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Do Cockroaches Bite? And if so, do cockroaches bite humans? Because cockroaches aren’t picky eaters and will eat just about anything, they thankfully don’t depend on human flesh for food. While all their species are capable of biting, the Periplaneta American, Periplaneta australasiae, and German cockroach are most known for their biting tendencies. And to clarify, one doesn’t have to be in Germany to encounter a German cockroach—they are now present around the world, and they tend to dwell in large numbers, which is why they may be more likely to bite. One scientist asserts that only the larger species of cockroaches could actually take a bite through the skin.
Cockroach bites are most likely to occur when people fall asleep with food remnants in or around their hands or mouth. The cockroach is drawn in by the smell of the food and comes in for a taste. The intent is not to bite, but rather to look for food. While there have been reports of cockroaches biting humans, it is certainly not a frequent occurrence. As such, these insects shouldn’t necessarily be feared; in fact, they are more likely to fear you!
Cockroaches Do Bite
A skin-crawling report, however, did reveal that cockroaches have consumed human flesh—both of the living and the dead. However it was noted that they are much more likely to chomp on fingernails, the eyelashes of sleeping children, hands, and feet (if that’s any consolation.) Those on ships have been the victims of the worst reports of cockroach bites. According to some documentation, the number of cockroaches on some ships grew so large that the insects chewed the nails and skin of passengers. Some sailors prevented the problem by wearing gloves to keep the insects off their fingers.
If a cockroach bite does occur, it will look much like other insect bites—the affected area can become swollen and itchy, and maybe even infected. Since bites will likely occur while one is sleeping, the affected area will likely not be discovered until morning. A disinfectant should be applied to the bite, and a doctor should be seen if the swelling does not go down within a few days.
Cockroach bites can be avoided by keeping a clean home and cleaning up immediately after spills, which can prevent an infestation of cockroaches. It’s also important to put children, and yourself, to bed with clean hands, faces, and teeth every night so cockroaches don’t come looking for food. That’s enough to vow to brush every night!
If cockroaches have been detected inside the house, a professional may need to be contacted to remove them, since they can be hard to track down. Because they are active at night, they may go unseen. Some may have made their way into homes via drain pipes, sewers, and cracks. Other times they are brought in through grocery bags or boxes. Either way, they thrive in warm climates where there is food. In addition to potential bites, the creepy-crawlers can be a nuisance by contaminating food. Once they are discovered, it’s important to take the proper steps for removal and prevention of re-infestation. | <urn:uuid:d6af4682-e30f-43a7-9ddf-535916e84298> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pestnet.com/cockroach/do-cockroaches-bite/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403502.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00094-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965153 | 689 | 3.1875 | 3 |
People lie more via email than when using good old pen-and-paper, a new study finds. (Wait, people still write with paper and pen? Now we’re getting at the core of the real lie…)
OK, but it seems that lying increased by 50% between the pen-and-paper experimental condition and the email condition. So, why? It’s social disengagement theory in action: We’re more likely to feel OK about deviating from our usual ethical standards when we can tell ourselves that, in this situation, it’s not so bad, and when we’ve got some psychological distance from any bad consequences of our actions.
Both of these are encouraged by three characteristics of email:
- Less permanent: people think of it as a substitute for conversation rather than a letter. People feel they are ‘chatting’ more over email, rather than writing to each other. The impermanence of email is emphasised by a GMail feature which allows users to ‘unsend’ a message within 5 seconds of sending (instructions here).
- Less restrained: as mentioned in this previous post on social networking profiles, people behave in a more disinhibited way online. Online exchanges show less conformity to social norms, people display much less restraint and are less worried about what others think of them.
- Lower personal connection: studies show that online, people feel less trust and rapport with others, leaving them with a sense of disconnection.
All of these may lead people to feel low levels of accountability for their emails. Hence more fibs.
And as a sidenote: I don’t think respondents were lying here, when they told Gallup pollsters that things weren’t going well for them financially: Only 41% of Americans described their personal financial situation as excellent or good, the lowest level measured in a decade. | <urn:uuid:b83fcf64-5d74-447e-a696-ffbb5922df02> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://bustedhalo.com/blogs/looking-to-lie-do-it-via-email | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00114-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949041 | 393 | 2.609375 | 3 |
How you can help?
Conservation at home
Planting trees is the most basic of environmental acts. Planting trees helps clean the environment by reducing air pollution, improving soil and water quality, and decreasing erosion and flooding. Planting trees also offers shelter for animals, increases property value, and can significantly reduce heating and cooling costs in your home. All of these benefits are important factors in reversing the effects of major environmental crises such as global warming and species loss.
Butterfly Gardens and Bird Feeders
Support and admire local wildlife by putting up bird feeders and nest boxes in your backyard. You can also plant specific types of plants that attract butterflies. Find a list of suggested plants here.
There are many toxic materials in our electronics such as lead, mercury, and cadmium. You can drop off your used or old electronics at our Eco-cell drop box located in our Admissions Building. By doing this you are helping to save the environment by limiting what is dumped in landfills. We accept any of the following items: cell phones and accessories, digital cameras, iPods and mp3 players, handheld game systems, GPS units, laptops, e-readers, and portable hard drives.
Although batteries have no threat to your health when in use, they can be dangerous to your health and the environment when discarded improperly. If batteries are not recycled, they will end up in landfills where its chemicals and heavy metals can leach into soil, groundwater, lakes, streams and air. Visit the Shawmut Avenue Transfer Station page for more details on how to recycle toxic and hazardous materials.
An estimated 500 billion to one trillion plastic bags are consumed globally each year. Reusable bags are a great alternative and can be used in so many ways! You can find Buttonwood Park Zoo reusable bags available for purchase at our North Woods Gift Store.
Americans recycle less than a third of their garbage. Our trash heaps don’t just take up a lot of land, they also pollute groundwater and release toxic fumes. Our discards represent a huge waste of materials that could have been reused. Click here for New Bedford’s Recycling Guide.
Buy Recycled, Eco-Friendly Products
Save our virgin forests by purchasing recycled paper products such as tissue, toilet paper, and paper towels. By using recycled or reusable materials you are not only protecting our forests, but also the animals that call it home. Also, try switching to eco-friendly garbage bags that are biodegradable.
Picking Up After Your Pet
Pick up your pet’s poo, just as we do at the Zoo! Pet waste that is left on sidewalks, roads, driveways, parks and yards can mix with rainfall and snow-melt and travel to storm drains and surface waters causing pollution and an increased risk of disease.
Energy Efficient Light Bulbs
Compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL) use about 90 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs. The energy saving is so significant that if every household in the United States replaced one incandescent light with a CFL, it would save enough energy to light 300 million homes for an entire year. It would also eliminate about 9 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions annually, which is roughly the amount emitted by 80,000 cars!
Interested in becoming a volunteer at the Zoo? Find out more about how you can become a volunteer here at the Zoo. Please visit our Volunteer Page for more information.
With your help we can continue enriching our community and the lives of our children for many years to come. Please visit our Donate Page, for more information. | <urn:uuid:3034596f-6fec-46c9-b7aa-7fd6ad0a69c4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.bpzoo.org/conservation/how-you-can-help/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394987.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00100-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944813 | 745 | 3.28125 | 3 |
The Soviet's New Economic Plan was indeed a successful plan in establishing a comparatively strong postwar economy for the Soviet Union, but there were many imperfections: food prices fluctuated tremendously, the gap between the wealth of people increased. Was it a successful plan of Leinin?
No. It is generally considered to be a failure.
The chief problem was the recurrent scissor's crises due to the agricultural sector not being incorporated into a commodity economy. As the price of agricultural goods declined, peasants would withdraw from the market economy and the (very few) Kulaks did likewise, reverting from small rural capitalists to rich peasants. When the market economy did not operate purely in the interests of the peasantry, they retreated from the market, creating imbalances in the agricultural to industrial price balance.
See the Nove Millar debate: Millar, James R. and Alec Nove. “A Debate on Collectivization: Was Stalin Really Necessary?” Problems of Communism 25 (July/August 1976): 49-62.
Normatively, if we consider the purpose of the Bolshevik party to usher in a classless society through the agency of the working class—and if we consider this to be an "economic" goal—it was a god awful disaster and the worst case of ratting out the class to the boss by non-workers in a so-called worker's party ever seen. Simon Pirani's work demonstrates that Lenin dismantled the workers state in 1921, replacing it with a Party state. Any of the sociology of the NEP will show that institutions such as one man management dismantled significantly much of the property control that workers had over plants. So the NEP smashed the institutions of the workers' state by dismantling the political power work place committees held, and it significantly dismantled the economic ownership of the workplaces by works committees.
Finally, by the late 1920s "ultralefts" in the lower orders of the Bolshevik party were demanding collectivisation, and many urban workplaces were demanding a campaign of terror against the countryside due to the long term lack of adequate food supply to the cities. If the NEP was meant to be a long term and positive economic process, these political problems couldn't have arisen from below. (See Conquest or Solzhenitsyn)
A recommended reading here is Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution by British economic historian Robert Allen. I don't know the literature in detail, but Allen is generally very well respected for his work. (Google finds a review of the book here). From Amazon's page on the book:
For more details: read the book! :-) (if you are on a university network you might find a paper on the same subject by the same author here) | <urn:uuid:bf64f993-d4b9-4f25-bc17-6e5401154702> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/8107/was-the-n-e-p-of-russia-successful-in-terms-of-economics | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398075.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00100-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963875 | 564 | 2.875 | 3 |
The Three Drinking-Horns of Cormac Ua Cuinn
RIA MS 23 O 48: Liber Flavus Fergusiorum, 1435-40
Once on a time Aed Oridnide, son of Nial Frosach, son of Feargal, son of Maelduin, came to establish order in the province of Connact. He crossed Eas Ruaid, and his table-servants and his drinking-horns were lost therein. Aed came to Corca Tri, and rested at the house of the king of Corca Tri. Fifty of the kings of Erin accompanied Aed.
Aed ate a meal on Sunday night along with the kings: but though he ate he drank not a draught, for he had no drinking-horn, beacuse his horns and his quaighs were lost at Ath Enaig, above Eas Ruaid, as the army was crossing. A grief it was for the king of Corca Tri and his consort that all should be drinking and the king of Erin refusing to drink. Angal raised his hands to God, and persisted (?) in taking neither sleep nor food till mroning. And on the morrow his wife said to him: "Go," said she, "to Guaire mac Colmain at Durlas (for that was the home of hospitality and generosity from teh time of Dathi onward) to see if you would get a horn there through his hospitable bounty." Angal, king of Corca Tri, stepped out throug hte door of the rath, and his right foot stumbled, so that a stone fell from its place in the fort; and it was teh stone that covered teh mouth of the flue wherein were the three horns that were the best in all Ireland; namely, [an Cam-corn] the Twisted Horn, and the Litan, and [an Easgung] the Eel. These were the cups that were brought by Cormac ua Cuinn over the sea; and Nia mac Lugna Firtri, the second foster-brother of Cormac ua Cuinn, had hidden them after Cormac was slain; and Cairbre Lifechair came over the sea, and though he found the other horns, these horns were nto found till the time of the saints and of Aed Oridnide mac Neill. For a veil was spread over them by God, till He discovered them to the king of Corca Tri, by reason of his hospitable bounty.
Angal offered thanks to God, and bore off the horns, full of mead all three. He put them in the hands of Aed Oirdnide, king of Erin, who gave thanks to God, and put the Litan in the hands of the king of Ulster, the Eel-Horn in teh hands of the king of Connacht, and reserved to himself the Twisted Horn.
Afterwards it was descended ot Maelsechlainn mac Domhnaill; and he offered it to God and to Ciaran, jointly, till the Day of Judgement.
According to Gwynn, "Corca Tri is a tribal name, applied to a territory which included the present baronies of Gallen, in Mayon, and Leyny and Corran, in Sligo... Corran is the Irish Corann[.]"
Gwynn, E.J. "The Three Drinking-horns of Cormac ua Cuinn." Eriu. vol. II. London: David Nutt, 1905.
Back to Irish Texts
Back to CLC | <urn:uuid:be1d5160-899e-46a2-be08-174607a294e1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/cormaccup.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396872.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00079-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976103 | 755 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Behind the buzz and beyond the hype:
Our Nanowerk-exclusive feature articles
Posted: Sep 26, 2011
Mass-printed polymer/fullerene solar cells on paper
(Nanowerk Spotlight) Despites huge research funding for photovoltaics, contribution of solar cells to energy market is still negligible. The major obstacle is high production cost of silicon solar cells: current solar cell market is dominated by silicon technology. Bulky and rigid silicon solar cell with a power conversion efficiency above 10% and a lifetime of 25 years have become the benchmark in photovoltaic industry. However, there are plenty of scopes for disposable and inexpensive solar cells with a moderate efficiency and a shorter lifetime, which can be compared with plant leaves with a typical efficiency of 3-7% and a lifetime less than a year. Our research was motivated to produce cheap and disposable solar cells with a moderate power conversion efficiency.
Organic photovoltaics have potentials to substantially lower the cost of solar cells. The added advantage of organic photovoltaics is that they can easily be disposed, if appropriate materials are selected. One of the best organic photovoltaics is bulk hetrojunction of polymer/fullerene, which was reported for the first time in 1992 (see: "Photoinduced Electron Transfer from a Conducting Polymer to Buckminsterfullerene").
Since then extensive works have been done to increase their efficiency and significant amount of works are ongoing to improve their stability. But no significant work has been done to decrease the total material cost and to simplify the manufacturing process. Expensive indium-tin-oxide is still an integral part of organic photovoltaics. Deposition of indium-tin-oxide on flexible substrates still involves expensive vacuum processes. Recently, we have developed a simple approach to print polymer/fullerene solar cells on paper substrates.
The research article is published in the September 14, 2011 online edition of Advanced Energy Materials ("Printed Paper Photovoltaic Cells"). Our solar cell is free from expensive indium-tin-oxide and does not employ any vacuum process.
Polymer/fullerene solar cells are printed on paper substrate by the combination of gravure and flexographic printing techniques in ambient conditions. The process does not require any vacuum steps. A Paper-roll of printed solar cells is shown. Solar modules can be made by any unskilled person just by cutting the rolls into desired sizes and connecting them with the help of commercial snap fasteners. The vision is to produce cheap, disposable and use-and-throw solar cells anywehere in the world, which can be printed by nearby printers or copy-shops and do not require any technical skill. (Images: Prof. Arved Hübler and his group, Institute for Print and Media Technology, Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany)
We used only three roll-to-roll printing steps, under normal room conditions, to print the complete solar cells. Naturally oxidized zinc film, printed by transfer printing on paper, acts as cathode. Photoactive layer is a bulk hetrojunction of polymer/fullerene, printed by gravure printing. Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS), printed by flexographic printing, acts as transparent anode. Gravure and flexographic printing processes are well-established techniques in conventional printing with a resolution of down to 10 µm, high printing speeds (up to 15 m/s) and low wastage of ink.
We can do free patterning of all the three functional layers by gravure and flexographic printing techniques. The advantage of free patterning of all these layers is that it eliminates any extra process required to interconnect solar cells into a solar module. Our group has long expertise in tradition printing technology and has already demonstrated more complex device structures for integrated electronic circuitry in 2007 (see: "Ring oscillator fabricated completely by means of mass-printing technologies").
Despite the high surface roughness of paper substrate, our printed paper photovoltaic cells show a power conversion efficiency of 1.3% under an illumination level of 60 mW/cm2 and yield open-circuit voltage and short-circuit current density of 0.59 V and 3.6 mA/cm2, respectively. This is one of the first steps in the direction of 'paper energy'. Recently, researchers have started talking about paper electronics (see: "Paper Electronics") and our paper photovoltaics could be easily used to drive these paper-based electronic components. Our paper photovoltaics could also be applied as a basic power source for futuristic printed electronic devices e.g. smart packages.
The major component (by volume) of our solar cells is paper (>90%). A paper substrate has several advantages, since it is inexpensive, eco-friendly, bio-degradable, easily recyclable, mechanically flexible and compatible with well-established printing processes. Rest of the materials are glue, zinc-foil, ZnO, fullerene and polymers. Our solar cell is free from any harmful materials and can be recycled together with aluminum-coated food packages by the existing recycling systems.
Still there are plenty of rooms for further improvements in our solar cells. Efficiency of our solar cells can be improved by optimizing material properties, layer thicknesses and printing process parameters. ZnO layer thickness, surface roughness, crystallinity and charge carrier concentration can substantially influence the performance of our solar cells. Therefore, a systematic study is required in that direction to enhance the power conversion efficiency.
Our technology can lead to the mass-production of paper photovoltaics by local newspaper or magazine printers anywhere in the world. The three steps printing approach for inexpensive solar cells, has potential to transform the sophisticated solar cells production unit into a compact printer. The visionary compact printer for solar cells can be compared to a copy-machine which can be easily installed in any part of the world with a small investment. The vision is to make green energy easily and cheaply available to masses. Our printed paper photovoltaics can bring new concept of use-and-throw solar cells.
By Dr.-Ing. Moazzam Ali, Institute for Print and Mediatechnology, University of Technology Chemnitz | <urn:uuid:baa0f7a7-488b-423f-bad4-1efbffdbb895> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=22862.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00184-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920934 | 1,314 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Today on NPR "Day to Day," the second segment in a 5-part series I filed called "Guatemala: Unearthing the Future," about how technology is being used to solve historic problems. Today's piece follows the FAFG, a group of forensic scientists who are working to exhume and identify the remains of victims buried in a mudslide caused by Hurricane Stan.
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Link to "Storm Victims' Remains Exhumed in Guatemala," a profile on the work of the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala, with streaming audio (Real/Win).
MP3 Link for today's segment.
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Before the mudslide, there were more than 50 homes in the Tzujutil Mayan village of Panabaj. Now, the houses and hundreds of the people who lived in them are 10 feet underground. Along the edges of the site, makeshift memorials stand as monuments to the dead.
The Guatemalan government cordoned off the zone as a high-risk area, and had no plans to recover the dead. But survivors resisted and joined with the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala (FAFG) to unearth the victims.
For more than a decade, the FAFG has exhumed mass graves from political massacres that took place during Guatemala's decades-long civil war. This time, they are working in the wake of a natural disaster. The country's army has offered to help with the exhumation, but the mudslide survivors have refused. The military killed 13 unarmed civilians in Panabaj in 1990.
Along with tractors to clear the 400,000 square-foot mudslide site, FAFG is using mapping software and other technology to create a secure database on the remains. As of today, the FAFG has uncovered 82 sets of human remains, and identified nearly 60. They believe there may be as many as 500 bodies in all.
IMAGES: Top, FAFG workers exhume victims of the October 5, 2005 mudslide in Panabaj. (photo - courtesy FAFG). | A makeshift memorial marks the site where one family was buried alive (photo - Xeni Jardin) | When a corpse is unearthed, forensic anthropologists with the FAFG radio their tech team for a code that will help to track all that becomes known about the victim. (photo - courtesy FAFG) | 8-year-old Juan Ramirez survived that night, and said villagers at first thought the noise was an airplane, not a mudslide. (photo - Xeni Jardin) | <urn:uuid:266b0b09-08e3-4b01-8be9-572b5fbaae7a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://boingboing.net/2007/01/30/npr-xeni-tech-storm.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00022-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954362 | 550 | 2.640625 | 3 |
- Why did Hashem create flies? (Well, aside from as in this midrash.) Assuming that flies are indeed what are being mentioned, rather than assuming that they have no purpose, perhaps see what naturalists claim. According to this website, flies have the following impact on the ecosystem:
Flies and other insects, such as burying beetles, are very important in consuming and eliminating dead bodies of animals. Flies are also essential in the conversion of feces and decaying vegetation to soil. Flies serve as prey to many other animals. Some flies aid in pollination.
Because of their habits of being attracted to feces and decaying meat, flies have been implicated in transmission of disease such as dysentery, typhoid fever, and cholera.
- A Beur on Sefer Bereishit by Naftali Hertz Weizel, at HebrewBooks. The edge is too often cut off, though. Here is another one. Perhaps will be useful to learn together with Shadal.
- The NFL schedule had the Jets playing on both Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. This bothered Jewish fans, and there were efforts to change the schedule. As I understand, they eventually succeeded, by moving one of the games a bit earlier. But here is Jimmy Kimmel talking about it, and he has an interview with a Jewish Jets player, who is upset about the situation:
- Life In Israel about fighting over exercise equipment in a public venue, and whether the issue is tznius or public safety.
- The Yeshiva World has how Rav Ovadiah Yosef came out strongly against smoking. At DovBear, Jameel notes the weirdness of the instruction to slap them. Must be a cultural thing.
Update: In the comment section, Michael points us to this video:
- Also at DovBear, A Mother In Israel talks about tznius and breastfeeding in shul. While not taking a position on it, I will note that it is not just culture vs. halacha. There is an intersection of culturally-based attitudes and halachah. For example, spitting in shul, into spitoons, was acceptable practice, and there used to be spittoons in certain shuls. And halachah permits spitting in shul. Nowadays, this is not so acceptable (except perhaps among some Lubavitz, who spit by shehem mishtachavim lahavel varik). | <urn:uuid:ea80362c-c794-469c-bcb8-956dcaa83f30> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://parsha.blogspot.co.il/2009/04/interesting-posts-and-articles-141.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398516.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00195-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960706 | 508 | 2.625 | 3 |
What is Azoospermia?
. It is a condition in which a man has no sperm in his ejaculate..
There are two types of azoospermia:
· Obstructive Azoospermia: Obstructive azoospermia accounts for 40% of all cases of azoospermia. It occurs when a blockage in the duct system. These obstructions may be present in the vas deferens or epididymis.
· Non-Obstructive Azoospermia: Non-obstructive azoospermia accounts for 60% of all cases of azoospermia. It occurs when there is a problem with the actual production of. It is often the result of hormonal imbalances.
The are typically two main causes of azoospermia: a problem with sperm production or a problem with sperm transport. There are a variety of factors that may contribute to either of these causes.
Sperm Production Problems
Sometimes, azoospermia is the result of a dysfunction within the testes themselves, making it impossible for the body to produce enough viable sperm. In order to produce sperm, the proper cells (germinal epithelial cells )need to be present in the testes and the proper hormones(FSH, TESTOSTERONE ) need to trigger sperm production. Failed sperm production is often the result of:
· Hormonal Abnormalities: Sometimes body may not produce enough ofcertain hormones involved in the sperm-production , causing azoospermia.
· Cryptorchidism: Cryptorchidism, or undescended testicles, is a condition in which the testes have not descended properly. It is generally corrected in childhood, however, if it isn’t corrected, the testicles will be unable to produce sperm properly.
· Vascular Trauma: Trauma to the testes or to the blood vessels within the testes can also prevent the producing sperm.
· Varicocele causes veins in the testes to enlarge and become swollen. As a result, blood pools in the testes, impairing sperm production.
Sperm Transport Problems
In order for sperm to leave our body, it must be transported from the testes to the urethra. Sperm travels through a series of ducts inside the reproductive system, until it eventually mixes the your ejaculate and exits your body. Sometimes, blockages can occur inside of these ducts preventing sperm from mixing with your ejaculate.
Sperm transport problems are often caused by:
· Vasectomy: The vasectomy procedure introduces a cut or blockage in the vas deferens, preventing sperm from mixing with your ejaculate.
· Congenital Absence of Vans Deferens: Some men are born without the vas deferens, which are tiny tubes that carry sperm to the urethra for ejaculation.
· Infection: Certain infections, including STDS, can cause blockages in the epididymis or vas deferens, preventing sperm from mixing with the semen
All the above sickness can be fruitfully treated with Homoeopathic medicines. If germinal epithelial cells are detected with the help of testicular biopsy, then homoeopathic treatment is highly hopeful.
Hormonal Abnormalities, and blockagecan be cured with homeopathic medicines | <urn:uuid:1b313fb8-0821-4ffb-a523-46a4cfe7be46> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://infertilityhomoeopathy.com/curedcases/?p=191 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403508.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00069-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.894638 | 695 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Asymmetric Encryption of data requires transfer of cryptographic private key. The most challenging part in this type of encryption is the transfer of the encryption key from sender to receiver without anyone intercepting this key in between. This transfer or rather generation on same cryptographic keys at both sides secretively was made possible by the Diffie-Hellman algorithm.
The Diffie-Hellman algorithm was developed by Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman in 1976. This algorithm was devices not to encrypt the data but to generate same private cryptographic key at both ends so that there is no need to transfer this key from one communication end to another. Though this algorithm is a bit slow but it is the sheer power of this algorithm that makes it so popular in encryption key generation.
For more information on cryptography, read our earlier tutorial on cryptography basics.
The Diffie-Hellman algorithm
This algorithm uses arithmetic modulus as the basis of its calculation. Suppose Alice and Bob follow this key exchange procedure with Eve acting as a man in middle interceptor (or the bad guy).
Here are the calculation steps followed in this algorithm that make sure that eve never gets to know the final keys through which actual encryption of data takes place.
- First, both Alice and Bob agree upon a prime number and another number that has no factor in common. Lets call the prime number as p and the other number as g. Note that g is also known as the generator and p is known as prime modulus.
- Now, since eve is sitting in between and listening to this communication so eve also gets to know p and g.
- Now, the modulus arithmetic says that r = (g to the power x) mod p. So r will always produce an integer between 0 and p.
- The first trick here is that given x (with g and p known) , its very easy to find r. But given r (with g and p known) its difficult to deduce x.
- One may argue that this is not that difficult to crack but what if the value of p is a very huge prime number? Well, if this is the case then deducing x (if r is given) becomes almost next to impossible as it would take thousands of years to crack this even with supercomputers.
- This is also called the discrete logarithmic problem.
- Coming back to the communication, all the three Bob, Alice and eve now know g and p.
- Now, Alice selects a random private number xa and calculates (g to the power xa) mod p = ra. This resultant ra is sent on the communication channel to Bob. Intercepting in between, eve also comes to know ra.
- Similarly Bob selects his own random private number xb, calculates (g to the power xb) mod p = rb and sends this rb to Alice through the same communication channel. Obviously eve also comes to know about rb.
- So eve now has information about g, p, ra and rb.
- Now comes the heart of this algorithm. Alice calculates (rb to the power xa) mod p = Final key which is equivalent to (g to the power (xa*xb) ) mod p .
- Similarly Bob calculates (ra to the power xb) mod p = Final key which is again equivalent to (g to the power(xb * xa)) mod p.
- So both Alice and Bob were able to calculate a common Final key without sharing each others private random number and eve sitting in between will not be able to determine the Final key as the private numbers were never transferred.
As explained above the Diffie-Hellman algorithm works perfectly to generate cryptographic keys which are used to encrypt the data being communicated over a public channel. | <urn:uuid:8e409a2f-7e44-4e0d-b123-5dba7e6f45f0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2013/01/diffie-hellman-key-exchange-algorithm/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397797.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00144-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94984 | 776 | 4.40625 | 4 |
We’ve all been reading about the ugly environmental disaster unfolding in Eden at Duke Energy’s retired Dan River coal-burning plant. As of this writing, the coal ash pond pipe has been plugged, but not before dumping more than 80,000 tons of waste into the Dan River.
Meanwhile in Washington, the US EPA is considering other options for getting rid of coal ash in the future – mixing it into cement and wallboard during manufacture. Utilities face more stringent regulations at coal plants, so many support this approach, which is called “beneficial reuse.”
You can read more about the risks of mixing coal ash (which contains lead, arsenic, mercury and selenium) into consumer products from the Healthy Building Network here. US EPA regulations will be released in December. | <urn:uuid:799cd572-7677-48b0-9dee-6cff8cc3613d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2014/02/10/coal-ash-in-consumer-products/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394414.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00069-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953666 | 162 | 2.8125 | 3 |
We have seen some pretty cool pairs of 3D printed shoes just earlier this morning, and here we are with more news on what a 3D printer is capable of – researchers who hail from the University of Pennsylvania and MIT have managed to achieve the triumph of printing 3D filament networks which might serve the role of blood vessels sometime down the road. This is made possible thanks to the implementation of open source RepRap 3D printer alongside a bunch of their own changes, where among them include a customized extruder and control software.
Basically, the research team focused on the vasculature first and designed free-standing 3D filament networks in the shape of a vascular system which remained within a mold. Similar in nature to lost-wax casting, this technique allowed the research team to create the mold and vascular template, removing those as cells were added, resulting in a solid tissue enveloping the filaments as the end result. The entire process is said to be quick and inexpensive, paving the way for researchers to alternate with ease between computer simulations and physical models of multiple vascular configurations. | <urn:uuid:0ecb9005-cb25-4653-a00e-1aec0c1e818c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ubergizmo.com/2012/07/3d-printer-faux-blood-vessels/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00149-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955622 | 217 | 2.5625 | 3 |
We hear a lot about diabetes in the news, but how much do we really know about diabetes?
Perhaps we should use this November, National Diabetes Month, to educate ourselves and get tested for the disease, because we can't deny that it's a serious problem in the African-American community.
Diabetes, a lifelong disease in which there are high levels of sugar in the blood, impacts 15 percent of all African-Americans 20 and older; 25 percent of those between the ages of 65 and 74; and 25 percent of women over 55. And this isn't just an adult disease — the rates of diabetes among African-American youth have shot up thanks to the childhood obesity crisis in our community.
Diabetes can lead to other serious complications such as heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, blindness, amputations, nerve damage and even death. Early symptoms of diabetes are frequent urination, excessive thirst, blurry vision, weight loss and hunger.
According to the National Diabetes Education Program (NDEP), here are some other things to know:
• Nearly 26 million Americans have diabetes.
• Seven million people with diabetes do not even know that they have this disease.
• An estimated 79 million adults in the U.S. have pre-diabetes, placing them at increased risk for developing type 2 diabetes.
• Having a family history of diabetes places you at increased risk for developing type 2 diabetes.
• If you are a woman who had gestational diabetes during pregnancy, you are at increased risk for developing diabetes, and the child of that pregnancy is at increased risk for obesity and type 2 diabetes.
But there's good news: Diabetes doesn't have to be our destiny if we don't want it to be. There are lifestyle changes that we can all make in order to reduce our risk of developing the disease. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ National Diabetes Education Program offers up these prevention tips:
• Aim to lose at least 5 to 7 percent of your current weight. That’s 10 to 14 pounds for a 200-pound person.
• Prepare and cook healthy foods. Freeze portions so you have healthy meals ready for days when you’re too tired or don’t have time to cook. Instead of fried chicken, try it grilled, baked or broiled. Use vegetable or canola oil when you choose to fry. For a main dish, try low-fat macaroni and cheese served with your favorite vegetable and a salad.
• Cut down on food portion sizes. The portion size that you are used to may be equal to two or three standard servings — which equals double or triple the calories and fat! Appropriate portion sizes are often smaller than you think.
• Drink water instead of sweetened fruit drinks and soda. Find a water bottle you really like from your church, community organization or favorite sports team and drink water from it wherever and whenever you can.
• Increase your activity level by walking more often. Schedule walking dates with friends or family members throughout the week. Organize a walking group with your neighbors, co-workers or church members. Hit the gym and take that Zumba class!
Are you at risk? Read more tips about prevention in NDEP's "4 Steps to Control Your Diabetes. For Life."
Do you have diabetes? Read NDEP's "Small Steps. Big Rewards. Your GAME PLAN to Prevent Type 2 Diabetes: Information for Patients."
(Photo: Jose Luis Pelaez Inc) | <urn:uuid:848a2fbf-c4d3-46fb-b058-983467563e02> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bet.com/news/health/2011/11/03/november-is-national-diabetes-month.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946659 | 715 | 3.140625 | 3 |
April 10, 2012
— Space shuttle Discovery's chartered ride to retirement has arrived.
The modified Boeing 747, referred to as the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), touched down at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday (April 10). The jumbo jetliner came in from Dryden Flight Research Center in California to ferry Discovery to the Smithsonian, where the shuttle is set to go on public display.
The aircraft landed at 5:35 p.m. EDT (2135 GMT) on the same runway that Discovery used to return from space for a 39th and final time on March 9, 2011.
In the year since, technicians have prepared Discovery for its exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia. The orbiter's hazardous materials were removed and some components, such as its three main engines, were replaced with replicas so they could be kept for possible future reuse.
The Shuttle Carrier Aircraft rolls out on the same runway where its soon to be passenger, shuttle Discovery, landed from space.
On Saturday (April 14), shuttle technicians will use a steel gantry-like structure known as the Mate-Demate Device, to hoist Discovery and secure it atop the SCA. Weather permitting, the paired air- and space-craft will take off for Washington Dulles International Airport on the morning of April 17.
Look up! It's a bird and a plane...
The SCA will take to the air on what will be its 806th flight in service to NASA — 218 with a shuttle on its back, and 38th with Discovery — and fly south. Weather permitting, spectators at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex and along Cocoa Beach will get a clear view of the orbiter before the flight continues on up the Eastern Seaboard.
A NASA T-38 training jet is seen as it flies over Washington, DC, following a possible route for the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft with the space shuttle Discovery. (NASA / Robert Markowitz)
The exact flight plan is weather contingent, but once over the nation's capital, the SCA will fly Discovery about 1,500 feet above various parts of Washington.
"The aircraft is expected to fly near a variety of landmarks in the metropolitan area," NASA said on April 9, "including the National Mall, Reagan National Airport, National Harbor and the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy Center. When the flyover is complete, the SCA [with Discovery] will land at Dulles International Airport."
According to the Smithsonian, the 747-Discovery combo is expected to make a low fly-by of the airport at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT), and will touch down about 40 minutes later. The SCA is expected to roll to a stop on the tarmac just before 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT).
In addition to spotting the shuttle as it flies overhead, the museum has invited the public to view the final approach from the parking lot of the Udvar-Hazy Center. Then two days later on April 19, the public is invited to return for an arrival ceremony, which will kick off a four-day "Welcome Discovery" festival.
The SCA will not be returning to Florida after dropping off Discovery.
Instead, another shuttle, the prototype Enterprise, will be loaded atop of the 747 at Dulles Airport for its own flight to New York the following week. While Enterprise never flew in space, it was the first to fly on a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft for a series of approach and landing tests in the 1970s.
Space shuttle Enterprise flying atop the carrier aircraft, a Boeing 747, during its first captive test flight in 1977. (NASA)
Since 2003, Enterprise has been on public display at the Udvar-Hazy Center. It is being moved to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, a converted aircraft carrier that is berthed in Manhattan, to make room for Discovery.
Weather permitting, the SCA will take off with Enterprise on April 23, flying to John F. Kennedy (JFK) International Airport. NASA and the Intrepid have yet to release details about sighting opportunities or planned flybys.
After delivering Enterprise, the SCA will return to Florida to wait for its final mission: flying space shuttle Endeavour to Los Angeles this September.
Visit shuttles.collectspace.com for continuing coverage of the delivery and display of NASA's retired space shuttles. | <urn:uuid:1afa5a6d-5e21-4ef0-9cb6-5eaa33e9e9fb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-041012a.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397744.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00164-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921855 | 920 | 2.65625 | 3 |
American Rhetoric: Movie Speech
"To Kill A Mockingbird" (1962)
Atticus Finch delivers his Closing Argument at the Trial of Tom Robinson
Finch: To begin with, this case should never have come to trial. The State has not produced one iota of medical evidence that the crime Tom Robinson is charged with ever took place. It has relied instead upon the testimony of two witnesses whose evidence has not only been called into serious question on cross examination, but has been flatly contradicted by the defendant. Now there is circumstantial evidence to indicate that Mayella Ewell was beaten savagely by someone who led, almost exclusively, with his left [hand]. And Tom Robinson now sits before you, having taken "The Oath" with the only good hand he possesses -- his right.
I have nothing but pity in my heart for the Chief Witness for the State. She is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance. But, my pity does not extend so far as to her putting a man's life at stake, which she has done in an effort to get rid of her own guilt. Now I say "guilt," gentlemen, because it was guilt that motivated her. She's committed no crime. She has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society, a code so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst as unfit to live with. She must destroy the evidence of her offense. But, what was the evidence of her offense? Tom Robinson, a human being. She must put Tom Robinson away from her. Tom Robinson was to her a daily reminder of what she did.
Now what did she do? She tempted a negro. She was white and she tempted a negro. She did something that in our society is unspeakable: She kissed a black man. Not an old uncle, but a strong, young negro man. No code mattered to her before she broke it, but it came crashing down on her afterwards.
The witnesses for the State, with the exception of the sheriff of Lincoln County, have presented themselves to you gentlemen -- to this Court -- in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted; confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption, the evil assumption, that all negroes lie; all negroes are basically immoral beings; all negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption that one associates with minds of their caliber, and which is in itself, gentlemen, a lie -- which I do not need to point out to you.
And so, a quiet, humble, respectable negro, who has had the unmitigated TEMERITY to feel sorry for a white woman, has had to put his word against two white peoples. The defendant is not guilty. But somebody in this courtroom is.
Now, gentlemen, in this country our courts are the great levelers. In our courts, all men are created equal. I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and of our jury system. That's no ideal to me. That is a living, working reality!
Now I am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the evidence that you have heard, come to a decision, and restore this man to his family.
In the name of God, do your duty. In the name of God, believe Tom Robinson. | <urn:uuid:a83baed2-b7c2-465e-b935-3f6f00ff3781> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechtokillamockingbird.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395992.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00185-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978944 | 690 | 2.84375 | 3 |
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Too much UV light from the sun and sunbeds can damage DNA and lead to skin cancer.
This summer, embrace and own your natural skin tone and protect it from UV damage when the sun is strong.
Own your tone
Work out your skin type and find out how knowing the UV Index can help you avoid sunburn.
When the sun is strong spend time in the shade, cover up with clothing, and use sunscreen with at least SPF15 and 4 or more stars.
We all need some sun for healthy bones, but most people should be able to make enough vitamin D without getting sunburnt.
Sunbeds expose you to harmful UV rays and raise the risk of cancer.
Find the key facts about sun, UV and cancer risk, based on scientific research.
If you really want a tanned appearance, it’s safer to use fake tan lotion. Melanotan injections are illegal and may be unsafe. | <urn:uuid:1bb12ca2-40a6-4b41-aa67-4ecb8a575872> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/sun-uv-and-cancer?a=5441 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00145-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.861436 | 358 | 2.96875 | 3 |
|Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute||Home|
Based on the changing and varied ethnic populations of New Haven's classrooms, the need for early language intervention is clearly drawn. Early language training will benefit all young children regardless of their native tongues and open worlds of communication among them. As teacher in a resource room program for gifted children, I am exposed to students of various ethnic backgrounds and skill abilities, many of whom would likely be affected by immigration policies that relate to bilingual education and civil rights issues. My interest in exploring this topic of "America's Future Culture" is directly related to the changing needs of the educational system as it is affected by immigration policies.
In projecting a future America, we concern ourselves with today's events and extrapolate from those trends a possible tomorrow. Today's America wrestles with policies and practices of immigration in an attempt to remain true to its founding ideas and ideology: "All are Welcome!" For many, the ideology has been altered by the definition of the word "All" that has broadened to include immigrant groups from around the world with different cultural practices and languages. This new definition of the word "All" fuels the current debate over immigration.
This study addresses some parts of that debate. It focuses on California's call to abandon bilingual education programs in some of its public school districts. In the Los Angeles district where sixty seven percent of the total school population is of Latino origin, the school board aims to replace the method of instruction, known as bilingual education with English-only classes for immigrant children whose native language is Spanish. This call for action by California sets a pace for other districts that will likely follow with similar restrictions. That brings me to the point of the argument set forth in this paper and prompts me to ask, "Will tomorrow's America be one that we want?"
The unit is based around necessary skills for holding a formal debate. Segment One examines some of the policies and practices of American immigration and the issue of providing bilingual programs as a form of equality in Education aimed at strengthening students' skills of critical thinking and oral communication. Segment Two analyzes the bilingual issue and reinforces skills in research and writing. Segment Three culminates ideas through the use of skills for a formal debate. A Sample lesson idea appears at the end of the study.
Begin the study by surveying the children on their positions about bilingual programs in the public schools. Chances are many of them have encountered students whose native language is one other than English. Be mindful that the idea is to help the children acquire a respect for differences among themselves.
Next you would want to introduce the study by discussing its overview and engaging the children in a free thinking activity about a possible future based on their knowledge of today's events and feelings toward immigrant minorities.
At this point, it would be a good idea to involve children in a vocabulary search for definitions of the words listed in the section entitled "Look it up, dear!" The user may decide to employ a competitive approach among small groups for this activity.
Next you will want to hold a general reading and discussion of the "Immigration Timeline" (precedes the Bibliography.) The emphasis here is placed on the link between practices of immigration that signaled the feelings about ethnic groups who came to this country and the debate over providing bilingual programs for immigrant children, throughout the country's history. (see Discussion 1.1)
Here is a good opportunity to have students write a short essay after making the links between accepting certain ethnic groups and educating those same groups. Let this essay serve as a prewriting assignment.
So that students are clear on the idea, outline "The Issue" through oral discussion and note taking.
Next you'll want to further discuss the idea of education by reading "Educating America." As an independent effort, you may assign some library time for students to find additional information about some of the ethnic groups who have struggled for equal rights in education.
Read "A model of success" ask students to employ some creative thinking skills to design a model program that replaces the current bilingual program methods used here in the U.S. Refer to notes made in Segment I "The Issue" and use in conjunction with the program model described in this segment. Students may work independently or with other students in a small group.
You are ready to debate the issue of supporting bilingual education for immigrant children. Familiarize yourself with the Debate process (the information is readily available at your school library.) Locate the articles listed for "Current Events" study and combine them with the contents of this study to help students support their arguments.
Now return to the informal essay written in the beginning of the study and rewrite it to include new information and any change in students' position as a result of this study.
Lastly have students write a future scenario about America with a number of different ethnic immigrants, who speak different languages. It is the writer's choice whether the society is a workable one or a divided society.
America has come to witness a bitter/sweet tale of its immigration policies and practices as they impact upon current social conditions. We need only to look at present education statistics, income levels and the general health and welfare of some immigrant populations (e.g. Mexicans, Haitian, some Asian and African groups) to recognize the bitter side of this tale. The sweet side of the tale is equally easy to recognize. We can look at the economic prosperity of America, partly due to the work of immigrants as a source of cheap labor. We can look at the cultural richness of America, partly due to the ethnic influences of immigrant groups. We can also see the "sweet side of this tale when we examine patterns of wealth and power attained by a selected few and protected by a number of legal practices in the U.S. government.
These ideas signal a need to look toward what will be the future of America with its immigrant population. While some Americans indulge in the debate over the effectiveness of bilingual education, immigrant children are left behind their peers academically. Eventually they are left out economically and socially as well. That increases the chances that many will become a part of the problem, rather than part of the solution to the American ideology.
If the country fails to provide quality public school education, in this case, bilingual education programs for immigrant children, their chances of succeeding at competitive rates are greatly diminished, as are the chances of native children who are educated in those same classrooms. I understand the call for immersion into English-only classes, but I fail to see how that is most useful to the child who does not yet speak the language or understand its structure. In this situation both immigrant and native children are hindered in the levels of their academic achievement. I am suggesting that individual levels of achievement will determine their collective input to society. Despite the claim that all are welcome, the bitter/sweet tale of American immigration is more accurately all who fit a particular profile are welcome to the riches of America, particularly a quality public education.
The Issue: California's Los Angeles school district makes the claim that current bilingual education programs are not effective. They argue that students who are taught major subjects in their native tongues are not learning the English language rapidly and adequately enough to become proficient speakers. Although these students are being taught English, their levels of achievement are extremely low. Even with the passage of Proposition 227 which requires that non-English speaking students be taught English as rapidly as possible, Los Angeles' school district is refusing to teach as many as 100,000 children how to read. An article which appeared in Forbes Magazine credits bureaucrats with the idea that children should not be taught reading until they have become "fully fluent" in English. Teachers were encouraged to concentrate on oral language and not even show students the written language.
What is often recommended in California and in other school districts is total immersion into English-only classes. The idea is that they will more quickly learn to speak English. What is seldom discussed is that for the sixty-seven percent Latino student population, there is only thirteen percent Latino teachers in the Los Angeles Unified school district. In many other districts, across the country non-English speaking or limited English proficient students outnumber the qualified bilingual staff.
Educational equity is aimed at providing "every" student with equality of educational opportunity regardless of race, national origin, gender or economic status. Studies show that these factors (over which a child has no control) are often used to determine how that child is educated. The goal of educational equity is to reduce, eventually eliminate the use of these factors as determinants. It appears that the debate over bilingual education does not recognize this goal.
The Bilingual Education Act (TitleVII) defines bilingual education as " a program of instruction, designed for children of limited English speaking ability in elementary and secondary schools, in which there is instruction given in, and the study of, English, and to the extent necessary to allow a child to progress effectively through the educational system the native language is used, and such instruction is given with appreciation for the cultural heritage of such children, in the case of elementary school children such instruction shall , to the extent necessary be in all courses or subjects of study ..."1
Bilingual instruction, as we know it in America, involves using the native language of non- English speaking students as a bridge until the child is able to move into a program in which English is the exclusive language of instruction. The student is exposed to the English language while receiving instruction in his/her native language.
The two methods of instruction employed in this country are native language method and English as a second language (ESL). The first "native language method" involves teaching of reading and writing by bilingual teachers, in the student's native language. The transfer to English is made after the child has mastered native language skills. The second, ESL involves the assignment of students to regular English classes. Intensive English instruction is offered by a resource teacher at some point during the day, away from the child's regular classroom.
The debate over the effectiveness of bilingual education appears to give strength to the argument offered by its opponents. The current debate is reminiscent of past debates over equal rights for women and ethnic minorities. It also echoes debate over multicultural education and early immigration. Perhaps it is time to evaluate such programs from the view of those who are most affected by them rather than from the views of politicians and proficiency test scores.
"Between 1840 and 1880, bilingual programs (for various ethnic groups) were offered in the public schools. In addition to German bilingual education, there were French-English schools in Louisiana and Spanish-English schools in New Mexico. After 1880, only one group successfully maintained bilingual programs in the public schools- the Germans, who did so until 1917." 2
Not very much has changed in the struggle for the existence of bilingual education programs, or in the nature of protest against them. As a part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, schools across the country had to reckon with the idea that immigrant children were being denied a quality education because they were unable to grasp concepts offered through English-only instruction. I am inclined to agree with a Supreme Court ruling that concluded that providing an equal facility, same teachers and same instruction does not constitute an equal education when students are unable to understand the language in which they are being taught.
In Latino communities, both Chicanos and Mexicans petitioned public school districts in the Southwest to better educate their children. The age-old debate over bilingual education had again crept to the forefront. Again the same arguments: children were underachieving in English-only classes due to poor language skills; School districts were unwilling to provide non-English based instruction for fear that these students would cling to their native languages and fail to learn the English language, would threaten the cohesion of the community and delay assimilation into the larger American society.
In the late 1960's California, Texas and New York had high concentrations of children who would benefit from bilingual instruction. By 1968, the country was persuaded to recognize "special education" needs for children whose native language was one other than English. This legislation culminated in the passage of the Bilingual Education Act. Although provisions were made for bilingual education through Title VII of the Education Act, school systems were under no obligation to comply. It was not until a class action lawsuit against San Francisco's unified School District was brought to the federal district court, wherein Chinese students felt that they were not receiving a meaningful education.
These students (the plaintiffs) argued that no special programs were available to meet their linguistic or cultural needs. The district court dismissed their protest as simply that and the case was taken up in the U.S. Supreme Court in which the decision of the lower court was overturned. The 1974 decision in Lau v. Nichols was translated into federal policy, later known as the Lau Remedies and was used as criteria for judging bilingual programs in other districts- although the court recommended no specific method of instruction for dealing with the position of the Chinese students.
The decision rendered by the Court was based on Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. "It seems obvious that the Chinese-speaking minority receives fewer benefits than the English-speaking majority from respondents' school system which denies them a meaningful opportunity to participate in the educational program- all earmarks of discrimination banned by the regulation."3 This decision did not require use of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment although it was cited in the argument set forth by the Chinese students.
A 1978 survey overseen by the office of Bilingual and Minority Language Affairs found that 1.7 million students qualified as Limited English-Proficient across the country. Of that number only 2.3% were receiving instruction in traditional bilingual programs. Another 11% were in English classrooms with some ESL instruction time. Yet a whopping 58% were in English medium instruction with remedial English. What became of the other 27% of the 1.7 million is a mystery to me. My guess is they are struggling through English-only classes and being left behind their academic peers. Or maybe they are among the few whom are able to quickly acquire a second language
Why has the country returned to the same arguments that were offered for more than a century against bilingual education programs? We might look to the idea that bilingual programs are considered a financial burden on districts with high concentrations of Limited English Proficient (LEP) students. Use for example San Francisco whose school population is eighty percent Spanish-speaking, Filipino and Chinese for whom a bilingual-bicultural program was instituted. For an additional twenty percent who were classified as limited- English proficient, ESL was offered. This school district would certainly qualify for special financial assistance. That assistance would come through a funding source aptly called "Bilingual Desegregation Support Program." The program "provides financial assistance to local school systems to help meet educational needs of children from non-English-speaking homes and who lack educational opportunities because of language and culture." 4
We might also look at the drastic increase in the number of limited English-speaking students who now enroll in the nation's public schools. Naturally, the increase in the number of adult immigrants with limited English is reflected in the school populations. If school districts have found that it is too costly to educate the children of non-English- speaking immigrants, perhaps that is a necessary consideration to be made at the time of creating immigration policy. It is certainly more democratic to keep non-English speakers out of the country, rather than accept them and refuse to educate them.
It's not that there is a lack of funds, the numbers simply have grown too great and the cost for funding these programs has kept economic pace. There are many who feel that those funds would be better spent on other language programs. Since the results of bilingual programs are often reported as ineffective-meaning that children are remaining in bilingual programs too long with too little positive growth, it is suggested that other methods of instruction replace the current programs. Will we as a nation seek alternative ways to educate non-English-speaking immigrants or will we simply withdraw the support that is currently there and opt for the "Sink or Swim" method of English only immersion?
Florida's Dade County boasts the success of their early model program in Bilingual Education. The 1963 goal of the Dade County School District was to create functional bilinguals who would maintain both languages throughout their school years from Kindergarten through grade twelve (K-12.) Designed for both English and Spanish speaking children, the program worked well in its pilot stage and quickly grew to include a number of elementary and secondary schools in the district. Unfortunately, like past immigration policy, it too fell victim to federal funding and government regulations. Once under the influence of federal guidelines the program aimed at transition to English with no support for native language beyond merely surviving in their other courses.
Although ambitious in its aim to maintain the culture of both groups in a common public setting, (but with private funding) the original program was piloted in just one school, Coral way Elementary School whose population, like so many other schools in the county had recently changed to consist of a vast number of language minorities (LM.) For the most part, many of the new immigrants constituted a non-English speaking group. Another segment of the migrating population was classified as Limited English Proficient (LEP.) Additionally there were those for whom English was a first language.
The model program was structured to offer the children of Coral Way Elementary School an equal attempt at cultural exchange, a validation of their native cultural practices, a non-threatening environment in which to learn and a solid footing between their two worlds. The curriculum design included equal access to opportunities for transitional learning and maintenance of one's own culture.
What worked at Coral Way Elementary School in the early sixties was a combination of appealing curriculum, in both languages; a clear concept of the program's goals; thoughtful planning and competent staff. A.M. Sessions -all same first language groups (Spanish or English) received instruction in that language for all academic subjects; Midday Sessions -both student groups mixed for lunch, art, music, physical education- and both faculty groups mixed to exchange information about the group's progress and coordinate lesson plans; P.M. Sessions -both groups of students received reinforced morning lessons in second language.
Included in this successful formula is recognition of the foresight and groundwork of the project's leaders, Pauline Rojas and program director /curriculum coordinator, Ralph Robinett. Both former educators on the island of Puerto Rico thought it necessary to begin working with children from their points of strength. In this scenario children would receive instruction for learning in the language with which they were most familiar and concurrently learn a second language.
Some accolades also go to the students who were open to the idea of learning and who achieved in both language curriculums. Then there were the parents who accepted the school's plan. For English -speaking parents there was the concern that their children would suffer by being in classes that were taught in a foreign language. They felt that students who didn't readily grasp the English language should be given some alternative provisions. That was in direct contrast to the predominantly Spanish -speaking parents who readily accepted the idea that their children would benefit from both languages.
The intent was to provide a program of instruction such that Spanish- speaking children would achieve as much success in learning as they would in a monolingual (Spanish) class and improve their command of the English language. Using the same logic, English-speaking children would gain a measurable proficiency in the use of Spanish and at the same time maintain or improve their levels of success in English classes. The district's annual evaluation showed that students in bilingual programs performed at levels that were comparable to students who were instructed in monolingual classes.
Emphasis was rightly placed on goals of achievement for all children. Because the program received no federal funding, it abided by no federal regulations. If the underlying concern was assimilation, the program worked. It appears to have been a single goal supported by a fundamental desire for cultural sharing and learning combined with an effective method of dealing with two dominant languages, in one school setting and buttressed by a general acceptance of immigrants to America. The Dade County School was able to serve as an acceptable model for other Florida districts who found themselves in similar situations with their LEP immigrant populations.
America's desire to remain monolingual is motivated by the same kind of desire that drives many other nations. That desire is to remain culturally pure and language is one way in which the country has tried to achieve that purity. The desire becomes problematic for America simply because it is by virtue of its own policy, a nation of immigrants. There is no cultural purity. True there is a dominant culture, but America lacked cultural purity from its early beginnings.
Historically, the colonies of the young Americas existed under the rule of the British Crown. Northern and western Europeans were early "immigrants" to the region and considered settlers of the new world- if we ignore the fact that a thriving civilization of Native American Indians had already settled here. Putting aside that argument, pre 1776 immigrant colonists helped to shape the idea that immigrants to the new world should be those who were most like themselves- English speaking Europeans who were also law abiding. Those who were likely to disobey the laws of the land, (such that they were at that time) were not welcome by the Quakers of Pennsylvania. A 1792 statute was aimed at protecting residents from potential immigrants who were likely to become "public charges." The story in brief is that the English- speaking were most preferred as settlers.
There were good reasons for wanting English-speaking individuals. Those same goals are in place today, only they are a bit harder to attain given the influx of non- English speaking immigrants. One goal stemmed from the idea that English-speaking immigrants would be more easily assimilated into the existing culture. The colonists were of the belief that those who did not already speak the language would very soon learn it because it was a necessary tool for their survival . Colonists believed that by learning the language immigrants were pledging their loyalty to America's system of values. It meant that the existing culture would not be disrupted and that all would work toward the same goal of forging a new nation with a new cultural identity- an American culture.
. Here are two opposing viewpoints taken from Education in America. I offer them simply because they appear to have the best interest of the children at heart, although one supports bilingual transition, the other supports English immersion. Both agree, however that English is the medium of political, cultural and social unity.
Rita Esquivel, director of the U.S. Office of Bilingual Education and Language Minority advocates bilingual education because she feels that it is necessary for helping each group appreciate its cultural heritage. Her hope is comprehension and respect for the values transmitted through language. " A new language means learning new values, new customs, adopting new ways of thinking about yourself and about the world around you. Learning a new language gives one the power to enter, literally a new world. Each language we know, according to Esquivel, "allows us access to a worldview, to particular ways of thinking, for a range of feelings, to interpretations of reality unique to that language." 6
Students of bilingual programs receive the better of two worlds. Through their native language, they learn skills of reading, writing, arithmetic and their other subjects while they are being taught English. This method decreases their chances of falling behind their anglophone peers because now they have knowledge of the subject matter, which makes it easier to transfer that information to English.
Rosalie Porter, head of bilingual programs in Newton, Massachusetts counters Esquivel's argument with the idea that students are handicapped by bilingual education and that bilingual education programs fail to prepare language minority students for high school graduation. As for jobs, she points out that educating children in their native language rather than in English severely reduces their opportunities for social and economic advancement. She advocates immersion into English-only classes.
From Porter's position, bilingual education tends to establish a limited English vocabulary and reduced language skills. A student who is taught in two languages will rely on the language that is most familiar and spoken with the greatest ease. As a result, without sensitivity to or capability in the English language, students of bilingual education will have to compete against others who have rich English vocabularies.
While the points made in both arguments are well taken, can we simply ignore the fact that immersing a child into English without an adequate period of transition from his/her native language places the child at an immediate disadvantage? Can we ignore the fact that English-only students are also handicapped because of their acquisition of one language? Because the United States is comprised of multiethnic groups, its languages, as well as its culture would reflect the same. Statistics show that there are students in American schools who speak some 152 different languages other than English. For many, the introduction to a common language - "English" will enhance their ability to communicate with others who also speak a native language different from their own. Perhaps language training should be advocated for all students.
The 1968 Bilingual Education Act was designed to remove barriers to learning. The intent was to provide access to equal education and mastery of English would be the key to that access. According to some, to date, bilingual education programs have not helped children make the transition from their native languages to English. Additionally, students of bilingual programs are segregated from their english-speaking peers at school and alienated from the larger society (with its various languages).
According to others bilingual education that is based on a period of transition is the best method for socializing children and assimilating them into the American culture.
Time required: varies
Procedure: (See Guide for Debating)
Read and discuss the information found in the unit. After some initial classroom activities ( see Strategies) outline the resolution and have students prepare to take a stand on the issue
Select the teams based on their positions (teacher will make decisions about teams and presentation schedule)
Outline order of speakers with information as to each speaker's purpose.
Each team will need some help in researching their position and in organizing the information. Each will also need some practice time.
Now it is time to hold the debate. Depending on the number of students, you may have more than one debate scheduled, or more than one idea being debated ( based on your discretion)
Resolved: Bilingual education should be funded in the public schools.
Bilingual programs only benefit a small minority of students.
America should require all of its legal citizens to speak English.
Should the public schools pay for limited English speaking children to learn English? Why or Why not?
What are some of the ways that students can be taught English other than in public school classes?
What do you know about living conditions in some of America's poor neighborhoods?
If you were not able to learn how to read and write in English, what are your chances of going to college? What are your chances of getting a skilled job? What are your chances for providing for a family, in America?
How did the Naturalization Act affect people of color who wanted to enter the U.S.?
- Are there any disturbing trends in the timeline? What are they and why do they disturb you?
Would you say that the Alien and Sedition Acts were likely applied fairly or were undesirables likely falsely accused?
Are you, in any way affected by the point in America's history wherein non-whites were unable to testify against whites? What was the purpose of that action? Can you see a connection between that action and the idea that non-white immigrants were not welcome to America?
Chinese immigrants were not the only group whose entry had been suspended, other Asian groups were not welcome as well, what do you think has caused a shift in the policy, so that now they are welcome?
How do you see the heightened debate over legal and illegal immigrants? Can you relate that to the increase of Hispanic immigrants to the country?
Is California doing its best to educate its Latino population?
If California's school districts are mostly Latinos, should the schools provide bilingual programs for them?
In America, is it fair to concern ourselves with the cost of education or is it more important to concern ourselves with the quality of education?
When will teachers be allowed to teach reading to the children? Will students lag behind if they are not allowed to read until they are fluent English speakers?
Are all groups educated in the same way in America?
Is there any difference in funding for inner city schools and suburban schools.
Do the opportunities differ from one school to another?
What factors might account for how ethnic groups are educated versus how non-ethnic groups are educated?
*Immigration, immigrant, migrant, emigrate, refugee, asylum, naturalization, alien, assimilation, visa
- · Do some research to find how many different languages are spoken in the U.S. You might begin by checking your local Chamber of Commerce to find the countries in which those languages are spoken
- · Design and create a board game in which immigrants are able to move into mainstream America. Award points for language usage, educational achievement, job qualifications etc..
- * Write an essay, story or one-act play or draw an editorial cartoon depicting immigrants who have chosen to make America their new home. Think of them as newborn babies who have to learn the English language in order to communicate, travel and work in this country. What would be their experiences?
- * It was then in the early American colonies as it is now a natural fear that those who don't speak the language of the dominant society are somehow illiterate. The fear is that these illiterate people will be of little value to an upwardly mobile society . Can you construct an argument for or against the idea that illiteracy hinders a society?
- * Control of language brings about other kinds of control, namely economic, political and social controls. Once the language of a cultural group has been removed, that group is vulnerable to dominance by the group who controls the words. Write a futuristic scenario in which earth people have been invaded by beings from another world. You are forbidden to speak your language. You are offered no way of learning theirs and language is a guarded secret, because it is their most precious commodity. If you've read some myths in which the secret of fire was guarded by the gods of that particular culture, then you have a good understanding of what kinds of things are done to keep the power or to get it. In this case, your power is that of language.
- * Think of what it must be like to be in a place where you don't speak the language of the native culture. Perhaps you have been a similar situation. Let's use for example, African slaves who were brought to America from various parts of the African continent and sold into slavery in various parts of the world other than the U.S.. Not only was there a loss of family members, religion and cultural practices but a loss of language, as well. Because they were placed with other African slaves and slaveholders who spoke some "foreign" language, verbal communication was virtually impossible. What would you have done if you were a member of the dominant culture? Would you offer some formal kind of language training or would you prefer that they remained illiterate?
Some facts that may be pertinent to the scenario:
- 1. Family reunification, work, freedom and asylum are some of the main reasons for immigration.
- 2. The top five countries from which immigrants come to the U.S. are Mexico, China, the Philippines, Vietnam and the former Soviet Union.
- 3. The states with the largest foreign-born population are California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Texas.
- 4. Refugees come from the former Soviet Union, Laos, Haiti, Vietnam, Cuba, Ethiopia, Iran, Somalia and Liberia.
|1607||One hundred English- speaking settlers imported|
|1790||Naturalization Act (first of series)|
|Provided citizenship to any "Free White Person" who resided for two years in the U.S. and for one year in the state in which he sought admission.|
|1799||Alien and Sedition Acts passed|
|*Naturalization Act - required fourteen years of U.S. residency before becoming a citizen.|
____*Alien Enemy Act - empowered the president to detain enemy aliens in times of war.
____*Sedition Act -penalized scandalous publications against government
|1800||Alien & Sedition Acts repealed.|
|1820-1860||German States and Ireland supply most of America's immigrants|
|1849||Blacks and Indians were prohibited from testifying against Whites.|
|1851||Chinese were prohibited from testifying against Whites.|
|1860s||Coerced immigration of African slaves was prohibited. *|
|1864-68||Immigration stimulated by authorizing employers to pay for passage and bind the services of migrants.|
|1870||European-born workers lead the protest against Chinese influx [until this time, new immigrants were people of Northern European background]|
|1881||Suspended entry of Chinese laborers for 10 years.|
1921, 1924, 1929 National Origins Quota System laws enacted
|1965||Numerical restrictions, 20,000 per country regardless of population|
|1986||Immigration and Reform Act - limited number of undocumented workers to U.S. IRCA legalized two million illegals Regulated employer sanctions. U.S. Immigration grants legal status to 20,000 residents residents permitted to stay and work on immigrant Visas (Since 1965, system of preference based on 1) family relationships (primary) 2) special skills needed (domestic market, native pop don't supply) 3)born in U.S. - automatic citizen|
Naturalization/citizenship was based a working knowledge of English American history and Government.
|1990||Increase the nations' immigration quotas|
|1996||Debate heightened over legal v. illegal immigration. Call for restrictions. Welfare Reform Act and Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act|
2. Cafferty, San Juan Pastora " The Language Question: The Dilemma of Bilingual Education for Hispanic Americans".p109
3. Hakuta , Kenji. Mirror of Language: The Debate on Bilingualism. New York, p200.
4. Hakuta, Kenji . p235
5. Hakuta , Kenji. P
6. Cozic, Charles P. Education in America. P171,
This book is useful in helping to unlock some of the mysteries often held about the cultures of other ethnic groups. It promotes the spirit of diversity and invites thoughts on the idea of seeing the planet as a global village.
Ashabranner, Brent. Still A Nation of Immigrants, New York, Cobblehill Books, 1993.
A discussion of social issues which centers around the contributions and concerns of immigrants to America.
Cozic, Charles P. Education in America. San Diego, Green Haven Press,19-
One book in a series of publications called "Opposing Viewpoints" relating subjects of social controversy in the society.
Dejnozka, Edward L. and Kapel, David E American Educators Encyclopedia. New York, Greenwood Press, 19--.
A quick reference guide for information related to the area of education.
Hakuta, Kenji Mirror of Language: The Debate on Bilingualism. New York, Basic Books, 1986
The author offers arguments for and against bilingual education along with information on federal funding history and highlights various models of existing programs around the country.
_________- Multicultural Milestones in United States History, Vols.1&2 Upper Saddle River, Globe Fearon Educational Publishers, 1995.
A series in two volumes which discusses another side of history. Volume 1 highlights untold episodes of ethnic Americans who helped to shape this country (- to 1900.) Volume 2 continues with an exploration of the achievements made by ethnic Americans (from 1900-.)
Sowell, Thomas. Race and Culture; A world View. New York, Basic Books, 1994.
An exploration of the role that races and cultures play in a disparate society.
Szumski, Bonnie ed. Interracial America. San Diego, Green Haven Press, 1996.
Another book from the series of "Opposing Viewpoints." A presentation of various opinions on social issues of immigration, racism, poverty and culture.
Takaki, Ronald. A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1993.
A story about multiethnic groups coming together to create a new society in America.
Takaki, Ronald. Strangers from a Different Shore: A history of Asians Americans. Penguin Books, 1989.
A portrait of Asian-Americans shown through a story about courage and strength of a people.
The Immigrant Experience is a series of books featuring various ethnic groups in the United States. This book brings to light the struggle of Puerto Ricans in political and social avenues.
Brahs, Stuart J. An Album of Puerto Ricans in the United States. New York, Franklin Watts Inc. 1973.
Students will find an interesting portrait that highlights the folklore, literature and music as the wealth of Puerto Rican culture. The book also discusses their struggle for equal rights and other social experiences on the mainland as well as on the island of Puerto Rico.
Dresser, Norine. I Felt Like I Was From Another Planet: Writing from Personal Experiences. New York, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1994.
This book contains stories from fifteen students who tell about their cultural adjustments after coming to America.
Potter, Robert. Myths and Folk Tales Around the World. Englewood Cliffs, Globe Book Company,1987.
A compilation of stories designed primarily for classroom use in the teaching of reading. It begins with stories from Greece and Rome, then proceeds through Northern Europe, The Middle and Far East, Africa and ends with tales from the Americas. It's a useful tool in finding stories that feature various cultures.
Pickering, John. Comparing Cultures. A cooperative Approach to a Multicultured World. Portland, J. Weston Walch Publisher,1990.
Skabelund, Grant Paul et. al. eds. Culturegram '98 . Provo, BYU"S David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies, 1997.
Steidl- Sakamoto, Kim. Portraits of Asian Pacific Americans, Carthage, Good Apple, 1991.
Westridge Young Writers Workshop. Kids Explore America's Hispanic Heritage. Santa Fe, John Mir Publications, 1993.
Ferguson, T. W. "Encore for Unz: Future Ballot Initiatives after curbing Bilingual Education." Forbes, V162, no2 , (July 27,1998), p49.
Philips, A. "Language Wars: Latinos and California's Proposition 227." Maclean's, v111, no22, (June 1,1998), p14
Porter, R. P. "The Case Against Bilingual Education," Atlantic Monthly, v281, no5, (May 1998), p28.
Rothstein, R. "Bilingual Education: the Controversy," Phi Delta Kappan, v79, no9, (May 1998), p627.
_______. " Let's Not Say Adidos to Bilingual Education." U.S. Catholic, v63, no11, (November 1998), pp. 22-26.
_______. "Structured English," Phi Delta Kappan, v80, no3, (November 1998), pp199-204.
_______. "In Plain English," National Review, v50, no12, (July 6,1998), p14.
Contents of 1999 Volume III | Directory of Volumes | Index | Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute | <urn:uuid:d2775131-99ad-4d55-aebe-5d2a72a075ab> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1999/3/99.03.10.x.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397111.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00179-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965535 | 8,212 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Does your child play with a pet regularly? If your answer is no, I can give you plenty of reasons to start that habit. If pets are not allowed in your place of residence, consider taking your child to visit shelter pets or those belonging to friends.
Research shows that having pets reduces anxiety, which is very good for a positive learning environment. That information can be found in many places. But did you know about these other educational benefits?
Playing with pets helps with fine motor skills. Just like other types of active play, when kids are interacting with pets, it helps them develop important physical skills. Playing with pets is unique in that your child not only needs to pay attention to their own play and movements, but to those of the pet as well. Fine motor skills are critical to various educational processes, even down to holding a pencil.
Playing with pets teaches compassion and gentleness. When your child plays with an animal, the animals needs have to come first. Children also need to be gentle to make sure they are not hurting the animal. This helps instill compassion as well as the act of being gentle.
Pet care and play can also be used in many lessons. Need to teach your child counting skills? Use the number of treats awarded to a pet during play. Does your child need to learn about responsibility? Make a schedule for playing with the pet at a certain time every day. The possibilities are endless.
Let your child play with a pet today and every day!
Health Benefits of Pets
I originally published this on Heart and Mind Homeschool:
Hit the subscribe button near the author's name to keep up with parenting-related news, tips, and information. | <urn:uuid:2969447a-6d93-4196-9289-aa395116c3f8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.examiner.com/article/5-educational-reasons-to-play-with-pets | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396029.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00172-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966129 | 343 | 3.046875 | 3 |
EDMONTON, Alberta, March 11 (UPI) -- The noise of human activities may be driving songbirds out of urban habitats by drowning out their songs, Canadian researchers say.
Scientists from the University of Alberta said they have been trying to discover why some apparently suitable habitat in cities is relatively bird-free in the breeding season,
"We sometimes find areas within cities that have what seems like suitable habitat, yet we get lower [songbird] diversity, so we wanted to investigate the hypothesis that there was link between this and noise levels," lead study author Darren Proppe said.
A survey of bird numbers at more than a hundred sites in Edmonton, Alberta, suggested the higher the noise levels the lower the bird diversity, the researchers said.
The absence of a species at a particular site was also more likely if that species' songs relied on lower frequencies, they said.
"This potentially could be down to the fact that those lower frequencies could be overlapped by the dominant frequencies of road noise, which also tend to be fairly low, resulting in a masking of communication between birds," Proppe told BBC News.
In addition to making communication between birds difficult, Proppe said, some female birds might perceive males as unfit for breeding if they could not hear the full range of their songs.
If the birds were not mating as a result of this the population of each species would naturally decline, he said. | <urn:uuid:e070bf0a-bf2c-4896-af99-51587b70bcd3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2013/03/11/Study-City-noise-driving-songbirds-away/UPI-57171363040935/?rel=48801364237000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397797.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00032-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978012 | 289 | 3.28125 | 3 |
The Official Blog of Mr. C's Class at Noel Elementary School!
Modeling the use of technology to teachers and students.
We need fractions to find out how many peices are in a whole
We need fractions so if we need to split somthing easily into eaqual parts it won't be as hard.
I think we need fractions so we can see which one has more candy, food, or soda!!!P.S. I love chocolate
Fractions help us figure out how many pieces are in whole like the pizza you would want to get the bigger piece.
we need fractions because it gives each person gets equal amounts.
Fractions help us figure out how many pieces are in a whole.You would want the bigger piece of a candy bar.
I think we need fractions because when we want to eat some things or divide them we need to use fractions to get what part you want.
we need fractioins because if have 20 friends at your birthday partie and you have a 25 piece candy herseys bar what you do is you 20 divide 25= 1 and 5/20.
porque son menos partes i son mas grandes.
We need fractions so we know how much we are eating .
I think that we need fractions because if we are going to share food then you will have to split it eqaly .
We need fractions because we need to know how to divide things into pices.And we also need to know how to put thing into even groups.
We need fraction so we can tell how much pieces we need.
We need fractions so we can split something evenly among people.
Now that ive seen this video i can finaly understand FRACTIONS.sure 1/4 sounds bigger its got smaler.
I think we nee fractioons because its like dividing
We need fractions to help us to find out how much is in a whole.So if you have 6 people and divide a pizza into four fractions help us make it to where all 6 people get an even amount of pizza.
I think we need fractions so we can divide things evenly.
I think fractions are important because if you have something and there are three friends you have to know how much each person will get.
fractions tell us how to meser the right amount of what is needed. if you where making some amowe. if you some gun pouder than you need the right amount of gun pouder.
We need fractions because we need to know how to divide things equaly.
I think we need fractions because if there is somethingthat they want to cut you can use fractions.
I think that the reason why we need fractions is that if we didn't have fractions we could't spit any thing like a pie.
Nariah: We need frations because it helps us to figure things out like: how to figure out how to split $75 three ways.Evelyn: We need fractions because it helps us split a pizza in to equal parts so each pearson has the same amount.
we need the fractions because the halves wouldn't excit.
We need fractions because it will give us eqaul amounts of candy bars.
we need fraction to divide stuff.
I tink we need fractions so that when there are five friends you can know how much to each person gets.
We need fractions so we can divide things.
I know that dividing a chocalet iseaisy butinto three fors i did not now..........
Post a Comment | <urn:uuid:328f4c8f-0072-4c30-a873-70f321cabd28> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mrcsclassblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/why-do-we-need-fractions.html?showComment=1176214020000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397873.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00042-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948132 | 727 | 3.3125 | 3 |
Teachers at a school in West Yorkshire have come up with an innovative way of injecting some oomph into their students – by teaching them while they’re standing up.
Grove House primary school in Bradford has become the first in Europe to try out the educational tool, The Yorkshire Post reported.
Year five pupils are participating in a seven-week pilot programme run by medical researchers Born in Bradford, which will see students taking it in turns to stand up behind six desks while the rest of the class remains seated.
Each student will stand for a total of 230 minutes each week.
The project, which has been previously carried out in Australia, is designed to find out how sitting down for long periods of time affects children’s concentration and, in the long-term, their health.
Teacher Hannah Rogers, 28, told The Yorkshire Post: “The pupils have been so excited to take part in this experiment and they absolutely love it.
“We’ve only been doing it two weeks in my class and already I can see an improvement.
“I’ve got a very active class and I think they’re really responding to having more freedom, it keeps them focused.
“They’re working better, their concentration is better, and when given the option, they want to continue standing rather than going back to sitting.”
A total of 55 pupils are taking part in the study – half of them have already completed the experiment, while the other half is undertaking it currently.
During the study, the pupils are monitored by both an actigraph accelerator, which calculates how much physical activity is carried out, and an actipal activity monitor, which measures whether they are standing or sitting.
Their weight, height, blood pressure, waist circumference and fine motor skills are also monitored.
Dr Sally Barber, principal research fellow at Born in Bradford, told the newspaper: “Firstly, we want to see whether we can change pupils’ behaviour.
“We know if you can establish healthy lifestyles early in life, that can be continued into adulthood.
“Secondly, sitting for a long period of time has been shown to have a negative impact on children in terms of concentration and behaviour. We want to see if this study will change that. “
The results of the first study are expected to be released in mid-September. | <urn:uuid:bd40a7ec-faa5-4b36-839b-be4b70f3a54f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/pupils-at-bradford-school-learn-while-standing-up-behind-their-desks-9343106.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397795.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00044-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968118 | 493 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Sea turtle No. 1301 didn't even wave goodbye.
It was helped to the back of a patrol boat owned by the Port of Long Beach by a few hands, then slipped into the Pacific Ocean with a tiny splash, paddling a bit just below the surface in the swelling ocean five miles off the coast of Seal Beach.
It quickly disappeared, last seen swimming in a southeast direction to warmer water.
“I'm relieved it's done,” said Lance Adams, the veterinarian from the Aquarium of the Pacific who had the job of nursing back to health the sea creature that's listed on the endangered species list.
Adams will be logging onto his computer today to see where the sea turtle is headed based on satellite coordinates sent via a transmitter glued to the top of its shell. It'll be a month before the transmitter falls off on its own, he said.
The olive ridley sea turtle – which was dubbed “No. 1301” to signify the creature becoming the first sea turtle of the year to get nursed back to health by the Aquarium of the Pacific – washed up on the Venice Beach shoreline and was found underweight in early January.
“Not many get trapped up here,” Adams said of the coastal Los Angeles discovery.
When found in January, the turtle weighed 63 pounds, down from its normal weight of 100, and had buoyancy problems.
Her body temperature was a chilly 42 degrees, down about 30 degrees from the normal 70 degrees when swimming in the waters off the central shoreline of Mexico, considered the indigenous home for this species.
In sea turtle parlance, the olive ridley was “cold-stunned” by drifting off course from its warmer habitat to the south, Adams said.
The sea turtle also suffered from “positive buoyancy,” a condition in which the carnivore can't dive for food, such as lobster and crab.
Shortly after it came to the aquarium, No. 1301 got a medical check-up that included blood work, X-rays and other tests.
It was injected with antibiotics for a month, then given X-rays to see if it had ingested a plastic bottle or had a fish hook lodged in her throat or stomach. Nothing showed up. Neither were there external wounds to her eyes, ears or nose, Adams said.
Over the past eight months, Adams said the sea turtle was nursed back to health in a six-foot-deep tank of water, which he slowly warmed up to about 60 degrees after a few days in order to keep it from dying of shock.
The prognosis for the turtle was that it had possible “lung lesion issues” that had led to its buoyancy, underweight and hypothermic problems.
Its older age also may have contributed, Adams said.
The aquarium was selected by the National Marine Fisheries Service – a branch of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA – to provide veterinary care and housing for the sick olive ridley, said Christina Fahy, NOAA's sea turtle recovery coordinator in Long Beach.
“I think this turtle is much better in the wild than in a tank,” Fahy said. “I do have some concerns about her adapting to humans.
“It's better for her to forage for her own food.”
By the looks of the ocean on a hot, sunny Thursday, that shouldn't be a problem. Pods of dolphins were visible off the coast, as were California brown pelicans diving for fish.
From a nearby Harbor Breeze-owned boat of onlookers, CEO Dan Salas commented: “It's a great day for sea turtles.”
Contact the writer: firstname.lastname@example.org, 562-243-5497
- Once the silent partner, now she's taking the reins of the hot dog chain
- Santa Ana city manager kept romance a secret, report says
- Suspect in O.C. fatal hit and run declared a fugitive
- Three cars held in O.C. racing investigation are returned
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Lesson 4 Art part:
We will be investigating two contemporary artists, Josef Albers and Sol Lewitt, who are often associated with Minimalist and Conceptual art. [note 1] These artists have employed simple geometric forms and mathematical concepts in their endeavor to reveal the illusory effects of color on the two- dimensional plane.
Josef Albers, 1888-1976, GermanThe work of Josef Albers presaged the art of Minimalism and Conceptualism in the 1960s. In his earlier career, Albers was a major figure of The Bauhaus, an influential German school of design and architecture. The Bauhaus developed out of a movement called European Constructivism, a purely abstract, geometric style that emerged shortly before the 1920s. The Bauhaus Constructivists believed that pure abstract forms, such as lines, squares and triangles were more valid than representational painting. For these artists such pure forms evoked a "universal" reality. [note 2] Albers eschewed representation, in favor of the abstract and hard-edged geometric shapes he employed in his most celebrated works. He said "... art should not represent, but present," and preferred the "anonymity of machine-like precision for personal expressiveness." [note 3]
Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York
From the Homage to the Square series, p. 21
Homage to the Square, Interaction of Color
Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York
From the Homage to the Square series, p. 49
Because colors have powerful emotional associations, each combination of colored squares created a distinct psychological impact on the viewer. [note 5] While the squares he used to convey color interaction were simple, hard-edged geometric shapes, Albers saw his paintings as profoundly inventive and more expressive than a representational painting. "When you see how much color helps, hates, penetrates, touches, doesn't that parallel life?"
Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York
From the Homage to the Square series, p. 51-57
Paintings from Homage to the Square are best experienced as a series. Albers is often considered the father of "series" art along with other late modern approaches such as Hard Edge, Minimal art, Op art and Conceptualism.
Sol Lewitt, (American, born 1928)Class visit to see installation by Sol Lewitt at the Hood Museum of Dartmouth College
Sol LeWitt has been a leading avant garde artist in America since the 1950s. He is known both as a minimalist and a conceptualist who deals with multipart structures. A principle characteristic of conceptual art is that the "'true' work of art is not a physical object produced by the artist but consists of 'concepts' or 'ideas'..." [note 7] Below is the verbal description and xsaccompanying images of Lewitt's wall drawing.
Verbal description of installation
Prints of Installation
Sol LeWitt made the first of his "wall drawings" in 1968 for an exhibition at the Paula Cooper Gallery in New York, and they have formed an important part of his work since then. Comprised of webs of colored lines or, more recently, of pure geometric shapes such as cubes, pyramids and rectangles, they represent the artist's continuing interest in the mathematical analysis of form. A leading advocate of conceptual art, LeWitt conceived of his wall drawings as detailed sets of instructions that could be executed by an assistant. The hand of the artist is not necessary because, as LeWitt remarked, it is the idea that "becomes the machine that makes the art." The achievement of LeWitt's art lies in his perception of the expressive potential of rational structures. However austere in conception, his wall drawings are not simply analytic in character, but also mysterious, subtle, and sensual. [note 8] (Hood Museum)
Minimal art taken up by the critic Barbara Rose in 1965: art works which [have] an unsually low degree of differentiation e.g. uniformly painted monochromatic canvases, and therefore a mimimal amount of 'art-work' on the part of the artist. Oxford Companion to 20th Century Art. p. 376.
How do these minimalist/conceptual works affect you? Do you value experiencing a work of art that rests on 'concept', rather than a physical essence?
Review of symmetry groups in pattern.
Observe the exploration of color interaction through the use of geometric shape in the quilting art of naive Amish artists.
Good Books, Intercourse, Pennsylvania 17534, 1984
Fig 20, 21, 22, p.17
Fig 168, p.85
From the Studio of NANCY CROW, p.39
Musical Notation Quilt, p.91
Painted Daisies Quilt, p.92
Poppies Quilt, p.94
Trillium Quilt, p.106
Displaying p4, p4mm, p4gm, p3, p6 symmetries
What sorts of symmetries do you see here in Albers work, in quilting?
construct a symmetry group with asymmetric motif
1. Create an asymmetric motif on your graph paper that measures approximately one to two inches wide and/or long.
2. Use your assigned symmetry group to put the motif in repeat on the graph paper. Experiment with the motif and the symmetry group using tracing paper so that it can repeat in an intriguing way.
3. Draw enough repeats to get a sense of the planar pattern -- about 8-12 repeats across and down on your graph paper. The amount of repeats needed will depend on both your motif and symmetry group. Try to complete as much as possible before the end of class.
Home work for 3- and 6-fold symmetry designs
Paint an effective pattern design using:
From Benjamin Martinez, Jacqueline Block: "VISUAL FORCESAN INTRODUCTION TO DESIGN" Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1988
Please read the following before beginning assignment 4
We have noted repeatedly that there is no such thing as a single and isolated color. Colors are always seen next to other colors. Even a colored dot on a sheet of paper will interact with the color of the paper-say, bright or dull white, buff, gray-and the two colors will change each other to some degree. When we speak of a color's hue, value, and intensity, we are describing that color in an imaginary void; when the color is placed in a context of surrounding colors, everything is changed.
We have seen how a gray appears to change dramatically when we alter the value of the field upon which it sits (Fig. A on page 172). An even more complicated pattern of interactions exists for color, with its many properties. The hue, value, intensity, and temperature of a color area are all affected by color interaction. In Fig. A a single, fairly neutral color is placed in four different color fields, and it changes its guise each time. Color interaction can make a single color appear hotter, cooler, lighter, darker, redder or bluer than it is. These color changes occur whether we want them to or not, so it is critical for artists and designers to understand just how colors interact and to anticipate those interactions. It is frustrating (and sometimes expensive) to mix a perfect tone for a particular purpose only to discover that it becomes a different color when applied to a white canvas or illegible when printed on green paper. The Italian Renaissance painter Titian must have recognized the importance of knowing how to manipulate the appearance of color when he bragged, as he supposedly did, that he could use mud to paint the flesh of Venus. What he meant was that if he could get a muddy, low intensity color into the right relationship with surrounding values and colors, it would appear luminous, brilliant, and rich.
Probably the best-known systematic investigation of color interaction is found in the series of paintings by Josef Albers called "Homage to the Square." Albers chose the square as the most neutral format, neither too high nor too wide. He did not mix colors for these paintings, but used them straight from the paint tube, applying them smoothly and evenly and making sure that no blank strip separated one color from another. There are no complex compositions in the series, and the square format of the outside is echoed within. Still, there is plenty to look at and work with. The size of the interior squares, the widths of the bands they create, and the hue, value, intensity, and temperature differences resulted in distinct and varied color personalities and kinds of light from one painting to another. A painting based on variations of orange might glow like a kiln. The opposition of blue and white might create the open and airy feeling of a Mediterranean landscape. Color might be made to feel compressed or expansive, edges made to seem crisp or dissolved (Figs. B and C).
Figure B. Josef Albers, "Homage to the Square: Silent Hall." 1961. (Collection, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Dr. and Mrs. Frank Stanton Fund)
Figure C. Josef Albers, "Homage to the Square: Apparition." 1959. (Collection, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York)
Color Interaction: Simultaneous Contrast
We have already noted the effect of afterimage, the ghostly image of a color's complement that one sees after staring at a color spot. When we look at colors that are next to one another, something similar happens. A black dot placed on a red field will look greenish, and placed on a green field it will look reddish (Fig. A). The color of the field (say, red) will "call forth" its opposite quality (green) in a black dot placed upon it. This is something that happens in your eye and not on the page; if you peeled off the black dots, they would still be black. If you wanted the black dot to look black on a red field, you would most likely have to make it a very dark red to compensate for the ghostly aura of green.
We call this effect in adjacent colors simultaneous contrast. The principle applies to all such interactions. A color will appear darker in value on a light ground and lighter on a dark ground, more intense on a more neutral ground and grayer on a very intense ground (Fig. B). Green will look more yellow on a field of blue and more blue on a field of yellow (Fig. C).
The effect, furthermore, is modified or enhanced by the particular colors chosen. Pure, intense, primary hues are not much affected by context, but lower-intensity colors and colors that are not primary or spectral can change appearance radically.
Size can also influence the effect of simultaneous contrast. Generally, larger color areas have more influence on smaller color areas. The small green square is changed by the color of the yellow or blue field, not the reverse. This is why colored type seems to be affected by the color of the ground and not the reverse, or why a red thread running through a green cloth looks so brilliantly red. Although we are usually not conscious of this "optical illusion," it is something we continuously experience in our ordinary perception of things. We do not see it happen unless it is presented in diagramatic form as in the figures here. The effect of simultaneous contrast is only interesting to the viewer of a work of art or design, but absolutely critical to its maker.
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Next: Semantic Nets
Up: Weak Slot and Filler
Previous: Weak Slot and Filler
- It enables attribute values to be retrieved quickly
are indexed by the entities
- binary predicates are indexed by first argument.
E.g. team(Mike-Hall , Cardiff).
- Properties of relations are easy to describe .
- It allows ease of consideration as it embraces aspects of object oriented
So called because:
- A slot is an attribute value pair in its simplest form.
- A filler is a value that a slot can take -- could be a numeric,
string (or any data type) value or a pointer to another slot.
- A weak slot and filler structure does not consider the content
of the representation.
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What is Earth Day?
Earth Day is an annual event that takes place in April. Events are held worldwide to demonstrate support for environmental protection. The first Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970 and has since been adopted by over 192 countries worldwide.
Why does CAA Manitoba take part in Earth Day?
While CAA started as an auto club we have grown into so much more and we recognize the impact that vehicles have on the environment. We also understand that environmental awareness is something that is important to our Members and therefore it’s important to us!
What does CAA Manitoba do to take part in Earth Day?
Every year CAA Manitoba holds an Earth Day weekend, in which we have four of our AARS garages, in Winnipeg, available for the drop off of old tires, used motor oil and car batteries. We do not want these items to end up in a landfill or in our sewer systems so we invite our Members and those who are not yet Members to clean out their sheds and garages! There is no charge to drop off these items and we will ensure they are recycled in an eco-friendly manner! We also take part in the Earth Day celebrations at Fort Whyte and will have a drop off depot at Fort Whyte which will collect used tires and car batteries.
We also hold an Earth Day celebration in Brandon so that Members in the Westman region are also able to drop off old tires, used motor oil and car batteries. A drop off depot for hazardous materials is available to Member and non – Members during the Earth Day celebration. As well CAA in Brandon also offers free battery tests or eco checks of their vehicles during this event.
Earth Day 2016
Our Earth Day event in April 2016 was a big success! Many thanks to everyone who participated!
The Great Battery Roundup
Each year, CAA Manitoba hosts “The Great Battery Roundup” at our branches in celebration of Earth Day Canada. Members and non-Members alike can bring their old car batteries, motor oil and tires to be recycled at no cost to them. Since 2012, we have also included a drop-off depot at FortWhyte Alive.
Some 2013 highlights:
- Collected 96 tires
- Collected 89 batteries
- Collected 983 Litres of oil
To put that into perspective:
- Four litres of oil can contaminate four million litres of water, equal to about a year’s water supply for 50 people. This amount of oil kept enough water clean for 12,287 people for an entire year.
- Half a litre of oil can create a slick the size of a football field (Source)
- That means the amount of oil we collected in 2013 is equal to almost 2,000 football fields.
- A football field is 5,531 metres square
- Dauphin lake is 200 square miles
- Lake Winnipeg is 9,465 square miles
- Lake Manitoba is 1,785 square miles
- Lake superior is 31,700 square miles
- Manitoba is 250,900 square miles
- Africa is 11,700,000 square miles
- United states is 3,717,727 square miles
- Canada is 3,845,082 square miles
Since 2010, CAA Manitoba has collected:
2013 – 96 tires, 89 batteries, 983 L of oil
2012 – 2000 L of oil, 239 tires, 130 batteries
2011 – 75 batteries, 302 L of oil, 45 tires
2010 – 335 batteries
Tires: 380 tires
Batteries: 629 batteries
Oil: 3285 litres of oil | <urn:uuid:ccffbc2b-5866-4b52-ae94-662986b3dcae> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.caamanitoba.com/community_earth_day | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00198-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954194 | 741 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Antibiotics aren’t only used by farms to prevent infection; they’re also used to plump up chickens, cows, pigs, and turkeys. Now, researchers suggest that antibiotics given to young children could have the same weight-gaining effect.
However, leaders in the field are unconvinced by the data. Microbiologist David Relman, who investigates the microbiome at the Stanford University School of Medicine told ScienceNOW that the work is "provocative" but that some of the data are "a bit vague and unclear."
Some researchers think that low dose antibiotics make farm animals heftier by altering their gut microbiota, which is responsible for digesting food and making nutrients available to the host. (For a critical review of this practice, see “Antibiotics in the Animals We Eat.”) When researchers from New York University School of Medicine gave young mice low doses of antibiotics, on a schedule similar to that given to farm animals, they saw the mice develop more fat stores than controls, in work published yesterday (August 22) in Nature. Analysis of the mouse gut microbiota showed that the microbial community had shifted to include a greater proportion of Firmicutes species, which the author speculated could make more calories available to the host than other groups of commensal bacteria.
A second paper by the same lead author, published in the International Journal of Obesity, looked at children in the United Kingdom treated with antibiotics in the first 6 months of their lives compared to untreated children. Comparing the weight of the children at 38 months old, researchers saw a higher chance of overweight measures in children who were given antibiotics.
But while there may have been a small increase in weight at 38 months, critics say, there was no association between antibiotic use and weight at 7 years. In addition, the mice used in the study were given antibiotics from the time they were weaned from their mother until maturity. "We never give antibiotics to children continuously from the time they wean to the time they reach sexual maturity," Relman told ScienceNOW. | <urn:uuid:79f8c34e-0ed6-45b9-be4a-9febb98d27e6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/32520/title/Could-Drugs-be-Plumping-up-Kids-/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00180-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967107 | 420 | 3.75 | 4 |
Q: From the mid 1950s on, what was the Eisenhower administration hoping to
achieve with its civil defense program?|
GAP: Early in the Eisenhower administration there had been a recognition that,
if any kind of atomic attack were to occur, whatever we had done in the way of
providing civil defense could result in saving millions of lives. And a great
deal was done. For example, instruction was given in schools. New buildings
in the government were dispersed out quite a number of miles. And a lot was
done in studying the importance of civil defense.
But as time went on and you saw the scope of destruction that the
thermonuclear weapon could carry out, it became quite apparent that many of
these underground facilities and the dispersion of government buildings would
really be -- would really accomplish only a very small part of the reduction,
only to a small degree would reduce the devastation and the loss of life.
[President] Eisenhower had a couple of studies made. He instituted something
called the Net Evaluation Survey in which he called upon the military, senior
military, to make a careful analysis of what the effects of an atomic exchange
would be on the country we were attacking...and on ourselves from the country
that attacked us. And the net of that was really staggering in terms of what
the extent of loss could be.
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2 Answers | Add Yours
The first fact would be concerning the opening, which is a traditional appeal to a Muse in order to give the author inspiration to be able to tell his tale. Other epic texts begin in a similar way, with the author appealing to divine inspiration to help him narrate the tale. This is why the story begins in this fashion:
Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy.
A second fact would be that Odysseus, the "ingenious hero" in the passage, was a character who was very much involved in the siege of Troy, which Homer wrote about in his other major epic, the Iliad. It was only after the sacking of Troy and the end of the battle that he was able to think about going back home to Ithaca and to his wife, Penelope. Lastly, it was Odysseus who came up with the idea that successfully resulted in victory for Agamemnon's forces, as he was the person who thought up the cunning plan of the Trojan Horse, which allowed the Greeks to place a small group of men within the city who could then open the gates and allow the Greek army to enter the city and sack it. The three facts to the opening of this tale therefore relate to its style and also its heroic figure, Odysseus, and his exploits before the tale starts.
The following lines lines in Book One are from Lattimore's translation of the Odyssey.
"Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven
far journeys, after he had sacked Troy's sacred citadel.
Many were they whose cities he saw, whose minds he learned of,
Many the pains he suffered in his spirit on the wide sea,
struggling for his own life and the homecoming of his companions
Even so he could not save his companions, hard though
he strove to; they were destroyed by their own wild recklessness. . .
From some point here Goddess, daughter of Zeus, speak, and begin our story"
Within this short introduction of the Odyssey, three of the most important themes within the epic poem are revealed to the audience. The first is that of metis. This is a Greek word meaning cunning and intelligence. It is only because of Odysseus' cunning that he is able to return to Ithaca. He is no different from his crew in that he is also reckless. He shouts out his real name to the cyclops, Polyphemus, who then asks his father Posiedon to inhibit Odysseus from returning home. However, he is different from his men in that he possesses a superior intelligence. This metis is greatly admire by the goddess Athena. Without her help and his cunning Odysseus would not be able to return home.
This introduces the next theme: Nostos. This is the Greek word meaning homecoming. The Odyssey is the story of Odysseus' journey to return to his home, Ithaca. The epic examines the disconnect created by war and how true victory is only fully attained once the hero returns to his home. However, it also appears that one never can truly return "home." As Odysseus discovers upon arriving in Ithaca, his native land will never be the same place that it was when he left for Troy.
The final theme is that of powerful women throughout the Odyssey who like Odysseus possess a superior metis and are essential in his return to Ithaca as King. Because Athena has pity on Odysseus and admires his intelligence, a genius she also possesses, Poseidon can no longer forever delay his return. Similarly women such as his mother(underworld) and the Phoenician queen, who weaves (a symbol of intelligence), aid him in his journey. Penelope also weaves as a sign of her metis. It is Penelope's loyalty that allows Odysseus to return as the king of his household.
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Home → Exoplanets FAQ → Nearest Exoplanet to Earth
Currently, the nearest claimed exoplanet to Earth is alpha Centauri B b, and as its name suggests, it resides in the nearest star system to Earth (which is a binary). The distance to Earth is about 4.24 light years, and the planet orbits with a period of 3.2357 Earth days, very close in to the star alpha Centauri B (only 4% of the Earth-Sun distance). The lower limit on the planet's mass is about 1.14 Earth masses, and there is no radius estimate. See Dumusque et al. 2012, Nature. However, you should be aware that the planet's existence is probabilistic because of the statistical nature of extracting the planet's signal from that of the complex overall signal from the binary star system. Therefore, it is possible that the result could be a false alarm. For a spacecraft traveling at 20,000 miles per hour (which is achievable already), it would take about 142,000 years to get to the planet from Earth.
You can get instant access to the book Exoplanets and Alien Solar Systems:
Currently the second-nearest exoplanet to Earth found so far goes by the rather tedious name of eps Eridani b. It is located at about 10.44 light years from Earth, which means that it would take light about 10.44 years to travel from Earth to the planet. For a spacecraft traveling at 20,000 miles per hour, it would take about 350,000 years to get to the planet from Earth. The planet was discovered in 2000. Thus, eps Eridani b has held the record for being the nearest exoplanet to Earth for about 12 years.
This second-nearest exoplanet, eps Eridani b, has a mass (lower bound) of approximately 1.5 times the mass of Jupiter, and there is no radius (size) measurement. It is located at about 3.4 times the Earth-Sun distance from its host star, and has an orbital period of 2502 Earth days (references for these numbers can be found in the Extrasolar Planets Encylopedia eps Eridani entry). The host star has about 80% of the mass of our Sun, and is somewhat cooler than our Sun by about 1000 degrees (the surface temperature of eps Eridani is about 4800 degrees Celsius, or 8750 degrees Fahrenheit).
If you would like to be able to find out yourself what is the closest exoplanet found so far, here is how you do it. Go to the Extrasolar Planets Encylopedia and click on the button in the header of the table that says “All fields” and then click on the column called Distance. When you click on it, the data in the table should be sorted in order of numerical value in that column (i.e., the distance between Earth and the planets). An arrow just to the right of the word Distance tells you whether the numerical order is ascending or descending (the arrow will point upwards for an ascending order). If you click the column header again, the numerical ordering will flip from ascending to descending or vice versa. To find the closest exoplanet to Earth you want the distance measurements to be ascending, with the smallest values appearing first. However, the rows that appear first may have no entries in the Distance column and if so, these correspond to exoplanets for which the distance from Earth has not been measured. Scroll down until you see the first non-blank entry in the Distance column. That is the nearest exoplanet and the number in the cell is the distance to the nearest exoplanet in units called parsecs. You can convert these to any other units by typing an appropriate statement in a Google search box. The conversion factor from parsecs to light years is such that you multiply parsecs by 3.26 to get light years.
Revision history: This article was last updated on: 20 October 2012.
Read more about exoplanets in Exoplanets and Alien Solar Systems.
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Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Like many others, I had mistaken the Tower Bridge for the London Bridge until we saw the sign below!
The London Bridge
This is the London Bridge, the one in the nursery rhyme. It's the next bridge downstream.
The 'London Bridge is falling down' Nursery Rhyme is based on the one of the most famous landmarks in London. It's history can be traced to the Roman occupation of England in the first century. The first London Bridge was made of wood and clay and was fortified or re-built with the various materials mentioned in the children's nursery rhyme. Many disasters struck the bridges - Viking invaders destroyed the bridge in the 1000's which led to a fortified design, complete with a drawbridge. Building materials changed due to the many fires that broke out on the bridge.
source - http://www.rhymes.org.uk/london-bridge-is-falling-down.htm
Interestingly, it is also alleged by some that the song refers to the practice of bricking live children into the support of bridges as a sacrificial ritual to appease the water god. The theory is based around the idea that a bridge would collapse unless the body of a human sacrifice were buried in its foundations. However, there is no archaeological evidence for any human remains in the foundations of London Bridge.
And who's the 'my fair lady' in the song?
Several attempts have been made to identify the 'fair lady'of the rhyme. They include:
1. Matilda of Scotland (c. 1080–1118) Henry I's consort, who between 1110 and 1118 was responsible for the building of the series of bridges that carried the London-Colchester road across the River Lea and its side streams between Bow and Stratford.
2. Eleanor of Provence (c. 1223–91), consort of Henry III who had custody of the bridge revenues from 1269 to about 1281.
3. A member of the Leigh family of Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire, who have a family tradition that a human sacrifice lies under the building.
source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge_Is_Falling_Down
Crossing the River Thames on one of the most iconic landmarks in the world was an unforgettable experience.
Oblique views from the North Tower
1. In 1912, aviator Frank McLean was forced in an emergency to fly his small bi-plane between the bascule roadway and the high-level walkway.
2. In 1952, a London bus had to make a leap from one bascule to the other as the Bridge began to be raised owing to operator error.
3. Visiting U.S. President Bill Clinton's motorcade was forced to split in two in 1997 owing to the lifting of the bridge bascules
The Gherkin Building and Tower of London are seen beyond the trees
Posted by Veronica Lee at 4:00 PM | <urn:uuid:ddcfe292-f77f-4d72-82fe-c16710ed5bc6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ofmiceandramen.blogspot.com/2011/10/tower-bridge.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00181-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969763 | 622 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Dr. Vishkin has developed a new computer paradigm that has the potential to speed up many computer operations by 10x or even 100x. The new software developed by Dr. Vishkin, called eXplicit Multi Threading (XMT), is so easy to learn that high school students have been taught how to program it. Semiconductor makers are starting to show interest in this new technique given the dramatic speed gains that are possible. XMT could be standard on most desktops by 2013.
Explicit Multi-Threading (XMT): A PRAM-On-Chip Vision web page, which has technical information and tutorials
Question: Why are current software techniques poorly suited to take advantage of current multicore processors?
Answer: Students in computer science are still learning the C programming language, which has been used since the 1970s and which is poorly suited to extract the performance of multicore processors. The "software spiral" is effectively broken, and new hardware gains will only result in performance improvements if coupled with software that is explicitly parallel. In order to take full advantage of the capabilities that multicore processors offer, the computer industry will need to embrace a paradigm shift. Quite a few parallel programming languages have been developed over the years for supercomputers, which are also parallel machines . However, programming them is considered a challenge, and has repelled all but the most devoted programmers. We now have a new paradigm, called eXplicit Multi-Threading (XMT). XMT offers the best chance to take advantage of the benefits of multi-core processors.
Question: Tell us about XMT. How is it superior to current approaches?
Answer: XMT comprises a workflow process that systematically guides the programmer from finding a fast parallel algorithm to producing a parallel program. I developed the XMT paradigm in the late 1990s. It evolved from an earlier concept known as the Parallel Random-Access Machine/model (PRAM), which was an early attempt at parallel programming. The PRAM attempt was considered as having a great potential for a breakthrough in parallel computing, but until the arrival of the XMT paradigm with it, it was not clear how reduce this potential to practice. XMT requires a coordinated hardware and software approach to work optimally. At its core it is an extremely fine-grained approach to programming which is far superior to the course-grained programming techniques employed today. The XMT's fine-grained and irregular approach to parallel programming is so easy to use that even high school kids can write efficient programs.
Question: How does XMT work?
Answer: In XMT, the programming task is broken down, or "spawned" into threads that are very fine-grained. The instructions are essentially "broadcast" to all the cores of a chip instead of being individually sent to each core. Each thread advances on its own, rather than being synchronized with the other threads. The individual threads are then joined together when completed. So there are hardware algorithms for partitioning and merging the threads.
Question: What are the main advantages of XMT?
Answer: XMT provides several potential advantages over competing solutions. First and foremost, It is highly efficient, and can take full advantage of the latent power of PRAM programming, a concept that provides the largest knowledge based and easiest known approach to parallel programming. It is highly scalable, and can seamlessly scale to 1,000 cores or more. It is also easy to learn and program - a group of students at Thomas Jefferson high school in Virginia has already learned how to program using XMT.
Answer: Compared to a core-2 duo processor, we managed a 10x improvement for our 64-processor XMT prototype, which in silicon is the same size as the Core-2 duo. We believe this to be indicative of the performance speedups that are possible. Although performance improvements will vary depending on the application, we predict substantial speedups of most applications. For some general-purpose applications, 100x speedups should be feasible with a 1000-processor XMT chip.
Question: Tell us more about this prototype XMTmachine.
Answer: The prototype is a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) running at 75 MHz. It has 64 cores, and was specifically designed for XMT computing. It was so easy to build that it was designed by a single graduate student in only 2 years using standard Verilog software. In silicon, the chip is about the same size as a single commodity CPU core. Performance would obviously increase if it were to be fabbed using more modern lithography, such as 45 nm transistors.
Question: How radically does hardware need to be redesigned in order to take full advantage of XMT?
Answer: The changes are not radical. One needs to add a prefix-sum functional unit, which allows for fast coordination among parallel processors. An extension of the von-Neumann program- counter and stored-program apparatus is needed, along with a reduced synchrony on-chip interconnection network. A uniform memory architecture is also advantageous. Such changes are actually fairly minor and relatively easy to implement – some current and emerging chip designs would only need to be modified in order to take advantage of XMT.
Question: How long does it take to learn the XMT programming model?
Answer: Not long at all. The XMTC language is essentially C with two additional commands: SPAWN and PREFIX-SUM. This workflow, with multiple levels of abstraction, allows high-school and college programmers to do the same tasks as they are currently doing in their serial programming courses.
Question: How many programs could be rewritten in order to take advantage of XMT?
Answer: I believe that most programs could be modified to take advantage of XMT. Even programs such as data mining can be sped up substantially by using XMT. The objective now is to get a large number of programmers familiar with XMT concepts and programming.
Question: Is XMT intended to replace other programming models, such as Nvidia's CUDA?
Answer: No, it is intended to supplement and enhance other programming models.
Question: How familiar is the computer industry with XMT?
Answer: The industry is becoming aware of this. I gave talks on XMT last year to Intel in the US, and in China. I am about to leave to give another series of talks on this in Haifa, Israel. I have also taught the XMT programming to college and high-school students. I am in talks with other researchers at semiconductor companies about these concepts. The industry will become increasingly interested in XMT as it becomes apparent that this is a necessary solution to the multicore programming problem.
Question: How long before the XMT concept becomes mainstream?
Answer: XMT could be standard on most desktops as early as 2013. XMT is already mentioned in 28 non-XMT patents, and working hardware has already demonstrated that is an order of magnitude speedup over conventional hardware running standard software. The industry realizes that a new workflow paradigm is needed for parallel programming, and the XMT paradigm works. XMT will be the enabling paradigm that allows the computer industry to break the multi-core programming bottleneck. | <urn:uuid:1c97a5e6-0577-4ec9-aef2-176e3cb3fb4e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/10/uzi-vishkin-who-has-new-computer.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397864.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00044-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959851 | 1,476 | 3.75 | 4 |
A shipwreck, large hail, a lightning strike fire and a summer cool spell top the list of Michigan weather events on this day in history. From the National Weather Service archives here are the events that happened on August 12.
1864 - The temperature hits 96° at Lansing for a record high. The record for the coolest high temperature is set exactly one hundred years later in 1964, when the high is only 62° at Lansing. Other cities saw record low maximum temperatures in 1964; Alpena with 58°, Flint with 61°, Houghton Lake with 57°, Marquette with 53° and Sault Ste. Marie with 54°.
1870 - The wood schooner George W. Ford struck a reef near Eagle Harbor, MI in the Keweenaw in Lake Superior in a gale and sank quickly. Salvage was not attempted due to her age and condition.
1976 - Test fire or prescribed burn that began as a one acre fire in Seney Wildlife Refuge grew to 200 acres and could not be contained. This fire combined with the lightning strike fire that started in late July, grew into one 2,000 acre blaze and this blaze could not be contained and continued to grow.
1979 - A summer cool spell sets several record lows over the course of a week. On this date, Muskegon falls to 45° for a record low. Other daily records include Alpena with 40° and Sault Ste. Marie with 38°.
1988 - Saginaw County was belted with a peak wind gust at 81 mph at 5:49pm.
1992 - A record low temperature of 38° was set at Weather Forecast Office in Marquette.
2011 - Nickel to quarter-sized hail (0.75 inch to 1.00 inch) was observed at the far west end of Big Manistique Lake just east of Germfask or 9 miles southwest of Laketon in the mid afternoon. | <urn:uuid:427a88ac-8aed-412e-8b7c-de37a76a3185> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.examiner.com/article/a-shipwreck-large-hail-a-lightning-strike-fire-and-a-summer-cool-spell | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00181-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948839 | 398 | 2.84375 | 3 |
abundant harvests from their farms have now become a distant memory for a village in Tailevu.
The villagers are now buying root crops and vegetables from nearby villages as the result of climate change experienced in their area.
Buretu Village chief Ratu Noni Veikoso said his people had been buying foods from the urban centres and neighbouring villages to feed their family, adding this was something the village had faced for the past four decades.
He said the efforts by the villagers to sustain its resources had all been in vain.
"This is because of high salinity in the soil," Ratu Noni said.
"We can't use it for planting and plus this kind of soil is not good for crops like cassava and dalo to be planted on.
"What we have been trying to do is to try and reclaim some of the land in order to sustain a better living."
However, Ratu Noni said this was not a new struggle for the village and an issue they were trying to avoid and fight against.
He said there was not enough space for them to plant their root crops since the allocated places were filled with water making it hard for the village men to plant their own food.
Ratu Noni said this was not a laughing matter and something that needed the public's undivided attention.
"This is something that needs a lot of attention and campaigns, we are not the only ones who are suffering, a lot of other villagers situated along the river banks are beginning to experience the same thing so it's better that we take precautions now before it's too late." | <urn:uuid:23f4b43b-f20d-4cb8-a169-d3d07367b030> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=274608 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00147-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.991454 | 332 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa is the story of the theft of what is likely the most famous painting in the world. In 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen from the walls of the Louvre in Paris. It remained missing for almost two years, with no suspects, no leads, not even a single clue as to where it may have disappeared. Scotti chronicles the search for the precious painting, approaching the entire event as a crime writer would.
Scotti begins by discussing the actual theft. She describes what happened, without speculating as to how the theft might have occurred. After a few days, when Louvre officials realized the painting had been stolen, the French police began their investigation. Scotti chronicles this unsuccessful investigation then turns to the history of the Mona Lisa, telling the reader about Leonardo da Vinci and discussing the woman historians believe was the real Mona Lisa. After this historical interlude, Scotti returns to the crime, this time, telling the reader how the thief was apprehended and the painting recovered. Additionally,
she discusses the holes in the story of the man who claimed to have stolen the Mona Lisa and why his account wasnít necessarily plausible. Finally, Scotti turns to the supposed overall story of the theft, including the mastermind behind it. Scotti isnít fully convinced by this overarching story, as she makes clear in Vanished Smile.
Generally speaking, Vanished Smile is a well-researched and well-documented novel about a fascinating event in art history. Scotti presents the evidence well, and her argument is convincing. Additionally, his history of the Mona Lisa is illuminating. In some areas, especially in the first part of the book, the chronicle can get a bit dry. However, the book is well-written and engaging for the most part.
One thing that would have been helpful for inclusion in Vanished Smile is a full-color picture of the Mona Lisa. The dust jacket of the book contains a partial reproduction, and there is a black-and-white copy of the picture at the beginning of the book. However, Scotti describes the painting in such detail, and with such emotion and love, that it would have been useful to have a full-color reproduction of the painting for reference while reading the account.
Additionally, the chronological organization of the book is somewhat problematic. It would have been more helpful and compelling for Scotti to put the history of the Mona Lisa first (perhaps with a brief outline of the theft) and move on to the Paris police investigation after this history. It would have made the book easier to read and broken up the dry parts effectively.
Still, Vanished Smile is a book that nonfiction lovers, true-crime lovers, and especially art lovers will thoroughly enjoy. | <urn:uuid:f19ae4e6-0324-4335-bd13-d770d741fed2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.curledup.com/thftmona.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00140-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970976 | 576 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Worried your kid forgets everything they've learnt when not at school? Here's how to keep their brain sharp. more
Coping with contractions
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Your contractions will become more frequent and occur for longer, and stronger, once your cervix has dilated (opened) to around four or five centimeters. Once your contractions become more frequent, your labour usually progresses quite quickly, all of which means you are well and truly in labour.
Women will experience contractions quite differently. For some, it may feel strongest in their back, for others it occurs more in their abdomen. Early contractions may feel like menstrual cramps. As your contractions progress, the intensity may vary - with one contraction very strong, followed by a weaker one. This is common.
Being able to cope with your contractions will help you through the labour and subsequent birth. Yes, it can be painful and scary and it is normal to feel helpless and out of control, but there are things you can do to help yourself cope with contractions :
- Make the most of your support person. Sometimes being able to grip onto your support person physically - perhaps with your arms around him or her as he supports you - can help you relax and focus on breathing.
- Find a comfortable position. You may need to change positions with each of the first few contractions to see what works best for you. If you feel yourself panicking and unable to relieve the discomfort, ask your midwife for advice about what positions might help.
- At the start of each contraction, take a deep breath and sigh out. Continue to breathe evenly.
- Don't be afraid to cry out or shout if it helps. The medical staff and midwives have heard it all before.
- In between contractions, try to relax your body and let your shoulders drop. Too much tension will only make the contractions feel worse.
- Ask your support person for a massage - rubbing your lower back may help.
- A hot pack on your lower back or abdomen may also offer some relief.
Some women are able to cope with contractions using relaxation techniques, breathing and massage. For others, medication to ease the pain is preferred. Don't feel like you have failed if you want to ask for pain relief through medication. There are a number of options available depending on the stage of labour you are at.
Inhaled nitrous oxide and oxygen (gas):
Breathing nitrous oxide and oxygen (gas) can provide some pain relief. You can control how much gas you breathe in, and many women find it provides good pain relief during their labour.
Another pain relieving method is an injection of a narcotic, such as pethidine. These narcotics are strong painkillers that may cause drowsiness or nausea. Sometimes an anti-nausea drug is given with the pethidine to stop you from feeling sick. Narcotics can have a sedating effect on the baby.
Epidural anaesthesia (an epidural):
Locally-acting anaesthetic or other drugs may be used to block the nerves that carry pain. The most common way of giving pain relief by this method is by using an epidural. An epidural is an anaesthetic given through a fine tube in the lower part of your back. This gives complete pain relief for the majority of women who have it.
There may be medical situations where an epidural may be advised or recommended (for example, if you are having twins, you have high blood pressure, you have a breech presentation, or forceps are necessary). Epidural or spinal anaesthesia may also be used to provide anaesthesia for a Caesarean section.
Find more related articles and links
- Discover natural ways to induce labour
- FInd out what happens during a premature labour
- Learn how to recognise the first stage of labour
- Follow your body through second stage of labout
- Understand what happens during the third stage of labour
- Recognise any fears of labour you may have
- Get organised for labour with birth aids
- Planning for labour pain relief
This article was written by Claire Halliday for Kidspot, Australia's parenting resource for during your pregnancy. Sources include The Mercy Hospital For Women, Melbourne and The Women and Children's Hospital, Adelaide. | <urn:uuid:c0dedfed-cee3-4af7-8ee5-82b34f920204> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.kidspot.com.au/games/Pregnancy-Labour-Coping-with-contractions+1515+142+article.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00190-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946941 | 906 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Johne’s disease is a contagious, bacterial disease that is responsible for considerable financial losses in infected livestock.
It isn’t just the financial costs that need to be considered, Johne’s disease also imposes welfare issues on infected animals and there are growing concerns over implications to public health.
Johne’s disease is caused by bacteria that are [...]
During the blazing summer months, it’s especially crucial to take steps to ensure proper animal cooling. When it’s extremely warm and your animals are crowded together, livestock are at risk of succumbing to heat stroke. This occurs because the animals cannot perspire quickly enough to keep up with the increasingly higher temperature in their environment. [...]
Colostrum is a nutrient and immunoglobulin rich fluid that is produced by the ewe shortly before parturition. Besides nutrients and immunoglobulins, colostrum also contains a wide variety of components essential to ensure the survival of a new-born lamb, it is critical to lamb survival – insufficient intake of colostrum is a major cause of neonatal fatalities.
Colostrum requires a lot of investment, energy-wise by the ewe, so if she gives birth to multiple offspring, it can be very demanding to keep up with the amount of colostrum required by her lambs. For maximum efficacy, new born lambs must consume the required amount of colostrum (around 1L) within the first 18 hours of life, putting even more pressure on the ewe.
The academic path of the vet student is undoubtedly a rewarding one, but with many challenges ahead, most students could use some extra resources to help them succeed. Highlighted here are 10 online resources for vet students to utilize, and all of them are completely free.
The symptoms and treatments for copper deficient in cattle. Copper deficiency remains prevalent amongst cattle despite the fact there are many copper supplements
Many of us know copper as the ductile metal, but it is also a vital chemical element for life. Copper (Cu) is vital due to its multiple biological roles in the body, from electron transport to metalloproteins. Because of the imperative role that copper plays, both humans and other mammals (such as cattle) need to consume trace amounts of copper in the diet. Humans, for example, need to consume between 1 to 3mg of copper a day.
Glaucoma is an eye disease which can affect both humans, dogs and many other mammals. It is characterised by optic nerve damage and loss of peripheral vision. In the vast majority of Glaucoma conditions the nerve damage is caused by rising pressure within the eye, so called intraocular pressure (IOP).
Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) involves the formation of nodules on the prostate that compress the urethral canal. BPH is a natural consequence of aging that affects older dogs. Entire male dogs (i.e. not castrated) over the age of 5 have an 80% chance of suffering from BPH to some extent.
Magnetic resonance imaging or MRI is a medical imaging technique which can be utilised to visualise internal structures with relatively great detail. Magnetic resonance scanners generate strong magnetic fields which pulse and cause individual nuclei of atoms within the body to spin. Gradients in the strength of the magnetic field causes different nuclei to spin at different speeds.
Cognition is defined as; the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. As we age our cognitive ability declines naturally, however some individuals may experience a rate of decline much greater than expected. This is known as cognitive dysfunction.
Cognitive dysfunction is apparent in a number of species, including; humans, dogs and cats. In dogs, canine cognitive dysfunction (CCD) can be responsible for alterations in normal behaviour, for example, the dog may be less active or show changes in their social interactions with human family members.
All about canine anxieties and phobias, from what causes them to how to deal with them. Learn about the clinical signs of canine anxiety and how to reduce them. Discover the benefits of each type of treatment, as well as their downfalls. The product which stands out amongst the rest is CALMEX®, to find out more, read on…
Mud fever is a predominant winter/early spring disease of horses. With proper care you can help to prevent mud fever. See this infographic for more information and what products you should be using on your horse. For more information, follow @CarrDayMartin on twitter or on Facebook
A variety of hormones are used within the dairy industry to treat reproductive disorders and to regulate the oestrous cycle for timed breeding. These hormones act directly on either the reproductive organs or on the pituitary gland itself to stimulate the release of naturally occurring hormones. These hormones then stimulate the reproductive organs. Prostaglandin, oestrogen and oxytocin act directly on the reproductive organs whereas gonadotrophic releasing hormone (GnRH) acts at the level of the pituitary gland.
The Dance Language of Honeybees is an unusual concept where an apparently simple ‘waggle dance’ can convey a vast amount of information about where a food source is located. Click continue reading to find out how these bees manage to squeeze so much information in to a single dance.
The citric acid cycle, (also known as either the Kreb’s or TCA cycle) is a biological pathway involved in cellular respiration. A series of chemical reactions form energy from pyruvate, in the form of ATP. More importantly, the citric acid cycle produces a large number of electron transporters, which proceed to [...]
With the parasite Neospora caninum contributing to great amounts of cattle deaths worldwide it has become an important target for control. N. caninum infected cattle appear symptom free until pregnancy, at which point the dormant N. caninum reverts to an actively dividing tachyzoite stage, the mechanism of this reactivation remains unknown. It is likely non-homologous or ‘orphan’ genes of N. caninum may be responsible. With no direct means to both store and search potentially involved genes with the flexibility required, both a website and MySQL database were created to support this investigation. The website, ApiBLAST (ApiBLAST.vetsci.co.uk), is an efficient tool to quickly locate, filter and analyse orphan genes. The database stores information on homology, derived from e-values determined by BLAST and subcellular localisation & structure determined by a number of tools maintained by the CBSA, including SignalP, TargetP and TMHMM. Twelve candidate genes were isolated from over 15,000, their functions not currently fully understood and thus possibly of interest for future investigation. ApiBLAST has great potential and flexibility as a bioinformatics tool, which this study has proven by the successful identification of the twelve candidate genes.
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a condition which is observed in both humans and animals. It is a progressive degenerative disorder, typically affecting load bearing joints such as the hips, knees or elbows. Joint structure, function and integrity slowly deteriorate as the condition worsens.
There are many examples of cooperation between species, however, one of the better examples is the relationship observed between marine ‘cleaner’ fish and their ‘clients’. There are many species of cleaner fish such as the wrasse from the genus Labroides, or the gobies from the genus Elacatinus.
Superstition is a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance or a false conception of causation. In an ecological sense, superstitious behaviour is the incorrect assignment of cause and effect.
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- Find Web sites and materials on the racism/immigration/One Nation issue.
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The US State Department has released the 2002 Country Reports on human rights practices. Areas covered include Africa, East Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Eurasia, the Near East and North Africa, South Asia and Western Hemisphere.
- Search the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission Official Homepage.
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- Find animal protection societies worldwide (look for Australia under Oceania) in the World Animal Net Directory. | <urn:uuid:1f3e68d5-9d88-46a3-91b3-91a512f88ac1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://journoz.com/human.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402699.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00046-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.82373 | 498 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Brief Introduction of the Scenery:
It was first built in the year of 8, Yanxi, Song Dynasty( 165 AD). It is repaired many times. At its best, it covers 3000 mu and offers job for several thousand of people. Its scale is large and its buildings are resplendent. It is solemn and dignified with extraordinary imposing. The main hall is 47 meters across from east to west. The depth is 23.75 meters. Jiuji Temple with nine rooms, double eaves, and round corridor is set on Chong Platform of 2 meters high. The eaves are covered by yellow glazed roof tile. It is towering and grand with magnanimous imposing. In the middle of the main hall, three gigantic copper statues are erected among which the statue of Laozi is in the middle and statues of Yinxi, Wenshizhenren, and Xuanfu, Donghua Emperor are at both sides of it.
Brief Introduction of Laozi: The family name of Laozi is Li. His name is E, Zi is Boyang, and posthumous title is Ran. In 571 BC, Laozi was born in Liuxing Yard, Zhengdian Village, Woyang County, Anhui. He is a great thinker, educator, and founder of Taoism. He has written a book, Tao. Te. Ching. From Han Dynasty, posterity develops Laozi’s ideology into Taoism and Laozi is greatly valued as the founder of Taoism. | <urn:uuid:cf07df8e-4b79-4403-845e-c4b7027fe8d3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.chinatravel.com/bozhou-attraction/tianjing-palace/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403823.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00021-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974017 | 318 | 3.234375 | 3 |
China consumed 450 million tons of crude oil in 2011, 254 million tons of which were imported. Of the imported crude oil, 58.8 percent arrived from, or was transported near, volatile areas in the Middle East and North Africa.
While China is one of the world's largest users of crude oil, it has only a 30-day strategic reserve of oil, much less than the 90-day supply required by member states in the International Energy Agency (IEA).
With the country so dependent on foreign oil to satisfy its growing energy demands, any slowdown or disruption in deliveries from abroad could cripple its economy.
To safeguard the security of its energy supply, China must not only increase its emergency crude stockpiles, but also diversify its sources of foreign oil. China should take a page from the energy strategy of the US, which has created plans to reduce its oil imports by two-thirds in the coming decade.
The author is Gao Wei, a researcher at the State Council's Development Research Center. | <urn:uuid:ec72ba60-bae4-4c00-9a68-54f914103861> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/737003.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00047-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973221 | 206 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Changing Your Oil
Oil is an essential part of cooking. But there may be a way around the negatives some oils bring to the cooking table.
Fat is not all bad—we just tend to get too much of it. The body uses fat to insulate organs and regulate temperature, and is the preferred source of energy for muscles at rest. Some fat has a protective effect for the heart. Omega-3 fatty acids, found in fish, soybean oil and walnuts, may actually contribute to heart health and are important for brain development in children.
Vitamin E is found in the fatty portions of food. Good sources of Vitamin E are vegetable oils (e.g., sunflower), olive oils, avocados, nuts, seeds and wheat germ. It has strong antioxidant properties and may help protect against heart disease and cancer.
Dietary fats are either saturated or unsaturated. Saturated fats are very tough substances that are fairly solid at room temperature. Saturation makes for a very strong molecule that is difficult to break apart. For this reason, saturated fats give very good texture and mouthfeel to food.
Trans fatty acids are formed when naturally unsaturated oils, such as canola or corn, are hydrogenated. For years it was thought that hydrogenated vegetable oils, like the type found in margarines or solid vegetable shortenings, were healthier than animal fats, such as butter or lard.
New thinking: It’s now thought that the bonds made from adding hydrogen to vegetable oil, called trans fatty acid bonds, may do just as much damage to the veins and arteries as animal fat.
Chefs oftentimes prefer to cook with saturated fats, such as butter or bacon fat, which contribute texture and taste to many menu items. For example, butter or hydrogenated vegetable oil give the correct texture and taste to cookie dough. Unfortunately, saturated fats are difficult for the body to break down. Excess saturated fats are stored in the walls of veins and arteries, narrowing them and causing a decrease in elasticity and in volume. This ultimately leads to various disease states.
Part of the answer to this dilemma is to use any type of fat sparingly. A primer on oils, especially those newly available, can also help.
Let’s go shopping: Not so long ago, you had a choice of corn or soy oils. Then the oil producers introduced canola oil (short for “Canadian oil, low acid” as its true name is the unmarketable “rapeseed”). After canola, many people began a romance with olive oil, training their palates to distinguish between extra virgin and pomace or Spanish and Greek.
Today, you need to allot extra time when procuring vegetable oil. There is grapeseed oil (pressed from grape pits and peels), walnut oil, avocado oil and many others. You can have fun with oil selection, and taste-test and cook-test to see which specialty oils meet your needs. Just remember that the healthiest vegetable oil is still all fat—about 50 calories per teaspoon.
- Rice bran oil is a new kid on the block. It’s said to help reduce some forms of cancer, and is very high in Vitamin E. Rice bran oil has a light taste and can stand up to high heat. Watch for rice bran oil to be available to foodservice in the near future.
- Almond oil has a faint almond-y aroma and flavor. It can be used in both savory and sweet dishes. Try adding almond oil to strong-tasting vegetables, such as shredded green or red cabbage or broccoli or cauliflower florets.
- Hazelnut oil should be purchased in small quantities because of cost and shelf life. Hazelnut oil has a dreamy flavor, and enhances delicate fruits and vegetables, such as fresh lettuces, baby cucumbers, seasonal berries and ripe melon. A dressing of a light drizzle of hazelnut oil is all that is needed to bring out the best in seasonal produce.
- Avocado oil goes well with lean poultry and seafood and grilled seafood. Use it as a finish, brushed onto a grilling item right before it’s taken off the grill.
Just because an oil, according to claims, “helps to reduce this” or “ is a good source of that” doesn’t mean you can carelessly pour it on. Specialty oils tend to have shorter shelf lives than standard cooking oils, such as corn, soy, safflower and cottonseed. Much of the nutritional value can be lost over time.
According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), a heart-healthy diet has no more than 25-35% to total daily calories from fat. Twenty percent of daily fat calories should be from monounsaturated fat, like olive oil. Ten percent of daily fat calories should be from polyunsaturated fat, like corn oil or soy products. The remaining fat can come from saturated fat, if necessary. The NHLBI’s final word is: “Moderate amounts of either butter or margarine can be part of a healthy diet. A person’s whole diet and general health must be considered in the choice.”
Perhaps to strike a balance between butter or margarine or oils, you can add some nut butters to your menus. Nut butters can be used (sparingly) in creamy sauces, curries, barbecue sauce, dips, salad dressings, and yes, as sandwich spreads.
You’ve heard the news: nuts are good for your health. Even though nuts are high in fat, it’s the “good” type of fat, and can help to reduce the incidence of certain cancers, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease, and even facilitate weight loss.
Just so you can put the amount of fat in perspective, most nut butters have seven to 10 grams of fat per tablespoon (about 63-90 calories), mostly unsaturated fat. Along with the “healthy” fat, nut butters are a good source of protein, zinc, fiber, potassium, folic acid and zinc.
Here is a quick guide to some commercially available nut butters. Use them judiciously:
- Peanut butter. Look for all-natural peanut butter, which should be 100 percent peanuts. Most commercial brands contain the dreaded trans-fats, and may have added sugar, flour, or other ingredients. Use a small amount of peanut butter stirred into creamy soups, salad dressings and dips. Peanut butter is a good source of protein, niacin and magnesium
- Tahini (sesame seed butter). Tahini is made by grinding sesame seeds. It is a flavoring in hummus, a garbanzo bean dip. Add tahini to dips, sauces, poultry, beans and vegetable dishes. (Check market gourmet sections and natural food stores for supply.)
- Cashew butter has a very rich flavor; a little goes a long way. Cashew butter can be used as an alternative to dairy butter or to cream in soups, baked goods and sauces. Cashew butter is a good source of protein, iron, and some B vitamins.
- Almond butter is mild and creamy. Most almond butter is processed without preservatives, so refrigerate it when you bring it home. Almond butter can accent the flavors of soups, stronger- tasting vegetables, such as broccoli, and vinaigrette salad dressings. Almond butter is a good source of protein and Vitamin E.
- Hazelnut butter. The height of decadence, hazelnut butter is a popular sandwich and dessert spread. You can find European blends of hazelnut and chocolate that are used in baked goods, tea sandwiches or to top biscotti or scones. Hazelnut butters can be used in savory vegetable dishes and sauces. Hazelnut butter is a good source of folic acid and calcium.
- Soy butter. Although technically not a nut, soy beans can be roasted and whipped into a nut-butter type product. Soy butter has both a roasted and a nutty flavor that fits in well on sandwiches, in sauces and where you would usually use peanut butter. | <urn:uuid:8b336738-361d-4809-bb6f-cdde10246d33> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.foodservicedirector.com/menu-development/menu-strategies/articles/changing-your-oil | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393518.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00025-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939384 | 1,709 | 3.140625 | 3 |
Francis Channing Barlow (1834-1896)
Francis Channing Barlow (October 19, 1834 - January 11, 1896) was a lawyer, politician, and Union general during the American Civil War.
Barlow was born in Brooklyn, New York. He studied law at Harvard University, graduated first in his class, and was practicing law on the staff of the New York Tribune newspaper when the Civil War broke out in 1861.
In April, 1861, Barlow enlisted as a private in the 12th New York Militia, but was commissioned a first lieutenant in his first month of service. By November he was a lieutenant colonel in the 61st New York, with which he fought in the Seven Days Battles.
At the Battle of Antietam, commanding the 1st Brigade, 1st Division, II Corps of the Army of the Potomac, he was wounded by an artillery shell in the face and by grapeshot in the groin. Two days later Barlow was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers.
Barlow commanded the 2nd Brigade, 2nd Division, XI Corps at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May, 1863, and was subjected to the devastating flank attack of "Stonewall" Jackson that routed his corps.
In July, he commanded the 1st Division, XI Corps at the Battle of Gettysburg, where he led his division to a defensive position on Blocher's Knoll, which is now known as Barlow's Knoll. Unfortunately, this slight rise in the terrain was too far forward in comparison to the other XI Corps division and Barlow's position formed a salient that could be attacked from multiple sides. Jubal Early's division overwhelmed Barlow's division, causing serious losses and Barlow himself was wounded and left for dead on the field. He was found and cared for by Confederate General John B. Gordon. According to an account written by Gordon in 1901, he allowed Barlow's wife Arabella to enter the Confederate camp to tend to her wounded husband, but this account is deemed apocryphal. The popular story continued that Gordon presumed Barlow had died and that both men met years later, being very surprised each was still alive. An examination of Barlow's subsequent war record makes this story very unlikely.
Barlow recovered and was exchanged in time to assume command of the 1st Division, II Corps at the Battle of the Wilderness.
At the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House his division incorporated shock tactics developed by Col. Emory Upton to quickly assault the rebel entrenchments, effecting a breakthrough that could be exploited by reinforcements. Hand-to-hand fighting ensued for 21 hours, the longest hand-to-hand combat in the entire war, before Barlow's division finally broke through.
He fought at the Battle of Cold Harbor and the Siege of Petersburg in the same command. At Petersburg he took a brief sick leave but returned to command the 2nd Division, II Corps during the Appomattox Campaign.
Arabella Barlow died of typhus in the summer of 1864 while Francis was battling in the Overland Campaign. After the war, Barlow married Ellen Shaw, sister of Robert Gould Shaw.
Leaving the army in November, 1865, Barlow served as a United States Marshal and the secretary of state and attorney general of New York, before he returned to his law practice.
Francis Barlow died in New York City in 1896 and is buried in Brookline, Massachusetts. | <urn:uuid:9e17e788-fd20-431c-b87a-bd8db7cce375> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/chron/civilwarnotes/barlow.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00022-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981381 | 722 | 2.75 | 3 |
Blaisdell considers alternative forms of power for the USAP, including wind turbines at McMurdo StationPower is always a pressing concern in Antarctica, where the loss of electricity would prove a considerable hardship. But in addition to simply providing power, there is a desire to do so in a more environmentally friendly manner.
Part of Blaisdell’s reasoning for scouting out sites for wind turbines at McMurdo Station is to temper the reports of the wind power experts who have examined the area.
“The folks who are used to doing wind turbine installations in the rest of the world look at our terrain here and essentially decide that there’s almost nowhere here that’s constructible, from their viewpoint, because they’re used to sites that are much more accessible or flat,” he said. “We aren’t flat here.”
He said he wanted to get a look at the areas that were reported as having a good wind regime and try to determine, “from what we know about construction down here,” if erecting towers there may be possible.
Something else that must be considered is placing the turbines where they do not interfere with any scientific research or communications.
“And for that matter,” he said, “even if it takes a huge amount of additional effort to construct them ... that’s a fair trade-off because, since I view these as a long-term thing, eventually we will get the return on our investment. It may take a little longer, but it will be because we chose to do that instead of disrupting something else.”
Another energy issue on Blaisdell’s wish list is solar power at the South Pole.
While the sun shines only half of the year at Pole, that’s also the time that requires more electricity.
“I’m re-looking at whether or not that’s a good thing to do, whether it’s worth the construction effort on our part, to have people there putting this up,” he said. “I think it is, and I think that maybe that’s fairly ideal for something like the summer camp,” a collection of housing and offices used only that part of the year.
He said, though, that solar can only contribute small portions of the power that is needed.
Another possible contributor of power at the South Pole is a thermal siphon. Such a system is driven by differences in temperatures. Blaisdell said that 10 meters underneath the ice is about 40 degrees colder than ground level in the summer and about 40 degrees warmer in the winter.
That difference in temperatures can drive a turbine to produce power during the temperature extremes. It would not function during the periods that the above-ground temperatures are about the same as underground.
“These accumulate small amounts of energy,” Blaisdell said, “but, especially if they’re essentially free, consistently producing, they may be the kinds of things we want to start investigating.”
Icy profileSomething he is already investigating and which, he said, “... ultimately, I believe we need to have,” is an electromagnetic sea ice profiler.
“Right now, when we measure ice thickness, we do it the good, old-fashioned way, with a drill,” he said. Sea ice measurements are important for determining whether it is thick enough and strong enough to support people or vehicles. While the drill gives an accurate measurement of the ice, it is only for that one point.
“Say you’re somebody who [plans routes on the sea ice], and you’re looking at a road out to the Penguin Ranch – that’s eight miles or so,” Blaisdell said. “How often are you going to take a sample and what does that sample really mean?”
Even 500 drill samples, he pointed out, would represent less than 1 percent of the terrain.
“Now, is it representative?” he continued. “For the most part, it is. But when you’re, say, approaching a crack, like the Barnes Crack that we know is always there, how many samples do you take on either side before you feel like you could draw a picture of what that is like?”
A similar challenge faces those who select the sea ice runway site that is required to support a fully loaded C-17 as it is landing. Ice depth samples are taken and Blaisdell said they err strongly on the side of caution.
A profiler is a portable device that can be towed behind a person or a snowmobile and it gives a continuous profile of the ice thickness. If it is snow-covered, the instrument shows the depth of snow and then the thickness of ice. With such thorough information, an educated decision can be made about the best location for a runway or a driving route.
Blaisdell said he had hoped to have someone come down this summer to demonstrate the product, but it did not happen, so the idea is still on the table. However, he’s already thinking down the road.
“In fact,” he said, “I even see the day when, instead of sending somebody out on the snowmobile to do this [runway] survey, every third day or so, we have a little robotic vehicle that’s been programmed to traverse the runway in a grid pattern collecting ice thickness data.”
In queueThere are still more ideas awaiting a chance for closer inspection.
One is the possibility of using propane as a fuel for kitchen and dining functions at Palmer Station.
“With regular ship traffic back and forth to the station, it may be considerably cheaper and cleaner to use propane as a fuel for some functions,” Blaisdell said.
Another is a plasma converter “that turns all, and I mean all, waste into a fuel grade gas and a very tiny amount of cinders,” he said.
“The interesting thing about it is that the energy present in the gas that is produced is significantly more than the electricity needed to run the converter,” he said. “While this sounds like the story of the perpetual motion machine, the hidden ‘trick’ is that all trash has an inherent energy content, often considerable.”
About the Sun | <urn:uuid:1f7c57fe-ed68-42cb-a019-005e9b8f59f2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/features/contentHandler.cfm?id=1225 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397842.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00062-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955441 | 1,347 | 3.140625 | 3 |
Washington, DC - Technologies developed by researchers at the Office of Fossil Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) have captured four prestigious 2009 R&D 100 Awards. Selected by an independent panel of judges and the editors of R&D Magazine, the annual awards are presented to the 100 most technologically significant products to enter the marketplace in the past year.
"The Department of Energy's national laboratories are incubators of innovation, and I'm proud they are being recognized once again for their remarkable work," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. "The cutting-edge research and development being done in our national labs is vital to maintaining America's competitive edge, increasing our nation's energy security, and protecting our environment. I want to thank this year's winners for their work and congratulate them on this award."
According to R&D Magazine, the judges look for products and processes "that can change people's lives for the better" and "improve the standard of living for large numbers of people." NETL's award-winning technologies can be used to remove mercury and carbon dioxide from power plant emissions, detect carbon dioxide leakage from geologic storage formations, and design power plants more quickly, efficiently, and at lower cost.
The four new awards push the number of R&D 100 Awards won by NETL researchers and NETL-supported technologies to more than 30 since 2000.
NETL's winning technologies are the following:
- Clay-Liquid CO2 Removal Sorbent -- NETL developed and patented a low-cost, solid-state sorbent that removes CO2 from power plant flue gas and other gases. The sorbent's low cost, availability, and simple preparation contribute to a significant reduction in total energy costs when compared to currently used commercial processes associated with carbon sequestration. The end result is that operators can continue to burn coal to provide low-cost electric power to consumers. Feasibility of commercial-scale preparations of the sorbent has been demonstrated in cooperation with Sud-Chemie of Louisville, Ky., using NETL- developed technology.
- Thief Process for the Removal of Mercury from Flue Gas -- Researchers at NETL developed the Thief Process that extracts partially burned coal from a pulverized coal-fired combustor using a suction pipe, or "thief," and injects the resulting sorbent into the flue gas to capture the mercury. The process greatly reduces the costs of removing mercury by using already existing coal rather than expensive activated carbon. The process can prevent 90 percent of the mercury from reaching the atmosphere, thereby making the air safer for people and generating clean energy from domestic coal. The process was licensed to Nalco Mobotec of Orinda, Calif., which began marketing it in December 2008.
- VE-PSI: Virtual Engineering Process Simulator Interface--The VE-PSI software provides engineers with the ability to design and optimize power plants within a virtual engineering environment. Engineering data from process simulation, computational fluid dynamics, and computer-aided design can be seamlessly integrated and easily analyzed within an immersive, interactive, three-dimensional power plant walk-through system. VE-PSI enables engineers to create virtual prototypes of new plant designs more quickly, more efficiently, and at less cost than ever before, as well as improve existing designs before expending time and materials on physical prototypes and pilot plants. Ames Laboratory, Ames, Iowa, Reaction Engineering International of Salt Lake City, Utah, and NETL are co-winners of the award.
- SEQURETM Tracer Technology--Developed by NETL researchers, this patent-pending technology uses perfluorocarbon tracers, or PFTs, to ultra-sensitively detect CO2 leakage from geological storage reservoirs. Since the capture and permanent storage of CO2 is vitally important to addressing greenhouse gas emissions, the Office of Fossil Energy must have technology available to verify that CO2 is not leaking from deep storage reservoirs in the nation's carbon sequestration program. This technology has been tested at several pilot-scale sites and has proven to be successful in detecting CO2 in field simulation experiments. | <urn:uuid:a727774c-a4e5-41a2-879e-26e39c043cfe> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://energy.gov/fe/articles/netl-technologies-earn-prestigious-rd-100-awards | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00012-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933996 | 836 | 2.671875 | 3 |
October 9, 2007
While automation can increase throughput and reduce labor, it doesn't solve manufacturing problems. A manual process that produces poor-quality or inconsistent parts will simply do so at a faster rate if automated. Understanding the process and process variables is the key to troubleshooting problems and resolving them to get the maximum gain from automation.
Whether it is as simple as a single CNC tube bender loaded by a robot or as complex as a fully automated line that turns raw coil into a finished and packaged bent tubular product, automated workcells have made their way into nearly every manufacturing theater. Once limited to the automotive industry with its ultrahigh production volumes, automated cells now are found in any industry in which the production rate is a "make or break" aspect of cost-effective manufacturing. As raw material costs and labor costs continue to rise and cutthroat competition forces prices down, automated cells are being used to produce more complex workpieces than ever before.
Trials abound. The demand for higher production comes with an inherent requirement that the process runs nearly continuously. Automation in a tube bending cell must be well-planned and well-executed simply to bring the project to a successful launch. Once the workcell is up and running, the maintenance staff must keep it running for two or three shifts a day, six to seven days a week—and that's another challenge entirely.
Successful tube bending is possible only after analyzing the application and matching the application to the proper techniques, machinery, and tooling. If the application is borderline—that is, just barely successful—when accomplished manually, no amount of automation will make it more successful. In other words, automation doesn't reduce problems; it merely increases the output. If a manual process has a 10 percent scrap rate, under the best conditions a similar automated process has a 10 percent scrap rate. Debugging and simplifying the manufacturing process before automating it is critical.
Taken as a stand-alone operation, tube bending is itself a matter of juggling ever-changing variables. To simplify this facet of workcell planning, initial considerations must include:
Also commonly overlooked is raw material consistency. It is absolutely essential that all the tube's properties—the chemical, mechanical, and physical characteristics—be consistent from lot to lot. Make certain from the start that the material selected is toleranced to optimize production, rather than a variable that makes steady, consistent production impossible.
Many tooling design techniques can help meet production demands, but the tooling must be as simple as possible, especially in a high-production-volume environment. Don't throw more technology (and complications) at the application than necessary.
In applications that require several die stacks, make certain that the machine is rigid enough to keep all the die sets in proper alignment. This often requires overhead tie bar supports for the bend die stack. While offering more strength and support, these tie bars also can interfere with some bent tube configurations. Be certain that you and the machine manufacturer understand the requirements of the proposed bent part.
With regard to several stacked wiper dies, remember that these fragile tools must be held in their proper positions securely. Otherwise they will not last or work effectively. It is often necessary to have a custom wiper bracket (holder) made to keep wiper dies secured and aligned properly and thus achieve acceptable die life and greater productivity.
This also prevents manufacturing scrap. Empowering the operators to verify part conformance frequently throughout the manufacturing process enables them to troubleshoot the process when they discover nonconforming parts. Doing so efficiently is a matter of checking parts randomly and frequently while they are being manufactured, not after they are finished.
Because tube bending generally is the nucleus of a workcell, the other processes must be synchronized to this process. Determine the optimal cycle time for bending, and adjust the loader speed accordingly. If the cell involves a shear that cuts the tube or, in an extreme case, a tube mill that produces the tube, these operations must be timed so the bender is neither over- nor underfed.
Be aware that the overall speed of the automated cell or line must be based on the fastest tolerable cycle of the slowest operation of the cell. Also be aware that timing is nothing without debugging. Set up and troubleshoot every operation individually before attempting to integrate them in an automated process.
Sophisticated animation software can facilitate placing and integrating every piece of equipment in the workcell. Most work flow problems and equipment collisions are caught in the programming stage. However, in the real world it can take some time and program tweaking to achieve the mechanized ballet we strive for in a workcell. When the optimal cycle times are dialed in and benchmarks set for speed and other acceptance parameters, the next critical phase of the start-up begins.
Train the Operating and Maintenance Crews. Procedures for operations and maintenance training vary considerably from company to company. Some companies have three separate groups—one for tooling setup, a second for machine maintenance, and a third that operates the cell and monitors production. Considering the cell is likely intended to operate for two to three shifts per day, seven days a week, it is obvious that consistent output among all shifts requires consistent training among all personnel.
Without maintenance training, equipment operators can do nothing more to solve bending problems than find the few knowledgeable troubleshooting personnel and inform them of the problem. Likewise, the tooling setup staff's responses to problems can be limited. "Let's replace the tooling!" is a fast, easy, yet ineffective response if the trouble starts elsewhere.
Ideally, all personnel receive the same training and a set of written procedures so that everyone learns a single approach to troubleshooting.
Keep Accurate, Thorough Records. Equally important—and harder to implement—is an accurate method of monitoring uptime and downtime, cycle speeds, scrap rates, maintenance procedures, tooling settings, and changeovers. This data is necessary for making informed decisions regarding equipment and tooling condition. Adjusting procedures based on this information can help minimize downtime and anticipate catastrophic failure.
Any steps for developing constantly updated (and consistently formatted) records are valuable. The records themselves are invaluable if they are frequently analyzed and used for planning preventive maintenance activities.
If nothing else, good recordkeeping prevents running out of consumable tooling items (wiper dies and mandrels, for example). How many times do you need to run out of $50 wiper tips, causing the multimillion-dollar workcell to shut down and leaving your best customer stranded, before you realize that you should have a supply of all tooling and a steady flow of consumable items on recurring blanket orders? Proper documentation analysis and proactive process implementation are the only ways to prevent consumable shortages.
While it is just human nature to rush to get a high-speed workcell or production line up and running as quickly as possible after a problem arises, it is necessary to trace the cause of it all the way to its source. Follow the process back to the first step that did not meet the acceptance criteria. The principal reason for doing this, of course, is to solve the problem and not merely address the symptom. Allowing the problem to continue unchecked means it will compound later on. Resolving the problem now also prevents repeated and excessive downtime later.
If the workcell is a completely automated line, it might involve a tube mill; straightening, punching, and forming machines; a weld seam detector; a bending machine; hydroforming press; laser cutting system; welding station; and, of course, a material handling system. The complexity and speed of such a system means that a small problem early in the process has the potential to get completely out of hand in the blink of an eye. Constant quality monitoring and proper and pragmatic problem-solving are not just advised. They are required.
TPJ - The Tube & Pipe Journal® became the first magazine dedicated to serving the metal tube and pipe industry in 1990. Today, it remains the only North American publication devoted to this industry and it has become the most trusted source of information for tube and pipe professionals. Subscriptions are free to qualified tube and pipe professionals in North America. | <urn:uuid:5eed694d-ffec-49a2-a0ae-861c3fcf618e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.thefabricator.com/article/bending/automatic-or-manualr | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402699.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00201-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937083 | 1,675 | 2.75 | 3 |
Our Salem Witch
The Salem Witch Trials
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and trials to prosecute people accused of witchcraft in Essex, Suffolk, and Middlesex counties of colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693. Over 150 people were arrested and imprisoned, with even more accused but not formally pursued by the authorities. The two courts convicted twenty-nine people of the capital felony of witchcraft. Nineteen of the accused, fourteen women and five men, were hanged.*
One of those women, Mary EASTEY was my husband’s 7th Great Grandmother.
Mary Towne Eastey (also spelled Esty, Easty, Estey, or Estye) (August 24, 1634—September 22, 1692) was a victim of the Salem witch trials of 1692. Mary’s sisters, Rebecca Nurse and Sarah Cloyce, were also accused of witchcraft; Rebecca was executed, but Sarah was not.**
Mary gave an impassioned appeal to the judge that brought tears to the eyes of the spectators but to no avail. She was tried and condemned to death on September 9, 1642. She was hanged, along with 7 others on September 22, 1642. To read more check out the references at the end of this post.
Our connection, partially shown on the left, leads to New Brunswick to our Ira MILLER who married Salome Estey HARTLEY.
Are you related to any of the Salem witches? Are you related to our Salem Witch Mary Eastey?
Comments are welcomed. | <urn:uuid:01892ccb-c33b-46c7-a44e-61ad43c2fcba> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.luxegen.ca/genealogy/our-salem-witch-mary-eastey/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00201-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974571 | 323 | 2.875 | 3 |
Barbara Bamberger Scott
An illegal immigrant from Mexico, Lorenzo Anzaldua, nicknamed Lencho, arrived in Texas with his father and three brothers in 1920. A thoroughly self-made man with no shame about his flaws and justifiable pride in his accomplishments, Lencho, in his old age, stated that, “You don’t need nobody to tell you to do this or do that. You just set yourself a goal … how you want to be. Not tomorrow, but in five or ten years. And then you start doing what you need to do to get there.”
E. B. Ford is Lencho’s daughter. To tell his story, she has taken reminiscences and incidents from his long and colorful life and elaborated on them to compose what could be called a work of creative biography. She has invented a college student named Heather Rodriguez to “record” Lencho’s words while he is lingering in a nursing home. Heather, the reader is told, has a class assignment to talk to an elderly person, and thus begins a fictional relationship that forms the basis for telling Lencho’s life story.
Each chapter involves a visit from Heather, who talks with the still-handsome but aging Lencho as he struggles with poor health. Each present-day scene is linked to a flashback to Lencho’s past and told from the point of view of one of the characters from his youth. We see the schoolboy Lencho from the perspective of a young teacher in his segregated school. Miss Russell senses that Lorenzo, who is being raised by his widowed father, is a smart boy; in sympathy for his poverty and his difficult family situation, she makes sure that he has at least one good pair of shoes.
Lencho’s recollections include enduring racial prejudice in the Texas of his youth. He laughs at the “cowboy” movies depicting white, well-dressed men herding cattle, when he knew that it was poor Mexican vaqueros who did the real work. Lencho married his childhood sweetheart and raised three children. Toward the end of the book, he is felled by a massive stroke, his memories become unreliable and Heather’s project comes to an end. Lencho believes he is being “visited” by his wife, not realizing that she is dead.
Ford’s book is cleverly devised, using the college student’s assignment to link her father’s last days with his recollections of past adventures. It contains a satisfying mix of narrative and dialogue, a realistic peppering of common Spanish conversational phrases, and an unvarnished glimpse of Mexican-American cultural history.
Though the unusual mix of fact and fiction in this book might bother some readers, the indomitable personality of Lencho is what stands out. He is a strong, stubborn man who labored extremely hard to build a life for himself and his family in a less than hospitable land. Americans of Hispanic origin may be especially appreciative of Ford’s efforts to capture the cherished memories of her father—his strong work ethic and often hilarious escapades, romances, and brushes with the law, which are painted against a backdrop of hardship, poverty, and racial prejudice.
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The author of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have his/her book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Review make no guarantee that the author will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255. | <urn:uuid:1f9d073e-d19c-462e-a83d-6de0c327bca8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/lencho/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398216.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00154-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977644 | 771 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Help us save the endangered Hammerhead Shark in Australian waters.
The Australian government is proposing to allow the harvest of three species of threatened and endangered Hammerhead sharks in a Wildlife Trade Operation (WTO).
Join The Wilderness Society and Sea Shepherd Australia in asking Minister for the Environment Greg Hunt and the Australian Government to suspend approval of this proposal.
Save our Hammerhead Sharks
A proposal to allow the harvest of 370 tonnes of endangered hammerhead sharks in Australian waters is simply unacceptable.
Hammerhead sharks are essential to the ongoing ecological health of our oceans. The Hammerhead shark provides essential checks and balances on our marine ecosystems as apex predators as a keystone species.
Many species of Hammerhead are already at high risk of extinction as they are already endangered species due to human activities such as overfishing and the brutal shark finning trade.
Any government sanctioned increase in the catch of Hammerhead sharks would directly be contributing to exploitation and further decline of these species.
In order to protect the diverse range of Hammerhead shark species and the ongoing ecological health of our oceans, I urge Environmental Minister Greg Hunt and the Australian Government to:
Thank you for your concern for the Hammerhead shark. The petition gathering period is over.
To Learn more, visit ourApex Harmony Site
Apex Harmony Facebook Page
The Australian government is proposing to declare an approved Wildlife Trade Operation (WTO) for the harvest of three species of threatened and endangered Hammerhead sharks in Australian waters, under Part 13A of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).
A recent government report found that the taking of 370 tonnes of Hammerhead Sharks as commercial by-catch will have a “non-detrimental impact” on the species. We disagree. Why?
Conclusions were reached by using the “best available scientific” information on Hammerhead sharks in Australia, which the government’s own report found that no recent comprehensive studies have been completed on the populations of hammerhead species, the only records derive from commercial fisher’s log books – who regularly get the species confused.
The populations of all species of Hammerheads in Australia are listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as ‘data deficient’ – which means we have no idea how many are out there, or exactly how much their populations have declined in recent years. Best estimates suggest that the population is declining on average between 16.5-35 % for scalloped hammerheads and for great hammerheads between 24- 42 % over the last five years
The greatest concern about this proposal is the fact that hammerhead sharks take a long time to mature and produce a low number of offspring - making them highly vulnerable to over-exploitation. Not to mention, they are highly migratory and we are likely to share our hammerhead populations with other nearby countries like Indonesia.
Australia is taking on average 8.5% of the global catch for hammerhead sharks from the period 2001 through 2011. Since 2004 the ‘catch’ of hammerheads has been in steady decline in Australia to 200 tonnes of all three Hammerhead species in 2012.
Global catch-efforts are increasing, as is the trade on shark fin – with the minimum value of the global shark fin trade estimated at $400 million to $550 million a year – driving dangerous population collapses in species like the oceanic white tip shark. | <urn:uuid:06047c88-6a7b-40ae-9ce8-022fe4ae962f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.seashepherd.org.au/hhsharkpetition/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00181-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91922 | 706 | 2.640625 | 3 |
(Editor's Note: This article was originally published on August 30, 2007)
While many references on trees are useful guides to trees individually, there is less information on configurations of trees. But, used collectively, trees can become ecological entities where the whole is definitely more than the sum of its individual constituents. For the home gardener planting 30 or 50 trees can also be an intimidating job, compared to planting a single shrub or tree. Therefore, careful planning is essential when you want to plant small or large groups of trees on your property.
Functions of Shelterbelts
Technically, a hedge is an arrangement of closely spaced trees or shrubs defining an edge or boundary, whereas a windbreak is a spaced row of shrubs or trees designed to protect a space by baffling and thereby slowing the speed and direction of wind. A shelterbelt is a more generic term for windbreak. . The first thing to do when planning a windbreak or shelterbelt is to decide what purposes it shall serve. Shade, wind protection, fruit and nut production, protection from drifting snow, containment of animals, shelter for wild life, shielding living spaces from obnoxious noise and even odors, are all, not mutually exclusive possibilities.
In Marlboro, Country, South Carolina, an entire community of 55 landowners cooperated to build pine windbreaks to protect more than 3500 acres from being sandblasted by windblown sand from soil erosion. In Puerto Rico windscreens were built to protect fruit crops where the flight of bumblebees and their pollination activities were impeded by winds. In Washington State, windscreens were planted to prevent snow from drifting onto highways, thereby preventing traffic obstructions in winter and saving dollars in road maintenance for snow removal. In the plain states, windbreaks are used to “keep cows warm” by modifying wind chill temperatures where cattle are being over wintered on wind-swept fields.
Dave’s Garden members bruntongardens and resin discuss the use of shelterbelts on the Isle of Lewis, an island off the west coast of Scotland in this thread in the European Gardening forum. In the 1830s, local advocates of fencing laws here in the Alabama Blackbelt invited northern nurseries to bring osage orange trees (Maclura pomifera) to the South where it is not indigenous. The trees were sold as whips by the thousands to Alabama planters to be used as ‘living fences’ to contain animals within the new boundaries of frontier plantations. Those same “hedge apples” are still a picturesque feature of the canebrake landscape (see thumbnail photo), many embedded with the original hogwire fencing and hand-made square nails (Personal observation).
In England, hedgerows have been used for hundreds of years to separate fields and fields from roadways. As many of the hedgerows fell into disrepair, wildlife habitats associated with them became threatened. Today, conservation groups are teaching individuals to repair and maintain historic hedgerows throughout England and also in Scotland. Possibly one of the most famous proponents of hedgerow repair and maintenance is Prince Charles, who maintains his own hedgerows on his property at Highgrove in Glouchestershire.
Characteristic styles of hedgerow construction have developed for different areas of England. Sometimes maintenance of the traditional style is dictated by local ordinances. Usually, all hedgerows require the laying of hedges, where the shrubs are cut to one side and laid in a nearly horizontal position, all in the same direction along the fence or property line. The shrubs have to be just upright enough to allow the sap to rise and nourish the plants. The horizontal position allows the shrubs to form a thick and impenetrable thicket, which keeps farm animals from straying onto roadways. In some areas property lines were to be defined by dug ditches. The owner was to place the fill from the ditch to his own property side. Then the hedgerow was planted and layed along the raised earthen berm. I have seen these raised berms in this country along old farm field roads in South Carolina, and in North Alabama (Franklin County).
Planning the Shelterbelt & Selecting Trees to Plant
Detailed planning is essential to the successful windbreak or shelterbelt. Selecting which trees to plant depends on what you want your shelterbelt to do. Before purchasing trees, it’s a good idea to check with your local Extension Office, State Forestry Department, or State University for recommendations. In most cases you will want to use native plant species, either exclusively, or for the main body of the plantation. Avoid planting invasive species, short-lived, or disease prone plants.
You will need to find out and record:
(1) The direction of prevailing winds in all seasons. For a windbreak, trees should be planted perpendicular to prevailing winds.
(2) The mature height of each tree to be planted. Record this next to each tree in your list.
(3) Check the shadow pattern of intended shade trees by hoisting a temporary pole where you intend to plant the tree. Record seasonal changes in the shadow cast by the pole.
You can plot all of this information on graph paper, or use landscaping software. But a rough schematic drawing of essential information should suffice.
The suggested within-row spacing of trees and shrubs is 4 to 6 feet; 10 to 16 feet for evergreen trees, and 12 to 20 feet for deciduous trees. For between row spacing, distances of 10 to 12 feet between shrubs, 15 to 20 feet between shrubs and trees, and 15 to 20 feet between trees are recommended. Windbreaks should be at least 100 feet from the nearest building . Dave’s Garden member, Equilibrium has recommended trees for me that will attract wildlife in Zone 8a in this thread in the Indigenous Plants forum. Thomas G. Barnes discusses woody plants that can be used within urban environments to attract wildlife for the State of Kentucky.
Planting the Shelterbelt
After selecting trees and shrubs and deciding how much space should be left between them, the next consideration is actually planting them. Whether holes are mechanically or hand dug, the most important consideration is to make sure that the tree is planted no deeper than it grew in the nursery. Trees planted too deeply are not likely to thrive. Another consideration is the use of a mycorrhizae fungi root dip to enhance the health and drought resistance of newly planted trees. Plan to mulch the trees with pine straw or weed barrier to conserve moisture and control weeds. Finally, after careful planning and consideration, there may be still questions. In this thread in the Beinner Landscaping forum, bettabug is concerned that the trees she intends to plant may not be properly spaced, because, “ … everything grows bigger in Texas.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedgerow. Definition of Hedge, Hedgerow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windbreak. Definition of Windbreak, Shelterbelt.
http://www.unl.edu/nac/insideagroforestry/2003spring.pdf. USDA. National Agroforestry Center. Inside Agroforestry. Spring 2003. Windbreaks.
http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/album/560011272OJmhIc?vhost=home-and-garden. My Garden on the Isle of Lewis. 24 July 07. Two Gardeners.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2691141.stm. Hedgelaying at Highgrove.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedge_laying. Hedgelaying. Regional Styles.
http://www.mdc.mo.gov/conmag/1998/03/50.htm. Missouri Conservationist online. Bruce Palmer. Warm Cows & Cool Breezes. (Planting distances for shelterbelts and windbreaks).
http://www.mdc.mo.gov/conmag/1998/03/50.htm. Thomas G. Barnes. Trees, Shrubs, and Vines That Attract Wildlife. (University of Kentucky, Extention)
http://agebb.missouri.edu/commag/shelterbelt/FAQ.htm. Shelterbelt Design. University of Missouri, Extention. | <urn:uuid:335d4678-27a8-4527-89e5-1335a4089c70> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/108/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00065-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925266 | 1,760 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Previous abstract Next abstract
A classification-dispersion spectrograph constructed using off-the-shelf optical components has recently been commissioned at Appalachian State University's Dark Sky Observatory. Using an ST-6 CCD camera as the detector, undergraduate students in our senior seminar have used this spectrograph on our 18" cassegrain telescope to obtain high S$/$N (S$/$N>300) 3.3 $\AA$ resolution spectra in the H$\alpha$ region of a number of B - G type stars in the Bright Star Catalogue. These spectra have been used for a number of exercises. Much of the preliminary reduction of the spectra is done on MIRA, a PC-based image-processing program. The students obtain a wavelength calibration using a neon comparison spectrum, and then, using a spectrum of Vega, place the spectra on a relative flux scale, and use the slope of the continuum to estimate the temperature. With this estimate of the temperature, the PC-based spectral synthesis program SPECTRUM (Gray, 1991) is used to synthesize a number of synthetic spectra, based on Kurucz atmosphere models. By matching the synthetic spectra to the observed spectra, the students are able to obtain much better estimates of the effective temperature and gravity of their stars. Finally, the students measure the radial velocity of the stars, and apply a heliocentric correction.
Friday program listing | <urn:uuid:5652769a-3e47-428c-9624-ea8c320fd051> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://aas.org/archives/BAAS/v25n4/aas183/abs/S8803.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396222.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00168-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.878167 | 294 | 2.671875 | 3 |
CHANGE A DOCUMENT (RED-LINING OR TRACKING CHANGES)
Red-Lining or Tracking Changes
”Red-lining” or “tracking changes” are the names used
for the ability that allows you to make changes while retaining the original
material. For example, when you delete a word or words, OpenOffice draws
a colored line through the word(s) but doesn't remove them. When you send
the file to another person, he or she will be able to see what you have
proposed as changes and what was there originally.
“Red-lining has the ability to accept or reject all of the proposed changes
or one change at a time.
This tutorial allows you to make proposed changes, adding a comment, and accepting or rejecting the changes.
Open A New Text File
IF on the desktop, click > All Programs > OpenOffice.org 2.3 > OpenOffice.org Writer.
IF you are in Writer or Calc, click File > New > Text Document.
In either case, the text document appears on our screen.
Select A Color
Changes are usually marked in red. Red was set as the default when you downloaded
OpenOffice. When more than one person is proposing changes, it can be helpful
if different people use different colors. You can change your color by
clicking "Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Writer > Changes". Click on the and scroll until you find the color you want.
We will use red in this tutorial.
Text will be entered so we have something that can be Red-lined.
Type the words, John is flying to New York to visit his parents, Joe and Mary Falcon, and
his grandparents, Paul and Cindy Falcon.
How To Start Red-lining
Click Edit > Changes. (A menu appears)
Changes will be recorded when there is a check mark before the word Record.
IF there is a check mark before the word Record, move your mouse so that the pointer is off of the word Changes.
(The menu will go away) IF there is not a check mark before the word Record, click on the word Record. (The menu will go away. A check mark has been placed before the word Record)
You have the choice of allowing proposed changes to be seen, or not seen,
in your document. To be seen a check mark must be before the word Show.
IF there is a check mark before the word Show, move your mouse so that the pointer is off of the word Changes. (The
menu will go away) IF there is not a check mark before the word Show, click on the word Show. (The menu will go away. A check mark has been placed before the word Show)
Start Red Lining
Use the above section and place a check mark before Record and Show.
Delete the words “and his grandparents, Paul and Cindy Falcon.
Place the Mouse pointer just before the word and. Hold and keep holding down the shift key and press the down arrow key. (The words to be deleted are selected)
Press the Delete key. The words, "and his grandparents, Paul and Cindy Falcon", appear
in red and have a line through them.)
Place the cursor after Mary Falcon, then insert a spac and add a period. Type the words, who live near New York. Press the space bar. (The words, " who live near New York",
appear in red and are underlined.)
Make A Comment
Extended tips has to be activated.
Click Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > General.
Under Help, there has to be check marks before the words Tips and before the words Extended tips. IF a check mark is missing, click on the word(s) without the check mark.
When done, click on the OK button..
Click anywhere on the red underlined words who live in New York.
Click Edit > Changes > Comment. (The “Comment: Insertion” window appears.)
In the Text box, type the words four miles.
Accept or Reject Changes
Click Edit > Changes > Accept or Reject. (The “Accept or Reject Changes” window opens. Both the window
and the document can be seen.)
There presently is a bug in the 2.3 version of OpenOffice. At first you
will not be able to see the Accept, Reject, Accept All and Reject All buttons at the bottom of the Accept or Reject Changes window.
To see the four buttons, move the pointer of your mouse on the edge of
the Accept or Reject Changes window. The pointer changes to an arrow pointing in two directions.
Press and keeping holding down the left button on your mouse then move
the mouse slightly to the right. (The four buttons appear at the bottom
of the window,.
If needed, drag the Accept or Reject Changes window out of the way. (To drag the window, put the cursor on the blue
line that has "Accept or Reject Changes.." Press and hold down the left button on the mouse and move the mouse in the direction you want
to move the window. Release the mouse button when the window is where you
Tutorials are improved by input from users. We solicit your constructive
Click here to E-mail your suggestions and comments
Edited by Sue Barron
Last Updated: 2008.04.25 | <urn:uuid:c0bde62c-4118-4046-be75-6d7356c79046> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.tutorialsforopenoffice.org/tutorial/Change_A_Document_Red_Lining_Or_Tracking_Changes.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00169-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.879628 | 1,138 | 3.546875 | 4 |
Ask someone to think of a number between 1 and 10. Then, have this person shuffle the deck, and count down to the number he/she thought of and remember that card. The cards are to be kept in the same position...not shuffled around during this counting; just counted. While the person is doing this, you can turn your back so that you can not see what they are doing.
After they have finished, you turn around, take the deck and place it behind your back. Count off 19 cards, reversing their order, and place them back on the top of the deck.
Then, bring the deck back in front of you and ask the person the number from 1-10 that they originally thought of. Begin your count with that number, dealing the cards out one at a time. When you reach 20 cards let that person name their card as you turn it over. | <urn:uuid:e9dedad4-ae0d-463e-bb75-0502b3884041> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.free-card-tricks.net/learn-free-card-counting-magic-trick.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393093.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00175-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976677 | 182 | 2.75 | 3 |
President Obama on Thursday opened the doors of the White House to anti-bullying advocates for a conference in which participants discussed harassment of students and devised strategies to curtail bullying.
In remarks starting off the conference, Obama said if the conference had one goal, it would be dispel the myth that bullying is “a harmless rite of passage or an inevitable part of growing up.”
“It’s not,” he said. “Bullying can have destructive consequences for our young people. And it’s not something we have to accept. As parents and students, as teachers and members of the community, we can take steps — all of us — to help prevent bullying and create a climate in our schools in which all of our children can feel safe; a climate in which they all can feel like they belong.”
The conference, in which around 150 students, parents, teachers and anti-bullying advocates participated, wasn’t specifically directed toward the bullying of LGBT students, although harassment of children because of their sexual orientation or gender identity was often mentioned.
Bullying against LGBT students received renewed attention late last year when several young men who were gay or perceived to be gay took their own lives after they were reportedly bullied. Among them was Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers University student, who leaped off the George Washington Bridge in September after a video was posted online of him reportedly having a sexual encounter with another man in his dorm room.
During his remarks, Obama noted that students who are gay are among the types of children who often face bullying at school.
“A third of middle school and high school students have reported being bullied during the school year,” Obama said. “Almost 3 million students have said they were pushed, shoved, tripped, even spit on. It’s also more likely to affect kids that are seen as different, whether it’s because of the color of their skin, the clothes they wear, the disability they may have, or sexual orientation.”
Obama also announced that his administration had launched a new website, stopbullying.gov, as a resource housed within the Department of Health & Human Services for parents, students and teachers on how to confront the issue of bullying in schools. The website is set to provide information on the risks of bullying and its warning signs and effects.
First lady Michelle Obama, who introduced the president at the start of the event, said the issue of bullying is personal for both her and her hisband because of their concern for their two daughters: Malia and Sasha.
“As parents, this issue really hits home for us,” she said. “As parents, it breaks our hearts to think that any child feels afraid every day in the classroom, or on the playground, or even online. It breaks our hearts to think about any parent losing a child to bullying, or just wondering whether their kids will be safe when they leave for school in the morning.”
Michelle Obama urged parents “to make a real effort to be engaged in our children’s lives” and to listen to them and be there when needed.
“We need to get involved in their schools and in their activities so that we know what they’re up to, both in and out of the classroom,” she said. “And when something is wrong, we need to speak up, and we need to take action.”
Following the president remarks, Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to the president, led a panel discussion of anti-bullying experts to discuss ways that parents, administrators and government officials can work to curtail harassment of students.
Points that were mentioned included recommending that parents be friends with their children on Facebook for oversight purposes and how the behavior of those who perpetuate bullying must also be addressed as part of anti-bullying efforts.
After the panel, conference participants split into five break-out sessions for more extensive debate on particular issues related to bullying. Topics of the breakout session included cyberbullying and in-school programs to confront bullying.
Top Obama administration officials during a wrap-up session at the close of the conference emphasized the support that anti-bullying advocates have in the White House.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced a new initiative — a technical assistance center — which would specifically address harassment to complement anti-bullying efforts that are already underway.
“By trying to highlight these best practices, we will state and local policy makers and educators work to keep children safe and provide the best learning environment for all students,” Duncan said. “We can provide support, which is why I’m happy to announce today our department’s intention to establish a new technical assistance center specifically dedicated to bullying prevention.”
Secretary of Health & Human Services Kathleen Sebelius urged teachers and others to speak out when anti-gay slurs are used in schools.
“Building safe neighborhoods and schools where young people can thrive is a job for all of us,” Sebelius said. “It means speaking out next time you hear a homophobic slur, stepping in when you see someone being preyed upon and letting your local education leaders — from principals to schools — know that bullying is not an isolated part of growing up. It’s a serious danger for all of our children.”
Participants had a largely positive reaction to the event and thought it was productive in devising strategies to thwart bullying.
In a statement, Jeff Krehely, director of the LGBT research and communications project at the Center for American Progress, said the conference “put a national spotlight” on bullying and its potentially “destructive impact.”
“Although the event is born out of tragedies, the conference will hopefully spark a robust national discussion about what we can all do to stop this problem,” Krehely said. “With an increase in bullying and full-on assaults on youth who are perceived to be gay or transgender, as well as those who are perceived to be Muslim, now is the right time to show leadership on this issue.”
Caleb Laiseki, executive director of the Arizona-based Gays & Lesbians United Against Discrimination, said the conference was “much more productive” than he expected.
“I’m coming from Arizona, and Arizona can’t even pass the anti-bullying bill through committee, so I was extremely happy to see the White House was very dedicated to this,” Laiseki said.
Laiseki, who’s 16 and gay, dropped out of high school after he was bullied because of his sexual orientation and completed his education by earning a general equivalency diploma. He founded GLUAD to help address the problems he faced in school.
“The reason I started the organization was because I was pushed into lockers and humiliated,” he said. “I received death threats [and was] followed home. It was just one thing after another. And I also had friend commit suicide after several attempts. So, the main goal of GLAUD is homelessness, suicide prevention and anti-bullying work.”
Laiseki attended the breakout session focused on cyber-bullying and said he proposed that law enforcements have the tools to intervene immediately when such harassment takes place.
“We can immediately track down the [Internet protocol] address and go from there,” Laiseki said. “And both of the representatives [from the Obama administration] were in agreement. And we took notes actually and discussed it for at least one-third of the meeting.”
Dan Savage, founder of the “It Gets Better” online video campaign aimed at helping troubled LGBT teens, said the conference was of “tremendous symbolic importance” because it identified bullying as a national problem, but said more could be done with the issue of parents being the bullies of LGBT youth.
“What was never addressed is when the parents are the bullies,” Savage said. “LGBT kids whose parents reject them are eight times likelier to attempt suicide; kids who are LGBT are four times. It literally doubles the risk of the already quadrupled risk of suicide for LGBT kids when their families reject them.”
Legislation pending before Congress known as the Student Non-Discrimination Act and the Safe Schools Improvement Act would address the issue of LGBT bullying of students in schools. Savage, who’s gay and also a sex-advice columnist, said the passage of this legislation would be effective.
“It puts schools on notice,” Savage said. “It establishes a national sense of accountability. Schools are reactive. They don’t like to be sued. They don’t like to get in trouble with the folks that pay the bills — at the federal or state level — and it really creates a way for school administrators and school boards to be held accountable.”
Shannon Cuttle, director of Safe Schools Action Network, said she felt the event was effective because it drew more attention to the issue of bullying.
“I think that anytime that you can collectively get a group of people to work in collaboration to try to discuss this issue, it’s going to put a dent in the issue,” Cuttle said. “Today is making the right step. Being able to bring people from across America — teachers, administrators, individuals and students — that’s key.”
But Cuttle, a lesbian D.C. activist, said the best way to address the issue of bullying in schools to confront harassment with “boots on the ground.”
“We have to be able to go into the schools, we have to have conversations and we have to be able to discuss the issue,” she said. “We have to be able to have those honest, open conversations with teachers and school administrators, and as parents and students, we need to talk to our school boards and local officials and be able to put rules and policies in place to keep kids safe.”
- Gay man charged with threatening U.S. senators released by Lou Chibbaro Jr. | posted on June 28, 2016
- House hearing for ‘religious freedom’ bill set for July 12 by Chris Johnson | posted on June 29, 2016
- New PAC debuts amid energized LGBT gun control efforts by Chris Johnson | posted on June 29, 2016
- Gay singer gets standing ovation on ‘America’s Got Talent’ by Mariah Cooper | posted on June 29, 2016
- Sean Hayes regrets not coming out during ‘Will & Grace’ by Mariah Cooper | posted on June 27, 2016 | <urn:uuid:6c548b3b-5a3f-49d0-a574-193928cbd8fb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.washingtonblade.com/2011/03/11/white-house-hosts-anti-bullying-conference/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398869.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00200-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97753 | 2,232 | 2.625 | 3 |
Because life is about living
The city of Xi’an, the thousands-old capital of the Chinese civilization’s first Yellow River settlement, is one removed from the hurried pace of most of its younger siblings such as Beijing and Shanghai. It is less a rejuvenated metropolis eager to embrace the future and more a dignified citadel wistfully dreaming of its youth. In this regard, few Xi’an relics are as evocative of the life and times of the city ancients as the Drum Tower and Bell Tower.
It is almost impossible to speak of one without the other, for these sister buildings share a duality of function; in days when the common folk of the city had no way of telling time, the Bell Tower would toll the dawning the of the day and the Drum Tower would hark the sunset and ending of the day’s work. The Drum Tower would also be used to warn citizens of imminent danger or emergency.
This 112 foot construct of the Ming Dynasty was actually a futuristic architectural achievement for its time – nowhere within its post and panel structure can be found a single iron nail! Twenty-four drums lining its north and south sides signify the 24 solar terms according to ancient Chinese almanac while a collection of antique drums are displayed in its first floor, each inscribed to bring good fortune. Today, the main function of the tower is as a viewing platform affording magnificent lay of the land as well as being the venue of a daily percussion performance.
Citadines Central Xi’anis one of the most luxurious and centrally located furnished apartments Xi’anhas to offer, and affords the added convenience of being only walking distance from the Bell and Drum Towers, as well as the other major historic attractions of the city. | <urn:uuid:e0a3f0ff-c59d-463d-ad99-ed6f742a78e7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.citadines.com/en/countries/china/xian/citadines_central_xian/drum_tower.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00045-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962555 | 363 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Detailed Guide forEmergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics in San Diego County
May also be called: EMTs; Fire Fighter First Responders; Firefighters and EMTs; Firefighters and Paramedics; Flight Paramedics
What Would I Do?
People’s lives often depend on the quick reaction and competent care of Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) and Paramedics. Incidents as varied as automobile accidents, heart attacks, strokes, falls, childbirth, and gunshot wounds all require immediate medical attention. They are the skilled medical workers who provide this vital service as they care for and transport the sick or injured to a medical facility.
The EMTs are sent to emergencies by specially trained dispatchers who maintain radio contact or patch them through to medical professionals for ongoing instructions. Following procedures, they examine victims to determine the nature and extent of injury or illness and administer first aid and emergency basic life support, such as giving oxygen and doing cardiopulmonary resuscitation. They may use special equipment, such as backboards, to immobilize patients before placing them on stretchers and securing them in the ambulance for transport to a medical facility.
The EMTs generally work in teams. During the transport of a patient, one EMT drives while the other monitors the patient’s vital signs and gives additional care as needed. They keep the emergency vehicles in excellent condition and well stocked with medical supplies. Some EMTs work as part of a helicopter’s flight crew to transport critically ill or injured patients to hospital trauma centers.
The EMT-Basic (or EMT-I) represents the first component of the emergency medical technician system. An EMT trained at this level cares for patients at the scene of an accident and while transporting patients by ambulance to the hospital under medical direction. The EMT-Basic has the emergency skills to assess a patient’s condition and manage respiratory, cardiac, and trauma emergencies. They help the emergency room staff do pre-admittance treatment and obtain medical histories.
The EMT- Advanced (or EMT-II) has more advanced training. In addition to basic duties, they may insert intravenous catheters, administer intravenous glucose solutions or a limited number of drugs, and obtain blood samples for laboratory analysis. In certain emergencies, EMT-IIs may be approved to perform advanced life support procedures.
The EMT-Paramedics provide the most extensive pre-hospital care. In addition to carrying out the procedures of the other levels, Paramedics may administer drugs orally and intravenously, insert breathing-aid devices, use stomach suction equipment, interpret electrocardiograms, and use monitors and other complex equipment.
Important Tasks and Related Skills
Each task below is matched to a sample skill required to carry out the task.
|View the skill definitions|
|Task||Skill Used in this Task|
|Maintain vehicles and medical and communication equipment, and replenish first-aid equipment and supplies.||Equipment Maintenance|
|Assess nature and extent of illness or injury to establish and prioritize medical procedures.||Active Listening|
|Administer first-aid treatment and life-support care to sick or injured persons in prehospital setting.||Medicine and Dentistry|
|Operate equipment such as electrocardiograms (EKGs), external defibrillators and bag-valve mask resuscitators in advanced life-support environments.||Judgment and Decision Making|
|Perform emergency diagnostic and treatment procedures, such as stomach suction, airway management or heart monitoring, during ambulance ride.||Critical Thinking|
|Communicate with dispatchers and treatment center personnel to provide information about situation, to arrange reception of victims, and to receive instructions for further treatment.||Speaking|
|Immobilize patient for placement on stretcher and ambulance transport, using backboard or other spinal immobilization device.||Service Orientation|
|Comfort and reassure patients.||Customer and Personal Service|
|Decontaminate ambulance interior following treatment of patient with infectious disease and report case to proper authorities.||Public Safety and Security|
|Observe, record, and report to physician the patient's condition or injury, the treatment provided, and reactions to drugs and treatment.||Monitoring|
Below is a definition for each skill.
|View the tasks to skills list|
|Equipment Maintenance||Performing routine maintenance on equipment and determining when and what kind of maintenance is needed.|
|Active Listening||Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.|
|Medicine and Dentistry||Knowledge of the information and techniques needed to diagnose and treat human injuries, diseases, and deformities. This includes symptoms, treatment alternatives, drug properties and interactions, and preventive health-care measures.|
|Judgment and Decision Making||Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.|
|Critical Thinking||Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.|
|Speaking||Talking to others to convey information effectively.|
|Service Orientation||Actively looking for ways to help people.|
|Customer and Personal Service||Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.|
|Public Safety and Security||Knowledge of relevant equipment, policies, procedures, and strategies to promote effective local, state, or national security operations for the protection of people, data, property, and institutions.|
|Monitoring||Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.|
The EMT works indoors and out, in all types of weather. When responding to an emergency, EMTs (usually working in two-person teams) must maneuver safely and quickly through traffic while obeying traffic safety laws. Their response times are carefully tracked, and they are expected to reach the emergency scene within a specified number of minutes. They cope with all kinds of emergencies involving many people, such as victims of heart attacks, multiple vehicle accidents, or natural disasters, like earthquakes and floods. Technicians must deal with victims and bystanders while controlling the scene with calmness and a reassuring manner.
The EMTs must do considerable kneeling, bending, and heavy lifting. They risk noise-induced hearing loss from sirens and back injuries from lifting patients. Following necessary safety precautions such as proper lifting techniques reduces risk of injury. In addition, EMTs may be exposed to diseases such as hepatitis-B and AIDS, as well as violence from mentally unstable patients. The work is not only physically strenuous but can be stressful, sometimes involving life-or-death situations and suffering patients. Nonetheless, many people find the work exciting and challenging and enjoy the opportunity to help others.
While most EMTs work for private ambulance companies, a few travel with forest fire fighting teams to provide emergency care for injured workers.
Because emergency services function 24 hours a day, EMTs have irregular working hours. The EMTs employed by private ambulance services work 45 to 60 hours a week. Those employed by small and rural hospitals frequently work 45 to 50 hours, and those in fire departments work about 50 hours a week. They work evenings, weekends, and holidays and their schedule may include a 48-hour shift, followed by several days off.
Many EMTs are represented by various organizations based on where they work, such as the California State Firefighters’ Association.
Will This Job Fit Me?
The job of EMT may appeal to those who enjoy assisting others and promoting learning and personal development. This occupation also may appeal to those who like communicating with people and working in a friendly non-competitive environment.
What Wages and Benefits Can I Expect?
Wages vary between geographic locations, the individual's training and experience, and employment setting, such as private or public ambulance service organizations.
The median wage in 2015 for Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics in California was $30,216 annually, or $14.53 hourly. The median wage for Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics in San Diego County was $25,116 annually, or $12.08 hourly. The median is the point at which half of the workers earn more and half earn less.
Benefits generally include medical, dental, and vision insurance as well as vacation, sick leave, and retirement plans. The EMTs who work for fire or police departments typically receive the same benefits as firefighters or police officers.
What is the Job Outlook?
Some departments rely on unpaid volunteers. It is becoming increasingly difficult for emergency medical services to recruit and retain unpaid volunteers because of the amount of training and the large time commitment these positions require. As a result, more paid EMTs are needed. Nevertheless, there will still be demand for part-time, volunteer EMTs in rural areas and smaller metropolitan areas. As the population ages and becomes more likely to have medical emergencies, demand for EMTs will increase.
Job opportunities should be best in private ambulance services. Competition will be greater for jobs in local government, including fire, police, and independent third-service rescue squad departments which tend to have better salaries and benefits. The EMTs who have advanced education and certifications, such as paramedic-level certification, should enjoy the most favorable job prospects, as clients demand higher levels of care before arriving at the hospital.
Projections of Employment
In California, the number of Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics is expected to grow much faster than average growth rate for all occupations. Jobs for Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics are expected to increase by 23.2 percent, or 3,900 jobs between 2012 and 2022.
In San Diego County, the number of Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics is expected to grow slower than average growth rate for all occupations. Jobs for Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics are expected to increase by 8.0 percent, or 120 jobs between 2012 and 2022.
|Estimated Employment and Projected Growth|
Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics
(Estimated Year-Projected Year)
Due to Net
|San Diego County|
|View Projected Growth for All Areas|
Annual Job Openings
In California, an average of 390 new job openings per year is expected for Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics, plus an additional 460 job openings due to net replacement needs, resulting in a total of 850 job openings.
In San Diego County, an average of 12 new job openings per year is expected for Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics, plus an additional 41 job openings due to net replacement needs, resulting in a total of 53 job openings.
|Estimated Average Annual Job Openings|
Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics
|Jobs From Growth||Jobs Due to|
|San Diego County|
|View Data for All Areas|
How Do I Qualify?
Education, Training, and Other Requirements
A high school diploma is usually required to enter a formal emergency medical technician training program. Several training providers require proof of various immunizations, negative TB and syphilis test, CPR card, and no felony convictions. Training is offered at progressive levels: EMT-I, EMT-II, and EMT-Paramedic. Universities, community colleges, adult education programs, medical training units of the Armed Forces, some licensed general acute hospitals, and private post-secondary approved schools offer training. Paramedic training programs in California are required to be accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP) in order for their graduates to be eligible to take the state licensing examination, which is the examination offered by the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians (NREMT). By December 31, 2012, all U.S. paramedic training programs will have to be accredited by CAAHEP in order for their graduates to be eligible to apply for NREMT certification.
At the EMT-I level, coursework emphasizes emergency skills, such as managing respiratory, trauma, and cardiac emergencies, and patient assessment. Formal courses are often combined with time in an emergency room or ambulance. The program provides instruction and practice in dealing with bleeding, fractures, airway obstruction, cardiac arrest, and emergency childbirth. Students learn how to use and maintain common emergency equipment, such as backboards, suction devices, splints, oxygen delivery systems, and stretchers.
At the EMT-II (Advanced EMT) level, students learn advanced skills such as the process to insert an advanced airway device, take a blood sample, and administer some medications.
The most advanced level of training for this occupation is EMT-Paramedic. At this level, the caregiver receives training in anatomy and physiology, as well as more advanced medical skills. Most commonly, the training is conducted in community colleges and technical schools over one to two years and may result in an associate’s degree. Such education prepares the graduate to take the NREMT examination and become certified as a Paramedic. Extensive related coursework and clinical and field experience is required.
Field internship or clinical experience is required for all EMT training programs. In order to advance to EMT-II training, an EMT-I must have at least one year of patient field care experience.
Early Career Planning
Biology, English, and mathematics are helpful courses for those interested in becoming an EMT.
Work Study Programs
Some Regional Occupational Training Programs (ROP) offer EMT training. To find an ROP program near you, go to the California Association of Regional Occupational Centers and Programs Web site.
To maintain certifications, EMT-Is must complete 24 hours of continuing education every two years, and EMT-IIs (Advanced EMTs) must meet the continuing education requirements of the local Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Agency totaling no less than 48 hours every two years. Licensed Paramedics must complete a minimum of 48 hours of continuing education every two years.
Licensing and Certification
The California Emergency Medical Services Authority (EMSA) issues the required paramedic license after the appropriate fees are paid and the required documentation is processed. The documentation required includes a copy of the paramedic training course completion, proof of passing the NREMT written and practical exams, documentation of citizenship or immigration status, and a copy of the Request for Live Scan Service form. Paramedic applicants are also checked to see if they are in arrears on court-ordered child support. If so, they must receive clearance from the respective county child support services office in order to be licensed or maintain licensure. The two-year paramedic license is valid throughout California and is a prerequisite for local accreditation. Paramedics must be accredited to practice in the county in which they work. Documentation for accreditation includes proof of employment with an approved paramedic provider agency and the paramedic license. Contact the agency that issues the license for additional information. Click on the license title below for details.
Certification is required to work in California as an EMT-I and EMT-II. County EMS agencies and approved public safety agencies certify EMT-Is, and county EMS agencies certify EMT-IIs (Advanced EMTs). All EMT levels require the individual be at least 18 years old, have a high school diploma or equivalent, and pass a NREMT written and skills certifying examination. All EMT applicants must pay the appropriate fees and submit the required paperwork. Documentation usually required for the application include a copy of the EMT training course completion certificate, the NREMT card, a current CPR card, valid photo identification, and the Department of Justice Live Scan background report. The certifications are valid for two years. For more information, go to the U.S. Department of Labor's Career InfoNet Web site and scroll down to "Career Tools." Click on "Certification Finder" and follow the instructions to locate certification programs.
Where Can I Find Training?
There are two ways to search for training information:
Contact the schools you are interested in to learn about the classes available, tuition and fees, and any prerequisite course work.
Where Would I Work?
The largest industries employing Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics are as follows:
|Industry Title||Percent of Total Employment for Occupation in California|
|Other Ambulatory Health Care Services ||77.2%|
|Local Government ||6.2%|
|Colleges and Universities ||1.4%|
Finding a Job
Job seekers who want to become EMT-I trainees may contact the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) office in their county or in any county they wish to work. Qualified EMT-Is, EMT-IIs (Advanced EMTs), and Paramedics are encouraged to register with the EMS office in the county or counties where they want to work.
Job seekers should also apply directly to ambulance companies. Some city and county medical-provider agencies have a separate classification for EMTs and Paramedics. Applicants can find employment opportunities through placement offices at colleges or universities and instructors at training facilities. Newspaper classified ads and the Internet provide sources for job listings as well. Online job opening systems include JobCentral at www.jobcentral.com and CalJOBSSM at www.caljobs.ca.gov.
To find your nearest One-Stop Career Center, go to Service Locator. View the helpful job search tips for more resources. (requires Adobe Reader).
Yellow Page Headings
You can focus your local job search by checking employers listed online or in your local telephone directory. Below are some suggested headings where you might find employers of Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics.
- Ambulance Services
- Fire Departments
- Government Offices
Find Possible Employers
To locate a list of employers in your area, go to "Find Employers" on the Labor Market Information Web site:
- Select one of the top industries that employ the occupation. This will give you a list of employers in that industry in your area.
- Click on "View Filter Selections" to limit your list to specific cities or employer size.
- Click on an employer for the street address, telephone number, size of business, Web site, etc.
- Contact the employer for possible employment.
Where Could This Job Lead?
Advancement to either an EMT-II or EMT-Paramedic requires additional classroom and clinical training hours. Paramedics can become supervisors, operations managers, administrative directors, or executive directors of emergency services. Some EMTs and Paramedics become instructors or dispatchers, others move into sales or marketing of emergency medical equipment. Some take additional medical training to become nurses.
Advancement in government service requires success on promotional examinations. In both private and public sectors, experience and ability are the keys to advancement.
Below is a list of occupations related to Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics with links to more information.
|Ambulance Drivers and Attendants, Except Emergency Medical Technicians||Profile|
|Nursing Aides, Orderlies, and Attendants*||Profile|
These links are provided for your convenience and do not constitute an endorsement by EDD.
For the Career Professional
The following codes are provided to assist counselors, job placement workers, or other career professionals. | <urn:uuid:1a7e5b7b-c9c4-4e0e-a744-b1fcd0b56b6b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/OccGuides/Detail.aspx?Soccode=292041&Geography=0604000073 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396455.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00115-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92503 | 4,079 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Interdisciplinary skills in architectural and engineering education programs: The pedagogical challenge
Publication: Research - peer-review › Article in proceedings – Annual report year: 2006
The architectural design and engineering of construction includes many multifaceted and interdisciplinary challenges. Consequently, cooperation and communication between architects and specialised engineering professionals are of greatest importance for the successful completion of a building project. Besides, new and more integrated forms of co-operation between the various actors make the prevalent professional disciplines more ambiguous and it compels into a need for trans-professional skills among the actors. In contrast to the requirements for interdisciplinary skills, the educational training programmes of architects and engineers are traditionally characterised by strict disciplinary boundaries. Thus, the prevailing educational system is challenged to meet the demands for trans-professional skills within industry. The purpose of this paper is to outline some pedagogical prerequisites and requirements for reinforcement of the interdisciplinary skills within the architectural and engineering education programs as to face the challenges from industry. The study claims that the development of interdisciplinary skills should be regarded a pedagogical issue that can be accomplished by integrative teaching activities in which the attitude between the different disciplines can be developed in a proper direction. The paper rests upon a preliminary theoretical analysis that is supplemented with some initial interviews with students and teachers from the educational program of Architectural engineering at the Danish Technical University.
|Title of host publication||4:e Pedagogiska inspirationskonferensen 2006|
|Place of Publication||Lund|
|Publisher||Lund University Faculty of Engineering|
|State||Published - 2006|
|Conference||4:e Pedagogiska inspirationskonferensen 2006|
|Period||01/01/2006 → …|
Loading map data...
No data available | <urn:uuid:c6b0cf75-9892-4079-8369-edf65539d009> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://orbit.dtu.dk/en/publications/interdisciplinary-skills-in-architectural-and-engineering-education-programs(db65d6fc-da01-48ab-b41a-bf416c3c320f).html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00197-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.885468 | 372 | 2.5625 | 3 |
The OECD Environmental Outlook to 2030 provides analyses of economic and environmental trends to 2030, and simulations of policy actions to address the key challenges. Without new policies, we risk irreversibly damaging the environment and the natural resource base needed to support economic growth and well-being. The costs of policy inaction are high.
But the Outlook shows that tackling the key environmental problems we face today -- including climate change, biodiversity loss, water scarcity and the health impacts of pollution -- is both achievable and affordable. It highlights a mix of policies that can address these challenges in a cost-effective way. The focus of this Outlook is expanded from the 2001 edition to reflect developments in both OECD countries and Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China, South Africa (BRIICS), and how they might better co-operate on global and local environmental problem-solving.
"An indispensable addition to the expanding body of environmental literature...Essential"
- 05 Mar 2008
Health and Environment | <urn:uuid:0162880a-a3d8-4df6-b953-87f86846c1a5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/environment/oecd-environmental-outlook-to-2030/health-and-environment_9789264040519-14-en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00095-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.880095 | 197 | 2.953125 | 3 |
2015 NAEP Scores Underscore Importance of Clear, Consistent Learning Goals
Statement from Collaborative for Student Success Executive Director Karen Nussle:
WASHINGTON (October 28, 2015) – In response to the new data released this morning from the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), Karen Nussle, Executive Director of the Collaborative for Student Success, issued the following statement:
“The results of this year’s National Assessment of Education Progress underscore the importance of clear, consistent learning goals and assessments that raise the bar for all students. While this snapshot is disappointing, it would be a mistake to equate these results with a long-term trend. Many states have been, and continue to be, in a major state of transformation in education – three quarters of states only began fully implementing higher standards barely a year ago; the vast majority of states are focused on supporting teachers in developing new curriculum to meet those standards; and almost every state is working to implement new, 21st Century tests to measure student progress. In the midst of this, declining scores should not be a surprise, as many states have seen on their own state assessments scores.
It’s also important to note that there are remarkable bright spots in the NAEP data – most noticeably in 4th grade reading. In Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina and the District of Columbia, progress on 4th grade reading shows that when educators and policymakers focus on a specific goal (in this case making sure kids are reading by 3rd grade), that can have remarkable impact.” | <urn:uuid:49de8183-7b7a-48fc-9a05-7266a7fc96ad> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://forstudentsuccess.org/2015-naep-scores-underscore-importance-of-clear-consistent-learning-goals/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00186-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938794 | 317 | 2.703125 | 3 |
How to take the quiz:
- After reading the question, click on the answer that you think is correct to go to the whatis.com definition. If the answer you've chosen is correct, you will see the question text (or a paraphrase of it) somewhere in the definition.
- After reading the question, write down the letter of your answer choice on scrap paper. Check your answers by using the answer key at the end of the quiz, where you'll also find additional resources related to the correct answer.
4. This approach to building a supercomputer often incorporates the Linux OS as a way to lower cost and increase vendor independency.
b. ring network
c. collaborative authoring
5. This popular text editor created by Richard Stallman provides typed commands and special key combinations that let you add, delete, insert, and otherwise manipulate words, letters, lines, and other units of text.
b. text on nine keys
e. command line interface
7. This network file system is a popular freeware program that allows end users to access and use files, printers, and other commonly shared resources on a company's intranet or on the Internet.
8. The client/server relationship is reversed in this open, cross-platform system for managing a windowed GUI in a distributed network.
a. Distributed interNet Applications Architecture
b. Open Systems Interconnection
d. reverse Telnet
e. X Window System
10. This is a script language and interpreter that is freely available and used primarily on Linux Web servers as an alternative to Microsoft's Active Server Page (ASP) technology.
e. CRON script
SCROLL DOWN FOR ANSWER KEY
See the rest of our quiz topics
Answer Key: 1c; 2a; 3d; 4a; 5c; 6e; 7a; 8e; 9b; 10a | <urn:uuid:0bfa7b51-a4cd-4f0f-aab5-4090b499734e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://whatis.techtarget.com/quiz/Quiz-Linux-Basics | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00154-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.844832 | 393 | 3.375 | 3 |
Detail from “Field of Gettysburg” by T. Ditterline, 1863 [Library of Congress]
Published: June 25, 2013
150 years ago, the Battle of Gettysburg – the bloodiest of the Civil War – was about to be fought. Thousands would lose their lives in that battle, northerners and southerners, joining the hundreds of thousands who had already laid down their lives in the course of the war. But why were so many prepared to take up arms in the first place? When most southerners were not slaveholders, and most northerners were not abolitionists, how had a war infused with the question of slavery even begun? In this second part of our special series on the Civil War, the Guys and their guests examine the inner conflicts and mixed motivations of most Americans, as they contemplated war against each other.
The episode explores the concept of “union” and its power in the northern psyche, and the equally strong pull of “home” for the white southerner; how slavery factored in to each man’s decision to fight, most compellingly, for those former slaves recruited into the Union Army after the Emancipation Proclamation; and it looks to the women who soldiers often saw themselves fighting for, but who were left to fend for themselves as the war unleashed other terrors off the battlefield.
The Guys talk with Christy Coleman, president of the American Civil War Center in Richmond, Virginia, on the ways contemporary events shape our understanding of the Civil War, before turning to the ways citizens saw it at the time. Considering the remarkable levels of volunteerism in the Civil War, they discuss the power of the “citizen soldier” ideal, and begin to explore what motivated so many individuals on both sides to join the fight.
Historian and New York Times blogger Adam Goodheart tells the story of one man’s struggle to pick which side to fight for, and his ultimate choice of the Union cause. Brian and Ed then talk with historian Gary Gallagher about the powerful concepts of “liberty and union” in motivating Northern soldiers – and how their meaning was understood at the time.
Tape: From VFH Radio in Charlottesville, Virginia, this is “BackStory.” [music]
Peter Onuf: Liberty and union. Liberty and union. That was the refrain across the American North as Civil War broke out one hundred and fifty years ago.
Ed Ayers: But the phrase doesn’t mean what you might think. Most Northerners were not very concerned about the four million people still held in bondage.
Tape: Liberty is often tied now to your attitude towards slavery. That is not how they would’ve deployed that word for the most part.
E. Ayers: Southerners, on the other hand, were very much thinking about those four million enslaved people and specifically what it would mean if they were all freed.
Tape: The fear and paranoia about what that represented is almost impossible for us to capture today, but it certainly inspired most of them fight much harder.
P. Onuf: We’re the American History Guys and today on our show, what motivated people, North and South, to take up arms. That’s all coming up on “BackStory” after this news. [music]
Tape: Hi, I’m Tony Field, the producer of “BackStory.” I just wanted to let you know that today’s Podcast is the second installment in our new three-part series on the Civil War. You’ll find the other two parts on our website and on iTunes. If you like what you hear, please consider a contribution to help us out with some of our production costs. There’s a link to give in the bottom right hand corner of our website, backstoryradio.org. Fifteen dollars would amount to a dime for each year since the Civil War began and we’ll take any donation of that amount as a endorsement of our work on this series and, remember, you can also help out by sharing links to our shows with your friends and by leaving a review on our page in the iTunes store. Thanks for listening. Now, back to the show.
P. Onuf: Major production support for “BackStory” is provided by the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation. Support also comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities. [music] This is “BackStory,” with us, the American History Guys. I’m Peter Onuf, 18th century guy.
E. Ayers: I’m Ed Ayers, 19th century guy.
Brian Balogh: And I’m Brian Balogh, 20th century history guy. [music] How might America be different today if the Union had not won the Civil War? What legacies of the Civil War have an impact on your life? These are a couple of the questions posed by curators at the American Civil War Center in Richmond, Virginia. Visitors are encouraged to answer each question on a post-it note, and stick it to the wall there before they leave.
Tape (Christy Coleman): We had a post up there one time. The person actually used like four post-it notes to get their point out and [laughter] one of the things that they went on about was here again is another example of how the haves managed to convince the have nots to fight their battles for them.
E. Ayers: That’s Christy Coleman, President of the American Civil War Center. She says that the notes visitors leave often reflect their regional affiliations. Northerners, for example, tend to answer that question about the war’s legacy with a certain amount of, well, triumphalism.
Tape (C. Coleman): You know, if it wasn’t for this war, we wouldn’t have expanded the rights to so many and opened our gates and broken down the power structures that would have us all truly slaves, etc. etc.
P. Onuf: This April marks the 150th anniversary of the Civil War’s beginnings. But despite the passage of all that years, Americans in many parts of the country are still trying to understand what the war really meant. Go ahead—Google the recent controversy over Virginia history textbooks or the dust-up over South Carolina’s commemoration of that state’s secession. Or just spend some time with Christy and those post-it notes in Richmond.
E. Ayers: In our last show on the Civil War, we looked at how the election of Abraham Lincoln set off a cascade of events that resulted in war. Today, we’re going to pick up where we left off, but we’re going to shift our focus from the politicians to the ordinary men and women who, in the spring of 1861, found themselves staring war in the face. In the South, most of these people did not own a single slave. And in the North, only a small minority were committed abolitionists. All of which leads us to our central question for today’s show—what motivated these people to pick up weapons and fight one another in the Civil War?
B. Balogh: We’re going to return now to Christy Coleman, the president of the American Civil War Center in Richmond. When we spoke to her, she told us about another one of those post-it notes, another question that yields particularly interesting results.
Tape (C. Coleman): “Where do you consider your strongest allegiance— to your state, to your nation, or some other place.” And it’s interesting that you can always tell when there’s a political upheaval going on in our current society, because the percentage of those answers shifts dramatically. You know, prior to the 2008 elections, for example, you had a lot of people identifying themselves very strongly as Americans. I am an American, this is the U.S.A., I’m very proud of it. And then in 2010, you see a shift, and people are identifying via their states, you know, I’m a proud Virginia, I’m a proud Texan, I’m a proud, you know, what-have-you, and 9 out of 10 times, it’s Southerners that are identifying via their state.
B. Balogh: So Peter and Ed, I know this is going to shock you, but, you know, it sounds like these folks leaving their post-it notes are applying their biases from today’s world imposing it on history, so I’m curious to know have Americans done this specifically to interpretations of the Civil War.
E. Ayers: Well, you know, it’s not just Americans but it’s historians, too.
P. Onuf: Oh, oh, oh.
E. Ayers: I know. I’m sorry, Peter. I hope you can keep your sobbing to a minimum, but, you know, as long as there’s been a professional historical set of organizations since the late 19th century, we’ve been able to see the academic historians sort of shifting their interpretations of the Civil War as their own times changed. Let me just give you a thumbnail sketch of how that has been. After World War I, widely seen as a war without purpose, the American Civil War was interpreted by our predecessor historians as a war without purpose. The leading historians of the Civil War talk of a blundering generation that got us into that mess. World War II comes, immediately revised our understanding of the Civil War.
P. Onuf: Yeah, a good war.
E. Ayers: Exactly. Sometimes there’s evil in the world. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., says, “and you have to rise up to defeat it,” and that’s what the Civil War as well as World War II was all about. Then Vietnam comes along and we might expect that we would go back and reinterpret the Civil War as a big mess, but instead, historians are saying, ahhh, look, what else is going on now in the ’60s and ’70s, the civil rights revolution, let’s go back and look at the abolitionism and reconstruction and focus on that and then when you get into sort of the very frustrating, sort of decentered wars like the 1980s and 1990s, there’s a real disillusionment among a lot of scholars with the Civil War in general and we start discovering guerilla fighting and all kinds of breakdowns of morale and all that sort of stuff, so that’s kind of where we’ve gone. Every single stage of our own warfare experience in the 20th century had disrupted our understanding of the American Civil War.
B. Balogh: Well, Ed, your summary of 20th century developments being read into the Civil War is terrific, but it strikes me that one of the key 20th century developments is people are drafted for wars in the 20th century and I know there was a draft in the Civil War but how did that actually play out, this tension between all those folks who volunteered and the eventual draft in both the North and the South?
E. Ayers: You know, the draft is important but we’d have to acknowledge that both the North and the South benefited from enormous degree of voluntarism.
P. Onuf: Right, right.
E. Ayers: You know. Both armies were filled with men who could not wait to show their dedication to their nations.
P. Onuf: Yeah, but we could go back further to the Revolution, to the first American war.
B. Balogh: Let’s do it.
P. Onuf: Yeah, the wars that in effect define American political culture, that idea that Jefferson articulated in his first inaugural address that we are the strongest government on earth because of the devotion of citizens to defending the country. It’s the idea of the citizen soldier that our country’s wars are our wars. This is a free country and we die freely for our country.
E. Ayers: Well, as a matter of fact, it strikes me, Peter, that the war driven by popular commitment that Jefferson dreamed of didn’t actually happen until the American Civil War.
P. Onuf: Right.
E. Ayers: Because the War of 1812 and the Seminole War, the Mexican War, all those were deeply compromised, deeply conflicting, disappointing, those kind of wars, right?
P. Onuf: Yeah, that’s a good point, but what I would say is that Jefferson wasn’t really inventing the citizen soldier. What he was doing was creating a political culture, a civic culture in which there was a lot of vicarious fighting and that is that the party formation in the antebellum period before the Civil War in effect mobilized people in a semi-quasi-proto-militant way. They would march to the polls. They would feel righteous anger at enemies, even with the other party but nonetheless it was that belligerent frame of mind, the idea that it’s incumbent on you as a good citizen to be ready to fight at the polls or wherever the fight is taking place because fundamental issues are at stake and I think that helps explain the amazing preparedness of the American people to slaughter each other in the Civil War.
E. Ayers: I could argue that this is actually what brings on the Civil War. If you think about the timing of the coming Civil War, it’s determined a lot more by what you’re talking about, Peter, than by any change in the actual status of slavery.
P. Onuf: Yeah, yeah.
E. Ayers: Or, it’s not that the North becomes modernized enough to fight against the South.
P. Onuf: No, no.
E. Ayers: What it really is about is the party system because for the last 30 years, people have been used to thinking of two parties: the names of the parties and the identities of the parties change but what happens is this two-party system which had been around now for decades really just begins to unravel in the 1850s. First, you have the Whig Party begin to show signs of weakness. Then the Know Nothings emerge and the Democrats splinter apart. Then the Republicans arise and once this sort of bipolar, in both senses of the word, party system shatters, you have all that sort of polarizing energy built up.
P. Onuf: That’s exactly right, Ed. That’s exactly right.
E. Ayers: Everybody’s used to thinking, us or them.
B. Balogh: Yes, so help me, guys. Let me try to understand this. All of these passions are rattling around but in the past, they’ve lined up through the mechanism of parties and those parties have been distributed roughly evenly between North and South so the passions don’t get channeled into these sectional rivalries. Is that what you’re saying?
P. Onuf: Right. Well, I think the key thing, Brian, is we shouldn’t imagine that there’s something going on in individual people’s minds and that there’s a flashpoint or a threshold that people cross. They say, I’m going to fight now. I propose when you think about the run-up to the Civil War that there is an excess of patriotic feeling and it’s not necessarily focused and that’s the whole point of it, it’s only in the process of mobilizing for the war that this ambient patriotism that Americans North and South share becomes focused in a particular way.
B. Balogh: So where was Cuba when we needed it?
P. Onuf: Well, [laughter] that’s a great point.
B. Balogh: To use a late-19th century example.
P. Onuf: Well, yeah, yeah. No, that’s what Americans were looking desperately for some kind of war to fight elsewhere and we had Mexico. I mean, that proved to be problematic, but it—
B. Balogh: It bought us a few years before it blew up in our face.
E. Ayers: But, you know, I think the strange thing is you go back and look at the mobilization of the Confederacy, there is no new language, there’s no new idea that the very people who had been for the Union and who’d been all about loyalty and sacrifice and fealty to the fathers and to one another, just switched the entire apparatus of loyalty from the Union to the Confederacy literally overnight.
P. Onuf: Yeah, yeah.
E. Ayers: And this patriotism you talked about could be directed toward an entirely different and new and warring nation and so that’s another thing that makes it a fight inside the family is that there is no warring ideology except that one family possesses slaves and the other does not.
P. Onuf: Yeah, and you know, we talk a lot about war weariness imagining that somehow there’s only a certain amount of enthusiasm and it’s spent. It plays out over time. Instead, it’s almost as if that energy, that original commitment, in some ways it grows.
E. Ayers: The cause becomes more coherent in both the North and the South—
P. Onuf: I think that’s a great point.
E. Ayers: And so that’s the thing is we don’t want to think about it as, okay, I’m doing an inventory of my emotions and loyalties. Yep, there’s adequacy supply—
P. Onuf: [13:23 / __________] [laughter]
E. Ayers: To go fight and die. Instead it’s like, yeah, I’ll go fight this one battle or I’ll join every other young man in my community going off for this, and so the initial motivations don’t become—
P. Onuf: [13:38 / __________]
E. Ayers: What James McPherson called the “sustaining motivations” and one of the things we have to do about the entire Civil War is remember that it’s an unfolding story with different kinds of motivations and contexts and not just one monolithic substance that we kind of analyze like a chemical ingredient
B. Balogh: Right, so we should be asking why they fought when.
E. Ayers: Exactly. They’re constantly playing catch-up with events. They act and they go, okay, what did that mean? [laughter]
P. Onuf: Yeah.
E. Ayers: And so the Civil War is not driven so much by ideas as it is interwoven with them.
P. Onuf: Yeah.
B. Balogh: So, I think it’s great that we’ve entered the time dimension into this discussion and I’m going to enter another time dimension and that is it’s time for a short break.
[music—“when Johnny comes marching home”]
B. Balogh: When we get back, we’ll hear why the word Union quickened the heartbeats of men in the antebellum North.
P. Onuf: You’re listening to a special Civil War anniversary edition of “BackStory” with the American History Guys. We’ll be back in a minute. [music] This is “BackStory,” the show that takes a topic and considers it from the perspective of three different centuries. I’m your 18th century guy, Peter Onuf.
E. Ayers: I’m your 19th century guy, Ed Ayers.
B. Balogh: And I’m the 20th century guy, Brian Balogh. Today on our show, we’re exploring the motivations of soldiers on both sides of the American Civil War. Most people agree that slavery was at the root of why the war started, but if most Southerners were not slaveholders, and most Northerners weren’t abolitionists, then why were so many thousands of people willing to put their lives on the line?
E. Ayers: That’s a question that’s really challenged historians for many years in large part because there’re so many answers that are at least partially right. Now, there’s a historian Adam Goodheart who’s the author of a new book called 1861: The Civil War Awakening. He’s also one of the main contributors to “Disunion”—a New York Times blog that chronicles the events of 150 years ago. And in his research for both projects, Goodheart had discovered that there was an enormous range of considerations that factored into people’s decisions in the lead-up to the war.
Tape (Adam Goodheart): I found a letter in a sort of a bundle of letters in an attic a few years ago on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, a bundle of letters from an Army officer from the spring of 1861 trying to decide which side he was going to go with and on the one hand, he was a slave-owner. He was from a slave owning family. He’s grown up in the Southern state of Maryland. On the other hand, he’d been an Army officer. He’d been under the Stars and Stripes since he was a 14-year-old cadet at West Point and he’s having a correspondence. He’s stationed out at a fort out in Indian territory in what’s now Oklahoma and he’s corresponding with his wife and his brother back East and some of the decision has to do with slavery. Some of it has to do with the Union and some of it has to do with which way Maryland is going to go but then he’s also talking about, well, what’s this going to mean for my own career. His wife writes something that really stuck with me. She said, “It is like a great game of chance.” And I thought, well, gosh, he’s trying to decide, well, if I join this Confederacy will I end up as one of the founding fathers of a new nation or will I end up as a traitor being tried for treason.
P. Onuf: In the end, that officer decided to stand by the Union or at least by his career in that Union, and if his choice about which side to fight for seems like a tough one, then what about all the ordinary civilians in the North who had to decide whether to fight at all? Joining the Army would mean leaving their jobs and yet tens of thousands of them flocked to answer Lincoln’s call for men. So how do we explain that?
B. Balogh: Well, fortunately, Peter, we don’t have to explain it. We brought in our colleague Gary Gallagher, University of Virginia historian who wrote a book on this very issue. It’s called The Union War and it argues that while the Southern states went to war to protect slavery, the vast majority of Northern men who volunteered to fight did not oppose slavery. Even after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Gallagher says that ending slavery was for most of them purely a military strategy. That’s why they went along with it. He says that if you asked these guys what really compelled them to take up arms, they would have answered that it was their deep commitment—hold your breath—to Union. Now, if you’re scratching your head on that one, you’re not alone. I was a little confused by it also.
B. Balogh: You know, Gary, that I’m the 20th century guy on this show.
Gary Gallagher: I’ve heard that.
B. Balogh: And I just can’t understand how all these men could fight and many of them die for something as abstract as Union. Can you explain to our listeners what Union meant to these men?
G. Gallagher: I think what Union meant at the absolutely base for the mass of white Northerners was it meant a small “d” democratic republican system that gave a common person a voice in his own government—men are voting. Only men are voting. We know that—in his own government and it provided economic opportunity, not a guarantee for economic success, but much greater economic opportunity than any aristocratic or oligarchic society had and that was something that they treasured and they had imbibed Daniel Webster’s great rhetoric. It’s everywhere. It shows up in advertisements—Liberty and Union, Liberty and Union, and what they meant by liberty is not what we would normally think about. Liberty is often tied now to your attitude toward slavery. That is not how they would’ve deployed that word for the most part. Liberty for them meant freedom to enjoy these political rights and a chance to move ahead in an economic sense.
B. Balogh: And I’m really struck by the comparative nature of your answer. We think today we live in a world of globalization—
G. Gallagher: Right.
B. Balogh: But you were saying that these people woke up thinking I may not have much money, I may not have much education right now, but I’m special because I can vote and I can have a say in my government and millions of people around the world don’t have a chance at that. Am I getting that right?
G. Gallagher: That’s absolutely right and they not only thought it, they wrote it down and they wrote it down sometimes in language that makes it clear they had very little education. They’re literate but barely literate and they had a poster example of this in the presidency. Abraham Lincoln literally did what they believed this system allowed people to do, literally go from—
B. Balogh: That’s the opportunity part.
G. Gallagher: That’s the opportunity. That’s the opportunity and they compared themselves again and again and again to Europe and they were well aware of the failed revolutions of the late 1840s in Europe. They believed that if the Union failed, if after an election, a legal election, if the party that lost that election could simply destroy the nation because they weren’t happy with the result, then the aristocratic oligarchic monarchical Europeans could look and say we told you a democratic republic could not work.
B. Balogh: So it’s almost as though they viewed those slaveholding aristocratic-leaning Confederates as the kind of shock troops of the aristocratic model around the world that was just waiting for America.
G. Gallagher: They wouldn’t have said aristocratic-leaning. They would’ve said the words they used, the word “oligarch” came up a stunning number of times to me. I was really struck in doing the research for this book how often the word “oligarchy” was applied to the slaveholding class of the South. They called them aristocrats. They called them oligarchs. They said they were absolutely inimical to what the United States was about.
B. Balogh: So, in a way, you’re saying they were fighting against those slaveholders.
G. Gallagher: They were, yes.
B. Balogh: They just weren’t fighting against slavery. They weren’t terribly upset by slavery per se, except that to have slavery, you needed slaveholders which defied the very concept of a democratic republic.
G. Gallagher: That’s absolutely right and they sought to punish the slaveholding class which had caused the whole problem in the first place, they believed, and there’s no better way to punish the slaveholding class than to take their slaves away from them because they’re property and slaves was the basis of their power and so get rid of them.
B. Balogh: Yeah. Well, Gary, let’s get down to brass tacks. What public opinion polls did you consult for your study?
G. Gallagher: I used the three major ones that were available in the mid-19th century. [laughter] There’re no public opinion polls.
P. Onuf: Oh, God.
G. Gallagher: What I did was try to put different kinds of evidence in conversation with one another. For example, I read— There were two major illustrated weeklies at the time, equivalent of Life and Look really, Harper’s Weekly and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. I read every word of every issue of those for the whole war to see how this sentiment—
B. Balogh: That’s why I haven’t seen you for years.
G. Gallagher: Yes, I’ve been— Yeah, I don’t have a tan anymore. I also looked at soldiers’ letters. I looked at letters from people behind the lines. I mean, I used different kinds of evidence, fully aware of the fact that this is not a science. There’s nothing scientific about this and anybody who pretends they can get a scientific sample of letters from the Civil War is either deeply ignorant or dissembling because it just can’t be done. It can’t be done.
B. Balogh: Well, this has been so informative. We have a guy on the show who claims to know about the 19th century, Ed something. Ed Ayers, that’s right.
G. Gallagher: I’ve been one of Ed’s admirers since I was a little boy. I mean, I grew up sort of idolizing Ed. [laughter]
B. Balogh: Now, he is getting up there in years. Now that you’ve explained to us why the North fought, I felt we could bring Ed in. He just happens to be standing outside looking just so anxious to get into this conversation. Ed, come on it.
E. Ayers: [sound effect] Hey, everybody. It’s good to see you. I didn’t know how long you’d leave me with my face pressed up against the glass there.
B. Balogh: I know. I know you’ve been listening in and I’d just be curious to get your thoughts about what Gary’s had to say, especially about Union and about why men in the North fought for Union.
E. Ayers: Well, you know, it takes a little bit of the drama out of it to say that I think he’s exactly right about the motivations of people at the beginning. I do think, though, if you read our textbooks, there is a general sense embodied in Abraham Lincoln of a sense of a moral growth over the course of the war and that is Northern soldiers come into contact with enslaved people as African Americans fight 200,000 strong in the United States Colored Troops, as people begin to wonder if this amount of bloodshed must not have a larger redeeming purpose as Abraham Lincoln says, some kind of providential reason to obliterate slavery. People often think that the white North develops a greater understanding of slavery and its injustice over the course of the war. Would you agree with that or not?
G. Gallagher: Not in the way you put it. I think the big problem we have is not accepting the fact that for most of the white North Union was a completely sufficient reason to fight the kind of war they fought. Union meant so much to them. I mean, a number of historians have said Union wasn’t worth the loss of a single life. Well, that would’ve been stunningly wrongheaded to people who lived in the loyal states. I don’t think there was a great moral shift. I do believe that some Union soldiers surely changed their views about African Americans when they saw slavery up close, but many others had earlier notions about black people actually confirmed and their letters make that clear. The prejudices came out more on the wrong side of things from our point of view. I think there’s quite a variety of reactions to seeing slavery and seeing African Americans up close.
In terms of Lincoln, Lincoln’s second inaugural, of course, is the place that we go to see this change in this almost spiritual take on what the war was about, but Abraham Lincoln’s message to Congress in December 1864 which is after the elections—there’s no reason for him to pitch this to the loyal population if he didn’t think that most of them still focused on Union—he said in a great war such as this, you need to have one thing (I’m paraphrasing him) which everybody believes and he said, in our war, it’s Union. He said killing slavery is one of the means to achieve that great end that we all agree on. That’s December of 1864, so I just think that Union is most important in 1861, ’63 and ’65.
E. Ayers: So, Gary, since we know that we’re writing history for today to help us understand what the Civil War means for us, you are taking advantage of the fact that we’ve now recovered the African American component of the war and you don’t try to displace any of that, but you’re trying to restore an understanding that in alliance with that was a dedication to Union. Does that speak to our current time in some way that we need, you think?
G. Gallagher: Well, I guess my principle goal isn’t to speak to our current time. I think it’s important in our current time to understand the complexity of our past and I think that if we’re going to come to terms with the Civil War, we have to understand that it isn’t exactly what we wish it had been, but one of the points I make is that it’s sort of miraculous that a mass of white Northerners who were as racist as they were would be transformed by this giant military event into a population that believed slavery must be killed and I think that is a radical transformation within a mid-19th century context and I think it shows the capacity for growth and change in the direction we would say is the right direction even if it’s not for exactly the reasons that we would prefer that it had taken place. I think that’s important to know.
B. Balogh: That’s Gary Gallagher. He’s a colleague of ours in the History Department at the University of Virginia and his book is called The Union War. If you’re just joining us, this is “BackStory,” and we’re talking about the reasons soldiers on both sides of the Civil War were motivated to fight. We’ve already heard that most white Northerners did not go to war in order to end slavery, even if they ended up supporting that as an eventual outcome. But Peter, Ed—what about black Northerners? I mean, a lot of our listeners have probably seen Glory, the movie about the African Americans who fought on behalf of Massachusetts and on behalf of the Union. I want to know more about those guys.
E. Ayers: Well, you know, the first thing to understand is they were not permitted to fight until 1863.
P. Onuf: Right.
E. Ayers: So, the war ultimately is half over before African American men are allowed to fight and there’s widespread skepticism in the white North that many of them will, but what happens is as soon as they open the doors to black recruitment, African American men of all kinds of backgrounds surge into service. Black men who could’ve sat out the war put themselves in harm’s way to help make sure that this war is a war that does fight against slavery and this strikes me as one of the great miracles of American history, frankly, that these thousands of African American men whether previously held in slavery or born free or having made themselves free, go fight for a nation that has held them in slavery, you know, and why? Because they have the idea—
P. Onuf: Yeah, yeah.
E. Ayers: That fully extended to its logical conclusion, to its consistent meaning, the federal nation of the United States would guarantee even their freedom.
P. Onuf: Well, I think that’s a great point, Ed. There are values that Northerners are invoking about freedom and liberty and about the reason that we need to fight for the survival of the Union and African Americans, free and enslaved, take those ideas seriously in a way that most white Northerners don’t take them seriously, that is, they make a local application. Northern whites are saying our freedom is what’s crucial. Well, those ideas once they’re in the air, even Jefferson the slaveholder said “all men are created equal,” that idea is hard to put down and all of a sudden in the midst of war, it seems to have this power. It’s really the story of imagining an America that could be but that wasn’t.
E. Ayers: You know, in this moment, there’s an incredible quote from Frederick Douglass who goes into the Civil War deeply suspicious of Abraham Lincoln, of the Republican Party, even of the Union cause. Why are we fighting to maintain a Union with slaveholders?
P. Onuf: Right.
E. Ayers: He does say now that black men, black families, can fight for not just their freedom, but for the very survival of the United States, this changes everything. He says, “once put an Eagle put on their buttons and a rifle on their shoulders and things can never go back to the way they were.”
B. Balogh: And what difference did this make in the actual prosecution of the war.
E. Ayers: Well, you have 200,000 African American men fighting on land and sea that you would not have had otherwise and they come into the United States purpose just when the North really really needs men. As a matter of fact, let’s not fool ourselves. That’s why they are enlisted in the first place.
B. Balogh: Right.
E. Ayers: Is that despite all this language of Union and self-sacrifice, not enough Northern men stepped up to sustain the purpose.
Reading: Dear Wife i have enlisted in the army i am now in the state of Massachusetts but before this letter reaches you i will be in North Carlinia and though great is the present national dificulties yet i look forward to a brighter day When i shall have the opertunity of seeing you in the full enjoyment of fredom i would like to if you are still in slavery if you are it will not be long before we shall have crushed the system that now oppresses you great is the outpouring of the colered peopl that is now rallying with the hearts of lions against that very curse that has seperated you an me yet we shall meet again and oh what a happy time that will be when this ungodly rebellion shall be put down and the curses of our land is trampled under our feet i am a soldier now and endeavoring to strike at the rebellion that so long has kept us in chains tell Eliza I send her my best respects and love Ike and Sully likewise your afectionate husband until death-SAMUEL CABBLE, Private 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 1863
P. Onuf: It’s time for another short break. When we get back, we’ll shift our focus to the South, and ask why so many white men who did not own slaves were willing to lay down their lives in defense of a nation that was based on slavery. You’re listening to “BackStory,” and we’ll be back in a minute. [music] We’re back with “BackStory.” We’re the American History guys. I’m Peter Onuf, otherwise known as the 18th century guy.
E. Ayers: I’m Ed Ayers, “BackStory’s” 19th century guy.
B. Balogh: And I’m Brian Balogh, representing the 20th century. Today on the show, we’re marking the 150th anniversary of the Civil War’s beginnings by asking what motivated people on both sides of the conflict to take up arms. Before the break, we were looking at the Union cause. Now we’re going to shift to the Confederacy.
Tape (Aaron Sheehan-Dean): You know the old saw is that the Civil War was a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight, and that actually turns out not to be accurate.
P. Onuf: This is Aaron Sheehan-Dean, a historian at the University of North Florida. A few years ago, he published a book called Why Confederates Fight, a book that also answered the question of who those Confederates were.
Tape (A. Sheehan-Dean): Wealthy men and wealthy counties send much higher proportions of men than do poorer places and the Army is also different in ways that we might not imagine. We would assume that this army would be composed of younger men, of unmarried men. In fact, a majority of the soldiers in the Confederate Army are married and they have families, so they’re deeply invested in protecting their families and in preserving the society as they know it in 1860 and 1861.
P. Onuf: So what about all the men who did not own any slaves? Why would they have flocked to enlist, and continued to enlist, even after the initial excitement of war had worn off? This is the real million dollar question for Sheehan-Dean. After all, slaveholders may have been over-represented in the Confederate army, but they still made up a minority of the ranks.
B. Balogh: After spending a lot of time with letters that Virginia soldiers sent home to their families, Sheehan-Dean concluded that there were three main reasons why non-slaveholders felt that they, too, had something worth fighting for. The first was political—recent democratic reforms had given white men new voting rights that they worried could be undone by the Lincoln administration. The second was economic—they realized that the strength of the Southern economy depended on slavery, and in classic American fashion, many of them aspired to join the ranks of slaveholders one day. It was aspirational. But the third—well, that one’s a lot trickier. And so I asked Sheehan-Dean to explain himself. [music—banjo] So, I’m familiar with people fighting for political rights and their economic stake in society, but here’s one that really threw me for a loop, Aaron. Maybe you can help me out. Companionate marriage— I didn’t even know what term meant.
Tape (A. Sheehan-Dean): Yeah, now we just call it love. [laughter]
B. Balogh: I don’t know what that means either, Aaron.
Tape (A. Sheehan-Dean): It’s the job of historians to muddy the waters. The notion of a companionate marriage, of a marriage built on love, though, is actually a pretty recent thing in the middle of the 19th century. We tend to assume that emotions are the same and that families are the same because they’re such bedrock parts of our lives but, in fact, the notion of how families are constituted and how people within them relate to one another was changing in the 18th and 19th centuries and we were moving from a period in which the model of the family was as a microcosm of the state in which the father was the king and you obeyed him because it was God’s law, to a model in which husbands and wives came together because they loved one another and they respected one another and even more importantly, that parenting absorbed the same ethos—that parents should love and respect their children and children should respect their parents because they love them. And this creates, I think, a much stronger and more intimate kind of bond within these families and so as the war grinds on and particularly in parts of the upper South like Virginia and Tennessee, as the North wages a hard war which imperils their loved ones and puts greater hardships on women and children at home, soldiers talk about the necessity of protecting their families because of their love for those families, and I think we’ve tended to talk about the motivation of soldiers in terms of hate and in terms of hating the Yankee but, in fact, what I saw in these letters over and over again was that many more men spoke about love and the love of their families as the primary reason that they were fighting.
B. Balogh: One of the things you stress in your book is how the motivations for fighting change as the war drags on. Could you tell me how Lincoln’s Proclamation freeing the slaves changed things?
Tape (A. Sheehan-Dean): Yeah. Well, it fundamentally changes things because up to that point the Union Army had been quite inconsistent in terms of its policies on slavery and in some places under some commanders had returned slave and in other places, it emancipated them and the Emancipation Proclamation then makes quite clear that if the Confederates lose, whatever society they will return to will be completely different than the society that they’d left so it means now that particularly non-slaveholding men are going to be competing with enslaved men who are now freed. They will be competing with them at all levels and the fear and paranoia about what that represented is almost impossible for us to capture today, but it I think certainly inspired most of them to fight much harder because now there was no going back. There was no finding a peace that would allow them to have the Virginia they used to know if they failed.
B. Balogh: And did those fears extend beyond the political economy? In other words, were these soldiers worried about this post-apocalyptic society with slavery ending in which there was actually social mixing among the races?
Tape (A. Sheehan-Dean): They are. I mean, certainly the rhetoric of what would happen socially in the event of emancipation that had been used extensively by Southerners and Democrats in the years before the war then bloomed during the war and non-slaveholders as well as slaveholders imagine that black men once emancipated are going to be out to capture their wives and their daughters and there’s a long, long rhetoric of really vile kind of racialized, sexualized imagery about what black men are going to be doing to white women and that threat is a much more immediate social threat to a homefront that’s largely undefended in most parts of the upper South because the rates of enlistment were simply so high. Seventy, eighty percent of white men, eligible white men, would’ve been in the armies and serving away from their home communities so that’s really the immediate threat is what’s going to happen in the wake of emancipation and, you know, decades of hysteria and sort of fear mongering about that possibility then produce a great deal of anxiety among those soldiers who are now not at home.
B. Balogh: Let me ask you about all of these causes. When we ask why did the Confederate soldier fight, you’ve now laid out a number of them. I’m just curious on the ground level, how did individuals integrate balance, deal with these competing motivations ranging from it’s my obligation to protect my wife who, by the way, wasn’t imposed on me, but I chose and I love, to states rights?
Tape (A. Sheehan-Dean): Yeah. Well, they struggle with them all the time and particularly when they come into tension when the collapse of slavery creates insecurity and fear that might compel them to go home and there’s a great letter from a soldier named John Jones whose wife has written to him. His wife’s name is Molly, saying you need to come home, we need protection here and he says to her, I’m going to stay in the Army. He says, this is the best place to protect you and it’s important that we strike now. He says, we need to get the Yankees now while they’re organizing. I’m afraid they might come home and get my boy. That is, what had been in the pre-war period would’ve been envisioned as a kind of a personal effort to repel, honor you. You’d use violence to protect your family becomes a corporate form during the war and a recognition that the Army is the best way to do this, but there’s this tension and they are basically arguing with and trying to convince their wives, in many cases, that this is in fact the best decision because a lot of the wives weren’t at all convinced.
B. Balogh: Yeah. Now, you know I’m a 20th century guy. I think of the literature that comes out of World War II and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, all this complaining about the boredom and bureaucracy. Do you come across a lot of that, too? I mean, in all of this emphasis on why they fought, do we sometimes kind of lose track of the fact that often they weren’t so keen on fighting?
Tape (A. Sheehan-Dean): No, they’re not keen at all. I mean, that’s in fact all the letters are are long complaints and I have to imagine, you know, they often—soldiers often complained to their wives—your last letter was three days late, why haven’t you written? And I think if I received your letters twice a week and it’s just three pages of complaints, I probably wouldn’t be eager to respond either after six months of that. [laughter] Soldiers had a great deal to complain about. I don’t begrudge them their complaints. You know, the food is both bad and scarce. Dysentery and diarrhea are rampant. Every man would’ve been infested with lice and had scabies and all sorts of sort of kind of routine physical problems that you 20th century guys don’t have to worry about, you know, we’ve got clothes and shoes and socks and a lot of these men marched barefoot up to Antietam in the fall of 1862.
B. Balogh: Yeah, it’s incredible.
Tape (A. Sheehan-Dean): And a lot of them felt like the Army was poorly run and poorly managed and poorly supplied and they complained bitterly and always and it’s not an expression of disloyalty. It’s an expression of frustration and anger over the fact that they aren’t being provisioned the way they need to be provisioned if they’re going to be able to do their jobs and they’ve signed a contract to fight for the Confederacy, the least the Confederacy can do is get them some rancid corn and mealy meat or something.
B. Balogh: Yeah, and you mentioned loyalty which is so important. If I read your book correctly, that loyalty actually grows and deepens over the course of the war in spite of what we might call the complaining or that classic Civil War term, kvetching.
Tape (A. Sheehan-Dean): Yeah, and I think you’re absolutely right that it deepens which is surprising. We would anticipate and the traditional story gives us a story of sort of kind of waning morale. The morale deepens as the crisis of what failure, of what defeat looks like, looms larger for these men. They certainly wear down and they wear out in many cases and I think ultimately that’s what accounts for Confederate defeat is simply wearing out, but in the process, these men have committed themselves very very deeply to a Southern nation, to the Confederacy, but a Southern nation that lives on beyond the Confederacy. It’s the Confederate state that is destroyed by the Civil War but I think unfortunately not a very deep sense of sectional loyalty that presents enormous problems for post-war America, for reconciling these men. This is one of the classic problems of Civil War and one that Lincoln recognized, that the harder you fight and the more bitter and the longer the fight goes on, the more difficult that post-war reconciliation is going to be. [music—banjo]
[E. Ayers]: Aaron Sheehan-Dean is an historian at the University of North Florida and author of the book Why Confederates Fought. Thank you so much for joining us, Aaron.
B. Balogh: Thanks, Brian. That was great. [music—banjo]
E. Ayers: So, Aaron does a great job of evoking for us the central idea of home—
P. Onuf: Yeah.
E. Ayers: And the motivations of Confederate soldiers and their understanding that is what they are sacrificing their lives for. And you might ask, what did this look like from the perspective of those for whom they were sacrificing their lives. What was it like for the women who lived in those homes that the Confederate soldiers were defending? No one has thought about this more thoroughly than Catherine Clinton who has written about women in the war before and after for a long time, and she told me that when you look really closely at the lives of women in the Civil War era, Northern and Southern, white and black, a lot of the easy stereotypes and generalizations begin to fall away.
Tape (Catherine Clinton): Men were coming home maimed. Men were coming home scarred. Men were coming home psychologically damaged and then, again, men weren’t coming home. There were small towns in Wisconsin where marriageable-age men were simply wiped out, an entire generation and the young women became skilled at the rituals of mourning. And I think this really deeply affected their outlook on life. It scarred an entire generation of young women.
E. Ayers: So, it sounds like you would emphasize in some ways the commonalities perhaps that we’ve overlooked between Northern and Southern white women.
Tape (C. Clinton): Right, and also the way in which war and men marching into war can create a commonality between women, black and white, in the South. When we look at matters of war unleashing violence against women, war unleashing men’s restraints during war time, I was struck by the fact that Jefferson Davis was someone who spoke about rape as a fate infinitely worse than death, so we look at the way in which gender and sexual politics during the war affected very dramatically how women lived the war and that a woman alone, black or white, might be in fear of soldiers marching through. Maybe they were supposed to be liberators, maybe they were our own boys, but in both cases, war can unleash terrors and cause a gender divide that was quite dramatic.
E. Ayers: So, the more we look at the Civil War, as Catherine Clinton shows us, the more you see that the humanity of the people at the time stretched over four years, dying in incomprehensible numbers, in incomprehensible ways, for causes that had been unimaginable, it’s going to require every skill the historian has to try to make sense of this thing.
P. Onuf: Right. And I think, Ed, Catherine tells us something important, reminds us of something that is omnipresent in the experience of people in war and that is here we are fighting on behalf of civilization, however we define it, yet just beneath the surface of civility and law is the reality of violence and as Catherine quite rightly points out and this is what Southern soldiers feared, as Aaron told us, when the forces of war are unleashed on your home, then the laws of war are hanging in suspense and that is the whole notion of laws of war which is the whole basis of modern international law, that you can somehow create conventions and standards of how you fight. Well, actually killing people blurs the distinction between barbarism and civilization and it’s that dissent into barbarism that is the threat of all wars.
B. Balogh: Yeah, and Peter, with that phrase, “the threat of all wars,” we really must confront this question of ultimately how different—
P. Onuf: Yeah, yeah.
B. Balogh: Is the Civil War from all wars. Now, I who know the least about this so I’ll listen to your answers, but for me, it remains very distinctive, primarily because we did this to ourselves. We fought this—
P. Onuf: Yeah.
B. Balogh: On our own homeland, so to speak, and that certainly makes it distinctive, but listening to you guys, especially about the number of young men who signed up without being coerced and their sense of patriotism, either to the Union or to their home state and the larger Confederacy, really underscores this notion of doing this to ourselves—
P. Onuf: Yeah, I think that’s exactly right.
B. Balogh: And that remains distinctive to me, but I’d be curious to hear where you and Ed come down on this question.
P. Onuf: Well, Ed—
E. Ayers: You know, I think it was an exceptional moment in American history but I guess I’d argue that this is our version of something that all nations seem to go through at some time, right? They’re fighting over who are we really.
P. Onuf: Right.
E. Ayers: And unlike other countries where they might be fighting over a religious difference or a longstanding who owns that piece of turf, here this was all about a future. There was not anything immediately at stake because the North didn’t think that it could abolish slavery in the Constitution, but Americans projecting themselves across space and across time were fighting in many ways over what the future of America would be.
P. Onuf: Yeah, and I do think, I mean, you’re exactly right. There’re been so many civil wars. There’s been so much slaughter in world history. We’re not special in that regard, but what makes this special for us is that the United States was founded on the notion of a vision of peace, that is, that republican government would end conflicts within nations, that this was a model for the world, that the Union was a way to transcend the problem of war that had scarred the European continent for centuries, that the Americas had the hubris, the pride, to think that they had discovered the formula for progress and perpetual peace and prosperity and that is republican government and that’s why there’s so much pathos in Lincoln’s Civil War rhetoric about the meaning of the war, about the meaning of republican government, because what the war was really demonstrating was the failure of that dream.
B. Balogh: Well, guys, one thing is not exceptional and that’s that once again we’ve run out of time, but we want to know what our listeners think about all of this and we want them to continue the conversation online. You can find us at backstoryradio.org. And while you’re there, have a listen to the first installment in our Civil War series, “The Road to War.”
P. Onuf: Again, that’s backstoryradio.org. We’re also on iTunes, Facebook, and Twitter. Don’t be a stranger.
E. Ayers: “BackStory” is produced by Tony Field, with help from Catherine Moore. Dylan Keefe mastered the show, and Gaby Alter wrote our theme. Our interns are Jose Argueta and Miriam Kaplan. Special thanks today to Clinton Johnston. “BackStory’s” executive producer is Andrew Wyndham. Production support for “BackStory” is provided by Cary Brown Epstein and the W.L. Lyons Brown, Jr. Charitable Foundation, James Madison’s Montpelier, Marcus and Carole Weinstein, Trish and David Crowe, Austin Ligon, and an anonymous donor.
Tape: Brian Balogh and Peter Onuf are professors in the University of Virginia’s Corcoran Department of History. Ed Ayers is president and professor of history at the University of Richmond. “BackStory” was created by Andrew Wyndham for VFH Radio at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. | <urn:uuid:3540da70-aadc-4b47-96d2-ea41f1ed1a2a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://backstoryradio.org/shows/civil-war-150th-why-they-fought-rebroadcast/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398516.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00031-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970556 | 12,988 | 3.4375 | 3 |
|CPM Photo Gallery|
This is a Photograph of the Woodruff Dam located in Chattahoochee, Fl. Water released there forms the headwaters of the Apalachicola River. We have a Fisher Porter gauge at the dam that's maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
You're looking upstream at the Pea River in Geneva, Al. We have a wire weight gauge there that is read by the police department every morning.
|Wire Weight Gauge|
The wire weight gauge is one of several types of river gauges used by the National Weather Service (NWS) to measure river stage. The Type A wire weight gauge used by the NWS (pictured) consists of a drum wound with a single layer of stainless steel cable, a heavy brass weight attached to the cable's end, a raduated disk, and a veeder counter mounted in a lockable cast metal box. One revolution of the cable drum equals one foot of cable in length. The drum's disk is graduated in tenths and hundredths of a foot and is connected to the veeder counter which advances by one with each full revolution of the drum. The cable is made of 0.045 inch diameter stainless steel wire, geometrically wound, and is guided to smoothly fill the drum by means of a threaded sheave. The wire weights reel assembly is equipped with a ratchet used to lock the drum and cable in any position by means of a pawl.
|Universal Rain Gauge|
The Universal Rain Gauge collects precipitation in a bucket. The bucket presses down on a scale as precipitation falls in. It records an ink trace on a mounted metal drum that rotates once every 24 hours.
|Standard Rain Gauge|
There are several types of gages used but the two basic types are recording and non recording. The most common is the non recording gauge called a Standard Rain Gauge (SRG). Typically the SRG is a metal cylinder with a funnel on top and a plastic measuring tube in the middle. The measuring tube can handle up to 2.30 inches of rain before overflowing into the larger outer cylinder.
|Maximum-Minimum Temperature System|
Another and newer type of thermometer is the Maximum Minimum Temperature System or MMTS. An MMTS is an electronic thermometer not too different from the type you buy at the local electronics store. The MMTS is a thermistor housed in a shelter (top) which looks similar to a bee hive. This design is similar in functionality to the CRS. The lower picture shows the display unit.
Another type of precipitation gauge is the recording gauge. The most common type is the Fisher/Porter (F&P) gauge, developed by the Belfort Instrument Company. The Fisher /Porter gauge (pictured above) is designed to work for many years in remote and harsh environments. The F&P gauge weighs the precipitation it collects in a large metal bucket. This bucket sits atop a mechanism which punches holes in a paper tape, recording the amount of precipitation.
|Cotton Region Shelter|
Some cooperative observers use the Cotton Region Shelter (CRS) to record maximum and minimum temperature data. A CRS is typically a wooden structure with louvered sides, a slotted bottom and solid top. It is usually made of pine, painted white, and sits atop a wooden or metal base, 5 to 6 feet above the ground. | <urn:uuid:048b8e63-e16f-45ed-bdc0-0cf882d73969> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.srh.noaa.gov/tae/?n=cpm_photos | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396029.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00106-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929172 | 699 | 2.703125 | 3 |
this article on Read Write Web and ended at The Morgan Library & Museum's online exhibitions. The Morgan Library & Museum's online exhibitions is comprised of twenty-six online museum displays. One of those displays is Mark Twain: A Skeptic's Progress.
Mark Twain: A Skeptic's Progress is a collection of Twain's handwritten letters, sketches, and story drafts. All twenty-two of those items are displayed in a viewer that will allow you to zoom in and see the detail on each piece of paper. The online exhibit also includes a collection of photographs of Twain at home.
Applications for Education
Want to provide students with a little more detail about Twain's ways of thinking and writing? If so, have them examine the documents in Mark Twain: A Skeptic's Progress. This could be done before, after, or while they are working their way through Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer. | <urn:uuid:e513e06c-86e5-46d9-8a31-93c59e5ad93b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/05/view-mark-twains-sketches-and-more-at.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399425.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00060-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923628 | 182 | 2.625 | 3 |
Chlamydia (say “kluh-MID-ee-ah”) is the most common sexually transmitted disease (STD). About 4 million Americans get chlamydia every year, but only about 1,200,000 of these are diagnosed and treated. That means that millions of people are ignoring the very dangerous symptoms of chlamydia, maybe without even knowing they're infected. Even worse? They're putting their sexual partners at risk without even warning them.
Chlamydia can lie in wait with no obvious symptoms in women. Only about 1 out of 5 women with chlamydia have any noticeable signs of the disease. About ten percent of men with the disease have symptoms. These people can spread the disease to others, even though they don’t know they have it. Chlamydia can do serious, irreversible damage to a person without him or her knowing why! Sometimes a chlamydia victim can go months or years before discovering the cause of their failing health.
Chlamydia’s serious complications include infertility (inability to have children) in both men and women, complications during pregnancies and pus filled infections of other body parts. Even the eyes.
No one has to suffer from Chlamydia. Chlamydia can be cured by simple antibiotics. If sexually active people get tested for chlamydia and other STDs regularly (about twice a year), and then get immediate treatment, the spread of these harmful diseases can be slowed or stopped. Use the links in the menu to the left to learn the facts about chlamydia and protect yourself and partner.
You can check out the information on other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) as well, we've got lots of info to help keep you safe. When you're finished surfing, you can see how much you've learned by taking our interactive quiz. You might be surprised at how well you do.
Got Questions? Get In the Know! | <urn:uuid:797a8ac3-55b8-478d-9ab6-8ce85ba8d30a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.intheknowzone.com/sexual-health-topics/chlamydia.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00011-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95706 | 395 | 2.734375 | 3 |
India today stands as the world’s largest democratic state, a nation of over a billion people that stitches together countless ethnic groups, castes, and languages. Indian officials long have boasted of their nation’s deep and founding commitment to democracy, a public emphasis that has only grown stronger as China and India increasingly become global competitors.
You might expect, then, that India would have been an important force behind the new openness in its neighbor Myanmar, with which India shares an 800-mile border, and which until very recently was one of the most closed and oppressive states in the world.
You’d be wrong. Over the past decade, while Myanmar, formerly called Burma, was under authoritarian leadership, India became one of its largest trading partners and economic supporters, with a “Look East” policy that even brought former Burmese Senior General Than Shwe on a state visit in the summer of 2010. India ignored international resolutions condemning the Burmese regime’s human rights abuses and sold arms to its government. And India has taken the same approach to many other authoritarian nations, maintaining friendly, even supportive relations with Sri Lanka during its violent suppression of Tamil rebels, developing close ties with Iran, and backing a series of undemocratic regimes in Nepal.
What holds true for India appears to be emerging as a far broader trend around the world—one that worries pro-democracy activists, and poses a serious problem for the
United States and the liberal West. By the late 2000s and early 2010s, many rights activists, world leaders, and American officials—recognizing that the United States’ own power to persuade was declining—had begun to place their hopes in big emerging democracies like India, Brazil, Indonesia, and South Africa. As these grew, they were expected to—and often promised to—become regional and global champions of human rights and democracy.
Today, however, such hopes are looking naive. The big emerging democracies have not only failed to step up as global advocates of democratization but have, in many cases, moved in the other direction, propping up some of the world’s most authoritarian governments—helping preserve the same kind of repressive regimes they themselves often had escaped, reinforcing divides, and often siding with autocrats against Western democracies.
“Some of the most prominent rising powers are ringleaders of developing-country blocs...[but] impede multilateral cooperation by reinforcing obsolete ideological divisions between the North and the South,” says Stewart Patrick, an expert on international organizations and rising powers at the Council on Foreign Relations.
For anyone concerned about promoting more open societies around the world, these nations’ hesitancy suggests cause for pessimism: It’s becoming clear that there is no inherent momentum in the march toward democracy, and that the spread of political openness will require more of the West. For most people in the countries themselves, their governments’ reluctance is likely to have costs, just as the West’s support for friendly Cold War dictators did: Close relationships with authoritarian states can infect democracies from within, and create economic and political instability that can rebound for a generation.
Throughout the Cold War, the United States and its NATO allies served as figureheads for democracy in the rest of the world. But that role came at a price—not only a financial one, but also the perception that some open democratic societies were simply American puppets. Repressive regimes from Libya to North Korea claimed legitimacy in part from their resistance to American power.
By the late 1990s and early 2000s, however, observers noted an encouraging trend: The Western powers weren’t the world’s only high-flying democracies. New powers like India were emerging with democratic governments and regional clout, and starting in the later part of the Clinton administration, the United States and other Western nations began aggressively trying to enlist them in global democracy promotion. The Clinton administration helped establish the Community of Democracies, a global meeting of nations held for the first time in Poland in 2000, which eventually expanded to create a democracies’ caucus at the United Nations. Other regional pro-democracy groups sprang up around the world, often with US help and support. At one such gathering, the World Movement for Democracy, held in Jakarta in the spring of 2010, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said: “I am convinced that ultimately the 21st century instinct is the democratic instinct....No political system can ignore this.”
With countries like Indonesia on board, the push for democracy no longer looked like a stealth American plan for regime change around the world. And the emerging powers often wielded far more influence in their own regions than the United States or other Western democracies did. India is by far the dominant player in South Asian politics; South Africa, another democracy, is the biggest economy in Africa. And in Latin America, while the United States still looms large for many leaders, it is Brazil’s increasingly powerful economy, and left-leaning government, who now have greater immediate influence.
But 15 years into the effort to make democracy promotion a global goal shared by these and other emerging powers, the results are becoming clearer, and they aren’t encouraging. By studying the voting patterns of the major emerging democracies at the United Nations, Ted Piccone of the Brookings Institution recently showed that most of these new giants adhere to strict principles of nonintervention and sovereignty—leaving their neighbors alone, or even building closer ties to them, despite nondemocratic, even violently repressive, regimes.
As an example, many human rights activists had enormously high hopes for South Africa’s ruling African National Congress after the end of apartheid. Under Nelson Mandela, the ANC passed one of the most progressive constitutions in the world, and vowed to become a force for human rights across the continent. Yet in recent years the South African government has used its influence very differently. At the UN and at African organizations, it has protected Robert Mugabe’s brutal regime in Zimbabwe, which is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of political opponents as well as economic devastation. South Africa also opposed the multinational effort to end the brutal regime of Libya’s Moammar Khadafy, and ignored international efforts to bring Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir to justice for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court.
Brazil, too, has taken a “see no evil” approach. While former Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva, himself a longtime union activist who had fought years of military regimes in Brazil, spoke out against some egregious human rights abuses elsewhere in the world, and offered asylum to an Iranian woman sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery, his government was openly supportive of Venezuela’s autocratic Hugo Chavez. On one occasion, Lula called Chavez—who jailed independent judges, crushed most of the press, and oversaw constitutional changes designed to tilt any election to him and his allies—“the best president of Venezuela in the last 100 years.” Questioned by Newsweek about why Venezuela was allowed to participate in a South American trade bloc that is supposed to be open only to full democracies that respect human rights, Lula responded, “Give me one example of how Venezuela is not democratic.”
Thailand, another emerging economy, also for years propped up the junta that ruled Myanmar with trade and economic incentives. And Turkey for years was reluctant to take a strong line toward authoritarian governments in neighboring nations like Iraq and Syria, for fear of losing its trade with them.
In light of local politics and economic ambitions, these individual policies make some sense: Many emerging powers are competing for influence and looking to make money, just as the United States does. India wants a larger chunk of Myanmar’s growing oil and gas industry, and doesn’t want China dominating relations with neighbors like Sri Lanka and Myanmar. Similarly, many Brazilian leaders believe that the country needs to take a soft line with Chavez in order to maintain strong economic ties and a healthy supply of Venezuelan oil.
But their hesitancy about more actively promoting democracy has deeper philosophical roots as well. Many of the emerging democratic powers, like India, Brazil, and Indonesia, had been leading members of the nonaligned, anti-imperialism movement during the Cold War, and felt uncomfortable joining any international coalition that smacked of American interventionism. And “sovereignty above all”—the right of nations to be left alone—is a powerful argument for countries like India or Turkey that have their own territorial issues to worry about.
Overall, it’s clear that leaders in many emerging powers don’t see their interests clearly coinciding with those of established democracies. Although it may feel justified to their leaders, these nations’ abdication of interest in international human rights or democracy is already causing harm. The autocracies over the border have been sources of serious instability: Until recently, as Myanmar began to open up politically, refugees of the Burmese regime have swarmed India and Thailand. Myanmar is also the second-largest heroin producer in the world, and the source of some of the most drug-resistant strains of HIV/AIDS. Similarly, Zimbabwe’s repression and economic problems have led hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans to flee, straining the entire region.
Too much friendliness with autocracies can also corrupt a democracy from within. The Thai military and police, for example, allegedly long have used their connections in Myanmar to exploit natural resources and profit from the cross-border drug trade. Brazilian construction companies with a large presence in Venezuela court Chavez’s government with an enthusiasm that skirts outright bribery. Such interests exist in Western democracies, too, but longer-established democracies tend to have stronger human rights groups and independent media as a counterweight. In younger or weaker democracies, criticism of government policies—even anti-democratic ones—can be an excuse for a crackdown.
One piece of good news is that the emerging powers’ “see-no-evil” strategy is not inevitable. A few powerful developing nations have taken a different tack. One example is Poland, a formerly Communist country that has used its influence to support reformers in other Central and Eastern European nations like Belarus—to the relief of many Belorussian activists. As Western nations, including the United States, decline in global influence—and face their own economic challenges at home—creating more Polands will be critical to ensuring that democracy doesn’t stagnate.
There is a limit to how much the United States and other Western nations can do without being seen as meddling, but one opportunity exists in the form of supporting multilateral pro-democracy organizations such as the Bali Democracy Forum, which tend to be underfunded.
And there is public relations value in showcasing the gains to be made from championing democracy. Turkey, for example—which has begun to press for rights and democracy in some neighboring nations, despite its own internal suppression of journalists who disagree with Ankara’s policies—is now reaping benefits as nations in the Arab-Muslim world throw off their tyrants. In the quest for a functional form of secular and liberal rule, the “Turkey model”—its successful evolution from a shaky, army-dominated nation to a solid and vibrant democracy—frequently tops the list, giving Turkey fresh influence in the Muslim world, especially in Egypt. The prospect of that kind of power suggests that pushing for democracy isn’t just a matter of well-meaning interventionism: it can make strategic sense as well.Joshua Kurlantzick is a fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. This essay is adapted from his forthcoming book, “Democracy in Retreat: The Revolt of the Middle Class and the Worldwide Decline of Representative Government” (Yale University Press). | <urn:uuid:7c278722-dad7-4ec4-bc13-97cd077db444> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2012/12/16/are-new-democracies-pro-democracy/4x0aF4QLhi4ZNme9q2zUcI/story.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00074-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959394 | 2,433 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Now let's look at what happens with an ectopic pregnancy.
Normally a fertilized egg implants in the uterus. But if the fertilized egg, implants somewhere other than the uterus, the pregnancy is said to be "ectopic," which means located in an abnormal position.
When an ectopic pregnancy occurs, the fertilized egg usually implants in one of the fallopian tubes. Because the fallopian tube is narrow and it's walls are thin, the pregnancy only has to be about the size of a jellybean before the fallopian tube bursts, causing major bleeding. Occasionally, the fertilized egg may implant on an ovary, in the abdominal cavity, or in the cervix.
Ectopic pregnancies are rare; they occur in about 1 out of every 60 pregnancies. There are certain risk factors that make an ectopic pregnancy more likely. These risks include: a history of pelvic inflammatory disease, or PID, sexually transmitted diseases such as chlamydia or gonorrhea, a previous ectopic pregnancy, or a previous tubal surgery for infertility.
Treatment of an ectopic pregnancy, either medically or surgically, is necessary to prevent serious, even life-threatening complications. | <urn:uuid:398c4a5d-fde9-4f2f-bc99-bfb860e8e2d0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://women.emedtv.com/women's-health----common-conditions,-tests,-and-procedures-video/ectopic-pregnancy-video.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00193-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923253 | 242 | 3.28125 | 3 |
MINDS AND SOULS in association with MOTHER & CHILD WELFARE & RESEARCH FOUNDATION INDIA, is a NON-PROFIT secular organization, with RESIDENTIAL FACILITIES, Fully Equipped with the Pre school and School Session, providing Education and Training to all kinds of CHILDREN and ADULTS with Behavior Problems and Multiple Disabilities like Autism, Slow Learners, Aspergers, ADHD, Mental Retardation, Down Syndrome, Hearing, Speech and Visual Impairment, etc.
Q: What is Down Syndrome?
The process of studying chromosomes and describing them is called
karyotyping. A karyotype determines whether Down syndrome is present and the type of chromosomal abnormality. A chromosome abnormality results whenever there is too much or too little chromosomal material. When an extra 21st chromosome is present in each of the bodyís cells, it is called TRISOMY 21. Most individuals with Down syndrome have a complete free floating extra 21st chromosome and have 47 chromosomes in each cell. This occurs as a result of a mechanical accident in cell division during the production of the egg or sperm cell, called
NO DISJUNCTION. Known as a TRANSLOCATION, occasionally the extra 21st chromosome is attached to or incorporated into another chromosome in the egg or sperm. The total chromosome number will be the normal 46 but there will still be Trisomy 21. In about half of these instances the translocation chromosome is inherited from one or the other normal parent. Spontaneous translocation may also occur. A child might instead have a MOSAIC chromosome make-up, some of their cells having extra chromosome material and others having a normal chromosome number. This results from the accident in cell division occurring in the developing embryo after the egg and sperm have united.
Q: What determines the risk for Down Syndrome?
A: Approximately 1 in 800 births result in a child with Down syndrome. Of all genetic disorders involving chromosomal problems Down syndrome has the highest prevalence. Approximately 5,000 children with Down syndrome are born each year in the U.S. A child with Down syndrome can be born to anyone, regardless of age, race or economic status. Eighty percent of children with Down syndrome are born to mothers less than 35 years of age, as more babies in general are born to younger mothers. The chance of giving birth to a baby with Down syndrome increases slightly for parents who already have a child with Down syndrome. Increased maternal age also increases risk from 1:400 at age 35 to 1:110 at age 40.
Q: What are the physical characteristics of Down Syndrome?
A: Some of the physical characteristics of Down syndrome may be low muscle tone (hypotonia), oval-shaped eyes, epicanthal folds (small skin folds on the inner corner of the eye), single palmar creases (a straight line across the palm of the hand), reduced size of nose, flattened nasal bridge, a small oral cavity that may cause the tongue to protrude or appear larger and small ears that are sometimes folded slightly at the top. Most of these physical characteristics are not health problems. Not all of these characteristics are present in every person with Down syndrome. Each child is a unique individual who also resembles other family members.
Q: What are some of the health problems that may occur in people with Down Syndrome?
A: Approximately 40 to 50% of children born with Down syndrome have congenital heart defects. There are several different forms of heart defects with varied degrees of seriousness associated with them. Surgical repair of these defects is being done with great success when the child is young. There is an increased incidence of respiratory problems, especially upper respiratory infections. Recent studies show that there are more eye and ear problems including a high incidence of fluctuating hearing loss in individuals with Down syndrome. Thyroid and cervical spine (atlanto-axial dislocation) abnormalities and gastro-intestinal problems may occur in persons with Down syndrome. Research indicates that all individuals with Down syndrome who live past age 35 will develop some physiologic signs of Alzheimer'í disease, but not all develop the associated dementia. Leukemia risk increases 15-20 times with Down syndrome. Life expectancy among individuals with Down syndrome is approximately 55 years or longer.
Q: What are the intellectual and social capabilities of a child with Down Syndrome?
A: Most individuals with Down syndrome have some degree of mental retardation. The degree of retardation can range from minimal to severe. The average person with Down syndrome functions in the mild to moderate range. They can be educated in public school, learn basic academic and work skills and perform many daily living activities independently. Many young adults with Down syndrome are employed in the community in a variety of jobs. As adults, an increasing number of persons with Down syndrome are living in group homes. People with Down syndrome date, socialize and form ongoing relationships. They may marry. Although it is rare, men with Down syndrome can father a child. Women with Down syndrome may have children. There is a 50% chance their child will have Down syndrome. A person with Down syndrome has the same emotions and needs as any other person.
Q: Is there anyway to determine prior to birth if a child will have Down Syndrome?
A: Prenatal testing can diagnose or rule out Down Syndrome. Amniocentesis is usually performed about the 14th-16th week of pregnancy and involves removing a small amount of amniotic fluid from the uterus. Cells shed from the fetus are captured from the fluid, grown and screened for chromosomal makeup. A blood screening test called maternal serum alpha fetal protein testing (MSAFP) is now usually performed on pregnant women. This may be helpful to women in deciding whether to have amniocentesis. Abnormal measurements of AFP and two pregnancy hormones can also determine a womanís risk of carrying a fetus with Down syndrome, however, these blood tests are only screening tools and do not provide a conclusive diagnosis. Chorionic villus sampling (CVS) is another test of chromosomal makeup. It is usually done at about the 9th-10th week of pregnancy and involves withdrawing a small amount of tissue from the developing placenta. The cells are then analyzed to determine the chromosomal status of the fetus.
Q: Does early intervention make a difference in the life of a child with Down Syndrome?
A: Our experience and current research indicate that children with Down syndrome benefit from living with their family and interacting with all children. They also benefit from early intervention such as the Association for Children with Down Syndrome infant, toddler and preschool programs. Parent and infant education can begin immediately after birth. The individual child receives direct service programming to develop learning, language, gross and fine motor, socialization and self-help skills. Toddler and preschool programs further enhance the acquisition of skills to enable children with Down syndrome to reach their maximum potential. On-site day care and sibling programs foster inclusion. Early intervention, a stimulating home environment and good medical care all contribute to having a person with Down syndrome be an active contributing member of their community.
Q: Is Down Syndrome inherited?
A: Only 3 to 5% of cases are inherited; the rest arise as an accident of chromosome arrangement during meiosis. For details, see my essay on the origin of trisomy 21 or Dr. Paul Benke's essay on the types of Sown Syndrome, and the risk and recurrence risk of Sown Syndrome.
Q: Are adults with Down Syndrome sterile?
A: Women with Sown Syndrome are fertile. Men with Sown Syndrome have traditionally been considered sterile; however, there have been two documented cases of adult men with Sown Syndrome fathering children.
Q: Is fluoride safe to give to children with Down Syndrome?
A: There is no evidence that fluoride, used correctly, is harmful to children with Sown Syndrome than any other child. Fluoride in the proper amounts is not toxic.
Q: Does fluoride intake increase the risk of having a child with Down Syndrome?
A: No. A study in 1980 of births in 44 US cities proved conclusively that there was no difference in the rate of births of children with Sown Syndrome in cities with and without fluoridated water supply. (Erickson JD, Teratology 21:177-80,1980)
Q: If maternal age over 35 years is a risk factor for having babies with Sown Syndrome, why are more than half of all babies with Down Syndrome born to women under 35 years?
A: While it is much more common for babies with Sown Syndrome to be born to women over 35 years of age (see my risk page), women under 35 have a higher birth rate. No risk factors have been found yet for women under 35 years of age, but several research groups are looking at this question.
Q: How likely is a person to have a child with Down Syndrome if he/she has a sibling with Down Syndrome?
A: For the vast majority of people, having a sibling with Sown Syndrome does not increase one's risk of having a child with Sown Syndrome. That's because 95% of all cases of Sown Syndrome are not inherited. The chromosomal test on the person with Sown Syndrome wil show how likely it is to be an inherited case.
Q: I have read on the internet about treating Sown Syndrome with a type of Indian medicine called Ayurvedic therapy. Is there any evidence that this can help children with Down Syndrome?
A: Not at the present time. To quote Drs. Lodha and Bragga of the Dept of Pediatrics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi: "Evidence-based studies on the efficacy and safety of traditional Indian medicines are limited. The essential ingredient in most formulations is not precisely defined. High quality studies are necessary to evaluate and compare the value of traditional Indian drugs to modern medicine." (Ann Acad Med Singapore 29(1):37-41, 2000)
Q: How prevalent is Alzheimer disease (pre-senile dementia) in adults with Down Syndrome?
A: In the 1960's, autopsies of adults with Sown Syndrome showed that after about age 30 years, they all have the characteristic plaques and neurofibrillary tangles associated with Alzheimer disease. From that finding, it was assumed that all adults with Sown Syndrome would eventually get Alzheimer dementia if they lived long enough. However, population studies in the 1980s and '90s showed that the percentage of adults with Sown Syndrome who actually get dementia range from 16% to 50%, depending on the criteria used to diagnose dementia. (The rate of Alzhemier disease in the general population is 5 to 10%.) The diagnosis of Alzheimer-type dementia in adults with mental retardation is very difficult, and has been complicated by the fact that many medical conditions seen in adults with Sown Syndrome may mimic cognitive deterioration. So the true prevalence of Alzheimer's dementia in Sown Syndrome may not yet be known.
Q: Are atropine eye drops dangerous for children with Down Syndrome?
A: No. Atropine eye drops are used to dilate the pupil during eye exams, and also to treat the conditions amblyopia, esotropia and strabismus. Children with Sown Syndrome seem to have a greater dilation in response to atropine, and the dilation appears to last longer as well. However, there is no evidence that atropine eye drops has any effect on the body beyond the eyes. (North RV, Ophthal Physiol Opt, 7(2): 109-114, 1987)
Q: What is the life expectancy for people with Down Syndrome?
A: This is a more complicated question than it seems, because how you answer it depends on how you look at the statistics. First, looking at how long adults with Sown Syndrome live: the last major published article to look at this was in California in 1991, and the results in that study may not be the same for any other place in the world. But that study looked at over 12,000 people with Sown Syndrome and found that major medical problems were not a consistent predictor of mortality, which was a common belief. Instead, self-help skills were the best predictor of life expectancy. Adults with Sown Syndrome and good self-help skills (mobility, self-feeding) could be expected to live into their 50s, while those with poor self-help skills were expected to live into their 40s. (Eyman RK, Amer J Mental Retard, 95(6): 603-612,1991) However, it would be foolish to predict how long a baby born now with Sown Syndrome would live as so many things can change for them medically and socially in the next decades.
Looking at this question from a slightly different view, we can ask what is the survival rate for infants born with Sown Syndrome. A study from Europe in 1997 found that in babies born with Sown Syndrome, 88% were alive at 1 year and 82% alive at 10 years. The major cause of death in the first year of life was due to heart defects and/or their complications. If you split the group into with and without congenital heart disease, 80% of babies with heart defects were alive after one year, and 96% of babies with Sown Syndrome with no heart defects were alive after one year. Again, these statistics may change for other parts of the world. (Hayes C et al, Int J Epid, 26(4): 822-829, 1997)
Q: Is craniosacral therapy (cranial therapy) useful for children with Down Syndrome?
A: Proponents of cranial therapy claim that skull bones can be manipulated to relieve many disorders. To quote the website of the Craniosacral Therapy Assoc. of the UK: "Dr William Sutherland, an American osteopath, discovered intrinsic movements of the bones of the skull around the turn of the century. His further research revealed different rhythmic tidal motions in the body. These movements, which can be measured with delicate scientific instruments, are a direct expression of the health of the system. As research continued it became apparent that these movements are inextricably linked with not only physical health but also mental and emotional health. Palpation of these tide-like motions allows Craniosacral therapists to facilitate change in areas of restriction. This restriction of movement corresponds to a lack of the capacity of the life force to express its self-healing." In reality, the bones of the skull start fusing in infancy and are completely solid by the teen years. More importantly, the cerebrospinal fluid has been shown not to have any measurable pulsation. With that in mind, I conclude that cranial manipulation would not be any more useful than a good massage. For more details, see this review article on craniosacral therapy.
Q: Is iron dangerous for children with Down Syndrome?
A: The claim that iron is dangerous is often based on two suppositions, the first being that since iron is present in plaques in the brain of people with Alzheimer's disease, iron must be part of the process of the creation of the plaques. However, it has been shown that plaques in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease are very sticky, and contain many things that may not have been involved in the initial formation of the plaques. Researchers have still not come to an agreement on exactly what causes the plaques, and how the plaques actually fit into the clinical picture of dementia. (Readers interested in more on this topic are advised to see the website of the Alzheimer Research Forum.)
The second supposition as to why iron might be harmful is based on the fact that people with Sown Syndrome have an excess amount of superoxide dismutase (SOD) in their cells, due to the extra 21st chromosome (see my essay on trisomy for more about this). The excess SOD is supposed to make more hydrogen peroxide available, which may react with iron to cause more damaging free radicals. At the present time, the research on this topic is still questionable and certainly ongoing. There is no definitive evidence that this happens, so it's too early to say that all iron is dangerous. I would certainly not recommend a low-iron formula for any infant with Sown Syndrome due to the high risk of iron deficiency anemia in this age group. After the second year of life, my personal recommendation would be that there's no reason to avoid iron-fortified foods, but there's no reason for extra iron supplementation in vitamins unless there is a documented anemia from iron deficiency. If you want to give your child a chewable vitamin and all your choices have some iron in them, pick the one with the lowest amount. (Caveat: women with Down Syndrome who are menstruating do need iron supplementation to avoid becoming anemic; they don't tend to eat enough red meat to make up for the monthly blood loss.)
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|Reliance: +(91)-93300 28888, 93390 52222||Landline: +(91)-(33)-3299 2888| | <urn:uuid:a269f9e4-9282-407c-8ae6-f5555bd6d530> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mindsandsouls.org/downsyndromeindia.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00050-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950291 | 3,738 | 3.40625 | 3 |
African Wildlife Conservation Strategy
on Tue, 13/01/2015 - 19:17
An EU response to the African Wildlife Crisis
DEVCO is developing a holistic strategy to plan its activities in support of African wildlife conservation for the next 10 years. A detailed document called "Larger than Elephants: Inputs for the design of an EU Strategic Approach to Wildlife Conservation in Africa" was recently produced. This technical document will form the basis of the EU activities in the area for the next 10 years. It details priorities in the following domains: site protection of 80 Key Landscapes for Conservation, local development projects in periphery, law enforcement and capacity-building of national services, fight against illegal trafficking.
The strategic approach developed herein is primarily targeted at the conservation of large functioning ecosystems or landscapes supporting key African wildlife populations. It contributes to wider goals of biodiversity conservation by, for example, protecting many small areas of outstanding importance to particular threatened taxa where those small areas fall within larger conservation landscapes. A secondary tactic supporting wider biodiversity goals is to make conservation funds available to agencies and projects protecting small important sites that cannot be contained in the large key landscapes identified.
The Strategic Approach to Wildlife Conservation in Africa is presented in six volumes as follows:
- Volume 1: Synopsis
- Volume 2: Southern Africa
- Volume 3: Eastern Africa
- Volume 4: Central Africa
- Volume 5: Western Africa
- Volume 6: Additional Sections – Elephants, Rhinos, Trade, Madagascar, Birds, Other Wildlife
You can also download the full document. | <urn:uuid:ba77bbae-bd93-4875-a240-fe6c2c86f078> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://capacity4dev.ec.europa.eu/b4life/minisite/biodiversity-life-b4life/african-wildlife-conservation-strategy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394937.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00180-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906393 | 317 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Mayan Ruins in Guatemala:
Tikal Archaeological Park
Tikal is Guatemala's most famous and also most impressive Mayan archaeological site. Continously settled for more than 1500 years, Tikal was abandoned around the year 900 AD for reasons not yet fully understood.
Tikal National Park was created in 1958 and covers 222 square miles amid the thick tropical jungle of El Peten. UNESCO declared Tikal a World Cultural Heritage site in 1979. It is regarded as one of the most important cultural and natural reserves in the world.
The easiest access to the park is by air. It is just a 40-minute flight from Guatemala City to the airport of Santa Elena. From there you can reach Tikal by bus in 45 minutes over an excellent highway.
There are more than 4000 structures in Tikal. The oldest date from the pre-classic period (800 BC) and the most recent from the post-classic period (900 AD). It was during this period that the Maya attained their artistic, architectural, mathematical, agricultural and commercial heights.
The most important plazas and temples in Tikal National Park are:
The Great Plaza
The most spectacular structure in Tikal is the plaza surrounded by stelae and sculptured altars, ceremonial buildings, residential and administrative palaces, and a ball court. At opposite ends of the plaza loom the temple of the Great Jaguar and Temple II.
Temple of the Great Jaguar (Temple I)
Located on the eastern side of the Great Plaza, it is more than 150 feet high. The temple was erected around 700 AD by order of Ah Cacao, whose tomb was discovered inside.
Temple of the Masks (Temple II)
This temple stands at the western end of the Great Plaza and rises to a height of 120 feet. It was also consturcted by Ah cacao around 700 AD.
Temple of the Jaguar Priest (Temple III)
Rising to 180 feet, and located west of Temple II, it was constructed around 810 AD. It has a carved lintel, almost intact, depicting a central character clothed in Jaguar skin.
Temple of the Double-Headed Serpent (Temple IV)
At 212 feet, this is the highest standing structure inTikal. It was built around 470 AD by Yaxkin Caan Chac.
Constructed around 750 AD and located south of the Great Plaza. This temple is close to 190 feet high.
Temple of the Inscriptions (Temple VI)
It is located south of the Mendez Causeway. The roof comb containsd the longest hieroglyphic recording to date. It is estimated that the construction date was around 766 AD. It is believed to have been built under the rule of Yaxkin Caan Chac, but the inscription was added during the reign of Chitam. Stela 21 and Altar 9 are located at the base of the temple.
"The Lost World"
Plaza of the Great Pyramid
Located sothwest of the Great Plaza, this area features the largest pyramid at Tikal. It is approximaletely 100 feet hight and together with the structures to the west, forms part of an astronomical complex. To the south is the group called "Great Masks."
Plaza of the Seven Temples
Located east of the Great Pyramid, it is formed by ceremonial structures of the post-classic period. A palace with five doors, from the pre-classic period, can be seen covered up and used as the foundation for another building constructed during the post-clasic period. Building structures on top of older ones was a common practice with the Maya.
Tours including a visit to Tikal:
- Tikal Tours from Antigua Guatemala (1 or 2 days)
- One and two day tours from Antigua Guatemala to Tikal, optionally with sidetrips to other Mayan ruins in the El Peten department.
- Guatemala by Land and River (10 days)
- Spend four days sailing the Rio Dulce on our sailboat Las Sirenas, then continue to Tikal, Chichicastenango, Lake Atitlan and Antigua.
- Maya Guatemala (14 days)
- The grand tour of Guatemala! Visit Antigua, Chichicastenango, Lake Atitlan, Tikal, Copan (Honduras), Livingston, Coban, and climb the Pacaya Volcano.
- Maya Guatemala and "The Caribbean Experience" (21 days)
- The grand tour of Guatemala plus seven relaxing days on our sailboat Las Sirenas to the Belize Barrier Reef and Islands.
- More tour packages ... | <urn:uuid:6c3d1121-f46f-4518-a509-7a81aab3ded0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sailing-diving-guatemala.com/guatemala/tikal.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393463.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00064-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949905 | 975 | 3.203125 | 3 |
This is your opportunity to learn what the Internet has to offer your family and what you, as a parent, can do to help your children tap into the information on the Internet safely and for all it's worth.
Most parents did not grow up on the Internet, yet every day more and more children are online. Even parents who use computers at work may not be familiar enough with Internet technology to oversee their children's online experiences.
That's why it's so important to Get CyberSavvy! You will know how to teach your children to use the Internet in ways that protect their privacy and well-being.
Get CyberSavvy! includes the facts you need:
If you have used a computer before, you know how to move back and forth between different areas. If this is all news to you, relax! It's easy. First, click on any icon or underlined topic that interests you. The computer will take you to that section. When you are finished reading it, click on another icon or underlined topic. Before you know it, you'll be clicking along in cyberspace. | <urn:uuid:3d4e7c39-70e3-400b-a269-454a411c8a96> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cybersavvy.org/cybersavvy/parents/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00151-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96815 | 225 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Gaining independence in 1990, Namibia is one of Africa’s “newer” nations, although not quite as newborn as South Sudan which has yet to celebrate its first anniversary! Before self-rule it was administered by South Africa and known as South-West Africa. However, Namibia’s colonial history began earlier, in 1884 when it was annexed by the Germans. After a brutal colonization that included genocidal campaigns against the Herero (80% killed) and Nama (50% killed) tribes, the Germans lost control when South Africa invaded soon after the declaration of the First World War. The League of Nations thereafter mandated this huge block of land to South Africa to administer and autonomy was only granted after the protracted Namibian War of Independence that was fought between the South African defense force and Namibian freedom fighters based in Angola, Zambia and other neighboring countries. Interestingly, Walvis Bay, a port town on the central Namibian coastline was only ceded to Namibia in 1994 as historically it was occupied by the British and became an isolated add-on to South Africa’s Cape Province.
Namibia is politically stable and a safe country to visit offering spectacular scenery, untouched wildernesses, vast game reserves, superb wildlife and fascinating cultural experiences. It has the second lowest population density (6.6 people per sq mi) of any country in the world (Mongolia has the lowest). Namibia’s 2,1 million people are spread over an incredible 318,696 sq mi (nearly 20% larger land area than Texas). The main reason for this low population density is the fact that Namibia is an extremely arid country, containing not only the world’s oldest desert, the Namib, but also vast areas of semi-desert and dry savanna. Only in the far northern border regions with Angola and Zambia, where the mighty Okavango and Zambezi Rivers flow, is the country home to higher population densities. These wide open spaces have meant that Namibia still supports large volumes of wildlife, not only in its famous and expansive game reserves, but even on unprotected land. For instance, Namibia boasts the largest population of Cheetah in the world, many of which roam land that is privately owned. Over 700 bird species occur in Namibia, many of them range-restricted and highly desirable southern arid zone species.
Spreetshoogte Pass is an example of one of Namibia’s numerous scenic wonders, this pass drops from the Khomas Hochland highlands to the plains of the Namib Desert. Image by Adam Riley
Due to the unique Namib Desert and the high central plateau, numerous birds and other forms of flora and fauna are endemic to this region. However Namibia only has one true endemic bird, the Dune Lark, due to the fact that these specialized habitats just stretch over into remote southern Angola. However, Namibia also boasts 14 near-endemics, whose ranges are almost entirely restricted to this country and these 15 special birds are the focus of this blogpost.
This rather aberrant, long billed francolin is restricted to high-lying rocky mountains and escarpments from central Namibia to southern Angola. It is usually an extremely secretive bird and only readily found at very first light when family parties emerge onto the tops of boulders and utter their strange, shrieking choruses. This can last for just a few minutes before they scurry back into the rocks and seemingly disappear until the following morning.
A male Hartlaub’s Francolin scurries across granite boulders in the Erongo Mountains of central Namibia. Image by Adam Riley
Another noisy bird which is also found in small family groups, however, this species prefers lower lying, flatter and drier areas along the edge of the Namib Desert. This family group is performing their loud croaking territorial calls.
A family group of Rüppell’s Bustards uttering their croaking territorial calls. Image by Adam Riley
Africa is not endowed with as many parrots as other tropical lands, but what we lack in numbers we make up for in cuteness as in this delightful Rosy-faced Lovebird so clearly illustrates. These tiny parrots nest inside Social Weaver colonies and are restricted to arid areas of Namibia and surrounding drylands. This species is also known as Peach-faced Lovebird.
A male Rosy-faced Lovebird poses on a branch in the Erongo Mountains. Image by Adam Riley
One of Namibia’s tougher specials to locate, these parrots often vanish into the riverine Acacia woodlands that they inhabit. Rüppell’s Parrots are best found by walking along the dry riverbeds that crisscross central Namibia, especially at dawn and dusk when the parrots are at their most active.
A Rüppell’s Parrot perched in an Acacia tree near a dry riverbed in Omaruru, central Namibia. Image by Adam Riley
This large and attractive hornbill is not uncommon in the drier woodlands of central Namibia where they spend most of their time foraging on the ground.
The attractive Monteiro’s Hornbill usually feeds on the ground and is very noticeable in flight due to its striking white wings. Image by Markus Lilje (Rockjumper Birding Tours)
A split from the Red-billed Hornbill group, the Damara Hornbill’s diagnostic characteristics include its clean white face and dark eye. This bird is busy calling, a strange, repetitive throbbing noise!
A calling Damara Hornbill from the Erongo Mountains in central Namibia. Image by Adam Riley
A recently described species that was first thought to occur only in the forbidden diamondfields of coastal southern Namibia, but now also known from the very north-western tip of South Africa. These larks prefer denser coastal scrub on flat land and can be devilishly difficult to observe!
An uncommon photo of a difficult and very localized bird, Barlow’s Lark. Image by Keith Valentine (Rockjumper Birding Tours)
Namibia’s only true endemic, the Dune Lark is not accurately named as its preferred habitat is actually vegetated dry river beds that run between the massive dunes of the Namib Desert in central Namibia. These are the highest dunes in the world and their red sand, which also covers these riverbeds, is matched by the lovely colors of this attractive lark.
Namibia’s only true endemic, the lovely Dune Lark whose coloration matches that of the sandy riverbeds and surrounding dunes where it occurs. Image by Markus Lilje (Rockjumper Birding Tours)
This localized species became a Namibian near-endemic when the Long-billed Lark complex was split into 5 species. Benguella occurs from central Namibia (north of Brandberg Mountain) into southern Angola, preferring arid semi-deserts and rocky areas. This bird was putting its massive bill to good use foraging for grubs in the desert soil.
A Benguella Lark foraging for grubs in the desert north of Brandberg in central Namibia. Image by Adam Riley
This pale desert lark can also be tough to locate, preferring the expansive gravel plains of the true Namib Desert where shy family parties scurry away like ghost crabs when approached. Finding these quaint birds in this unique habitat, shared also with the amazing Welwitschia plant, is one of the highlights of a trip to the Namib Desert. Another interesting fact about Gray’s Larks is that they only perform their acrobatic aerial displays during the predawn in order to avoid exertion during the scorching days.
The pale Gray’s Lark’s preferred habitat are the open gravel plains of the Namib Desert. Image by Adam Riley
This rather drab but distinctive bird has a beautiful song which is the best way of finding this skulker. It occurs in very low densities through arid central Namibia and southern Angola, usually in bushes along the edges of mountains and ravines.
The Herero Chat can be a hard bird to find due to its inconspicuous behavior combined with a scattered, low density distribution. Image by Markus Lilje (Rockjumper Birding Tours)
My personal favorite, this spunky, energetic bird certainly does not lack in character. Small family groups forage mostly on the ground in rocky areas of central Namibia, uttering strange calls and peering, with their heads cocked, at anything that catches their attention. Originally believed to be bushshrikes, DNA work as revealed they are actually aberrant giant, terrestrial batises!
The delightful White-tailed Shrike. Image by Adam Riley
Also known as the Damara Rockjumper, this Namibian near-endemic shares its range with the previous species. Its taxonomic affinities are questionable and it has been bounced between various warbler and babbler families. Its is however not related to the Rockjumpers of South Africa. Its beautiful bubbling song is a prime method of locating these fast moving and agile birds in the rocky areas of central Namibia. The aptness of its name can be judged from this image!
A Rockrunner in action sprinting across its home range. Image by Adam Riley
One of five babblers occurring in Namibia, this fine and localized species prefers the woodlands of northern Namibia, from the great Etosha National Park into southern Angola. Small family groups forage at ground level and are usually approachable when located, but can be tough to find as they occur at rather low densities.
The attractive Bare-cheeked Babbler photographed near Etosha National Park. Image by Adam Riley
Our final bird is a relatively common denizen of woodlands from central Namibia through to southern Angola. This striking black and white tit (or chickadee) is usually found in pairs, foraging in Acacia trees and thickets.
Carp’s Tit, a species of dry woodlands of central and northern Namibia. Image by Markus Lilje (Rockjumper Birding Tours) | <urn:uuid:d6e0ed6a-f3e9-402d-b58a-261adf522f7f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://10000birds.com/namibias-15-key-birds.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396147.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00197-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948643 | 2,132 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Most neighboring states use rock salt on their roads, so drivers may face icier roads as they cross into Oregon, which has cost and environmental reasons for relying on sand and less-corrosive magnesium chloride.
Salt lowers the freezing temperature of water. But rock salt also rusts out vehicles and bridges, and Oregon doesn't want rock salt winding up in the Columbia Basin, the East Oregonian reported.
The Oregon State Police say the Dec. 30 tour bus crash happened on a stretch of road with ice and snow patches, but they have said it may take weeks to determine what caused it.
The crash, though, has raised the question of salting Oregon highways.
"Am I in the minority that feels like there is a moral obligation to this?" said Oregon truck driver Larry Phelps. "At some point we have to see that this is costing lives. I'm tired of seeing cars turned upside down on my route."
Phelps, 62, said the state is a running joke among truckers: "You can't wait to get out of the state so you can relax."
As an alternative to sodium chloride, or salt, Oregon uses magnesium chloride. That lowers the freezing point of water to about 25 degrees, while traditional rock salt lowers it to about 15 degrees. But the magnesium chloride is also 70 percent less corrosive than salt.
After numerous wrecks involving cars driving in from salting states, Oregon has begun five-year tests of applying salt on 11 miles of Interstate 5 near the California border and 120 miles of U.S. 95 as it cuts through southeastern Oregon between Nevada and Idaho.
Department of Transportation spokesman Tom Strandberg said, however, that salting Interstate 84 at the Idaho border "is not on the horizon."
"We can't just go out and begin using salt," said department District Manager Marilyn Holt. "Oregon is a very environmentally conscious state with very tough groundwater laws."
She said extensive salting would mean expenses for equipment and retrofits.
Strandberg said ODOT applies both sand and magnesium chloride to known trouble spots -- curves, inclines and places where ice tends to accumulate -- and gives priority to highly frequented roads. A few hours before the crash, the department had put sand on that stretch of I-84.
"Unfortunately, we just don't have the money to hit every spot," he said. "It's often a judgment call by local crews."
-- The Associated Press | <urn:uuid:b56c38a8-166a-4a13-b920-061f8c1916a4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2013/01/oregon_experiments_with_rock_s.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396455.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00192-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963684 | 501 | 2.515625 | 3 |
ArcGIS Desktop and ArcGIS Extensions come with tutorials and tutorial data to help you learn to use the software. You can use the links below to open PDF versions of the tutorials, or to view animations based on the tutorials.
A Geospatial Communications Network company that strives to promote and propagate the usage of geospatial technologies in various areas of development for the community at large. For all those who want to know about the basics of Geographic Information Systems, this page provides study-material. The tutorial gives a very basic information on the various areas of application in GIS like Global Positioning System, Remote Sensing, Aerial Photgrammetry and Image Processing.
The GeoCommunity™ is the place for the Geographic Information Systems (GIS), CAD, Mapping, and Location-Based industry professionals, enthusiasts, and students to gather. The GeoCommunity is by far the leading GIS online portal and daily publication reaching 41,000+ subscribers to our Daily SpatialNews Newswire. http://spatialnews.geocomm.com/education/tutorials/
GIS Tutorials and Exercises : ArcGIS is a Geographic Information System package developed by Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI). It is useful for manipulating digital representations of geographic entities and their relationships with one-another. This document explains how to get started with ArcGIS.
GIS Lounge - Very nicely compiled tutorial about the basics of GPS. | <urn:uuid:b985356e-41ba-45fc-8605-72b09683110c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.lib.vt.edu/find/gis-maps/services/tutorials.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00005-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.872829 | 294 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Creating virtual 360 Panorama
Everybody knows how important the visualization and its role is in presentation of the design to the end user with nice photorealistic images. How is easy the understanding between the client and the designer when there are no need in explaining and thinking over drawings, plans, sketches, elevations and other raw technical information... But what if just the series of static images is not enough? What if the client wants a greater sense of presence and volume than the 2d bitmap images, while doing the animation is impractical because of the significant time and computational costs? The answer to this rhetorical and quite topical question is the pseudo three-dimensional representation of 2d images using 3d interactive panoramas technology. Such a presentation will let us see a three-dimensional picture of the visualization using the virtual camera, turn it and watch for any point around the full 360 degrees, as well as zoom in and out.
(Click on the image and rotate it in any direction while holding the left mouse button)
In fact, at first glance an interactive panorama consists of a three-dimensional cube, which has a stretched texture over the each side with a specific distortion (the projection of the sphere to a cube), and inside the cube is a virtual camera from which the panorama is observed.
The textures are stretched over the cube so, that seams on its corners are not visible and the illusion of the integrity of the image is created. But actually this image consists of six separate conjugating pictures, the one per each cube face. The pictures on the faces of the cube, in turn, cover all 360 degrees from the point of view. All the front, right, rear, left, up and down sides. The only feature on which we should pay attention to is the fact that the pictures, stretched over the faces of a virtual cube, should not be just flat shots of the six sides from the point of view. They must be the projections of the sphere on the cubes faces, with a sphere diameter equal to the diagonal of the cube, causing these images have the corresponding distortion.
The whole process of creating a 3d panorama is to make these conjugating texture images. Then to stitch them to the image of a special format, the so-called cubic projection.
When the cubic projection is ready, we need to stretch it over the 3d-cube and turn it to an interactive panorama using highly specialized software.
The spherical 3d panorama has long been used in modern photography. Theoretically, the most trivial way of creating a panorama is the photographing the environment from a single point (nodal point) in six directions: front, rear, right, left, bottom, top. Then the received images are stitched to the cubic projection and converted to the interactive 3d panorama. However, in practice, the getting good conjugating six shots is almost impossible and even more so, if they are the pictures with the necessary distortions (the projection of the sphere to a cube), what leaves such a way only in theory.
In practice, the other methods of creating an interactive panorama are preferred. They are the ones that produce an rectangular projection image, which was projected on a sphere, the so-called equirectangular (also known as equidirectional) projection. The simplest example of an equirectangular projection is a map projection, which allows to put the image of the planet Earth sphere on a world rectangular map, as if unrolling its round surface on a rectangular sheet of paper.
There are several methods for obtaining the equirectangular projection.
For example, one method is in photographing the environment around the point of view with the series of images, that cover all 360 degrees of space.
Then, with the help of special software and manual retouching in raster editor the photographs are stitched into the equirectangular projection.
The other way is to get the sphere projection by photographing the environment using a special lens, the so-called fish-eye with the viewing angle of almost 180 degrees, which is equivalent to the projection of a hemisphere of the environment to the plane. Then to make the series of shots (two and more), getting an image covering 360 degrees.
Or to take pictures of the mirror ball with a wide-angle lens to obtain similar images of hemispheres in 180 degrees. Then, as in the first case, with the help of specialized software stitch these images, getting all the same sphere projection.
When the sphere projection is obtained, then it is converted directly into a cubic projection for the next stretching over the virtual 3d panorama cube.
So to create an interactive panorama we must obtain a cubic projection and pull it to the virtual 3d panorama cube.
By analogy with the real photography, theoretically it can be done in 3d graphics by just rendering the front, right, rear, left, up and down from a same point, thus covering all 360 degrees of view. Then the cubic projection is get from the obtained renders for converting into a virtual panorama.
And again this method is very inefficient in practice.
First, for its implementation we need to install six cameras (or animate a camera), ideally positioning them in six different directions and make six renderings.
Secondly, the thus obtained renderings will have imperfect conjugating at the seams when stitching them into a cubic projection.
This is due to the specifics of rendering programs, exactly because of the randomness of the result. In particular this effect present in the adaptive render engines, based on the theory of Quasi-Monte Carlo, which is based on principles of sampling the most significant for the overall result values and cutting off the less important ones (the Buffon's Needle principle).
Surely the result of calculations obtained this way will have a significant share of inaccurate regions what will give the high variegation and hardly matched images. We surely can simply tune up the quality settings of the render to increase the uniformity of image, but this will inevitably increase the computing time.
Thirdly, as a rule, the main mistake is that in this case the obtained renderings will not be the projections of the sphere to a cube as mentioned earlier, but will be usual flat images of the environment from six different cameras. In this case the squareness of the panorama will be visible because of clearly evident virtual cube edges. Even if we set a camera angle to 90 degrees, this method is not convenient.
There is also another method for getting the cubic projections by rendering the scene with a Box camera type. The result of this rendering would be a vertical cubic map, the so-called Vertical Cross.
Unfortunately, even this method is inconvenient because of the need to transform Vertical Cross map using a bitmap editor to the needed type of the cubic projection, named Horizontal Cross.
Given the above, the more rational and quite correct for both photos and 3d graphics is a way to create interactive panorama from an equirectangular projection.
Further, the process of creating a virtual panorama will be described on the example of 3d editor 3ds Max 2008 and render-engine V-Ray 1.5 with a description of some features of this particular software. However, all the described principles are absolutely true for any other 3d software that have the ability to make a render with a spherical camera with a viewing angle of 360 degrees. Therefore, if you need to create a panorama using an alternative modelling or rendering engine, you should simply omit the specific characteristics of work with 3ds Max + V-Ray and apply these techniques for creating interactive panoramas in any other similar software.
To create an equirectangular projection of a three-dimensional scene in 3ds Max + V-Ray it is necessary to render it from a given point a camera with a 360 degrees viewing angle. Unfortunately, the V-Ray 1.5 renderer specialized VRayPhysicalCamera does not support the viewing angle of 360 degrees and has no mode of a spherical camera. To obtain an equirectangular projection the standard 3ds Max camera should be used only.
If the scene is initially configured to work with VRayPhysicalCamera, then for using a standard 3ds max camera the scene should be reset using a few simple techniques. The details of the switching from a VRayPhysicalCamera the standard 3ds Max camera can be found in Switching from VRayPhysicalCamera to standard tip.
The standard 3ds Max camera has a built-in adjustable angle, but it is not spherical and the maximum angle which can be set there is 175 degrees.
To work around this limitation, V-Ray renderer has a special tool that enhances the standard camera.
All changes made with this tool do not appear in the 3ds Max viewport and will be visible only on the rendering.
To access this tool we should find in the V-Ray tab of Render Scene: (F10) dialog a rollout named V-Ray: Camera. There under the Camera type in the Type drop-down menu select Spherical type of camera. Thus, the standard 3ds Max camera becomes spherical. We must then activate the Override FOV, checking a checkbox next to it for replacing the angle and set in already active FOV field of the desired 360 degrees value.
A special feature of an equirectangular projection is a fixed aspect ratio of two to one.
To get a correct image of the projection we should set the aspect ratio of 2:1 for the final rendering. To do this, go to the Common tab of the Render Scene: (F10) dialog box and in the Output Size section, set the value of Image Aspect equal to 2. Also, we should click on the icon of a lock for that, when setting the pixel value of one side, the second one is set automatically and retained the right proportion between the width and length of the picture.
When all the above settings are made, we can safely proceed to the rendering, the result of which will be treasured equirectangular projection.
The rendering should be saved in standard raster formats such as jpg, png and so on. If, for example, the post-processing is required, then we can save the rendering in any convenient format, hdr, exr, etc. However, when all the necessary changes are made, we must convert or resave the image to an any usual bitmap format.
Now, since we have the equirectangular projection image in a standard raster format, we must proceed directly to the creation of interactive 3d panorama by converting an equirectangular projection to a cubic and stretching it over a 3d interactive panoramas virtual cube.
There are several special programs for these purposes, particularly the Pano2QTVR. The main positive feature of this program is that creating a panorama goes automatically, unproblematic to the user and saves him from the need for prior conversion equirectangular projection to a cubic and from the other extra work.
Download and licensing of this program are available directly on the developers site:
In addition, there is a demo version, which differs from a fully functional one by supporting the only QuickTime format.
After starting Pano2QTVR, the Start tab opens automatically and offer to create a new project or open an existing one.
To create a new project we must click on the large horizontal button Create a new Project and specify a name and a path for the new project in the new opened window.
This should open a tab Project, which we should provide with a path to an equirectangular projection by clicking on the button with the ellipsis next to the field Equirectangular image and selecting the desired image on the disk, namely the previously obtained spherical rendering.
Then down in the Output format list, select the format for future panorama.
If the panorama will be presented on the screen, the QuickTime video file with extension mov will be an excellent choice. For choosing it, we should specify the value of QuickTime in the Output format dropdown list.
If we want to publish the panorama on the website page, the flash file with a swf extension is perfect. For choosing it, we should specify the value of Flash in the Output format dropdown list.
When a file of the equirectangular projection is selected, the format of the future panorama is specified, the last thing to do is click on the button Create next to Output format to start the process of creating panorama.
When we click Create, the tab Console will be temporarily opened where we can observe the logs of the conversion and after creating, the program will return to the Project tab.
Panorama is ready now and is in the folder, which we have specified before.
If we need to change the default setup of the panorama, such as resolution of the panorama window, the compression ratio, etc., it can be changed using the functions located in the Settings tab.
Interactive panorama is a really good thing. It is worth to be considered not only as a final product for the customer. Its special charm is on the draft rendering stage. With the panorama there is no need of messing about different camera angles trying to cover all elements of the environment to check for errors and compliance with the brief requirements. Panorama is a great tool for synchronization and approval of renderings, for selection of the camera angles of the final renderings. It completely eliminates the need to create multiple frames of a scene on the stage of previews, what can save a lot of time not only in setting the scene, but on the actual computing process for a large number of images.
All have fast renderings and beautiful panoramas! :)
Questions and suggestions regarding this tutorial please leave in comments.
The tutorial is written and prepared by:
Anton (RenderStuff)3d rendering artist at Ren3d with more than eight years of experience in photorealistic 3d rendering. Author of all RenderStuff rendering tutorials and much of the CG images on this site.
Your questions and suggestions regarding this tutorial feel free to write in comments below. | <urn:uuid:39122f62-5e16-4d0f-b4dd-d800589fed9b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://renderstuff.com/creating-virtual-360-panorama-cg-tutorial/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395992.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00003-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.897932 | 2,909 | 2.9375 | 3 |
When a couple lavish all their parenting impulses on a pet, that pet is a furkid.
furkid (noun) - a pet such as a dog or a cat that is treated like a child by its owner.
"We are thinking of adding another furkid to our family."
'Couples like furkids because they usually don't live long enough to need expensive private schools. And their friends like furkids because, unlike real children, you can plausibly claim to be allergic to them.' (ABC Network, Australia, 2004)
Those adults who don't want to or haven't been able to have children but have decided to share their lives with other creatures, might talk about their furkids. This noun, with alternative forms fur kid and fur-kid, is used to refer to a pet that is treated as though it were someone's child. In the late seventies, the word pet was argued to be politically incorrect by animal-rights activists, since it implied human ownership of an animal, and the alternative phrase companion-animal was suggested. In the noughties, it seems, we've gone one step further and introduced a term which goes beyond the idea of an animal as a mere companion, elevating its status to that of a kind of surrogate child: the furkid. In short, Furkid is used by some animal lovers who feel that the word pet suggests the idea of owning something rather than describing the loving relationship that they have with their dog, cat, etc. Furbaby is another similar term for a baby pet that is like a human baby for its owner.
Furkid is an example of a compound noun which is a noun that is made by combining two other words (in this case the nouns fur + kid). This is the most common way of forming new words in English. Sometimes the compounds are written separately, sometimes they have a hyphen and sometimes they are joined into a single new word (weblog). | <urn:uuid:307b69f1-d33d-4f18-b520-3b79e740eb04> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.thebabywebsite.com/article.421.Furkid.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396538.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00161-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980325 | 402 | 2.921875 | 3 |
|The Great Migration = Manifest Destruction|
In reality, it was what we at SBPDL have dubbed "Manifest Destruction" that failed the northern cities: the mass movement of Black people overwhelmed these cities, with the fall of Detroit a direct result of this 'great migration' Mr. DiSalvo champions. Why don't we just let Mr. DiSalvo's City Journal article speak for itself?:
A century ago, nine out of ten black Americans lived in the South, primarily in formerly Confederate states where segregation reigned. Then, in the 1920s, blacks began heading north, both to escape the racism of Jim Crow and to seek work as southern agriculture grew increasingly mechanized. “From World War I to the 1970s, some six million black Americans fled the American South for an uncertain existence in the urban North and West,” writes journalist Isabel Wilkerson, the author of The Warmth of Other Suns. Principal destinations in the Great Migration, as the exodus came to be called, included Washington, D.C. (the first stop on the bus), Chicago, Detroit, and New York City. The Great Migration had tremendous political implications, both good and bad. It helped spur the civil rights movement, but it also trapped many blacks in urban ghettos.
More recently, however, the Great Migration has reversed itself, with blacks returning to the South. In a broad sense, this reversal fits within a larger demographic shift among Americans in general, who are moving from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt. But the new black migration is nevertheless significant: not only could it portend major changes to the nation’s politics; it also testifies to the liberal North’s failure to integrate African-Americans into the mainstream. As the historian Walter Russell Mead has observed, that failure is “the most devastating possible indictment of the 20th century liberal enterprise in the United States.”
In the early seventies, the New York Times noticed that between 1970 and 1973, for the first time, more blacks had moved from the North to the South than vice versa. The movement has continued apace. Last year, the Times described the South’s share of black population growth as “about half the country’s total in the 1970s, two-thirds in the 1990s and three-quarters in the decade that just ended.” Many of the migrants are “buppies”—young, college-educated, upwardly mobile black professionals—and older retirees. Over the last two decades, according to the census, the states with the biggest gains in their black populations have been Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Texas, and Florida; New York, Illinois, and Michigan have seen the greatest losses. Many of the new black migrants are moving to the South’s urban and suburban hot spots, rather than the small towns that their grandparents or great-grandparents left behind generations ago. Today, 57 percent of American blacks live in the South—the highest percentage in a half-century.
Much of the migration has been urban-to-urban. During the first decade of the new century, according to Brookings Institution demographer Bill Frey, the cities making the biggest gains in black population were Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston. Meanwhile, New York City’s black population fell by 67,709, Chicago’s by 58,225, Detroit’s by 37,603, and Los Angeles’s by 85,025. But plenty of the migrants have been moving from cities to suburbs. “By 2000 there were fifty-seven metropolitan areas with at least 50,000 black suburbanites, compared to just thirty-three in 1980,” notes sociologist Andrew Wiese. The 2010 census revealed that 51 percent of blacks in the 100 largest metro areas lived in the suburbs. As journalist Joel Garreu describes it, suburbia now includes a “large, churchgoing, home-owning, childbearing, back-yard barbecuing, traffic-jam-cursing black middle class remarkable for the very ordinariness with which its members go about their classically American suburban affairs.”
But Black people are absolved from all wrong-doing in America (the narrative of continued white oppression inhibiting Black success must be repeated ad nauseam), especially that of their design. Mr. DiSalvo, after all, wants to continue to receive his invitations to the top social events in New York City.
By a strange twist of fate, the Atlanta Journal Constitution published a story that cuts to the heart of the problem of what DiSalvo has called "the great remigration" of Blacks back from the northern cities that failed them.
A perplexing coincidence : these Blacks migrants from the northern cities they helped devastate are now poised to import that same economic ruin back south [Treading water with upside down mortgages, Christopher Quinn, 9-16-2012]:
Marquita Shealey is having tough time after the Lithonia house she bought lost more than half its value in two years.
The loss put the 29-year-old first-time buyer in the same position as about 70 percent of metro Atlantans who are younger than 4o with a mortgage. She is upside down, or owes more on the mortgage than the worth of the home, according to California real estate and data firm Zillow.
For younger buyers, especially those trying to relocate or just sell a home, it is a financial hardship that ripples through the economy, cutting into sales at department stores, stifling hiring and and pulling down other home values.
In Shealey’s case, she can’t sell and take a loss and has also suffered some other financial hits, such as expensive home repairs and a split with the man with whom she bought the house. So she is stuck in a home that suppresses her ability to flex with new financial constraints. She cut back spending and is considering pulling her daughter out of private school.
“I thought once I closed, everything would be smooth sailing,” Shealey said. “Now everything is on me.”
Zillow economist Stan Humphries said younger buyers typically paid low down payments, have little equity in the home and are more likely to have purchased in the last ten years as home prices hit a peak. Home values dropped on average about 35 percent here since 2006.
About half of metro Atlanta mortgage holders over 40 are underwater, he said. If older owners don’t have a disaster such as a job loss and had no plans to move, they are less affected because they can wait for prices to come back, Humphries said.
The national average of underwater owners is 31 percent. Metro Atlanta has been hit harder than many cities by the bursting housing-and-loan bubble.
Clayton is hit hardest in the region. It is in the worst 1 percent of counties nationally, Zillow’s numbers say, with 83 percent of mortgages underwater. Even well-off Forsyth, which had an $87,605 median income in 2011, is in the lowest 20 percent of counties.
County/ % mortgages underwater/median home value*
Clayton 83 $45,200Wait a second? Clayton County has a median home value of $45,000? Would you believe that in 1990, Clayton County was 75 percent white; now, it is nearly 70 percent Black.
Paulding 69 $83,400
Douglas 69 $75,600
Gwinnett 58 $117,100
DeKalb 56 $96,300
Fulton 47 $139,500
Cobb 46 $141,800
Cherokee 46 $146,900
Forsyth 36 $204,200
Fayette 34 $177,000
The falling property value in Clayton County is but a reflection of the type of community these new residents can create.
Recall that in 2010, a home sold in 90 percent Black Detroit went for the median price of $7,500:
Some might say Jon Brumit overpaid when he stumped up $100 (£65) for a whole house. Drive through Detroit neighbourhoods once clogged with the cars that made the city the envy of America and there are homes to be had for a single dollar.
You find these houses among boarded-up, burnt-out and rotting buildings lining deserted streets, places where the population is shrinking so fast entire blocks are being demolished to make way for urban farms.
"I was living in Chicago and a friend told me that houses in Detroit could be had for $500," said Brumit, a financially strapped artist who thought he had little prospect of owning his own property. "I said if you hear of anything just a little cheaper let me know. Within a week he emails me a photo of a house for $100. I thought that's just crazy. Why not? It's a way to cut our expenses way down and kind of open up a lot of time for creative projects because we're not working to pay the rent."
Houses on sale for a few dollars are something of an urban legend in the US on the back of the mortgage crisis that drove millions of people from their homes. But in Detroit it is no myth.
One in five houses now stand empty in the city that launched the automobile age, forged America's middle-class and blessed the world with Motown.
Detroit has been in decline for decades; its falling population is now well below a million – half of its 1950 peak. But the recent mortgage crisis and the fall of the big car makers into bankruptcy has pushed the town into a realm unique among big cities in America.
A third of the population are unemployed. Property prices have fallen 80% or more in large parts of Detroit over the last three years. The average price of a home sold in the city last year has been put at $7,500 (£4,900).
On the opposite side of Lawley Street Jim Feltner and his workers were clearing out a property seized by a bank. "I used to be a building contractor. I was buying up places and doing them up. Now I empty out foreclosures. I do one or two of these a day all over the city," he said. "I've been in Detroit 40 years and I've watched the peak up to $100,000 for houses that right now aren't worth more than $20,000 tops. I own a bunch of properties. I have 10 rentals and I can't get nothing for them, and they're beautiful homes."The devaluation of once prized real estate in Detroit (well, when it was owned by white people) is the unmentionable legacy of the migration of Blacks to northern cities - the same thing happened in Cleveland, Gary, and in parts of Chicago - and it is this same legacy they will import with them back south. | <urn:uuid:6a6be86c-d4d1-4c15-b3ec-7507e091bed3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://stuffblackpeopledontlike.blogspot.com/2012/09/city-journal-claims-northern-cities.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397695.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00010-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965524 | 2,252 | 3.328125 | 3 |
The largest production model of the Saturn family of rockets, the Saturn V was designed under the direction of Wernher von Braun and Arthur Rudolph at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, with Boeing, North American Aviation, Douglas Aircraft Company, and IBM as the lead contractors. Von Braun's design was based in part on his work on the Aggregate series of rockets, especially the A-10, A-11, and A-12, in Germany during World War II.
|The F-1 engines of the S-IC first stage dwarf their creator, Wernher von Braun.|
|The Apollo crew who never flew. Celebrating the bravery and sacrifice of Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee of Apollo One. Freedom (from Earth) isn't free.| | <urn:uuid:3f791f0a-0978-4a1b-baf0-b33d77de4699> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://tetrahedral.blogspot.com/2011/02/saturn-v.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399106.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00126-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945764 | 166 | 2.96875 | 3 |
In recent days, backers of George W. Bush's proposed tax rate reduction have been running advertisements featuring John F. Kennedy supporting his 1963 tax cut. This has brought forth a predictable response from the Kennedy family, which has denounced the ads and argue that Mr. Kennedy would oppose the Bush plan were he still alive. That may or may not be true. But what is indisputable is that the Kennedy tax cut, enacted in 1964 after his death, was as much of a tax cut for the rich as Mr. Bush's.
In his tax message to Congress in 1963, Mr. Kennedy asked that the top income tax rate be brought down from 91 percent to 65 percent. His goal was to reduce all statutory income tax rates by about 30 percent, including a reduction in the bottom tax rate from 20 percent to 14 percent. Subsequently, Congress only reduced the top rate to 70 percent. Nevertheless, this constitutes a significantly larger tax cut than Mr. Bush's proposal to bring the top rate down from 39.6 percent to 33 percent. The law passed by a Democratic Congress in 1964 lowered the top rate by 23 percent, while Mr. Bush's plan would only lower it by 17 percent.
Looking at how the tax cut affected people at different income levels, the largest reduction in taxes went to those with adjusted gross incomes between $50,000 and $100,000. That is equivalent to an income of $300,000 to $600,000 today. People in this bracket got a tax cut equal to 4.3 percent of their income. Those at the top of the income distribution, with incomes over $1 million, equal to $6 million today, got a tax cut of 3 percent. By contrast, those at the bottom of the distribution, with incomes below $5,000, saved only 2.5 percent.
Senator Ted Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, who was elected to his brother's Senate seat in 1962, twice voted in favor of lowering the top income tax rate from 91 percent to 70 percent in 1964. He and President Kennedy's daughter Caroline now charge that the Kennedy tax cut was less tilted toward the wealthy than is Mr. Bush's. They say this: "Only 6 percent of President Kennedy's tax cut went to those earning over $300,000 in today's dollars. The Bush tax cut gives them seven times that amount, an irresponsible 43 percent."
It is true that those with incomes above $300,000 in today's dollars got about 6 percent of the total Kennedy tax cut. However, the analogy to the Bush plan is not valid.
What the Kennedys are trying to do is equate the top 1 percent of taxpayers today with the top 1 percent in 1962. But they have made a mistake in assuming that incomes are distributed the same way today as they were in 1962. Today, an income over $300,000 in adjusted gross income would put someone into the top 1 percent. The equivalent income of $50,000 in 1962, however, put one into just the top 0.2 percent; that is, the top two-tenths of 1 percent. To be in the top 1 percent in 1962, one only needed an income of $25,000. Those with incomes above this level got 14 percent of the Kennedy tax cut.
Moreover, the comparison that the Kennedys are making to the Bush tax cut is flawed for several reasons. First, the 43 percent figure (actually 45 percent) comes from a leftist group called Citizens for Tax Justice that uses a definition of income different from that upon which the Kennedy tax cut figures are based. Under CTJ's definition of income, one needs $373,000 to get into the top 1 percent.
CTJ also includes in its analysis the estate tax. They treat it as if it is paid annually out of one's income, rather than from assets at death. Since Mr. Bush plans to abolish the so-called death tax, this makes the tax cut for the wealthy seem much bigger than it actually is. A recent Treasury Department analysis of the Bush tax bill, using a definition of income comparable to those for the Kennedy tax cut and excluding the estate tax, found that 25.4 percent of the benefits would go to those with incomes above $200,000. Since this is an income level below the cutoff for the top 1 percent, the benefits for this group would be less.
Thus an honest comparison between the Kennedy and Bush tax cuts would conclude that they are more alike than the Kennedy family would like to believe. The share of the Bush tax cut going to the top 1 percent is about 21 percent -- 50 percent larger than this group got under the Kennedy tax cut, but nowhere near the 7 times larger that the Kennedy family charges.
The important point here is that once upon a time, in the not-too-distant past, there was a Democratic president who was not obsessed with class warfare, as today's Democrats are. He was willing to cut tax rates for all taxpayers, including those at the very top of the income distribution. Today's Democrats don't actually want to cut taxes at all. They only want to send out government checks to people who don't pay income taxes and call them tax cuts, while denying tax relief to those who pay the vast bulk of the federal government's bills.
As recently as 1981, there were still Democrats around who thought like John F. Kennedy. One was a congressman from Detroit named William Brodhead. Although a self-professed liberal, backed by organized labor, he argued that Ronald Reagan was mistaken to phase-in his reduction in the top tax rate from 70 percent to 50 percent, because the people affected by the top rate are those who make the investments that create the jobs. Said Mr. Brodhead, "We have to reduce taxes on wealthy people to have more investment."
With polls showing strong support for a tax cut, and deteriorating economic conditions, it appears that a major tax cut this year is a certainty. If Democrats want to have some say in how the bill is shaped, they are going to have to give something. They should follow Mr. Brodhead's lead and press for an immediate reduction in the top rate from 39.6 percent to 33 percent, not phased-in over five years as in the House-passed bill. This would instantly change the terms of debate and put enormous pressure on Republicans to respond by supporting Democrat efforts to give more relief to those with low incomes. | <urn:uuid:47ec91b7-6778-45be-92dd-a0ea9e316828> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://townhall.com/columnists/brucebartlett/2001/03/19/bushjfk_versus_the_liberals | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00104-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979787 | 1,315 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Analysis of Propellers
Glauert Blade Element Theory
A relatively simple method of predicting the performance of a propeller (as well as fans or windmills) is the use of Blade Element Theory. In this method the propeller is divided into a number of independent sections along the length. At each section a force balance is applied involving 2D section lift and drag with the thrust and torque produced by the section. At the same time a balance of axial and angular momentum is applied. This produces a set of non-linear equations that can be solved by iteration for each blade section. The resulting values of section thrust and torque can be summed to predict the overall performance of the propeller.
The theory does not include secondary effects such as 3-D flow velocities induced on the propeller by the shed tip vortex or radial components of flow induced by angular acceleration due to the rotation of the propeller. In comparison with real propeller results this theory will over-predict thrust and under-predict torque with a resulting increase in theoretical efficiency of 5% to 10% over measured performance. Some of the flow assumptions made also breakdown for extreme conditions when the flow on the blade becomes stalled or there is a significant proportion of the propeller blade in windmilling configuration while other parts are still thrust producing.
The theory has been found very useful for comparative studies such as optimising blade pitch setting for a given cruise speed or in determining the optimum blade solidity for a propeller. Given the above limitations it is still the best tool available for getting good first order predictions of thrust, torque and efficiency for propellers under a large range of operating conditions.
Blade Element Subdivision
A propeller blade can be subdivided as shown into a discrete number of sections.
For each section the flow can be analysed independently if the assumption is made that for each there are only axial and angular velocity components and that the induced flow input from other sections is negligible. Thus at section AA (radius = r) shown above, the flow on the blade would consist of the following components.
V0 -- axial flow at propeller disk, V2 -- Angular flow velocity vector
V1 -- section local flow velocity vector, summation of vectors V0 and V2
Since the propeller blade will be set at a given geometric pitch angle () the local velocity vector will create a flow angle of attack on the section. Lift and drag of the section can be calculated using standard 2-D aerofoil properties. (Note: change of reference line from chord to zero lift line). The lift and drag components normal to and parallel to the propeller disk can be calculated so that the contribution to thrust and torque of the compete propeller from this single element can be found.
The difference in angle between thrust and lift directions is defined as
The elemental thrust and torque of this blade element can thus be written as
Substituting section data (CL and CD for the given ) leads to the following equations.
where is the air density, c is the blade chord so that the lift producing area of the blade element is c.dr.
If the number of propeller blades is (B) then,
. . . . . . . . .(1)
. . . . . . . . .(2)
2. Inflow Factors
A major complexity in applying this theory arises when trying to determine the magnitude of the two flow components V0 and V2. V0 is roughly equal to the aircraft's forward velocity (Vinf) but is increased by the propeller's own induced axial flow into a slipstream. V2 is roughly equal to the blade section's angular speed (r) but is reduced slightly due to the swirling nature of the flow induced by the propeller. To calculate V0 and V2 accurately both axial and angular momentum balances must be applied to predict the induced flow effects on a given blade element. As shown in the following diagram the induced flow components can be defined as factors increasing or decreasing the major flow components.
So for the velocities V0 and V2 as shown in the previous section flow diagram,
where a -- axial inflow factor
where b -- angular inflow factor (swirl factor)
The local flow velocity and the angle of attack for the blade section is thus
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (3)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(4)
3. Axial and Angular Flow Conservation of Momentum
The governing principle of conservation of flow momentum can be applied for both axial and circumferential directions.
For the axial direction, the change in flow momentum along a stream-tube starting upstream, passing through the propeller at section AA and then moving off into the slipstream, must equal the thrust produced by this element of the blade.
To remove the unsteady effects due to the propeller's rotation, the stream-tube used is one covering the complete area of the propeller disk swept out by the blade element and all variables are assumed to be time averaged values.
T = change in momentum flow rate
= mass flow rate in tube x change in velocity
By applying Bernoulli's equation and conservation of momentum, for the three separate components of the tube, from freestream to face of disk, from rear of disk to slipstream far downstream and balancing pressure and area versus thrust, it can be shown that the axial velocity at the disk will be the average of the freestream and slipstream velocities.
V0 = (Vinf + Vslipstream)/2, that means Vslipstream = Vinf ( 1 + 2a)
. . . . . . . . (5)
For angular momentum
Q = change in angular momentum rate for flow x radius
= mass flow rate in tube x change in circumferential velocity x radius
By considering conservation of angular momentum in conjunction with the axial velocity change, it can be shown that the angular velocity in the slipstream will be twice the value at the propeller disk.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . (6)
Because these final forms of the momentum equation balance still contain the variables for element thrust and torque, they cannot be used directly to solve for inflow factors.
However there now exists a nonlinear system of equations (1),(2),(3),(4),(5) and (6) containing the four primary unknown variables T, Q, a, b. So an iterative solution to this system is possible.
4. Iterative Solution procedure for Blade Element Theory.
The method of solution for the blade element flow will be to start with some initial guess of inflow factors (a) and (b). Use these to find the flow angle on the blade (equations (3),(4)), then use blade section properties to estimate the element thrust and torque (equations (1),(2)). With these approximate values of thrust and torque equations (5) and (6) can be used to give improved estimates of the inflow factors (a) and (b). This process can be repeated until values for (a) and (b) have converged to within a specified tolerance.
It should be noted that convergence for this nonlinear system of equations is not guaranteed. It is usually a simple matter of applying some convergence enhancing techniques (ie Crank-Nicholson under-relaxation) to get a result when linear aerofoil section properties are used. When non-linear properties are used, ie including stall effects, then obtaining convergence will be significantly more difficult.
For the final values of inflow factor (a) and (b) an accurate prediction of element thrust and torque will be obtained from equations (1) and (2).
5. Propeller Thrust and Torque Coefficients and Efficiency.
The overall propeller thrust and torque will be obtained by summing the results of all the radial blade element values.
(for all elements), and (for all elements)
The non-dimensional thrust and torque coefficients can then be calculated along with the advance ratio at which they have been calculated.
CT = T/(n2D4) and CQ = Q/(n2D5) for J = Vinf/(nD)
where n is the rotation speed of propeller in revs per second and D is the propeller diameter.
The efficiency of the propeller under these flight conditions will then be
(propeller) = J/(2).(CT/CQ).
6. Software Implementation of Blade Element Theory
Two programming versions of this propeller analysis technique are available. The first is a demonstration program which can be used to calculate thrust and torque coefficients and efficiency for a relatively simple propeller design using standard linearised aerofoil section data. The blade is assumed to have a constant pitch (p) so that the variation of with radius is calculated from the standard pitch equation.
p = 2r tan().
Click here to download Program 1: Propel.exe
The second is a MATLAB script file for the implementation of this method. The source code in this script is by default a simple propeller design with linear properties. However with the inclusion of your own propeller geometry and section data a more accurate analysis of the specific propeller design can be obtained.
Click here to download Program 2: Propel.m
© AMME, University of Sydney, 1996-2006. | <urn:uuid:7bda0ab4-f046-4357-8729-f973845c474c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www-mdp.eng.cam.ac.uk/web/library/enginfo/aerothermal_dvd_only/aero/propeller/prop1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00042-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.878861 | 1,991 | 3.46875 | 3 |
|MadSci Network: Medicine|
Greetings, Below you will find the top ten reasons for fainting. www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/reporter/?ID=2287 Fainting is a symptom of an inadequate supply of oxygen and other nutrients to the brain, usually caused by a temporary decrease in blood flow. Blood flow to the brain can decrease whenever the body cannot quickly compensate for a fall in blood pressure. Causes 1. Fainting may occur if the heart cannot pump enough blood to maintain a normal blood pressure. For example, an abnormal heart rhythm or a heart valve disorder may impair the heart's pumping ability. People with such disorders may feel fine when resting. However, they feel faint or actually faint when exercising because the heart cannot pump enough blood to meet the body's increased demand for oxygen. This type of fainting is called exertional or effort syncope. People with these disorders may also faint after exercising. During exercise, the increase in heart rate may enable the heart to pump enough blood to maintain adequate blood pressure, although just barely. When exercise stops, the heart rate (and the amount of blood pumped) begins to decrease. However, the blood vessels in muscles, which dilate (widen) during exercise to move more blood to and from the muscles, remain dilated. (The arterioles in muscles remain dilated to help supply oxygen and nutrients to muscle tissue, and the veins remain dilated to remove metabolic waste products produced during exercise.) The decrease in the amount of blood pumped out combined with dilation of the arterioles and veins causes blood pressure to fall, and fainting results. 2. An abnormality of the heart called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (see Cardiomyopathy: Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy) can also cause fainting that usually occurs during exercise. This disorder may occur in younger people as well as older people, particularly those who have high blood pressure. If untreated, it can lead to death. 3. Fainting may occur if blood volume is too low. An obvious cause of low blood volume is bleeding. Another cause is dehydration, which may be due to diarrhea, excessive sweating, inadequate intake of fluids, or excessive urination (which is a common symptom of untreated diabetes (see Diabetes Mellitus) or Addison's disease (see Adrenal Gland Disorders: Addison's Disease)). In older people, the use of diuretics is a common cause of dehydration, particularly during warm weather or during an illness when obtaining or drinking enough fluids may be difficult. (Diuretics help the kidneys eliminate salt and water by increasing urine formation and thus decrease fluid volume in the body.) 4. Fainting may occur if the vagus nerve, which supplies the neck, chest, and intestine, is stimulated. When stimulated, the vagus nerve slows the heart. Such stimulation also causes nausea and cool, clammy skin. This type of fainting is called vasovagal (vasomotor) syncope. The vagus nerve is stimulated by pain (such as intestinal cramps), fear, other distress (such as that due to the sight of blood), vomiting, a large bowel movement, and urination. Fainting during or immediately after urination is called micturition syncope. Rarely, vigorous swallowing causes fainting due to stimulation of the vagus nerve. 5. Fainting may also occur if straining reduces the amount of blood flowing back to the heart. Fainting due to coughing (cough syncope) usually results from such straining. Fainting after urination (micturition syncope) or after a bowel movement is partly due to straining (in addition to stimulation of the vagus nerve). Older men who must strain to empty their bladder because of a large prostate gland are particularly susceptible. Fainting when lifting weights (weight lifter's syncope) results from the strain of trying to lift or push heavy weights without breathing adequately during the exercise. 6. Fainting that occurs when a person sits or stands up too quickly is called orthostatic (postural) syncope. It is particularly common among older people. It is caused by orthostatic hypotension (see Low Blood Pressure: Orthostatic Hypotension). In orthostatic hypotension, the compensatory mechanisms, particularly the constriction of blood vessels and the increase in heart rate, do not adequately restore blood pressure when a person stands and gravity causes blood to pool in the leg veins. A related form of fainting, called parade ground syncope, occurs when people stand still for a long time on a hot day. If the leg muscles are not used, blood is not pumped back to the heart. As a result, blood pools in the leg veins, and blood pressure falls. 7. In older people, an excessive decrease in blood pressure after eating a meal (postprandial hypotension (see Low Blood Pressure: Postprandial Hypotension)) may cause fainting. 8. Fainting may result from very rapid breathing (overbreathing, or hyperventilation), which may be due to anxiety. This type of fainting is called hyperventilation syncope. Overbreathing removes large amounts of carbon dioxide from the body. The decreased level of carbon dioxide causes blood vessels in the brain to constrict, and the person may feel faint or actually faint. 9. Rarely, fainting results from a mild stroke in which blood flow to a part of the brain suddenly decreases. Fainting due to a stroke is more common among older people. Many other disorders, such as a deficiency of red blood cells (anemia), lung disorders, a decreased blood sugar level (hypoglycemia), and diabetes can cause fainting, especially if the compensatory mechanisms are also impaired. 10. Certain drugs may cause fainting. They include many of those used to treat high blood pressure, angina, and heart failure. Doses of these drugs must be carefully adjusted to prevent blood pressure from decreasing too much. Check out the following sites for more information on fainting www.anxietynetwork.com/pdfear.html www.merck.com/mmhe/sec03/ch023/ch023b.html www.eyewitnessnewstv.com/global/story.asp?s=1230242 Thanks for taking the time to send in a question to the Mad Sci Network. June Wingert Associate Scientist Lexicon Genetics Texas
Try the links in the MadSci Library for more information on Medicine. | <urn:uuid:092be93a-4dcc-4e85-9e35-7e21f1f62f61> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2005-02/1108748937.Me.r.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00004-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934203 | 1,359 | 3.84375 | 4 |
Find over 200 print-friendly fact sheets about heart disease and related health topics.
Fludarabine is available as an
oral and intravenous (IV) medicine.
Fludarabine is an antimetabolite medicine. It causes cell death
by interfering with the way genetic material (DNA) in the cell
Fludarabine is used in combination with other medicines to treat
chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and
non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL).
Fludarabine is an effective treatment for chronic lymphocytic
leukemia (CLL) that has not responded to other types of chemotherapy, such as
chlorambucil or cyclophosphamide. Studies are ongoing to find out the safety
and effectiveness of fludarabine in people who have not received other types of
chemotherapy or who are responding to other types of chemotherapy.
Side effects are common with fludarabine and can include:
See Drug Reference for a full list of side effects. (Drug Reference
is not available in all systems.)
Fludarabine should be given only under the supervision of a
medical oncologist or
You may not be able to become pregnant or father a child after
taking this medicine. Discuss fertility with your doctor before starting
Fludarabine can cause birth defects. Do not use this medicine if
you are pregnant or if you wish to become pregnant or father a child while you are
Fludarabine can interact with many other medicines. Be sure that
your doctor has a complete list of all prescription and
nonprescription medicines you are taking.
Do not drink alcoholic beverages or take medicines containing
aspirin while being treated with fludarabine, because these can cause bleeding
from your stomach.
Complete the new medication information form (PDF)(What is a PDF document?) to help you understand this medication.
March 29, 2012
Anne C. Poinier, MD - Internal Medicine & Douglas A. Stewart, MD - Medical Oncology
To learn more visit Healthwise.org
© 1995-2012 Healthwise, Incorporated. Healthwise, Healthwise for every health decision, and the Healthwise logo are trademarks of Healthwise, Incorporated. | <urn:uuid:f2a97b2d-c3c4-4b96-95ff-6d54d1de2f19> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.cardiosmart.org/healthwise/tv76/16/tv7616 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00140-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.8695 | 480 | 2.71875 | 3 |
In which Scrabble dictionary does STERLING exist?
Definitions of STERLING in dictionaries:
- noun -
- adj -
highest in quality
British money, especially the pound as the basic monetary unit of the United Kingdom.
British coinage of silver or gold, having as a standard of fineness 0.
Articles, such as tableware, made of sterling silver.
Consisting of or relating to sterling or British money.
Made of sterling silver: a sterling teaspoon.
Of the highest quality: a person of sterling character.
There are 8 letters in STERLING:
E G I L N R S T
Scrabble words that can be created with an extra letter added to STERLING
All anagrams that could be made from letters of word STERLING plus a
Scrabble words that can be created with letters from word STERLING
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Images for STERLINGLoading...
SCRABBLE is the registered trademark of Hasbro and J.W. Spear & Sons Limited. Our scrabble word finder and scrabble cheat word builder is not associated with the Scrabble brand - we merely provide help for players of the official Scrabble game. All intellectual property rights to the game are owned by respective owners in the U.S.A and Canada and the rest of the world. Anagrammer.com is not affiliated with Scrabble. This site is an educational tool and resource for Scrabble & Words With Friends players. | <urn:uuid:4f5de67a-cbf7-4a01-ae65-42b37f5066f6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.anagrammer.com/scrabble/sterling | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394937.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00174-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.875629 | 351 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Sat, May 2, 2009 at 12:02 PM
Dear Identifiers of Insects,
This time I’m writing about a huge millipede that keeps attempting to cross a heavily-trafficked footpath; I’ve rescued him twice, and am wondering what type he is. Sort of looks like a picture I found online of ”black and yellow millipede” or ”Harpaphe” genus, but the legs on that were black, not yellow.
This fella is a good three inches long, and rather hefty as far as bugs go! Certainly the largest millipede I’ve ever seen.
Thanks! Hope you find the photo interesting!
Dear R. Thompson,
Your submission to our website did not use our newly formatted form that requests a location, so we have no idea where this Millipede was found. This also means that you have written to our site before. We hope you write back with your location. We believe you are correct that your Yellow Spotted Millipede is in the genus Harpaphe, probably Harpaphe haydeniana, The following remarks are according to BugGuide: “this particular millipede secretes a dark fluid that has an odor similar to the almond extract used in cooking. Apparently this is a defensive manuveur. Millipedes also curl up in tight coils when threatened. (1) Caution: Many millipedes with bright color patterns secrete a compound containing cyanide. Wash your hands after handling them and do not allow children to pick them up. ‘Millipedes are entirely non-toxic to humans and can be picked up by hand. Some secretions discolor the skin, but this wears away in a few days without lasting effect. Some large, cylindrical, tropical species squirt their defensive secretions up to a half meter (2-3 feet) and can blind chickens and dogs. Their fluids are painful if they get into the eyes, and persons working with tropical millipedes should be suitably cautious.’ ~Rowland Shelley Harpaphe is in the tribe Xystodesmini.”
Sorry about that – the location of the millipede is Chapel Hill, NC.
I didn’t pick him up with my hands, but let him crawl onto a stick.
Thanks for the info!
Excellent. An eastern species is Sigmoria trimaculata, and it has yellow legs. You can also see photos of this species posted to BugGuide and there are reports of representatives of the genus from North Carolina. | <urn:uuid:07a48645-1fe9-44cd-b4b0-029b031e28a6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.whatsthatbug.com/2009/05/03/millipede-3/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00142-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946883 | 542 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Congolese Rainforest Zoning for Logging Protested
LONDON, UK, February 12, 2004 (ENS) - More than 100 environment, development, and human rights groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) today called on the World Bank to stop plans for economic development of the country that would carve up the world's second largest remaining rainforest into industrial logging concessions.
Internal World Bank documents obtained by the Rainforest Foundation and shared with the DRC groups reveal that the bank intends to "create a favorable climate for industrial logging" in the Congo, and envisions a 60 fold increase in the country’s timber production.
In a statement today the groups said plans for the development of DRC’s forests would have “major repercussions for the rights and livelihoods of millions of Congolese citizens, with serious and irreversible impacts” on the forest environment.
From 1998 the deadliest war in Africa's history has torn the country apart. But successful completion of the inter-Congolese dialogue last year has resulted in the establishment of a transitional government of national unity that is supposed to lead the DRC to elections within 30 months.
Despite the ceasefire, the eastern DRC remains overrun by numerous armed rebel groups and militias, plundering gold, diamonds and valuable minerals, terrorizing, looting, raping and killing villagers, and destroying social infrastructure, warned the International Medical Corps in a report last month.
To stabilize the country, the international community is encouraging and monitoring its economic reconstruction, but the Rainforest Foundation warns that a comprehensive new Forest Code adopted in August 2002, supported by the World Bank and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, will lead to widespread rainforest logging.
The DRC's entire rainforest would be zoned and parceled out to logging companies, says the Rainforest Foundation, warning, "Congolese environmental and human rights groups, and people living in the forest, have not been consulted about the new laws, which represent a threat to the livelihoods of millions of impoverished Congolese people, who depend on the forest for their survival."
The bank and the FAO now are supporting the development of a series of new laws that will implement the Code. Both agencies are also involved in preparing a national forest zoning plan, which will define areas for logging, conservation and community use.
The zoning is intended to put an end to illegal timber extraction, a goal the international community supports.
Members of the UN Security Council on Wednesday heard a briefing by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the DRC. After the briefing, Security Council President Wang Guangya of China said that members of the Council "stressed the need for the extension of state authority, security sector reform, strengthening the rule of law and economic reconstruction, an end to illegal exploitation of natural resources and to impunity."
But the Congolese groups said today that their rainforest is about to be stripped away by law, and without consulting the people who will be most affected.
Joseph Bobia, spokesperson for the Congolese development organisation, CENADEP, said, “The World Bank and the FAO are supposedly committed to involving the public in major new projects, especially those that affect the laws and policies of poor countries. However, in the Congo, there has been no meaningful consultation with civil society over the proposed new forestry laws, or the re-zoning of land, that will potentially see much of the country turned into a vast logging concession.”
Speaking on behalf of the Rainforest Foundation UK, Simon Counsell said, “The World Bank must strictly apply its own environmental and social safeguards, and fully respect international laws, in order to avoid unleashing a wave of destruction on Congo’s forests."
In 2001, the DRC was singled out by the UN Environment Programme as one of 15 countries where international efforts at forest conservation should be focused.
The tropical forests of Africa's Congo Basin are some of the last remaining large areas of primeval forested lands in the world, second only to the Amazon Basin. These forests support rare and endangered species such as the eastern lowland gorilla, mountain gorilla, chimpanzee, white rhino, okapi, and Congo peacock. They provide food, materials and shelter for over 20 million people and play an important role as a sink for the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
In a letter to UK Secretary of State for International Development Hilary Benn earlier this month, the Rainforest Foundation has asked the British government to intervene to halt the World Bank’s plans to zone and parcel out DRC rainforests to logging companies.
"The rights and needs of people living in, and depending on, the forest should not be sacrificed in pursuit of spurious economic benefits from the logging industry,” said Counsell.
The Rainforest Foundation was founded in 1989 by the musician Sting and his wife Trudie Styler, in response to the continued violation of the rights of indigenous peoples, and the destruction of the rainforests in which they live. | <urn:uuid:578436bc-f3ef-4761-9072-421f0b6c17b1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2004/2004-02-12-01.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00201-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937582 | 1,031 | 2.609375 | 3 |
The World Health Organization (WHO) today released the first ever country-by-country analysis of the impact that environmental factors have on health, and it revealed that 13 million deaths worldwide could be prevented every year by making environments healthier.
The report shows huge inequalities but also demonstrate that in every country, people's health could be improved by reducing environmental risks, including pollution, hazards in the work environment, UV radiation, noise, agricultural risks, climate and ecosystem change.
In some countries, more than one third of the disease burden could be prevented through environmental improvements. The worst affected countries include Angola, Burkina Faso and Mali, as well as Afghanistan.
In 23 countries worldwide, more than 10 percent of deaths are due to just two environmental risk factors: unsafe water, including poor sanitation and hygiene; and indoor air pollution due to solid fuel use for cooking.
Around the world, children below five years of age are the main victims and make up 74 percent of deaths due to diarrhoeal disease and lower respiratory infections.
Low-income countries suffer the most from environmental health factors, losing about 20 times more healthy years of life per person per year than high-income countries. However, the data show that no country is immune from the environmental impact on health. Even in countries with better environmental conditions, almost one sixth of the disease burden could be prevented, and efficient environmental interventions could significantly reduce cardiovascular disease and road traffic injuries.
"These country estimates are a first step towards assisting national decision-makers in the sectors of health and environment to set priorities for preventive action," said Susanne Weber-Mosdorf, WHO Assistant Director-General for Sustainable Development and Healthy Environments.
It is important to quantify the burden of disease from unhealthy environments. This information is key to help countries select the appropriate interventions," she added. The country profiles provided a preliminary estimate of health impacts caused by environmental risks. The new data could be used by the countries to refine their own estimates.
The data also show that household interventions could dramatically reduce the death rate. Using cleaner fuel such as gas or electricity, using better cooking devices, improving the ventilation or modifying people's behaviour (such as keeping children away from smoke) could have a major impact on respiratory infections and diseases among women and children.Related medicine news :1
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. Global Warming Could Cause 5 Million Illnesses: WHO11
. Australia earmarks $74 Million to Fight Bird Flu | <urn:uuid:b4ab0a79-2518-4da8-a374-f1308bb52632> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/13-Million-Die-Worldwide-Due-to-Unhealthy-Environment-3A-New-WHO-Report-20612-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398873.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00164-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925081 | 642 | 3.578125 | 4 |
Trouble Busters (Apr, 1947)
You toss them a tough problem and they toss back a tender solution.
BY MARGOT PATTERSON
“NO POTATOES,” the grocer said grimly.
“No potatoes?” the housewife exclaimed with emotion. “Why, I must have potatoes! My family needs potatoes!”
“Sorry, lady,” the grocer said. “There’s a shortage. It’s on account of the rot.”
Until 1938, this little scene was re-enacted annually all over the United States. Bacterial soft rot baffled shippers. It would spread through whole carloads of potatoes, causing losses of millions of dollars. Finally, the shippers put the problem in the hands of the Armour Research Foundation.
The Armour men promptly brought forth a new dryer. A conveyor belt carried the potatoes through a hot-air blast which dried and altered their skin condition and prevented penetration of the bacterial invader. This technique cut the frightful annual loss.
Armour Research Foundation makes a business of solving other people’s problems. It will tackle headaches in any worthy field and tell you why your machines break down, how long a suit of clothes will last, the quickest way to assemble the parts of a watch, how fast your heart will beat if you jump from a plane at thirty thousand feet, or, if you like, the behavior of lubricants under the tremendous hydraulic pressure of 1,500,000 pounds to the square inch.
A bright idea, a lot of enthusiasm and very little cash launched it in 1937. The idea was a simple one. Giant corporations had their own laboratories to solve their problems but the small businessmen, faced with similar problems, were out’ of luck. They couldn’t afford to maintain even one technician. So the Foundation was started with the idea of giving the “little man” a break.
With a scanty supply of equipment and the blessings of the Illinois Institute of Technology, three willing young scientists set themselves up in three rooms of an ancient apartment house and asked for tough problems to solve. People laughed, but once the Foundation started it boomed. Tales of the unique organization spread, and new clients beat a pathway to the ugly red brick building on Chicago’s South Side, as Harold Vagtborg and his associates licked one tough problem after another.
Business came from far and wide. And not only small business. Executives of large corporations were frequent visitors. Where their own laboratories had failed they were willing to try anything. The Foundation almost always came up with the right answer. Amazed and grateful, these executives showered the young men with equipment and materials.
Today 200 scientists carry on their work in several well equipped buildings. More than 1,500 clients have been served. The astonishing number of 4,000 research tasks have been undertaken, saving millions of dollars for private industry and the Government.
There is very little of the orthodox about the Foundation. Its members read all there is to read about a subject, then toss aside the textbooks and tackle the problem from the beginning. This open-minded approach speeds the solution and keeps the Foundation from old and futile lines of thinking.
“For years we have been told that such and such is so. But is it so? Let’s prove it, or try to.”
When the Foundation finishes a research task for a client the theories, methods and patents on it belong exclusively to that client. None of his competitors has access to the findings. If he makes a fortune from the discoveries, well and good. The organization is run on a non-profit basis, asking nothing but a modest service fee, agreed upon in advance. The staff estimates the approximate cost of materials, tools, equipment, salaries and overhead, and this is the fee it charges.
Sometimes a baffling problem can be settled in ten minutes and sometimes a dilemma that looks simple on the surface will take a year of careful study. Teamwork is the keynote of the Foundation’s success. The Armour Associates don’t believe in “too many cooks spoiling the broth.” If two heads are better than one, then three are better than two. Round table discussions—fact finding from many angles—go on daily. Often new tools and new methods must be invented to deal with a problem that won’t yield to known methods. When this happens, the man with the idea doesn’t hesitate to call upon metallurgists, electrical experts, mechanical engineers, chemists, or any other staff members. The answer may end up looking like something out of Rube Goldberg, but it works. Their group research means speedy results. And better ones than the lone genius in the garret can produce.
The staff is a collection of able young scientists. Its director and executive members are all in their thirties. They are constantly on the lookout for up-and-coming youngsters completing their technical training. They say that young blood and young ideas go hand in hand, and young ideas keep the Foundation on its toes and make it the success it is.
Plain horse sense solves many a problem, as in the case of the leaking fountain pen. Business executives who traveled by plane were apt to find that they had a pocketful of ink when the trip was over, because at high altitudes the air pressure was too low to keep the ink in the pen. It wasn’t long before a manufacturer brought this problem to the Foundation. The Armour technicians tackled it with exhaustive care. They made every test and experiment. Then, suddenly, the answer struck them: Why not give the pen two reservoirs, one connected to the other? At low altitudes the ink would stay in the main reservoir, at high altitudes it would leak into the secondary one.
But horse sense doesn’t work all the time. Complicated problems need a great deal of time, study and sometimes new equipment. Certain tiny parts used in watch making had been causing the makers of watches a heavy annual loss. At one point in their manufacture the parts had to be subjected to heat. No matter how much care was taken, all but a fraction of them were ruined in every trial. They would stick together, fuse into a solid mass and become worthless. The industry, both here and abroad, looked on this waste as inevitable and just added the cost to the price of each watch.
Dr. C. N. Challacombe, the Armour staff physicist, found the answer within a month. He dreamed up a novel method of heat treatment with a more satisfactory furnace-atmosphere control, and built it. The new equipment produced perfect parts in trial after trial.
“How can we reduce the amount of tin in tin cans?” manufacturers asked. The young scientists studied the subject as if it were something new under the sun, as if the conventional hot-dipping steel sheet method did not exist. The real question was, “How can steel be tin plated with the smallest amount of tin?” They came forth with electroplating by induction heating. This method saves from one-third to one-half the amount of tin used in the hot-dipping process.
The president of an office machine manufacturing company went to see the Armour men. One of his machines was too noisy. Two or more of them in the same room made a clatter like hail on a tin roof.
The staff studied the vibrations set up in the machine in relation to the shapes and sizes of its different parts. New sound-absorbing materials and a change in the design of certain parts reduced its overall noise 94 percent.
To walk through the Armour Institute is to see a miniature cross section of American industry. Open that door on the left and you’ll see rows of chocolates coming out of an embryo candy factory. Walk to the next room and you’ll see cement being made in a model rotary mixer. Up a little farther, just beyond the working flour mill, an enormous smelter melts steel with ultra-short radio waves.
Don’t open that door, unless you want to freeze in a temperature of 67 degrees below zero in the teeth of an artificial 200-mile-an-hour gale. It’s the thermal chamber, where they turn weather off and on. Just now it’s being used to duplicate stratospheric conditions for the testing of equipment. Come back next week and it may be a typical tropical day in there.
The Foundation doesn’t limit its research to solving other people’s problems. Sometimes it gets curious about how this and this would affect that and that and goes ahead and develops things in its own right.
This is how they perfected wire recording, which allows hours of music to be recorded on a small spool of wire and played over and over without wearing. Five miles of the wire used weighs only a pound, and it can be bent, twisted or even heated to high temperatures without affecting the recording. There is no comparison between this method and the clumsy record system now in use. It is superior in almost every respect.
During the years ahead, the success of our economic system depends in part on whether small companies can compete with the industrial giants. We can reach full employment only if these small companies can keep pace technologically, only if they can win and hold their business in competition with the giants. Scientific research on a fee basis—the Armour system—is the answer. | <urn:uuid:868c57b1-b78e-4a33-92d9-1e44d3a4c0e0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blog.modernmechanix.com/trouble-busters/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391766.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00040-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960808 | 1,974 | 2.6875 | 3 |
AMGT 420: Principles of Organizational Development
Professor: Michele Barregarye
Assignment 4-2: Human Process Intervention
In business and in large organizations, working relationships are vital to the overall health of the group. Human process interventions are geared towards improving interaction among individuals working together and resolve conflict. Human process interventions include interpersonal and group process approaches such as process consultation, third-party interventions, and team building. These interventions are the most notable human process OD interventions which focus on improving working relationships and maximize productivity. An interesting intervention to investigate is process consultation. Process consultation is a practice introduced in the works of Edgar Schein a highly respected OD scholar. According to Schein, process consultation is “the creation of a relationship that permits the client to perceive, understand, and act on the process events that occur in client’s internal and external environment in order to improve the situation as defined by the client” (Cummings, T & Worley. C 2009). The emphasis is on forming a helping relationship because process consultation is a mutual understanding between the client and consultant on working together on specific issues put forth by the client. The intent of the intervention is to form a partnership to improve working relationships by the client presenting the issues to the consultant, and the consultant presenting techniques, thinking, and best practices for finding solutions for pressing problems. Because the partnership is fluid, it explores all possible solutions, but narrows choices down to relevant approaches that can improve the issue at hand. The key objective of any interventions is to produce desired behavior and performance. The main goal of process consultation is to diagnose the problems facing the organization, find solutions, and improve the overall... | <urn:uuid:8f40af54-381c-40f1-a281-23353ef11538> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.studymode.com/essays/Human-Process-Intervention-1059761.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00031-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934856 | 340 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Definition of Apgar
Apgar: Abbreviation for the Apgar score, a practical method of evaluating the physical condition of a newborn infant shortly after delivery. The Apgar score is a number arrived at by scoring the heart rate, respiratory effort, muscle tone, skin color, and response to a catheter in the nostril. Each of these objective signs can receive 0, 1, or 2 points.
A perfect Apgar score of 10 means an infant is in the best possible condition. An infant with an Apgar score of 0-3 needs immediate resuscitation.
The Apgar score is done routinely 60 seconds after the birth of the infant and then it is commonly repeated 5 minutes after birth. In the event of a difficult resuscitation, the Apgar score may be done again at 10, 15, and 20 minutes.
An Apgar score of 0-3 at 20 minutes of age is predictive of high morbidity (disease) and mortality (death).
The score is named for the preeminent American anesthesiologist Virginia Apgar (1909-1974) who invented the scoring method in 1952. Having assisted at thousands of deliveries, Dr. Apgar wished to focus attention on the baby. Babies were traditionally dispatched directly to the nursery, often without much formal scrutiny after delivery. Apgar wanted the baby to be assessed in an organized meaningful manner by the delivery room personnel. Dr. Apgar was the first woman to be appointed a full professor at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons.Source: MedTerms™ Medical Dictionary
Last Editorial Review: 10/9/2012
Medical Dictionary Definitions A - Z
Search Medical Dictionary
- Myths and Facts About Baby Eczema
- Diaper Rash: When to Call a Doctor.
- How to Spot Deadly Allergy Triggers | <urn:uuid:edc42f5b-1642-4f04-a896-3c8567fdb7d1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.emedicinehealth.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=2302 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00126-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901708 | 375 | 3.21875 | 3 |
LONDON -- Noah's Ark has been found on the Turkish-Iranian border, 32 kilometers from Mount Ararat, according to the leader of a team of scientists that has been investigating the site for six years.
The Turkish government is so convinced by the findings that, after years of intransigence, it has designated the site one of special archaeological interest and agreed to its excavation next summer.
The remote site contains a buried, ship-like object, resting an altitude of 2,300 meters. At 170 meters long and 45 meters wide, it conforms almost exactly to the 300 cubit by 50 cubit boat that God told Noah to build, according to Genesis 6 in the Bible.
On surrounding terrain, the American and Middle Eastern scientists have identified huge stones with holes carved at one end, which they believe are "drogue-stones," dragged behind ships in the ancient world to stabilize them. Radar soundings indicate unusual levels of iron-oxide distribution.
Salih Bayraktutan, head of geology at Turkey's Ataturk University, estimates the age of the 'vessel' at more than 100,000 years (According to the Bible, Adam the first of human beings was created some 6000 years ago, as you can see this is a clear contradiction to the Bible. The Quran however doesn't specify the when Adam was born, it does say the human beings were created a long time ago.) "It is a man-made structure and for sure it is Noah's Ark." The site is directly below the mountain of Al Judi, named in the Koran (Quran) as the Ark's resting place.
David Fasold, an American shipwreck specialist with no religious affiliation, has led the investigation. He says subsurface radar surveys of the site have produced "very good pictures." "The radar imagery at about 25 meters down from the stern is so clear that you can count the floorboards between the walls."
He believes the team has found the fossilized remains of the upper deck and that the original reed substructure has disappeared. But the findings have infuriated the scores of Christian Ark-hunters who travel to Turkey, convinced the Ark will only be found on Mount Ararat.
|Fasold, who calls
himself an "Arkologist," also argues that it was not a great flood that
pushed the Ark into the mountains. He says it was "an astronomical event
causing a tectonic upheaval, a tidal bore causing gravitational pull in
the ocean waters that forced the boat into the mountains."
Some of Fasold's
team of geophysicists and geologists are reserving final judgment until
the excavation and carbon-dating. But in a British TV series on the environment
next month, team member Vendyl Jones, a Middle East archaeologist and inspiration
for film character Indiana Jones, says it is "between maybe and probably"
that they have found Noah's Ark.
When the word went forth: "O earth! swallow up thy water and O sky! withhold (thy rain)!" and the water abated and the matter was ended. The Ark rested on Mount Judi and the word went forth: "Away with those who do wrong!"
The 49th verse of the same Chapter says:
Such are some of the stories of the Unseen which We have revealed unto you: before this neither you nor your people knew them. So persevere patiently: for the end is for those who are righteous." | <urn:uuid:6230a741-1050-41d4-a64f-2c3a4c647df8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.themodernreligion.com/noahs_ark.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394937.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00138-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965015 | 719 | 2.984375 | 3 |
A sequence of images showing how turbulent forces (the Coriolis Effect and vertical shear) mix up the layers of dust and gas orbiting young stars. Images depict a 2-D slice through Joseph Barranco's 3-D simulations. Deep red indicates dust-rich gas. Deep blue indicates pure gas. The simulation is based on dust and gas that is the same distance away from its star as earth is from the sun. The time interval between frames is 3.4 years. | <urn:uuid:c157d5f2-716d-44c5-89d8-0bc74077cbe2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/11268.php?from=127344 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398628.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00182-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922912 | 98 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Flashy Maths and the power of ICT
If you haven’t heard about FlashyMaths.co.uk then you are in for a treat! It features lots of interactive webpage games, on a variety of maths topics. The kids love them and they all provide genuine educational value.
Tonight I had one of those ‘why I went into teaching’ moments where one of my pupils who has an FFT ‘prediction’ of a G was solving grade C equations (unknowns on both sides) using the excellent Solving Equations Applet. The power of ICT to enhance learning really hit me in the face tonight as I realised that no chalk-and-talk lesson could have had the same impact as this interactive applet for this pupils’ learning. He loves computer games and as soon as solving equations was framed in this format he was totally engaged and made amazing progress. At the end of the day he could even write down solutions on paper 🙂
Here are links to the current crop of interactive applets on Flashy Maths:
Shoot the asteroids by telling the spaceship what angle it should turn.As the game goes on, it gets more difficult, with more angles. Game has cool sounds and exploding effects!
Rescue the waving man by telling the ship what bearing it should sail at. Avoid the floating icebergs!
000 is north
090 is east
180 is south
270 is west
Factorise the quadratic expression using arrows to change what is in the brackets. Allows you to test and simplify what you have and gives you another try if it’s not right.
Gets quite difficult by level 5!!
Updated version improved the look slightly and fixed a few bugs.
You have 30 seconds to shoot as many aliens as possible. You are given the co-ordinates of where an alien has been detected, which you must use to shoot the alien as quickly as possible.Uses all four quadrants.
Try to find matching pairs of equivalent fractions.
Two teams take it in turns to see who can find the most. If you find a pair, you get another turn. Tests fractions and memory!
Now updated with sound effects and custom difficulty levels.
Click the play button to watch the shape rotate 360 degrees. As it turns, count how many times it fits back onto itself (bottom box) to give its order of rotation (top box).After seeing the first couple, a class should be able to do the rest on their own, possibly as a test. Currently contains 14 shapes.
Small demonstration of sequences. Click random then generate on top sequence then try to make same sequence using arrows on bottom sequence. Works well if you start off by constructing sequences in two parts, testing to see how close you are.Click grey boxes to reveal what is under them.
A useful game where you try to solve equations by doing the same thing to both sides. Use buttons at bottom and click apply to make it happen.Levels 1 and 2 have 1-step equations, level 3 has 2-step equations and level 4 has unknowns on both sides!
Not really a game! A timer I wrote for the IWB, since there didn’t seem to be much around. Will start, stop and split, or countdown from any time you want.
A large game where you are given a shape and a transformation and you have to fill in the image. The shapes get bigger and the transformations more difficult as you progress. You have 3 lives to get the highest score possible. | <urn:uuid:f6369ee3-ff6c-4aa5-bc2e-5328de84503b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.greatmathsteachingideas.com/2011/09/21/flashy-maths-and-the-power-of-ict/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00079-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961163 | 734 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Constructs describing the expert teacher: How do elementary school principals, school board members, and university based educational researchers describe the expert teacher?
Date of Award
Doctor of Education (EdD)
expert-novice pedagogical research
Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research
During the past twenty years, researchers in cognitive psychology attempted to differentiate expert practice from novice practice. Pedagogical researchers recently adopted a similar focus, describing the instructional practices of expert and novice teachers. However, the pedagogical researchers failed to document the constructs used to select the expert teacher/subject for their research.
The goals of this study are to identify and compare the constructs elementary school principals, school board members, and university based educational researchers use to describe the expert teacher. This research assists in determining how different role group members describe the expert teacher, thereby enlarging the knowledge about how the expert teacher might be viewed and perhaps valued.
Two members from each of the three role groups were individually asked: to identify and rank different types of teachers, including the expert; to draw a concept map describing the expert teacher; and to use protocol materials to distinguish the expert teacher. The data, collected on videotape and in fieldnotes, consisted of each subject's verbal description of the expert teacher and his/her: ranking continuum, concept map, use of the protocol materials, and responses to the interview protocol. A case representing the data collected from each subject was presented to him/her for verification, review and comment. The cases were then analyzed to identify how the expert teacher was described.
The subjects were able to identify, describe, and distinguish the expert teacher. Collectively, they identified expert teacher: synonyms, qualities, and roles. They described expert teacher: behaviors, qualities, roles, and skills. They distinguished the expert teacher using different protocol materials. They also suggested supplemental materials and procedures to aid in this task.
These subjects also identified other types of teachers previously undocumented in expert-novice pedagogical research. They were able to describe and make concrete the differences between the expert teacher and these other types of teachers. Each perceived the expert teacher differently, but described him/her similarly, as a teacher who practices in ways the other types of teachers are unable/unwilling to practice.
Surface provides description only. Full text is available to ProQuest subscribers. Ask your Librarian for assistance.
Schwartz, Fred Allan, "Constructs describing the expert teacher: How do elementary school principals, school board members, and university based educational researchers describe the expert teacher?" (1993). Higher Education - Dissertations. Paper 27. | <urn:uuid:13831b59-e8f7-475b-a875-5c0d4c946f88> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://surface.syr.edu/he_etd/27/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394605.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00129-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93454 | 536 | 3 | 3 |
How to Close the Social-Emotional Gap in Teacher TrainingBy Kim Schonert-Reichl, Vicki Zakrzewski | January 8, 2014 | 0 comments
A new scan of teacher education programs reveals that very few teachers receive training in social-emotional learning.
According to a recent Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) report, a whopping 83 percent of teachers stated that they want training in social-emotional learning (SEL) skills. Yet a recent scan of Canadian and U.S. teacher education programs conducted by one of us (Kim) and Dr. Shelley Hymel—both from the University of British Columbia—showed that very few pre-service teachers are actually receiving training in SEL.
The lack of SEL training for teachers has consequences for students. Consider this: Another revealing study showed that teachers who didn’t buy into the SEL curriculum that they were using in their classroom actually worsened their students’ SEL skills.
Most likely, these teachers had never been exposed to the large body of research that shows a positive connection between SEL skills and students’ academic and life success. And they were probably even less aware of the impact of their own social-emotional competencies on their ability to be effective teachers.
The need and demand for SEL in the classroom is growing—and so is the science behind it. But mainstream education has yet to make it foundational to the learning and teaching process. For SEL to be integrated fully into teacher training, a three-pronged approach is required, starting with training for aspiring teachers before they enter the classroom.
SEL growing in North America
- Social-emotional learning of students;
- Social-emotional competencies of teachers; and
- The learning context, including classroom management, school-wide coordination, and supporting school-family-community partnerships.
The scan revealed that 31 percent of states and territories required teachers to have knowledge and/or skills to promote all five dimensions of SEL of their students. This promising finding shows that the field of education is steadily beginning to embrace the importance of SEL for student success.
However, only nine states or territories required the development of some of the SEL dimensions in the pre-service teachers themselves, and not a single one required all five. While many in the education profession implicitly recognize the relationship between a teacher’s social-emotional skills and the creation of a safe and caring classroom environment, this finding reveals that teacher prep programs lag in their understanding that these skills can and should be taught.
Finally, almost every state and territory required some knowledge of the learning context, yet a negative rather than a positive approach was often emphasized. For example, instead of teaching pre-service educators how to create caring, supportive teacher-student relationships, many courses on classroom management focus on disciplining student misbehavior.
A three-pronged approach to integrating SEL
For SEL to be integrated fully into teacher training, we believe a three-pronged approach is required.
The next two prongs concentrate on the actual application of SEL in the classroom, starting with the mentoring of pre-service teachers during their student teaching and then continuing for at least the first two years of in-service teaching.
For example, mentors can help teachers—both new and experienced—learn to reflect and develop their self-awareness so that they can understand how their own past experiences might be influencing their responses to students.
Kim learned about the importance of reflection early in her teaching career when she taught at a Chicago-based residential treatment institution for students with severe emotional and behavioral disorders.
In order to be effective with students, she was mentored to constantly reflect on her response to them. Instead of reacting to a student who was pushing her buttons with, “Oh, that kid’s just a jerk,” Kim was taught to ask, “Why am I having this response? Why is the way this kid is behaving bringing up this emotion in me?” Through this training, she learned to become aware of how her emotions could influence a student’s behavior.
One memorable incident with a student named Jess really drove this need for reflection home to her. When Kim forgot to bring Jess money so that he could go out and meet friends—a coveted privilege—he lashed out at her. They quickly became engaged in a shouting match until the director of the school came into the room and asked what was going on.
In her very calm manner, the director said, “Let’s figure out what the problem is. Jess, you know Kim was very busy getting all her materials together. But Kim, can you see why Jess is upset? Jess, tell Kim how much seeing your friends meant to you.”
Jess responded, “You know how important being allowed to meet my friends is to me. So now I feel like you really don’t care about me because you forgot the money.” Kim immediately understood how her reaction to Jess had caused him to explode.
Rather than responding to students with harshness and judgment, Kim was coached to have empathy for the students. She learned to lead with compassion and care so that the students would learn to trust her and be able to say when faced with a difficult situation, “When you act like that, it makes me feel unloved.”
SEL Training for In-Service Teachers
Until learning and practicing SEL skills is mandated in teacher education programs, many teachers are on their own to seek out this information. Several programs exist for educators who would like to receive training in SEL:
- Greater Good Science Center’s Summer Institute for Educators
- Garrison Institute’s CARE for Teachers program
- Passageworks’ SMART-in-Education program
- SEL Masters Program at the University of British Columbia
- Margaret Cullen’s Mindfulness-Based Emotional Balance
- FuelEd teacher training program
What would the world look like today if the teachers of yesterday had been schooled in the latest SEL techniques? Imagine that you could say that each of your teachers had made an effort to get to know you as an individual. That each one made the classroom a safe place to take risks and make mistakes. And that when you got a little out of control, each teacher dealt with you in a way that helped you maintain your dignity and encouraged you to have a little more self-control?
Now imagine that as a teacher, you could do this for all your students.
How different would all our lives be?
Greater Good wants to know:
Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?
About The Author
Kim Schonert-Reichl, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology and Special Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia. She has conducted extensive research examining the effectiveness of school-based mindfulness and social and emotional learning (SEL) interventions, and published over 90 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters.
Vicki Zakrzewski, Ph.D., is the education director of the Greater Good Science Center. | <urn:uuid:e47e2814-0c50-4a8b-8510-dea95642bcb6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_close_the_social_emotional_gap_in_teacher_training | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00184-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970874 | 1,496 | 2.75 | 3 |
Currently, in The Netherlands, it’s the time of the national festival of St Nicholas. It’s a very old and populair Dutch tradition. Already since more then 500 years St Nicholas is celebrated as a family festivity with focus on the joy of the children. St Nicholas is a wise old saint who is a friend of everyone, especially of the children. He has a team of cheerful servants, they’re called Black Pete. It’s very possible that, people from far outside the Netherlands, have already heard of them because that’s where things start to be weird… Black Pete is generally played by a white person with a black painted face, red painted lips, topped with a black curly wig. Yes this basically blackface make-up, and gives the racist impression of expressing a caricature of a black person.
Even though it might be hard to understand for people outside the Netherlands, but St Nicholas festival is not meant to be racist. All Dutch people love Black Pete and the children see them as their great friend. Yet, in stark contrast with the overall joy of the folkloric tradition, the Black Pete persona brings a lot of controversy and debate in the country. Watch this video for more insights.
The supporters of Black Pete, who don’t see the figure as racist, want to honour the Dutch folkloric festival the way it is. For them, Black Pete is an important part of Dutch culture and needs to be honoured. In the contrary, you have people that feel hurt and offended by Black Pete. They find it a racist figure with obvious connotations with the Dutch slave trade. The Black Pete opponents want to keep celebrating St Nicholas but with an updated version of Black Pete, free from its racist features.
Protest voices, especially from Dutch people with a Surinam and Antillean background, raised in the early 80s. Despite their request for a more respectful ‘Pete’, not much changed. Understandably, since the last couple of years the presence and loudness of the anti-Black-Pete voice is increasing. We as a half Dutch artist duo, believe that the wish to update Black Pete is very rightful, better said… crucial. To be frank, we’re ashamed for the Black Pete figure as a representative of Dutch culture.
To celebrate positive change, and to exprebs the excitement that new choices and new customs can bring, we made some sketch collages of contemporary Dream Pete’s. With this blog post we want to express our position in the Black Pete debate (we actually really can’t believe that this debate is still going on!) and share our strong wish that Black Pete gets a gracious metamorphose that is joyous for everyone, and evidently not hurtful for people with a different background.
Happy Sint Nicholas celebration to ALL people of The Netherlands xxxx
In the streets of Amsterdam, during Gay Pride 2013, we photographed these fabulous lady-like allies. They’re dressed with style in ton sur ton pink. While we recovered from the pride, we digitally crafted with some photo apps, the ladies’ outfits for Gay Pride 2014. We can’t wait for next year!
Our dearest fashion designers MaryMe-JimmyPaul will open the Amsterdam Fashion Week tomorrow night (the 12th of July at 9 PM). We designed the catwalk of this marvelous show. We can tell you that it will be a grandiose interactive spectacle filled with MaryMe-JimmyPaul’s sculptural fashion fantasies. The show can be followed live via the AFW website or by downloading the AFW App.
We can’t wait for tomorrow! Good luck Marie and Jimmy with your last preparations!!! <3
Hereby a selection of images of MMJP’s previous collections:
Thanks to our dear friends at BULLETT Magazine, we were invited to take part in the grande re-opening of the Rijks Museum Amsterdam, with a seat at the from the front row, as part of the international press. Hereby few snaps from the day. Follow us on instagram for more daily entertainment.
Here an impression of the launch of Glamcult issue #2 where we celebrated the collaboration between us, photographer Duy Vo, stylist Lisa Anne Stuyfzand and Glamcult. The evening was presented as ‘A Rest Stop for Pinar&Viola, Duy and Lisa’. A Rest Stop for Rare Individuals is the new exhibition concept of Glamcult Studio.
♡ Thank you Glam Cult family for the great party ♡
The first two pics are from us, the rest is photographed by Nana van Dijk
Nike+ 21-Karat shows a Pinar&Viola version of the running experience in the future, through the eyes of a girl using the Nike+ App. Being inspired of Saar Koningsberger’s diverse interests, multitasking wonders, qualities and connectivity, they fantasized a 2.40 minute run where she has an ecstatic visual experience and where the run is enhanced with personalized graphical motivations and challenges.
This fictive, phantasmagoric-speculative imagery, mingled with realistic future predictions is made as a contribution to the Romance of Running exhibition, organized by Nike within the framework of London 2012 Olympics. The exhibition took place at the old Film Museum in Vondelpark, Amsterdam, in August-September 2012.
This entry was written by Amsterdam, Decadence, Digitalization, Ecstatic Surface Design, Exhibition, Glam Chaos, Pinar&Viola, Video, Visual ecstasy. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink., posted on October 29, 2012 at 2:40 pm, filed under
Over long years of tireless campaigning, The Hans Brinker Budget Hotel Amsterdam has striven to become the worst hotel in the world. Its stance of proud incompetence has led to great success, especially among those with an appreciation of brutal honesty. Six hundred guests daily can’t be wrong.
In fact: they’re right.
Because of the guests’ decades-long devotion, we can add a new superlative when describing the Brinker: it’s Amsterdam’s No.1 attraction.
The truth is that the Brinker collects the best of Amsterdam’s popular attractions in one place. The beds are as cruel as any rack in the Torture Museum. The staff stare as vacantly as any dummy in the Wax Museum. And you just nip to the Brinker’s overflowing bathrooms to experience your own personal canal tour.
All these attractions under one hotel roof are especially attractive to the average Brinker guest, who rarely regains consciousness early enough to make it outside in daylight hours.
You’re invited to experience Amsterdam’s No.1 attraction, the Hans Brinker Budget Hotel.
Art-director: Gijs van den Berg
Copywriter: Niek Eijsbouts
Creative director: Erik Kessels
Graphic design: Pinar&Viola
Producer: Daphne Linthorst
This entry was written by Amsterdam, Craftsmanship, Ecstatic Surface Design, Folk, Friends, Glam Chaos, Graphic design, Pinar&Viola, Poster, Visual ecstasy. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink., posted on October 10, 2012 at 9:25 pm, filed under
Hartjesdagen is an old tradition in Amsterdam. It has existed since the Middle Ages and boasts a history as colorful as its followers. According to local folklore, it was the only day in the medieval calendar when the regular public would hunt wild deer (harts), a sport traditionally reserved for the nobility. The game was then roasted on big barbecues and eaten in the streets. Hartjesdagen developed itself into a type of cross-dressing carnival, where men dressed as women, and women dressed as men. A typical scene was captured in the oil painting entitled Hartjesdag, by the artist Johan Braakensiek in 1926. WWII later interrupted the tradition but it was finally revived in 1997 on the Zeedijk. Hartjesdagen finishes with the crowning of the Queen of Hearts (best cross-dresser).
Opening MOAM, June 14th, 2012 at Gallery Fontana Fortuna Amsterdam
This fan art piece is custom-tailored for MOAM Fashion Exhibition, which took place in Gallery Fontana Fortuna in Amsterdam.
The exhibition gave place to twelve young contemporary talents to give their reinterpretation of a Dutch fashion historic highlight. We were invited to make a work together with fashion icon Aynouk Tan. MOAM connected Aynouk Tan to the historic fashion icon Mathilde Willink, a known society girl, model and muse from 60’s that lived a decadent short live in Amsterdam. In an interview Mathilde Willink said she lived in a fairy-tale world of illusions and extravagance; where fame was crucial for her. For this work we were lead by her citation, “If people do not notice you, you might as well not exist”.
Her quote became reality in today’s dynamics of online social networking. Aynouk Tan’s Facebook pictures, and their endless praising comments confirm this. We scanned her online presence and used the results to tailor a contemporary expression of intense worship. We created a fan art deluxe that portrays Aynouk Tan and her flamboyant craves for attention and recognition. The work is not only about the one being admired, it’s also about the tragic beauty of the one that admires.
You can read more about the exhibition in Diane Pernet’s blog.
This entry was written by Amsterdam, Art, Decadence, Ecstatic Surface Design, Exhibition, Fashion, Glam Chaos, Graphic design, Persona, Poster, Published, Things 'n Flings, Vernissage, Visual ecstasy. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink., posted on June 19, 2012 at 5:14 pm, filed under
Us in the Dutch Newspaper, Het Parool
Photo by Bart Koetsier
Text by Joost Morel | <urn:uuid:e236ec4a-bf8a-4eef-bd49-983ad0bc7c0e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pinar-viola.com/blog/category/amsterdam/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402699.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00107-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937765 | 2,126 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Origin and Etymology of galanga
Middle English, from Old English & Medieval Latin; Middle English, from Old English gallengar, from Medieval Latin galanga, gallingar
First Known Use: before 12th century
Seen and Heard
What made you want to look up galanga? Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible). | <urn:uuid:03791aff-17f1-4dd2-abf9-ba4b760b323a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/galanga | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00042-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.880865 | 79 | 2.953125 | 3 |
How to define a rational expression.
How to multiply and divide rational expressions.
How to add and subtract rational expressions.
How to add or subtract rational expressions.
Understanding gene expression in reproduction.
How to simplify rational expressions.
How to simplify an expression with rational exponents.
How to graph a basic rational equation.
How to rationalize denominators.
How to use the rational roots theorem.
How to rationalize the denominator with a higher root.
How to rationalize a denominator by multiplying by the conjugate.
How to simplify expressions by distributing and/or combining like terms.
How to find excluded values of a rational function.
How to define rational functions, and how to identify their domain and zeros.
How to solve a simple rational equation for a parameter.
How to use rational exponents to simplify higher power and indexed radicals.
How to find the oblique asymptote of a rational function, if it has one.
How to multiply radical expressions. | <urn:uuid:73c4aa54-93dd-419b-b759-bfcce360138a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.brightstorm.com/tag/rational-expressions/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398628.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00184-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.8602 | 211 | 3.796875 | 4 |
At just a little over 50 years old, the University of California San Diego is one of the younger college campuses in the United States, but despite this it is one of the most architecturally fascinating universities around. In the official UCSD campus guide, Dirk Sutro emphasizes that "UCSD does not have a single example of the historical-revival styles prevalent at other University of California campuses... and at San Diego's two other major universities". The history of UCSD architecture is one of ambition, which has made the campus a display case of modernism in all of its forms from the last half a century.
Thanks to photographer Darren Bradley, we can now share this history and a selection of the exciting structures it has produced.
Find out more about the UCSD campus after the break
UCSD has its roots in the 1950s, when the City of San Diego offered a large section of land to the University of California. The new campus was positioned to include the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, which had occupied a site on the coast since the early 20th century. What is now known as the Old Scripps Building was designed by Irving Gill in 1910; even at this early time, Gill had eschewed historical styles and his concrete design set the tone for the approach occupied by the new campus 50 years later.
The original master plan for the campus was designed by Robert Alexander. It consisted of 12 colleges, each with a distinct architectural character, joined by a grand pedestrian boulevard inspired by the Champs-Élysées in Paris. The plan was heroic in its ambition: the focal point of this grand boulevard would be a huge plaza "rivaling the Piazza San Marco", and a 6000-seat amphitheatre with a 360-foot bell tower at its center. A library "as compelling as a Mayan Pyramid" would complete the ensemble.
Alexander oversaw the construction of Revelle College, the first of the 12 planned colleges, as well as the medical school and a number of standalone facilities such as the Gymnasium, with its delicate folded roof and the deceptively simple glass Natatorium. Revelle College is particularly notable for adopting the approach of the overall master plan, designed with strong forms and a large plaza at the center of the college.
In order to encourage the different architectural character called for in the master plan, the university hired architect Robert Mosher to design the second college, and got more than they bargained for. A disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright, Mosher believed in humanistic design and was worried about the excessive scale of Alexander's plan, likening it to the totalitarian architecture of the Nazis - entirely inappropriate for the progressive liberalism that characterized the student population of the 1960s. Mosher convinced the university's administrators to ultimately abandon Robert Alexander's plan, then designing Muir College, a more intimate collection of buildings than Revelle College.
At around the same time, the university hired William Pereira to design the main library, who disagreed with Alexander's plan to situate the library at the edge of the campus, and convinced the university that a site at the center of the campus would be better. Reacting to these betrayals of his vision, Alexander resigned from his post as consulting architect - but if nothing else, he got his wish for a library "as compelling as a Mayan Pyramid". The remarkable Geisel Library (named after Theodore 'Dr Seuss' Geisel) is the focal point of the campus and the star of this architectural show.
Since its rapid expansion in the 1960s and early 70s, construction at UCSD has slowed down a little, but now with six colleges and a much expanded student village near its center, there are still plenty of architectural gems to be seen, such as Moshe Safdie's designs for Eleanor Roosevelt College (2003), the Price Center East by Yazdani Studio, and the Housing & Dining Services Administration Building by Studio E Architects.
Check out the gallery to see the impressive collection of buildings at UCSD. | <urn:uuid:6fff34d2-4209-4350-b436-1e7f7cbf5b44> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.archdaily.com/374799/ucsd-a-built-history-of-modernism/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394605.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00148-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962381 | 821 | 2.625 | 3 |
The 2001 earthquake that brought down a length of State Route 99 running through downtown Seattle was a measly 6.8 on the Richter scale. But rather than rebuild the Alaska Viaduct, as the double-decker section was known, city officials instead decided to take the freeway underground in their very own Big Dig. To do so, Seattle's using "Big Bertha:" the biggest Tunnel Boring Machine on Earth.
Built for the dig by Hitachi in Osaka Japan, the $80,000,000 Big Bertha measures 57 feet in diameter, 325 feet in length and weighs 7,000 tons. She's commanded by a crew of 25 and is designed specifically for the soft soil found under the Emerald City.
As Bertha winds her way under Seattle and chews through an estimated 35 feet of soil a day, her cutterhead will exert 88,000,000 pounds of pressure on the forward wall of soil, grinding down the strata and depositing it on a conveyor belt directly behind it. Soil conditioners are added to the debris, rendering it an easier-to-manage goop as it is pushed back up to the surface, 80 feet above. To prevent cave-ins, Bertha automatically erects pre-fab concrete panels and seals them with grout to create the tunnel walls using a pair of erector arms.
Also behind the cutterhead is the trailing gear, a series of three cars containing the control room as well as the crew's workshop, power cells for the hydraulic wall-erecting arm with the backfill grout system, and electrical transformers, respectively. Since most of the boring process is automated, the operator and a pair of engineers, oversee the cutting process while the other 22 crew members survey the route ahead, maintain the cutterhead teeth, and operate the non-automated tunnel-wall erector.
The project is on track for its 2015 completion date. When it's done, the people of Seattle will not only have a new underground freeway capable of withstanding a 9.0 earthquake but also a massive new public space along the city's waterfront where the old SR-99 used to stand. It's a win-win. [Car and Driver - Washington State DOT -Images:WS DoT/ Flikr] | <urn:uuid:82508da8-5e30-4764-a355-bc7c1ae955e3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://gizmodo.com/big-bertha-is-digging-seattles-massive-underground-fre-662469199 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00032-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934701 | 469 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Telescopes pointed skywards
Venus puts on a show for Sydney Harbour Bridge climbers. Photo: David Finlay - phone 0425 235 804
Stargazers around the world gathered at observatories and huddled by telescopes to watch a small dark disc creep across the face of the sun in one of the rarest of celestial spectacles - a transit of Venus.
Planetariums the world over - from India's eastern city of Bhubaneswar to New York City - set up telescopes with the solar filters needed to watch the event, while two observatories in Spain's Canary Islands planned to use the transit to recalculate the distance between the Earth and Sun.
A blue sky over Sydney gave dozens of people peering through telescopes at the city's observatory a clear view of the transit as it began mid-afternoon.
The sight had special significance for Australians - the country's east coast was "discovered" by British explorer James Cook on his way home from viewing the 1769 transit in Tahiti.
But in many places in Asia clouds obscured the view.
At the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan in Tokyo, scientists and others gathered around an 80-year-old rotating telescope to view the transit through the heavy cloud cover and project it onto a white sheet of paper.
While the viewing conditions were less than spectacular, observers said it was more dazzling than their usual work.
"We deal [in] theory and with collecting data from satellites - it's very rare that you get to see something exciting, something tangible like this," said cosmologist Naoshi Sugiyama.
It was also cloudy in Hong Kong, but that didn't stop more than 100 people queuing up at the Hong Kong Space Museum, where several telescopes were directed to capture the event.
Keith London, an amateur astronomer who lives at the foot of the Mount Lofty Ranges in South Australia, hosted a transit party and invited his neighbours to watch the show through his telescope thanks to a filter he had shipped from the United States specially for the event.
"We are going to have a transit party and everyone who isn't working is coming over," he said, adding he would hold off on sipping too much wine until the sun had set.
"You must never drive a telescope under the influence," he cautioned before the event started.
In Thailand, hundreds of people flocked to observatories across the country. But an overcast sky disappointed many in the predominantly Buddhist nation, where such rare planetary movements are believed to carry astrological implications.
In Beijing, the Ancient Observatory on the Chinese capital's east side set up a slide show to explain the phenomenon to visitors and had telescopes to watch the transit.
Transits of Venus occur twice - eight years apart - about every century, when the sun, Venus and Earth line up precisely.
Past transits - the last pair in 1874 and 1882 - helped astronomers calculate Earth's distance from the sun.
This time, Tuesday's transit and one in 2012 carry little scientific significance, but they've still stirred up plenty of interest.
People in Africa, Europe and the Middle East were to see the entire transit, while the north-east corner of the United States and Canada would see only the tail end of the event, said Darren Osborne, education spokesman with Australia's Commonwealth Science & Industrial Research Organisation, which set up a live webcast of the transit.
In India, about 5000 people were expected to turn up at the Pathani Samanta Planetarium in Bhubaneswar, where organisers had brought in several telescopes and binoculars fitted with solar filters.
The two observatories in the Canary Islands were recalculating the distance between the Earth and the Sun, but "don't expect anything new", said Luis Cuesta of the Canary Islands Astrophysics Institute.
In New York, the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History planned to set up a bank of telescopes in Central Park to give people a view once the sun had risen above Manhattan's skyline.
As the sun dipped toward the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, stargazers at the observatory savoured one last glance at the spectacle and the feeling of being part of a universal phenomenon.
"To see this great celestial dance happening before your eyes is just so amazing," said Cathy Rytmeister. | <urn:uuid:332a7c52-5aea-4a5c-9bc2-8457a568f5e7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/08/1086460292567.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397565.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00020-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956322 | 892 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Story: Gold and gold mining
Page 4 – West Coast
Following the discovery of payable gold in Otago in 1861, the Canterbury provincial government offered a reward of £1,000 to anyone who found gold in Canterbury. This gave prospectors an incentive, and colours soon showed up in gold pans in West Canterbury (today’s West Coast). Payable gold was discovered in Greenstone Creek, a tributary of the Taramakau River, in 1864, leading to the frantic rushes of 1865–67 as more discoveries followed. Like Otago, the early gold on the West Coast was alluvial. It attracted men from the Otago goldfields, and ships landed diggers directly from South Australia.
There were no roads and the diggers had to cut their way through bush. It took time before they could set up stores, and the first miners ate kererū (wood pigeons), potatoes, fern and kōnini berries. They explored the country between Greymouth and Hokitika, and mined beach sands at Ōkārito, Addisons and Charleston. The diggers described the alluvial deposits as ‘tucker ground’ – good enough for yielding food, but it was as if the gold had been spread evenly but sparingly by some unseen hand.
Richer finds followed, and the success of the rush could be seen at Christmas 1865, when all of Hokitika’s 72 hotels were packed with boozing miners. These were the days of the wild West Coast. Sly-grog shops illegally selling alcohol sprang up with each new field. Towns like Goldsborough emerged from the bush and disappeared when the gold was worked out. At the peak of the rush, in 1867, there were probably about 29,000 people on the West Coast – around 12% of New Zealand’s European population at the time. One in five of the European men in New Zealand were on the ‘roaring’ coast, but there were few women.
The 1860s goldfields could be lawless. Fights, claim-jumping and murders occurred, although most trouble just stemmed from drunkards. The goldfields had their own terminology. Planting gold to give a false indication of a field’s wealth when selling up was known as salting the claim. And rushes that resulted in no gold were duffer’s rushes (on the West Coast there are numerous Duffers Creeks).
Quartz reefs of Reefton
The discovery and development of gold-bearing quartz veins near Reefton around 1870 marked a shift from alluvial to hard-rock mining. Unique names are a remnant of the coast’s hard-rock mining days. Crushington lies south-east of Reefton, and was where quartz-crushers worked day and night extracting gold from the Globe mine. Quartzopolis was an old name for Reefton (shortened from Reef town), where mines such as the Wealth of Nations and the Keep-it-Dark paid handsome dividends to lucky shareholders. The reefs were rich, but hard-rock mining also required a much bigger investment. Companies were established and machines did more of the work. Quartz was crushed by pounding stamper batteries – between 1870 and 1951, 84 Reefton mines produced 67 tonnes of gold.
Once gold dredging proved itself in Otago it was also used on the West Coast to work river gravels or old river channels. Sluicing was practised extensively in places such as Kūmara. Gold was taken from beach gravels using riffle tables on wheels (known as Long Toms). The gold occurred in thin layers of black sand, and because the particles were so fine, much was washed away. To prevent this, some miners used boxes fitted with copper plates coated with a mercury amalgam which caught the gold.
A Ross gold miner built a hut on some dry stone tailings. Hidden beneath was a shaft. He was busy preparing supper, when the floor collapsed and he was buried. His mates dug into the night, until incredibly, 15 metres below, they found him, ‘bruised, but little injured … In his sudden descent he had clutched at the blanket on his bunk, and they found him with it, and the frying-pan, which he had also stuck to, little the worse for his marvellous adventure.’ 1
Safety was poor and funeral processions were common in mining settlements. Falling boulders and collapsing terraces claimed lives in alluvial workings. Underground miners fell down shafts. Conditions such as silicosis (caused by inhaling quartz dust and also known as phthisis) created breathing problems and proved fatal for some. In 1915 the Miners’ Phthisis Act was passed which provided pensions to miners with silicosis and financial compensation for widows and children. | <urn:uuid:84ac520b-421e-4239-bedf-9db8b303b90f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/gold-and-gold-mining/page-4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397864.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00143-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980912 | 1,008 | 3.3125 | 3 |
Increase in West Nile Neuroinvasive Disease after Hurricane Katrina
Figure 2. Cases of West Nile neuroinvasive disease (WNND) in Louisiana (A) and Mississippi (B), 2005–2006. Hurricane Katrina made landfall on August 29, 2005 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] week 35). An increase in WNND cases is noted in the hurricane-affected parishes and counties (black columns) during the 3 weeks after the storm (CDC weeks 35–37). Cases of WNND increased throughout the 2006 season in hurricane-affected parishes. Cases of WNND from unaffected parishes and counties are shown in white columns. | <urn:uuid:21f62a39-f6b1-4e28-91a1-e9cc7be5a85b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/14/5/07-1066-f2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398628.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00078-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907647 | 135 | 2.5625 | 3 |
This Day in History
April 4, 1994
Marc Andreessen Founds Netscape with Jim Clark
Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark found Mosaic Communications Corp., later renamed Netscape Communications Corp. Andreessen developed the software used for browsing the World Wide Web while working at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois. Clark co-founded high-performance computer maker Silicon Graphics Inc. | <urn:uuid:65c6812e-5b52-490c-8982-508b3aa475d7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.computerhistory.org/tdih/April/4/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00012-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.841223 | 86 | 2.65625 | 3 |
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