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nanotimes News in Brief
the microwave field to be scanned point-by-point. Rather, a fully two-dimensional image of one com- ponent of the microwave field can be recorded in a single shot. This increases the data acquisition rate dramatically. In addition, the technique allows not only for a reconstruction of the amplitudes, but also of the phases of the microwave field components. As the atoms are truly microscopic objects, they do not distort the microwave circuit to be characte- rized, in contrast to macroscopic probe heads. The new method works for various frequencies in the gigahertz range.
The internal-state distribution of a cloud of ultracold atoms is shown in close proximity of a microchip after applying a microwave pulse. The different pictures correspond to different field components of the microwave. © Max Riedel/Pascal Böhi/Philipp Treutlein, MPQ and LMU München
Pascal Böhi, Max F. Riedel, Theodor W. Hänsch, and Philipp Treutlein: Imaging of microwave fields using ultracold atoms, In: Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 97(2010), Issue 5, August 02, 2010, Article 051101 [3 pages], DOI:10.1063/1.3470591: http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1063/1.3470591
10-07/08 :: July/August 2010
comb symmetry. When a magnetic field is applied, the system selects an unexpectedly ordered state, hazarding the consequences of having the like poles of the magnets (all south or all north) close together which is energetically unfavourable.
“A better understanding and control of such magne- tic monopoles in the honeycomb lattice will per- mit storage of far more information in these states than is the case when using conventional storage techniques that know only two states,” is how Prof. Zabel explains the significance of the experiment.
“It might look as if we‘re just playing around, but in fact this can have far-reaching consequences for magnetic logical circuits,” says Prof. Zabel. Each node point has eight possible dipole constellations – far more than with conventional storage techniques based on two states. The dipole islands in the ex- periments were three micrometres long and 0.3µm wide, but it is conceivable for them to be much smaller – up to a tiny 300nm in length.
Spin ice can be used to examine exotic properties of magnetic systems. Surprising observations have been made by physicists working with Prof. Dr. Hartmut Zabel at the Ruhr-University, Germany, using magnetic islands only micrometres in size that are placed on a periodic lattice with honey-
Image: The illustra- tion with a magnetic force microscope shows the arrangement of magnetic north poles (pale points) and south poles (dark points) on a lithographic honeycomb lattice. It is remarkable to see three north or three south poles meeting alternately at | <urn:uuid:364089d4-0ad3-47da-bd93-01d3904a13e0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://content.yudu.com/A1owv0/Nanotimes08-2010/resources/a64.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00157-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.883682 | 645 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Data from 93,600 women aged between 25 and 42 indicated that the highest consumption of the blueberries and strawberries was associated with a one-third reduction in their risk of heart attack, compared to eating berries once a month or less – even in women who otherwise ate a diet rich in other fruits and vegetables.
Writing in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, the researchers attributed the benefits to the anthocyanin content of the berries, which may help dilate arteries, counter the buildup of plaque and provide other cardiovascular benefits.
"Blueberries and strawberries can easily be incorporated into what women eat every week," said Harvard School of Public Health’s Eric Rimm D.Sc., senior author of the study. "This simple dietary change could have a significant impact on prevention efforts."
This is not the first time that berries and the compounds they contain have been linked to cardiovascular benefits. Anthocyanins, a class of secondary plant metabolites called flavonoids, are found in many fruits and berries.
Scientists from East Anglia recently reported that increased intakes of anthocyanins may reduce blood vessel hardening and improve overall heart health.
“These results are of public health importance because intakes of flavonoids associated with these findings are easily achievable in the habitual diet and make a significant contribution to the knowledge base needed to refine the current, rather general, fruit and vegetable dietary recommendations,” wrote the researchers in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition .
In addition, a recent study from China indicated that 320 milligrams per day of anthocyanins for 24 weeks was associated with reductions in inflammatory compounds like C-reactive protein (CRP) and soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (sVCAM-1) of 22% and 12%, respectively.
Working with scientists from the University of East Anglia in the UK, the Harvard scientists analyzed data from 93,600 women participating in the Nurses' Health Study II. Dietary data was obtained every four years via questionnaires.
During the study, the researchers documented 405 heart attacks. After crunching the numbers, Dr Rimm and his co-workers calculated that the highest intakes of blueberries and strawberries were associated with a significant reduction in heart attack risk.
"We have shown that even at an early age, eating more of these fruits may reduce risk of a heart attack later in life," added Aedín Cassidy, PhD, from the University of East Anglia.
The American Heart Association said it supports eating berries as part of an overall balanced diet that also includes other fruits, vegetables and whole-grain products.
Commenting independently on the study’s findings, Victoria Taylor, senior dietitian at the British Heart Foundation, a charity, said that more research is needed to understand why this link between berries and better heart health exists.
“We would need to know more before we make specific recommendations about individual fruit and vegetables in relation to heart disease,” she said.
“But in the meantime, this is yet another good reason to make sure we get our five-a-day and enjoy the wide variety of fruit and vegetables available to us.”
Volume 127, Pages 188-196, doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.112.122408
“High Anthocyanin Intake Is Associated With a Reduced Risk of Myocardial Infarction in Young and Middle-Aged Women”
Authors: A. Cassidy, K.J. Mukamal, L.Liu, M. Franz, A.H. Eliassen, E.B. Rimm | <urn:uuid:8afa8011-b2fb-47e5-8848-a0e92b962196> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nutraingredients.com/Research/Berries-show-heart-boosting-power-for-women-Harvard-study | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396459.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00085-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946442 | 748 | 3.421875 | 3 |
|This outstanding book provides an in-depth historical study of the place of Jesus in the religious life, beliefs, and worship of Christians from the beginnings of the Christian movement down to the late second century.
"Lord Jesus Christ" is a monumental work on earliest Christian devotion to Jesus, sure to replace Wilhelm Bousset's "Kyrios Christos" (1913) as the standard work on the subject. Larry Hurtado, widely respected for his previous contributions to the study of the New Testament and Christian origins, offers the best view to date of how the first Christians saw and reverenced Jesus as divine. In assembling this compelling picture, Hurtado draws on a wide body of ancient sources, from Scripture and the writings of such figures as Ignatius of Antioch and Justin to apocryphal texts such as the "Gospel of Thomas" and the "Gospel of Truth."
Hurtado considers such themes as early beliefs about Jesus' divine status and significance, but he also explores telling devotional practices of the time, including prayer and worship, the use of Jesus' name in exorcism, baptism and healing, ritual invocation of Jesus as "Lord," martyrdom, and lesser-known phenomena such as prayer postures and the curious scribal practice known today as the "nomina sacra."
The revealing portrait that emerges from Hurtado's comprehensive study yields definitive answers to questions like these: How important was this formative period to later Christian tradition? When did the divinization of Jesus first occur? Was early Christianity influenced by neighboring religions? How did the idea of Jesus' divinity change old views of God? And why did the powerful dynamics of early beliefs and practices encourage people to make the costly move of becoming a Christian?
Boasting an unprecedented breadth and depth of coverage - the book speaks authoritatively on everything from early Christian history to themes in biblical studies to New Testament Christology - Hurtado's "Lord Jesus Christ" is at once significant enough that a wide range of scholars will want to read it and accessible enough that general readers interested at all in Christian origins will also profit greatly from it. | <urn:uuid:1565f1d9-38a4-4f71-91a8-2bb84eb375c0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.2frogmedia.com/Books/details/50071.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397873.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941302 | 432 | 2.671875 | 3 |
If you learned to play a musical instrument as a kid, you likely remember your first encounter with traditional music notation. You remember being baffled by the symbols denoting quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes. Or the difficulty of reading notes located above or below the staff. The Western system of music notation goes back hundreds of years, and it has been befuddling students for generations. Enter Blake West, a piano teacher from Austin, Texas, who enlisted his old friend Mike Sall, a data visualization wiz, to create a more intuitive form of music notation. They dubbed it “Hummingbird,” and between the two videos on this page and this complete reference guide, you’ll get a quick feel for the concepts underlying this new way of reading music. On the Hummingbird website, you can also find 26 songs — everything ranging from Bach’s “Ode to Joy” to Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” — rewritten in a format that budding music students will love. | <urn:uuid:2048ffc6-111f-4590-a456-41d944c420ba> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.openculture.com/2013/04/a_new_form_of_music_notation_thats_easier_to_learn_and_faster_to_read_its_called_hummingbird.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00050-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930979 | 216 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Programmed I/O, Interrupt & Direct Memory Access (DMA)
Programmed I/O (PIO) refers to data transfers initiated by a CPU under driver software control to access registers or memory on a device.
The CPU issues a command then waits for I/O operations to be complete. As the CPU is faster than the I/O module, the problem with programmed I/O is that the CPU has to wait a long time for the I/O module of concern to be ready for either reception or transmission of data. The CPU, while waiting, must repeatedly check the status of the I/O module, and this process is known as Polling. As a result, the level of the performance of the entire system is severely degraded.
Programmed I/O basically works in these ways:
- CPU requests I/O operation
- I/O module performs operation
- I/O module sets status bits
- CPU checks status bits periodically
- I/O module does not inform CPU directly
- I/O module does not interrupt CPU
- CPU may wait or come back later
The CPU issues commands to the I/O module then proceeds with its normal work until interrupted by I/O device on completion of its work.
For input, the device interrupts the CPU when new data has arrived and is ready to be retrieved by the system processor. The actual actions to perform depend on whether the device uses I/O ports, memory mapping.
For output, the device delivers an interrupt either when it is ready to accept new data or to acknowledge a successful data transfer. Memory-mapped and DMA-capable devices usually generate interrupts to tell the system they are done with the buffer.
Although Interrupt relieves the CPU of having to wait for the devices, but it is still inefficient in data transfer of large amount because the CPU has to transfer the data word by word between I/O module and memory.
Below are the basic operations of Interrupt:
- CPU issues read command
- I/O module gets data from peripheral whilst CPU does other work
- I/O module interrupts CPU
- CPU requests data
- I/O module transfers data
Direct Memory Access (DMA)
Direct Memory Access (DMA) means CPU grants I/O module authority to read from or write to memory without involvement. DMA module controls exchange of data between main memory and the I/O device. Because of DMA device can transfer data directly to and from memory, rather than using the CPU as an intermediary, and can thus relieve congestion on the bus. CPU is only involved at the beginning and end of the transfer and interrupted only after entire block has been transferred.
Direct Memory Access needs a special hardware called DMA controller (DMAC) that manages the data transfers and arbitrates access to the system bus. The controllers are programmed with source and destination pointers (where to read/write the data), counters to track the number of transferred bytes, and settings, which includes I/O and memory types, interrupts and states for the CPU cycles.
DMA increases system concurrency by allowing the CPU to perform tasks while the DMA system transfers data via the system and memory busses. Hardware design is complicated because the DMA controller must be integrated into the system, and the system must allow the DMA controller to be a bus master. Cycle stealing may also be necessary to allow the CPU and DMA controller to share use of the memory bus. | <urn:uuid:b7c357e3-3a24-4096-80a5-8ab342e08204> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.louiewong.com/archives/137 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00184-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919916 | 718 | 3.390625 | 3 |
Maluk and Malibu's new hatchling is earliest since zoo started breeding condors
The first California condor chick of the season hatched this morning at the Oregon Zoo's Jonsson Center for Wildlife Conservation, and keepers say the young bird appears healthy, loud and full of fight — traits that could serve it well once it grows large enough for release into the wild.
"Each egg that arrives and every chick that hatches is vitally important to the survival of this species."
—Kelli Walker, Lead condor keeper
The chick, whose parents are Malibu and Maluk, chipped its way out of its shell around 8 a.m. while inside an incubator at the Jonsson Center. The March 18 hatch date is the earliest since the zoo started breeding the critically endangered birds in 2003.
"That little bird made it clear that it was ready to come out," said Kelli Walker, lead condor keeper.
Walker had been preparing to remove the egg from its incubator and return it to the parents' nest box when the chick cracked the top off its shell. Usually, in instances like this, keepers tape the shell back together and place it under the parents to hatch a second time. This time, though, the feisty hatchling wasn't having it.
"It started squawking like a little dinosaur, causing the parents to perk up," Walker said. "I had to make the switch quickly. By the time I got back down the stairs, dad Maluk was already brooding his new chick, just the way he should."
The first hatch of the season highlights the care keepers take with each egg, in their efforts to help restore a species that not long ago was on the brink of extinction.
"At this point, each egg that arrives and every chick that hatches is vitally important to the survival of this species," Walker said.
Once an egg has been laid — usually sometime in February — Walker removes it at the first opportunity, quickly weighing it and making sure the shell is in good condition before replacing it in the nest box. The parents then sit on the egg for up to two weeks before keepers remove it again to check whether it is fertile.
Fertile eggs are placed in an incubator to prevent any potential damage, and the condor parents sit on dummy eggs until hatching begins, usually in 54 to 58 days. At that time, Walker switches the real eggs back so that the chicks can hatch under their parents.
The Oregon Zoo is a service of Metro and is dedicated to its mission of inspiring the community to create a better future for wildlife. Committed to conservation, the zoo is currently working to save endangered California condors, Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits, Oregon silverspot and Taylor’s checkerspot butterflies, Western pond turtles and Oregon spotted frogs. Other projects include studies on black rhinos, Asian elephants, polar bears and bats.
The zoo relies in part on community support through donations to the Oregon Zoo Foundation to undertake these and many other animal welfare, education and sustainability programs. The zoo is located five minutes from downtown Portland, just off Highway 26 at exit 72. The zoo is also accessible by MAX light rail line. Visitors who travel to the zoo via MAX receive $1.50 off zoo admission. Find fare and route information online or by calling TriMet Customer Service at 503-238-RIDE (7433).
General zoo admission is $10.50 (ages 12-64), $9 for seniors (65 and up), $7.50 for children (ages 3-11) and free for those 2 and younger; 25 cents of the admission price helps fund regional conservation projects through the zoo’s Future for Wildlife program. A parking fee of $4 per car is also required. Additional information is available by calling 503-226-1561.
Hova Najarian | 503-220-5714 | firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:1df5d580-0d72-4428-9feb-cc1c3b90f79b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.oregonzoo.org/node/2526/media | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397562.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00084-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957761 | 823 | 2.734375 | 3 |
The gondola is a traditional, flat-bottomed Venetian rowing boat, well suited to the conditions of the Venetian lagoon. For centuries gondolas were the chief means of transportation and most common watercraft within Venice. In modern times the iconic boats still have a role in public transport in the city, serving as traghetti (ferries) over the Grand Canal. They are also used in special regattas (rowing races) held amongst gondoliers. The gondola is propelled like punting, except an oar is used instead of a pole. Their primary role today, however, is to carry tourists on rides at fixed rates. from wikipedia
Critiques | Translate
npecanhuk (75056) 2013-02-23 13:13
I really like this one! It's beautiful!
Special regards to the choice for black & white, exposure, vertical format and composition!
TFS - congrats,
- Copyright: Feyza Ramazanoglu (FYZRMZ) (1058)
- Genre: Places
- Medium: Black & White
- Date Taken: 2013-02-08
- Categories: Daily Life, Transportation
- Camera: Nikon D7000, Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR
- Exposure: f/5.0, 1/320 seconds
- More Photo Info: view
- Photo Version: Original Version
- Date Submitted: 2013-02-20 10:59 | <urn:uuid:06ee7155-4366-48d4-8009-7bfa77019626> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/Italy/photo1406867.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00191-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.835862 | 326 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Class<T> is defined in the
There is a
Class<T> object for each class in your program. The
Class object is loaded from <class-name>.class file once when the object of that type is referenced from the first time. After that it stays in memory. The
Class object is responsible to creat all the object instances that belong to that class.
Every array also belongs to a class that is reflected as a
Class object that is shared by all arrays with the same element type and number of dimensions. The primitive types (
double), and the keyword
void are also represented as
Class objects. Class has no public constructor. Instead Class objects are constructed automatically by the Java Virtual Machine as classes are loaded
Since JDK 1.5 the class java.lang.Class<T> is generic. It's an interesting example of using genericity for something other than a container/collection class.
For example, the type of String.class is Class<String>, and the type of Serializable.class is Class<Serializable>. This can be used to improve the type safety of your reflection code. | <urn:uuid:962662b3-36a0-4d07-b59f-52b3668b55f1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Java_Programming/API/java.lang.Class | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397873.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00163-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.881059 | 233 | 3.5625 | 4 |
Potato-rich diet 'may increase pregnancy diabetes risk'
- 13 January 2016
- From the section Health
Eating potatoes or chips on most days of the week may increase a woman's risk of diabetes during pregnancy, say US researchers.
This is probably because starch in spuds can trigger a sharp rise in blood sugar levels, they say.
Their study in the BMJ tracked more than 21,000 pregnancies.
But UK experts say proof is lacking and lots of people need to eat more starchy foods for fibre, as well as fresh fruit and veg.
The BMJ study linked high potato consumption to a higher diabetes risk.
Swapping a couple of servings a week for other vegetables should counter this, say the authors.
UK dietary advice says starchy foods (carbohydrates) such as potatoes should make up about a third of the food people eat.
There is no official limit on how much carbohydrate people should consume each week.
Foods that contain carbohydrates affect blood sugar.
Some - high Glycaemic Index (GI) foods - release the sugar quickly into the bloodstream.
Others - low GI foods - release them more steadily.
Research suggests eating a low GI diet can help manage diabetes.
Pregnancy puts extra demands on the body, and some women develop diabetes at this time.
Gestational diabetes, as it is called, usually goes away after the birth but can pose long-term health risks for the mother and baby.
The BMJ study set out investigate what might make some women more prone to pregnancy diabetes.
The study followed nurses who became pregnant between 1991 and 2001. None of them had any chronic diseases before pregnancy.
What is gestational diabetes mellitus?
- It is a condition where there is too much glucose (sugar) in the blood
- About three in every 100 pregnancies are affected in the UK
- Symptoms include a dry mouth, tiredness and urinating frequently
- Gestational diabetes can be controlled with diet and exercise, but some women will need medication to keep their blood glucose levels under control
- If not managed properly, it could lead to premature birth or miscarriage
Every four years, the women were asked to provide information on how often potatoes featured in their diets, and any cases of gestational diabetes were noted.
Over the 10-year period, there were 21,693 pregnancies and 854 of these were affected by gestational diabetes.
The study took into account other risk factors, such as:
- a family history of diabetes
- overall diet
- physical activity
It found a 27% increased risk of diabetes during pregnancy in the nurses who typically ate two to four 100g (3.5oz) servings of boiled, mashed, baked potatoes or chips a week.
In those who ate more than five portions of potatoes or chips a week, the risk went up by 50%.
The researchers estimate that if women swap their potatoes for vegetables or whole grains at least twice a week, they would lower their diabetes risk by 9-12%.
Cuilin Zhang, lead study author, from the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, US, said the findings were important.
"Gestational diabetes can mean women develop pre-eclampsia during pregnancy and hypertension," she said.
"This can adversely affect the foetus, and in the long term the mother may be at high risk of type-2 diabetes."
But UK experts stressed there was not enough evidence to warn women off eating lots of potatoes.
Simple swaps that can lower GI
- Switch baked or mashed potato for sweet potato or boiled new potatoes
- Instead of white and wholemeal bread, choose granary, pumpernickel or rye bread
- Swap frozen microwaveable French fries for pasta or noodles
- Try porridge, natural muesli or wholegrain breakfast cereals
Dr Emily Burns, of Diabetes UK, said: "This study does not prove that eating potatoes before pregnancy will increase a woman's risk developing gestational diabetes, but it does highlight a potential association between the two.
"However, as the researchers acknowledge, these results need to be investigated in a controlled trial setting before we can know more.
"What we do know is that women can significantly reduce their risk of developing gestational diabetes by managing their weight through eating a healthy, balanced diet and keeping active."
Dr Louis Levy, head of nutrition science at Public Health England, said: "As the authors acknowledge, it is not possible to show cause and effect from this study.
"The evidence tells us that we need to eat more starchy foods, such as potatoes, bread, pasta and rice, as well as fruit and vegetables to increase fibre consumption and protect bowel health.
"Our advice remains the same: base meals around a variety of starchy foods, including potatoes with the skin on, and choose wholegrain varieties where possible." | <urn:uuid:62d3aa3a-ca79-4be7-b6b6-ab32f6927d4b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bbc.com/news/health-35261184 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396147.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00140-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95876 | 1,007 | 2.984375 | 3 |
Flash evaporation is the partial or total vaporization that occurs when a saturated liquid stream undergoes a reduction in pressure by passing through a throttling valve or other throttling device. This process is one of the simplest unit operations. If the throttling valve or device is located at the entry into a pressure vessel so that the flash evaporation occurs within the vessel, then the vessel is often referred to as a flash drum.
If the saturated liquid is a single-component liquid (for example, liquid propane or liquid ammonia), a part of the liquid immediately "flashes" into vapor (i.e., evaporates). Both the vapor and the residual liquid are cooled to the saturation temperature of the liquid at the reduced pressure. This is often referred to as "auto-refrigeration" and is the basis of most conventional vapor-compression refrigeration systems.
If the saturated liquid is a multi-component liquid (for example, a mixture of propane, isobutane and normal butane), a part of the liquid will also immediately flash into a vapor and the flashed vapor will be richer in the more volatile components than is the remaining liquid.
Flash evaporation of a single-component liquid
The flash evaporation of a single-component liquid is an isenthalpic (i.e., constant enthalpy) process and is often referred to as an adiabatic flash, a flash distillation or a throttling expansion. The following equation, derived from a simple heat balance around the throttling valve or device, is used to predict how much of a single-component liquid is vaporized.
- X = 100 ( HuL – HdL ) ÷ ( HdV – HdL )
where: X = weight percent vaporized HuL = upstream liquid enthalpy at upstream temperature and pressure, J/kg HdV
= flashed vapor enthalpy at downstream pressure and corresponding saturation
= residual liquid enthalpy at downstream pressure and corresponding saturation
If the enthalpy data required for the above equation is unavailable, then the following equation may be used.
- X = 100 · cp ( Tu – Td ) ÷ Hv
where: X = weight percent vaporized cp = liquid specific heat at upstream temperature and pressure, J/(kg · °C) Tu = upstream liquid temperature, °C Td = liquid saturation temperature corresponding to the downstream pressure, °C Hv
= liquid heat of vaporization at downstream pressure and corresponding
saturation temperature, J/kg
( Note: The words "upstream" and "downstream" refer to before and after the liquid passes through the throttling valve or device.)
This type of flash evaporation is used in the desalination of brackish water or ocean water by Multi-Stage Flash Distillation. The water is heated and then routed into a reduced-pressure flash evaporation "stage" where some of the water flashes into steam. This steam is subsequently condensed into salt-free water. The residual salty liquid from that first stage is introduced into a second flash evaporation stage at a pressure lower than the first stage pressure. More water is flashed into steam which is also subsequently condensed into more salt-free water. This sequential use of multiple flash evaporation stages is continued until the design objectives of the system are met. A large part of the world's installed desalination capacity uses multi-stage flash distillation. Typically such plants have 24 or more sequential stages of flash evaporation.
Equilibrium flash of a multi-component liquid
The equilibrium flash of a multi-component liquid is also an isenthalpic process and may be visualized as a simple distillation process using a single equilibrium stage. It is very different and more complex than the flash evaporation of single-component liquid. For a multi-component liquid, calculating the amounts of flashed vapor and residual liquid in equilibrium with each other at a given temperature and pressure requires a trial-and-error iterative solution. Such a calculation is commonly referred to as an equilibrium flash calculation. It involves solving the following Rachford-Rice equation:
|= mole fraction of component in the feed liquid|
|= mole fraction of feed that is vaporized =|
|= vapor-liquid equilibrium constant =|
|= mole fraction of component in the flashed vapor|
|= mole fraction of component in the residual liquid|
Newton's method (also known as the Newton-Raphson method) is an efficient iterative algorithm for solving the Rachford-Rice equation. Alternatively, the bisection method or the Brent method may be used. Once the equation has been solved for , the compositions and can be immediately calculated as:
Spray drying and freeze drying
Spray drying is a means for rapid drying of a solution or a slurry of very small solid particles suspended in a liquid. The feed solution or slurry is first atomized into very small liquid droplets in the presence of a stream of hot dry air. The liquid rapidly evaporates leaving behind dry powder or dry solid granules depending on the original droplet size. The dry solids are recovered from the exhaust air by using cyclones, bag filters or electrostatic precipitators.
A brief explanation of spray drying has been included here because some readers may consider spray drying to be a form of flash evaporation. However, although it is a form of liquid evaporation, it is quite different from flash evaporation.
Freeze drying (often referred to as lyophilization) is a process typically used to preserve water-containing perishable materials. It involves freezing the material, reducing the surrounding pressure and adding sufficient heat to sublime the frozen water directly from its solid phase to its gas phase. It is a form of induced sublimation and is very much different than the flash evaporation of a liquid.
- Harry Kooijman and Ross Taylor (2000). The ChemSep Book, 2nd Edition. ISBN 3-8311-1068-9. Also The ChemSep Book See pdf page 186 of 194 pdf pages.
- Module Elementary Vapor-Liquid Equilibrium (Pennsylvania State University)
- Automatic Plotting of Multiple Phase Boundaries and Flash Calculations, Infochem Computer Services, United Kingdom
- Flash Calculations using the Soave-Redlich-Kwong equation of state (view full-size image) | <urn:uuid:70e849a7-6657-42b5-af9a-67a031e286da> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Flash_evaporation | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393463.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00028-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900151 | 1,326 | 3.328125 | 3 |
While a proportion of women with the metabolic syndrome become pregnant, pregnancy itself creates a milieu that is similar to the syndrome, including the development in some women of insulin insensitivity and increased levels of blood
glucose, raised triglycerides and high blood pressure. As well as a potential acceleration in the risk of cardiovascular and diabetes-related complications, the appearance of features of the metabolic syndrome in pregnancy may also harm the fetus. David Simmons looks at how the changes in pregnancy can create a heightened susceptibility to potential harm for a mother and her baby.
pregnancy, placental abruption, placental infarction, pre-eclampsia, macrosomia, fetus, | <urn:uuid:9f916197-264f-4cbe-b0c9-a0f2a1aa7bc6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.idf.org/print/diabetesvoice/articles/metabolic-syndrome-pregnancy-and-the-risk-of-cardiovascular-disease | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396887.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00169-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918422 | 138 | 2.828125 | 3 |
The University of New Mexico Hospital aka The Bill and Barbara Richardson Pavillion. Located on north campus at the Health Sciences Center, you can also see the School of Medicine, Basic Research Facility and the Cancer Research Facility.
New Mexico is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. Inhabited by Native American populations for many centuries, it has also been part of the Imperial Spanish viceroyalty of New Spain, part of Mexico, and a U.S. territory. Among U.S. states, New Mexico has the highest percentage of Hispanics at 45% (2008 estimate), being descendants of Spanish colonists and recent immigrants from Latin America. It also has the third-highest percentage of Native Americans after Alaska and Oklahoma, and the fifth-highest total number of Native Americans after California, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Texas. The tribes represented in the state consist of mostly Navajo and Pueblo peoples. As a result, the demographics and culture of the state are unique for their strong Spanish, Mexican, and Native American cultural influences. At a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth most sparsely inhabited U.S. state.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_mexico] | <urn:uuid:0bd2ea9b-5413-45c5-952d-df2a78172175> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.360cities.net/image/university-of-new-mexico-hospital-usa | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00038-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951317 | 252 | 3.109375 | 3 |
A team of researchers led by Professor Richard Hayes at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has been awarded $37 million to test an innovative combination of strategies to prevent HIV in African countries.
The project, called Population ART (PopART), will test the impact of a combination prevention strategy that combines community-wide house-to-house voluntary testing for HIV, offer of medical circumcision to men who test HIV-negative, and offer of immediate initiation of antiretroviral therapy (ART) for all those testing HIV-positive.
Researchers from LSHTM and partners including Imperial College London, the Zambia AIDS Related Tuberculosis Project (ZAMBART) and the Desmond Tutu TB Centre (DTTC), Stellenbosch University, South Africa will work closely on this trial with colleagues from the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN).
Part of the HPTN, the study (designated HPTN 071) has been funded jointly by organisations including the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID),the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the Office of the United States Global AIDS Coordinator (OGAC) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).
An estimated 33 million people worldwide are living with HIV; with 2.5 new infections for every HIV-positive patient commencing ART, current approaches to treatment and prevention are struggling to contain the spread of the infection.
Unless the incidence of HIV can be steeply reduced, forecasts show a continuously growing number of HIV-infected individuals so that by 2030 about $35 billion per year will be needed to deliver ART to HIV-positive patients in these resource-limited settings.
Combination prevention approaches like PopART may be initially more expensive than current approaches, but estimates suggest that if HIV incidence is not reduced significantly, the financial impact of an ever increasing number of patients in need of treatment and hospitalisation will be far greater.
The new project builds on two previous HPTN trials. Project Accept (HPTN 043) found that adding community mobilization and support services to a mobile HIV counselling and testing programme can improve rates of testing in rural communities. HPTN 052 was the first randomized trial to show that treating an HIV-infected individual with ART reduces the risk of sexual transmission of HIV to an uninfected partner.
Mathematical modelling has shown that the PopART intervention should lead to a steep reduction in new HIV infections. A rigorously designed trial is now needed to test whether such interventions can be effectively implemented in resource-poor settings in Africa, and to measure the actual impact on HIV at population level.
Starting in 2012, the trial will be carried out in 24 communities in Zambia and South Africa, with a total population of over 1 million. Eight communities will receive the full PopART intervention while eight control communities will receive current standard of care. The remaining eight communities will receive an intermediate intervention which includes all the components of PopART except that ART will be given according to current national guidelines. This three-arm design will allow the trial to measure the extra effect of treating patients immediately rather than waiting until their immune function has deteriorated. A total of 60,000 adults from the communities will be followed up for 2 years to measure the impact of the interventions on new HIV infections.
Data from the trial will be combined with cost data and projections from mathematical models to estimate the cost effectiveness of the intervention and alternative approaches.
Richard Hayes, Professor of Epidemiology and International Health at LSHTM, says: "PopART is designed as a universal intervention offered to the entire community. We hope this will prevent stigmatisation of infected individuals and reduce the need for specially targeted interventions for specific risk groups. There is a strong rationale for the PopART approach, but we need a rigorously conducted study to determine how well the strategy can be delivered in practice, and what impact it has at population level."
Professor Peter Piot, the School's Director and former Executive Director of UNAIDS, says: "I am delighted that this award has been made as it will enable the promising idea of combination prevention strategy to be tested on a large scale. This is one of the most important questions for AIDS research and policy today."
|Contact: Paula Fentiman|
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine | <urn:uuid:d499ec4a-43b9-441a-b51c-a1b505158b2d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news-1/Major-grant-awarded-for-HIV-prevention-study-in-Africa-85137-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397873.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00076-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931587 | 882 | 2.765625 | 3 |
CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY OF UROLITHIASIS IN TROPICAL AREAS
Leonardo R. Reyes Rabanal, MD.
Instituto de Nefrología, Havana, Cuba.email@example.com
Kidney stones have afflicted humankind since antiquity. The prevalence of urinary tract stone disease is estimated to be 2% to 15%. Urolithiasis is an entity, which has high morbidity and socio-economical impact, and low mortality.
Urinary stones were a major health problem in developed countries until the 1980s, with a significant proportion of patients requiring extensive surgical procedures and a sizeable minority losing a kidney. One study showed that about 20% of patients with recurrent stone disease who underwent surgery for obstruction and infection went on to develop mild renal insufficiency 1. The advent of extracorporeal techniques for stone destruction and the refinements in endoscopic surgery, however, have greatly decreased the morbidity associated with stone surgery, and the disorder is changing from a major health problem to a major nuisance. One unfortunate result of this technologic success is that advances in medical management of stone disease and research in prevention have languished. Surgical procedures treat stones but do not prevent them; however, as anyone who has passed a kidney stone can tell, this may be what the majority of patients with stone disease needs.
The management of urinary lithiasis requires co-operation between some specialists, for example nephrologist and urologist. Critical to the selection of proper therapy is knowledge of both medical and surgical methods of treating urinary stone disease.
Urolithiasis is a common clinical disorder. Its frequency has risen with the development of humanity and varies with the country, geographic area, etc.
Its world prevalence is estimated between 1 to 5%, in developed countries 2-13% (with a great variation among them), and in developing countries 0.5-1% 1,2,3,4. The overall probability of forming stones differs in various parts of the world: 1-5% in Asia, 5-9% in Europe, 13% in North America, 20% in Saudi Arabia 2,3,4. Lifetime prevalences in the USA and Europe range between 8 and 15%, annual incidences of kidney stones are about 0.1-0.4% of the population and the likelihood that a white man will develop stone disease by age 70 years is about 1 in 8 5. The prevalence among elderly men over 65 is 4.7% in Italy 6. On the other hand, silent kidney stone, which can be a presentation of urolithiasis, could have prevalence around 3% as has been found in Pakistan 7.
Stone in the upper urinary tract appear to relate to the life-style, being more frequent among affluent people, living in developed countries, with high animal protein consumption. Bladder stones are nowadays mainly seen in the Third World, on account of very poor socio-economic conditions 2. The later has been decreasing in most countries in the so-called endemic bladder stone belt with gradual improvements in levels of nutrition, especially in proteins. However, as living standards increase, particularly in the urban areas of the more affluent developing countries, so the incidence of upper urinary tract stones in adults is increasing.
The stone problem in the tropics is compounded by low urine volumes resulting in some areas from poor drinking water, which causes chronic diarrhoea, and in others from the hot climate and fluid losses through the skin. As nutrition improves in these countries, the formation of bladder stones gives way to upper urinary tract stones consisting of calcium oxalate, often mixed with calcium phosphate or uric acid, such as are formed in most Western countries.
Numerous observers have noted that urinary calculi are relatively rare in Native Americans, blacks of Africa and America, and native-born Israelis. Conversely, the incidence of stone disease is highest in some of the colder temperate areas of the world, populated primarily by Asians and whites. Although the incidence of bladder stones seems to be related primarily to dietary habits and malnutrition in underdeveloped and primitive countries, dietary improvement over the years has resulted in a change of composition and the site of occurrence of urinary calculi from bladder to kidney 8.
25% of patients with kidney stones have a family history of kidney
stones. 9. Genetic studies concluded that urolithiasis may be the
result of a polygenic defect with partial penetrance 10,11. White,
however, cautioned against accepting familial or hereditary theories
of stone formation too readily 12. He noted that urinary calcium
excretion was significantly higher in spouses of patients who were
stone formers than in spouses of persons who did not form stones.
White postulated that household diet as well as familial tendencies
must be considered in theories of etiology of urinary lithiasis.
Curhan found that kidney stones developed more frequently in men with
a family history of kidney stones than in those without a family
history 9. In a longitudinal follow-up study of 37,999 male health
professionals, a family history of stones was more than three times
higher in men with kidney stones than in non–stone formers. The
relative risk of stone formation remained high even after adjusting
for a variety of risk factors such as calcium intake and urinary
In pediatric patients with nephrolithiasis, 73% had family history of kidney stones in at least one first-order or second-order relative, as opposed to a prevalence of 22% in a control population of pediatric renal and urologic patients 13. Of the patients with hypercalciuria, the prevalence of nephrolithiasis in the family history was 69% 13.
In a population-based study of 1309 women with kidney stones, was found that renal stone formation was not associated with community of residence, high-oxalate or high-calcium diet, or high-energy intake 14. The lack of identifiable environmental correlates suggests that there are genetic components to kidney stone formation.
Several disorders that cause renal stones are hereditary. Familial renal tubular acidosis (RTA) is associated with nephrolithiasis and nephrocalcinosis in almost 70% of patients 15. Cystinuria is a homozygous recessive disease, and the genes that cause it have been cloned. Similarly, xanthinuria and dihydroxyadeninuria are rare hereditary disorders that cause renal stones. Coe et al. found a strong inheritance pattern in patients with nephrolithiasis that they conjectured was autosomal dominant 16. Human diseases in which up-regulation of intestinal calcium absorption is clearly the primary lesion are rare 17. However, hypersensitivity to 1.25(OH)2D3 or its metabolites can lead to increased intestinal absorption 18. Scott et al. 19 have found linkage of idiopathic hypercalciuria with an apparent absorptive component to microsatellite markers near the VDR locus. Genetic phosphate wasting leads to hypophosphatemia and increase in 1.25(OH)2 D3 , resulting in excess calcium absorption as in hereditary hypophosphatemic rickects with hypercalciuria 20. Mutations in the CLCN5 gene, coding for a chloride channel, have been seen in patients with the X-linked hypercalciuric kidney stone syndromes Dent's disease, X-linked recessive nephrolithiasis, and X-linked recessive hypophosphatemic rickets 21. Calcium-sensing receptor (CaSR) gene could be a component of the complex genetic background regulating Ca excretion. Arg990Gly polymorphism could facilitate activation of CaSR and increase Ca excretion and susceptibility to idiopathic hypercalciuria 22. In heterozigotic individuals no affected by familial hypomagnesemia with hypercalciuria and nephrocalcinosis with hypercalciuria and nephrolithiasis have been suggested a partial defect in paracellular calcium transport (gene dosage effect)23. Finally, a genetic primary bone resorption defect is suspected according the evidence of epidemiological and experimental animal studies where have been demonstrated that 45% or more of nephrolithiasis patients have osteopenia (low bone mineral density) independent of the bone volume 24,25,26,27,28 and increased sensitivity to 1.25(OH)2D3 may be due to augmented vitamin D receptor number in rat osteablasts 29,30
The peak incidence of urinary calculi is from the twenties to the forties 31;32;33,34. Most patients, however, report onset of disease in their teens. However, the prevalence of urolithiasis in children has been reported for various studies as low. Most of the urinary stone diseases were diagnosed at the fifth decade 3.
A slightly higher rate of renal stone disease is reported in males than in females 2, about three males are afflicted for every female. In a systematically assessed epidemiologic survey about the rate of urolithiasis in Korea, 6.0% of korean men and 1.8% of women are expected to experience urinary stone disease during their lifetime 3. Another extensive study in Taiwan, men were more prone to nephrolithiasis than women with an age-adjusted prevalence of 12.2% in men and 3.1% in women 4. A greater proportion of upper urinary tract calculus disease is caused by chronic urinary tract infections or defects, such as cystinuria or hyperparathyroidism, in women than in men 35. Several investigators have commented on the apparently equal tendency toward urinary lithiasis in males and females during childhood 36;37. This observation, coupled with reports that increased serum testosterone levels resulted in increased endogenous oxalate production by the liver 38, led Finlayson to postulate that lower serum testosterone levels may contribute to the protection women and children have against oxalate stone disease 39. A study has found that men have mean higher oxalate concentrations than women 40. In other study was concluded that androgens increase whereas estrogens decrease urinary oxalate excretion, plasma oxalate concentration, and kidney calcium oxalate crystal deposition 41. Yet, was found that the urinary testosterone concentration of patients who were stone formers was lower than that of control 42. Some other authors demonstrated increased urinary citrate concentrations in the urine of women 43. They postulated that this finding might aid in protecting women from calcium urolithiasis. Further, others observed that women with recurrent stones have a higher prevalence of hypocitraturia than do women with first-time stones 44. The lower risk of stone formation in women may be due to the lower urinary saturation of stone forming salts. Estrogen treatment may decrease the risk of stone recurrence in postmenopausal women by lowering urinary calcium and calcium oxalate saturation 45. A study shown that male patients with stones also had a significantly lower mean glucosaminoglicans concentration than did the female patients.
Race / ethnicity
A slightly higher rate of renal stone disease has been reported in white Caucasians than in Blacks 2. Renal handling of dietary calcium and oxalate in South African black and white subjects is different and may explain the different stone incidence in both race groups 46. Factors which are conventionally used to assess stone risk (pH, oxaluria, citraturia, relative supersaturation) are not helpful in identifying why South African blacks are relatively immune to stones. We suggest that relatively lower oxalate absorption rates may be a physiological feature of this racial group 47.
Extrinsic Risk Factors
The prevalence of urinary calculi is higher in those who live in mountainous, desert, or tropical areas.
Urolithiasis is a problem that is generally increasing in the tropics as it is in most Western countries. There are 2 main types of the disorder-bladder stones in children, a form of the disorder that disappeared from Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and upper urinary tract stones in adults. The former has been decreasing in most countries in the so-called endemic bladder stone belt with gradual improvements in levels of nutrition. However, as living standards increase, particularly in the urban areas of the more affluent developing countries, so the incidence of upper urinary tract stones in adults is increasing. The types of stones formed depend mainly on the composition of urine, which, in turn, reflects the type of diet consumed in the countries concerned 48.
Finlayson reviewed several world-wide geographic surveys and stated that the incidence of urinary calculus disease in the United States is relatively high for its population 39. Other high-incidence areas are the British Isles, Scandinavian countries, Mediterranean countries, northern India and Pakistan, northern Australia, central Europe, portions of the Malayan peninsula, and China. Low-incidence areas include Central and South America, most of Africa, and those areas of Australia populated by aborigines. Several studies have noted that stones from Great Britain, Scotland, and Sudan are composed primarily of a mixture of calcium oxalate and calcium phosphate 49,50,51,52. Upper urinary tract calculi composed of uric acid tend to be more common in Israel 53. Prevalence rate was recently estimated to be 3.5% in South Korea 3, and the overall prevalence in Taiwan was 9.6% 4.
Extensive studies of the incidence of calculus disease in the United States have demostrated that hospitals in the southeastern United States showed an increased discharge rate, but only for calcium oxalate stones and the eastern seaboard had a higher rate of uric acid lithiasis. However, it has been observed that the stone discharge rate had not changed significantly in the preceding 3 decades despite advances in urolithiasis research 54,55,56.
The prevalence of nephrolithiasis has showed considerable differences in different geographic areas of Italy; the rate is higher in southern Italy and islands, within the average values in central regions, and much lower in northern Italy (about half of the south) 6.
Geography influences the incidence of urinary calculi and the types of calculi that occur within a given area. The capability of individuals to transport intrinsic genetic tendencies of urinary stone formation from area to area, however, makes it likely that the major tendencies contributing to urinary lithiasis reside in the individual. Geography represents just one aspect of the environmental factors—such as dietary habits, temperature, and humidity—superimposed on the intrinsic factors that predispose to stone formation.
Climatic and Seasonal Factors
The effect of geography on the prevalence of stone disease may be indirect, through its effect on temperature. Several workers show a relationship between environmental temperature and seasonal incidence of urinary stone disease. They found that the incidence of urinary calculi was higher during the summer months. Prince made a prospective analysis of 922 occurrences of ureteral stones 36,57. Once again, the peak incidence occurred in July, August, and September. The highest incidence of urinary calculi appeared to occur 1 to 2 months after the achievement of maximal mean annual temperature in the study area.
Bateson reported on the incidence of upper urinary tract calculi in the area surrounding Perth in western Australia 58. The incidence of urinary calculi peaked from December through March. This coincided with the peak maximal summer temperatures in that geographic area. Another study observed no significant seasonal variation with calcium oxalate or calcium phosphate stones 35. The incidence of uric acid stones increased significantly during summer and autumn, and that of infectious stones decreased significantly during spring and summer.
High temperatures increase perspiration, which may result in concentrated urine. This promotes increased urinary crystallization. It has been showed that crystalluria is greater during summer months in patients who form stones 59. Patients with a tendency toward the formation of uric acid or cystine calculi have an additional risk. Concentrated urine tends to be acidic, and acidic urine holds much less uric acid or cystine in solution.
Some authors suggested that increased exposure to sunlight causes increased production of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 and increased urinary calcium excretion (see the section on hypercalciuria)60. This may cause a higher incidence of urolithiasis during the summer months.
The subtropical and tropical temperature and gradually higher socioeconomic standards of living may contribute to the high prevalence of urolithiasis.
One of the prevailing assumptions in the literature on urolithiasis is that increased water intake and increased urinary output decrease the incidence of urinary calculi in those patients who are predisposed to the disease. It is the oldest existing treatment for kidney stones, and, up until a few decades ago, it was the only preventive measure at the physician’s disposal for stone recurrence. Perhaps still the most powerful, and undoubtedly the most economical means of prevention today, it is often not used to advantage by the stone formers. Two factors involved in the relationship between water intake and urolithiasis are 1 the volume of water ingested as opposed to that lost by perspiration and respiration and 2 the mineral or trace element content of the water supply of the region.
In a survey of urolithiasis in the United States, urologists said their opinions of methods of preventing recurrence of urinary stone disease. "Forcing water" received the highest total number of positive responses, along with elimination of infection and elimination of urinary obstruction 61. Others reaffirmed this opinion in reviews 39,62. Although urine dilution by increased water intake may increase ion activity coefficients and, hence, urinary crystallization, water diuresis also reduces the average time of residence of free crystal particles in urine, dilutes the components of urine that may crystallize and does not reduce the activity of natural inhibitors. Finlayson concluded that the dilutional effects of water diuresis outweigh the changes in ion activity and, therefore, help prevent stone formation 39.
The epidemiologic aspects of occurrence of urinary lithiasis in Israeli communities has been investigated and was noted that the areas of highest incidence of urolithiasis were the warmer desert regions as opposed to the cooler mountain regions 63. Within desert areas, the incidence of calculi formation was highest in immigrants from Europe, lower in those from East and North Africa, and lowest in the native-born population of Israel.
A very well conducted 5-year randomized prospective study 64 involving first stone episode patients has shown lower rates of recurrence (12%) in those with a higher intake of water compared to those without (27%). It should be emphasized that patients received no drug therapy nor were submitted to any dietary change so that the unique efficacy of increasing urinary volume could be validated 64.
The mineral content of water also may contribute to the causes of stone disease. Some state that excessive water hardness (e.g., by sodium carbonate) causes a greater incidence of stone disease (Sierakowski et al, 1978). However, data are conflicting 65,66. A study offered a potential explanation for this conflict 67. These Italian investigators examined the effect of three different types of mineral water on urinary analytes in 22 idiopathic calcium oxalate stone formers. Ingestion of hard water caused a reciprocal decrease in oxalate excretion and/or an increase in citrate excretion. Thus, increasing fluid intake—even with a high calcium content—affected inhibitory power and lithogenic salt excretion, decreasing the tendency toward calcium oxalate crystallization. Frustratingly, other Italian investigators were not able to reproduce the Caudrella finding 68. They found no decrease in oxalate or increase in citrate excretion with the ingestion of hard water.
Thus to what extent the hardness and mineral composition of water affect stone risk remains controversial 69,70,71. As the calcium content of drinking water increases, calcium excretion increases but oxalate excretion falls 70,72. Water with a large amount of bicarbonate may increase citrate excretion 70 and magnesium content may favourably alter citrate and magnesium excretion 73. Based on these findings, there is still no definite evidence that hard water, rich in calcium and magnesium, is more lithogenic than soft water.
The presence or absence of certain trace elements in water has been implicated in the formation of urinary calculi. For example, zinc is an inhibitor of calcium crystallization 74. Low urinary levels of zinc, therefore, may increase the tendency toward stone formation. Yet, someone reported that thiazide treatment decreased stone recurrences in their patients, even though urinary zinc concentrations declined in most of them 75.
A very recent epidemiological study based on food-frequency questionnaires has examined the effects of particular beverages on risk of symptomatic kidney stones in women 76. Consumption of tea, caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee was associated with a reduction of risk of 8 to 10% , while wine decreased the risk by 59%. Conversely, grapefruit juice ingestion was associated with a 44% increased risk for stone formation. The authors speculated that the protective effects of coffee, tea and wine were caused by urinary dilution, determined by the ability of caffeine and alcohol to inhibit antidiuretic hormone. Therefore, the decreased risk for decaffeinated coffee might have been conferred by another mechanism. The adverse effects of grapefruit juice remained unexplained, since other citrus juices, like orange and lemon, may prevent 77,78 and not stimulate stone formation due to their high citrate content. In summary, these results must still be interpreted with caution until adequate long-term randomised trials of dietary interventions are performed.
The association between dietary factors and stone formation was first evidenced by the "stone boom", i.e., the dramatic increase in stone disease incidence in Western industrialised nations, after World War II compared to the period during the war when malnutrition was the rule. The "stone clinic effect", a phenomenon described by the Mayo Clinic years ago to explain the reduction of stone recurrence in two third of the patients after basic dietary advice, further reinforced the importance of such association 79.
Dietary intake of various foods and fluids that result in greater urinary excretion of substances that produce stones has a significant effect on incidence of urinary calculi. Ingestion of excessive amounts of purines 80, oxalates 62, calcium, phosphate, sodium, and other elements often results in excessive excretion of these components in urine. High protein intake of animal origin increases acid, calcium, phosphate, oxalate, and uric acid excretion and decreases the citrate excretion 81,82. On the other hand, ingestion of deficient amounts of calcium and potassium has also been noticed increase the occurrence of urolithiasis 83.
Lonsdale pointed out that patients who form stones might have exceptional dietary patterns 49. Dietary excesses may also occur, such as the use of large amounts of Worcestershire sauce with its high oxalate content 84 and the habitual excessive ingestion of milk products in the form of cheese or ice cream; a vegetarian diet may be associated with childhood urolithiasis. In contrast, in a study of more than 45,000 men, was found that the prevalence of stone disease was lowest in patients on a high-calcium diet 85. However, high calcium intake alone, without concomitant changes in the diet (unaltered urinary oxalate because of greater amounts of ingested fluid, potassium and phosphate) poses a modest risk for calcium stone formation 86. In a study from Brazil, hypercalciuric stone formers ingested a diet that was higher in sodium and lower in potassium than age-matched control 87. Epidemiologic studies have demonstrated an increased incidence of kidney stones in individuals with low calcium intake. More recently, a 5-year clinical study found the recurrence of kidney stones was higher in stone-formers on a low dietary calcium treatment 88.
A slight but significant increase of about 20% on oxalate excretion after a 2-fold increase in oxalate intake was observed. However, such an increase was no longer observed when an amount of calcium (430 mg) had been concomitantly ingested. Marshall et al 89 have studied the effects of either oxalate or calcium restriction alone, as well as double restriction in stone forming patients and controls. In patients, oxalate restriction almost did not alter calcium excretion and produced only a very mild decrease in urinary oxalate. CaOx activity was not altered that much. On the other hand, a severe calcium restriction (down to 250 mg/d) caused an important elevation of urinary oxalate only when the supply of dietary oxalate was normal. The combined restriction of calcium and oxalate was the only way to prevent such oxalate elevation, leading to an effective decrease of CaOx product activity far below the formation product 89.
Bataille evaluated the probability of stone formation after a combined restriction of calcium and oxalate, and observed that the combined restriction was not able to decrease the probability of stone formation in dietary-independent hypercalciuria patients, inasmuch as a concomitant increase in oxalate excretion was still evidenced in these patients 90. In summary, the idea that calcium and oxalate must be maintained in balance during meals is unquestionable, but more long-term controlled studies are still needed to answer to the question as to whether double or no restriction should be recommended. In addition, oxalate excretion also depends on oxalate degradation by anaerobic bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract. The absence of this bacterium from the gut increases the risk for hyperoxaluria 91.
An epidemiological study has reported that the lower the potassium intake, below 74 mEq/d, the higher the relative risk for stone formation 85. Such an effect can be ascribed to an increase in urinary calcium and a decrease in urinary citrate induced by a low potassium intake 92. As was commented before, a low-normal potassium intake and a higher NaCl intake were observed in stone formers when compared to healthy subjects. The overall effect was a significantly higher urine Na/K ratio 87, increasing the risk for stone formation, as previously suggested by Cirillo et al 93.
The effect of sodium chloride (NaCl) intake on increasing calcium excretion is well established. Every 100 mmol increase in dietary sodium results in a 25 mg rise in urinary calcium 94. The adverse effects of a high NaCl intake and the resultant higher calcium excretion have been extensively reported by many investigators 95,96,97. A high NaCl intake is expected to lower citrate excretion as well 98.
Not only the diet, but also its source, may be important. Identical vegetables grown in various parts of Thailand contain amounts of oxalate that differ by 50% or more 99. A careful dietary history is critical to the evaluation of every individual who forms stones.
The types of stones formed depend mainly on the composition of urine, which, in turn, reflects the type of diet consumed in the countries concerned.
It has been indicated that urinary calculi are much more likely to be found in individuals who have sedentary occupations 49. Blacklock reported that the incidence of urinary calculi was higher in administrative and sedentary personnel of the royal Navy than in manual workers 32. The highest incidences were found in cooks and engineering room personnel.
Other study has confirmed that professional and managerial groups had an incidence that was much higher than expected and manual workers had a much lower than expected frequency of urinary calculi 52. Whitson and colleagues examined physiologic changes of metabolic and environmental origin in astronauts spending time in the microgravity environment of space 100. The risk of calcium oxalate and uric acid stone formation increases after a space flight because of hypercalciuria, hypocitraturia, decreased pH, and lower urine volumes.
Robertson and colleagues performed extensive studies of the relationships among occupation, social class, and risk of stone formation 101. They confirmed that the risk of formation of calcareous urinary calculi was increased in the most affluent countries, regions, societies, and individuals. The inhabitants of such countries have more disposable income to spend on animal protein, which leads to increased urinary concentrations of calcium, oxalate, and uric acid. In fact, these investigators have suggested that recurrent calcium oxalate stone formers should become vegetarians 102. It becomes difficult to assess whether occupation is a primary factor in stone disease or whether it merely establishes other aspects of environment, such as diet, heat exposure, and water drinking. Alterations in these factors may be the actual instigators of urolithiasis.
Medications – Drugs
The effect of large doses of vitamin C in increasing urinary oxalate excretion is controversial 103,104 and is eventually accounted for by the conversion of vitamin C to oxalate during the analytical procedure 104. In a large epidemiological study, the intake of vitamin C was not associated with risk of kidney stones in women 105. Some others drugs have been related with the kidney stone.
Stress and Kidney Stones
Although it is intuitively apparent that kidney stones can cause stress, it is not widely known that stressful life events can be associated with kidney stones. A case-control study of 200 symptomatic stone patients and 200 controls tested this hypothesis 106. In this study, lower family income, mortgage problems, and emotional life events were significantly associated with stone disease.
A urinary calculus usually presents with an acute episode of renal or ureteral colic as the result of a stone obstructing the urinary tract. There are five locations where stones can be impacted in the urinary tract. Most impacted ureteral stones are found in the pelvic portion of the ureter.
Renal or ureteric colic is a symptom complex that is characteristic for the presence of obstructing urinary tract calculi. A typical episode occurs during the night or early morning hours, is abrupt in onset, and usually affects the patient while sedentary or at rest. A partially obstructing, continuously moving calculus appears to create the greatest amount of colic.
Some time urolithiasis is asymptomatic. Glowacki and associates evaluated the natural history of asymptomatic urolithiasis in 107 patients who were identified by radiographic or ultrasonographic techniques as having renal stones. In each patient, the stone was asymptomatic for at least 6 months after identification. Over a 32-month follow-up, 68% of the patients continued to be asymptomatic. Of the 32% who developed symptoms, half passed the stone spontaneously, whereas half required urologic procedures. The cumulative 5-year probability of a symptomatic event was close to 50% and correlated with the number of previous stones as well as the number of stones at identification.
Urinalysis in most patients with urinary lithiasis reveals the presence of microscopic or gross hematuria. In some instances, gross hematuria may be the only presenting complaint. Moderate pyuria may occur even in patients with uninfected urinary lithiasis.
On occasion, a patient who is in an active phase of urinary lithiasis has urine crystals of the same type that are creating the calculus. The observation of cystine, uric acid, or struvite crystals in the urine may be an indication of the type of calculus ultimately found.
Morbidity and comorbidity
The recurrence rate without treatment for calcium oxalate renal stones is about 10% at 1 year, 35% at 5 years, and 50% at 10 years 107. Others also report that the recurrence rate is high, reaching 52% within 10 years and 75% within 20 years, respectively 5.
The urinary tract infection (UTI) and urolithiasis are very close related. The UTI can be a cause of urolithiasis, as frequently happens in women, or the consequence of it.
An Italian epidemiological study found relation of the urolithiasis and arterial hypertension but not with diabetes mellitus 6 compared to the general population.
As it has commented above, a significant proportion of patients required extensive surgical procedures until 1980s in developed countries; however, this figures still in developing ones. Fortunately, a sizeable minority loses a kidney. The renal function may be affected and mild to moderate chronic renal failure is expected to develop in up to 20% of the patients 108. One study showed that about 20% of patients with recurrent stone disease who underwent surgery for obstruction and infection went on to develop mild renal insufficiency 1.
There is reference from a study in general populations that 44% of patients with renal lithiasis were admitted in hospitals 109.
The mortality secondary to urolithiasis is low in general. It has improved on the last years. In Italy, there were only 100 deaths related to nephrolithiasis per year in 1998 6.
Social and economical impact.
Kidney stones are not usually quiescent, typically causing patients considerable pain and suffering. The social and economical impact is represented by its sequelae of renal colic, loss of work, need of medical care, hospitalization and urological intervention. In addition, cost for the diagnosis and treatment of kidney stones is not trivial, resulting in a substantial financial burden.
In 1993, urolithiasis cost the American economy $1.7 billion, including indirect costs from loss of productivity. The higher incidence of urolithiasis is between 30 to 50 years old when is the higher productivity of any person 110.
In a United States financial study made at the Chicago University was calculated that the cost for diagnosis and treatment of patients with recurrent kidney stone disease have been around $4,453,000/1000 patients year. It took into account the cost of stone event, procedures (cystoscopies, ESWL and surgery) and hospitalization 111.
Coe and Parks reported that 20% to 40% of patients with stone attacks may need hospital admission 112. Twenty two percent of these patients could require surgical procedures 113.
In Italy, the number of patients with nephrolithiasis treated by the National Health Service had greatly increased: from 1988 to 1993. The number of patients admitted to the hospitals increased from 60 000 to 80 000 per year; 14% of the hospitalised patients (about 12 000 per year) had also undergone surgery, and the number of ESWL treatment had been estimated to be 50 000 per year. Based in this information the cost of hospitalisation and surgery could be estimated at 300 billion Italian lire per year in that moment 6.
OUR EXPERIENCEAn epidemiological study in rural and urban general population was made to know the frequency, the potential risk factors, morbidity, and social and economical impact of urolithiasis in our tropical country, Cuba.
A representative sample of 1,504 and 1,400 subjects were randomly selected from the general population of 15,591 inhabitants in the rural area and 19,538 inhabitants in the urban area using the two-stage and equal probability functions with 95% CI. Both populations are in the west of Cuba.
After informed consent was obtained, a survey was conducted to identify the subjects in the sample that had developed urolithiasis at some time or another. The surveys were made for the same general practitioner in each area. All subjects with a history of urolithiasis were included in a second survey to obtain the data required to complete the study. This survey was made for the same nephrologist.
From the 2904 selected subjects for the study were found 103 with history of urolithiasis, 65 in the urban area and 38 in the rural. The prevalence of urolithiasis for the taken sample and inferred for the general population is in Table I.
Table I. Prevalence of urolithiasis according studied population.
Significant difference between urban and rural population: a = p<0.005, b = p<0.01, c = p<0.05.
Significant difference between gender and colour of skin: d = p<0.01, e = p<0.05.
As can be observed the global prevalence and the prevalence according gender and colour of skin were higher in the urban population. We did not find prevalence of urolithiasis in any population for individuals lower than 15 years old.
The retrospective incidence for period of 5 years changed between the last 35 years and the time before in the urban area (Table II). In the former changed between 0.07 and 0.79% with a media of 0.56% in contrast to 0.12% in the previous period of time (Table II).
Table II. Incidence of urolithiasis
The most frequent age of the first stone events was between 20 and 29 years for both areas following the group of 30-39 years (Figure 1)
Figure 1. Age at first stone event for population.
Table III. Prevalence of urolithiasis and other diseases according populations.
Significant difference between prevalence in the study and in general populations: a = p<0.0001
Symbols: UTI=Urinary Tract Infection, AHT=Arterial Hypertension, Ischaemic Card.=Ischaemic Cardiopathy, DM=Diabetes Mellitus.
There were not significant differences between both population and gender in relation to family history of urolithiasis (36.1% in male and 44.8% in women in urban area vs. 34.8% in male and 40% in women in rural area). While there were differences between the prevalence of personal history of some diseases (arterial hypertension, ischaemic cardiopathy and diabetes mellitus) in the patients of the study and in the general population (p<0.0001).
53.8% of subjects related the warmer weather with the stone events in the urban population and a 47.3% in the rural one. 35.4% did not referred any relation or could not precise it in the urban area and 44.7% in the rural (p>0.05).
The long-term use of medication among individuals that suffered urolithiasis was poor in both populations.
High intake of foods rich in oxalic acid was referred by 84.5% of subjects, 68% declared to have high consumption of carbohydrates, 61.2% of proteins-purines and 55.3% of milky. However, there were not differences in the intake of some groups of foods between the urban and the rural population as can be observed in the Table IV. Several of these habits were present in the same subjects.
Table IV. General dietetic habits referred from subjects with urolithiasis according population.
Significant difference between urban and rural population: a = p<0.0001, b = p<0.002, c = p<0.05.
14.6% of subjects with history of urolithiasis suffered one episode of renal or ureteral colic, 29.1% had 2 to 5 episodes, 45.6% suffered more than 5 episodes and only 10.7% did not had pain.
The recurrence of the urolithiasis was present in the 46.6% of the stone formers. 33.8% of these subjects from the urban population had recurrence and 68.4% from the rural area suffered it (p<0.001). 41.7% of all these individuals had one recurrence and 58.3% had more than one (Table V)
Significant difference between both populations: (p>0.05).
The methods most used for diagnosis of kidney stone in the global population were the clinic and the conventional radiographic (49.5%)(Table VI). In general, the use images was more frequent in the urban population (75%) than in the rural area (53%)(p<0.02).
Significant difference between urban an rural population: a = p<0.02.
Symbols: Clinic = expulsion of stone, Clinic – X ray = Clinic and conventional radiographic, Clinic - US = Clinic and ultrasonographic, Clinic – X ray - US = Clinic- radiographic- ultrasonographic
The procedures used for treatment of the subjects with history of urolithiasis included 27.25 of them.
A 27.2% of the subjects with history of urolithiasis needed some procedures for their treatment. The surgery was the most used (17.5%)(Table VII). The individuals from the urban area (33.8%) needed more these procedures than those from the rural area (15.7%)(p<0.05).
Significant difference between urban y rural population: a = p<0.05
Kidney stone is a frequent disease with high morbidity and social and economical impact all over the world.
Its causes and risk factors are multiples. The relations of intrinsic or genetic and the extrinsic or environmental risk factors are essential on its genesis. Although the knowledge is growing up about the first, looks that the last determines more its increase frequency in the world.
The studies have demonstrated that geographical, climatic and seasonal factors have a roll in the lithogenesis due to kidney stones are more frequent in subtropical than in cool regions of different countries. In tropical countries all these risk factors are more adverse and have also been reported high frequency of renal lithiasis.
The majority or may be all tropical countries are developing countries. When the social and economical conditions of any of these improve it have been confirmed that the frequency of kidney stone increase.
Thus tropical areas influence the frequency and the impact of the urinary calculi but it represents an aspect of the environmental factors superimposed on the intrinsic factors. | <urn:uuid:00b7b69a-8416-4f8d-b709-15f0ed793153> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.uninet.edu/cin2003/conf/lreyes/lreyes.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396147.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00051-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948002 | 8,594 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Key: "S:" = Show Synset (semantic) relations, "W:" = Show Word (lexical) relations
Display options for sense: (gloss) "an example sentence"
- S: (n) devising, fashioning, making (the act that results in something coming to be) "the devising of plans"; "the fashioning of pots and pans"; "the making of measurements"; "it was already in the making"
- S: (n) qualification, making (an attribute that must be met or complied with and that fits a person for something) "her qualifications for the job are excellent"; "one of the qualifications for admission is an academic degree"; "she has the makings of fine musician"
- S: (n) making ((usually plural) the components needed for making or doing something) "the recipe listed all the makings for a chocolate cake" | <urn:uuid:07b8625c-e5a4-4d1d-a7ec-998c711943bf> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=MAKING | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397748.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00062-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936074 | 189 | 2.96875 | 3 |
This book provides the German texts of the most frequently studied and performed songs and gives literal word-for-word translations under each line, plus clear English prose versions of each poem. Neither is a singing version, but each contributes to the understanding and appreciation of the song.
The composers represented are Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Wagner, Brahms, Wolf, Mahler and Richard Strauss.
"It is difficult to put my enthusiasm for these translations into adequate words. This is exactly what students desperately need, an accurate word for word detail, without which a Lied cannot be coloured vocally. This project is urgently needed; it is a wonderful idea." --Dame Janet Baker
Contents and Reviews
Notes on Word-for-Word Translations
There are currently no reviews for this product. | <urn:uuid:97a983a3-7dbe-4016-b4d1-b0d55c9d01b7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.boosey.com/shop/prod/Phillips-Lois-Lieder-Line-by-Line-and-Word-for-Word-Paperback/679044 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391766.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00146-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.898861 | 167 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Antiretroviral drugs appear safe and effective in helping prevent the transmission of HIV from mother to child through breast milk, a new international study has found.
The researchers found that giving daily antiretroviral syrup to breast-feeding infants or putting their HIV-infected mothers on highly active antiretroviral drugs significantly lowered the child’s chances of contracting the virus that causes AIDS. The chance of a mother with HIV transmitting the virus through breast-feeding is about one in five.
The results of the Breastfeeding, Antiretrovirals and Nutrition (BAN) study, conducted in more than 2,000 HIV-infected mother-child pairs in Malawi in Africa, are scheduled to be presented in South Africa Wednesday at the 5th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention.
“This is an exciting development,” lead investigator Dr. Charles van der Horst, a professor in the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, said in a university news release. “We may be able to spare mothers in the developing world a horrible choice by offering them an effective method for preventing transmission of HIV during breast-feeding.” | <urn:uuid:9cf8360a-384b-4c4e-a2b1-5c0444773dbd> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://newparent.com/mom/hiv-drugs-provide-breast-fed-babies-with-some-protection | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392069.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00057-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937653 | 246 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Parliamentís offensive against Massachusetts, the perpetrator of the Boston Tea Party, included an effort to afford legal protections to officials serving in the disobedient colony.
The Administration of Justice Act provided that British officials accused of capital crimes in the execution their duties in suppressing riots or collecting lawful taxes in Massachusetts could avoid hostile local juries. The governor, at this time General Thomas Gage, was authorized at his discretion to decide that such cases be heard in England.
Angry colonists labeled this particular Coercive Act the ďMurder Act," because it offered a means for accused murderers to escape colonial justice.
See timeline of the American Revolution. | <urn:uuid:a7e61ba2-f74b-46d3-a720-09451bcd61cd> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1243.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397873.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00124-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953086 | 131 | 3.8125 | 4 |
This monograph covers seven different techniques for producing quasimonochromatic radiation from high energy electron beams passing through or near periodic structures. These structures include periodic magnetic fields, single crystals and laser beams. Each chapter is dedicated to one technique. It begins with a thorough but concise theoretical derivation of the technique, and ends with experimental results comparing the theory to reality. The author demonstrates that the theories behind each technique are quite similar.
A solid background in electromagnetism is needed to fully benefit from this book. Also the material is presented very concisely but is thoroughly referenced so these sources can be readily consulted for additional information.
Review by Albert C. Claus, physics department at Loyola University, Chicago, Ill., U.S.A.
The opinions expressed in the book review section are those of the reviewer and do not necessarily reflect those of OPN or OSA. | <urn:uuid:93ea44c3-e4b1-4de6-a97c-fb417a3cc0a4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.osa-opn.org/home/book_reviews/2012/0512/electromagnetic_radiation_of_electrons_in_periodic/?feed=BookReviews | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00012-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924493 | 181 | 2.578125 | 3 |
AP Photo/Felipe Dana
The virus, which is spread by mosquito bites and likely by sex, commonly causes symptoms such as fever, rash, joint pain or red eyes. There is no vaccine or treatment, and while infections are usually mild, it has been linked to birth defects in pregnant women.
One of the most common of those defects is microcephaly, a defect that causes babies to be born with an abnormally small head. These babies often have a brain that is underdeveloped.
The link between Zika and microcephaly is still being investigated, but authorities are warning pregnant women to avoid traveling to countries most affected by the virus, and women living in some of these countries to try to delay getting pregnant until 2018.
Microcephaly symptoms and causes
In babies born with this condition, it can cause developmental delays, seizures, or problems with speaking, sitting, walking, balance, feeding, hearing, and vision, according to the CDC. The symptoms, which are often lifelong, range from mild to severe. In some cases, the condition can be life-threatening.
Microcephaly can be diagnosed by ultrasound late in the second trimester or early in the third trimester of pregnancy, or after the baby is born by measuring its head and comparing it to growth charts.
We don't know exactly what causes babies to develop this defect, but it can be related to genetics, infections, severe malnutrition, or exposure to alcohol, drugs, or other toxic chemicals.
Why could Zika be linked with microcephaly?
Ordinarily, microcephaly is pretty rare. About 2 to 12 babies per 10,000 are born with the condition in the US. In Brazil, where the Zika outbreak has been especially severe, microcephaly cases before the outbreak were about 0.5 cases for every 10,000 births. But in the second half of 2015, that number jumped to about 20 cases per 10,000 live births, according to a CDC report.
In the past few months, researchers have found genetic material from the Zika virus in the brains of infants born with microcephaly in Brazil, which suggests the virus can cross over the placenta and infect the baby's nervous system, STAT reports.
However, a pregnant woman who gets the virus will not necessarily have a child with microcephaly, and experts don't know the exact risk.
STAT reports that most of the Zika-infected women giving birth to babies with microcephaly contracted the virus during their first trimester of pregnancy, although they may still be at risk into their second trimester. Most congenital infections happen during the second and fourth months of pregnancy, when the most brain cells are being formed.
According to the CDC, Zika usually only remains in the blood of an infected person for a few days to a week, so it cannot infect a baby that is born after it has been cleared. While experts currently don't think there's a risk that Zika will cause birth defects in future pregnancies, women who have had the virus should try to consult their doctors before becoming pregnant. | <urn:uuid:afd3aa63-2eb5-4de3-81f3-60d804c2f2a9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-microcephaly-2016-2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393093.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00091-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973151 | 636 | 3.59375 | 4 |
Dear Word Detective: I’m hoping you can solve a question that came up in a rehearsal last night. Actors were discussing the origin of the term “drag” as it refers to someone playing a role of the opposite gender. Someone said that it was from old script notations, where a Stage Manager or someone like that would indicate in the margins “DRAG,” meaning “DRess like A Girl.” I said I thought that was probably apocryphal (right word?), that it was a little too pat an explanation, and that it was more likely derived from street lingo. But my confidence wavered, and I started wondering indeed where the term might have come from. I also started thinking about the many uses of “drag,” as in “drag your feet” and “drag on a cigarette” and “What a drag” and “dragnet,” and my head got dizzy. So please help me! I’d love to put that old story to rest if it is in fact bogus. — Jeanie.
Gosh, I wish I had invented the acronym. I could charge a small fee per use, say three cents, and after about six months I could buy my own country and set up my own laws. I would be just, of course, but firm. Television would be outlawed, every household would be issued three cats (we could start by passing out a few of mine), and possession of either eggplant or a banjo would land you in the pokey. Oh well. You folks don’t know what you’re missing.
“Apocryphal,” meaning “of questionable veracity” or simply “erroneous,” is certainly the proper word for the story you heard about “drag.” As for the other senses of “drag” you mention, they all go back to the original (and still primary) sense of “to drag,” which was “to draw or pull something which resists motion,” as in “dragging” a heavy trunk across your attic floor. English adopted “to drag” in the 15th century from either the Old English “dragan” (which gave us “draw”) or the Norse “draga.” “To drag one’s feet” invokes the basic sense of “to move against inertia” (whether physical or emotional), and “to drag” on a cigarette, meaning to strongly pull smoke from it, was first used around 1919. A “dragnet” in the literal sense is a type of fishing net that scours the sea bottom for any and all fish; the metaphorical use to mean “a thorough police search” is from the early 20th century. Calling an annoying thing or boring person a “drag” dates, surprisingly, all the way back to 1813.
The use of “wear drag” or “in drag” to mean, originally, a man wearing women’s clothing is first found in print in the late 19th century, and simply reflects the sensation, novel for men of the day, of a long skirt or the like “dragging” across the floor. The acronymic explanation of “drag” is a later attempt to “reverse-engineer” the term, but, like most such attempts, bears no relation to the much simpler reality. | <urn:uuid:596c88fe-1a35-4006-afe5-b5f44764fa7b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://word-detective.com/2007/12/drag/?wpmp_switcher=desktop | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00108-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973888 | 755 | 2.875 | 3 |
Possibly derived from Greek πηνελοψ (penelops)
, a type of duck. Alternatively it could be from πηνη (pene)
"threads, weft" and ωψ (ops)
"face, eye". In Homer
's epic the 'Odyssey' this is the name of the wife of Odysseus
, forced to fend off suitors while her husband is away fighting at Troy. It has occasionally been used as an English given name since the 16th century. | <urn:uuid:07cf0505-4542-4fad-bebe-84d073c3dff4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.behindthename.com/name/penelope | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00166-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968584 | 121 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Gabon fossils are earliest traces of multicellular life… or are they?
These unassuming fossils may be some of the earliest known examples of complex life on Earth, composed of many cells (like animals and plants) rather than just one (like bacteria). They were uncovered in Gabon by a Abderrazak El Albani from the University of Poitiers, and they’re around 2.1 billion years old. They have been preserved in remarkable detail for their age. They are centimetres in length, and El Albani thinks that they’re probably some of the oldest multi-cellular organisms so far discovered. If he’s right, they’re half a billion years older than the previous record-holders.
Leading a team of 21 scientists, El Albani has painstakingly analysed the fossils. Their three-dimensional structure came with radial slits, scalloped margins and a complicated folded centre. To the team, these complex patterns tell us that the fossils were not simply rock formations. Instead, they were the remnants of once-living things that grew through coordinated signalling between different cells. The fossils are also rich in the mineral pyrite, which is the work of decomposing bacteria; again, this suggests that they were once living.
Back when they were still alive, the Earth was a radically different place. Oxygen made up a small fraction of the atmosphere and a toxic mix of greenhouse gases choked the air instead. Still, things were on the up. The “Great Oxidation Event” was underway, kick-started about 300,000 years previously by tiny bacteria. These microbes pumped oxygen into the air around them as a waste product of photosynthesis, enriching the atmosphere with the gas that would change the planet’s fate. These rising oxygen levels could have been the trigger that allowed multicellular organisms to survive. Without the oxygen, they couldn’t have achieved a large size.
Of course, it’s possible that the fossils could simply be complex colonies of bacteria, rather than true multicellular organisms. El Albani doesn’t rule out that possibility but again, the fossils’ complex three-dimensional shapes don’t quite fit with the idea of a simple bacterial mat. They also contain chemicals called steranes, which often give away the presence of complex eukaryotic cells. But Philip Donoghue from Bristol University, while impressed with the fossils, thinks that we can’t rule out the bacteria idea yet. The steranes, for example, could have moved into the fossils from surrounding rocks. And some scientists aren’t even convinced that the Gabon fossils were once alive.
Bruce Runnegar, who studies the origins of multicellular life, says, “It is difficult to know if this is some unusually complex [non-living] structure, a feature made by a consortium of individual microbes, or evidence for primitive multicellular life.” Some of the fossils’ shapes – such as the wavy surfaces and radial slits – are sometimes seen when different kinds of fluids mix. “The wavy surfaces are unusual, but not unusual enough to convince me to put my money on these structures being “ancient representatives of multicellular life,” he says.
Reference: Nature http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09166
Read more about these fossils, including opinions from several other scientists, at Nature News and an excellent explanation of why we can confidently say that the fossils at 2.1-billion years old at Highly Allochthonous
Sabre-tooth cats wrestled prey with powerful front legs
From looking at the skeleton of a sabre-tooth cat, it would seem obvious what its main weapons are. But impressive though the huge canines are, they’re only part of its arsenal. Its stocky frame and sturdy front legs are equally important. Julie Meachen-Samuels and Blaire van Valkenburgh from the University of California, Los Angeles, have studied the skeleton of Smilodon fatalis, the most famous of the sabre-tooth cats (they’re not tigers). Using a digital X-ray machine at the Smithsonian Institution, the duo showed that its humerus (the bone between shoulder and elbow) was reinforced by extra-thick bone.
Its outer shell, or cortex, was thickened to a greater degree than any other living cat. In terms of sturdiness, it even outclassed the equally extinct but considerably larger American lion. The extra reinforcement made Smilodon’s front legs very difficult to break, bend or compress. These sturdy limbs also had expanded attachment points for the cat’s relatively large muscles. The hind legs, while still thickened, was still within the range of normal variation for other cats.
This new research fits nicely with the modern image of Smilodon as a subtle killer that hunted in a very different way than modern cats. It combined elements of a wrestler and an assassin, grapping large prey to the ground with its powerful front legs, and killing them quickly with a lethal stab of its famous teeth.
Modern cats inflict death more slowly, with a suffocating bite to the throat. But there is no way that Smilodon could have done the same. Its skull and teeth are surprisingly weak, and might have broken during a protracted struggle. Instead, they were probably used to deliver an incisive and fatal bite to the blood vessels of the neck, after the prey had already been pinned. This specialisation allowed it to tackle very large prey, but it might also have been its downfall. As the largest mammals went extinct during the last ice age, Smilodon’s overpowering tactics would have done little good against smaller, more agile targets.
Reference: PLoS ONE to be confirmed; Image by Dantheman
Around 395 million years ago, a group of four-legged animals strode across a Polish coast. These large, amphibious creatures were among the first invaders of the land, the first animals with true legs that could walk across solid ground. With sprawling gaits and tails held high, they took pioneering footsteps. Their tracks eventually fossilised and their recent discovery yields a big surprise that could rewrite what we know about the invasion of land. These animals were walking around 18 million years earlier than expected.
The evolution of four-legged creatures – tetrapods – is one of the most evocative in life’s history. It has been illustrated by a series of beautiful fossils that vividly show the transition from swimming with fins to walking on legs. These include Panderichthys, a fish with a large tetrapod-like head and a muscular pair of front fins. Tiktaalik expanded on these themes. Its head could turn about a solid neck. Its limbs had the fin rays of its fishy predecessors but clear wrist bones and basic fingers too. Tiktaalik could support itself on strong shoulder bones, bend its fins at the wrists, and splay out its hand-like bones.
These animals – the elpistostegids – have largely been seen as transitional fossils. Tetrapods supposedly evolved from these intermediate forms and eventually replaced them. You could draw all of their skeletons in the corner of a book and flick the pages to see the move from sea to land happen before your eyes. But the new fossil tracks tell a very different story. As one reviewer writes, they “lob a grenade into that picture”.
The earliest true tetrapods so far discovered were around 375 million years old and the earliest elpistostegids hail from around 386 million years ago. But the Polish tracks are 10 million years older still. These dates suggest that the elpistostegids weren’t transitional forms at all. They weren’t early adopters of new biological technology, but late-surviving relics that stayed in their fish-like state while other species had evolved new bodies and, quite literally, run with them. Per Ahlberg, who led the study, says, “I’ve been working on the origin of tetrapods for about 25 years, and this is the biggest discovery I have ever been involved in. It is enomously exciting.”
It would be tempting to cast animals like Pandericthys or Tiktaalik in the role of biological luddites, outstaying their welcome with outmoded bodies. But that would be an injustice. If these animals co-existed with tetrapods for at least 10 million years, it suggests that their bodies were stable, well-adapted structures in their own right. They weren’t just brief flirtations with sturdiness on the way to full-blown walking.
Ahlberg discovered the fossil tracks along with researchers from Warsaw University, led by Grzegorz Niedzwiedzki. The tracks are found in the disused Zachelmie Quarry, nestled among Poland’s Holy Cross Mountains. The area used to be part of a tidal plain. Rocks from the site and a few rare fossils allowed the team to confidently date the track-ridden layer to around 395 million years ago, the middle of the Devonian period.
Among this layer, Niedzwiedzki found several tracks of different shapes and sizes. He also found several isolated handprints and footprints that clearly show signs of toes and ankles. Many of these tracks (such as in the diagram at the top) were clearly made by an animal walking with powerful, diagonal strides, powered by sprawling right-angled limbs.
They weren’t the work of any elpistostegid, whose straight limbs and backward-pointing shoulders and hips would have created far narrower tracks. Elpistostegids would also have dug long central troughs as they laboriously dragged themselves along. No such troughs exist at the quarry. This tells us that the track-makers strode along using strong hips and shoulders to hold their bodies and tails off the ground.
Niedzwiedzki thinks that they were undoubtedly tetrapods, and big ones too. The animal that created the tracks above was just 40-50 cm long. But some of the footprints were 15cm wide and hinted at creatures that were around 2.5 metres in length. The largest print is 26cm wide and its maker was probably a giant.
The implications of the Polish tracks are so controversial that reactions from other palaeontologists have been, understandably, mixed. Ted Daeschler and Neil Shubin, who discovered Tiktaalik, both find the study intriguing, but not definitive.
For Shubin, the deal-breaker would be identifying the animals that made the trackways and establishing where they sit on the evolutionary tree. He says, “The skeletal anatomy, let alone evolutionary relationships, of a trackmaker is hard to interpret from a track or print.” For example, he says that a model of Tiktaalik‘s skeleton would produce a print much like the one in the paper if it’s mushed into sand, and different consistencies or angles would produce an even closer match. He adds, “There is nothing in Tiktaalik’s described anatomy that suggests it didn’t have a stride.”
Daeschler agrees that “trace fossils such as these presumed tracks… are a notoriously difficult class of evidence to interpret with full confidence”. Nonetheless, he’s keeping an open mind and a keen eye on future developments. “Paleontology is a lively field in which new discoveries constantly refine our knowledge of the history of life on earth,” he says.
Jenny Clack, the Cambridge scientist who discovered Acanthostega, has seen the Polish tracks for herself and finds them more convincing. Her only reservation is that the detailed prints don’t have any trackways to show how their maker moved, while the trackways themselves consist of blobs. “But so do lots of previously known tracks,” she says. “If you’d found those in other deposits in the last part of the Devonian, you wouldn’t have any qualms about them.” She’d like to see trackways of the detailed prints but she’s nonetheless excited. “It’s going to change all our ideas about why tetrapods emerged from the water, as well as when and where.”
On the question of where, many scientists have suggested that the invasion of land began at the margins of freshwater – at river banks, deltas, lakes or flooded forests. But the Zachelmire quarry wasn’t any of these. Most likely, it was a shallow tidal flat or perhaps a saltwater lagoon. The first tetrapods didn’t lurk in rivers, but trampled the mud of coral-reef lagoons.
Niedzwiedzki thinks that this revised locale makes a better staging ground for the invasion of land. Twice a day, the zone between high and low tide is awash with stranded marine animals that would provide a feast for marine creatures experimenting with life on land. He argues that life was driven aground by the rich availability of snacks.
This new setting for the rise of the tetrapods also helps to answer a big question raised by the tracks. If tetrapods were walking around 18 million years earlier than we thought, they and the elpistostgids must have large “ghost lineages” – periods when they must have existed but for which no fossils have been found. Actually, very few fossils have been found at Zachelmie Quarry at all. These sites, where tetrapods first marched onto land, may have been good at preserving footprints, but they haven’t been equally kind to bones.
But why do the fossils that have been found make it look a lot like the elpistostegids preceded the tetrapods? That’s more of a stumper, but Niedzwiedzki has a possible answer. He thinks that elpistostegids may have colonised new environments before their tetrapod peers (or at least those environments that would preserve their bones). It’s a nice hypothesis, but for the moment, it’s just that. There’s no clear answer, although the hunt for new fossils or tracks will hopefully provide one.
Clack is certainly excited by the new doors opened by this discovery. “People are now going to start looking in different places from where they traditionally looked,” she says. “The Polish trackways were only discovered by accident. Nobody had ever looked at these Devonian deposits in detail before. Now the same team are starting to look for body fossils and they’ve started to find some, but no tetrapods yet. I’m expecting stuff to come out from other parts of the world too, like China.”
And here, even the sceptics agree. “All scenarios are intruiging, but we simply do not know for sure,” says Shubin. “All the more excuse to continue to go out in the field and find skeletons!”
Reference: Niedzwiedzki. 2009. Tetrapod trackways from the early Middle Devonian period of Poland. Nature doi:10.1038/nature08623
All images: copyright of Nature
More on transitional fossils:
Nine years ago, a team of fossil-hunters led by Philip Gingerich from the University of Michigan uncovered something amazing – the petrified remains of an ancient whale, but one unlike any that had been found before. Within the creature’s abdomen lay a collection of similar but much smaller bones. They were the fossilised remains of a foetal whale, perfectly preserved within the belly of its mother. Gingerich says, “This is the ‘Lucy‘ of whale evolution.”
The creatures are new to science and Gingerich have called them Maiacetus inuus. The genus name is an amalgamation of the Greek words “maia” meaning “mother” and “ketos” meaning “whale”, while Inuus, the Roman god of fertility, gave his name to the species.
The foetus’s teeth were the first to be uncovered and only as the surrounding (and much larger) bones were revealed, did Gingerich realise what his team had found – the first ever foetal skeleton of an
ancestral ancient whale (see video). Alongside the mother and calf, the group also discovered another fossil of the same species in even better condition. Its larger size and bigger teeth identified it as a male.
This trio of skeletons is so complete and well-preserved that Gingerich likens them to the Rosetta Stone. They provide an unparalleled glimpse at the lifestyle of an ancient whale before the group had made the permanent transition to the seas. How it gave birth, where it lived, how it competed for mates – all these aspects of its life are revealed by these beautiful new finds.
Maiacetuswasn’t quite like the whales we know and love. It was an intermediate form between the group’s earliest ancestors and the fully marine versions that swim about today. For a start, still had sturdy hind legs that were good for swimming but would have allowed it to walk on land.
Another piece of evidence tells us that Maiacetus was definitely amphibious – its foetus was facing backwards in the womb. If the mother had lived long enough to give birth (and judging by the foetus’s size, that wasn’t far off), the infant would have greeted the world face-first. No living whale or dolphin does that – all of their young emerge backwards, leading with their tails, to minimise the risk of drowning in the event of a prolonged labour. A head-first delivery means that Maiacetus gave birth as a landlubber. | <urn:uuid:d223520f-2b5a-49c9-b0cc-34378d2ea360> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/tag/fossils/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00054-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966217 | 3,782 | 3.5625 | 4 |
One of the questions I am frequently asked is, "what is 00 flour and how does it compare to English flour?" This is swiftly followed by, "I am making focaccia/ciabatta/white bread out of the strong, stone ground English bread flour that you suggested I use and it is not turning into the Italian bread of my childhood. What am I doing wrong?"
Let's take these questions in turn.
1. Italians and English do not categorise flour in the same way.
Italian flour is graded by colour (technically called extraction rate - that is the extent to which the bran and the germ are extracted from the flour). It is marked 00 to 04 where 00 is really really white and 04 is rather closer to whole meal. The exception is Durham flour but let's not go there now. English flour, on the other hand is graded by both colour (white, brown, whole meal) and by gluten content, or strength (plain, strong, extra strong or words to that effect) and we believe that the stronger the flour, the better the bread. All else being equal, stronger flour makes bread that rises higher and has a more evenly textured crumb.
2. Different flour bakes different bread.
Bake the same recipe in the same way with 00 flour and with stong white flour and you will see that the 00 loaf is flatter and the crumb has holes that are different sizes and are not evenly distributed. Bake the same recipe in the same way with 00 flour and with strong white flour that has been stone milled and you will see that the 00 loaf is white white white and the stone ground loaf is a bit beige. This is because the stone milling mills for whole meal flour and then seives it to separate out the bran and the germ, thus providing white flour. Industrially milled flour (of whatever strength) has the bran and the germ milled out at a very early stage because industrial millers mill for white flour.
The lesson is that if you want the very white, soft, holey bread from your childhood you need to get the flour from your childhood.
The big difference, in addition to texture and look, is that the stone ground white flour is higher in the naturally found nutrients because the white flour absorbs some of the nutrients from the bran and the germ before they are seived off. Industrially milled flour is rather bereft of these nutrients because the bran and the germ are removed so early in the process. For a more comprehensive discussion about this, please click here.
You can make perfectly lovely Italian bread with English flour. It may not be identical to your Italian experience but it will certainly be better for you. And when it looks like this, why not choose better for you as well.
Focaccia (makes three biggish round ones, two even bigger square ones, or one giant one)
For the dough:
1 kg wite flour (Italian 00 if you have it, strong white or a mixture of 50% strong white and 50% plain white to approximate 00)
600 g warm water
10 g dry yeast (or 20 g fresh yeast or 5 g instant yeast, in which case you may as well use the whole package which is 7 g)
2 tablespoons of olive oil
10 g salt
For the top:
Sea salt (big flakes)
and then options including herbs (rosemary, sage), thinly sliced onions or shallots, sun dried tomatoes.....
Proof the yeast if necessary and then knead all the ingredients together for a good 10-15 minutes.
Place the dough in a bowl and cover it. Let rest until doubled in bulk (1-2 hours depending on heat in the kitchen)
Turn it out and either leave as one blob for a big focaccia or cut it into equal pieces for smaller ones. You will need baking trays/forms with sides at least 2 inches high at this stage.
Give the pieces (or piece) a good knead on a lightly floured board and then flatten into your baking tray (s). Cover witha damp cloth and let rest for 30 minutes.
Take the cloth off and dimple the dough vigorously with your knuckles or fingertips.
Cover and let rise for 60 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size. It should reach the tops of the sides of the pan. It will not, therefore, be 4-6 inches high. Rather 1.5-2 inches high. You get a much better crispy oily top to lucious, smooth dough that way. Not too oily, not too dry, not too high.
Meanwhile pre heat the oven to 230 degrees.
Brush the top of the dough lavishly with olive oil and sprinkle salt, herbs and anything else you want on top just before you put in the oven. Spary a few times with water or even salt water if you like in the first 10 minutes of baking.
Bake for 20-30 minutes. Don't let it burn or go dry but don't let it be doughy either. When it is a deep gold it will be done.
Turn out immediately onto a drying rack so the bottoms don't go all soggy and eat straight away. This really does not keep well.
If you would like to try this among friends with some supervision, why not take a class? Virtuous Bread is offering focaccia classes throughout the summer! Click here for information. | <urn:uuid:5a805955-0127-4055-b394-247c416dc8a0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.virtuousbread.com/bread-and-conversation/what-is-italian-00-flour/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396455.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00025-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946802 | 1,131 | 2.96875 | 3 |
From BR Bullpen
Fighting To Prevent Segregation
On June 19, 1846, the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club of New York played the New York Base Ball Club in the very first baseball game at Elysian Fields. Black baseball began fourteen years later, as the Colored Union Club (New York) was defeated 11-0 by the Weeksville of New York in a full nine-inning contest. By 1865, black teams were cropping up all around the Eastern United States, including the Monitor Club of Jamaica Jamaica, NY, the Bachelors of Albany, NY, the Excelsiors of Philadelphia, PA, the Blue Sky Club of Camden, NJ, the Monrovia Club of Harrisburg, PA, and the Unique Club of Chicago, IL. In the late 1860s, the first true black baseball power, the Pythians, was established by a pair of former cricket players, James H. Francis and Francis Wood.
In 1867, the teams began playing regularly, the Pythians going 9-1 with the sole loss to the Bachelors, who dominated both they and the Excelsiors on the same day. This could not have been easy, since the Pythians sported outfielder John Cannon, with whom the white players were impressed, and pitcher George Brown who was called the best amateur pitcher of his day, as well as a good hitter and excellent fielder.
The first black championship was played for in 1869. Pythians promoter Octavius Catto dubbed a game the World Colored Championship, in which the Pythians defeated the Uniques to finish the eleven-game season undefeated. The team began to regularly beat white teams, but on October 10, 1871, thirty-one-year-old leader Catto was murdered by a white man as he exited the Institute of Colored Youth. His killer was released quickly. The Pythians never again achieved the same level of success.
The first true black star was infielder Bud Fowler, who, at just fourteen years of age, was playing second base for a professional white team in Pennsylvania in 1872. The magazine Sporting Life took a special interest in Fowler, and followed him as he reappeared in Massachusetts, Minnesota, Iowa, Ontario, and Colorado, calling him one of the best baseball players in the nation, skin color notwithstanding.
In 1876, with the formation of the National League, white baseball was booming, but just three black players slipped into the new major leagues before Robinson opened the floodgates. Bill White is believed to be the first, playing a single game at first base in 1879 for the Providence Grays. Fleet Walker was the first to get significant playing time in the big leagues in 1884 as a catcher with the Toledo Blue Stockings of the American Association. Fleet played 42 games and his brother Welday Walker snuck in five times in the outfield that year. Fleet was released after cracking a rib in July of 1885. He signed on with Cleveland of the Western League; when that team folded, he went to the Eastern League and then the Southern New England League. He spent 3 seasons in the International League before becoming a writer and hotel owner in Steubenville, OH.
Great players like Fowler, Walker, pitcher George Stovey, and second baseman Frank Grant flourished in minor leagues such as the International League while enduring the same kinds of threats that Fleet went through in the majors by players such as Cap Anson. On July 14, 1887, Anson's Chicago White Stockings were readying to play an exhibition game against Newark of the International League, featuring ace pitcher Stovey. Anson threatened that he would not play if Stovey did, and he reportedly uttered the infamous line, "Get that nigger off the field." Stovey was then said to be "sick." Blacks continued to play in the minors throughout the 19th century, but leagues began banning them. Bill Galloway played 20 games in the Canadian League in 1899 and is believed to have been the last black in the minors until 1946.
Before Organization
A League Is Formed
In 1920, Rube Foster organized the first official Negro League, the Negro National League, consisting of eight midwestern teams. In 1923, Hilldale owner Ed Bolden started the Eastern Colored League with 6 teams and began raiding the NNL for talent.
The Roaring 20s and 30s
The heyday of the Negro Leagues was in the 20s and 30s.
By the early 40s, many of the top players were competing in Mexico, Cuba and other Latin American countries with less racist attitudes and higher salaries. The Negro Leagues crumbled quickly after Major League Baseball and the northern minors integrated and only Globetrotters-style clowning teams survived into the late 50s and 60s.
After Integration
Negro Leaguers In The Hall of Fame (41)
Other True Stars
- Newt Allen, 2B
- John Beckwith, SS/C/3B
- Chet Brewer, SP
- Bill Byrd, SP
- John Donaldson, SP
- Luke Easter, 1B
- Sammy T. Hughes, 2B
- Home Run Johnson, SS
- Dick Lundy, SS
- Oliver Marcelle, 3B
- Bill Monroe, 2B
- Dobie Moore, SS
- Spot Poles, CF
- Cannonball Dick Redding, SP
- Chino Smith, RF
- Edgar Wesley, 1B
- Nip Winters, SP
- Artie Wilson, SS
Further Reading
- William Brashler: The Story of Negro League Baseball, Ticknor & Fields, New York, NY, 1994.
- James E. Brunson III: The Early Image of Black Baseball: Race and Representation in the Popular Press, 1871-1890, McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 2009.
- Brian Carroll: When to Stop the Cheering?: The Black Press, the Black Community and the Integration of Professional Baseball, Routledge, New York, NY, 2006.
- Mary E. Corey and Mark Harnischfeger: Before Jackie: The Negro Leagues, Civil Rights and the American Dream, Paramount Books, Ithaca, NY, 2013. ISBN 978-0-9851795-4-0
- Jerry Craft and Kathleen Sullivan: Pitching for the Stars: My Seasons Across the Color Line, Texas Tech University Press, Lubbock, TX, 2013. ISBN 978-0896727878
- Christopher Hauser: The Negro Leagues Chronology: Events in Organized Black Baseball 1920-1948, McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 2006.
- Leslie A. Heaphy: The Negro Leagues, 1869-1960, McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 2003.
- Lawrence D. Hogan: The Forgotten History of African American Baseball, Praeger, Santa Barnara, CA, 2014. ISBN 978-0313379840
- Bill James: "The Negro Leagues", in The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, The Free Press, New York, NY, 2001, pp. 166-196.
- Brent Kelley: Voices from the Negro Leagues: Conversations with 52 Baseball Standouts of the Period 1924–1960, McFalrand, Jefferson, NC, 1998. ISBN 978-0-7864-2279-1
- Brent Kelley: The Negro Leagues Revisited: Conversations with 66 More Baseball Heroes, McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 2000. ISBN 978-0-7864-4695-7
- Brent Kelley: “I Will Never Forget”: Interviews with 39 Former Negro League Players, McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 2003. ISBN 978-0-7864-4694-0
- Neil Lanctot: Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution, University of Pennsylvania Press, College Park, PA, 2004.
- Michael Lomax: Black Baseball Entrepreneurs, 1902-1931: The Negro National and Eastern Colored Leagues, Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, NY, 2014. ISBN 978-0-8156-1039-7 (originally published in 2003)
- William F. McNeil: Black Baseball Out of Season: Pay for Play Outside of the Negro Leagues, McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 2007.
- William F. McNeil: Cool Papas and Double Duties: The All-Time Greats of the Negro Leagues, McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 2005.
- Bob Motley and Brian Motley: Ruling Over Monarchs, Giants & Stars: Umpiring in the Negro Leagues & Beyond, Sports Publishing LLC, Champaign, IL, 2007.
- Roberta Newman: "Pitching Behind the Color Line: Baseball, Advertising, and Race", in The Baseball Research Journal, SABR, Number 36 (2007), pp. 81-90.
- Roberta J. Newman and Nathan Rosen: Black Baseball, Black Business: Race Enterprise and the Fate of the Segregated Dollar, The University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, MS, 2014. ISBN 978-1617039546
- Robert Peterson: Only the Ball Was White: A History of Legendary Black Players and All-Black Professional Teams, Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 1992 (originally published in 1970). The classic history of the Negro Leagues.
- Todd Peterson: "May the Best Man Win: The Black Ball Championships 1866-1923", in The Baseball Research Journal, SABR, Volume 42, Number 1 (Spring 2013), pp. 7-24.
- Jim Reisler: Black Writers/Black Baseball: An Anthology of Articles from Black Sportswriters who Covered the Negro Leagues, McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 2007.
- James A. Riley: Of Monarchs and Black Barons: Essays on Baseball's Negro Leagues, McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 2012. ISBN 0786465425
- Donn Rogosin: Invisible Men: Life in Baseball's Negro Leagues, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE, 2007 (originally published in 1983).
- Sarah L. Trembanis: The Set-Up Men: Race, Culture and Resistance in Black Baseball, McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 2014. ISBN 978-0-7864-7796-8
- Sol White: Sol White’s Official Base Ball Guide, Summer Game Books, South Orange, NJ, 2014. (originally published in 1906) ISBN 978-1-938545-21-4
External Links
|American Negro League||East-West League||Eastern Colored League||League of Colored Baseball Clubs||Negro American League||Negro National League||Negro Southern League||West Coast Negro Baseball League|
|Integrated Leagues (Pre-1947): Middle States League | Nebraska State League|
|Related Articles: East-West Game | Negro World Series | Special Committee on the Negro Leagues | 2006 Special Committee on the Negro Leagues Election|
|Related Categories: Ballparks | Executives | Managers | Owners | Players | Teams|
This page needs wiki formatting, links and a general cleanup. | <urn:uuid:18994ab4-906c-4360-9ab3-6911af9396f6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Negro_League | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396455.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00184-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.886158 | 2,339 | 3.390625 | 3 |
Inventory Data to Define and Locate Stands of Small-Diameter Timber
in the Inland West
- Intense efforts to suppress wildfire in the western forests
for the past 50 years resulted in an increase in the proportion
of densely stocked, small-diameter stands. Many of these stands
are under stress and may be at risk for disease, insect attack,
and uncharacteristically severe fire.
- Many estimates of the extent of the acreage and location
of these stands have been made with little quantitative information
to support them.
- Identifying the extent and location of these stands is essential
to understanding the problem and developing realistic management
The Ecologically Sustainable Production
of Forest Resources (ESP) Team and PRIME Program at the PNW Station
are developing methods to use forest inventory data to define
and locate small-diameter, densely stocked stands. This information
is important for finding ways to use the sale of wood to offset
costs of large scale treatments designed to alter developmental
trajectories of these stands. Selection criteria were developed
from an analysis done on the Colville National Forest and expert
information provided by forest managers and researchers. These
criteria were applied to the available inventory database for
lands in the inland west including all non-Forest Service land
and National Forests in Idaho, Montana, and Utah. Work is continuing
to add the remaining National Forest lands.
- Approximately 15% of the inland west
timberlands meet the selection criteria for small-diameter, dense
- About 60% of the identified stands
are single story.
- For the states where data was available
for all ownerships (Idaho, Montana, and Utah), 70% of small-diameter
acreage is in National Forests.
Christensen or Bruce Hiserote, Pacific Northwest Research
Station, Portland, OR. (503) 808-2000. | <urn:uuid:a0d5c3f1-2076-4677-9e48-00c57020579c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/woodquality/inventry.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396455.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00170-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.869668 | 398 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Southern California residents have long prepared against the threat of earthquakes, but a new study suggests that a different natural disaster could pose a bigger danger: tsunamis.
If a magnitude-9.1 earthquake were to hit in coastal waters off the Alaskan Peninsula, waves could flood Southern California’s low-lying coastal areas, forcing up to 750,000 residents to evacuate, a federal study reported.
Damage to marinas, businesses and homes could cost the state between $3.5 billion and $6 billion.
The study, released by the U.S. Geological Survey Wednesday, was developed by dozens of scientists from USGS, California Geological Survey, among other organizations, and is the most extensive examination of the ramifications of a potential tsunami in California to date.
The experts modeled their “hypothetical yet plausible” scenario — a 9.1-magnitude Alaskan earthquake — after data from previous instances of tsunamis in the Pacific Ocean.
“The idea is to say: Look, these are not distant events, these could actually happen here,” Kathleen Tierney, director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder, told the Los Angeles Times. “This is meant to get tsunamis on the public’s radar.”
According to the study, all 20 of California’s coastal counties — stretching from Del Norte to San Diego — would be impacted by a potential tsunami. Waves could hit Northern California in as little as four hours and would make their way down to San Diego in six hours.
Long Beach and San Diego were predicted to be among some of the most highly impacted regions. Low-lying coastal areas in southern Los Angeles and northern Orange counties, close to sea level and not protected by cliffs, would also be particularly vulnerable to damage.
“The good news is that three-quarters of California’s coastline is cliffs, and thus immune to the harsher and more devastating impacts tsunamis could pose,” said Lucy Jones, USGS Science Advisor for Risk Reduction, in a USGS news release. “The bad news is that the one-quarter at risk is some of the most economically valuable property in California.”
One-third of the boats in California’s marinas would sink or be damaged, and more than half of the docks could be destroyed, incurring an estimated $700 million in losses.
Of the estimated 750,000 evacuees, about 8,500 people would be left homeless due to extreme damage to their houses and would require emergency shelter, the study said.
This report comes two years after the 9.1-magnitude earthquake that devastated Japan. The ensuing tsunami, despite its far distance from California, made its way across the Pacific and hit the West Coast, costing the state between $50 million and $100 million in damage.
“Although this [damage] pales in comparison to the loss of lives and property in Japan, the U.S. Government must ask whether California, and the national economy, will someday face worse consequences from other distant-source tsunamis,” stated the USGS study. “Unfortunately, the answer is ‘yes.’”
USGS and the California Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program plan to host a workshop series where they will explain their findings and discuss preparedness options with stakeholders in some of the state’s major coastal communities, including San Diego and Santa Barbara. A workshop was hosted in the Los Angeles neighborhood of San Pedro Wednesday. | <urn:uuid:eea54f59-5d12-489f-972f-ce269c80f6a4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ktla.com/2013/09/05/potential-tsunami-puts-california-coast-at-risk-study-says/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398869.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00045-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95308 | 736 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Better water management is needed in the EU amid continued shortages in Cyprus, Malta and other EU member states, said the European Commission in a report published on World Water Day (March 22nd).
"The balance between water demand and availability has reached a critical level in many areas of Europe," said the Commission.
France, Hungary, the UK, Portugal and Spain reported droughts or rainfall levels lower than the long term average between 2009-2010, according to the report.
Better water management needed
Very few member states have introduced legislation to improve water efficiency in buildings. And measures to address illegal water usage and losses from water distribution networks are also still lacking in many parts of Europe, according to the report.
2012 Water Policy Review
An upcoming water policy review in 2010 by the Commission will focus on:
- water efficiency in agriculture and the urban environment,
- better planning, for example by integrating water scarcity and droughts into River Basin Management Plans and sectoral policies, and
- appropriate implementation instruments, such as water pricing and water allocation.
Water-Saving Technology Exhibition, Cyprus
From 22 – 25 March 2011, 10:00 until 17:00 at the Ledra Street/Lokmaci Crossing, Nicosia, the Technical Committee on Environment will launch the Water Saving Technology Exhibition.
The exhibition will help raise awareness about sustaining healthy ecosystems through addressing challenges in water management.
Invited speakers include the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot Mayors of Nicosia, Eleni Mavrou and Cemal Bulutoðlularý, the Representatives of the leaders of the Turkish Cypriot Community and Greek Cypriot Community, Kudret Özersay and Georgios Iacovou, the U.S. Ambassador to Cyprus, Frank C. Urbancic Jr. and the Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on Cyprus, Alexander Downer.
Under the auspices of the Technical Committee on Environment, this Water-Saving Technology Exhibition is part of the project on “Awareness Raising Measures for Water Saving,” which was launched last November. The exhibition, which will showcase water-saving technologies available for home and garden usage, will run from 22 to 25 March and will be open to the general public from 10:00 until 17:00 every day.
The project “Awareness Raising Measures for Water-Saving” is a confidence-building measure implemented on behalf of the Technical Committee on Environment and supported by the United Nations Development Programme-Action for Cooperation and Trust (UNDP-ACT). It is implemented by the AKTI Project and Research Centre and the Turkish Cypriot Chamber of Environmental Engineers, in co-operation with the Cyprus Environmental Stakeholder Forum and the Regional Network for Sustainable Future. This project is one of 23 confidence-building measures approved by the Cyprus leaders in July 2008.
“This project is the live proof of how nature and the environment can bring the two communities together and contribute towards building cooperation and trust”, said the Greek Cypriot Head of the Technical Committee on Environment, Costas Kadis.
Mustafa Alkaravlý, the Turkish Cypriot Head of the Technical Committee on Environment, highlighted that “Water is vital as a source of life, therefore it is extremely important that it is used correctly and conscientiously. No matter how plentiful resources may be, water saving must feature high on everyone’s agenda”.
(Note: article first published on CyprusNewsReport.com, written by Sarah Fenwick) | <urn:uuid:0fdda706-077f-4778-9697-0ee462543528> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://water.thinkaboutit.eu/think5/post/better_water_management_needed_-_eu/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00112-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92998 | 737 | 2.53125 | 3 |
ChristianAnswers.Net WebBible Encyclopedia
Joseph (the foster father of Jesus Christ)
Meaning: remover or increaser
He is last mentioned in connection with the journey to Jerusalem, when Jesus was twelve years old. It is probable that he died before Jesus entered on his public ministry. This is concluded from the fact that Mary only was present at the marriage feast in Cana of Galilee (John 2). His name does not appear in connection with the scenes of the crucifixion along with that of Mary (q.v.), John 19:25.
Joseph's ancestry—Joseph was in the line of King David and therefore held a legal right to the throne. However, because he descended from Jechonias (Matt. 1:11-12) (also called Jeconiah and Jehoiachin, he would have been disqualified by God from taking the throne. However, Mary's son would not (see: Mary). | <urn:uuid:4812b456-16bf-4f0f-9f98-ce9f9fc2eec6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://christiananswers.net/dictionary/joseph-fosterfatherofjesus.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397797.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00147-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979404 | 196 | 3.125 | 3 |
MN: The herding breeds, whose origins were in Great Britain, all shared the mutation, indicating that they had common ancestors. This implies that these types of dogs were mixing, presumably before registries were established. If the mutation was shared by these breeds, there probably are many other genes also shared. Great Britain in the 1800s appears to have been a real melting pot for dog genes, and this has been substantiated by subsequent work in our laboratory.
JB: Why is it important to know the history of a genetic mutation?
MN: Because the information may tell us something about the distribution of the mutated gene, and key us into where we might look to find additional affected breeds. For instance, if this particular mutation had been ancient, we would have predicted that many more breeds would have had it. Given all the breeds that exist worldwide, and that only a small fraction of these were affected by the mutation, we can infer that the mutation is relatively young. The mutation probably arose in the mid-1800s, but this is speculative. Reconstructing history, genetic or otherwise, always involves an incomplete data set—you never know what’s been lost.
JB: Should breeders genetically test their breeding stock, and if so, how should they apply the test results?
MN: Breeders have it hard—when they make decisions, they have to consider what’s good for the breed, their bloodline and individual dogs. If the mutation frequency is high in the breed, like it is with Collies and Long-haired Whippets, testing and selective breeding is certainly worthwhile to reduce the frequency and decrease the breed’s risk of drug sensitivity. In a breed where the mutation is relatively rare, such as the Old English Sheepdog, the owner might test only those dogs that are scheduled for treatment with one of the interacting drugs. But it gets complicated when a single breeder’s bloodline is heavily affected; breeders cannot give up their entire breeding stock, so a more gradual approach must be taken. What a breeder should do really depends on the specific situation.
I certainly believe that eliminating mutations from gene pools requires greater debate. Many scientists have suggested that a mutation should be removed from a gene pool gradually so as to preserve genetic diversity in the breed. I think ulterior motives are sometimes at work, as this is most strenuously advocated by service laboratories that offer these kinds of tests. DNA tests should be targeted for obsolescence—ultimately, a mutation should be eliminated from the gene pool, which of course renders the test meaningless. Don’t get me wrong—there is enormous value in preserving genetic diversity across breeds, but most of the diversity in one breed exists in related breeds, so conservation genetics within a breed is not a critical issue. I’m certain that far more genetic diversity is lost from “popular sire” effects and line breeding than from adherence to DNA testing.
JB: When I think of conservation genetics, I think of bringing a species back from the brink of collapse, or more generally, the practice of making a species healthy again. Do you mean that preserving genetic diversity in dog breeds is not critical because the way you create a breed in the first place is by eliminating diversity?
MN: That’s right. The normal rules of conservation genetics don’t apply to artificially selected populations. For instance, there appears to be an advantage in nature for individuals to have a lot of genetic variation in at least one region of the genome—the MHC—that arms the body’s self-defense. It appears that individuals may actually select mates in part based on being genetically different for genes at the MHC. In dogs, we have obliterated this selection because dogs don’t get to choose their mates.
There is an enormous difference between a species that breeds and evolves naturally and one whose breeding and evolution are controlled by humans. The irrefutable fact of closing a gene pool by enlisting dogs to a closed registry to suspend change in a breed is that diversity is being lost, and there’s little or no opportunity to create new diversity. Mutations are incredibly rare, at least those that have effect, and there isn’t any new blood coming into these populations. | <urn:uuid:4215e44a-424c-4cf2-b95c-fac7b97edc4e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://thebark.com/content/deconstructing-gene-pool?page=3&qt-recent_updates_qt=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395548.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00118-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965082 | 876 | 3.109375 | 3 |
West Virginia’s original 1,700 plant species blanketed the entire state. Native forests still cover nearly 80 percent of the land or nearly 12 million acres. However, almost 30 percent of our plant species are aliens. The original species provided food, shelter, medicine, and beauty to Indians and the flood of Europeans who immigrated here. The new Americans brought nearly 900 alien plants of value and many weeds.
The native vegetation developed over millions of years as the mighty Appalachian Mountains slowly eroded to their present configuration. The earth’s crust was subjected to earthquakes, continental shifts, and other cataclysmic forces that created a very diverse landscape. The present altitude ranges from 247 feet at Harpers Ferry to 4,861 feet at Spruce Knob. Rock layers vary from acid sandstones to shales conglomerates and alkaline limestones. Some rocks are high in iron, sulfur, calcium, aluminum, manganese, and silica. Coal and shale outcrops are common. Deep deposits of rich alluvial soils cover many river floodplains.
Climate, topography, man’s activities, and animals have also shaped the plant life. Rainfall in West Virginia ranges from 66 inches at Pickens to 31 inches at Wardensville. The growing season varies from 92 days in Canaan Valley to 193 days in Williamson. The topography varies from extremely steep in the eastern mountains and southern coalfields to relatively flat along the Ohio River and on mountaintops. Mankind has introduced weeds, landscape plants, grasses, and crops. Timbermen cut valuable black walnut, red spruce, chestnut, white oak, and red oak, while leaving an abundance of low-value trees such as hickories, black locust, elms, black gum, beech, and scrub pine. Red spruce forests were reduced from a half million acres in the late 1800s to only 50,000 acres today by over cutting and damaging wildfires.
West Virginia has many migrating plants. Prairie plants have crossed the Ohio River and flourish along many rivers and larger streams. Along these waterways are found prairie cordgrass, switch grass, big bluestem, little bluestem, and Indian grass. Prairie species also persist in the Eastern Panhandle from previous geological eras. Botanists have recently located prairie ragwort, Cooper milkvetch, redroot, prairie-clover, and stiff goldenrod on Cave Mountain and nearby areas. All of these species are typical of midwestern and western prairies.
Boreal plants migrated southward during the ice ages, and many such as balsam fir and bog rosemary reach their southern limits in West Virginia. Atlantic coastal plain species are frequently found in the Potomac River and New-Kanawha drainages, where they have migrated westward. From the south, several plants have migrated northward along the New River and across the Cumberland Plateau. Crossvine, southern loosestrife, recurved fetterbush, spreading pogonia, and Carolina lily have their northernmost locations in West Virginia.
Another way to view West Virginia’s vegetation is through plant communities. The very highest peaks are covered with red spruce forests. Below this occur northern hardwoods in the higher mountains. Below the northern hardwoods the western two-thirds of West Virginia is covered with cove and mixed mesophytic hardwoods. East of the high mountains, in the Potomac drainage, the forests are mostly oak-hickory-pine.
The highly variable topography, climate, and geology have created many small pockets of unusual vegetation, such as bogs, swamps, grass balds, heath barrens, riverbanks, cliffs, and shale barrens. These are the niches searched for by botanists and naturalists seeking unusual and rare plants.
Red spruce grows above 3,500 feet elevation and covers about 50,000 acres. Original red spruce forests covered nearly 500,000 acres, but heavy timbering followed by damaging wildfires destroyed 90 percent of the spruce. Spruce forests are dense, and the wet air and heavy shade allow ferns, mosses, bryophytes, and fungi to flourish, while most shrubs, grasses, and wildflowers are scarce. Common shrubs that tolerate the spruce forests are mountain holly, southern mountain cranberry, rhododendron, and mountain laurel. Common wildflowers are Canada mayflower, white wood sorrel, painted trillium, sweet white violet, fireweed, and yellow clintonia. Ferns and lycopodiums that flourish under the spruce are spinulose and intermediate wood ferns, long beech fern, New York fern, mountain wood fern, and stiff and common clubmosses.
Northern hardwood forests cover many higher mountains and northeast facing slopes from 2,500 feet elevation up to the red spruce belt. These forests extend from Preston, Tucker, and Grant counties on the Maryland border southward to Raleigh, Mercer, and Monroe counties on the Virginia border. Common shrubs and vines include smooth serviceberry, mountain holly, rhododendron, mountain laurel, striped maple, hobblebush, and Dutchman’s pipevine. Common wildflowers of the northern hardwoods are Canada mayflower, yellow fawn lily, painted trillium, hellebore, ramps, spring beauties, white wood sorrel, Canada violet, sweet white violet, dwarf ginseng, and Oswego tea. Fern patches are common and include common polypody, cinnamon and interrupted ferns, and stiff and common clubmosses. Rare species are Canada yew, long-stalked holly, Appalachian blue violet, Fraser’s sedge, white monkshood, star-violet, and goldthread.
The western hills of the Alleghenies from 2,500 feet elevation down to the Ohio River are blanketed by rich cove and mixed mesophytic hardwood forests. Dry upper slopes are frequently oak-hickory-pine. Narrow bands of elms, river birch, box elder, sycamore, black willow, silver maple, and cottonwood line most rivers and streams. These riparian zones are extremely important for water quality, erosion control, and wildlife habitat. Small trees and shrubs such as bluebeech, kinnikinnik, silky willow, riverbank grape, and brookside alder are common along these waterways.
Common shrubs of the cove and mixed mesophytic forests are spicebush, witch hazel, flowering dogwood, redbud, pawpaw, rhododendron, and summer grape. Common spring wildflowers are wake robin, cutleaf and two-leaved toothworts, twinleaf, yellow fawn lily, largeflowered trillium, wild blue phlox, bloodroot, dwarf larkspur, spring beauties, blue cohosh, squirrel corn, Dutchman’s breeches, foamflower, Indian cucumber root, Solomon’s seal, white, blue, and yellow violets, Michania, and wood nettle. Common ferns are silvery spleenwort, New York, Maginal shield, intermediate wood, and broad beech. Rare plants include butternut, mandarin, netted chainfern, southern loosestrife, blue ash, false rue-anemone, running buffalo clover, Shumard oak, Carey’s saxifrage, and Guyandotte beauty.
East of the Alleghenies on the Potomac and Greenbrier drainages the forest is oak-hickory-pine except for the higher mountaintops. This was the oak-chestnut forest before chestnut blight killed all the chestnut during the 1930s and 1940s. Root sprouts of chestnut can still be occasionally found. The understory and shrubs consist of scrub oak, mountain laurel, flame azalea, redbud, deerberry, greenbrier, sweetfern, and beaked hazelnut. Common spring wildflowers include mountain lily-of-the-valley, mountain bellwort, spring iris, trailing arbutus, teaberry, pipsissewa, bedstraws, violets, and hairy forked chickweed. These forests are also open enough for New Jersey tea, bottlebrush grass, sticktights, mountainmints, dittany, rattlesnake orchids, goldenrods, asters, and sunflowers to flourish as summer and fall flowers. Rare plants are downy arrowwood, box huckleberry, roundleaf dogwood, nodding wild onion, smokehole bergamot, smooth sunflower, bunchflower, and swordleaf phlox.
Grass balds and heath barrens occur at high altitudes between 3,800 and 4,800 feet. Most grass balds occur in a narrow belt running northeast from Spruce Knob to the Maryland border. These mountaintop sites have thin, acid soils and are exposed to constant winds and high rainfall and snowfall. Noteworthy grass balds and heath barrens include Dolly Sods, Dobbin Slashing, Roaring Plains, and Spruce Knob. These areas occurred naturally in the mid-1700s. Heavy timbering and the ensuing wildfires of the late 1800s and early 1900s greatly expanded the size of these habitats. Grasses of grass balds are hairgrass, redtop, Allegheny fly-back, and several sedges. Common associated plants are strawberry, cinquefoil, sheep sorrel, goldenrods, bracken and hay-scented ferns, and several clubmosses.
Heath barrens are dominated by low shrubs of black huckleberry, blueberries, chokeberries, Allegheny Menziesia, mountain laurel, rhododendron, mountain rosebay, smooth serviceberry, mountain ash, mountain holly, and aspens. Common wildflowers include trailing arbutus, bleeding heart, gaywings, fireweed, and pearly everlasting. Rare plants are wild holly, three-toothed cinquefoil, oceanorus, goldthread, wood lily, dwarf cornel, and woolly Hudsonia.
Open glades and swampy forests occur infrequently in flatter terrain above 2,500 feet. These ecosystems are open, wet acid soils covered by sedges, beakrushes, and sphagnum mosses that grade into shrubs and trees. They normally form on top of flat sandstones that are very resistant to erosion. Examples of these habitats are Cranberry Glades, Droop Mountain Bog, Canaan Valley, Big Run Bog, Blister Swamp, and Cranesville Swamp. In addition to sedges, beakrushes, and sphagnum mosses, open glades include cottongrass, large and small cranberries, purple-stem aster, purple fringed orchid, manna grasses, bog goldenrod, skunk cabbage, bog clubmoss, and marsh fern. Common shrubs are rhododendron, wild holly, speckled alder, winterberry, red and black chokeberries, and smooth arrowwood. Common swamp forest trees are hemlock, red spruce, white pine, yellow birch, red maple, and black ash. Rare plants of these habitats are Canada yew, rose pogonia, grasspink, twayblades, golden club, sundew, pitcher plants, bog rosemary, Jacob’s ladder, balsam fir, buckbean, purple avens, glad spurge, and early coralroot.
Fast-flowing mountain streams flood frequently and carry lots of rocks, silt, logs, limbs, and ice that create difficult growing conditions for riverbank plants. However, some plants survive and even thrive in the narrow foot strips of boulders, roots, and sand along streams. Common riverbank trees are river birch, sycamore, silver maple, and box elder. Common shrubs are silky cornel, ninebark, brookside alder, willows, shrubby yellowroot, smooth azalea, poison ivy, and riverbank grape. Common herbs and grasses are monkeyflowers, great blue lobelia, cardinal-flower, tasselrue, stiff aster, and fringed loosestrife. Rare plants of riverbanks are Barbara’s buttons, balsam squaw-weed, riverbank goldenrod, star tickseed, McDowell sunflower, sand cherry, smooth rose, and Virginia spiraea.
Cliffs, outcrops, and large boulders are common in steep West Virginia terrain. Lichens and mosses grow on most exposed rocks. Overhangs support ferns, heuchera, and the rare round-leaved catchfly which is found in the southwestern counties. These habitats may originate from sandstone (acid) or limestone (alkaline). Common plants on sandstone rocks include hairy lip fern, spleenworts, purple stonecrop, wild columbine, and purple laurel. Common plants on limestone rocks include red cedar, rocktwist, walking fern, and purple cliffbrake. Rare plants of these habitats are silvery nailwort and famiflower on sandstone and arborvitae, Canby’s Mountain-lover, and crested coralroot on limestone.
Shale barrens are West Virginia’s most unique plant habitat. They occur on steep south- and west-facing slopes on Devonian shales that are usually undercut by roads or streams in eastern West Virginia. The following 14 plants are known as endemics to southern Pennsylvania, western Maryland, western Virginia, and eastern West Virginia: nodding wild onion, shale barren rockcress, whitehaired leatherflower, Kates Mountain clover, yellow buckwheat, shale barren eveningprimrose, mountain pimpernel, swordleaf phlox, shale skullcap, shale bindweed, shale barren goldenrod, shale barren aster, shale barren pussytoes, and pussytoes ragwort. Scrubby scattered trees growing on shale barrens include Virginia pine; red mockernut and pignut hickories; chestnut, post, and yellow oaks; red cedar; and dwarf hackberry. A few shrubs such as downy arrowwood, scrub oak, and dwarf hawthorn grow on shale barrens. Showy wildflowers are wild pink, bird-foot violet, goat’s rue, mosspink, prickly pear cactus, gray beardtongue, smooth sunflower, and panicled bellflower.
West Virginia has five plants on the federal endangered or threatened list: harperella, northeastern bulrush, Virginia spiraea, shale barren rockcress, and running buffalo clover. The most valuable and best-known herbaceous plant is ginseng. It is not extremely rare but is regulated by digging permits to ensure its sustainability as a plant and part in our mountaineer heritage.
This Article was written by William N. Grafton
Last Revised on July 25, 2012
Core, Earl L. Vegetation of West Virginia. Parsons: McClain, 1974.
Strausbaugh, P. D. & Earl L. Core. Flora of West Virginia. Morgantown: 1964, Second edition, 4 vols. Morgantown: West Virginia University, 1970-77.
Keener, C. S. Distribution and Biohistory of the Endemic Flora of the Mid-Appalachian Shale Barrens. Botanical Review, 1983.
Cite This Article
Grafton, William N. "Flora." e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. 25 July 2012. Web. 28 June 2016. | <urn:uuid:c5bacb28-b394-41e5-a195-6a73a89d365f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/random | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00099-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909167 | 3,341 | 4.15625 | 4 |
Maintaining its commitment to raising money for those in need, Ursuline Academy of New Orleans has joined other Ursuline academies throughout the United States in experiencing Project Africa.
In New Orleans, students are working to raise money to dig wells and provide clean water for villages in Cameroon. In addition to focusing on global water concerns and water conservation, the students are also studying African culture and its history. And recently, a presentation was held to observe Project Africa Day.
The celebration began with a prayer service, followed by presentations on class projects, fund-raising storytelling and guest speakers.
Junior Lauren Porche was excited to participate in the project. Many students were eager to become involved and work together while promoting better and cleaner water services for Cameroon.
“I joined Project Africa because I didn’t realize how much African women were suffering from having to walk so far just to get clean water,” Porche said. “I really just wanted to help them and be a part of the change.”
Students participated in several activities to help understand the disadvantages of not having clean water including physically carrying buckets of water like the women of Cameroon. Students walked throughout the school’s courtyard carrying 10 pound buckets of water over their heads. Many women in Africa carry 40 pounds of water in each bucket every day.
The school also hosted scavenger hunts. Students were encouraged to look and search for areas of clean water. “I think that project Africa raises awareness about the problems in Africa especially about the drinking water and it really helps us to get closer to it and really try to make a difference instead of just hearing about it. Now we can actually take part in the difference,” Joy Comboy, a junior, said.
Project Africa has also been integrated into the school lessons such as computer students creating water crisis brochures and art students creating African silhouette paintings. In English class, students wrote letters to children in Africa and science students learned how water wells function.
Students also held fundraisers to raise money to send to Cameroon for the development and completion of the wells being built. The total cost to build the wells is $3,950. The entire school has raised over $3,165 from selling T-shirts, baked goods, having penny wars between the classes. Even the prekindergarten students joined in the effort by selling lip gloss.
Jessica Baker, the identity director and high school biology teacher, said, “This project not only focuses on the fundraising, but the spiritual aspect, the awareness of the other projects, and the social issue as to how this may effect Africa and change for the better.”
To continue to promote awareness, the school sponsors two clubs that focus on the project – a middle school and a high school club. The clubs encourage students to gather and debate new ideas for fundraising as well as promote intriguing ways to spread the awareness by learning, taking action, and participating in hands on projects such as writing letters to those in Africa, learning how to dye cloth, filtering water and learning to play the drums.
“I think it is important what we are doing because Ursulines all over the country are working together for the common good and we even have a nun from New Orleans right now that is in Cameroon helping to build the well,” said senior Rachel Stuckey, who is the spiritual chairman of Project Africa. “I think it really makes our student body appreciative for what they have and realize that what we do can make difference. We have raised lots of money to help with this project and I believe that if we continue to do so we can make a major change, one that can last a lifetime.” | <urn:uuid:16384a2f-efc6-4f48-b0e4-703362046a60> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blog.nola.com/new_orleans/2013/01/ursuline_academy_in_new_orlean_1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00116-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975452 | 758 | 2.703125 | 3 |
A crane lowered a 15,000-gallon fiberglass tank into a 14-foot-deep hole Tuesday between Birmingham-Southern College's two new dormitories.
The tank, when tied to the dorm's gutter system and buried under the courtyard, will collect and reuse the rain that falls on the buildings, storing it to feed the campus irrigation system.
The system is projected to save 300,000 gallons of potable water annually and within eight to 10 years pay off its $65,000 cost.
The rainwater collection system is just one eco-friendly aspect of a project designed by ArchitectureWorks and built by Golden Construction Co. Opening this August, the BSC dorms aim to be the first LEED-certified dormitory buildings in Alabama. For Birmingham-Southern, which recently added an urban environmental studies program, the project is an example of "practicing what we preach," said Roald Hazelhoff, the director of the Southern Environmental Center, which is based at the college.
Birmingham-Southern's campus sits astride two watersheds: one side drains into Village Creek, the other into Valley Creek. And in recent years, the campus has incorporated water-retaining drainage systems into construction and planted native, drought-tolerant plants in its landscaping.
"We are starting to think more holistically," Hazelhoff said.
To engineer the rainwater collection system, the college turned to Nature's Tap, a company founded two and half years ago by Homewood native Scott Kubiszyn. Capturing rainwater not only cuts your water bill, it begins to lessen the impact modern development has had on rivers and streams, Kubiszyn said. The typical approach to handling rainwater is to get it off the buildings, off the site and into the storm sewers as quickly possible.
A torrent of rain and debris, funneled off buildings, parking lots, streets and gutters then goes surging into the creeks, making waters rise fast and tearing up streambanks.
The rapid return of the water to the stream short circuits what would have been a much slower system of recharge. And a week later, when the Alabama summer sun has dried out the landscape, you want that water back, but instead you have to turn to treated, chlorinated water, which is increasingly expensive and requires energy to pump and treat.
With the water captured at Birmingham-Southern, the landscape in the immediate area will be watered in dry times by an irrigation system tied to the tank. When the tank's submersible pump runs dry, the system is set up to automatically switch to city water.
According to Kubiszyn, the system should last for decades. This is the largest job Kubiszyn -- an Auburn grad who earned an MBA from Vanderbilt University -- has worked on to date. Residential applications range from a rain barrel tied to the gutter system for a little over to a $1,000 irrigation system.
For the sake of the environment and for the sake of his business, Kubiszyn hopes people will begin to catch on to the potential of making better use of their water. "There is plenty of water around us. We just need to use it more efficiently," he said.
Beyond the water collection system, the buildings were carefully oriented to avoid exposure to the setting western sun. The walls are thickly insulated and high performance windows are used throughout.
Jay Pigford, the ArchitectureWorks architect leading the project, said the project also includes a different kind of air-conditioning -- a variant refrigerant volume system -- which is common in Europe.
Instead of having individual compressor units for every suite, there will be one shared compressor per floor, producing a huge energy savings. Pigford said he hoped the project would be something of a showcase.
"It's a great project in that it shows that in a traditional looking building on a traditional campus, you can still achieve some pretty powerful results in sustainability," Pigford said.
Lane Estes, BSC's vice president for administration, said the project is part of an overall thrust by the college.
"We wanted to make the buildings as environmentally sustainable as possible," he said.
|Rain water capture system installed at Birmingham Southern College|
Join the conversation by commenting below or e-mail Spencer at email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:0b16bad4-f8bd-4395-b655-fae50e2b8245> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2010/06/new_birmingham-southern_dorm_p.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00172-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951646 | 895 | 2.71875 | 3 |
|Contained in||Inline elements, block-level elements except PRE|
The BASEFONT element, deprecated in HTML 4 in favor of style sheets, allows authors to suggest rudimentary font changes. Use of the BASEFONT element brings the same usability and accessibility problems as FONT, as discussed in the article What's Wrong With FONT?
Unlike FONT, BASEFONT's changes affect the base font, and so apply to all content following the BASEFONT element (except, in the case of SIZE, for headings). However, most browsers fail to apply changes in the base font size and color to TABLEs.
BASEFONT's required SIZE attribute specifies the font size to use on a browser-dependent scale of 1 to 7, with the default being 3.
The poorly supported COLOR and FACE attributes suggest a font color and face, respectively. Style sheets are better supported and more flexible than BASEFONT's COLOR and FACE attributes. | <urn:uuid:60a468c6-f659-4900-a4a2-43f04b9c4386> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/html40/special/basefont.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00101-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.76932 | 201 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Foreign invaders part III: the honeybee??
Last in our series of discussions on beloved garden insects that perhaps don't belong and may be of dubious benefit is the environmental ambassador the honeybee. Much has been made in recent years about our dependence on honeybees to pollinate food crops. Thirty percent of our food relies on pollinators, and honeybees are by far the most common pollinator used in agriculture.
Native to Europe, Asia, and Africa, honeybees were the first insects to be imported to our country back in the 1600s. Although long established in North America and although feral honeybee colonies are widespread, the honeybee has never become an invasive species.
However, the food crops that depend on pollination such as apples and almonds have increased 300 percent in the last fifty years, and in the process of converting land for agricultural purposes the habitat of ground-dwelling native bees, who also do a fine job of pollinating, is shrinking. Not the honeybees' fault at all, of course. But the ease of which honeybees can be moved from orchard to orchard, from cranberry bog to avocado grove, means that we can ignore the depleting populations of native bees.
There is one sub-species of honeybee that may actually be invasive, the infamous Africanized or "killer" bee. This insect is the result of a 1957 Frankenstein-y science experiment gone awry. A researcher in Brazil was trying to develop a honeybee that would perform in the tropics, a climate the European honeybee can't adapt to. He hybridized the European bee with several strains of other honeybees, including the African honeybee. Although he was careful to keep the hybridized colonies quarantined, one day a substitute assistant let the African hybrids loose, and the resulting generations of Africanized bees have been moving north (and every other direction) since. Their stings are not more toxic than the European honeybee, but they are much more aggressive, sting in mass, and will pursue a perceived threat for up to a mile. In the Southern US Africanized honeybees have interbred with European bees to cause problems (besides being hyperdefensive the AHB can't be easily domesticated for honey production, either.) But all research indicates that this bee can't tolerate the cold, wet, un-African conditions of the north. Philly, we are spared.
As with all insects, "good" or "bad" is a constructed label. Africanized bees, like Asiatic lady beetles and Chinese praying mantids are just doing their jobs. In a world where natural geographical boundaries like oceans and mountain ranges are increasingly irrelevant, we'll have to find peace, however uneasy, with a number of insects we aren't used to dealing with. We may have the home-court advantage, but the insects usually have a bigger team.
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January 30, 2013
Clovis Comet Hypothesis Called ‘Bogus’ By Credible Scientist
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online
Researchers are contradicting one hypothesis that comet explosions may have ended the 9,000-year-old Clovis culture.The Clovis comet hypothesis was first reported in 2007, claiming a comet initiated the Younger Dryas cold period nearly 13,000 years ago. This period, also known as the Big Freeze, was a brief period of cold climatic conditions and drought, causing the collapse of the North American ice sheets.
According to the hypothesis, a swarm of comet fragments set areas of the North American continent on fire and helped cause the extinction of the North American Clovis culture after the last glacial period. This culture of prehistoric Paleo-Indian peoples were known for their distinct stone tools, found at sites near Clovis, New Mexico.
Mark Boslough and researchers from 14 academic institutions have put up a strong argument against this hypothesis and wrote about it in a monograph during the December 2012 American Geophysical Union.
Boslough has a tradition of understanding the effects of comet and asteroid collisions and gained notoriety when a publication ran about how the collision of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with the planet Jupiter could be visible from Earth.
"It was a gamble and could have been embarrassing if we were wrong," Boslough wrote in a statement. "But I had been watching while Shoemaker-Levy 9 made its way across the heavens and realized it would be close enough to the horizon of Jupiter that the plumes would show."
He and his team's prediction was backed by simulations from Sandia National Laboratories' Intel Paragon supercomputer. Simulations from this massive supercomputer helped to check his theory back in 1994 and increase his credibility.
With loads of accreditation to his name, Boslough set out to look into the theory the Clovis civilization was doomed as a result of a comet.
As Boslough rebutted the comet hypothesis, he was faced with opposition from the scientific community which used his own idea as simulations for the hypothesis. Scientists had the backing of the scientific journal Science, as well as a documentary by Nova, showing his flawed thinking in rebutting the comet hypothesis.
However, Boslough put the call out for carbon dating of the major evidence provided by those who did not like he had cast doubt on the theory. These tests helped to raise red flags to those critical of the impact hypothesis.
Boslough told Sandia National Laboratories the contaminated samples, coupled with irregularities reported in the background of one member of the opposing team, were enough for Nova to pull the documentary from its list of science shows available for streaming.
“Just because a culture changed from Clovis to Folsom spear points didn´t mean their civilization collapsed,” he explained. “They probably just used another technology. It´s like saying the phonograph culture collapsed and was replaced by the iPod culture.”
He said there is no "plausible mechanism" to get airbursts over an entire continent. “For this and other reasons, we conclude that the impact hypothesis is, unfortunately, bogus.” | <urn:uuid:0dfd232a-5f94-4193-9ab5-ee655b31cb57> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112774312/clovis-comet-theory-bogus-013013/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00146-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973101 | 674 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Threading the Corona
Top: The magnetic filaments of the sun’s corona, captured at top by Miloslav Druckmüller in a composite of 38 different images during a solar eclipse. You’ll want to see the super-huge version here, trust me. It will change you.
Bottom: “Coronal rain” captured by NASA’s SDO satellite. The superheated coronal plasma is seen traveling along magnetic field lines during a coronal mass ejection.
The corona cooks at over a million degrees Kelvin compared to the relatively frigid 5800 K of the photosphere below it. Exactly why this plasma is so superheated isn’t completely known, but it might be subject to the same kind of magnetic induction as an electric generator. Whatever the cause, the normally invisible lines of the sun’s magnetic field are drawn in brilliant form within the corona, and charged plasma is the paint.
You can get a good look at the solar corona today (right NOW for those catching this post live at 5:30 PM ET on May 9th) during today’s annular eclipse, being broadcast live from the South Pacific by the Slooh Space Camera.
(top image via Colossal)
Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/51668261183. | <urn:uuid:9465a8ae-c2c0-4417-b1c0-83363cee9458> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.lies.com/wp/2013/05/29/jtotheizzoe-threading-the-corona-top-the-magnetic-filaments/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00199-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910064 | 286 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Local History Index
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U.s Geological Survey
Ray, Mrs Sam (Mildred...
Gallup Map & Supply co
Topographical map of northeast Wyandotte County, Kansas. Features Kansas City, Kansas and the Missouri River, including roads, creeks, and city facilities. Several schools are labeled, including Quindaro...
Q.: What Is the Personal History of W. E. Minor?
Biographical article about Dr. William Minor (1865-1928), a local physician and posthumous namesake of William E. Minor Park at Holmes and Red Bridge Roads.
Q.: Isn't There a Small Cemetery along 95th Street and Mission Road?
Article about the history and facilities of the Linwood Pioneer Cemetery at 95th and Mission Roads in Johnson County, Kansas, established about 1873 "by the Linwood Methodist church."
Pulling Missouri out of the mud: highway politics, the Centennial Road Law,and the problems of progressive identity.
October 1, 2003
The struggle to develop a comprehensive system of good roads exemplified the rural-urban conflict in Missouri. Urban Progressive elements pushed for a statewide system of hard-surfaced roads with centralized...
Proposed Master Plan
Proposed master plan for Kansas City, Missouri development, including highways, thoroughfares, neighborhood boundaries, residential areas, business & commerial areas, railroad and industrial areas, public...
Prairie Village, Kansas
File contains photos, maps, illustrations, and information on the city of Prairie Village, Kansas located in 1950 between 67th, 75th, Nall, and Mission Roads in Johnson County, Kansas with adjacent business...
Topographical map of areas of New Madrid and Pemiscot counties in Missouri and Lake County in Tennessee, including the town of Portageville, Missouri, and a segment of the Mississippi River. Also included...
Pleasant Hill Quadrangle
1954 (1975 revision)
Topographical map of an area of northeast Cass County, Missouri and southeast Jackson County, Missouri. The town of Pleasant Hill, Missouri is featured, as well as Harrisonville City Lake, Lake Winnebago,...
Topographical map of part of Clinton County, Missouri, including the towns of Lathrop and Plattsburg. Also depicted are roads of varying grades, railroads, schools, churches, and cemeteries.
Platte Purchase Route
Article about the history of the Platte Purchase route, a "Historic Highway from Kansas City to St. Joseph through Platte County" and Buchanan County, Missouri, starting as an Indian trail and becoming...
Platte County, Missouri
Land ownership map of Platte County, Missouri, showing U.S. highways, state highways, roads (paved, gravel, and graded), railroads, political township boundaries, civil township lines, schools, churches,...
Platte County Surburban Street Map
Map of Platte County, Missouri, including a street index as well as roads, schools, parks, etc.
Platte Co., Missouri
Map of Platte County showing roads, railroads, towns, airports, township lines, streams, and schools. Includes list of county officials.
Platte City Quadrangle
Detailed topographical map of an area west and north of Kansas City, in Platte County, Missouri. Beverly, Platte City, Farley and East Leavenworth are the towns indicated. Some of the bodies of water in...
Plank Roads in Missouri
Article contains information on the development and use of plank roads for transportation in Missouri during part of the nineteenth century. "Beginning in 1849, and running through the administrations...
Plank Roads and Corduroy Trails: The Farmer's Railroads
Article about the development of state roads in Missouri up to the Civil War, including such types of road material as timber (corduroy trails), wooden planks (plank roads), and eventually gravel and macadam,...
Plan of the Town of Newton in 1700
Diagram of the town of Newton, Massachusetts, showing plat ownership by early settlers. Roads, ponds, meadows, and the Charles River are in evidence.
Topographical map of areas of Reynolds, Carter, and Wayne counties in Missouri, including the town of Piedmont and segments of the Black and St. Francis rivers. Also depicted are roads of varying grades,...
Picturesque Kansas City "Family Garden" That Passed Out with the Adoption of the Prohibition Amendment
Illustration and text of the mansion and adjoining "wine garden" of the Muehlebach family at 41st and State Line Roads.
Phillips 66 Service Station
View of the Phillips 66 station located at the intersection of Gregory and Wornall Roads. Phillips Oil and the J. C. Nichols Company received an award for their design of this site.
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Creating and Using Rubrics
Rubrics are a new tool in Blackboard 9.1SP7. This tool will let you set up a grid composed of rows of evaluation criteria and columns of evaluation categories. You can create as many rubrics as you wish, and assign them to any gradable item in Blackboard, such as assignments, graded blogs and wikis, graded discussion forums, etc. You can elect to make the rubrics visible to students or not. Once assigned to a gradable item, you can use the rubric in the grading. For instance, in grading an assignment, you can grade directly in the rubric, assigning points or percentages and providing feedback for each cell in the rubric. You also have the option of making the graded rubric available to students. Here is an example:
Creating a Rubric
From Course Tools under Control Panel, choose Rubrics.
Name the rubric, and type a description, if desired.
Now edit the default rubric to your specifications.
Editing the Rubric
1. Click Add Row to add a new criterion, or Add Column to add a new achievement level
2. Choose a Rubric type from the drop-down list:
No Points: Feedback only
Points: Single point value for each Level of Achievement.
Point Range: Range of values for each Level of Achievement
Percent: Flexible depending on each assignment's possible points
Percent Range: Range of values for each Level of Achievement.
3. Click Edit from a label's contextual menu to change the name
4. Type a point or percentage value for each row.
5. Type a description defining the criteria and the associated level of achievement.
6. Click Submit.
Each cell has a 1000-character limit. You can reorder rows and columns by clicking the reordering functions located above the labels
Once a rubric is used for grading, you cannot edit it. You can copy the rubric to create a duplicate that you can edit. | <urn:uuid:2bc8fae1-01b3-407f-88aa-03d889a07fee> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.rochester.edu/blackboard/rubrics.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00003-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.835481 | 411 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Snow and ice can actually have an insulating affect on woody trees and shrubs, keeping them at an even temperature during cold periods. But they are likely to suffer during suddenly dry, cold weather. Plants listed as USDA zone 9 or higher should always be protected from the cold and may need their trunks or limbs wrapped.
The toughest scenario for our plants is when they begin to develop buds and flowers in early spring, and are then hit with a hard frost. Then there is little that can be done other than focus on the overall health of the plant. I wait to prune away winter damage until the weather is consistently warm as pruning a stressed plant can subject it to infections or push it over the edge.
Most of us expect some plant loss over the winter, but if the losses are greater than the wins, it might pay to replace lost plants with those better suited to our temperate, temperamental climate.
A well-planned garden, filled with hardy plants and plenty of natives, will fare much better during a cold winter than one filled with fancy exotics.
Marci Degman writes and gardens in western Washington County. She has a garden blog at theaspiringgardener.blogspot.com and is available for individual gardening questions. | <urn:uuid:d83bf951-e3e1-4fd9-a188-4c9cf7b8154a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.oregonlive.com/hillsboro/index.ssf/2013/01/whatever_winter_throws_at_the.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00154-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964776 | 257 | 2.859375 | 3 |
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
(2000, June 20). Civil Rights and Labor Institute at JSU Extends Invite to Public. The Clarion-Ledger
(2001, July 11). Gap in Perceptions of Racism Growing. The Times-Picayune
"The Hands that Picked Cotton"
"The Hands that Picked Cotton #2
150 Negro Youths Arrested in Albany
A Brief Chronology of the Southern Civil Rights Movement
Advanced Ideas about Democracy. "Rediscovering Humanity's Great Lessons at Home"
Africa for Africans: Pan-Africanism and Black Populism, 1918- 1930
Agents of Change: A Handbook for Student Labor Activists
Ain't I A Woman, Chapter 1- Jezebel and Mammy: The Mythology of Female Slavery.
Albany Movement Time Line: October- December 1961
Alexander Bloom and Wini Breines – Takin' It To The Streets: A Sixties Reader; Black Nationalism and Black Pride
Ally Mack, Mary Delores Coleman, and Leslie B. McLemore, Current Trends in Black Politics: Prospects and Problems.
An Ex Gang Member Went to Harvard (June 1, 1998). Newsweek
Ann Braden, Lessons From a History of Struggle.
Beyond the Melting Pot: Building the Rainbow Coalition
Bishop Storey, (28 September 2001).South Africa.
Black History of the Albany Area
Black Politics/ Social Movements: American Politics, Selected Bibliography
Black Politics/ Social Movements: American Politics, Selected Bibliography2
Black Turnout in the 1984 and 1988 Presidential Primaries and Elections
Black Workers Remember. Introduction: Segregation, Racial Violence, and Black Workers.
Carol Mueller, Ella Baker and the Origins of Participatory Democracy: Women in the Civil Rights Movement, Trailblazers and Torchbearers
Carroll Van West, et al – Tennessee Historical Quarterly; Spring 1999,
Chana Kai Lee – "Black Woman Leader" For Freedom's Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer
Chapter 4 "Black Power, Ballot Power."
Chapter 7. "Judge Lynch's Court"
Charles Payne, Men Led, But Women Organized: Movement Participation of Women in the Mississippi Delta
Cheryl Zarleng Kerchis and Iris Marion Young, "Education: Does Multi-Culturalism Equal Diversity? "Affirmative Action and the Myth of Merit"
Chronology of the Jackson Movement
Clarion Ledger: Civil Rights, Labor Topics of Local Conference
Clarion Ledger: Metro/ State; Monday, June 16, 2003; "Memorial set for three slain rights workers"
Clarion Ledger: Beloved Civil Rights Leader Dies – AME Logan
Clarion Ledger: Conference reveals need for mentors
Clarion Ledger: Former Stokely Carmichael Dies
Congressional Records; "In Defense of Prince Edward County of Virginia: Speech of Hon. Harry Flood Byrd"
David Barclas and Ron Wakabayash, Hate Crime and the Business Community
David Barclay – The Diversity Factor (Summer 1998) "The Assault on Affirmative Action"
David Barclay, "Allies or Enemies? Affirmative Action and Managing Diversity"
David Roediger – "Race and Languages of Class from the Revolution to the Civil War
Democracy, Diversity, and Voice Project Advisory Board Inaugural Meeting, September 26-27, 2002
Dixie Rising. Chapter 3- Selma, Alabama, "Crossing the Bridge, Calling the Roll, Keeping the Faith, Thirty Years On."
Documents of American Constitutional and Legal History. "Prigg v. Pennsylvania", "Dred Scott v. Sanford" , "The Constitution of the Confederate States of America" (1861)
Donna Langston – "The Women of Highlander" Women in the Civil Rights Movement Trailblazers and Torchbearers
Dr. Leslie Burl McLemore – Toward a Theory of Black Politics- The Black and Ethnic Models Revisited
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – "Letter from the Birmingham Jail"
Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) Majority Opinion
Earnest N. Bracey, The Miseducation of the American Mind: Alan Bloom Revisited
Epilogue:"What Would Walter Do?"
Eric Foner, "The Making of Radical Reconstruction"
Ernest Gaines Newspaper Articles
Eyes on the Prize
Fannie Lou Hamer Wouldn't Like This: LA Times Commentary, March 29, 2001
First Slave Code (VA) 1704 or 1705
Floyd W. Hayes – The Turbulent Voyage: Readings in African American Studies
Former Stokely Carmichael Dead at 57
Frederick Douglass – The Meaning of the Fourth of July for the Negro
Frederick Douglass, "Our Elevation as a Race, Is Almost Wholly Dependent Upon Our Own Exertions"
Frederick Douglass, Learning to Read and Growing in Knowledge
From the Melting Pot to the Boiling Cauldron: The 1960's Revisited
Gerda Lerner, Black Women in Which America Documentary History; April 12, 2001
Guinier – "Groups, Representation and Race Conscious Districting" P 119-156
Gwendolyn Bennett, African American Identity- Who Am I?
Howard Ball, "Born into Racism and Segregation in America"
Joanne Grant, Ella Baker: Freedom Bound
John Barnard, Auto Workers Before the Union: Walter Reuter and the Rise of the UAW
John Dittmer, Local People; Chapter 3- The Magnolia Jungle, Chapter 4- Toward a New Beginning
John Dittmer, Organizing Mississippi, Local People; Chapter 8
John Gaventa, Barbara Ellen Smith, Alex Willingham, "Communities in Economic Crisis: Appalachia & the South", Chapter 11. Race Development and the Character of Black Political Life in Bogalusa, Louisiana. Rickey Hill
Joseph Daniel Pope, To The Freed People of the Orangeburg District, (1865, June 29)
Joseph P. Lash – Eleanor Roosevelt, Wise as a Serpent, Guileless as a Dove; Chapter 10
Klansman Stage Albany, GA Rally
Lawrence Leamer – Robert Byrd and Edward Kennedy: Two Stories of the Senate
Leslie Burl McLemore – The Electorate at the polls in the 1990's; Chapter 3
Leslie McLemore, "Getting Out the Vote in Mississippi"
Looking Inward. Chapter 11. "Breaking New Ground."
Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association. "Negro Leadership and Program in Louisiana Constitutional Convention of 1868." Charles Vincent.
Lucius J. Barker, Mack H. Jones, Katherine Tate – African Americans and the American Political System
Mamie E. Locke, "Is This America? Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Democratic Party"
Manning Marable – "The Demand for Reform: 1954-1960"
Melvin Dubofsky – "Workers, Industry, and Society, 1865- 1920" Industrialism and the American Worker
Michael J. Sandel – America's Search for a New Public Philosophy; The Atlantic Monthly
Michael K. Honey, Labor and Civil Rights, "Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights: Organizing Memphis Workers
Michael Novick, "White Lies, White Power: The Fight Against White Supremacy and Reactionary Violence"
Michelle D. Deardorff, Ida B. Wells-Barnett: Racial Violence and Economic Sufficiency
Mississippi Delta Planters and Debates over Mechanization, Labor, and Civil Rights in the 1940's
Neil McMillen – Dark Journey. "The Gathering Challenge"
Nell Irvin Painter, Exoclusters: Black Migration to Kansas After Reconstruction. Chapter 15. "The Kansas Fever Exodus of 1879."
One Mississippi Negro Who Didn't Go To College
Patience on a Movement; The Emancipation of the Negro; The Ignorant Vote- Honors are Easy Colored Rule in the Reconstructed South
Paul Cuffe Calls for the Uplift of America
Paul Finkelman, Introduction: The Dred Scott Case, Slavery, and the Politics of Law
Peter Kolchin, "Antebellum Slavery: Slave Life"
Race and Class in the American South Since 1890. "The Legal Basis of Agrarian Capitalism: The South Since 1933." (Pete Daniel) Melvyn Stokes and Rick Halpern
Richard Wright, Uncle Tom's Children
Rick Bragg, Witnesses Say Ex-Klansman Boasted of Church Bombing
Ronald Hollander: One Mississippi Negro Who Didnt Go to College
Sandra B. Oldendorf – "The South Carolina Sea Island Citizenship Schools, 1957-1961"
Sasha Abramsky – When They Get Out
Seven Rules for Effective History Teaching or Bringing Life to the History Class
Songs Become a Weapon in Rights Battle
Souls of Black Folk, Defines Timelessness
Southern Exposure. Summer 1980 Volume 3, Number 2; Studs Terkel Interviews C.P. Ellis: Why I Quit the Klan
Sovereignty Commission Agency History
Studs Terkel - Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression
Terror in the Night: The Klan's Campaign Against the Jews
The Albany Cases: The Albany Story
The Black Vote in 1984 and 1988
The Constitution of the United States of America
The Constitution of the United States of America
The Constitution: Text and Context. "The Declaration of Independence- 1776 In Congress, July 1776."_____ "The Articles of Confederation- 1781"
The Electorate at the Polls in the 1990's
The Emergent Mobilization of the Black Community in the Jackson Campaign for President
The Eyes on the Prize; Civil Right Reader
The Fannie Lou Hamer Standard: "Measuring Campaign Finance Reform"
The Iron of Democracy
The Nature of the Problem
The Nature of the System
The Student Voice: Churches Burned, Nightriders Attack SNCC Staff in Southwest Georgia Voter Registration Drive
The Terrain of Freedom: Correspondence regarding the Freed People
Whither the Rainbow Coalition? Chapter 1
Whither the Rainbow Coalition? Chapter 3
Why We Can't Wait: Chapter 4- The Sword that Heals, Chapter 8- Bull Connor's Birmingham
William Bigelow and Norman Diamond – The Power in Our Hand
William Bradford Huie – "Approved Killings in Mississippi"
William H. Harris – "A. Phillip Randolph, Black Voters and the Labor Movement"
William M. Tuttle, Jr. – Race Riot: Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919. "Going to Canaan."
William Tuttle Jr. – Going to Caanan, Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919 | <urn:uuid:3c57aeb9-3cd4-4b3c-84ce-1379d1f372fe> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.jsums.edu/hamerinstitute/resources/hamer-inistitute-suggested-reading-list/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00049-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.767802 | 2,275 | 2.921875 | 3 |
The conversion factors from cups to quarts conversions are listed below. To find out how many quarts in cups, multiply by the conversion factors or simply use the converter below.
1 Cup [US] = 0.25 (1/4) Quart [Fluid, US]
1 Cup [US] = 0.21484175 Quart [Dry, US]
1 Cup [Metric] = 0.22 Quart [UK]
Cup is a volume unit and used mostly in cooking to measure liquid and bulk, dry foods. There is no international standard for the sizes but mostly united states customary and metric cups are used and they are different in sizes.
Quart is an imperial and U.S. customary unit. There is one type of quart in imperial system and 2 types (liquid and dry) in united states customary system. It is widely used in daily life and approximately it equals to a liter (litre). The abbreviation is "qt".
For quarts to cups converter, please go to quarts to cups
For other volume unit conversions
, please go to Volume Conversion | <urn:uuid:7f595afd-5db4-420c-81e5-14234be030c7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.asknumbers.com/CupsToQuartsConversion.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00191-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920101 | 228 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Joining the growing list of places on this planet that are melting, Antarctica is losing about 36 cubic miles (150 cubic kilometers) of ice every year, scientists reported Thursday.
For comparison, Los Angeles consumes roughly 1 cubic mile of fresh water a year.
The south polar region holds 90 percent of Earth’s ice and 70 percent of the total fresh water on the planet, so any significant pace of melting there is important and could contribute to an already rising sea.
"This is the first study to indicate the total mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet is in significant decline," said Isabella Velicogna of the University of Colorado at Boulder.
The study — based on satellite measurements made by NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE — was detailed Thursday in the online version of the journal Science.
For now, the newly measured melting might seem like a small quantity. The loss of ice in Antarctica amounts to about 0.4 millimeters of global sea rise annually, with a margin of error of 0.2 millimeters, the study concludes. There are about 25 millimeters in an inch.
However, computer models run in 2001 predicted that Antarctica would gain ice during the 21st century due to increased precipitation in a warming climate. The new study, based on satellite measurements between 2002 and 2005, shows the opposite.
Antarctica is twice as large as Australia. The ice sheet, which covers about 98 percent of the continent, has an average thickness of about 6,500 feet — more than a mile.
© 2012 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:f659c7b2-8ada-4815-9c4b-b21ff2717b8c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nbcnews.com/id/11640662/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/new-satellite-data-show-antarctic-ice-loss/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404382.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00125-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943741 | 326 | 3.5625 | 4 |
According to the law, treason is the crime that covers acts against one’s own government, and it is one of the most egregious violations a citizen can commit. In a normal act of treason, an individual would have to have access to state secrets, or a high level member of the government, and even then there are security measures to prevent the dissemination of information that could damage the government. The U.S. Constitution contains a passive provision to protect against traitors within the government that entails requiring public servants and politicians to swear an oath to support the Constitution and by extension, the government, but most Republicans signed a pledge they feel overrides their oath of office with the goal of destroying the government by starving it of revenue.
For over a quarter of a century there has been a concerted effort by Republicans to shrink the federal government by reducing revenue and protecting the richest 2% of Americans, but their leader, Grover Norquist, makes no bones that his goal is reducing government to a size he can “drown in a bathtub.” Regardless one’s definition of treason, Norquist and his Republican acolytes are guilty of acting against the government with the goal of destroying it. Norquist is not a public servant and therefore cannot personally affect government operations, but his Republican foot soldiers are guilty of treason by refusing to fulfill their Constitutional duty to raise taxes. In the U.S. Constitution, Article 1 Section 8 says, “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States
keyboard shortcuts: V vote up article J next comment K previous comment | <urn:uuid:76d9475e-60f9-47bd-a6be-769f540e7ec6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://easyjjgrand3.newsvine.com/_news/2012/11/25/15430137-america-must-we-prosecute-grover-norquist-and-his-gop-acolytes-for-treason | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397842.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00138-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971981 | 349 | 3.421875 | 3 |
The foundations of the University are evident in President John C. Kilgo's Report to the Trustees in 1900. The well-documented move of Trinity College to Durham includes an understanding of the hard times caused by the dramatic change and unexpected national economic depression of 1893. How quickly the college rebounded and fulfilled the high expectations of the move is less well understood. President Kilgo devoted his annual report to the Board of Trustees in 1900 to a retrospective view of the development of the college during the 1890s. His report is a most interesting document in the history of Duke University.
Kilgo began by characterizing previous President John F. Crowell's administration as "a reformation under adverse circumstances" but "a signal success." He noted that Trinity's transformation of place and spirit helped reform Southern higher education. He was thankful for such a foundation when he became president in September, 1894.
By the turn of the century the physical changes were dramatic and easily observable. The number of buildings increased from 10 to 20 with those devoted to teaching purposes increasing from 2 to 11. Every addition was a cause for pride. The Scientific Building had 8 new labs, (4 in physics, 3 in chemistry and 1 in biology), with $13,000 worth of carefully selected apparatus. A gymnasium was added to support a physical education program for the expressed purpose of the total development of all students. Kilgo also noted the great amount of effort and expenditure in grading, paving and beautifying the ever increasing campus grounds. In total, the valuation of the buildings increased from $200,000 in 1895 to $725,000 in 1900. Almost single-handedly, Washington Duke's donations increased endowment from $22,500 to $333,750, possibly the second largest endowment of a private Southern college.
A new library, under construction in 1900, met the greatest need. In Randolph County, President Crowell took the significant step of merging the libraries of rival literary societies into a single college collection. In Durham, John Spencer Bassett, Professor of History and Manager of the Library, led the faculty in making the library the center of all academic activity. President Kilgo, believing the library to be the "one measure of the future development of the college," persuaded James B. Duke to make his first donation to Trinity a library building plus $10,000 for books. Even though the current holdings were only 15,000 books, the new library was constructed with a capacity of 100,000 volumes. Within eight years Trinity clearly emerged as one of the regions outstanding colleges in physical plant and endowment.
Kilgo knew the reputation of the college rested upon the quality of students and faculty. One of the most significant initiatives was to radically increase entrance requirements and remove college preparatory instruction from the responsibility of Trinity's faculty. Consequently, a secondary preparatory school, Trinity Park School, was opened on the northwest corner of the campus. This risky move resulted in a drop in college enrollment but it clearly established high academic standards. It also greatly increased the percentage of college matriculants who graduated. Of great importance, it positioned Trinity College as a leader in formulating standards for accreditation in both secondary and higher education. It was clear that Trinity's commitment to quality was not mere lip service when it became a founding member of the Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools of the Southern States.
When Kilgo became president, the faculty numbered nine. By 1900 there were 29 faculty, 23 in the college and 6 in the preparatory school. Their training came from 15 different schools as varied as Tulane, the U.S. Naval Academy, Harvard, Cornell, Kansas, Johns Hopkins, and Leipzig. Neither did the faculty have a desire to retreat to an ivory tower. Trinity Faculty Lecture Series were begun in Charlotte, N. C. and in Saint Josephs African Methodist Episcopal Church in Durham. Kilgo, himself, had spoken on education in 69 of the 97 counties in the state by 1900.
Trinity also eliminated the undergraduate Ph.B. degree, believing it to be substandard. In graduate work residency and specific course requirements were added to upgrade the MA degree. Graduate enrollment increased from 1 to 18, prompting Kilgo to say "no other single change in the college promises better results."
In conclusion, Kilgo noted that there was no more gratifying indication of the spirit of the college than that over six years 25 per cent of the graduates were enrolled in or arranging additional education. By vocation, the graduates during his tenure to date numbered 34 teachers, 23 preachers, 15 businessmen, 10 graduate students, 7 doctors, 7 lawyers, 2 electrical engineers, 2 farmers, and 1 each in architecture, manufacturing and government employment.
Kilgo believed the character and spirit of the college to be grounded in individual personal faith, a strong belief in freedom, service to mankind, high standards, and loyalty. These ideals represented the fruition of the labors of Braxton Craven and John F. Crowell, and the foundation of future decisions by William P. Few and his successors. By 1900, even before the famous Bassett Affair affirming academic freedom, a clear foundation was set for later milestones such as Rhodes Scholars, a Phi Beta Kappa chapter, and even university status. | <urn:uuid:9411fa4c-ab58-4fdf-8404-90b30dabaea0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/uarchives/history/articles/trinity1900 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395992.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00127-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972144 | 1,075 | 2.78125 | 3 |
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I have a special education student that is on the third grade level in math. I am trying to show her how to round off numbers. I have told her that if the second number is five or more to round up, and if it is less than five to round down. I have used blocks for her to make groups of tens, saying if she has 5 or more I give her the blocks, if she has less than 5 I get the blocks, then have her count the blocks. She was able to do it with the blocks, but then she couldn't do it when it came time to putting the answers on paper. Does anyone have an idea what else I can do with her? She is becoming frustrated and I don't want that to happen. Thanks!
Math Forum Home || The Math Library || Quick Reference || Math Forum Search | <urn:uuid:d634f7d2-81f3-426c-8a3e-e2aff7a78530> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mathforum.org/t2t/message.taco?thread=1234&message=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00065-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97744 | 200 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Posted by alex on Sunday, July 22, 2012 at 5:13pm.
8. What is the opportunity cost for America to make 1 bulldozer instead of cars? A) 1 car B) 2 cars C) 1/2 car
9. What is the opportunity cost for Japan to make 1 bulldozer instead ofcars? A) 1 car B) 1/3 car C) 3 cars
10. Which country has the lower opportunity cost in making bulldozers? A) Japan B) America C) neither
11. Who has the absolute advantage in making cars? A) Japan B) America C) neither
12. What is the opportunity cost for Japan making 1 car? A) 1 bulldozer B) 3 bulldozers C) 1/3 of a bulldozer
13. Who has the comparative advantage in making bulldozers? A) Japan B) America C) neither
i think 8)b 9)c 10)b 11)a 12)c 13) not sure but i think its C actually, not B.
Did i get them right??
- social studies - Anonymous, Sunday, June 28, 2015 at 8:01pm
- social studies - annumous, Tuesday, July 21, 2015 at 3:19pm
are these right?
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- social studies - improved technology in the production of small cars often ... | <urn:uuid:0301221b-652c-4c66-b73e-4324725328c3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.jiskha.com/display.cgi?id=1342991628 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00091-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913345 | 481 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Storms and other natural disaster can be especially scary for kids; news coverage can be especially scary as images of destruction appear without context or explanation. Even if you don’t live in an affected area, what your children see can still be frightening. PBS Parents offers age-appropriate insights into helping children deal with scary news, how to talk to them about their fears, and how to explain what’s happening in ways that kids can understand: http://www.pbs.org/parents/talkingwithkids/news/
On today’s episode of Sesame Street, the neighborhood is working together to clean up and in the aftermath of a hurricane. When Big Bird checks on his home, he is heartbroken to find that the storm has destroyed his nest. Big Bird’s friends and neighbors gather to show their support and let him know they can fix his home, but it will take time. While everyone on Sesame Street spends the next few days cleaning up and making repairs, Big Bird still has moments where he is sad, angry, and confused. You can see the full episode on WPT at 9am or view it online at www.sesamestreet.org/hurricane. The website has tips, activities, and videos that can help kids feel safe, cope with emotions, and understand that there is hope for the future.
If your children have grown out of watching Sesame Street, the CyberChase “Storm Dodger” game helps kids understand that storms follow paths and a storm’s speed and direction can be tracked to help people make plans. Check it out here: http://www.pbs.org/parents/cyberchase/activities/storm-dodger-game/ | <urn:uuid:28ea3908-dcd9-432b-bcfc-39d344c41a9f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://wpt.org/education_and_parents/picking-after-storm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396222.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00186-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957537 | 360 | 3.921875 | 4 |
Even a cancer diagnosis is often not enough to make smokers to quit, according to new research.
Nearly 10 percent of cancer survivors reported smoking years after the diagnosis, according to the American Cancer Society. That number was even higher for those smokers who’d survived bladder and lung cancer, which are strongly associated with smoking.
Studies have shown that about 30 percent of smokers diagnosed with cancer quit, but many don’t in the immediate aftermath. Research of survivors over a longer period has not been done.
The survivors described in the research were not occasional smokers. Eighty-three percent reported smoking nearly 15 cigarettes a day.
Smoking can lessen the effects of cancer treatments, place a patient at greater risk for recurrence and shorten survival time.
For the study, Lee Westmaas, the director of the American Cancer Society’s Tobacco Control Research, Behavioral Research Center and lead author of the paper, examined survey responses of 2,938 patients from the American Cancer Society’s Study of Cancer Survivors nine years after they were diagnosed with cancer.
Several factors increased the likelihood that a cancer survivor would keep smoking. Those who were younger, less educated, with lower incomes and greater alcohol consumption were more likely to smoke, researchers found.
Forty percent of the smokers interviewed said they were planning to quit within a month, but that rate fell if the survivor was married, older or was a heavier smoker, researchers said.
Westmaas said that while healthcare providers want to help cancer survivors quit, “the delivery of cessation advice or asking them if they’re still smoking is not at the levels we want.”
He added that many cancer patients who were still smoking don’t know about free resources that can help them quit. Also, he said, they may not know about effective medications that can increase the odds of kicking the habit.
Among smokers in general, the American Cancer Society estimates that only between four and seven percent are able to successfully stop smoking without medicines or psychological support. Those who used a medication were able to quit successfully for over 6 months at a 25 percent rate. Counseling can further boost those numbers.
Smoking is a “pretty hard habit to break,” said Westmaas.
“I think it points to the addictiveness [of tobacco] that many who were still smoking, were smoking at high rates. Smoking at that level makes it difficult to quit."
Westmaas said that with cancer patients there could be additional hurdles to quitting, including anxiety, depression and physical pain.
“We need to continue to ask survivors about their smoking,” he said. “And make sure they know about and can access treatment.”
The research appeared in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). | <urn:uuid:dd003162-c73c-4d97-a5bd-275f7a6665b7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.voanews.com/content/many-cancer-survivors-continue-to-smoke/1973143.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396872.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00191-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974468 | 588 | 2.84375 | 3 |
This book was originally published in 1981 and the theme of universals attracted a great deal of attention in the decade preceding publication. Psychologists and linguists in particular attempted to identify substantive universals that underlie the social diversity across cultures, which anthropologists and others documented. The contributors to this volume all focus on the relevant data in Africa to explain and test the major questions at issue. The book is divided into three main sections, dealing respectively with perception, cognitive development and language. There is also a general Review and Prospectus by Jerome Bruner, and a wide-ranging introduction to the philosophical background by Ernst Gellner. The volume will be of particular interest to cross-cultural psychologists, linguists, Africanists and anthropologists.
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Rent Universals of Human Thought 1st edition today, or search our site for other textbooks by Barbara Lloyd. Every textbook comes with a 21-day "Any Reason" guarantee. Published by Cambridge University Press.
Need help ASAP? We have you covered with 24/7 instant online tutoring. Connect with one of our tutors now. | <urn:uuid:810cba60-0b24-42f8-b910-9099cc1f4645> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.chegg.com/textbooks/universals-of-human-thought-1st-edition-9780521298186-0521298180?ii=8&trackid=4b8d9ef0&omre_ir=1&omre_sp= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00118-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924364 | 223 | 2.984375 | 3 |
The combination of high temperatures, low humidity, and warm breezes create a recipe for the increased risk of Brush and Forest Fires. Wildfires often begin unnoticed, but spread quickly, igniting brush, trees and homes. There are three different classes of wild fires. A ‘surface fire’ is the most common type, burning along the forest floor, moving slowly and killing or damaging trees. A ‘ground fire’, usually started by lightning, burns on or below the forest floor. ‘Crown fires’ spread rapidly by the wind, moving quickly by jumping along the treetops. Because 80% of forest fires are started by negligent human behavior, such as smoking in forested areas or improperly extinguishing campfires most are preventable.
The Public is urged to obey all burning regulations set in place by Public Safety Officials.
Before a Forest Fire:
- Keep lawns trimmed, leaves raked.
- Roof and rain gutters should be debris-free to prevent burning embers from a wildfire igniting your home.
- Compost or chip vegetative debris piles.
- Stack firewood at least 30′ away from structures.
- Store flammable materials, liquids and solvents in metal containers outside the home, at least 30′ away from structures and wooden fences.
- Make sure water sources, such as hydrants, ponds, swimming pools and wells are accessible for fire suppression.
- Check the spark arresters on your combustible engines in equipment, such as lawn mowers, ATVs, dirt bikes and chainsaws.
- Use fire resistant, protective roofing and materials like stone, brick and metal to protect your home.
- Install multi-pane windows, tempered safety glass or fireproof shutters to protect large windows from radiant heat.
- Have chimneys, wood stoves and all home heating systems inspected and cleaned annually by a certified specialist.
- Remove branches hanging above and around chimneys.
- Create at least a 10′ clearing around an incinerator before burning debris.
- Have a fire extinguisher or garden hose on hand when burning debris.
- Install freeze-proof exterior water outlets on at least two sides of the home and near other structures on the property. Install additional outlets at least 50 feet from the home.
- Consider obtaining a portable gasoline powered pump in case electrical power is cut off.
During a Forest Fire:
If advised to evacuate, do so immediately. Take your disaster supply kit, lock your home and choose a route away from the fire hazard. Watch for changes in the speed and direction of the fire and smoke. Tell someone when you left and where you are going.
If you see a wildfire and haven’t received evacuation orders yet, call 9-1-1.
If you are not ordered to evacuate, and have time to prepare your home, FEMA recommends you take the following actions:
- Shut off gas at the meter and turn off pilot lights.
- Open fireplace damper, closing the fireplace screen.
- Close windows, vents, doors, blinds, or non-combustible window coverings and heavy drapes, removing flammable drapes and curtains.
- Move flammable furniture into the center of the home, away from windows and sliding-glass doors.
- Close all interior doors and windows to prevent drafts.
- Place valuables that will not be damaged by water into a pool or pond.
- Gather your pets into one room, making plans to care for your pets if you must evacuate. (See Evacuation)
- Back your car into the garage or park it in an open space facing the direction of escape. Shut doors and roll up windows. Leave the keys in the ignition and the car doors unlocked. Close garage windows and doors, but leave them unlocked.
- Disconnect automatic garage door openers.
- Place combustible patio/yard furniture indoors.
- Connect garden hose to outside taps. Place lawn sprinklers on the roof and near aboveground fuel tanks. Wet your roof.
- Wet or remove shrubs within 15′ of the house.
- Gather fire-fighting tools such as a rake, axe, handsaw or chainsaw, bucket and shovel.
- If advised to evacuate, do so immediately.
After a Forest Fire:
- Go to a designated public shelter if you have been told to evacuate.
- If you are with burn victims, or are a burn victim yourself, call 9-1-1 or seek help immediately; cool and cover burns to reduce chance of further injury or infection.
- If you remained at home, check the roof immediately after the fire danger has passed. Put out any roof fires, sparks or embers.
- If you have evacuated, do not enter your home until fire officials say it is safe.
- Use caution when entering burned areas as hazards may still exist, including hot spots, which can flare up without warning.
- If you detect heat or smoke when entering a damaged building, evacuate immediately.
- If you have a safe or strong box, do not try to open it. It can hold intense heat for several hours.
- Avoid damaged or fallen power lines, poles and downed wires.
- Watch for ash pits and mark them for safety—warn family and neighbors to keep clear of the pits also.
- Watch animals closely and keep them under your direct control. Hidden embers and hot spots could burn your pets’ paws or hooves.
- Follow public health guidance on safe cleanup of fire ash and safe use of masks.
- Wet debris down to minimize breathing dust particles.
- Wear leather gloves and heavy soled shoes to protect hands and feet.
- Cleaning products, paint, batteries and damaged fuel containers need to be disposed of properly to avoid risk.
- Discard any food that has been exposed to heat, smoke or soot.
- Do NOT use water that you think may be contaminated to wash dishes, brush teeth, prepare food, wash hands, make ice or make baby formula.
- Remain calm. Pace yourself. You may find yourself in the position of taking charge of other people. Listen carefully to what people are telling you, and deal patiently with urgent situations first. | <urn:uuid:bc48d026-a013-4446-a08d-605c529093ad> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://westernmassready.org/stay-informed/possible-disasters-in-ma/forest-fires/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00094-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904541 | 1,300 | 4.03125 | 4 |
Adobe Illustrator vs Adobe Photoshop
There are a wide number of Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop tutorials available on the internet; however it becomes more important to understand the utility of both softwares. Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop as the names suggest are both softwares to help with the creativity process of pictures. However, both do not exactly serve the same purpose though functions may overlap in the two. A layman can be explained in easy terms that an Adobe illustrator is software via which users can create a new image for themselves whereas the Photoshop is a software used to manipulate the settings of a picture and enhance it.
Adobe illustrator is a Graphic artist’s best friend. The features present on Adobe illustrator help an artist achieve very professional heights with their creations as the Illustrator allows the users to input mathematical calculations to provide a scale for the design they are making. In the case where such a design is zoomed into, the design will not lose its pixels. Adobe illustrator is available easily on the internet compared to the other professional softwares available that cost a lot. Adobe illustrator is rightly known as the vector based drawing program.
Adobe Photoshop is a very handy software by Adobe and has the facility to enhance images. The Photoshop has drawing tools and image settings that help the user make pictures better such as red eye removal from photos that have that problem. Like mentioned, there are drawing tools available on Photoshop however, this function is a very basic application in this software and not very professional use. Even if pictures are taken from a VGA camera from a very basic phone, the enhancement options present in Photoshop allow work that can turn the picture to look like photos from a digital camera.
Difference between Adobe illustrator and Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop has overlapping features with the Illustrator; however, the facilities present on Photoshop are not as complex and intricate as on the Illustrator. The illustrator uses vector based diagrams that uses mathematical calculations, however, the drawing tools in Photoshop do not go into such details. In, Photoshop a user betters their already illustrated pictures or diagram, however, Adobe illustrator gives the user a drawing board to create a completely new design.
There are tutorials present over the internet to learn both Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. There is however, a problem where most tutorials for Adobe Photoshop would not cover the drawing facilities available in Photoshop. For this reason, the user should have a little understanding of Adobe illustrator also.
Both creations by Adobe are providing great benefits to all types of users. There are a few who would rather tweak-up their own pictures than hand it to a professional for some air brushing and making the pictures look good. Adobe Photoshop comes handy here. The illustrator with its professional application is good for people interested in designing logos and digital art from scratch. | <urn:uuid:52c72f53-1797-4480-9a7b-9be7c412d2a8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-adobe-illustrator-and-adobe-photoshop/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00121-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954126 | 574 | 2.5625 | 3 |
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Learning how to use chopsticks is something that many people aspire to but never get around to accomplishing. Still, mastering chopsticks can make eating Chinese, Thai, or other types of Asian cuisine more of an experience. Many people make the process of learning to use chopsticks more difficult than it really is. Here are a few tips to help you begin the process of learning to use these essential Asian utensils.
Begin the process by positioning one chopstick in your hand. The stick should be held in between the thumb and index finger. To achieve easy movement, make sure the thumb and index finger are meeting at the crook of the index finger, and the chopstick is pressed in between at roughly the top third of the utensil. The remainder of the stick should rest across the ring finger.
To position the second chopstick, follow a procedure that is similar to holding a pen or pencil. The middle finger serves to support the body of the second stick, while the broad end of the device rests on the tip of the thumb. Make sure you become comfortable with aligning the sticks in your hard. Before you can use chopsticks effectively, this position must become as familiar as holding a fork or spoon.
Once you know how to hold this Asian utensil, it is time to practice how to use chopsticks during a meal. Many people make the mistake of attempting to move both sticks in a manner that is somewhat like working scissors. Instead, hold the first chopstick more or less in position. Use the second chopstick to open and close the space between the sharp ends of the sticks by moving your index and middle finger. To use chopsticks, the tips must touch on either side of the food you wish to consume, effectively pinching the sticks around the food.
When you first begin to use chopsticks, focus on larger chunks of food rather than beginning with dishes such as rice. You will find it is easier to manipulate the chopsticks into position around the pieces of vegetables or bite sized pieces of chicken or beef. As you become more proficient in the process, you can use chopsticks to go after smaller items on your plate.
Far too many people try to use chopsticks and give up in frustration after a few moments. This is especially true if you are in a restaurant and don’t want people to see you struggle with the utensil. Purchase a cheap pair of chopsticks and practice at home. This allows you to learn how to use chopsticks without an audience, and will likely encourage you to keep trying until eating with the sticks becomes second nature.
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:7485705f-031e-412b-8921-01baf6dfb958> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wisegeek.com/how-can-i-use-chopsticks.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394414.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00138-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948082 | 590 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Scientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have a new hypothesis about how the brain processes odors. While they had previously believed in a chemotopic model in which different types of fragrances, such as amines and ketones, were received by clusters of cells next to each other, they found that when different molecules traveled into the brain, their pattern was more random.
This led them to develop a tunotopic model. In this model, glomeruli (receptors on the brain's olfactory bulb) are not designed to differentiate chemical structures of molecules, but rather are tuned to specific smells. They are grouped near other glomeruli with similar tuning capabilities and are able to acquire mutations to register new smells. Essentially, they can work together to distinguish similar smells and identify nuance, and they can also adapt to any of the hundreds of thousands of odors we come across.
C. Ron Yu, who led the study, says that this hypothesis may have implications for visual, auditory and somatosensory processing too. | <urn:uuid:4be6e7b2-2790-4e75-8216-655d2cc7960e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.perfumerflavorist.com/fragrance/research/143319306.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00159-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9755 | 213 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Pluto Reveals More Secrets
MOUNTAIN VIEW – Eight months after its encounter with the New Horizons spacecraft, Pluto continues to surprise the scientists who study this distant world.
Pluto and its largest moon Charon comprise what is essentially a binary planet: two bodies of comparable size orbiting a common center of mass. The four smaller moons – Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra – are thought to have formed at the same time as Charon in the aftermath of a large impact.
Most inner moons in the solar system keep one face pointed toward their central planet; this animation shows that certainly isn’t the case with the small moons of Pluto, which behave like spinning tops. Pluto is shown at center with, in order, from smaller to wider orbit: Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, Hydra.
“Consequently, we expected the small moons to resemble Charon,” says Mark Showalter, Senior Scientist at the SETI Institute. “Instead, we find that their surfaces are much brighter and much older than that of their large sibling.”
In addition, scientists are puzzled by the moons’ unusual rotation characteristics, as they orbit rapidly around axes that are tilted sideways.
“The gravitational tides from Pluto should have slowed down and re-oriented the spins of these moons by now, but they haven’t,” noted Showalter. The New Horizons team speculates that collisions from outside objects might cause the strange rotation of these moons.
New Horizons has revealed surprisingly complex geology on the surfaces of Pluto and Charon. Pluto sports a bright 1,000 km-wide plain, informally called Sputnik Planum, that is filled with volatile nitrogen and carbon monoxide ices. This feature shows no craters, which attests to ongoing geological activity. Beyond the smooth plains, there are ancient cratered terrains that display impacts that Pluto has endured over millions and billions of years. The rims and ridges are frosted with ice.
Sputnik Planum, This high-resolution image captured by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft combines blue, red and infrared images taken by the Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera (MVIC). The bright expanse is the western lobe of the "heart," informally called Sputnik Planum, which has been found to be rich in nitrogen, carbon monoxide and methane ices. Download full size image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
“Among the more puzzling features are the two tall mounds with central depressions that look like volcanoes,” says Ross Beyer, Senior Scientist at the SETI Institute. “Wright Mons is about 2 miles tall and 90 miles wide, and Piccard Mons is even larger, about 3.5 miles tall and 140 miles across. They could be ice volcanoes, but this will take more analysis to establish.”
New Horizons observations have also revolutionized our understanding of Pluto’s atmosphere.
“We were very surprised to observe that Pluto’s atmosphere has a multi-layered bluish haze that extends from the surface to altitudes above 200 km. The upper atmosphere is much colder than expected, which greatly reduces the rate at which it escapes from Pluto. We’ve also measured the surface pressure for the first time – about 11 microbars – and we’ve discovered that the temperature structure of the lower atmosphere varies with location,” says David Hinson, Senior Scientist at the SETI Institute.
Pluto’s partner – Charon – offers its own surprises. Its water-rich icy surface is distinctly red around its northern region; a coloration due to tholin, a molecule produced by ultraviolet irradiation of simpler compounds like methane and ethane. There are patches of ammonia ice evident on Charon as well.
“Unlike Pluto, Charon’s surface is quite old and uniform. It’s covered with water ice with low amounts of ammonia mixed in, and is not as geologically active as Pluto,” says SETI Institute scientist Cristina Dalle Ore.
Charon in Enhanced Color NASA's New Horizons captured this high-resolution enhanced color view of Charon just before closest approach on July 14, 2015. The image combines blue, red and infrared images taken by the spacecraft’s Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera (MVIC); the colors are processed to best highlight the variation of surface properties across Charon. Charon’s color palette is not as diverse as Pluto’s; most striking is the reddish north (top) polar region, informally named Mordor Macula. Charon is 754 miles (1,214 kilometers) across; this image resolves details as small as 1.8 miles (2.9 kilometers). Dowload full size image Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
A March 18 special issue of Science (http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6279?et_rid=49300793&et_cid=34...) features articles on the continuing analysis of Pluto and its satellites. With roughly half of the New Horizons data returned to Earth so far, scientists anticipate more discoveries and a deeper understanding of this dwarf planet system.
About SETI Institute
The SETI Institute is a multi-disciplinary, highly collaborative research organization committed to exploring, understanding, and explaining the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe. It does so with expertise in fields ranging from astrophysics and planetary science to biology and social science, as well as computer science and signal detection. We have a passion not only for discovery, but also for sharing knowledge as scientific ambassadors to the public, the press, and government. The SETI Institute is a distinguished partner for government agencies, academic institutions, and corporations around the world. | <urn:uuid:d87d24bd-d964-4057-9a39-e0860066eae3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.seti.org/seti-institute/press-release/pluto-reveals-more-secrets | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397696.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00005-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933977 | 1,222 | 3.71875 | 4 |
The process of creating a bridge begins by creating abutments out of your existing teeth where the bridge will be attached. The existing teeth are recontoured to provide a base for the bridge. After the abutments have been created, a mold is taken of the area which is sent to a dental lab. The lab is able to use the mold to create a bridge that will fit properly and feel as close to your natural teeth as possible. The bridge consists of two crowns on either end to place on the abutments and a pontic, which is the new tooth that replaces your missing tooth.
We will fit you with a temporary bridge while we wait for the lab to craft your permanent bridge. This will protect the abutments and the exposed gum areas and look more appealing than having a missing tooth. When the permanent bridge has been created, you will have a follow up visit to set the bridge. It will be placed on the abutments and the dentist will then use an adhesive to make sure that the bridge is set.
The bridge may take a little while to get used to, but after a few days it should feel like you have your own teeth back again. You should eat soft foods for the first few days after having your bridge placed. After the initial phase, you will be able to eat whatever you want with no issues.
If you are missing a tooth you should strongly consider having it replaced. Besides the aesthetic disadvantage of missing a tooth, it could also cause structural changes to your mouth and jaw, as well as making it difficult to eat or speak properly. Set up an appointment today to restore your smile. | <urn:uuid:f56c0578-2de0-4819-82dc-5dc395d509f9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.matthewparkdmd.com/bridges/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00156-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973544 | 334 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Kamrup District is situated between 25° 43' and 26° 51' North Latitude and between 90° 36' and 92° 12' East Longitude. The District is bounded by: - North - Foothills of Bhutan and Nalbari District South - Meghalaya East - Nagaon District and Darrang District West - Goalpara District and Nalbari District. Today 'Kamrup' is confined to only a district of modern Assam. But in the ancient Sanskrit literature, both the name Kamrup and Pragjyotishpur were used as a designation for ancient Assam. In 'Kalika Purana' and 'Jogini-Tantra' however, Kamrup alone appears as the name of this country. Till the Ahom conquest, Pragjyotishpur was known as Kamrup. The mythologies of ancient Assam tell a beautiful story as to how Pragjyotishpur become known as Kamrup. The word "Kamrup" means the land where "Kama" (Love) regained his "Rupa" (form).
Last update:January 2, 2007 at 22:05:58 UTC | <urn:uuid:bc3530b4-172b-4f94-93f1-9871f4b182b2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dmoz.org/Regional/Asia/India/Assam/Districts/Kamrup/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00009-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940002 | 251 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Computer Security and the Modern Home by Tamara Denning, Tadayoshi Kohno, and Henry M. Levy is an article addressing the concept of security of devices applying computer technology in at home. The increased usage of the devices in home has raised issues on security of both the users and the devices. Homes are expected to increase the application of these devices as human beings continue to use complex infrastructure at home (Denning, Tadayoshi & Levy, 2013). Home technologies are prone to traditional attacks which were traditionally directed to offices in organization and institutes. The is the primary reason which drive the authors into the research,
The risks that the users of the devices have to users have been identified. Among the risks identified include increased stress to user, loss of personal data, time wastage and physical damage. The devices are used for communication entertainment and for personal data storage, at time the devices may develop some hitches which increases the stress to users, they can be hacked and the personal data used by unauthorized parties. The author identifies the device goals which an individual should put into consideration to reduce the negative implication of the risks. These goals include the device privacy, availability, and operability (Denning, Tadayoshi & Levy, 2013). According to the authors, it is important to evaluate the potential risks to evaluate risks. This can be done by considering whether the devices are exposed to potential attack, the attractiveness to attacks and the intensity of the impacts if the device is compromised.
The authors of the article put presented the concepts and issues identified adequately and effectively. The read is able to follow and understand the topic under discussion which is essential for the retention of the concepts. The fact the authors used a variety of sources recognized the originality of the concepts used in the article makes their work to be reliable and of high quality.
Computer Science and the Three Rs by Leah Hoffmann is an article whose concern is about the computer studies at k – 12 which does not match to the demand at the advanced programs. The concern raised in the article is crisis brought about at the college level due lack of strong foundation at the primary and second level in education (Hoffmann, 2012). The author cites the words of Stephen Cooper who is a computer professor when he says that it is too late the start studying computer science at the college level.
The concern at the college level is that the computer students have the weakness particularly when it comes to majors in the study. As a general practice such students are not allowed to major in computer science despite their interests in the field. The solution provided in the article is to provide computer studies as a subject in the k – 12 curriculum. This gives students the required foundation to students which assist in capturing their talents the field of study. The current situation limits the performance of student in all other sciences including technology, engineering and mathematic where computer studies have been made the integral part of the studies (Hoffmann, 2012). The challenge of placing computer science in the k – 12 curriculum is that each state has its own approach which undermines unity concerning the matter. The other problem is lack of adequate teacher at the lower level of schooling. This reduces the practicability of adapted computer science in the primary and second school levels.
The article clear about the problem of computer science studies in United States. The problem is primarily identified at its primary courses and the implications when it comes to advanced levels of the study. The comparison of the situation at United Kingdom provides a clear picture of the topic discussed. However, the article remains silent on matter of how some causes of the crises including the shortage of teachers and different approaches applied in different states in the country.
Understanding computers: an overview for records and archives staff by Michael Roper and Laura Millar is an article who primary purpose of it to offer the read the general understanding about a computer. The aim is to provide an individual studying computer science with the basics. There are four lesson presented in the article including the introduction to computer technology, computing environment, computer application and the way forward. The article has six aims and outcomes including the introduction to key components, the provision of information on how computers work, basic issues on computing environment, the application of internet for communication, the storage media and the mean on how to obtain information on computerization (Roper & Millar, 1999).
Each of the four lessons is presented precisely, to make it easy for the reader to understand the concepts. The parts of a computer including the hardware and software are described in the article. The divisions of the hardware into central processing unit, memory, input devices, output and devices can assist the reader to differentiate between the different part and their functions. The computing environment is a key concern to many consumer users; the article provides information on matter such as security, integrity, system availability, data sharing, and application (Roper & Millar, 1999). The concept on how computer works gives the read with the understanding of how databases and electronic mail work. This gives the insight to the reader on how to process information and communicate through a computer.
The article is highly relevant as far as computer study is concerned. This is because it provides the reader with adequate information required in the introduction to the computer studies. Any individual interested in learning computer science is in need of the information provided in the article. There are proposed activities by the authors to assists the readers to put into practice the ideas presented. However, the authors could have made the article stronger by providing pictures and diagrams to demonstrate the parts of the computer.
The promise of consumer technologies in emerging markets by iris Junglas and Jeanne Harris is the other article whose content provides an insight about the application of computer technology in organizations and business enterprises. The usage of devices and their application at the workplaces has increased as workers and organizations try to improve their operations. The application of consumer IT has brought a lot of change, as far as, innovation, productivity, and job satisfaction are concerned. The research shows that the employees from development and developing economics have different perceptions about the application of the consumer IT. In developing economies, the users of the consumer IT view the technology as a tool to drive innovation, job satisfaction and productivity (Junglas & Jeanne, 2013). The authors provide the relationship between economic growth and the application of consumer IT. In Economies where the application of IT has been adapted has increased the productive in companies through the trapping and development of talents.
The article is interesting and very informative about the application of consumer IT as a computer technology. The article uses the data from various countries from different contents and from different levels of development. This makes it easy to understand the differences as far as the application and perception of the consumer IT. The content in the article has been made reliable and authenticated because the authors recognizes the source from which the borrowed ideas were outsources. | <urn:uuid:3ac4fd4f-84eb-4142-88aa-24e15e7a8d1f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.psani.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00196-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955288 | 1,382 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Decline of Coastal Seas and Estuaries
The world's coastal seas and estuaries have seen accelerated environmental decline in the last 150-300 years
A recent article published in the journal Science by members of the History of Marine Animal Populations (HMAP) field project of the Census of Marine Life Program indicates that while degradation has been occurring in coastal ecosystems due to human influence since Roman times, it can actually be shown that that decline has significantly accelerated in the last 150-300 years. Specific results from the 12 major estuaries analyzed show that since the emergence of written historical records, 65% of wetland and seagrass habitats have been destroyed, water quality has decreased significantly, and 90% of marine species have disappeared. This is all due to human influence.
It is well known that estuaries and coastal areas have played a critical role in human development. They serve as a habitat for most of our commercial fish catch, a resource for our economy, and a buffer against natural disasters. Yet, these once rich and diverse areas are severely impaired world-wide. Surprisingly, all 12 of the estuarine areas included in the study exhibited similar trends of ecological degradation as well as similar trends in the magnitude of that degradation over the past 150-300 years. However, when compared to other ocean ecosystems such as coral reefs, they have received little attention in the press, and are not commonly on the national policy agenda.
The four-year study utilized a new method of synthesizing diverse data from such disciplines as archaeology, paleontology, history, fisheries, and modern ecology. This has allowed the researcher to construct continuous timelines of change in the estuaries under investigation. While the findings state that the primary cause of the degradation of these estuarine environments is human exploitation, it provides both baseline data and quantitative targets that may allow for future sustainable management of these important ecosystems. A positive outcome from the study shows that these environments do respond to restoration efforts. Combinations of mitigation measures such as controlling habitat destruction, resource exploitation, and pollution have proven successful in 78% of restoration efforts.
The full article, entitled "Depletion, Degradation, and Recovery Potential of Estuaries, and Coastal Seas," is available in Science, Vol. 312, June 2006.
- What: Over the last 150-300 years, the decline of estuaries and coastal seas around the world has accelerated.
- Who: Heike Lotze, Hunter Lenihan, Bruce Bourque, Roger Bradbury, Richard Cooke, Matthew Kay, Susan Kidwell, Michael Kirby, Charles Peterson, and Jeremy Jackson
- When: June 2006
- Where: 12 Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) around the world
- How: Analysis of Historical data and documents
- References: Heike K. Lotze, Hunter S. Lenihan, Bruce J. Bourque, Roger H. Bradbury, Richard G. Cooke, Matthew C. Kay, Susan M. Kidwell, Michael X. Kirby, Charles H. Peterson, Jeremy B. C. Jackson. 2006. Depletion, Degradation, and Recovery Potential of Estuaries and Coastal Seas. Science 312: 1806-1809. | <urn:uuid:c2ed941e-d181-4b19-85a3-8143224328be> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.coml.org/discoveries/populations/coastal_seas_and_estuaries | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397696.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00146-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923494 | 659 | 3.609375 | 4 |
Other Books By Shel Silverstein:
- Learn about (what else...) giraffes. There are many great links:
- National Geographic For Kids
- San Diego Zoo
- Find a zoo that has a giraffe cam like Kid Zoo, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, or Marwell Wildlife Center. (Check for times and availability as webcams change often).
- Giraffe webcams, photos and videos.
- Giraffe information from Enchanted Learning and First School.
- Use a giraffe pattern to make puzzles (cutting the giraffe in 2 pieces to make halves, 3 pieces to make thirds).
- Make a list of rhyming words used in the book.
- Visit Shel Silverstein's website for great information, printables, and games.
- Make black and white drawings using large paper (water color paper works nicely) and black felt tipped markers.
- Invite someone in to play the flute for your class.
- Create some fraction activities related to the "halves" (ex, during snack time, break cookies in half).
- Read other silly books.
- Mark on a map or globe where giraffes live in Africa.
Other Giraffe Books: | <urn:uuid:7ff55394-f5f9-458f-95cd-b0fec74a1c6d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://earlyliteracycounts.blogspot.com/2010/12/book-of-day-giraffe-and-half_09.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397864.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00181-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.797709 | 253 | 3.375 | 3 |
With the release of the new FamilySearch.org website, many are asking where the International Genealogical Index (IGI) went. To understand where it went, you first need to understand what it is and where it came from. This week I address the what, when, whence, why, and where of the IGI.
The IGI was originally known as the Computer File Index, according to the book Hearts Turned to the Fathers.1
According to Elizabeth Nichols, retired FamilySearch employee, it was first published on microfiche in 1973. It contained 20 million entries, consisting of all names gathered since October 1969, and six million of the names gathered before then. About 80% were extracted.2, 3
The 1975 edition contained 34 million names. The fourth edition, published in 1981, was the first to be called “the International Genealogical Index” and contained 81 million names. By 1984, the name count had grown to 108 million and the IGI was offered for sale to the public.1
In 1988 it was published on compact disc as part of the FamilySearch DOS computer program and contained 147 million names. Because of computer system changes, some extraction entries from the 1984 edition had to be left out. They were included in a later edition.1, 3
The 1992 edition was published on microfiche and contained 187 million names. About 94.5 million entries (50%) were extracted. Nearly 90% of the 72 million entries for the British Isles came from extraction. The compact disc version took until November 1993, becoming the March 1993 Compact Disc Edition. It contained over 200 million names from over ninety countries. Few, if any, extraction records were added.1, 2, 3
“Creating a compact-disc version of the IGI became problematic. Amassing the names from the various files created in different databases and by different systems was a technical nightmare,” according to Hearts Turned.1 This may explain why the 1994 edition—released in July 1995—consisted of an addendum to the previous edition. The addendum held 42 million entries. Many of the additional 5 million extracted names were those dropped from the 1988 edition. Many of the member submitted entries were duplicates, coming from newly digitized pre-1970 submissions and from TempleReady.4
The 1997 edition of the IGI, repeating the pattern of the previous edition, was published as an addendum. The number of entries increased from 240 million to 284, of which, about 100 million were from extraction.5
Rumors that a FamilySearch website—without the IGI—started circulating in early 1999.6 In early March the Church (of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) issued a statement confirming that a website was in the works7 and on the first of April announced the beta test.
The official announcement and release of FamilySearch.org came on 24 May 1999. The press release noted the inclusion of the International Genealogical Index. Not all 285 million entries were available immediately. Said the release, “The IGI will be made available in phases by region.”8
Tomorrow: “Whence is the IGI?”
1. James B. Allen, et. al., Hearts Turned to the Father, a special issue of BYU Studies 34:2 (1994-95), pp. 306, 317-9; digital images online (http://byustudies.byu.edu : accessed 28 December 2010). This is a history of FamilySearch as the Genealogical Society of Utah and the family history department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was also published as a hard-cover book.
2. Elizabeth L. Nichols, “The International Genealogical Index 1992 Edition : Part 1: The Main Changes,” Genealogists’ Magazine 24 (September 1993): 294-7.
3. Elizabeth L. Nichols, “The International Genealogical Index (IGI), 1993 Edition : Part I,” Federation of Genealogical Societies Forum, Spring 1994, 5-10.
4. Elizabeth L. Nichols, “The International Genealogical Index (IGI) Updated by Addendum—Part I,” Federation of Genealogical Societies Forum, Fall 1995, 5-8.
5. Elizabeth L. Nichols, “The International Genealogical Index (IGI) Updated by Addendum—Part I,” Federation of Genealogical Societies Forum, Summer 1998, 1,14.
6. Ryan Taylor, “Routes to Roots,” The Global Gazette : Canada’s Genealogy & Heritage Magazine (www.globalgenealogy.com/gazrt23.htm : 24 February 1999); on Internet Archive Wayback Machine (http://web.archive.org : archived 8 May 1999, accessed 2 January 2011).
7. “FamilySearchTM Internet Genealogy Service,” The Official Website of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (www.lds.org : 4 March 1999), News Updates > Archive; on Internet Archive Wayback Machine (http://web.archive.org : archived 31 May 2000, accessed 2 January 2011).
8. “President Hinckley Launches New genealogy Internet Site,” The Official Website of the Church… (www.lds.org : 24 May 1999), on Internet Archive… (http://web.archive.org : archived 4 June 2000, accessed 2 January 2011); and “Press Kit: FamilySearch Databases,” The Official Website of the Church… (www.lds.org : [24 May 1999?]), on Internet Archive… (http://web.archive.org : archived 22 June 2000). See also, “New Family Tree Internet Service Swamped by Demand” (archived 31 May 2000). | <urn:uuid:96c77cba-985c-455e-b386-9b6d0debb69c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ancestryinsider.org/2011/01/when-was-igi.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00186-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937938 | 1,218 | 2.671875 | 3 |
I often get asked the same question: “How do you get your children to mind you and do it so cheerfully?!”
My reply is always the same: “Be consistent!” No matter what your discipline of choice, being consistent is the real key to success!
In order for our children to understand the boundaries, we create consequences. Consequences are what happen when a boundary is breached. They should happen exactly like you tell them they will—every time. It is the consequence that makes my children want to follow my instructions, and it is my consistency that makes them cheerful about it.
We all have different boundaries and guidelines for our families. Some moms make their children clear the table after dinner; others let the dishes sit around until late at night when everyone is asleep and then go in and clean. Neither way is wrong. We are each unique, and our family limits should be too. The question is, “Do you know what your boundaries are?”
If you tell your child to pick up his clothes, does he know you mean it? Or does he know that he really does not have to because you will tell him again in five minutes, then again with a firmer tone until you yell; then he has to do it? If that is your pattern, then that is the boundary you have set. You have consistently taught him that he gets three warnings and an angry parent before he has to pick up his clothes.
When I realized that was happening in our home, I also realized I could change the boundaries. If I had a line that the kids knew they could not cross—why could I not just move the line? I could just tell them once; then, if they didn’t obey, I would follow through immediately with consequences. Say what? It can’t be that easy! Oh, but it is.
Try this: The next time you tell your child to do something, follow the verbal instruction with a consequence. For instance, “Put your shoes on right now, or you will have to miss baseball practice.” (Think it through first. Be sure it’s a consequence which you are willing to follow through with. If you really cannot miss baseball practice, offer something different.) Then, if he doesn’t jump to put his shoes on—even if he lingers for a few seconds in rebellion to your instruction—he misses practice. Bam. Done.
The sad truth is that if he does not put his shoes on, he doesn’t believe that you will do what you said. That, my friends, is the worst part of being inconsistent. If he does not believe you about the baseball practice, then what else does he not believe? Does he believe you when you tell him how smart he is? Does he believe you when you teach him that math is important? Does he believe you when you tell him Christ died for him?
Tell your child the truth. If you say, “You cannot have any candy at the store,” then mean it. Do not give in to whines and fits. Doing so not only leads to a miserable family life; it teaches your child that you cannot be trusted. I know it seems more complicated than that, but really it’s not. If your child’s cries of injustice have no effect on your decisions, then he will stop crying.
I have seen parents get quite angry and frustrated and blame their whiny, screaming children for the problems. I want to wrap my arms around them all and say, “If he is whining to get what he wants, then he knows it will work. You can gently teach him to stop doing that by telling him no and meaning it—every time.”
Stop the madness!
Being consistent is actually pretty easy. It’s really more about training yourself than training your kids. Instead of yelling from the other room for them to stop fighting, get up immediately and go deal with it. When he argues about not getting his way, be unaffected. Whines do not matter—truth matters. If you teach yourself to follow through with what you say—every time, immediately—your children will fall right in with you.
The best news is that in addition to having a more peaceful, pleasant home, you will build trust with your children. Once you have become consistent with your boundaries and truthful in your follow-through, your children will believe you when you tell them how much they are loved. | <urn:uuid:c86b03cf-b223-4d4a-a4fb-2a8b426af0cc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.thsc.org/2013/09/training-is-not-just-for-kids/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396224.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00131-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982141 | 931 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Diff. between female and male chromosomes?
G T Clark
gtclark at festival.ed.ac.uk
Fri Mar 25 09:09:51 EST 1994
sjj at srcros1.pathology.ufl.edu (Song-Muh Jong) writes:
>I used to have an impression that human chromosomes are the simple 23 pairs.
>However, the linkage maps of human chromosomes indicate that female maps are
>larger than male maps. Can someone explain this phenomenon?
Recombination happens at a higher frequency in the female. Why
this is the case, I don't know.
More information about the Biochrom | <urn:uuid:61053ca9-7bc1-4c37-bc08-c025b65025ae> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bio.net/bionet/mm/biochrom/1994-March/000200.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396875.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00104-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.889337 | 137 | 2.890625 | 3 |
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has incorporated a canine aggression assessment tool as part of its popular Meet Your Match adoption program.
The Safety Assessment for Evaluating Rehoming, or SAFER, is one more way of reducing the number of pets returned to shelters because of unwanted behaviors, according to the ASPCA.
The test, a scientifically verified method of assessing aggression and potential for aggression, was developed by Emily Weis, PhD, the ASPCA's senior director of shelter behavior programs.
Animals are presented with a series of stimuli to determine how they behave in each situation. The tests provide shelter staff with valuable information about the animal's temperament, which can then be used to develop behavior modification plans, if necessary.
"Through the use of appropriate tools to help evaluate adoptable animals, we can increase the chances we have of making successful matches with potential adopters," Dr. Weiss said.
The behavior tool is being paired with Meet Your Match, an ASPCA program using various components to better match shelter pets with owners. Shelters using the integrated program are reporting reduced return rates, better customer service, and increased adoptions, according to the ASCPA. | <urn:uuid:2da12036-2825-4bb5-ad68-9ca684cc5915> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.avma.org/News/JAVMANews/Pages/070701n.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397695.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00022-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933471 | 241 | 2.6875 | 3 |
The old normal: Men earned more than women.
The new normal: Men don't earn more, especially if the woman is young, urban and educated.
According to a new study by Reach Advisors, a New York consumer research firm, single, childless women in their 20s are out-earning their male counterparts in 39 of the 50 largest metro areas. They earn just as much in another eight.
So has the gender gap been bridged? Maybe not.
Another study, by the Institute for Women's Policy Research in Washington, D.C., found that for all women, pay is just 77 cents on the dollar compared to men.
What's the deal? James Chung, president of Reach Advisors, says the answer is a matter of degrees -- literally. A college degree pays off in higher salaries over a working lifetime, and Reach research finds that women are far more likely than men to have one or more degrees.
"I don't think our data necessarily proves that young women earn more than men in comparable fields," Chung says. It's that young women are "more likely than young men to have the educational requirements to enter the knowledge-based work force." | <urn:uuid:c963d016-28b2-44ec-9d0a-f5f3ce3c51d9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/5-new-normals-that-control-your-finances-6.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398216.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00119-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971718 | 243 | 2.609375 | 3 |
September 9, 2010
Non Members: $300.00
||The science behind getting hydrogen and oxygen from water, through electrolysis, has been around since the 1800s. However, it's no small feat to develop a system that generates a hydrogen fuel mix from a tank of water aboard a running vehicle.
Dan Lutz, who manages Beloit, Wisconsin's municipal vehicle fleet, some 300 cars and trucks from police squad cars to garbage haulers, has some insight on hydrogen boosters. For the last couple years, Dan has been experimenting with on-vehicle hydrogen generators: the good ones and the bad; and he will provide some interesting insights on what he's learned.
A year ago, Dan was involved in a pilot program with a University of Wisconsin professor, Marc Anderson and his freshman engineering students. The goals of the program were aimed at resolving issues that the City of Beloit was having with their current “Hydrogen on Demand” systems. The students were charged with testing a system that utilizes voltage from a vehicle's battery and it’s alternator to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Those molecules are then burned as supplemental fuel thereby reducing the amount of gasoline needed and resulting in a cleaner-running engine.
For testing purposes a Hydrogen Fuel Cell (an electrolyzer) was designed and built at half scale at the University of Wisconsin and installed on a Vespa motor scooter. The system has provided promising results on the Vespa. The electrolyzer uses distilled water and sodium hydroxide as a catalyst. Similar but larger “Hydrogen on Demand” systems have also been used to reduce gasoline consumption in a few of the City of Beloit’s fleet. The advancements in this technology thanks to the involvement of the University of Wisconsin will now be incorporated in City of Beloit’s test vehicles.
Come see what they’ve learned, how the experiments are panning out and if this technology is something that your agency should investigate.
After viewing this program, participants will be better able to:
1. Explain what a hydrogen booster does
2. Determine if this technology is something their agency should pursue
3. Recognize the advantages and challenges of implementing new technology
A VIDEO CLIP OF THIS PROJECT CAN BE VIEW AT: Click on the "Driving Technology" UW-Madison video
City of Beloit Department of Public Works
Over the past sixteen year career with the City of Beloit Dan has served in many capacities starting with his boots on the ground as a Mechanic with the Transit division. He was promoted to the supervisory level at Transit and for the last ten years Dan has been the Fleet Manager for the City of Beloit.
In Dan’s current capacity he is responsible for all of Fleet and Stores Operations.
Dan’s careers with the City of Beloit has always involved the managing and care for the Cities vehicles but in the last several years the buzzwords have been “Sustainability” and “Greener technology” which created a paradigm shift.
Through strategic planning and goals set by the City of Beloit this has allowed for Dan to use his creative talents with respect to advanced Fuel Cell Technology.
In early 2008 Dan started researching Hydrogen Fuel Technology as an alterative fuel source. In November 2008 Dan became a Certified Technician in the field of this Hybrid and Hydrogen Fuel Technology. In December of 2008 the City of Beloit was installing Hydrogen Fuel Cell on a few of their vehicles for testing purposes.
In the spring of 2009 Dan met Professor Marc Anderson from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Dan and Professor Anderson developed a Pilot Program with the University of Wisconsin to address the issues that the City of Beloit was experiencing with respect to the Hydrogen Fuel Cells that the City of Beloit was using in their fleet. For the Pilot Program Dan was requested to design and build a Fuel Cell that the University could apply one of their proprietary nano-particle thin films coating too.
The Fuel Cell design and coating process produced a world class Fuel Cell that will more than likely resolve many of the issues that this technology has been plagued with for several years.
Dan and the City of Beloit are always willing to share our technology with others. Dan as an innovative thinking manager for an innovative thinking Community has worked very diligently with leaders in the Fuel Cell technology industry to further this technology.
What started out as an initiative to make the City of Beloit’s Fleet of vehicles a bit more “Greener” using a 100% renewable resource (Water) is turning out to be advancements in Hydrogen Fuel Cell technology that will have global effects.
Public Works Supervisor
City of Beloit, Wisconsin
As a Public Works Supervisor for the City of Beloit, WI, Brett Hebert has had the opportunity to work with all facets of public works. Brett has been with the City since 2004, where he got his start as an arborist. Brett earned a BA in Public Administration in 2006 and has a certificate in supervision from CVMIC. Brett was hired as a supervisor for the City of Beloit in 2007. In 2009, Brett was selected to participate in the Emerging Leaders Academy through APWA. Brett was one of thirteen young leaders from North America to be selected into this unique management program. Brett is also a certified water operator for the state of Wisconsin as well as being certified in wastewater management.
As a Public Works Supervisor, Brett has worked on numerous special projects and initiatives with the water and wastewater utility, operations, transit authority, and fleet departments throughout his tenure. He has also earned multiple certificates in disaster management from FEMA. Through this training, Brett has been able to be an active member of the City’s disaster management team serving as safety officer during emergency declarations. Brett was also the co-author for the City of Beloit Disaster Management Flood Annex.
Brett has been working with the City of Beloit Fleet department investigate the use of alternative fuels for City vehicles. The use of hydrogen as a supplement to diesel and unleaded fuel has been at the forefront of his research. The City currently has five city vehicles equipped with hydrogen, and getting mixed results. Currently, Hebert is working with the University of Wisconsin to aid in the research and development of hydrogen technology. Testing should continue through the fall of 2010.
Professor and Chair of Environmental Chemistry and Technology
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Wisconsin - Madison
A pioneer in nanoscience, Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Marc Anderson is renowned for his creativity and groundbreaking research in controlled colloid synthesis.
Currently, he is pursuing interests in anit-fog and self cleaning windows, electronic water softening, microbiological fuel cells, and a new generation of solar cells.
He has published over 150 publications since 1974 on topics that include catalysis, membrane technology, environmental engineering and photochemistry . He has seven publications with over 100 citations and twenty-three publications with over 50 citations.
One never ceases to stand in awe of where his ideas show up next. He is one of the department’s most creative thinkers. Marc represents a new generation of Renaissance men that can generate conversations and ideas between people across many different disciplines and departments.
||Moderator: Howard Mann
City of Leawood, Kansas
Howard Mann has more than 30 years of vehicle and equipment maintenance experience. He has managed the City of Leawood's Fleet Operations for the past 20 including planning and budgeting. He is the current chair for the Fleet Services Committee for the Kansas Metro Chapter.
He was a responsible for developing the Mechanic's competition event at the local chapter rodeo over 10 years ago, one of the only events of its kind. He has numerous ASE certifications including dual master certification in Automotive and Medium/Heavy Duty Truck repair and Truck Equipment Installation and Repair. He also has obtained the CEM designation from AEMP and APWA Certified Public Fleet Professional designation.
Howard was awarded the 2004 Public Works Professional Manager of the Year from the Kansas City Metro Chapter of APWA. | <urn:uuid:0cb2b184-39c3-4ddf-a3b2-38c808c283cb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www2.apwa.net/events/eventdetail.asp?ID=5228 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00052-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959689 | 1,651 | 3.34375 | 3 |
The POSIX.1 standard specifies a number of parameters that describe the limitations of the file system. It’s possible for the system to have a fixed, uniform limit for a parameter, but this isn’t the usual case. On most systems, it’s possible for different file systems (and, for some parameters, even different files) to have different maximum limits. For example, this is very likely if you use NFS to mount some of the file systems from other machines.
Each of the following macros is defined in limits.h only if the
system has a fixed, uniform limit for the parameter in question. If the
system allows different file systems or files to have different limits,
then the macro is undefined; use
find out the limit that applies to a particular file. See Pathconf.
Each parameter also has another macro, with a name starting with ‘_POSIX’, which gives the lowest value that the limit is allowed to have on any POSIX system. See File Minimums.
The uniform system limit (if any) for the number of names for a given file. See Hard Links.
The uniform system limit (if any) for the amount of text in a line of input when input editing is enabled. See Canonical or Not.
The uniform system limit (if any) for the total number of characters typed ahead as input. See I/O Queues.
The uniform system limit (if any) for the length of a file name component, not including the terminating null character.
Portability Note: On some systems, the GNU C Library defines
NAME_MAX, but does not actually enforce this limit.
The uniform system limit (if any) for the length of an entire file name (that
is, the argument given to system calls such as
open), including the
terminating null character.
Portability Note: The GNU C Library does not enforce this limit
PATH_MAX is defined.
The uniform system limit (if any) for the number of bytes that can be written atomically to a pipe. If multiple processes are writing to the same pipe simultaneously, output from different processes might be interleaved in chunks of this size. See Pipes and FIFOs.
These are alternative macro names for some of the same information.
This is the BSD name for
NAME_MAX. It is defined in
The value of this macro is an integer constant expression that represents the maximum length of a file name string. It is defined in stdio.h.
PATH_MAX, this macro is defined even if there is no actual
limit imposed. In such a case, its value is typically a very large
number. This is always the case on GNU/Hurd systems.
Usage Note: Don’t use
FILENAME_MAX as the size of an
array in which to store a file name! You can’t possibly make an array
that big! Use dynamic allocation (see Memory Allocation) instead. | <urn:uuid:973b1acc-7e62-40f9-acbd-5b542f76f6e4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Limits-for-Files.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00001-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.84332 | 628 | 3.265625 | 3 |
Recycling is not the only way for you to minimize your waste. Reusing items is a great thing to do. You can start with the ideas below.
Use washable cloth napkins and towels instead of paper products.
Bring your own reusable bags to the grocery store. You could also reuse the plastic bags that you use for fruits and vegetables.
Wash out and reuse food jars to store your leftovers.
Minimize packaging waste by purchasing products such as juices in concentrated form. You can then use reusable containers to store the juice.
Bring a reusable coffee cup or mug to work. Even if you fill it only two times a day, you will be saving almost 500 paper cups a year.
Books and Bicycles:
Neighborhood Recycling Center
5525 SE 28th Avenue
STRUT (Students Recycling Used Technology)
Call Metro for a copy of the Construction Site Recycling Guide
Reusable Construction Materials:
2015 NW 23rd
St. Vincent De Paul Home and Garden Depot
3600 SE 28th
Straight Ahead Shelter
PO Box 699
Cornelius, Oregon 97113
Household Hazardous Waste:
Call Metro, 503.234.3000
1831 E Powell Blvd
Call the “Styrofoam Peanuts Hotline” for a location near you
Medical Waste Disposal:
EPA – United States Environmental Protection Agency
1.800.424.4372 or 206.553.1200 | <urn:uuid:1c335f08-6f2c-4b48-9089-7eec70d17892> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.greshamsanitary.com/residential/medical-waste-disposal-and-waste-prevention/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00196-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.783795 | 309 | 3.140625 | 3 |
Hot Dots Jr Alphabet Card Set
Kids practice with upper and lowercase letters and sequencing when they use the Hot Dots Jr. Alphabet Card Set from Educational Insights! Featuring 72 illustrated and appealing activity cards, this card set quickly captures kids' attention. This card set, along with all of the Hot Dots Jr. Activity Card Sets from Educational Insights, works with Ace the Teaching Dog (sold separately) to teach alphabet basics. Ace the Teaching Dog indicates correct and incorrect answers by wagging, talking and encouraging kids to do their best! Playing with this card set is a first step toward reading and writing, before kids jump into their formal education! Cards measure 6"L x 4" H and store in a case with handles.
From Educational Insights |
Item # 2351 EI
- Card set that focuses on uppercase and lowercase letters and sequencing
- 72 alphabet readiness activities on 36 double sided cards
- Works with Ace the Hot Dots Jr. Teaching Dog (sold separately)
- Cards measure 6”L x 4” H and store in a case with handles | <urn:uuid:c2d928c3-d444-44c7-bb6c-86555e399e41> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.growingtreetoys.com/product/hot-dots-jr-alphabet-card-set | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00113-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912625 | 227 | 2.578125 | 3 |
21 July 2014 Loggerhead Sea Turtles Catch a Wave Posted by: Haley McKey | 4 comments There is plenty of good news for the loggerhead sea turtle this summer! This month, the federal government designated critical habitat , including 84 percent of all known nesting areas, and protections for large areas of ocean habitat, for the loggerhead sea turtles found in the Northwest Atlantic. Critical habitat is an area determined vital to the survival and recovery of an endangered species. In such an area, any project requiring a federal permit—like offshore energy development, beach replenishment, or commercial fishing in U.S. waters—have to be evaluated before they begin, to ensure that they won’t harm the species concerned, or destroy or adversely modify critical habitat. The National Marine Fisheries Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service together designated over 685 miles of nesting beach and 300,000 square miles of open ocean for the loggerhead. That’s the largest critical habitat dedication in history! And it couldn’t come at a better time. From Mississippi on the Gulf of Mexico to North Carolina on the East Coast, female loggerheads are swimming ashore to lay their eggs. Only one in 1,000 to one in 10,000 hatchlings will survive to have offspring of their own. Loggerhead sea turtles don’t reach sexual maturity until they’re at least three decades old. Amazingly, most female sea turtles return to the same beach where they were born year after year to lay their eggs, which makes this critical habitat designation even more important. Unfortunately, we still have a long way to go in helping loggerheads and other sea turtle species recover. Accidentally ingesting trash is a serious problem for these creatures, which often mistake bags and other plastic materials for food such as jellyfish. Defenders is working hard to increase protection from entanglement in fishing nets for sea turtles: turtle excluder devices (TEDs), which allow turtles to escape nets, are mandatory in some areas, but they aren’t required off the coast of Louisiana. Ghost nets, forgotten nets left behind in the ocean by fishermen, cause numerous sea turtle deaths each year, while other fishing gear types such as longlines, gillnets, and dredges are also responsible for killing loggerheads. Boat strikes kill and injure turtles at sea and near beaches. In the longer term, climate change and sea level rise may reduce the beach areas available for nesting and cause an imbalance between the numbers of male and female hatchlings; turtles, like many other reptiles, tend to hatch more females in warmer sands and more males in cooler sands. On shore, seawalls and other armoring prevent sea turtles from nesting. Lights near the beach can disorient mother turtles and their hatchlings and make them crawl further inland and even off the beach, where they are killed by predators or vehicles, instead of back to the sea. Trash left on the beach attracts predators like raccoons, foxes, coyotes and ants that can destroy entire nests and kill hatchlings. By cleaning up our oceans, improving fishing practices, and reducing coastal armoring and light pollution, we can make a real difference for these incredible and ancient creatures. The new critical habitat designation is a great step forward for loggerhead sea turtles. Protecting the lands and waters our nation’s endangered species need is vital to their recovery. We are hopeful that the decision our government made this July will help ensure the return of sea turtles to their beaches for generations to come. Haley McKey is a Communications Associate at Defenders of Wildlife Haley McKey, Communications Associate Haley's beat areas include Defenders’ Florida and Alaska offices, climate change, right whales, sea turtles and government appropriations. | <urn:uuid:4cddd53d-eba2-4041-a23c-603b8a17315b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.defendersblog.org/2014/07/loggerhead-sea-turtles-catch-wave/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403823.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00044-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929883 | 753 | 3.328125 | 3 |
While an interesting trivia question, there are enough homographs in
English that the very small percentage of them that can (sometimes) be
distinguished according to case is completely insignificant.
"Robert A. Rosenberg" wrote:
> At 06:43 AM 07/10/2000 -0800, firstname.lastname@example.org wrote:
> >If it is what I think it is, I don't want it in English.
> >How could it tell "aids" from "AIDS", for instance?
> >Or "joy" from "Joy"(name)?
> Or Polish (nationality) from polish (shine) <g>.
> >Robert Lozyniak
> >Accusplit pedometer, purchased about 2000a07l01d19h45mZ,
> >has NOT FLIPPED
> >My page: http://walk.to/11
> >email@example.com - email
> >(917) 421-3909 x1133 - voicemail/fax
> >---- firstname.lastname@example.org wrote:
> > > Marco.Cimarosti@icl.com wrote:
> > > > - Can these mutations only occur after a determinative,
> > > or can they also
> > > be
> > > > at the beginning of a sentence?
> > > I don't believe they can occur at the beginning
> > > of a sentence. The most
> > > common construct occurs after "na" (meaning "of");
> > > "Ambasáid na hÉireann"
> > > (Embassy of Ireland) is an example commonly encountered
> > > outside Ireland.
> > > However, they can occur after other words.
> > >
> > > > - Is this automatically implemented in the case
> > > folding function of
> > > > localized word processors?
> > > No, not unless some new word processor has been
> > > launched in the past year
> > > or so.
> > >
> > > B=
> >Get your own FREE Bolt Onebox - FREE voicemail, email, and
> >fax, all in one place - sign up at http://www.bolt.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jul 10 2001 - 17:21:05 EDT | <urn:uuid:8bd5e7b1-5cf1-4c74-aa16-f0bef9049fc5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/Archives-Old/UML023/0546.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00151-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.869029 | 523 | 2.75 | 3 |
Many people, if asked, would name the comma as one of the simplest punctuation marks. Learned before the quotation mark, the semi colon and the apostrophe, we should all be familiar with the rules that govern its usage. Yet this small, unassuming punctuation mark is responsible for countless English grammar mistakes, not only visible in the work of new writers but also across a wide spectrum of published materials, as our funny grammar examples will show.
One of the most common English grammar mistakes involving commas is the ‘comma splice’. This describes a sentence where the writer tries to use a comma to join two independent clauses, as seen on this billboard advert. The Democrats might care for the poor, but they’re not so hot on their punctuation! The problem arises because commas are not ‘strong’ enough to join independent clauses, as they do not create enough separation between the two separate parts of the sentence.
TOP GRAMMAR TIP:
Remember, if the clauses in your sentence are independent, either use a colon or semicolon to separate them, or add a coordinating conjunction.
Coordinating conjunctions: for, but, nor, and, so, yet, or.
Commas are used to create a pause, or separation between clauses in a sentence, but they are also used to separate items in a list. Remember, when writing a list, commas should appear in between each individual item, but not before the word ‘and’, which precedes the final item.
For example: Mary bought eggs, cream and milk.
Missing out commas in a list can completely change the meaning of your sentence, as this unfortunate magazine cover demonstrates!
Another very common comma mistake is to insert the comma in place of another punctuation mark, such as an apostrophe or full stop. The sign in this restaurant window presents a whole plethora of grammar mistakes, among them the misuse of the comma instead of a full stop in the price. (Can you spot two other punctuation mistakes, involving quotation marks and an apostrophe?)
Avoid this mistake yourself by remembering that commas are only used to separate different ideas and items in a sentence, never to end a sentence or indicate an abbreviation.
FINAL GRAMMAR NOTE
There are occasional instances in the English language where the comma splice, used for stylistic effect, is acceptable. The famous phrase “I came, I saw, I conquered,” is an example. However, it is advisable to avoid it in your own writing as it is generally frowned upon as a grammatical mistake. | <urn:uuid:2874215f-b698-4678-9cbc-b4793736abb0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.oxbridgeediting.co.uk/blog/the-funny-grammar-guide-to-commas-659/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397744.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00020-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929597 | 539 | 3.109375 | 3 |
First, the good news: Using the process known as hydraulic fracturing to create natural gas wells produces less wastewater than wells created using more conventional methods, according to a new study in the journal Water Resources Research. Scientists from Duke and Kent State universities found that fracked wells create 35 percent as much wastewater per unit of gas when compared to conventional wells. The scientists note that this upsets the common idea that fracking creates more wastewater than other types of gas extraction.
But now the bad news. Because of fracking, gas extraction is up 570 percent since 2004 in the Marcellus shale region, which means that there's a whole lot more wastewater overall to deal with.
Because of fracking, gas extraction is up 570 percent since 2004 in the Marcellus shale region.
"On one hand, shale gas production generates less wastewater per unit," explained co-author Brian Lutz, an assistant professor of biogeochemistry at Kent State. "On the other hand, because of the massive size of the Marcellus resource, the overall volume of water that now has to be transported and treated is immense. It threatens to overwhelm the region's wastewater-disposal infrastructure capacity."
And while most of that fracking is taking place in Pennsylvania right now, Ohio is taking a huge portion of the wastewater. As the Akron Beacon Journal points out, Pennsylvania's 6,400 active wells created 20 million barrels of wastewater in 2011, and about 35 percent of it—7 million barrels—was disposed of in injection wells in Ohio, accounting for more than half of the wastewater Ohio dealt with.
Ohio can't do much to stop Pennsylvania from shipping its wastewater over the border due to the interstate commerce clause in the Constitution, which stipulates that only Congress can regulate this type of interstate trade. The best the state can do is set tougher rules on disposing of that wastewater, which has been discussed but not acted upon. Citizens in Mansfield, Ohio, voted last year to block injection wells in their town, however. | <urn:uuid:6adfac4d-a940-4860-bf1c-d38e2568ace2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.motherjones.com/Blogs/2013/01/are-big-cities%20%20-more-dangerous-small-ones?page=12 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00183-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943055 | 403 | 3.3125 | 3 |
Online Scuba Lessons
Online Nitrox Lessons
SCUBA the Regulator?
By David Holt NAUI #15465
Who really invented scuba? Most divers and Instructors alike would say that Jacques Cousteau invented regulators and Scuba. I was asked this question during a recent Basic Scuba Diver Course. My standard answer has always been Jacques Cousteau, but this time the student asked what year it was that he invented the regulator and Scuba. Well, being Bwana, King of the sea, and ruler of the knights of the square table, I had to find out.
Diving was limited to one breath until the 16th century when upside down barrels were used as primitive diving bells, and the first multi-breath dive was made. This was a tremendous leap forward, and certainly an efficient solution.
In 1771, John Smeaton; a British engineer, invented the air pump. This allowed hoses to be connected to the barrels.
In 1772, Sieur Freminet, a French scientist, designed a "rebreathing" device that actually recycled the exhaled air inside of the barrel. He, of course, died from lack of oxygen after about 25 minutes. But it sparked an interest in the self-contained air concept.
In 1825, William James, an English inventor, designed a self-contained apparatus. It was a cylindrical iron "belt" that held 450 psi of air, which free flowed into a copper helmet. . Wonderful idea, but his self-contained underwater dive only lasted 7 minutes at 11 feet.
In 1864 Benoit Rouquayrol, a French Engineer, and August Denayrouze, a French naval officer, developed a surface-supplied system that included an air reservoir and a demand regulator. Unfortunately, the reservoir wasn't high pressure, and held only enough air for one breath. Humm …
In 1876 Henry Fleuss, an English sailor, invented a closed-circuit oxygen rebreather. Fleuss’ design was used to repair an iron door in a flooded chamber of his ship. His rebreather demonstrated the usefulness of self-contained diving. After completing his task of repairing and saving the ship, he donned his new invention and descended to the bottom and died from the toxic effects of pure oxygen below 30 feet.
In 1926 Yves Leprieur, a French naval officer, invented a system using a 2,000-psi steel tank which free-flowed into a full-face mask.
In 1937 Georges Comheines, a Frenchman, apparently invented a demand-flow system based on a modified fire fighting apparatus. Sadly he died during the testing of the unit, and his design was soon forgotten.
In 1939, in response to the upcoming world war, Dr. Christian Lambertsen, an American professor, developed a self-contained underwater oxygen breathing apparatus . It was the American military that named this the clandestine (or top secret) system SCUBA. It worked quite well for shallow depths, but at deeper depths, many of the divers died from oxygen toxicity, and the project was dropped.
In 1942, Emile Gagnan, a French engineer, and Jacques Cousteau, a French naval officer, developed a simple demand regulator. This regulator was based on research Gagnan had done to convert automobiles from gasoline to cooking oil. Their regulator, when combined with three cylinders, each holding 2,500 psi of air, was dubbed the "Aqua-lung". (And no, he didn't know Jethro Tull!)
In 1951 E.R. Cross, and American diver, invented the first single-hose
regulator. This design was based on an oxygen system used by aviators,
and was quickly copied.
Aquastrophics Dive & Travel
(928) 680 - 3483
Aquastrophics Home Page | <urn:uuid:4e5c5b79-3423-4738-9e89-b1c96a731839> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.aquastrophics.com/articles/articl29.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00048-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965298 | 811 | 3.421875 | 3 |
Eleutherodactylus coqui Thomas, 1966
Margaret M. Stewart
Michael J. Lannoo
1. Historical versus Current Distribution. Coquis
(Eleutherodactylus coqui) are native to Puerto Rico where they are widespread
(Thomas, 1966). They were introduced into southeastern Florida and southeastern Louisiana
(Schwartz and Henderson, 1991; Conant and Collins, 1998). In Florida, coquis have been
documented only from Dade County (Bartlett and Bartlett, 1999a). In the late 1990s, coquis
and their congener, greenhouse frogs (E. planirostris), native to Cuba but
successfully introduced to south Florida, were introduced into Hawaii. Coquis were likely
initially transported as egg masses in the nursery trade. They are now found on the
islands of Hawaii, Maui, Oahu, and Kauai and continue to expand their range. In the town
of Hilo, they entered via the Wal-Mart nursery (W. Mautz, R. Niino-DuPonte, personal
communications). Populations there are expanding rapidly.
2. Historical versus Current
Abundance. Coquis have been introduced to the United States and are limited to areas near
bromeliad nurseries or greenhouses. Populations do not appear to be self-sustaining and
instead may be replenished by new bromeliad shipments from Puerto Rico (Bartlett and
3. Life History Features. (Information comes primarily from studies
at 350 m in Puerto Rico.)
A. Breeding. Reproduction is terrestrial.
Coquis breed year-round, but breeding is more common during times of heat and high
humidity, from late spring to early fall (Conant and Collins, 1998; Bartlett and Bartlett,
1999a). Females approach calling males, who then lead the females to potential nest sites
where amplexus occurs (Townsend and Stewart, 1986). Fertilization is internal (Townsend et
ii. Breeding habitat. Males will call from open, elevated areas as well as
from leaf surfaces, axils of palms, and tree trunks (Townsend, 1989).
Egg deposition sites. Coquis deposit eggs in partially enclosed spaces such as rolled
leaves, palm fronds, and bromeliad axils, where they are guarded by the male parent
(Stewart and Pough, 1983; Bartlett and Bartlett, 1999a).
ii. Clutch size. Clutch size
varies with size of female, which varies with locality. Clutch size varies from 12–24 eggs
in Florida (Bartlett and Bartlett, 1999a) and averages 26 eggs at 350 m in Puerto Rico
(Townsend et al., 1984).
C. Direct Development. Complete metamorphosis occurs within
the egg. Young hatch as tiny froglets, 6 mm long (Townsend and Stewart, 1985).
Brood sites. Coquis brood in enclosed areas such as in curled, fallen leaves and rolled
palm fronds (Stewart and Pough, 1983; Townsend, 1989; Bartlett and Bartlett, 1999a).
ii. Parental care. Following deposition, clutches are tended and protected by the male
parent until hatching occurs, often extending care to several days post-hatching (Townsend
et al., 1984; Bartlett and Bartlett, 1999a). Males will defend the eggs against
conspecifics by biting, wrestling, aggressive calling, and preventing access to the nest
(Townsend et al., 1984).
D. Juvenile Habitat. In their native range, juveniles tend to
remain on or near litter and ground vegetation, moving higher when foraging as they age
(Stewart, 1995; Beard et al., 2003).
E. Adult Habitat. In their native range of Puerto
Rico, coquis are a widespread generalist species. Adults spend the day in the litter and
are arboreal at night (Stewart, 1985). Those observed in Florida tend to remain from
15–220 cm (6 in–7 ft) off the ground (Bartlett and Bartlett, 1999a). In Florida, coquis
are limited to areas around greenhouses (Conant and Collins, 1998). During the day, coquis
are found in secluded areas such as rock piles, axils of bromeliad fronds, treeholes, and
under rocks or logs (Stewart, 1985). However, on rainy or overcast days coquis are
sometimes active (Bartlett and Bartlett, 1999a). Males are most vocal after dark on moist
nights when they give their advertisement calls (Woolbright and Stewart, 1987).
Home Range Size. In Puerto Rico, the horizontal home range is ~5 m; the vertical range is
the entire vertical spectrum of the forest; the average calling height of males is
approximately 1 m off ground (Woolbright, 1985; Townsend, 1989).
G. Territories. Male
coquis give warning calls to defend their calling sites or diurnal retreats, while females
produce soft, rasping vocalizations to defend their feeding sites (Stewart and Rand,
1991). Males tending nests will defend the eggs against conspecifics (see “Parental care”
above; Townsend et al., 1984).
H. Aestivation/Avoiding Desiccation. Aestivation does
not occur. Other than nocturnality, behaviors associated with avoiding desiccation have
I. Seasonal Migrations. None.
J. Torpor (Hibernation). None.
K. Interspecific Associations/Exclusions. Personal space increases with size. Juveniles
may sit next to each other, but adults do not allow another adult close by if visible
L. Age/Size at Reproductive Maturity. Size is dependent on locality,
with larger individuals at higher elevations. Size ranges from 2.5–5.8 cm (1–2.25 in;
Schwartz and Henderson, 1991; Conant and Collins, 1998). Females are larger than males
(Woolbright, 1989), and frogs may reach reproductive size in 1 yr (Stewart and Woolbright,
1996). Individuals observed in Florida tend to be small (Bartlett and Bartlett, 1999a), as
are lowland frogs in Puerto Rico.
M. Longevity. In nature, most do not live to the
second year; the oldest individuals on record are 6 yr (Stewart and Woolbright, 1996).
N. Feeding Behavior. Coquis are dietary generalists eating a wide range of primarily
invertebrates in addition to conspecific eggs (Stewart and Woolbright, 1996).
Predators. Eggs may be preyed upon by conspecifics, ants, snails, centipedes, and phorid
flies; frogs are eaten by birds, lizards, snakes, spiders, scorpions, mongoose, and feral
cats (Stewart and Woolbright, 1996).
P. Anti-Predator Mechanisms. Protection is
provided primarily by cryptic colors and patterns, jumping and hiding under objects, and
urination when disturbed. When attacked by crab spiders, larger frogs can kick themselves
free (Formanowicz et al., 1981).
Q. Diseases. Unknown.
R. Parasites. Nematodes in
lungs, intestines, and body cavity or under the skin (M.M.S., personal observations).
In Puerto Rico, coquis are widespread and abundant (Rivero, 1998).
Although other species of Eleutherodactylus have declined and disappeared, we have
no evidence that coquis have declined in recent years except where habitats have been
destroyed ( Joglar, 1998). Most population estimates are from montane rather than lowland
habitats (Fogarty and Vilella, 2001). Because the coqui is an introduced species in the
United States, concerns about its conservation have not been expressed. In Hawaii, where
populations are expanding rapidly, the main concerns are not conservation but how to
eradicate the frogs (L. Woolbright, personal communication). It is assumed, without
evidence, that the frogs compete for food with native birds.
Literature references for Amphibian Declines: The Conservation Status of United States Species, edited by Michael Lannoo, are here.
Feedback or comments about this page.
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amphibian biology and conservation. [web application]. 2016. Berkeley, California:
(Accessed: Jul 1, 2016).
AmphibiaWeb's policy on data use. | <urn:uuid:9d746bae-a06b-4f8e-ad2c-41daf19c8dc7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://amphibiaweb.org/cgi/amphib_query?query_src=aw_lists_soundInclude_&where-genus=Eleutherodactylus&where-species=coqui | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403502.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00088-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.868232 | 1,867 | 3.3125 | 3 |
When researchers sequenced the chimpanzee genome in 2005, the biggest difference between it and the human genome was the extinct PtERV1 retrovirus, which inserted its DNA into the cells it infected like HIV does today. Chimps had 130 copies of PtERV1, but humans had none. "The question is: Why did our sister species get infected and not humans?" says virologist Michael Emerman of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
Looking for an answer, Emerman and colleagues homed in on the immune protein TRIM5α, one of several proteins involved in innate immunity, the body's first line of defense against viral infection. The TRIM5α gene varies widely among primates and has changed the most between chimps and humans, suggesting that it evolved to combat some virus humans were susceptible to, Emerman says.
Rhesus monkey TRIM5α protects against HIV-1, but the only modern virus that the human protein has any effect on is one that causes leukemia in mice—which happens to be closely related to PtERV1. TRIM5α seems to neutralize the mouse virus's inner core protein after it has entered a cell. So Emerman and colleagues resurrected the analogous protein from PtERV1, based on its remnants in chimpanzees, and inserted it into a defective version of the mouse virus, which could infect cells but not reproduce.
The altered virus was unable to infect feline cells engineered to produce human TRIM5α, the group reports online today in Science. Unexpectedly, however, the researchers found that no version of TRIM5α from any primate could neutralize both PtERV1 and HIV—it was either one or the other, Emerman says. What that implies, he says, is "humans are susceptible to HIV today because of a response to something else we had in the past."
HIV researcher Beatrice Hahn of the University of Alabama at Birmingham calls the study a "fabulous piece of molecular sleuthing" and says that understanding innate immune proteins may eventually lead to new HIV treatment strategies.
TRIM5α is not the final word on HIV susceptibility, she adds. None of the proteins protect against HIV-2, which came to us from apes like HIV-1 did, she says, but humans have apparently fended off nearly 40 other monkey retroviruses, so our innate immunity "wasn't quite as bad as you thought." | <urn:uuid:c5f81ad7-8273-46f8-afd3-964bcb9a0359> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/defense-against-ancient-virus-opened-door-to-hiv/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395613.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00163-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967388 | 503 | 3.65625 | 4 |
Gautam Buddha was one of the greatest religious teachers of the world. He gave the message of truth, peace, humanity and equality. His teachings and sayings became the basis of Buddhism, one of world's leading religions which are followed in some countries like Japan, China, and Burma etc.
He is believed to have been born in Lumbini forests in Nepalese Terai in the sixth century B.C. Before he became the Buddha (the Enlightened), he was called Siddharth. His father's name was Suddhodana, who was the ruler of Kapilvastu. His mother's name was Maya Devi, who died soon after Siddharth's birth.
Siddharth was a child with a contemplative bent of mind. He was inclined towards meditation and spiritual pursuits much against the wishes of his father. His father feared that Siddharth might leave home, and so, kept tried to insulate him from the harsh realities of the world outside by keeping him inside the palace all the time.
He even arranged his marriage with a beautiful princess Yashodhara when he was 18. They had a son named Rahul. But all these could not change the mind of young Siddharth.
The Buddhist traditions mention that when Siddharth encountered an old man, a sick person and a dead body, he realized how short lived is worldly passions and pleasures. Soon after he left his family and Kingdom and went into the forest in search of peace and truth. He wandered from place to place to gain knowledge. He met many scholars and saints but he was not satisfied.
At last he started hard meditation bearing great physical suffering. After six years of wandering and meditation Siddharth got enlightment when he was sitting in meditation under a pipal tree in the town of Ganges (Bihar).
Siddharth now got transformed into Buddha or the enlightened one at the age of the thirty five. The pipal tree under which he got Enlightment came to be known as Bodhi Vriksha.
Buddha attained what he wished for. He preached his first sermon in Sarnath, near Varanasi. He taught that the world is full of sorrows and people suffer on account of desire. Hence desires needed to be conquered by following Eightfold Path. Of these eight paths, the first three would ensure physical control, the next two ensures mental control, and the last two would ensure intellectual development.
Buddha taught that the final goal of every Buddhist is the attainment of 'Nirvana'. 'Nirvana' could be attained neither by prayer nor by sacrifice. It can be achieved by right kind of living and thinking. Buddha did not speak of God and his teachings constitute more of a philosophy and system of ethics than a religion. Buddhism affirms the law of Karma by which a person's action in life determines his status in future incarnations.
Buddhism is identified with the principles of non-violence. The Tripitika' is a collection of Buddha's teachings, life and philosophical discourses on the teachings and the commentaries. Buddha attained his Nirvana in Khushinagar (U.P.) in 483 B.C. | <urn:uuid:82d0f5a5-ffd9-4d79-929f-b2b0e2d43162> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.preservearticles.com/2011081410478/500-words-essay-on-gautam-buddha-and-buddhism.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391634.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00175-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978378 | 658 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Help teen drivers stay safe
This new year, parents of teen drivers should resolve to learn how to best protect teens behind the wheel. Car crashes are the leading cause of death for teen drivers and their passengers in the United States, but there are steps parents can take to reduce crash risks.
For example, parents can require their teen drivers be off the roads before 10 p.m., ban cell-phone use – handheld and hands-free – and never allow them to carry teen passengers.
Parents also should spend as much time as possible behind the wheel with their teens, even after full licensure.
These simple rules safeguard teens from elements proven to increase their already high-crash risk.
Since my son's death in a single-vehicle accident with a 16-year-old driver, I have been involved with the Pennsylvania Teen Safe Driving Coalition, initiated by the National Safety Council and The AllState Foundation.
I often hear about tragic crashes that could have been prevented through simple restrictions such as these. Studies show teens follow their parents' lead, so parents should set a good example and enforce safe driving habits. Teen lives depend on that parental guidance and involvement.
Our most vulnerable drivers deserve to navigate the most dangerous time of their lives safely. Parents should resolve to help them do just that.
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Kronecker, Leopold (lāˈōpôlt krōˈnĕkˌər) [key], 1823–91, German mathematician. After making a fortune in business he devoted his attention to mathematics and became professor at the Univ. of Berlin in 1883. Noted as an algebraist, he was a pioneer in the field of algebraic numbers and in formulating the relationship between the theory of numbers, the theory of equations, and elliptic functions.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:b94796fc-f8ab-47a1-a433-e334d37e1d64> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/people/kronecker-leopold.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00162-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946717 | 127 | 2.8125 | 3 |
>The alleged meteor crater in Iraq has not been studied, let alone dated. So
>it has nothing to do with the 2350 BC date. That date has recently
>been shown by dendrochronologists to be one in which the climate of the
> Near East was, for some unexplained reason, greatly altered for a short
>period of time. Of course, the reason these tree ring studies have made
>is because the date they point to happens to exactly match the date Bible
>chronologists have long assigned to Noah's flood.
Why must there be a 'cause' of a climate change? Weather is a nonlinear
system which sometimes simple falls into attractor states which do bad or
good things to areas normally used to having the opposite? There simply
doesn't have to be a 'cause' be it meteor, or anything else.
Somewhere, and I can't find it right now, I have an article which says that
every so often the center of North America becomes a tremendous desert, with
dunes moving across the landscape. At my sister-in-laws farm, I saw those
My neice and nephew grew up on a farm in
SW Nebraska in an area known as the sand hills. Geologically
about a thousand years ago Western Nebraska was a desert with
dunes. Even in the 30s my former sister in law tells me that the
dunes started moving again and covered some farm houses. Today
the huge sand dunes are covered with grass which stabilizes them. There
doesn't have to be a catastrophic cause of this drought.
for lots of creation/evolution information
personal stories of struggle
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed May 01 2002 - 15:45:18 EDT | <urn:uuid:a0e75a47-5095-4f7b-af9f-d7ca26d91377> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www2.asa3.org/archive/asa/200205/0033.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00021-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955392 | 371 | 2.96875 | 3 |
During the 1930s, California attracted large numbers of people from the Dust Bowl of the Great Plains. John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" dramatized the exodus of from Oklahoma. So many low-income people came that California barred indigent migrants under the so-called "anti-Okie" law, which was later declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. There is other evidence, such as the annual Iowa expatriate picnics in Long Beach, that California consists of millions who came from somewhere else.
The tables, however, have begun to turn, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Since 2000, a net 2.3 million people have moved out of California's largest coastal metropolitan areas (the Bay Area, San Diego and the Los Angeles-Orange County area). This is a stunning development. Despite being arguably the most desirable places to live in the state (if not the nation), these regions' loss was greater than the population of any U.S. cities except New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
One-third of the departed stayed in the state, moving to interior areas, such as Sacramento, the San Joaquin Valley and the Inland Empire. But more than 1.5 million crossed the state line, their California Dream having faded away. California's growth from 2000-10 was the slowest since its 1849 statehood and occurred only because the loss was made up by the natural increase (births minus deaths) and international immigration.
California's high cost of living, driven by high house prices, was certainly a factor. It was not always this way. California's house price to household income ratio ("median multiple") was little different than the rest of the nation in the early 1970s. However, since that time, house prices doubled relative to incomes, the victim of stronger land use regulations.
This is basic economics. When land is artificially rationed by California, or when OPEC cuts oil production, prices go up.
It could get much worse. Under the state's even more stringent urban planning law (Senate Bill 375, authored by state Senate President Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento), land will be even more drastically rationed. Regional plans are being considered that would seek to socially engineer new residents into housing at densities rivaling Hong Kong. Much of the new housing would be at 30 to 50 units per acre. The new plans would allow little new detached housing, which accounted for more than 80 percent of new housing in the past decade.
And, these are not just plans that will gather dust on shelves. The state has already sued San Bernardino and San Diego counties for not cramming enough people together. With less land available for building, housing could become even more unaffordable, and even spur another housing bubble.
SB375's neighborhoods would have greater traffic congestion and more intense air pollution. California's counter-productive land use policies can tell people where they cannot live. They cannot tell people where they must live. More out-migration could be the result.
California's legendary anti-business regulatory environment adds to the problem and the unilateral greenhouse gas regulations under Assembly Bill 32 promise to make this situation even worse. The exodus of companies from California is already significant, as Orange County business-relocation consultant Joseph Vranich has documented. California could well miss out on the nation's manufacturing job recovery and the good jobs that will come with it.
The largest number of Californians have left for Texas, where reasonable land-use regulations guarantee housing affordability and its "anti-California" business environment. For eight years running, Chief Executive Magazine has rated Texas the best state for business and California the worst.
But the big surprise is the return of Californians to the Dust Bowl. While the numbers are not overwhelming, there has been net migration to Oklahoma since 2000.
And, it's not just Oklahoma. There may be fewer people at future Long Beach Iowa picnics, with more people moving from California to Iowa. And, who would have believed even as late as 1990 that California would be losing people to Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota?
There is no indication that the Oklahoma Legislature will seek to intercept people or companies driven out by California's anti-household and anti-business policies. To the contrary, Oklahoma, Texas and other states are more than happy to welcome California residents to purchase their less-expensive housing and companies to operate where investments pay off and job creation is rewarded rather than punished.
WRITE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR Letters to the Editor: E-mail to firstname.lastname@example.org. Please provide your name, city and telephone number (telephone numbers will not be published). Letters of about 200 words or videos of 30-seconds each will be given preference. Letters will be edited for length, grammar and clarity.
- 2 found shot multiple times in Santa Ana, suspect at large
- Flames roar through central California homes; thousands flee
- Brexit could push mortgage rates to historic lows
- Health Care Agency issues warnings, beach closures for parts of Dana Point, Newport Beach
- After losing nearly 100 pounds, O.C. woman becomes biggest winner | <urn:uuid:e6fc2589-9955-496f-8f48-642956d2525e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ocregister.com/articles/california-374627-people-housing.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00012-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961323 | 1,059 | 3.1875 | 3 |
July 8, 2008
Study: Climate Change May Kill Wildlife
A U.S.-led study suggests extreme climate change is capable of precipitating mass die-offs among lions and other wildlife.
The researchers said their findings mark the first clear example of how climate extremes can create conditions in which diseases normally tolerated singly might converge, bringing about mass die-offs in wildlife.The study -- led by the University of Illinois, the University of California-Davis and the University of Minnesota -- examined outbreaks of canine distemper virus, or CDV, in 1994 and 2001 that caused unusually high mortality among Serengeti lions. CDV cycles periodically within the Serengeti ecosystem, and epidemics have occurred without effects on lion populations.
The study determined both outbreaks were preceded by extreme drought, which led to debilitated populations of Cape buffalo, the lion's prey. After rains resumed, the buffalo suffered heavy tick infestations, resulting in high levels of a tick-borne blood parasite among the lions, which in combination with CDV infections led to the mass deaths.
The researchers said their findings suggest more frequent droughts and floods expected with global warming can alter normal host-pathogen relationships, potentially triggering epidemics with catastrophic mortality.
The study appeared in the June 25 issue of the online journal PLoS One. | <urn:uuid:809bf2e5-187c-48a7-af91-6de113dcfae1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1468294/study_climate_change_may_kill_wildlife/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00104-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929941 | 270 | 2.515625 | 3 |
What In World History Would You Like To Learn About?
Around 900 B.C., a group of people known as the Mayans begin to settle the territory around the Yucatan Peninsula. By 300 A.D., the Mayan culture had become quite advanced. The Mayans were not ruled by a central government. They shared the same language, traditions and culture, but they were led by small local governments. | <urn:uuid:4ad94a33-0c44-48c6-9dd8-8c02e1b5d6f7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.kidspast.com/world-history/0274-mayans.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391766.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00020-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985132 | 84 | 3.90625 | 4 |
Kernel Korner - udev—Persistent Device Naming in User Space
Starting with the 2.5 kernel, all physical and virtual devices in a system are visible to user space in a hierarchal fashion through sysfs. /sbin/hotplug provides a notification to user space when any device is added or removed from the system. Using these two features, a user-space implementation of a dynamic /dev now is possible that can provide a flexible device naming policy.
This article discusses udev, a program that replaces the functionality of devfs. It provides /dev entries for devices in the system at any moment in time. It also provides features previously unavailable through devfs alone, such as persistent naming for devices when they move around the device tree, a flexible device naming scheme, notification of external systems of device changes and moving all naming policy out of the kernel.
The /dev directory on a Linux machine is where all of the device files for the system should be located. A device file details how a user program can access a specific hardware device or function. For example, the device file /dev/hda traditionally is used to represent the first IDE drive in the system. The name hda corresponds to both a major and a minor number, which are used by the kernel to determine what hardware device to talk to. Currently, a wide range of names that match up to different major and minor numbers has been defined.
All major and minor numbers are assigned a name that matches up with a type of device. This allocation is done by the Linux assigned names and numbers authority (LANANA), and the current device list can be found on its Web site (see the on-line Resources section).
As Linux begins supporting new kinds of devices, these devices need to be assigned a major and minor number range in order for users to access them through the /dev directory. An alternative is to provide access through a filesystem; my 2002 linux.conf.au paper provides more details on how to do this (see the on-line Resources section). In kernel versions 2.4 and earlier, the valid range of major numbers was 1–255, and the valid range of minor numbers was 1–255. Because of this limited range, a freeze was placed on allocating new major and minor numbers during the 2.3 development cycle. This freeze since has been lifted, and the 2.6 kernel had the valid range of major numbers increased to 4,095. More than a million minor numbers are available per major number.
When the kernel finds a new piece of hardware, it typically assigns the next major/minor pair for that kind of hardware to the device. So, on boot, the first USB printer found would be assigned the major number 180 and minor number 0, which is referenced in /dev as /dev/usb/lp0. The second USB printer would be assigned major number 180 and minor number 1, which is referenced in /dev as /dev/usb/lp1. If the user rearranges the USB topology, perhaps adding a USB hub to support more USB devices in the system, the USB probing order of the printers might change the next time the computer is booted, reversing the assignment of the different minor numbers to the two printers.
This same situation holds true for almost any kind of device that can be removed or added while the computer is powered up. With the advent of PCI hot-plug-enabled systems and hot-pluggable buses, such as IEEE 1394, USB and CardBus, almost all devices have this problem.
With the advent of the sysfs filesystem in the 2.5 kernel, the problem of determining which device minor number is assigned to which physical device is much easier to determine. For a system having two different USB printers plugged in to it, the sysfs /sys/class/usb directory tree would look like this:
/sys/class/usb/ |-- lp0 | |-- dev | |-- device -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:09.0/usb1/1-1/1-1:0 | `-- driver -> ../../../bus/usb/drivers/usblp `-- lp1 |-- dev |-- device -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:0d.0/usb3/3-1/3-1:0 `-- driver -> ../../../bus/usb/drivers/usblp $ cat /sys/class/usb/lp0/device/serial HXOLL0012202323480 $ cat /sys/class/usb/lp1/device/serial W09090207101241330
Within the individual USB device directories pointed to by the lp0/device and lp1/device symbolic links, a lot of USB-specific information can be determined, such as the manufacturer of the device and the (hopefully unique) serial number.
As can be seen by the serial files in the above description, the /dev/usb/lp0 device file is associated with the USB printer with serial number HXOLL0012202323480, and the /dev/usb/lp1 device file is associated with the USB printer with serial number W09090207101241330. If these printers are moved around, say by placing them both behind a USB hub, they might be renamed, as they are probed in a different order on startup:
$ tree /sys/class/usb/ /sys/class/usb/ |-- lp0 | |-- dev | |-- device -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:09.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.1/1-1.1:0 | `-- driver -> ../../../bus/usb/drivers/usblp `-- lp1 |-- dev |-- device -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:09.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.4/1-1.4:0 `-- driver -> ../../../bus/usb/drivers/usblp $ cat /sys/class/usb/lp0/device/serial W09090207101241330 $ cat /sys/class/usb/lp1/device/serial HXOLL0012202323480
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- Download "Linux Management with Red Hat Satellite: Measuring Business Impact and ROI"
- Profiles and RC Files
- Understanding Ceph and Its Place in the Market
- Astronomy for KDE
- Git 2.9 Released
- OpenSwitch Finds a New Home
- The Giant Zero, Part 0.x
- Maru OS Brings Debian to Your Phone
- SoftMaker FreeOffice
- What's Our Next Fight?
With all the industry talk about the benefits of Linux on Power and all the performance advantages offered by its open architecture, you may be considering a move in that direction. If you are thinking about analytics, big data and cloud computing, you would be right to evaluate Power. The idea of using commodity x86 hardware and replacing it every three years is an outdated cost model. It doesn’t consider the total cost of ownership, and it doesn’t consider the advantage of real processing power, high-availability and multithreading like a demon.
This ebook takes a look at some of the practical applications of the Linux on Power platform and ways you might bring all the performance power of this open architecture to bear for your organization. There are no smoke and mirrors here—just hard, cold, empirical evidence provided by independent sources. I also consider some innovative ways Linux on Power will be used in the future.Get the Guide | <urn:uuid:a5adc6ed-1e6f-43ce-87ec-19484b30d027> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7316?quicktabs_1=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395992.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00035-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.894725 | 1,694 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Proteins are macromolecules. They are constructed from one or more unbranched chains of amino acids; that is, they are polymers. An average eukaryotic protein contains around 500 amino acids but some are much smaller (the smallest are often called peptides) and some much larger (the largest to date is titin a protein found in skeletal and cardiac muscle; one version contains 34,350 amino acids in a single chain!).
|Link to a discussion of how the amino acids are linked together.|
Every function in the living cell depends on proteins.
The protein represented here displays many of the features of proteins. Let's examine some of them as you scroll down the image.
The protein consists of two polypeptide chains, a long one on the left of 346 amino acids — it is called the heavy chain — and a short one on the right of 99 amino acids.The heavy chain is shown as consisting of 5 main regions or domains:
Because it is anchored in the plasma membrane of the cell, the heavy chain is called an integral membrane protein.
To the right is the protein molecule called beta-2 microglobulin. It is not attached to the heavy chain by any covalent bonds, but rather by a number of noncovalent interactions like hydrogen bonds. Proteins associated noncovalently with integral membrane proteins are called peripheral membrane proteins.
|Link to a color diagram showing the relationship between integral and peripheral membrane proteins (48K)|
The dark bars represent disulfide (S—S) bridges linking portions of each external domain (except the N domain). However, the bonds in S—S bridges are no longer than any other covalent bond, so if this molecule could be viewed in its actual tertiary (3D) configuration, we would find that the portions of the polypeptide chains containing the linked Cys are actually close together.
|Link to a color model showing this (92K). But note that the terminology for the domains is different in this model: N = alpha1, C1 = alpha2, C2 = alpha 3|
The two objects on the left of the image that look like candelabra represent short, branched chains of sugars. The base of each is attached to an asparagine (N). Proteins with covalently linked carbohydrate are called glycoproteins. When the carbohydrate is linked to asparagine, it is said to be "N-linked".
The presence of sugars on the molecule makes this region hydrophilic as befits its location projecting into the fluid that surrounds the cell. The amino acids exposed at the surface of the extracellular domains tend to be hydrophilic as well.
However, most of the amino acids in the transmembrane domain are hydrophobic, as befits their hydrophobic surroundings.
Most of the amino acids in the cytoplasmic domain are hydrophilic, which is appropriate for the aqueous medium of the cytosol, but carbohydrate is not found in the intracellular domains of integral membrane proteins.
The regions marked "Papain" represent the places on the long chain that are attacked by the proteinase papain (and made it possible to release the extracellular domains from the plasma membrane for easier analysis).
This molecule represents a "single-pass" transmembrane protein; the polypeptide chain traverses the plasma membrane once only. However, many transmembrane proteins pass through several, but always a precisely defined number, of times [Example].
This image (courtesy of T.J. Kindt and J. E. Coligan) represents the structure of a class I histocompatibility molecule, called H-2K. Almost all the cells of an animal's body (in this case, a mouse) have thousands of these molecules present in their plasma membrane. These molecules provide tissue identity and serve as major targets in the rejection of transplanted tissue and organs. Hence molecules of this type are often called transplantation antigens. But tissue rejection is not their natural function. Class I molecules serve to display antigens on the surface of the cell so that they can be "recognized" by T cells.
|Discussion of antigen presentation by class I molecules|
When proteins are first synthesized, a process called translation, they consist of a linear assembly of the various amino acids, of which only 20 are normally used.
|Translation: How proteins are synthesized using the genetic code.|
Some bacteria, plants, and animals (but not humans) cut one or more peptides out of certain of their translated proteins and link the free ends together to form a circular protein. The details of how this is done are not yet known, but with a free amino group at one end and a free carboxyl at the other (the groups that form all peptide bonds), there is no chemical difficulty to overcome. The advantage of circular proteins seems to be great resistance to degradation (e.g., no free end for peptidases to work on).
Another, very rare, post-translational modification is the later removal of a section of the polypeptide and the splicing together (with a peptide bond) of the remaining N-terminal and C-terminal segments. The portion removed is called an intein (a "protein intron"), and the ligated segments are called exteins ("protein exons").Genes encoding inteins have been discovered in a variety of organisms, including
|How Proteins Get Their Shape|
|How proteins are delivered to their proper destination in the cell.| | <urn:uuid:3fd2e37f-5727-40ae-8a0f-de50440c9c0e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://users.erols.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/P/Proteins.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395992.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00042-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934507 | 1,181 | 4.09375 | 4 |
Landslides constitute a major geologic hazard because they are widespread, occur in all 50 states and U.S. territories, and cause $1-2 billion in damages and more than 25 fatalities on average each year. Expansion of urban and recreational developments into hillside areas leads to more people that are threatened by landslides each year. Landslides commonly occur in connection with other major natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes, wildfires, and floods.
The primary objective of the National Landslide Hazards Program (LHP) is to reduce long-term losses from landslide hazards by improving our understanding of the causes of ground failure and suggesting mitigation strategies.
The LHP has operated since the mid-1970’s in gathering information, conducting research, responding to emergencies and disasters, and producing scientific reports and other products for a broadly based user community including geologists and engineers in government, academia and private practice, planners and decision makers from governmental entities at all levels, and the general public.
The results of these efforts have led to significant improvements in understanding the nature and scope of ground-failure problems nationally and worldwide. Such improvements are central to the role of the program, because opportunities remain for fundamental advances in understanding that promise to save lives and dollars.
Souce : http://landslides.usgs.gov | <urn:uuid:c3f0a83a-d364-4e17-8fab-93e27bd5bdfe> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.igosgeohazards.org/landslide-hazards-program/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00171-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948794 | 273 | 4.15625 | 4 |
Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have developed a new approach for treating and healing skin abscesses caused by bacteria resistant to most antibiotics. The study appears in the journal PLoS One.
Abscesses are deep skin infections that often resist anti... Read More
The often feared and sometimes deadly infections caused by MRSA -- methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus -- are now moving out of hospitals and emerging as an even more virulent strain in community settings and on athletic teams, and raising new concerns about antibiotic resistance.
Rig... Read More
A team of researchers working in a high containment laboratory at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA, have solved a fundamental mystery about smallpox that has puzzled scientists long after the natural disease was eradicated by vaccination.: they know how it kills us. ... Read More
The poorest people are not only poor. They are also chronically sick, making it harder for them to escape poverty. A new global initiative may break the vicious cycle:
A group of seven tropical diseases, mostly caused by parasitic worms, afflict a billion impoverished people worldwide. They s... Read More
Mold and mildew may be doomed. Researchers are closer to understanding how these and other fungi grow. "Fungi have a big impact on our dinner plate," said Dr. Brian Shaw, Texas AgriLife Research plant pathologist. "We tend to think that getting food on the table is easy. But fungi are major dise... Read More
Millions of New Yorkers were immunized against smallpox within a few weeks in April 1947. The stimulus for this mass immunization was the importation of smallpox by a businessman who had acquired the disease during his travels. While we are in the middle of a massive influenza immunization campa... Read More
Histoplasma capsulatum in mitral valve. Yeasts and rare hyphal growth in vivo Read More
The war pitting researchers and clinicians against a growing array of tuberculosis bacteria strains that are resistant to one of more antibiotics has taken a disturbing turn.
U.S. and Chinese researchers reported Monday a strain of bacteria that is not only immune to one of the main drugs in ... Read More
Researchers in Brazil have estimated the growth timeline of a bacterium that causes orange juice spoilage during shelf life (approximately 6 months) and developed a safe and inexpensive filling, cooling, and storage protocol that inhibits bacterial growth and offers an alternative to other propo... Read More
Pomegranates have already been hailed as a super-food but a team of scientists from Kingston University in South West London has found a new use for the deep red fruit. The team, led by Professor Declan Naughton, has discovered that the rind can be turned into an ointment for treating MRSA and o... Read More
When Allison Hamilos came to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last year, she dreaded having to take the mandatory general chemistry course for freshmen. Eyeing a future in medicine, she couldn’t see much point in learning chemistry.
“I didn’t like chemistry at all in high school,” s... Read More
Michelle Barnes never imagined that her vacation to Uganda would make her a medical celebrity.
Ms. Barnes, 44, became ill in January 2008, a few days after returning home to Golden, Colo. At first, she seemed to have a typical case of traveler’s diarrhea, but she soon worsened. She broke out ... Read More
“And, of course,” added Kathleen Sebelius, after summing up the accomplishments of eight months of battling swine flu, “we’ve taught everyone how to sneeze.”
With that, Ms. Sebelius, the health and human services secretary, bent her elbow across her face and sent a delicate imitation of a vi... Read More
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University, Evanston, have discovered that common bacteria can turn microgears when suspended in a solution, providing insights for design of bio-inspired dynamically adaptive materials for energy.
... Read More
Molecular Microbiology Holiday Skit 2009. It looks like some students from the Tufts Molecular Biology and Microbiology department were inspired by the holidays to bring us this great video skit called "The Sound of Science."
A third patient is being treated for the effects of anthrax following the death of another drug user in Glasgow, health chiefs have confirmed.
The patient being treated at the city's Glasgow Royal Infirmary is in a critical condition. One male patient died last week and the female patient und... Read More
Scientists at Washington University have isolated a channel that shuttles the vital but vulnerable heme molecule across biological membranes.
In some ways a cell in your body or an organelle in that cell is like an ancient walled town. Life inside either depends critically on the intelligence... Read More
The culling of thousands of pregnant goats and sheep carrying a disease that killed 6-people earlier this year, was begun by the Dutch government on Monday.
While, it is rare for humans to contract Q-fever, a bacterial sickness, however, the unusual outbreak in the Netherlands has continued t... Read More
A new antiretroviral treatment currently available in Europe and North America will be available in Australia from January 1, combining three existing medicines in one tablet.
Atripla — which controls HIV by stopping the virus multiplying — will be included on the pharmaceutical benefits sche... Read More
You think you have a stomach of steel—until you get a bad bout of food poisoning, that is. And while you may be tempted to throw caution to the wind, food borne illness can be serious business. According to the American Dietetic Association (ADA), millions of people are sickened, 325,000 are hos... Read More | <urn:uuid:4d8a46ca-fdf1-44da-a3be-3d45a6e1b465> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.microbeworld.org/component/browse/1/0?start=13880 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00155-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951516 | 1,227 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Wednesday, 9 January 2013
WORD FOR THE DAY
Posted By: Native English on: 08:57 In: English, Native English, Spain, Valladolid, Word for the day
Share it Please
Your word for today is: monkery, n.2
[‘The countryside; a district, esp. one frequented by tramps. Hence: the way of life of a tramp.’]
Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈmʌŋk(ə)ri/, U.S. /ˈməŋkəri/
Forms: 17– monkery, 18 monkry, 18 munkery.
Etymology:Origin uncertain; perhaps < Shelta munk'ri country, which according to R. A. S. Macalister (Secret Langs. Ireland (1937) 204) may derive < Irish tearmann church glebe, ‘but being a common cant expression may not be true Shelta’.
slang (orig. cant).
The countryside; a district, esp. one frequented by tramps. Hence: the way of life of a tramp.
a1790 H. T. Potter New Dict. Cant & Flash (1795), Monkery, the country.
1819 J. H. Vaux New Vocab. Flash Lang. in Mem., Monkery, the country parts of England are called The Monkery.
1824 J. Badcock Boxiana IV. 353 Exchanging the unwholesome air of the darkey for the pure invigorating breezes of the monkery.
1851 H. Mayhew London Labour I. 247/1 The writer of this account was himself two whole years on the ‘monkry’, before he saw a lodging-house for tramps.
1865 Leaves from Diary Celebrated Burglar xxxii. 108/1 Flash Curly..from infancy had to ‘pad the hoof’ along with his parents through the ‘monkery’
1865 Leaves from Diary Celebrated Burglar xxxii. 108/1 Thau knoas this 'ere itchy ‘munkery’ better'n I du.
1891 F. W. Carew No. 747 xxxv. 413, I slung my 'ook and joined some travellin' Barks..and stalled the monkery with 'em for two or three year.
1939 J. B. Priestley Let People Sing x. 257 I'm off to Newcastle. That's a good monkery these days, plenty of smash up there. | <urn:uuid:4324c377-62f9-4f54-9d07-a79403eb6bf8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://nativeenglishspain.blogspot.com/2013/01/word-for-day_9.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398628.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00128-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.858395 | 561 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Network based antivirus
ITS has added another layer of antivirus protection for our on campus users. Network Based Antivirus looks at Internet traffic entering and leaving the campus network. If a virus is detected while a file is being downloaded, the download will be blocked before the malicious file reaches the computer.
Things to consider
Network based antivirus will only detect viruses coming in and out of the BGSU network, so when a computer is used off campus it will not have this additional layer of protection.
The network based antivirus protection is not designed to replace host based antivirus software (Microsoft Forefront, McAfee, Symantec etc) on your computer. Each of these are separate layers of protection that supplement each other to provide greater overall security. | <urn:uuid:7d642884-aa45-4ed7-90fb-1fcf59b6aec4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bgsu.edu/its/infosec/network-based-antivirus.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00088-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905803 | 154 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Do people with diabetes have to follow a low-sodium diet?
It depends. People with diabetes have the same recommended sodium intake as the general population – 2,400-3,000 mg per day, according to the American Diabetes Association (ADA). However, about 30% of Americans have sodium-sensitive blood pressure, whereby decreasing sodium intake reduces blood pressure. People who have this condition, or mild to moderate high blood pressure, should aim for less than 2,400 mg per day, says the ADA.
People with high blood pressure and kidney disease should eat less than 2,000 mg per day.
Here are tips to help lower your sodium intake, courtesy of the ADA:
Reprinted from 101 Nutrition Tips for People with Diabetes by Patti B. Geil and Lea Ann Holzmeister. Copyright by the American Diabetes Association. Used by permission. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:a60a0e60-3013-4053-8c01-02273dab97a6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.lifescript.com/health/centers/diabetes_2/tips/a_salty_situation.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00133-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913523 | 183 | 3.359375 | 3 |
WARREN, TX (FANNIN COUNTY)
WARREN, TEXAS (Fannin County). Warren, also called Fort Warren and Old Warren, was on the Red River just south of its confluence with Choctaw Slough in the area of present Fannin County on the Fannin-Grayson county line. Fort Warren was built by Abel Warren, an Indian trader from Fort Smith, Arkansas, in 1836 in what was then Red River County. The bois d'arc wood structure was surrounded by walls with two-story towers on each corner to watch for Indian raids. Warren traded with Kiowa, Caddo, Tonkawa, and Wichita Indians there. He soon returned to Arkansas, but other settlers continued to operate the fort. When Fannin County was established from Red River County in 1837, Warren became the county seat of an area that also included that of present Grayson County. The court house, a two-story cabin, was built in Warren, and in 1838 a new stockade was built around the fort. The first school in Fannin County was established by John Trimble in a stable. By 1838 there were eighty-eight first class land warrants issued in Warren. The Republic of Texas began mail delivery in Warren in 1839, and in 1847 the community received a United States Post Office, after Texas's annexation. On January 16, 1843, an act of the Congress of the Republic of Texas changed the county seat from Warren to Bonham, because of its more central location. During the Civil War Warren served as a transport and food supply area for soldiers in Louisiana and Arkansas. Warren was bypassed by the stage and the railroad, and the community slowly disappeared. The post office was closed in 1876. The old courthouse remained in Warren until the 1920s, when it was dismantled and moved to Bonham to be erected as a historical landmark, but it was never rebuilt.
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The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.Handbook of Texas Online, Lisa C. Maxwell, "Warren, TX (Fannin County)," accessed July 01, 2016, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hvw95.
Uploaded on June 15, 2010. Published by the Texas State Historical Association. | <urn:uuid:e4ec51a8-a50a-42aa-bfb5-2cbc700d7983> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hvw95 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00079-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972038 | 643 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Getting involved in research is an important and exciting way to learn about a field or career path. Research can prepare you for a variety of careers, giving you better credentials for your resume or if you decide to go to graduate school. It will expose you to the inner workings of a field of study, to see if you are truly interested in pursuing a career in that area. It is a way to "try on" a discipline before committing to it as a career, to see if it is a good fit for you.
Research helps you develop critical thinking, problem solving, analytical, time-management, and teamwork skills, as well as skills specific to your field of research. All of these skills will benefit you in your coursework and career, and will prove your dedication and interest to employers and graduate schools.
Research opportunities can include the following:
* Working in a laboratory
* Investigating an event, period or trend
* Creating computer code to support the needs of a scholarly project
* Gathering data on people's experiences or opinions
* Creating new works in the performing or visual arts | <urn:uuid:dcfc0cd9-6b03-4480-a3a9-d8229e07d906> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.albany.edu/advisingplus/research.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402699.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00143-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95689 | 222 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Your skin is your largest organ, and it sheds 30,000 to 40,000 dead skin cells every minute [source: Wellsphere]. If rubbing that dead skin away to reveal the shiny, bright skin underneath sounds appealing, what you need is some exfoliation.
Exfoliating means removing the dead layer of skin cells on the skin's outermost surface [source: MedicineNet]. The average person should exfoliate twice a week, but you may need to exfoliate more or less depending on your age and the climate in which you live. For example, older skin doesn't renew as quickly, so too much scrubbing can irritate it. And people who live in warm climates may need to exfoliate more often because heat increases oil and sweat production, both of which can speed up the accumulation of dead cells.
But what you use to remove those dead cells is just as important as how often you exfoliate. Different parts of your body have different skin thicknesses and require different tools. A clean washcloth and a little scrub may be fine for your face, but it won't put a dent in the rough skin on your feet. But with the proper tools, you can have smooth skin from head to toe.
Carpenters and plumbers use specific tools to get different jobs done -- just as you can use specific tools to exfoliate different parts of your skin. On the next pages, you'll learn what types of exfoliating tools can help keep your skin smooth and bright. | <urn:uuid:f5037111-73e9-4d16-bbec-708256e1da63> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://health.howstuffworks.com/skin-care/cleansing/products/exfoliating-tools.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396147.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00136-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950334 | 311 | 2.84375 | 3 |
BENGOUGH, JOHN WILSON, cartoonist, editor, publisher, author, entertainer, and politician; b. 7 April 1851 in Toronto, son of John Bengough and Margaret Wilson; m. there first 30 June 1880 Helena (Nellie) Siddall (d. 1902); m. secondly 18 June 1908 Mrs Annie Robertson Matteson in Chicago; there were no children of either marriage; d. 2 Oct. 1923 in Toronto.
On 24 May 1873, at the age of 22, John Wilson Bengough published the first issue of Grip. For the next two decades this Toronto weekly would carry puns, jokes, satire, and especially cartoons about virtually every topic of the day in late-19th-century Canada. The name Grip was borrowed from the raven who regularly accompanied the feeble-minded central character of Charles Dickens’s 1841 novel Barnaby Rudge, while the magazine itself was probably modelled on Punch (London), whose cartoonist, John Tenniel, Bengough greatly admired. Bengough edited and published this little magazine; his voice dominated its pages through reams of poetry, outrageous puns, satirical paragraphs, and “Croaks and Pecks” of the raven. His humour was often broad: “To cultivate a Canadian National Spirit. – Grow barley,” or “A Fenian Scare – threatened lack of whiskey.” Above all, however, Grip featured Bengough’s cartoons and caricatures. Some were large enough to fill an entire page and many revealed the influence of Thomas Nast, the great Republican cartoonist of Harper’s Weekly (New York); Bengough turned Nast’s Republican elephant into a symbol for Sir John A. Macdonald*’s National Policy, for instance. Others, which appeared in odd corners almost as fillers, were little gems of social and personal commentary.
“The Pun,” Grip proclaimed, “is mightier than the Sword,” for Bengough’s humour was purposeful. In 1888 he explained “that the legitimate forces of humor and caricature can and ought to serve the state in its highest interests, and that the comic journal which has no other aim than to amuse its readers for the moment, falls short of its highest mission.” The humorist was also a moralist intent upon both amusing and instructing his readers. Given his background and beliefs, this penchant is not surprising.
Bengough’s family circumstances were modest and so was his education. His immigrant parents, a Scottish cabinetmaker and his Irish wife, sent him to the common and grammar schools of Whitby, where the family lived for a time; he was then briefly articled to a local lawyer. After learning something of the printing trade at the Whitby Gazette, he moved on to Toronto where he became a junior reporter with George Brown*’s Globe in 1871 or 1872. This early association with Liberal party journalism was natural enough since his father was a known party worker. Though Bengough would loudly declare Grip’s political disinterestedness and sometimes throw his support behind independent candidates or representatives of Alexander Sutherland*’s Third Party, he always came back to the Liberal party, especially in the years after Grip’s demise. His cartoons would appear in a great variety of publications at home and abroad, but Liberal newspapers and party publications provided him with much of his income. His ambition to become a Liberal member of the Senate was gently rebuffed by Sir Wilfrid Laurier*; he nevertheless remained loyal.
Grip’s politics, during its earliest years, remained undefined. Frequent gibes at George Brown allowed it to claim independence. On the other hand, the weekly showed no sympathy for the Conservatives, particularly after the Pacific Scandal of 1873 offered Bengough an opportunity to express unlimited moral outrage – especially pictorially. Indeed, it was that controversy which provided Grip with an opportunity to win a wide audience. Bengough’s often reprinted cartoons from this period captured the essence of John A.’s physiognomy: his prominent nose, sly eyes, fashionable coiffure, and nonchalant attitude contrasted, for example, with Alexander Mackenzie*’s upright Scottish Presbyterian mien. “I admit I took the money and bribed the electors with it,” Bengough’s Macdonald remarks. “Is there anything wrong about that?” The question was certainly rhetorical.
Though Bengough continued to direct his verbal and pictorial gibes at the Conservatives – Macdonald would remain his favourite target until his death in 1891 when Bengough published a poetic tribute – the 1880s saw the flowering of Grip’s own reformist platform. It was founded upon Bengough’s religious outlook and drew on a variety of ideas that were common to late-19th-century social critics in the English-speaking world. These reform nostrums, which Bengough propagated but did not originate, advocated social regeneration through the adoption of attitudes and policies sometimes described as applied Christianity or the Social Gospel.
Bengough’s own religious upbringing was Presbyterian but he apparently imbibed few of the distinctive doctrines of that denomination. Instead, at least in his mature years, his religion eschewed doctrine in favour of ethics. Like many other social reformers he believed that theologically informed preaching reflected conservative other-worldliness while moralistic preaching concerned the here and now. He made his position plain in an 1875 poem criticizing churches, "Whose preachers preach theology a deal more than they should,/And try to make men wise when they should try to make them good."
This moralistic religion was not based on any sophisticated understanding of the intellectual currents which challenged religious orthodoxy in the late 19th century. Bengough rejected the claims of the “higher critics” who questioned literal readings of the Bible, and of Darwinians whose scientific materialism raised even more radical doubts about religion. In a satirical poem entitled “The higher criticism” Bengough professed his continuing adherence to the simple religious truths he had learned from his mother. Creations such as Professor Spencer E. Volushin and the Very Reverend Archdeacon Diaphanous Dixie, dd, were used by Grip to expound the simple moral claim that right conduct, not doctrinal purity, was the true test of religious convictions. It is not difficult to understand why writers like Charles Dickens would appeal to the Toronto cartoonist.
Bengough’s platform contained a number of planks familiar to contemporary moral reformers. He ardently advocated the prohibition of alcoholic beverages, believing that they took a particularly heavy toll among working people. It was also in the interest of this class that he opposed Sunday streetcars, which he thought would destroy the sabbath as a day of rest. So, too, in the 1880s he took up the cause of women’s suffrage and the admission of women to such professions as the law, reversing his earlier opposition to “The Female Righter.” But Bengough went beyond these modest demands for change, perhaps because he increasingly realized that such social sins as alcohol consumption had their roots in more fundamental problems. By the 1880s Bengough had discovered, and accepted, the analysis of the ills of emerging industrial capitalism presented by the American social critic Henry George. In Progress and poverty (1879) George, whose moralistic language appealed to Bengough, explained that the existence of poverty in the midst of the plenty created by science and technology was the result of an inequitable fiscal system. This system failed to tax the unearned increment on land whose value increased not through the owner’s labours, but rather as a consequence of increased demand arising from population growth. At the same time the protective tariff promoted monopoly and increased prices unnaturally. George’s alternative, what Bengough would call “The Whole Hog Solution,” was obvious: a single tax on unimproved land values and free trade. Once he had discovered George’s teachings Bengough became a lifelong missionary in the single-tax cause, cartooning, writing, and speaking across Canada and as far away as Australia in the hope that its adoption would regenerate industrial society, “this travesty of Christianity.” Advancing his single-tax beliefs Bengough attacked Macdonald’s National Policy, thundered against monopolists, took up the cause of farmers and workers, and excoriated all those – including his friend Principal George Monro Grant* of Queen’s College in Kingston and his enemy Goldwin Smith* – who were blind to the Georgite light. In this crusade he was joined by a sprightly band of regenerators which included Thomas Phillips Thompson*, a Bellamyite socialist, Samuel Thomas Wood*, an economics and nature writer for the Globe, and other members of the Toronto Anti-Poverty Society, the Knights of Labor, and the Patrons of Industry.
Grip’s “Solid Platform” included several other items that revealed a harsher side to Protestant reformism, and Bengough’s support for “Anglo-Saxon” nationalism. He promoted independence under a republican form of government and the alliance of all Anglo-Saxon nations, rejecting both Lieutenant-Colonel George Taylor Denison’s “Imperial Federation” and Goldwin Smith’s annexationism while accepting their common belief in Anglo-Saxon solidarity. His advocacy of the complete separation of church and state and of English as the one official language, obviously directed at Roman Catholics and French Canadians, was a stark manifestation of his ethnic nationalism. He looked forward to the day “when the monstrosity of a double official language and dual schools will be done away with throughout the whole country. Our real national life will date from that day.” While Bengough deplored the social and economic deprivations suffered by Canada’s native peoples, he had only scorn for Louis Riel*’s effort to unite Métis and native people in the 1885 rebellion. His special Canadian Pictorial and Illustrated War News was bombastically nationalistic, as was his poem celebrating Major-General Frederick Dobson Middleton*’s victory at Batoche (Sask.):
Who says that British blood grows tame,
Or that the olden fire is gone,
Must first forget Batoche’s name,
And how that day was fought and won!
Grip strongly supported Riel’s death sentence, adding, however, that the real authors of the rebellion should be “exposed and punished whether they turn out to be plotting speculators at Prince Albert or drowsy Ministers at Ottawa.”
Assessing Grip’s public impact or financial condition is extremely difficult since accurate records are lacking. In the mid 1880s, at its peak, it claimed a paid circulation of 7,000 to 10,000 and 50,000 readers, and there is evidence that the country’s leaders paid it some attention. Then published by Grip Printing and Publishing Company, of which Bengough was a director, it had been through a series of partnerships in which Bengough was associated first with Andrew Scott Irving*, then with his brother George, and finally with his brother Thomas and Samuel John Moore*. But its existence was always precarious and the depression of the early 1890s spelled its death. Bengough gave up the editorship in 1892 when new management appointed T. Phillips Thompson to the post. A year later Bengough returned but he failed to revive his creation.
During the next quarter-century Bengough maintained a public profile through his cartoons in a wide variety of publications: the Toronto Globe, the Toronto Daily Star, the Montreal Star, and Saturday Night (Toronto). His work also appeared in such single-tax publications as the Public in Chicago and the Square Deal in Toronto. He attracted large audiences to his “chalk talks,” which he had begun in 1874 and which took the main elements of Grip – cartoon, puns, satire, and advocacy of social reform – and put them on stage in numerous large and small Canadian communities as well as in the United States, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. Then there were his numerous publications. The two-volume Caricature history of Canadian politics (1886) reproduced many of Grip’s finest political cartoons. The gin mill primer (1898) presented the Prohibition case, and The up-to-date primer (1896) and The whole hog book (1908) were single-tax tracts. Chalk talks (1922) brought together many of his most popular illustrated lectures and set out his reform philosophy. Finally there were the poetry collections, Motley: verses grave and gay (1895) and In many keys: a book of verse (1902), which brought together largely unmemorable verse of humour, political satire, pathos, religious sentimentalism, and patriotism.
Since Bengough the journalist had always focused on politics, it was natural that he should be drawn directly into public life. In the 1890s he served as president of the Toronto Single Tax Association and was active in the People’s Forum; later he joined the Canadian Peace and Arbitration Society and became a director of the Toronto Industrial Exhibition. In 1907 he won election as alderman for Toronto’s Ward 3, and he was re-elected in 1908 and 1909. This new pulpit provided him with an opportunity to preach and promote causes with which he had long been identified: tax reform, tenant’s rights, sanitary improvement, public ownership of hydroelectricity, and the restriction of liquor licences. Perhaps frustrated by his failure to win much support for some of these reforms, he left council before the completion of his third term in order to return to the lecture circuit.
Though Bengough’s career as a public figure had passed its peak when Canada entered the war in 1914, he had by no means fallen silent. He now turned his talents to promoting the war effort, including support for conscription as the clearest expression of patriotism, a position taken by many English-speaking reformers. Nevertheless, he remained faithful to the Liberal party and especially to William Lyon Mackenzie King*, whose Industry and humanity . . . (1918) Bengough enthusiastically praised. In the 1921 election he applied his cartooning skills to support the new Liberal leader. He then returned to the lecture platform. In 1922, following a strenuous western tour, he travelled to the Maritimes where he collapsed during a performance in Moncton, N.B. He died suddenly the following year at his home at 58 St Mary Street while working on a cartoon supporting an anti-smoking campaign. He had never deserted the good old cause of moral reform.
Bengough’s reputation rests mainly on his greatest achievement, Grip, and the cartoons he sketched for the witty little reformist magazine that flourished in dour late-Victorian Toronto. He was not a great artist; his cartoons, though often well drawn, were too crowded and he rarely resisted the temptation to explain and preach. A few of his most striking images he borrowed from others, but the cartoons he published under the pseudonym L. Côté demonstrated that he could draw in contrasting styles. He had a talent that fixed, probably forever, the historical image of numerous public figures of his time, most notably Sir John A. Macdonald. He also had a passionately held viewpoint which gave his cartoons an edge that both simplified issues and ensured that his readers were drawn into his vision of moral conflict. Principal Grant came close to the mark when he said of Bengough, “You may think him at times Utopian. . . . In the best sense of the word, he is religious.” A punster with a vision of “thingsastheyoughttobe.”
[The J. W. Bengough papers, largely composed of drafts of articles and speeches and clippings from various sources, are held at the McMaster Univ. Library, Div. of Arch. & Research Coll., Hamilton, Ont.
Bengough’s major publications, other than Grip (1873–94), include: The Grip cartoons, vols. I and II, May 1873 to May 1874 (Toronto, 1875); The decline and fall of Keewatin: or, the free-trade redskins; a satire (Toronto, 1876); Bengough's popular readings: original and select (Toronto, 1882); A caricature history of Canadian politics . . . (2v., Toronto, 1886; an abridged one-volume edition, selected and introduced by Douglas Fetherling, was published in 1974); The Prohibition Aesop: a book of fables, published in Hamilton some time between 1889 and 1897; The up-to-date primer . . . (New York and Toronto, 1896; reprinted with an introduction by Douglas Fetherling, 1975); The whole hog book: being George's thoro' going work "Protection or free-trade?" rendered into words of one syllable, and illustrated with pictures; or, a dry subject made juicy (Boston, 1908); and Bengough's chalk talks: a series of platform addresses on various topics, with reproductions of the impromptu drawings with which they were illustrated (Toronto, 1922).
Among secondary sources, Stanley Paul Kutcher’s dissertation “John Wilson Bengough: artist of righteousness” (ma thesis, McMaster Univ., 1975), is the most complete. Carman Cumming, Sketches from a young country: the images of "Grip" magazine (Toronto, 1997) is a critical examination of Grip’s journalism, while Ramsay Cook, The regenerators: social criticism in late Victorian English Canada (Toronto, 1985), places Bengough in context with his contemporaries. r.c.]
AO, RG 22-305, nos.15572, 48698; RG 80-5-0-94, no.13355; RG 80-8-0-262, no.3212; RG 80-8-0-912, no.6264. Daily Mail and Empire, 3 Oct. 1923. Globe, 2 July 1880. World (Toronto), 19 June 1908. | <urn:uuid:596f73a0-5479-4d20-8954-b925c30c3e75> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://biographi.ca/en/bio/bengough_john_wilson_15E.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00005-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97293 | 3,790 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Turns out the saying "Smells fishy" isn't just a metaphor: Fishy smells actually do raise our suspicions. In a University of Michigan study, people became more mistrustful when investing money if they smelled fish oil spray as opposed to a different foul odor (flatulence, to be exact).
British scientists have discovered that "tuning out" is a biological phenomenon: Focusing intently on a visual task—like reading a page-turner or doing a crossword—can render a person deaf to perfectly audible sounds.
Your sensory capabilities may actually help shape your personality, according to research published in the journal PLoS ONE. Subjects who had a heightened trigeminal sense—which detects chemical irritants (like ammonia)—scored higher on neuroticism. People with a high pain tolerance tended to be more conscientious. And those with a powerful sense of smell (which can aid in identifying others' emotions) were generally more socially aware. | <urn:uuid:ae8e02c1-1826-4a4d-8833-2c43be9788dc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.oprah.com/health/The-Latest-Science-on-Senses-3-Biological-Phenomenons-of-Senses/2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00053-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94323 | 193 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Move over Claude Monet, there is a new act in town in the form of a robot capable of creating some pretty cool art.
We’ve seen robotic artists before but most of them are either cartesian-based or hanging drawbots. This is a full-fledged Sharpie-wielding robotic arm that draws with dots giving its work an impressionistic feel.
The actual robotic arm is a stock Interbotix WidowX. The folks over at Phantom Multimedia wrote some custom software that takes a graphic and breaks it down into a 1-bit representation. The code then goes through the bitmap at random, picking points to draw on the medium. The hard part of this project was figuring out how to translate the 2D image into 3D robotic arm movements. Since the arm has several joints, there are multiple mathematical solutions for arm position to move the marker to any given point. The team ended up writing an algorithm to determine the most efficient way to move from point to point. Even so, each drawing takes hours.
As if that wasn’t enough, the software was then reworked to probe positions. Instead of automatically moving the arm to a predetermined point, the arm is manually moved to a location and the data retrieved from the servo encoders is used to determine the position of a probe at the end of the arm. Each point taken in this manner can then be combined to generate a 3D model.
Continue reading “Watch Out Artists, Robots Take Your Job Next”
Loving to draw but deathly afraid of pen ink, [Marcel] came up with a little drawing machine made out of Lego that will do it for him. It’s not a very complicated build but it does have several different components arranged such to complete a task, and that in itself is cool. Oh yeah, just kidding about the “afraid of pen ink” thing.
RC Car Servos are used to drive the pen in the X and Y directions. These servos only have a 180 degree range of motion which is not enough to move the pen very far. To increase the pen’s travel distance, [Marcel] attached a large gear to the servo which rotates a much smaller gear that rides on a rack gear attached to the bed. A Lego hinge takes the place of a Z axis and is used to set the height of the pen that is strapped to the machine via rubber band.
In order to make the machine draw, the user moves an analog joystick. The changing resistance values of the joystick’s potentiometers are measured by an Arduino. The Arduino then moves each servo to the appropriate position using PWM. If you’d like to know how to do this, check out the Knob Tutorial.
If you’re not ready to l’eggo your Lego drawing machines, check out this super complicated creation or this arm emulator that draws the Mona Lisa.
Drawing is difficult for a lot of people… So, why not build a robot to do it for you? [Darcy] had an idea for a rather unique drawing robot — he calls it the Isoscel-Ease.
Instead of using a boring XY gantry, a deltabot, or using a scissor linkage (actually that one is pretty cool!), [Darcy] decided to try harnessing of the power of triangle geometry! As you can probably guess, the linkage forms an isosceles triangle, hence the name. A pair of stepper motors increases and decreases the odd side of the triangle, allowing for a full range of continuous inky movement (there’s no pen actuator) over the page.
It’s a very cool little drawing robot, and it was completely designed in SketchUp — He has lots of photos of the build process and example drawings on his site — But don’t forget to stick around after the break to see a video of it in action!
Continue reading “Isoscel-Ease Drawing Robot is Mesmerizing” | <urn:uuid:6a437480-b872-4057-ac9c-fa8bfaf82c43> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://hackaday.com/tag/drawing-robot/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00016-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93388 | 840 | 2.59375 | 3 |
World War I was caused in large part by the desire of Germany to assert its “place in the sun” and replace Great Britain as the major world power. The unintended consequence of the war was to allow the United States to replace Britain, peacefully — in fact, silently, even secretly, after 1918.
It was in the field of Anglo-American relations that the peace-making years were most momentous. The war had altered the balance between Britain and America for good; in the economic sphere by turning Britain into a permanent debtor and making it impossible for London alone to continue as the principle financial centre of the world, and also in the military and naval sphere. The Americans were quite prepared to outbuild Britain at sea unless they could get arrangements on naval and other items that suited them; and the British had to decide whether to take up the challenge or not. Because they decided not to, a permanent shift in world power was consummated without a shot being fired. The fact that the shift was disguised, mainly on the British side, as an acceptance of partnership was necessary for political and psychological reasons, but it did not disguise the brutal truth. (Marxist publicists went on predicting an inevitable Anglo-American war, oblivious of the fact that the war had already been fought — though bloodlessly.)
Max Beloff, Imperial Sunset: Britain’s Liberal Empire, 1897-1921.
The “Marxist publicists” had a vulgar, economistic vision of the world, and therein, it seems, lay their error. In fact, international relations theory would predict such a war, and its absence is an inexplicable or at least troubling fact in a very limited set of global wars. It is a big outlier. Perhaps the biggest.
Britain had “taken up the challenge” presented by Spain, France and Germany over four centuries, and despite many dark hours, always prevailed. Why did it not do so again? The USA had a much larger economy and warmaking potential than did Britain and its Empire 1918, but so had previous challengers in their eras. In those cases Britain had sought out allies and built an alliance system to contain and ultimately defeat the challenger. Yet Britain pursued no such course against the United States. Was this sheer exhaustion after the Great War? Or was it because Britain knew that the relative costs of challenging the USA were greater than the costs of living in US-led global order? In other words, was there something uniquely “tolerable” about acquiescing to American hegemony which was not true with regard to France of Germany? Was Bismarck right that the decisive factor in world politics was “the fact that the North Americans speak English”?
Of course, the Americans wanted to dislodge Britain, and the City of London, from economic and financial primacy, and profit by the change. But they did not want to assume the burdens of maintaining international order which alone made a global economy possible. In fact, the American leadership did not understood what was at stake or what needed to be done. Hence, we had the anarchy of the interwar period. Only after 1945, with the relative power of the USA and the tottering British Empire, even more starkly obvious, and with the immediate threat of the Soviet Union right before their eyes, did the Americans attempt to build a genuine successor to the British-led world order. These “transition costs” could not have been known in 1918, of course. But even if they had, Britain and America would probably still have changed places, but handled the transition better.
The shift from British to American predominance, without a hegemonic war between the two powers, was the decisive event of the last two centuries. The British-led world order segued into a continuous Anglo-American world order founded on similar principles. Had the two Anglophone oceanic powers gone to war, the destruction would have been immense. The way would have been cleared for a continental challenger to assert control of an unassailable land-base in Eurasia, take to the sea, and then establish a global hegemony on totally different principles — Nazi or Communist principles, most likely.
The most important “war” in history is the one that was never fought.
Update: Despite all the good comments, I think there is still an element of mystery in this particular dog not barking — i.e. the transition of naval power, and global hegemony, from the British Empire to the USA, without a war. The other challengers to Britain were very, very daunting — Napoleonic France had twice Britain’s GNP and the whole of Europe under its boot, for example, to say nothing of Germany in the Summer of 1940. Still, the British fought with absolute ruthlessness and at great cost and over many years of conflict to defeat each and every one of them. Then, the USA comes along, and the Lion steps aside. I think the only explanation is the intra-Anglospheric ties of language and institutions and elite contacts as well as trade and investment. Nonetheless, other outcomes, including conflict, were not impossible or inconceivable.
One obvious example: We can only guess what a more pragmatic German leadership might have accomplished circa 1890-1910. The volume of trade between Britain and Germany was very high, and they had common enemies in France and Russia, and Germany had the best science and technology in the world, while Britain had the biggest empire. There were lots of reasons the two countries could have grown closer together. An Anglo-German alliance could have arisen which would have made the world an utterly different place. While one can overdo it with counterfactuals, I find history is more interesting and more illuminating if you ask “What if?” and “Why not?” This helps you to make sense of what actually did happen.
(Cross-posted on Albion’s Seedling.) | <urn:uuid:5b3fa4da-b374-4044-ab90-62923b48cddf> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/date/2005/10 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00111-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973752 | 1,219 | 3.453125 | 3 |
The resources on this list were not designed with education in mind, but which can easily be used for learning purposes — particularly, though not exclusively, for English language development. I only hope that creators of “educational” content can learn from the qualities that make these sites so engaging.
You might also be interested in:
Here are my choices for The Best “Fun” Sites You Can Use For Learning, Too — 2012 (Part Two):
These would be fun clips to to use in any of the video activities I describe in The Best Popular Movies/TV Shows For ESL/EFL and in my article Eight Ways to Use Video With English-Language Learners.
Bill Ferriter posted a link to this “Trunk Monkey Compilation.” This hilarious video is perfect for ELL’s to watch and then describe what happened, and even do Venn Diagram to identify differences and similarities:
Have students watch this amazing illusion (you can find similar videos here):
Check out this amazing performance by French magician Yann Frisch:
ONLINE VIDEO GAMES:
I’ve previously written about how I use online video games as a language-development activity for my ELL students.
Silk can be used by students to create pretty magical-looking (and sounding) artwork online without registering. They can then share a link to their creation (and have students describe it verbally and in writing).
Feedback is always welcome.
If you found this post useful, you might want to consider subscribing to this blog for free.
You might also want to explore the 1000 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled. | <urn:uuid:e04a2568-e783-4e77-94ed-f78b66d499d0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2012/12/23/the-best-fun-sites-you-can-use-for-learning-too-2012-part-two/?pfstyle=wp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00118-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919355 | 347 | 2.625 | 3 |
“The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be taking comments on what you think about their plan to store highly radioactive waste on our seismically active coast for the next 300 years.” (Santa Lucian, Nov. 2013)
If you disagree as I do, make your voice heard at the meeting scheduled for November 20.
The NRC is exposing the people of this county, state, nation, and world to the possibility of a horrendous nuclear accident. There is no scientifically proven solution for safely disposing of nuclear waste.
The waste is stored in unprotected, vulnerable pools. The only solution is to stop making waste by shutting down the plant and moving the waste to dry casks. The waste in dry casks survived Fukushima; the open pools did not.
A major earthquake at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant is possible according to the U.S. Geological Survey. What will happen then?
Please attend the November 20 meeting: Courtyard Marriott, 1605 Calle Joaquin, San Luis Obispo; 6 p.m. open house, 7-10 p.m. meeting. See the mothersforpeace.org website for further information. | <urn:uuid:f85d9d6d-a2e7-4c47-8752-40ab0b1ef118> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.independent.com/news/2013/nov/04/shut-down-diablo/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00172-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926531 | 236 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Definitions of dogma
n. - That which is held as an opinion; a tenet; a doctrine.
n. - A formally stated and authoritatively settled doctrine; a definite, established, and authoritative tenet.
n. - A doctrinal notion asserted without regard to evidence or truth; an arbitrary dictum.
The word "dogma" uses 5 letters: A D G M O.
No direct anagrams for dogma found in this word list.
Words formed by adding one letter before or after dogma (in bold), or to adgmo in any order:
d - goddam s - dogmas
Shorter words found within dogma:
ad ado ag ago am dag dago dam do dog dom gad gam go goa goad god ma mad mag mo moa mod mog od ogam om
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Words formed from any letters in dogma, plus an optional blank or existing letter
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Other words with the same letter pairs: do og gm ma
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Some random words: kuchen | <urn:uuid:17dc4af1-b0fb-4a0a-aed2-cad92705c49e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.morewords.com/word/dogma | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392069.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00201-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.790556 | 273 | 2.640625 | 3 |
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