffered a steep drop in air travel after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Worecster Regional Airport, ORH, is one of them.
Congress passed an amendment in December 2003 that waived a yearly minimum 10,000-passenger count requirement to be designated a primary airport and receive the $1 million in improvement grants that go with the classification.The bill, known as the Small Airport Relief Act, created a "virtual primary" designation for airports that had more than 10,000 enplanements in 2000 or 2001 but dropped below that in 2002 or 2003.But the bill is set to expire Sept. 30.
If it's not extended, airports falling short of 10,000 annual enplanements (ORH) would receive only a $150,000 annual allotment from the federal Airport Improvement Program. Overnight our approximately $2,000,000 operating deficit becomes $2,850,000. Congress has to pass an amendment to get funding into the Department of Transportation appropriations bill by October 1st, 2005.
The Suicide Paradox (Rebroadcast) - There are more than twice as many suicides as murders in the U.S., but suicide attracts far less scrutiny. Freakonomics Radio digs through the numbers an...
12 hours ago | <urn:uuid:9b9b0284-896a-4463-a942-f045c5138c75> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://worcesterma.blogspot.com/2005/09/small-airport-relief-act.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398873.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00084-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964417 | 275 | 2.53125 | 3 |
With more than 254 million registered vehicles navigating roads and highways each year in the U.S., auto safety remains an important issue in preventing accidents and breakdowns. Though accidents often occur at the fault of the driver, many times, automotive companies and manufacturers are found to be at fault for injuries and accidents due to defective vehicles or parts.
Vehicle Safety Issues
Each year, the U.S. National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHSTA) tests new or redesigned cars, trucks, vans, and sports utility vehicles according to a five-star safety rating system to ensure that all vehicles are held to the same safety standards. All vehicles are measured for crashworthiness, or the ability to withstand collisions and protect passengers during front- and side-impact crashes and rollovers.
Certain safety precautions can help greatly reduce the risk of motor vehicle accidents, such as the use of seatbelts and new technology for airbags and stability control. The NHTSA often recommends new safety features such as electronic stability control (ESC) and side airbag technology to greater reduce the chance of serious injury in a crash.
Safety issues often addressed by the NHSTA include:
- Roof crush
- SUV rollover potential
- Sudden unintended acceleration (SUA), such as in the 2009-2010 Toyota recalls
Vehicle Defects and Recalls
Auto safety recalls are frequently issued by vehicle manufacturers and the NHTSA to address reported safety concerns with certain vehicle makes and models. Recalls can range in magnitude and scope from affecting only a few hundred units with a small defective part, to affecting millions of a certain model year that may have a serious mechanical defect, such as the millions of vehicles that were recalled in the massive Toyota floor mat recall or due to the Toyota sudden unintended acceleration issue.
Some vehicle safety features are found to be defective, which poses a risk to consumers when they trust that safety devices will protect them in the event of a crash or other emergency situations.
Dangerous automotive defects that are often reported or recalled include: | <urn:uuid:6e96a16c-eea4-40de-8b5e-f39e3f28632a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.consumerwatch.com/vehicles | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397744.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00002-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963638 | 416 | 2.765625 | 3 |
I've never seen a summer like this in Kansas, and the extent of the hot and dry covers much of the nation. While the primary effect of the drought is on field crops such as corn and soybeans, there is no doubt vegetable crops in the Midwest have also suffered. Here is a statement by American Farm Bureau on the drought.
Statement by Bob Stallman, President,
American Farm Bureau Federation,
Regarding 2012 Drought
July 19, 2012
“The most widespread drought in a generation has imposed great stress on people, crops and livestock. While the full impact on the nation won’t be known for several months, many farmers already know they won’t have a crop. Ranchers and livestock producers are having difficulties getting feed and forage for their livestock. The on-farm economic impacts are real and serious.
“From a policy perspective, it is important to remember that we don’t yet know the drought’s impact on the food supply and food prices, though we are seeing effects on feed prices. The drought’s effect on the 2012 corn crop is all the more dramatic because of the initial projections that U.S. farmers would harvest the largest corn crop ever. The latest forecasts still suggest we are on pace to produce the third or fourth largest corn crop on record. While the true extent of the damage will not be known until harvest is completed, we expect USDA’s August crop report, which is now being compiled to be released in three weeks, will provide a clearer picture as it will include actual in-the-field surveys. And we know, quite often, if conditions do not improve, the biggest impact comes in the following crop year.
“Data suggests that most of the corn and other row crops in the drought-stricken regions are covered by crop insurance. It’s often a different story for producers of other crops. Fruit producers in the upper Midwest had entire crops wiped out this spring by late freezes and other producers have had crop losses due to excessive rains and late-season blizzards. That is why we have called for a strengthened federal crop insurance program.
“This drought and the uncertainty it is causing farmers and ranchers and other segments of our industry underscores the importance of completing action on the 2012 farm bill. Providing farmers with improved risk management tools is a core principle of both the House and Senate versions of the pending farm bill, one we have strongly advocated. Both the Senate-passed and House Agriculture Committee versions contain new tools that will assist farmers, while restoring several expired provisions that would help livestock producers manage the weather-related risks that regularly impact their livelihoods. We remain hopeful congressional leaders will expedite their work on this vital legislation.
“As the effects of the drought continue to unfold, AFBF appreciates the actions taken to date by USDA based on its existing authorities. We will be working closely with USDA and Congress to determine if there are other practical solutions that could help producers not covered by crop insurance or other disaster mitigation tools.”
TK: Check out the government's "State of the Climate" web page here and another drought monitor here. Crop observers say nearly 80% of the corn and soybeans growing in the U.S. are affected by the drought, and warn consumers to brace for higher prices. | <urn:uuid:9bcff40e-5869-41ad-b935-24abf4edbcf6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.thepacker.com/opinion/fresh-talk-blog/Drought-hits-food-prices-163370546.html?view=all | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398516.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00104-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959312 | 685 | 2.609375 | 3 |
The soil and vegetation of the state of Rajasthan varies with its wide-ranging topography of arid plains or parched regions, hilly tracts of the Aravalis, the flood prone plains of Eastern Rajasthan and the oldest range of fold mountains- Aravali Hills.
The ground water level is very low due to over-exploitation and the limited, erratic rainfall averaging 360mm per year allows the growth of scanty, shrub -like thorny vegetation. Grasses and species like P. cineraria grow in the regions where little water is available. Water level is available only at a depth of 30 to 61m. However food crops are grown in the plains that are drained by the rivers and streamlets owing to the alluvial and clay soil deposits. The hilly tracts of the Aravali are characterized by the black, lava soils that sustain the growth of cotton and sugarcane.
The types of soil available in Rajasthan are mostly sandy, saline, alkaline and chalky (calcareous). Clay, loamy, black lava soil and nitrogenous soils are also found.
The following are the Soil and Vegetation belts in Rajasthan that are classified owing to the topographical divisions of the state-
Western Desert Regions
The districts of Jaisalmer, Bikaner, Barmer, Jalor, Jodhpur, Ganganagar, Sirohi, Jhunjhunu, Pali and Sikar have alkaline and saline soils with a calcareous base. There is some nitrate concentration in the soil of these regions. The Jaisalmer region has Aeolian sand that varies from sandy to sandy loam. In fact Jaisalmer is renowned for its sandstone. Due to lack of water availability vegetation comprises of only thorny bush and cactuses. There is only seasonal vegetation such as a few grass species, shrubs and dwarf trees.
Irrigated North western plain
The whole district of Ganganagar consists of alluvial and Aeolian soil as it is flooded by the Ghaggar River. The Gang Canal and Bhakhra Canal enables the flow of water and hence this area is filled with lush vegetation and food crops consisting of maize, guar, sesamum, wheat, mustard, gram, fruits and so on.
Semi - Arid Eastern Plains
The four districts of Dausa, Tonk, Jaipur and Ajmer are watered by river Banas and its tributaries and thus the fertile soil sustains mixed xerophytic and mesophytic vegetation. Cultivation crops like barley, gram, wheat, mustard are grown in the rabi season.
Flood Prone Eastern Plains
The flood plains of Rajasthan consist of the districts of Bharatpur, Alwar and Dhaulpur and the northern region of Sawai Madhopur which are flooded by the river Ghambhiri and Banganga. Thus this region is the repository of alluvial, clay and loamy soil.
The Aravali Hills & Sub-humid Southern Plains
The Bhilwara district and the major parts of Udaipur district, Chittaurgarh district, Sirohi district and the tract of Aravali Hills forms a part of inter-mountain plateau an consists of dark- lava soils. Major cash crops like cotton and sugarcane are grown in this black soil region. Other food crops are also grown.
Humid South-Eastern Plains
The Hadauti plateau includes the districts of Baran, Bundi, Jhalawar and Kota and so on that have black soil. This region is fertile owing to the presence of the Chambal River and its distributaries and cotton,sugarcane and opium are grown.
Some districts of Rajasthan such as Dungarpur, Banswara, Udaipur, Bhilwara and Chittaurgarh have red and yellowish soils.
Last Updated on : 01 December 2011 | <urn:uuid:4f17d093-bebb-47ad-9577-7c777b5d6759> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mapsofindia.com/maps/rajasthan/geography-history/soil-vegetation.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00195-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934785 | 834 | 3.375 | 3 |
The goal of the Creating Urban Riparian Buffers (CURB) program is to improve water quality and wildlife habitat of streams that flow through the urban centers of Walla Walla and College Place. The best way to achieve this is to plant native trees, shrubs and grasses, creating a buffer between the stream and development. These areas are called “riparian buffers.” They are highly effective at preventing water contaminated with pesticides, fertilizers, and other chemicals from entering our streams. When mature, the trees provide shade to keep water cool and their roots help stabilize the stream banks. The CURB program is a cooperative program drawing on the talents and expertise of Tri-State Steelheaders, Kooskooskie Commons, and the District with funding from the Department of Ecology.
Although the CURB funding has been cut, the District still offers technical expertise to help homeowners plant a riparian buffer along their backyard streams. Buffers of predominately native plants can be designed for minimal maintenance, low-water consumption, and to compliment the landscape of your backyard. Native plants are available from these Native Plant Sources. If you are interested in receiving help in designing a CURB buffer for your backyard, call the District at 522-6340 ext.3.
- Homeowner’s guide to Riparian Buffers
- Curb Buffer General Plan | <urn:uuid:1bcbf3be-79e4-4444-989b-874575370f82> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wwccd.net/programs/curb | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00054-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936531 | 282 | 3.046875 | 3 |
The quantum dot has been held out as a potential game-changer in the field solid-state lighting for some time now.
However, if one were to offer a possible knock against quantum dot-based devices in this area, it could be at their lack of efficiency. What happens is that current flow escapes between the quantum dots (QD) in a QD layer rather than through the QDs themselves.
To combat this researchers at Harvard University have developed an atomic layer deposition process that deposits the QDs in a single layer along with an aluminum oxide (Al2O3) insulating layer. According to Edward Likovich, the best metaphor for the new arrangement is that of a carton of eggs, with the eggs being the QDs.
“The process provides a mechanical and energetic barrier between adjacent quantum dots, so the current tends to flow perpendicularly as opposed to being dissipated among dots in the layer,” says Likovich in the Material Research Society article linked to above. “Also, because we have this mechanical barrier between the dots, we can do post-processing to remove the ligands while holding the dots in place, preventing agglomeration.”
The research, which was published in the journal Advanced Materials, essentially fills the interstices between the QDs with the insulating aluminum oxide forcing the current to flow through the QDs and thereby increasing the light-emission yield. | <urn:uuid:f2db94c9-937c-4585-ac66-87f3eee2e599> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/nanotechnology/eggcarton-solution-to-improving-efficiency-of-quantum-dots | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396887.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00152-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954492 | 294 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Celebrating an aviation legend
The classic DC-3 marks 70 years in the air
The DC-3 has been flying since December 1935.
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS
(CNN) -- In the world of aviation there are some aircraft that hold a special place in history and become legends of the skies.
The DC-3 was such a plane, mixing design, economics and durability in a combination that would revolutionize the airline travel industry.
By today's standards it might not look like much: twin propellers, a chunky metal body and none of the sleek, sophisticated design of a modern aircraft.
Nevertheless, the DC-3 remains one of the most famous and best-loved planes ever built.
Like many great designs, the aircraft was the product of competition -- a fierce rivalry between Douglas aircraft and Boeing years before the two manufacturers would merge.
A marathon phone call with the head of American Airlines gave Donald Douglas his brief: build a plane for passengers to compete with trains, and the Boeing 247 being flown by United Airlines.
The result was airborne in December 1935.
The DC-3 was one of the first airplanes designed with passenger comfort in mind.
Some of the originals had flat beds and curtains on the windows. Although it was noisy by today's standards, in its day it was one of the quietest around.
It had the latest in technology, an autopilot, a retractable undercarriage and an aerodynamic nose.
But its biggest assets were reliability, safety and durability -- the wings were so strong that not even a bulldozer could crush them.
A bigger dent was made in U.S. travel, providing airlines with their first profits independent of subsidies or mail contracts.
"Prior to the advent of the DC-3, crossing the States was something of an obstacle race and certainly an endurance race. It took around 18-20 hours," aviation historian Hugh Cowin told CNN.
"The DC-3 took it down to 14 trans-Atlantic and that made air travel a lot more credible in a lot more people's eyes."
Soon, orders were mounting as the DC-3 carried the global surge in commercial aviation.
Military orders pushed production beyond 10,000, mainly with the DC-3 modified as the C-47, also known as the Dakota.
It also gained a permanent place in the hearts of passengers and crewmen like World War II mechanic Alan Hartley.
"They were a wonderful aircraft and so safe. As a mechanic, we had very little to do, they were so reliable the Dakota," he said.
And today, 70 years from their first flight, about 200 of the planes remain in operation -- a tribute to this legend of the skies.
CNN's Jim Boulden and Andrew Demaria contributed to this report.
|© 2007 Cable News Network.
A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines. Contact us. Site Map. | <urn:uuid:d47a2ab3-182c-4314-82da-c4f055211d19> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cnn.com/2006/TRAVEL/01/17/dakota.anniversary/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398628.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00154-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973929 | 623 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Although long-term government interest rates are now very low, they are beginning to rise in response to the outlook for a sharply rising national debt. The national debt held by US and foreign investors totaled about 40 percent of GDP at the end of last year. It is likely to rise to more than 60 percent of GDP by the end of next year, with the debt-to-GDP ratio continuing to increase. The resulting increase in real long-term interest rates will reduce all forms of interest-sensitive spending, adding further to the economy’s weakness.
So it is not clear what will occur to reverse the decline in GDP and end the economic downturn. Will a sharp US dollar depreciation cause exports to rise and imports to fall? Will a rapid rise in the inflation rate reduce the real value of government, household and commercial debt, leading to lower saving and more spending? Or will something else come along to turn the economy around.
Only time will tell.
Martin Feldstein, professor of economics at Harvard, was a former chairman of former president Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisors and a former president of the National Bureau for Economic Research.
COPYRIGHT: PROJECT SYNDICATE | <urn:uuid:ab8bd042-fd80-4e31-b28c-2ee2c3c95b44> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2009/03/03/2003437472/2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00034-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946847 | 247 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Composting Poultry Carcasses in Missouri
The following abstract describes a publication that is only available for purchase. A link to ordering information is on this page.
Charles D. Fulhage
Department of Agricultural Engineering
Extension Farm Management Specialist, Cassville
Natural Resources Conservation Service Area Engineer, Springfield
Director, Southwest Missouri Resource Conservation and Development, Inc.
The text explains the general nature of how composting works; how to construct the right type and size of compost bin(s) for your poultry operation; and where to locate bins within your production site. Worksheets for designing composters are included. Discussion of economic considerations is included as well.
- Managing mortalities
- Disposal method. | <urn:uuid:edb13dad-e2b3-4c01-a75a-a984791404a8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.extension.missouri.edu/p/WQ205 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00005-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.866393 | 148 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Ruptured plaques can be deadly
Scientists have identified a genetic mechanism which appears to determine which fatty deposits in the arteries have the potential to kill us.
Most of these plaques pose no risk to health, but a minority burst, forming blood clots, which can cause heart attacks or strokes.
A Columbia University team pinpointed a gene which seems to make plaques more vulnerable to rupture.
The American study appears in the journal Cell Metabolism.
Fatty deposits begin to form in the arteries of most people in their teens, but the vast majority are harmless.
However, it is thought that around 2% of plaques have the potential to burst.
This can lead to the development of a clot, which can restrict blood supply to the heart or brain, with potentially grave consequences.
Scientists believe one of the key factors determining whether a plaque will burst is the make up of its inner core.
The inner core of plaques vulnerable to rupture often contains a lot of dead cells.
These cells release substances that can weaken the surface cap of the plaque, making rupture more likely.
The Columbia team identified a gene thought to play a key role in the build up of these dead cells.
The researchers bred mice prone to develop plaques, and fed them a high-fat diet for 10 weeks.
The animals which lacked the key gene tended to produce smaller plaques, and to show markedly lower levels of cell death and plaque degradation.
The gene in question produces a protein which plays a central role in a mechanism used by the body to kill off cells that are damaged and unhealthy.
This mechanism key to ensuring our tissues remain in good working order.
But there is some evidence to suggest that the process may sometimes become too aggressive, and may lead to problems such as neurodegenerative diseases and diabetes.
And the latest study suggests it may also turn benign plaques potentially deadly.
Lead researcher Dr Ira Tabas said that previous research had suggested that this mechanism might be involved in plaque rupture, but the magnitude of the effect uncovered in the latest study was a surprise.
He said: "The fact that we were able to isolate one gene encoding one protein with such a profound effect on plaque necrosis (death) was a big surprise."
Dr Tabas said the finding raised hopes of new drugs which could act on the key gene, or the associated mechanism, to cut the risk of dangerous plaques.
"Just about everybody in our society has atherosclerosis (thickening of the arteries) by the time we reach 20," he said.
"So the wave of the future in treating atherosclerosis will be in preventing harmless lesions in young people from becoming dangerous ones, or soothing dangerous plaques so they don't rupture as we age."
Alasdair Little, a cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: "This is a very interesting biological study to identify why some plaques that cause coronary artery disease may lead to a heart attack and others do not.
"However, many more years of investigation and study will be needed before it informs clinical practice for the treatment of heart disease." | <urn:uuid:7ce52076-3298-44c3-9c25-acb1ceaa3d21> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8033205.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00137-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955911 | 644 | 3.5625 | 4 |
A geode is a rock that contains crystals in a hollow cavity. When geodes are split open, you can see the crystals inside the rock. The crystals in geodes come in different colors, due to different minerals found in the environment around the geode. You can clean a geode with bleach and denture cleaner. Oxalic acid, which is also called wood bleach, will remove iron deposit stains from a geode. Use these tips to clean geodes.
Use Bleach and Denture Cleaner to Clean Geodes
1Prepare the sink.
- Plug the sink's drain with a drain stopper.
- Lay a rubber mat or towel in the basin of the sink. The rubber mat or towel will prevent scratches to the sink, and will help keep the geode steady.
2Place the geode on the mat or towel in the sink. The hollow crystal portion of the geode should face up.
3Put detergent into the geode. Pour 1 tsp. (5 ml) of dishwashing detergent inside the hollow crystal portion of the geode.
4Immerse the geode.
- Run the tap water until the geode is completely immersed in water.
- Allow the geode to remain in the water for 15 minutes. Soaking the geode will remove the first layer of dirt and dust.
- Remove the geode from the sink.
5Soak the geode again.
- Place the geode in a bucket. The hollow crystal portion of the geode should face up.
- Fill the bucket with enough water to immerse the geode completely.
- Add � cup (60 ml) of bleach to the bucket.
- Allow the geode to remain in the bleach water for 2 days. This second round of soaking will remove the more substantial layers of dirt inside the geode.
- Remove the geode from the bucket. Use rubber gloves on your hands when removing the geode.
6Scrub the geode.
- Apply denture cleaner to a toothbrush with soft bristles.
- Use the toothbrush to scrub the crystals of the geode gently.
- Continue to scrub the crystals until no dirt lingers. Ensure that you have scrubbed all of the surfaces of the crystals. Reapply the denture cleaner to the toothbrush as necessary.
7Rinse the geode.
- Rinse the geode in warm water.
- Set the geode on a towel to dry. Ensure that the geode is resting in a well-ventilated space.
Use Oxalic Acid to Clean Geodes
1Mix the oxalic acid.
- Pour distilled water into a plastic 1 gallon (3.8 L) bucket. The water should fill 75% of the bucket.
- Empty a 1 lb. (.45 kg) box of oxalic acid into the bucket. Oxalic acid is available at most home improvement or hardware stores.
- Use a long spoon to blend the water and acid for 5 minutes.
- Add enough distilled water to the bucket to fill the bucket completely.
2Soak the geode.
- Set the geode into a plastic container.
- Pour the water and oxalic acid into the container until you have covered the geode.
- Soak the geode until all stains have disappeared. The time it takes to remove the stains depends upon the concentration of the stains. Stain removal may require a few hours or a few days.
3Remove the geode.
- Place rubber gloves on your hands.
- Take the geode out of the oxalic acid and water.
4Rinse the geode. Rinse the geode with warm water.
5Soak the geode.
- Place the geode in a bucket.
- Fill the bucket with enough water to cover the geode.
- Allow the geode to remain in the water for 1 day. Change the water frequently.
- Remove the geode.
6Allow the geode to dry.
- Wear a face mask when working with oxalic acid.
Things You'll Need
- Drain stopper
- Rubber mat or towel
- Dishwashing detergent
- Denture cleaner
- 1 lb. (.45 kg) box of oxalic acid
- 1 gallon (3.8 L) plastic bucket
- Distilled water
- Plastic container
- Rubber gloves
- Long spoon | <urn:uuid:39ddf81e-74ef-455c-8c31-6a6c5c253e4b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wikihow.com/Clean-Geodes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00173-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.813833 | 929 | 2.796875 | 3 |
The murals on the inner walls of each of the nine tiers of the temple’s gopuram (tower) resemble those of the Vijayanagara and
T. Satyamurthy, the former Superintending Archaeologist, Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and one of the founders of the REACH Foundation, called the murals at the Kalakkad temple ‘an amazing art gallery in each floor for the common man to see and relish the puranic themes in animation.’
They depict scenes from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, ‘Tiruvilayadal Puranam’ (Siva Leela), Siva’s marriage to Parvati, episodes from the life of Saivite saints of Tamil Nadu, Parvati riding a Hamsa vahana, Siva as Bhikshadana, the wedding of Saivite saint Sundarar and so on.
‘The animation in these murals is so superb that they look like modern visuals,’ Dr. Satyamurthy said. They have an influence of
of murals. These masterpieces provide a wealth of information on contemporary life in terms of costumes and ornaments worn by kings and commoners, hair style, musical instruments, and so on. The rishis are shown wearing many types of headgear. Some of the murals have labels belonging to the 17th century. Chola School
The paintings will be conserved by removing the dust, using chemicals if necessary, and re-fixing the plaster and filling the cracks with fresh plaster. Integration of paintings will then be done by removing the scrawls in them. | <urn:uuid:177fa848-8cfb-47b0-905c-d6c6d9b8d6b9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.hindu-blog.com/2008/05/kalakkad-shiva-temple-murals-to-get.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408828.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00113-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920907 | 354 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Hispanic New York
Also in print edition. Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2005.
Second edition (2008) of this authoritative, specialized encyclopedia. Completely searchable full-text reference source.
An interdisciplinary reference book to chronicle Latino contributions to art, culture and commerce in the United States. In its four volumes, 650 entries, 2000 pages and 1.2 million words, Encyclopedia Latina explores every aspect of Latino life in America from a myriad of perspectives, spanning the arts, media, cuisine, government and politics, science and technology, business, health, and sports, among others.
Encyclopedia of New York. [Print]
2nd edition. 2010. Edited by Columbia University Professor Kenneth T. Jackson.
Hispanic New York: A Sourcebook [Online]
Also in print edition. 2010. People referred to as Hispanics or Latinos have been part and parcel of New York since the beginning of the city's history. Hispanic New York is the first anthology to offer a comprehensive view of this multifaceted heritage. Edited by Claudio Iván Remeseira (Columbia University).
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. This tool may be useful for initial exploration and identification of organizations or individuals, as well as other popular sources found outside of academic resources. Articles may also provide a "further reading" section or bibliography that may direct you towards scholarly sources.
For brief instruction on Using Wikipedia for Academic Research, view this short video.
Expand your keyword search by using truncation:
hispan* finds hispano, hispanic, hispana, hispanos ...
Also consider: latin* chican* dominican* mexic* brazi* colomb* peru*
Combine those concepts into a search string: "Washington Heights" dominican*
Explore CLIO like a professional:
Hispanic Americans > New York (State) > New York.
Hispanic Americans > New York (State) > New York > Statistics.
Puerto Ricans > New York (State) > New York.
Dominican Americans > New York (State) > New York
Mexican Americans > New York (State) > New York
Colombians > New York (State) > New York.
Cuban Americans > New Jersey > Union City
Salvadorans > New York (State)
New York (N.Y.) > Emigration and immigration
Ethnicity > New York (State) > New York.
Neighborhoods > New York (State) > New York
Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)
East Harlem (New York, N.Y.)
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Washington Heights (New York, N.Y.)
Index of literature covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. The database indexes journals from 1964 to present and includes citations and links to book and media reviews.
Provides listings of all types of materials concerning the Mexican-American, Chicano, and broader Latino experience.
Full-text newspaper, magazine, and journal articles from the ethnic, minority, and native press in the U.S. Coverage is from 1960 to date.
In addition to Latin America, also covers the US-Mexico border, and Hispanics in the US. Index to citations from over 500 journals with links to full-text articles. Coverage: 1970 to the present.
Full-text Spanish-language newspapers printed in the U.S. during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Complete archival and current coverage of this major newspaper via various scholarly databases.
Online access to the web edition of this Spanish-language Hispanic newspaper published in New York City.
NOTE: Full-text articles from 1992 through the present of this newspaper are available via the Ethnic Newswatch database (linked above).
United States Census Bureau
A presentation that highlights past, present and future trends of the Hispanic population in the United States.
ZIP Code Definitions of New York City Neighborhoods (NY State Dept. of Health)
Map of ZIP Codes (NYC)
Mapping America: Every City, Every Block [New York Times]
Browse local data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, based on samples from 2005 to 2009.
By Professor William A. Bowen, California State University, Northridge. Data is principally for 1990, atlases are divided into six major topics, including Ancestry.
Published in 1996. Data for the 21 Latino neighborhoods and an additional 33 smaller Latino "sub-neighborhood" areas, along with statistics for the city as a whole and for each borough.
The City of New York, Michael R. Bloomberg, Department of City Planning, Amanda M. Burden.
Columbia University Libraries Research Guide.
Additional Online Resources
Columbia University Guides
Catalan, Hispanic, and Luso-Brazilian New York (Directory of NY area libraries and cultural centers)
Panel Discussion & Presentation of Hispanic New York: A Sourcebook (Columbia University Press, 2010)
Its goal is to provide to resources addressing Latina/o issues in the academic setting.
Archives of the Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños (Hunter College-CUNY)
Dominican Studies Institute Archives (City College of New York)
Houses the Latino Oral History Collection.
Ventanas al pasado (New York State Library)
Ventana al pasado is a bilingual web-based research collection that links the Latino-related records located in ten New York State archival repositories. Ventana brings together collections documenting the New York’s Latino/Hispanic community, and makes them accessible to researchers all over the world.
Archival Resources at Columbia
This photograph collection from El Diario La Prensa newspaper (the nation’s oldest continuously publishing Spanish-language newspaper), which dates from the 1960’s and includes over 5,000 photographs, documents the lives of New York City’s Latino population, their struggles and their contributions to the city and its culture. Acquired by the Rare Book and Manuscript Library in September 2013. [This collection is being processed. As of February 2014, a finding aid is not available. If you have questions, please contact the Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Jack Agueros (b. 1934) is a Puerto Rican-American poet, community activist, playwright, educator and a former director of El Museo del Barrio. He is the author of a collection of short stories and three collections of poetry. Jack Agueros's work across all mediums celebrates and highlights the complexities and struggles of the Puerto Rican American experience and more broadly the American experience. His poems typically implement traditional forms such as psalms and sonnets through which he explores subjects such as poverty, injustice and immigration. A prolific translator, during his career he translated numerous plays from Spanish to English as well as the complete works of the influential poets Julia de Burgos and Jose Marti.
Oscar Hijuelos was born to Cuban immigrants in 1951 in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of New York City. His novel, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, was published in 1989 and won The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1990 --the first novel by a Latino writer to win the prize. Since the enormous success of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, Hijuelos has written five novels, all of which depict the lives of Cuban-born or Cuban-descended characters living in the United States: The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien (1993), Mr. Ives' Christmas (1995), Empress of the Splendid Season (1999), A Simple Habana Melody (2002), and Dark Dude (2008). | <urn:uuid:1eb0589d-2b12-4328-965f-7c60b426ccde> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://library.columbia.edu/subject-guides/latinamerica/hispanic_nyc.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00002-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.890072 | 1,652 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Canning consists in sealing in air-tight cans or jars, fruit which has been previously boiled. It is a very simple process, but requires a thorough understanding of the scientific principles involved, and careful management, to make it successful. The result of painstaking effort is so satisfactory, however, it is well worth all the trouble, and fruit canning need not be a difficult matter if attention is given to the following details:—
Select self-sealing glass cans of some good variety. Tin cans give more trouble filling and sealing, are liable to affect the flavor of the fruit, and unless manufactured from the best of material, to impair its wholesomeness. Glass cans may be used more than once, and are thus much more economical. Those with glass covers, or porcelain-lined covers, are best. Test the cans to see if they are perfect, with good rubbers and covers that fit closely, by partly filling them with cold water, screwing on the tops, and placing bottom upward upon the table for some time before using. If none of the water leaks out, they may be considered in good condition. If the cans have been previously used, examine them with special care to see that both cans and covers have been carefully cleaned, then thoroughly sterilize them, and fit with new rubbers when necessary.
Cans and covers should be sterilized by boiling in water for half an hour, or by baking in an oven, at a temperature sufficient to scorch paper, for two hours. The cans should be placed in the water or oven when cold, and the temperature allowed to rise gradually, to avoid breaking. They should be allowed to cool gradually, for the same purpose.
Select only the best of fruit, such as is perfect in flavor and neither green nor over-ripe. Fruit which has been shipped from a distance, and which is consequently not perfectly fresh, contains germs in active growth, and if the least bit musty, it will be almost sure to spoil, even though the greatest care may be taken in canning.
Poor fruit will not be improved by canning; over-ripe fruit will be insipid and mushy; and though cooking will soften hard fruit, it cannot impart to it the delicate flavors which belong to that which is in its prime. The larger varieties of fruit should not be quite soft enough for eating. Choose a dry day for gathering, and put up at once, handling as little as possible. Try to keep it clean enough to avoid washing. If the fruit is to be pared, use a silver knife for the purpose, as steel is apt to discolor the fruit. If the fruit is one needing to be divided or stoned, it will be less likely to become broken if divided before paring. | <urn:uuid:498ce7d6-69de-472c-964c-9d2162501241> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/12238/141.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398873.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00012-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965539 | 568 | 2.875 | 3 |
Approximately 4,200 women die from cervical cancer each year and research shows when African-American women are diagnosed they are twice as likely to die as their Caucasian peers.
Regular Pap smear testing is vital in preventing and diagnosing the disease, otherwise a woman will not know she has it.
At age 25, that was Tamika Felder’s experience. If not for a doctor’s visit to investigate a boil under her arm, Felder would not have known that she had cervical cancer.
“After I graduated from college, I got a freelance gig with no benefits. I went without health insurance for several years, which meant I could not get annual testing. Then I landed a job with insurance benefits. Shortly after I got the job, I went to the emergency room because of a boil, and the doctor happened to ask me when I had my last Pap smear,” says Felder, who was diagnosed in 2001.
“Since I had not had a Pap smear, the emergency room doctor ordered one and that is how I was diagnosed, otherwise I would not be here,” Felder says.
Following the diagnosis, Felder had a full or radical hysterectomy, chemotherapy and radiation—and was left without the ability to bear children. She also became one of the estimated 11,967 women who are diagnosed with cervical cancer every year.
The treatment, Felder says, “was very difficult and I felt like I lost my chance for a happily ever after, but when I think about women who are no longer here, I feel like I cannot complain because they left families behind.”
Although Hispanic women have higher incidences of cervical cancer compared to other ethnicities, African-American women are 40 percent more likely to develop the disease, and tend to have lower five-year survival rates, too. These statistics are often attributed to lack of regular Pap smear screenings, but one study sponsored by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities suggests this is also because African-American women have a more difficult time ridding the HPV virus from their systems.
“There are no symptoms for HPV and early cervical cancer is often asymptomatic,” says Dr. Estelle Whitney, a physician at Christiana Care Health Systems in Delaware. “So it’s important for women to get regular Pap smears.”
Felder used her difficult experience as an opportunity to educate and encourage others about cervical cancer. In 2005, she formed Tamika and Friends, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness about cervical cancer and its link to HPV. January is cervical health awareness month, and Felder stresses that routine screenings such as the Pap smear test make cervical cancer one of the most preventable forms of cancer.
Dr. Peter Grossman, an Augusta, Ga.-based obstetrician-gynecologist echoes that fact with other positive points about prevention and treatment.
“Well, there are four great things we know about cervical cancer: We have a precursor in cervical dysplasia (abnormal changes in the cells on the cervix surface); We know the cause, which is HPV; We have a great screening test with the Pap smear; and it takes a long time to develop, about 10 to 20 years from the initial exposure to HPV to the development of cervical cancer,” Grossman explains.
There are many different strains of HPV and Grossman says, “There are probably about 20 types associated with cancer of the genital tract, but 90 percent of them are associated with two particular strains, HPV 16 and HPV 18.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, vaccines [such as Gardisil® and Cervarix®] protect against the HPV types that most often cause cervical, vaginal, and vulvar cancers. Vaccines are recommended for 11- and 12-year-old girls, and also can be given to females ages 13–26 who did not get any or all of the shots when they were younger.
Risk factors include a compromised immune system, chlamydia, being overweight, multiple sexual partners, and unprotected sex. Smoking also compounds the risk of developing cervical cancer.
“[Cancer-causing molecules from smoking] embed themselves in cervical mucus, and women who smoke are less likely to clear the HPV virus,” Grossman says.
Though routine testing is critical, Pap smears are not 100 percent, Grossman says. There is a 20 to 30 percent chance of a false-negative where the test does not pick up a cancerous lesion.
In 2007, Quita Gibson was diagnosed with cervical cancer days after an annual Pap smear.
“I didn’t understand why it was happening to me because I did what I was supposed to. I got a Pap smear every year,” Gibson says.
Fortunately, Gibson was diagnosed at stage 1A1, which is early, and after discussing treatment options with her doctor, she elected to only remove her cervix instead of a full hysterectomy. Even so, she was told her chances of conceiving a child, or carrying a baby to term, would be slim even with fertility drugs. But Gibson became pregnant about two years after being cancer free. Her son Avion will be four this August.
Like Felder, Gibson uses her experience to raise awareness. She founded Walk2Inspire, and hosts information events and walks in her community.
Felder beat the odds, too, and she got the happily-ever-after she feared cervical cancer had robbed her of. She is engaged to be married this spring. “I am engaged to a wonderful man and he has a daughter, so I’m going to be a stepmom,” Felder says.
Felder admits she still has rough days sometimes, but finds strength in educating others about the importance of Pap smear testing.
“Preventing cervical cancer is the easy part. It’s one of the only cancers that we know cause of…and it’s one of the ones we can start winning the war against,” Felder says.
You’re at higher risk of developing cervical cancer if:
- You have chlamydia, a common sexually transmitted disease.
- You eat only a few fruits and vegetables.
- You are overweight.
- You take oral contraceptives (birth control pills).
- You have had multiple full-term pregnancies.
- Your mother or sister had cervical cancer.
- Your mother took a drug called diethylstilbestrol (DES) while she was pregnant with you. | <urn:uuid:68aaba9f-8e47-4059-a029-3dcba3a94d08> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://thegrio.com/2013/01/23/young-women-and-cervical-cancer-pap-smear-is-key/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00119-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97402 | 1,375 | 2.6875 | 3 |
During World War II, an Allied force of 7,000 men carry out a large daytime raid against German positions at the French seaport of Dieppe. Aided by tanks and aircraft, the commando force–made up of approximately 5,000 Canadians, 2,000 British soldiers, and a handful of American and Free French troops–gained a foothold on the beach in the face of a furious German defense. During nine hours of fighting, the Allies failed to destroy more than a handful of their targets and suffered the death of 3,600 men. More than 100 aircraft, a destroyer, 33 landing craft, and 30 tanks were also lost. Despite its high costs, the Dieppe raid provided valuable logistical information later used in planning the successful 1944 Allied landing at Normandy. | <urn:uuid:6402a87d-7c13-4b82-a22a-4b7a22f43256> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/allies-raid-dieppe | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00014-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963896 | 157 | 3.71875 | 4 |
Urbanization is increasing worldwide. Urban centers are characterized by negative environmental impacts including escalated flood risks, polluted surface waters, modification of the urban climate and increased water and energy consumption.
The increase of water-impermeable surfaces forces to play high priority on decentralized measures of rainwater retention. A new project in Berlin will feature a combination of stormwater management with energy saving through the greening of facades and the integration of adiabatic cooling systems. Both systems will be supplied with rainwater.
The following pages contain informations about this extraordinary urban ecological project. | <urn:uuid:1eb33200-52d8-4a61-a9f2-379fea4c31d7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.gebaeudekuehlung.de/en/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00190-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901636 | 116 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Ay, Successor to Tutankhamun
The 18th dynasty is one of the most interesting periods in Egypt's history, having such notable kings as Akhenaten, the heretic king, and such well known kings as Tutankhamun. Ay, who was probably an old man (at least 70) when he inherited the thrown from Tutankhamun, apparently inherited the thrown by marrying Tutankhamun's widow, Ankhesenamun. There seems to have been considerable intrigue to this marriage. This she likely did against her wishes, as Ay was probably her grandfather. Further, is would seem that she was not even regarded as a dominant wife, as paintings in his tomb usually showed Ay accompanied by Tiy, an older wife. In fact, we learn from Hittite archives that Ankhesenamun wrote to Suppiliumas, the Hittite king, requesting one of this sons for her to marry and make pharaoh. After some investigation by Suppiliumas, this request was granted, but his son, Zannanza was killed en-rout while traveling through Syria.
But evidence of Ankhesenamun's marriage to Ay was noted by Professor Percy Newberry, who recorded a ring he found in Cairo in the 1920s with he cartouches of Ay and Ankhesenamun inscribed side by side, a typical way of indicating marriage. This wedding must have happened rapidly, for Ay officiated at Tutankhamun's funeral as a king wearing the Blue Crown, thus enhancing his claim to the thrown. His reign was brief, believed to only have been four years. It is likely that Ankhensenamun died very shortly afterwards, for there is no mention of her beyond the Cairo ring. In fact, her image has been hacked out on several monuments, and it has been suggested that her dealings with the Hittites may have disgraced her, resulting in her death.
Ay (it-netjer) means "Father of God. His Throne name was Kheperkheperu-re, meaning "Everlasting are the Manifestations of Re". He is first documented as a Master of Horses at the court of Akhenaten, though he was probably originally from Akhmin, where was responsible for the rock chapel to the local god, Min. His career is fairly well documented during the reign of Akhenaten, when he rose to the position of Vizier and royal chancellor. He probably never held any priestly office prior to becoming king, however, but was instead a military man like most of the men of power during this period. He may have been related to Yuya, the father of Queen Tiye, making him the brother-in-law of Amenophis III.
We believe Ay reigned in Egypt between 1325 and 1321 BC, and was burred in Tomb KV 23 in the Valley of the Kings on the West Bank at Luxor (ancient Thebes), though his mummy has never been positively identified. It has been suggested that the mummy from the 1881 cache originally identified as Amenhotep III might rather be that of Ay, but this is probably doubtful. This tomb was probably originally meant for Tutankhamun. Ay's sarcophagus was very similar to Tutankhamun's with winged goddesses at each corner. Also present, as in Tutankhamun's tomb, were decorative designs featuring the representation of the twelve monkeys, symbolizing the night hours on one of the burial chamber walls. Totally unique to any royal tomb are beautiful bird hunting scenes. The tomb was discovered by Belzoni in 1816.
It was probably Horenheb who succeeded Ay and who wrecked havoc in Ay's tomb in the Valley of the Kings. When Belzoni found the tomb, the sarcophagus was in fragments and his figure was hacked out and his name excised in the wall paintings and text. Likewise, little of Ay's building projects can be identified probably because Horenheb probably usurped these as well. In Ay's mortuary temple near Medinet Habu, he had his name inscribed on two quartzite colossi of Tutankhamun, but these too were modified by Horenheb when he took over Ay's temple complex. Ay had nominally carried on the heretic religious practices of Akhenaten, and it would be Horemheb who would put an end to this.
It should also be noted that early on, Ay began construction of one of the largest tombs at El-Amarna, containing the longer of the two surviving versions of the Hymn to the Aten. The last decoration in Ay's el-Amarna tomb was probably created in the ninth year of Akenaten's reign. However, this tomb was later abandoned in favor of the tomb in the Valley of the Kings.
Who are we?
Tour Egypt aims to offer the ultimate Egyptian adventure and intimate knowledge about the country. We offer this unique experience in two ways, the first one is by organizing a tour and coming to Egypt for a visit, whether alone or in a group, and living it firsthand. The second way to experience Egypt is from the comfort of your own home: online. | <urn:uuid:89139c43-63d6-4a13-ab2c-d2e66a9229cb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/ay.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987556 | 1,072 | 3.28125 | 3 |
With his usual fluent mastery, Keegan (The Price of Admiralty, 1989, etc.) offers provocative perspectives on armed conflict through the ages.
Taking immediate aim at Clausewitzian theory, the author argues that culture has frequently proved as powerful as politics in decisions to wage war (most notably, perhaps, in prehistoric societies, where the state was an alien concept). Ranging backward and forward in time, he divides his canvass into broad categories (e.g., "stone,'' "flesh,'' "iron,'' "fire'') that allow him to focus on broad as well as narrow aspects of mortal combat. Among other matters, Keegan addresses such perplexing issues as why men fight, how primitive peoples do battle, what factors constrain belligerents, and the circumstances that can precipitate hostilities. Throughout his panoramic survey, he pays particular attention to weaponry (from spears through nuclear ordnance) and other aspects of the martial arts, including fortifications, logistics, and the organization of armies. Covered as well are warrior fraternities like the Crusaders, Mamelukes, samurai, and Zulus, whose feats of arms Keegan illuminates with commentary on contemporary mores--noting, for example, that the Tokugawa shogunate (at pains to preserve a way of life--and death) kept firearms out of Japan for over 250 years, until the Meiji Restoration led to the island nation's industrialization and militarism. Along similar lines, there's an intriguing take on the evolution of primeval horses, whose descendants took charioteers, Mongol hordes, and Western cavalrymen into action on many fronts.
While all civilizations may owe their origins--if not their existence--to war, Keegan concludes that global survival depends on our curbing humanity's vast capacity for destructive violence--and on this score, readers of his superb new survey will find, he's cautiously optimistic. | <urn:uuid:624c2200-7cda-4240-bb42-4e67fdca4fac> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-keegan/a-history-of-warfare/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395548.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00151-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94881 | 392 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Your body can’t make them, so the only way to get omega-3 fats is to eat them. Here’s why they are so important and how to make sure you are getting enough.
Omega 3s (as they’re known for short) are “good” polyunsaturated fats. They are important for growth and brain function as well as heart health because they help lower triglycerides and total cholesterol. A diet full of omega 3s also has been linked to improved immunity and a reduced risk of high blood pressure, Alzheimer’s and Rheumatoid Arthritis. That all sounds good, no?
There are three types of omega-3 fats. EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) are most commonly found in cold-water fish (more on food sources below). ALA (alpha-linolenic acid) is the omega-3 fat found in plants. The tricky part is, your body must convert ALA to EPA and DHA in order to get the fats’ health benefits. Unfortunately, this is an inefficient process, and you’d have to eat unrealistic amounts of ALA food sources. Whichever type, omega-3 fats come from nutritious, whole foods that bring a variety of other nutrients — protein, vitamins and minerals — to your daily nutrition landscape.
Sources of Omega 3
Good sources of EPA and DHA are cold-water fish such as salmon, tuna and sardines (salmon and sardines are typically low in mercury as well). ALA is found in canola oil, soy products such as soybean oil and tofu, flaxseeds, walnuts and in some leafy green veggies (for example, kale). Food companies have been adding extra omega 3 to some foods too — juicesbuttery spreads to name a couple. Check labels to see which kind of omega 3 they contain.
Omega-3 supplements are also an option; they are made from fish oil, flaxseed or marine algae oil. When considering a supplement, remember these guidelines:
- Take with food to avoid a fishy aftertaste or digestive problems (read: fishy burping – yuck!)
- Avoid large mega-doses unless prescribed by a doctor — you risk smelling like fish and others WILL notice!
- Supplements will not provide you with the other nutrients found in omega-3 rich foods.
Eat a diet rich in all 3 types of omega-3 fats. Experiment with healthy salmon recipes and try to get two servings of omega 3-rich fish per week. An example of a serving would be 6 ounces raw or 4 to 5 ounces of canned or cooked salmon. Check out the American Heart Association’s list of omega-3 fish. To get some ALA, cook with canola oil, top oatmeal with ground flaxseed, add tofu to stir-fries or sprinkle walnuts on yogurt or salads.
Omega 3-rich recipes to try:
Learn about omega-6 fats and their brain-boosting benefits | <urn:uuid:d4b95f0c-cdf7-4cd6-b6fd-5b998c8a46c6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blog.foodnetwork.com/healthyeats/2009/03/06/understanding-omega-3-fats/comment-page-3/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00135-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930182 | 643 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Cooperative Wireless Networking for Smart Grid
Written by Hao Liang, Weihua Zhuang and Xuemin (Sherman) Shen
With cooperative wireless networking—a model allowing for coordinated operation among two or more wireless networks outfitted with dual or multi-mode communication devices—utilities are able to improve power system operation efficiency and reliability by acquiring more accurate and timely information. At the same time, customers can benefit from reduced energy bills and higher power quality.
A smart grid’s communication network can be conceptualized as generally having three levels, each with distinct technologies. The base level is a home area network (HAN), interconnecting electric devices such as household appliances within the customer’s premises. HAN communication requirements are relatively low-cost and short-range, and so technologies like ZigBee, WiFi and powerline communications are suitable.
Information acquired by the HAN is aggregated at the smart meter for the second-level communications via a neighborhood area network (NAN). The intermediate-level neighborhood network is also used to interconnect the field components of the power distribution system such as the power quality monitoring devices and the control devices for distributed generation units. Low-cost communication technologies like WiFi and ZigBee tend to dominate here as well, as power distribution systems are cost-sensitive by nature. Powerline communications is a relatively more attractive candidate only if electromagnetic interference from coexisting networks can be well addressed at the neighbourhood level. Cellular technologies like GPRS and 3G, offering ubiquitous coverage and low latency, are alluring candidates but are substantially more costly, mainly because they rely on licensed frequency bands.
Information acquired in electrical distribution systems via NANs is aggregated at the distribution substation, a typical utility asset. Communications with other utility assets such as power plants, transmission lines and distribution substations are handled in a wide area network (WAN). Wireline communication technologies such as fiber optics are widely used in WANs to ensure high efficiency and reliability for utility-level monitoring and control.
Given the diversity of communication technologies within the smart grid, there is no certainty when a communication standard will be developed. The smart grid of the future is expected to be a heterogeneous network environment in which a rich variety of communication technologies coexist. In comparison with the designs of the home area network and the wide area network, which are cost- and performance-driven, respectively, the neighborhood area network’s design is challenging because both cost and performance issues must be addressed. In the future smart grid, the NAN will be deployed in a power distribution system characterized by a large-scale integration of distributed generation (DG) units and electric vehicles (EVs) with highly random output and mobility, respectively. Given all the design challenges, relying on a single network infrastructure is neither efficient nor economic.
An emerging technology known in the communication research community as “cooperative wireless networking” offers an unprecedented opportunity to address these challenges. Cooperative wireless networking enables coordinated operation among two or more wireless networks based on the use of dual-mode or multi-mode communication devices so the advantages of each network can be fully exploited to maximize the network utilization. However, when diverse communications technologies are harnessed in the context of the smart gird, information received about data delivery from existing networks may not be valid if the characteristics of power system applications were not taken into account (see IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications special issue on Cooperative Networking - Challenges and Applications Part I and Part II). Specifically, when and how to cooperate are still open questions that need to be answered.
Cooperation among wireless networks is called for when quality-of-service requirements of smart grid applications cannot be satisfied by a single network. The most important requirements concern network coverage, capacity and delay.
The coverage of a smart grid communication network defines a set of communication network nodes that can be reached by certain monitors or controllers. The coverage provided by certain short-range communication devices (such as ZigBee and WiFi devises) may not be ubiquitous. Although deploying more relay nodes can improve network coverage, the coverage improvement cannot be ensured if some of the critical relay nodes on the multi-hop link fail. Based on cooperative wireless networking, the cellular network can be used as an alternative to bypass the outage link. Activating cellular communication devices would need to be mandatory for link reestablishment. Otherwise, full monitoring and control of all nodes in the smart grid cannot be guaranteed.
Given a specified channel bandwidth, a smart grid communication network’s capacity is defined as the maximum transmission rate that can be achieved over the channel. Since decentralized medium access control is typically used by ZigBee and WiFi networks, the NAN’s capacity may be limited due to high channel contention, especially when the NAN coexists with public or private wireless local area networks that are operating on the same frequency channel. If the smart grid controller collects insufficient information because of the capacity limitation, its control actions may not be accurate. In this case, some NAN nodes can activate the cellular communication devices so the controller can collect more information. But the activation is not mandatory if the smart grid can still maintain stable operation with the information acquired via ZigBee and WiFi networks, given the high cost of using a cellular network.
Delay is defined as the time between when a message is generated by an information source and when the message is received by the intended destination in smart grid. The delay consists of several components: channel access time, data transmission time, data buffering time, data processing time and so on. For a multi-hop network, the end-to-end delay is a summation of the delays over all hops. Many protection functionalities in the smart grid have stringent delay requirements to support the operation of circuit breakers and/or protective relays. Although the delay is somehow related to the channel capacity that determines data transmission time, the channel access time can be the dominating factor for safety-oriented services with small size data packets. If the data packet is not delivered in time, the protection functionality cannot be performed, resulting in malfunction or direct damage to electric devices. In this case, a communication link via the cellular network can be activated to create a “shortcut” between the information source and destination. As with the capacity requirement discussed above, whether or not to activate the cellular communication devices depends on the severity of the malfunction/damage and the cost of using a cellular network.
How to cooperate is both system and application dependent. The two cases presented below illustrate the situation with respect to the capacity and delay requirements, respectively. The coverage requirement is not discussed in-depth, since alternative network activation is mandatory and all nodes in the smart grid can be monitored and controlled.
Case 1: Microgrid Operation and Control. Decentralized mechanisms are promising solutions for microgrid operation and control to avoid a single point of failure and fit the plug-and-play nature of distributed generation units and loads in microgrids. In our previous research, we developed a decentralized economic dispatch approach such that each DG unit makes the optimal decision on power generation locally via low-cost short-range communication devices. To avoid a slow convergence speed caused by the limited network capacity, a cooperative networking architecture is used: Some DG units or loads are equipped with dual-mode devices with cellular communication capabilities. The cellular devices can be periodically activated to improve the convergence speed of decentralized economic dispatch.
Case 2: Protection Coordination in Smart Distribution Systems. Take overvoltage protection as an example of one of the most challenging issues arising with randomized power injection by DG units. According to the recommendation of IEEE 929 standard, a solar unit’s operation voltage can be anywhere from 88 percent to 110 percent of the nominal voltage. While an overvoltage in the range of 110 -137 percent results in the trip of a DG unit within 2 seconds, the DG unit should be disconnected immediately (within 0.033 second) if the voltage rises beyond 137 percent. But the overvoltage does not necessarily cause overvoltage at load buses because of the voltage drop along the feeder. Thus, to avoid nuisance trips, the load buses’ voltages should be reported within a specified time limit. WiFi and ZigBee devices can be used for a multi-hop voltage report under normal operation and slight overvoltage conditions (that is, 110-137 percent overvoltage), while the cellular network can be used for an emergency report for a significant overvoltage of 137 percent or more.
In addition to the two cases discussed above, cooperative wireless networking can also facilitate other smart grid applications whenever there is a mismatch between quality of service requirements and quality-of-service provisioning in a single network. For a utility company with multiple options on wireless network infrastructures, fully utilizing each network’s capability via cooperative wireless networking not only improves power system efficiency and reliability but also reduces power system operation cost. The reduced cost leads to lower energy bills for customers, which is another advantage beyond high-quality power delivery.
It is worth mentioning that despite all the advantages, the cost of deploying dual-mode/multi-mode communication devices is not small. Moreover, as cooperative wireless networking technology is in its infancy, it will take time to realize and implement the benefits of cooperative wireless networking in the future smart grid, as demonstrated by academic theoretical studies and real world industry experiments.
Hao Liang, a member of IEEE, is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo, Canada. His current research interests include microgrid operation, plug-in electric vehicle energy management and energy-efficient wireless networking. He was the recipient of the Best Student Paper Award at IEEE’s 72nd Vehicular Technology Conference, held in fall 2010 in Ottawa.
Weihua Zhuang, an IEEE fellow, has been with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo, Canada, since 1993, where she is a full professor and Tier I Canada Research Chair in wireless communication networks. Her current research focuses on distributed network control and service provisioning in wireless communications and on smart grid. She is a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and the Engineering Institute of Canada, and a member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society.
Xuemin (Sherman) Shen, an IEEE fellow, is a professor and University Research Chair in the department of electrical and computer engineering, University of Waterloo, Canada. His research focuses on resource management in interconnected wireless/wired networks, wireless network security, wireless body area networks, vehicular ad hoc and sensor networks, and the smart grid. He has taken responsibility for technical program planning for several major IEEE conferences, including Globecom'07, VTC’10. He is an Engineering Institute of Canada Fellow and a Canadian Academy of Engineering Fellow. | <urn:uuid:6b2a8010-f024-4967-b063-f1c63103da70> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://smartgrid.ieee.org/resources/ieee-press-releases/203-first-ieee-spectrum-online-emerging-technology-forum | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395992.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00064-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918744 | 2,210 | 2.703125 | 3 |
The noosphere is the planetary sphere of mind or thinking layer of planet Earth. To grasp the idea of the noosphere we must elevate our consciousness and open ourselves to the most general, elemental and cosmic principles of life on Earth.
As the mental sheathe of the planet, the noosphere characterizes mind and consciousness as a unitary phenomenon. This means that the quality and nature of our individual and collective thoughts directly effects the noosphere and creates the quality of our environment—the biosphere.
As the Earth’s “mental sheathe,” the noosphere represents the breakthrough to a new consciousness, a new time and a new reality arising from the biospheric crisis. This is known as the biosphere-noosphere transition.
Just as the biosphere is the unity of all of life and its support system, the noosphere is the unity of all mind and its thinking layers. In this way the noosphere can be understood as the sum of the mental interactions of all life. Within the noosphere exists the evolutionary control panels, known as the psi bank, the storage and retrieval system for all the mental programs.
As the next stage of evolution of the terrestrial biosphere, the noosphere signifies the advent of a qualitative/dimensional shift - the passage from one state to another. This is the main investigative topic of the Noosphere II project.
This perspective of the noosphere, as an evolutionary event, has been scientifically anticipated by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the noted French paleontologist, as well as his colleague (with whom he jointly coined the word noosphere in 1926), Russian geochemist, Vladimir Vernadsky (see The Theory and History of the Noosphere).
“The historic process is changing dramatically before our eyes … Mankind taken as a whole is becoming a powerful geological force. Humanity’s mind and work face the problem of reconstructing the biosphere in the interests of freely thinking mankind as a single entity. This new state of the world we are approaching without noticing it is the ‘Noosphere.’”
The Internet is the third-dimensional reflection of the noosphere, a form of proto-telepathy. When the noosphere is fully activated, then the human species will experience telepathy as a collective norm. | <urn:uuid:227c27d9-6177-42ad-a234-a00d645db026> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.lawoftime.org/noosphere.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394937.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00181-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919776 | 470 | 2.546875 | 3 |
A new report finds that national and state policies are falling far short of obesity control and reduction goals.
The Trust for America's Health (TFAH) released a new report "F As in Fat: How Obesity Policies are Failing in America," which found that national and state policies are falling far short of obesity control and reduction goals.
TFAH concludes that America does not have the aggressive, coordinated national and state strategies needed to address the crisis, and that threatens to make the epidemic worse. 41 states have obesity levels over 20 percent.
Nearly 119 million American adults, 65 percent of the population, are currently overweight or obese. The direct and indirect costs of obesity in America are more than $117 billion per year. Since states and the federal government have a crucial role to play in fighting the obesity epidemic, TFAH conducted a study of government action. TFAH concluded that America does not have the aggressive, coordinated national and state strategies needed to address the crisis, and that threatens to make the epidemic worse.
"The added weight of the obesity epidemic to our already ailing health system is causing it to burst at the seams. Americans' growing waistlines are leading to escalating disease rates and costs," said Shelley A. Hearne, DrPH, Executive Director of TFAH. "While personal behavior is at the center of maintaining healthy levels of diet and exercise, there is so much more the government can and should be doing to address the obesity crisis."
The study found that:
1. The federal government faces organizational issues, including a lack of designated leadership, a bureaucratic tangle of involved agencies, and a need to learn to balance the often competing interests of industry and public health.
2. Obesity and obesity-related disease rates are escalating throughout the nation.
* Adult obesity exceeds 20 percent in 41 states and D.C. Alabama ranked as the heaviest state with 28.4 percent obesity and Colorado ranked as the least heavy at 16 percent. All states are on track to fail the national goal of reducing the proportion of adults who are obese to 15 percent or lower by the year 2010.
* In 40 states and D.C., six percent or more of adults have diabetes, far exceeding the national goal of 2.5 percent by the year 2010, with Mississippi having the highest rate at 11 percent and Colorado the lowest at 4.7 percent. Colorado ranks 51st highest at 4.7 percent.
3. Most school food and physical activity programs and policies need more aggressive support and attention.
* Only four states-- California, Hawaii, Texas, and West Virginia -- have set nutritional standards for foods sold in schools that are not part of the federally sponsored school lunch program, called "competitive foods," which include items sold in vending machines, ala carte in cafeterias, snack shops, and bake sales.
* Eighteen states limit the availability of competitive foods beyond federal requirements, including Colorado.
* While only two states -- Oklahoma and South Dakota -- do not require some form of physical education in elementary and secondary schools, the requirements in all states are often not enforced and many of the programs are inadequate.
4. State policies and actions aimed at obesity are fragmented and inadequate.
* Although the effectiveness of "snack" and soda taxes is unknown and may even result in negative consequences, 17 states and the District of Columbia have enacted forms of these taxes to try discouraging consumption of food low in nutrients. Colorado does not have a snack tax.
* Eleven states have passed legislation to limit obesity-related lawsuits. Colorado has passed this type of law.
* Only a few states and communities have tried to improve access to low-cost, nutritious food in low-income areas, even though low-income groups have the highest levels of overweight and obesity.
* Only a few states have initiatives to help foster increased physical activity, such as increasing sidewalks and park development.
To help combat the obesity crisis, TFAH recommends some crucial government actions in the report, including:
1. The CDC should be designated as the "command and control center" to manage the obesity epidemic. The CDC should:
* Form and chair an interagency Task Force, including external experts.
* Centralize obesity-related public education campaigns.
* Establish the nutritional guidelines.
2. Research and implementation for cures, community programs, and treatment must be "fast-tracked." All research must be expedited to fill the large gaps in the available scientific information on obesity so that health officials are better able to understand and contain the epidemic. For instance, the CDC should:
* Form a "Rapid Response" Obesity Investigative Service (OIS) similar to the current Epidemiological Investigative Service (EIS) for infectious disease. The OIS would be deployed quickly into communities to help design and construct studies to gain information about how to create the most effective control and prevention programs possible.
* Conduct a Youth Fitness Study, including evaluating school physical education programs and the impact of fitness on classroom performance and performing a new National Youth and Fitness Survey (the last one was done 20 years ago).
* Investigate root causes and origins for unhealthy eating, physical activity, and obesity.
* Study the impact of marketing and advertising on children's diet and health.
3. "Checks and balances" must be instituted for state and federal programs.
* The effectiveness of obesity research and programs must be regularly evaluated.
* The CDC and other federal agencies must have the authority to without funds from states that do not comply with information reporting requirements.
4. Upfront funds to combat obesity must be increased to save lives and taxpayer dollars.
* Funding should be increased for CDC Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity (DNPA) grants from $44.7 million to a minimum of $70 million. In FY 2004, there were only funds for 28 states to participate in the program.
* Funding for CDC's Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH), Coordinated School Health Program should also be increased from the $15.7 million received in FY 2004 to a minimum of $36 million.
* New tax policies should also be explored that create incentives, such as for employer-provided wellness programs and for real estate developers to convert brownfields into activity-oriented facilities, or include green space and accessible sidewalks in their plans for residential development.
Trust for America's Health is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to saving lives by protecting the health of every community and working to make disease prevention a national priority. Visit their website at: www.healthyamericans.org
Contacts: Laura Segal (202) 223-9870 x278 or firstname.lastname@example.org or Michael Earls (202) 223-9870 x273 or email@example.com
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Updated March 17, 2007 | <urn:uuid:b739ba24-8140-49ce-babd-a159f32139ed> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.americantrails.org/resources/health/healthyamRpt04.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397696.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00053-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940845 | 1,494 | 2.75 | 3 |
Workshop Seeks to Guide Research, Science-Based Adaptation Strategies in the Andean Region
28 November 2013: 'The Science Policy Workshop: Impacts of Global Climate Change on Snow, Glaciers and Water Resources in the Andes: Policy Recommendations for Adaptation Strategies' addressed the optimization of research efforts and identified science-based policy needs for climate change adaptation strategies in the Andean region, with a focus on its water resources.
The workshop, which took place from 20-21 November 2013, in Quito, Ecuador, aimed to guide research initiatives and public policy in search of science-based climate change adaptation strategies for the Andean Region. The event brought together glaciologists, hydrologists, water resources experts, social scientists, local and national policy advisers, practitioners, such as mountain biosphere reserve managers, and local stakeholders. Workshop participants included representatives from Argentina, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Switzerland, the UK and the US.
The workshop developed general recommendations to scientists, policy advisers and decision makers to the Andean countries on new research agendas to guide adaptation policy. It also identified strategies to successfully implement adaptation measures in mountain areas, including moorlands and wetlands.
In the workshop's plenary sessions, experts presented on advances and challenges in different areas, such as mapping the vulnerability of water resources to global changes in the Andean region, policy needs for adaptation strategies in water resources management, the status of research on glacier retreat in the Andes, and lessons learned in local adaptation plans. Breakout sessions tackled four areas: prioritizing scientific research for developing adaptation policies; policy needs and gaps to address environmental and non-environmental vulnerability challenges in the region; education and curriculum needs; and best practices in local adaptation projects.
The workshop was organized by the International Hydrological Programme (IHP) of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Consortium for the Sustainable Development of the Andean Eco-Region (CONDESAN), Ecuador's Water Secretariat (SENAGUA), and the Andean Climate Change Interamerican Observatory Network (ACCION), an initiative of the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA). The workshop was followed on 22 November 2013 by a meeting of UNESCO IHP's Working Group on Snow and Ice (GTNH). [ECPA Press Release] [SENAGUA Press Release (in Spanish)] [UNESCO Press Release (in Spanish)] | <urn:uuid:88b297ae-1687-4030-aaa3-1db25c1857b7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://climate-l.iisd.org/news/workshop-seeks-to-guide-research-science-based-adaptation-strategies-in-the-andean-region/224995/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395548.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00120-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.897714 | 504 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Mental Stimulation Might Cut Dementia Risk
Keeping sharp could reduce brain protein linked to Alzheimer's
University of California-Berkeley scientist Susan Landau found a link between the quantity of a protein in the brain linked to Alzheimer's and the lifetime level of brain stimulation, such as reading and playing games.
People who engage in mentally-stimulating activities over a lifetime have lower levels of a protein in the brain associated with Alzheimer's disease, a new study finds.
That supports other research which suggests reading, writing and playing games may lower the risk of dementia.
Researchers worked with a group of 65 older-adult volunteers with no symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease.
They answered questions about how often they engaged in stimulating mental activities throughout their lifetimes. They also got PET brain scans which can identify beta-amyloid deposits. Those deposits are found in the brains of people who have Alzheimer's.
University of California-Berkeley research scientist Susan Landau says the study showed a link between the quantity of deposits and the lifetime level of brain stimulation.
"People who were the most cognitively active throughout their life, they had the least amyloid in their brains," she says. "So, based on this association between greater cognitive activity and less amyloid, we think that these people will go on to have a reduced risk of Alzheiemer's Disease."
PET scans reveal amyloid plaques, which appear as warm colors such as red, yellow and orange. On the left is a patient with Alzheimer's disease, and on the right is a person with no detectable amyloid deposits in the brain. The middle scan is of a normal person with no symptoms of cognitive problems, but with evident levels of amyloid plaque in the brain. (Credit: Susan Landau and William Jagust, UC Berkeley)
Keep in mind that the people in this study, many of them in their 70s and 80s, did not show any symptoms of Alzheimer's. Scientists are still trying to understand the connection between beta-amyloid deposits in the brain and dementia.
Aging and a family history of Alzheimer's are both considered risk factors, but we can't control those. And even if your brain hasn't been particularly active up until now, Landau says it's not too late to start ratcheting up your mental activities.
"I think that cognitive stimulation is probably beneficial at any age. But, what our findings from this study show, is that the more cognitively active you can be over the course of your lifespan, the better"
Landau says she and her colleagues plan to follow the volunteers in this study as they age, to see whether there is a link between lifetime mental activity and Alzheimer's symptoms as some of them develop dementia in the years ahead. That may help the researchers better understand the relationship between stimulating mental activities, beta-amyloid deposits and dementia. | <urn:uuid:9051e779-d5fa-4740-a834-27c58d087588> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.voanews.com/content/mental-stimulation-might-cut-dementia-risk-138198004/171704.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00068-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964224 | 594 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Find The Prosody of Affect in South Conchucos Quechua on the new SIL International website.
SIL Electronic Working Papers 2012-005
The Prosody of Affect in South Conchucos Quechua
|Abstract||This study contributes to our understanding of prosody by showing how fundamental frequency and voice quality, together with content and verbal tense, are used to communicate specific kinds of affect in South Conchucos Quechua discourse. Marked F0 elevation and widened range indicate positive affect (e.g., excitement and happiness). Correspondingly, lowered F0 and narrowing of the range communicate negative affect (e.g., shame and apprehension). Laughter can communicate positive affect, while use of a glottal stop, creating forceful voice quality, communicates negative affect. This study is an initial step towards describing the richness of the communication of affect in an indigenous language of the Americas. This document includes .mp3 audio files and requires an appropriate media player.|
|The Prosody of Affect in South Conchucos Quechua|
Quechua, Southern Conchucos Ancash [qxo]
|Keywords||Prosody; Verbal tense; Central Peru; South Conchucos Quechua; Affect| | <urn:uuid:2f9c49b5-d9e4-49e3-a76d-8d2f6f394f21> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www-01.sil.org/silewp/abstract.asp?ref=2012-005 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397748.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00188-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.729841 | 261 | 3 | 3 |
|Scientific Name:||Nomascus hainanus|
|Species Authority:||(Thomas, 1892)|
|Taxonomic Notes:||Nomascus hainanus has been variously considered either a species in its own right or as a subspecies of N. concolor or N. nasutus; it is here recognized as a distinct species based on differences in vocalizations and fur coloration (T. Geissmann pers. comm. 2006).|
|Red List Category & Criteria:||Critically Endangered A2acd; B1ab(iii,v)+2ab(iii,v); C2a(ii); D ver 3.1|
|Assessor(s):||Geissmann, T. & Bleisch, W.|
|Reviewer(s):||Mittermeier, R.A. & Rylands, A.B. (Primate Red List Authority)|
Listed as Critically Endangered because of an observed decline of at least 80% over the past 45 years (three generations) due primarily to hunting and habitat loss; and because its extent of occurrence is less that 100 km² and its area of occupancy is less than 10 km², all individuals are in a single subpopulation, and there has been a continuing decline in the number of locations and the number of mature individuals; and because its population size is less than 250 mature individuals, with all individuals in a single subpopulation, and it is experiencing a continuing decline; and because its population size is less than 50 mature individuals.
|Previously published Red List assessments:|
|Range Description:||This species is endemic to Hainan Island, China (Chan et al. 2005). It is currently confined to the Bawangling Nature Reserve on the western side of the island of Hainan (Chan et al. 2005). Before the 1960s it was widely distributed across the island.|
|Range Map:||Click here to open the map viewer and explore range.|
|Population:||In the late 1950s, the population was estimated to be over two thousand individuals (Liu et al. 1984). In 1993 there were three groups with less than 20 individuals (Geissmann et al. 2000). During a comprehensive survey in 2003, only 13 individuals were recorded, consisting of two groups, in addition to two solitary individuals (Chan et al. 2005; Geissmann 2005b). Since 2003 an intensive monitoring work showed that the population of Hainan Gibbon has increased in the past five years. The two groups have produced newborn infants every two years, as previously noted (Liu et al. 1989), while a single individual departed from each group during the same period. These changes brought the composition of the two groups to nine and six individuals respectively. At present the there could be also up to five solitary individuals, reaching so a total of 20 individuals (Fellowes et al. 2008).|
|Current Population Trend:||Stable|
|Habitat and Ecology:||This species inhabits remnant forest. It is diurnal, arboreal, and mostly frugivorous (Geissmann et al. 2000). The most difficult time for the gibbons to find food in Bawangling Nature Reserve is between February and April, when only seven of 40 known food-plant species are available for the gibbons (Chan et al. 2005). The species occurs at altitudes ranging from 650 to 1,200 meters (Chan et al. 2005; Geissmann et al. 2000) but in the past probably preferred lowland forest.|
Group size has been reported to range from 4-8 individuals, with an average of 5.3-5.5 individuals, depending on the year of the study (Geissmann et al. 2000). Home range size ranges from 100 to 500 ha (Liu and Tan 1990; Liu et al. 1989; Zhou pers. comm. 2006), with an average of about 360 ha (Liu et al. 1989).
|Major Threat(s):||There is still pressure from hunting. In recent years the core remaining habitat has been protected, although the currently occupied habitat may be in suboptimal (Geissmann 2005a; T. Geissmann pers. comm.). This species is threatened from problems intrinsic to extremely small population size such as inbreeding effects, poor mate-choice, and human or natural disaster (Chan et al. 2005). There are some reports of a sex bias in births, but it is not possible to identify the sex of young crested gibbons in the field, because immature individuals do not differ in fur coloration or calls, and sexual organs of males and females resemble each other (T. Geissmann pers. comm. 2006).|
This species is listed on CITES Appendix I. As far as known it is entirely confined to Bawangling Nature Reserve in Hainan Island (Chan et al. 2005; Geissmann et al. 2000) and is the most critically endangered primate in the world (Geissmann 2005a). There is suitable gibbon habitat outside of the known Nature Reserve, and there is a need to survey for any surviving individuals or groups not yet accounted for, especially in Diaoluoshan Nature Reserve, Yinggelin Nature Reserve, and Jianfenglin Nature Reserve (B. Chan and T. Geissmann pers. comm. 2006).
In terms of the Bawangling population, there should be intensive monitoring of the remaining two groups, and survey of the remaining subadults (Chan et al. 2005; Fellowes et al. 2008). There is a need for continued gun confiscation in the area, which has already been done once in the area (W. Bleisch pers. comm. 2006). The most important thing is to protect all of the remaining habitat and individuals. Captive breeding does not appear to be a wise strategy for this species because (1) there are no captive individuals, (2) earlier attempts to capture wild gibbons alive has not been very successful and may reduce the viability of the few remaining individuals, and (3) captive breeding of crested gibbons has not been highly successful.
Chan, B., Fellowes, J., Geissmann, T. and Zhang, J. 2005. Hainan gibbon status survey and conservation action plan, version 1 (last updated November 2005). Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden Technical Report No. 3. Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden, Hong Kong.
Fellowes, J. and Chan, B. 2003. Hainan Gibbon: concerted action for the world's most endangered ape. Living Forests 7: 22-24.
Fellowes, J. R., Chan Bosco Pui Lok, Zhou Jiang, Chen Shenghua, Yang Shibin and Ng Sai Chit. 2008. Current status of the Hainan Gibbon (Nomascus hainanus): progress of population monitoring and other priority actions. Asian Primates Journal 1(1): 2-9.
Geissmann, T. 2005a. Der Hainan-Schopfgibbon: Der bedrohteste Menschenaffe der Welt. Gibbon Journal 1: 10-12.
Geissmann, T. 2005b. Auf der Suche nach den letzten Gibbons von Hainan. Gibbon Journal 1: 18-22.
Geissmann, T. 2006. Schutz des Hainan-Schopfgibbons, des seltensten Menschenaffen der Welt: Ein Projektbericht [Conservation of the Hainan black crested gibbon, the most endangered ape species: A project report]. Gibbon Journal 2: 11-13.
Geissmann, T., Xuan Dang, N., Lormée, N. and Momberg F. 2000. Vietnam primate conservation status review 2000 - Part 1: Gibbons. Status report. Fauna and Flora International, Indochina Programme, Hanoi, Vietnam.
Geissmann, T., Xuan Dang, N., Lormée, N. and Momberg, F. 2003. Vietnam primate conservation status review 2000, Part 1: Gibbons (Summary). Asian Primates 8(3-4): 42.
Groves, C.P. 2001. Primate Taxonomy. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC, USA.
Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden. 2001. Report of rapid biodiversity assessments at Bawangling National Nature Reserve and Wangxia limestone forest, western Hainan, 3 to 8 April 1998. South China Forest Biodiversity Survey Report Series No. 2. Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden, Hong Kong.
Lin, J., Mo, L., Zhuang, X., Chen, Q., Chen, S. and Zhang, J. 2006. Niche breadth and overlap of the feeding plants in the forest communities as habitats for Nomascus hainanus. Journal of South China Agricultural University 27(4): 52-57.
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|Citation:||Geissmann, T. & Bleisch, W. 2008. Nomascus hainanus. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2008: e.T41643A10526461.Downloaded on 30 June 2016.|
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All forms of wealth and security, including climate stability, biodiversity, resource availability, soil fertility, air and water purity and health, are depleted by the systemic error of running a linear economy. Linear economics consumes the basis for future growth so what is now growing fastest is unproductive activity, inactivity and instabilities. The credit crunch marks the withdrawal of faith in growth-as-usual and any reliable revival of growth and prosperity requires a switch of vision.
The future for growth is circular economics where more economic activity would mean a faster pace of change away from waste-making and towards looking after the world and all its inhabitants. This would preserve and regenerate material value, co-operation and natural capital instead of losing it, so growth would work to build the basis for more growth. Today this may appear idealistic. Yet if circular economics was already practiced, and people were accustomed to prosperity based on resource security, then any proposal to adopt an exploitive self-defeating vision would be laughable.
Promise of Precycling
Economic dependence on waste is perpetuated by managing waste primarily as an addiction to disposal, “how can we get rid of all this junk?” The ‘waste hierarchy’ (reduce, reuse, recycle, then dispose) that has been available since 1975 is commonly quoted but in practice the bulk of effort and funding provides for continuing long-term disposal to ecosystems (by landfill, waste-burning and pollution). The waste hierarchy is being used backwards and no nation has yet attempted to create the incentives for an economy that grows from the work done to end waste dumping and implement circular economics. This is achievable with the concept of ‘precycling’ originally used for public waste education.
Precycling is applicable throughout an economy and may be understood as action taken to prepare for current resources to become future resources. The ‘pre’ prefix emphasises that this cannot be arranged after something becomes waste; it must be done beforehand. The scope of action extends far beyond recycling, to creating the economic, social and ecological conditions for all resources to remain of use to people or nature.
A simple economic tool is available to switch from linear to circular economics and from dumping waste to dumping the habit of wasting. This tool internalises diverse externalities efficiently within markets by paying the price of preventing problems instead of the larger or unaffordable price of not preventing them. Precycling insurance is an extension of the EU WEEE Directive’s ‘recycling insurance’ from just recycling to all forms of preventing all products becoming waste in any ecosystem. This allows a single economic instrument to work with the issues at every stage of product life-cycles. Significant producers would be obliged to consider the risk of their products ending up as waste in ecosystems and to retain responsibility for insuring against that risk.
Life Insurance for Products and Planet
Precycling insurance is a form of regulation to be set-up in every nation but not centrally planned. The volume of regulation can be cut but its effectiveness drastically boosted. For example, emissions can be cut rapidly with no need for any further ineffectual negotiations about capping. Unlike taxes, the premiums from precycling insurance would not be handled by governments (whose role would be to legislate, monitor and ensure full public transparency).
Unlike conventional insurance, the premiums would not be collected up and then paid out following (potentially irrecoverable) planet crunch shocks. Premiums would be distributed by insurers and invested preventively throughout society, to cut the risk of resources being lost as wastes. Support would be provided for the dialogue, understanding, participation, capabilities, designs, efficiencies, facilities and ecological productivity needed to return used matter as new resources for people and for nature. Today’s resources would feed tomorrow’s economy.
A Free Market in Harmony with Nature
Precycling insurance would switch the power of markets to reversing the planet crunch. The speed and scale of change would exceed the expectations of all who are accustomed to ineffectual controls designed to make markets less-bad. All market participants (such as buyers, sellers, investors and governments) would adapt their decisions to the new incentives, profiting by addressing actual needs rather than superficial consumerist wants.
Producers would remain free to choose how to meet customers’ needs without waste, and even free to continue making wasteful products, in competition with other producers cutting their costs (including precycling insurance costs) by cutting their product’s waste risk. Economic growth would no longer be a competitive scramble between people rushing to acquire and discard ever more resources from an every-shrinking stock. The economy would prosper in harmony, rather than in conflict, with nature.
Shrinking Material and Energy Demands
The material requirements of today’s linear economy would rapidly shrink since the new incentives would lead to the most needs being met with the least materials moved the least distance and then regenerated rather than dumped. The energy requirements of today’s linear economy would rapidly shrink since a smaller material flow with higher quality materials closer to where they are needed requires less energy to process. Shrinking energy dependence is the key to energy security, economic recovery, climate restabilisation and prevention of conflict over diminishing non-renewable resources. The resource and energy efficiency of circular economics makes it realistic to plan the necessary reductions in GHG concentrations (ie net-negative emissions).
Note: This article is part 4 of 8 of author's Advanced Research Workshop paper, Seven Policy Switches for Global Security, for the NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme.
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Luke 15:11-32 is a powerful, and well known parable, that Jesus tells his disciples. Known as The Prodigal and His Brother, the short parable explains a great deal about human forgiveness, in the beginning of the story, while highlighting a then modern-day situation.
“Then Jesus said, ‘There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, “Father give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” So he divided his property between them. A few days later, the younger son gathered all that he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout the country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe – the best one – and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And they began to celebrate.’” Luke 15:11-24.
Forgiving someone for what they have done in the past, or against someone, is not just a random act of kindness, but it is essential for us to do.
Picture this, if you are currently an adult, imagine that you are 20 years old again. You are back in college, and enjoying some quality time with your best friend, whom you trust and care about a great deal. You are both eating lunch at a local restaurant together, and you tell your best friend that you want to share a secret, and you trust that he or she won’t tell anyone it. Your friend agrees and so you share the secret.
The next day, you walk out of your dorm room and walk to your class. As soon as you enter the room, laughter and mockery is heard from several students in the classroom. You look towards your best friend who sits in the back of the room with a guilty look on his or her face.
The secret is out.
You know your best friend has explaining to do, and at first you think that you should just walk up to him or her and start screaming angry comments. But you don’t. You do the very opposite.
Ignoring the mockery and laughter, you walk up to your friend and sit down in front of him or her asking for an explanation.
As it turns out, the secret was told accidentally to a group of guys who were at the same restaurant as you and your friend, and who wanted to know more about the secret that they overheard you and your friend talk about. Your friend blurted out the secret in an attempt to make the guys stop bothering him or her.
Your best friend ends the explanation saying “I’m so sorry” over and over expecting some backlash from you. But all that you do is hold up your hand to stop your friend from talking.
“It’s okay,” you say, “I forgive you.” Your friend stares at you for a second and then smiles. The dilemma is over.
This is a reasonable explanation for secret blabbing. But even if it wasn't, wouldn't arguments, fights, and misunderstandings be so much easier to handle if they just ended right away with “I’m sorry” from one person and “I forgive you” from the other?
Saying “I’m sorry” is just the first step in mending something that has gone wrong. We must repent before we can forgive.
Forgiveness can be very hard to do sometimes. If that situation of friendship betrayal has happened to you, or someone that you know, one can only guess at how tough forgiving someone can be.
The old saying “forgive and forget” can also be hard. Sometimes so-called friends can do a lot worse than just blabbing a simple secret. Sometimes people can be downright cruel and really stab us in the back sometimes.
Or maybe it’s not a friendship situation, but rather a family issue.
Nevertheless, forgetting the things that people have done to you that you have forgiven them for can be even tougher. If the situation is really bad, sometimes moving on can be really hard to do, and this is why when we forgive someone, we must fully forgive that person so that we are able to move on.
Psalm 130 is a wonderful and short psalm that talks about God’s forgiveness.
“If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered…O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem. It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities,” Psalm 130; 3-4; 7-8.
God will forgive our sins no matter what we do if we ask him to, therefore, we must act the same way in Christ-like love and forgive the sins of others that do us wrong.
The Lord our God loves us so much that he sent his only Son to die for us so that we would have eternal life in Heaven and that our sins would be forgiven. We should always respond to others in the same love that God has for us, which includes forgiving others when they do us wrong.
A Pastor that I once knew told me that she believed the definition of a human being was “a screw up,” and she is right. We all mess up sometimes. We all sin, and that is why we should always repent the things that we have done wrong not just to the people that we have done wrong to, but to God as well. While our friends and family might not always forgive us for certain things, God always will no matter what, all we have to do is ask. | <urn:uuid:d14141d2-464d-4948-b18f-bdd5a606724d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.examiner.com/article/act-of-forgiveness-teaches-empathy-and-love?cid=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00028-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984211 | 1,487 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Teach about sex? Attitudes start to shift - slowly - in China.
Li Yinhe never thought she'd be allowed to host a safe-sex talk at her workplace. Despite cultural taboos, she hopes to introduce safe-sex ed in schools across China.
Beijing, China —
On a humid July morning in Beijing, a middle-aged Chinese woman stands center stage in front of an assembled crowd. Through her wire-rimmed glasses, she gazes down at her audience, then reaches for a condom, theatrically checking for holes or tears and noting the expiration date on the packet. She then slowly tears open the foil and demonstrates the condom's proper application, using a wooden prop.
Li Yinhe, the woman in question, never thought she would see the day she'd be allowed to host a safe-sex education exhibition at a public institution in conservative China. A sociologist at the Chinese Academy of Social Science, Professor Li partnered with sex-education practitioners to organize the event at her workplace.
That it was permitted at all highlights a shift in "traditional" Chinese attitudes on sex and sexual health.
“The difficulty in pushing safe-sex education programs in schools exists because a lot of people still do not want children to know about sex too early. 'The later the better' – this is generally people’s thinking.” says Li.
At present, Chinese students are supposed to receive basic sex education, but the lack of qualified teachers and the awkwardness surrounding the lessons means that students' knowledge remains rudimentary at best. Li and her colleagues hope to introduce effective, mandatory sex education in schools across China. And international backers have been supportive of these goals – in 2010, for instance, the Ford Foundation granted $100,000 to Marie Stopes International China, an international nongovernmental organization working on sexual and reproductive health, to continue their work of peer-to-peer sex education. But progress remains slow.
Indeed, Li’s event was not popular, and it was ultimately closed to the public. Most of the chairs that filled the large hall were empty. About 50 people, mainly sex educators and some university students, occupied the seats.
Sex education is a taboo topic in China, but analysts say public health statistics suggest that events like Li’s could help change that.
Of the 22.4 percent of unmarried youths in China who are sexually active, half have had unprotected sex, according to a 2010 study carried out by Peking University and the United Nations Population Fund.
The same study reports that 20 percent of unmarried women who have sex get pregnant, and 91 percent of those women resort to abortion.
Poor knowledge of contraceptives and sex education contribute to high rates of unwanted pregnancies. According to the State Family Planning Commission’s Science and Technology Research Institute there are more than 13 million abortions a year in China.
“Knowing where to buy contraception is one big challenge, and feeling empowered enough to do so is another,” says Lily Liu Liqing of Marie Stopes China.
The battle doesn't end with access to contraception: A 2009 Durex survey indicated that only 9 percent of Chinese under 25 actually know how to use a condom.
The Chinese state provides free contraception and family planning advice, but only to married couples. Under Mao, Chinese citizens were encouraged to have as many children as possible. However, economic pressures caused by this rampant population growth led to the introduction of a “one child policy” in 1979.
The program has recently been relaxed in rural areas, but the Chinese state continues to pour resources into the policy, monitoring women's fertility, offering sterilization and contraception to married women, and severely punishing women who violate the law. Some advocates suggest that sex education would be more effective than punishment in preventing unwanted pregnancies.
“If the resources that are spent on making spot visits to people’s homes to check if they are hiding additional babies were spent on educating people about having safe sex, China would have half the abortions the country is facing,” says Yang Zhizhu, an associate professor at the China Youth University for Political Sciences and critic of China’s one child policy.
One major hurdle to instituting a sex-education program across China is just getting people to talk.
Here, talking about sex is uncommon even between young people, let alone families: Emma, a 24-year-old student at Peking University, shares a dorm room with six other young Chinese women, but says she has “absolutely no idea” about the sex lives of even her closest friends.
However, there is some evidence that entrenched attitudes are beginning to change. In some places, young people are starting to publicly engage in conversations on the matter.
Sex shops are increasingly popular in big cities and are a venue for just that. One such establishment is Ma’s Powerful Sex Shop in Beijing. The young owner, Ma Jiaji, says attitudes toward sex are changing, especially among the middle and upper class young people. “We … use humor in a way that encourages buyers to share their needs and ask questions,” she says.
But Ma’s sexually savvy clientele remain the minority.
Peng Xizhe, dean at the School of Social Development and Public Policy at Fudan University, says that until government funnels resources into safe-sex awareness in China, efforts to stop people from having multiple children cannot be entirely successful.
“The government needs to look at an effective administrative system of providing family planning services.” Dr. Peng says. | <urn:uuid:10afe6a7-16fc-40fc-8460-a4aa7338e052> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2013/0819/Teach-about-sex-Attitudes-start-to-shift-slowly-in-China | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00143-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965388 | 1,150 | 2.953125 | 3 |
From: Robina Suwol
Date: 16 Jan 2002
Remote Name: 188.8.131.52
"SAFE FOR NOW" By Kelly Crow
Along a quiet stretch of Mosholu Parkway North in the leafy Bronx neighborhood of Norwood, a red house sits wedged between beige apartment buildings. Behind one of four shamrock-green doors is a staircase leading up to four floors of white rooms with blue beds and closets with coat hangers for baby clothes. Three sets of arched windows overlook a park playground. To passers-by, who know nothing of its history or inhabitants, such a house might seem innocuous, even inviting. But while rent is never required, the price for a room here is high. Officially, it is the Montefiore Medical Center Lead Safe House, the nation's first temporary home for children poisoned by lead and one of three in the city. Nationwide, only Baltimore offers similar lodgings, and in New York, the house's existence is little known. Still, a waiting list is common. Those turned away must seek safety in a hotel room, on a friend's couch or, often, in a city shelter. Families staying there call it the safe house. Until last month, Darien Young, 3, and his parents called it home. More than 100 years after New York doctors first diagnosed lead poisoning in children, and 42 years after the city banned lead from paint, children are still being poisoned first, treated later. In November, the New York State Court of Appeals issued a ruling that may make it easier for victims of lead poisoning to sue their landlords for damages. But laws governing lead poisoning are labyrinthine, and extinction of the public-health problem is proving difficult. New York is a city of aging buildings, and 70 percent of its three million housing units still contain lead. A vast majority can be found along the so-called lead belt, a swath of low-income neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens where the incidence of lead poisoning is much higher than anywhere else in the state. The city's Health Department says numbers are dropping steadily, reflecting a national trend resulting mainly from the elimination of leaded gasoline. But in 2000, the city documented 4,831 new cases of children with neurological damage after breathing lead-laced dust or eating lead paint chips. Advocates say the number of children with lead poisoning is 9,000 to 30,000 citywide. But Montefiore, which got city money to build its experimental safe house in 1991, can take only a handful. As with any house, it comes with its own rules and relationships. What is it like to move into this house of shared misfortune? Once inside, how is it to juggle the demands of landlord, lawyer, doctor, boss, neighbor and child? The family of Darien Young spent five months in a safe house. This is their story. The Diagnosis Last July 19, Darien's mother, Wanda La Santa, sat in a dim examining room at the Montefiore Medical Center's lead clinic, listening. Ms. La Santa is 33, with high cheekbones and upswept auburn hair. She is the head cook at Cardinal Hayes High School in the South Bronx, and she loves the work. She has three boys and she is usually cheerful and talkative. That morning she said little, though, because nurses were explaining why her youngest son, Darien, was not well. He seemed content that morning, driving a plastic car up and down her leg. Across the room stood her boyfriend of six years, Darien's father, Roger Young. He is 28 and boyish, a cook at Cardinal Spellman High in the Bronx. He loves buying bootleg movies and playing video games. He leaned against the bed with arms folded, head bowed. It is overwhelming to be educated on lead poisoning when the reason for the lesson is happily playing on the floor with clinic toys. Ms. La Santa was seven months pregnant with Darien when she and Roger moved into the second story of a house on East 220th Street in Williamsbridge. Her two older sons, Derrick and Jerel, and the family pit bull, Niko, also lived with them. The couple disliked the place because it was lopsided and dark, but they had decided to stay and save up to buy a house. Darien was a good baby, she said. He had her wide eyes and Mr. Young's dimples. He rarely got sick, which was why she became worried when he stopped eating and refused to go to bed. His speech seemed slurred. On July 11, she took him to the pediatrician. The next day, the nurse called, frantic, saying that Darien's blood-lead level was 34 micrograms per deciliter. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have set the acceptable lead level at under 10 micrograms, the bar for concern at 20. (In the past, children died with levels above 80.) Sitting in the clinic, the nurse said Darien's level of 34 was discouraging but not fatal. Lead, she continued, is a soft, silvery gray metal once loved by painters because it made paint easy to apply and scrub clean. The federal government banned its use in paint in 1977 and from gasoline in 1990. Children exposed to high levels of lead suffer learning and behavioral problems, stunted growth, hearing loss and hyperactivity. Lead poisoning has been linked to lower I.Q.'s. The damage can be kept from worsening, but is irreversible. The nurse then pulled out a questionnaire. Did she know how Darien got poisoned? No, Ms. La Santa said. Did she ever catch him eating paint chips? No. Did he ever pull up and peer out windows? Yes, to watch the ice-cream truck drive by. Can your landlord afford to fix the apartment? Probably not. Can you stay in a hotel for a while? No. Ms. La Santa weakly held up a hand. "Wait," she said. "I'm just really upset." "I know," the nurse said. "But the Health Department found 84 lead violations in your apartment. The longer you keep Darien there, the worse he'll get. You need to get him out as soon as possible." "But my mind is running too fast," she said. "It's a lot to handle, and this is all new to me." "I'm afraid it usually is." The nurse handed her a flier. At the top was a telephone number for information about the Montefiore Medical Center Lead Safe House, a five-minute walk from the clinic. An apartment on the top floor had just been emptied and repainted the day before. The family could probably move in for a few months. That way, they could continue with Darien's treatment and search for a new apartment. The pit bull was not allowed. Ms. La Santa's eyes searched her boyfriend's face. He nodded feebly. She filled out the paperwork. Within hours, they would have to pack and leave the familiar for the safe house. "All I want to do is blow up our house, and I can't," Mr. Young said, quietly, as they walked out to the street. "I can't do anything. I can't stand it. I need a cigarette." The Move The safe house has four floors, all branching off one staircase. Each apartment shares the pay phones at the far end of the second and third floors. A door on the second floor leads into a clinic, conference room and downstairs playroom. Here is where the den mothers, Marsha Carrington and Gladys Montalvo, work during office hours. Ms. Carrington's father spent 30 years working for Dutch Boy Paint. Ms. Montalvo spent 14 years at a city Head Start center before joining the lead safe house when it opened. Both women are federally certified lead paint inspectors; because of past corruption, they have grown wary of city-certified inspectors. They are also the only authority that most safe house families ever see. Ms. Montalvo greets newcomers, lists the house rules, listens to complaints and offers to baby-sit. Ms. Carrington looks after public housing requests, runs awareness workshops on lead paint and buys diapers in emergencies. On July 23, four days after the clinic visit, Ms. Montalvo showed Darien Young's parents to No. 4A, a one-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor, facing the park. Smoking and drinking were not allowed, she told them as they climbed the flights, and neither was overnight company. Calls could be made on the pay phones until 10 p.m., but loud music was discouraged. There was a Laundromat around the corner, and the police were particular about illegal parking. Ms. La Santa walked in, her hands filled with soggy bags of frozen beef and Parmesan cheese. It was summer, and the sunny apartment was heavy with heat. Mr. Young tugged at his white T-shirt, already slick. "Smells like paint," he said. He walked from the front door by the kitchen into the adjoining living area, past the bathroom and then into the bedroom, which had an air- conditioner and three rubbery twin mattresses. He flipped on the window unit. "God, I hate that smell now," Ms. La Santa said. The room seemed sterile, but in the kitchen cabinets were signs of a former family: a paring knife, packets of duck sauce and a refrigerator magnet advertising a lawyer specializing in lead cases. Neither had slept much the night before, which was spent planning and packing. Because the apartment was small, Derrick and Jerel would stay with their grandfather in Pemberton, N.J. Darien was spending the day with another relative. Big furniture had been given to friends for storage. Back at the old house, the landlady had heard the news and was crying. What did she know? She had no money, but she loved that baby. Inside, the bedrooms were still littered with clothes. Niko the pit bull was pacing the bathroom floor. They could not afford to board him with a veterinarian. Still, Mr. Young couldn't bear to put Niko to sleep until they had finished moving. It took the couple all that day and part of the next to shuffle their belongings in Ms. La Santa's red Plymouth Acclaim. During one trip, they heard a radio commercial about a law office that handled asbestos and lead cases. He wrote the number on his hand, and she used the pay phone to leave a message. "It's strange," he said. "I never even heard those commercials before." By the next night, all they needed to move was Darien. Ms. La Santa picked him up and led him into their safe house room. The boy giggled as Mr. Young screwed in the legs of the crib. "I think he'll get used to this place faster than we do," Mr. Young said. "It's a cute place," Ms. La Santa said, "but you know that feeling you have when you're going home? I don't have that now, and I'm afraid I will. That's what depresses me, thinking of this room as home, because it's nice and we can't stay here. As soon as we feel settled here, I know we'll have to leave. And who knows if the next place will be safe?" The Neighbors If the safe house has the air of a dorm, its community lunches are orientation and play date. Ms. Montalvo organizes these potluck lunches because she thinks it is healthy for the families, thrown together in such sad circumstance, to become friends. The camaraderie can indeed be comforting, but emotions are also raw. Stress levels stay high. "But it's good, especially for the children, because everyone is going through the same thing," she said. Most of the house, about five families, showed up when a sign posted in early August announced a lunch in the playroom. Ms. La Santa and Mr. Young were still on summer break, so they had time to take Darien. It would be his first chance to play with the other children, and they hoped he behaved. He got angry so easily these days. Downstairs, tiny Cookie Monster chairs lined the playroom. A toddler in a pink satin dress and black slippers waddled around. Two boys, 5 and 6, in matching green shorts, stacked cardboard bricks onto each other and, soon, onto Darien. In the corner on a long table were peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, lasagna, tuna salad and watermelon. By now, every family knew that lead siphons iron and vitamins out of children's bodies, so the emphasis is on nutritious foods at community lunches. Mr. Young felt uneasy, though. In a room of mothers, he was the only man. Sitting down in a corner, he concentrated on his plate as Ms. La Santa made conversation. Remedios Flores, she learned, lived on the first floor with her son, Edwin. His levels were nearly normal, but Ms. Flores had elevated levels and was pregnant. Aurelia de Jesus, 27, lived in 2A, opposite the reclusive Smiths. Ms. de Jesus had the two boys in green shorts, Juan and Marco. Her youngest, Blanca Flores, was 2 and had a blood lead level of 23. The biggest family in the house was that of Gloria Ramirez, 24, who made the lasagna. She and her husband, Joey, and four of their five children lived in 3A. They moved into the house in March. At the lunch, Ms. La Santa suddenly felt she wasn't getting enough air. With thanks and apologies, she grabbed Darien and Mr. Young and they walked upstairs in silence. The problems of others were too much, she said. Her life felt too unsettled for new friends. She had to concentrate. She needed to get Darien's lead levels down. He needed iron, and she needed money. She had to prepare for the culinary management classes she was taking at the New York Restaurant School. She had to stay awake. Mr. Young reassured her. "I'm trying my best not to make friends here," he said. "I don't plan on us being here long." Waiting and Working Time, the family came to realize, has a way of stretching and constricting in a safe house. Familiar faces disappeared, and were quickly replaced by new ones. The stairwell swelled with the sounds of children one week, but was eerily silent the next. The days of summer and autumn bled into winter, and still on the top floor, Darien Young played and his parents planned. Roger Young wearied of walking to use the pay phone and got a cellphone. He felt depressed, so that some days he couldn't get up to answer the door when neighbors knocked. She understood. She had sent out reams of applications for public housing, but had heard nothing. "We've gotten used to calling it home and wanting to be here," she said. "But at night Roger and I sit and talk, and we always come back to the same thought: we need a real home. This isn't ours." As soon as Darien's levels were normal, in late October, they were asked to leave. The weekly clinic visits, vitamins and a lead-free environment had done its job. His appetite and regular sleep habits had returned. His parents were ecstatic. Doctors warned them, however, that any lasting damage would not be known until he started school. Evaluations would then gauge whether he could keep up with his classmates. They got a real estate broker and started apartment-hunting near Montefiore. They looked at nine places, asking first about lead and receiving surprised glances. Then the car broke down. She got the $1,300 bill and cried. Ms. Montalvo asked if they wanted to stay at the safe house one more month. They did. Looking Ahead On Dec. 1, Darien Young's family again stuffed everything they owned into plastic bags and boxes. No one gave them a farewell party, and no volunteers carried bundles into the waiting car downstairs. There were moments during their stay when Ms. La Santa regretted not being more neighborly. But in their faces, she recognized too well her own desperation. Since then, she has driven by the red house with green doors several times. She has never stopped. The family's new apartment is on the ground floor of a soaring building on Wilson Avenue in Eastchester Heights. The two-bedroom apartment is $875 a month. She has a signed statement from the landlord, saying the place is lead free. Her refrigerator-magnet lawyer also has a copy. Last week, she sat on her blue-gray sectional sofa, smoking. Mr. Young wrestled on the floor with their new Rottweiler puppy, Tigger. Darien padded into the room on a white tricycle. "This is what I know," she said. "I want to finish school and get my bachelor's degree. I want to hang onto this place until we can afford to buy a house, maybe in New Jersey. I want my boys to finish the school year there because they're in honor roll and doing really good. I'm happy Darien's levels are down, and I have to believe he will grow up and be successful. I need to believe he will be smart." Darien walked up to her on his bike. She gently put his feet on the pedals. He shook his feet off and walked away. "We got him that bike last year, but he can't pedal it," she said. "He says he can't, but we know he can. See, it's those simple things that worry us. There's so much we still don't know."
Article in New York Times - January 13, 2002 (original at http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/13/nyregion/thecity/13FEAT.html ) | <urn:uuid:98ac054e-4a12-4696-9c90-514f217f51e3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.calisafe.org/_disc1/0000000a.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396459.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00089-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98583 | 3,716 | 2.609375 | 3 |
The thriller goes against the grain of mundane modern life while at the same time remaining immersed in it. This concept indicates that the thriller is an essentially modern form, whose rise coincides with the arrival of urban industrialism, mass society, middle-class lifestyle, and the twentieth century. In other words, the thriller is a response to a modern world that is perceived under normal circumstances to be fundamentally not thrilling. As Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) observed in a 1936 magazine article ("Why 'Thrillers' Thrive," in Gottlieb, p. 109), "Our civilization has so screened and sheltered us that it isn't practicable to experience sufficient thrills at firsthand." The thriller seeks to redeem the unadventurous modern world with a spirit of old-fashioned adventure.
Although the thriller did not fully emerge until the early part of the twentieth century, it has relevant roots reaching back to the eighteenth century. Three literary antecedents are especially important: the Gothic novel,
The roots of the thriller can be more generally related to the rise of urban-industrial society in the nineteenth century, which created a new mass audience, along with new popular entertainment forms to serve that audience. One of the most important was the melodramatic theater, which placed a premium on action and visual spectacle, including suspenseful, last-minute rescues of heroes and heroines tied to railroad tracks, menaced by buzz saws, and dangled from precipices.
Another relevant area of nineteenth-century popular entertainment encompasses amusement parks, fairgrounds, and their thrilling rides and attractions (e.g., the roller coaster, Ferris wheel, and fun house). Like these attractions, the thriller works primarily to evoke visceral, gut-level feelings, such as suspense, fright, excitement, speed, and motion, rather than subtle or weighty emotions, such as tragedy, pathos, pity, love, and nostalgia. The thriller stresses sensations more than sensitivity; it is a sensational form.
Amusement parks and fairgrounds were among the main venues for early motion picture exhibition, which was dominated by novelty-oriented short films. A large group of these films highlighted the sensation of motion by placing the camera on moving vehicles such as trolleys, trains, boats, and elevators. Such sensations were eventually incorporated into an early film genre known as the chase film (of which the Edison Company's 1903 hit The Great Train Robbery is an unusually ambitious example), using a minimal story set-up as the springboard for an extended pursuit.
The period from 1907 to 1913 saw the movie industry's growing domination by narrative filmmaking, a development most closely identified with the American director D. W. Griffith (1875–1948). Among the techniques of film storytelling that Griffith refined, the one most pertinent to the thriller is cross-cutting (i.e., cutting back and forth between related actions occurring in different places). He applied this suspense-enhancing device to melodramatic last-minute rescue situations in a number of short films made for the Biograph Company, such as The Lonedale Operator (1911), in which a locomotive engineer races to save his besieged sweetheart, and Death's Marathon (1913), whose climax intermixes a distraught wife, her suicide-bent husband, a telephone connection, and a speeding automobile.
An eccentric contributor to the evolution of the movie thriller was the serial, whose episodic structure enabled action and suspense sequences to dominate a lengthy narrative with a nearly constant succession of thrills. Evolving in the mid-1910s, early American serials frequently featured female protagonists in recurring situations of jeopardy, as indicated by such titles as The Adventures of Kathlyn (1913), The Perils of Pauline (1914), and The Mysteries of Myra (1916). In Europe, the serial achieved greater artistic stature, particularly in the work of France's Louis Feuillade (1873–1925). In his celebrated serials Fantômas (1914), Les Vampires (1915–1916), and Judex (1916), supercriminals and secret societies transform sturdy bourgeois Paris into a surreptitious, almost surreal battleground, riddled with trap doors and hidden panels, infiltrated by hooded blackclad figures who scurry over rooftops and shimmy down drainpipes, and undermined by a constant succession of reversals and disguises. | <urn:uuid:cf760526-ecbc-46c1-a967-fe9132ae2951> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Romantic-Comedy-Yugoslavia/Thrillers-ORIGINS-OF-THE-MOVIE-THRILLER.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00133-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936172 | 899 | 2.8125 | 3 |
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An optical laboratory technician is a trained employee responsible for crafting eyeglasses and other types of optical lenses. Most optical techs are high school graduates and complete their training at work in the lab, although some may seek additional preparation and certification through a vocational college. Technicians are a vital part of an optometrist's or ophthalmologist’s practice, because they are the person responsible for taking the patient's prescription and matching the corrective lenses to the eyeglass frames. The completed eyeglasses are then brought to the patient for a final adjustment. In addition to creating lenses, the tech also is responsible to maintaining the optical lab and its equipment.
Typically, an optical laboratory technician is part of a larger team working at a retail location or an ophthalmologist’s office. In some cases, the lens production may take place in a separate lab with several techs filling prescriptions and sending them to one or more offices. A patient’s visit usually begins with an appointment with the eye doctor to determine the best corrective lenses for his vision problems. The optometrist or ophthalmologist will then pass the prescription on to the tech, who is responsible for assembling the patient’s eyewear.
Once he has the prescription, the optical laboratory technician will select the appropriate lens blank and apply any tints or other special treatments that the patient needs. Techs will need to use several ophthalmic instruments to complete this procedure, including lensometers, curve generators and fining machines. These instruments automatically perform most of the work of grinding and polishing the lenses, but the tech will need to monitor the process and make sure the completed lenses match the prescription.
After the lenses have been polished, the optical laboratory technician will inspect them for scratches and other imperfections and then insert the completed lenses into the frame. The tech may need to work with different types of frames and rims, depending on the patient’s needs and current eyewear fashions. Once the glasses are completed, the patient will try them on and the final fitting will take place. If there are problems with the glasses, the tech may need to make minor adjustments or restart the whole process for serious flaws.
In addition to their work making glasses, lab techs also are employed to make other types of optical lenses for use in telescopes, microscopes, binoculars and other vision-enhancing devices. Many of these products are made in large manufacturing facilities, but some types of lenses require techs to perform smaller-scale precision work. An optical laboratory technician also performs repair work for all kinds of lenses if they become scratched or broken.
One of our editors will review your suggestion and make changes if warranted. Note that depending on the number of suggestions we receive, this can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Thank you for helping to improve wiseGEEK! | <urn:uuid:9c27202d-ed58-4da7-86b2-1fd52dbf8e5d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wisegeek.com/what-does-an-optical-laboratory-technician-do.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00135-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940157 | 601 | 3.453125 | 3 |
Derived from the early to mid-1990s Landsat Thematic Mapper satellite data, the National Land Cover Data (NLCD) is a
21-class land cover classification scheme applied consistently over the United States.
The spatial resolution of the data is 30 meters and mapped in the Albers Conic Equal Area projection, NAD 83. The NLCD
are provided on a state-by-state basis. | <urn:uuid:a69835e0-ead1-4a8b-9f3e-5428cff44bdc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.webgis.com/nlcd92.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 | 0.894719 | 87 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Last modified: 2015-11-23 by zoltán horváth
Keywords: shahada | wahhabi | sword | swords: 2 | nejd | mecca | arabia | text: arabic (golden) | ) |
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The "base flag" of Saudi Arabia, the shahada or Islamic profession
of faith ("There is no god but God and Muhammad is the Prophet of God") on
solid green was an old flag, connected to the Wahhabi reformist
movement of the late 18th century, with whose religious drive the
Al Saud family first rose to power. The sword was added in 1902,
when Abdul Aziz ibn Abdul Rahman Al Saud
("Ibn Saud" to the British) established himself as Sultan of the Nejd.
In 1925, Abdulaziz established himself as King of the Nejd and Hejaz, with unknown flag alterations. (The King of Hejaz, Hussein, had used the Arab Revolt Flag).
When the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was established in 1932, the earlier Nejdi flag continued, though variants are shown with two swords, with a white stripe toward the hoist, etc.
Ed Haynes, 14 March 1996
In [The International Flag Book, Christian Fogd Pedersen gives
the date 1946 for the adoption of the national flag (with the older pattern of sword).
Christopher Southworth, 14 April 2003
The national flag of Saudi Arabia has maintained its basic characteristics --
the Shahada (or Testimony) written in white Arabic script over a white sword
against a green background -- for many decades(1)
There seem to have been three major design variations over the years. The earliest flag had a very simplified version of the inscription on a rather square field with a very white heading at the hoist.(2)
The next stage may have been introduced at the time of the unification of the country, under the name Kingdom of the Hijaz and of Nejd and its Dependencies' in February 1927. The inscription in this case was in the complicated thuluth script and filled nearly the entire field of the flag.(3)
In 1973, a Royal decree established a precise design(4) in which the inscription was condensed to one-eighth the flag's area and the weapon was changed from a curved saber to a straight Arab sword. Recently (1984) a further modification has been introduced in the national flag: the hilt in the previous design has been replaced by a simpler form. Unfortunately, it has not been possible to obtain a Royal decree or other legal instrument establishing this design as the exclusive one for the national flag.(4)
(1) Its exact age is not clear. E.H. Baxter, National Flags (London: Warne, 1934) stated that "This flag is said to have been designed about 100 years ago by the Grandfather of the present King." That it was in use in 1911 is evident from the contemporary photograph reproduced between pp. 190 and 191 in Robert Lacey's The Kingdom (London: Hutchinson, 1981). The interesting article by Oleg Tarnovsky, "The Flag History of Saudi Arabia" (Flagmaster, No. 41) is, unfortunately, misleading in its documentation and presents factual claims with a degree of certainty not justified by available evidence.
(2) The heading -- a piece of material attached to the flag which forms a sleeve through which the pole passes does not figure in the symbolic meaning of the flag as it varies in width and is sometimes completely absent, e.g. in table flags and in a flag whose heading has grommets or a rope. It would seem, therefore, that the white stripe in the Saudi flag should not be considered as an inherent part of the flag, but as an accessory to it (like fringe, pole, finial, cravate, etc.)
(3) Illustrations of this flag can be found on plate 14 of the Flaggenbuch of the high command of the German Naval War Ministry (Berlin: Reichsdruckerei, 1939; on p. 344 of "Flags of the World" by Gilbert Grosvenor and William J. Showalter, the The National Geographic Magazine, LXVI:3 (September 1934) ; and in various flag charts produced by the United Nations.
(4) see the FLAG BULLETIN, Volume XIV, No. 2, pp 44-45.
Source: [The Flag Bulletin
Martin Grieve, 27 October 2006
National Flag, 1934 according to E.H. Baxter
image by Martin Grieve, 04 November 2006
In E.H.Baxter's "National Flags" 1934; "The National Flag is formed of a
green square and a narrow white strip at the staff; on the green square is an
Oriental motto with a sheathed scimitar below it both in white. This flag is
said to have been designed about a hundred years ago by the grandfather of the
present King. Proportion 8 : 7."
David sent me the illustration from this publication and I have re-drawn it.
Some points for observation here:
1) Although the text from this book reports that the Proportion are "8 :7", this is not the case according to the illustration which accompanies it. In that illustration, which is a black and white outline drawing, the green portion of the flag which contains the Shahada and sword is in the proportion of 8:7, with the white stripe being additional to this, thus making the entire overall proportion of the flag at approximately 275x216. Length-to-width was the prefered method of quoting a flag's ratio in the bygone years, but this has now been juxtaposed to width-to-length.
2) The illustration in Flaggenbuch varies altogether from Baxter's version, omitting the vertical white stripe at the hoist, and being embellished with an entirely different Shahada or testament. David Prothero offers the explanation that the version of Saudi Arabia's flag which is reproduced photographically in the National Geographic magazine, and is the same as Flaggenbuch illustrates, is perhaps the Royal Standard of that Nation, whilst Baxter is showing the observer the National Flag. My greatest concern on this matter would be as to the different styles of Shahadas on 2 contemporary flags, when one would expect them to be one and the same? We may never know.
3) The addition of a white stripe down the hoist is another point for debate. Many neighbouring countries had a stripe adjacent to the staff in 1934 - Bahrein, Trucial States, Qatar and Kuwait, but we have out-ruled the influence of these Nation's flags on the Saudi Flag, as it would appear that it is not Islamic practise in Vexillology to do (or have done) so. The white stripe in Pakistan's flag represents the Hindu population. Baxter insists that it is part of the flag.
4) The Shahada and sword on Baxters illustration are respectively - written left-to right, and pointing to the fly. Are we seeing a prime example as to why Islamic flags should be displayed with the staff at the observers right?
Also - does the illustration imply that Saudi Arabia were not particulary fussed if the Shahada was mirrored, contrary to today's practise where it must read the same obverse or reverse?
Martin Grieve, 04 November 2006
image by Eugene Ipavec, 17 February 2012
There is an
unusual depiction of the flag of Saudi Arabia (part of a
series of 1950's Topps "Flags of the World" trading cards). There are two swords
and a white stripe at the hoist (the stripe is usually explained as an exaggerated sleeve).
Eugene Ipavec, 17 February 2012
image by Martin Grieve, 26 October 2006
after photo in [National Geographic (1934)
The September 1934 National Geographic [gsh34] includes a black and white photograph of the Saudi Arabian flag with one sword. The caption under the picture reads:
King Ibn Saud's army carried this flag in its desert conquests...When the powerful King of Saudi Arabia visited Germany two years ago [i.e., 1932], this flag was [used] in his honor by the officials of Tempelhof, Berlin's huge airport."There are several possible explanations for the one and two sword flags. The caption under the picture makes it sound like Ibn Saud's Army carried the flag during their conquests, therefore it may be that this is a military flag, not a national one. This would also account for its apparent use before 1932.
Unfortunately the new kingdom was proclaimed after the plates for this issue went to press, so there is no color plate or explanation about the dates of adoption, etc. There is a note in the text that also mentions that the flag was supposedly designed by Ibn Saud's grandfather, a century earlier.
Carr [car61] shows the two sword
version, but the text notes that there is also a one-sword version.
Crampton [cra90] says that the sword
was added to the traditional Wahhabite green banner in 1902, but that
there have been many variants. I suspect that the flag was never
rigidly defined in the past, and whether to use one sword or two was
left to the taste of the king at the time. Interestingly, Saudi
Arabia's national emblem remains two swords crossed under a palm
Roy Stilling, 25 April 1996
The crossed-sword version referred to here would appear to be in doubt, despite the fact that it has appeared in several publications, and I have two of them on my bookshelf at home. In [Flaggenbuch (1939), there is the version with one sword shown and this flag I would suggest is the same flag as the flag in the photograph in a 1934 National Geographic magazine [gsh34] which I have seen. As Saudi Arabia came into existence in 1932 (?) I would think this to be its very first flag, although there have been quite a few variants of the one sword version through the years. But this could simply be due to the flag not being specified "precisely." I think that these flags are a continuation (with different Shahada and
swords) of the original Flaggenbuch version and so feel that the two sword version was erroneously reported and repeated.
Martin Grieve, 26 October 2006
Having a look at Gresham Carr's 1961 Flags of the World [car61], I learnt about the existence of a 1937 piece of legislation regulating Saudi Arabian flags, including at least the national flag, royal standard, war ensign and civil ensign, all of which were described (maybe also illustrated) with two crossed swords. Carr gives the Islamic calendar date 18/1/1356 A.H., i.e. 18th Muharram 1356 A.H., which is about 31 March 1937 A.D. Carr's text says:
The National Flag is green and bears the great Arabic inscription, La illaha illa Allah wa Muhammad ur-rusul Ullah, – "There is no god but God, and Mohammed is the Prophet of God." The inscription, in accordance with the Arab custom, reads from the observer's right towards the left. In order that it shall appear correctly on the reverse side of the flag, it is necessary for the manufacturer to print it in duplicate and sew the two back to back before fixing the canvas "heading". Under the inscription, which is in white, there are two white swords in saltire. In accordance with decree 18/1/1356 A.H., the National Flag is 150 by 100 centimetres (see Plate XXXI, 4); In passing, it should perhaps be recorded that Saudi Arabian flags sometimes have one white sword instead of two in saltire.The swords illustrated on Carr's plate appear to be Western sabers (slightly curved and with guard) rather than Arab scimitars (very curved, no guard, as in the former Yemeni flag) or the elaborate version of the Abd al Aziz sword (no guard, decorated hilt and pommel) shown in early Saudi flags.
Santiago Dotor, 14-15 April 2003
The change was gradual and never quite official due to the fact
that the flag was not officially described until recently (if
recently is the right word for 1973). However, 15 March 1973 is the
date of adoption of the one-sword flag.
Željko Heimer, 26 September 1996
The history of the 1945 Saudi flag needs more research. It seems certain
that a flag very similar to the current one was adopted on 30 March 1938. In this
flag, the shahada was larger than at present. On 15 March 1973, the size of
the shahada was changed to occupy one-eighth of the total area of the
flag. Another small modification was made on 19 November 1980, changing the sword
slightly. But there's this question with the 1945 flag: circa 1950, several charts
show two crossed swords on Saudi flags. Neubecker [
[neu39] reported this pattern in use in 1939, but other vexillologists believe
that it was used from 1945, after Saudi Arabia's declaration of war against the Axis,
and disappeared in 1956. Smith says that the two-sword pattern was only a misunderstanding:
a plate issued in 1950 by the Saudi embassies in London and Washington mislabelled
the royal standard as the national flag. A original document from Neubecker shows the
two flags (national and royal) with writing in Neubecker's own hand stating that
the English version had the captions of both flags reversed while the
original Arabic version was correct.
Jaume Ollé 14 April 2003
Are sure about the 1938 date? It looks very similar, but not the same, as the
one given in Carr (discussed above. As I said before, Carr
gives "18/1/1356 A.H." which is 31st March 1937 – almost exactly a year before your date.
(It could even be exactly a year, since most Hijri-Gregorian converters give the possibility
of a one-day error.)
Santiago Dotor, 15 April 2003
There was a variant with two swords. It was the royal flag. I own a
photocopy of a flag plate which shows both flags crossed, the captions
above the two-sword flag read "National flag", and the caption above the
other flag reads "Royal flag". The plate was published in 1948 by the
Royal Saudi embassy in London. In 1961 the same plate was published by
the Royal Saudi embassy in New York. Dr. Neubecker had sent me the
London photocopy years ago with the explanation: "the English captions
were interchanged, the original Arab captions below the English words
tell it vice versa, and that is correct." The plate published in New
York had the correct captions. So the flag was not described for the first time in 1973 but much
By the way: King Saud had received the sword from his father [King Abdul Aziz, also known as Ibn Saud – Ed.]. It is the family sword, and Saud decided to put it on his flag. The whole story is written in Dagobert von Mikusch, Ibn Saud, (Leipzig: List-Verlag), 1942. Maybe there is a reason for changing the design of the sword in the flag: King Abdul Aziz's sword was curved...but that is only speculation.
Ralf Stelter, 21 December 2003
image by Martin Grieve and Eugene Ipavec, 24 Feb 2012
At a business ceremony in Tokyo on Apr 2 1980, they still used a curved sword.
Nozomi Kariyasu, 27 October 2006
National flag with 2 crossed swords:
image by Martin Grieve, 02 December 2006
Royal Standard with 2 crossed swords:
image by Martin Grieve, 02 December 2006
Naval Ensign with 2 crossed swords:
image by Martin Grieve, 02 December 2006
Merchant Ensign with 2 crossed swords:
image by Martin Grieve, 03 December 2006
I have found a picture of a flag of Saudi Arabia. On it, under the
shahada, are two swords crossed, both pointing downwards. On
today's flag of Saudi Arabia, there is only one sword, horizontal,
and pointing upwards.
Goren M. Shaked, 25 April 1996
I suppose it could be some artist's conflation of gold crossed swords and
palm with the correct flag. The errant flag got onto that plate of flags that
was in a dictionary and an encyclopedia and maybe some other books. It was
commonly seen and copied, until the Saudi government issued a press release
tightening the specs, then everyone corrected their reference books.
However, I tend to favor the variation theory. Just as US flags of the 19th century can have the stars in any configuration, the Saudi flagmaker was free to make the shahada any size or in any script, and free to use any type of sword or even two swords. The bit about one sword for the national flag and two for the royal flag or military flag may be outside observers misperceptions, or may be genuine.
Am I the only person to see the two horizontal sword version? The memory is very Worldbookian. I'm flashing on a possible source: World Book Encyclopedia Yearbook 1972.
Randall Bart, 06 November 2006
Recently, there was a request to display the Saudi Arabian (historical)
flag which featured 2 crossed swords beneath the Shahada. It would seem unclear
from the evidence gathered relating to this flag as to whether it ever existed
or not, but undoubtedly, it most certainly is very well-documented in a great
many Vexillological publications, some extremely authoratative and therefore "trust-worthy".
Whitney Smith makes absolutely no mention of this flag in the issue of the flag bulletin which contains a brief synopsis of the 3 major changes to the design of this flag which took place since the Kingdom's inception in 1932, following the merge of Hejaz and Nedj.
Source: H Gresham-Carr's book.
Martin Grieve, 02 December 2006
If you compare this merchant ensign version (from Carr) with the one on page
6 of Whitney Smith's book FTTAAATW 1975, where the style of swords are similar
to what we see on the present-day Royal Standard. There may have been a change
at some point?
Martin Grieve, 03 December 2006
image by Eugene Ipavec, 09 February 2010
The 82nd flag mentioned and illustrated in the Book of All Kingdoms [f0fXX]
is attributed to Mecca (or to Arabia in general, depending on the interpretation). This as depicted in the 2005 Spanish
illustrated transcription [f0f05], a red flag yellow Arabic letters, in the ogival
default shape of this source. The exact shape of the letters, as depicted in [f0f05],
seems to be bogus, or at least severely misshapen. (This flag differs in detail from both #83
(Socotra) and #23 (Granada), though they all are red with yellow Arabic letters.)
The anonymous author of [f0fXX]] describes the flag thusly:
«sus señales son un pendón bermejo e en medio letras de oro aravigas.»
"Its device is a red flag and on it Arabic letters in gold."
According to the Hakluyt Society 1912 illustrated transcription in English [f0f12] (#72 on plate 16 between p.40-41), the manuscript "S" [f0fXXs] shows this flag just like [f0f05].
António Martins-Tuválkin, 08 Dec 2007
image by Eugene Ipavec, 06 April 2012
On e-bay there was a
cigarette card labeled as 1888 N6 City Flags MECCA **AA-1784**
William Garrison, 18 March 2012 | <urn:uuid:5408cf14-56c4-42ff-bdff-242e8a47dbe9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://crwflags.com/fotw/flags/sa_hist.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395992.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00027-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946011 | 4,252 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Production Management : Production Management Unit III : Unit III Work Measurement : Work Measurement Procedure of Work Measurement : Procedure of Work Measurement Selection
Obtain All Necessary Information
Divide The Job Into Elements
Time The Elements
The Number Of Cycles To Be Timed
Rating The Operator
Allowances Work Sampling : Work Sampling “Work sampling is a technique consists of taking a sufficiently large number of spot observations at random time intervals over an adequate span of time .”
“Work sampling is a work measurement technique that randomly samples the work of one or more employees at periodic intervals to determine the proportion of total operations that is accounted for in one particular activity.” Slide 6: Work sampling
= Total time of the study × Ratio of the number of observation of the activity to the total no. of observations × Average performance rating for the activity
Total output of the activity, during the time study Advantages of work sampling : Advantages of work sampling Many operations or activities which are impractical or costly to measure by time study can be measured by work sampling.
A simultaneous work sampling study of several operators or machines may be made by a single operator.
It usually requires lesser man hours and costs less to make a work sampling study instead of making a continuous time study.
Stop watch is not needed for work sampling.
It improves the productivity. Disadvantages of Work sampling : Disadvantages of Work sampling Insufficient observations are likely to produce inaccurate results.
Work sampling is uneconomical for short cycle,
It can be biased by observer. Use of work sampling : Use of work sampling To determine the allowances for inclusion in standard times.
To indicate the nature of the distribution of work activities within a gang operation.
To estimate the percentage of utilization of groups of similar machines or equipments.
To indicate how materials handling equipments are being used.
To provide a basis for indirect labour time standards.
To determine the productive and non-productive utilization of clerical operations. Working Environment : Working Environment It is very important to make a healthy working environment which include both physical and mental environment.
The problem of working conditions and environment are multi-complex and cross sectoral in nature and can be solved through a multi-disciplinary approach. Poor working environment exerts undue strain on workers effort, reduce their efficiency and lower the productivity of the system. Slide 11: An environment can be divided as follows:-
Physical environment:- It includes physical working conditions as ventilation, noise, lighting, temperature, humidity etc.
Mental environment:- It includes psychological factors as fear for loosing job, pressure on mind, stress etc.
Social environment:- It includes culture of that particular factory or organization. It means relationship between employer and employee or worker. Working condition : Working condition Cleanliness:- It is essential for health. Dirt should be removed daily form all rooms, passage and stair and rest of factory area.
Lighting:- Worker’s efficiency directly depends on his ability to see the objects quickly and accurately. So it directly affects the productivity.
Temperature:- High temperature decrees productivity and increase stress. So there should be tolerable temperature in the factory premises. Slide 13: Ventilation:- There should be proper arrangement of entrance of air for that there should be more and more windows so that air can be pass.
Freedom from noise:- Noise may be unwanted sound in or outside the factory area. In increase deafness, migraine, indigestion etc type of diseases.
Humidity:- There should not be more humidity it increase suffocation. Industrial Safety : Industrial Safety Industrial safety has become the prime responsibility of management in the modern industrial . Industrial and labour legislations have made it obligatory on the ensure industrial safety.
Safety means freedom from the occurrence or risk of injury or loss. Industrial safety or employee safety refers to the protection of the workers from the dangers of industrial accidents. Objectives of Industrial Safety : Objectives of Industrial Safety To reduce the number of all type of accidents which may cause loss of life, personal injury.
To reduce loss or damage to equipment loss or damage to equipment of operating efficiency.
To make healthy and safe environment for employee and worker. Effects of Accidents : Effects of Accidents “An accident is any unplanned, uncontrolled, unwanted or undesirable event or sudden mishap which interrupts an activity or junction.”
Injury - disability, pain or suffering etc.
Damage - of equipment, machine or building
Loss - of life, earning , output , profit
Emotion- following injury, pain, death etc. Causes of Accidents : Causes of Accidents Plant- faulty stairways, electrical hazards etc.
Equipment- defective guard, incorrect equipment
Environment- high noise, insufficient light etc
People- untrained, over-stressed, careless
Systems of work- poor procedures, bad housekeeping. Accident Prevention Process : Accident Prevention Process I. Workplace inspection-
Safety audits and reviews,
II. Accident or incident investigation and follow-up:-This is based on the following process:-
Collecting data and information relating to the accident or incident. Slide 19: Checking the validity of the evidence
Selecting evidence relevant to the investigation aims.
Analyzing the evidence without making assumptions or jumping to conclusions.
Decide the most likely causes of the accident or incident.
Take corrective and preventive action
III. Safety training Process planning : Process planning Process planning is concerned with determining the method of manufacture of a product, establishing the sequence and type of operations involved, tools and equipment’s required and analyzing how the manufacturing of a product will fit into the facilities.
Process planning establishes the shortest route that is followed from raw material stage till it leaves as a finished part or product. Framework of Process Planning : Framework of Process Planning Product planning (product development and product final design) Process design (workstation selection, work flow analysis, operation design) Process planning Functions or Activities of Process Planning : Functions or Activities of Process Planning Making list of operations to be performed and their sequence.
Making specifications of the machines and equipment required.
Giving the manufacturing details of each operation to be performed.
Giving the estimated or processing times of operations. Factors Affecting Process Planning : Factors Affecting Process Planning Volume or quantity of production
Delivery dates for components or products.
Accuracy and process capability of machines.
The skill and expertise of manpower.
Accuracy requirements of components or parts. Process and Equipment Selection : Process and Equipment Selection The following considerations are to be given while selecting a process or machine:
Production rate and unit cost of production
Quality and reliability aspects
Minimum setup and put away times
Longer productive life of machine or equipment. Aggregate planning : Aggregate planning Aggregate or intermediate term planning is the process of determining the company’s production, inventory, and personnel level for 3-12 months ahead.
Aggregate plans act as an interface between strategic decisions, which fix the operating environment, and short-term scheduling and control decisions which guide the firm’s day-to-day operations. Goals of Aggregate Planning : Goals of Aggregate Planning It has to satisfy a number of goals:-
It has to provide the overall level of output, inventory, personnel plan.
It has to use the facility’s capacity in a manner consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Aggregate plan should be consistent with company’s goals and planning regarding its employees. Steps For A Good Aggregate Plan : Steps For A Good Aggregate Plan Indentifying the planning variables Forecasting Implementing an aggregate plan Approach to Aggregate Planning : Approach to Aggregate Planning Top down approach:- to aggregate planning involves development of the entire plan by working only at the highest level of consolidation of products. It consolidates the products into an average product then develop the plan.
A bottom approach:- It involves development of plans for major products or product families at some lower level within the product line. Scheduling : Scheduling Scheduling is the process of prescribing when each operation in a production process is to be executed. In other words it involves designing the time table of manufacturing activities indicating the time required for the production of units at each stage.
According to Kimball and Kimball, “ The determination of time that is required to perform each operation and also the time required to perform the entire series as routed is scheduling.” Objectives of Scheduling : Objectives of Scheduling To plan the sequence of different work and operation.
To minimize idle time of machines, labor etc. for having maximum utilization of plant and reducing the cost of wages.
To prevent unbalanced allocation of time among various departments and work centers. Classification of Schedules : Classification of Schedules Operation Schedules:- It determines the total time required to do a piece of work with a given machine or process.
Master Schedules:- It is the overall schedule for all operations and activities.
Sequential Schedule:- It is mainly for the multiproduct plant, which pass through a number of departments .
Scheduling Devices (Gantt Charts, CPM and PERT method etc.) Unit iv : Unit iv Material management : Material management “Material management is the planning, directing, controlling and coordinating those activities which are concerned with material and inventory requirements.”
Material management is the process of uniting the actives involved in the acquisition and use of materials employed in the production of finished goods products. Slide 34: “Material management deals with controlling and regulating the flow of material in relation to changes in variables like demand, prices , availability, quality, delivery schedules etc.” Objectives of material management : Objectives of material management Material Selection
Low operating costs
Receiving and controlling material safely and in good condition.
Issue material upon receipt of appropriate authority.
Identification of surplus stocks and taking appropriate measures to reduce it. Duties of material manager : Duties of material manager Purchasing
Inventory and Stores Control
Physical distribution Factors responsible for providing economy in materials management : Factors responsible for providing economy in materials management Volume of purchases
Plant near to the source of materials
Fluctuations in prices of the materials
Design and engineering of the product
Design of equipment
Inspection the material before placing the order Importance if material management : Importance if material management Regular supply of the materials is ensured, reducing the chances of any interruption in production process.
Procurement costs and transportation costs associated with the material and checked.
Efficient store and stock control minimizes waste of material.
Inspection of material at the time of procurement minimizes the possibility of finished product being rejected by the consumer Slide 39: Better utilization of labour, capital and equipment
Congestion in stores and at different stages of production can be avoided by and effective materials management system.
Shortage can be eliminated. Inventory : Inventory “Inventory means all the materials, parts, supplies, expense tools and in-process or finished products recorded on the books by an organization and kept in its stocks, ware houses or plant for some period of time.” Inventory control : Inventory control “Inventory control is the technique of maintaining the size of the inventory at some desired level keeping in view the best economic interests of an organization.”
“Inventory control is a system of ordering based on the maintenance of the stocks in a store using a re-order rule based on the stock level.” Objectives of inventory control : Objectives of inventory control Protection against fluctuation in demand
Better use of men, machines and material
Protection against fluctuations in output
For production economies
Control of stock volume | <urn:uuid:242dc802-fa01-4668-b89f-2a6b87e1fe68> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/pushpendranamdeo-565979-production-management/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00015-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903009 | 2,395 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Learned a word Sous Vide. Basically, it's a fancy cooking method. Instead of cooking with high temperature for minutes, it cooks at warm temperature (e.g. 60°) for hours.
When food is cooked at high temperature, the heat changes the chemistry of the food. With low temp, the food's texture remains the same, thus supposedly more tasty.
Note that there's a danger in doing this. One primary reason for cooking is to kill bacteria. With low temp, you need to have a lot knowledge about pasteurization to achieve the same thing.
This is not my thing. Modern society induced people to do that. They are bored and have nothing to do all day. e.g. heavy metal music, Drifting (car driving). (For a commentary on the social development of Heavy Metal music, see: 花样的年华 (Age of Blossom).)
Remember that millions of people around the world don't have enough food to sustain life. Yet, here in US America, we have people going ways into the art of cooking for that little extra mile of taste. | <urn:uuid:c30a3756-0e36-4035-b0e9-a3b109f02234> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://xaharts.org/misc/sous_vide_cooking.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398209.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00171-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945228 | 232 | 3.3125 | 3 |
This interesting subclass of reptiles first emerged some 200 million years ago in the Upper Triassic Period and later became extinct. All are reptiles, because they bear fundamental reptilian features: cold-blooded metabolisms (unable to produce their own heat), and bodies covered in scales. However, thanks to their powerful wings, they were able to fly.
Various popular evolutionist publications portray flying reptiles as a paleontological discovery that supports Darwinism—or at least, give such an impression. In fact, however, their origin constitutes a major dilemma for the theory of evolution: The flying reptiles emerge in the fossil record suddenly and fully formed, with no intermediate form between them and terrestrial reptiles. They have perfectly created powerful wings, which no land reptiles possess. Yet no fossil of a half-winged creature has ever been discovered.
In fact, it is impossible for half-winged creatures ever to have existed. Had such fictitious animals ever lived, they would have been at a disadvantage compared to other species, having lost the use of their front legs, but still being unable to fly. In that case, according to the logic of evolution itself, they would have swiftly gone extinct.
When examined, the wing structure of flying reptiles is seen that as too flawless and sophisticated to be explained in terms of evolution. Flying reptiles have five fingers on their wings, as do other reptiles do on their front limbs. However, the fourth finger is some 20 times longer than the others, and the wing stretches out from it as a membrane. Had terrestrial reptiles actually evolved into flying reptiles, then the fourth finger in question could only have lengthened gradually—and in stages. Not just the fourth finger but all structural wing changes must have come about through mutations, and the entire process must have constituted an advantage for these animals.
The very notion that a land reptile could have gradually been converted into a flying reptile is absurd. The incipient, part-way evolved structures, rather than conferring advantages to the intermediate stages, would have been a great disadvantage. For example, evolutionists suppose that, strange as it may seem, mutations occurred that affected only the fourth fingers a little bit at a time. Of course, other random mutations occurring concurrently, incredible as it may seem, were responsible for the gradual origin of the wing membrane, flight muscles, tendons, nerves, blood vessels, and other structures necessary to form the wings. At some stage, the developing flying reptile would have had about 25 percent wings. This strange creature would never survive, however. What good are 25 percent wings? Obviously the creature could not fly, and he could no longer run.168
It is impossible to account for the origin of flying reptiles in terms of Darwinist evolutionary mechanisms. Indeed, the fossils make it clear that no such evolution ever took place. All that exists in the fossil record are perfect, flying reptiles, along with land-dwelling reptiles of the kind we are familiar with today.
Robert L. Carroll, an evolutionist himself and one of the most eminent figures in the world of vertebrate paleontology, makes this confession:
. . . all the Triassic pterosaurs were highly specialized for flight . . . They provide C9 no evidence of earlier stages in the origin of flight.169
None of the flying reptiles provides any evidence for evolution. However, since for most people the word reptile implies a land-dwelling vertebrate, evolutionist publications seek to lump the pterodactyls in with dinosaurs and write about “reptiles opening and closing their wings.” But in fact, land reptiles and flying reptiles emerged with no evolutionary links between them.
168 Duane T. Gish, Evolution: The Fossils Still Say No, ICR, San Diego, 1998, p. 103.
169 Robert L. Carroll, Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution. p. 336. | <urn:uuid:a1a8bd6d-1af2-4ccf-a433-caf4bf9b26da> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.harunyahya.com/en/Evolution-Dictionary/16382/Flying-reptiles | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395992.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00188-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96946 | 799 | 4 | 4 |
Scutus unguis (Linnaeus, 1758) 43mm
ANIMAL OF THE WEEK
Scutus unguis (Linnaeus, 1758) 20mm shell from the above 43mm animal
[shell not shown in the same proportion as the animal]
Opisthobranch-like Animal of the Week Data
Frequency on Okinawa:
- Class: Gastropoda
- Subclass: Prosobranchia
- Order: Mesogastropoda (Vetigastropoda)
- Family: Fissurellidae
- Individual Collection No: RFB #3937
- Location: Seragaki, Okinawa (26o 30.4'N, 127o 52.6'E)
- Date: 4 August, 2003 [many individuals have been seen but neither photographed nor collected]
- Depth: 15ft (5m)
- Water temperature at collection depth: 86oF (30oC)
- Size: TL 43mm
- Specimen deposited: Photo only, without specimen
- Photo Data: Digital film w/ Nikon F-100 & Nikon 105mm Micro-Nikkor lens
Once again, as with several earlier presentations, I've decided to depart from the usual opisthobranch presentation with the above featured animal. Although it superficially resembles an opisthobranch, it in fact is classified into an entirely different group of molluscs, the Prosobranchia. The conventional schema of mollusc classification is to divide the Class Gastropoda into the following three Subclasses:
- The opisthobranchs include the sea slugs and their relatives the sea hares, sea butterflies, and others. The bodies of most member of this group show evidence of detorsion. Shells may or may not be present; if present they may be reduced and/or internally located. Opisthobranchs usually lack a mantle cavity and operculum. Many species lack gills and respiration takes place through the skin, which may bear numerous projections and folds that increase the area for gas exchange. The head bears 1-2 pairs of tentacles. This diverse group of organisms is divided into around nine Orders. There is some disagreement about whether these form a monophyletic group.
- Prosobranchs are the largest subclass of gastropods. Most species are marine, but many freshwater species and a few terrestrial forms are also known. Prosobranchs have an operculum (lacking in pulmonates), and most have a spirally coiled shell. The head includes eyes that are located on tentacles. The mantle cavity is anteriorly directed and near the head. They are divided into three Orders;
- Pulmonates are the land snails and slugs (a few species are marine). A coiled shell is usually present, but it is lost in some groups. Some detorsion has occurred in many species. The Subclass derives its name from the fact that the mantle cavity forms lungs; these are filled with air as a result of contractions of the mantle floor. One or two pairs of tentacles are found on the head, depending on whether the snail or slug is terrestrial (two pairs) or aquatic (one). The nervous system is highly concentrated. Pulmonates are dioecious and hermaphroditic as are prosobranchs, but pulmonates develop directly (there is no larval form).
Scutus unguis is considered to be very common on Okinawa; numerous individuals have been seen here, primarily in the upper 30ft of water. They are commonly seen on the underside of coral rubble slabs as the rubble is overturned. Also, lone Scutus shells are a common sight in the intertidal zone, suggesting a fairly high mortality rate. Scutus species are not slugs but a marine snail with a white shield-like shell on its back. The shell is frequently covered by flaps of the mantle, but sometimes the mantle is withdrawn and exposes a portion of the shell. It belongs to the family Fissurellidae which includes the Slit-Limpets and Keyhole Limpets, named from the slit or "keyhole" opening in their limpet-shaped shell; these openings allow for the discharge of water from the mantle cavity. Scutus species have only a notched shell, as seen in the above image. The relatively large number of questions posted by home aquarists to Bill Rudman
on the Sea Slug Forum (Rudman, 2000) supports how slug-like (opisthobranch-like) these animals are.
In addition to the above prosobranch, I've also have links to the following animals which are similar in appearance to opisthobranch molluscs:
- Rudman, W.B., 2000 (August 15). Scutus sp. Elephant Slug, Shield Slug, Ducksbill Limpet. [In] Sea Slug Forum. http://www.seaslugforum.net/scutus.htm.
Page Date: 25 Aug '03
Page Modification Date: 01 Oct '13
Digitally manipulated photo
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Home / Browse / Table Rock Dam and Lake
Although Table Rock Lake lies mostly in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri, it plays an important role in water resource development for the White River basin, most of which lies in Arkansas. Its dam and reservoir are part of a flood-control system designed to reduce flooding in Arkansas’s Delta and the Mississippi drainage. Its hydroelectric power supplies electricity that the Southwest Power Administration sells to municipalities and rural cooperatives across northern Arkansas, southern Missouri, and several adjoining states. Recreational development resulting from the lake contributes to the economies of both Missouri and Arkansas.
Table Rock Dam is located at river mile 528.8 on the White River about eight miles southwest of Branson, Missouri. The lake extends westerly from the dam before turning south to Beaver Dam in Arkansas at river mile 609.0. Table Rock was the third U.S. Army Corps of Engineers multi-purpose, high-head dam project to be built on the White River, following the construction of Norfork and Bull Shoals dams. Table Rock and Beaver reservoirs are supplemental flood-control projects to Bull Shoals Reservoir, the downstream control point for releases from Beaver and Table Rock. At the top of its flood pool, Table Rock Lake has a shoreline of about 850 miles and extends over 52,300 surface acres in Taney, Stone, and Barry counties in Missouri. In Arkansas, this shoreline includes the White River from Beaver Dam to the Missouri line and the Kings River and Long Creek arms in Carroll and Boone counties, respectively.
Congress authorized Table Rock Dam in the Flood Control Act of 1941, but construction was delayed by World War II, the Korean War, and the building of Bull Shoals Dam. The Little Rock District of the Corps of Engineers began work in October 1954. The project’s name comes from a large rock outcrop in Missouri, a well-known tourist landmark in the early 1900s. The “Table Rock” is a scenic overlook above Lake Taneycomo on State Highway 165 about three miles east of Table Rock Dam.
A combination concrete gravity dam and earthen embankment, the dam’s concrete section is 1,602 feet long and contains 1.23 million cubic yards of concrete. A 531-foot-long spillway section has ten crest gates for control of overflow. The earthen embankment section of the dam is 4,821 feet long and contains 3.32 million cubic yards of fill. The dam was completed in August 1958, and power production was online in May 1959 with two generating units. Two additional generating units were completed in April and June 1961. Overall construction cost was approximately $65.42 million. An auxiliary spillway to the dam with eight more crest gates was constructed in 2005 after the Corps determined spillway capacity was not sufficient during a worst-case flood event. Congress approved construction of the new auxiliary spillway at a cost of approximately $65 million.
The Corps maintains fourteen campground facilities around the lake, with one of those parks in Arkansas (Cricket Creek) on the Long Creek Arm. It also has lease agreements with fifteen commercial marinas, which generate $36 million annually in tourist revenue.
The Branson area now sees 5.5 million visitors per year and boasts 100 resorts and many outdoor-related tourism businesses, which complement other area attractions. The cold water below the dam supplies Shepherd of the Hills Trout Hatchery, operated by the Missouri Department of Conservation, and provides for a tailwater trout fishery in upper Lake Taneycomo. (Lake Taneycomo was built in 1913, and a fishing tourism industry arose around Branson in the decades thereafter, especially after promoter Jim Owen’s float trips from Forsyth, Missouri, to the Baxter County city of Cotter were featured in the June 23, 1941, edition of Life magazine.) This hatchery also brings dollars to the economy of northern Arkansas. A Class A (regional) visitor center at the Corps project office adjacent to the dam, the $10.8 million Dewey Short Visitor Center, opened on April 27, 2012, and highlights the White River system and its impact upon both Missouri and Arkansas.
Table Rock powerhouse remotely controls powerhouse generation at Beaver Dam. Database systems are being upgraded, and the Table Rock facility will eventually control power plants at Bull Shoals, Norfork, and Greers Ferry dams as well. No water districts utilize water from the reservoir; however, this is expected to change in years to come. The Missouri Department of Conservation does draw a water allocation for the fish hatchery located below the dam.
Floods in 2008 and 2011 established a record lake level and record spillway releases. Part of the skin of the earthen embankment near the concrete portion of the dam gave way after flooding in the spring of 2011 but was immediately repaired at a cost of approximately $250,000 to prevent further erosion to the dam. While the flooding caused damage to the Missouri communities of Branson, Hollister, and Forsyth, the Corps asserts that the lakes and levees on the White River system have prevented, over the life of the projects as of 2011, more than $1 billion in flood losses. From October 2010 through June 2011, flood damage prevented by the White River projects was estimated at $100 million, double what was prevented in the entire previous year.
For additional information:Clay, Floyd M. A History of the Little Rock District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 1881–1979. 2nd ed. Little Rock: Dept. of the Army, Corps of Engineers, Little Rock District, 1979.
Rathbun, Mary Yeater. Castle on the Rock, 1881–1985: The History of the Little Rock District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Little Rock: U.S. Army Engineer District, Little Rock, 1990.
“Table Rock Lake.” U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Little Rock District. http://www.swl.usace.army.mil/Missions/Recreation/Lakes/TableRockLake/DamandLakeInformation.aspx (accessed July 13, 2015).
Scott BranyanRogers, Arkansas
Last Updated 7/13/2015
About this Entry: Contact the Encyclopedia / Submit a Comment / Submit a Narrative | <urn:uuid:7d4410a1-ae4e-4352-a404-2885f2c17d04> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=6610 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402699.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00102-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947112 | 1,311 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Revista chilena de historia natural
versión impresa ISSN 0716-078X
ZANOTTO, FLAVIA P. y BICUDO, J.E.P.W.. Dietary protein and carbohydrate affect feeding behavior and metabolic regulation in hummingbirds (Melanotrochilus fuscus). Rev. chil. hist. nat. [online]. 2005, vol.78, n.2, pp.281-294. ISSN 0716-078X. http://dx.doi.org/10.4067/S0716-078X2005000200012.
The objective of this work was to link hummingbird feeding behavior with metabolic regulation and in addition to assess whether dietary composition would affect entrance into torpor. Hummingbirds were fed a combination of diets with contrasting amounts of protein and carbohydrate. The diets were composed of the following: 2.4 % protein (P) - 12 % sucrose (S) and 0.8 % protein (P) - 36 % sucrose (S). The main findings showed that periods of feeding on each of the diets could be distinguished as separate bouts or feeding events. Hummingbirds presented to high protein-low carbohydrate diets (2.4P-12S) ingested a larger volume of diet, fed for longer (both around 1.7x) and increased the interval between feedings compared with hummingbirds fed diets 0.8P-36S. Physiological regulation between feeding events, on the other hand, was achieved through an increase in metabolic rate for low protein-high sugar diets (0.8P-36S). This response could probably be related to high sucrose assimilation rates through the digestive system of hummingbirds, a process already known to be very efficient in these birds. Additionally, there was a steeper decrease in oxygen consumption for hummingbirds fed diets 2.4P-12S during fasting and a suggestion of a higher torpor incidence in birds fed these diets
Palabras clave : hummingbird feeding; carbohydrate and protein interaction; unbalanced diet; feeding behavior; torpor. | <urn:uuid:28deccd9-34a2-4506-b003-87ba7dc69a47> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S0716-078X2005000200012&lng=es&nrm=iso&tlng=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396875.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00026-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.880219 | 439 | 2.734375 | 3 |
On this day in 1871, Albert Russell Erskine, who headed up the pioneering American automaker Studebaker before it went bankrupt during the Great Depression, is born in Huntsville, Alabama.
During the late 1800s and early 1900s, Erskine worked for such companies as American Cotton and Underwood Typewriter, before joining South Bend, Indiana-based Studebaker in 1911. The origins of the Studebaker Corporation date back to 1852, when brothers Henry and Clement Studebaker opened a blacksmith shop in South Bend. Studebaker eventually became a leading manufacturer of horse-drawn wagons and supplied wagons to the U.S. Army during the Civil War. Around the turn of the century, the company entered America’s burgeoning auto industry, launching an electric car in 1902 and a gas-powered vehicle two years later that was marketed under the name Studebaker-Garford. After partnering with other automakers, Studebaker began selling gas-powered cars under its own name in 1913, while continuing to make wagons until 1920.
Albert Erskine became the president of Studebaker in 1915. Under his leadership, the company acquired luxury automaker Pierce-Arrow in the late 1920s and launched the affordably priced but short-lived Erskine and Rockne lines, the latter of which was named for the famous University of Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne (1888-1931). During the early 1930s, Studebaker was hit hard by the Great Depression and Erskine was accused of financial mismanagement. In March 1933, the company was forced into bankruptcy. Erskine, who was saddled with personal debt and health problems, killed himself on July 1, 1933, at the age of 62.
New management got the company back on track, dropping the Rockne brand in July 1933 and selling Pierce-Arrow, among other consolidation moves. In January 1935, the new Studebaker Corporation was incorporated. In the late 1930s, the French-born industrial designer Raymond Loewy began working for Studebaker and would be credited with popular models including the bullet-nosed 1953 Starliner and Starlight coupes and the 1963 Avanti sports coupe.
By the mid-1950s, Studebaker, which didn’t have the resources of its Big Three competitors, had merged with automaker Packard and was again facing financial troubles. By the late 1950s, the Packard brand was dropped. In December 1963, Studebaker shuttered its South Bend plant, ending the production of its cars and trucks in America. The company’s Hamilton, Ontario, facilities remained in operation until March 1966, when Studebaker shut its doors for the final time after 114 years in business.
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One of the most fascinating aspects of the field of science is the unpredictable patterns and directions that certain communities can take over a period of time. Whether the change in a habitat occurs due a spontaneous event such as a devastating hurricane or a longer, more gradual event such as climate change; it is important to understand the impacts these changes may have on the resident organisms as well as the future of the community. Studying how organisms respond to each other and their environment are key principles of ecology.
As David mentioned in the previous post, I have recently begun my graduate student work in St. Augustine, where I hope to gain a better understanding of the unique observations we have made while working in the area for the NSF oyster project.
Other than being the nation’s oldest city, St. Augustine is a very dynamic place. From condominiums and restaurants to historic landmarks and beautiful beaches; the area is flooded with snow-birds during this time of year. More notably, St. Augustine has countless state parks, wildlife preserves, and protected habitats; which allow for not only attractions for tourists but areas of research for scientists and most importantly, shelter and nurseries for the resident wildlife. Continue reading →
Scanning the photo, you can see crown conchs crawling about this Saint Augustine reef. Crown conchs are a normal sight on Florida reefs, but not to the extent seen here. David has tasked Hanna Garland with looking into this very localized phenomenon and its relationship with increasing reef failures.
Dr. David KimbroFSU Coastal & Marine Lab
Last week I detailed a recent trip to St. Augustine, ending the post with a mention of a side project being embarked upon by my lab there. Throughout the past year, we’ve noticed that our St. Augustine study site was loaded with tons of crown conchs. Although crown conchs are ubiquitous in Florida, they are abnormally abundant on our St. Augustine reefs and our St. Augustine reefs are mostly dead. All our other sites have relatively healthy looking oyster reefs and few crown conchs.
But a few miles north of our monitoring reefs, we find absolutely no crown conchs and the health of the oysters is great. Because crown conchs, as has been shown by the research of our very own Doc Herrnkind, love eating oysters, it’s easy to conclude that crown conchs have mowed down all the oysters on our monitoring reefs. But why are they restricted only to our monitoring reefs? Is there a predator of conchs present north of reefs but that is absent on our monitoring reefs? Perhaps the environment has changed in a way that killed all of the oysters and the crown conchs are just cleaning up the mess.
Proboscis out (protruding from the bottom of the snail), a crown conch heads towards a clump of oysters. The conch will use its proboscis to pry open the oyster shell and suck out the meat.
Luckily, Hanna has agreed to enter my lab as a graduate student to tackle this research project. So, she spent a number of days collecting coarse-scale data on the spatial extent of this conch-oyster pattern, consulting with locals about when this pattern developed, and talking with an oceanographer about how to learn whether and how the physical environment has lead to this pattern. In a forthcoming post, I’ll let Hanna fill you in on the details of this new project, which we will be implementing quickly. This is really important to the local community because our monitoring reefs and the conch infested area used to be the most productive area in St. Augustine for harvesting oysters and rearing clams. But now, aquaculture leases here have been abandoned and a very large population of crown conchs appears to have taken up residence.
Stay tuned for Hanna’s post later this week, she’ll go into a little more detail on what we’re doing.
David’s research is funded by the National Science Foundation.
On Wednesday, June 29 at 7:30 PM/ET, WFSU-TV premieres the In the Grass, On the Reef full length documentary. David and Randall guide us through the world of coastal predators (like crown conchs). Top predators maintain important ecosystems like salt marshes and oyster reefs- but the manner in which they do this may not be confined to eating prey. Tune in to find out more!
Where did my winter of catching up on work go? And why is spring quickly hurtling into summer? YIKES!
…Okay, I feel better. All of us here feel a little behind on things, because this past winter and spring have been full of other projects (in addition to the oyster one) such as investigating how the oil spill affected marshes throughout the west coast of Florida and examining what all of those snails are up to out on Bay Mouth Bar. But now that summer is almost upon us, it’s time to move all hands on deck back towards the ambitious summer oyster goals.
Environmental vs. Predator Effects.
To lay the ground work for this summer’s oyster research, I spent a few days in St. Augustine, Florida, which is where we will conduct our colossal field experiment. As a recap of the oyster objectives, we spent year 1 monitoring the oyster food web at 12 estuaries between Florida to North Carolina. Well, we found some cool patterns regarding the food web and water-filtration/ nutrient cycling services on oyster reefs (see the 2010 wrap-up). So, now we want to know what’s causing those patterns. Are differences in oyster reefs between NC to FL due purely to differences in water temperature, salinity, or food for oysters (phytoplankton)? Or, do we have a higher diversity of predators down south that are exerting more “top-down” pressure on the southern reefs? Or, is it a combination of the environment and predators? Continue reading →
Michael Harrell is a local artist, brought to WFSU-TV’s attention by one of our viewers. Michael paints in both oils and watercolors and among his nautical themes are depictions of the oystermen of Florida and South Carolina. This video looks at that series of paintings. The thing that I found so beautiful about his work is his ability to capture a sense of time with his portrayal of light. You can find additional information about the artist at MichaelHarrellArt.com.
Our local oystermen, as you see in this video, typically harvest subtidal oyster reefs like those in the Apalachicola Bay. Michael Harrell also shows South Carolina oystermen harvesting intertidal reefs like those covered in this blog (i.e. Alligator Harbor). The South Carolina sites of the biogeographic oyster study are sampled by Jeb Byers’ group.
This week’s videos look at Dr. David’s Kimbro’s collaborators in the NSF funded biogeographic oyster study. While he has been the face of the study for On the Reef, he is one member of a team of scientists. Today’s videos feature Dr. Randall Hughes (In the Grass) and Dr. Jon Grabowski. Later this week, we’ll have a short video with Dr. Jeb Byers. Randall and David’s posts accompanying the videos are reminiscences on their early days in marine ecology in North Carolina, where they and their fellow team members met while in school.
Dr. Randall Hughes FSU Coastal & Marine Lab
Getting my first taste of marine ecology.
In my last semester as an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, I took a class in marine ecology from Dr. Charles (Pete) Peterson and Dr. Mark Hay.
At the time, I was a double major in biology and public policy analysis, and despite being just a few months from graduation, I was still very uncertain what I was going to do next. So when Pete asked me if I would like to work as a summer research assistant at UNC’s Institute of Marine Sciences for his graduate student, Jon Grabowski, I accepted with little idea of what I was getting myself into.
Jon’s project involved comparing the value of restored oyster reefs in different locations in the marsh (next to marsh edges, sandwiched between marsh edges and seagrass beds, or isolated on sand flats) as habitat for important fishes and crabs. What that meant in reality was that in the summer of 1997, we used ~2 tons of dead oyster shell to create 12 intertidal oyster reefs in Middle Marsh, NC – largely by carrying the shell in orange baskets from one big pile to the specific places where we needed it.
One of the reefs we built in 1997 on a sand flat, pictured here in 2002.
In the process, I learned to trailer and drive a boat, build 30+ fish traps that involved welding rebar together and dipping the whole contraption in “net dip” (the most disgusting substance known to man), deploy and retrieve those traps and happily (well, at least begrudgingly) handle the blue crabs, toadfish, and other critters that we caught, and various other tasks that made my parents wonder why I needed a B.A. degree for this job. But by the end of the summer, I was hooked!
Jon, before he was Dr. Grabowski.
After that first summer, I returned to work with Jon for 3 more field seasons until starting graduate school myself in 2000. (David and my paths crossed at IMS, working for Jon together in 1999.) During the “off-season” I taught school, first in Mexico and then in NC, because I wanted to be sure that becoming an ecologist was really the thing for me. I love teaching, but I love research even more, and so going to graduate school seemed the logical way to combine the two.
Much like the no-see-um story from Jacksonville, the long hours and hard work involved with Jon’s project generated a lore surrounding that first (and subsequent) years. Here’s just one of my favorite stories from the summer of 1997 –
Dr. Pete Peterson in Middle Marsh, NC.
Once the reefs were created (and lots of stories could be told about that process), the plan was to sample them once a month over consecutive daytime and nighttime high tides. Because we couldn’t sample all of the sites at the same time, this involved 48 hours of effort with only short breaks in between times in the field. The first time attempting this sampling happened to fall the 2 days before I was scheduled to leave to start my job teaching in Mexico – oh, and on my birthday. After day 1, we realized that returning to the lab from our field sites and then going home to get cleaned up before getting some rest was burning lots of valuable sleep time, so we decided that the second night we would camp on one of the barrier islands close to our sites. Jon packed most of the gear, including a giant and heavy cooler, and off we went. Of course, it was the middle of the night when we finished up in the field and drove the boat over to Shackelford Island, and we hadn’t bothered to set up camp earlier in the day. Jon thought he knew of a shortcut to cross over to the ocean side, which had a nice breeze and far fewer mosquitos. Unfortunately, we didn’t find the shortcut immediately, and we ended up carrying the heavy cooler and all of our other gear while swatting and cursing mosquitos for quite a while. About 5 minutes from the beach side of the island (though we didn’t know that at the time), I snapped, announcing to Jon that I was NOT walking any farther and so we better set up camp in that spot. (I had maintained a fairly mild-mannered and easy-going persona all summer, but there was nothing mild about my ultimatum that we stop walking.) I was in better spirits after a few hours of sleep, feeling more than a little chagrined at my outburst when I realized how close we were to the beach, and especially when learned that the primary object in that heavy cooler was a chocolate birthday cake for me! I have since apologized many times, and Jon and I laugh and re-tell that story virtually every time we get together.
Of course, beyond the friendships, funny stories, hard work, and good food, we also learned a heck of a lot about oyster reefs and the animals that live on and around them. That’s why our current collaboration “On the Reef” is so satisfying – it’s a way to return to our roots scientifically, professionally, and personally.
The biogeographic oyster study is funded by the National Science Foundation.
(Editor’s Note. Although David refers to Randall’s participation on this study, her role was not elaborated upon in this video. That will be a part of the next video, on David’s collaborators, as Randall is David’s Co-PI- or Primary Investigator)
Tanya measures a fish caught in a gill net.
It’s been said that research techs are those who do the dirty work in science. Although true in many ways, I love being where the action is, collecting the data, turning ideas into reality. That said, here is some of my perspective on what went into our October trip and what days in the field were like.
A busy field trip like our October sampling push typically takes at least as many days to prepare for as the length of the trip itself. Although the daily blog posts covered our time in action, David and I spent most of the previous couple weeks just planning for this trip so that it could run as smoothly as it did. I feel it worth mentioning the many hours I spent pouring over tide charts and editing and re-editing our complicated schedule so that we could accomplish everything as efficiently as possible, factoring in all manner of time and tidal constraints, travel time, land and sea transportation, overnight stays, and numerous other variables, plus designing it with enough flexibility that we could adjust our plans in the field at a moments notice (and indeed we did). In addition to scheduling I also had to make sure we had all the materials we needed to for our trip, that those materials were all in working order, and that they are all packaged up accordingly and conveniently in our two vehicles. The last thing you want is to be out in the field and realize you’re missing some critical piece of equipment.
As they conduct these initial sampling trips every few months, they keep finding new and interesting species living in and around the reefs. Here, Tanya is taking measurement of one of her favorite finds of this last trip, a striped burrfish.
Out in the field, going to retrieve our traps and nets is always the most exciting for me, since you never know what we’re going to catch, and I was interested to see how the October fish community compared with that of July. We caught a few new fish species in our traps this round, including a beautiful spotfin butterflyfish (Chaetodon ocellatus), juvenile snapper (Lutjanus sp.), and a couple tiny pufferfish (technically striped burrfish, Chilomycterus schoepfi – they were very adorable). Equally exciting was getting to use the new motor on our skiff for the first time at our sites. Although noisy and bizarre-looking, it performed admirably in shallow water, as it was designed to. At least in terms of temperature and humidity, conditions on the reefs were considerably more pleasant for us than during the summer. It was wonderful not to be wiping sweat from your face every 10 minutes. The dramatic increase in the no-see-um population at dawn and dusk was not so pleasant however, as David has duly noted. The dawn low tide at Jacksonville brought the worst swarms we’d ever encountered in the field. Incredibly irritating both physically and mentally, they made work nearly impossible, and forced me to spend the subsequent week covered in uncountable numbers of ravenously itchy welts.
Despite its exotic look, the spotfin butterfly fish is a native of both the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of Florida.
When not out on the reefs, there was rarely a moment when something didn’t need to be done – whether filtering water samples, rinsing gear, or (most frequently) extracting spat. Our only breaks seemed to be for the necessities of eating, showering, sleeping, and making coffee. (For David, coffee appears to rank just below data and samples in terms of his most valued possessions in the field.) Our biggest and most time-consuming challenge was whether we could get all of the spat extracted and tiles made for our predator-exclusion experiment in the time allotted between netting and trapping. The process of isolating spat was incredibly tedious to say the least, and particularly frustrating when, after you’ve been working on a spat for several minutes, your tool slips and the spat gets crushed, or it flies across the patio, never to be seen again. You couldn’t help but feel the spat always picked the most inconvenient places to settle. It was also quite a messy process, with water and oyster bits flying everywhere and various crabs skittering across the counter. The oysters also love to slice your fingers open during the few moments when you neglect to wear gloves. Yet in spite of the tedium, we couldn’t help noticing new and interesting critters living amongst the oysters as we broke them apart. For instance, we noticed considerably more porcelain crabs (Petrolisthes sp.) and Boonea impressa (a small, white snail that parasitizes oysters) than we’d seen in previously collected oyster samples. We also found an oyster pea crab (Pinnotheres ostreum), which lives on and steals food from the gills of oysters, and a number of dark brown cylindrical mussels (Lithophaga bisulcata) that bore into the calcareous shells of oysters. It always amazes me how many different animals can be found living within the structurally complex habitat created by species like oysters.
Young oyster spat, beginning their new careers in science.
I remember on one of the last days of our trip, I kayaked out to our St. Augustine reefs for a final service and check while David finished up the dremeling. I remember looking upon reef #5, seeing our newly deployed, spat-covered tiles and cages, our cleaned tidal data logger housing, and our newly replaced spat stick, arranged so neatly on our marked reef, and feeling delighted at our accomplishment, knowing how much effort has gone into this setup. I remembered that in my position it’s easy to get sucked into the details, but it’s equally important to remember the big picture, and how this research will contribute to our greater understanding of oyster reef ecology.
After our field trip, as we recover from battle wounds and wait for the mud to work its way out from under our fingernails, work on the oyster project continues at the lab. For me this has meant entering lots of data and starting to process our many samples. Before you know it though, it’s time to start to preparing for our next journey onto the reefs and the adventures that await.
The Kimbro, Hughes, et al. biogeographic oyster study is funded by the National Science Foundation.
(Farthest to nearest) Hanna, Tanya, and Cristina perform some of the more glamorous work of this trip- cracking oysters apart and finding spat (oyster babies). David needed everyone on his team to perform, or this week would be wasted.
A while back, I was talking to Randall or David, I forget which one, and they were telling me about building a research crew. Obviously you need people who have the knowledge and skills to do what needs to be done- from identifying fish to driving a boat, or setting a gill net. But just as important, they said, was that you had people you could get along with, since you practically live with them sometimes.
Weeks like this one are where building the team pays off. When you’re getting bitten up by gnats on an oyster reef at 6:45 in the morning, you don’t want a crew member sniping at another about losing a fish out of the gill net. David remarked to me that the morale of this team had stayed strong, despite the schedule always changing and everyone having to shoulder more of the load while David got the tiles ready. They did a lot of work on their own, and made it possible to get everything done even as plans shifted.
On a day like today, it was good that David has the crew he has.
A swarm of gnats hovers over the oyster reef water.
6:45 AM– Retrieved fish from nets, deployed traps.
After a night of battling cockroaches in their “haunted” house, they might have been happier to be out on oyster reefs at this early hour. They might have, had it not been for the no see-ums. They were getting eaten alive, which made it hard to work. And it got worse from there, as if the universe decided to pile it on in this last day.
As early as it was, the birds had gotten to their fish before they did and there were no stomachs to examine. And then there were the injuries. David cut his finger on a catfish spine, and then, within about ten minutes, a stone crab got a hold of Hanna’s finger and inflicted some pain. They’re both okay. Their truck, however, is a little worse off.
Banged up over the course of the week, the crew- and their truck- are ready to come home.
When they got back, they glued spat onto tiles one more time to deploy this afternoon.
3:00 PM– Tanya, Hanna, and Cristina retrieved the traps and set the tiles.
7:00 PM– The girls headed back to the FSU Coastal & Marine Lab. When they got there, they cleaned all of their gear, even though it was late. They figured that it was better to wash the salt off sooner than later.
So that was the week. They’ll go back to each of the sites about every six weeks, though it won’t always be this intensive. David, Jeb (SC/ GA), and Jon (NC) will start to see seasonal patterns in the fish that they find- when do certain fish tend to show up on what reef? They’ll check in on their tiles and take photos, and over the months the photos should play like a flip book in showing the growth of the oysters on each site. They’ll gain understanding, and they’ll run into more road blocks. They have about two-and-a-half years left on this study, so while Thursday was the last day of the push, they’re nowhere near the end of the road.
Assuming no one tampers with them, we should be able to watch these oysters grow up over the next year.
Check back in a couple of weeks for wrap-up posts from David and Tanya.
Tide Times and height (ft.) for Jacksonville, October 28, 2010
Low- 6:44 AM (0.3)
David’s research is funded by the National Science Foundation.
We’d love to hear from you! Leave your comments and questions below:
David Kimbro’s crew has been split into two teams, the Net/Trap team (N/T) and the Tile team (TI). For a closer look at how David’s team nets and traps larger fish and crabs, click here. To learn more about what the Tile team will be doing, click here. And if you click On the Reef under categories in the sidebar, you can track David’s progress over the course of this study.
Monday, October 25- Both teams in Saint Augustine
That grey spot (dead center) on the shell is spat. After landing on existing shells, they'll build their own and expand the clump.
When I got to St. Augustine, David was chiseling out shards of shell containing oyster spat (baby oysters) from clumps so that he could glue them onto tiles, as he described in Friday’s post. I got a good look at what spat actually was. You can see it in the photo here, basically a small oyster with no shell, seeking out a hard surface (often another oyster’s shell) upon which to settle. David stayed behind doing that as the rest of his crew, and our crew, piled into the boat for this evening’s activities.
This new experiment- placing tiles with the same number of oyster recruits at all sites on every reef across the study- will give them a more precise picture of how young oysters survive at each site. It also means a lot of extra work, as the spat that goes on the tiles has to be from the specific location to be entirely accurate- spat is harvested one day, immediately chiseled off and made into tiles and placed on the reef, in the span of about two days. And this is in addition to the other sampling and trapping. The previous tile method worked fairly well for the NC and SC/GA teams, but for the sake of being consistent, they’ve also had to adapt this method (while cursing David Kimbro’s name).
Crown conchs in St. Augustine making a snack of an oyster.
As previously noted on this blog, the reefs did have plenty of crown conchs crawling on them. David and Tanya have also started noticing Atlantic Oyster Drills, a smaller snail we don’t see in the Gulf. I’ll look for some tomorrow and get a photo or two up.
8:00 AM– Hanna and Randall (N/T team) retrieved the nets that they set last night in Cedar Key. This is low tide work, as that’s when it’s best to empty the nets. They got to their first reef after the vultures did, losing a bit of their catch but still able to identify some species from the fish heads left behind.
1:00 PM– Hanna headed to Saint Augustine and Randall headed home. As Hanna was gassing up the truck and boat, an elderly gentlemen circled the boat, in awe of David’s creation. Eventually, he said, “sweet boat.”
A sweet boat.
5:00 PM– Deploy nets, take water samples, and reference water level. The two teams combined activities that would have kept them out past dark, and finished just as the sun was setting. They then helped David glue spat onto tiles for another hour or so before heading out to dinner.
That was the day. As you see, field work involves a lot of rethinking (as in the tile experiment), thinking on your feet, dealing with circumstances (vultures eating your catch), and coming up with unusual solutions (refitting your boat in a way some might find strange). It’s pretty late now (as I type this, even though I plan to post this in the morning). Time to head to bed so that I can get up and shoot that sunrise.
Tide Times and height (ft.) for Cedar Key, October 24, 2010
Low- 10:oo AM (-0.3)
Tide Times and height (ft.) for Saint Augustine, October 25, 2010
High- 1:35 PM (5.3)
Low- 8:41 PM (0.6)
We’d love to hear from you! Leave your comments and questions below:
I went to graduate school in northern California. Locals along the coast of NorCal used to refer to the month of October as Roctober because it was the most beautiful time of the year. Well, I think the Forgotten Coast should also be privy to this monthly description because things have been beautiful around here this month. Looking at the oyster reefs, I get the sense that things are really starting to get busy in there. But I wonder if the ecology on oyster reefs in NC is starting to slow down. Where are predators really having a big effect? We shall soon see.
For the past week, we have been trying to figure out how to do a lot of ambitious seeing and learning on all of our reefs. All three teams (i.e., NC, SC/GA, and FL) need to not only sample fish and invertebrate predators on reefs (for the second time and in the dark…all because of the timing of tides in the autumn), but each team also needs to simultaneously squeeze in an experiment. Oh, I just remembered that we also need to pay attention to other things that can explain oyster patterns: oyster food in the water (phytoplankton), water temperature, tides, and sediment properties. So, add those to our to-do list as well!
Because this will be a ton of work to do in a short amount of time, we are sending a new crew member of the Florida team (Alicia Brown) up to help out the South Carolina/GA team. We are going to send her up with a video camera, so it will be fun to get a glimpse into their lives over the next week.
Jon Grabowski holds up a fish for Tanya to measure. David was Jon's lab tech at UNC.
In addition, one of the leaders from North Carolina (Jon Grabowski) has been down with us in Florida for the past week to help make sure that all three teams are doing the same thing. While he was here, we also worked with a wonderful assistant up in Georgia (Caitlin Yeager) to figure out how to manufacture our experimental products. The first part of this experimental puzzle involved figuring out how to remove baby oysters (spat) from oyster clumps in the field and to attach them to a standardized surface (tile). Across all of our sites, we all want to start out with oysters of roughly the same size and age; otherwise, differences in our experiments among sites could simply be due to differences in starting oyster size or density, rather than to differences in predator diversity etc. After we get all the spat attached to our tiles, we then built (well Tanya built most of them- thanks Tanya!) structures to put around our tiles, or not…
A partially open cage (cage control) that lets predators eat the oyster spat.
Our first structure was built to exclude all predators from munching on our oysters (i.e., predator cage). Our second structure was a modified exclosure that mimics physical characteristics of the exclosure, but still allows predators to munch oysters (cage-control). Finally, we have naked tiles that receive no structure or cage. At 2 sites in NC, 2 in Georgia, and 3 in Florida), we will put each of these ‘treatments’ on all of the reefs (15 tiles/estuary or 105 tiles total).
But why do this crazy experiment thing? Well, we will come back each month and monitor the traits of oysters and their survivorship. With these results, we will compare survivorship or oyster traits from cages to that of the naked tile (“control”) to see if excluding predators improved oyster survivorship. But because any improvement of oyster survivorship by the cage could simply be due to the physical structure (not to predator absence) providing shade during low tide or somehow changing flow (and food delivery), we will then compare cage results to that of the cage-control; now we can tell just how important predators are.
Another cool thing about the cages is that it may exclude predators from eating oysters, but they will not prevent predators from affecting traits of the oysters through intimidation. So, do the traits of oysters surrounded by cages in Florida (maybe more oyster consumers) differ when compared to caged oysters in NC (maybe fewer oyster consumers). Or, perhaps it’s that FL has more oyster food this time of year than NC and that better explains trait differences in oysters, not predators. Or, maybe larger fish predators in Florida means less oyster consumers and less influence of oyster predation in Florida compared to NC, where there may be fewer large fish predators to eat the smaller crabs that love to munch on oysters.
To pull off this extra work, my Florida team will divide and conquer over the next week and a half. Out of a team of four, 2 people will trap and gill net while the other two folks will set up the experiment. This will involve ½ the team moving a head of the other team members at certain points. But we’ll all overlap at each site for at least a few hours, which will then result in interesting stories about what each team has been observing. Because we want to share this circus show with you over the next week, we’ll post updates every day. We hope that this gives you a feel of what it’s like to get all of this done (both the good and the bad!).
Well, I need to go stockpile some sleep.
David’s research is funded by the National Science Foundation.
In my previous post, I described how tides could influence the oyster patterns that we are observing throughout the Atlantic and Gulf coast. But throughout the Gulf coast, can tides explain why most of the oysters sold in restaurants come from subtidal reefs? Are subtidal oysters healthier, happier and thus more abundant?
Well, before I attempt to address this issue, let’s first talk about the difference between subtidal and intertidal oyster reefs. The term intertidal refers to a habitat that spends part of the day submerged by water and the other part of the day out of the water. In contrast, the term subtidal refers to habitats that are constantly submerged by water. Interestingly, along the NW coast of Florida, oyster reefs are subtidal from Pensacola to Apalachicola Bay. And east of Apalachicola, oyster reefs become intertidal.
Fouling organisms grow on hard surfaces under water.
Now back to the second question above: are subtidal oysters happier and healthier than intertidal oysters? Research by Dr. Charles Peterson at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill suggests the answer is no because both reef types have different costs and benefits that keep growth and health roughly the same. For example, subtidal reefs may get the benefits of being inundated all the time by food-rich water, but this constant submergence also has costs that include: getting covered by fouling invertebrates (i.e., animals commonly found on the bottom of boats that look like silly puddy) that compete with oyster for food and being exposed to more marine parasites and disease. In contrast, the harsh sun baking that intertidal oysters receive during every low tide can be painful and they may also get exposed to less food, but the sun baking also cooks off the silly-puddy competitors and it also keeps the parasites away. In the end, these different costs keep growth rates about the same between subtidal and intertidal oyster reefs. This is why intertidal oysters from Cedar Key, Florida can be just as big and delicious as subtidal oysters from Apalachicola.
Now I’m ready to tackle the first question from above: why do so many more oysters come from subtidal reefs in Apalachicola than from the intertidal reefs to the east and why aren’t intertidal oysters always equally as large and tasty as subtidal oysters? After talking with an extremely knowledgeable biologist who has been studying and working with Gulf coast oysters for nearly thirty years (John Gunter), I can fairly confidently say that the answer deals with the size of the fresh water input entering an estuary and diversity. This is because good oyster production requires a tricky balance between fresh and salty water that keeps marine predators/disease at bay and fuels phytoplankton for growth and reproduction. So, a larger source of fresh water input creates a larger portion of an estuary suitable for oysters to achieve this delicate balance. But the amount and timing of fresh water input, along with the weather, varies from year to year. As a result, one set of fresh-water input and weather conditions may be good for one portion of the estuary and not so good for the other portion of the estuary. But the next year, this situation could become reversed, maintaining a constant level of production through varying levels of fresh water input and climate. In other words, Apalachicola has a relatively large and diverse oyster portfolio.
Without a steady influx of freshwater, intertidal reefs have no assurance of being consistently healthy and abundant.
In contrast to the subtidal oyster reefs in Apalachicola, the size of fresh water sources that influence intertidal oyster reefs to the east are significantly smaller. Consequently, there are only a few spots where oysters can thrive. When conditions are just right, these intertidal reefs produce oysters just as tasty and large as the subtidal ones form Apalachicola. But when conditions are sub-par, those intertidal oyster reefs shut down and there are no other reefs to make up for this loss in production; these estuaries have small and non-diverse oyster portfolios.
Ok, now that I waved my arms about the difference between subtidal and intertidal oyster reefs and why restaurants mostly serve subtidal oysters, I need to go get ready for our next big outing onto the oyster reefs, which should be extremely busy, but fun.
David’s research is funded by the National Science Foundation.
We want to hear from you! Add your question or comment below. | <urn:uuid:d3048aa3-6cef-4a26-8809-063567c66ac0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blog.wfsu.org/blog-coastal-health/?tag=oyster-bed | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397842.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00067-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961462 | 8,003 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Culture and Conversation during Perestroika
Winner of the Heldt Prize for the Best Book in Slavic/East European Studies by a Woman (American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies)
Soulful, theatrical, intense: Russian talk is notably full of existential musing and dark passion. However, despite the widespread appreciation of Russian talk, no one has analyzed it as a form of cultural performance. As one of the first Western ethnographers to undertake fieldwork in Moscow, Nancy Ries did just that. In this pioneering study, she shows how everyday conversation shapes Russian identity and culture.
Dire stories about poverty, hardship, and social decay recited constantly during perestroika served to fabricate a common worldview—conveying a sense of shared experience and destiny, and casting Russian society as an inescapable realm of absurdity and suffering. Ries agues that while these narratives aptly depicted the chaotic events of the time, they also comprised a kind of contemporary folklore, generic in their lamenting, portentous tones and their culturally poignant details.
The story of a grandmother who stands in line all day in order to bring home a precious kilo of sugar becomes a parable of feminine self-sacrifice and endurance. Sardonic narratives about frustrated communal apartment dwellers pouring hot pepper in their neighbor's soup pot challenge the myth of camaraderie and express the proverbial notion that revenge is sweeter for Russians than reconciliation.
This insightful ethnography suggests the enormous power that ordinary talk has, in any society, to shape social and political attitudes, and to produce distinctive cultural patterns. | <urn:uuid:449e88f7-335f-4ad9-99b6-e0786d2d1ead> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100774500 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391766.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00001-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944718 | 328 | 2.71875 | 3 |
A mass spectrometer measures the mass of a charged particle travelling at known speed by noting the distance it moves in a circular arc, given by r = mv/qB for magnetic field B.
The mass of the sun is measured by applying Kepler's Law M = (4 pi^2 R^3)/(GT^2) in terms of the period T of the Earth's orbit and the mean distance R of the Earth to the sun. Observe that Kepler's law is essentially the same as Riofrio's universal law rescaled by 4 pi^2. The value of R itself is now known fairly accurately, but the mass of the sun also depends on an accurate value for the gravitational constant G.
Observe that in all of the above settings the measurement of mass actually depends on the measurement of other quantities, most noticeably distances. In gravity a mass has a characteristic Schwarzschild radius for which r = 2Gm/c^2. Similarly, the quantum mechanical Compton wavelength is given by l = h/mc, but this indicates an inverse relation between mass and length. As is well known, these lengths agree at the Planck mass. This suggests that any theory attempting to explain the meaning of quantised mass ought to incorporate some form of T-duality, a correspondence between lengths and their inverses, up to a scale factor. | <urn:uuid:0a09f0aa-42fd-4ab2-9f19-3db65621e65b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://kea-monad.blogspot.com/2006/09/measuring-mass.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394937.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00108-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953437 | 278 | 3.71875 | 4 |
In 1995, researchers Betty Hart and Todd Risley published the results of a nearly decade-long study of early childhood language and vocabulary development. The Journal of Early Intervention said that Hart and Risley’s book, Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children, “may very well change our thinking about how we arrange early experiences for our children, if not revolutionize our approach to childhood.” But for reasons both political and economic, that revolution never occurred. Now, 20 years later, one American mayor wants to put Hart and Risley’s research to a real-world test. Listen to Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss why talking may be the single most important activity you can do with your child.
You'll find every Lexicon Valley episode at slate.com/lexiconvalley, or in the player below:
Send your thoughts about the show to firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:ec69b606-7d61-4e85-898f-79cba365141d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley/2013/06/lexicon_valley_on_research_by_betty_hart_and_todd_risley_early_childhood.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396887.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00118-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921618 | 196 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Caltech planetary scientist has "modest proposal" for sending probe to Earth's core
According to Stevenson's calculations, it should be possible to send a probe all the way to Earth's core by combining several proven technologies with a few well-grounded scientific assumptions about the workings of the planet. The probe would sink straight to the core in an envelope of molten iron, sending temperature readings, compositional information, and other data along the way.
"We've spent more than $10 billion in unmanned missions to the planets," says Stevenson, who is the Van Osdol Professor of Planetary Science at the California Institute of Technology. "But we've only been down about 10 kilometers into our own planet."
The benefits to science would be significant, Stevenson says, because so little has been directly observed about the inner workings of the planet. Scientists do not know, for example, the exact composition or even the temperature of the core, and what they do know is based on inferences about seismic data accumulated during earthquakes.
Stevenson says his proposal should be attractive to the scientific community because it is of the same scale, price-wise, as planetary exploration. To date, NASA has flown unmanned missions past all the planets except Pluto (if indeed Pluto is a planet at all), has made a few highly successful soft landings on Mars, has probed the clouds of Jupiter, is getting ready to probe the atmosphere of Titan, and has sent four spacecraft into interstellar space. Sending something into the earth, Stevenson believes, will have comparable payoffs in the quest for knowledge.
"When we fly to other worlds, we are often surprised by what we find, and I think the same will be the case if we go down."
Stevenson's plan calls for a crack to be opened in the earth, perhaps with some sort of explosion-probably a nuclear bomb. According to his figures, the crack will need to be several hundred meters in length and depth, and about 30 centimeters wide, to accommodate a volume of about 100 thousand to several million tons of molten iron.
The instant the crack opens, the entire volume of iron will be dropped in, completely filling the open space. Through the sheer force of its weight, the iron will create a continuing crack that will open all the way to the planet's core 3,000 kilometers below. Anything on a smaller scale may not work; anything larger will be even more expensive, so Stevenson thinks a crack of those dimensions is about right.
"Once you set that condition up, the crack is self-perpetuating," he explains; "it's fundamentally different from drilling, where it gets harder and harder-and eventually futile-the farther you go down."
The iron will continue to fall due to gravity because it is about twice the density of the surrounding material. Riding along in the mass of liquid iron will be one or more probes made of a material robust enough to withstand the heat and pressure. The probe will perhaps be the size of a grapefruit but definitely small enough to ride easily inside the 30-centimeter crack without getting wedged.
Inside the probe will be instrumentation for data collection, which will be relayed through low-intensity mechanical waves of some sort-probably through deformations of the ball itself to send out a sort of "Morse code" of data. Because radio waves cannot propagate through Earth, this is the only way to get the data transferred.
The probe will likely operate with about 10 watts of power, and it may even be possible to replenish energy and dispense with an on-board battery by harnessing mechanical energy from the force of the fall, just as electricity can be generated from falling water.
Such a low power rating will not make it possible to generate very strong shock waves for data transmission, but strong waves may not be necessary. In fact, Stevenson further suggests that the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) might be recalibrated in its downtime to track the falling ball.
Based on the rate the molten iron would fall due to gravity, the ball would move downward into Earth at roughly human running pace (about 10 miles per hour), meaning that the entire mission would last a few weeks.
All this may sound to some like science fiction, but Stevenson says each of the principles involved is based on sound knowledge of crack propagation, fluid dynamics, mechanical-wave propagation, and "stress states." If these things didn't already work in nature, we would have no volcanoes and poorly performing bathroom plumbing, but little to fear from a pebble shattering our windshields.
"The biggest question is how to initially open the crack," says Stevenson. "Also, there's the technological challenge of having a probe that actually does what it's supposed to do."
Stevenson says he came up with part of the title "A Modest Proposal" for his paper, which is appearing in this week's journal Nature, to have a bit of fun but at the same time to issue a serious scientific proposal. He purposely took the title from Jonathan Swift's famous essay of the same name. The Swift essay suggests that Ireland's terrible economic circumstances could be solved by people eating their own children, thereby allowing England to continue pillaging the country's resources for its own one-sided benefit.
"My proposal is not as outrageous as suggesting one should eat his own children, but still combines a serious proposal with some levity," Stevenson says. "Ninety-five percent of the scientists who read the article may laugh at an enjoyable read, but if the other five percent seriously consider the goal of probing Earth's core, then I'll be happy."
"The biggest question should not be the cost, but whether we should pursue the goal of exploring Earth's interior," he says. "That said, I'd suggest we do it if we can keep the cost under $10 billion."
Contact: Robert Tindol (626) 395-3631 | <urn:uuid:d2195b77-9d2b-48b7-bd7a-e5d2fd9dbaf1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.caltech.edu/content/caltech-planetary-scientist-has-modest-proposal-sending-probe-earths-core | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00124-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959552 | 1,213 | 3.515625 | 4 |
New Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images reveal what may be galaxies under construction in the early universe, out of a long sought ancient population of "galactic building blocks."
Hubble's detailed images, taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, reveal a grouping of 18 gigantic star clusters that appear to be the same distance from Earth, and close enough to each other that they will eventually merge into a few galaxy- sized objects. They are so far away, 11 billion light-years, that they existed during the epoch when it is commonly believed galaxies started to form.
These results add weight to a leading theory that galaxies grew by starting out as clumps of stars, which, through a complex series of encounters, consolidated into larger assemblages that we see as fully-formed galaxies today.
The finding is another step back into the dim past, where astronomers ultimately hope to uncover the earliest seeds of galaxy formation which arose shortly after the birth of the universe, or the Big Bang.
Astronomers at Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, (ASU) and the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa found 18 of these cosmic building blocks packed into an area about two-million light-years across. "It's the first time anyone has seen that many star-forming objects in such a small space. There are not nearly as many such luminous objects in the two-million light-years separating Earth's galaxy, the Milky Way, from the Andromeda Nebula, the nearest major galaxy", says Rogier Windhorst of Arizona State University.
The astronomers will publish their findings in an article, authored by ASU graduate student Sam Pascarelle, in the September 5 issue of the journal Nature. The coauthors are ASU's Rogier Windhorst and Stephen Odewahn, and William Keel of the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa.
The building blocks seen by Hubble consist of only about a billion young stars each, and Hubble shows star formation is underway through the presence of many blue stars and glowing gases. The objects typically measure only 2,000 light-years across. "That's not very big. Our own galaxy is 100,000 light-years across," Odewahn says. The objects are much smaller than even the central bulge of the Milky Way, which measures about 8,000 light-years in diameter. "We think that by repeated merging, they will grow big enough to become the bulges of nearby galaxies," says Keel, citing other HST studies that have shown that the galaxy merger or collision rate was higher in the past. "In fact, at least four of the objects in this field show double structure in their centers only a few thousand light-years apart, as if we've caught them in the act of falling together."
Hubble shows a new level of detail for determining the true nature of these "pre-galactic blobs." Hubble resolved clumps as small as 2,000 light-years across (1/10th of an arc second). These were seen in a two-day (67-orbit) exposure by Hubble of a small region of sky in the northern part of the Hercules constellation near the border with Draco.
"We've never seen so many of these objects in a single exposure and so small," says Pascarelle. "We are convinced that these objects are not peculiar, but part of the general formation process of galaxies in the early universe."
Astronomers see stars form, because star formation is an ongoing process. However, astronomers have never directly seen galaxies form, because their formation may have happened a long time ago, or because galaxy formation is not as spectacular as once believed, and is therefore much harder to observe.
The idea that galaxies grew from small pieces coming together, rather than through the collapse of a gigantic gas cloud, has been predicted from previous theoretical work and ground-based observations. The Hubble observations offer some of the best direct visual evidence to date, says Pascarelle.
Though many of the objects are isolated in the image, they are close enough together in space that most of them should eventually merge, according to Windhorst. He sketches a scenario where two or more objects will pass through each other, drawing out hydrogen gas to form more stars later. (Although the term "collision" is used, their individual stars don't collide.) They may then evolve to form the numerous faint blue galaxies, a distant population of galaxies seen by Hubble and other telescopes. Later, surrounding hydrogen gas then settles into a disk to form a spiral galaxy.
If this construction plan is correct, our Milky Way galaxy contains all the pieces of the assembly process. The older, redder stars in the Milky Way's central bulge came from the merged clusters, or "sub-galactic units," seen by Pascarelle and collaborators. The spiral arm that our Sun inhabits was made later after hydrogen settled into a disk. Some of the 140 globular star clusters which orbit the Milky Way may be "left over" smaller building blocks which formed before the larger units seen by Pascarelle and collaborators, but were never pulled directly into larger assemblages.
In some of the deepest exposures of the universe (apart from the Hubble Deep Field) yet obtained by the telescope, the astronomers found 18 objects in one image, in the vicinity of a faint radio galaxy they were studying. The researchers used an optical filter precisely tuned to detect the ultraviolet emission from glowing hydrogen gas heated by newborn stars that formed early in the universe, but shifted to longer visual wavelengths by the universal expansion. "This is a case where Hubble is uniquely suited to study sub-galactic objects at these great distances," says Windhorst, "because these objects are so compact that it would be very hard to recognize them from the ground."
Follow-up spectroscopic observations with the Multi-Mirror Telescope at Mt. Hopkins, Arizona (MMT) showed at least five of the clumps are all at the same distance from Earth. The team confirmed that another five objects were at the same distance by imaging another redshifted hydrogen line in the near infrared with NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility, and through spectroscopic follow-up at the 10 meter W.M. Keck Telescope, both on Mauna Kea, Hawaii (the latter by Drs. Nicholas Scoville and Lee Armus of Caltech). The amount of redshift corresponds to a distance of 11 billion light-years far enough to probe the early universe during the period where many of the giant galaxies were being assembled.
In a companion paper in press for the Astrophysical Journal Letters, Stephen Odewahn, Windhorst, Keel, and Simon Driver (from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia) show that the counts of faint blue objects in this field are no different from that in other deep HST fields. Astronomers interpret this to mean that in almost every direction an observer should see similar activity going on at these distances the gradual construction of galaxies from faint blue sub-galactic building blocks.
NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
Steve Koppes, News Bureau
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ | <urn:uuid:5a85b806-82f7-4826-b8ee-135d233b3140> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/cosmology/1996/29/text/results/100/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397795.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00010-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946862 | 1,495 | 3.796875 | 4 |
What are the Chinese Zodiac Signs?|
The Chinese Lunar calendar is the longest chronological record in history dating from 2637BC when the Emperor Huant Ti introduced the first cycle. A complete cycle takes 60 years and is made up from five simple cycles of twelve years each. The cycle comprises of Rat, Rooster, Dog, Pig, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, and Monkey.
How does my chinese zodiac sign affect me?
It is believed that the animal representing the lunar year exercises an influence on the life and destiny and destiny of those born in the year. This does not mean that all those born in the same year will have similar destinies and characteristics. Our earth born luck will ultimately play a role in shaping our full destiny but you will find many forms of correspondence in those of the same sign. You can also learn about your partner's or loved one's traits and hopefully understand the person better.
Lunar Year enforced animal signs
Most Lunar Years do not share the same date or even month, and we have made sure that each and every single year has been recorded to make sure your correct sign is obtained. There is no formula for calculating your zodiac sign, only the time frame of that select lunar year you fall in.
Other Links of Interest
Key in your Solar date of birth and we'll do the calculations! | <urn:uuid:40493d40-28f2-428f-a438-c7e5bf2e500e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.smilingbamboo.com/zodiac/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00130-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945793 | 285 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Flood Risk High, says MU Extension Climatologist
Cool, Damp, Cloudy Weather Keeps Soils Saturated
Duane Dailey, MU Cooperative Media Group
COLUMBIA, Mo. - "Look for significant flooding to continue into spring," says Pat Guinan, University of Missouri Extension climatologist.
During a trip across northern Missouri, Guinan observed saturated soils, farm ponds lapping at their spillways, and streams and rivers that were bank-full or flooding. "Fields are bog-like and ruts in crop fields harvested in wet weather last fall are full of water," he said. "All factors are in place for high flood potential."
There have been no drying days so far this year, he added. "Sunshine and warm winds from the south usually begin evaporating the water. At mid-March we've had few days of warm temperatures, only cloudy, cool or damp weather."
So far this year, precipitation has not been excessive, but even minor precipitation can cause flooding, he said. "There's just no place for the water to go but downstream."
Reports from northwestern Missouri indicate frequent flooding of rural roads from small streams.
Current weather forecasts don't offer help. Short- and long-term outlooks call for near- to below-normal temperatures and near- to above-normal precipitation until the end of March.
Then the wet months arrive.
"Climatologically, May and June are our wettest months," Guinan said.
The accumulated water in Missouri fields is the result of two back-to-back wet years, he said. In Missouri, 2008 was the wettest year on record going back to 1895. That was followed by the ninth-wettest year on record in 2009.
"That was the first time we've had two consecutive years with more than 50 inches of precipitation," Guinan said.
The two-year departure from normal precipitation was plus 24.83 inches. That ranked Missouri the second-wettest state in the nation, surpassed only by Arkansas.
Look for flooding in both the Missouri and Mississippi river basins, Guinan said. Heavy snowpack remains in the upper Great Plains and northern Midwest. Satellite maps show that snow remains north and west from Des Moines, Iowa, with the heaviest snowpack across North Dakota. Much of that snowmelt will come through Missouri.
Snow remained on the ground in far northwestern Missouri from Dec. 7 until the first week of March. "It's most unusual to have snow on the ground for three months," Guinan said. Some reporting stations in that area recorded more than 50 inches of snow.
Guinan tracks the weather for the MU Extension Commercial Agriculture Program. He maintains 28 automated weather stations across the state. Reports from all stations are available at http://agebb.missouri.edu/weather/stations/.
Wet weather increases maintenance problems at those stations. "Some of my tripod towers are sinking into the mud," Guinan said. At one, a rain gauge mounted on a post fell over because the ground was too boggy. Freezing and thawing of saturated soil has floated his subsoil temperature sensors out of the ground.
"It will be highly unlikely that we would have a third year of record-setting precipitation in 2010," he said. "But a year ago I was saying it would be highly unlikely to have two years of record precipitation."
For online information of river resources in Missouri, please visit the following link:
Source: Pat Guinan, 573-882-5908
Please e-mail Dr. Patrick Guinan , Phone: 573-882-5908
Missouri State Climatologist
School of Natural Resources
102 Anheuser-Busch Natural Resources Building
Columbia, MO 65211 | <urn:uuid:cf4ef5fe-8ac4-4551-bb1b-dd1af0ee56d2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://climate.missouri.edu/news/arc/march2010b.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00077-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958062 | 801 | 2.53125 | 3 |
How Many Medications Do You Take?
By Sandra Ogata, MD, board-certified in family practice with Parrish Medical Group.
As a family practice specialist, I see patients who have a variety of health issues: acute (cold, flu, infection), chronic, serious and unidentified (or underdiagnosed).
Q. What problem do you see that concerns you most?
A patient may be taking multiple medications—for diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, depression, chronic pain, thyroid disease—prescribed by many different physicians and specialists. Each prescribes a different medication for a specific condition.
Q. Why is this such a big problem?
The risk of adverse drug reaction in patients 65 years and older increases by 13 percent with two medications, 58 percent with five medications, and 82 percent with seven or more medications prescribed. Adverse drug events are responsible for more than 100,000 hospitalizations per year among seniors. The Institute of Medicine estimates that 1.5 million preventable adverse drug reactions occur every year in the U.S.
Q. Doesn’t modern medicine help us live healthier lives?
Absolutely. But when a person uses multiple medications, often called polypharmacy, it can cause problems if some of them interact negatively with others. A person’s age and ethnicity and genetic variations (DNA) can affect how drugs are metabolized.
Q. What can people do to help prevent this situation?
Patients should have one primary care physician to coordinate all their prescriptions among different specialists. I follow strict guidelines when checking for drug interactions (e.g., the Beers Criteria from the American Geriatrics Society).
I also use a genetic test that analyses the liver enzyme genetic code that metabolizes more than 90 percent of the medications prescribed. It is a simple mouth swab done in my office, which is covered by insurance, and I have the results in less than two weeks. I have helped my patients with countless adverse side effects, such as dizziness, rash, anxiety, uncontrolled high blood pressure and high blood sugar, depression and insomnia. I can personalize a patient’s medication according to his or her genetic code, so the chance of side effects decreases, along with the number of different prescriptions used to control the same disease.
Q. What’s the best way to ensure a person’s physicians know about all the medications?
I always ask my patients to bring all their medicine bottles to every appointment. This is the best way to avoid overdose. Patients tend to know the color and shape of their pills or tablets, but doctors know the drug names. Telling your doctor that you take one blue pill a day and a small yellow pill at night doesn’t help him or her confirm whether you are taking the prescribed medication correctly. By Sandra Ogata, MD
Sandra Ogata, MD, is board-certified in family practice with Parrish Medical Group. Her office is at 702 Country Club Drive, Titusville. Call 321-268-1995 for free advice and an appointment. | <urn:uuid:8b29fd36-d0c3-4b7c-a0aa-14fa797ed1ce> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://healthbridge.parrishmed.com/how-many-medications-do-you-take | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397748.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00058-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932148 | 628 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Little Known Episode in John Bidwell’s History: Thwarting the 1851 Federal Indian Treaty
By Michele Shover, professor emerita, Political Science
In mid-August of that year, 200 members from Mountain and Foothill Maidu tribelets as well as 100 or so Valley Maidus gathered on the ranch at Bidwell’s request to consider a federal treaty. They moved back and forth from their tree-sheltered encampments, scattered to avoid old enemies but close enough to meet with friends. At large campfires, the Mechoopda Maidus roasted slabs of government beef, which rewarded each arriving group. The amount of beef would later become an issue.
While some Mountain Maidus were reluctant to enter rival Maidu turf without protection, their curiosity prevailed. They recalled many tribal “Big Times” there for trade with the Mechoopdas. Of course, when the best bow maker or other artisan was one of their own, they had held the get-togethers. But when a Valley Indian was the master builder, the advantage shifted and Mountain Indians became guests. According to Bidwell, such trading events took place at intervals of years, and when they concluded, the mountain and valley tribelets parted as enemies. In Bidwell’s time, the Mountain Maidus likely made surreptitious night visits to take a look at Bidwell’s ranch or for secret meetings with willing Mechoopdas. While Bidwell understood the land as his property, the tribelets at large still considered it, rightfully at least, as the Maidu territory of their Mechoopda tribelet.
The Indians, many of whom had arrived at Bidwell’s place about three weeks earlier than he expected them, set up camps in heavy groves across from his log house and the long shed, his stable and tack room. The visitors took a keen interest in the ranch’s new “saltbox”-style store with its “hotel” of several rooms above and the clapboard-sided bunkhouse where Bidwell housed “the Indian boys” who joined his vaqueros. Their elders had worked for John Potter, the area’s pioneer who had a substantial cattle operation which ran south from Big Chico Creek along both sides of the Oroville-Shasta Road. From Bidwell the young men learned how to work on field and row crops, and they had put in the rancher’s first orchards and some grape vines during the previous spring. Their elders were posted at the borders of grain fields with orders to keep out the cattle. The young men’s bunkhouse not only presented a considerable contrast to the older families’ bark huts, but it pointed to Bidwell’s separation of the male laborers from their families. In other respects, he respected their culture.
From their tree-shaded campsites, the Mountain Maidus could also assess the Mechoopdas’ situation. The Valley tribelet had agreed to work on Bidwell’s terms. They had nowhere they could go and they gained access to his resources, including added protection from their mountain rivals. This situation intrigued the more warlike mountain tribe. How could they drive off this rancher or tap his resources or find a way to restore their access to the valley? Now that they were at Bidwell’s headquarters, they also could communicate with the Mechoopdas to compare ideas.
While the Indians’ activities intrigued onlookers, the drama of Treaty Commissioner Oliver Wozencraft’s arrival conveyed command. Accompanying him were “gentlemanly and efficient” Army officers and 50 mounted infantry with a train of heavily laden packhorses enveloped in a rolling wall of dust. While Wozencraft’s mission was difficult, he had reason for confidence because he had negotiated signed treaties with other tribes. While he was at Bidwell’s rancho, the San Francisco Alta declared “the reservations must be made where the Indians at present reside … and that has been the course of the commissioners.”
As he slowed to dismount, Wozencraft noted the hundreds of Indians who took his measure in turn. By contrast to treaty meetings where a few tribesmen had shown up, Bidwell had organized an impressive turnout. As Wozencraft moved through the crowd with Bidwell “doing the honors,” he was impressed by the mix of valley headmen or “captains” and those of the mountain tribelets. The latter were difficult to assemble, most at risk and most dangerous to settlers. He explained later the Mountain and Foothill Maidus lived in small groups and were “generally at war with one another.” Hence, “they were very distrustful when it is attempted to bring them together.”
The treaty commissioner found Bidwell had anticipated his needs. Because the Native people would find it hard to understand the terms of a legal document, he had his carpenter build a lectern to draw a common focus. This podium’s image entered into the Mechoopdas’ oral history. In addition, Bidwell provided interpreters. One, Rafael, about 12, was the young boy he had “adopted” from a tribelet and trained as his personal assistant. The second interpreter, Napani, was about 9. She was a daughter of Mechoopda Headman Luc-a-yan, whom a settler woman described as “a man of superior ability, dignity and fine disposition.” She thought he resembled “a bronze statue.”
The ranch was organized for the meeting, the Indians were in place, and Wozencraft was ready to lay out the treaty terms. Deliberations would follow a rocky course—as would the relationship between Wozencraft and Bidwell. In 1858 Bidwell would testify that Commissioner Wozencraft had instructed him to offer the Indians all the beef they wanted regardless of cost. His statement contradicted Wozencraft’s explicit instructions, however. In an 1851 letter to Bidwell, Wozencraft referred to their common understanding that Bidwell should distribute beef to “keep the Indians pacified at the least cost to the government” and that his beef allocations “should be governed by necessity.” Bidwell also wanted Wozencraft to award him the lucrative contract to supply the beef, even though Wozencraft had already awarded it to someone else and wouldn’t go back on his word. Needless to say, Bidwell was not happy.
There is much more to the treaty story, but the end result was that Bidwell worked against the ratification of the treaty, and it failed to pass the California Legislature. California is one of the few states that did not establish a treaty with Indians. The consequences of this for the California Indians, especially the Mechoopda Maidu, is that many of them are still fighting to be recognized as a tribe, with the incumbent rights and privileges that accompany that recognition. In Butte County, the Mechoopda Maidu are in court to challenge Butte County’s effort to stop them from building a casino southeast of Chico.
Note: This is an excerpt from a chapter from a manuscript by Michele Shover, “The California Indian Wars on the Butte County Front, 1850-1865.” Shover, professor emerita, delivered the lecture at the Department of Political Science’s Faculty Forum on Oct. 21. The entire lecture can be found on the department’s website. Photo of Emma Cooper courtesy of Meriam Library, Special Collections. | <urn:uuid:3010ab5a-c517-4921-9b35-0a61cf4bff13> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.csuchico.edu/inside/2011-11-03/bidwell.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00104-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982568 | 1,601 | 3.296875 | 3 |
As we read Naso, we come to a season of gift giving at graduations and weddings including the ceremony of Kabbalat Torah at Shavuot in Liberal Synagogues.
Gifts are often chosen to represent the relationship of the donor to the recipient. Can you imagine a simchah where every gift that the recipient opens is exactly the same?
At the dedication of the tabernacle described in this week’s Torah portion that is exactly what happens. There is a 12 day festival during which each tribe offers the same gifts. The Torah describes each tribe’s gifts in turn repeating the same list 12 times. Each tribe brings a silver bowl, silver basin, mixed flour, oil, gold ladle, a bull, ram, lamb and goat! The rabbis bewildered at this strange set of gifts repeated 12 times felt certain that they must represent a higher symbolic value and came up with the following significations: The bowl and basin represent the oral and written Torah, the flour and oil is study combined with good deeds, the ladle is the tablets of stone with 10 Commandments, the bull represents the Priests, the ram the Levites, the lamb the Israelites and the goat the Proselytes. Each of these in the rabbis’ eyes were tools for building community. They were each needed for the establishment of a just society that included law and justice, a learning community, spiritual leadership and individual commitment. It was not important to God that these were all the same, it was however important to each tribe offering it. For only if each sector of society commits to a common set of values, can there be a shared value system for all.
There is a Hasidic story of a wedding where the guests were all invited to bring their own wine and pour it into a giant vat for everyone to share. All brought a bottle and poured it into the vat but when the tap was opened, out poured pure water. Each guest had said to him or herself, since everyone else will bring wine, I need only bring water and of course everyone had said the same thing.
We need to bring our gifts to build our communities and the gifts are not dissimilar whether it be from different religious traditions or cultural backgrounds. However if we do not commit to this offering, then we shall all be living in a society that is bland and vacuous. Judaism has aspired to a better community and society for all and Naso reminds us of the gifts we still have yet to bring. | <urn:uuid:1bb5080f-b1ee-4b50-b3c8-675ac8f6ad2c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.lbc.ac.uk/20070524566/Weekly-D-var-Torah/shabbat-naso.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391634.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00170-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973025 | 517 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Pseudodementia: Issues in Diagnosis
Pseudodementia: Issues in Diagnosis
"Pseudodementia" needs a third look. Always a "soft" diagnosis, it has never had objective, explicit diagnostic criteria or a spot in an official nomenclature. For most of the past 4 decades, however, pseudodementia—depression masquerading as dementia—has held a firm place in the differential diagnosis of dementia. Now many depression and dementia specialists, armed with new data, have taken a second look and have concluded that this diagnosis has had its day-that is, that the concept of pseudodementia is no longer valid or useful.1,2 The demise of pseudodementia, however, might not be the answer.
Although the prevalence of pseudodementia is not as high as early studies suggested, it is far from trivial. Early studies suggested that up to 15% of patients with dementia had one of the reversible types and that depression accounted for about half the reversible dementias.3,4 Although depression is still considered among the most common causes of reversible dementia, recent studies, in which diagnostic criteria for dementia are applied and patients closely followed, suggest that the prevalence of truly reversible dementia is far less than thought and that only 0.5% to 1% of patients with dementia have a fully reversible pseudodementia.3,5 Given the fact that even a cursory mental status examination usually allows a clinician to distinguish pseudodementia from dementia (Table [not available online]), we would expect to find few pseudodementia patients among those who have actually been given a diagnosis of dementia. On the other hand, among patients who simply seek evaluation for cognitive symptoms, about 10% may well have pseudodementia.6
Current textbooks still include pseudodementia in the differential diagnosis of dementia, but experts on all sides have been calling for its demise.1,2 Before examining the reasons—and there are some good ones—behind the disenchantment, here I provide a quick look at what the concept has meant up until now.
A question of definition
The term "pseudodementia" literally means false or pretended mental disorder and, in fact, that term has sometimes been applied to any factitious mental illness. But starting in the 1960s, the term came to be applied more specifically to the situation in which a "functional" psychiatric illness mimics dementia.7 Early on, depression was recognized as one of the functional psychiatric illnesses most likely to present with dementia features.
As the link between depression and cognitive impairment became increasingly apparent, the concept of pseudodementia was further narrowed to its current meaning: cognitive impairment caused by depression, usually in the elderly, that to some extent mimics other forms of dementia and may be reversible with treatment. Among the defining features of pseudodementia are the discrepancy between the patient's intense distress over cognitive impairment and the minimal impairment found on objective testing, the presence of depression, and the improvement in cognition as the depression lifts.
Psychiatrists, neurologists, geriatricians, and other primary care physicians who evaluate elderly patients not infrequently come across some who complain of failing memory; are difficult to engage in formal mental status testing, claiming that they cannot answer the questions; suffer the vegetative and psychological symptoms of depression; and seem less cognitively impaired when their depression improves. That is, some patients meet all the usual criteria for pseudodementia.
As the clinicians and investigators who first recognized and wrote about pseudodementia pointed out, recognition of this syndrome can, in some instances, prevent a costly and uncomfortable diagnostic workup for dementia, protect the patient and caregiver from the distress associated with a premature label of dementia, and prompt the clinician to treat the patient's depression. All good stuff. So why is there a consensus among most experts to scrap this diagnosis?
"Organic" or "Functional": Evolving View of Depression
The concept of pseudodementia arose when psychiatric illnesses were still divided into the "organic," such as dementia, and the "functional," such as schizophrenia and depression. The "organic" conditions were understood to be associated with brain pathology; the "functional" conditions were not. From today's perspective, enlightened by brain imaging that has revealed both physiologic and structural brain changes in all the major psychiatric illnesses, the division of psychiatric illnesses into those that are organic and those that are not sounds like something from the 19th century or earlier.
In fact, the organic/functional dichotomy remained in the official psychiatric nomenclature until 1994 when, with the advent of the current psychiatric Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, this distinction was dropped.
The functional/organic divide was very much in play when the concept of pseudodementia took form, however. Central to the concept was the notion that the dementia of pseudodementia is functional—not associated with any brain pathology—and not real dementia, which comes with plaques, tangles, and infarcts. Pseudodementia was not thought to be "organic" because it was caused by depression, which was not thought to be organic. This piece of the concept no longer holds. Depression comes with all sorts of biologic changes, from pituitary-adrenal overactivity, to decreased serotonin receptor activity, to shifts in hippocampal size and prefrontal cortex activity. So pseudodementia, even when it is fully accounted for by depression and reverses when depression lifts, probably involves some brain pathology.
The fact that psychiatry has rightly dropped the organic/functional dichotomy is just one of the reasons behind the position that pseudodementia has had its day. More important, we know far more now about the relationship between depression and dementia than we did 40 years ago when the concept of pseudodementia was evolving. Although far from complete, this new information suggests, among other things, that there may be nothing "pseudo" about the dementia associated with depression.
Cognitive impairment is now recognized as an integral component of the depressive syndrome. Depressed patients typically report poor concentration, difficulty in making decisions, and muddled thinking. Among elderly persons with depression, about half show significant impairment on formal tests of cognition, particularly in the areas of attention, psychomotor speed, and other executive functions.8 The cognitive impairments of the depressed elderly are not as severe as those seen in early Alzheimer disease (AD), and they involve fewer areas of cognition.8 Unlike patients with AD, for example, the depressed elderly usually do not show disturbances in language or in cued recall.8 However, the cognitive abilities of patients with major depression are clearly not up to those of their nondepressed counterparts, and to some extent they improve as the depression lifts.
Adding to the complexity of the depression/dementia relationship is the high prevalence of depression in patients with dementia, particularly in those with relatively early dementia and dementia of moderate severity. Estimates of depression prevalence vary widely and depend on the method of detection, but most studies report that between 20% and 40% of patients with dementia also suffer major depression and that up to 70% have some depressive symptoms.9,10 This depression warrants and responds to treatment.11
Depression as a Risk Factor for Dementia
The high prevalence of depression in dementia means that the presence of depressive symptoms in a patient with cognitive impairment does not in itself suggest that the cognitive impairment is secondary to depression or is likely to reverse as the depression improves.
The web gets thicker when we consider new information about depression as a prodromal feature or risk factor for dementia. Longitudinal studies indicate that dementia is more likely to develop in elderly persons with depression than in their nondepressed counterparts.12,13 So depression may place people at increased risk for dementia or may be an early manifestation of dementia. Furthermore, elderly depressed patients with cognitive impairment are more likely to develop dementia than are the elderly depressed without cognitive impairment.14
Finally, although the cognitive impairment associated with depression in the elderly often improves somewhat as the depression lifts, recent studies indicate that some degree of cognitive impairment usually remains.14 These observations in the aggregate suggest that depression in the elderly may uncover or allow the expression of early-stage dementia.
Should Pseudodementia Be Renamed?
If the recently uncovered complexities of the depression-dementia relationship were not enough to bring on the demise of pseudodementia, we have the inaccuracy of the term itself. Pseudodementia does not actually mimic true dementia. In course of illness, complaints, and cognitive impairment, the 2 conditions are quite different (Table [not available online]).
Further, the term "pseudodementia" oozes political incorrectness. It implies that the dementia is not real or, even more offensively incorrect, that it is faked. The not-real business is debatable, but it is quite clear that patients with pseudodementia are not deliberately faking cognitive impairment. Unlike the malingering patient, they do not complain of memory difficulties for any obvious secondary gain, and unlike patients with factitious cognitive impairment or the rare Ganser syndrome, they tend to give "I don't know" answers on tests of mental function rather than bizarre or approximate answers.15
Additionally, patients with pseudodementia often suffer the characteristic features of depression of vegetativeness and self-neglect. Thus, patients with this syndrome can be distinguished from those with Ganser syndrome and other factitious mental illnesses.15,16 | <urn:uuid:b2dddc11-6ab5-4bb9-87a4-6d122a03e607> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/dementia/pseudodementia-issues-diagnosis | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00001-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949563 | 1,965 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Vegetation extraction is a bit more complex than running the spatial analysis tools that you named. For better results I would suggest the following:
- run analysis on a 4 band image (e.g. R,G,B,NIR)
- change image to be symbolized as 432 for RGB not 321
- create training samples that represent vegetation and run a supervised classification
These steps will give you a fair result, however you will still get many false returns (e.g. shadows by buildings, or green water bodies...etc).
For best results you will have to use a remote sensing software (including the three bullets above) that analyzes both spectral and textual objects of the imagery. I asked a question about what free software exists that can do this type of analysis, see link below:
Land Cover Feature Extraction from Satellite Imagery | <urn:uuid:1dbb7063-b119-4e47-b9d7-a84e8e3b45ed> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/76027/how-to-extract-vegetation-polygons-from-imagery-using-python | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397864.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00071-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92883 | 175 | 2.75 | 3 |
Beavers, Beaver Pictures, Facts, and Information
Tree that a beaver chewed
Beaver eating tree
Beaver tree damage
Beaver close up
Beaver pictures, taken in Phillipston, Massachusetts, on a pond. Beavers are considered a keystone species because their creation of dams in shallow valleys leads to the development of wetlands. These wetlands serve as an important ecosystem for many other animals including half of the endangered and threatened species in North America.
After two years of trying to get a decent picture of the beaver that maintains my view of the lake by trimming back the vegetation, I finally got one. OK, it's not art, but it's a real pic. He's only out and about after dark, and at dusk and dawn, when there's just not enough light for a telephoto lens. Anyway, I found some fresh gnawing on a tree, and setup a photo trap with an infrared beam. He shows up at 6:48pm, a couple of hours after dusk, wet from having just climbed out of the lake. He waited for exactly three seconds before the flash scared him off. Adult beavers can reach weights of over 40lbs and their species mates for life. Their diet consists of tubers, clover, fruit, leaves, and bark. While beavers serve as prey for many natural predators their biggest threat is death by trapping for their pelts. | <urn:uuid:645162cc-4a49-4e3e-8f39-604f22796af9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.northrup.org/photos/beaver/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397749.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00071-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967303 | 289 | 2.96875 | 3 |
To ensure that:
- children/young people are provided with a range of opportunities to be physically active
- children/young people, staff and parents/carers understand how physical activity can help them to be healthier, and how physical activity can improve and be a part of their every day life
- the whole-school community is encouraged to undertake physical activity.
Physical activity contributes significantly to the being healthy national outcome for children. | <urn:uuid:ea8da4e2-9516-45c7-83f7-205bc1a9ab5e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www3.hants.gov.uk/education/hias/healthyschools/themedareas/physicalactivity.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396147.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00067-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948254 | 88 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Catholic Teaching regarding the Legitimacy of Neurological Criteria for the Determination of Death
The Catholic Church is at the forefront of the struggle against a culture of death, raising her voice against direct assaults against human life such as abortion and euthanasia, in vitro fertilization, embryonic stem cell research, and the use of embryonic human beings for research.
In The Gospel of Life, John Paul II declares, “To claim the right to abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, and to recognize that right in law, means to attribute to human freedom a perverse and evil significance: that of an absolute power over others and against others.”1
The Pope goes on to observe that these evil practices have received the protection of the law so that the coercive powers of the state are now used to protect those who would take innocent human life rather than to protect the innocent lives that are threatened. Indeed, John Paul II observes with dismay that even health care professionals who have given themselves by a sacred oath to heal and to care have been seduced by this notion of freedom, which manifests itself as “absolute power over others and against others.” He continues, “It is not only that in generalized opinion these attacks tend no longer to be considered as ‘crimes’; paradoxically they assume the nature of ‘rights,’ to the point that the State is called upon to give them legal recognition and to make them available through the free services of health-care personnel.”2
John Paul II insists that the recognition of the inviolability of innocent human life is a duty of all people and could and should be recognized by all:
Every person sincerely open to truth and goodness can, by the light of reason and the hidden action of grace, come to recognize in the natural law written in the heart (cf. Rom. 2:14–15) the sacred value of human life from its very beginning until its end, and can affirm the right of every human being to have this primary good respected to the highest degree.3
Mistaken Pro-life Catholics
It is understandable that pro-life Catholics are going to be very sensitive to any possible violation of the human person’s fundamental right to life. On occasion, however, some misunderstand Catholic teaching in their pro-life zeal and deny that certain actions are morally permissible. For example, there are some Catholics who reject the notion of vital organ transplantation and the criteria that are currently used to judge a donor to be dead before the organs are extracted.
In the introduction to a recent book titled Finis Vitae, Paul Byrne, MD, a pediatrician, writes, “The holocaust of abortion and transplantation of organs from living donors will go down in history as the two most tragic and transcendental events of the last two centuries. Such massacres continue with the protection of law in the Western countries and the unwavering support of the legal and medical professions.”4 Dr. Byrne claims that those who have been judged dead by neurological criteria are still alive and that the excision of their vital organs is tantamount to murder. By taking such a position, Dr. Byrne is at odds with the current teaching of the magisterium of the Catholic Church.
The Gospel of Life encourages organ donation as a generous act of self-denial. Pope John Paul II speaks of heroic acts of generosity which “are the most solemn celebration of the Gospel of Life, for they proclaim it by the total gift of self.... A particularly praiseworthy example of such gestures is the donation of organs, performed in an ethically acceptable manner, with a view to offering a chance of health and even of life itself to the sick who sometimes have no other hope.”5 When he addressed a Congress on Organ Transplants four years earlier, in June 1991, the Holy Father observed that every donated organ comes from a decision of great ethical value, because it is “the decision to offer, without reward, a part of one’s own body for the health and well-being of another person.”6 When he spoke of those making this decision during an address in August 2000 to health care professionals involved in organ transplantation, he stated, “Here precisely [in the gift of self] lies the nobility of the gesture, a gesture which is a genuine act of love.”7
Moral Necessities: Informed Consent and the Dead Donor Rule
Two basic conditions have to be met for the ethical retrieval of vital organs from donors: the donor must freely consent to it, and the donor must be dead. Fortunately, there is broad general agreement in society on these conditions. Within the Church, there is not only general agreement but unambiguous insistence that the person must be dead before vital organs can be removed for transplantation. This is known as the dead donor rule. A controversy has developed in some circles, however, as to how death is to be ascertained.
The traditional and still most common means for judging someone dead are the cardiopulmonary criteria—specifically, a person is declared dead by a physician when the person has stopped breathing and the heart has stopped beating. Once a beating heart and breathing have ceased, oxygenated blood is no longer pumped through the body to keep the organs, and the individual, alive. The organs begin to atrophy and die. The brain eventually dies as well, since it is not receiving oxygenated blood.
Because of developments in life-support systems, such as ventilators, individuals who in the past would have died because of the cessation of heartbeat and breathing may now be kept alive mechanically, and some have recovered. However, some patients do not survive despite the use of the ventilator. In those cases, the patients often appear alive because the body and its organs continue to be suffused with oxygenated blood. Because life-support systems mechanically force the heart and lungs to continue functioning, criteria other than the cardiopulmonary ones had to be found for determining whether death had occurred. Persons had been revived after the cessation of breathing and heartbeat. No one, however, had ever been revived after the brain, serving as the basic integrative organ of the body, had died. The death of the brain, then, constituted unquestionable death.
Tests were eventually developed to ascertain whether the brain was dead. In the United States, these tests received their first formal articulation by an ad hoc committee at Harvard Medical School in 1968,8 and they have been continually refined since. In 1980, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws drafted the Uniform Determination of Death Act, accepting neurological as well as cardiopulmonary criteria for determining death.9 The act was drafted in collaboration with the American Medical Association and the American Bar Association and has been adopted by most U.S. states. It states specifically that “an individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead. A determination of death must be made in accordance with accepted medical standards.”
Very rigorous tests are used by physicians to determine whether a patient has indeed died according to the neurological criteria. Because the brain controls and directs not only thought and movement but also the spontaneous activities of the body that are necessary for life, such as breathing and heartbeat, the tests are used to determine whether the brain is indeed still alive and functioning. A battery of tests is used because any one test alone might not provide conclusive evidence. A person may appear to be dead because of hypothermia, a radical drop in body temperature, or because of the effects of certain drugs on the body. The following tests are representative of the ones used to judge whether the brain has died.10
When the brain has died, the patient has no movement or reflexes in the limbs, which will simply drop when released, and the pupils of the eyes will be fixed. When a bright light is shined into the pupil of a patient with a living brain, the optic nerve sends a signal to the brain, which sends an impulse to constrict the pupil. If the brain is dead, there is no constriction of the pupil.
Another test determines whether there is an oculocephalic reflex. When the brain is alive and the head is turned from side to side, the eyes will move. When the brain is dead, the eyes remain fixed and move with the head. Another test involves rubbing a cotton swab across the cornea of the eye. If the brain is alive, this will generally cause a spontaneous blinking reaction, which will not occur if the brain is dead. There is also a test of the oculovestibular reflex. After it has been determined that the ear drum is intact and the ear canal is free of wax, cold water is inserted into each ear canal. If the brain is alive, the radical change in temperature will cause a violent twitching of the eye, but if the brain is dead, the twitching will not occur. Furthermore, if the brain is dead, there will be no gag reflex when an instrument is placed at the throat.
An apnea test involves removing the patient from a ventilator for a period of time. If the lack of oxygen does not produce spontaneous breathing by the patient, it is another sign that the brain is dead.
After these clinical tests have been carried out, confirming tests may be done. These include the use of an electroencephalogram to measure electrical activity in the brain, a test so sensitive that it will even record static electricity. A test for cerebral blood flow using a radioactive isotope may also be done. If there is no electrical activity and no blood flow, it is clear that there is no brain function. These tests may be repeated after a twenty-four-hour period. Usually only after the rigorous application of such tests will the person finally be declared dead using neurological criteria.11
The clinical tests for determining death using neurological criteria must be performed with precision.12 It must be admitted that some physicians will not always be careful in the administration of these tests and may prematurely declare a person to be dead without properly ensuring that the criteria have been met.
It should be pointed out that “brain death” is not the same as a persistent vegetative state, which is a condition of severe disability but not death. Terri Schiavo was declared to be brain dead by some commentators during the controversy over the removal of her nutrition and hydration. This assertion was patently false. Terri Schiavo was very much alive in a persistent vegetative state, and she died from starvation and dehydration.
There was also the highly publicized case of a young man in Oklahoma who was in a four-wheeler accident in 2008. Zack Dunlap was declared brain dead thirty-six hours after the accident, after various tests had been run and a scan showed a complete absence of blood flow to his brain.13 Dunlap recovered, however, and later said he remembered overhearing physicians declaring him brain dead and discussing the removal of his organs for transplantation. What saved him was the fact that a relative took a penknife and ran it up the sole of Dunlap’s foot. Dunlap withdrew the foot. The hospital insisted that all the tests had been properly performed, but one has to wonder if they were, especially in light of the fact that a relative was able to elicit a response using such a primitive, indeed commonsense, test. The hospital also insisted that Dunlap’s vital signs would have been detected before his organs were removed. However, such stories illustrate the need for exercising caution and insisting that tests be thorough and rigorously applied. But this applies to other areas of medicine as well as to diagnoses of death.
There have also been reports of supposedly brain-dead pregnant women who continued to gestate their children, sometimes for months, until the children were viable. Almost always, though, these have been cases of pregnant women in very precarious conditions who were being kept alive by mechanical support, which is then removed after the child has been born. One headline in a national newspaper declared, “Brain-Dead Virginia Woman Dies after Giving Birth.”14 The article stated that the woman had been declared “brain dead” on May 7 and was delivered of the baby three months later on August 3. It went on to say that she was given last rites of the Catholic Church before life support was removed and she died. However, no one dies two deaths, and the Church does not administer sacraments to the dead but to the living. The woman obviously was not already dead.
Such cases of false declarations of brain death usually indicate the inadequate practice of medicine and do not negate the legitimacy of determining death by the use of neurological criteria, if it is done properly.
Rejection of Neurological Criteria for Death
Because of such reports, and because of deeper philosophical and medical opinions, some Catholics adamantly refuse to accept the legitimacy of neurological criteria for determining death. Because such negative judgments can be very unsettling to the consciences of the faithful and may lead them to reject the appeal of Pope John Paul II to be organ donors—or recipients—it is important to determine just what it is the Church teaches.
In the last ten years, two essays appeared in Catholic World Report by certain authors who later contributed to Finis Vitae, including Dr. Byrne; both essays have created confusion in the minds of the Catholic faithful. One essay appeared in March 2001 under the title “Are Organ Transplants Ever Morally Licit?”15 The other appeared in March 2005 under the title “Brain Death is NOT Death.”16 The view of the authors of the second essay could hardly have been clearer, the emphatic “not” being written in extra-bold, italicized, and underlined capital letters. Yet nowhere in magisterial teaching can one find a denunciation of ethical decision making based on a determination of death using neurological criteria. In fact, it is quite the opposite. According to current Church teaching, a Catholic may accept the neurological criteria for determining death and may make moral choices based on those criteria so long as the neurological tests are rigorously performed.
To begin to clear up the confusion, it is probably best first to refrain from using the expression “brain death,” as though there were different kinds of death. Just because the expression is now commonly used among medical professionals and ethicists, there is no reason to continue using it if it is misleading—which it is. Death is a singular, nonrepeatable event for every human being, the moment of which cannot be observed by empirical means. As John Paul II says in his 2000 address to the Transplantation Society,
It is helpful to recall that the death of the person is a single event, consisting in the total disintegration of that unitary and integrated whole that is the personal self. It results from the separation of the life-principle (or soul) from the corporal reality of the person. The death of the person, understood in this primary sense, is an event which no scientific technique or empirical method can identify directly.17
The reason no scientific technique can directly identify the moment of death is quite simple: the soul is a non-corporeal, spiritual life-principle which cannot be observed or measured or weighed using the tools of empirical science. The presence or absence of the soul can be ascertained only by observing certain biological signs that indirectly attest to its presence or its absence.
John Paul II continues,
Yet human experience shows that once death occurs certain biological signs inevitably follow, which medicine has learnt to recognize with increasing precision. In this sense, the “criteria” for ascertaining death used by medicine today should not be understood as the technical-scientific determination of the exact moment of a person’s death, but as scientifically secure means of identifying the biological signs that a person has indeed died.18
Notice that the Pope says that the biological signs indicate only that death has already occurred. They cannot tell us the precise moment of death.
As mentioned earlier, death was traditionally determined using cardiopulmonary criteria—that is, the absence of breathing and heartbeat. But modern technology and science have provided tools for determining when the brain is “dead,” which is an even more certain physiological sign that death has occurred than is the cessation of breathing and heartbeat. Neurological criteria do not indicate a different kind of death; they are simply another set of physiological criteria, like the cardiopulmonary criteria, to indicate that death has already occurred.
In his address to the Transplantation Society, the Pontiff acknowledged the neurological criteria in addition to the cardiopulmonary:
It is a well-known fact that for some time certain scientific approaches to ascertaining death have shifted the emphasis from the traditional cardiorespiratory signs to the so-called “neurological” criterion. Specifically, this consists in establishing, according to clearly defined parameters commonly held by the international scientific community, the complete and irreversible cessation of all brain activity (in the cerebrum, cerebellum, and the brain stem). This is then considered the sign that the individual organism has lost its integrative capacity.19
Despite the key importance of this papal address, consideration of the legitimacy of these criteria was not new in the Church’s reflections on death. Death has to be determined before ethical decisions are made about such matters as sacramental anointing and organ transplantation. The determination of death came to be rendered more difficult, however, with the use of life-support systems, which may give an appearance of life to patients whose bodies and their systems are being sustained only by artificial, mechanical means.
In October 1985, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences studied the question of the determination of death at the request of John Paul II. At the conclusion of their deliberations, they made the following statement:
A person is dead when he has irreversibly lost all capacity to integrate and coordinate the physical and mental functions of the body. Death occurs when (a) the spontaneous cardiac and respiratory functions have definitively ceased; or (b) if an irreversible cessation of every brain function is verified. From the debate it emerged that cerebral death is the true criterion of death, since the definitive arrest of the cardiorespiratory functions leads very quickly to cerebral death.20
Ever searching for greater clarity, John Paul II raised the question with the Pontifical Academy of Sciences again in 1989, giving the question a greater sense of urgency in the quest for more precision. Now the Pope was concerned specifically with organ donation. In his opening address to the academy, John Paul II asked,
How does one reconcile respect for life—which forbids any action likely to cause or hasten death—with the potential good that results for humanity if the organs of a dead person are removed for transplanting to a sick person who needs them, keeping in mind that the success of such an intervention depends on the speed with which the organs are removed from the donor after his or her death?21
Two things should be noted in this question. First of all, the Pope refers to the dead donor rule. This is, as we have said, the norm—universally accepted in the medical professions involved in transplantation—that vital organs will not be taken until the donor is dead. Second, the Pope alludes to the importance of the “speed” with which organs are extracted. This is of particular importance for such vital organs as the heart and liver, which quickly suffer damage when they are deprived of oxygen as a result of the loss of circulation.
At the end of its deliberations in 1989, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences came to the same conclusion it had reached in 1985: death can be determined when “there has been an irreversible cessation of all brain functions, even if cardiac and respiratory functions which would have ceased have been maintained artificially.”22 The Pontifical Academy of Sciences visited the question again in 2006 and published a statement in 2008 under the title “Why the Concept of Brain Death Is Valid as a Definition of Death.”23 The statement was signed primarily by neurologists, but it was also signed by three cardinals and one bishop who later became a cardinal. Furthermore, the meeting and publication of the statement took place during the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI. Thus three times now, under two different pontificates, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences has concluded that the neurological criteria are a legitimate basis for determining death. No pope, no discastery of the Holy See, and no official consultative body to the Holy See has ever called into question this conclusion of the academy. Indeed, as noted, senior members of the hierarchy have concurred, as did John Paul II himself.
U.S. Hierarchy and Vatican Dicasteries
The Church in the United States reflected on this problem even before it was specifically put to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences by Pope John Paul II. In 1975, the Committee on Health Affairs of the United States Catholic Conference issued “Guidelines for the Determination of Brain Death.”24 The document acknowledged the traditional cardiopulmonary criteria for determining death, of course, and then went on to state that there were circumstances in which “an additional set of criteria, which provides a moral certainty of brain death, may be more suitable.” It described these criteria as being “morally sound and acceptable.”
In 1995, the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers under Fiorenzo Cardinal Angelini issued its Charter for Health Care Workers. The legitimacy of neurological criteria was accepted by this body as well:
In order that a person be considered a corpse, it is enough that cerebral death of the donor be ascertained, which consists in the “irreversible cessation of all cerebral activity.” When total cerebral death is verified with certainty, that is, after the required tests, it is licit to remove organs and also to surrogate organic functions artificially in order to keep the organs alive with a view to a transplant.25
Even though the Charter does not carry the magisterial weight of a papal encyclical or a decree of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, it can hardly be maintained that it does not reflect the thinking of the Holy See and its advisors. Never has there been any indication from a pope or any other dicastery that the Charter is doctrinally deficient or that following it would place any Catholic in moral danger.
Indeed, Cardinal Angelini referred to the collaborative and consultative process that went into its issuance, including its having been submitted for review to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the highest doctrinal body in the Vatican, headed at the time by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. Cardinal Angelini wrote,
This Office cannot but feel flattered that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith approved and quickly confirmed in its entirety the text of the Charter submitted to it: another reason for its full validity and secure authority, but also a concrete proof of the interdicastery cooperation expressly desired in the motu proprio which set up the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers.26
Yet dissenting voices and writings, like the article “Are Organ Transplants Ever Morally Licit?” in Catholic World Report, continued to create confusion in the minds of a number of the faithful. Some Catholics became convinced that they would have to forgo becoming organ donors if organ donation meant that their deaths would be determined by use of the neurological criteria. Using the same line of reasoning, some Catholics were convinced that they could not ethically receive a donated organ under those circumstances.
A professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, Theodore Steinman, MD, was faced with a difficult clinical situation when a patient of his awaiting a kidney transplant read the essay “Are Organ Transplants Ever Morally Licit?” and came to the conclusion that she would commit a mortal sin if she received an organ transplant. This Jewish surgeon was dismayed that his Catholic patient could die without the transplanted organ. He rather boldly sent a copy of the essay to Pope John Paul II, asking if it indeed reflected Catholic teaching. In response to his question, Dr. Steinman received a letter from the Vatican dated September 14, 2001. It was written by Bishop Elio Sgreccia at the request of the Cardinal Secretary of State, Angelo Sodano.27
Perhaps it should be noted who these individuals are who responded on behalf of the Pope. Cardinal Sodano was Secretary of State under Pope John Paul II and was reappointed to that position by Pope Benedict XVI. Bishop Elio Sgreccia was one of the principal advisors to Pope John Paul II in the area of medical ethics and bioethics. A professor at Sacred Heart University in Rome, he founded and was the director of the Center for Bioethics there and at the Gemelli Hospital on the university campus. At the time of the correspondence with Dr. Steinman, Bishop Sgreccia was serving as president of the Pontifical Academy for Life. He is the author of the two-volume Manuale di bioetica, the most authoritative Catholic work in print on bioethics. Finally, he founded the International Federation of Centers and Institutes of Bioethics of Personalist Inspiration, based in Rome, and was its president until he retired and became its honorary president in February 2011. The “personalist” in the title of the federation indicates that the centers take their inspiration from the personalist thought of Pope John Paul II. In 2010, Elio Sgreccia was elevated to the dignity of Cardinal.
A portion of the letter written by then-Bishop Sgreccia to Dr. Steinman follows:
The Secretariat of State of His Holiness Pope John Paul II has asked me to respond to your letter of April 7, 2001. In it you express your perplexity and conscientious concern after reading the article that appeared in the periodical Catholic World Report (March 2001) entitled “Are Organ Transplants Ever Morally Licit?”
I can confirm that this article does not reflect the official doctrine of the Church. The Church’s thinking continues to be what was expressed in the Holy Father’s discourse of August 29, 2000. . . .
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you on behalf of the Holy Father both for the confidence and appreciation you expressed for his Magisterium, and for your own commitment in the service of patients. In the Holy Father’s name, I am pleased to extend to you his apostolic blessing as a sign of the Lord’s accompaniment in the comforting task you carry out for patients and their families in the delicate area of surgery.28
The letter is hardly a Vatican condemnation of the activities of a surgeon involved in the transplantation of organs from those declared dead using neurological criteria, as if such an action were immoral. In fact, it is an explicit encouragement of Dr. Steinman’s work. Bishop Sgreccia further states expressly that the March 2001 article in Catholic World Report does not reflect the official teaching of the Church.
When John Paul II spoke about organ transplantation in August 2000, he was not presuming to settle every medical dispute about the neurological criteria for determining death or every philosophical question on the nature, meaning, and moment of death. He was providing pastoral guidance for individuals faced with difficult ethical decisions concerning organ transplantation. He wanted to indicate what they could or could not do without incurring moral guilt. He provided them with moral guidance with an emphasis on the competencies of medical professionals in declaring death and on the role of prudential certitude.
Physicians Are the Ones Competent
Some who oppose neurological criteria for determining death cannot surmount the difficulties posed by the appearance of life in a body that is warm or in which an organ or set of organs continues function. However, it has long been shown that hearts can continue beating and other organs can survive the death of the person. In 1957, in an address known as “The Prolongation of Life,” Pope Pius XII made a distinction between the life of the whole organism and the “life” of individual organs, saying that the presumption in favor of life obtains when the “vital functions—distinguished from the simple life of organs—manifest themselves spontaneously or even with the help of artificial processes.”29 Here Pius XII indicates that organs can continue to be “alive” even when the organism, or the person, is not. In the same address he states clearly, “It remains for the doctor . . . to give a clear and precise definition of ‘death’ and the ‘moment of death’ of a patient who passes away in a state of unconsciousness.”30
In 1981, the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum” stated that the determination of the moment of death is a medical, not a theological, judgment: “The very most the Church could do would be to reiterate the conditions that would make it legitimate to accept the better judgment of those to whose specific competence has been entrusted the determination of the moment of death,” that is, physicians. The council also noted “a growing consensus of opinion that considers a human being dead in whom a total and irreversible absence of life activity in the brain has been established.”31
This consensus has only grown. The council’s statement was issued the same year that the Uniform Determination of Death Act—providing a legal determination of death by cardiopulmonary or neurological criteria—was approved for the United States.32 By 2001, every state had recognized such criteria as the legally acceptable means of determining death, with thirty-one states and the District of Columbia having adopted the act itself. Furthermore, “a study of criteria in 78 countries showed that there is judicial recognition of brain death in more than two thirds of the countries, with actual statutes in 86 percent."33 Neurological criteria for the determination of death were also adopted by the American Academy of Neurology in 1995 and updated in 2010.34
There is not an attempt here to settle the moral questions involved in this issue by appealing to the policies of such institutions and countries. Reference is made to them merely to point to the consensus in the medical and legal communities to which the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum” alluded.
Although there are differences in the tests for brain death and in their application, the tests continue to be perfected and improved. The authors of the 2001 essay in Catholic World Report rightly point out that there are a variety of tests and neurological criteria for determining death. They go on to maintain, however, that this variety renders the neurological criteria illegitimate and that Pope John Paul II was ill advised: “Perhaps the Pope has been advised that if the criteria are ‘rigorously applied,’ this is sufficient for a determination of death.” They assert that “rigorous application of the criteria implies that such criteria exist.... Since they do not exist, they cannot be applied in any fashion—much less ‘rigorously."35
The fact that there are a number of tests for determining death by the neurological criteria does not mean that there are no accurate tests or that the testing cannot be improved. And it is hard to believe the authors of the article in Catholic World Report could be aware of this fact while the Pope and his advisors were not. By analogy, just because there are many theories or explanations of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist does not mean that Christ is not really present in the Eucharist. Some of the explanations are inadequate; some are simply incorrect. The same can be said of the neurological criteria for determining death. Just as theologians have the competencies to judge various theories of the Real Presence, medical scientists determine the most adequate criteria for determining death by the neurological criteria.
In some countries, such as England, medical authorities allow death to be declared when the brain stem has been destroyed but the higher brain continues to function. But in his 2000 address, John Paul II insisted that the tests must determine that death of the entire brain—the cerebrum, the cerebellum, and the brain stem—has occurred.36 So the Pope was obviously well aware of the fact that there are different criteria and was indicating the types of criteria that would have to be rigorously applied to be acceptable to the Church.
Moral Legitimacy of Involvement in Transplants
Again, when the Pope insisted on the necessity of testing for total brain death before the removal of organs for transplantation, he was not claiming to resolve every debate about the nature of death and the means of recognizing that it has occurred. On the theoretical and philosophical levels, that debate will certainly continue. However, the Pope wanted to pass a moral judgment which would allow Catholic health care professionals and institutions to perform certain actions with a clear and sound conscience. Moral philosophy and moral theology are practical sciences; that is, they are disciplines that exist to help people determine what a moral course of action is so that they can act.
This moral assistance is precisely what the Holy Father provided in his 2000 address:
"Here it can be said that the criterion adopted in more recent times for ascertaining the fact of death, namely the complete and irreversible cessation of all brain activity, if rigorously applied, does not seem to conflict with the essential elements of a sound anthropology. Therefore a health-worker professionally responsible for ascertaining death can use these criteria in each individual case as the basis for arriving at that degree of assurance in ethical judgment which moral teaching describes as ‘moral certainty.’”37
The Pope is clear that one can base one’s moral action on neurological criteria for determining death. He continues to insist on the dead donor rule, and he remains open to developments in medicine and the life sciences.
Both essays in Catholic World Report were critical of the “Harvard criteria” for determining death, as though there had been no development in the criteria since the Harvard report was published in 1968. In fact, medical science has continually been refining and perfecting the “reading” of the biological signs for determining death. One important summary of these developments was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2001, almost a year after John Paul II’s address to the Transplantation Society.38 More recently, in 2010, the American Academy of Neurology updated its guidelines for determining death by neurological criteria.39
Moral or Absolute Certitude that a Donor Is Dead?
Another area of controversy surrounding the determination of death by neurological criteria is the kind of certitude needed before one can act. Must one have absolute certitude or prudential certitude that death has occurred? The authors of the 2001 Catholic World Report article say that there must be absolute certitude, whereas Pope John Paul II says that moral or prudential certitude is the necessary and sufficient basis.
First, it should be pointed out that the highest degree of certitude for moral action is indeed prudential certitude. This is not a lesser degree than “absolute” certitude. It is precisely the certitude appropriate to moral action. Aristotle states, “Most of the things about which we make decisions, and into which we therefore inquire, present us with alternative possibilities. For it is about our actions we deliberate and inquire, and all our actions have a contingent character; hardly any of them are determined by necessity.”40
In fact, because of the contingent character of our actions in the area of moral judgment, we cannot anticipate the same kind of certitude which we enjoy, for example, in mathematics. As Aristotle pointed out, the virtuous individual is to seek “as much clearness as the subject-matter admits of, for precision is not to be sought for alike in all discussions.”41 The nature of a given subject matter allows exactness to the extent appropriate to its nature. Moral certitude, or the certitude of prudence, is the assurance one has about a proposed course of action that excludes the reasonable fear of being in error. It is impossible to know all the factors surrounding a decision in a concrete circumstance, and if one refrained from acting until every doubt or ambiguity were removed, one would be incapacitated; one could not act at all.
St. Thomas Aquinas accepted Aristotle’s teaching on the role of prudence in moral judgment. In the commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, prudence is given such prominence that it is called the genitrix virtutem, the mother of all virtues.42 The German philosopher Josef Pieper goes so far as to claim that “the whole ordered structure of the Occidental Christian view of man rests upon the pre-eminence of prudence over the other virtues.”43 This is a bold claim, but it is a way of acknowledging the contingent and situational character of prudence without sacrificing the conviction that a judgment achieved through prudence is not merely a subjective perception of a situation, but rather a response grounded in objective reality, with respect to the acting agent as well as the moral object which has been chosen.
Indeed, even the complexities and ambiguities of a situation do not deter the prudent person from action. Prudential certitude is not to be seen in opposition to truth, but relies on its own particular grasp of truth. As Aquinas says, “Non potest certitudo prudentiae tanta esse quod omnino solicitudo tollatur”;44 that is, prudential certitude cannot remove every concern about a proposed course of action. But it does remove any concern which would prevent one from acting. And it certainly is not a “lower standard” of truth and certainty being applied to human actions. It is rather the appropriate standard applied to moral action even in the midst of ambiguity. Again, if one waited for absolute certitude one would never act, one would be incapacitated.
John Paul II is speaking out of this ancient philosophical and theological tradition when he says, as noted above, “A health-worker professionally responsible for ascertaining death can use [the neurological] criteria in each individual case as the basis for arriving at that degree of assurance in ethical judgment which moral teaching describes as ‘moral certainty.’” He continues, “Only where such certainty exists, and where informed consent has already been given ... is it morally right to initiate the technical procedures required for the removal of organs for transplant.”45
Byrne and others will insist, contrary to the clear teaching of John Paul II, that absolute certitude instead of moral certitude is needed for a declaration of death. He has said that disintegration (i.e., putrefaction) must have set in for absolute certitude.46 However, such a rigorous position has never been adopted by the medical profession. Waiting for the first signs of disintegration would not only be impractical but in some cases could pose public health risks.
Brain Death and Prudential Certitude
A respected professor of moral theology at St. John Vianney Seminary in Denver has, unlike Byrne, admitted the adequacy of moral, rather than absolute, certitude in the declaration of death, but does not say what signs of death would provide such certitude. E. Christian Brugger does, however, go on to adopt a position contrary to that of Pope John Paul II by writing that there is reasonable doubt that neurological criteria provide moral certitude for a declaration of death. He has written on the subject through the international Catholic news agency Zenit and in a posting on the Culture of Life Foundation, where he serves as a senior fellow.47 As a result, a highly regarded theologian has run the risk of unsettling the consciences of the faithful on a life-and-death ethical matter for which the authentic magisterium of the Church has provided clear guidance.
Brugger takes his position contrary to the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum,” the Pontifical Academy for Life, the Bioethics Center at the Gemelli Hospital in Rome (founded by Elio Cardinal Sgreccia), the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, to say nothing of Blessed Pope John Paul II. He turns for his guidance on this matter, not to any of these dicasteries or to the Pope himself, but to Dr. Alan Shewmon, a pediatric neurologist at UCLA who disputes the legitimacy of neurological criteria.
Brugger appeals to Shewmon’s authority as a neurologist and as a consultant to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.48 However, Shewmon has never served as a member of the academy. On one occasion Shewmon delivered a paper at a meeting of the academy. Yet while Brugger accepts Shewmon’s authority, he does not accept the authority of the other neurologists who have advised the Pope and who have actually served in the Pontifical Academy for Sciences. Brugger also accepts Shewmon’s scientific authority as a neurologist but does not accept the position of the American Academy of Neurology. Finally, Brugger does not accept the findings of the Pontifical Academy itself issued in 1985, 1989, and 2008. Brugger claims that the Church and the Pope are not competent to provide sure moral guidance based on the legitimacy of neurological criteria for determining death because a judgment on the reliability of those criteria does not concern faith and morals, the areas in which the Church has competence.
The Church, however, has always looked to the legitimate findings of science to guide it in its moral teachings. Modern embryology, for example, has shown that a new, genetically unique human being comes into existence at the fusion of the nuclei of the two gametes and the beginning of cell division. Since the Catholic Church has no competency in embryology as such, does that mean she cannot appeal to the findings of embryology to buttress her insistence on the moral imperative that human beings be protected from the first moment of conception? And how is it conceivable that the Pope could presume to provide guidance on the life-and-death issue of the determination of death before organ excision if the determination of death did not qualify as a moral issue? The guidance John Paul II offered to those attending the meeting of the Transplantation Society in 2000—where he explicitly taught that one could proceed with a transplant procedure when the donor was declared dead using neurological criteria—was moral, not medical, guidance.
Professor Brugger appears ready to judge the highest moral authority in the Church as incapable of assessing the ethical significance of the findings of science with respect to a human action concerning life and death, despite all the scientific advisors and dicasteries at the Pope’s disposal. And how does the position of one neurologist, Alan Shewmon, who is admittedly brilliant, trump the conclusions of the American Academy of Neurology and the neurologists and other scientists who advise the Pontifical Academy of Sciences?
Brugger asserts rather boldly and unequivocally, “Shewmon’s research demonstrates conclusively that the bodies of some who are rightly diagnosed as suffering whole brain death express integrative bodily unity to a fairly high degree.”49 Demonstrates conclusively? Customarily, professors of moral theology do not make such strong assertions in scientific fields in which they have no particular competency. And besides, what was the nature of the research and to what extent was it corroborated by other neurologists? Even if “a fairly high degree” of “integrative bodily unity” persists in some rare instances, what is the signficiance of this from a medical or moral point of view? How does a moralist so confidently draw conclusions from one neurologist’s research that call into question those of the American Academy of Neurology and the conclusions of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on three different occasions? In coming to those conclusions, the academy relied on neurologists who were either members of the academy or official consultants.
Nonetheless, Brugger goes on to assert, in the cautious language of scholarship, “Although Shewmon’s evidence certainly does not establish that brain dead bodies are the bodies of living (albeit highly disabled) persons, in my judgment, and in that of other competent scholars and scientists, it raises a reasonable doubt that excludes ‘moral certitude’ that ventilator-sustained brain dead bodies are corpses.”50
Compare Brugger’s assertion with John Paul II’s, which is repeated here:
The criterion adopted in more recent times for ascertaining the fact of death, namely the complete and irreversible cessation of all brain activity, if rigorously applied, does not seem to conflict with the essential elements of a sound anthropology. Therefore a health-worker professionally responsible for ascertaining death can use these criteria in each individual case as the basis for arriving at that degree of assurance in ethical judgment which moral teaching describes as ‘moral certainty.’ This moral certainty is considered the necessary and sufficient basis for an ethically correct course of action.”51
Which authority is the faithful Catholic to follow? John Paul II or E. Christian Brugger? Brugger is cautious enough to assert that Shewmon “does not establish that brain-dead bodies are the bodies of living ... persons.” But he does assert that Shewmon has raised “a reasonable doubt that excludes ‘moral certitude’ that ventilator-sustained brain dead bodies are corpses.”52
If one has “reasonable doubt” that excludes moral certitude that an organ donor is dead, then clearly one cannot proceed with the removal of the organs for transplantation. The practical consequences of Brugger’s assertions are clear: A Catholic cannot be the donor of vital organs if the means of determining death are neurological criteria. This is in clear contradiction to the teaching of John Paul II and several Vatican dicasteries.
Furthermore, it is dismaying that pro-life Catholics who question the Church’s acceptance of scientific findings on the legitimacy of neurological criteria will appeal to Shewmon’s work to advance their cause. Shewmon is opposed to the legitimacy of neurological criteria for determining death, but he still is a supporter of the transplantation of vital organs.
Many do not know that Shewmon has advocated setting aside the dead donor rule and excising organs from individuals who have not been declared dead on the basis of either cardiopulmonary or neurological criteria. He does this by attempting to apply the distinctions between extraordinary and ordinary means of prolonging life and the principle of double effect. When it is clear that a life-support system has become an extraordinary means of prolonging life, i.e., non-obligatory, and that the removal of the organs will not harm the donor since he or she is dying anyway, the organs may be removed.53
In Finis Vitae, Shewmon writes, “The demise of brain death does not necessarily imply the death-knell to transplantation that so many of its defenders seem to fear. It does, however, imply going about the transplantation procedure in a different way, so that the removal of ‘vital’ organs neither kills nor harms the donor if the donor is not yet dead (ethically analogous to live donors of blood, bone marrow, a single kidney or a lobe of liver).”54 The removal of “vital” organs from a donor who is not yet dead is not, however, analogous to taking blood or bone marrow or a single kidney from a living donor, because the living donor continues a vibrant life. But to remove vital organs from a dying patient is precisely to take advantage of the patient’s gravely incapacitated and dying condition.
Shewmon writes elsewhere of the uselessness of the dead donor rule: “‘Is the patient (i.e., donor) dead?’ not only is the wrong question to ask on the practical, physical level; it is not even a meaningful one when asked on a microscopic time-scale in the transition between life and death.”55 But this is precisely the question that Pope John Paul II posed to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1989. What Shewmon does is to trivialize the question by suggesting that it is impossible to know the precise moment of death if we ask whether it occurs at the last spontaneous beat of the heart or the last firing of a neuron in the brain. But John Paul II had already acknowledged as much by saying that it is impossible for us to know the precise moment when death occurs. What we want, said the Pope, is moral certainty that death has occurred based on certain physiological signs: neurological or cardiopulmonary.56
Shewmon rejects the need for a determination of death using either cardiopulmonary or neurological criteria. He writes, “For transplantation of noncardiopulmonary organs, it is utterly irrelevant ethically whether ‘brain death’ is ‘really death,’ or whether the [University of] Pittsburgh protocol’s 2 minutes of asystole [no heartbeat] is ‘really death,’ or whether any other physical event is ‘really death.’ Such questions are both malformulated and ethically beside the point.”57 He continues, “Regarding organ transplantation, the important and truly meaningful question is not ‘When is the patient dead?’ but rather ‘When can organs X, Y, Z be removed without causing or hastening death or harming the patient in any way?”58 Shewmon argues that the heart can be removed even before there is certainty that autoresuscitation will not occur, because even if the heart did beat again on its own, the restoration of heartbeat would be transient, and decomposition and deterioration of the body would already have been set in motion; thus, removal of the heart would make no difference in terms of adherence to the medical ethics maxim “First, do no harm.”59 What he is saying, in other words, is that you cannot really harm a patient who is deep into the process of dying, even though the patient is not yet dead.
Shewmon does not seem perturbed about departing from magisterial guidance in moral matters surrounding organ donation, whether it is the necessity of adhering to the “dead donor rule” or allowing that neurological criteria can provide the moral certitude necessary to excise organs for transplantation. How does Shewmon deal with the clear teaching of Pope John Paul II in the 2000 address to the Transplantation Society? Speaking to the Catholic Medical Association the end of October 2010, Shewmon referred to the address as a “bombshell.”60 It is a little difficult to understand why it would have been a bombshell, since it followed on clear and consistent teaching from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on two occasions as well as the positions articulated by the Pontifical Academy for Life and the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers.
Shewmon asked how the Pope could have come up with the formulation he did— namely, that death can be ascertained with “the complete and irreversible cessation of all brain activity (in the cerebrum, cerebellum, and the brain stem)”—and why. Shewmon did not attempt to answer those questions, but went on to say what “someone close to the Holy Father” shared with him: “At the time [of the Pope’s address] Cardinal Ratzinger was out of town on vacation, and had he been in town he would not have had the Pope read the address as presented.”61
This assertion suggests that a major, formal address of the Supreme Pontiff would not have received some review before it was given. The notion is that if there had been a major flaw in the Pope’s allocution, Cardinal Ratzinger would have intervened only if he happened to be in the town where the allocution was going to be given. This lacks all credibility. But much more seriously, it places the magisterial authority of a curial cardinal, no matter how bright, above that of the Pope. This simply does not conform to Catholic teaching.
In the same presentation at the CMA conference, Shewmon mentioned the 2008 conference on organ donation organized by the Pontifical Academy for Life.62 He faulted the academy for neglecting to have papers presented on the controversy surrounding the legitimacy of the neurological criteria for determining death. But the academy surely did not have such papers presented because the issue had already been thoroughly addressed.
In his CMA presentation, Shewmon did mention that Pope Benedict XVI addressed the 2008 conference and told participants that organs could be excised from the donor “only in the case of his or her true death.”63 Pope Benedict did not mention neurological criteria, which Shewmon suggested was an indication that the Pope disagreed with John Paul II. As Shewmon put it, Pope Benedict’s “silence on neurological criteria was deafening.” Of course, there was no need for silence. The Pope could have addressed the issue if he thought that advances in scientific thought and evidence made a change in Church teaching necessary. But in 2008, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences reiterated the legitimacy of neurological criteria for determining death,64 and there was no hint of papal disapproval. Indeed, before he became Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger generously carried an organ donation card indicating his own willingness to be a donor.
Shewmon’s repudiation of the dead donor rule is a radical departure from a fundamental moral standard accepted in organ transplantation by the medical and legal professions and by the teaching authority of the Church. Shewmon’s positions illustrate vividly how dangerous it is to depart from the trustworthy moral guidance offered by the magisterium of the Church. According to the magisterium of the Church, moral certitude in the determination of death can be achieved using either cardiopulmonary or neurological criteria. This means that Catholics may in good conscience offer the gift of life through the donation of their organs after death as determined on the basis of neurological or cardiopulmonary criteria, and Catholics may in good conscience receive such organs. This does not mean that the teaching is irreformable; the teaching may be modified on the basis of future scientific discoveries. It does mean that, at this point in time, the teaching can be followed with a clear conscience.
1 John Paul II, Evangelium vitae (March 25, 1995), n. 20, emphasis added.
2 Ibid., n. 11, emphasis added.
3 Ibid., n. 2.
4 Roberto de Mattei, ed., Finis Vitae: Is Brain Death True Death? (Oregon, OH: Life Guardian Foundation, 2009), ix.
5 Evangelium vitae, n. 86.
6 John Paul II, Address to the First International Congress of the Society for Organ Sharing (June 20, 1991), n. 3.
7 John Paul II, Address to the Eighteenth International Congress of the Transplantation Society (August 29, 2000), n. 3, reprinted in National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 1.1 (Spring 2001): 89–92. This has become the key magisterial text for addressing questions of determination of death and transplantation.
8 See “A Definition of Irreversible Coma: Report of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School to Examine the Definition of Brain Death,” Journal of the American Medical Association 205.6 (August 5, 1968): 337–340.
9 National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, Uniform Determination of Death Act, approved 1980, available at http://www.law.upenn.edu/bll/archives/ ulc/fnact99/1980s/udda80.htm.
10 See Eelco F. M. Wijdicks, “The Diagnosis of Brain Death,” New England Journal of Medicine 344.16 (April 19, 2001): 1215–1221; and Wijdicks et al., “Evidence-Based Guideline Update: Determining Brain Death in Adults—Report of the Quality Standards Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology,” Neurology 74.23 (June 8, 2010): 1911–1918, http://www.neurology.org/content/74/23/1911.full.
11 Wijdicks, “Diagnosis of Brain Death,” 1215.
13 Natalie Morales, “‘Dead’ Man Recovering after ATV Accident,” Dateline transcript, NBC News, March 23, 2008, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23768436/ns/dateline_nbc -newsmakers/t/dead-man-recovering-after-atv-accident/.
14 Richard Willing, USA Today, August 3, 2005, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/ 2005-08-03-torres-obit_x.htm.
15 Fabian Wendelin Bruskewitz et al., “Are Organ Transplants Ever Morally Licit?” Catholic World Report, March 2001, 50–56.
16 Paul A. Byrne et al., “‘Brain Death’ Is NOT Death!” Catholic World Report, March 2005, 54–58.
17 John Paul II, Address to the Transplantation Society, n. 4, original emphasis.
19 Ibid., n. 5, emphasis added.
20 “The Artificial Prolongation of Life: Report of a Pontifical Academy of Sciences Study Group,” Origins 15.25 (December 5, 1985): 415.
21 John Paul II, Address to the Working Group on the Determination of Brain Death and Its Relationship to Human Death (December 14, 1989), n. 3, in Papal Addresses to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences 1917–2002 and to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences 1994–2002, Scripta Varia 110 (Vatican City: PAS, 2003), 313.
22 R. J. White, H. Angstwurm, and I. Carrasco de Paula, ed., Working Group on the Determination of Brain Death and Its Relationship to Human Death, 10–14 December 1989, Scripta Varia 83 (Vatican City: PAS, 1992).
23 A. Battro et al., “Why the Concept of Brain Death Is Valid as a Definition of Death: Statement by Neurologists and Others,” excerpt from Signs of Death: Proceedings of the Working Group of 11–12 September 2006, Scripta Varia 110 (Vatican City: PAS, 2007).
24 U.S. Catholic Conference Advisory Committee on Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Facilities, “Guidelines for the Determination of Brain Death,” Health Progress 56.10 (December 1975): 26.
25 Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers, Charter for Health Care Workers (Boston: Pauline Books, 1995), n. 87.
26 Ibid., preface.
27 In “A Dangerous Argument against Organ Donation,” Dr. Steinman discusses the case and reprints the letter from Bishop Sgreccia in its entirety. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 2.3 (Autumn 2003): 473–478.
28 Ibid., 474–475.
29 Pius XII, “The Prolongation of Life,” Address to an International Congress of Anesthesiologists (November 24, 1957), reprinted in National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 9.2 (Summer 2009): 332.
30 Ibid., 330.
31 Pontifical Council “Cor Unum,” Questions of Ethics regarding the Fatally Ill and Dying (June 27, 1981), nn. 5.3 and 5.2.
32 See President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, Defining Death: A Report on the Medical, Legal and Ethical Issues in the Determination of Death (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1981).
33 Eelco F. M. Wijdicks, letter, New England Journal of Medicine 345.8 (August 23, 2001): 617, http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM200108233450813.
34 Quality Standards Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology, “Practice Parameters for Determining Brain Death in Adults,” Neurology 45 (1995): 1012–1014. See also Wijdicks et al., “Evidence-Based Guideline Update.”
35 Bruskewitz et al., “Are Organ Transplants Ever Morally Licit?” 55.
36 John Paul II, Address to Transplantation Society, n. 5.
37 Ibid., emphasis added.
38 Wijdicks, “Diagnosis of Brain Death.”
39 Wijdicks et al., “Evidence-Based Guideline Update.”
40Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1357b23–27.
41 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, bk. I, ch. 3, 1094b24. See also Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, bk. I, ch. 3.
42 “Prudentia dicitur genitrix virtutum.” Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues (South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), 3 note 1, quoting bk. 3, d. 33, q. 2, art. 5, of the commentary.
43 Pieper, Four Cardinal Virtues, 3.
44 Summa theologiae II-II, q. 47, a. 9 ad 2.
45 John Paul II, Address to Transplantation Society, n. 5, emphasis added.
46 Byrne said, “True death ... is the body without life, when disintegration sets in.” Carrie Gress, “Debate over Brain Death Continues,” Zenit, March 2, 2008, http://www .zenit.org/article-21947?l=english.
47 See “Transplants from Murder Victims, Diverging Definitions of ‘Brain Death,’” Zenit, February 2, 2011, http://www.zenit.org/article-31647?l=english; and Christian Brugger, “Organ Donation Euthanasia: A Dangerous Proposal,” June 2011, Culture of Life Foundation, http://culture-of-life.org/content/view/641/1/.
48 See Brugger’s reply to the second question in “Transplants from Murder Victims.”
51 John Paul II, Address to Transplantation Society, n. 5, emphasis added.
52 Brugger in “Transplants from Murder Victims.”
53 D. Alan Shewmon, “The Dead Donor Rule: Lessons from Linguistics,” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 14.3 (September 2004): 277–300.
54 D. Alan Shewmon, “Brain–Body Disconnection: Implications for the Theoretical Basis of Brain Death,” in Finis Vitae, ed. de Mattei, 251.
55 Shewmon, “Dead Donor Rule,” 292.
56 John Paul II, Address to Transplantation Society, nn. 4 and 5.
57 Shewmon, “Dead Donor Rule,” 293–294.
58 Ibid., 297.
60 D. Alan Shewmon, “Defining Death,” oral presentation at the Catholic Medical Association’s Seventy-ninth Annual Educational Conference in Seattle, Washington, October 29, 2010; available on DVD from the CMA at https://app.etapestry.com/cart/CatholicMedical Association/default/item.php?ref=967.0.211924129.
62 The 2008 PAL conference, titled “A Gift for Life: Considerations on Organ Donation,” was held November 6–8, 2008, in Rome.
63 Benedict XVI, Address at an International Congress Organized by the Pontifical Academy for Life (November 7, 2008).
64 Pontifical Academy of Sciences, “Why the Concept of Brain Death Is Valid.”© National Catholic Bioethics Center
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Visual clutter raises havoc with our brain’s ability to be calm, focus and follow through. Clutter stresses our brain out. Answer? – Declutter, get organized and help your brain work the best for you every moment!
ALZHEIMER’S PATIENTS AND VISUAL CLUTTER
Add brain dysfunction to the mix and it’s all the worse.
Reducing “visual clutter” could help Alzheimer’s patients with certain tasks, according to a study done at the University of Toronto and the Georgia Institute of Technology.
An example from the study cites the example of using push buttons on a phone. Because the buttons are the same size and color and only the numbers are different, this very slight visual difference poses a challenge for someone who struggles with object perception. A solution could be a phone with varying sized buttons and different colors.
The research, published in the journal Hippocampus, contributes to growing evidence that a part of the brain once believed to support memory exclusively – the medial temporal lobe – also plays a role in object perception.
The release quotes lead author Rachel Newsome as saying, “Minimizing the degree of perceptual interference improved patients’ object perception by reducing the number of visually similar features.”
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Thread: Andrew johnson
#1 Andrew johnson04-02-2012, 11:14 PM
December 29, 1808 – July 31, 1875
Let peace and prosperity be restored to the land. May God bless this people: may God save the Constitution.
- Andrew Johnson in the U.S. Senate
March 22, 1875
Andrew Johnson was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1808, and like the previous North Carolina-born presidents, Andrew Jackson and James K. Polk, he was elected to office from Tennessee. Although a native of the South, Johnson was a firm supporter of the Union. During the desperate days of the Civil War, he served as the military governor of Tennessee and finally as vice-president under the second term of Abraham Lincoln. After Lincoln's assassination, the heavy task of restoring a nation after the ravages of a civil war fell to the tailor from North Carolina.
Andrew Johnson began his life in a small wooden house, which is still preserved in Raleigh at the Mordecai Historic ParkAndrew Johnson's birthplace, Raleigh, NC. His parents, Jacob and Mary Johnson, maintained the home by working for Casso's Inn, a popular inn and stable. The Johnson home stood on the property of the inn. Both of Andrew's parents worked there--Mary as a weaver, Jacob as the hostler, while Jacob also acted as janitor for the State Capitol. Andrew was the younger of two sons born into the Johnson family. Jacob Johnson rescued two or three friends (recollections were unclear) from drowning in 1812, but the effort cost him his health, and he died within a year, leaving Mary to raise Andrew and his brother William. In an effort to provide a trade for her sons, Mary Johnson apprenticed her sons to a tailor in Raleigh when Andrew was fourteen.
Andrew Johnson never attended school. He began his informal education while serving as an apprentice. Frequent customers would read to Johnson from books of oratory while he worked, and occasionally gave him books. Johnson taught himself to read. Two years after beginning his apprenticeship, Johnson and his friends threw rocks at a tradesman's house out of mischief. When the occupant of the house threatened to call the police, Johnson left town and abandoned his apprentice work at the tailor shop of John J. Selby. Johnson fled to Carthage, North Carolina sixty miles from Raleigh. He found a market for his tailoring skills in Carthage but moved to Laurens, South Carolina to distance himself further from the trouble in Raleigh. After a year in Laurens, Johnson returned to Raleigh and sought to complete his apprenticeship under John Selby. Selby, however, no longer owned the tailor shop and had no need of an apprentice. With no available employment in Raleigh, Johnson led his mother, brother, and stepfather to Tennessee in 1826.
Andrew settled the family in Greeneville, Tennessee, and established a tailor's shop by nailing a sign over the door stating simply, "A. Johnson, Tailor." Soon Johnson met Eliza McCardle, and the two were eventually wed on May 17, 1827. Mrs. Johnson was better educated than her husband and used her education to improve his reading and writing skills. She also taught the future president arithmetic. She continued the established practice of reading to Johnson while he worked. Eliza (McCardle) JohnsonBusiness improved for Johnson, and his shop soon became a gathering place for political discussion. Johnson honed his debating skills further by joining a debate club at a small college four miles from his home, walking to the debates once a week. With encouragement from his wife and speaking experience gathered both in his shop and at his debate club, Johnson entered politics.
Andrew Johnson's political career advanced rapidly. He was elected as an alderman of Greeneville, Tennessee, in 1828, and two years later he became mayor of the town. In 1835 Johnson won election to the Tennessee House of Representatives. He was defeated for re-election in 1837 but won a subsequent campaign in 1839. After completing this second term, Johnson ran for a seat in the Tennessee Senate and won. Johnson continually supported the rights of free laborers. While in the state senate he sought to repeal a law providing greater representation to slaveholders, but his motion was defeated. Johnson was also unsuccessful in his effort to create a new state from the Appalachian regions of North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, and Tennessee to be named Frankland.
At the conclusion of his senatorial term in 1843, Johnson was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and won four following elections to retain his seat until 1853. While in the U.S. House, Johnson supported President Polk and his handling of the Texas and Oregon settlements and the Mexican War. Although hailing from a Southern state, Johnson was often a staunch supporter of the Constitution over State's Rights, a position which conflicted with many Southern legislators. Turning his sights back to state politics, Johnson won the 1853 Tennessee gubernatorial election and re-election in 1855. Johnson's star continued to rise, and his term as governor of Tennessee provided such benefits to the state as a public school system and a state library. On the eve of the Civil War in 1857, Johnson was elected to the U.S. Senate.
Thought by many to be our worst president ever.The difference between pigs and people is that when they tell you you're cured it isn't a good thing.
04-02-2012, 11:29 PM
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
Johnson's famous impeachment should be mentioned. It is regarded by many to be a set up by Johnson's opposition, and it certainly sounds like it:
.....Johnson attempted to dismiss Edwin Stanton, Lincoln's Secretary of War (and one of Johnson's fiercest critics), in 1868, but Stanton claimed that Johnson acted in violation of the Tenure of Office Act enacted the previous year. This act stated the president may not dismiss certain publicly elected officers without the consent of the Senate. Johnson vetoed the Tenure of Office Act in 1867, but Congress voted the act into law over the president's veto. Stanton barricaded himself in his office, and Congress voted to impeach Johnson.........
I find Johnson's story to be rather sad. It would be difficult to be an effective (hence, good) president in such a position.
04-02-2012, 11:34 PMThe difference between pigs and people is that when they tell you you're cured it isn't a good thing.
04-02-2012, 11:41 PM
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
I'm sure I'll get around to studying Johnson someday. I "studied" Lincoln recently, and I put it in quotations because I am not much of a scholar, and there is soooooo much material written on him.
04-02-2012, 11:57 PMThe difference between pigs and people is that when they tell you you're cured it isn't a good thing.
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|EUROPA: Research Information Centre
Last Update: 2012-05-25 Source: Research Headlines
|View this page online at: http://ec.europa.eu/research/infocentre/article_en.cfm?artid=24933|
Czech scientists uncover déjà vu mystery
In a groundbreaking study, researchers from the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom have discovered a link between the déjà vu phenomenon and structures in the human brain, effectively confirming the neurological origin of this phenomenon. Despite past studies investigating this phenomenon in healthy individuals, no concrete evidence had ever emerged ... until now. The study, presented in the journal Cortex, was funded in part by the EU.
Led by the Central European Institute of Technology, Masaryk University (CEITEC MU) and Masaryk University's Faculty of Medicine in the Czech Republic, researchers discovered that specific brain structures have a direct impact on the déjà vu experience. The findings of their study showed that the size of these structures are considerably smaller in the brains of the people experiencing déjà vu, compared with individuals who had no personal experience with déjà vu.
The team from CEITEC MU, along with colleagues from other Brno research institutions as well as the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom succeeded in providing huge insight into this phenomenon that has perplexed many over the years.
The team observed how small structures in the brain's medial temporal lobes, in which memory and recollections originate, were considerably smaller in individuals with the occurrence of déjà vu than in individuals who have not experienced déjà vu. Their findings also showed that the more often the examined individuals experience déjà vu, the smaller the brain structures are.
'One hundred and thirteen healthy subjects underwent a structural examination of their brain by means of magnetic resonance and subsequently by using a new sensitive method for an automatic analysis of brain morphology (source-based morphometry) [and] the size of individual brain regions was compared among the individuals who have never experienced déjà vu and those who have experienced it,' said lead author Milan Brázdil from CEITEC.
'Except for the presence of the examined phenomenon, both groups of individuals were fully comparable. When we stimulate the hippocampus, we are able to induce déjà vu in neurological patients. By finding the structural differences in hippocampus in healthy individuals who do and do not experience déjà vu, we have unambiguously proved that déjà vu is directly linked to the function of these brain structures. We think that it is probably a certain small "error in the system" caused by higher excitability of hippocampuses. It is the consequence of changes in the most sensitive brain regions which probably occurred in the course of the development of the neural system.'
Experts say déjà vu, while fascinating, is not an uncommon experience. Between 60% and 80% of healthy individuals have reported occasional occurrences of déjà vu.
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Pope Pius II
|Papacy began||19 August 1458|
|Papacy ended||14 August 1464|
|Predecessor||Pope Callixtus III|
|Successor||Pope Paul II|
|Birth name||Enea Silvio Piccolomini|
|Born||October 18, 1405|
|Died||August 14, 1464(aged 58)|
|Other Popes named Pius|
Pope Pius II (Latin: Pius Secundus; 18 October 1405 – 14 August 1464), born Enea Silvio Piccolomini , was an Italian priest of the Roman Catholic Church and the 211th Pope from August 19, 1458 until his death in 1464.
Early life[change | change source]
Bishop[change | change source]
Cardinal[change | change source]
Pope[change | change source]
Pope Pius was involved in Italian and European political disputes.
Selected works[change | change source]
- De miseria curialium (1485)
- Epistolæ in pontificatu editæ (1487)
- Aeneas Siluius in Europam (1490)
- Eneas siluius de remedio amoris Somniu fortune eiusdem (1490)
- Epistolae familiares (1492)
- Lystoire de Eurialus et Lucresse, vrays amoureux (1493)
- Commentarii rerum memorabilium quae temporibus suis contigerunt (1584)
Related pages[change | change source]
References[change | change source]
- "List of Popes," Catholic Encyclopedia (2009); retrieved 2011-11-02.
- "Pope Pius II," Catholic Encyclopedia; retrieved 2011-10-31.
- "Pius II," Encyclopedia Britannica (1911), Vols. 21-22, pp. 683-684.
- Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. (1833). "Pius II," Penny cyclopaedia, Vol. 18, pp. 197-198.
- Moseley, Nicholas. "Pius Aeneas," The Classical Journal, Vol. 20, No. 7 (Apr., 1925), pp. 387-400; retrieved 2011-10-31.
- Penny cyclopaedia, Vol. 18, p. 198, citing Niccolò Machiavelli. (1532). Historie fiorentine (History of Florence and of the affairs of Italy: from the earliest times to the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent).
- WorldCat Identities,Catholic Church Pope (1458-1464: Pius II); Pius II Pope 1405-1464
- Note that Pius II and his nephew Pius III share the same coat-of-arms
Other websites[change | change source]
|Wikisource has original writing related to this article:|
- Tomb of Pius II
- Commentaries (1584 edition) digitized version of book
- Catholic Hierarchy, Pope Pius II
- Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, Cardinal Piccolomini
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Preparation of Nanoscale Magnesium Oxide from Dross of Magnesium Scrap
The purpose of this study was to recycle the Mg metal from the dross of magnesium alloy refining furnace (magnesium scrap, particle size < 0.85 mm) and convert it to nanoscale MgO. The recycled product further was evaluated for its removal efficiency in treating chlorobenzene in aqueous solution. First, the magnesium scrap was leached by 2N HNO3 using a liquid-to-solid ratio of 50 (mL/g). After two hours of leaching, 99.6 wt% of magnesium was found to be dissolved and the weight decrease of magnesium scrap was 97.31 wt%. Then, the liquid-liquid extraction technology was used to purify the Mg2+ in leached solution. The extractant (10 vol.% of D2EHPA and 5 vol.% of TBP in 85 vol.% of kerosene; the oil-to-aqua ratio of 1:1) was used to extract with leached solution at pH=8 for 10 min, and the above-mentioned procedure of extraction was repeated once. As a result, the impurity ions (e.g., Zn2+, Ca2+ and Mn2+) were found to be extracted to the organic phase, whereas Mg2+ was found to be remained in the aqueous phase. This phenomenon was good for the later synthesis process of nanoscale MgO. The loaded organic phase then was stripped by 6N H2SO4 for the purpose of the organic phase reclamation (i.e., extractant regeneration). The experimental data have shown that the percent differences of the regenerated extractant and fresh extractant in extracting Zn2+, Ca2+, and Mn2+ were 0.01%, <0.01%, and 0.01%, respectively. Therefore, the regenerated extractant could be reused in the original extraction process. The aqueous phase after extraction then was adjusted to pH=6.5 using ammonium solution. Moreover, FeCl3•6H2O with a Fe/P molar ratio of 4.75 was added to the aqueous phase resulting in the formation of phosphate precipitate. In so doing, 99% of phosphate ion was removed. By adjusting the system pH to a value of no less than 6, 99.8% of ferric ion remaining in the aqueous phase was further removed. The filtrate then was used as the source of Mg2+ for synthesis of nanoscale MgO. After the addition of urea and water to the solution containing Mg2+, simply increased the temperature would form the precursor of nanoscale MgO. Under the synthesis condictions of pH 9.2, reaction temperature of 125 ¢J, reaction time of 2 hr, urea-to-Mg ion molar ratio of 20, and [H2O]/[Mg2+] molar ratio of 70, 61.26 wt% of Mg metal was recovered through the use of homogeneous precipitation. The precursor of nanoscale MgO was identified as farringtonite. This species could be converted to nanoscale MgO by calcining at 450 ¢J. The remaining Mg2+ in the supernatant of the above process could be further recovered by titrating with 6N NaOH to yiled Mg(OH)2 precipitate. Again, Mg(OH)2 could be convered to nanoscale MgO by calcining at 450 ¢J. The recovery of Mg metal by the neutral precipitation was determined to be 14.59 wt%. Through a series of treatments (including leaching, liquid-liquid extraction, phosphate ion removal, homogeneous precipitation and neutral precipitation), the overall recovery of Mg metal was found to be 75.85 wt%. Aside from the preparation of nanoscale MgO, MgO further was tested for its capability in treating chlorobenzene in aqueous solution with a dosage of 10 mg/L. After a reaction time of 4 hr, it was found that nanoscale MgO resulting from the homogeneous precipitation process outperformed the commercial MgO in treating chlorobenzene. For nanoscale MgO, however, even a dosage of 23.3 g/L or greater, the removal efficiency of chlorobenzene tended to be stable in the neighborhood of 20%.
Advisor:Gordon C. C. Yang; Shaw-bing Wen; Tyng-bin Onlin
School:National Sun Yat-Sen University
School Location:China - Taiwan
Source Type:Master's Thesis
Date of Publication:02/12/2006 | <urn:uuid:58e133d1-3275-4f06-8f94-5bbee4ef4e9b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.openthesis.org/documents/Preparation-Nanoscale-Magnesium-Oxide-from-232042.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00185-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941414 | 995 | 2.765625 | 3 |
ROMAIN WACZIARG FINDS LINK BETWEEN GENETIC DISTANCE AND INCOME DIFFERENCES
Study provides new perspective on technology adoption
Why are some countries rich and others poor? Much has been written on this question from a historical perspective, says UCLA Anderson Associate Professor Romain Wacziarg. "Countries that were colonized and populated by Europeans are generally more economically developed than countries that were not colonized, or were colonized but not populated by Europeans," he says.
Wacziarg thought this might have to do with the links between developed countries and Northwestern Europe, where the Industrial Revolution originated. "In particular," he says, "with the fact that the colonizers who settled in these regions had been close to the industrial breakthroughs of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries."
So Wacziarg and Enrico Spolaore of Tufts University began looking at the long term determinants of economic performance by countries -- measured by per-capita income. The main hypothesis of their study was that, if a country has a significant population that is genetically related to the population in the country where a major technological innovation took place, the country is more likely to adopt this technology and develop economically. The results are presented in a paper by Wacziarg and Spolaore entitled, "The Diffusion of Development."
"The idea is not about being European per se," says Wacziarg. "It's about being close to the source of innovation. Not just geographically close, but also genetically close. New Zealand and Australia are not geographically close to Europe, but they still got the industrial revolution sooner than Papua New Guinea in part because they were colonized by Europeans."
Genetic distance measures the time since two populations had common ancestors. Much like siblings are more closely related than cousins since they share parents rather than grandparents, if two populations split apart 2,000 years ago, they will be genetically closer than two populations that split apart 10,000 years ago.
The mechanism linking genetic distance to income differences can take a variety of forms. People who are genetically close are more likely to trust each other. Populations that are genetically close can also communicate more easily, understand each others' cultural norms and values, and adopt practices conducive to modern development -- such as rapid human capital accumulation, low fertility and better political institutions.
One unique thing about this study is the notion that traits that account for differences across populations are transmitted vertically, from generation to generation, more easily than horizontally from one population to another. Because of this, separation between populations is associated with a host of differences in skills, culture and language that are potential barriers to development.
"We needed a way to measure the distance between populations of different countries," says Wacziarg. It turned out that geneticists have identified genetic markers that enable them to distinguish populations. And since these markers evolve at a steady rate, it is possible to determine the length of time since two populations had a common ancestor. It's like a molecular clock, he says.
Genetic distance is based on blood samples. Enzymes and protein markers vary from one population to another. The measure of genetic distance is known as FST Genetic Distance. "It's what geneticists call the measure of heterozygosity, which summarizes how different your genes are," says Wacziarg.
In the study, Wacziarg and Spolaore found that genetic distance is significantly correlated with current per-capita income differences between countries, even controlling statistically for geographic distance and other differences such as climate and resources. The results hold for income differences measured around the world since the year 1500. Interestingly, genetic distance correlates with the current differences in income among European countries despite their close geographic proximity.
"It's really quite simple," says Wacziarg. "The more genetically related people are, the more they will communicate, trust each other, imitate each other and share ideas. Closely related populations will exchange practices, values, and modes of production that are conducive to economic development."
"What the paper does not argue," says Wacziarg, "is that a country will never develop if it is really far from the technological frontier. It ultimately might get it, but the time it will take is proportional to its genetic distance from the source of innovation."
The study suggests that anything that fosters the exchange of ideas between populations that are genetically distant might help overcome barriers to development. One example, says Wacziarg, was the migration of engineers from India to the Silicon Valley as the area became a hub for information technology. He notes that this certainly helped make India a leader in software and IT services.
"You can overcome some genetic distance by bringing people close," he says. Another reason for India's commercial success with IT, notes Wacziarg, is that the Indian population, particularly in North India, is actually quite genetically close to European populations. Indians also had the advantage of speaking English, a heritage of the history of British colonization. A population more genetically and culturally distant from Europe may not have fared as well.
Wacziarg admits that his study may not have immediate policy implications for poor countries. "There is an aspect of pessimism involved in any study that says a current economic situation has roots in deep history," he explains. "You can't change deep history. There is a notion that poverty results from extremely persistent forces that are very hard to change."
But he maintains that economic development remains possible for any population. "This study suggests that anything that facilitates the flow of ideas and exchange between distant populations might help," he says. "Countries do develop and become richer. India and China are cases in point."
Read more about the study in Economic Principles. | <urn:uuid:fb25981b-6826-4321-a972-89d099d93783> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/knowledge-assets/romain-wacziarg | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394605.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00138-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967098 | 1,179 | 3.546875 | 4 |
A simple cnc lathe programming example. This cnc programming example will show how to program contours like chamfer taper grooves and arc.
This cnc program will use two tools for machining. The first tool used in this cnc programming example is a turning tool and the second one is a grooving tool.
The turning tool will first face the component then it will make a chamfer, after that there is straight turning and then there is arc machining the arc may be machined with R (Radius of arc) or arc can be machined with I and K values of the arc, at the top of arc there is a chamfer, then again straight turning, now there comes the groove but we can’t make grooves with turning tools because of their shape so we will machine the groove with our next tool which is solely made for grooving operations, but at the time we are machining with turning tool so we will just skip this groove and will just machine in straight line, after that there is a taper and again a straight line to be machined.
Now with our grooving tool the groove machining task is just easy.
if the grooving insert is of the same size as the dimension of the groove then grooving is even more easy, we will make the groove in one go, but if the grooving insert is of smaller width than we have to take depth more than one time.
N1 T01 D01 M491 N2 G00 X0 Z1 N3 G01 G96 G41 Z0 F2 S140 N4 G01 X2 CHF=0.125 F0.2 N5 G01 Z-1.125 N6 G02 X3.5 Z-1.875 CR=0.75 N7 G01 X3.75 CHF=0.125 N8 G01 Z-3.575 N9 G01 X5 Z-3.875 N10 G01 Z-4.6 N11 G00 X20 Z20 G40 N12 T02 D02 M491 N13 G00 G97 S500 X4 Z-2.825 N14 G01 X3.85 F1 N15 G01 X3.35 F0.15 N16 G01 X3.85 F0.5 N17 G00 X4 N18 G00 X20 Z20 N19 M30 | <urn:uuid:ab8ea724-6f49-4055-b5c6-de726f7d8558> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.helmancnc.com/cnc-lathe-programming-example/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00144-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.79288 | 502 | 3.84375 | 4 |
Parents often ask me how they can get through to their attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD) teenager. The disability adds stress to the task of communicating with a son or daughter who is already dealing with peer pressure and increased hormone levels. Most of the problems stem from a teen’s difficulty controlling what she says or does. Stress and conflict exacerbate her impulsivity. Reducing stress, verbal insults, and tension in your teen’s life will minimize the problems and clear the way for calmer communication and moments of discipline.
As a parent of two ADD/ADHD children, and as one who has ADD/ADHD myself, I found the following strategies helpful:
Communicating With Your ADD/ADHD Teen
Most ADD/ADHD teenagers need to have the last word in a conversation. You ask your son to do something, and he explains why he can’t. You resolve his concern, and he comes up with another one. It never ends. Peers are less understanding about a know-it-all, and will, after a while, write off your teen as a friend.
Explain to your teenager that it is not his fault that he behaves this way. It is due to his ADD/ADHD. Tell him that there is nothing wrong with occasionally having the last word, but when it happens all the time, it seems that he thinks he’s always right.
Becoming aware of how often he does it is the key to his minimizing it. Practice by having a mock debate with him, in which he lets you have the last word. Then, in the course of conversations over a three-day period, see how often he succeeds. Do not reward or punish him based on the results. Help him improve. This activity can be repeated as often as the teen is willing. | <urn:uuid:9f62a861-1fab-4308-ad5e-0505db43e3dc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/8938.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396887.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00041-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976573 | 377 | 2.6875 | 3 |
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April 22, 2014HOLT COUNTY, Mo. | By: Pinney
As temperatures fluctuate in April, farmers are controlling weeds with a new herbicide.
Known as "burn-down herbicides," these herbicides are a technological advancement on the typical Roundup and Touchdown herbicides that fail in cooler weather, and with temperatures scheduled to be below 40 degrees for roughly half of the month, burn-down herbicides serve as a solution.
Agronomy Specialist at the University of Missouri Holt County Extension, Wayne Flanary says burn down herbicides work like normal herbicides. | <urn:uuid:8d72d622-0d70-4398-9877-8ba64e06fea6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.kxcv.org/news/2014/04/-burn-down-herbicides-.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397873.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00018-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911724 | 149 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Susan J. Wolfson, ed., Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein: A Longman Cultural Edition. New York: Longman, 2003. 343 pp. $16.00 (Pbk; ISBN: 0-321-09698-3).
J. Paul Hunter, ed., Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein: The 1818 Text, Contexts, Nineteenth-Century Responses, Modern Criticism. A Norton Critical Edition. New York: W. W. Norton: 1996. 336 pp., ISBN 0-393-96458-2, $11.40.
Judith Wilt, ed., Making Humans: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, H. G. Wells,
The Island of Doctor Moreau. New Riverside Editions. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003. 360 pp. $10.76 (Pbk; ISBN: 0-618-08489-4).
Three excellent new teaching editions of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein have appeared over the last decade. All three make use of the 1818 text rather than the last, much revised 1831 edition for reasons stated most succinctly by Judith Wilt: "Increasingly [editorial] practice favors the 'first' text, true to its cultural and biographical context, rather than a later, authorized text, in which the writer is often at work 'modernizing' the original child of his or her brain" (13). But in the case of Frankenstein, there is slightly more involved in preferring the 1818 to the 1831 text. Wilt summarizes the reception history of various editions (14), and J. Paul Hunter includes in his edition the text that has had the most impact on our current preference for teaching the 1818 text, Anne K. Mellor's "Choosing a Text of Frankenstein to Teach."1 Mellor argues that "the 1818 edition alone presents a stable and coherent conception of the character of Victor Frankenstein and of Mary Shelley's political and moral ideology" (qtd. in Hunter 37). Significantly, though, Mellor means to open up discussions about comparing various editions rather than to definitively foreclose on them, and her article might provide a useful blueprint for introducing literature students to the biases hidden in editorial choices, invisible to those who simply pick up a text and read it as if it were "Mary Shelley's." | <urn:uuid:2889d783-aa2f-4e1a-9bc7-c88e7aa1eb59> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.rc.umd.edu/reviews-blog?page=9&tag=charles-lamb | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00004-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.830148 | 486 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Hydrangeas are beautiful, and it's possible to enjoy their beauty all year long by preserving hydrangea flowers. The preserved flowers can be used in bouquets, wreaths, centerpieces and other floral arrangements. Several methods are successful, including the use of alum, glycerin or silica gel. However, the simplest and easiest method to preserve hydrangeas is to dry them. The dried flower heads keep their color and shape for at least a year.
Wait until the flowers are partially dry on the plant before cutting them. The petals should feel slightly papery instead of soft and moist. In most areas, hydrangea flowers for drying are ready to cut in late summer or fall.
Cut the flowers in the morning, while temperatures are still cool but after the dew has dried.
Strip all the leaves from the stems.
Arrange the flowers in a vase, but don't add water. Use a flower frog in the bottom of the vase if needed to hold the stems in place.
Keep the vase of hydrangeas out of direct sunlight as the flowers slowly finish drying. | <urn:uuid:3db8baf5-67d5-4ac8-be0b-e37369d6731e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.gardenguides.com/82571-preserve-hydrangeas.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393093.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00112-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934845 | 237 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Postoperative pneumonia continues to create a burden on healthcare systems, often leading to increases in morbidity, length of hospital stay, and costs. Postoperative pneumonia is the third most common complication among surgical patients and is the third most common infectious complication after urinary tract and wound infections. Despite the availability of effective antibiotics, published research indicates that mortality rates associated with hospital-acquired pneumonia due to gram-negative infection are between 25% and 50%. The overall prognosis for patients experiencing postoperative pneumonia is poor, due in part to comorbidities.
“Postoperative pneumonia is the third most common complication among surgical patients and is the third most common infectious complication after urinary tract and wound infections.”
According to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, a facility that performed 10,000 non-cardiac operations per year would be expected to have about 150 cases of postoperative pneumonia. In the ICU, this complication can translate into additional healthcare costs of as much as $40,000 per patient; the estimated mortality rate ranges from 20% to 70%. Throughout the country, pneumonia-prevention programs have been successfully implemented in ICU settings. However, there are currently no such programs in place for patients in surgical wards.
An Effective Pilot Program
In the April 2010 Journal of the American College of Surgeons, my colleagues and I reported a study in which we tested a pilot pneumonia-prevention program to assess its effect on reducing the incidence of postoperative pneumonia in a hospital surgical ward. The pilot prevention program was designed and implemented based on an extensive literature review of risk reduction interventions. In the program, physicians and ward staff received education on preventing pneumonia. Other components of the program included:
Cough and deep-breathing exercises with incentive spirometer.
Twice daily oral hygiene with chlorhexidine swabs.
Ambulation with good pain control.
Head-of-bed elevation to at least 30° and sitting up for all meals.
Quarterly staff meetings were also initiated to discuss the results of and compliance with the program. Pneumonia bundle documentation and computerized pneumonia-prevention order sets in the physician order entry system were also key components in the program.
After the intervention, we calculated the incidence of postoperative pneumonia using the prospectively collected National Surgical Quality Improvement Project database, which captured data on approximately half of inpatient admissions. According to findings, our pilot pneumonia-prevention program significantly reduced postoperative pneumonia in a hospital surgical ward. There was a significant decrease in ward pneumonia incidence from 0.78% in the pre-intervention group, as compared with 0.18% in the post-intervention group. This represented an 81% decrease in the incidence of postoperative pneumonia from 2006 to 2008. Pneumonia was diagnosed in the surgical ward in 13 of 1,668 inpatient admissions before the pilot program was initiated. After program initiation, only three of 1,651 inpatient admissions with pneumonia were diagnosed in the ward.
Potential for Universal Implementation
In light of our findings, there is hope that this pilot program can be used in more institutions throughout the United States. If expanded to other VA or private hospitals, this program could help improve patient care and lower morbidity, mortality, and overall healthcare costs. It’s also a low-cost, high-impact program that is simple to implement. The interventions were not costly, but did require ongoing communication and cooperation between physicians and nursing leadership to achieve compliance with the measures. The hope is that with more research we can optimize the potential of the pilot program and disseminate it to more hospital surgical wards in an effort to decrease inpatient postoperative pneumonias and reduce the burden of these problems in the future.
Readings & Resources (click to view)
Wren SM, Martin M, Yoon JK, Bech F. Postoperative pneumonia-prevention program for the inpatient surgical ward. J Am Coll Surg. 2010;210:491-495. Abstract available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science.html.
Arozullah AM, Khuri SF, Henderson WG, et al. Development and validation of a multifactorial risk index for predicting postoperative pneumonia after major noncardiac surgery. Ann Intern Med. 2001;135:847-857.
Warren DK, Shukla SJ, Olsen MA, et al. Outcome and attributable cost of ventilator-associated pneumonia among intensive care unit patients in a suburban medical center. Crit Care Med. 2003;31:1312-1317.
Babcock HM, Zack JE, Garrison T, et al. An educational intervention to reduce ventilator-associated pneumonia in an integrated health system: a comparison of effects. Chest. 2004;125:2224-2231.
Hall JC, Tarala RA, Tapper J, Hall JL. Prevention of respiratory complications after abdominal surgery: a randomized clinical trial. BMJ. 1996;312:148-153. | <urn:uuid:7ec78b44-975b-498e-b02d-08f8bd34725a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.physiciansweekly.com/a-strategy-to-prevent-postoperative-pneumonia/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00004-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937341 | 1,026 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Many people know that power plants are a major source of air pollution and greenhouse gasses; however, few are aware that many of those same plants kill and injure fish and other aquatic life.
It takes a significant amount of water to create energy, and a significant amount of energy to move and treat water.
Food, water and energy -- they may not seem like they are connected but the systems that help produce and bring fresh food and energy as well as clean, abundant water to you, are intertwined.
Many older thermoelectric power plants require tremendous amounts of water for cooling. This animation takes you through the process and illustrates why there are such devastating consequences for fish and other aquatic life.
Many New York power plants are withdrawing cooling water - and injuring or killing aquatic life - even when they are not generating any electricity.
While working as a contractor at a Long Island-based power plant, Rob Weltner witnessed firsthand the devastating impact that the facility’s outdated cooling water intake system can have on aquatic life.
Learn more about the damage caused by the nation’s older power plants and what the EPA proposes to do about it, from Executive Director and Hudson Riverkeeper Paul Gallay and environmental attorney Reed Super.
For over a decade, Reed Super, a public interest environmental attorney, has fought hard to protect aquatic ecosystems from outdated power plants.
Last month the EPA was willing to restrict the nasty air toxins that power plants emit, but it was less inclined to regulate what those plants are sucking in, namely fish.
Older power plants are addicted to water, but changing weather patterns and increasing demands are making water more scarce and putting these outdated plants at risk. Can the power industry kick its water habit?
Are fish are shutting down power plants in protest? Or is the record-breaking heat and drought causing some big problems for both this summer?
Whether it’s the flooded Northeast or drought-stricken Texas, the threats are different, but the problems are the same: Farms are devastated, power plants shut down and water supplies are threatened.
What issue could create such an unlikely fight - fish vs. people - for the public’s support? Surprisingly, the debate over cooling systems used at power plants. | <urn:uuid:3e870a2a-8407-4198-8499-ae7f1a0c737d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.gracelinks.org/blog/1588/reeling-in-new-york-s-aging-power-plants | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00165-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949474 | 458 | 2.96875 | 3 |
The UN World Heritage Convention, meeting in Christchurch, New Zealand, has been asked to add six sites to its “in-danger” list . They include the Great Barrier Reef, SagarmathaNational Park (which includes Everest) in Nepal, Belize Barrier Reef, Huascaran National Park in Peru, Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park on the U.S.-Canada border, and Australia’s Blue Mountains.
Petitions for the listing, which began in 2004, have attracted high-profile signatories including Everest climber Sir Edmund Hillary and BBC film-maker/naturalist Sir David Attenborough.
The convention was formed in 1972 to ensure the long-term protection of important cultural and natural sites. To date, 184 nations are signatories. Petitioners hope the 21-nation governing committee will acknowledge the threat climate change poses to the sites.
At last year's meeting, the World Heritage Committee rejected a motion calling for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. This year, campaigners want the governing committee to reconsider its position. | <urn:uuid:fc5b8ad2-57df-4707-a14f-dad35a12cda2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.desmogblog.com/world-heritage-sites-threatened-by-climate-change-un-urged-to-seek-carbon-cuts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397562.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00065-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913474 | 216 | 2.796875 | 3 |
A1 Q what is ment by the term duty of care
A Health and social care organisations have what is called a duty of care towards the pople in there care. That means that they must do everything within there power to keep the pople in their care safe from harm. It is not only the care establishment that needs to prioritise the safety , welfare and interests of the people it cares for, but also the care workers themselves who work at the care organisations. The employer also has a duty of care towards its members of staff, to ensure that working conditions are safe and suitable to deliver the services that they provide A2 Q how the duty of care affects the work of a social care worker The duty off care offers a standard that all care workers should adhere to it has guidelines and rules so that the care is more consitant and to help keep both parties safe and well in the giving of care
A3 Q what having a duty of care means for a care giving organisation The duty of care is a social contract, that outlines the reponsibilites held by the organisation towards the individuals within there organisation be that worker or resident
A4 Q how the duty of care contributes to safeguarding individuals The duty of care ensures that rules and guidelines sometimes laws are followed so that the care giver and care reciver are both kept as safe and well as reasonably practical.
B1 describe two situations which demonstrate a conflict or dilemma between exercising a duty of care and the rights of an individual
If a resident tells you they are being abused by a family member this causes a dilemma with the confidentiality and could cause conflict with family members and the stand and or the resident if you mention it to the correct parties A resident refuses to eat there food but you know they need to eat to be well and not cause them further harm... | <urn:uuid:b9aad6c4-4212-4e26-a75b-7466077a6495> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.studymode.com/essays/Principles-For-Implementing-Duty-Of-Care-1514131.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395548.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00105-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978099 | 369 | 3.453125 | 3 |
You can learn an awful lot about a country by looking at its migratory patterns. The New York Times this week published some striking interactive charts showing where the people in each of the 50 U.S. states were born and how that changed between 1900 and the present. What they mostly show is that American migrants – both foreign- and native-born – aren’t nearly so numerous as you might think from listening to political debate about immigration reform, or by pondering the legacy of the journalist and political reformer Horace Greeley (“Go west, young man”).
To be sure, the United States contains more people who were born in another country – about 46 million – than any other nation on Earth. But America’s foreign-born still represent only about 15% of the total population. The principal driver of population growth in the U.S. remains native births minus native-born deaths, even though the U.S. birth rate is, by world standards, comparatively low. That will likely change within the next quarter-century, as immigration displaces native births as the main factor driving U.S. population growth. But a major reason is that the birth rate is projected to keep dropping.
The source of greatest political concern is, of course, undocumented immigrants. But their number, which grew steadily from 3.5 million in 1990 to a peak of 12.2 million in 2007, leveled off at about 12 million after that. And while that halt in growth surely had something to do with the Great Recession, no such slowdowns occurred during the prior two recessions.
The U.S. is currently grappling with a crisis in which about 63,000 children have been caught at the border over the past year. But the larger context is that border patrol apprehensions dropped dramatically at the start of this century, from 1.7 million in 2000 to 365,000 in 2012. They dropped not because border enforcement slackened – quite the contrary, it intensified considerably – but because far fewer Mexicans have sought to enter the U.S. without documentation. That drop preceded the Great Recession, and likely was driven mainly by an improving Mexican economy.
The states that today contain the highest proportion of foreign-born residents are New York, New Jersey, and California. In all three, the Times charts show, that proportion is about the same as it was in 1900, during an earlier immigration wave that the country somehow managed to survive. The foreign-born account for 24% of New York’s population (26% in 1900); 23% In New Jersey (23% in 1900); and 28% of California’s population (25% in 1900).
The states in which immigration has created the most controversy tend, ironically, to be ones that have a relatively small proportion of foreign-born residents. Alabama: 4%. Indiana: 5%. South Carolina: 6%. Utah: 9%. Georgia: 11%. Virginia, whose 7th congressional district Republicans recently tossed out House Majority Leader Eric Cantor for being soft on immigration, has 13%. Even Arizona, which lies on the Mexican border, has only 15%. In most of these places, though, the proportion of foreign-born residents was, historically, much lower. As recently as 1970 the foreign-born represented less than 1% in Alabama and South Carolina, only 1% in Georgia, and a mere 3% in Virginia. Indiana, Utah, and Arizona also had a lot fewer foreign-born in 1970 than today, but looking further back to 1900 they had more foreign-born than today—in the cases of Utah and Arizona, considerably more. (Perhaps those are days they’d like to forget; Utah and Arizona had both, within living memory, belonged to Mexico, making their acquisition a sort of mass immigration into the United States.)
Another lesson of The New York Times charts is that, except in California, New York, and (by a whisker) Massachusetts, most migrants come not from other countries but from other U.S. states. That’s true even in Hawaii, which is geographically closer to many foreign countries than to the continental U.S., and in Alaska, which is geographically adjacent to a foreign country (Canada). The principal form of migration is from one part of the U.S. to another. “If any young man is about to commence the world,” Horace Greeley wrote in 1838, “we say to him, publicly and privately, Go to the West.” What Greeley really meant was get out of New York, because the Panic of 1837 had destroyed New York’s economy. Go anyplace you can thrive. Americans followed that advice ever after.
But take another look at those Times charts. The 10 states with the highest median income—i.e., the states that logically ought to provide the most economic opportunity—are (according to the Census Bureau, based on three-year averages) Maryland, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Virginia, Alaska, the District of Columbia (technically not a state), Colorado, and Washington. None of these places has, since 1980, seen any notable growth in the proportion of its residents born in another state. Indeed, in Alaska, New Jersey, and DC the proportion of such residents has shrunk. Although they occupy all points of the compass, these are the places Greeley meant when he said, “Go west.” Why aren’t people going there?
Because (as I noted late last year in The Washington Monthly) the percentage of American households moving from one state to another in any given year has been falling for the past quarter-century, from 3.5% to less than 2%. That percentage has fallen even more steeply, and over a longer period of time, for unemployed males, from 7.6% in 1956 to 2.7% in 2012. This would make sense if the economic differences among the states were disappearing. But in fact, those disparities are growing. Connecticut, for example saw its per capita income rise from 21% above the national average in 1980 to 39% in 2011.
The more benign explanations for this change don’t seem to add up. Yes, the population is getting older, which is going to reduce mobility, but that turns out to account for only one-tenth the decline, according to a 2011 study by Raven Malloy of the Federal Reserve Board. Telecommuting’s impact is negligible (for most people, telecommuting is merely a way to extend the workday from the time you leave work until the moment your head hits the pillow). The rise in two-earner couples might explain it—two jobs is likelier to cement a family in place—except that the percentage of two-earner couples is about what it was three decades ago. The sub-prime bust no doubt made it difficult for more Americans to sell their houses than was previously the case; but, as the data cited above demonstrate, the decline in interstate migration began well before 2007.
A likelier explanation is income inequality, which has narrowed economic opportunity to a relatively small slice of the population, combined with a brisk rise in housing costs in the more economically prosperous areas. Taken together, these trends make it difficult to move toward economic opportunity. A notable exception is North Dakota, where the fracking boom has created opportunity for a broad range of workers, and where housing prices started out about as close to zero as you can get. The Times charts show North Dakota’s native population shrinking from 72% of the total in 2000 to 66% in 2012. But even that is, in the larger scheme of things, a relatively modest shift.
Sadly, to the diminished extent that Americans continue to move from one job market to another, it tends these days to be away from economic opportunity rather than toward it. That’s because the overriding factor is cheaper housing. Between 2005 and 2009 the biggest county-to-county migration in the U.S. was from Los Angeles County, where there were jobs, to San Bernardino County, where there were relatively few. (San Bernardino went bankrupt in 2012.) The reason was that housing was cheaper in San Berdoo.
Take one final look at the Times charts. Where is the proportion of out-of-staters rising? In the south, the nation’s poorest region. Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Mississippi are all seeing a big increase. These are the increases you would expect to be seeing in prosperous Maryland and Connecticut and D.C. Instead, they’re occurring in states whose median incomes all rank them in the bottom 15, according to the Census.
This is a migration driven less by opportunity than by thrift. The result is, in effect, a second closing of the American frontier—not the western frontier, but the frontier of new places that the native-born can move to for a greater promise of prosperity. That frontier hasn’t disappeared entirely, but today it exists mainly for people who had the misfortune to be born in much poorer nations. | <urn:uuid:53a374fa-78aa-4a12-9dcf-18a7b11af065> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/migration-inequality | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396029.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00059-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96722 | 1,871 | 3.234375 | 3 |
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Meniere disease is an idiopathic disorder of the inner ear characterized by episodes of vertigo, fluctuating hearing loss, tinnitus, and ear pressure. The vertigo attacks are often unpredictable and incapacitating and may prevent the activities of daily living. Therapy is symptomatic in nature and does not address the underlying pathophysiology. Although the pathophysiology of Meniere disease is not precisely known, it is thought to be related to a disturbance in the pressure/volume relationship of the endolymph within the inner ear. Conservative therapy includes a low sodium diet and diuretics to reduce fluid accumulation (i.e., hydrops) and pharmacologic therapy to reduce vestibular symptoms. Persons who do not respond to these conservative measures may receive gentamicin drops in the ear, as a technique of chemical labyrinthectomy to ablate vestibular function on the affected side. No therapy is available to restore hearing loss.
There has been interest in developing a more physiologic approach to treatment by applying local transtympanic pressure treatment to restore the underlying fluid homeostasis. Researchers have noted that symptoms of Meniere's disease improve with fluctuations in ambient pressure, and patients with acute vertigo have been successfully treated in hypobaric chambers. It is hypothesized that the application of low-frequency, low-amplitude pressure pulse to the middle ear functions to evacuate endolymphatic fluids from the inner ear, thus relieving vertigo. Transtympanic micropressure treatment for Meniere disease involves use of a hand-held air pressure generator (Meniett) that delivers intermittent complex pressure pulses. For this device to be used, a conventional ventilation tube is surgically placed in the eardrum. Patients then place an ear-cuff in the external ear canal and treat themselves for 3 minutes, 3 times daily. Treatment is continued for as long as patients find themselves in a period of attacks of vertigo.
In 1999, the Meniett® device (Medtronic, Minneapolis, MN) received clearance to market through a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 510(k) process specifically as a symptomatic treatment of Meniere disease.
POLICYTranstympanic micropressure applications as a treatment of Meniere disease are considered not medically necessary.
POLICY EXCEPTIONSFederal Employee Program (FEP) may dictate that all FDA-approved devices, drugs or biologics may not be considered investigational and thus these devices may be assessed only on the basis of their medical necessity.
POLICY GUIDELINESInvestigative is defined as the use of any treatment procedure, facility, equipment, drug, device, or supply not yet recognized as a generally accepted standard of good medical practice for the treatment of the condition being treated and; therefore, is not considered medically necessary. For the definition of Investigative, “generally accepted standards of medical practice” means standards that are based on credible scientific evidence published in peer-reviewed medical literature generally recognized by the relevant medical community, and physician specialty society recommendations, and the views of medical practitioners practicing in relevant clinical areas and any other relevant factors. In order for equipment, devices, drugs or supplies [i.e, technologies], to be considered not investigative, the technology must have final approval from the appropriate governmental bodies, and scientific evidence must permit conclusions concerning the effect of the technology on health outcomes, and the technology must improve the net health outcome, and the technology must be as beneficial as any established alternative and the improvement must be attainable outside the testing/investigational setting.
The coverage guidelines outlined in the Medical Policy Manual should not be used in lieu of the Member's specific benefit plan language.
POLICY HISTORY11/2003: Approved by Medical Policy Advisory Committee (MPAC)
2/16/2004: Code Reference section completed
11/3/2004: Code Reference section updated, ICD-9 diagnosis code 386.00, 386.01, 386.02, 386.03, 386.04 deleted, HCPCS E1399 deleted, HCPCS A4638, E2120 added
3/26/2007: Policy reviewed, no changes
9/26/2008: Policy reviewed, no changes
04/13/2010: Policy description updated. Policy statement unchanged. FEP verbiage added to the Policy Exceptions section.
11/17/2010: Policy reviewed; no changes.
11/10/2011: Policy reviewed; no changes.
01/09/2013: Policy reviewed; no changes.
12/13/2013: Policy reviewed; no changes.
11/13/2014: Policy reviewed; description updated. Policy statement unchanged.
07/23/2015: Code Reference section updated for ICD-10.
04/25/2016: Policy description updated. Policy statement changed from investigational to not medically necessary. Investigative definition updated in Policy Guidelines section. Code Reference section updated to change "Investigational Codes" to "Not Medically Necessary Codes."
05/31/2016: Policy number added.
SOURCE(S)Blue Cross Blue Shield Association policy # 1.01.23
CODE REFERENCEThis may not be a comprehensive list of procedure codes applicable to this policy.
Not Medically Necessary Codes | <urn:uuid:1a718a15-9aea-4fb7-9ce5-127d04e8f23e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bcbsms.com/index.php?q=member-medical-policy-search.html&action=viewPolicy&path=%2Fpolicy%2Femed%2FTranstympanic_Micropressure_Applications.html&source=emed | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403823.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00025-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.897315 | 1,147 | 2.859375 | 3 |
This is the first installment of a five-part feature on investing. We hope that our readers use the series to learn more about this important subject. From building institutions to preparing for our own retirement, investing is an important, though often misunderstood, part of the American Muslim experience.
Stocks explained Simply put, a stock equals ownership. More specifically, it represents a share of ownership in a business. And businesses issue stock when they want to raise money for new projects. If you hold one or more shares of stock in a company, you actually own a tiny piece of that company. This means that you have a claim on future earnings, and you’re able to voice your concerns about the direction of the company at shareholder meetings. Many large corporations—Apple, Coca-Cola, General Electric, etc.—are available for public investment. And you can own a piece of them by owning their stock.
When they issue stock, companies generally like to start out by setting their prices at less than $100 per share, but the price of stocks moves up or down, depending on the public’s level of interest in owning the shares. You might remember that Facebook made news last year when its shares were opened to the public for trading. That launch, called an initial public offering, fell flat as traders and analysts worried about the number of new users Facebook could attract and whether the company could meet financial expectations by selling advertisements. Because the public wasn’t convinced Facebook could make money, the stock declined over the following weeks.
Investing in stocks through mutual funds So, how does someone become an owner, or stockholder, in a company? One way is by opening an account with a brokerage firm and buying and selling stocks yourself. But owning individual shares of stock can be a challenge. Taking the time to pick stocks one-by-one and then monitoring them is often too time-consuming and daunting for many. A popular way to invest in stocks is through mutual funds. They offer certain advantages over purchasing individual stocks. Mutual funds—like the Azzad Funds—pool the assets of a large number of investors and buy stocks or other investments on behalf of those people. They can offer professional money management and a more diversified portfolio (in other words, a mix of stocks that might not all go up or down in price at the same time). A typical mutual fund may invest in a couple hundred or so companies from lots of different industries, anything from carmakers like General Motors to clothing retailers like Gap. And mutual funds issue their own shares to investors, which means that you become a part owner of the pool of investments directed by the fund’s money managers. Those mutual fund shares, like shares of stock, are redeemable, meaning that they can be sold back to the fund at any time for the current market value, minus redemption fees. Think of it like this: You invest in the mutual fund, which takes that money and then invests it in stocks on your behalf. Like investing in individual stocks, investing in a stock mutual fund involves certain risks, including the possibility that you may lose money. Mutual funds are not guaranteed or insured by the FDIC or any other government agency. But on the other hand, you should know that all mutual funds must comply with a strict set of rules monitored by a U.S. regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission.
And however you choose to invest, it’s important to find the right investments for your needs. Stay tuned for next week’s article, How to find halal stocks and stock funds.
Joshua Brockwell works as Investment Communications Director at Azzad Asset Management, headquartered in the suburbs of Washington, DC. Azzad serves as investment adviser to the Azzad Funds and is a Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Azzad is committed to managing clients' money according to a socially responsible investment philosophy based on Islamic values and incorporating a rigorous and disciplined investment approach.
Mutual fund investments, including the Azzad Funds, are not FDIC-insured, so you may lose money. The Azzad Funds are available by prospectus only, which includes more information about the Funds’ objectives, risks, charges and expenses. Please read the prospectus before sending any money. To request a free copy, please call 1-888-862-9923, or visit us online at www.azzadfunds.com. Azzad Asset Management serves as the investment advisor to the Azzad Funds, which are self-distributed. 4/13. | <urn:uuid:d5fa7dfe-430c-46df-a2e7-1c6376b1896f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.muslimlinkpaper.com/familty-a-health/3353-inveting-101-understanding-stocks-and-mutual-funds.html?joscclean=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402516.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00116-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958125 | 939 | 2.9375 | 3 |
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