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PHP while loop statement script and exampleWhile loop in PHP is very simple and similar to while loop in C programming. In PHP while loop the condition is checked at the beginning of the loop and the statement inside is executed till the end of the loop, then again the condition is checked and loop executed. Like this loop is continued till the condition became false and the loop is then stopped.
Here if the condition became false inside the loop then also the loop continue to execute till the next time the condition is checked. Here is one simple example of while loop.
What is the output of this?
Here we are checking the while condition at the starting of the loop. So the execution of the loop will be done only if condition is satisfied at the beginning. We can read on the difference between do while loop and while loop here.
Display elements of an array by using While loopLet us declare one array with some elements. Then by using while loop we can display the key and value of the array.
The output is here
Create ( 2 to 10 )multiplication table using While loopTo generate multiplication tables we will start with 2 table
Here is the simple code
This will display 2 table like this
Now we will keep this loop inside another outer loop and change $i value from 2 to 10. We will add a line break after each looping.
Output is here | <urn:uuid:4ac51edf-533f-4fd0-b303-0b6e483e334b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.plus2net.com/php_tutorial/php_while.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397748.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00031-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.873126 | 282 | 3.359375 | 3 |
By Dr. Mercola
An annual mammogram is the conventional go-to "prevention" strategy for breast cancer. But, researchers increasingly agree that mammography is ineffective at best, and harmful at worst.
Unfortunately, breast cancer is big business, and mammography is one of its primary profit centers. This is why the industry is so reluctant to admit its many flaws and dangers.
The featured documentary, "Happygram," reveals the oft-ignored side of breast cancer screening with mammography — the fact that more often than not, it fails to identify cancer in women with dense breast tissue.
I've written many articles on the hazards and drawbacks of mammograms, including the risks of false positives, and the facts that ionizing radiation causes cancer, and that mammograms have no impact on mortality rates.
In this article, I will focus on the risks associated with false negatives, meaning you have cancer but the mammogram fails to show it, and who's at greatest risk for receiving a misleading "Happygram."
For Dense-Breasted Women, the 'Happygram' Is Often Wrong
"Happygram" is a term used to describe the form letter women receive stating that their mammograms are "normal." Alas, for thousands of women with dense breasts, their Happygram turned out to be anything but.
The producer of this film, Julie Marron, conceived the idea of making a documentary on mammography's failings after her friend, New York writer Hallie Leighton, was diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer after many years of "normal" mammograms.
Leighton died in 2013 at the age of 42 while the documentary was being filmed.
The film features several women who were not informed of their breast density, or of the increased cancer risk that dense breast poses, or of the fact that mammograms can — and frequently do — miss cancer when you have dense breasts.
This includes someone on my staff, Cindy Bevington Olmstead, a Midwest journalist whose 5 cm lesion was missed by a mammogram two years in a row. Olmstead was lying on a gurney outside the operating room, waiting to have her breast removed when she opened a piece of mail brought to her by a neighbor.
In it was a "Happygram" from the breast center that did her latest mammogram, just three weeks earlier. "We are pleased to inform you that we have found no evidence of cancer in your breast," the letter said.
As noted by Marron:
"What stands out in all the stories in this film is that everyone's cancer was missed by a mammogram, and you just don't hear about that when breast cancer awareness month rolls around.
We hope to highlight the importance of knowing your breast density, so that no woman ever has to go through what these women did."
Withholding Information Places Women at Risk for False Negatives
Forty-nine percent of women have high breast tissue density,1 and mammography's sensitivity for dense breasts is as low as 27 percent.2 This means nearly 75 percent of dense-breasted women are at risk for a cancer being missed if they rely solely on mammography.
Even with digital mammography, the sensitivity is still less than 60 percent. The "density" refers to higher levels of fibrous and glandular tissue in the breast relative to fatty tissue.
The reason mammography frequently fails to pick up cancer in dense breast tissue is because the X-ray image shows the breast tissue as areas of white and dark, with white areas indicating denser tissue — including cancerous lesions — and darker areas less dense and more fatty tissues, through which the X-rays pass more readily.
When a woman's breast is very dense, lesions are less likely to be identified among the natural fibrous tissue since both show as white on the x-ray.
The failure rate of mammography among dense-breasted women is known in the medical community, yet dense-breasted women are rarely informed that they may be at an increased risk for a false negative, and thousands of women die as a result of the cancer being missed.
Dense-Breasted Women Also Have an Increased Risk for Breast Cancer
In addition to being more prone to false negatives, dense-breasted women are also more likely to develop breast cancer than women with less dense breasts, with makes the ineffectiveness of mammograms for these women an even greater concern.
According to the website BreastDensity.info,3 which was created by a radiologist:
- If the report states her density is heterogeneously dense, this is associated with minimal risk above average (RR=1.2 compared to average breast density).
- If her density is extremely dense (also sometimes called simply dense), this factor doubles her risk of breast cancer compared to average density, similar to the risk associated with a family history of breast cancer in a mother, sister, or daughter.
For example, having extremely dense tissue on its own raises the 10-year risk of breast cancer in the average 50-yr old woman from 1 in 42 to 1 in 21. [Emphasis mine]
A paper4 published in the Journal of the National Cancer institute in 2000 notes that dense-breasted women have a four to six-fold increased risk for breast cancer, adding that "only age and BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations increase risk more." Interestingly, this was recently refuted by a Croatian study.5
According to the authors, no significant difference in breast density between breast cancer patients and the healthy controls could be found after analyzing data from nearly 53,000 mammograms.
Some have suggested this is little more than an attempt to save the mammography industry by insinuating that dense-breasted women don't have to worry about the fact that mammography misses a majority of their cancers. But it's also interesting to note the timing of this finding.
It came out shortly after a Chinese study revealed ultrasound to be considerably superior to mammography, especially for dense-breasted women. (I'll discuss that study further below.)
Mandatory Breast Density Reporting Laws
To address the risks dense-breasted women face when using mammography for early breast cancer detection, a number of states have passed mandatory breast density reporting laws. This movement was initiated by Nancy Cappello, PhD, whose breast cancer was missed due to her breast density. Just months after receiving a negative mammogram, her gynecologist discovered a lump in her breast. Additional testing revealed she had advanced cancer.
The mission of Cappello's organization, "Are You Dense? Advocacy,"6 is:
"To ensure that women with dense breast tissue have access to an early breast cancer diagnosis. To that end, women need to be informed of their breast density, the limitations of mammography to find cancer in dense breast tissue and the increased risk factor of dense breast tissue."
At present, 24 states have passed mandatory breast density reporting laws. An interactive map of breast density laws by state can be found on Diagnostic Imaging's website.7 However, as noted by Diagnostic Imaging, notification in and of itself doesn't necessarily solve the problem. Women also need to be told what to do with the information, and certain states are better at communicating this than others.
Some States With Breast Density Reporting Laws Still Fail to Educate Women of Their Status and Risk
Some states have adopted notification letters that raise more questions than they answer. According to Diagnostic Imaging:
"Women with dense breasts are encouraged to discuss with their physicians their possible increased risk of breast cancer and the difficulty that mammography may have in detecting tumors. Critics of such a law or of how such a law is implemented believe that women may receive the information in less than ideal circumstances, which can lead to increased anxiety, as well as additional medical procedures ...
The letter's text varies considerably across the states ... An example of ineffective language used in some states ... say, 'If you have dense breasts,' and then what the options are ... So the woman is going to look at that letter and say, 'Why did I receive this letter?' It doesn't tell her if she does or doesn't have dense breasts, nor does it inform her of her particular situation ... [A] more effective letter ... says, 'Your mammogram shows that your breast tissue is dense' ...
Dense breast tissue is very common and is not abnormal. However, dense breast tissue can make it harder to find cancer through a mammogram' ... [T]hese lines explain why it might be a good idea for this woman to undergo other imaging techniques. And then the letter goes on to say ... 'Also dense breast tissue may increase your risk for breast cancer.'
The letter continues: 'This information about the results of your mammogram is given to you to raise your awareness. Use this information to talk to your physician'..."
3D Tomosynthesis Voted a Top 10 Medical Innovation for 2014
Unfortunately, instead of admitting the flaws and inherent dangers of mammography, the industry unveiled a "new and improved" type of mammogram in 2011, called 3D tomosynthesis, which actually exposes you to even HIGHER doses of radiation than a standard mammogram. What's worse, they also recommend you continue receiving your traditional 2D mammogram when you get tomosynthesis, thereby multiplying your radiation exposure even further.
According to surgeon Dr. Susan Love,8 tomosynthesis exposes you to about twice the amount of radiation compared to a standard mammogram.
According to one 2010 study,9 annual screening using standard digital or screen-film mammography on women aged 40 to 80 years is associated with an induced cancer incidence and fatal breast cancer rate of 20 to 25 cases per 100, 000. Meaning, annual mammograms CAUSE 20 to 25 cases of fatal cancer for every 100,000 women getting the test.
Further increasing — perhaps doubling — the number of fatal breast cancer caused as a direct result of the screening procedure itself can hardly be called progress! And yet, breast tomosynthesis was voted a Top 10 medical innovation for 2014.10 The reason you don't hear much about safer screening methods, except as auxiliary or supplementary forms of screening, is because mammography is such a tremendous profit center.
Radiology Industry Doesn't Want You to Know That Safer Screening Methods Are Also Superior to Mammography
Many articles expounding the benefits of mammography are written by people in the radiology industry, who have the most to lose should mammography fall out of favor. This is why they typically don't acknowledge the fact that other screening methods are actually superior. This includes ultrasound, which was recently found to be superior to mammography for breast cancer screening in high-risk Chinese women.
Chinese women tend to have small and dense breasts and ultrasound is a common method for breast cancer screening in China. However, its efficacy and cost comparing with mammography has not been evaluated in randomized trials, until now. This study11 found that:
- It costs 6.5 times more money to detect one cancer with mammography than with ultrasound. More specifically, it costs $7,876 to detect one cancer with ultrasound, compared to $45,253 using mammography
- Ultrasound picks up more cancers than mammograms, plus it covers dense-breasted women
Bottom line: ultrasounds are cheaper, both in equipment and cost to use,12,13 meaning there will be less reimbursement from insurance and Medicaid/Medicare than with mammograms, plus radiologists have higher salaries than ultrasound techs.
Cancer Prevention Begins With Your Lifestyle Choices
Mammograms are portrayed as the best form of "prevention" a woman can get. But early diagnosis is not the same as prevention. And cancer screening that does more harm than good can hardly qualify as the best you can hope for ... I believe the vast majority of all cancers could be prevented by strictly applying basic, common-sense healthy lifestyle strategies, which includes the following.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. There are many other strategies that can be useful as well. One excellent resource is Dr. Christine Horner's book, "Waking the Warrior Goddess: Dr. Christine Horner's Program to Protect Against and Fight Breast Cancer," which contains research-proven all-natural approaches for protecting against and treating breast cancer.
|Eat REAL food; avoid processed foods and sugars, especially processed fructose
||All forms of sugar are detrimental to health in general and promote cancer. Fructose, however, is clearly one of the most harmful and should be avoided as much as possible.
Reduce non-fiber carbs but have large volumes of fresh organic veggies, along with loads of fat from high quality sources such as avocados, raw butter, seeds, nuts, and raw cacao nibs.
|Stop eating AT LEAST three hours before going to bed
||There is quite compelling evidence showing that when you supply fuel to the mitochondria in your cells at a time when they don't need it, they will leak a large number of electrons that will liberate reactive oxygen species (free radicals), which damage mitochondrial and eventually nuclear DNA.
There is also evidence to indicate that cancer cells uniformly have damaged mitochondria, so the last thing you want to do is eat before you go to bed. Personally, I strive for six hours of fasting before bedtime.
|Optimize your vitamin D
||Vitamin D influences virtually every cell in your body, and is one of nature's most potent cancer fighters. Vitamin D is actually able to enter cancer cells and trigger apoptosis (cell death).
If you have cancer, your vitamin D level should be between 50 to 70 ng/ml. Vitamin D works synergistically with every cancer treatment I'm aware of, with no adverse effects.
|Limit your protein
||Newer research has emphasized the importance of the mTOR pathways. When these are active, cancer growth is accelerated.
To quiet this pathway, I believe it may be wise to limit your protein to one gram of protein per kilogram of lean body mass, or roughly a bit less than half a gram of protein per every pound of lean body weight.
That is roughly 40 to 60 grams per day. It would be unusual for most to need more than this.
|Avoid unfermented soy products
||Unfermented soy is high in plant estrogens, or phytoestrogens, also known as isoflavones.
In some studies, soy appears to work in concert with human estrogen to increase breast cell proliferation, which increases the chances for mutations and cancerous cells.
|Improve your insulin and leptin receptor sensitivity
||The best way to do this is by avoiding sugar and grains and restricting carbs to mostly fiber vegetables. Also making sure you are exercising, especially with high intensity interval training.
||One of the primary reasons exercise works to lower your cancer risk is because it drives your insulin levels down, and controlling your insulin levels is one of the most powerful ways to reduce your cancer risks.
It's also been suggested that apoptosis (programmed cell death) is triggered by exercise, causing cancer cells to die.
Studies have also found that the number of tumors decrease along with body fat, which may be an additional factor.
This is because exercise helps lower your estrogen levels, which explains why exercise appears to be particularly potent against breast cancer.
Finally, exercise increases mitochondrial biogenesis, which is essential to fight cancer.
|Maintain a healthy body weight
||This will come naturally when you begin eating right for your nutritional type and exercising. It's important to lose excess body fat because fat produces estrogen.
|Drink a pint to a quart of organic green vegetable juice daily
||Please review my juicing instructions for more detailed information.
|Get plenty of high quality animal-based omega-3 fats, such as krill oil
||Omega-3 deficiency is a common underlying factor for cancer.
||This is the active ingredient in turmeric and in high concentrations can be very useful adjunct in the treatment of cancer.
For example, it has demonstrated major therapeutic potential in preventing breast cancer metastasis.14 It's important to know that curcumin is generally not absorbed that well, so I've provided several absorption tips here.
|Avoid drinking alcohol
||At minimum, limit your alcoholic drinks to one per day.
|Avoid electromagnetic fields as much as possible
||Even electric blankets can increase your cancer risk.
|Avoid synthetic hormone replacement therapy, especially if you have risk factors for breast cancer
||Breast cancer is an estrogen-related cancer, and according to a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, breast cancer rates for women dropped in tandem with decreased use of hormone replacement therapy.
(There are similar risks for younger women who use oral contraceptives. Birth control pills, which are also comprised of synthetic hormones, have been linked to cervical and breast cancers.)
If you are experiencing excessive menopausal symptoms, you may want to consider bioidentical hormone replacement therapy instead, which uses hormones that are molecularly identical to the ones your body produces and do not wreak havoc on your system. This is a much safer alternative.
|Avoid BPA, phthalates and other xenoestrogens
||These are estrogen-like compounds that have been linked to increased breast cancer risk.
|Make sure you're not iodine deficient
||There's compelling evidence linking iodine deficiency with certain forms of cancer. Dr. David Brownstein,15 author of the book "Iodine: Why You Need it, Why You Can't Live Without it," is a proponent of iodine for breast cancer.
It actually has potent anticancer properties and has been shown to cause cell death in breast and thyroid cancer cells.
For more information, I recommend reading Dr. Brownstein's book. I have been researching iodine for some time ever since I interviewed Dr. Brownstein as I do believe that the bulk of what he states is spot on.
However, I am not convinced that his dosage recommendations are ideal. I believe they are five to six times higher than optimal.
|Avoid charring your meats
||Charcoal or flame broiled meat is linked with increased breast cancer risk. Acrylamide — a carcinogen created when starchy foods are baked, roasted, or fried — has been found to increase cancer risk as well. | <urn:uuid:229f9ae8-c0f9-4ca4-bff5-6aef30fbb9e6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/12/19/happygram-mammography.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00141-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960693 | 3,781 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Washington provides renewable designation after nearly 29 years of clean operations
You probably don’t hear a lot about Avista’s Kettle Falls biomass plant. You also don’t see much about it or smell much of it either. You see, Kettle Falls pretty much keeps to itself, steadily cranking out electricity. But recently the plant was given a distinction that many people assumed all along – Kettle Falls and its biomass operation will be recognized as renewable by the state of Washington.
Earlier this month Washington Governor Christine Gregoire signed SB5575 into law. The bill qualifies legacy biomass energy projects (built before 1999) as eligible renewable resources for purposes of meeting Washington state Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS). As a result of the bill’s passage, the energy generated at Kettle Falls will qualify to meet our renewable requirements in Washington beginning in 2016.
This passage of the bill is good news for our communities, particularly those in and around Kettle Falls. It will promote employment and preserve jobs at a time when rural economies are suffering. Avista employees at Kettle Falls are members of and contribute to their local communities, and Kettle Falls provides work to local sawmills, fuel delivery businesses, transportation companies and forest workers.
Kettle Falls and biomass: How’s it work?
Wood waste – called “hog fuel” – is fed into a seven-story furnace/boiler and burned, creating heat. The walls of the furnace/boiler consist of pipes filled with water that are heated by the burning hog fuel. The optimal burning temperature is 2,000 degrees, resulting in a steam temperature of 950 degrees. The heated water generates stream and pressure that drives a turbine, which turns a generator, creating electricity.
So, while you might not hear, see or smell a lot about Kettle Falls, now you know it’s cranking out renewable energy. | <urn:uuid:4ac324bc-da82-48be-80bd-0f6a415c9cc4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.avistautilities.com/community/blog/archive/2012/04/13/04-13-12-2.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00093-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933933 | 394 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Edmund Hillary, Edmund Shackleton, Marco Polo, and Neil Armstrong all accomplished feats that forever change humanity - breaking boundaries, redefining our limitations, and going where no one ever dared. But who was the greatest? We looked back at the feats of history's most prolific explorers on land, air, and ice, and picked our winners.
By Air (Round 1)
Charles Lindbergh: Those cross-Atlantic trips we take for granted all ended in a watery grave before Lindbergh's 1927 solo nonstop on the Spirit of St. Louis, which took a speedy 33-1/2 hours to hop the pond. For good measure he later invented a glass pump that eventually made heart surgery possible.
Yuri Gagarin: If humans weren't meant to fly, they certainly weren't intended to be shot into space. But tell that to Gagarin, the first man to leave the earth. Yuri's hardiness (as a child he ran from the Nazis) came in handy in a space program that didn't care so much if cosmonauts returned alive.
Steve Fossett: Before disappearing last September, Fossett set 116 different world records in vehicles from gliders to catamarans. He also climbed six of the seven summits (sans Everest) and competed in the Iditarod, triathlons, and 24 Hours of Le Mans…all despite suffering from asthma.
Richard Byrd: After becoming a pilot during World War I, Byrd combined his flight skills with an obsession with the frigid, copiloting a 1926 flight to the North Pole that earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor. He followed this up with a first flight to the South Pole, one of his five Antarctic expeditions.
Credit: Getty Images | <urn:uuid:b65a6c11-f172-4872-85a0-4a960ed4637c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mensjournal.com/expert-advice/who-is-the-greatest-adventurer-of-all-time-20140327/by-air-round-1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399106.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00076-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950571 | 360 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Tristram and Isolde (trĭsˈtrəm, ĭsōlˈdə, ĭzōlˈ–) [key], medieval romance. The earliest extant version (incomplete) was written (c.1185) by Thomas of Britain in Anglo-Norman French verse. About 1210, Gottfried von Strassburg wrote in German verse a version based on that of Thomas. The story, originally independent of the Arthurian legend, was later incorporated with it. In the 15th cent. Sir Thomas Malory included Tristram and Isolde in his Morte d' Arthur. The story is mainly Irish in origin, with details from other sources. Although the many versions of the story naturally differ, the basic plot is much the same in all of them. Sir Tristram is sent to Ireland to bring Isolde the Fair back to Cornwall to be the bride of his uncle, King Mark. A potion that Tristram and Isolde unwittingly swallow binds them in eternal love. According to most versions of the story, after many trysts the lovers become estranged, and Tristram marries another Isolde, Isolde of the White Hands. Later, dying of a battle wound, Tristram sends for Isolde the Fair. Deceived into believing she is not coming, Tristram dies of despair, and Isolde, on finding her lover dead, dies of grief beside him. The names of the two chief characters appear in various forms, such as Tristran, Tristrem, or Tristan and Isolt, Yseult, or Iseult. Modern versions of the story include Matthew Arnold, Tristram and Iseult; A. C. Swinburne, Tristram of Lyonesse; Joseph Bédier, Tristan and Iseult; and E. A. Robinson, Tristram. Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde is based on the version of Gottfried von Strassburg. For translation of the version by Thomas of Britain, see R. S. Loomis, The Romance of Tristram & Ysolt (rev. ed. 1951); for translation of the version by Gottfried von Strassburg, see A. T. Hatto, Tristan (1960).
See W. T. H. Jackson, Anatomy of Love: A Study of the Tristan of Gottfried von Strassburg (1971).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:b773d887-044a-444b-9e16-bbe58566b639> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/entertainment/tristram-isolde.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00174-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919952 | 538 | 3.046875 | 3 |
State Efforts to Collect Taxes on Internet Commerce
December 12, 2011
As states attempt to address budget shortfalls, many have been tempted to take a second look at an old problem: the taxation of interstate commerce. While the original commerce clause of the Constitution discussed the topic explicitly, the increasing amount of consumption that takes place over the internet has left states eager to be able to exact state sales taxes. However, current law clarified by the U.S. Supreme Court has left states with only a vague set of principles to guide them in this regard, says Joseph Henchman, a policy analyst with the Tax Foundation.
Those principles are:
- Nexus: a sufficient connection between the state and the taxpayer.
- Fair apportionment: the state cannot tax beyond its fair share of the taxpayer's income.
- Nondiscrimination: the state must not burden out-of-state taxpayers while exempting in-state taxpayers.
- Fairly related: the tax must be fairly related to the services provided to the taxpayer.
Within the confines of these ambiguous principles, states have employed a number of tax frameworks to attempt to take advantage of the growing commercial traffic online. However, those that are employed often result in extensive litigation costs due to the ambiguities involved and the complicated interactions of federal and state laws.
In order to address the current situation and attempt to pull financial benefits out of the system while simultaneously leveling the playing field, governments on both levels should consider an origin-based system of taxation. Within such a system, purchasers would pay taxes based on their geographic location. This resolves the issue of forcing online retailers to be aware of their tax liabilities throughout the United States' approximately 9,600 tax jurisdictions.
Also, such a system allows brick-and-mortar retailers and those that operate online to compete on the same level. Finally, such a system would grant to the states the ability to tax the increased consumption flow that takes place online, augmenting state revenues and reducing budget shortfalls.
Source: Joseph Henchman, "Assessing Federal Action on State Efforts to Collect Sales and Use Taxes on Internet Commerce," Tax Foundation, November 30, 2011.
Browse more articles on Tax and Spending Issues | <urn:uuid:38451086-2fa7-4798-8c9d-7b46726c169f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=21398 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397873.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00038-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953369 | 455 | 2.796875 | 3 |
A short essay is exactly that, a brief essay. They're written for a specific literary purpose, on a specific subject. Short essays are a common literary and educational form of writing. Their size and the subject matter is the basis of their qualities, which are assessed on content values. Short essays are common in scholarship essay writing and commercial assignment writing. Some short essays are commissioned from professional experts as contributions to news media, journals and magazines.
Examples of Short Essays:
Hilaire Belloc- Essays|
Rupert Brooke- An Unusual Young Man
Samuel Butler- A Prospectus Of The Great Split Society
GK Chesterton- The Appetite Of Earth | <urn:uuid:27428b60-738f-40ef-b349-5f2182044a74> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.examplesof.com/language/short_essay.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403823.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00142-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906628 | 140 | 3.015625 | 3 |
The population of Nauru in 2003 was estimated by the United Nations at 12,000, which placed it as number 191 in population among the 193 nations of the world. In that year approximately 2% of the population was over 65 years of age, with another 40% of the population under 15 years of age. There were 101 males for every 100 females in the country in 2003. According to the UN, the annual population growth rate for 2000–2005 is2.29%, with the projected population for the year 2015 at 17,000. The population density in 2002 was 545 per sq km (1,412 per sq mi). Most Nauruans live around the coastal fringes, in their traditional districts. About half the population consists of immigrant contract laborers, technicians, and teachers. Most Chinese, as well as immigrants from Kiribati and Tuvalu, are settled in communities near the phosphate works.
It was estimated by the Population Reference Bureau that 100% of the population lived in urban areas in 2001. The Yaren District, which functions as the capital city, had a 2002 population of 11,000. According to the United Nations, the urban population growth rate for 2000–2005 was 1.5%. | <urn:uuid:6a079b12-14fa-4a11-950a-abf8fa5e1ebe> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Asia-and-Oceania/Nauru-POPULATION.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00148-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974443 | 249 | 3.28125 | 3 |
Humpback whales have brain cells also found in humans
Cetaceans, the group of marine mammals that includes whales and dolphins, have demonstrated remarkable auditory and communicative abilities, as well as complex social behaviors. A new study published online November 27, 2006 in The Anatomical Record, the official journal of the American Association of Anatomists,compared a humpback whale brain with brains from several other cetacean species and found the presence of a certain type of neuron cell that is also found in humans. This suggests that certain cetaceans and hominids may have evolved side by side. The study is available online via Wiley InterScience at http://www.interscience.wiley.com/journal/ar.
Although the biology of the humpback whale is well understood, there have been virtually no studies published on its brain composition, leaving an open question as to how brain structure may relate to the extensive behavioral and social abilities of this mammal. Although brain to body mass ratio, a rough measure of intelligence, is lower for baleen whales such as the humpback compared to toothed whales such as dolphins, the structure and large brain size of baleen whales suggests that they too have a complex and elaborate evolutionary history.
Patrick R. Hof and Estel Van der Gucht of the Department of Neuroscience at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, NY, examined the brain of an adult humpback whale and compared it with the brain of a fin whale (another baleen species) and brains from several toothed whales, including three bottlenose dolphins, an Amazon river dolphin, a sperm whale, two beluga whales, a killer whale and several other whale and dolphin species. They found that the humpback cerebral cortex, the part of the brain where thought processes take place, was similar in complexity to smaller sized cetaceans such as dolphins. The large area of cortex found in these mammals is thought to be related to acoustic capabilities and the current study shows that it is organized into a system of core and belt regions. However, substantial variability was found between the cell structure of the cortex in humpbacks compared to toothed whales. The authors suggest that these differences may indicate differences in brain function and behavior in aquatic species that are not yet understood.
One feature that stood out in the humpback whale brain was the modular organization of certain cells into "islands" in the cerebral cortex that is also seen in the fin whale and other types of mammals. The authors speculate that this structural feature may have evolved in order to promote fast and efficient communication between neurons. The other notable feature was the presence of spindle cells in the humpback cortex in areas comparable to hominids and in other areas of the whale brain as well. Although the function of spindle neurons is not well understood, they are thought to be involved in cognitive processes and are affected by Alzheimer's disease and other debilitating brain disorders such as autism and schizophrenia. Spindle neurons were also found in the same location in toothed whales with the largest brains, which suggests that they may be related to brain size.
The authors note that spindle neurons probably first appeared in the common ancestor of hominids about 15 million years ago, since they are observed in great apes and humans, but not in lesser apes and other primates; in cetaceans they evolved earlier, possibly as early as 30 million years ago. It is possible that they were present in the ancestors of all cetaceans, but were retained only in those with the largest brains during their evolution. It may also be that they evolved several times independently in the two cetacean suborders; part of this process may have taken place at the same time as they appeared in the ancestor of great apes, which would be a rare case of parallel evolution.
"In spite of the relative scarcity of information on many cetacean species, it is important to note in this context that sperm whales, killer whales, and certainly humpback whales, exhibit complex social patterns that included intricate communication skills, coalition-formation, cooperation, cultural transmission and tool usage," the authors state. "It is thus likely that some of these abilities are related to comparable histologic complexity in brain organization in cetaceans and in hominids."
The authors conclude: "Cetacean and primate brains may be considered as evolutionary alternatives in neurobiological complexity and as such, it would be compelling to investigate how many convergent cognitive and behavioral features result from largely dissimilar neocortical organization between the two orders." They also suggest that the current study provides a framework for further investigations into the brain and behavior of cetaceans, which are naturally elusive, poorly documented and often endangered.
Article: "The Structure of the Cerebral Cortex of the Humpback Whale, Megaptera novaeangliae (Cetacea, Mysticeti, Balaenopteridae)," Patrick R. Hof, Estel Van der Gucht, The Anatomical Record, Published Online: November 27, 2006. (DOI: 10.1002/ar.a.20407).
Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 30 Apr 2016
Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:433e8b7e-5972-41cc-85a5-18483dd4c1a8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://psychcentral.com/news/archives/2006-11/jws-hwh112006.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397696.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00006-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960197 | 1,083 | 3.515625 | 4 |
The Internet, unlike traditional computing environments, provides a wealth of arenas for strategic interaction. There is competition for the use of pipelines and routers, for the use of server and processor time, and in the increasingly popular online auctions for advertisements, goods, and services.
EECS Professor Christos Papadimitriou (Photo by Peg Skorpinski) Not surprisingly, computer scientists have been adopting concepts from game theory, the study of strategic behavior, to analyze computer networks, online markets, and the Internet as a whole. At the same time, computer scientists are leaving their mark on economics, introducing new ways of understanding the effects of strategic behavior and efficient algorithms for finding market equilibria. Christos Papadimitriou has been in the vanguard of these efforts, taking key ideas from his areas of expertise—algorithms and complexity theory—and using them to yield a powerful new perspective on game theory.
In 1998, Papadimitriou—together with Professor Elias Koutsoupias of the University of Athens—combined ideas from economics and computer science to define "the price of anarchy," a measure of the loss in efficiency when a system is operated through the competitive interaction of participants rather than socially optimized by an all-knowing central controller. For example, the system might be a network in which users are choosing routes that minimize their own packets' delays but slowing the network as a whole. In this case, the price of anarchy would measure how the total network delay incurred by such "selfish routing" compares to that of the optimal routing, which minimizes overall delay.
The price of anarchy was inspired by the standard measures of efficiency for algorithms that run in restricted environments—"online algorithms," which have limited access to information, and "approximation algorithms," which assume limited computational resources. The price of anarchy measures the worst-case cost of decentralization, which has never been systematically quantified by economists. "Economists never embarked on a systematic investigation of efficiency loss, only because the social optimum is not an option," Papadimitriou says. On the other hand, "computer scientists often work with engineered systems where the social optimum is the status quo."
For a simple network model of two nodes and parallel pathways of equal link speeds, Papadimitriou and Koutsoupias showed that the price of anarchy is 3/2, i.e., the cost of selfish routing is a network that is 3/2 times slower than an optimally managed one. For a network in which the delays along each pipeline are proportional to the flow, the price of anarchy is 4/3, as Cornell researchers showed in 2000. Such results suggest that for network routing, "an all-powerful coordinator might make things a little more efficient but not enough to be worth the trouble," Papadimitriou says. "A factor of 4/3 is absorbed by the galloping technology in a couple of months." Researchers in electrical engineering and operations research have since looked at the price of anarchy for decentralized market resource allocation and decentralized power markets.
Recently, Papadimitriou addressed a fundamental question about Nash equilibria, a central concept of game theory. A Nash equilibrium is a "steady-state" configuration in which no agent has the incentive to switch unilaterally to a different strategy. Such equilibria always exist in finite games, and they have long been assumed to be the natural outcome in a competitive environment. Yet, at the same time, there is no known efficient algorithm for computing Nash equilibria. This raises a philosophical question: Is it meaningful to know that a market equilibrium exists if the participants cannot compute it? Papadimitriou thinks not. "If your laptop can't find it, then neither can the market," he says.
Papadimitriou has long been obsessed with understanding the complexity of computing Nash equilibria. Nearly two decades ago, he defined a seemingly esoteric complexity class with Nash equilibria in mind. In the summer of 2005, his approach finally succeeded. Together with his student, Konstantinos Daskalakis, and Paul Goldberg of the University of Liverpool, Papadimitriou showed that finding a Nash equilibrium is, in some sense, hard.
Typically, showing something is hard to compute means showing it is NP-complete. Computing Nash equilibria is unlikely to fall into this category, however, because equilibria always exist, while problems known to be NP-complete sometimes have no solution. To capture the complexity of Nash, Papadimitriou had to characterize a new class of search problems that are essentially similar to the Nash problem. "I had to ask the question: 'What is the most basic principle on which a solution to these problems is based?'" Papadimitriou says.
The shared characterization turned out to be the following: For each such problem, the candidate solutions can be viewed as nodes of a graph linked via a directed path with a given starting point and with an actual solution as the endpoint. Papadimitriou called the class of problems of this form PPAD. A growing body of evidence has since indicated that complete problems for PPAD, which include finding fixed points for functions satisfying the hypotheses of Brouwer's famous 1909 "fixed point theorem," are likely to be intractable.
Papadimitriou, Goldberg, and Daskalakis were able to show that computing Nash equilibria for games with three or more players is PPAD-complete. Subsequently, another group of researchers, which included a former student of Papadimitriou, showed that, even for two-player games, finding Nash equilibria is PPAD-complete.
Now that finding Nash equilibria is known to be hard, Papadimitriou is trying to resolve the philosophical dilemma in a different way: In real games, perhaps the players don't arrive at a Nash equilibrium; they only get close to one. With this in mind, Papadimitriou is exploring the complexity of finding a situation in which each player, by altering his own strategy, is able to improve his lot only by a very small amount—an approximate Nash equilibrium. "It's a realistic equilibrium concept," he says. "One would hope that it is not plagued with the same intractability problems, but in the complexity business, you never know." | <urn:uuid:eaf3cc7c-7ea6-4e36-be27-72999fcdba50> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/department/EECSbrochure/c5-s2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00139-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957561 | 1,301 | 2.625 | 3 |
MILWAUKEE (AP) — The National Weather Service was tracking a so-called
derecho weather pattern in the Midwest on Tuesday that could spawn severe
windstorms in major metropolitan areas with gusts as strong as 100 mph.
Derecho windstorms occur once every year or two across the central and
northeastern U.S. in a band from Texas to New England. They pack hazardous
winds of at least 75 mph or more and maintain their intensity for hours as
they sweep across vast distances.
In some cases a derecho will spawn tornados and accompany storms that
produce hail the size of golf balls.
The current pattern could affect larger metropolitan areas in Milwaukee,
Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburgh in the next two days, said Bill
Bunting, a meteorologist in the agency's storm prediction center in
"We tend to be careful using the D word, but yes, a derecho is possible,"
The weather service was predicting a chance of storm activity beginning in
southern Montana and northeastern Wyoming on Tuesday afternoon. It was
expected to sweep eastward, with a 30 percent chance of severe wind
activity in a rectangle covering parts of South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and
"Thirty percent is pretty high in the world of predicting severe weather,"
said Paul Collar, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Sullivan,
The storms could generate straight-line wind gusts of 70 mph or more.
That's enough to rip shingles off a roof, knock down trees and even tip
over semi-trailers. They could also cause flights to be delayed or
canceled, said Collar, who added that commercial airlines have on-board
navigation that allows pilots to navigate around the worst weather.
The weather agency also is predicting further storm activity Wednesday.
Thunderstorms, powerful wind gusts and possible tornados could hit parts
of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
"It's scary because of the potential, but we don't want to over-forecast,"
Bunting said. He said residents in affected states should remain aware
that severe weather is possible, and pay close attention for any weather
Campers or hikers in forested areas should be cautious about the potential
of falling trees and boaters shouldn't venture too far from shore, the
weather service said. | <urn:uuid:1fd8de27-a187-44ad-a990-dde84ca6d10c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.chestertontribune.com/Environment/midwest_could_see_strong_windsto.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00049-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926471 | 496 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Construction and Use of Wells G and H
Wells G and H were constructed in 1964 and 1967, respectively, in response to the growing need of the city to supply water to its residential, commercial, and industrial users. The 1958 Whitman & Howard report suggested that the area east of Mishawum Pond in the Aberjona River valley should be explored for additional potable groundwater supplies. The ensuing drilling and testing program showed that test well sites 8 and 16 held promise although the chloride concentrations (20 and 39 parts per million) were higher than normal but satisfactory from a sanitary point of view (Tarr 1987 ).
Well G, which is also known as well S39, was drilled to a depth of 89 feet in a 24-inch borehole. A 10-foot long well screen was set at the bottom of the casing string across from brown sand and gravel. The ground elevation at the well is 45 feet above sea level. The screened interval of the well occurs approximately at -35 to -45 feet below sea level. A graphic depiction of the geologic log at well G (Delaney and Gay 1980 ) is shown in the Resource Collection under Exploration, Construction, and Use of Wells G and H.
Well H is also known as well S40. It was drilled in a 24-inch borehole to a depth of 88 feet. It also has a 10-foot long well screen set at the bottom of the casing string. The well screen is placed across from sand and coarse gravel, according to the geologic log at the well (Delaney and Gay 1980 ), which also can be seen in Exploration, Construction, and Use of Wells G and H.
Pumping Rates and Schedules
After coming on-line in October 1964, Well G was used for 107 of 176 months until May 1979, or about 60 percent of that time period. When used, well G averaged 684 gpm and its production rate ranged from 264 to 868 gpm.
Well H was brought on-line in July 1967 and was used for 36 of 143 months until May 1979, or about 25 percent of that time period. When in use, its pumping rate averaged 389 gpm and ranged from 230 to 448 gpm.
Contrary to common perception, wells G and H generally were not used together. In total, well G was used during all or parts of 107 months and was used without well H for 71 of those months. Well H, in total, was used for 36 months and was used for only 3 months without well G. The two wells were used together for only 33 months, or about 19 percent of the time period between October 1964 and May 1979.
The largest and longest stress on the ground-water flow system from pumping wells G and H began in March 1978 and ended in May 1979. During this period, both wells were used and pumped at rates close to maximum production rates. | <urn:uuid:8dc9d39c-7b98-4cfe-98a4-e8f78b48c8be> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://serc.carleton.edu/woburn/issues/woburn_water_supply/wellsg_h_development.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395613.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00088-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980216 | 590 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Update 1: Overview of flood waters in the north of Sindh Province, Pakistan (as of 15 Oct 2012)
This map illustrates satellite-detected standing flood waters over the affected Provinces of Balochistan,
Punjab and Sindh hit by flash floods and urban flooding caused by heavy monsoon rains that fell across the country in early September 2012. Flood analysis is based on crisis satellite imagery collected by MODIS sensors on 14 September and 14 October 2012.
Notes: The exact limit of flood waters is uncertain because of the low spatial resolution of the satellite data used for this analysis. Detected water bodies likely reflect an underestimation of all flood-affected areas within the map extent. This analysis has not yet been validated in the field. | <urn:uuid:05db281d-7d7e-4830-bbc0-b1e248fea079> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://reliefweb.int/map/pakistan/update-1-overview-flood-waters-north-sindh-province-pakistan-15-oct-2012 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00154-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927663 | 152 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Sunday, December 19, 2004
How Many Possums Per Spoon?
Possums are North America's only marsupial and have tremendous numbers of young and more teeth any other furbearer in North America.
The bottom picture shows 7 baby possums in a tea spoon at about the time they first make it into their mother's pouch. The middle picture shows the location of the pouch. Pouch mortality is fairly high, and usually only five to eight baby possums survive to peek out in the world two months after being born. Most possums die within the first 9 months of life (killed by cats, dogs, cars, fox, poison, disease, traps, and coyotes) and few make it to age three.
A typical female possum will have two litters a year, each with as many as 18 young. The gestation period for a possum is just 13 days -- the shortest gestation period of any mammal in North America.
Opossums prefer low, damp, wooded streams and swamps. They are nocturnal, and will shelter in hollow trees, firewood racks, brush piles, groundhog burrows, and crawl spaces under houses and outbuildings during the day. Possums are very common in suburbia where they often dine on school-yard refuse, dead squirrels in the road, and cat and dog food left out on people's stoops. Complete omnivores, their tracks looks like those of a space-alien, while their scat can come in any shape and color.
Though possums will hiss a great deal, they are not very formidable creatures, as their teeth are too small, their brains too small, and their response time relatively slow when compared to raccoon, fox or groundhog. | <urn:uuid:a10ee641-ba1f-4667-9e0d-a40189eef21d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2004/12/how-many-possums-per-spoon.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391766.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00071-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960783 | 363 | 3.421875 | 3 |
William I of England
|This political figure or monarch article is a stub. You can help Wikiquote by expanding it.|
- See — I have taken England with both my hands.
- Remark after he stepped off his ship on the coast of England and fell into the sand (28 September, 1066), as quoted in LIFE magazine, Vol. 40, No. 13 (26 March 1956), p. 85
- I attacked the English of the Northern Shires like a lion. I ordered their houses and corn, with all their belongings, to be burnt without exception and large herds of cattle and beasts of burden to be destroyed wherever they were found. It was there I took revenge on masses of people by subjecting them to a cruel famine; and by doing so — alas!— I became the murderer of many thousands of that fine race.
- Part of a speech on his deathbed in 1087, referring to the Harrying of the North, written down by a monk named Ordericus Vitalis in 1123; as quoted in Empires and Citizens : The Roman Empire, Medieval Britain, African Empires (2003) by Ben Walsh, p. 60 | <urn:uuid:f9481013-e501-4007-852e-1e41abe762a5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_I_of_England | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00054-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978831 | 239 | 2.828125 | 3 |
GREENBELT, Md., Dec. 8 (UPI) -- Scientists say satellite data show 20 years of warming temperatures in Quebec have resulted in an increase in the amount of shrubs and grasses.
Researchers say NASA Landsat missions revealed increased vegetation in the north of the province between 1986 and 2004.
The study is one of the first to present a detailed view of how warmer temperatures are influencing plant distribution and density in northern areas of North America, a NASA release said Thursday.
"Unlike the decline of sea ice, which is a dramatic effect that we're seeing as a result of global warming, the changes in vegetation have been subtle," Jeff Masek, the program's project scientist, said.
"For the first time, we've been able to map this change in detail, and it's because of the spatial resolution and length-of-record that you can get with Landsat," he said.
By using Landsat's higher optical resolution and viewing the same area at the same time for 23 years, Masek and his colleagues were able to track the areas as they continued to show more "greenness" over the years.
"It makes sense," Masek said. "This is how shrub encroaching occurs. They increase in size, they increase in density, and then they move northward." | <urn:uuid:2c2f7844-59ed-4118-81fe-1e40499b3daa> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2011/12/08/Satellites-show-changing-vegetation-norms/UPI-56001323387269/?rel=79161323452432 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396222.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00159-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969827 | 274 | 3.375 | 3 |
PERL is an acronym for 'Practical Extraction and Report Language'. Perl is available on each and every operating system and hardware platform in the world. You can use Perl on Windows95/NT, Apple Macintosh iMac, all flavors of Unix (Solaris, HPUX, AIX, Linux, Irix, SCO etc..), mainframe MVS, desktop OS/2, OS/400, Amdahl UTS and many others. Perl runs EVEN on many unpopular or generally-unknown operating systems and hardware!! So do not be surprised if you see perl running on a very rarely used operating system. You can imagine the vast extent of the user base and developer base of Perl.
Perl interface for PostgreSQL is included in the distribution of PostgreSQL. Check in src/pgsql_perl5 directory.
The Perl Database Interface (DBI) is a database access Application Programming Interface (API) for the Perl Language. The Perl DBI API specification defines a set of functions, variables and conventions that provide a consistent database interface independent of the actual database being used.
Get DBD-Pg-0.89.tar.gz from below
To quote Tim Bunce, the architect and author of DBI:
``DBI is a database access Application Programming Interface (API) for the Perl Language. The DBI API Specification defines a set of functions, variables and conventions that provide a consistent database interface independent of the actual database being used.''
In simple language, the DBI interface allows users to access multiple database types transparently. So, if you connecting to an Oracle, Informix, mSQL, Sybase or whatever database, you don't need to know the underlying mechanics of the 3GL layer. The API defined by DBI will work on all these database types.
A similar benefit is gained by the ability to connect to two different databases of different vendor within the one perl script, ie, I want to read data from an Oracle database and insert it back into an Informix database all within one program. The DBI layer allows you to do this simply and powerfully.
Here's a list of DBperl modules, their corresponding DBI counterparts and support information. DBI driver queries should be directed to the dbi-users mailing list.
However, some DBI modules have DBperl emulation layers, so, DBD::Oracle comes with an Oraperl emulation layer, which allows you to run legacy oraperl scripts without modification. The emulation layer translates the oraperl API calls into DBI calls and executes them through the DBI switch.
Module Name Database Required Author DBI ----------- ----------------- ------ --- Sybperl Sybase Michael Peppler DBD::Sybase <firstname.lastname@example.org> http://www.mbay.net/~mpeppler Oraperl Oracle 6 & 7 Kevin Stock DBD::Oracle <email@example.com> Ingperl Ingres Tim Bunce & DBD::Ingres Ted Lemon <firstname.lastname@example.org> Interperl Interbase Buzz Moschetti DBD::Interbase <email@example.com> Uniperl Unify 5.0 Rick Wargo None <firstname.lastname@example.org> Pgperl Postgres Igor Metz DBD::Pg <email@example.com> Btreeperl NDBM John Conover SDBM? <firstname.lastname@example.org> Ctreeperl C-Tree John Conover None <email@example.com> Cisamperl Informix C-ISAM Mathias Koerber None <firstname.lastname@example.org> Duaperl X.500 Directory Eric Douglas None User Agent
There are a few information sources on DBI.
The POD for the DBI Specification can be read with the command $ perldoc DBI Users of the Oraperl emulation layer bundled with DBD::Oracle, may read up on how to program with the Oraperl interface by typing: $ perldoc Oraperl Users of the DBD::mSQL module may read about some of the private functions and quirks of that driver by typing: $ perldoc DBD::mSQL The Frequently Asked Questions is also available as POD documentation. Read this by typing: $ perldoc DBI::FAQ POD in general - Information on writing POD, and on the philosophy of POD in general, can be read by typing: $ perldoc perlpod
See also -
The mailing lists that users may participate in are:
If you have a core dump, try the Devel::CoreStack module for generating a stack trace from the core dump. Devel::CoreStack can be found on CPAN at:
Email the dbi-users Mailing List stack trace, module versions, perl version, test cases, operating system versions and any other pertinent information. The more information you send, the quicker developers can track problems down.
The DBI and DBD::Oracle Win32 ports are now a standard part of DBI, so, downloading DBI of version higher than 0.81 should work fine. You can access Microsoft Access and SQL-Server databases from DBI via ODBC. Supplied with DBI-0.79 (and later) is an experimental DBI 'emulation layer' for the Win32::ODBC module. It's called DBI::W32ODBC. You will need the Win32::ODBC module.
In a word, yes! DBI is hugely useful for CGI programming! In fact, CGI programming is one of two top uses for DBI.
DBI confers the ability to CGI programmers to power WWW-fronted databases to their users, which provides users with vast quantities of ordered data to play with. DBI also provides the possibility that, if a site is receiving far too much traffic than their database server can cope with, they can upgrade the database server behind the scenes with no alterations to the CGI scripts.
The Apache httpd maintains a pool of httpd children to service client requests. Using the Apache mod_perl module by Doug MacEachern, the perl interpreter is embedded with the httpd children. The CGI, DBI, and your other favorite modules can be loaded at the startup of each child. These modules will not be reloaded unless changed on disk. For more information on Apache, see the Apache Project's WWW site:
Using Edmund Mergl's Apache::DBI module, database logins are stored in a hash with each of these httpd child. If your application is based on a single database user, this connection can be started with each child. Currently, database connections cannot be shared between httpd children. Apache::DBI can be downloaded from CPAN via:
Basically, a good chance this is occurring is due to the fact that the user that you ran it from the command line as has a correctly configured set of environment variables, in the case of DBD::Oracle, variables like $ORACLE_HOME, $ORACLE_SID or TWO_TASK. The httpd process usually runs under the user id of nobody, which implies there is no configured environment. Any scripts attempting to execute in this situation will correctly fail. To solve this problem, set the environment for your database in a BEGIN ( ) block at the top of your script. This will solve the problem. Similarly, you should check your httpd error logfile for any clues, as well as the ``Idiot's Guide To Solving Perl / CGI Problems'' and ``Perl CGI Programming FAQ'' for further information. It is unlikely the problem is DBI-related. Read BOTH these documents carefully!
For some OCI example code for Oracle that has multi-threaded SELECT statements, see:
Assuming that you have created a stored procedure within the target database, eg, an Oracle database, you can use $dbh->do to immediately execute the procedure. For example,
$dbh->do( "BEGIN someProcedure END" );
Remember to perform error checking, though!
$sth = $dbh->prepare( "BEGIN foo(:1, :2, :3); END;" ); $sth->bind_param(1, $a); $sth->bind_param_inout(2, \$path, 2000); $sth->bind_param_inout(3, \$success, 2000); $sth->execute;
Database creation and deletion are concepts that are entirely too abstract to be adequately supported by DBI. For example, Oracle does not support the concept of dropping a database at all! Also, in Oracle, the database server essentially is the database, whereas in mSQL, the server process runs happily without any databases created in it. The problem is too disparate to attack. Some drivers, therefore, support database creation and deletion through the private func methods. You should check the documentation for the drivers you are using to see if they support this mechanism.
NULL values in DBI are specified to be treated as the value undef. NULLs can be inserted into databases as NULL, for example:
but when queried back, the NULLs should be tested against undef. This is standard across all drivers.
$rv = $dbh->do( "INSERT INTO table VALUES( NULL )" );
The func method is defined within DBI as being an entry point for database-specific functionality, eg, the ability to create or drop databases. Invoking these driver-specific methods is simple, for example, to invoke a createDatabase method that has one argument, we would write:
Software developers should note that the func methods are non-portable between databases.
$rv = $dbh->func( 'argument', 'createDatabase' );
PERL CLINIC : The Perl Clinic can arrange commercial support contracts for Perl, DBI, DBD::Oracle and Oraperl. Support is provided by the company with whom Tim Bunce, author of DBI, works. For more information on their services, please see :
See the section - Testing Perl PostgreSQL interface | <urn:uuid:1c97d42f-681b-45f1-81be-80f6b541e915> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.linuxselfhelp.com/howtos/PostgreSQL/PostgreSQL-HOWTO-10.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00060-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.855255 | 2,144 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Saint Martín de Porres (1579–1639) spent his entire life in Lima, Peru. A Dominican monk known as a healer and an indefatigable worker in charitable service to the poor, Martín was canonized in 1962 by Pope John Paul XXIII, who designated him the patron saint of universal brotherhood.
Always a famous figure within Latin American Catholicism, Martín began to receive renewed attention in the later years of the twentieth century. Partly this was due to his mixed-race background; he was one of a comparatively small number of Catholic saints who could be classified as black, and he ministered without distinction to Spanish nobles and to slaves recently brought from Africa. Another fascinating aspect of Martín's life and legacy has emerged from the fund of miraculous legends that surround his memory. Such legends are not unique to Martín, but he was clearly a religious leader with a perennial appeal to the popular imagination. Finally, Martín's sometimes defiant attachment to the ideal of social justice achieved deep resonance in a church attempting to carry forward that ideal in today's modern world.
Martín de Porres was born in Lima, Peru, on December 9, 1579. His father was a Spanish conquistador named Don Juan de Porres and his mother was a freed slave from Panama, of African or possibly part Native American descent, named Ana Velázquez. Seeing that the child had African rather than European features, Don Juan de Porres refused to acknowledge his paternity. Martín was baptized the day he was born, with notation on the baptismal certificate reading "father unknown" (it is quoted in full by J.C. Kearns in The Life of Blessed Martín de Porres ). He was raised by his mother in extreme poverty, on the very lowest rungs of early Spanish colonial society; in the eyes of the nobility, a mark of illegitimacy was exceeded in shamefulness only by a child's racially mixed heritage.
Stories of Martín's remarkable generosity apparently began to surround him even in childhood; sent to the local market by his mother, he would often give away the contents of his basket to homeless persons before reaching home. By the time he was 10 he was spending several hours of each day in prayer, a practice he maintained for the rest of his life. He once asked his landlady for the stumps of some candles she had discarded, and she later saw him using their meager light to behold a crucifix before which he knelt, weeping. Perhaps as a result of the boy's spiritual accomplishments, Don Juan de Porres acknowledged when Martín was eight years old that he was Martín's father, a remarkable admission at the time. (He finally abandoned Ana Velázquez for good after the birth of another daughter.) Ana recognized in her son the signs of an intense spiritual quality, and she tried to obtain for him an education beyond mere subsistence level. When Martín was 12, he was apprenticed to a barber—a profession that in sixteenth-century society involved much more than cutting hair. Young Martín learned the rudiments of surgery: administering herbal remedies, dressing wounds, and drawing blood—something that was thought to be curative at the time.
At 15, Martín decided to devote himself to the religious life. He applied to join the Convent of the Rosary in Lima, a Dominican monastery. Racial restrictions dictated that he be given the position of "tertiary" or lay helper, which he enthusiastically accepted. The bishop at the monastery, according to an early biography quoted by Alex García-Rivera in St Martín de Porres , said that "there are laws that we must respect. These indicate that the Indians, blacks, and their descendants, cannot make profession in any religious order, seeing that they are races that have little formation as of yet." Martín was able to exercise his medical skills after being put in charge of the monastery infirmary, and he was often given the monastery's basic chores such as cleaning, cooking, and doing laundry.
Both before and after joining the monastery, Martín suffered incidents of harassment that may well have been racially motivated. The monks for whom he was cooking would hide the kitchen's potholders, and one of the early stories surrounding the young holy man was that he could then pick up the pots with his bare hands and not be burned. Another story concerned Martín's tendency toward self-denial—or, read another way, his determination to identify himself with the lives of Peru's indigenous poor. Told by his superior to retire to bed, Martín responded (according to Kearns), "What! Do you command me, who at home would never have enjoyed the luxuries of life, to betake myself to a soft bed! Father, I beseech you, do not force me to enjoy such an unmerited gratification." Cleaning a toilet one day, he was asked by a monk whether he might not prefer life at the splendid offices of the Archbishop of Mexico. Martín responded, according to Kearns, by quoting the biblical Psalm 83: "I have chosen to be an abject in the house of my God rather than to dwell in the tabernacles of sinners." He qualified this remark by saying that he was not referring to the Archbishop as a sinner, but rather simply that he himself preferred menial tasks. He wore robes until they fell apart, refusing the luxury of new ones.
When Martín was 24, in 1603, he gave the profession of faith that allowed him to become a Dominican brother. He is said to have several times refused this elevation in status, which may have come about due to his father's intervention, and he never became a priest. As with any other famous holy man, Martín's life is surrounded by stories, and those stories constitute the primary means of remembering him at a distance of four centuries. The stories surrounding Martín are of two kinds. Some consist of testimony about his character and accomplishments by church officials who knew him, while others seem to be of a more popular character, arising among Lima's impoverished populace, and coming down to the present time partly via oral tradition.
Many stories attest to Martín's exceptional piety. He was said sometimes to be surrounded by a bright light when he prayed, and to be levitated off the floor of a chapel by sheer religious ecstasy. He subsisted for days on bread and water and would do penance for sins by whipping himself with chains. Martín was said to be capable of bilocation (being in two places at once), and individuals from both Africa and Mexico swore that they had encountered him in their home villages even though he was never known to have left Lima. Patients under his care spoke on several occasions of his having walked through locked doors in order to render medical help.
Other tales of the miracles and wonders worked by Martín, however, were more specific to his time and place. He was said to have a supernatural rapport with the natural world. The most famous single story connected with Martín had to do with a group of mice (or rats) that infested the monastery's collection of fine linen robes. Martín resisted the plans of the other monks to lay poison out for the mice. One day he caught a mouse and said (in the rendering of Angela M. Orsini of San Francisco's Martín de Porres House of Hospitality, one of many institutions and schools in the United States named after the Peruvian healer), "Little brothers, why are you and your companions doing so much harm to the things belonging to the sick? Look; I shall not kill you, but you are to assemble all your friends and lead them to the far end of the garden. Everyday I will bring you food if you leave the wardrobe alone"—whereupon Martín lead a Pied Piper-like mouse parade toward a small new den. Both the mice and Martín kept their word, and the closet infestation was solved for good. Martín loved animals of all kinds and seemed to have unusual skills in communicating with them. He would apply his medical skills to the treatment of a wounded dog found wandering the streets with the same energy he would devote to a sick human. Paintings of Martín often depicted him with a mouse, dog, or cat—or sometimes with a broom, symbolizing his devotion to everyday tasks.
Many other stories of Martín's goodness pertained to his unwavering efforts to help Lima's poor and ill, often against the wishes of his superiors at the monastery. A sick, aged street person, almost naked and covered with open sores, was taken by Martín to his own bed at the monastery. A fellow monk was horrified, but Martín responded (according to the Lives of the Saints reported on the website of Canada's Monastery of the Magnificat), "Compassion, my dear Brother, is preferable to cleanliness. Reflect that with a little soap I can easily clean my bed covers, but even with a torrent of tears I would never wash from my soul the stain that my harshness toward the unfortunate would create."
He treated victims of bubonic plague without regard to whether they were white, black, or Native American. During one plague outbreak he brought a wounded Native American man into the monastery for treatment even though the Superior administrator of the province had forbidden the admission of the sick owing to fears of contagion. Given a reprimand for disobedience, Martín replied (according to the Monastery of the Magnificat site), "Forgive my error, and please instruct me, for I did not know that the precept of obedience took precedence over that of charity." Martín's skills as a physician spread his name far and wide, and even the Archbishop of Mexico came to Lima to seek his services at one point. He was said to have a miraculous ability to know whether or not a patient would recover. Sometimes he sent sick people (or animals) to the home of his sister Juana when the monastery's facilities were overwhelmed.
Martín was, in the words of Richard Cardinal Cushing (writing in St. Martín de Porres ), "a precursor of modern social science," and the Convent of the Rosary while he was there "became the forerunner of the modern medical clinic." To finance all these activities, Martín also became an early specialist in the art of nonprofit fundraising. Spanish nobles gave him large donations so that he could continue his work, and one estimate placed his weekly disbursements of funds at the level of $2,000, an astonishing sum for the period. Martín did not devote these funds exclusively to those in misery, but also tried to level class distinctions. For example, he sometimes provided money for a poor young woman's dowry so that she could marry. When the monastery's finances suffered as a result of his activities, Martín responded (according to American Catholic's Saint of the Day website), "I am only a poor mulatto. Sell me. I am the property of the order. Sell me."
Martín died of a fever in Lima on November 3, 1639, at the age of nearly 60. Despite his renown throughout Latin America, recognition from the Catholic church was slow to come. In 1837 he was beatified, and his feast day is celebrated on November 3. He was canonized as a saint by Pope John XXIII on May 6, 1962, with a contingent of 350 African-American Catholics in attendance. Both Kearns and Cushing called Martín "a pioneer social worker," and when canonized he was designated the patron saint of universal brotherhood. On a more earthly plane, he was also the patron saint of interracial relations, social justice, public education, Peruvian television and public health, trade unions in Spain, mixed-race individuals, and barbers and hair stylists in Italy.
Cushing, Richard Cardinal, St. Martin de Porres , St. Paul Editions, 1962.
García-Rivera, Alex, St. Martín de Porres: The "Little Stories" and the Semiotics of Culture , Orbis, 1995.
Kearns, J.C., O.P., The Life of Blessed Martín de Porres: Saintly American Negro and Patron of Social Justice , P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1937.
Manila Bulletin (Philippines), November 3, 2006.
"About St. Martín de Porres," Martin de Porres House of Hospitality, http://www.martindeporres.org (January 21, 2007).
"Saint Martin de Porres," Lives of the Saints, Monastery of the Magnificat, Mont-Tremblant, Quebec, Canada, http://www.magnificat.ca/cal/engl/11-03.htm (January 21, 2007).
"St. Martin de Porres: A Brief Biography," St. Martin de Porres School, Oakland, CA, http://www.stmdp.org/SmdPBioPage.html (January 21, 2007).
"St. Martín de Porres," American Catholic: Saint of the Day, http://www.americancatholic.org (January 21, 2007).
"St. Martin de Porres," St. Patrick's Catholic Church, Washington, DC, http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/1103.htm#mart (January 21, 2007). | <urn:uuid:57f4f6a1-edca-466a-91d2-b24d83174c18> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.notablebiographies.com/supp/Supplement-Mi-So/Porres-Mart-n.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00171-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980124 | 2,768 | 3.34375 | 3 |
Hot Spots in Dogs
What are \"hot spots\"?
Acute moist dermatitis or "hot spots" are a common skin disorder in dogs. "Hot spots" can appear suddenly and become large red, irritated lesions in a short time.
What is the cause?
"Hot spots" are the result of intense chewing and licking. The inciting cause is often an insect bite. Fleas, ticks, biting flies and even mosquitoes have been known to cause acute moist dermatitis. Allergic skin disease can also cause or contribute to the formation of "hot spots", and is often an underlying cause if a pet develops recurrent hot spots.
What does a \"hot spot\" look like?
It is usually a large, raw, inflamed and bleeding area of skin. The area becomes moist and painful and begins spreading due to continued licking and chewing.
What does treatment involve?
The underlying cause should be identified and treated, if possible. Flea and tick preventives should be applied at the time of treatment. Anti-inflammatory medications and antibiotics, as injectable, oral, or topical preparations, are often used to relieve the intense itching and to combat secondary skin infection. The area is usually clipped and cleaned to facilitate applying any sprays or ointments on the affected area. Protective collars (Elizabethan- or E-collars) are often used to prevent the dog from further licking and injuring the site while healing occurs.
What is the prognosis?
Good with treatment. The condition usually resolves as rapidly as it developed.
Is the condition likely to recur?
Unfortunately, dogs that have "hot spots" are likely to experience recurrences. Flea control and proper bathing and grooming are your best defenses against future "hot spots". Dogs that experience chronic "hot spots" should be tested for hypothyroidism and skin and food allergies. | <urn:uuid:c4fc956e-865a-47d5-8e29-481b2ec0cd8d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.vcahospitals.com/main/pet-health-information/article/animal-health/hot-spots-in-dogs/816 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00097-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950693 | 383 | 2.84375 | 3 |
A technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user’s view of the real world, thus providing a composite view.
- There's real potential for this kind of augmented reality social software, but the trick has always been developing an interface that will make sense in such a rich sensual environment.
- Technological advances in optics and computer graphics, as well as the rapid development of network technology and distributed systems, open new doors for building effective distributed augmented reality systems.
- Still, it makes you wonder: what is the best idea for augmented reality games?
For editors and proofreaders
Syllabification: aug·men·ted re·al·i·ty
Definition of augmented reality in:
What do you find interesting about this word or phrase?
Comments that don't adhere to our Community Guidelines may be moderated or removed. | <urn:uuid:d07ff0b9-ba86-465b-83c0-ff8f929dabf1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/augmented-reality | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403502.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00051-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.893623 | 180 | 2.859375 | 3 |
The cost of living is rising dramatically - and one area in which it is particularly noticeable is in the cost of the average grocery bill.
Food costs are on the up and there’s nothing we can do about it. The solution – grow your own! To get you started check out vouchers from netvouchercodes.co.uk.
Here you’ll find a Garden Bargains promotional code gets you fifty percent off membership plus free seeds. Even if you live in an apartment and don’t have a garden, there are plenty of things that can be grown in window boxes or on ledges in any part of the house that gets regular sunlight.
Cultivate a mini herb garden
Herbs are one of the easiest food items to grow and also one of the biggest money savers.
When you buy packs of fresh herbs from the supermarket they always come in bunches far larger than you need. If you grow your own you can snip the correct amount each time and leave the rest of the plant to continue growing.
Herbs can be grown in small pots on a window ledge and take very little care beyond the occasional watering. If you have children get them involved too as they will love to see their seeds blossom into beautiful and tasty plants.
Utilise old jam jars or empty cans as pots to save even more money.
Root vegetables are easy to grow
Most root vegetables are hardy and easy to take care of. If you are limited to indoor space choose radishes and carrots as most other root vegetables require deep soil but these will flourish just as well in pots.
If planting outdoors be sure to cover the beds with netting to prevent hungry pests from nibbling on your crops.
Grow inside – or out!
Mushrooms are by far the easiest crop to grow indoors as they don’t even require sunlight.
You can buy ready to go bags of compost seeded with mushroom spawn – simply water and place in a dark cupboard. A few weeks later you will have tasty fresh mushrooms available for your dinners and it will have cost you virtually nothing.
Any green leafy vegetables will thrive in a window box or in long shallow pots on a sunny ledge.
Try lettuces, spinach and kale, but be careful not to over-plant as these do not keep for very long once ripe. Most leafy vegetables take around twenty-five days to grow to eating size. If possible get together with friends, each plant different varieties of vegetables at different times and then swap the results regularly. | <urn:uuid:26a923ef-73b1-4e40-b1c7-70bc02c14269> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.frugaliciousfood.com/2012/10/grow-your-own-food-to-beat-price-hikes.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397744.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00009-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947041 | 524 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Table of Contents
Students’ Guide to “Reading” Primary Sources on the History of Children & Youth
by Miriam Forman-Brunell, University of Missouri-Kansas City
Children spring into view in this 18th-century Japanese ink painting by Hanabusa Itchô. In the painting’s details are seemingly happy children energetically running to see a traveling entertainer’s puppet show. One might assume from this painting, as did Harvard Zoologist Edward Sylvester Morse, that Japan was a children’s "paradise" where babies benefited from riding on the backs of older children instead of crying in their cribs. Yet probing beneath the surface of this source complicates this rosy picture of the past.
A consideration of the age, gender, and class of the children reveal that the half-hidden figures in the window were upper-class girls prevented from playing on the streets. Although the painting portrays the children below as joyful, these komori (babysitters) who provided childcare in exchange for room and board often felt deep despair. While Confucian treatises on education, health, and wet-nursing are sources that reveal nothing about those from the lowest rung of society, other evidence—such as the songs sung by the komori—document more distress than delight.
Knowing how to reexamine established assumptions, consider multiple perspectives, and make connections between inquiry and interpretation is essential to researching the history of children and youth. Critical to that endeavor is the skillful utilization of primary sources (original records created during a period under study or produced by a participant later on) that have survived from the past).
How do you study the history of young people? What can primary source documents reveal? What limitations do they pose? What light can the history of young people shed on the past? This essay aims to serve as a guide to finding, interpreting or “reading” primary sources on young people from ancient civilizations to the present.
How do I study the history of children and youth?
Start by placing children at the center of inquiry
In standard textbooks on U.S., European, and world history, knowledge about children has been limited to the lives of exceptional youngsters or to anonymous, ordinary children within the family context. Other than a handful of heroes and helpful daughters and sons, children have remained on the margins of historical inquiries that have traditionally focused on adult society. When we place young people at the center of inquiry, we find that they have been an important part of every civilization.
From infancy through childhood and into young adulthood, youth have inhabited huts and houses, orphanages and dormitories. They have worked as domestics, street vendors, slaves, babysitters, and child laborers mining gold in Peru, constructing lanterns in Cairo, and sewing soccer balls in Pakistan. They attended schools and sites of worship where they played, prayed, studied, and socialized.
Children around the world participated in numerous youth organizations such as the Boy Scouts, Girls Scouts, or the Young Pioneers. Some children played visible roles in momentous events and eras in history. At the age of three, Sonam Gyatso became the 3rd Dalai Lama. "Infant rulers" exercised political, military, spiritual, or symbolic power in ancient cultures as well as pre-modern civilizations. Many young people mounted Crusades and sailed on the Mayflower. Still more served on the front lines during the Napoleonic wars and were at the forefront of movements for civil rights and women’s rights.
When we examine the experiences of young people, we often see well-known topics in a new light. And just as often, new topics as well as novel ways of understanding historical shifts and periods come into view. For example, medieval “Dance of Death” woodcuts and murals reveal that panicked parents did not wantonly abandon their children during the Black Death as previously believed. Instead, parents grieved the loss of a child they understood was separated from them by Death.
Use Categories of Analyses
An important initial step toward studying the history of children and youth is to make “age” a category of analysis. Privileging the age of historical subjects is critical because the experiences, opportunities, abilities, expectations, and objects of young people typically differ from those of adults. This Roman marble sarcophagus dating from the first half of the 2nd century, CE, depicts the development of a boy from infancy through childhood.
Yet determining who is a child and who is a young adult is sometimes more challenging than this sarcophagus suggests, as definitions of “childhood” and “youth” have been more fluid than fixed. In addition to actual age, biological maturation has often established the parameters of childhood; yet even the onset of menarche (the age of first menstruation that often signals the beginning of young adulthood), has shifted over time. Since the end of the 19th century, the age at which European girls began to menstruate dropped from around age 16 to about 11 today.
Ideological factors and legal designations that also define childhood have been subject to significant change. While today the average “age of consent” worldwide is 16, a little more than a century ago a child who was 10 or 12 years old was considered legally of age to consent to sexual activity in most American states.
In addition to age, gender is an analytically significant category that is useful for highlighting the different expectations and experiences of girls and boys. Child-rearing customs reliably reveal that the socialization of sons has differed from that of daughters in significant ways. In 16th-century Mexico, for example, a male infant received a shield, arrows, tools, and writing implements whereas a girl acquired domestic objects: a broom, reed basket and spindle.
Also underscoring gender differences are sources that offered child-rearing recommendations to parents as well as those that imparted guidance to children by their parents. According to the observations of a Franciscan friar in his 12-volume manuscript (1569) on Aztec history and culture, indigenous mothers advised their daughters to be neat, speak gently, and walk quietly.
For the most thorough understanding of the identity, circumstances, experiences, and prospects of boys and girls in the past and the present, researchers should consider examining the intersections of age and gender, along with race, ethnicity, sexual identity, and other relevant categories that shape individuals and ideals.
Examine Cultural Constructions
While it is still assumed that “childhood” is universal and unchanging, not all civilizations have shared the same ideas about children. Within every society, ideas about children typically vary over time. In Germany, for example, the effort to redefine childhood as a period of innocence led to the canonization of some folk stories and the elimination of others. A comparison of different editions of Grimm Brothers’ collected works reveals that books published after 1819 omitted troubling stories about children committing senseless acts of violence.
The depictions of children in “classic” works of fiction published between 1865 and 1920 provide another example of older notions of childhood giving way to “modern” ones. Alice in Wonderland (1865), Little Women (1868/9), Tom Sawyer (1876), and many other novels published during the “Golden Age” of Anglo-American children’s literature, reflected the shift in childrearing traditions from didactic literature to entertaining fantasies.
In addition to “childhood,” “girlhood” and “boyhood” are culturally and socially constructed notions inscribed in literary sources, embedded in material culture sources, embodied in art—even engraved on the human body. While activities and exercises coded as male have built up different parts of boys’ bodies than girls’, other cultural traditions have been more invasive. In parts of Asia and Africa where female circumcision has aimed to prepare girls for marriage by eradicating sexual desire and ensuring purity, male ritual circumcision has served to increase their sexual potency and social autonomy.
Despite the prominent differences between girlhood and boyhood, the borders between these constructs have been neither static nor uniform. Folk art paintings, for example, offer visually compelling information that notions of femininity and masculinity have not always been the same. The little boy who donned a fancy dress and delicate pantaloons in this 19th-century painting is at first glance indistinguishable from his older sister. Closer examination of his position, posture, and toys, reveals, however, that while his clothing was feminized, he was practicing the skills and sensibilities—independence, mastery, confidence, control, courage, and dominance—of Victorian masculinity.
Examine the “Lived Experiences” or “Everyday Lives” of Ordinary Children
While idealized depictions of children reveal adults’ expectations of young people, these often did not portray the lives of children as they lived them. The everyday experiences of children were better reflected in other sources, such as documentary photographs. These captured the daily life of Chinese children who sold toys during the 1930s and early 1940s. Artifacts such as birthday hats or “passport masks,” worn by adolescents of the Dan people as they came of age in western Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia, are among the many types of materials that document the numerous rituals and rites of passage ceremonies that have been a part of childhood across all cultures.
While these objects reveal little about how children experienced these events, the diaries and letters children wrote, the games they played, and the school assignments they completed (or did not complete) are some of the many types of documents that can open a window into the subjective experiences of the young.
In countries and cultures where the process of social maturation has been controlled and also contested, documentary evidence can be useful at revealing the methods used by children to “negotiate” between adults’ standards and their own desires. Sources produced by young people along with some created by adults sometimes divulge the ways in which children have sought to comply with adults’ demands and how they challenged them.
Whether in attics or in diaries, children and youth have often defied prevailing dictates by carving out physical or psychological spaces for themselves. In their pursuit of independence children have exhibited historical or social agency in a wide variety of ways.
The everyday activities and as well as “subjectivities” of slave children faced with the competing demands of parents and planters can be gleaned from other kinds of sources: testimonies of fugitives or emancipated slaves, plantation records, folktales, and oral histories. Unlike the interviews conducted by the U.S. Works Projects Administration during the Great Depression, trader inventories or, slave ship logs recorded by captains and their crews, provide numerical information about child enslavement and survival.
Pose Child-Focused Questions
The dynamic process of formulating critical (analytical) questions that will both elicit information as well as inspire more complex questions that ultimately elucidate the relationship between facts and phenomena is central to the enterprise of historical research. Posing specifically child-centered questions makes visible the particular circumstances of children’s experiences that can potentially challenge dominant assumptions. The following are examples of questions that place children at the center of inquiry:
- In what ways do different social arrangements, beliefs, practices, ideologies, and historical forces shape notions of childhood as well as children’s experiences?
- How do race, class, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexuality, sexual orientation, religion, and region inform childhood, young adulthood, girlhood, and boyhood?
- What evidence is there for multiple notions of childhood, girlhood, and boyhood? Are “dominant” constructs (also referred to as “normative” or “appropriate”) co-existing or contending with subcultural, “non-normative” or “inappropriate” forms?
- What do children and youth think and feel? In what ways do they express themselves?
- How are girls and boys represented, described, and characterized? What kind of rhetorical techniques (e.g., tone, language, metaphors, poses, gazes, imagery) or strategies does the producer employ to convey particular meanings?
How do I use child-related primary sources?
Primary sources provide the raw data out of which the history of girls and boys is reconstructed. Although finding material can sometimes be daunting, a variety of records relating to childhood can be found in archives as well as in attics, on billboards and building walls.
Here are some examples of different kinds of documentary sources used by historians of childhood.
From legends to folk tales, picture books to seduction novels, and fiction to biographies, stories aimed at children have often served didactic purposes.
The “Beginner’s Guide,” an educational text from the early Tang Dynasty (618-907), consisted of thrilling stories about famous figures in China’s history and legendary tales. Although Der Struwwelpeter (1845) chronicled the cruel pranks of two boys and the heroics of male leaders, it also served a pedagogical purpose. From the “bad” boys, German children learned about the importance of duty, discipline, and obedience.
Fiction is just one kind of literary source; others include children’s periodicals, school or children’s newspapers, such as New Zealand’s The School Journal. American school children first began reading versions of My Weekly Reader in the early 1900s. Its many poems, jokes, songs, rhymes, articles, and letters to the editors enable researchers to piece together the cultural concerns of adults as well as the cultural worlds of children.
Unique among literary sources are slave narratives that provide insight into children’s impressions, thoughts, experiences, and feelings. In his 1789 narrative, Olaudah Equiano recalled the slave raids he witnessed first hand at age 11. One-quarter of all slaves who crossed the Atlantic were children like him and Ottobah Cugoano whose 1787 memoir also described the differential treatment of children during the Middle Passage.
Harriet A. Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl Captivity (1861) provides insight into the specifically gendered experiences of girls on plantations. Captivity narratives (such as Mary Jemison’s 1824 recollection of her abduction by the Seneca Indians), autobiographies, memoirs, and testimonies (such as those of Holocaust victims) can provide an explicitly child-centered perspective of events as well as self-reflections formed later in life.
Sharing similarities with narratives and memoirs are letters, diaries, and accounts that reveal thoughts and feelings that were personal but not necessarily “private.” Not only did letters and diaries historically include a broad audience (e.g., family members), but they were also shaped by cultural conventions in both form and content. That is the case among seemingly private missives as well as the many letters sent to Santa that often reveal the desires of young consumers.
Legislation, ordinances, acts, statutes, handbills, and other official documents produced by governments, courts, and international bodies (e.g., United Nations) are among the many kinds that can be used to research children’s history. For example, historians have concluded that 70 percent of those indicted under the Infanticide Act of 1624 were servant girls under the age of 16.
Girls’ voices can better be heard in the official records of witchcraft trials that spanned 200 years of European and American history. Whether they were accused of witchcraft or blamed others for their bewitching, children’s testimonies shed light on their position within families, their role within communities, and the uncertainties of everyday life that fueled fears about the supernatural.
Institutional records produced by the multitude of private and public agencies established for the care, education, training, and confinement of boys and girls are a key source of information about young people. One problem, however, is that official reports written by administrators of educational institutions and organizations for children typically represent an institutional view rather than the perspective of youthful insiders.
Nevertheless, institutional records are valuable. Records from 19th-century lunatic asylums, for example, provide an understanding of the historical construction of “feeblemindedness.” Moreover, the uniformity of institutional record keeping is ideal for quantitative methods of research.
Contracts to adopt orphans or other legal agreements that led to the employment of child apprentices are notarial documents that provide information about the adoption practices and the employment of abandoned children. Orphanage records detail the scores of poor children who lived at the margins of society in France, Portugal, the U.S., and elsewhere in the world. Written records can be advantageously supplemented by photographs such as those that document the establishment of Indian mission schools.
Tables and Charts
Tables and charts that draw upon a variety of historical and/or contemporary primary sources provide researchers with data expressed as a measurable quantity. These “quantitative” formats also provide comparative contexts. A table on “age of consent” laws, for example, reveals that definitions of childhood shifted across time and spaces.
The many charts and tables compiled under the auspices of the UN Millennium Development Summit provide information on worldwide childhood poverty, hunger, education (primary through higher education), gender equality, and health (malnutrition).
Material Culture Sources
Material culture (or objects) from the past can provide other kinds of information unavailable elsewhere. Historians can obtain information about adults’ ideals, children’s practices, social relations, and the meanings of things by “reading” or interpreting the ideas encoded in art and artifacts.
Tombstone inscriptions and symbols as well as burial sites, like the ruins of a cemetery for infants in the North African city of Carthage, can be "read" for the knowledge they provide about childhood as well as parental grief.
In ancient Rome, funeral commemorations included epitaphs and life-stage depictions of children eating food, playing with toys, and learning with scrolls. Archeological findings of mummified children reveal the nature of sacrificial methods as well as the meanings of child sacrifice among the Incans.
Food-related objects, such as an ancient Phoenician baby bottle and bread molds, are material culture sources. These along with food advertisements and other visual and textual sources can provide an understanding of children’s health, experts’ advice, parents’ practices, and children’s preferences.
Evidence of childhood can be found encrusted in archeological finds, documented in patents of inventions, and represented in art and architecture. Toys from dolls to dice furnish facts about the principles, methods, and meanings of play.
In addition, artifacts of clothing, paintings, sculptures, architecture, and photographs can convey supplementary information about the well-being of children. Diapers might cover babies’ bottoms, but interpreting these water resistant receptacles made out of cotton, moss, or other absorbent materials can uncover adults’ expectations of children’s bodily control and mobility.
Visual and Representational Sources
Images of boys and girls can be found in paintings, prints, photographs, advertisements, billboards, murals, posters, as well as movies, cartoons, videos, and other visual sources created by adults, adolescents, and children. Many images are visual prescriptions of what children should do and proscriptions about what they should not.
The Codex Mendoza, a mid 16th-century historical account of the Spanish conquests of Mexica (Aztec) includes representations of indigenous children from infancy to adolescence that reveal examples of gendered- and age-specific norms, transgressions, and punishments.
Although realistic representations of children are harder to come by than idealized ones, some paintings and photographs (especially candid and documentary images) can display more accurate characterizations of childhood than other visual forms. It is important to understand that while a primary source might appear to provide an accurate portrayal, even documentary photographs can be carefully staged.
Jacob Riis’ bleak photographs of Progressive Era immigrant babies, boys, and girls living in wretched urban conditions sought to capture the attention and evoke the sympathy and charity of middle-class Americans.
Many objects of art created by children have not survived, of course, but those that have include embroidered samplers and needlework pieces passed down through generations. Anne Green’s needlepoint of Liberty in the Form of the Goddess of Youth is an exceptional example of schoolgirl art that seamlessly intertwined newly constructed notions of feminine and national identity.
In order to understand the concerns of youth, some historians have examined cultural productions not directed by adults. The “tags” and “throws” of graffiti art or stenciled images on city walls provide a visual record of the concerns and conversations of urban youth.
Audio and Audio/Visual Sources
Also helpful for research are songs that yield understandings of the topics, themes, and concerns of children—and about them. Evocative song lyrics, such as "I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier," are printed on sheet music, in song books, and other published works.
Fortunately for researchers of children’s culture, Isaac Taylor Headland (1859-1942), a resident of Beijing and a scholar at Peking (Beijing) University, collected turn-of-the-century nursery rhymes from the nurse-maids he interviewed as well as from children who sang in the streets and neighborhoods of Beijing and the surrounding region in 1900.
Although less abundant, there are actual recordings of songs—those about children, sung to children (e.g., lullabies), and others sung by children. Aspects of children’s folk culture, particularly playground, counting, camp, and school songs as well as jump rope rhymes and scouting chants have been passed down through the generations. There are a number that can also be found on audio recordings.
Caribbean, Songs and Games for Children and Children’s Songs from Kenya are some of those in the vast collection of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings that document, preserve, and disseminate sound. Included on one recording is an example of the subversive folklore of childhood. Deliberately disgusting versions of “Great Green G(l)obs of Greasy, Grimy Gopher Guts,” have been sung by generations of American school children since the postwar era.
Parodic songs that draw upon the shared meanings of children’s culture often appropriate familiar tunes, as “Batman smells,” an intentionally crude song sung to the tune of the Christmas classic, “Jingle Bells.”
Other audible sources include interviews and oral histories. New Zealanders interviewed by The Colonial Childhoods Oral History Project (CCOHP) narrate recollections of their early years by covering a wide range of topics from chores to church and food to friends.
Video documentaries that combine sound recordings with moving images of interviewees provide researchers with a more complete picture of the past. For example, in one video documentary, former students of Howard High School candidly discussed the challenges they faced and the benefits they received while attending the only free black high school in Delaware until the 1950s.
How do I interpret or "read" primary sources?
A first reading of a documentary source is not always accurate; a closer re-reading can reveal underlying values such as those in prescriptive sources that aim to establish or reinforce acceptable standards, ideas, attitudes, beliefs, and practices. (Proscriptive sources prohibit departures from established norms.)
Discursive sources establish perceived truths (e.g., about African American slave children as ignorant) and legitimatize unequal power relations (such as those between whites and slaves).
Although descriptive sources by nature “describe” an occurrence, thought, or emotion, they are not necessarily free of bias.
In order to achieve an understanding of the past that is as precise as possible, researchers interrogate or “unpack” original sources by cautiously, critically, and actively posing questions about authorship, audience, content, context, purpose, uses, reliability, and meanings.
Scholars have been able to uncover significant data about the origins, uses, and meanings of specific sources of evidence by subjecting them to a systematic method of inquiry. Different kinds of documents often demand specific analytic techniques, yet all require a scholarly approach that is skeptical and critical. Whether investigating texts or objects written by adults or created by children, consider posing probing questions such as:
- What kind of primary source is it? A toy for kids? An icon for adults? Or does it serve a variety of purposes as have dolls in the countries of Burkina Faso and Ghana in West Africa?
- Who created the source? In what ways did the age, sex, status, etc. of the creator shape the creation of the source?
- Where was it created? Produced? Found?
- When was the source created? Published? Produced?
- Under what conditions was it created?
- Why was the source created, invented, or produced? Depictions of happy babies, earnest children, and industrious youth in Soviet and Chinese poster art aimed to socialize, educate, amuse, persuade, and control.
- What is the point of view of the producer of the source? What textual or visual vocabularies were utilized that indirectly communicated biases or reinforced beliefs? What were the unspoken assumptions encoded or embodied in it?
- Who was the source created for? Who used it?
- What did the source mean to children and/or adults? How did they interact with it?
- What were the larger historical contexts (e.g., concepts of childhood) at the time of the source’s creation?
Primary sources are fundamental to understanding the past yet they do not provide an unmediated view of history. At best, by themselves they can only provide a partial view. Inherent to most primary sources are inaccuracies, uncertainties, and ambiguities. Secondary sources—books and articles written by scholars—can corroborate research findings, clarify ambiguities, provide constructive context, or perpetuate historical inaccuracies. Expanding frameworks that deepen your understandings of the broader milieu can also produce more connections between the history of children, larger social trends, and your particular subject of study.
By comparing primary sources, one can ascertain the veracity of an account and determine whether it is representative, remarkable, or realistic. Over the course of a little more than a century, the original 16th-century watercolor of a Native-American girl was transformed into that of a boy in subsequent publications about youthful New World inhabitants.
When faced with conflicting evidence, comparing sources might strengthen the evidence, provide additional information, and resolve disparities. A memoir, diary, or a letter, for example, could provide information missing from a photograph. Thinking about the possible explanations for the disparities you encounter while re-reading sources is likely to lead to new questions, revised assumptions, and new avenues of inquiry. This dynamic process of historical inquiry—reformulating questions, assumptions, and methods—typically leads to clearer understandings and innovative interpretations.
Whether analyzing police reports, children’s poems, or parents’ wills, historians pay particular attention to the uses of language in order to decipher meanings of symbolic systems from “bureaucratese” to baby talk. The skill of interpreting the language and tone of documents from earlier periods is key to understanding the assumptions and sensibilities of people in the past.
Comparative approaches can bring significant aspects of childhood to light. For example, a comparative study of the coerced migrations of children (e.g., orphans, Jews, Africans, and the poor) makes plain the similarity in cultural forms and childhood ideals that overlapped national boundaries.
A comparison of Pieter Bruegel’s Early Modern European painting, “Children’s Games,” with illustrations of girls’ and boys’ games and toys in woodblock prints or ukiyo-e from the Tokugawa period (1600–1868) exhibits the similarities and differences in children’s play activities in two countries over two centuries.
Sometimes single sources, such as the Narrative of Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), are particularly advantageous to comparative analyses. Douglass’ descriptions of slave boys with girls, the free with the unfree, children with adults, and urban with rural slaves lays bare the roles that gender, status, age, and region played in shaping childhood in the 19th-century South.
What are the limitations of source material?
While primary sources can provide a window into the past, the view is typically more partial than complete. Interpretive challenges are frequently posed by the extant evidence whether or not there is a lot or very little of it. Rarely, if ever, is surviving information wholly reliable at revealing an accurate and complete picture of the past.
The perspective of most primary sources is inherently biased. Whether deliberately or not, documents reflect the point of view of the people who created them. For example, while the painfully slow process of having ones picture taken made many Victorian children miserable, the somber expressions captured on daguerreotypes also reflected studio photographic conventions, gender ideals, class distinctions, and age hierarchies. They also captured racial codes, and diminished ethnic cultures, and cloaked sexual orientations.
Recollections of childhood and young adulthood recorded in memoirs, autobiographies, and other "life writings" (including oral history interviews) raise other evidentiary issues. Memories called to mind long after they occurred are filtered by age, anxiety, or subsequent events. For example, a half-century after the Massai murran youth rioted against British colonial rule, their recollections of events blended distant memories of adolescence with the mature perspective of their current position as community elders.
And while a poor memory might lead to inaccurate recollections, a nostalgic longing for halcyon days might generate a romanticized reminiscence. Drawing upon the recollections of family or community members who have embroidered the past might also contribute to apocryphal tales that contain more fiction than fact.
If a source was produced by parents, teachers, experts, or authors, it is likely to shed light on adults’ expectations and perceptions of young people. Documents produced by prisons, for example, typically represent the point of view of disciplinarians rather than those of youthful inmates. Sometimes reading against the grain of adult-generated sources can yield surprising results about young people. In addition, "alternative readings" of cultural products (like books) by young people can shed new light on youthful challenges to adult standards.
A source produced by a young person is very likely to reveal youthful cultural values, beliefs, behaviors, practices, and perspectives. A petition submitted by teenagers to the U.S. Secretary of Labor imploring him to allow the Beatles to enter the country in 1964 shows the emergence of American teenage subcultural principles, politics, and practices.
Why study the history of children and youth?
Although the fields are relatively new, the history of childhood, youth, and girls’ studies have already brought into sharp focus the innumerable ways in which young people since the earliest cave dwellers have left marks on societies and civilizations. While most sources make known adults’ attitudes about children, others give voice to girls’ and boys’ thoughts and feelings.
Whether examining culturally constituted ideas about childhood or the everyday experiences of the young, your research has the potential to produce original insights and even to create new areas of historical inquiry. By interpreting the rich record of young people, your research in the present will contribute to a more accurate understanding of our past. | <urn:uuid:0b26f47d-96c8-4e62-bcbf-3f22c52a9f3d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/introduction | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00038-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95205 | 6,586 | 3.625 | 4 |
The zipper is one of the simplest machines of modern times and arguably one of the least essential, but it is an immeasurably useful device in our everyday lives. Think how much easier it is to close a pants fly, a suitcase, the back of a dress, a sleeping bag or a tent flap with a zipper than with buttons or cords. The zipper is so effective and reliable that in less than a hundred years, it has become the de facto fastener for thousands of different products.
In this article, we'll examine the various parts that make up a zipper and see how these components lock together so easily and securely. The system is ingenious in its simplicity. | <urn:uuid:5d57523b-af4f-42eb-b955-667e757dad77> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/everyday-innovations/zipper.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394605.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00073-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961778 | 137 | 2.53125 | 3 |
|Beard, Jenny -|
Submitted to: International Journal of Acarology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: August 10, 2009
Publication Date: April 1, 2010
Citation: Beard, J., Ochoa, R. 2010. Ontogenetic modification in the Tuckerellidae (Acari: Tetranychoidea). International Journal of Acarology. 36(2):169-173. Interpretive Summary: Mites cause millions of dollars of damage to agriculture annually. Peacock mites and their role as pests are relatively unknown in the literature. Our research indicates that they are capable of causing severe damage to their host by feeding directly on the bark and fruit. In comparison to spider mites, the peacock mites have long been considered unusual in that they undergo an extra nymphal stage during development. This paper reports for the first time that only the female undergoes this extra stage. This study will be important to biological control workers, biologists, ecologists and other systematists.
Technical Abstract: The Tuckerellidae is the only a phytophagous family within the Tetranychoidea (Acari) that retains the ancestral prostigmatan condition of three nymphal stages during development; however it is only the female developmental sequence that retains a tritonymphal stage. Adult females develop from a tritonymphal stage, whereas adult males Tuckerella develop directly from the deutonymphal stage. Key words – Plant feeding mite, Tuckerellidae, peacock mites, life cycle, ontogeny, Tetranychoidea, pharate, instar, Acari. | <urn:uuid:dace1544-e210-4bcf-a853-ff5a9e8848de> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?SEQ_NO_115=240106 | 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 | 0.869967 | 355 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Students in New York City public schools will once again be required to take sex education classes.
For the first time in two decades, middle and high school students will hear lessons on how to use a condom and the appropriate age for sexual activity.
Also, children as young as 11 years of age will participate in discussions like pregnancy and the risk of unprotected sex.
"We must be committed to ensuring that both middle school and high school students are exposed to this valuable information so they can learn to keep themselves safe before, and when, they decide to have sex," said Dennis Walcott, the Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, reportedly wrote in an email to colleagues.
Parents have been granted permission to have their children opt out of lessons on birth-control methods.
Currently, 20 states plus Washington, D.C. require sex education to be taught in schools. | <urn:uuid:579c30e1-8f38-4cad-acd3-e789021ab0c1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/healthscience/2011/August/NYC-Makes-Sex-Ed-in-Public-Schools-Mandatory-/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00181-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961683 | 179 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Doctors to be able to 'print' new organs for transplant patients
Doctors might one day be able to 'print' living body parts they need for surgery, including blood vessels and entire organs.
The astonishing technique is known as bio-printing and it could make the transplant list a thing of the past.
Currently patients on the transplant list have to wait months or even years before a suitable organ becomes available.
A scientist manipulates the prototype 3D bioprinter which is already capable of making real, living arteries
But the 3D bio-printer, developed by US company Organovo, is already
capable of growing arteries and its developers say arteries 'printed'
by the device could be used in heart bypass surgery in five years.
More complex organs such as hearts, and teeth and bone should be possible within ten years.
The technology is based upon existing systems which create 3D models of components in industry.
The difference in bio-printing is that instead of layers of
plastics, a 3D bio-printer uses layers upon layers of biological
building blocks to create real, living tissue.
The concept is in its infancy but a working prototype of the first
machine became available for testing at the end of last year.
The cells are layered in circles and sandwich a gel between them. They then reform to create a new artery
The printer uses cells from the patient's body so they will not be
rejected. A 3D model of the organ or artery to be printed is made first
before layers of the cells are placed on top of each other.
A sheet of 'biopaper' gel is printed first followed by a circle of
'bio-ink' cells. The process is then repeated layer by layer until the
new organ is finished.
The natural cells then begin to reorganise themselves and fuse together to form the new blood vessel.
Each vessel takes about an hour to build and then a few days for the cells to knit together.
Organovo chief executive Keith Murphy told the Engineer magazine:
'Ultimately, the idea would be for surgeons to have tissue on demand
for various uses.'
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people who have damaged their knee cartilage may be able to regrow a replacement.
The cutting-edge MACI, or matrixinduced chondrocyte implantation,
begins with the surgeon scraping a small amount of healthy cartilage
from the patient's knee.
The sample is shipped to a specialist lab, where a cocktail of chemicals coax the cartilage cells into growing.
In the hospital, the surgeon removes the damaged cartilage and plugs
the hole with the lab-grown cartilage, which is stitched into place.
Centres using the MACI technique include the Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield. | <urn:uuid:b686c854-952b-4c20-9acd-0613ef7dbb06> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1283709/Doctors-able-print-new-organs-transplant-patients.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00031-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940521 | 583 | 3.078125 | 3 |
- Take a small amount of calcium oxide or quick lime in a beaker.
- Slowly add water to this.
- Touch the beaker as shown in Fig. 1.3.
- Do you feel any change in temperature?
Formation of slaked lime by the reaction of calcium oxide with water
Calcium oxide reacts vigorously with water to produce slaked lime (calcium hydroxide) releasing a large amount of heat.
CaO(s) + H2O(l) → Ca(OH)2(aq)
(Quick lime) (Slaked lime)
In this reaction, calcium oxide and water combine to form a single product, calcium hydroxide. Such a reaction in which a single product is formed from two or more reactants is known as a combination reaction.
A solution of slaked lime produced by the reaction 1.13 is used for white washing walls. Calcium hydroxide reacts slowly with the carbon dioxide in air to form a thin layer of calcium carbonate on the walls. Calcium carbonate is formed after two to three days of white washing and gives a shiny finish to the walls. It is interesting to note that the chemical formula for marble is also CaCO3.
Ca(OH)2(aq) + CO2(g) → CaCO3(s) + H2O(l) (1.14)
Let us discuss some more examples of combination reactions.
(i) Burning of coal
C(s) + O2(g) → CO2(g) (1.15)
(ii) Formation of water from H2(g) and O2(g)
2H2(g) + O2(g) → 2H2O(l)
In simple language we can say that when two or more substances (elements or compounds) combine to form a single product, the reactions are called combination reactions.
In Activity 1.4, we also observed that a large amount of heat is evolved. This makes the reaction mixture warm. Reactions in which heat is released along with the formation of products are called exothermic
Other examples of exothermic reactions are –
(i) Burning of natural gas
CH4(g) + 2O2 (g) → CO2 (g) + 2H2O (g)
(ii) Do you know that respiration is an exothermic process?
We all know that we need energy to stay alive. We get this energy from the food we eat. During digestion, food is broken down into simpler substances. For example, rice, potatoes and bread contain carbohydrates. These carbohydrates are broken down to form glucose. This glucose combines with oxygen in the cells of our body and provides energy. The special name of this reaction is respiration, the process of which you will study in Chapter 6.
C6H12O6(aq) + 6O2(aq) → 6CO2(aq) + 6H2O(l) + energy (Glucose).
(iii) The decomposition of vegetable matter into compost is also an example of an exothermic reaction.
Identify the type of the reaction taking place in Activity 1.1, where heat is given out along with the formation of a single product. | <urn:uuid:71a31197-b440-45d6-987d-6fdfda3cfcb8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://cbse.myindialist.com/chemistry-x-combination-reaction/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394987.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00179-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914959 | 688 | 4.09375 | 4 |
A few months ago I took the train down from London to Cambridge with my colleague Frida Bengtsson, who is leading this expedition, so that we could meet up with Professor Peter Wadhams. As head of the University’s ‘Polar Ocean Physics Group’, it’s fair to say Peter knows a thing or two about Arctic sea ice. Friends at Greenpeace like to call him ‘the Elvis of sea ice science.’
In his modern office, which looks directly across into Professor Steven Hawking’s studio, we were lucky enough to spend a few hours getting our own private seminar on the changes occurring in the Arctic.
For example, he told us he expected there was more than a fifty per cent chance that this year we would witness a world record shrinking of the summer sea ice, driven by the rise in global greenhouse gas emissions. He added that his counterparts at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) – the main institute in America for studying Arctic sea ice – expected that by 2030, the summer sea ice could have disappeared completely. He predicted it would occur even sooner, perhaps in the next decade, suggesting too that the North Pole itself could be open water even sooner than that – maybe even next year!
To hear such a world authority, somebody who has studied the Arctic ice for the past forty years, make this assertion seemed quite profound. Shortly afterwards, he took us down the corridor to introduce us to his student and colleague Nick Toberg. Back in London, and a few emails later, Nick was confirmed to join our trip with another Cambridge sea ice expert, Till Wagner, and on September 1st they both set sail with us from Longyearbyen on Svalbard to go up to the pack ice.
At around 81 degrees north, the ship is being carefully navigated to suitably strong ice floes where the scientists can conduct three weeks of field research into the thickness and volume of the sea ice. Using drills, core-ing, aerial imagery, snow depth measurements and GPS readings, they are establishing the properties of the sea ice at ten different sites.
Excitingly, they’re also pioneering a new approach to measuring the thickness of the ice by working with Will Trossell and Matthew Shaw - two experts on laser scanning who have joined us from University College London. Laser scanners are more conventionally used in architecture, but Till explained why it’s a groundbreaking development for their research:
“Up until now we had to measure the sea ice with a tape and a ruler going point by point. Now we scan the sea ice floes at a high resolution and take an exact digital copy of the Arctic ice home with us to the lab.”
Back in England, the data Nick and Till have collected here should hopefully make a modest contribution to the world’s understanding of what is happening to this fragile region where 28,000 square miles of ice is disappearing every year – and what that means for the stability of the global climate. Just as Miners used to have canaries to warn of rising concentrations of noxious gases, climate researchers have Arctic sea ice.
With information from satellites, complex computer models and dedicated field campaigns like this one, we will all be better able to comprehend what our fossil fuel addiction means we’re losing before it becomes too late.
Joss Garman is communications officer aboard the Arctic Sunrise, which is currently in the Arctic. You can follow all updates from the ship here. | <urn:uuid:5fd34bfe-3902-471e-af62-5045addd972a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/meeting-elvis-sea-ice-science-20110912 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00120-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966696 | 718 | 2.6875 | 3 |
By guest blogger Laura Spinney
What were the greatest human catastrophes of the 20th century? When asked this question, most people answer the Second World War, followed by the First World War. The former killed around 50 million people, the latter 17 million. But there was another catastrophe that dwarfed both of these, that is rarely mentioned. The influenza pandemic of 1918-1920, better known as the Spanish flu, killed at least 50 million people worldwide, and perhaps as many as 100 million.
While working on a book about that pandemic, I have been thinking a lot about why it has for so long attracted the label “forgotten”. It certainly isn’t because it only affected Spaniards. “Spanish” flu is a misnomer, a historical accident that came about because, unlike the belligerent nations in the First World War, Spain, which was neutral, didn’t censor its press to avoid damaging morale. The first flu victims Europeans learned about from the newspapers, therefore, were Spanish.
The reasons the Spanish flu has so often been overlooked go deeper than its name, and they have to do with the nature of collective remembering – or more importantly, collective forgetting. This is a subject that has interested historians and social scientists for a long time, though they have tended to focus on its external manifestations – monuments and memorials. Only in the last few years have psychologists brought an empirical approach to the question, and started probing the representation of collective memory in the brain. Their initial findings are both fascinating and disturbing, because they show that collective memory, like individual memory, is shockingly fallible. Together we only remember a fraction of what happened, and so the interesting question becomes, why do we remember what we do, and forget all the rest?
|The USS Arizona (BB-39) burning after the Japanese attack|
on Pearl Harbour. The event provides a beginning anchor to
Americans' memories of the Second World War. Image: Wikipedia
Pandemics lack such a structure. The Spanish flu, for example, was over in some places in as little as six weeks, so there was no time for a narrative to unfold. Werstch also noted that collective memories tend to highlight heroic or mythical elements while playing down negative ones, or ones that don’t fit the narrative. There are no real heroes in a pandemic, and no victors either – no-one likely to go around bragging about it afterwards. And according to memory researchers, that lack of bragging rights may be another reason why the Spanish flu was overlooked for so long.
Charles Stone, a psychologist at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, has been studying the consequences of “mnemonic silence” – the failure, by a leader, a community, or even an entire nation, to express a memory publicly. In one study, he and his colleagues find that what high-profile figures say about episodes from the past can shape what, if anything, the public recalls about them.
Stone’s study centred on a speech the King of Belgium gave in 2012, at a time when Belgium was facing certain delicate political problems – not least, the fact that it had recently emerged from eight months without a government. Stone and his colleagues identified four such problems and, knowing that the King would address some or all of them when he spoke, sent out surveys to 81 Belgians before and after his speech, to assess their memories in connection with each one. The people who didn’t hear the King speak remembered as much about each problem at both timepoints, but those who did hear him remembered less about the subjects he raised than they had beforehand. That’s because he mentioned certain events in connection with each issue, but not others. Participants who heard the speech later recalled the events he mentioned, while forgetting the ones he didn’t – resulting in a lower overall tally of memories for each one, after the speech. Though the results are preliminary, Stone says they indicate that public figures can induce selective forgetting, and so shape collective memory.
Mnemonic silence doesn’t always induce forgetting. When the Soviet authorities rewrote Lithuanian history books in the wake of their occupation of that country in 1940, the Lithuanians carefully curated their own version of the past – refusing to accept the “false” memory that they had invited their occupiers in, for example. Likewise, Armenians living in Turkey remember the Armenian genocide of the 1910s, even though Turkish law restricts public discussion of the episode. In both cases, Stone says, the group identity of the “underdog” depended on the maintenance of those publicly suppressed memories, giving Lithuanians and Armenians a powerful motive not to forget.
There is no underdog in a pandemic, since everyone is a potential victim. In 1918, however, there was one influential constituency in whose interests it was to erase memories of the Spanish flu – the doctors and scientists who failed to stem the tide of death (essentially because they didn’t know that influenza was caused by a virus), along with the politicians who, having no credible alternative to offer, advised the public to put their faith in them. In those circles, many came to see the pandemic as a humiliating defeat. As German historian of science Wilfried Witte put it a few years ago, “Politicians and doctors had no interest in building a monument to influenza.” Monuments abound to the two world wars, of both the concrete and psychological varieties, but not to the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century. In that case, mnemonic silence induced forgetting very effectively – at least for a while.
Roediger, H., & Abel, M. (2015). Collective memory: a new arena of cognitive study Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 19 (7), 359-361 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2015.04.003
Stone, C., & Hirst, W. (2014). (Induced) Forgetting to form a collective memory Memory Studies, 7 (3), 314-327 DOI: 10.1177/1750698014530621
Zaromb, F., Butler, A., Agarwal, P., & Roediger, H. (2014). Collective memories of three wars in United States history in younger and older adults Memory & Cognition, 42 (3), 383-399 DOI: 10.3758/s13421-013-0369-7
Top image shows an emergency hospital at Camp Funston, Kansas, which cared for large numbers of soldiers who contracted Spanish flu.
How our collective memory of 1066 could be souring Anglo-French relations
Do you remember the time? How collective nostalgia inspires group loyalty
Post written by Laura Spinney for the BPS Research Digest. Laura is a writer and science journalist based in Paris. Her book on the Spanish flu will be published in March 2017 by Jonathan Cape in the UK.
Our free fortnightly email will keep you up-to-date with all the psychology research we digest: Sign up! | <urn:uuid:68115986-e075-4dee-be16-76d97038fbcb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://digest.bps.org.uk/2016/01/our-collective-memory-like-individual.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396875.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00131-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96338 | 1,459 | 3.25 | 3 |
Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties in Wartime
February 7, 2006 – December 15, 2006
curated by Timothy Murray
The Writ of Habeas Corpus
A writ of habeas corpus is a judicial mandate to a prison official ordering that an inmate be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that person is imprisoned lawfully and whether or not he should be released from custody. The authority of judges to free prisoners held without legal reason is based on a right that existed in America long before either the Constitution or the Bill of Rights were written. The only mention of the writ of habeas corpus in the Constitution relates to when it can be taken away from judges. In a section limiting the powers of Congress (Art. I, Sec. 9), the Constitution states: “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in causes of rebellion or invasion of the public safety may require it.” This suspension clause was never activated through the terms of the first 15 presidents. Then during the Civil War, President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus without consulting Congress.
Lincoln’s first order suspending the writ applied only to Maryland, a border state sympathetic to the South that virtually surrounded Washington, D.C. On September 24, 1862, Lincoln issued a proclamation unprecedented in American history. He suspended the writ of habeas corpus everywhere in the United States. The suspension applied to Confederate spies or to those who aided the rebel cause, interfered with military enlistments, resisted the draft, or were “guilty of any disloyal practice.” This last offense allowed the military to arrest newspaper editors and speakers critical of the Union war effort. Lincoln further ordered that persons arrested under his proclamation were subject to martial law, which meant they would be tried and punished by military courts. Although exact figures are hard to come by, Lincoln’s suspension of the writ of habeas corpus enabled the military to arrest and imprison thousands of civilians during the Civil War. President Lincoln’s unprecedented act created a great deal of controversy and the legal and political community was divided over his action.
Ashland B. Swiggett (b.[ca. 1845]) served in the Union Army during the Civil War as a private in the First Delaware Infantry. He suffered permanent disabilities after sustaining six wounds at the battle of Antietam. In the spring of 1863, the veteran appealed to Delaware politicians William Cannon and John W. Houston to help him obtain a government job. The two men wrote letters on his behalf, which Swiggett personally presented to President Lincoln. Lincoln provided him with a letter of introduction, recommending that he receive a post as a messenger (“messengership”) at a federal bureau or department. The letter proved to be useful, as Swiggett secured a position at the Pension Office.
Autograph pardon, signed “A. Lincoln, March 7, 1865.”
Autograph discharge, signed “A. Lincoln, May 28, 1864.”
Autograph pardon of J.B. Evans, signed “Abraham Lincoln, 14th January 186.”
Proclamation to Affix Seal to Treaty with the Chippewa Indians, signed “Abraham Lincoln, April 25, 1864.”
The Vallandigham Case
The term “copperhead” was used during the Civil War to describe Northerners who sympathized with the South or who may simply have opposed the war. Many members of the Democratic Party in the North voiced “copperhead” views. Clement L. Vallandigham, a prominent Democratic congressman from Ohio, persistently called for a negotiated end to the war and reunion with the South. Vallandigham lost his seat in Congress in the election of 1862, but continued to speak out against Lincoln’s war policy. On May 1, 1863, Vallandigham spoke at a large Democratic Party rally at Mount Vernon, Ohio, and attacked Lincoln and lashed out at the “wicked, cruel, and unnecessary war.” He spoke against the draft law, but did not go so far as to encourage men to disobey it. He also charged that “the men in power are attempting to establish a despotism in this country, more cruel and more oppressive than ever existed before.” A few days later, Vallandigham was arrested in his bedroom. A military trial quickly followed and he was found guilty. The tribunal recommended putting Vallandigham in prison for the remainder of the war; however, President Lincoln interceded and ordered him to be banished to the Confederacy. After Vallandigham was banished to the South, his friends went to the U.S. Supreme Court in an attempt to convince the justices to hear the case. On February 15, 1864, the Supreme Court announced it would refuse to hear the case, saying that it had no authority to review the proceedings of a martial law court. The Vallandigham case galvanized loyalists, as well as those in opposition, and inspired scores of pamphlets, speeches, and newspaper articles.
American Bastile: A History of the Illegal Arrests and Imprisonment of American Citizens during the Late Civil War, by John A. Marshall (Philadelphia: Stoddart , 1870).
This post–war compilation includes a detailed account of the arrest and imprisonment of a Whitesly, Delaware, citizen, Warren J. Reed.
Correspondence in Relation to the Public Meeting at Albany, New York (Albany: May 19, 1863).
Members of the New York State Democratic party met and passed resolutions affirming their loyalty to the Union cause, but they also criticized President Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus and policy of arbitrary arrests, notably that of Clement L. Vallandigham.
An undelivered speech on executive arrests. (Philadelphia, 1862).
The Philadelphia attorney, Charles Ingersoll, bitterly opposed the Union cause. He was arrested following a speech in August1862, and subsequently published this pamphlet denouncing the President’s policies.
The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus under the Constitution. Philadelphia: C. Sherman & Sons, printers, 1862.
One of the staunchest supporters of the legality of President Lincoln’s suspension of the writ of habeas corpus was the prominent Philadelphia attorney Horace Binney. He produced two pamphlets in which he argued for the legality of the President’s actions. In response, a host of his peers produced their own pamphlets arguing for or against Binney.
Judge Taney and the Merryman Case
On April 27, 1861, about a week after the Fort Sumter surrender, President Lincoln ordered Winfield Scott, then head of the nation’s military, to arrest anyone between Washington and Philadelphia suspected of subversive acts or speech, and his order specifically authorized suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. Scott passed the order down the line, and Southern sympathizers in Maryland were rounded up in batches. One of the arrested was John Merryman, a prominent Baltimorean and an active and vocal secessionist. Merryman was arrested May 25, 1861, and that day his lawyer filed a petition in circuit court, which was overseen by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. Taney ordered Merryman brought before him on a writ of habeas corpus and commanded the military officer in charge of Merryman to show “the cause, if any, for his arrest and detention.” Taney eventually ruled that Merryman should be set free, denounced the notion of arbitrary military arrest and defended civil liberties, and pointed out that only Congress had the right to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, though he admitted he could do nothing to enforce his ruling in the face of a military force “too strong for me to overcome.” In spite of Taney’s ruling, the high court generally went along with the administration after the Merryman case pointed up its powerlessness to force the administration to obey its decisions. In fact, several of the justices were enthusiastic supporters of the war effort. But the case did inspire numerous pamphlets, speeches, and newspaper articles and was one of the critical judicial moments of the Civil War.
Civil War Loyalists
During the American Revolutionary War the term “loyalist” was used to label British sympathizers. During the Civil War, however, it referred to supporters of the Union cause. Loyalist politicians, journalists, and authors produced scores of pamphlets and speeches invoking unwavering support of the Lincoln administration and condemnation of the Secessionists and their Northern sympathizers. | <urn:uuid:e71721d3-fce2-42e8-ae90-1ae11fedcf74> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/exhibits/lincolnwartime/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394937.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00121-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965028 | 1,789 | 3.875 | 4 |
Young adults who follow a diet that is low in calories but nutritionally sound for six months appear to lose weight and fat without significant bone loss, according to a report in the September 22 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Calorie restriction is the only intervention known to decrease the rate of biological aging and increase longevity, according to background information in the article. However, it is well known that chronic energy deficiency impairs bone mineral uptake and that weight loss is associated with bone loss in obese individuals. Calorie restriction, therefore, could also lead to bone loss and fracture.
Leanne M. Redman, Ph.D., and colleagues at Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, La., studied 46 healthy, overweight men and women (average age 37) who were randomly assigned to one of four groups for six months. Eleven formed the control group, assigned to eat a healthy diet; 12 were assigned to consume 25 percent fewer calories than they expended per day; 12 were assigned to create a 25 percent energy deficit through eating fewer calories and exercising five days per week; and 11 ate a low-calorie diet (890 calories per day) until they achieved 15 percent weight loss, at which time they switched to a weight maintenance plan. All diets included recommended levels of vitamins and minerals, including calcium, and contained 30 percent fat, 15 percent protein and 55 percent carbohydrates, based on American Heart Association guidelines.
After six months, average body weight was reduced by 1 percent in the control group, 10.4 percent in the calorie restriction group, 10 percent in the calorie restriction plus exercise group and 13.9 percent in the low-calorie diet group.
Bone mineral density and blood markers of bone resorption and formation (processes by which bone is broken down and regenerated on a regular basis) were measured at the beginning of the study and again after six months. "Compared with the control group, none of the groups showed any change in bone mineral density for total body or hip," the authors write. Markers of bone resorption were increased in all three intervention groups, while markers of bone formation were decreased in the calorie restriction group but were unchanged in the low-calorie diet or calorie restriction plus exercise group.
"Our data do not support the notion that extreme weight loss (more than 10 percent) over short periods (three months) has a worse prognosis on bone health than gradual weight loss achieved over six months by moderate calorie restriction with or without aerobic exercise," the authors write. "We speculate that in young individuals undergoing calorie restriction, minor adjustments in bone occur as a normal physiological adaptation to the reduced body mass. Further studies of longer duration are warranted and should include an assessment of bone architecture to ensure that bone quality is preserved with weight loss."
(Arch Intern Med. 2008;168:1859-1866. Available pre-embargo to the media at www.jamamedia.org.)
Editor's Note: This work was supported by a grant and the Neil Hamilton-Fairley Training Fellowship from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia and by funds from the HaPE Division, Pennington Biomedical Research Center. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc. | <urn:uuid:04dc6081-c81a-40cf-b370-494a5eac9191> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-09/jaaj-crd091808.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394987.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00087-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950169 | 681 | 2.9375 | 3 |
A CHANCE MISSED
Americans from 1760 to 1790 felt a general consensus “that black slavery was a historical anomaly that could survive for a time only in the plantation societies where it had become the dominant mode of production.” In the Revolutionary generation, Southerners and Northerners alike predicted slavery would whither away throughout the United States once the importing of Africans stopped. At the same time the Northern states were committing themselves to gradual abolition, individual slaveowners in the Upper South were doing the same. Manumissions rose sharply. The free black population of Maryland was 1,817 in 1755 and 8,000 in 1790. By 1800, it stood at nearly 20,000, and a decade later nearly a quarter of the state's black population was free. Virginia's free black population rose steeply from 12,866 in 1790 to 30,570 in 1810. In Delaware, the number of free blacks was fewer than 4,000 in 1790, and more than 13,000 in 1810.
The 1790s presented the best chance to end slavery that America ever had. And I agree with Gary B. Nash that historians have been too lenient in letting the Revolutionary leadership, especially that from the North, off the hook for not pushing on and ending it. It is said that they were too busy doing other things, or the unity of the nation was too precarious to risk. I say they knew they were building a nation, unifying different regions, and they deliberately let a cancer be built into it, which they all, at one time or another, said would someday tear the nation apart.
The will to end slavery on a national level was there, among the Virginian leaders. Several of them outlined plans for it in national publications. Slave power was politically the weakest it had been or would be again until 1865. And the resources were in hand to compensate the owners for the loss of their property, in the shape of the western lands that were the nation's treasure. A slightly higher price for the land, which was all but given away, could have provided ample money for compensated emancipation.
Virginia was the key state for this. Half the African-Americans in the colonies lived in Virginia and Maryland in 1776. And both places expressed strong sentiments for abolition during and after the Revolution. Indeed, it predated the Revolution. Virginia's colonial legislature petitioned the crown in 1772 to raise the import duties on slaves to slow the flow of them into the colony, saying the trade benefited a few in Britain but risked terrible consequences.
The importation of slaves into the colonies from the coast of Africa hath long been considered as a trade of great inhumanity, and under its present encouragement, we have too much reason to fear will endanger the very existence of your majesty's American dominions. We are sensible that some of your majesty's subjects of Great Britain may reap emoluments from this sort of traffic, but when we conside that it greatly retards the settlement of the colonies with more useful inhabitants, and may, in time, have the most destructive influence we presume to hope that the interest of a few will be disregarded when placed in competition with the security and happiness of such numbers of your majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects. Deeply impressed with these sentiments, we most humbly beseech your majesty to remove all those restraints on your majesty's governors of this colony, which inhibit their assenting to such laws as might check so very pernicious a commerce.And the Virginia constitution, after the rebellion began in 1776, listed causes for separation from Great Britain in its first clause. Among them was "the inhumane use of the royal negative" in refusing permission to pass laws excluding slave imports. In part this attitude was a consequence of the "natural rights" philosophy of the Revolution. Religion also played a role, via the rapid spread of Methodism in the 1780s. Methodism, in its early days under Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke, was almost as intollerant of slavery as the Society of Friends was becoming. Black soldiers had fought for freedom in large numbers in the Revolution. All in all, this was the least racist generation in American history. The anti-slavery attitude in the Chesapeake colonies was at its peak. The long list of leaders who supported abolishing slavery is stellar: Thomas Jefferson, George Wythe, Edmund Pendleton, George Mason, James Madison, Patrick Henry, St. George Tucker in Virginia; Luther Martin and Gustavus Scott in Maryland; Caesar Rodney in Delaware.
A Virginia convention in 1774 had banned the slave trade in the colony, asserting that the delegates wished "to see an entire stop put to such a wicked, cruel, and unnatural trade." Virginia was the inspiration for the Continental Congress in its foreswearing of the slave trade later that year. Virginia's state constitution in 1776 had banned further slave importation. Lafayette in 1782 had reported that Virginians "grieved at having slaves, and are constantly talking about abolishing slavery and of seeking other means of exploiting their lands." Residents of several Virginia counties petitioned the legislature for abolition in 1787.
South Carolina and Georgia vigorously defend their slavery, and denied the federal government's right to interfere in the institution. But Georgia was locked in a precarious war with the Creek Indians, and it needed a strong federal presence. It would have likely gone along with a compensated, gradual abolition. Georgia's case, in terms of "federal interference,” was summed up nicely by George Washington: “If a weak State, with powerful tribes of Indians in its rear and the Spanish on its flank, do not incline to embrace a strong general Government there must, I should think, be either wickedness, or insanity in their conduct.” There was no insanity: Georgia rushed to ratify the Constitution, with very little debate, and was the third state in.
South Carolina alone would have kicked up a fuss; but even with Georgia thrown in, the two states had only 5 percent of the population. Where would they have gone? Back to Britain? To Catholic Spain? Was there really enough tail there to wag the dog?
But Virginia and Maryland could not as easily do what the northern states were doing, and pass laws gradually ending slavery. There were just enough committed slave-owners to prevent such a plan. Jefferson drafted several bills to this effect. So did many others in the state. But, as Jefferson wrote in 1786, there were “men enough of virtue and talent in the General Assembly to sponsor” an abolition act, “but they saw that the moment for doing it with success was not yet arrived.” In these states, with their relatively huge black populations, emancipation would also have to be a good deal more complex than it was in the North, where the process was often simply to compensate slave-owners for the loss of their property by keeping slaves, even children yet unborn, in servitude during their most productive years. Even after the emancipation acts passed, most Northern slaves got release from bondage only by dying or running away. There would also have to be some plan for bringing the former slaves into social equality, or re-settling them out of the state. Virginia could not simply do what many New England states had done: free their slaves and then restrict them and expel them whenever possible.
By dealing conservatively with emancipation in their own states, but putting forth no proposals to accomplish it on a national level, and ignoring the petitions from the Upper South (by Thomas Jefferson, St. George Tucker, Ferdinando Fairfax, and others), the Northern leadership effectively made slavery a state-level problem. They accepted the flaw of slavery into the new nation, even though it was widely recognized as incompatible with true democracy.
In effect, northern gradual-abolition laws have gotten the North off the hook, persuading historians who were educated and who taught in the North for more than a century that slavery was a southern problem rather than a national problem. The regional animosity associated with the Civil War also suffused the consciousness of northern historians, heightening their tendency to ignore the fact that slavery was not simply a southern problem in the post-[Revolutionary]-war era.So failing to get help from the North, the Upper South leaders turned to waiting for slavery to weaken naturally, to the point where they, too, could end it by state action. But that hope was vain. As early as 1790, there were alarming signs. The first census revealed that the slave population was vigorously increasing. The number of slaves shot up 250 percent in Virginia from 1755 to 1790, despite the widespread disruption of the Revolution and many sales of slaves from that state to the Deep South.
One reason for slavery’s tenacity, of course, was that the importing of Africans to the South was going on more vigorously than it had before. In fact, the slave trade totals were higher in the U.S. in the period 1790-1810 than during any other 20-year period. And the trade at this time was entirely in the hands of Northern merchants. States that had banned the import of slaves into their own borders, for reasons of economics and morality, had no qualms about flooding them into other states.
For an example of the dereliction of the Northern leaders in picking up the emancipation issue, consider the abolition petitions given to Congress by Philadelphia Quakers in 1790. Guided by the Maryland and Virginia representatives, the petitions went to committee, and resulted in a report that seemed to give Congress the power to regulate the institution. Georgia and South Carolina representatives rose to thunder and filibuster against the report, and the Northern representatives quickly caved in to their hectoring. Hamilton's economic program was before Congress at the same time, and the Northern men did not want to alienate Deep South votes and jeopardize the boon being offered to Northern money interests. John Pemberton, the Philadelphia Quaker leader, watched from the gallery in disgust. “The funding system is so much their darling that they want to obtain the favor of those from Carolina and Georgia.” Only Virginia votes kept the resolution from being tabled altogether, and in the end the offending language was changed.
Even without an immediate political need, the North rarely matched its anti-slavery words with deeds. In 1800, still years before "slave power" was whispered in the halls of Congress or there was a political party of Southern sectional interest, free blacks in Philadelphia petitioned Congress to provide for gradual abolition of slavery, among other things. But the House voted 85-1 to not even accept the petition. Only a lone Massachusetts representative opposed the movement to give “no encouragement or countenance” to these petitions and to refuse to even consider them, because of their “tendency to create disquiet and jealousy.” Oliver Wolcott, a Connecticut Federalist, wrote to his son in 1790 that he favored "the white people of this country to the black," and after Congress "have taken care of the former they may amuse themselves with the other people."
There were social considerations behind this attitude. The North found it convenient to not push too hard for a definitive end to slavery in the United States. In part, it did so out of fear. “A general emancipation, northerners had reason to believe, would bring free blacks churning northward in search of economic opportunity and some measure of social justice.” Anthony Benezet, the Pennsylvania Quaker abolitionist and the least prejudiced of men, in his 1767 pamphlet, listed among the evils of slavery, "continual Apprehensions of Dangers, and frequent Alarms, to which the Whites are necessarily exposed from so great an Encrease of a People, that, by their Bondage and Oppressions, become natural Enemies, yet, at the same time, are filling the Places and eating the Bread of those who would be the Support and Security of the Country."
The social fears sharpened with the news of African uprisings elsewhere. St. Domingue, the French sugar-plantation island in the Caribbean, erupted in slave revolts (partially inspired by the American Revolution) in 1791. They lasted till 1803 and degenerated into a vicious race war. French refugees from the island came to America brought hair-raising tales with them. A similar insurrection, with similar results, broke out on Haiti in 1794. That is why the discovery of Gabriel Prosser's intended insurrection in Virginia in 1800 sent a chill through the nation, North and South.
Then in 1793 came the cotton gin, which brought a 50-fold increase in the average daily output of short-staple cotton, promoted the rapid expansion of a "cotton kingdom" across the Deep South, and made large-scale slavery profitable again. U.S. cotton production had been 3,000 bales in 1790; in 1810, it was 178,000 bales. “Slavery would remain a national problem, not a southern problem,” historian Gary Nash wrote, “but northerners, with few exceptions, acknowledged no responsibility for solving the problem.” In such a nation, disunion or civil war was inevitable. Jefferson, by the end, realized it. He wrote that, “if something is not done, and done soon, we shall be the murderers of our own children.” But they rested, and hoped for the long-term death of American slavery by natural causes, and did nothing. It was a grand missed opportunity. And much of the responsibility for missing it can be laid to the blame of the Northern leadership.
1. David Brion Davis, “Slavery and Human Progress,” Oxford University Press, 1987. | <urn:uuid:af97c95c-5ba5-4676-90e0-d43b4ba84974> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://slavenorth.com/chance.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00200-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974661 | 2,836 | 3.828125 | 4 |
3-D Graphical Password Used For Authentication
In today's world, security is important aspect in day to day life. So, everyone used various ways for security purpose. People use passwords for their security. Generally, everyone uses textual password. Textual password is combination of alphabets and numbers. People keep textual password as name of their favorite things, actors or actress, dish and meaningful word from dictionary. But the person who is very close to that person can easily guess the password. Graphical password is advanced version of password. Graphical passwords have received considerable attention lately as Potential alternatives to text-based passwords. | <urn:uuid:8490c2e1-2058-4e5f-a418-769e60e9f5ec> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.techrepublic.com/resource-library/whitepapers/3-d-graphical-password-used-for-authentication/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00010-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962095 | 126 | 2.796875 | 3 |
- php - PHP Command Line Interface 'CLI'
php [options] [ -f ] file [[--] args...]
php [options] -r code [[--] args...]
php [options] -- [ args...]
PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML. This is the command line interface that enables you to the following:
You can parse and execute files by using parameter -f followed by the name of the file to be executed.
Using parameter -r you can directly execute PHP code simply as you would do inside a .php file when using the eval() function.
If none of -r or -f is present but a single parameter is given then this parameter is taken as the filename to parse and execute (same as with -f). If no parameter is present then the standard input is read and executed.
- Run interactively
- -c path|file
- Look for php.ini file in the directory path or use the specified file
- No php.ini file will be used
- -d foo[=bar]
- Define INI entry foo with value bar
- Generate extended information for debugger/profiler
- -f file
- Parse and execute file
- This help
- PHP information and configuration
- Syntax check only (lint)
- Show compiled in modules
- -r code
- Run PHP code without using script tags '<?..?>'
- Display colour syntax highlighted source
- Version number
- Display source with stripped comments and whitespace
- -z file
- Load Zend extension file
- Arguments passed to script. Use '--' args when first argument starts with '-' or script is read from stdin
- The configuration file for the CLI version of PHP.
- The configuration file for the CGI version of PHP.
- The configuration file for the version of PHP that apache uses.
- The configuration file for the version of PHP that apache2 uses.
- php -r 'echo "Hello World\n";'
- This command simply writes the text "Hello World" to standard out.
- php -r 'print_r(gd_info());'
- This shows the configuration of your gd extension. You can use this to easily check which imag formats you can use. If you have any dynamic modules you may want to use the same ini file that php uses when executed from your webserver. There are more extensions which have such a function. For dba use: php -r 'print_r(dba_handlers(1));'
You can use a shebang line to automatically invoke php from scripts. Only the CLI version of PHP will ignore such a first line as shown below:
// your script
For a more or less complete description of PHP look here:
A nice introduction to PHP by Stig Bakken can be found here:
You can view the list of known bugs or report any new bug you found here:
The PHP Group: Thies C. Arntzen, Stig Bakken, Andi Gutmans, Rasmus Lerdorf, Sam Ruby, Sascha Schumann, Zeev Suraski, Jim Winstead, Andrei Zmievski.
Additional work for the CLI sapi was done by Edin Kadribasic and Marcus Boerger.
A List of active developers can be found here:
And last but not least PHP was developed with the help of a huge amount of contributors all around the world.
This manpage describes php, version 4.4.2-1build1.
Copyright © 1997-2006 The PHP Group
This source file is subject to version 3.01 of the PHP license, that is bundled with this package in the file LICENSE, and is available through the world-wide-web at the following url:
If you did not receive a copy of the PHP license and are unable to obtain it through the world-wide-web, please send a note to firstname.lastname@example.org so we can mail you a copy immediately. | <urn:uuid:de3d5e5e-cca6-4e16-9861-0b50619ed751> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://pwet.fr/man/linux/commandes/php4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397797.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00138-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.749678 | 872 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Could North America's largest salamander go extinct? (+video)
Following an assessment by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the eastern hellbender, a two-foot long aquatic salamander, could be added to the federal list of endangered species.
Corydon, Indiana — Populations of North America's largest salamander appear to be on the decline in large parts of the 16 Eastern states that they call home.
The eastern hellbender, a slippery, two-foot long amphibian, is currently under assessment by the US Fish and Wildlife Service for possible addition to the federal endangered species list. It's close relative, the Ozark hellbender, found only in Missouri and Arkansas, was declared endangered in 2011 after a 75 percent decline.
Such a designation could free up federal money to protect their habitat and aid in their recovery.
Both subspecies have a protective slimy coating and a flattened head to help them slide between rocks, a rudder-like tail to propel them through currents and stubby legs and fingers for gripping rocks.
The rare aquatic salamanders, the world's third largest after the Chinese and Japanese giant salamanders, breathe almost entirely through their skin, making them a living barometer of water quality because of their sensitivity to silt and pollution, said Rod Williams, a Purdue University associate professor of herpetology who's tracked Indiana's hellbenders for nearly a decade.
"These are animals that live up to 30 years in the wild, so if you have populations declining, that alerts us that there could be a problem with the water quality," he said.
Hellbenders —the origin of the name isn't known— have been present on this continent for at least 10 million years and are found in hill-county rivers and streams in the area stretching from New York to Missouri to North Carolina.
"There's nothing else like them in North America," said federal biologist Jeromy Applegate, who's leading the eastern hellbender assessment.
Scientists aren't certain why the salamanders are disappearing. But dams have tamed some of the fast currents they prefer while sediment runoff from development has filled up the rocky nooks and crannies young hellbenders use for shelter. A fungus blamed for amphibian declines worldwide may also be a factor.
Researchers are urging landowners to plant trees and grasses along rivers to improve the water quality. They're also raising young hellbenders to be released into the wild to bolster the population.
The St. Louis Zoo, in collaboration with the Missouri Department of Conservation, is raising about 3,000 young Ozark hellbenders from eggs. That's more than twice the 1,200 Ozark hellbenders believed to still exist in the wild, said Trisha Crabill, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
"It buys us time to figure out and address the threats," she said.
In Indiana, hellbenders once inhabited rivers and streams across much of the state's southern half but are now found only in the Blue River basin in heavily forested hill country along the Ohio River.
Recently, Rod Williams, the Purdue scientist who surveys hellbenders, and his students fanned out across the Blue River near the town of Corydon to look for the nocturnal creatures, which hide out during daytime beneath large flat stones.
Six hours passed before they hit pay-dirt — a feisty 21-inch (53-centimeter)-long, 1.25-pound (0.57-kilogram) hellbender that contorted and opened its mouth repeatedly as it struggled to escape. Two team members took a blood sample and collected some of its slimy coating — the trait that earned hellbenders the nickname "snot otter" — before inserting a microchip beneath its skin for future monitoring.
Williams' surveys have found adult hellbenders but no juveniles — the same worrisome trend seen in several other states.
Even in a few areas where hellbenders' numbers appear to be stable, some locals wrongly believe they are poisonous or feed on young trout, when in fact crayfish account for almost all of the hellbenders' diet. Anglers sometimes kill them on sight.
Wildlife officials are trying to educate the public about the harmless creatures.
"If nothing else, if people don't appreciate the animal for itself, that it has value to the world, then it can serve as a messenger," Crabill said. "It can tell us what's going on in the river." | <urn:uuid:e5a7927d-f6e5-4ce1-b171-e892550db832> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2014/0710/Could-North-America-s-largest-salamander-go-extinct-video | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00145-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950339 | 933 | 3.390625 | 3 |
Last year we came to realize that there was a developing trend among creatives to scope their designs towards the animals of the city. Birdhouses, especially in countries like the Netherlands where city people show a great sympathy for birds, seem to pop up in unexpected places. Sometimes, depending on the design of the construction, theses birdhouses might also function as an urban intervention.
Developed by the Taiwan-based industrial designer Shu-Chun Hsiao, the Google Birdhouse is such a concept. He created a series of urban birdhouses that are inspired by the Google Maps marker symbol. It is interesting to realize how tightly this simple pinpoint marker is cognitively related to the services of Google Maps and how it has actually developed into a landmark symbol.
Additionally, the designer links the everyday capability of people to find their way in the city via technology with the natural ability of birds to find their destination through the streets. “A birdhouse becomes their destination as Google Map does”, in Hsiao’s words.
Apart from being a cute intervention in the urban environment, these birdhouses are associated with the trending topic of the merge between physical and virtual world. Based on this idea, a concept called ‘map’ has been developed in the recent past by the German artist Aram Bartholl, who created a series of public space installations inspired by the same Google marker. By placing huge Google markers on the same spot that the mapping service identifies as the centre of the city, the artist wishes to question the relation of the digital space to the urban daily life in the real space. | <urn:uuid:fd23051f-9441-4de4-833e-572d6fedf3d8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://popupcity.net/taiwanese-designer-launches-google-maps-inspired-birdhouses/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00100-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964587 | 325 | 2.84375 | 3 |
CID 1711 and CID 3083 in 60 Seconds
Narrator (April Hobart, CXC): Astronomers have recently completed a large survey of the sky using some of the powerful telescopes both on the ground and in space. This survey, known as the Cosmic Evolution Survey, or COSMOS, has revealed many results. The latest comes from a study of galaxies, both in pairs and others on their own. Researchers wanted to test whether or not close encounters between two galaxies trigger activity in the supermassive black holes at their centers. The two galaxies seen here are just samples from the thousands of galaxies they studied. The Chandra data were key because the X-rays can pinpoint just how active these black holes are. It turns out that the black holes within these galaxies are, in fact, growing more rapidly if they are in the early stages of an encounter with another galaxy. Maybe galaxies and their black holes are social after all. | <urn:uuid:e50f93b6-480d-4c3f-a17b-55c36bba5f44> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://chandra.harvard.edu/resources/podcasts/ts/ts261011.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00018-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963968 | 191 | 3.21875 | 3 |
new link as of February 1, 2015
broken links here
Activities and Exercises
Pairing Game - From
the following source comes this in-class activity to illustrate
the matching phenomenon:
Bruce J; Kelley, Harold H. (1999). The pairing game: A classroom
demonstration of the matching phenomenon. Teaching of Psychology,
26, 118-121. Abstract: Describes 2 versions of an in-class simulation
that allows students to directly experience the matching phenomenon
and explore issues concerning mate selection, social exchange,
and related psychological concepts. Students are randomly assigned
a value (either a numerical value or a list of adjectives),
which they place on their forehead so others can see it but
the student cannot. The goal is to pair off with another student
with as high a value as possible. The simulation, called the
Pairing Game, illustrates how matching on similarity can occur,
even in the absence of knowledge of one's own value and merely
by seeking the highest value possible in a partner.
Friedrich reports that he uses this activity and adds: "I simply
have my pairs that have emerged from the game arbitrarily designate
a "Partner A" and a "Partner B"; then each pair gets to plot
their coordinates with Partner A on the X asis and Partner B
on the Y. There's always a very nice scatterplot, as the demo
itself produces pretty good matching. Even medium size correlations
of r = .5 tend to look pretty vague in small-N scatterplots,
but the patterns jump right out whenever I do this (with or
without the actual statstistical calculation)." He adds: "The
article mentioned might go nicely with a recent finding reported
in the Journal of Family Psychology (I believe) showing that
heterosexual relationships in which the man is slightly less
attractive than the woman exhibit better interpersonal relationships.
The interpretation - or at last one of them - is that one of
the things that less attractive men offer to attract more attractive
woman with a broader range of choices is greater attentiveness,
willingness to listen, etc. I've only read a summary and haven't
been able to get the original yet, so don't quote me on this.
For a more formal and comprehensive treatment of using market
and economic principles in an attempt to understand key elements
of heterosexual relationships, I regularly assign the following
article by Roy Baumeister and Kathleen Vohs. [Baumeister, Roy
F; Vohs, Kathleen D. (2004). Sexual Economics: Sex as Female
Resource for Social Exchange in Heterosexual Interactions. Personality
and Social Psychology Review, 8, 339-363.] It always generates
lots of reactions (ranging from amused to heated) and provides
a good opportunity for talking about what one looks for or doesn't
in good theory -- ability to parsimoniously explain a range
of existing phenomena, ability to generate new testable predictions,
use of principles that are "independently motivated" (developed
for purposes other than for explaining the phenomena in question),
etc. It also provides opportunities to talk about things like
naturalistic fallacy errors and the temptation to evaluate psychological
theories (provisional and testable descriptions of nature) by
the way they make us feel or the social ends they might or might
not serve." Here's
a link to a related article. [added 5/3/08]
romance be rational? - a few good activities from Myers and
DeWall [added 2/12/15]
Similarity Project - In one version of this activity, starting
in groups of four, students are asked to identify as many similarities
as they can between their different groups. Then they join larger
and larger groups to see if they can identify even more similarities.
a Facebook game - Dan Ariely has created a Facebook activity
that he can use as a research tool and your students can use to
learn about different social psychological phenomena. Of course,
none of your students may be on Facebook... [added
your own faces - cool, online program in which you get to
manipulate facial features [added 12/4/10]
analysis - Here is an activity from Jessica Collett's Social
Psychology course in which students analyze possible conversations
they might have. Here
is some background info on conversational structure. [added
an "average" face - Interesting site lets you create an average
face from images provided. The site also explains how these average
faces are created. "You can also average your own uploaded faces!"
fun with faces - "Morph your picture!" "Find out which celebrities
you resemble!" Tells you how it works. [added 4/4/08]
more fun with faces - Robin Musselman used the "Human Race
Machine" as part of a class to, well, I'll let Robin tell it:
"I try to think of an overarching theme each semester. In this
particular semester it was the fall after the first face transplant
and somewhere I had read something that this was a procedure that
could have been done previously, but hadn't because of the significance
of the face to individual's psyche. It really got me thinking
and so I decided to use the face as a theme that fall.
don't necessarily tell students....here is the theme, but I try
to interweave it throughout the semester. That same semester I
was using wikis for the first time so the first day of class I
took everyone's picture and then created a Who's Who in Psychology
page with each class have an individual page for each student.
I posted their first name and picture and then they could create
from there. Introduce themselves to the class, if you will, and
they continued to add to those pages throughout the semester.
I gave students the right to remove their picture if they wanted
to, but I think only one or two out of 120 did so.
talked about face recognition in the brain section, perception
allowed for some unique illusions with face symmetery and other
facial illusions, in learning and memory we talked about remembering
names and/or faces, we talked about facial _expression_, the baby's
innate fascination of faces, culture and beauty, I can't remember
all of the little and not so little tie ins off the top of my
head. I used the film Faces (with John Cleese) and the books,
The Autobiography of the face, and another book (not the companion
to the video Faces) The Face, which was a great resource. About
2/3 into the semester I had arranged for the Human Race Machine
to come onto campus for a week and students could transform their
faces into another race as well as age themselves 20 years. Students
really were fascinated by this (I had seen it at a museum in Maryland....for
info see, http://www.humanracemachine.com/faq.html
the end of the semester we used the facial recognition software
and many students posted those images that were "supposed" to
look like them on their wiki pages. Again, students really enjoyed
it and in fact, I had promised that three weeks after the semester
I would "take down" the wiki pages with student pictures, etc.
and then I had several students contact me asking if I still had
their pages so they could transfer them to another site. All in
all it was a fun semester." [added
activity - Jean Mandernach sends her students to participate
in an online experiment and then answer some questions about it.
Filter - fun site where one can morph a face to fit several
emotional responses and types of attractiveness [added
exposure effect [added
Resources (Audio / Video)
and resolving disagreements immediately" - a podcast from
Relationship Matters - [added 2/17/15]
and conflict in relationships - A podcast from Science of Relationships
-- Are there any podcasts you have your students listen to outside
of class and then discuss in class or have them respond to in some
other way? Let me know. [added 2/17/15]
link between relationship quality and oxytocin" - a podcast
from Science of Relationships [added 2/17/15]
we keep passion alive?" - a Relationship Matters podcast
shame and seeking forgiveness" - a podcast from Science
of Relationships [added 2/18/14]
Matters Podcast Series - Listen to experts in their fields discuss
their work -- affiliated with the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
secret of pronouns - NPR interviews James Pennebaker about his
fascinating research on the use of pronouns and their relationship
to dating. [added
I Normal (Sexually)? - interesting, 30-minute episode in BBC radio's
Am I Normal series [added
Brand's take on the Renee Zellweger kurfaffle - (7:40)
Watch comedian Russell Brand at the first link. Read here
to learn more about the controversy. [added
America pageants - (15:24) John
Oliver takes them on in this segment from his show, Last Week
Tonight. [added 2/17/15]
economic benefits of physical attractiveness" - (1:49)
are men reluctant to date overweight women? - (7:27)
Comedian Louis C. K. gives his take on the subject in this compelling
scene from his tv show. Well worth watching. A good discussion starter.
is a link to a conversation with the actress who played the overweight
woman in the clip. Here
is a description and video of comedy clip about overweight women
that has received less attention. [added 2/12/15]
more effort equal a better relationship? - (6:06)
Dubbed the Benjamin Franklin effect, this video describes a study
investigating what happens when one partner puts a lot of effort
into a relationship. Via Wikipedia, the Benjamin Franklin effect
is illustrated when "a person who has done someone a favor
is more likely to do that person another favor than they would be
if they had received a favor from that person. Similarly, one who
harms another is more willing to harm them again than the victim
is to retaliate." As Ben himself told me, "He that has
once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than
he whom you yourself have obliged." [added 2/12/15]
are babies so cute? - (2:12) [added 2/12/15]
of men's breakup songs - (5:24) [added
the ideal female body has changed in the last 100 years - (1:58)
loneliness lethal? - (18:45) A
TED talk from John Cacioppo [added 2/12/15]
NOT about the nail" - (1:42)
You have to see this one -- a great take on male/female communication.
science of kissing - (5:51) [added 2/12/15]
we don't want to be alone - (2:49)
first date - (2:44)
Fun video. Maybe you can ask your students if they have been the
giver or receiver of such persistence? How would they respond? [added
love - (41:35) presentation
by Elaine Hatfield at the 2012 APS convention [added
amusing ad - (0:45)
That's all I can say. I don't want to give it away. Like some people.
creates dramatic ad for marriage equality - (3:20)
your soulmate isn't that special (mathematically, that is) -
(3:59) A great song by
Tim Minchin -- thank you Science of Relationships (http://www.scienceofrelationships.com/)
for making me aware of it! [added
Parties! - (4:22)
This story from the Science of Relationships includes a
video clip from the Colbert Report describing a dating
fad: Attending pheromone parties. [added
in a backward world" - (5:01)
for your entertainment [added
male/female roles in relationships - amusing video - in two
parts [added 6/25/12]
date = sex? - (1:44)
A clip from the show The Big Bang Theory raises the question
of whether "the idea that the third date is the 'sex date,' the
date when it is deemed appropriate for a new couple to have sex"
is a social norm or just a myth. [added
and loss aversion - (4:21)
Steven Neuberg and his colleagues Yexin Jessica Li and Douglas Kenrick
"discuss their research on how evolutionary motives such as mating
and self-protection influence individuals' sensitivity to loss aversion."
and relationships - (2:47)
Psychologist discusses research on our heavy consumption of technology
and its link to relationship happiness/success. When you are done
reading this issue at your computer or phone make sure that you
go share it with a partner or kid or Juggalo. [added
and irrationality - (6:01)
Dan Ariely discusses decision making in the dating scene. Here
- (5:28) is a second video
on the topic. [added
is French kissing called in France? - (1:52)
Here's a cute little video montage of kissing accompanied by some
facts including the answer to the above question. [added
spousal conflict impair the immune system? - (6:14)
video and text describing an interesting study testing this question
retouching - (2:29)
This video illustrates how many of the images we see are often modified
to eliminate blemishes and make more appealing. [added
online dating is so unsatisfying - (7:41)
Watch an interview with Dan Ariely discussing the topic. [added
in Japan - (9:35)
This form of social isolation, Hikikomori, in which, typically,
young boys and men lock themselves in their rooms for years in some
cases, appears to be fairly unique to Japan. This link takes you
to Part 1 of the video. You can find Part 2 on the video page. [added
- (3:54) That's physical
proximity to you young whippersnappers. Here's a song ("Somebody")
from Reba McEntire that captures well our tendency to choose from
those nearby. [added
and Relationships - Now that the excellent Science of Relationships
site has been around a bit (at least in Internet time), it has accumulated
a number of good resources for teaching. The site creators have graciously
compiled some of those resources and assignments at the link above.
of attractiveness - Ever seen any of those "Am I hot or not" sites?
Here is a long list of them that perhaps you or your students can
use in some project. [added 1/10/06]
a play - Chuck Huff asks his students to view three plays during
his Social Psychology course: Macbeth (two versions) and A Streetcar
Named Desire. Then he asks them to analyze the plays in terms of how
close relationships are portrayed.
from an Intimate Relationships course - Gary Lewandowski lets
students choose from a variety of assignments including comparing
popular press claims versus the research and creating a "how to" guide
for relationship success. [added 3/1/05]
exposure effect [added
Factors - Seinfeld Episode: Evolutionary factors in mate selection
can be seen in the episode in which they try to fix up George with
a date. He asks questions about his potential date's physical attributes
and she asks questions about George's status, power and resources.
Contributed by Steve Fein. [added 4/28/02]
attractiveness - Physical attractiveness plays a big role
in how we think of and respond to people. I've worked as a summer
camp counselor for the past two years and you have to try and treat
each kid the same but it is inevitable that you will have favorites.
I remember one year there were two really bad kids in particular who
were always getting into trouble. One was a little girl who was so
cute. She always had a cute little outfit on, here little ears were
pierced, and was hilarious. But she was always getting herself into
trouble or not listening. The other kid was a little overweight and
not so attractive boy who also knew just how to muster up trouble.
But when it came to punishing the two it was hard to be equal and
fair and generally what tended to happen is the cute girl would get
away with a lot more. She could somehow get us to forget or be less
mad about the trouble she had caused and distract us with her humor
or by other tactics. And the little boy would often get in more trouble
and get a lot less positive attention....Thinking back, my favorite
kids have never really been unattractive, and I even feel horrible
admitting that, but it's true. [added 4/16/08]
Attractiveness - Something funny came to mind while I was looking
over the section on physical attractiveness. Specifically, I was looking
at the idea that attractive children are given the benefit of the
doubt more often than less attractive children. This is so true!
I work with two three-year-old boys that can look at me with their
respective sets of baby blues and browns and melt me to the ground.
It is so difficult to discipline a child that looks so cute when they
look at you. In these situations, I consciously have to think about
what I'm doing in order to discipline the gorgeous kids the same way
I treat the other children.
Attractiveness - North Central College uses the "attractive"
idea to persuade people to attend the college. While going to class
on a couple of days, I remember seeing a photographer on campus taking
pictures of two or three attractive young students. I instantly thought
of the course catalogue. The young people on the cover will help emphasize
the stereotype of the student's physical appearance: happy,
intelligent, kind, sociable and successful.
(physical proximity)...again! - another good example -- a spoof from
The Onion -- hat tip to Jeff Ricker for this one [added
- Here's a song ("Somebody") from Reba McEntire that captures well
our tendency to choose from those nearby. [added 12/12/07]
(Physical Proximity) - When we discussed the idea that we make
friends with those close to us this made me think of the floor that
I live on now. Last year when we saw who was going to live on our
floor we were very upset. Our end of the hall was all football players
but the other end was all soccer players. Normally football hates
soccer. At first things were a little tense but after a while some
friendships developed. Because they were close it was easy to see
if they wanted to go eat or go out or something and we found out they
aren't as bad as we thought. If they didn't live close we would probably
hate them still.
-- there's a common source of argument. Does one person doing garbage
equate to the other ironing? Does one person doing laundry equate
to the other vacuuming? Early on in our marriage these issues cropped
up frequently. Now as I look at it, 16 years later, these just aren't
issues anymore. Each does what has to be done as it needs doing. Sometimes
one of us has more time than the other. Consideration of the other's
needs creates the equity anymore -- not the amount of equal effort.
That's where the twist builds from because you know the other person
will be there for you.
- When we first married, I worked full-time while my husband finished
college (before my liberated days). This was out of concern for his
and our welfare. I did not expect anything in return. Now sixteen
years and a family later, I am going to finish school. It is not easy.
My personality takes a real nose dive during semesters. My energy
level is good for squat. My husband does 75% of the housework. (The
other 25% doesn't get done.) My level of patience will never get me
a mother-of-the-year award. Yet in one of my reflective, depressive
moods last year, I asked my husband why he put up with it. His response
was "you put me through school years ago; it's the least I can do
now." That is love.
power! - "But can the mere presence of flowers influence
actual relationship behavior? To test this question, a French researcher
randomly assigned female participants to watch a video of a male discussing
food while participants were either (a) sitting in a room decorated
with three vases full of flowers (roses, marigolds, and daisies),
or (b) sitting in a room decorated with empty vases. Women who sat
in the room with flowers rated the male in the video as sexier and
more attractive, and they were more willing to date him." Read
also about the two very cool follow-up studies. [added
liked face-to-face are also liked online - [added
world research on instant messaging - Answer: 6.6 degrees of separation
paradox of poygamy - "Contrary to popular belief, most women benefit
from polygynous society, and most men benefit from monogamous society.
This is because polygynous society allows some women to share a resourceful
man of high status." [added
smells and likeability - story of research finding that in humans
consciously undetectable odors alter social preferences [added
is the way we connect - an article about research on the role
laughter plays in our social world [added 11/17/07]
nude pictures focus attention" - research interpreted to suggest
an evolutionary benefit for attending to sexual stimuli [added
buddies: Do animals have friends?" - an intriguing question and
article from ScienceNews [added 6/9/04]
Those Who Like Us
like those who like us - [added 2/12/15]
relationships cartoon - Ahh, propinquity. [added
miraculously finds soulmate in hometown" - an amusing article
from the satirical online newspaper The Onion -- ahh, propinquity!
first date: Make sure your genes fit" - "People can
now check that their genes fit. Yep, genes -- as in our DNA -- before
going on a first date." [added 2/17/15]
attracted to body odor of those who vote like us - Seriously.
Wow. [added 2/17/15]
pain brings people together" - [added 2/17/15]
attract, but do they last?" - The answer is what I tell my students
to write on psych exams if they have no clue to the answer: It depends!
In this case the research suggests that it depends on the partners'
levels of self-control. [added 8/5/13]
music tastes indicate similar values which foretells attraction
Marriage and Divorce
to handle divorce - Two researchers at Science of Relationships
bravely discuss their impending divorce and what research suggests
are the best ways for them to deal with it. [added
approval versus legal status" - a great graph from xkcd
comics [added 2/17/15]
and marital satisfaction - I always thought my wife looked cute
in those genes. [added 2/12/15]
rather than conscious, evaluations good predictors of marriage satisfaction
- Or as the author of this article, Ben Le, states, "our unconscious
feelings about our partners might be the Magic 8-Ball when it comes
to future marriage satisfaction." [added 2/18/14]
husbands provide sensitive support - ... it benefits the relationship
of matching between partners predicts divorce" - [added
cohabitation detrimental to marriage? - Dylan Selterman, at
Science of Relationships, provides a nice review of the controversy
and what the research actually says. [added
states of marriage and divorce" - This Pew Research Center report
is a state-by-state analysis of the current status of marriage and
divorce. [added 1/18/10]
of healthy adult marriages? - A report from the Rand Corporation
looks at adolescent romantic relationships as precursors of healthy
adult marriages. [added 12/1/07]
goal-minded pursuit and your relationship - "The implemental
mindset that youre in once youve chosen to pursue a goal
makes you more single-minded and less inclined to pursue other goals,
especially if focusing on those goals could conflict with your chosen
goal. So goals to improve or maintain your relationship will take
a backseat to the pursuit of the personal goal. If the relationship
seems good, then youll just let it be and not try to work on
it because you assume your relationship will be fine. In contrast,
if the relationship seems bad, then youll also let it be and
not work on it because its hopeless. The authors conducted three
additional studies to test their hypothesis that this one-sided view
makes people less inclined to work on their relationships." [added
unexpected key to kids' popularity" - Nope, not being a psychology
teacher's kid. You'll have to read it. [added 2/17/15]
a partner's successes leaves relationships on ice" - [added
visibility on Facebook?" - Can you tell when someone on Facebook
is in a relationship? [added 2/17/15]
differences in flirting motivation - "Big surprise: mens
flirting is more motivated by sex, while womens flirting is
more motivated by having fun or becoming closer to another person."
first date: Make sure your genes fit" - "People can
now check that their genes fit. Yep, genes -- as in our DNA -- before
going on a first date." [added 2/17/15]
don't like you, but... - This research suggests that we sometimes
end up with incompatible partners in relationships because it is just
too hard to reject others. [added 2/17/15]
user experiments - You may have heard that Facebook is running
little experiments on its users. It was recently revealed that a large
dating site, OKCupid is doing the same. "One experiment linked
users up with people who were deemed a bad match a 30 percent
compatibility rate based on OKCupids algorithm. OKCupid labeled
these bad matches as being 90 percent compatible to see if people
could like each other even if they had nothing in common."
phone intervention - A guy in a bar won't take no for an answer?
Give him this number. [added 2/12/15]
importance of buffering to relationships - In one study, "Anxious
partners felt more negative emotions and were less accommodating,
but their partners displayed more accommodating strategies if they
were themselves more committed to the relationship. And these accommodations
led the anxious partner to become more accepting and positive during
the tense conversation. In other words, buffering had immediate benefits,
allaying fears and creating a more constructive emotional dynamic."
more likely to be unfaithful? Avoidant people - Nathan DeWall
reports on research he and his colleagues conducted: "1. Avoidant
peoplethose who keep others at arms length, prefer to
depend on themselves instead of others, and feel uncomfortable getting
emotionally close to their partnersare more likely to engage
infidelity. In one set of studies, my colleagues and I recruited people
in relationships, measured their level of avoidance, and showed:
Their eyes gravitate toward attractive alternatives to their romantic
They report more positive attitudes toward infidelity
They report more intentions to engage infidelity
They report engaging in infidelity more often than others
This effect is true for both men and women.
A lack of commitment explains why avoidant people engage in more infidelity.
Avoidant people dislike getting close to others. Hence, they have
a tough time feeling strong relationship commitment. Their lack of
commitment might make avoidant people feel safe and secure. But it
also weakens the commitment that often keeps urges to engage in infidelity
at bay." [added 2/12/15]
consensually non-monogamous? Avoidant people - What is consensually
non-monogamous? "This is a psychological term researchers use
to describe people who engage in more than one romantic relationships
simultaneously, and whose relationship partners know and approve."
4-5% of people report being in that category. So, do avoidant people
in monogamous relationships believe that they are really being unfaithful
when they are unfaithful? [added 2/12/15]
humor during an argument - can be helpful
cartoons - In case you need one - Would sending a breakup cartoon
count as a good way to break up with someone? Would they get it? [added
of being single - good blog entry on the topic [added
warmth linked to physical warmth - More embodied cognition research
-- can drinking that warm cup of coffee increase your social connection
to others? [added 2/12/15]
you want a happy or sad breakup song? - After a non-interpersonal
loss people prefer listening to happy music, but prefer sad music
after an interpersonal loss. [added 8/5/13]
science behind 3 popular dating apps" - [added
the sexual double standard? - Interesting discussion of why promiscuous
men are studs while promiscuous women are sluts [added
+ Timing = Relationship Success" - a good discussion of these
elements in a Science of Relationships blog entry [added
humor - [added 8/5/13]
and relationships - Don't know yet what "catfishing" is? Read
all about it in this blog entry. [added 8/5/13]
ways to improve your relationship - A good infographic summarizing
research on the topic -- clicking on the image takes you to an article
that elaborates on it. Surprisingly, "don't get catfished" is not
one of the seven. [added 8/5/13]
love literally hurts" - an APS Observer article looking
at the neural link between social and physical pain [added
implicit processes tell us about romantic attachment" - another
good APS Observer article [added 8/5/13]
humor - more
here - When I want my dose of relationship humor I always turn
to Science of Relationships. Unlike relationships, it never
disappoints. [added 8/5/13]
makes a "jealous type"? - good blog entry on jealousy [added
drum-off - interesting little video of some relationship conversation
through drumming [added 8/5/13]
love - interesting New York Times article on the research
of new love [added 8/5/13]
do we offer versus request support? - Casual friends offer support;
close friends offer and request support. [added 8/5/13]
non-monogamy - [added 8/5/13]
dating - Review research about dealing with all the choices [added
gift giving undermine relationships? - [added 1/12/13]
did not evolve for romance" [added 1/12/13]
we like funny in possible mates? - good discussion of some research
on what men and women find attractive in the opposite sex in terms
of humor [added
over for "muffins" - Ahh, what did we do before Science of
Relationships? [added 1/12/13]
relationship humor - and more,
- from Science of Relationships [added 1/12/13]
to make "couples friends" - Here's an interesting blog entry about
how couples can improve the quality of their life and their relationship
if they find other couples with which to be friends. [added
little relationship humor - Along with thoughtful and interesting
blog entries like the above, Science of Relationships also throws
in a good does of relationship humor as well. Just like any good relationship
a little more humor. [added
"cracked" relationship advice - For your amusement, possibly.
watching The Bachelorette bad for your relationship?" - interesting
blog post from Science of Relationships [added
says 'I love you' first in a relationship?" - [added
humor - Okay, I found it amusing. [added
power of hello" - Sam Sommers makes a good case for the simple
acts of smiling and saying "hello." [added
Day humor - [added
style predicts relationship longevity" - "Recently, researchers
have found that similarity in communication patterns predicts mutual
romantic interest and relationship stability 3 months down the road.
And we’re not even talking about similar use of big fancy words.
Rather, it’s the small words that we would generally consider
“fillers”, such as pronouns (I, her, that), articles (a,
an, the), conjunctions (and, but, because), and the like that matter.
In what researchers call “language style matching’”
(or LSM, for short), individuals’ conversations may begin to
subtly become synchronous. Sometimes our conversations are high in
LSM, which means there is a lot of matching in language use, whereas
other conversations are low in LSM, which means we are speaking to
one another in quite different styles. In the researchers’ first
study, 40 speed-dating couples had their 4-minute interaction recorded,
and transcriptions of these interactions were entered into a language
analysis computer program. Couples who had higher LSM (again, they
matched in their use of pronouns, articles, conjunctions, etc.) were
more likely to show mutual romantic interest in one another. This
effect was not due to the total number of words being spoken in the
conversation (that is, it’s not because two “Chatty Cathys”
were paired up and talking each other’s ears off)." [added
vs. Time in relationships - another good cartoon/graph [added
committed couples use more plural nouns - Warning: Scary picture.
and relationship violence - Another good blog entry from the Science
of Relationships site -- what effect might all these teenage vampire
movies/shows/stories have on relationship abuse? [added
you date a Democrat/Republican/Libertarian...? [added
style and long-lasting relationships - Does a more secure attachment
style lead to better success in maintaining long-term relationships?
Like relationships themselves, it's complicated. [added
15 sources of conflict in relationships - From the excellent blog
Science of Relationships, created by Ben Le, Gary Lewandowski, and
Tim Loving. That's right, Dr. Loving. [added
equation: half your age + 7 years - "A common rule of thumb, at
least on the internet, is that it’s okay to be interested in
someone 'half your age plus seven' years. According to this rule,
it would not be creepy for a 30 year old to date a 22 year-old, but
an 18 year-old would be off-limits. Although this is a fun rule of
thumb, what does research say about age preferences for potential
to downers - "Have you ever wanted to share good news with friends
but were afraid they would rain on your parade because they’re
downers? Researchers recently discovered that people avoid disclosing
positive information to low self-esteem friends and romantic partners
in order to avoid a negative interaction (e.g., the 'downer' pointing
out the downside). Interestingly, we don’t keep the good news
to ourselves to protect our close others’ feelings – we
primarily focus on our own outcomes!" [added
is blind. Your friends aren't." - Blog entry describes research
on whether you can predict your own relationship's breakup better
than your friends can. [added
is abstract, but sex is concrete" - Here is some interesting research
on how generating abstract versus concrete construals can affect how
we think about relationships. If you have some difficulty explaining
the concept of construals to your students, this example provides
a nice way of describing the concept. [added
complicated psychology of revenge" - from the APS Observer
humor! - Some amusing cartoons found at the excellent blog Science
of Relationships; a second
one, and a third.
romantic U.S. city? - I always like to see interesting ways of
measuring things. Most romantic city? The one that rented the highest
percentage of romantic comedies through Redbox (a kiosk often located
in front of or inside stores from which someone can rent a movie).
Follow the link to find out if it is your city... [added
and attraction - "A recent study indicates that men are more likely
than women to use humor when getting to know potential romantic partners,
and that women use sense of humor as a criteria for evaluating partners
more than men. In addition, when analyzing online personal ads, researchers
found that men tended to mention their own sense of humor, while women
stated a preference for a funny partner. Finally, a woman’s
rating of a man’s sense of humor predicts her romantic interest
in him. However, a man's perception of a woman’s sense of humor
is unimportant for his desire to get to know her." [added
couple good relationship cartoons - first
one - I added the new site Science
of Relationships to the front page of this site. The site has
already produced a lot of good blog entries commenting on the topic.
They also occasionally include some good cartoons like those above.
the men of the African Aka tribe the best fathers in the world?"
- [added 5/30/11]
study of smiling - very interesting story in the APS Observer
on the many facets of smiling research and what it all means [added
is worse.... - your partner having a heterosexual or a homosexual
affair?" Men and women answer differently. [added 12/24/10]
"invisible" support to a loved one - "Recipients whose partners
provided more invisible emotional support such as reassurance or expressions
of concern, but believed they had received less emotional support,
experienced greater declines in anger and anxiety. This was also true
for invisible practical support such as advice or direct offers of
assistance. Additionally, in the case of invisible practical support,
recipients experienced increases in self-efficacy." [added
dating - This blog entry provides a good compilation of research
on online dating. [added 10/30/10]
songs make women more open to dates" - [added 7/21/10]
romance? Show a little gratitude" - Men and, particularly, women
were less likely to break up with someone who had showed small acts
of gratitude. However, no manipulation occurred, so is the above headline
infidelity - "Research has documented that most men become much
more jealous about sexual infidelity than they do about emotional
infidelity. Women are the opposite, and this is true all over the
world." The prevailing theory is an evolutionary one: "Men learned
over eons to be hyper-vigilant about sex because they can never be
absolutely certain they are the father of a child, while women are
much more concerned about having a partner who is committed to raising
a family." This new research, however, suggests a different explanation.
during speed dating - "Women hoping to appeal to speed-dating
partners should try subtly mimicking the words and body-language of
their dates. That's according to Nicholas Gueguen whose new study
shows that women who mimic are rated by men as more sexually attractive."
falling in love make us more creative?" - "A new study demonstrates
that thinking about love--but not about sex--causes us to think more
'globally,' making it easier to come up with new ideas." [added
is the new handshake - Interesting New York Times article
describes an apparent trend in which teenagers regular hug each other
as greetings, including between males. [added
dating - good article describing how the phenomenon of speed dating
has provided a wealth of opportunities for research [added
celebrities can help improve self-esteem" - What? Yes, this study
found that engaging in these "fake" relationships with celebrities
(called parasocial relationships) can benefit those with low self-esteem.
dating - interesting blog entry about how online dating has been
frustrating, leading to some new approaches [added
female dolls for men - "Thousands of men are shelling out $6,500
for hyper-realistic dolls that answer all their needs -- and don't
talk back." No mention in the article of women buying men dolls. What
would a male doll that answered all of women's needs be like? [added
hidden purpose of chat-up lines" - Why do men use pick-up lines?
One study investigates that "chat-up lines may be a way for men to
select for a particular type of woman." [10/13/07]
social regulation of emotion - In the latest issue of the APS
Observer, there were a number of excellent articles reporting on some
interesting talks at the 2007 APS convention that should be good reads
for your students. [10/13/07]
quest for romance - An interesting essay in the Feb. 2007 issue
of the APS Observer summarizes some research. [added
does new love look like? - a New York Times article describing
some research in which brain scans were conducted of newly-in-love
individuals while they were looking at pictures of their beloved [added
of Americans have had pre-marital sex - An extensive review of
data from the Guttmacher Institute finds that "by age 20, 77% of respondents
had had sex, 75% had had premarital sex, and 12% had married; by age44,
95% of respondents (94% of women, 96% of men, and 97% of those who
had ever had sex) had had premarital sex. Even among those who abstained
until at least age 20, 81% had had premarital sex by age 44. Among
cohorts of women turning 15 between 1964 and 1993, at least 91% had
had premarital sex by age 30. Among those turning 15 between 1954
and 1963, 82% had had premarital sex by age 30, and 88% had done so
by age 44." [added 12/30/06]
- Confused about how MySpace and other social networking sites work?
Here's one explanation of MySpace from the How Stuff Works web site.
in America" - The first report is a
summary of survey data of young singles collected by the Pew Research
Center. [added 7/6/06]
in relationships - "Alcohol problems in intimate relationships:
Identification and intervention" is a guide from the National Institute
on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. [added 1/8/06]
science of love: BBC
- two different sites addressing this question [added
orientation - research site by authors
Behavior Transformed With One New Gene" - report from ScienceDaily
and symmetry - Fun page allows you to see what 15 celebrities
would look like if they had two "right" sides or two "left"
sides to their faces. See how asymmetrical even the beautiful people
are. [added 2/17/15]
caregiving and later romantic success - interesting long-term
study using a novel measure [added 2/17/15]
Right or Mr. Right Now (nice line, Nathan) - Your eye gaze tells
whether your mind is thinking romance (face) or sex (body). [added
10 most interesting dating studies of 2014" - an infographic
- Whoa! This is a cool site. Created by a couple researchers, this
site provides access to a lot of studies readers can participate
in, cool demos in which you can average different faces or transform
faces by criterion such as age, and more. Here
are the results of one of the researchers' studies in which they
created an average woman's face for every country. Here
is a story about this research. H/T to Marianne Miserandino. [added
of the titans: Familiarity vs. Averageness - It's cool when
researchers come up with ways to pit two powerful phenomena against
each other. Who wins this cage match? [added 8/5/13]
U.K.'s most beautiful female face? - [added
determines female facial beauty? - A "new golden ratio" is purportedly
found in this study: "Female faces were judged more attractive when
the vertical distance between their eyes and the mouth was approximately
36 percent of the face's length, and the horizontal distance between
their eyes was approximately 46 percent of the face's width. Interestingly,
these proportions correspond with those of an average face." [added
databases - If you are doing research on faces, or want to use
the stimuli for other purposes [added 1/18/10]
or without makeup - Marianne Miserandino passed along this interesting
reminder of how carefully the famous and beautiful guard the perception
of their beauty. The French version of Elle magazine has released
covers of famous stars with and without makeup. [added
versus averageness - A summary of some good research continuing
to look at these two factors in our perception of attractiveness
-- the question addressed here is, how do you tease out these two
factors independently? [added 7/11/09]
it really impossible to ignore an attractive face?" - [added
the next president have asymmetrical eyebrows? - amusing article
from The Onion [added
appearance is, in part, socially constructed - Blog entry discusses
gender differences in our never-ending efforts to display beauty.
beautiful to play volleyball - "Critics say Sabina Altynbekova,
17, is so beautiful that it's a distraction to the sport. Even the
athlete's own coach says his team is increasingly about one player,
at least as far as the fans are concerned." Wow. This
link also addresses our obsession with attractiveness. [added
women perceive other women in red as more sexually receptive?"
- Men do. Do women do? [added 2/17/15]
in red seen as more sexually interested - "To understand why,
Pazda and his colleagues conducted a simple experiment. They showed
25 men a photo of a single woman doctored to look, in different
cases, like she was wearing either a red or white T-shirt. The researchers
then asked the volunteers to gauge, on a scale from 1 to 9, how
keen the model seemed to be on romance. In other words, the men
answered the question: 'Is she interested in sex?' Men interpreted
the red outfit as a signal that the woman was indeed more open to
sexual advances. In fact, the guys tended to grade the woman's disposition
to sex about 1 to 1.5 points higher when she was wearing a red rather
than a white tee, Pazda and colleagues report online this month
in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology." [added
mug shot goes viral - "Jeremy Meeks is a convicted felon,
an alleged gang member and is currently being held in jail on more
felony weapons charges. Bail has been set at $1,000,000. Thats
not a typical biography for an internet celebrity. Yet, Meeks has
a Facebook page with over 120,000 fans. His mother started a fundraising
page thats attracted 145 donations and over $2500 in one day.
And the hashtag #FreeJeremyMeeks is trending on Twitter. The positive
feelings are all related to his handsome mug shot, which
was posted by the Stockton Police Department on Facebook this week,
and quickly became a sensation. It is a stunning example of how the
American criminal justice system in which defendants have the
right to be judged by a jury of their peers is often influenced
by superficial attributes." [added 2/12/15]
students get better grades - Unfortunately this article confuses
correlation and causation, but the results are interesting. [added
some skin and others will think... - some significant and surprising
things about you. Read about the interesting studies. [added
beer goggles effect - Do people appear more attractive after you
have been drinking? Do you think you are more attractive? [added
you more or less attractive than you think? - This blog entry
describes a clever way of finding out, and the answer is..... [added
pickup lines work? - It depends! If the man is attractive and
the woman is looking for a short-term relationship, the type of line
didn't matter. But for a long-term relationship, women preferred direct
and innocuous lines over cute or flippant lines. Men who use the more
direct and innocuous lines are perceived as more trustworthy and intelligent.
What do they mean by a cute pickup line? See here.
men prefer butts or boobs? - I'm not going to say "It depends."
I'm not going to say anything. I'll just let you read the research.
do women prefer.... - a full beard, heavy stubble, light stubble,
or a cleanly shaven face? [added 8/5/13]
he can just carry around a guitar case - very interesting study
and attractiveness - If you were asked which two items (from chocolate,
hair spray, or a plastic bag) you would take to a deserted island
and explain why, would you give a humorous response? Would that make
you more attractive? [added 8/5/13]
attractiveness, personality, and values - Sam Sommers reviews
research finding that we believe physically attractive individuals
are more conscientious, extraverted, and open to experience. Not true.
However, the researchers found that physically attractive people did
differ in their values. Specifically, they were more traditional and
conformed more to societal expectations. [added 1/12/13]
Depends on the context - Sam Sommers reviews some research that
suggests whether we find someone attractive is also tied to the context
in which we view that person. Hey, Sam, we get it: Situations Matter.
Why don't you just write a book or something? [added
downside of attractiveness - Same-sex others reviewing your job
application may respond more negatively to your attractiveness. Here's
another link on the topic. [added
and attraction - Sam Sommers provides a good summary of some research
on how we are attracted (and want to sit by) similar others.
boosts trust, and attractiveness in more masculine male faces
- Interesting study -- more masculine males can be seen as more dangerous.
But a shot of oxytocin up the nose caused both males and females to
view the more masculine males as more attractive. [added
rate happy men less attractive than proud men; opposite for women
- I'm embarrassed to say that male shame was even more attractive
than happy, smiling men to women. [added
is in the mind of the beholder" - a good article in the APS Observer
reviewing research on what we find attractive and the benefits of
medicalization of beauty - Using the new TV show, Bridalplasty,
in which brides-to-be compete for cosmetic surgery, this blog entry
explores how beauty, along with other phenomena, has become "medicalized."
of leg length - Yes, we've measured eye width, cheekbone height,
and all sorts of facial features in determining what we find attractive.
Now we learn that "male and female silhouettes with short and excessively
long legs were perceived as less attractive across all nations." [added
Disney characters promote "beauty is good" stereotype? - abstract
of article that suggests they just might [added
we attracted to our relatives (and ourselves)? - Here is an interesting
blog entry describing research suggesting that we are attracted to
faces that look like ours and our relatives, perhaps suggesting that
an incest taboo is "necessary" for that reason. [added
Men on top, women on the bottom
- "If you're hoping to increase your online appeal to the opposite
sex, you might want to consider where on the screen you place your
photo. A study that's in press at Social Cognition has shown that
women rate men's photos as more attractive when they're placed near
the top of the screen. By contrast, men rate women's photos as more
attractive when they're located near the bottom of the screen." [added
"Importance of attractiveness
depends on where you live" - Urban? It matters. Rural? Not so
much. [added 1/18/10]
unwanted kiss from a moral man" - This study asks would you rather
receive an unwanted kiss from a moral man or a consensual kiss from
an immoral one. [added 1/18/10]
dig men in flashy cars" - "Previous studies have shown that male
attractiveness can be enhanced by manipulation of status through,
for example, the medium of costume. The present study experimentally
manipulated status by seating the same target model (male and female
matched for attractiveness) expressing identical facial expressions
and posture in either a 'high status' (Silver Bentley Continental
GT) or a 'neutral status' (Red Ford Fiesta ST) motor-car." [added
Boyle - Lots of good social psych in the Susan Boyle story. If
you are not familiar with it read the above. More here.
voices most attractive - [added 10/11/08]
girl mimed Olympics ceremony song - You may have heard about this
-- the young girl who sang a song as part of the Olympics was not
deemed attractive enough to be on display, so a more attractive girl
replaced her on stage and mimed the song.
there a "beauty premium" on TV game shows? - interesting study
girl killed: Nation unshaken by not-so-tragic death" - An amusing
article from the satirical online newspaper The Onion [added
in the election process - a study "The looks of a winner: Beauty,
gender, and electoral success" looks at the role of attractiveness
in Finland's politics. [added 12/30/06]
Symmetry Project - This is a very interesting project in which
researchers "focus on the possibility that dancing ability may correlate
with the dancer's degree of bodily symmetry, commonly used in evolutionary
studies to measure developmental stability and hence genetic quality."
Read what they found, and watch some of the dance video as well. Also
read a related research
article published in Nature. [added 2/22/06]
is sexy? - A columnist notes that U.S. Patrick Fitzgerald showed
up on a sexiest man list despite lacking "conventional" physically
attractive traits. The columnist asks, "Is there a female equivalent
to a 'sexy' Patrick Fitzgerald?" In other words, it raises the question
of differences between what men and women find attractive. [added
women rate other women as uglier" - interesting article describing
research about possible hormonal influences on attractiveness ratings
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2000-2015. This site was created and is maintained by Jon
Mueller, Professor of Psychology at North
Central College, Naperville, IL. Send comments to Jon. | <urn:uuid:bcf5188e-0fc4-482b-a960-00c6cd88fdc7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/crow/attraction.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398209.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00016-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.874781 | 18,517 | 3 | 3 |
Scientists: Oil in “MANY” of crab larvae collected; Dolphins could get fatal “megadoses”
August 10th, 2010
The Associated Press reports, “The crab larvae discovery was an ominous sign that crude had already infiltrated the Gulf’s vast food web — and could affect it for years to come.”
Bob Thomas, a biologist at Loyola University in New Orleans told the AP, “It would suggest the oil has reached a position where it can start moving up the food chain instead of just hanging in the water.”
Thomas said the creatures such as dolphins and tuna, could get fatal “megadoses” as the oil moves up the food chain.
Harriet Perry, a biologist with the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory, said to the AP, “Many of the crab larvae collected have had the distinctive orange oil droplets… 40 percent of the area they are known to inhabit has been affected by oil from the spill.”
“In my 42 years of studying crabs I’ve never seen this,” Perry added.
Please read the full article: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gbSfBPgY2bRbj5q9JcYoh9KMizwAD9HGBAKG0 | <urn:uuid:920a3b98-42ff-4e38-a160-504f95288b14> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://revolutionradio.org/?p=4229 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397562.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00001-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952677 | 295 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Located just east of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Crissy Field is a beautiful 100-acre national park that attracts more than one million visitors every year. However, it wasn’t long ago that the area where the park sits was nothing more than an abandoned dump.
When the Golden Gate Bridge opened in 1937, visitors stood on Crissy Field to watch the opening. At the time, the field was an army airfield but years later it simply became a fenced-off eyesore.
Roughly 15 years ago, a campaign was started to help clean up the area and turn it into a valuable community resource. The restoration was completed in 2001 and the change is dramatic. Thanks to the incredible 3D buildings and trees in San Franciso, the park looks excellent in Google Earth.
The Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy has put together a very impressive tour that shows the changes to Crissy Park over the last century. The tour includes a full narration from Doug McConnell, along with photos, 3D buildings, and even some animations like the planes shown here:
To see the tour for yourself, you can view it in Google Earth with this KMZ file or simply watch the video below.
For more, read the full blog entry on the Google Lat Long Blog. | <urn:uuid:1eb465c1-50fc-4b13-9d85-4435a522f295> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2012/06/touring_the_rebirth_of_crissy_field.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00180-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961917 | 263 | 2.875 | 3 |
Fact: Very few cat owners regularly brush their pet’s teeth.
In spite of all of the information regarding the importance of good oral health, few pet owners regularly take the single most effective measure to prevent periodontal disease: toothbrushing. This is especially true with cats.
Preventing oral disease is a quality of life issue. According to veterinarians, periodontal disease (“peri” means around, “dontal” means tooth) is the most common disease in small animal patients. Periodontal disease not only creates localized infection, but it has been linked to numerous severe diseases of primary body organs, including the heart, liver and kidneys. For this reason, the prevention of periodontal disease is considered a medical issue, as its ramifications extend far beyond lost teeth. Preventive dental care is essential to ensuring a long, healthy life for your cat.
Periodontal disease happens over time and is preventable. Periodontal disease is the result of a sequence of events that have been going on in your cat's mouth since the day she got her first tooth. Bacterial plaque that is not removed begins to build up on the teeth soon, the plaque mineralizes to tartar. As the tartar and plaque accumulates, it causes inflammation of the gums (gingivitis). While gingivitis is treatable, it quickly turns into periodontal disease, which is irreversible. Eventually, gums start to recede and eventually the attachments holding the tooth in place are weakened, and the tooth becomes loose.
Toothbrushing is the best way to prevent disease. The process of disease development can take several years to complete, but it is reversible in the early stages. The best way to prevent disease is to keep plaque and tartar from building up. Regular brushing has been found to be the most effective method of preventing periodontal disease in cats. But, rare is the cat who loves to have its teeth brushed, and rare is the owner who is willing to comply with this often difficult task.
Alternatives to toothbrushing. There are a number of alternatives to brushing to help maintain good oral health in your cat. Research suggests a coarsely textured diet can act as a natural cleaning agent on your pet’s teeth as she eats. Much like her cousins in the wild who chew and tear their prey, your cat can derive a similar benefit from her diet to help reduce tartar and plaque buildup on her teeth. In this manner, dental exercisers and chew toys also assist in reducing plaque.
Other options for in-home between cleaning dental care include crunchy dental treats and special dental diets designed to combat plaque and tartar and water additives and oral gels (available from your veterinarian) designed to reduce the number of bacteria in your cat’s mouth.
If left untreated, periodontal disease is the single greatest cause of health problems in cats. Fortunately, it is completely preventable. By keeping your pet’s teeth clean, you will be helping to provide her with a lifetime of general good health.
The most common symptoms of oral disease in cats are:
- Bad breath
- Yellow or brown deposits on the teeth at the edges of the gums
- Red gum edges
- Receding gums and loose teeth
- Drooling saliva
- Lack of appetite
- Mouth pain (pawing at the mouth or rubbing the side of the mouth along the ground).
- Difficulty in chewing food
- Inability to close the mouth | <urn:uuid:8234754b-8e61-4ab2-9480-d24c6196063d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.hartz.com/Cats/Health/Dental_Care/oral_care_and_your_cats_health.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00070-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95347 | 729 | 3.25 | 3 |
This question has its origin to the reference on the Aegis experiment at CERN where they aim to produce super cooled antihydrogen and detect whether its reaction to gravity is negative.
It set me thinking that the beams in the Tevatron circulate for more than a second and everything falls about 4.9 meters in a second, so the bunches must be falling too. This of course will be compensated by the fields that keep the bunches in track among all the other corrections necessary. If though the antiprotons have a different behavior under gravity, this difference would appear in the orbits of protons and antiprotons.
The question has two points: a) since the beams are travelling equal and opposite paths through the magnetic circuit, a negative gravity effect on antiprotons would disperse the antiproton beam up with respect to the path of the proton one. Could one get a limit on the magnitude of the gravitational effect difference between protons and antiprotons from this?
I found one reference where the antiproton beam has a different behavior in chromaticity than the proton one, and it is explained away.
Now I am completely vague about beam dynamics which I have filed under "art" rather than "physics" but b) am wondering whether this observed difference could be interpreted as a gravitational field difference in a dedicated experiment.
Maybe there are beam engineers reading this list. My feeling is that if antiparticles had negative gravity interactions , beam engineers would have detected it since the first e+e- machine, but feelings can be wrong. | <urn:uuid:9a583eb5-bc8f-4530-8bb5-0b0568bab277> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/5521/is-there-a-different-behavior-between-proton-and-antiproton-beams-at-the-tevatro/5525 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00001-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948111 | 319 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Indiana was initially part of the Northwest Territory. This territory was ceded to United States at the end of the Revolutionary War by the British and would later form Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin. The state was admitted as the 19th state to the union.
Looking to find those elusive Hoosier ancestors? The Indiana Genealogy Legacy QuickGuide™ contains useful information including a timeline of Indiana history events, tips on Indiana research strategy, outline of major immigrant groups, and more. Also included are links to websites and resources covering vital records, church records, census records, as well as general Indiana resources. This handy 4-page PDF guide can be used on your computer or mobile device for anytime access. | <urn:uuid:cd178e69-7098-48f6-8e07-a72245f1ab96> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=QDINDIANA&Click=114310 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397842.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00044-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964619 | 143 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Israel's City Of David Problem
As a California-based rabbi on sabbatical in Jerusalem for the year, I have enjoyed exploring the city’s rich culture and heritage, particularly its archaeological history. But as a religious leader who champions human rights, I have also been shocked and disturbed to learn that in Jerusalem, where layers of history have been unfolding for millennia, a true archaeological treasure has fallen prey to politics.
Just a few steps outside of the walls of the Old City is the City of David. It is widely considered one of the most important archaeological sites in all of Jerusalem. As one of the Holy City’s most visited tourist attractions, it draws hundreds of thousands of Israelis and foreigners over the Green Line into the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan every year. This prominent site of biblical era archaeology features historical finds including the Royal Acropolis, Hezekiah's Tunnel, and the Gihon Spring, ancient Jerusalem's main water source.
The Israeli government has considered the City of David a national park since the early 1970s. Since that time, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority has retained management authority, but the Israeli government turned over park operations to the settler organization Elad—an acronym for “to the City of David” in Hebrew—in 2005. To this day Elad continues to essentially control the City of David, while the Israel Nature and Parks Authority involvement with the site remains minor.
Elad has an explicit political agenda. The organization’s stated goal is “settling families in the City of David and developing the site as a Jewish neighborhood.” Elad operates the park, it provides its educational materials, films and signs; it collects entry fees for its guided tours; and it runs the concession and gift shops. Charitable donations that Elad receives simultaneously fund the majority of the archaeological excavations in and around the City of David Park and finance moving ideological Jewish settlers into East Jerusalem.
Visitors to this important spot are mostly unaware that they are receiving a slanted version of history: a settler narrative that omits sweeping periods of history prior to the time of King David and the glosses over the impact of these civilizations had on the development of Jerusalem. Many people leave the park not even aware that they have been in a Palestinian neighborhood.
T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, a North American-based organization that works closely with Israeli partners, recently arranged for me to visit the City of David, not with the standard settler-narrated tour guides, but with Israelis representing two NGOs, Emek Shaveh and Ir Amim, both working to raise awareness about the highly problematic nature of the relationship between Israeli officials and Elad.
On our tour, two of the organizations’ leaders showed me how Elad fails to reflect most layers of The City of David National Park that don’t represent Jewish history, even though Jerusalem has been home to many different civilizations. I learned about how excavations are conducted under roads, schools, mosques, and Palestinian homes, often without consulting or even notifying local residents. I saw armed private security on guard at the homes of settlers. And, I was struck by the stark contrast between the overall level of development in the Silwan neighborhood surrounding the park and the neighborhoods of West Jerusalem I know well.
As an American Jewish leader, I am gravely concerned about the situation in Silwan because I love and care deeply not only about Jerusalem’s history, but also its future. I support the Israelis who are working tirelessly, with great hope and optimism, to ensure that Israel continues to be a pluralistic, democratic state that ensures the rights of all its people. I join with the Israeli organizations and the Israeli citizens who are calling for Elad to be removed from power over this important historical site, allowing a fair and balanced approach to be taken in this sensitive area of East Jerusalem.
As Emek Shaveh has written, “When ideological groups use the archaeological finds as proof of their historic right to take possession of a given place, and at the same time to undermine the rights of the local people living there—then archaeology is in danger of losing its status as an independent field of research.” | <urn:uuid:c48722ea-89d4-40cd-8356-2340c6e83a1e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/27/israel-s-city-of-david-problem.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394937.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00134-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956472 | 870 | 2.515625 | 3 |
What Animals Need to Live
Concepts to Be Covered
- Animals need food, water, shelter, and space to survive.
- Herbivores can live only where plant food is available.
- Carnivores can live only where they can catch their food.
- Omnivores can live in many places because they eat both plants and animals.
- Habitat is the physical area where an animal lives.
Goals for the Lesson
- Students will name the four factors necessary for animals to survive.
- Students will define herbivore, carnivore, and omnivore.
- Students will comprehend the concept of an animals habitat.
- Wildlife Is All Around Us. Member's Guide- 4-H Wildlife Conservation Program, Unit 1, page 5, "Habitat: What Animals Need to Live."
- Herbivore/Carnivore/Omnivore Venn diagram overhead transparency
- lined drawing paper
Teaching Model: Introduce-Guided Reading-Discuss-Define-Summarize-Evaluate
State Standard(s) Addressed: Standards for Environment and Ecology (4.6.4A)
"In today's lesson we will discuss what animals need to survive. You will also learn the classification for animals according to what they eat."
- Have students silently read "Habitat: What Animals Need to Live."
- Reread aloud the first sentence. To survive animals need food, water, and a safe home.
- Place Venn diagram on overhead with just the three main words (herbivore, omnivore, carnivore) listed.
- Have students refer to article to define each word. Write the definition for each word onto the overhead showing that herbivores eat plant parts, carnivores eat other animals, and omnivores eat both plants and animals.
- Ask students to use this knowledge to determine how what an animal eats determines where they need to live. Herbivores can live only where plant food is available. Carnivores can live only where they can catch their food. Omnivores can live in many places because they eat both plants and animals.
- Have students name examples of each group. List on overhead.
- "Now that we've discussed that animals need food to survive and the different types of food animals need, who can name the second factor necessary for animals to survive. Water is the second factor necessary for animals to survive.
- Make a list of different areas water can be obtained by animals. Puddles, springs, streams, and ponds are places where animals can get water.
- "We've named two factors necessary for animals to survive: food and water. There are two more. Look again at the first sentence in the article. To survive, animals need food, water, and a safe home. I said there are two more factors necessary for animals to survive but the sentence only lists one: a safe home. Skim the article once again and see if you can understand why I say there are two more things we need to list."
- Allow the students to reread or skim article for a few minutes. Ask for volunteers to list the remaining two factors. The last two factors are both part of a safe home: cover and space.
- Define and discuss each word.
- Ask students to summarize the needs animals have to survive. Food, water, cover, and space.
- Introduce final vocabulary word-habitat. Define (an animal's habitat is where the animal lives. Its habitat has everything it needs to survive) and discuss.
Have students draw a picture that shows an animal in a natural environment. The picture must incorporate all items necessary for the animal to survive. When their picture is complete they must write a summary of their picture. The paragraph must describe the animal in the picture as an herbivore, carnivore, or omnivore. The writing must also reflect back to the factors necessary for their animal to survive. The writing must also be grammatically and mechanically correct, and neatly written.
Youngfleish, Kristi, and Margaret Brittingham. Wildlife Is All Around Us: Book 1, The Wildlife Detective. Member's Guide. p. 5. 4-H Wildlife Conservation Program, Unit I.
Tracie Tomasko, Moshannon Valley Elementary | <urn:uuid:02cb46d1-67d9-4785-a639-033ffff47cc8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ecosystems.psu.edu/youth/sftrc/lesson-plans/wildlife/k-5/animal-needs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397744.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00021-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900505 | 904 | 3.96875 | 4 |
Any analysis of the womens movement in Iran is a very complicated task and requires time and space. This very brief article is meant to provide much needed basic information for the general public and to provide a coherent picture of what has been happening over the last two centuries. The second half of the nineteenth century is the beginning of fundamental structural and ideological transformations in Iran and the start of the womens movement that is still going on.
The first major figure, Fatima, the eldest daughter of a prominent religious leader was born in Ghazvin in 1814. Fatima and her sister Marzieh received religious training and became masters in Persian literature, Arabic and Islamic studies. At the age of 14, she married her cousin the son of Mulla Mohammed Taghi Borghani, one of the most famous Usuli religious leaders. Orthodox and dogmatic the Usulis dominated the theological schools and strongly opposed all other schools of thought including Ahkbari and the latter Sheykhi who demanded reforms and challenged the authority of Mujtahids. The two sisters influenced by a close relative took the side of the Sheykhi. In 1828 the young couple moved to Iraq to further their religious studies at Najaf and Karbala, where many Sheykhi ulama resided in exile. The long stay in Iraq introduced Fatima to others including Seyyed Kazem Rashti and his Succesor Seyyed Mohammad Bab, whom she never met. She also became exposed to European politics and influence spreading in Middle East at the time. Fatima joined Rashti who gave her the title of Qurrat al-Ain and eventually ended in the top leadership of the later Babi movement. Her actions alienated her family; she left her husband started lecturing and openly supported the Babi movement. Amongst many changes demanded by the Babis, emancipation of women became an issue. Though her actions were predominantly religious her presence often without a veil in public debates created a stir even amongst the Babis and she often was forced to leave and move to another city. Her very strong presence in the movement initiated the formation of the first well-organized womens league in Iran.
The first meetings were held at the house of the widowed Mrs. Rashti and quickly spread throughout the country. Fatima, Marzieh, Khorshid Beygom Khanum, with the mother and sister of Mulla Hussein Boushroyeh, the mother of Hadi Nahri, Rustameh, the first militant female leader in the movement and Mrs. Rashti traveled all over, organized meetings, helped and rescued Babis. Many female members of the Royal court also supported Fatima who was known as Tahireh or pure by this time. In 1848, after the massive persecution of the Babis, the remaining leaders gathered at Behdasht. In the meeting Tahireh tears off her veil and demands emancipation of women. Her radical actions splits the leadership; Tahireh herself is arrested is send into exile. She escapes, a few days after a failed attack on Naser al-Din Shahs life; she is captured in Tehran and along with other Babi leaders was executed in 1852.
The Babi and their successor Bahai womens movements were genuine, dynamic, progressive and emancipated the female supporters of these faiths. However they remained sectarian and were secondary to the principal doctrines of the faith. Though this limited their appeal to the general public but the incidents were observed by all. The mass execution of Babi women and children shocked the nation particularly the upper class and more educated women, lessons were learned, moves copied and actions followed.
In the later half of the 19th century other prominent women emerged. Taj Saltaneh, Naser al-Din Shahs daughter in her famous memoirs criticized the stagnation of the political and social institutions in Iran without rejecting Monarchy. She mentions the pitiful state of women in Iran, criticizes the notion of veiling and how it has stopped women from advancing and joined secrete societies with other members of the royal court. Bibi Khanoum Astarabadi in her pamphlet The Shortcomings of Men strongly criticized the derogatory popular book Educating Women and concluded that the writers understanding of keeping women in their place implies the total subjugation of women. Bibi and her mother belonged to generations of women who served the Royal women. They thought literature; calligraphy, music, religion and many were talented poets with their own written works of which quite a few have survived. In the late 1800s women had a very strong presence in the constitutional struggle and the subsequent revolution. The Reuter concession of 1872 and the Tobacco protest brought masses of women into the streets. Kamran Mirza, the vice regent was attacked by hordes of women. Militant women lead by Zeynab Pasha alongside armed men attacked government warehouses in Tabriz. At the same time the wife of Haydar Khan Tabrizi and other women armed with sticks protected pro constitution speakers in Tabriz.
Mrs. Jahangeer, the aunt of the martyred journalist Mirza Jahangeer Sur-i Israfil, blocked Mozafare Din Shahs carriage and warned him to endorse the constitution. Progressive newspapers like Sur-i Israfil, Habl al Matin, Qanun, Soraya and Nida-yi Vatan published articles by men and women writers demanding constitutional and gender rights. Women from all faiths gathered and joined the strikers seeking sanctuary at the British embassy in 1906. Setareh the daughter of the Armenian revolutionary activist Yephrem Khan her mother and many others, Jewish, Bahai, Zoroastrian etc., participated. After the constitution was granted in August 1906, women became involved in both boycotting the import of foreign goods and raising funds for the establishment of the first National Bank. Native fabrics were worn and women sold their jewelry and dowries to finance the bank. The members of the Secret Union of women published pamphlets and articles demanding men should give up their seats in Majlis and let women run the country. With the victory of revolution they expected equal opportunities and gender rights. None was granted in the constitution. The electoral law of September 1906 had expressly barred women from the political process, and the appeal to the newly formed Majlis for institutional support received hostile response. They were told that " the womens education and training should be restricted to raising children, home economics and preserving the honor of the family". Family laws remained within the domain of Shariat with no change and emancipation of women became an embarrassment.
Women decided to organize by themselves, education became the priority. In March 1838 American Presbyterian missionaries had opened the first girls school in Urumiyah, Azarbaijan. Religious minorities, mainly Armenians, attended the school. Similar schools had opened in Tehran, Tabriz, Mashhad, Rasht, Hamadan and other cities. However Muslim girls were barred to attend the missionary schools by the religious authorities and public pressure. In the 1870s the first Muslim girls joined the American school in Tehran. The failure of Majlis to meet their demands forced women to take action. Semi secret societies were formed. On January 20, 1907, a womens meeting was held in Tehran where ten resolutions were adopted, including one that called for establishing girls schools and another that sought the abolition of dowries so that the money could be spent on educating the girls instead. In 1907, Bibi Vazirof opened Madresseh Doushizegan. She was forced to close but re-opened. At the same time Toba Azmodeh opened Namus in her own house. Despite threats and abuse by the mob and religious authorities the efforts continued. The opening of Effatiyah School by Mrs. Safieh Yazdi, the wife of the pro constitution mujtahid, Mohammed Yazdi in 1910 encouraged others and more schools were opened. In 1911 Mahrukh Gawharshinas defied her husband and started Taraghi. In the same year Mah Sultan Amir Sehei opened Tarbiyat. By 1913 there were 9 womens societies and 63 girls schools in Tehran with close to 2500 students.
The schools produced the first generation of well-educated and prominent women. Touran Azmoudeh, Fakhre Ozma Arghon (Simin Behbahanis mother), Bibi Khalvati, Guilan Khanoum, Farkhondeh Khanoum and Mehrangize Samiei, are amongst the best known graduates of these early schools. Male supporters joined the movement. Javad Sartip, Mirza Hussein Rushdiyeh, Nasr Douleh and Adib Douleh are amongst the best known supporters whose moral and financial support made the movement possible.
Womens associations flourished. Society for the Freedom of Women and Secret Union of Women were formed in 1907. Association of the Ladies of the Homeland was followed by The Society for the welfare of Iranian Women, Women of Iran, Union of Women, Womens Efforts, and the Council of Women of the Center. They all played an active part in politics; organized plays raised funds for schools, hospitals and orphanages. In 1915 the Society of Christian Women Graduates of Iran was formed, followed by Zoroastrian and Jewish Womens Association they started organizing, helping and educating women and children in their own communities. The communist members of the Messengers for Womens Prosperity celebrated the International Womens Day for the first time in Rasht in 1915. Society for the Freedom of women, the most prolific of all the societies attracted prominent activists like Sadigeh Dawlatabadi, Muhtaram Eskandari, Huma Mahmudi and Shams al-Muluk Javahir Kalam. People from all faiths and men were present at the meetings. The gatherings were kept secret to avoid any attack by the mob. Other ladies like Mirza Baji, Samei, Monireh Khanoum, Gouleen Moafegh, Eftekhar Saltaneh, Taj saltaneh, Hakeem, Ayoub, Jordan and Afandieh Khanoum were amongst the first members of the society.
A member of several associations and a publisher, Sadigeh Dawlatabadi in 1918 opened the first girls school in Isfahan and was forced to close it after 3 months. On her return from France in 1927, she was amongst the first women who appeared in public unveiled. Eskandari, a Qajar princess later founded Society of Patriotic Women, organized classes for adult illiterate women and published a journal. The group in a demonstration publicly burnt a misogynist pamphlet entitled Wiles of Women at the Sepah Square in Tehran. Huma and Shams al-Muluk were leading feminist writers and speakers. Huma was one of the organizers of a major demonstration by women outside Majlis demanding equal rights. Also a publisher and a poet she wrote constantly on womens issues. Shams al-Muluk, a teacher was the first Iranian woman to teach unveiled in co-educational classes in Tiflis. Others like Durrat al Muali were praised by figures like poet Iraj Mirza for their courage. Other prominent males like Dihkhuda, Vakilal-Ruaya, Lahuti, Ishqi, Aref and later figures like Kasravi, Taghizadeh, Saeed Nafissi, Ebrahim Khajehnouri and Reza-zadeh Shafaegh also lent their support with others like Parvin Etesami. Conservative members of ulama opposed the schools. Sheykh Fazlullah Nuri and Seyyed Ali Shushtari often accused the activists of heresy and having Babi sentiments. Soon there were girls schools in all the major cities and though they were constantly threatened, burnt and closed they stayed.
In 1910, Mrs. Kahal published the magazine Danish. This was the first journal published by a woman in Iran. Navabeh Safavi and Mrs. Ameed Mozayan-al Saltaneh published Jahan-i Zanan and Shikufah in 1912 and 1913. Sadigeh Dawlatabadi followed by Zaban-i Zanan and Zanan-i Iran in Isfahan and Tehran (1918 & 1919). Nameh Banouvan and Jahan-i Zanan were printed in 1920. Mrs. Fakher Afagh-i Parsa, the mother of Farokh Roo Parsa the first women minister in Iran who was executed after the revolution, published the later. This magazine was published in Mashhad and was violently opposed by religious groups. Mrs. Parsa was forced into exile and had to run for her life. Many publications followed, by 1930s fourteen womens magazines were discussing rights, education and veiling. Letters were send to Majlis; equal rights and emancipation were demanded. They were refused and ulmas hostility grows. In 1911 Ghassem Amins book Freedom of Women was translated from Arabic into Persian. The renowned Egyptian activist supported emancipation. Conservative religious authorities responded harshly. Mirza Mohammad Sadegh Fhakhr-al Islam published his own Resaleh condemning the book, emancipation and alcohol consumption.
Fazlullah Nuri complained that "by encouraging women to dress up like men Majlis has become a place for Amer-i be monker and Nahyeh az maroof" (promoting the forbidden and forbidding the good). Fazlullah Haeri Mazandarani in 1921 published Hejab ya Pardeh Doushizegan and condemned reforms. Zia al Din Majd and Aboul Hassan Tonekaboni urged Muslims to fight since veiling is a fundamental institution in Islam. By 1927 a collection of all articles opposing emancipation were published together in a book called Answer to supporters of emancipation. The Muslim Poet Eghbal Lahourri encouraged Muslim women every where to stick by their religion. Reza Shah became monarch in 1925. In 1926 Sadigeh Dawlatabadi attended The International Womens Conference in Paris. On her return she went public in European attire. In 1928 Majlis ratified the new dress code. All males except ulama were required to dress like Europeans at all government institutions. In 1930 ladies hats were exempted from taxes. Emancipation was discussed constantly and encouraged by the authorities. Mirza Aboulghasem-i Azad established the first emancipation society in 1930 and was supported by Yahya Dawlatabadi. The first conference on Muslim women at the same time began in Damascus Syria. Sadigeh Dawlatabadi, Mastoreh Afshar and Mrs. Tabatabai represented Iran.
In 1931 for the first time Majlis approved a new civil code that gave women the right to ask for divorce under certain conditions and the marriage age was elevated to 15 for girls and 18 for boys. The civil code was secular but family laws remained within the domain of Shariat. The Congress of Oriental Women opened in Tehran in 1932 and paid respect to the deceased socialist Muhtaram Eskandari. In 1933 recommended reforms at Damascus and Tehran conferences were presented to Majlis and women demanded emancipation electoral rights and were refused again. Reza Shah intervened, in 1934 Ali Asghar-i Hikmat, the Minister of Education received orders to establish Kanoun-i Banouvan and implement reforms. Hajer Tarbyat was the first chairwomen and Shams Pahlavi the Royal appointee. Though controlled by the state, for the first time womens activities were legitimized. The Ladies Center was not received well by the socialists and independents. They opposed royal monopoly and interference. In 1936 Reza Shah, his wife and daughters attended the graduation ceremony at the Womens Teacher Training College in Tehran. All women were advised to come unveiled. Emancipation of women was officially born. Unveiling was made compulsory and women were barred from wearing chador and scarf in public. A national education system was formed to educate boys and girls equally. In 1936 the first females entered Tehran University. Shams al Moluk Mosaheb, Mehrangiz Manuchehrian, Zahra Eskandar, Batul Samei, Tosey Haeri, Shayesteh Sadegh, Taj Muluk Nakhaei, Forough and Zahra Kia, Badr al Muluk Bamdad, Shahzadeh Kavousi and Saraj al Nesa (from India) were admitted. Amineh Pakravan was the first female lecturer and Dr. Fatimah Sayah the first woman who became a full professor.
After Reza Shahs fall, independent organizations were formed. Safiyeh Firouz in 1942 formed the National Womens Society and the newly formed Council of Iranian Women in 1944 strongly criticized polygamy. Tudeh Partys Womens league was the best organized in this period. In 1944 Huma Houshmandar published Our Awakening and in 1949 the womens league was changed to Organization of Democratic Women and branches were opened in all the major cities. Zahra and Taj Eskandari, Iran Arani, Maryam Firouz, Dr. Khadijeh Keshavarz, Dr. Ahktar Kambakhsh, Badri Alavi and Aliyeh Sharmini were amongst the best known Tudeh activists. The society was later changed to Organization of Progressive Women and in 1951 unsuccessfully lobbied for electoral rights. Mossadeghs fall puts an end to independent organizations. In 1949 the Higher Council of Women was formed headed by Ashraf Pahlavi. The council opened branches all over the country focussing on health, education and charity work. By 1964, it was changed to Organization of Iranian Women and in 1978 had 349 branches, 113 Centers and covered 55 other organizations dealing with womens welfare and heath. The last registrar indicates that in 1977 alone, over a million women used the services. Most centers were trashed after the revolution.
In 1951, Mehrangiz Dawlatshahi (the first female Ambassador) formed Rah Naw and with Safeyeh Firouz founded the first organization supporting human rights. The two met with Shah and demanded electoral rights. Opposition by religious authorities ended the debate. In Bahman of 1962 at last women were given the right to vote and to be elected. In 1968 the Family Protection Law was ratified. Divorce was referred to family courts, gains were made with respect to divorce laws, polygamy was limited and required first wife s written consent. Marriage age for girls was set at 18 years. Mrs. Parsa became the first women minister in Iran. Women were required to serve the education corps and pass military service. In 1975, women gained the right of guardianship for their children after their husbands death. Abortion was never legalized but the existing penalties were omitted and this made it a lot easier. In 1975 Mahnaz Afkhami became the first minister responsible for womens affairs. Shariat remained but ulams response was drastic, Fatwas by known figures including Ayatollah Khomeini declared the move heretic, demonstrations followed but were put down.
At the same time Ali Shariati published the best seller Fatima is Fatima and declared all western looking Iranian women as corrupt and the Muslim ones as confused and in need of guidance. Ayatollah Motahari started the popular series women in Islam in the secular magazine Zan-i Ruz and confirmed Hejab. There were no independent organizations except the underground groups opposing monarchy. Marzieh Ahmadi Oskouei, Ashraf Dehghani, Mansoureh Tavafchian, Fatimah Rezaei and Mrs Shayegan were amongst the activists. By 1978, 33% of university students were female with 2 million in the workforce. 190,000 were professionals with university degrees. There were 333 women in the local councils, 22 in Majlis and 2 in the Senate. At the revolution of 1978 millions of women participated in every aspect of the movement. The Islamic Republic was established in January and by March women were barred from becoming judges. The Family Protection Law was abolished by a declaration from Imam Khomeinis office in April. Women working at government offices were ordered to observe the Islamic dress code. Women protested, on March 8, International Womens Day, thousands gathered at Tehran University. The speakers could not speak since the microphones were sabotaged. The crowd moved towards Ayatollah Taleghanis house, Jam e Jam TV station and Ministry of Justice. In April the marriage age for girls was reduced to 13 and married women were barred from attending regular schools. By this time many Independent womens organizations were formed and all political parties had their own womens league.
Tens of womens magazines were published, the daily Awakening of Women was amongst the first published in Tehran University and was immediately followed by Equality, Women in Struggle and Womens Path. The later with the National Union of Women and others formed a loose coalition, the Committee for Solidarity of Women. The Organization of Iranian Women, The Women Populace of Iran, Womens branch of National Democratic Front, National Front and the Association of women lawyers were amongst the most active. The last one is the only one that still exists and it has formed an extremely powerful lobby in support of womens rights.
The Islamic Womens Movement was formed with the support of the government. Monireh Gorjee a member of the Islamic Republic Party was the only woman at the Assembly of Experts when the new constitution was drafted. She did not oppose the new legislation concerning women. Shariat became the legal code. In the first Majlis Gohar Dastghayb and Maryam Behruzi were elected and represented the two prominent parties, Islamic Republic and Crusaders for Islam. Azam Taleghani represented the Womens Society of Islamic Revolution and send letters to Khomeini cautioning the authorities about compulsory veiling. Altogether 217 members were elected to the first Majlis, 3 were women. The birthday of Fatima, Prophets daughter was announced National Womens Day. In 1980 Azam Taleghani completely wrapped in Islamic attire represented Iran in United Nations Conference on Women in Thailand. Zahra Rahnavard, Prime Minister Mousavis wife took over the popular magazine Etelaate-i Banouvan and the name was changed to Rah Zeynab. Fereshteh Hashemi
Was appointed chief editor of Zan-i Ruz. In the early 1980s, Dr. Shahin Tabatabei chaired Iran at another United Nations womens conference in Denmark Amongst independent participants was Laleh Bahktiar the well-known scholar of Islamic mystic literature and a psychologist residing in England. When asked about stoning women to death, she commented that no crime is worst than adultery committed by women! At the same time the tomb of Sadigeh Dawlatabadi was destroyed. In her last will and testament she had said that she did not want any veiled woman to ever visit her grave!
In the summer of 1980, Rajai the Prime Minister introduced the Law of Compulsory Veiling to Majlis. Soon all political parties were banned members arrested and mass executions of the 1980s put an end to all independent political activities. Mojahedin Khalgh suffered most. Maryam Firouz an executive member of the Tudeh Party praised Imam Khomeini and called him the most important supporter of Womens rights in our history. Tudeh party was the next one to go! A year later, Maryam Behruzi in Beijing condemned abortion, called day cares as centers for producing robots. She defended the Islamic Criminal code and regarded Ghesas as appropriate and Islamic. Outside Iran the National Council of Resistance and the National Union of Women were established. Rah Zeynab magazine was closed down. Muslim women began expressing concern over their situation in Iran. Armed male and female personnel began their function as the guardians of the Islamic code of conduct by arresting, imprisoning, flogging and imposing monetary penalties.
In 1982, Freedom Movements womens league in Tehran after a meeting with Zahra Rahnavard, Azam Taleghani, Ali Mojtaba Kermani, Ahmad Sadr Haj Sayyid Javadi and Naser Katousian, expressed concern over implementation of the Islamic Legal Code. In 1984, the first theology school for females was established in Qom. The male teachers entered the fortress like building through an underground passage and never met any of the students. Presently the school has female tutors only and no males are allowed inside. Unlike male students of such schools, the women will not have a religious rank. So far they have stayed away from all debates in Qom and nationally. The only women journal published by the theology students; Payam-i Zan is published by males. After the war with Iraq and in the 1990s womens issues became front-page news. The magazine Zanan published in 1992 systematically criticized the legal code. They argued gender equality was Islamic but religious literature is misread and misappropriated by misogynist interest oriented males. Secular activists, Mehrangiz-i Kar, Shahla Lahiji, Shirin Ebadi and the Muslim Shahla Sherkat the editor of Zanan lead the debate on womens rights. Reforms were demanded by all, the leadership did not respond but for the first time they could not silence the movement.
Segregation of sexes legitimized the entry of millions of lower class girls from traditional families and rural areas into the public life and the education system. The segregation required training of women to serve the female only policies. Thousands were employed in the security forces and morality corps and others to impose strict Islamic codes. For many this was the first time they had fully entered public life and received wages with pensions at the end. Khatamis presence in Ministry of Guidance paved the way for a less restricted press. Hundreds of books about feminist issues were and are published including radical feminist books and biographies. Faezeh Hashemi, President Rafsanjanis daughter initiated Asian games for Muslim women in 1993. Later on the establishment attacked her for being outspoken, wearing blue jeans and riding bicycles. In a landslide victory she was elected in the 5th Majlis with the highest number of votes in Tehran. Muslim feminism had emerged in Iran. In 1998 she published the popular daily Zan (woman) for a few months and at the end was forced to close down after printing a caricature mocking Islamic penalty (Deyeh) with respect to women. She lost the year 2000 election because of her support for her unpopular father.
In 1997, a prenuptial document to be signed at the time of marriage was approved. The object was to give women the rights they lacked in Shariat. The future husband forfeits his rights to polygamy and unconditional divorce. Women can initiate divorce, divide assets and have joint custody of children and child support. All the articles are conditioned. As pointed out by the critics this is only a voluntary contract, men do not have to sign and if they dont there are no legal consequences. The practice so far has failed and most men will not sign the contract. Few gains are made since then. Family courts are back again and divorce is referred to these courts, though the number of courts is very limited. Women can function as judges but do not have the title. Mahriyeh is indexed and linked to inflation. But so far no fundamental changes. By the late 1990s, the National Muslim Womens League, sponsored and financed by the government became a powerful umbrella organization providing support and networking for sixty registered womens organizations. In 1998, 52% of the students entering universities were female and the worsening economic situation has forced millions of women to enter the workforce. By 2000, number of females entering universities increased to almost 53 %. The authorities responded immediately by restricting access to more subjects for females. Currently females have access to around 80% of the subjects available while the only restriction for males is Gynecology. The fifth Majlis had 13 female deputies out of 270. The changes and the oppression have released a massive political force never seen before. The result has been the formation of a dynamic grassroots movement lead by the so-called Muslim feminists who believe men have misinterpreted and manipulated the religious texts.
This re-interpretation movement is very new and is part of a larger global movement by small reformist groups who are questioning Shariat and its compatibility with the modern world. Muslims have never criticized practices of Islam. Nor any Muslim country has provided a safe environment where such re-thinking can be experimented. Historically all such movements have either been crushed or resulted in new religions such as Ismaili and Bahai.The struggles over the last two centuries have made one thing clear to women in Iran. The inability of Shariat and religious authorities to improve legal status of women and the centrality of women to the political process. What happened in Iran is a logical evolution of the womens movement since its beginning in the 1800s. Ironically it started with religious reformists and ended up as a new religion, Bahai. The women of Iran are not about to start a new religion. But the realization is all too clear. Change is not going to come from within the system. Shariat is Gods words and constitution forbids any legislation contrary to Shariat.
Pahlavi rule cleared the path for women. Sooner or later they had to face the major obstacle, Shariat. The revolution provided the momentum. The secular women though extremely active especially in legal matters are not heard as well as the Muslims. The two have joined forces now. How far the secular and the Muslim feminists will go depends on the success of the larger movement in the Islamic world and the political situation in Iran. In 1997 presidential election, eight women nominated themselves as candidates. The Council of Guardians rejected all.
Khatami won the presidential election in 1998, by promising women reform and equal opportunities; none has happened as yet. He has appointed a few women at higher levels of the government. His controversial choice of appointing Dr. Massoume Ebtekar as the Director of the National Environmental Agency received criticism internationally. Dr. Ebtekar was the spokesperson for the militant group that occupied the American Embassy and initiated the hostage taking. Other than such appointments very little is achieved. So far he has blamed the hard-liners. The new Majlis has proved a failure. So far the Guardian Council has rejected all new legislation approved by the sixth parliament aiming at improving the womens situation. Women were refused more grounds for initiating divorce and the increase in marriage age for girls and boys to 15 and 17 had been declared non-Islamic. The last bill, permitting single women going abroad for higher education using government subsidies was also rejected. However it was eventually approved in March 2001, after adding a new clause. Single women can do this as long as they have written permission from their fathers. The three prominent feminists and human right activists Mehrangeez Kar, Shahla Lahijii and Shirin Ebadi were imprisoned and are released on bail. Raiding private residences, arresting and flogging youth both male and female has increased recently. Females have become more daring with respect to clothing in public and street arrests have increased recently. Khatamis new cabinet was a disappointment as far as reformists and women are concerned. All these events so far are a sign of Khatamis failure with respect to any reform concerning womens issues and human rights in general. Sept 2001 | <urn:uuid:dbb514bd-87e6-4610-bbb4-e9cfcadaf6a1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.rozanehmagazine.com/Rozanehweb/Mprice.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00092-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97615 | 6,479 | 3.03125 | 3 |
10. Arctostaphylos nummularia A. Gray, Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts. 7: 366. 1868.
Shrubs, prostrate, erect, or mound-forming, 0.1-5 m; burl absent; bark on older stems persistent, gray or red-gray, shredded or rough; twigs densely short-haired with longer gland-tipped hairs. Leaves bifacial in stomatal distribution; petiole to 3 mm; blade bifacial, light green abaxially, dark green adaxially, shiny, orbiculate to orbiculate-ovate or oblong-elliptic, 1.5-2.2 × 0.3-1.8 cm, base cuneate to obtuse or truncate to ± lobed, margins entire, cupped, surfaces smooth, glabrous, midvein hairy . Inflorescences panicles, 4-12-branched; immature inflorescence pendent, branches spreading, axis 0.5-1 cm, to 1 mm diam., densely short-haired with longer gland-tipped hairs; bracts appressed, scalelike, deltate, 0.5-2 mm, apex acute, surfaces glabrous. Pedicels 3-5 mm, glabrous. Flowers 4-merous; corolla white, urceolate; ovary white-hairy. Fruits subcylindric, 3-4 mm diam., glabrous. Stones distinct (breaking apart in mature fruit).
Subspecies 2 (2 in the flora): California. | <urn:uuid:1dc63ef3-14e4-47ab-bf6b-83699fa5b822> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=220001036 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402516.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00183-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.699639 | 341 | 2.640625 | 3 |
A surprise to remember: Scientists have found that a naturally occurring hormone usually involved in cell repair is also present in the hippocampus of the brain, and when they extra doses of it to rats in their experiments, it appeared to greatly enhance the rats’ memory.
The hormone is called insulin-like growth factor II (IGF-II), and the fact that it showed up in the hippocampus (associated with memory and learning) made Cristina Alberini wonder if it could be a key player in memory formation. So she and her colleagues designed a test:
The team came up with a box that was lit on one side and unlit on the other. Rats that entered the dark side got a mild foot shock. The rats’ subsequent hesitation to return to the dark after getting shocked gave the scientists a measure of how well they remembered the traumatic event. [ScienceNOW]
The rats showed elevated IGF-II levels after the shock, but Alberini wanted to see whether tinkering with those levels could change the rats‘ ability to form and recall memories.
Some rats were then given an injection of IGF-II, in … the hippocampus. Even weeks later, rats that had received the IGF-II exhibited greater avoidance of the location than rats that had a control injection of another growth factor or saline solution. [Wall Street Journal]
In fact, Alberini says, the shot of IGF-II appeared to double the rats’ memory, based on their hesitancy to go over to the dark side. But the shot had to be given within 24 hours of the traumatic experience to work.
The team’s results, published today in Nature, offer a new piece of the consolidation puzzle, says neurobiologist Alcino Silva of the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in the study. “We know a lot about the first few seconds of learning but not so much about the hours and days later,” he says. “Looking at this period is a big contribution. I’m envious, actually.” [ScienceNOW]
And, interestingly, the shot of IGF-II worked if it was injected into the hippocampus, but not if it was injected into the amygdala, which tends to be associated with fear. Now, Alberini says, she wants to see whether giving the protein supplement to the rats’ entire body works the way the hippocampus injection does. It’s the next step on the long research road to determining whether such a memory effect could appear in humans.
80beats: Doctors Get Closer to Detecting Alzheimer’s with a Brain Scan
80beats: New Theory of Alzheimer’s: Brain’s Memory Center Is “Overworked”
80beats: Could an Experimental Memory Drug Put an End to “Senior Moments”?
DISCOVER: Stress and Your Brain
DISCOVER: Video Games vs. the Aging Brain | <urn:uuid:54afd030-a343-4574-8545-4d42560419d1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2011/01/27/the-insulin-like-hormone-that-gives-rats-a-memory-boost/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00078-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952182 | 610 | 2.671875 | 3 |
What were the consequences of the 1568 revolt which began in the Low Countries against the Habsburg Empire and lasted 80 years? People were displaced – some fleeing the ravages of war; others were fleeing religious persecution.
A disconnect from the Empire meant a disruption in normal commercial activity. Markets and waters once friendly turned hostile. Trading companies eventually replaced the former commercial routes and exploration for new routes and markets was undertaken. On October 5th in New York City five Dutch and Belgian speakers will give illustrated lectures about the effects of this revolt on the Low Countries and the settlement of North America.
A special feature will be a profile of Govert Loockermans of Turnhout whose correspondence as a private trader will appear in translation for the first time. Speakers will include:
Guido Marnef (University of Antwerp) – “People on the move: migration movements from the Southern to the Northern Netherlands in the time of the Dutch Revolt”;
Kees Zandvliet (Amsterdam Museum, University of Amsterdam) – “Flemish cartographers of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries and the mapping of North-America”;
Maarten Prak (University of Utrecht) – “Antwerp = Amsterdam? Migration and trade between two commercial centers c. 1600”;
Wim Vanraes (independent translator/researcher/linguist) – “Govert Loockermans. A personal look at source material from a 17th century Flemish settler”; and
Davidt Baeckelandt (Independent Scholar, President, De Gazette van Detroit) – “The Flemish Contribution to European Settlement in America.”
The 36th New Netherland Seminar will be held Saturday, October 5, from 9:30 am to 4:00 pm at the New-York Historical Society (170 Central Park West at 77th Street). The cost to register is $100. A reception will follow. To register online go to www.newnetherlandinstitute.org.
The seminar is hosted by The New Netherland Institute, and sponsored by the Consulate General of the
Netherlands in New York, Flanders House, and the New-York Historical Society.
Illustration: Battle of Haarlemmermeer, 1621, by Hendrick Cornelisz. Vroom. | <urn:uuid:de777bc1-e943-4ee6-a8a9-95862c133d03> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://newyorkhistoryblog.org/2013/09/19/1568-dutch-revolt-focus-of-36th-new-netherland-seminar/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00092-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924251 | 501 | 3.265625 | 3 |
What Stalin Knew
Just days before Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, Stalin refused to believe the detailed - and correct - intelligence from his own security agencies that the attack was imminent. He dismissed the urgings of his generals to take steps to safeguard the Russian homeland. Stalin's catastrophic blunder proved costly: his failure to act ultimately led to the deaths of millions.
This book is the first to bring out of the shadows the intelligence war between Hitler and Stalin during the years 1939 to 1941. Drawing on extensive Soviet archival material, much of it newly released, David Murphy presents abundant information about Stalin's world, his relations with his Kremlin colleagues and many enigmas that have surrounded the Nazi invasion. Of particular interest, Murphy uncovers two previously unknown letters from Hitler to Stalin in which the German leader asserts that Germany will never invade the Soviet Union. With documented revelations about what Stalin knew and complex analysis of how he thought, Murphy provides an unparalleled portrait of the mind of the dictator and the workings of the system over which he presided.
David E. Murphy was chief of CIA's Berlin base from the early 1950s to 1961 and then became chief of Soviet operations at CIA headquarters in the U.S.. He is the author of Battleground Berlin: CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War, also published by Yale University Press. | <urn:uuid:e377d935-e612-4db9-876a-84f4f7958792> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.history.ac.uk/history-online/book/isbn/0300107803 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403502.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00159-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968509 | 274 | 3 | 3 |
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a larger series about lesser-known religions called “Understanding Faith.” Today’s subject is the Nation of Islam. In the past, we’ve covered Chrislam and Sikhism, among other faith systems.
You’ve likely heard or read about the Minister Louis Farrakhan and his fiery sermons about race, politics and Allah’s impending wrath upon America (TheBlaze has covered Farrakhan extensively). But do you know much about the Nation of Islam (NOI) — the controversial faith system that the infamous preacher leads?
Patheos, a web portal that reveres itself as the WebMD of faith and religion, defines the NOI as a, “Religious and cultural community based on Islamic concepts that evolved in the 20th century in the United States out of various black nationalist organizations.”
Despite having the word “Islam” in its title, the faith system is not what one would think. Contrary to the centuries of Islamic history that have abounded, NOI is less than 100 years old. The religion’s roots date back to the 1930s, when Wali Fared (also known as W.D. Fard) set its foundations. At the time, Fard was going door-to-door in Detroit, Mich., selling goods and telling African Americans about his theological views.
After he disappeared in 1934 and was never heard of again (the church’s official web site refers to his disappearance as a “departure”), Fard passed leadership of the group to a man named Elijah Muhammad (real name: Elijah Robert Poole), who then led the denomination from 1934 until his death in 1975. Under Muhammad, Fard was revered as “the long-awaited ‘Messiah’ of the Christians and the ‘Mahdi’ of the Muslims” — a controversial claim to say the least.
Under Muhammad, some of the denomination’s most controversial ideas were manifested. He maintained that he was Allah’s prophet. Additionally, contentious ideas about whites commenced during his decades in NOI leadership. Later, though, his son, Warith Deen Muhammad, attempted to de-radicalize the group, bringing it back to a more mainstream version of Islam. Discontented with this decision, Farrakhan broke away to create the fiery branch that continues to captivate headlines.
Beliefnet provides this contentious history in more detail:
Elijah Muhammad taught that American blacks, a group that includes all people of color, were descended from the ancient tribe of Shabazz that had originally settled the holy city of Mecca, and that blacks and whites can share no real community. Malcolm X was his closest collaborator until a quarrel between the two men in 1964. Malcolm X then went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, where he saw people of every race worshiping side by side, and he became convinced of the hopelessness of racism.
He returned to the United States and founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity, which preached black nationalism but not black separatism. He was shot and killed while speaking to a large gathering in New York City in 1965. After Elijah Muhammad’s death in 1975, his son Warith Deen Muhammad radically transformed the Black Muslim movement, opening it to whites and renaming it the American Muslim Mission. In 1979, Louis Farrakhan broke away from the Mission, establishing the more radical Nation of Islam, which restricts membership to blacks and advocates a separate black social structure.
As Beliefnet notes, NOI’s focus is on the advancement and sustainability of non-whites. Considering Farrakhan’s sermons, which range from curious to troubling, this notion of an ethnic or race-based theology is evident. The faith leader and others in the nation often demonize Caucasians, referring to them as “the enemy” and decrying their mere existence.
Farrakhan has repeatedly said that the human race was originally black and that whites are, as Beliefnet notes, an “aberration.” Rather than preaching a message of unification, NOI calls for segregation and separatism. On the group’s web site, the denomination is clear that it wishes for African Americans to live separately from whites.
“We want our people in America whose parents or grandparents were descendants from slaves, to be allowed to establish a separate state or territory of their own — either on this continent or elsewhere. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to provide such land and that the area must be fertile and minerally rich. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to maintain and supply our needs in this separate territory for the next 20 to 25 years–until we are able to produce and supply our own needs.
Since we cannot get along with them in peace and equality, after giving them 400 years of our sweat and blood and receiving in return some of the worst treatment human beings have ever experienced, we believe our contributions to this land and the suffering forced upon us by white America, justifies our demand for complete separation in a state or territory of our own.”
Farrakhan and other leaders have maintained that whites were created by a renegade black scientist known as Yacub (some claim he is known as Jacob in the Bible). The church’s message has essentially been rooted in the notion that blacks are superior to their white counterparts, while regularly condemning whites and placing a major focus upon the horrific treatment African Americans once received in the U.S.
When NOI began, its members were implored to follow strict rules. In addition to being prevented from eating pork, they could not smoke or drink. Their clothing was conservative in nature and they were also forbidden from marrying outside of the race (something that still seems to be a rule of sorts, based on the NOI web site).
Beliefnet also contends that leaders within the movement once told members to avoid the draft, as the military was seen as a tool of white oppression. The group, as seen by Farrakhan’s continued visibility, has been successful.
“By turning racist ideas around to oppose whites, the movement has attracted many adherents and has had particularly good success in converting prisoners, criminals, and drug users,” Beliefnet notes. “Black Muslims have financed the construction of mosques, schools, apartment complexes, stores, and farms.”
Widely seen by other Muslims as an outside movement, the NOI, headquartered in Chicago, Ill. (Mosque Maryam), has brought itself more in line with mainstream Islam of late. Fasting for Ramadan and Friday prayers (rather than Sunday) are just two of the changes that were purportedly made to sync the denomination up with Muslim tradition.
In addition to referencing the Koran during his sermons, NOI reveres a number of other texts. Fard’s “The Secret Ritual of the Nation of Islam” and “Teaching for the Lost Found Nation of Islam in a Mathematical Way” — two booklets that he wrote before his disappearance — serve as guidance for members, among other texts.
A media outlet called Final Call also serves as a newspaper and online web site, offering members news and information through an NOI lens. As far as the Bible goes, the church believes that it must be interpreted so that alleged falsehoods that are presented in it can be corrected.
“We believe in the truth of the Bible, but we believe that it has been tampered with and must be reinterpreted so that mankind will not be snared by the falsehoods that have been added to it,” the NOI web site proclaims.
It’s difficult to pin down the number of adherents in NOI. A U.S.-centric faith, the majority of believers reside within the nation’s borders. While Beliefnet estimates that there are 100,000 people who embrace Farrakhan’s controversial theology, Patheos reports that the number is somewhere between 10,000 and 70,000, but calls that wide range “disputed.”
You can read all of the NOI’s “wants” and “beliefs” on the group’s web site. From a request that African Americans be exempt from taxes to a push for the release of Muslims held in federal prisons, the list is extensive.
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- See the Stunningly Insensitive Scavenger Hunt List That Allegedly Came From a College Frat | <urn:uuid:2dff00d1-b521-4ecb-bad0-2ebe68c411d6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/07/what-is-the-nation-of-islam-and-what-do-its-members-really-believe/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00142-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965132 | 1,902 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Labour Day or Labor Day is an annual holiday celebrated all over the world that resulted from the labour union movement, to celebrate the economic and social achievements of workers. The majority of countries celebrate Labour Day on May 1, and it is popularly known as May Day and International Workers’ Day
Most countries celebrate Labour Day on May 1, known as May Day and International Workers’ Day. In Europe the day has older significance as a rural festival which is predominantly more important than that of the Labour Day movement. The holiday has become internationalised and several countries hold multi-day celebrations including parades, shows and other patriotic and labour-oriented events. However, in Northern Europe, Walpurgis Night is celebrated on the preceding night and this holiday merges with the Labour Day in some countries.
May 1 is a national holiday in Albania, Argentina, Aruba, Austria, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, China, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Latvia, Lithuania, Lebanon,Macedonia, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Myanmar (Burma), Nigeria, North Korea, Norway, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, the Philippines (spelled as “Labor Day”), Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Serbia, Sweden, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
In Slovenia, Serbia and Ukraine, May 2 is also a national holiday.
In Poland, while May 1 is a national holiday, it was renamed from Labour Day to simply “State Holiday” in 1990 | <urn:uuid:7f42a284-ff86-44c4-9ba6-ff133a4f0551> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.apnimarzi.com/history-and-information-of-1st-may-labour-day | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00016-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929148 | 395 | 2.859375 | 3 |
The conference organized by PD Dr. Mischa Meier (Ancient History, Univ. of Bielefeld), PD Dr. Wolfgang Struck (Modern German Literature and Media, Univ. of Kiel) and Dr. Simona Slanicka (Medieval and Early Modern History, Univ. of Bielefeld) gathered a group of 25 participants in order to discuss a field which is widely known by the public, but scarcely investigated by modern scholarship. The main interest laid on the extent to which films treating ancient and medieval times can be seen as a medium to reflect contemporary issues, and on the question why specific reflections are referred to antiquity or the middle ages. In fact, the discussions in the sections showed that in these films history is presented only through quite elementary signs suggesting authenticity - such as dirt, blood and violence for the middle ages or red soldier-cloaks for antiquity. Thus, the films do not tell an authentic story against a 'real' background, but rather concentrate on playing with well-known signs, meanings, citations and interpretations. Furthermore, films treating ancient or medieval themes are a hybrid genre similar to operas, i.e., they recreate a reality of their own. They produce historical imagination rather than analyze history. | <urn:uuid:757c5617-1875-499c-b45f-6ee40065e9dd> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/ZIF/AG/2003/07-17-Meier.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00108-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93432 | 249 | 2.71875 | 3 |
What on Earth is Going on at West Lake Landfill?
When odors from the neighboring Bridgeton Landfill became so intense, residents began making calls. What they unearthed was shocking! They learned that the adjacent West Lake Landfill houses massive amounts of illegally dumped nuclear weapons waste from the Manhattan Project, the U.S. – the secret U.S. military program created in 1942 to develop the atomic bomb.
West Lake Landfill contains some of the world’s most toxic radionuclides, harmful in even microscopic amounts. These include Thorium-230, Radium-223, Uranium-235, Protactinium-231, Actinium-227, and Lead-210, some that will remain active for hundreds to thousands of years!
West Lake Landfill is not designed to safely house nuclear waste. It is unlined, in a floodplain, vulnerable to tornadoes and earthquakes, susceptible to fires, and close to heavily populated areas. The radioactive wastes are located on the surface of the landfill, not buried deep. The radioactive particles can migrate offsite via dust, smoke in the event of a surface fire, and through groundwater run-off. The landfill sits precariously just 1-1/2 miles from the Missouri River which eventually dumps into the Mississippi River.
And to make matters worse, there is currently a huge subsurface smoldering fire in the adjacent Bridgeton Landfill that is moving towards the nuclear waste in the West Lake Landfill! Never before has there been a situation like this. Experts are unsure what exactly will happen when the fire reaches the nuclear waste. Some predict a catastrophic event with the fire reaching the nuclear waste and producing smoke laced with nuclear particles that could spread across the region.
Watch this video to better understand the gravity of the situation at West Lake Landfill.
Even though West Lake Landfill was put on the National Priorities List and designated as a Superfund site on August 30, 1990 under the supervision of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), nothing yet has been done to remedy the situation. The best chance of cleanup would be by Congress voting to turn the responsibility of West Lake Landfill’s nuclear weapons waste over the the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ FUSRAP program.
Missouri Attorney General, Chris Koster, filed a lawsuit against Republic Services in March 2013 based on violations of eight Missouri environmental laws. It sought orders requiring it to extinguish the smoldering fire deep within the landfill and take action to control odors, emissions and hazardous liquid releases caused by the fire. A St. Louis Post-Dispatch article reports that, “Koster’s office says that Pelopidas, which Republic Services says it used to manage public relations,
“has ‘admissions’ by Republic employees or contractors that the smoldering fire “will indeed reach the radiologically impacted materials at one or both of the landfills.”
Homeowners and business owners feel betrayed that they were not made aware of this situation by government and city officials, or by the landfill owners – Republic Services. Their health is in jeopardy and their property values are at risk. And the uncertainty of it all is exhausting. The release of an Emergency Evacuation Plan by St. Louis County created even more anxiety among area residents and workers.
Perhaps Steve Johnson of Teamsters Local 688 in St. Louis, expresses it best:
“We demand that Republic Services and its biggest shareholder, billionaire Bill Gates, be held accountable. Instead of paying lobbyists to keep us trapped, we ask that Republic Services become part of the solution. We demand that our government put its full weight behind our communities—its constituents—and ask that the United Nations monitor a successful resolution to this environmental and social crisis.”
Please join Just Moms STL in our mission to obtain a “safe and permanent solution” for this serious issue. Read through the pages on this site to learn more. Visit the How to Help pages. This truly affects us all.
EPA Announces Radioactive Material Has Been Found in Unexpected Places at the Landfill
by The Associated Press
March 24, 2016
TRIAL DELAYED IN KOSTER LAWSUIT OVER BRIDGETON LANDFILL
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
March 4, 2016
“Koster’s office says that Pelopidas, which Republic Services says it used to manage public relations, has “admissions” by Republic employees or contractors that the smoldering fire “will indeed reach the radiologically impacted materials at one or both of the landfills.”
The next step in the fight is for the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the companion bill introduced by Congressman Lacy Clay and Congresswoman Ann Wagner.
Legislation: H.R.4100 – To require the Secretary of the Army, acting through the Chief of Engineers, to undertake remediation oversight of the West Lake Landfill located in Bridgeton, Missouri. | <urn:uuid:96eeede3-6ba9-48fd-a7e0-d813fc047015> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.stlradwastelegacy.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396538.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00033-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932211 | 1,042 | 3.1875 | 3 |
The Environmental Cost of Erosion
There are thousands of articles, anecdotes, and studies showing how severe erosion is affecting our precious shorelines.
If you have been fortunate enough to grow up near the beach, you've probably noticed how different the beaches look
today. You may have noticed how there is less wildlife or plantlife, or how the dunes seem smaller or are "protected" by being surrounded by snow fencing. You may remember having a "long walk on hot sand" to get to the water from the boardwalk.
And now, the boardwalk was pulled up or completely washed away.
You are not imagining it. Chances are good that you live in an area where erosion is eating away at the beaches and dunes. It's an epidemic affecting coastlines worldwide.
While it is sad to see for people who love their beaches, it is
devastating to the plants and animals that rely on healthy
shorelines for survival.
Beaches and dunes are a critical ecosystem, rich in bio-diversity. Healthy beaches that are growing (known as
being in a a state of "net accretion") provide a continuous supply of sand to build and maintain healthy dunes.
Here are a few reasons as to why healthy beaches are important:
(and what many of us
already lost to severe beach erosion)
- Stable beaches and dunes are a natural storm-buffer zone, protecting the land, homes and infrastructure.
- Dune grasses trap more and more windblown sand, helping to continuously grow the dunes. Plant life only thrives in stable environments.
- Beaches and dunes are critical nesting areas for turtles, horseshoe crabs, Grunion (Leuresthes Tenuis), countless crustaceans and migratory birds.
Beaches and wetlands are crucial to their survival.
- Wide beaches, dunes and wetlands are critical in slowing our fresh-water runoff.
- Shore plants absorb CO2 and nitrogen before it reaches the ocean. Chemicals, such as lawn fertilizers that run into storm sewers after a big rain, travel to the shoreline and pollute the nearshore causing algal blooms and contributing to hypoxia (low oxygen levels in the water that kill the animals that live there). Some types of algal blooms (like "red tide") are downright dangerous and toxic to humans.
- And probably the most important reason: Wide beaches and healthy coastlines provide a natural barrier that protects our inland fresh water table (drinking and irrigation water for our food) by preventing salination, contamination, and depletion.
Of course, let’s not forget that people LOVE to recreate at the beach and feel
connected to nature. Unfortunately, most of the beaches in the world are disappearing due to erosion.
But, there is hope.
There is a solution.
EnviroShore Systems has environmentally friendly technology that reverses beach erosion and builds beaches using nature’s wave energy - no dredging, no seawalls, and no rock groins. | <urn:uuid:95dcb701-7970-4e05-ad4f-165aed86146a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://enviroshoresystems.com/environmental_cost_of_erosion.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399425.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00023-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933442 | 635 | 3.609375 | 4 |
It is often during the elementary years that a child first experiences the death of a loved one – frequently a grandparent or great-grandparent, but sometimes and aunt, uncle, parent or sibling. These times can be very difficult and confusing for us as adults caring for elementary children. Younger children also suffer loss, but they may have an easier time accepting that this is just the way things are. It may be only much later that they revisit and truly comprehend the loss through a process of reflection.
As someone fully engaged with the great work of understanding how the world works, the elementary child is keenly interested in all aspects of death: how it happens, why it happens, what happens after death, in what way the family will commemorate the death, how the various family members will be affected, and much more. The reasoning mind of the second plane wants to understand all this, even as the child may be also suffering emotionally. For the grieving adult, the barrage of questions may be hard to take, and it may even seem that the child cares more about the factual details than about honoring the deceased or appreciating the emotional stress of the adults.
Maria Montessori wrote of a Montessori school in which first and second plane children were together in the same classroom. (She and her collaborators tried many different arrangements before settling on the one that is now our standard practice.) One morning the children arrived at school to find that all the fish in the classroom’s aquarium had mysteriously died. All the children were interested in what had happened, but the younger children would run to tell each new child that arrived at school, “The fish have died!” and then return to their work. The second plane children stood around in hushed groups asking each other, “What happened? Why did the fish die?” and debating the possible causes.
The point is that for the second plane child, understanding how to think about the death is an important part of beginning the emotional process of acceptance, grief and recovery.
Montessori teachers lay a foundation in the classroom for the second plane children’s conversations about death with each other and their parents. In the children’s study of living things, death is presented as a natural process, an inevitable part of each individual organism’s life, without which the larger world of life could not go on. The children become aware of lifecycles appropriate to each kind of living thing. Dead insects and small animals found on the school grounds are marked off and left to return to nature, so that the children can both show respect for and observe nature’s ways. Religious beliefs and customs around the world are a part of the children’s study of society, including beliefs and customs related to death.
Books read together with the child or read alone by the child and discussed with the parent can be very helpful when one is at a loss for words. Three of my favorites are Leo Buscaglia’s The Fall of Freddie the Leaf, Bryan Mellonie’s Lifetimes, and Chuck Thurman’s A Time for Remembering. The Buscaglia and Mellonie books beautifully depict the lifecycle and the great wheel of life and death. Thurman’s book is particularly suitable for discussing the death of a grandparent. In it, a boy finds a beautiful, symbolic way of remembering his grandfather. | <urn:uuid:58edffcb-c489-4996-84fc-db8447c22184> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mariamontessori.com/mm/?p=2011 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00065-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96755 | 696 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Bitesize Resourceshttp://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/poetryconflict/ Belfast ConfettiLearning ObjectiveTo learn how to identify key features of a poem anduse these to inform interpretations. AO1 (select and evaluate textual detail to illustrate and support interpretations) AO2 (explain how language, structure and form contribute to writers’ presentation of ideas and themes)
When do you see this? Belfast Confetti by Ciaran Carson Keyword Euphemism: A mild /Where is this? inoffensive word/phrase which replaces a more unpleasant or harsh one.
Ironic that ‘confetti’ Ironic use of the term usually symbolises a union ‘confetti’ that isof two people in love. Here associated with small pieces of metal celebration, subverted to symbolise ‘discord’ and a describe the debris from fracturing of society. the bomb Belfast Confetti Euphemism for miscellaneous The capital city of objects that wereNorthern Ireland where thrown during most of the ‘troubles’ street riots (nuts, took place bolts, nails etc)
The PoetPoet Ciaran Carson was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in1948. He suggests two influences on his poetry: his bilingualupbringing, and an unusual alertness to language. He showslanguage being used to enforce, to spy, and - broken into itsalmost meaningless constituent parts - to commit physicalviolence, when the bomb in Belfast Confetti is loaded withnot only ironmongery but "a fount of broken type."Violence, or its effects, often makes an appearance inCarsons poetry, whether this is found in historical warfare orthe more recent conflicts of Northern Ireland. Indeed,Carsons use of the street names of Belfast that allude tothese battles - "Balaclava, Raglan, Inkerman, Odessa Street" -underlines the violence of the Troubles.
The TroublesCarson was a young man in Belfast when the Troubles began in1969. ‘The Troubles’ refers to almost 30 years of violencebetween the Nationalists (mainly Roman Catholic) who wantedindependence from the UK and the unionists (mainlyProtestants) who believed in strengthening the political tiesbetween Northern Ireland and Britain. Armed paramilitarygroups, including the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA),made Belfast a terrifying place to live between 1969 and 1997and much of the violence took place around the ProtestantShankill Road and Catholic Falls Road areas. The Britishgovernment claimed that its forces were in Northern Irelandto keep law and order, but Irish republicans objected stronglyto the presence of the British soldiers.
Investigate and AnnotateIdentify the poet’s use of the features below and consider the intended/potential effect on the reader:1. Punctuation2. Structure3. Form4. Techniques5. Meaning6. What is the poem’s form, structure and meaning?
MeaningThe poem is written in the first person, giving a dramaticdescription of what it felt like to be caught up in the violentriots in Belfast in the 1970s. In the aftermath of an IRAbomb, there is chaos and the ‘riot squad’ moves in. In hisconfusion and terror the poet cannot find his way through themaze of Belfast streets that he usually knows so well. He’sstopped and interrogated by British soldiers, but is unable tocommunicate with them to answer their questions. Nothingmakes sense to him anymore.
Suddenly as the riot squad moved in it was raining exclamation marks,Nuts, bolts, nails, car-keys. A fount of broken type. And the explosionItself - an asterisk on the map. This hyphenated line, a burstThrown into themiddle of theaction, reflecting Use of liststhe persona’s conveys aexperience. sense of panic The whole poem is an This links to ‘next to of extended metaphor course’ as both poems show for the way that unusual variation of form, violent conflict language and use of punctuation. destroys language.
of rapid fire …I was trying to complete a sentence in my head, but it kept stuttering,All the alleyways and side streets blocked with stops and colons. Trying to escape but cannot. Suggests confusion, shock and disbelief. Fast paced/’urgent’ language contrasts with the careful use of language in ‘The Continual references Right Word’. to punctuation.
I know this labyrinth so well - Balaklava, Raglan, Inkerman, Odessa Street -Why can’t I escape?Every move is punctuated. Crimea Street. Dead end again. AmbiguityBelfaststreet names This links with ‘’next to of course’ as they both emphasise the pointlessness of conflict/war through creativity of punctuation and syntax.
A Saracen, Kremlin-2 mesh. Makrolon face-shields. Walkie- talkies. What isMy name? Where am I coming from? Where am I going? A fusillade of question-marks. Posing of questions suggests a lack of resolution or conclusion to the conflict This links to ‘The Right Word’ as both show doubt, use of language and the poets struggle to describe conflict. Both poets show concern with what role a poet can actually play in times where violence, not dialogue, is seen as a solution. The words that are their tools seem to fail them.
Key FeaturesStructure 2 stanzas- Stanza 1 = past tense; describes the violence and effects of being caught in the conflict.- Stanza 2 = present tense; brings the narrator back to what is happening and what he is experiencing.Form First Person Narrative and free verse poemLanguage Techniques enjambement, metaphor, extended metaphor, lists
Questions1. Explain the effect of irregular line lengths and incomplete sentences?2. Explain why you think the language changes from past to present between the 1st and 2nd stanza. Why has the poet done this?3. What does the speaker suggest about himself in the poem?
Further Questions1. Ciaran Carson states the importance of poetry telling a story. What is the story that he tells in this poem?2. What do you understand by the title of the poem? Is the title ironic?3. Consider the list of street names. Can you see any significance to their names?4. Consider the length of the lines of the poem and how they change. Why do you think Ciaran Carson writes in this style?5. What different emotions come across in the poem?6. How does Carson build up a sense of panic and claustrophobia?7. How is the craft of creating a poem mirrored in the events of the story of the poem?8. Why does the poem finish with three questions? | <urn:uuid:66e92e7f-4360-4204-82b5-20019a8cd41e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.slideshare.net/mrhoward12/belfast-confetti1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00077-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926995 | 1,450 | 3.890625 | 4 |
A security "noob" mistake has left the batteries in Apple's laptops open to hacking, which could result in a bricked battery or, in a worst case scenario, fire or explosion. This was revealed on Friday after Accuvant Labs security researcher Charlie Miller disclosed that he plans to detail the hack at the annual Black Hat security conference in early August.
We were curious as to how Miller, known for repeated hacks of Apple's Safari Web browser at the annual Pwn2Own hacking competition, stumbled upon this hack in the first place—after all, it is somewhat obscure and doesn't fall into what most people consider to be his typical focus area (browsers). Miller took time to answer our questions about what the hack is and how he found it, as well as what he plans to do when Black Hat rolls around.
Laptop batteries include microcontrollers which constantly monitor charging voltage, current, and thermal characteristics, among other properties. These microcontrollers are part of a standardized system called the Smart Battery System, designed to improve the safety of Li-Ion and Li-Poly cells used in these batteries.
According to Miller, these controllers can be hacked in a fairly straightforward manner. By reprogramming the microcontroller's firmware, a battery could report a much lower internal voltage or current, causing the charger to overcharge the battery. In Miller's testing, he was only successfully able to turn a series of seven $130 MacBook Pro batteries into expensive bricks, but he told Ars that it may be possible to cause fire or even an explosion.
"Lithium-ion batteries are potentially dangerous, and it's possible that futzing with the parameters could cause the battery to fail at best, or explode at worst," Miller said. "I know there are internal fuses and other safeguards to prevent that from happening, and I never did it myself, but there's certainly potential to get some malware to rewrite the smart battery firmware and cause some catastrophic failure."
As Miller noted, Smart Battery Systems include fuses which can disable cells if they reach dangerous internal voltages. But even these safeguards occasionally fail, resulting in toasted laptops.
Miller also told Ars that the battery firmware hack could be used to create a sort of "permanent" malware infection. Such malware, or a least a portion of it, could be installed in the microcontroller's flash memory. Even if an infected computer's drive were replaced and the operating system re-installed, it's possible that an exploit could allow the malware to be reloaded from a laptop's Smart Battery System firmware.
While the threat of un-installable viruses that cause laptop batteries to explode is highly unlikely, the truth is that the vulnerability exists in the first place because of a blunder on Apple's part. While researching potential vulnerabilities in the MacBook Pro's power management system, Miller inadvertently discovered that Apple used default passwords described in publicly available documentation on the Smart Battery System, which allows rewriting the firmware itself.
Miller began by trying to determine if it was possible to manipulate or control the battery charging system. He downloaded a battery firmware update that Apple released a couple years ago, and dug through its code to see how the system communicates with the Smart Battery System. Inside the firmware updater, he found a password and a command to "unseal" the microcontroller, which allowed the firmware updater to change some of the battery's parameters.
This particular updater, according to Miller, merely told the battery to always keep a slightly higher minimum charge in order to keep the battery from becoming unable to hold a charge after being unused for an extended period of time. But searching for the unseal command led Miller to the Smart Battery Charger Specifications. Digging through the documentation, Miller learned that the password Apple used to unseal the microcontroller was the default used in the specifications.
On a whim, Miller tried the default password to switch the microcontroller into "full access mode," sort of like an administrator account on your Mac. "Unlike the unsealed mode, in full access mode, I could change anything: recalibrate the battery, access the controller at a really low level, including getting the firmware or changing it," Miller said.
Miller downloaded the firmware and reverse engineered the microcontroller's machine code, bricking several batteries in the process. Eventually he was able to change the firmware to "always lie, like to say it wasn't fully charged even when it was."
The fact that Apple never bothered to change the default password is disconcerting, especially considering the effort Apple has made to beef up security in Mac OS X Lion. Lion's implementation of address space layout randomization (ASLR) is now "complete," according to Miller, making it nearly impossible to know where the OS has loaded system functions into memory. Furthermore, Safari—Miller's preferred exploit vector—is now divided into two sandboxed processes, one for the GUI and one for rendering Web content.
"That second process is sandboxed; it can't access your files and other stuff," Miller explained. "Even if you have browser exploits, the only way to do anything [useful] is to get out of the sandbox." Miller said that would mean finding a bug in the kernel itself. "That's not impossible... but it's definitely much harder with a sandbox than without.
"It's certainly going to be a lot harder to own a Mac at Pwn2Own next year," Miller admitted.
Miller speculated that Apple assumed that the battery would never be a target for hackers, and so kept the default passwords described in the documentation as a convenience. Unfortunately, that convenience has resulted in a potential headache for Apple laptop users. If other vendors stuck with the default passwords, those machines could be vulnerable as well, though Miller did not verify a successful hack on non-Apple hardware.
Miller handed his research over to Apple a few weeks ago to give the company time to come up with its own workaround before he presents his findings at the Black Hat conference on August 4. Miller has also written a Mac OS X tool that will generate a random password and store it in a battery's firmware—preventing future hacks, but also preventing future firmware updates—which will be released when he gives his talk at Black Hat. | <urn:uuid:9061b59a-0d52-43d9-bdcc-711feabd40a5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/07/how-charlie-miller-discovered-the-apple-battery-hackhow-a-security-researcher-discovered-the-apple-battery-hack/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398075.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00042-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952722 | 1,278 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Typically, dogs like going for walks, eating chicken, belly rubs and chasing squirrels. Sure there are exceptions, but these truths apply to most dogs. Similarly, there is general agreement among canines about what is undesirable, or even repulsive. At the top of that list is the smell of citrus.
Dogs’ distaste for oranges, lemons, grapefruit or the smell of same can be useful. Many dogs can be deterred from chewing on items that have been treated with citrus odors. (To be fair, a small percentage of dogs just consider these flavors to be the icing on the cake, so to speak, and are even more likely to go after any object covered with such an odor. This is nature’s way of preventing any of us from ever feeling confident that we know what is going on.) To see how your dog feels about these fruits, peel a messy orange so that your hands are covered with the sticky juice and put your fingers near your dog’s nose. If your dog backs away, making a face, then you’ve got a member of the citrus-hating majority. If your dog licks your fingers, then you don’t.
If your dog dislikes the smell of these acidic fruits, it may be possible to use the scent or juice of them as a deterrent. However, be mindful of using these odors to scent your home for your own pleasure. You may inadvertently be making your home smell as bad to your dog as a trash dump would to you.
This video shows Aspen turning away from an orange. She is among the citrus-hating majority of dogs. | <urn:uuid:fdbd0ac8-67bc-4d0c-9872-aa7dc3649f67> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://thebark.com/content/most-dogs-hate-smell-citrus?qt-most_popular=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393146.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00185-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957642 | 341 | 2.59375 | 3 |
|The bird and snake in this mola are examples of the colorful and
abstract depictions of animals common in this art form.
|Mola is the Kuna Indian word for blouse. The term has evolved to
refer to the appliqué panels that decorate the front and back of a Kuna Indian woman’s
blouse. For this reason, molas are often made in pairs that are variations of the same theme.
|Kuna Indian women from the San Blas Islands off the coast of Panama look to
many sources for mola designs. Geometric patterns similar to ancient body painting designs are the most traditional motifs. Many patterns depict
native flowers, plants, animals, and themes from Kuna legends. Modern design influences include comic books, posters, and TV cartoons.
Cotton is the preferred fabric—red, black, and orange are used as dominant colors with white as a contrast. Molas are created using a combination
of appliqué and reverse appliqué. The process begins by basting two to seven layers of various colors of fabric together and stitching a pattern on the top
layer. Starting with the largest element in the pattern, parts of the top layer are carefully snipped away. Details are created by cutting smaller designs to
reveal underlying accent layers. Raw edges are turned under and stitched down using a blind stitch.
|Inspired by molas in the textile collection of the Museum of International Folk Art at the Museum
of New Mexico, fabric designer Kathy Hall of Andover Fabrics created the Mola Stories fabric collection shown at
right. The designs are brightly colored geometric shapes and pictorial images of birds and animals. | <urn:uuid:b647ca6f-4213-49f2-8352-f5e726e52b8f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.fonsandporter.com/articles/about_molas_march_april_2006?bc=c | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398075.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00015-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916216 | 349 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Placentation in Horses
Implantation and Fetal Membranes
Early in gestation, between roughly day 12 and 15, the equine embryo is round and moves freely throughout the lumen of both uterine horns in response to uterine contractions. Such movement and contact between embryo and endometrium is thought to be a significant part of maternal recognition of pregnancy in horses. At approximately day 16 of gestation, a combination of an enlarged embryo and increased uterine tone leads to the embryo becoming fixed in one spot within the uterus. This process, appropriately enough, is called fixation.
The equine conceptus develops a full complement of extraembryonic membranes. For the first 3-4 weeks of gestation, however, the yolk sac of the equine embryo is quite large relative that that seen in most other mammals. During this time, a large portion of the surface of the embryo is composed of a choriovitelline layer. The allantois can first be seen at about day 20, after which it expands rapidly and soon provides the dominant blood supply to the fused chorioallantois. Through day 35 there is no discernible attachment of fetal membranes to endometrium. By day 40, the "conceptus pours hesitantly from the incised uterus", indictating the onset of attachment. Between this time and day 150 of gestation, the placenta develops to full maturity.
Gross Structure of the Placenta
The equine placenta is classified as diffuse. It involves the entire surface of the chorioallantois except for a small area adjacent to the cervix called the "cervical star", where attachment cannot occur.
The image below is of an equine conceptus at approximately 9 months of gestation, dissected away from the uterus. On the left is shown the unopened chorioallantoic surface which serves as the placenta. In the image on the right, both the chorioallantois and allantoamnion have been opened to expose the fetus. Note the rich vascularity of the allantoamnion, which is typical of equine pregnancies.
Microscopic Structure of the Placenta
On casual examination, the mature chorioallantois appears uniform in structure, but a closer look reveals the chorionic surface to be composed of thousands of polygonal structures 1-2 mm in size. These are microcotyledons, the fundamental unit of the fetal-maternal interface in the equine placenta. Microcotyledons consist of a cluster of highly vascularized chorionic villi which extend into elaborate invaginations of the endometrium. In the image to the right, two microcotyledons are depicted: the leftmost one shows chorionic villi pulled out of the endometrium, while that on the right is intact. Note how this arrangement brings fetal and uterine blood vessels into close contact.
The epitheliochorial nature of this interface remains intact throughout gestation, but there is a progressive thinning and flattening of the connective tissue and epithelial layers which brings the fetal and maternal blood supplies into closer apposition.
The microcotyledonary areas of the placenta allow efficient transfer of small molecules between fetal and maternal blood. The areas surrounding microcotyledons receive copious secretions from endometrial glands (not shown in the image above), which are apparently absorbed by the distinctly columnar chorionic epithelial cells in those areas. These channels, filled with "uterine milk", are referred to as arcades.
A unique feature of equine placentation is the development and ultimate degeneration of "endometrial cups". These structures are derivatives of embryonic trophoblast which secrete equine chorionic gonadotropin.
General aspects aspects of placental transport are similar to that seen in other species. Immunoglobulins are not transported across the placenta from dam to fetus, and therefore, barring fetal infections, the foal is born without circulating antibodies.
As is seen in all mammals, the equine fetoplacental unit elaborates both steroid and protein hormones. Except for primates, equids are the only animals that synthesize a placental gonadotropin. The relative levels of major hormones in a mare's serum during pregnancy are summarized in the following figure. Notice that hormones produced by both the ovaries and placenta are depicted. You can alter which hormones are depicted by checking or unchecking the boxes to the right of the figure.
Equine chorionic gonadotropin (eCG): This glycoprotein hormone is secreted by a part of the fetal placenta called endometrial cups. It turns out that eCG is actually equine luteinizing hormone, and is encoded by the same gene responsible for pituitary LH. In contrast to LH from most other species, equine LH/eCG possesses considerable follicle stimulating hormone-like bioactivity.
In pregnant mares, eCG is usually first detectable in blood between 35 and 40 days of gestation, rise rapidly to peak about 60 days, then decline slowly to become undetectable at about 120 days of gestation. The high blood levels of eCG during this time stimulate development of ovarian follicles. These follicles ovulate or luteinize, resulting in development of so-called secondary and accessory corpora lutea. In concert with the primary corpus luteum, these structures secrete sufficient progesterone to maintain pregnancy until placental progestin synthesis is adequate.
At one time, assays for eCG were popular for diagnosing pregnancy in mares, but this technique has been largely replaced by ultrasonic imaging, which allows much earlier diagnosis.
Equine CG is also known as pregnant mare's serum gonadotropin or PMSG. Due to its follicle-stimulating hormone-like activity, it has been widely used to induce superovulation in other animals, particularly in embryo transfer programs.
Progestins: The equine placenta appears not to synthesize progesterone. However, it secretes copious quantities of progestins (5-alpha-pregnanes), which serve the same function for maintainance of pregnancy. Toward the end of gestation, blood levels of these progestins are typically 100 times the maximal level of progesterone.
Estrogens: In has been known for many decades that mare urine contains high concentrations of estrogens during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy. Indeed, a large industry has developed for collection of pregnant mare urine, which is used to produce Premarin, an estrogen replacement therapy used widely by post-menopausal women.
The equine embryo begins to synthesize estrogens at roughly 12-14 days of gestation, well before development of the placenta. This early estrogen apparently does not escape the uterus and probably has only local effects. Estrogen levels in the serum and urine of pregnant mares begins to rise around day 60 of gestation, peaks at about day 200 and, in contrast to other species, declines during the remainder of gestation.
Estrogens are synthesized in the equine placenta from androgens that are produced by the fetal gonads. The gonads of both male and female fetuses synthesize and secrete into umbilical blood large quantities of the androgen dehydroepiandrosterone (DHA). Within the placenta, DHA is metabolized to a number of different estrogens, most prominently estrone, equilin and equilenin. Equilin and equilenin are estrogens that are apparently unique to pregnant equids.
Relaxin: Relaxin is a protein hormone that, in various species, is thought to act synergistically with progesterone to maintain pregnancy and to promote loosening of pelvic ligaments at the time of parturation. In horses, relaxin appears to be produced by the fetoplacental unit rather than the corpus luteum. It is detected in mare serum starting at about day 80 of pregnancy, and remains at high levels until term. The role of relaxin in equine pregnancy is not known with certainty.
References and Reviews
|Index of: Implantation and Development of the Placenta|
Last updated on February 17, 2000
|Author: R. Bowen|
|Send comments via form or email to firstname.lastname@example.org| | <urn:uuid:928b05d2-b467-4240-82d5-e1437e77cb9f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/reprod/placenta/equine.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397795.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00022-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917055 | 1,758 | 3.34375 | 3 |
This article/tutorial is the fifth in the series. In this part of the Getting To Grips Series we will be covering the following topics:
- Creating Paragraph Styles
- Applying Paragraph Styles
- Creating Character Styles
- Applying Character Styles
- Nesting Character Styles within Paragraph Styles
- Creating Object Styles
- Applying Object Styles
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We have briefly looked at some styles already in our Getting To Grips With InDesign series, so you should already know what they are. If you’re skipping directly to this article however, I’ll quickly tell you what they are. Styles can be applied to several different types of text and objects within your InDesign document. They provide a quick and simple way to create a style once, and then can be used over and over again, simply applying them to the text that you want to carry that style. They are particularly helpful for long documents such as magazines and newspapers, as these tend to carry several different styles throughout the design, but stay the same every week. Using styles in situations like these can save a lot of time as you don’t have to keep on recreating that “look”.
There are several different types of styles; paragraph styles for applying to blocks of text, character styles for applying to characters, and object styles for applying to objects such as shapes and images. Styles can also be globally updated, meaning you can update the style and all the objects that currently hold that style will also update.
How to Create and Apply Paragraph Styles
Paragraph styles can control almost every form of text formatting, so it is one of the most helpful styles you can use in InDesign. It can include character attributes such as sizes, fonts, styles and colors, as well as paragraph attributes such as alignment and hyphenation. Paragraph styles can only be applied to entire paragraphs of text. For more control over individual characters, see character styles (below).
To create a paragraph style, we need some text in an InDesign document! Open up InDesign, and layout some random dummy text into a text box.
To create a paragraph style, you first need to select some of your text and play around with type settings. I’m going to select my first paragraph. I’m going to give me text a spaced out look. I used Verdana Regular for my font, at size 11pt, with 16pt leading (the amount of space between each line of text). I also applied a tracking (the amount of space between each word) of 20 to the text. You can see how my text looks below, as well as the settings I used.
Go to Window > Type & Tables > Paragraph Styles to open the Paragraph Styles window.
With the Paragraph Styles window open, click on the Create New Style icon at the bottom of the window. Creating a new style this way requires you to completely re-style your text.
A new paragraph style should be created, and will automatically be called “Paragraph Style 1“. Double-click on this style to open up the Paragraph Style Options window.
As you can see, there are a bunch of different tabs on the left-hand side of your Paragraph Style Options window which allow you to modify your style. You can change anything and everything from your font, size, leading, tracking, kerning, scaling, indents and spacing, tabs, hyphenation, justification, bullets and numbering styles and a handful of other stuff. You change these styles according to your needs, and then click the OK button to save them. It’s also a good idea to rename your style.
There is in my opinion a much nicer way to create paragraph styles, based on a paragraph that already exists. Take our first paragraph for example that we styled earlier. If you leave your text insertion point cursor in the center of your text, and then click on the drop-down options menu in the Paragraph Styles window, you should see the following selection:
Select New Paragraph Style. You’ll see in the Style Settings area that your style has actually picked up your existing styles: “[No Paragraph Style] + next: [Same style] + Verdana + size: 11 pt + leading: 16 pt + tracking: 20” – these settings are the exact same as the styling we added to our first paragraph. Simply change the name of the style, and click OK to save the style.
Select the rest of your text in the text box by highlighting it all.
Click on your Paragraph Style once to apply the styling to the rest of your text.
The style can be applied to just one paragraph at a time, or several. Whole text boxes can also be selected individually or as a pair (by holding the Shift-Key to select multiple items) and had the same style be applied to them, although this overwrites any text that previously had styles, so you should avoid this option if your headings have different styles, which I assume they do!
How to Create and Apply Character Styles
Character styles are virtually the same as paragraph styles, however they can be applied to a single character (letter), word, or a group of words, such as a quote or an instruction.
To open up the Character Styles window, go to Window > Type & Tables > Character Styles. As you can clearly see, the Character Styles windows looks virtually identical to the Paragraph Styles window, and even automatically merges into the same window (as a second tab) as the Paragraph Styles window.
Creating a character style – just like everything else – is the same as creating a paragraph style. You can either style some already existing text and then base a new style on that text, or you can create one from scratch. This time, we’re going to create one from scratch. Click on the create new style icon, and then double-click on the new style to open up the Character Style Options window.
This window also looks very similar to the Paragraph Style Options window, however there aren’t quite as many options due to only being a character style, meaning we don’t get any paragraph style options such as alignment or bullet/numbered lists.
Rename your style to “Quote“. We’re going to base this style on the paragraph style we created earlier, however we’re going to make it stand out a little more so that it can be spotted easily. The style will be used for quotes.
Click on the Basic Character Formats tab on the left-hand side of the Character Style Options window, and select Verdana from the font family drop-down list. Change the font style to Bold Italic, and the size and leading to 12pt and 16pt. We also want to underline our text, so tick on the underline box.
Click on the Character Color tab, and select pure 100% magenta for your color (or of course a color of your choice!).
Hit the OK button to save your character style. Select a word or group of words in your paragraph, and click on your character style once to apply the style.
How to Nest Character Styles inside Paragraph Styles
Nesting your character styles inside a paragraph style allows you to make your styles much more useful. This technique is often used for magazines and newspaper for a reason that I am about to share: Nested styles allow you to apply character styles to portions of a paragraph, whether it be the first letter, the first word, or the first sentence – something that you commonly see in a magazine or newspaper to help draw in the viewers attention with a whopping first line, this is commonly known as a “run-in heading” as it runs you into the rest of the paragraph and/or story.
To be able to create a nested style, you will already need a paragraph style and a character style, which we already have. However, we want to create a new character style for our nested style, which will be the first sentence of our paragraphs. Create a new character style has we have just done.
We’re now going to apply our new character style as a nested style to our main paragraph style. Open up the Paragraph Styles window by going to Window > Type & Tables > Paragraph Styles. Double-click on your main paragraph style to open up the Paragraph Style Options window. On the left-hand side of the window, select the Drop Caps and Nested Styles tab.
Click on the New Nested Style button to create a new nested style. Click on “[None]” to open up a drop-down menu and select your new character style to nest.
The other options, such as “through“, “1” and “words” are also all hidden drop-down menus. I want my nested style to apply to the first sentence of each paragraph, so change these options to do that.
Click the OK button to save your style. This will automatically apply our nested style to all of our paragraphs that currently have that paragraph style applied to them. In this case, that’s all of them. You may may only want to apply this effect to your first paragraph, in which case you will need two paragraph styles; one for your first paragraph that contains a nested style for the first sentence, and one for all your other paragraphs that doesn’t contain a nested style – one can be called “First Main Paragraph” and the other “Main Paragraph“.
How to Create and Apply Object Styles
Object styles are just like text styles, apart from they allow you to automatically and globally update the formatting settings to objects such as graphics and frames. The formatting attributes include things such as fill, stroke, transparency, text wrap options and several others. These styles – just like all the other styles we have looked at – make it quick and easy to keep the consistency of your design going throughout your document, whether it be a brochure, magazine or book.
First of all, we need an object to apply our object style to! Create a few random shapes using the various shape tools.
Click on one of your shapes, and fill it with a color – I’ve chosen green with a black stroke. Go to Objects > Effects > Inner Shadow.
Play around with some settings, and also add any other styles you feel like adding. I’ve used an inner shadow and a drop shadow, both of which can be seen below.
Click the OK button to save the effects.
Go to Window > Object Styles to open up your Object Styles window. Click on your styled shape, and then F from the options drop-down menu, select New Object Style…
As with other styles, doing this whilst having an already styled object selected will automatically base your new object style on the already existing style. All you have to do is rename your style name to something suitable (such as “Green Shape“) and click the OK button.
Click on your other objects whilst holding the shift-key to select them all at once, and then click once on your new new object style to apply the styling attributes to your new shapes.
Styles are a super easy and quick way to produce the same effect in InDesign, and almost every designer who uses InDesign on a day-to-day basis will likely have hundreds of styles wrapped up for individual projects that they need to revisit, or even for long one-off documents. If you have any questions regarding InDesigns styles feature, please don’t hesitate to ask them in the comments below!
- Part 1: Document Basics & Master Pages
- Part 2: Working With Text & Graphic Frames
- Part 3: Importing Text and Playing With Typography
- Part 4: Working With Color | <urn:uuid:856633d0-18b6-4bba-a388-9cde3b1a6d2a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://spyrestudios.com/indesign-part-5-playing-with-styles/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393463.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00196-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915927 | 2,492 | 2.765625 | 3 |
of the Belize Disaster and Rescue Response Team are fighting to save
lives, at 18,000 feet on the glacier leading to K2, the World’s most
dangerous mountain in northern Pakistan.
Walter Santos and Lynwen Griffiths, both members of the
Belize Disaster and Rescue Response team, were selected to join a
multi national medical response team to escort a National Geographic
/ NASA science team to K2, located in the Himalayan Mountain range
in northern Pakistan.
On their trek up the glacier to the K2 range, they found
themselves, as well as up to 12 other international expeditions
engulfed in one of the most fierce storms of the decade. Reports
from the expedition via satellite phone have informed us that up to
100 persons have died this season during attempts to reach the
mountain. Many of these deaths have been caused by altitude sickness
and sudden storms, with temperatures during the day reaching close
to 100°F. and as low as minus 20°F. at night. High temperatures
during the days have caused many of the ice walls along the glacier
route to collapse into the valley below were the expeditions are
trekking causing havoc and mayhem.
“There is a constant cracking of ice all around us, day and
night. I am awoken many times throughout the night to the jolts of
the ice cracking. We are waiting for the moment that we are simply
swallowed by the cracking glaciers, expecting to disappear forever,
it’s horrifying,” says Walter Santos via satellite phone.
The medical team, while trapped by the storm, has been
reaching out to other expeditions much worse off than themselves. At
last report, The Belize Disaster and Rescue Response Team members
are responsible for administering life saving medical attention,
saving dozens of lives of other international expedition members.
“We have come across some expeditions who are already low on
food, we have been sharing some of our own food with them to bring
them back to health. Many members of other expeditions have suffered
from altitude sickness and we have utilized our equipment to save
their lives” Walter went on to report.
One piece of this equipment is the Gamow Bag used to wrap up
the persons with altitude sickness, then pumped up the device to
bring their bodies back down to a lower altitude pressure. The bag
can simulate altitude down to 6000' by the pressure it provides.
This device was purchased by our Medical team in case of altitude
sickness for themselves, but has been used instead to save the lives
of over 40 others suffering from altitude sickness and trapped in
Every Member of this 15 member Medical Rescue Team has been
trained by the Belize Disaster and Rescue Response Team.
Reports are that almost 100 persons have died altitude
sickness and in the storms this year alone but right now, Belize is
there saving lives.
This K2 expedition has been sponsored in part by Ian
Anderson, Belize Diesel (Toyota), The Belize Tourist Board, Caves
Branch Jungle Lodge, N.A.S.I.G., AdventuresInBelize.com and various
individual donors, however, any other donations to support our team
would be gratefully received. Contact via email:
(Story submitted by Ian Anderson from Caves Branch Jungle | <urn:uuid:d789fad3-4df3-46b0-84db-40dae9ca5010> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cavesbranch.com/pressroom_archive/k2-sanpedrosun1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396887.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00080-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950269 | 707 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Insurgency and counterinsurgency are not new to Americans. People often forget that the American Revolution was an insurgency by colonists against the British crown. In South Carolina, Frances Marion, the so-called “Swamp Fox” who hid with his band of guerrillas in the woods and led raids against British troops, is considered an American hero. Likewise, during the American Civil War, southern “partisans” such as John Mosby, of Mosby’s Rangers, became infamous for their successful guerrilla tactics against Union soldiers.1
Americans have an even more extensive history as counter-insurgents –with a mixed record of success.2 Early American expansion led to a number of bloody engagements between the Army (and sometimes the Marines) and various Native American tribes in the Northwest Indian War (1785-1795), in the Creek and Seminole Wars that followed in the South, and in the many famous clashes with the Sioux, the Comanche, and others in the West throughout the 1800s. Many of the lessons learned through trial and error on the American frontier were handed down through word of mouth by soldiers who brought their personal experiences from one fight to the next.
This nearly uninterrupted string of guerrilla and counter-guerrilla operations informed the U.S. military’s approach in later conflicts, including the guerrilla elements of the Civil War and its aftermath; the Mexican-American War of 1846-48; the Spanish-American War and the long struggle against Filipino insurgents from 1898 to at least 1910.3 The Marine Corps leveraged the only doctrine the Army had up to that point (Small Wars and Punitive Expeditions)4 in the so-called Caribbean “Banana Wars,” and ultimately recorded its lessons learned from that experience as doctrine in the 1940 publication of the Small Wars Manual.5
Janine Davidson wrote this paper while a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings. | <urn:uuid:623ef158-a3cc-4740-ba69-ce95a562810f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2009/06/08-counterinsurgency-davidson | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00033-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969401 | 394 | 3.65625 | 4 |
Barn Preservation Society
to the Study and Preservation
of New World Dutch Barns
SPRING 2000, Vol. 13, Issue 1, Part Two
By Harold Zoch
Here in the Schoharie Valley we have been viewing and documenting
barns. Many of the observations and documentation were extremely
important since these are all that remains of the barns. I estimate
that 30 to 40 percent of our barns are gone. From the original
Palatine settlement of Hartmans Dorf six of seven barns that were
there are gone.
have shown the evolution of the barns from original settlement
to present day. In addition we have seen associated artifacts and
structural features which may be unique to Schoharie Valley. We
hope that via this article we will get response showing like artifacts
in other areas and perhaps some idea of their use. As an example
I have not found a Dutch Barn with doors on both gabled ends in
A typical unmodified Dutch Barn in this area would be a four bay
approximately 40 feet square. The granary would be located in the
back right bay. It appears the first modification is to add another
bay on the back end. Back here refers to the end opposite the gabled
door end. The next modification appears to add a side door on the
right side to the original back bay. This was the back bay prior
to the addition of the fifth bay. Within this sequence perhaps
the addition of a second door, for drive through, to the opposite
side, follows or perhaps is concurrent with this last modification.
Modification for side doors are easily spotted as modifications
to existing structures. Later in time it appears side doors are
no longer modifications but part of the original structure. The
greatest modification in the Schoharie Valley to Dutch Barns is
the addition of another barn perpendicular to the original barn
forming a "T" on the back end. All of this type appear
to be modifications and not original configurations.
As a side note here I have found one German or English Barn,
I do not know the difference,
with 1790 nails in the original siding, making them contemporary
with Dutch Barns here.
Artifacts and Structural Features Described here are two separate
observations. The first is a pole approximately 15 feet long that
has a crochet hook shape on one end. The hook is on the larger
diameter end. These have been seen in three barns all within 5
miles of each other. The hook end does not show signs of ware.
One barn contained two another barn, now gone, had one and our
barn at the Old Stone Fort has one. Photos here show configuration.
The second is a structural feature that has been observed on
three Dutch Barns. The three were within a dozen miles of each
other, two adjacent to each other. One is gone.
The second feature is associated with the gabled end large door
frame. Within the large door frame holes are observed in the sill
and the end anchor beam. These holes are about 3 inches in diameter.
The holes are located about 3 inches inboard of the door post in
the sill and overhead end anchor beam. I have
found only one remaining in a sill but have no doubt others were
present. Sill replacement or repair probably accounts for the loss
of others. The remaining one is very important because it shows
a circular wear pattern associated with the hole- see photo.
documenting barns I always look for the worn tenon in the center
of the anchor beam. In the gabled end door opening. Most of the
companion holes are usually missing again probably due to sill
ware or repair. These holes described here show no ware, except
for door support poles. The only wear found was associated with
the one remaining one in the sill.
From the beginning, based
on their location, the thought of affiliation with the door arose.
If two saplings, like the door center support pole, were placed
in these holes perhaps a door could be fastened to these saplings
or polls. Perhaps the circular wear pattern in the photo supports
this idea. The door in this configuration could be opened inward
The purpose of any documentation
is to record and provide for discussion. Has anyone else observed
similar artifacts or structural features?
CAPACITY OF THE BARN
By R. J. Andersen
When the colonial farmer graduated from the barrack storage
structure to the 5 bay American-Dutch Barn he increased his storage
capacity more than 10 fold. The barrack capacity was said to be
10 tons. (Shirley Dunn, DBPS News Letter, fall 1989, page 4.) Using
the drawing below,the barns capacity can be calculated starting
with its total volume:
Length x Width x Average Ht. = Volume
50 x 50 x 26 = 65,000 Cu. Ft.
We must deduct the threshing floor which is not usually used for
storage, 50 x 28 x 12 = 16,800 Cu. Ft. Total 65,000 Threshing FIr.
Storage 48,200 Cu. Ft.
There must be allowance for framework and head space, so that
the maximum, actual storage space is more like 75%.
75% x 48,200 = 36,150 Cu. Ft. Wheat
It would be simple to calculate how much straw (400 Cu. Ft. per
ton) or how much grain (1.24 Cu. Ft. per Bu.) could be contained
in the 36,150 Cu. Ft., however the sheaves of wheat contain a mixture
of both. Therefore a problem arises as to the compromise between
the two. Old wheat (1680) had long straw and short yield. New wheat
(1990) has short heavy straw and long yield. The modern day wheat
is bred to resist lodging. Present day yields are easy to come
by, but assumptions must be made in the case of old wheat. When
the author weighed a few stalks of wheat (1998) he found that straw
and grain were of equal weight. This was verified in an interview
with the Hillman brothers, of Selkirk, NY, the last wheat growers
in Albany county, I was told-that their yields were 60 Bu. of grain
per acre and 100 bales of straw, at 36 lbs. each. This amounts
to 3600 lbs. of grain and 3600 lbs. of straw. We are going to assume
that old wheat had the same grain to stalk relationship, 50/50.
Wheat in the barn consists of bundles of straw with grain attached.
Using common tables, weights are as follows:
Straw at 400 Cu. Ft. per ton (2000 lbs.)
Grain at 60 Lbs. per Bushel (1.24 Cu.Ft.)
One Cu. Ft. of straw weighs 5 Lbs. One Cu. Ft. of grain weighs
48 Lbs. And
10 lbs. of straw occupies 2.0 Cu. Ft. 10 lbs. of grain occupies
.21 Cu. Ft.
20 lbs. of crop occupies 2.21 Cu. Ft.
9 lbs. of crop occupies 1 Cu. Ft.
The net crop space of 36,150 Cu. Ft. enabled the farmer
to store 325/350 lbs., one half of which is grain, or 162,675 lbs.
This is 2711 Bu. of grain, at 60 lbs. per bu.
At an average yield of 10 Bu. per acre, it would require 271
acres of wheat to fill the barn.
Wemp Barn with Barrack, Feura Bush, NY
Dutch Barn Preservation Society
The Mabee Farm Historic Site
1080 Main St. (Rt. 5S)
Junction, NY 12150
Phone: (518) 887-5073
© 2007. Dutch Barn Preservation Society. All rights reserved.
All items on the site are copyrighted. While we welcome you to
use the information provided on this web site by copying it, or
downloading it; this information is copyrighted and not to be reproduced
for distribution, sale, or profit. | <urn:uuid:e953eefe-4738-4f50-ac38-cbc63f1b2b8f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://dutchbarns.info/dbpsnewssp00pt2.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00166-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931248 | 1,725 | 2.609375 | 3 |
For the Consumer Specialty Products Association Microbiology Preservative Subcommittee
The formulation of household products, including laundry detergents, fabric softeners, stain removers, pre-spotters, hard surface cleaners and air fresheners, requires effective preservation technologies to guard against the potential for microbial spoilage. Unpreserved formulations may be susceptible to microbial contamination if the chemical composition of the finished product provides an environment suitable for microbial growth. Likewise, the improper selection of a preservation package may continue to leave the product at risk for microbial spoilage.
The Microbiology Preservative Subcommittee (MPS) of the Consumer Specialty Products Association (CSPA) is committed to developing best practices and standards to guide the industry in manufacturing consumer and industrial products of acceptable microbial quality. This article provides an overview of the critical elements a product manufacturer should consider during the formulation of water-based household products.
One of the key areas for selecting an effective preservation package includes understanding the impact of a formula’s components on the microbial susceptibility of the product. The formulator should assess the compatibility and effectiveness of a preservative during the development of a product. The inclusion of effective microbial control practices for maintaining adequate industrial hygiene should be considered. Balancing these considerations enables manufacturers to ensure the adequate shelf life of formulations, which may inherently possess a higher level of microbial susceptibility.
Water is an essential requirement for microbial growth, and it is a major ingredient in many consumer products. Several key ingredients used to formulate household products provide essential nutrients required for microorganism growth; these include surfactants, dispersants, rheology modifiers, enzymes and fragrances. The product’s pH is another important factor that affects the ability of microorganisms to thrive. The typical pH range for bacterial growth is pH 4 to 9, while fungal growth generally occurs within a range of pH 3 to 10. Microorganisms present in manufacturing environments are often acclimated to thrive beyond these limits of pH. In fact, environmentally isolated microbes have been known to persist within a pH range of 2.5 to 10.5. Figure 1 displays the pH range for bacteria and fungi (which includes yeast and mold), as well as acclimated microorganisms in the manufacturing environment.1 Also displayed are the typical pH ranges for household products requiring protection from bacterial and fungal contamination.
Many water-based household products provide conditions that are favorable for the rapid growth of microorganisms when improperly preserved. As manufacturers work toward formulating products that are more pH neutral, the risk of microbial contamination tends to increase within these products. The rigorous process of ensuring the microbiological quality of finished formulations requires a multi-faceted approach. An effective industrial microbial control program consists of four essential aspects:
- Use of effective and product-compatible preservatives;
- Microbiological evaluation of preservation systems;
- Routine microbiological monitoring of the manufacturing environment, finished product and raw materials (ingredients); and
- Regularly scheduled cleaning and sanitization programs in the manufacturing facilities.
Preservatives typically represent only a minor portion of a household product’s total formulation. In fact, preservatives are often included as less than 0.1% of the final formula but can have significant benefits to the product. Microbial contamination can destroy a formulation’s stability and performance. For example, acidic by-products generated during microbial growth can greatly affect the pH of formulations. Within cleaning products, this can decrease the cleaning efficiency and formulation homogeneity of the product. Microbial growth can also result in odor and/or color formation affecting the overall aesthetics of the product.2 Exposing any consumers to microbial contamination should be avoided, but this is especially important for immunosuppressed individuals. In fact, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced recalls of contaminated products based on this risk.3
A list of commonly used preservatives (biocides) which have been registered by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for use in household products is provided in Table 1 (see p. 84). These “traditional” or synthetic preservatives are organized within this table by chemical classification, which also includes information regarding the microbial spectrum of activity, optimal pH conditions for activity (performance), and EPA registered minimum and maximum use rates for these active ingredients.4
The described preservatives’ active ingredients and their blends are thoroughly evaluated by the EPA on a routine basis to ensure they meet federal safety standards to protect human health and the environment. Preservatives (pesticides, biocides, microbicides) are required by federal law to be registered with the EPA under authority of the Federal, Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) enacted in 1947 and amended in 1996 (7 U.S. C §136 et seq, (1996)). The EPA classifies preservatives as antimicrobial pesticides. FIFRA “requires special tests to ensure efficacy of public health pesticides when the pests are invisible disease-causing microbes rather than insects or rodents that may be harboring disease organisms.”5
Before selling or distributing an antimicrobial pesticide, a registration must be obtained from the EPA. The EPA requires the applicant to conduct numerous scientific studies including exposure assessments, toxicological studies, environmental fate determinations, product chemistry and in-use microbicidal efficacy. These evaluations allow the EPA to ensure that the antimicrobial pesticide, when used according to label directions, can be used with a reasonable certainty of no harm to human health and without posing unreasonable risks to the environment.
The EPA completes both human health and ecological risk assessments based on the applicant’s submitted data. There are several programs used by the EPA to ensure the periodic review of registered antimicrobial pesticides. The agency continues to expand its data requirements for registration based on use and applications. The current time to register a new preservative is typically 18 months with an investment of several million dollars.6
Unlike conventional preservatives that are EPA registered, the majority of more “natural” alternatives, such as organic acids, essential oils, and plant extracts are not EPA registered and may lack safety, toxicological, microbicidal efficacy and environmental data. Additionally, the agricultural supply of natural alternatives is likely to be variable, which may impact the chemical composition and/or concentration of the active ingredients.7
Consumers place significant, and sometimes, contradictory demands on product manufacturers. The demand for increased use of environmentally acceptable ingredients must be coupled with the expectation of protecting the final product against the potential for microbial spoilage throughout the product’s use life.
Consumers often make purchasing decisions that are fully or partially based on ecolabeling. Within the consumer and industrial products industry, some relevant ecolabeling organizations include the EPA’s Design for the Environment (DfE), Natural Products Association and Green Seal, to name a few. The EPA’s Design for the Environment (DfE) symbol, which is a predominant ecolabel for household products in the US, is highlighted as an example within the remainder of this article.
Manufacturers want to meet and exceed customer expectations by certifying their products with DfE while simultaneously maintaining their current standards of product quality and effectiveness. This balance between adequate preservation and ecolabel certification can be challenging. DfE classifies preservatives (and other chemicals) by one of four categories per the Safer Chemical Ingredients list, and these include:
- Low concern based on experimental and environmental data as designated by a green circle;
- Expected to be of low concern but additional data is necessary to improve the confidence of the assessment as designated by a green half circle;
- Considered an area for safer chemistry innovation due to the chemical’s hazard profile as designated by a yellow triangle; and
- Not acceptable for use in products that are candidates for the DfE label as designated by a gray square.8
The current status of some preservatives in DfE-certified products is shown in Figure 2. The microbial efficacy and pH compatibility are shown and color-coded for organic acids and the isothiazolinone-containing preservatives. Areas of preservative performance overlap with the pH ranges of the household products to be preserved. The illustration in Figure 3 moves one step further to depict a scenario in which all preservatives in the third DfE category (considered an area for safety innovation) are no longer permitted.
For example, if organic acids are the only preservative options for household product manufacturers, there will be considerable gaps in efficacy depending on a product’s pH. Lower pH formulations (pH 2 to 6) will have some gaps in protection against bacteria. More significant is the situation for formulations with a pH > 6. There will be gaps in protection against both bacteria and fungi. These gaps may limit a manufacturer’s flexibility in formulating products with the desired quality, aesthetics and performance. There is a need to balance the functional requirements of product preservation with the environmentally favorable expectations of product formulation. A holistic approach to understanding product preservation requirements may potentially allow for a structured framework for assigning environmentally acceptable status to “traditional” or synthetic microbicidal active ingredients.
During the development of household product formulations, preservatives are often added to those products determined to be susceptible to microbial contamination. Manufacturers perform preservative efficacy testing, commonly known as challenge testing, by successively insulting the preserved product with a microbial challenge. This testing provides an indication of the ability of the preservative to protect the product from microbial spoilage during the manufacturing process as well as throughout the consumer-use life of the product. As an additional benefit, this testing allows the formulator to more efficiently preserve household products by avoiding the addition of excessive preservative beyond the determined effective level.9
Minimizing or reducing the overall bio-burden introduced during the manufacturing process contributes to the overall microbiological quality of household products and can result in more efficient use of preservatives or preservative systems. Routine/periodic microbiological monitoring of raw materials (ingredients), finished product formulations, and the plant environment provides data that allow for identification of potential sources of bio-burden or areas of concern.
This information is a trigger for cleaning and sanitization activities that reduce bioburden, improve the efficiency of the preservative use and ensure the microbiological quality of household products. When there is a situation of microbial contamination in manufacturing equipment, raw materials, or a final product before it is released from the facility, a rapid-acting biocide may be used for decontamination and/or recovery. Typically, chemistries such as 2,2-dibromo-3-nitrilopropionamide (DBNPA) and quaternary ammonium compounds are used for decontamination. Sodium hypochlorite (commonly referred to as bleach) can also be used for equipment cleaning, but incompatibilities prevent its use with raw materials or final products. These chemistries are not listed in Table 1 because they are typically not considered long-term preservatives; rather, they fill a unique and very important niche for product manufacturers as rapid-acting chemistries.
The authors are unaware of a non-conventional biocide that fits in the rapid decontamination category. In a survey conducted by CSPA, it was determined that manufacturers of household products understand the importance of minimizing bioburden using the approach described herein.10
In general, household products that have not been adequately preserved provide favorable conditions for microbial growth by bacteria and fungi (including both yeast and mold), depending on the product’s pH. The practice of microbiological monitoring of the manufacturing environment, raw materials, and finished household products, along with effective cleaning and sanitization programs, help minimize the potential of microbial contamination. However, the use of preservatives is still an essential component of a microbial control program due to the high water content, moderate pH and availability of nutrients in many household products. Some of the most commonly used preservatives for household products are chemically well understood, efficiently used (just a minor component of the overall household formulation) and have been thoroughly tested to meet the requirements of the EPA to ensure protection of human health and the environment.
- Paulus, W. (1993). Microbicides for the Protection of Materials. A Handbook. p. 454. London, UK :Chapman and Hall.
- About cleaning products website. http://www.aboutcleaningproduct.com/ingredients/preservatives/
- Paulus, W. (2005). Directory of Microbicides for the Protection of Materials. A Handbook. Netherlands: Springer.
- Browne, B. A., Geis, P., Rook, T. (2012). Conventional vs. natural preservatives. Happi http://www.happi.com/issues/2012-05/view_features/conventional-vs-natural-preservatives/
- DfE’s Safer Chemical Ingredients List. http://www.epa.gov/dfe/saferingredients.htm#about
- Machtiger, N.A., et al. Determination of the Efficacy or Preservation on Non-Eye Area Water-Miscible Cosmetic and Toiletry Formulations: Collaborative Study. Journal of AOAC International 84:101-109, 2001.
- Geis, P., Rook, T. (2010). Microbiological Quality of Consumer Products. Happi http://www.happi.com/contents/view_features/2011-05-03/microbiological-quality-of-consumer-products/ | <urn:uuid:78daae03-3d1e-4f53-b919-644f3813a55d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.happi.com/contents/view_features/2014-05-02/critical-elements-of-household-product-preservation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00003-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9121 | 2,793 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Science subject and location tags
Articles, documents and multimedia from ABC Science
Friday, 13 August 2010
Scientists say fish on Australia's east coast are moving further south in line with an increase in ocean water temperatures.
Tuesday, 10 August 2010
Snail venom in a pill could offer powerful relief for people who suffer from severe and chronic pain.
Monday, 2 August 2010
A new theory has been put forward to explain the accelerating expansion of the universe, without the need for dark energy.
Monday, 26 July 2010
Australian researchers have developed a needle-free, dissolving vaccination that could be mailed out to households during a pandemic.
Friday, 16 July 2010
Australian scientists have discovered bizarre deep-sea life hundreds of metres down in the seas around the Great Barrier Reef.
Thursday, 15 July 2010
Researchers have unearthed a treasure trove of fossils that contains individuals of an ancient marsupial species ranging from birth to adulthood.
Friday, 9 July 2010
Australian scientists say they have unearthed the remains of a bizarre, prehistoric, carnivore in an ancient former rainforest, where specimens stretch back 25 million years.
Monday, 21 June 2010
Tiny genetic changes are responsible for almost half of the variation in height between individuals, scientists have announced.
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
The fairytale Little Red Riding Hood has inspired Australian scientists to invent a new weapon in the fight to save endangered native marsupials from being poisoned by cane toads.
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
Small fish sheltering in bleached coral can be pushed out into the open water and into the mouths of predators by bigger fish, a new study has found.
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
A team of scientists has overturned the theory that the world's largest lizard evolved on the islands of Indonesia.
Wednesday, 23 September 2009
The spectacular dust storm that swept through most of eastern Australia may have had its origins twelve months ago, says an Australian expert.
Thursday, 19 March 2009
Traditional Aboriginal burning practices in Australia's savannah country could reduce national greenhouse emissions by nearly 5 megatonnes a year and trigger a million-a-year new industry, says one expert.
Monday, 17 November 2008
Climate change may not be as severe as predicted, suggests an international study that shows current modelling of carbon dioxide emissions from soils are overestimated by as much as 20%.
Friday, 14 November 2008
News analysis Investing in agriculture in Australia's north could not only be a way to beat climate change, but could also help feed the planet, says a new report. | <urn:uuid:c0b6f720-21ad-48e2-bad2-8b93ed4f1eeb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.abc.net.au/science/tag/browse.htm?site=science&topic=latest&tag=qld&page=05 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397795.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00090-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946724 | 525 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Another important characteristic to consider when designing multiagent systems is whether the agents are stable or evolving. Of course evolving agents can be useful in dynamic environments. But particularly when using competitive agents, allowing them to evolve can lead to complications. Such systems that use competitive evolving agents are said to use a technique called competitive co-evolution. Systems that evolve benevolent agents are said to use cooperative co-evolution. The evolution of both predator and prey agents by Haynes and Sen qualifies as competitive co-evolution.
Grefenstette and Daley conduct a preliminary study of competitive and cooperative co-evolution in a domain that is loosely related to the pursuit domain . Their domain has two robots that can move continuously and one morsel of (stationary) food that appears randomly in the world. In the cooperative task, both robots must be at the food in order to ``capture'' it. Since the robots can run out of energy if they move too much, they learn to move towards food only when both of them are near enough to reach it. Evolving populations of decision rules using Genetic Algorithms (GAs), Grefenstette and Daley consider different methods of fitness evaluation. Fitness evaluation--the evaluation of relative ``fitness'' of individuals in a population so that the most fit can be retained and recombined--is an important component of evolutionary learning techniques. Grefenstette and Daley find that an effective method for cooperative co-evolution in their domain is to use separate GAs to evolve rules for the two agents, evaluating individuals against a ``champion'' (individual with highest fitness) from a random generation of the other GA.
In a competitive task in the same domain, agents try to be the first to reach the food . Again, different GA evaluation methods are considered for use in evolving rule sets to control the agents.
One problem to contend with in competitive rather than cooperative co-evolution is the possibility of an escalating ``arms race'' with no end. Competing agents might continually adapt to each other in more and more specialized ways, never stabilizing at a good behavior. Of course in a dynamic environment, it may not be feasible or even desirable to evolve a stable behavior. Applying RL to the iterated prisoner's dilemma, Sandholm and Crites find that a learning agent is able to perform optimally against a fixed opponent . But when both agents are learning, there is no stable solution.
Another issue in competitive co-evolution is the credit/blame assignment problem. When performance of an agent improves, it is not necessarily clear whether the improvement is due to an improvement in that agent's behavior or a negative change in the opponent's behavior. Similarly, if an agent's performance gets worse, the blame or credit could belong to that agent or to the opponent.
One way to deal with the credit/blame problem is to fix one agent while evolving the other and then switch. Of course this method encourages the arms race more than ever. Nevertheless, Rosin and Belew use this technique, along with an interesting method for maintaining diversity in genetic populations, to evolve agents that can play TicTacToe, Nim, and a simple version of Go . When it is a given agent's turn to evolve, it executes a standard GA generation. Individuals are tested against individuals from the competing population, but a technique called ``competitive fitness sharing'' is used to maintain diversity. When using this technique, individuals from agent X's population are given more credit for beating opponents (individuals from agent Y's population) that are not beaten by other individuals from agent X's population. More specifically, the reward to an individual for beating individual y is divided by the number of other individuals in agent X's population that also beat individual y. Competitive fitness sharing shows much promise for people building systems that use competitive co-evolution. | <urn:uuid:f69e2d73-ff09-403b-80b3-027a55fa5961> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/pstone/public/papers/97MAS-survey/node24.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396222.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00115-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934728 | 792 | 3.15625 | 3 |
When chief United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix delivered his first report to the Security Council at the end of January, he drew attention to two Iraqi missile programmes, the al-Samoud Two and the al-Fatah.
Both of these, he said, had been tested to ranges in excess of the permitted 150 kilometres (93 miles).
In a move seen as key test of the Iraqi's willingness to comply with the inspectors Mr Blix demanded their destruction - a task which has now begun.
For the British and the Americans this may be as close to a smoking gun as they are going to get
This limit was set by the UN after the last Gulf war as part of the stringent efforts to contain Iraq's weapons programmes.
The development of long-range missiles capable of delivering chemical, biological, and even nuclear warheads, was seen as one of Saddam Hussein's central strategic goals.
He had already used his existing missile force against Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, with conventional warheads.
It was expected that over time, Iraqi scientists would develop increasingly accurate missiles with greater ranges and payloads.
Inspectors confirmed that the al-Samoud II missile does indeed exceed the limits set by Security Council.
The fact that it has a larger than permitted diameter and that it may also have an engine derived from a surface-to-air missile are two further facts that contravene UN restrictions.
There are indications that the weapon may already have been supplied to the Iraqi Army
Both of these facts suggest that the missile could be intended to have an even longer range, since it could carry additional fuel and could perhaps be fitted with an even more powerful motor.
Iraq's missile programme, like the early stages of North Korea's and other countries' missile efforts tend to take a basic Soviet-era design and re-manufacture it, gradually extending its range and payload.
Thus, quite apart from being a violation in itself, the al-Samoud II could be the basis for further development.
And Mr Blix pointed to additional signs that Iraq had taken steps to refurbish its missile manufacturing capability.
The exact operational status of the al-Samoud II is unclear. There are indications that the weapon may already have been supplied to the Iraqi Army.
But what is going to be more controversial is the sourcing of this evidence - it seems that the inspectors learnt about the new missiles from data provided by the Iraqis themselves.
Al-Samoud missiles are based on a Soviet-era design
So is this an example of wilful disregard for the UN's strictures, or of the Iraqis coming clean on some proscribed activity?
One has to assume that the Americans already had a pretty good idea about these missile tests from satellite data. The Iraqis would know that too.
Many will say that developing the weapon does indeed put Iraq in material breach of its obligations.
For the British and the Americans, this may be as close to a smoking gun as they are going to get. | <urn:uuid:11691b3d-9b03-4d96-acf3-b5a876d0c045> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2756987.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00075-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974241 | 611 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Cunningham is in the Central Till Plain natural region in Tippecanoe County. It contains 80 acres of forest.
- Forest and wildlife management
- Occurrence and abundance of acorn weevils in fragmented landscapes and effects of landscape pattern on animal-mediated acorn dispersal and seedling recruitment
- Teaching laboratory in which prescribed burning can be demonstrated to students | <urn:uuid:04aa8a69-859a-4108-9937-77043f78e73f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www2.ag.purdue.edu/fnr/Pages/propcunningham.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00070-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910313 | 77 | 2.625 | 3 |
Here Comes Santa Claus
St Nicholas: not always jolly; detail of a miniature of St Nicholas, identifiable by his three bags of gold and bishop's regalia; from Regola della Compagnia di S. Maria della pietà di Firenze, Italy (Florence), 2nd half of the 15th century, Harley MS 3547, f. 1r.
Jolly old St Nick, in his guise as a red-suited traveller through chimneys, is a figure of modern myth and pop culture, and medieval imagery of St Nicholas has very little in common with our modern Santa Claus. The historical Nicholas, about whom very little is known with certainty, was a 4th-century bishop of Myra, a town in Lycia, in modern-day Turkey. He is the patron saint of both Russia and Greece, and was a widely popular saint throughout medieval Europe. His feast day on 6 December has no doubt encouraged the association with Christmas.
Detail of a miniature of St Nicholas; from the Melisende Psalter, Jerusalem, 1131-1143, Egerton MS 1139, f. 209r.
Setting aside the scanty historical record, it is in the colourful legends surrounding the saint's miracles that manuscript illuminators found their greatest inspiration. The final pages of the stunning Queen Mary Psalter are devoted to images from the life of St Nicholas, including a story of his precocious piety. Asceticism was highly valued in medieval spirituality, and Nicholas adopted such practices from birth. As an infant, he was said to have astonished his parents by fasting and refusing his mother's breast, limiting himself to only two abstemious meals per week. Proof positive he was destined for great things!
Miniature of an infant St Nicholas, refusing his mother's breast; from the Queen Mary Psalter, England, 1310-1320, Royal MS 2 B. vii, f. 315r.
Perhaps the best-known story has also given rise to his principal identifying attribute, three small bags of gold. Nicholas himself was well-off, coming from a wealthy family. But one of his neighbours, a nobleman fallen on hard times, had three unmarried daughters he could no longer afford to support. The daughters were considering turning to prostitution in order to put food on the table. Nicholas wanted to help the family, and so for each of the three daughters, he crept by the house at night while the family slept and tossed a parcel of gold in the window – the foundational Secret Santa! The poor man was able to use the money as a dowry for the girls, so that they were married and provided for.
Detail of an historiated initial 'M' of St Nicholas passing gold through the window to the poor man and his three daughters; from Wauchier de Denain, Lives of the Saints, France (Paris), 2nd quarter of the 13th century, Royal MS 20 D. vi, f. 144r.
In addition to his generosity, Nicholas was also revered as a patron of children, providing some of the strongest connections between the medieval saint and the modern St Nick. In another famous story, Nicholas performed a miracle to save the life of three boys. The children had been murdered by a wicked butcher, who concealed their bodies by cutting them up and throwing the remains into a tub he used for curing meat. Nicholas not only found them there, he was able to restore the dismembered boys to life, and the image of the bishop standing over the three now-healed children standing up from the tub is a popular subject for illustration.
Detail of a miniature of St Nicholas with the three boys in the tub; from Iacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea, translated into French by Jean de Vignay, France (Paris), 1382, Royal MS 19 B. xvii, f. 14r. | <urn:uuid:909bf11c-6d61-4832-ae66-3bbf11ec932c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2012/12/here-comes-santa-claus.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398869.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00055-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973725 | 809 | 2.875 | 3 |
ABC Fun Alphabet Bulletin Board
The alphabet comes alive with bright colors and fun characters to teach and reinforce letter discrimination and sounds- phonics- and more. Numeral cards also feature equivalent counting dots for greater comprehension. Display set for reference year-round- or use pieces as jumbo flash cards. Discovery Guide. 28 pieces- up to 19 1/2". | <urn:uuid:97784751-1347-4800-a215-86d967c6fdb8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.beyondtheblackboard.com/buy/t8137/abc-fun-alphabet-bulletin-board | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00183-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.84731 | 73 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Peeking Beneath the Surface for a Fresh Look at Nature
In two new papers, Prof. Bernd Kuhn and collaborators use novel techniques to visualize very different things: pH within protein crystals, and neurons in the cerebellum of the brain.
Though the papers were published at nearly the same time, they cover completely different projects. The protein crystal work was a rare foray into physical chemistry for Kuhn that began in 1996, when he was doing his PhD research at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Germany. He and his colleagues couldn’t get sufficiently high-quality data at the time, but last year they took up the project again and finally accomplished their goal of measuring the pH within a crystal.
The neuron visualization project came about later, when Kuhn was doing a postdoc at Princeton University. Some of its striking results can be seen at right. | <urn:uuid:bf1ca5bd-d9d0-4c60-9786-19a91568492e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.oist.jp/press-room/news/2012/8/15/peeking-beneath-surface-fresh-look-nature | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00074-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979465 | 179 | 2.875 | 3 |
Derivation of specific name
Regularity: Regularly occurring
State - Kerala, District/s: All Districts"
In axillary or terminal, 1 or 2, rarely in lax racemes, yellow. Flowering throughout the year.
A schizocarp, enclosed within the calyx; mericarps 5, sparsely hairy at apex, beak 2-dentate; seeds ovoid, dorsal side hollowed. Fruiting throughout the year.
Stem stellate-tomentose. Leaves palminerved, 7-nerved from base.
Habitat & Distribution
Life History and Behavior
Molecular Biology and Genetics
Statistics of barcoding coverage: Sida cordifolia
Public Records: 0
Specimens with Barcodes: 8
Species With Barcodes: 1
National NatureServe Conservation Status
Rounded National Status Rank: NNR - Unranked
Relevance to Humans and Ecosystems
Whole plant: Plant is boiled, and the water used as an herbal bath of for washing the skin as an anti-pruritic, as an anti-pyretic of for chickenpox and measles, by the Guyana Patamona. Leaf: Leaves are boiled, and the water drunk as an anti-pyretic, by the Guyana Patamona.
|This article needs additional citations for verification. (November 2008)|
Sida cordifolia (bala, country mallow, heart-leaf sida or flannel weed) is a perennial subshrub of the mallow family Malvaceae native to India. It has naturalized throughout the world, and is considered an invasive weed in Africa, Australia, the southern United States, Hawaiian Islands, New Guinea, and French Polynesia. The specific name, cordifolia, refers to the heart-shaped leaf.
S. cordifolia is an erect perennial that reaches 50 to 200 cm (20 to 79 in) tall, with the entire plant covered with soft white felt-like hair that is responsible for one of its common names, "flannel weed". The stems are yellow-green, hairy, long, and slender. The yellow-green leaves are oblong-ovate, covered with hairs, and 3.5 to 7.5 cm (1.4 to 3.0 in) long by 2.5 to 6 cm (0.98 to 2.36 in) wide. The flowers are dark yellow, sometimes with a darker orange center, with a hairy 5-lobed calyx and 5-lobed corolla.
As a weed, it invades cultivated and overgrazed fields, competing with more desired species and contaminating hay.
|This section needs more medical references for verification or relies too heavily on primary sources. (September 2014)|
Known as "malva branca", it is a plant used in Brazilian folk medicine for the treatment of inflammation of the oral mucosa, blenorrhea, asthmatic bronchitis and nasal congestion, stomatitis, of asthma and nasal congestion and in many parts of Africa for various ailments, particularly for respiratory problems. It has been investigated as an anti-inflammatory, for preventing cell proliferation, and for encouraging liver re-growth. Due to its ephedrine content, it possesses psychostimulant properties, affecting the central nervous system and also the heart.
A 50% ethanolic extract of Sida cordifolia tested on rats showed potent antioxidant and antiinflammatory activity comparable with the standard drug deprenyl.[non-primary source needed] The plant has demonstrated anti-pyretic and anti-ulcerogenic properties.[non-primary source needed] The aqueous extract of Sida cordifolia stimulates liver regeneration in rats.[non-primary source needed]
The following alkaloids were reported from S. cordifolia growing in India: β-phenethylamine, ephedrine, pseudo-ephedrine, S-(+)-Nb-methyltryptophan methyl ester, hypaphorine, vasicinone, vasicinol, choline, and betaine.
No tannin or glycosides have been identified from the plant. The roots and stems contain the alkaloid ephedrine, normally observed in the different varieties of the gymnosperm genus Ephedra. Recent analyses have revealed that ephedrine and pseudoephedrine constitute the major alkaloids from the aerial parts of the plant, which also show traces of sitosterol and palmitic, stearic and hexacosanoic acids. The flavones: 5,7-dihydroxy-3-isoprenyl flavone (1) and 5-hydroxy-3-isoprenyl flavone (2), β-sitosterol and stigmasterol have been isolated from the plant. The analgesic alkaloid (5′-Hydroxymethyl-1′-(1,2,3,9-tetrahydro-pyrrolo [2,1-b] quinazolin-1-yl)-heptan-1-one) has also been found. Sterculic, malvalic and coronaric acids have been isolated from the seed oil, along with other fatty acids (Chem. Ind. 1985. 483).[full citation needed]
- "Invasive and Noxious Weeds". United States Department of Agriculture. Retrieved 18 July 2010.
- William Thomas Parsons; Eric George Cuthbertson (March 2001). Noxious weeds of Australia. Csiro Publishing. pp. 511–. ISBN 978-0-643-06514-7. Retrieved 18 July 2010.
- C. W. Agyakwa; I. O. Akobundu (1998). A handbook of West African weeds. IITA. pp. 563–. ISBN 978-978-131-129-1. Retrieved 18 July 2010.
- "Sida cordifolia". Pacific Island Ecosystems at Risk (PIER). 2006-10-25. Retrieved 18 July 2010.
- Pitt, J. L. (03-01-2002). "Flannel Weed". Agnote (Northern Territory Government, Australia). ISSN 0157-8243. Retrieved 2010-07-18. Check date values in:
- Pole, Sebastian (2006). Ayurvedic Medicine. Elsevier Health Sciences. p. 137. ISBN 978-0-443-10090-1. Retrieved 2008-11-03.
- Franzotti EM, Santos CV, Rodrigues HM, Mourão RH, Andrade MR, and Antoniolli AR. (2000). "Anti-inflammatory, analgesic activity and acute toxicity of Sida cordifolia L. (Malva-branca)." J. Ethnopharmacol. 72 273-7.
- CNS pharmacological effects of the hydroalcoholic extract of Sida cordifolia L. leaves. Franco CI. Morais LC. Quintans-Júnior LJ. Almeida RN. Antoniolli AR. Journal of Ethnopharmacology. 98(3):275-9, 2005 Apr 26.
- Markus S. Mueller; Ernst Mechler (2005). Medicinal Plants in Tropical Countries: Traditional Use - Experience - Facts. Thieme. pp. 138–. ISBN 978-3-13-138341-9. Retrieved 18 July 2010.
- Franzotti, Em; Santos, Cv; Rodrigues, Hm; Mourão, Rh; Andrade, Mr; Antoniolli, Ar (Sep 2000). "Anti-inflammatory, analgesic activity and acute toxicity of Sida cordifolia L. (Malva-branca).". Journal of Ethnopharmacology 72 (1–2): 273–7. doi:10.1016/S0378-8741(00)00205-1. ISSN 0378-8741. PMID 10967481.
- Kanth, Vr; Diwan, Pv (Feb 1999). "Analgesic, antiinflammatory and hypoglycaemic activities of Sida cordifolia". Phytotherapy research : PTR 13 (1): 75–7. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1099-1573(199902)13:1<75::AID-PTR387>3.0.CO;2-F. ISSN 0951-418X. PMID 10189958.
- Jenny, M; Schwaiger, W; Bernhard, D; Wrulich, Oa; Cosaceanu, D; Fuchs, D; Ueberall, F (Sep 2005). "Apoptosis induced by the Tibetan herbal remedy PADMA 28 in the T cell-derived lymphocytic leukaemia cell line CEM-C7H2" (Free full text). Journal of carcinogenesis 4: 15. doi:10.1186/1477-3163-4-15. PMC 1232859. PMID 16138918.
- Silva, Rl; Melo, Gb; Melo, Va; Antoniolli, Ar; Michellone, Pr; Zucoloto, S; Picinato, Ma; Franco, Cf; Mota, Gde; Castro e Silva, Orlando de (2006). "Effect of the aqueous extract of Sida cordifolia on liver regeneration after partial hepatectomy" (Free full text). Acta cirurgica brasileira / Sociedade Brasileira para Desenvolvimento Pesquisa em Cirurgia. 21 Suppl 1: 37–9. doi:10.1590/S0102-86502006000700009. ISSN 0102-8650. PMID 17013511.
- Adam C. Munhall; Steven W. Johnson (January 2006). "Dopamine-mediated actions of ephedrine in the rat substantia nigra". Brain Research 1069 (1): 96–103. doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2005.11.044. PMID 16386715.
- Antiperoxidative and antiinflammatory effect of sida cordifolia linn. on quinolinic acid induced neurotoxicity Swathy S.S., Panicker S., Nithya R.S., Anuja M.M., Rejitha S., Indira M. Neurochemical Research 2010 35:9 (1361-1367)
- Preliminary evaluation of anti-pyretic and anti-ulcerogenic activities of Sida cordifolia methanolic extract Philip B.K., Muralidharan A., Natarajan B., Varadamurthy S., Venkataraman S. Fitoterapia 2008 79:3 (229-231)
- Effect of the aqueous extract of Sida cordifolia on liver regeneration after partial hepatectomy. Silva RL. Melo GB. Melo VA. Antoniolli AR. Michellone PR. Zucoloto S. Picinato MA. Franco CF. Mota Gde A. Silva Ode C. Acta Cirurgica Brasileira. 21 Suppl 1:37-9, 2006.
- S. Ghosal, R. B. P. S. Chauhan, and R. Mehta (1975). "Alkaloids of Sidia Cordifolia." Phytochem. 14 830-832.
- Bioactive flavones of Sida cordifolia Sutradhar R.K., Rahman A.K.M.M., Ahmad M.U., Bachar S.C. Phytochemistry Letters 2008 1:4 (179-182)
- Bioactive alkaloid from Sida cordifolia Linn. with analgesic and anti-inflammatory activities Sutradhar R.K., Matior Rahman A.K.M., Ahmad M., Bachar S.C., Saha A., Guha S.K. Iranian Journal of Pharmacology and Therapeutics 2006 5:2 (175-178)
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Examines Cervantes' Don Quixote and twentieth-century works inspired by it. May include Don Quixote, Kafka's Castle, Borges' Labyrinths, and Nabokov's Pale Fire.
During the quarter, we will consider the history, movements and origins of novelistic writing. While this class will mostly focus on the modern era, we will first look at a brief excerpt of an early example: Cervantes's Don Quixote. We will focus our attention on four short novels: Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Cisneros's The House on Mango Street, Cunningham's The Hours and Danticat's Breath, Eyes, Memory. At the quarter's end, we will examine graphic novels by reading Paul Hornschemeier's acclaimed book, Mother, Come Home. During these studies, we will question what makes a text "modern" and how the process of writing novels relates to notions of genre. This course will also ponder what these novels say about issues of class, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Class assignments and grading | <urn:uuid:e8b050f2-9ef4-4546-a12d-ff4360abd6ef> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.washington.edu/students/icd/T/tcxg/488ec10.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00143-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908055 | 229 | 3.421875 | 3 |
June 1977 | Volume 28, Issue 4
and how, a decade after the Revolution, a melodramatic rescue attempt, involving a grateful young American, went awry
Early on the afternoon of June 13, 1777, a French vessel slipped into an isolated inlet on the coast of South Carolina and dropped anchor. On board was the young Marquis de Lafayette, who had purchased the ship for this voyage, along with Baron de Kalb and a group of French nobles, all promised commissions in the “Armies of the States-General of North America” by one of the American agents in Paris, Silas Deane.
The Frenchmen were lost; they had been heading for Charleston, but were driven fifty miles up the coast by contrary winds. As it happened, some slaves belonging to a prominent local patriot, Major Benjamin Huger, were grappling for oysters in the bay. Understanding Lafayette’s predicament, they led him and KaIb to their master’s plantation, where KaIb was able to explain, in his excellent English, why they had come from France. Major Huger, himself a descendant of French Huguenots, welcomed his unexpected guests and invited them to spend the night at his home.
In time Lafayette, KaIb, and their retinue made their way north, joined the Continental Army, and helped win independence for the United States. But among those who first encountered Lafayette on that night in South Carolina was one of Major Huger’s sons, Francis Kinloch Huger, who was then three years old. As a result, seventeen years later young Huger took part in one of the oddest episode’s in Lafayette’s life—a plot to liberate him from a prison in Austria.
The tale of how, long after the American Revolution, Lafayette came to be incarcerated in the central European country begins during the early events of the French Revolution. The marquis, a leading figure in those events, was a moderate who actively supported the concept of a constitutional monarchy, a position that alienated him from both the royalists and the radicals. He was serving as commanding general of the northern army in France when the “suspension” of the king came, on August 10, 1792. With revolutionaries like Robespierre and Danton in control, Lafayette realized that only the guillotine awaited him in France. He crossed the frontier into the principality of Liège with a group of followers just as the Assembly passed a decree calling for his arrest as a traitor. He hoped to take refuge in a neutral country, but when he reached the Austrian lines he was arrested as an enemy of monarchy and sent to Prussia for temporary confinement.
In London the French aristocrats living in exile were disturbed by the arrest and made efforts through diplomatic channels to have Lafayette freed. Chosen to work as the exiles’ agent in Prussia was Justus Erich Bollman, a doctor from Hanover more interested in adventure than in medicine. He had already made a reputation for himself among the exiles by successfully smuggling the ex-minister of war, the Comte de Narbonne, out of France to the refuge of England and the arms of his lover, Madame de Staël.
In early 1794 Bollman was in Berlin appealing for Lafayette’s freedom. Unsuccessful there, he then traveled to Prison Magdeburg, where Lafayette had been incarcerated, but he arrived too late. Lafayette was now being held in Neisse and in May was suddenly transferred out of Prussia to an undisclosed Austrian prison. The emperor of Austria held Lafayette personally responsible for the downfall of Louis xvi and was determined not to let the general’s friends contact him.
Since Bollman kept no journal during his search for Lafayette, the details of what happened are somewhat hazy. The existing accounts, for the most part, were written years after the events and often differ in details. To ascertain what happened it is necessary to check these later accounts against two important documents that have survived: a message written by Lafayette to Bollman and a transcript of a military examination of young Huger.
Three months after Lafayette’s disappearance Bollman’s search took him to Olmütz, a fortress city located on a plain in the Moravian section of Austria (now in Czechoslovakia). There the young German heard talk of increased security at the prison because of the recent arrival of some important prisoners—so important, in fact, that they were referred to only by number to conceal their identities. Even the guards were forbidden to talk to the prisoners, who were locked in their cells behind two doors, one of iron, the other of wood. Bollman felt sure Lafayette was among this group.
Bollman checked into the Golden Swan and during his visit made friends with the prison physician, Dr. Haberlein. How they met is not known, although most accounts claim Bollman feigned illness and sent for Haberlein to act as his doctor. What we do know is that Haberlein, a simple, unsuspecting man, was one of the few people aware of the prisoners’ identities, and through him Bollman confirmed his suspicion that Lafayette was one of the nameless prisoners of Olmütz.
After their meeting Haberlein became an unwitting accomplice, a messenger transmitting notes and books between Bollman and Lafayette. It all seemed innocent enough. The doctor was permitted and even encouraged to read the letters in order to be assured they were simply friendly notes; but each one contained messages written in one of the simplest forms of disappearing ink, lemon juice.
Austria at the time was full of spies and suspicious officials quick to check on foreigners who stayed too long in sensitive areas such as Olmütz. So Bollman traveled on to Vienna, promising Dr. Haberlein he would return. It was there that he met Francis Kinloch Huger.
Francis’ father, Major Huger, had been killed in 1779 luring the siege of Charleston, and two years later his wife had shipped young Francis off to England to improve his health. By 1794 he had completed medical studies in London, but before returning to America he decided to see firsthand the war raging in Europe between France and her neighbors. That spring he had set off for Antwerp, the seat of English operations against the French, where he spent several months working in the British hospitals. From there he had moved on to Vienna.
Ready to return to England before sailing for home, the young American was looking for a traveling companion when a mutual friend introduced Bollman to him as a possibility. Speculation on the whereabouts of Lafayette was widespread in Europe, and Huger had more than a passing interest in the topic. He recalled later that it was during his first conversation with Bollman that he mentioned Lafayette’s early visit to his home, and wondered out loud about the general’s imprisonment. Bollman, not ready to take anyone into his confidence, told Huger only that he would write him in the next eight or ten days with a definite answer about returning with him to England. First, he explained, he had to travel to Hungary. Huger waited eight days for the letter, then, anxious to get back to London, was ready to purchase a carriage and leave alone, when Bollman showed up at his room.
The German said he would join Huger if he would promise not to repeat what he was about to hear. Huger agreed, and listened as Bollman traced the events of the past few years. He told of finding Lafayette arid revealed he had not been in Hungary at all during the past week, but in Olmütz, working out the details of an escape.
Immediately upon returning to the Moravian village, he had contacted Lafayette through Dr. Haberlein, and between them they had worked out a plan.
Every other day, Lafayette was driven into the countryside under close guard, ostensibly for his health. Bollman, he suggested, should overtake the carriage and spirit him away on horseback. The general made it sound easy enough. “We are in a phaeton,” he wrote Bollman in the margins of a book; “nobody with me but the corporal—who, by the by, is afflicted with a rupture—and a clumsy driver.... Have a trusty man with you. Stop the driver. I engage to … frighten the little cowardly corporal with his own sword....” He suggested they bring a third horse, saying: “I will not have the least difficulty to jump on a led horse of your man....”
Lafayette left it to Bollman to work out the details and plan the escape route. No mention was made of a specific meeting place or of a contingency plan should anything go wrong. It was arranged, however, that when all was ready Bollman would wait beside the road and, when Lafayette’s carriage passed, make a signal with his handkerchief. This would indicate the attempt was to be made two days later.
When Bollman had explained the plan to Huger, he put the question: Would Huger join the enterprise? It was almost a matter of family pride for Huger. As he said later, “I saw an opportunity to restore liberty to a man who at my own age had risked everything for me.”
Nineteenth-century accounts of the events of the next few days read like a spy novelette, complete with a custorrimade coach containing secret compartments for ropes and saws. But in truth, very little of what happened in the days before the escape is known. It is certain, however, that Bollman and Huger checked in at the Golden Swan in Olmütz on November 5, 1794. The next day they sat on their horses by the side of the road waiting for Lafayette to take his drive in the country. When the carriage passed, the prearranged handkerchief signal was given, letting the general know that the escape would come two days later.
On Saturday morning, November 8, Huger and Bollman paid their bill and sent a servant ahead to Hoff, a village twenty-five miles down the road on the way to the border. Then they set out to watch for Lafayette’s carriage. Afraid of arousing suspicion, they had decided against taking a third horse as Lafayette had suggested; instead Huger rode a horse that was trained to carry two riders. Lafayette would ride alone on Bollman’s horse while his rescuers followed on the other.
After going a few miles down the road without seeing the carriage, the conspirators decided they must have missed it and headed back to town. On the way they met the coach. The corporal sat beside Lafayette. The driver sat in front, and another soldier rode behind the carriage. Bollman and Huger continued down the road a short distance, then turned and trotted after the carriage. When it halted by the roadside, they also stopped and watched as Lafayette and the corporal got out, began walking through a field, and then paused, engaged in conversation.
At that point Huger and Bollman spurred their horses, galloping up as Lafayette pulled the corporal’s sword out of its sheath. But the “little cowardly corporal” failed to be frightened; instead, he grabbed the sword blade, cutting his hands, and yelled for help. Peasants working in nearby fields looked up, but merely watched the struggle; the driver also failed to answer the call. Only the other soldier took action, heading back toward the fortress, shouting and waving his hat to attract the attention of the sentries on the walls of the fortress, which was some distance off but still visible across the flat plain.
Lafayette’s miscalculation of the character of the orporal led to a rapid series of unexpected complications in the plan. Instead of being able to hold him at bay with the sword, the general was struggling with the corporal for its possession. Bollman rode up to help Lafayette, leaped from his horse, and threw the reins to Huger. Frightened by the clamor, the horse lurched—and Huger watched helplessly as it galloped away. Bollman pulled the corporal away from Lafayette, but the tough little man gave up the sword only to seize Lafayette by the cravat. The general weakly cried, “Il m’étrangle!” —“He’s strangling me!”—as Huger joined the fight, first being careful to pass his arm through his mount’s bridle. Failing to intimidate the corporal with a pistol, Huger stuffed it back into his pocket and managed to pull the bloody hands away from the general’s throat. Lafayette, evidently in poor shape from the encounter, fell to the ground as Bollman dragged the corporal down, pinning him and pushing a handkerchief into his mouth.
Huger helped Bollman keep the guard subdued as Lafayette struggled back to his feet. Huger then shouted to Lafayette to take his horse and “get to Hoff,” the village where the servant had been sent. The general mounted and started to trot away, then stopped, apparently unwilling to leave the two behind. Waving him on, Huger anxiously repeated “get to Hoff!” and the marquis rode off. Bollman and Huger conferred for a moment and then released the corporal, who took off on foot after his escaped charge.
A peasant boy had managed to stop Bollman’s frightened horse and was returning with the prize when Huger spotted him. Calling to his companion, the American ran to the horse and had mounted it by the time Bollman was helped up behind him by the obliging boy. With Lafayette still visible on the road ahead, they urged their horse forward to catch up with him.
Unfortunately Bollman’s horse, unlike Lafayette’s, was unused to the double load. When urged faster than a trot, he gave a buck that dumped Bollman, who was then unable to climb back up. Huger dismounted and helped his companion into the saddle. Their progress had been so slow that when Huger mounted behind Bollman, he was helped by the same peasant boy, who had been following them on foot. Bollman pushed the horse into a gallop and it again bucked, throwing both of them. This time Huger told Bollman to take the horse and follow Lafayette. He would follow on foot.
After Bollman had ridden off, Huger ran along a road leading to the mountains. Just when he thought he was safe, he heard shouting and looked back to see three men running after him. He began to run again, hoping to reach the mountains and slip into Prussian Silesia, but he was overtaken by a peasant on horseback who had joined the chase. Seeing that it was impossible to escape, Huger gave himself up to the horseman. The three on foot joined them, and Huger was escorted back to Olmütz, where he was turned over to soldiers.
He was immediately taken before General D’Arco, the commandant of the fortress, for examination. D’Arco’s reputation was certain to be tarnished by the escape of such an important prisoner, and he was determined to uncover the whole plot. Huger answered the often pointed questions truthfully and in some detail, telling of his meeting with Bollman and the events surrounding the escape itself. He said he felt justified in what he had done: “I did not think of harming any one; and I was assured that it was the purpose of M. Lafayette to cross immediately to America and not to mix himself any more in the affairs of the Empire.”
This ingenuous argument did nothing to help Huger’s case. D’Arco noted at the end of the transcript of the examination: “The culprit was turned over by the military authorities to the ordinary Olmütz court, put in irons, as a criminal, and held in the strictest custody.” All Huger’s possessions were taken, an iron was put around an ankle, another around a wrist, and he was chained to a staple in the wall over the wooden bench that served as his bed.
Lafayette, meanwhile, was alone in an unfamiliar area. The only times he had been allowed outside his cell had been for the carriage rides, which never took him more than three miles from the fortress, and Hoff was twenty-five miles away. Complicating matters further, Bollman had never told Lafayette what escape route they would follow. Indeed, it appears that during the confusion resulting from the corporal’s resistance, Lafayette had misunderstood Huger’s frantic advice for him to “get to Hoff.” Not recognizing the name of the city, he thought the American had simply told him to “get off.” Separated from his guides, the general reached a fork and chose the road leading him away from Hoffand the waiting coach.
Covered with mud and blood from the fight, he rode into a village and offered two thousand crowns for a fresh horse. The large sum, his accent, and his disheveled appearance aroused suspicion, and he was taken into custody. Brought before the mayor for an examination, he kept a cool head, gave a plausible explanation, and was about to be released when someone in the crowd recognized him. The general first denied the identification, but when the mayor insisted he be taken to Olmütz to make certain, he admitted that he was indeed Lafayette, and was escorted back to his cell.
Bollman was the only one to reach Hoff. Not finding Lafayette there, he guessed that the general had gotten lost. Crossing the border into Silesia, he searched for Lafayette, hoping he had been able to make it into Prussia along a different route. A week later, Bollman, too, was arrested, and after two weeks he was taken to Olmütz to join Huger.
In the meantime the civil examination of Huger had begun. Since Huger spoke no German, a Professor Passi, a tutor employed by a Russian nobleman living in the vicinity of Olmütz, served as interpreter.
For three months Huger and Bollman were kept in solitude and brought separately before the tribunal for examination. The early investigation centered on a suspected political plot involving Austrians. Finally the judges determined the two had worked independently of any local help and for the sole purpose of freeing Lafayette. The charges were reduced to “forcing a military post,” and after that they were allowed a little more freedom and better food. But the examinations continued, this time on the revised charge.
There were efforts on many fronts to help the two. Huger managed to smuggle letters out to Thomas Pinckney, former governor of South Carolina, who was then the American minister in London. He first wrote him on January 5, 1795, asking Pinckney to write his mother and closing with the plea “Don’t forget us.”
At home Huger’s family wrote to George Washington, asking that the President intervene to obtain his freedom. Secretary of State Timothy Pickering informed them that the President was concerned, but “the cause of Mr. Huger’s confinement would render an application delicate and difficult, the United States having no public functionary in the Austrian dominions....”
In Olmütz the prisoners had more influential help. Their interpreter had hinted several times that there were friends working in their behalf. It seems that Passi’s regular employer, a certain Count Mitrowsky, took a sympathetic interest in the case. He gave Passi the money necessary to bribe the judges, and when Bollman and Huger were found guilty the sentence was unusually light: one month’s labor in irons, followed by banishment from Austria. With a little more encouragement from Mitrowsky the judges saw fit to reduce the sentence to fourteen days’ further confinement and banishment. Eight months after the attempted rescue Huger and Bollman were released.
Passi made all necessary arrangements for them, allowing them to see their benefactor briefly, then hurrying them across the border. They left none too soon. The crown lawyers had reported to Vienna, and a directive came back upbraiding the judges for their leniency and demanding that the trial be reopened.
Lafayette continued to be held prisoner until a young French general named Bonaparte invaded the Austrian dominions in 1797, forcing the emperor to sue for peace. The Directory told Bonaparte to demand the release of Lafayette and the others at Olmütz as a condition to a peace settlement. The famous general was freed September 19, 1797, five years after his arrest along the frontier.
But the story does not quite end there. Following their release from prison Bollman sailed with Huger to the United States in 1796. Afer failing repeatedly in business ventures, he became an agent of Aaron Burr in 1805. He first served the former Vice President as a land promoter but soon became entangled in Burr’s alleged scheme to establish a western empire in the Louisiana Territory. In late 1806, shortly after delivering an incriminating message from Burr to General James Wilkinson, Bollman was arrested and—for the second time in twelve years—imprisoned. He declined Jefferson’s offer of a pardon on the ground that it would be tantamount to an admission of guilt, but regained his freedom when the case against Burr failed to stand up. In his later years he wrote several pamphlets on the banking systems of the United States and England; he died in Jamaica in 1821.
Huger, meanwhile, had finished work on his degree in 1797, graduating from the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania. He returned to South Carolina, married one of Thomas Pinckney’s daughters, and divided his time between his plantation on the Santee River and a summer home in Statesburg, choosing the life of a rice farmer instead ofthat of a doctor; he also served two terms in the South Carolina legislature.
Then in 1824 Lafayette arrived in America for a tour iat took him to every part of the country. After landing in New York City he got in touch with Huger, with whom he had previously corresponded. Referring to him as “my dear deliverer,” Lafayette asked him to join his party in New York. Huger did so and then accompanied the general to Yorktown for special ceremonies there.
In 1825 Huger again joined Lafayette during his visit to South Carolina. Meeting in Columbia, they traveled to Charleston, where Huger’s friends and neighbors in the port city considered him a tie between their city and “the guest of the nation” and made a point of including him in the celebration. Auguste Levasseur, a member of Lafayette’s official party, wrote: “At the dinner, at the theatre, and the ball, in short every where, the name of Huger was inscribed with that of Lafayette....”
The story of an American who was sent to prison because he attempted to rescue Lafayette had a romantic appeal and was mentioned in many of the popular though not always accurate accounts of the general’s life that appeared in the mid-1820’s. There was even a popular play, entitled Lafayette, or the Castle of Olmütz . The rather free adaptation of the events amused Huger. An admirer in Boston asked if he was the hero. He replied: “Oh, no, indeed. Heroes are always married at the end of the play and I am not so fortunate. I am represented, however, as desperately in love with the daughter of the governor of the castle, and I am left in the same unhappy situation at the end of the play.”
Huger remained a retiring, modest man until his death in 1855. Although he was willing to tell the story of his youthful adventure to those who asked, he said of himself: “I simply considered myself the representative of the young men of America, and acted accordingly.” | <urn:uuid:0080f989-fc1f-4f2f-b0df-715e721e6cc7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.americanheritage.com/print/53596?page=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394414.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00177-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986513 | 5,056 | 3.28125 | 3 |
A4, Foolscap, Letter & Legal Paper Size Comparison
Select the paper size from the 'Size' selector and the unit from the 'Unit' selector - the dimensions will be shown in the dimensions box.
Some of the most commonly asked questions about paper sizes are asked about those paper sizes that are, or were, most often used in the office environment. These are the A4 paper size used internationally, Letter and Legal paper sizes in the US and the old imperial foolscap paper size that was used in the British Commonwealth prior to the introduction of the ISO 216 standard.
Letter at 279mm (11.0") is slightly smaller than A4 at 297mm (11.7"), both Legal at 356mm (14.0") and Foolscap at 330mm (13.0") are longer than A4 with Legal being the longest. Foolscap is the narrowest at 203mm (8.0"), followed by A4 at 210mm (8.3") and then Letter and Legal at 216mm (8.5").
The following comparison table gives the sizes in millimeters and inches of A4, Letter, Legal and Foolscap Folio paper together with the areas and aspect ratios for these types of paper.
|Size||Width x Height (mm)||Width x Height (in)||Area sq m||Area sq yd||Aspect Ratio|
|A4||210 x 297 mm||8.3 x 11.7 in||0.062 sq m||0.074 sq yd||1:1.4142|
|Letter||216 x 279 mm||8.5 x 11.0 in||0.060 sq m||0.072 sq yd||1:1.2941|
|Legal||216 x 356 mm||8.5 x 14.0 in||0.077 sq m||0.092 sq yd||1:1.6471|
|Foolscap||203 x 330 mm||8.0 x 13.0 in||0.067 sq m||0.080 sq yd||1:1.625|
What Is The Difference Between A4 And Letter Paper Sizes?
The international A4 paper size is 6mm (0.2") narrower and 18mm (0.7") longer than the US Letter paper size. Overall the area of the A4 is slightly bigger than that of Letter by 0.002 square metres (approx 0.002 square yards).
What Is The Difference Between A4 And Legal Paper Sizes?
As with the Letter paper size A4 size paper is 6mm (0.2") narrow than US Legal paper, however unlike previously A4 has a smaller length than Legal paper by 59mm (2.3"). Thus Legal paper is bigger in area than A4 by 0.015 square metres (0.18 square yards).
What Is The Difference Between A4 And Foolscap Paper Sizes?
The old UK imperial Foolscap Folio paper is 7mm (0.3") narrower than A4 and 33mm (1.3") longer than A4. Its overall area is 0.005 square metres (approx 0.006 square yards) bigger than the current international A4 standard paper size. Foolscap Folio is no longer in everyday use and you are most likely to come across it if you are looking through old records.
What Is The Difference Between Legal And Letter Paper Sizes?
US Letter and Legal paper both have the same width at 8.5" (216mm) with the Legal paper size being 3" (77mm) longer than the Letter paper size. Nowadays with the proliferation of cheap printers Legal paper is becoming less common as the cost of having two paper trays in a printer is significantly greater than just having one and Letter size paper is winning out when printers only have a single tray. The difference in area is 0.020 sq yd (0.017 sq m) with the longer Legal paper being the bigger of the two.
What Is The Difference Between Letter And Foolscap Paper Sizes?
The Letter paper size is 0.5" (13mm) wider than the Foolscap paper size and Foolscap is 2.0" (51mm) longer than Letter. The difference in overall area is 0.008 sq yd (approx 0.007 sq m) with Foolscap being the larger.
What Is The Difference Between Legal And Foolscap Paper Sizes?
The Legal paper size is 0.5" (13mm) wider than the Foolscap paper size and 1.0" (25mm) longer. The difference in overall area is 0.012 sq yd (approx 0.010 sq m) with Legal paper being bigger. | <urn:uuid:8f48b898-6924-42ad-bb02-ba40c8ceb11b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.papersizes.org/a4-foolscap-letter.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00186-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904599 | 1,002 | 2.578125 | 3 |
As One Laptop Per Child prepares to ship its highly anticipated XO laptops in two weeks, it is developing a "supercharger," a mass battery recharger that will draw power from cows and yo-yos to help the laptops run longer. (Australian Joel Stanley is working on the charger system for the XO-1 laptop, read his story here).
The supercharger is a box that will charge 15 batteries at a time, said Mary Lou Jepsen, chief technology officer for OLPC.
The supercharger complements other environmentally friendly battery charging technologies being used or under development for the XO laptop, Jepsen said. Users can hook up handcranks, cows, yo-yos, foot pedals and solar panels to the box to recharge batteries.
Last week OLPC said it was designing a cow-powered generator through a dynamo with a system of belts and pulleys using cattle to generate power.
A typical charge cycle for a laptop battery should be about three hours, Jepsen said. Groups of children will be able to share batteries.
Currently in design, the supercharger will be ready for manufacturing next year, Jepsen said.
A laptop's mileage depends on its usage, so OLPC designed an environmentally friendly laptop that could work with a rugged, low-power battery, Jepsen said. The laptop's specially designed lithium-ferro phosphate battery consumes between 2 watts to 8 watts depending on usage, Jepsen said. It lasts five years and works in environments up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius), Jepsen said.
The XO batteries do not work on normal laptops, which can sap up to 40 watts of power depending on usage, Jepsen said.
The XO is also the first laptop that uses only alternative energy, Jepsen said. Low-cost solar panels are great as a power option where there is plenty of sunlight, Jepsen said. Energy is especially scare in developing nations, so the laptop will hopefully pass on energy preservation lessons, which could help preserve battery life in the XO, Jepsen said.
The laptop goes into manufacturing this week after three years of design experimentation and attempts to reduce manufacturing cost. It will first be offered in two weeks to consumers in the Give 1 Get 1 program, in which two laptops can be purchased for about US$400, with a user getting one laptop and the other being donated.
"We're exhausted, but exhilarated," Jepsen said. | <urn:uuid:76076b7e-a8f6-48ed-95cd-77fbbcbef858> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/197060/olpc_developing_new_supercharger_/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397797.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00161-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942263 | 518 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Maximizing Infant Development
The nervous system has aspects of plasticity. As the nervous system develops a balance between gross motor activities, neural patterning occurs. Each movement and transitional phase (body posturing between movements such as crawling or sitting) helps mold the nervous system in its development. The patterning that occurs is specific to each child’s own development, and the transitional phases between each movement are often more important than the final outcome (for example, sitting or standing).
Education psychologist Carl Delacato’s early developmental hypothesis suggested that “normal” children go through five stages of development, beginning with the lower spinal cord and medulla oblongata reflexes, which are present at birth to approximately 16 weeks. Next, homolateral function of the visual and auditory mechanisms develops during the pons level at 16 weeks to six months. Then, from six months to one year, the mid-brain develops, providing the cross-pattern mechanism and using both sides of the body together. This is an important area of development, which prepares the child to function in an upright position. Early cortical function develops in the age range of 1 to 5 years. During this stage, there is continued bilateral development, and walking begins. Finally, from the ages of 3 to 8, cortical hemispheric dominance develops, giving right- or left-handedness and continued neurologic organization.
Dr. David Walther, a chiropractic writer and researcher who practiced applied kinesiology, maintained, “There is a tendency for adults to force a child to develop too rapidly. The speed of development through these early years is already a marvelous accomplishment. The reason for the parents’ effort to speed the process even more is probably the desire to have a ‘smart, accomplished’ child. Ironically, forcing new activities for which the child is not neurologically prepared disturbs organization, and in many instances may actually cause the child to eventually be inefficiently integrated.”
Magda Gerber, of Resources for Infant Educarers (RIE) in Los Angeles, conducted research along the same lines as the work of Delacato and Walther. Gerber began her studies with Dr. Emmi Pikler, pediatrician and professor at the National Methodological Institute for Infant Care and Education in Budapest, Hungary.
In The RIE Manual, Gerber wrote that, “Dr. Pikler is well-known in Europe for her original ideas on infant rearing. After receiving her medical degree in Vienna, she developed what was to become her life-long interest in the physiology in gross motor development. Her research focused on the differences in gross motor development of normal children under two different conditions: 1) when motor development is influenced by adult intervention (positioning, exercising, restricting) and 2) when motor development naturally occurs without adult intervention. Due to findings of her research Dr. Pikler became an advocate of ‘non-interference’ —letting the infant develop at his own rate. She suggested that by allowing the child freedom of movement, parents would develop respect for their baby’s individual tempo and style in other areas of development as well.”
Pikler emphasizes, “The Institute withholds ‘teaching’ in any form. Under ‘teaching’ we understand systematic practice of certain motor skills by holding or keeping the child in a certain position, whether by adult or by equipment, or in any way helping him to make movements that he is not yet able to execute by himself in his daily life. Spontaneous, self-initiated activities by the infant have an essential value for his physical and mental development in that the pleasure evolving from exploration and mastery is self-reinforcing. Subsequently, the infant becomes intrinsically motivated to learn.” At RIE in Los Angeles, Magda Gerber stressed the importance of allowing the child to develop without interference. She believed that intervention creates a child less motivated to be inner directed, and can directly or indirectly affect the child’s self esteem negatively.
In an account of 722 children raised at the National Methodological Institute for Infant Care and Education, investigators described the children’s movements as well-coordinated, economical, and cautious. “The children, without exception, attained the age-appropriate motor skills. They [maintain] a stable, high activity level during the whole period of learning new motor skills, and change their postures on average of at least once per minute.” Gerber also found that a child restricted from moving freely is deprived of the long hours of exercising in transitional postures necessary before mastering the next developmental skill.
Parents often want their child to “progress” as quickly as possible with their neuromuscular and intellectual development. Family practitioners need to inform parents of the research that supports allowing children to move within the transitional stages between each posture. These transitional stages are of great importance to the child’s neuromuscular development, as well as their psychological development. Each child has her own individual developmental timetable, and each step she takes along the way is the body’s way of integrating itself into the world. Bypassing some of these steps may initially seem beneficial because it accelerates a child’s development. However, this practice might need to be reconsidered.
While “tummy time” is considered important for child development, what needs to be understood is whether quicker development of specific behaviors is in the child’s best interest. RIE’s philosophy is that each child has an individual developmental pattern. Transitional phases between each developmental milestone are as important as the milestone itself (such as rolling over, sitting, standing, or walking) and developing a child’s innerdependence reduces the need for external dependence that can occur as the child grows up. Consider the following guide for parental intervention for child development:
1. Give a child the greatest control over her body and environment. This involves placing the child in the prone or face-up position, since in this position children have the greatest access to their hands and legs as well as a full view of the world around them. From this position they develop good hand eye coordination and as well as the transitions needed to turn from back to stomach to begin the process of crawling.
Refrain from placing children in positions they cannot maintain on their own, including on their stomach before they can roll from their back by themselves, or sitting or standing until they can achieve these positions on their own.
This would also suggest that parents refrain from placing their child in car seats for long intervals, in “jolly jumpers,” or in seated walkers. The process of development involves both muscular and neurological development of proper transitions. Getting your child to sit up or walk quickly is not necessarily in his best interest. Children develop at their own personal pace and parents shouldn’t impose preconceived notions or compare one child to another.
2. Help nurture a child’s inner-dependence and internal strengths. Another important childhood skill, in addition to transitional developmental skills, is learning how to self-soothe. A child crying is an indication of many things. Sometimes it is a child expressing himself or relieving tension; in some instances it may even offer a therapeutic value. Parents need to discern when their child’s crying is more upsetting to them than it is to the child.
Aside from the questionable nature of pacifier use, due to its adverse affect on dental development, parents commonly place a pacifier in the child’s mouth to control crying. What RIE has found over many decades is that a child will place their hands in their mouth when they want something to suck. By not using a pacifier, children learn good hand-to-mouth development and can soothe themselves when needed. This also pertains to placing a child in a swing or imposing the parent’s wish that the child would stop crying over the child’s need to learn how to soothe himself.
Resources for Infant Educarers (RIE) offers publications and classes that new parents may find of great interest. New parents will find authorities everywhere telling them what to do for their children, yet often the best advice is to use common sense— allowing children to express their individual developmental patterns, and giving them the greatest control over their personal environment while they learn coping skills for self-soothing. These concepts are not about parental neglect, but instead involve being attentive to children in a manner that supports their individual growth and coping skills.
This article appeared in Pathways to Family Wellness magazine, Issue #22.
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A metaphor for Model Driven Engineering
A couple of weeks ago I wrote an article introducing a framework for Model-Driven SOA. This article doesn’t stand on its own, it’s based on earlier pieces on Model-Driven SOA and observations that Model-Driven Engineering should focus on the problem domain. However, I’m noticing that these articles can be hard to grasp if you have no background knowledge. That’s why I want to explain Model-Driven Engineering using a simple metaphor I often use in my presentations.
Figure 1 shows the metaphor which compares building a house with building software. ‘Traditional’ programming can be compared with building a house manually. Someone studies the design and instructs people how to build the house (the upper half of the picture).
Model Driven Engineering (MDE) can be compared with the lower half of the picture. Based on some ideas on paper a model of a house is constructed. Once the model is complete it is put in a generator, et voila, the end result can be generated automatically.
When a Model Driven Engineering approach is used for developing software the main effort moves from programming to modeling. Based on functional requirements a model has to be developed. This model can be automatically converted into working software with a tool generating code from the model or by interpreting the model with a runtime environment (a.k.a. engine, virtual machine).
Based on this simple metaphor we can create an overview of the elements of Model Driven Engineering. We need:
- an executable model. This can be accomplished by using Domain-Specific Languages (DSL) to specify the model. DSLs can vary in structure and in most cases we need more than one DSL to keep them small and specific.
- a methodology to come from functional requirements, documentation, or something like that to the model. A first step into the direction of a methodology is this description of a framework for Model-Driven SOA.
- tools to define the DSLs and to specify the model. We also need tools to ensure the quality of the model.
- a generator or interpreter for making the model executable.
- an architecture describing the type of applications delivered by the model driven approach. There is quite a difference between a house and a software application, but also within software there are lots of differences.
What is your favorite metaphor for explaining Model Driven Engineering? | <urn:uuid:22bd5042-9b5f-4df0-b81f-fd58a21d7d27> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.theenterprisearchitect.eu/blog/2009/08/05/a-metaphor-for-model-driven-engineering | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00119-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905913 | 500 | 2.609375 | 3 |
are here: Freetutes.com
Analysis and Design
Once the flow of data and control in the system is decided using tools like
DFDs and CFDs, the system is given shape through programming. Prior to this, the
basic infrastructure of the program layout is prepared based on the concepts of
In modular programming, the complete system is coded as small independent interacting
modules. Each module is aimed at doing one specific task. The design for these
modules is prepared in the form of structure charts.
A structure chart is a design tool that pictorially shows the relation between
processing modules in computer software. Describes the hierarchy of components
modules and the data are transmitted between them. Includes analysis of input-to-output
transformations and analysis of transaction.
Structure charts show the relation of processing modules in computer software.
It is a design tool that visually displays the relationships between program modules.
It shows which module within a system interacts and graphically depicts the data
that are communicated between various modules.
Structure charts are developed prior to the writing of program code. They identify
the data passes existing between individual modules that interact with one another.
They are not intended to express procedural logic. This task is left to flowcharts
and pseudocode. They don't describe the actual physical interface between processing
Program modules are identified by rectangles with the module name written inside
Arrows indicate calls, which are any mechanism used to invoke a particular
Fig 6.2 - Notation used in structure charts.
Annotations on the structure chart indicate the parameter that are passed and
the direction of the data movement. In fig. 6.3, we see that modules A and B interact.
Data identified as X and Y are passed to module B, which in turn passes back Z.
Fig 6.3 - Annotations and data passing in structure charts
A calling module can interact with more than one subordinate module. Fig. 6.3
also shows module L calling subordinate modules M and N. M is called on the basis
of a decision point in L (indicated by the diamond notation), while N is called
on the basis of the iterative processing loop (noted by the arc at the start of
the calling arrow.
When one module calls another, the calling module can send data to the called
module so that it can perform the function described in its name. The called module
can produce data that are passed back to the calling module.
Two types of data are transmitted. The first, parameter data, are items of
data needed in the called module to perform the necessary work. A small arrow
with an open circle at the end is used to note the passing of data parameters.
In addition, control information (flag data) is also passed. Its purpose is to
assist in the control of processing by indicating the occurrence of, say, errors
or end-of-conditions. A small arrow with a closed circle indicates the control
information. A brief annotation describes the type of information passed.
Structure chart is a tool to assist the analyst in developing software that
meets the objectives of good software design.
Page | Contents
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Scientists are working on the ultimate sunless tanning product—a lotion that triggers skin cells to produce a real tan without exposure to harmful sunlight. David E. Fisher and his colleagues at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School bred a strain of mice with red fur that, like redheaded people, are unable to tan because of a genetic defect: The cells that make melanin (pigment) are intact, but the switch that turns them on in response to sunlight is impaired. The scientists bypassed this defective switch by rubbing the mice with a chemical that directly activates melanin production. After repeated applications (and no UV exposure), both these mice with red hair and nonredhaired mice developed darker skin that was indistinguishable from a sun-induced tan. When later exposed to UV light, the tan mice developed fewer skin cancers than untreated counterparts. (In contrast, standard self-tanning lotions, even if they contain sunscreen, don't trigger this protective pigmentation.) "Having dark pigment is a very healthy thing for our skin," Fisher says. "The great thing about this product is you don't need to be exposed to carcinogenic UV in order to get the darkening." Testing of the lotion in human skin is underway, he says. | <urn:uuid:44db6f10-661a-4d2f-8a20-6abdf09a7017> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.allure.com/beauty-trends/health/2007/Tanning_Without_Damage | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00072-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955518 | 257 | 3.15625 | 3 |
“Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.” — Tao Te Ching
Not all power is created equal.
If you know the six sources of social power, then you can influence yourself and others more effectively.
But first, let’s take a look at the most fleeting form of power.
Information Power is the Most Transient form of Power
Information power doesn’t last. Give away a piece of information and you give your power away.
On the other hand, knowledge and know-how is more enduring than informational power, but it’s limited to the area of expertise.
As you’ll soon see, a little know-how goes a long way, in more ways than one.
In the book, Social Psychology: Theories, Research, and Applications, Robert S. Feldman writes about the six bases of social power.
6 Types of Social Power
Feldman writes that according to French and Raven (1959), and later Raven (1974), there are six bases of social power:
- Reward Power
- Coercive Power
- Referent Power
- Legitimate Power
- Expert Power
- Informational Power
Here is a brief summary of the six type of power:
Reward Power is the ability to give rewards when others comply with your wishes. This may not work from one setting to the next. For example, an employee might laugh at a boss’s joke, but the boss’s neighbor might not.
Coercive Power is the opposite of Reward Power. It’s the ability to deliver punishments. While coercion can be effective in the short-term, it creates resentment and individuals will try to end the relationship.
This is where role models come into play. Referent Power is when somebody wants to be like you. They identify with you. You are their reference model. They find you attractive in some way and they model your behavior or thinking. Groups can also be a reference model and provide standards and norms of behavior, for example, social or peer pressure. It’s also possible to have negative reference groups. In this case, you want to avoid being like the group, and you modify your behavior to feel less similar to the group.
Legitimate Power is power that comes from a position or role. It’s positional authority. For example, you "should" or "ought" to listen to your parents, or your boss. The unique aspect of legitimate power is that it’s not about rational arguments — the power comes from the position or role. Also, the role can be more important than the individual. For example, presidents my come and go, but the role is always a powerful one.
"Knowledge is power." Expert Power is where expertise or knowledge is the source of power. This is where credentials, awards, and know-how play a role. You end up deferring to greater knowledge for the area of expertise, such as a doctor or mechanic. It’s limited to the area of expertise. For example, you won’t ask your doctor for advice on your car, just because they are a skilled physician.
Informational Power is the most transitory type of power. Once you give your information away, you give your power away. For example, you share the secret, your power is gone. It’s different from other forms of power because it’s grounded in what you know about the content of a specific situation. Other forms of power are independent of the content.
How To Use the Types of Power
The next time you find yourself following the crowd or following a leader, check yourself and ask where their power is coming from.
If you find yourself in a leadership position, practice self-awareness and know what you draw your power and influence from.
The next time you find yourself holding onto information because you think it gives you power, recognize that this is a fragile base.
Coercive Power is not sustainable and it burns bridges.
Legitimate Power comes and goes with the position, and Informational Power is very fleeting. (I don’t depend on information as a source of power, so I’m always quick to give information away.)
Instead, build expertise and reward people.
They are firm and worthy ways to improve your influence, and rewards can be as simple as acknowledgment and appreciation.
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Image by Alena Navarro-Whyte. | <urn:uuid:d0a7dd11-4e75-4058-a6d4-e4add092281c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://sourcesofinsight.com/information-is-the-most-transient-form-of-power/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395613.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00070-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922536 | 929 | 3 | 3 |
|Scientific Name:||Conolophus marthae|
|Species Authority:||Gentile & Snell, 2009|
|Taxonomic Source(s):||Tzika, A.C., Rosa, S.F.P., Fabiani, A., Snell, H.L., Snell, H.M., Marquez, C., Tapia, W., Rassmann, K., Gentile, G. and Milinkovitch, M.C. 2008. Population genetics of Galápagos land iguana (genus Conolophus) remnant populations. Molecular Ecology 17(23): 4943-4952.|
|Taxonomic Notes:||Conolophus marthae was recently described. No prior reference exists in the taxonomic literature as the species was not known before its description (Gentile and Snell 2009). The description was based on morphological, genetic, and behavioural diagnostic traits. The holotype is a free-living adult male tagged with a subcutaneous electronic marker, branded, and released. Further genetic evidence supporting separate taxonomic status of the Galápagos Pink Land Iguana prior to the species description is found in Gentile et al. 2009 and Tzika et al. 2008. Gentile et al. (2009) disclaims the name ‘‘rosada’’ for nomenclatural purposes (Articles 8.2 and 8.3, International Code of Zoological Nomenclature 1999).|
|Red List Category & Criteria:||Critically Endangered B1ab(iii,v)+2ab(iii,v); C2a(ii) ver 3.1|
|Reviewer(s):||Grant, T. & Burghardt, G.M.|
|Contributor(s):||Tapia, W. & Snell, H.|
A single wild population of the Galápagos Pink Land Iguana exists and is limited to a range less than 25 km² with a core area less than 10 km². The population of this iguana is very small (192 mature individuals) and prone to genetic, demographic, and environmental stochasticity. Population trends are unknown but there is genetic evidence of past reduction and current juvenile recruitment has not been observed. Black Rats and feral cats are present in the range and are likely predators, as is known for other Galápagos iguanas. The presence of ectoparasites and possible endoparasites is a potential concern and its impact on population fitness is unknown. Hybridization and introgression between C. marthae and C. subcristatus has occurred in the past on Volcán Wolf, the extent and effect of which has not been fully evaluated yet. Volcanic eruptions and periodic droughts may also impact this species.
|Range Description:||The Galápagos Pink Land Iguana is a recently described species endemic to Volcán Wolf, a single location on Isla Isabela. Based on direct observations (G. Gentile pers. comm. 2011) and reports of the Galápagos National Park surveys, this iguana has never been observed outside an area larger than 25 km². The maximum area surrounding the geographic capture points of all individuals observed to date is 10.9 km², with more than 95% of observations clustering in a much smaller area (G. Gentile pers. comm. 2011). The iguana occurs along the northern slopes of the volcano, in an area ranging from 600-1,700 m asl. There may be a seasonal shift in altitude with Pink Iguanas concentrating at the crater rim at 1,700 m during the months of May-July and descending down to 600 m when vegetation starts drying out. This iguana has not been seen inside the caldera.|
|Estimated area of occupancy (AOO) - km2:||9-10.9|
|Continuing decline in area of occupancy (AOO):||Unknown|
|Extreme fluctuations in area of occupancy (AOO):||Unknown|
|Estimated extent of occurrence (EOO) - km2:||25|
|Continuing decline in extent of occurrence (EOO):||Unknown|
|Extreme fluctuations in extent of occurrence (EOO):||Unknown|
|Number of Locations:||1|
|Continuing decline in number of locations:||No|
|Extreme fluctuations in the number of locations:||No|
|Lower elevation limit (metres):||600|
|Upper elevation limit (metres):||1700|
|Range Map:||Click here to open the map viewer and explore range.|
A single wild population of Galápagos Pink Land Iguana exists and it is not found ex situ. Recently, the effective population size (Ne) has been estimated as large as 41.21 individuals (95% CL = 30.71-67.97) by using microsatellite data (9 loci) (Fulvo 2010). Mark-recapture data, by applying the Lincoln-Petersen method from two contiguous temporal samples in 2009 and 2010 (percentage of recapture = 53%), would indicate 192 adult individuals (95% CL = 155-260). Sex ratio estimated from samples collected in May 2009 was one male to 0.59 females and one male to 0.51 females in July 2010 (Gentile and Fulvo 2011).Past and future population trends are impossible to assess due to the lack of a sufficiently long series of estimates of population size. Monomorphism for a single mitochondrial DNA haplotype in a sample of 102 iguanas strongly suggests that the Galápagos Pink Land Iguana might have suffered severe demographic contractions in the past (G. Gentile pers. comm. 2011). From 2005 to 2011, 133 adult individuals were captured and permanently marked with brands and Passive Integrated Transponders, representing nearly all observed Pink Iguanas (G. Gentile pers. comm. 2011). During these surveys, no juveniles were observed, suggesting population recruitment appears to be non-effective.
|Current Population Trend:||Unknown|
|Habitat and Ecology:||The Galápagos Pink Land Iguana (Conolophus marthae) is found coexisting with a subpopulation of Galápagos Land Iguana (Conolophus subcristatus) on Volcán Wolf. Altitudinal shifts along the slopes of the volcano imply different environmental conditions, which ultimately are reflected by different types of vegetation. The habitat includes tropical dry shrubland at the top of the volcano and tropical dry forest along the slopes. Vegetation at the highest altitudes may be impacted by droughts. The head nodding behaviour of C. marthae is very distinctive and completely different from C. subcristatus and may be a barrier to hybridization.
Basic reproductive biology of this iguana is unknown. In late spring 2010, a few C. marthae females were observed carrying 4-7 eggs in their follicles, investigated by a portable ultrasound machine (G. Gentile pers. comm. 2011). These data would indicate a much smaller clutch size than for the geographically closest population of C. subcristatus on Fernandina Island (7-23 eggs, Werner 1982). It is still unclear whether C. marthae and C. subcristatus have overlapping reproductive seasons and if the two species may compete for nesting sites on Volcán Wolf; the location of these nests is unknown.
Average snout-to-vent length (SVL) of animals observed is 46.8 cm, males being significantly larger than females. The SVL of the smallest male Galápagos Pink Land Iguana captured was 37.3 cm, a size that broadly corresponds to the SVL in seven-year old Galápagos Land Iguana individuals (37.5 cm ± 6.0 SD) from Santa Cruz, and even older individuals from Plaza Sur.
|Continuing decline in area, extent and/or quality of habitat:||Yes|
|Use and Trade:||There is no current or known historic human use or trade of this species.|
The population of Galápagos Pink Land Iguana is extremely small and prone to both demographic and genetic stochasticity, as well as environmental stochasticity (volcanic eruptions, droughts).
Because of the overlapping range with Galápagos Land Iguana, hybridization may occur, generating introgression between C. marthae and C. subcristatus on Volcán Wolf. Although there is no evidence of living F1 hybrids at present, DNA evidence shows that rare events of hybridization have occurred, though the severity of subsequent introgression has not been fully evaluated yet (Gentile et al. 2009, Fulvo 2010). Because the population is so small, rare events of hybridization may have a significant effect on the species.
In addition to the Galápagos Hawk (Buteo galapagoensis), the only native predator of Galápagos Pink Land Iguanas on Volcán Wolf, invasive alien Black Rats (Rattus rattus) and feral cats (Felis catus) are potential predators of eggs and hatchlings. It is known that feral cats prey on Galápagos Land Iguanas up to three and four years old. Animals in this age class represent a size that has not been found among Pink Iguanas. Therefore, it is suspected that feral cats pose a significant threat to population recruitment in Galápagos Pink Land Iguanas.
Volcán Wolf is an active volcano, with several eruptions recorded in the last century, most recently in 1982. Most recent lava is found on the eastern and southern sides of the volcano and in the caldera (Geist et al. 2005). Eruptions may have caused local extinctions of populations of C. subcristatus in the past, for example, Volcán Chico (on the eastern side of Volcán Sierra Negra) in 1979 (Snell et al. 1984).
Droughts may be severe on the top of Volcán Wolf. Although adults are expected to cope fairly well with drought since they obtain water from consumed plants, the resultant scarcity of food may potentially cause aborted reproduction for the year due to a combination of lack of egg laying, a higher number of infertile eggs laid, and poor juvenile survival.
Ectoparasite load is high in both Galápagos Land Iguanas and Pink Iguanas on Volcán Wolf. In fact, the location is characterized by a massive occurrence of ticks, which are much more abundant in Volcán Wolf than elsewhere in the archipelago. Both C. marthae and the C. subcristatus populations from Volcán Wolf show an unbalanced leukocyte formula compared to other populations of land iguanas from the whole archipelago. This could be related to the presence of ticks, but could also indicate a possible endoparasitic infection affecting most individuals (Fulvo 2010). This issue and how it might effect the fitness of the two populations is under investigation.
There is no current or known historic human use or trade of this species.
All species of Galápagos Land Iguanas (Conolophus spp.) are included in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). The known geographic range of Galápagos Pink Land Iguana is within the Galápagos National Park, the legal authority governing and protecting biological diversity of the Galápagos Islands. The Land Iguanas are included in the Management of Native and Endemic Species Program, as part of the Management Plan of the Galápagos National Park.The Galápagos National Park undertakes major campaigns to control and eradicate invasive alien species in the Galápagos, including on Volcán Wolf. Such actions have so far successfully prevented habitat disturbance by feral goats in northern Isabela and promoted habitat restoration of southern Isabela. In the early 2000s, a three-year programme to eradicate feral cats from the island of Baltra (where C. subcristatus was repatriated from 1991 onwards) was effective by initially poisoning with sodium monofluoroacetate (compound 1080), then trapping or shooting the remaining cats (Phillips et al. 2005). However, the applicability of this protocol on Volcán Wolf is questionable due to the difficult terrain and is likely impossible for an island as large as Isla Isabela, an area of 4,588 km² (Nogales et al. 2004). Further evaluation of the feral cat population on Volcán Wolf is needed for the purpose of implementing a programme for their control.
Based on successful programmes for the populations of C. subcristatus from Bahía Cartago (Isabela), Santa Cruz, and Baltra islands (Snell et al. 1984), the National Park is also considering a captive-breeding programme for C. marthae. The University Tor Vergata (Rome, Italy) is actively assisting the Park in this regard.
The Galápagos Pink Land Iguana is not in contact with humans in Galápagos except for the purpose of scientific investigation and management. The Galápagos National Park does not envision a plan to include Volcán Wolf in the list of touristic sites nor other possible intrusions to the population. Nevertheless, as the species is endemic and has a very limited distribution, the National Park has added a specific educational module focused on this species in the courses aimed at training and updating nature guides. This training ensures proper information is conveyed to visiting tourists.
Information on the population biology and ecology of Pink Iguanas is very limited and research has begun. Research needs include monitoring of population and habitat trends, diet analysis, and in-depth study of the reproductive biology of this species. Clarifying the frequency of hybridization and level of genetic introgression between C. marthae and C. subcristatus is urgently needed. Additionally, the health status of the population should be monitored and the possible impact of a high parasite load on the fitness of the population should be investigated.
Additionally, in the event a captive breeding programme is started, the Galápagos National Park, in collaboration with the University Tor Vergata, will develop an education programme for local people and tourists. It is extremely difficult and expensive to access the study area. The need to transport equipment to and from the site limits the duration of research trips and consequently the extent of research that can be conducted on any one trip. The construction of a small low-impact, temporary field structure near the top of volcano would greatly help by allowing longer field trips and more effective research work and monitoring.
|Citation:||Gentile, G. 2012. Conolophus marthae. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2012: e.T174472A1414375. . Downloaded on 29 June 2016.|
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GREEN PROJECTS are everywhere in Massachusetts. For energy efforts alone, 110 cities and towns from Provincetown to Pittsfield have been designated Green Communities by the state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Affairs since 2010 and have received more than $21 million in grants. If the Green Communities program meets its long-term goal, all 351 cities and towns will move toward clean energy from renewable sources and maximize their energy efficiency.
Financial support and a committed local government are of course crucial to towns struggling to be greener — but so is the initiative and creativity of the community. And on all those fronts, Northampton, nestled in the Connecticut River Valley, appears to have a winning combination. With a critical mass of activists (they figured out how to create the largest community farm in the state), innovative green entrepreneurs, and municipal leaders who take reducing the city’s carbon footprint seriously, Northampton, population 28,500, is getting things done. Here are just a few ways the city is growing greener.
1. BUILDING ONE BIG COMMUNITY FARM
What if a city could grow enough food to provide for all of its residents? A few years ago, a group of Northampton citizens, with support from the city, commissioned students at the nearby Conway School of Landscape Design to look at the issue. So-called food security brings lots of environmental benefits, such as drastically reduced fuel needs for shipping, as well as protection in a time of crisis, and the group wanted to know where Northampton stood.
The resulting report, published in spring 2010, showed just how precious local farmland was. If all available open space in the city were devoted to agriculture, Northampton could feed only about 47 percent of its residents.
The school’s findings came out as local-food activists had begun working to save a farm that the city was planning to convert to sports fields. Lilly Lombard ran a listserv that helped marshal the troops. “We quickly organized our eaters under the name of Grow Food Northampton to protect that prime land for organic farming,” she says. After a few weeks of political battling with the city, Grow Food turned to the Trust for Public Land, which came up with a solution to the tug of war: Buy an adjoining farm as well, providing for both sports fields and agriculture. The Trust, a national land conservation group, used grant money to purchase both farms, with the intention of selling the 185 acres to the city and Grow Food.
The price tag for the acreage that would remain farmland was $700,000, and Grow Food had about nine months to come up with the money. Its leaders applied for 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, installed Lombard as founding board president, and launched a fund-raising campaign. “We knew this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance, so we never stopped to breathe,” Lombard says. After amassing 1,400 individual contributions, Grow Food Northampton purchased 121 acres of farmland outright, the city bought the remaining 64 acres for the sports fields and a greenway, and Northampton became home to the largest community farm in Massachusetts.
In spring 2011, Grow Food’s hands-on work to bring more local food to local plates began. It opened the lands for lease and signed a contract for 39 of its acres with Jen Smith and Nate Frigard, Northamptonites who’d been farming for a combined 18 years, to establish Crimson & Clover Farm. The lease specified that Crimson & Clover, today a 300-share community supported agriculture (CSA) co-op, use organic growing methods, prioritize markets within a 50-mile radius, offer farm-education opportunities, and work to help make food available to those in need.
Grow Food looks out for lower-income residents at the 7 acres it has devoted to the Florence Organic Community Garden, too. Here, Northamptonites can lease 20-by-20-foot plots, and a sliding pay scale ensures anyone willing to work the land can do so.
Lombard, now Grow Food’s executive director, says the land is a work in progress. Crimson & Clover’s role has expanded; it now also co-manages the farm’s 50-acre main field with Slow Tractor Farm. More than 100 new plots will be dug in the Florence garden this spring; the edible hedgerows planted in fall to serve as both windbreak and wildlife habitat will begin to mature. In a new arrangement, nearby Mockingbird Farm’s cattle will graze on Grow Food fields, providing bovine mowing services and manure for fertilizer. This year, Grow Food will add its first micro farm, an acre and a half dedicated to greens and medicinal herbs to be sold locally; more micro farms will likely follow.
As Lombard sees it, the farm isn’t just a “defense against climate disruption,” it’s a unifying force. “There are so many positive aspects to the project,” she says. “It gets people physically active, eating good food, talking to their neighbors, and actively preparing for an uncertain future by strengthening their resource base. All contribute to what I would call community resilience building.”
2. COLLECTING TRASH VIA BICYCLE
When it comes to trash, some Northampton residents go one step greener than recycling. They have their household waste — including recyclables for sorting — hauled to transfer stations by bicycle. Pedal People, a company started 10 years ago by cycling enthusiasts Ruthy Woodring and Alex Jarrett, uses long flatbed trailers hitched to bikes not just to remove their customers’ trash but also to distribute local farm shares, make diaper service deliveries and pickups, and even move furniture. After tens of thousands of miles, Pedal People has grown from a two-person operation into a flourishing worker cooperative with 13 partner-owners serving more than 500 customers. It is one of the city’s officially recognized trash-hauling services. Northampton’s David Narkewicz says, “I may be the only mayor in the country signing a trash and recycling hauling contract with a bicycle-powered company.”
3. PUTTING KIDS ON THE WALKING SCHOOL BUS
The Northampton rail-trail system is 11 miles of interlinking biking and walking trails, much of it plowed in winter. Residents use it to get to places like the city center, hospitals, Grow Food’s gardens, and Northampton’s new playing fields. The walking school bus uses part of the trail to get kids to class.
On Friday mornings — sometimes even in winter — 20 or more youngsters, accompanied by parents and teachers, make their way together to the Jackson Street elementary school. The walking bus’s 1½-mile route has two branches that wind through neighborhoods, including public housing. “It has a Make Way for Ducklings look about it,” says school principal Gwen Agna.
The concept originated in Australia in the late 1990s and is gaining ground in the United States. Beyond saving fuel, it promotes exercise and helps kids understand there are alternatives to motor vehicles, says Agna. Her school’s students don’t just walk the route, they use any non-motorized means of transportation — bikes or skateboards, for example. While the official walking bus runs only one day of the week, with a “celebrity” leader such as Agna, on many other days it wends its fossil-fuel-free way “driven” by parents.
4. MAKING LOCAL BEER EVEN GREENER
Humans have been producing beer for thousands of years, and until the Industrial Revolution, it was brewed where the grains were malted. Today almost all American beers, even locally brewed craft beers, are made from grains that have been malted — the term for germinating and drying — in the West or Midwest, according to Slow Tractor Farm owners Andrea and Christian Stanley. She and her husband have sought to change that, says Andrea, by “bringing malting home.” When they opened Valley Malt in Hadley, one town over from Northampton, in 2010, they couldn’t find any record of wheat or barley having been commercially malted in Massachusetts for over a century.
The Stanleys hope to brew their own beer eventually. But for now they cultivate grains on land leased from Grow Food and use them, along with grains from other Northeast farms, to produce malt for customers such as the Wormtown and Cambridge breweries in Massachusetts and Good Nature Brewing in New York. So instead of drinking beer brewed from ingredients hauled thousands of miles, Northeasterners can enjoy truly green beer — and not just on St. Patrick’s Day.
5. SUPPORTING FARMERS’ MARKETS
Among cities its size, which typically have one or two farmers’ markets, Northampton stands out with four. “I do not know of any other city of comparable size that has so many farmers’ markets,” says Philip Korman, executive director of Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture, a nonprofit in South Deerfield that promotes environmental sustainability and farm success in Western Massachusetts. According to Korman, Cambridge has six regular farmers’ markets and one winter market, but its population (about 106,000) is more than three times Northampton’s.
In spring, summer, and fall, Northamptonites can pick up fresh local produce at the Tuesday or Saturday markets downtown or the Wednesday market in Florence, a village of Northampton. Another Saturday market runs through the winter, so fresh local food is at hand year-round — and it’s not just for the well-to-do. Like a growing number of farmers’ markets, Northampton’s accept SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) credits, previously known as food stamps. The Tuesday market even doubles the coupons’ values for purchases of up to $10.
6. HIRING A POINT PERSON ON ENERGY
A full-time employee charged with helping city residents and businesses become more energy-efficient is a luxury for many communities. But by participating in an innovative state program, Northamptonites earned the money to pay for it.
In 2004, the Renewable Energy Trust, a state-sponsored public benefits fund, partnered with National Grid to offer Massachusetts residents an incentive to support green energy. Through the Green Up program, customers could opt to pay a premium toward electricity that came from renewable sources. In return, they could get a tax deduction, and their city could qualify for grants to be used for local green energy initiatives. Some 6 percent of Northampton households opted in, and the city received more than $253,000 in bonuses through the now defunct program. The city used some of that to establish a full-time energy officer. Chris Mason, who holds degrees in electrical engineering and resource management, came on board in 2007.
One of only a handful of full-time city energy officers in the state, Mason helps city government, local businesses, and residents become affordably energy-efficient. The city has a $6.5 million budget for renovations of 33 city buildings, from libraries and schools to the mayor’s office, and Mason helps oversee those projects and works with community groups and business leaders to reduce their energy consumption.
According to Narkewicz, businesses’ efforts to save on energy and protect the environment pay off in more ways than one: “City residents are supportive of businesses that strive to be energy-efficient and environmentally friendly.” The Taco Bell has stepped up to the plate, so has River Valley Market, a co-op grocery store; they’ve both earned a LEED Gold rating — a building-industry designation for environmentally friendly structures. Other businesses are on the same path. Homeowners, too, are doing deep energy retrofits, and Mason can direct them to rebate programs and other financial assistance.
If Northampton is greener now than when he came on board, “the town’s the hero,’’ Mason says. “They were all gung-ho to be energy-sustainable, but they needed more tools. I just help them find the tools.”
To Lilly Lombard, Mason’s work and all of Northampton’s green initiatives are most significant when they spread and seed new ideas beyond city limits. “There’s so much cross-pollination going on within the Commonwealth — that’s the real take-home,” Lombard says. “The adaptations we have to make to face climate change are so huge that none of us can tackle them as mere citizens or isolated towns. We have to, all of us, inspire, share, and collaborate.”
AN ACTIVIST FOR THE AGES
Everyone in the city seems to know Frances Crowe. At 93, she’s Northampton’s senior activist. In 1951, when she and her now-late husband arrived in the city, her primary focus was on peace and anti-nuclear campaigns. She still works on those issues and was arrested (again) protesting the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in September. But today, environmental concerns sit at the top of her list.
“Climate change is the most pressing issue facing us today,” says Crowe, who buys all her food at farmers’ markets and grocery stores that carry locally grown produce. She no longer travels by plane; she walks almost everywhere in town, resorting to trains and cars only if her feet can’t get her there — and carpooling as often as possible when she can’t walk. Pedal Power’s Ruthy
Woodring mows Crowe’s grass with an old-fashioned human-powered push mower.
“I can’t change Washington, so my chief work is to change myself and educate the community,” says Crowe. And the community applauds her example. Mayor David Narkewicz remembers Crowe’s 90th birthday celebration, when many people marked the event by not driving the entire day. Says Narkewicz: “Frances not only talks the talk, she walks the walk . . . literally.”
Victoria Hughes is a writer and filmmaker in Ipswich. Send comments to email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:b9b33945-8a8f-4ac0-a186-fe94fb739263> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2013/02/24/six-green-ideas-from-northampton/5ta0L5sMj7y51JfJ0euIYJ/story.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00189-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953508 | 3,019 | 2.65625 | 3 |
UN highlights future of clean energy
Paris - Renewable power from the sun, wind, water and biomass can and should
generate a major portion of the planet's energy supply by 2050, according to a
draft United Nations report obtained by AFP.
Renewables have the potential to bring power to the world's poorest regions,
boost energy security for nations dependent on imports, and curb the CO2
emissions that fuel global warming, the draft said.
The 30-page "summary for policy makers" - boiled down from 1 500
pages - is being vetted at a May 5-13 meeting of the 194-nation
Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) in Abu Dhabi, and will be
unveiled on Monday.
"The final version is likely to be substantially different in wording
and perhaps somewhat in emphasis, but not a great deal in substance," said
an industry representative participating in talks.
By far the most comprehensive UN assessment of the status and potential for
the clean energy sector, the report weighs 164 separate development scenarios.
Six types of renewables accounted in 2008 for 12.9% of global energy supply:
biomass (10.2%), hydropower (2.3%), wind (0.2%), solar (0.1%), geothermal (0.1%)
and ocean (0.002%).
Once traditional use of firewood and animal dung for cooking and heating is
set aside, however, that percentage drops to about seven.
Coal, oil and gas together make up 85%, and nuclear energy two percent.
Boosted by some government policies, declining technology costs and rising
fossil fuel prices, "deployment of renewable energy has been increasing
rapidly in recent years", the draft summary said.
The sector contributed, for example, nearly half of the 300 gigawatts of new
electricity generating capacity added worldwide in 2008 and 2009, with more
than 50% installed in developing countries. Coal accounted for most of the
The report says there is virtually unlimited technical potential for
renewables, with much of it coming from solar energy.
Drafted before the Fukushima plant meltdown in Japan undercut the so-called
nuclear renaissance, the summary said renewables will likely make a higher
contribution to low-carbon energy supply by mid-century than nuclear energy and
carbon capture and storage (CCS) combined.
Overall, a majority of projections reviewed show a "substantial
increase" - ranging from 3-to-20 fold - "in the deployment of
renewable energy by 2030, 2050 and beyond."
Many scenarios showed renewables reaching 200 to 400 exajoules (EJ) a year
by mid-century in a world where total primary energy supply is forecast to be
about 1 000 EJ, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
An exajoule is a unit of measure for energy.
Clean energy's share of future supply varies hugely across different
forecasts, with the most ambitious envisioning a world in which it covers
three-quarters of all energy needs.
But the continuing growth of renewables is not inexorable and faces many
barriers, ranging from vested political interests to inadequate incentive
structures for developing new technology, and fossil fuel subsidies.
"To achieve international climate mitigation targets that incorporate
high shares of renewable energy, a structural shift in today's energy systems
will be required over the next few decades," the report said.
It will also take a lot of money - 1.4 to 5.1 trillion dollars for the
coming decade, and another 1.5 to 7.2 trillion dollars for the period
Clean sources of power must play a critical role if the UN-backed goal of
preventing average global temperatures from rising more than 2.0 degrees
Celsius is to be met, the IPCC said.
Currently, use of fossil fuels in the energy system accounts for some 60% of
all greenhouse gases.
UN climate talks have remained largely stalemated since the near collapse of
the 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen, even as scientists warn that climate
change is accelerating.
"Renewable energy can help decouple development and rising emissions,
contributing to sustainable development," the draft summary said.
Global cumulative CO2 "savings" between 2010 and 2050 will total
220 to 560 gigatonnes (Gt) off a projected accumulation from fossil fuel
sources of 1,530 Gt over the same period, according to various scenarios.
The IPCC meeting has set aside four days to review every line of text in the | <urn:uuid:9bcdcf02-a442-446b-898a-7c9d1f0e0b72> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/UN-highlights-future-of-clean-energy-20110507 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397695.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00086-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909587 | 961 | 3.265625 | 3 |
From Our 2014 Archives
U.S. Teens' Cardiorespiratory Fitness Has Dropped in Last Decade: Report
Latest Exercise & Fitness News
Using a specific measure, the researchers found that only about half of boys and one-third of girls between the ages of 12 and 15 had adequate levels of cardiorespiratory fitness. The overall percentage of fit teens went from 52.4 percent in 1999 to 42.2 percent in 2012, according to the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Cardiorespiratory fitness involves the ability of the circulatory and respiratory systems to support continuous physical activity. It's measured by maximal oxygen uptake, also known as VO2max. This is the greatest capacity of the body to use oxygen during exercise.
Regardless of their age, boys had better cardiorespiratory fitness than girls, according to data gleaned from national surveys. Although levels of cardiorespiratory fitness among teens did not vary by race or income, the survey data revealed this measure of fitness did decline as weight increased.
A smaller percentage of overweight and obese young people had adequate levels of cardiorespiratory fitness than teens who maintained a normal weight. This is particularly significant, given that about one in five U.S. teens between the ages of 12 and 19 is obese.
-- Mary Elizabeth Dallas
SOURCE: U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, news release, May 28, 2014. | <urn:uuid:0e5f8da0-5113-4037-adc6-e99f95c4b7e6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=178700 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395613.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00168-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956748 | 313 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Local officials in D.C. recently convened a convention to draft a constitution that would put the city on the path to statehood. Under the plan, the District would adopt a new name: "New Columbia." But some of those who've been on the front lines of the fight for statehood aren't thrilled about how the process has worked so far - and where it might be going.
History books have painted a narrative of the U.S. founding that any student can recite: Colonists, straining against the tyranny of the British crown, revolted in the name of freedom, liberty and justice for all. But in recent years, historians have revisited that conventional story, examining the important role slaves played for Britain in its quest to quell colonists. Now, in a new book, historian Gerald Horne argues it was the desire to maintain slavery that was the prime motivator of the uprising. Kojo and Horne revisit the period leading up to 1776 to find out how slavery in North America and the British colonies influenced the revolution.
- Gerald Horne Professor of African American Studies, University of Houston; Author "The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America"
Read A Featured Excerpt
Excerpted from “The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America” by Gerald Horne. Reprinted with permission from NYU Press. All Rights Reserved.
MR. KOJO NNAMDIAsk any student what the American Revolution was all about and the answer might go something like this, colonial settlers, angry over years of unfair taxes and punitive laws by the British crown, rebelled to pursue freedom as an independent nation. But what if this classic story of liberty and justice for all wasn't entirely complete? What if history books said slavery paid a central role in driving the American Revolution? It's a provocative argument that's getting a lot more academic scrutiny by historians on both sides of the pond.
MR. KOJO NNAMDIAnd now a new book places colonial slaves, their growing desire for freedom and white settlers fear of that freedom at the heart of the American Revolution. So what role did slavery really play in the story of 1776? And what important history have our textbooks overlooked?
MR. KOJO NNAMDIJoining us to talk about this is Gerald Horne, professor of history and African American studies at the University of Houston and author of the book, "The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America." He joins us from the studios of WUNC, in Chapel Hill. Gerald Horne, thank you so much for joining us.
MR. GERALD HORNEThank you for inviting me.
NNAMDIGerald Horne, putting slavery at the heart of the U.S. Revolution isn't necessarily a new idea for historians, but it's still got shock value when you put it before the American mainstream. Most Americans grew up with history books that said the U.S. Revolution was a revolt against tyranny and taxation by the British crown, which eventually gave birth to a democratic republic. I grew up in a British colony and the history books there told a slightly different story. But why did you feel this needed to be reexamined?
HORNEIt needed to be reexamined in part because, as I scan today's headlines, I see many stories that need deeper interrogation. Stories like, for example, the high and disproportionate incarceration of black Americans, their over-representation on death row, stories like a Department of Education study that suggested that black preschoolers are suspended in a spectacularly higher rate than other preschoolers, academic studies that suggest that black pedestrians are mowed down by drivers more than other pedestrians.
HORNEIt seems to me -- it seemed to me and seems to me that we need a deeper investigation of these kinds of normalized examples of bigotry. And it seems to me, as well, that we have to go back into history to get a truer picture of what's going on today.
NNAMDIWell, your historian colleagues have explored how enslaved Africans in the colonies fled to British lines in exchange for freedom under the crown. But what have they been missing, research-wise, that you wanted to explore?
HORNEI think that unfortunately -- and perhaps for understandable reasons -- when historians examine the origins of the United States of America, they examine it in part as a pre-U.S. history story. That is to say they look at what's going on in the 13 colonies before 1776, at best. Whereas, as you well know, Britain had a sprawling colonial empire in the Americas. And part of my story seeks to basically weave in the story of many of those colonies, Jamaica, Antigua, Barbados, in particular, into the larger story of how slavery influenced 1776.
HORNEAs well, I think that many of the previous historians have not not necessarily, believe it or not, done as much research in London as they should have, which is rather shocking because, of course, if you're going to write about post-1898 Puerto Rico, I assume you would have to do some research in Washington, D.C., or the mainland of North America in general. So I think that's part of what I tried to bring to the table.
NNAMDIHow were you able to get to the original research to put yourselves in the shoes of colonial enslaved blacks and their overseers? Tell us about that process.
HORNEWell, as you well know, the sources from the 17th and 18th century are overwhelming the sources of planters and slavers and merchants. Few are the sources, quite frankly, that come from the enslaved themselves. But, needless to say, if you read these sources rather closely and read them against the grain, a surprising story emerges. Point number one, the short answer, in terms of how slavery influenced 1776 is Somerset's case. June 1772, in London, where Lord Mansfield, who happened to be of Scottish origin, made a ruling that suggested that slavery in England would no longer obtain.
HORNEThis led to a logical corollary on this side of the Atlantic, that if slavery no longer obtained in London, then why should it obtain on the James River or in the Chesapeake region, for example. This enraged and outraged many planters whose fortunes would have been jeopardized as a result, helping to spark a revolt -- led, interestingly enough, by slave owners like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, etcetera. The longer story stretches back to 1688 and the so-called Glorious Revolution London.
HORNEWhereby the monarch, the king had to take a step back, as against the rising power of the merchants, not least with regard to the African slave trade, theretofore, under the thumb of the royal African company, this leads to what I refer to as the de-regulation of the African slave trade, the era of free trade in Africans, as numerous merchants plunge into this trade, descending on the African continent, with the maniacal energy of crazed bees, chasing down and manacling and handcuffing and dragging across the Atlantic every African in sight.
HORNEThey're drawn, in the first place, these Africans, to the Caribbean, which quickly has a population ratio that favors them, which creates favorable conditions for slave revolts, of which there are many in Jamaica, Antigua and Barbados in particular. This leads…
NNAMDIWell, I need to interrupt to mention that I am originally from what was British Guyana and is now Guyana. And the national hero of that country, mentioned in your book by the way, is a slave by the name of Cuffy, who led a slave rebellion there against the Dutch in 1763, that involved 2,500 slaves rebelling against them. So they had the advantage of numbers in those colonies, did they not?
HORNEYou are absolutely correct. And as we well know, that advantage finally eventuates 1791 to 1804 with the Haitian Revolution, one of the radical, transformative projects of any era in history. And by the way, I'm writing a book about that as we speak. But in any case, these slave revolts are exploding in particular in Antigua, 1709 and 1736, leading many of the settlers to make the great trek to the mainland, including, by the way, Abraham Redwood.
HORNEWhen I was doing research in Newport, R.I., the epicenter of the African slave trade on the mainland, I found that the central library there to this very day is named after Abraham Redwood, who fled to the mainland with his enslaved Africans in tow. And so what happens is that up into the mid part of the 18th century, London sees the Caribbean as being more valuable than the mainland. But that begins to change, not least because in Jamaica, which in some ways is the leading British colony in the Caribbean, you have the Maroon phenomenon, whereby…
HORNE…the 1730s it seemed that the Africans were about to dislodge British rule. And Britain was faced with the prospect of either making a rather measured march to abolition or a helter-skelter retreat from slavery, which could mean not only losing investments, but losing their lives. This measured march to abolition -- which, as noted, culminates in June 1772, with Somerset's case -- helps to deepen a preexisting split and fissure between the metropolis in London and the provinces in the Americas, eventuating in 1776. And the rebellion is against British rule, which leads to the United States of America.
NNAMDII find it fascinating that the 1772 Somerset case, which involved a British judge, William Murray Mansfield, was probably known more to historians like yourself, than anyone else until the movie, "Belle," came along recently, in which that relationship is heightened and where people like me got to learn a little bit more about that case in popular culture. What did you think about that movie, by the way?
HORNEWell, full disclosure, this past weekend I was in Atlanta for the unveiling of the DVD of "Belle," where I made friends with the director and the star and so probably a little prejudice, so therefore I should say with preface that I found the movie very compelling.
NNAMDIYeah, so did I.
HORNEAnd I recommend it highly.
NNAMDISo did I, as a matter of fact. We're talking with Gerald Horne, he is a professor of history and African American studies at the University of Houston, author of the book, "The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States." You can join the conversation by calling 800-433-8850. Do you think that reexamining important historical events is necessary to understand them fully?
NNAMDIWas slavery ever mentioned when you were learning about the Revolutionary War? 800-433-8850. You can send email to firstname.lastname@example.org. Gerald Horne, I'd like to get back to the reason why you made this investigation of history in the first place and how you connect it to all of the events that are going on involving race relations and the African American community in the present time.
HORNEWell, part of the story I tell, particularly in the footnotes of this book, is that I don't feel that the term racism -- which I use all the time, including in this conversation. I think it's a necessary, but inadequate explanation of the fate that has befallen, in particular, the descendants of mainland enslaved Africans.
HORNEAs we well know, during the bad old days of Jim Crow, you had people like the musician born as Lee Brown, eventually Babs Gonzales, who masqueraded or passed as South Asian or as Mexican because he felt that being marked as a descendant of enslaved mainland Africans would lead to a worse fate. Angela Davis talks about growing up in Birmingham, Ala., during the Jim Crow days where she -- if she wanted to get adequate service in a department store, she would come in and speak French, so that she would not be marked as a descendant of a mainland enslaved African.
HORNEIt seems to me that if racism were the sole explanation for our fate, then speaking French should have nothing to do with getting better treatment. I think what's happened is that there was a contestation in the 18th century between Africans and indigenous on the one hand and Europeans settlers on the other hand throughout even the period after the formation of the States. The former, that is to say the indigenous and the Africans oftentimes allied with foreign powers to the detriment of the settlers. This happened when we were first regarded as, quote, "Negroes," unquote, which was Spanish for black, which suggested our alliance with Spain.
HORNEWhich, by the way, put competitive pressure on London by arming Africans as early as the 1500s, which put pressure on London to do the same, which in turn enraged the European settlers on the mainland. And August 2014 marks the 20th anniversary, by the way, of the sacking of Washington, D.C. by the red coats during the War of 1812...
HORNE...where they were joined by numerous black Washingtonians who, in a sense, engaged in a form of reparations by (word?) the White House. It seems to me that we can't even begin to understand what's going on today unless we understand the past. Just like if you go into a doctor, you have to have a medical history before an adequate diagnosis can be made.
NNAMDIOn to the telephones. Here is Mimi (sp?) in Upper Marlboro, MD. Mimi, you're on the air, go ahead please.
MIMIHi, thank you. He just mentioned something that I was calling in about. You know, we're coming up this weekend to the anniversary of the sacking of Washington by the British during War of 1812. And there are many reports, many histories that talk about how the British soldiers freed some blacks. And -- but I just was wondering if he had any idea of the number and where those people went.
MIMII'm suggesting they wouldn't stay in Washington if they have been freed by the British, afraid that Americans would re-enslave them. That a lot of them moved to Canada. Just any kind of history related to that period. I'm really fascinated by what happened to those African Americans that were freed by the British soldiers.
HORNEYes. Let me say that two years ago I published a book, "Negro Comrades of the Crown: African and the British Empire Fight the United States Before Emancipation." And in the book there's a chapter which details how hundreds of Africans not only from the Washington and Chesapeake area, but stretching all the way down to Savannah allied with the Red Coats. And then after the war is over, many of them are transported to Britain's new colony, that is to say Trinidad and Tobago.
HORNEWhen I was doing a book signing in New York a couple of years ago, some of the descendants of those enslaved Africans came up to me because it turns out they are still in -- the descendants were still in Trinidad and Tobago and, of course, they became, in part, part of the ruling elite to this very day in Trinidad and Tobago. I should also say that Alan Taylor of the University of Virginia and his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "The Internal Enemy," also has some documentation in detail on this phenomenon.
NNAMDIGot to take a short break. But you can go to our website, kojoshow.org, where you can read an excerpt of the "The Counter-Revolution of 1776" by Gerald Horne. That's at our website, kojoshow.org, where you can also ask a question or make a comment. But you can still call, 800-433-8850. Do you think history books have downplayed the role slavery played in the founding of this country? 800-433-8850. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.
NNAMDIWelcome back. Our guest is Gerald Horne, professor of history and African American studies at the University of Houston, and author of the book, "The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America." You can call us at 800-433-8850 or send email to email@example.com. Did slavery violate the core ideals of the American Revolution?
NNAMDIYou can also go to our website, kojoshow.org. Read an excerpt of the book or ask a question or make a comment there. Gerald Horne, we got an email from Will in Adelphi who writes, "There were very few slaves in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, so why were those colonies at the forefront of the revolution?"
HORNEGood question. You need to know that there was a division of labor with regard to slavery. The slaves -- the Africans themselves were deposited south of what we refer to as the Mason-Dixon Line in places like Maryland and Virginia and Carolinas and, of course, Georgia, which plays a key role in my story. But the slave trade was financed from north of the so-called Mason-Dixon Line.
HORNENewport, Rhode Island, for example, which between 1690 and about 1760 was the epicenter of the financing of the African slave trade. New York which as late as the 1860s was a center of the financing of the African slave trade. Massachusetts as well. And many of the seafarers who were on the slave ships hail from these places.
HORNEAnd so, therefore, when you had shipboard insurrections, as you frequently did as detailed in my book, this tended to unite both north and south on the altar of bigotry against people of African descent. And I think that's a story that needs further elucidation and clarification because it's unfair to put the entire weight of slavery on the backs of Dixie.
NNAMDIYou talk about the insurrections that took place on slave ships or slips -- ships transporting slaves. You devote an entire chapter to the poisonings and the arsonings (sic) -- arsons that went on in Hispaniola, the island that now encompasses both Haiti and the Dominican Republic during the 1750s that made the Europeans very nervous. Can you tell us a little bit more about why that was or what happened there?
HORNEWell, what's interesting is that -- I feel like, with all due respect, previous historians, even some in your metropolitan area have really tended to downplay the pace and measure of restiveness amongst enslaved Africans, particularly on the mainland. So in my book, I had to sort of make a corrective and my editor thought I was going overboard by telling all of these stories about arson and murders and shipboard insurrections and slave conspiracies and all the like.
HORNEAs a footnote, I should mention that women in particular -- enslaved women -- were specialists in poisonings not least because they seem to be in the category of, quote, ethanol botanists, for example, having detailed knowledge of various plants. But oftentimes as they were (unintelligible) with slave families as maids, if you like, in the household. And these plots reached a kind of peak in Hispaniola, as you noted, in the 1750s when there was the plot to basically poison the settler population.
HORNEThat was a precursor of what happens in August 1791 and, of course, we're marking that anniversary, too, this month. When you have the onset of what we now refer to as the Haitian Revolution, which is argue and the book at hand and a previous book and the book I'm writing now marked the onset of what I refer to as the general crisis of the slave system whereby the contradictions of the system became so sharpened that these contradictions can only be resolved and dealt with by the system's collapse, which it did in North America as we know -- we all by the 1860s.
NNAMDIHow did those incidents in places like Hispaniola affect both slaves and colonists here in North America?
HORNEYou need to know that before 1776, there was major investment by mainland settlers and colonists in Hispaniola. You should know that there was this ongoing antagonism, which may exist to this very day between Paris and London. And therefore, the French felt it was in their interest to weaken the British by helping the settlers under the Union Jack revolt on the mainland, as you know, in the Battle of Yorktown.
HORNEThe culminating battle in the so-called revolutionary war leading to the formation of the United States of America. There were French troops there fighting alongside the troops of the settlers. And so, therefore, early on, there had developed this commercial relationship between mainland settlers and the colony that became Haiti to the point where when the Haitian Revolution erupts in the 1790s, part of the reason which leads George Washington and his Cabinet to intervene so forcefully, at least in the first instance on the part of the settlers in Hispaniola, was because of the fact that a number of U.S. nationals were being massacred by Africans in Haiti.
HORNEAnd this, of course, helps to explain why there was so much antagonism in the United States towards Haiti when the United States didn't recognize Haiti diplomatically until the U.S. Civil War when basically it was forced to recognize it because Haiti was one of the few places in the Caribbean which opened its ports to Union ships and barred the Confederate ships. Unlike, for example, Spanish Cuba port, to cite one example amongst many.
NNAMDIA lot of people want to talk to you, but I do have to get this in. Your thesis, obviously, will rub a lot of people the wrong way, a lot of the Founding Fathers, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin owned slaves, but they made important efforts, it would seem, to end slavery after the revolution and slavery ended or was reduced in the north after the war. How powerful or lack or not was the abolitionist movement in the colonies before the war?
HORNEThe abolitionist movement and the colonies was heavily dependent upon its counterparts in Britain, number one. The abolitionist movement, in any case, not only in these colonies or in the mainland of North America but in London as well was driven not only about moral concerns but also by the fact that Africans were on the march. They were rebelling and revolting. And you either had to move towards abolition of slavery or you run the risk of losing your investment or losing your life.
HORNEGiven that, it seems to me, that puts into context this abolitionist movement. And I should also say, there is also an argument floating out -- floating out there that suggests that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights that emerges after the formation of the United States of America, in many ways, provides a template for human rights advances by, say, people of African descent.
HORNEBut given the controversy in Ferguson, MO and given what we know about the United States, I don't think we should take an easy approach to how simple it has been to apply constitutional protections to people of African descent in the first place. And indeed, as I argue in my book, part of what drives what is oftentimes referred to bourgeois democracy is the demographic challenge that exists in the mainland of North America, where the settlers had to attract those who were defined as white to a combat zone so they can countervail the indigenous and the Africans.
HORNEAnd they had to have enticements and emoluments and inducements, part of which were a passel or package of democratic rights that perhaps they did not enjoy -- the settlers would not enjoy in the European continent.
NNAMDIWe got an email from Charlie who says, "What evidence has Gerald Horne found that slave-holding Americans were discussing the Somerset case prior to 1776 and had expressed fears that the ruling would be extended to Britain colonies, to which it did not apply under Lord Mansfield's decision? Without such argument, Gerald Horne's argument is basically rewriting history," I guess is what he wants to say.
HORNEWell, I would urge and encourage the email writer to look at the footnotes in my book, where in the chapter wherein I discussed Somerset's case, even in the introduction to the book, because the book starts with that case. I talk about the newspapers. There are newspapers that discuss this case at some length. There are people who are confiding to their diaries and writing letters at length about the Somerset case because we all know how law works.
HORNEThat is to say, a precedent has been established and then the precedent is then extended. That's how the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. works to this very day. So it should not come as a shock and surprise that there was great concern on the mainland amongst settlers about the extension of Somerset's case.
NNAMDIHere's Stephanie in Washington, D.C. Stephanie, you're on the air, go ahead please.
STEPHANIEYes, I'd like to know if Dr. Horne has considered how we go about revising textbooks to include the information that he is sharing with us.
NNAMDIPolitics, Gerald Horne, politics.
HORNEThat's a very difficult question. Your introduction suggests, I teach in the state of Texas where K through 12 history is a battlefield right now, not only are the history textbooks in the state of Texas not moving to what I'm suggesting, they're moving away from the traditional interpretation. That is to say they're moving towards a downplay of slavery, for example. And since Texas is the second largest state in the Union and textbook manufacturers are loathe to write a special textbook for Texas and then another textbook for, say, Washington, D.C. and California.
HORNEThe Texas model then becomes a national model. So what the caller suggests also implies that it's an uphill climb to get accurate history into our K through 12 textbooks.
NNAMDIHere's Louise in Silver Spring, MD. Louise, you're on the air, go ahead please.
LOUISEYes. This is a great show. It's so fascinating. I was listening to your comments about the War in 1812. And I come from Canada and my understanding is that there were African American enslaved people who fought for the British and in return were given free land in Nova Scotia. And those people are still there. There's black communities in Nova Scotia and Brunswick, among the oldest black Canadians in -- the oldest black populations in Canada.
LOUISEAnd they are descended from people who fought for the British in the United States. I don't know if you heard about that. If you can comment on...
HORNEYes, that's in my previous book, "Negro Comrades of the Crown." You should know that Britain moved to abolish slavery decades before the United States did, that is to say in the 1830s. You should also know that an impetus for the abolition of slavery was not only the rising moral concern about slavery as evidenced in the fact that people were worried about losing their lives and light with a dagger plunged into their heart by an angry African.
HORNEBut also, after Britain was ousted from the mainland colonies in 1776 during the war, that basically eroded Britain's major market for the African slave trade and in turn allowed the nation, the U.S. nationals, to then gain the leadership of the international African slave trade. By the 1790s, the U.S. was leader of the African slave trade to Cuba and leader -- by the 1830s, the African slave trade to Brazil.
HORNEWhereas Britain, in order to block the U.S. movement into Canada, had attracted black people from the United States and elsewhere to Canada where they stationed them along the border as militias with -- to confront any invading U.S. forces. And as I tell in the story, the War of 1812 was driven in no small part by the effort of the United States to take Canada in order to remove that sanctuary that Britain had established for fleeing property. That is to say for enslaved Africans -- human capital -- fleeing across the border. So the caller is right on the money with her comment.
NNAMDIThank you very much for your call. Gerald Horne, we're almost out of time. Within 30 seconds or so, can you tell us about the book you're currently working on?
HORNEIt's a follow-up to Black Jacobins by C. L. R. James...
HORNE...which deals with the Haitian Revolution, 1791 to 1804. I extend the story to the failed annexation of the entire island of Hispaniola, including Haiti, which was contemplated by President U. S. Grant in 1870, 1871. And I also tell the story about the origins of Dominican Republic, a striking story driven in the 1840s in no small part by the question of race and racism and the desire to punish Haiti for gumption of rebelling against European colonialism and slavery in the 1790s.
NNAMDIGerald Horne is a professor of history and African American studies at the University of Houston. His book is called "The Counter-Revolution of 1776." Thank you so much for joining us.
HORNEThank you for inviting me.
NNAMDIAnd thank you all for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.
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General: Walnut family (Juglandaceae). Small to medium-sized native trees with stiff upright branches and a wide-spreading crown, the young twigs, stems, and leaflets have hairs sticky-oily to the touch; terminal buds 12-18 mm long; bark brownish-gray, thick, shallowly divided into smooth or scaly plates. Leaves are pinnately compound, the leaflets (7-) 11-17, ovate to lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, ± symmetric, mostly 5-11cm long, with finely toothed margins, terminal leaflet present, the lower surfaces densely covered with stellate hairs. Flowers are unisexual, female (pistillate) and male (staminate), but on the same tree (the species monoecious), usually not opening simultaneously on any individual tree; male flowers in slender catkins 6-14 cm long, the female flowers in terminal clusters of 6-8 flowers each. Fruit is an oblong-ovoid nut 4-6(-8) cm long, single or in clusters of 2-5, with a hard, thick, deeply furrowed shell enclosed by a thick husk with a sticky-glandular surface. The nuts usually remain on the tree until after leaf fall. The common name refers to the mature nut kernels, which are sweet and oily, like butter.
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Q: When my 3½-year-old son misbehaves, I generally take
things away from him and he generally responds well. One lingering
problem is that he tends to react physically when he's mad at a
classmate instead of talking it out and letting the teachers
intervene. We have all encouraged him to use words when he's angry,
but he doesn't seem to get it. Today he bit a classmate (the second
time in a year this has happened), and got sent home. Once home, I
fed him lunch and then confined him for the rest of the day to his
bedroom with books and some trains. From now on, I plan on sending
him to school every day with a "behavior report card" on which I've
listed the problems of hitting, not obeying his teachers, not
sitting still during circle time, and taking toys away from other
kids. I'm going to ask his teachers to give him a mark every time
one of the problems occurs. If he misbehaves five times in a school
day, then I will confine him to his room when he comes home and put
him to bed early. Biting will override the list and get him sent
home immediately. Comments?
A: First, a "duh" statement: boys are
more aggressive than girls. Unfortunately, in most preschool
settings these days, boys are being held to female standards of
behavior. This is not to say that aggression in boys ought to be
overlooked, but female teachers and mothers are more shocked by it
than are males, including most dads. (But then, women are even more
shocked when aggressive behavior comes from a girl.)
When the perpetrator in question is a three-year-old boy, there
is no apocalyptic significance to the sort of behavior you're
describing. Even occasional biting -- which tends to provoke
near-hysteria among preschool staff (and mothers of bitten
children) -- is not pathological at this age and does not predict
later adjustment problems. In the previous sentence, however,
"occasional" is the operative word.
Boys are also more impulsive than girls, and language is not
their natural problem-solving medium. Trying to persuade your son
to "use words" when he's angry is a laudable effort, to be sure,
but you're not likely to see much success with this approach for
another year or two ... or three. This is another example of women
expecting boys to be more like girls. As you've discovered, boys
respond to concrete consequences. At much earlier ages, girls
respond to words and are more successful at using them in social
Your "Five Strikes, You're Out!" plan is pretty much along the
lines of the approach I generally recommend in situations of this
sort. I would only add in 10 minutes of time-out when one of the
target misbehaviors occurs. Taking him out of the group for that
period of time will give him an opportunity to calm down and
"reset." It will also strengthen the "Don't!" message. And yes, if
he bites, his teachers should remove him from the group, call you,
and keep him isolated until you arrive to take him home.
In the final analysis, the success of this plan hinges on
everyone keeping their cool and cutting him no slack.
John is busy this month
speaking to groups all across the United States.
Come and see him in person!
San Diego, California area
Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday
October 22, 23, and
24 - 6:30- 8 PM Parenting Presentations
here to view John's calendar and here to invite him to your
Or contact Jessica Lalley at 404-858-4816.
Family psychologist John Rosemond is on a mission to help
parents claim loving leadership of their families. He's known for
his sound advice, humor, and relaxed, engaging style giving talks
weekly to parent, church and professional organizations all over
the map. John is syndicated in approximately 225 newspapers
nationwide and has written 15 best-selling parenting books,
including his latest, Parent Babble, How parents can recover from 50
years of bad expert advice.
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The Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy examines the nature of science and how it is used and misused in government decision-making and legal proceedings. Through empirical research, conversations among scholars, and publications, SKAPP aims to enhance understanding of how knowledge is generated and interpreted. SKAPP promotes transparent decision-making, based on the best available science, to protect public health.
How and why science works may be difficult for non-scientists to understand. The aura around science and scientists - reflecting the power of scientific understanding and its complexity - creates opportunities for misunderstanding and misuse of scientific evidence. Indeed, failure on the part of decision-makers to understand the norms of science may lead to inaccurate conclusions and inappropriate applications of scientific results.
Particularly in public policy and the courts, where the parties are intent on a specific outcome and selectively draw on scientific evidence to bolster their position, failure to understand how science works can lead to serious error. The consequences of such misunderstandings can be devastating for individuals, families, businesses and communities. Yet there is a growing disparity between the reality of scientific practice and increasingly prescriptive mandates for how decision-makers should evaluate scientific methods and evidence.
What can science tell us and not tell us about links between environmental exposures and disease? What is the nature of uncertainty in different scientific disciplines? What standards for scientific evidence are appropriate in different contexts? By examining questions like these, SKAPP aims to enhance understanding of the limits and contributions of science to court and government decisions that may have substantial long-term ramifications for public health.
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On this date in 1889, the Territorial Legislature was thirty-six days through the sixty day session and was getting down to business. The Farmers Alliance controlled the legislature, and as a result, bills dealing with the railroad and flour monopolies received considerable attention. The constitutionality of many of the proposed railroad bills was questioned due to the 1887 Interstate Commerce Act, and it was also necessary to ensure that any law enacted could be passed over the governor’s veto, which would surely come. The mining interests, who also suffered from high rail rates, supported the farmers. To emphasize this, a number of legislators took an excursion to the coal mine at Sims to examine the underground mine.
Many major bills surfaced at this time including two-year terms for sheriffs and county treasurers, a bill requiring marriage licenses, and also a Women’s Suffrage Bill. Mrs. Helen Barker, one of the founders of the Equal Suffrage Association from Huron was asked to address the legislature. Her speech was well received, but the bill was defeated, since many legislators believed women’s suffrage also meant prohibition, along with other social reforms. Those who supported suffrage had not wanted the bill introduced in the session as they feared a defeat would affect any consideration of suffrage being included in the state’s constitution.
In other business, Valley City won out over Fargo in the placement of the Agricultural College with a 15 to 5 vote in the Council, but when it came down to the final crunch, the bill failed to pass, giving Fargo a second chance.
With Congress slow to decide on the Omnibus Bill, there was talk of adjourning the legislature until Benjamin Harrison became President, and then imploring him to hold a special session of Congress. In all probability they would also have a new governor and would not have to worry about vetoes. The situation had worsened when the Legislature removed the $3.00 fees paid to the Governor for Notary Public licenses, allotting those fees instead to the Secretary of the Territory. The Governor claimed he needed those fees to pay his staff. Legislative members responded that if it he didn’t like it, he could resign. So intense was the dislike of Governor Church by the Republican legislators that a bill was introduced to change the name of Church County to McCormack County.
With such a hostile atmosphere existing already, Denny Hannifin, the pundit of the so-called “Third House,” stated he didn’t even need to create any havoc on his own, he only had to sit back, watch and smile.
Dakota Datebook written by Jim Davis
The Jamestown Weekly Alert February 14, 1889
The Bismarck Weekly Tribune February 15, 1889
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As I understand it, the difference between a reflector and a refractor is that a reflector uses mirrors on the back to reflect the light to the secondary mirror then the secondary mirror reflects the light to your eye focusing the image with each reflection. How then does a refractor use a lens to sharpen the image? Does it just sharpen the image and shoot it to the prism at the back, and into your eye?
All telescopes have in common that they gather and focus light from far away objects. They use a primary opical element, such as a concave mirror or a (planar- or bi-)convex lense (or lense system), and they use an eyepiece with another lense system (for viewing) or a camera in their primary focus.
A refractor telescope does not sharpen the image per se. The convex lense concentrates the light rays, not unlike a magnifying glass. To actually focus the enlarged image on your retina, you need an eyepiece, which is another bi-convex lense (in its most simple form). This will re-align the light rays after they passed through the primary focus. See this image for a visual explanation:
The above image also explains why the image of a refracting telescope appears upside down. You don't need (or want!) any prisms in this kind of setup.
On the other hand, a reflector telescope uses a concave mirror plus an eyepiece. There are different configurations, but one of the most simple and most common ones is the Newtonian telescope:
So instead of refraction of light by a lense, we use the reflection of light on a mirror, to enlarge the image. Focusing on the retina is again done by an eyepiece in the same way as with the refracting telescope.
The advantage of refracting telescopes is that there is no obstruction in the optical path inside the telescope. This is not the case with reflector telescopes. They usually have a secondary mirror in the middle of the optical paths, hence reducing light gathering performance.
On the other hand, reflector telescopes are often much lighter, and cheaper to assemble. Also, very compact models of reflector telescopes can be built.
Also, simple refractor telescopes will produce colourful fringes on object edges, called chromatic abberation, which is due to the glass used in the lenses. This can be compensated by multiple lenses, but this will make the refractor even heavier and more expensive. | <urn:uuid:07a9fec7-5eff-4193-bf05-b11a20709c5d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/677/how-does-a-refractor-telescope-work | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00055-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92168 | 522 | 3.765625 | 4 |
Ever have to get up in the middle of the night for a ham and cheese sandwich or scoop of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice-cream? A new study shows that ‘night eating syndrome’ may not just be bizarre hunger pangs that come at unwanted hours, interrupt sleep and cause overeating and weight gain but a mutation in the genes responsible for our sleep cycle causing a mismatch in our eating schedule.
The study reported in the May 2014 Cell Press journal, Cell Metabolism, “Time-Restricted Feeding without Reducing Caloric Intake Prevents Metabolic Diseases in Mice Fed a High-Fat Diet,” reports on a pair of genes that normally keeps eating schedules in sync with daily sleep rhythms. If those genes are mutated, they say it may play a role in so-called night eating syndrome. In the mice they studied with this mutation in one of the genes, their eating patterns shifted and lead to unusual mealtimes and weight gain.
Lead author, Satchidananda Panda of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies says that: "Every organ has a clock, that means there are times that our livers, intestines, muscles, and other organs will work at peak efficiency and other times when they are -- more or less – sleeping.”
Panda mentions, that if people are eating all day and night it may throw off our metabolic cycles. There are specific times when cholesterol should be broken down to glucose when we eat. If people eat randomly, those genes are ‘on’ all day. Panda says, “It’s the same principle as with sleep and waking. If you don’t sleep well at night, you aren’t completely awake during the day.”
The inspiration behind the research was a decade's old discovery of a particular mutation in a protein called PER2 which causes an inherited sleep disorder. The mutation is in an area of the protein that can be phosphorylated—the ability to bond with a phosphate chemical that changes the protein's function. Humans have three PER that play a role in the daily circadian clock and all containing the same phosphorylation spot. The scientists wondered whether mutations in the equivalent area of PER1 would have the same effect as those in PER2 that caused the sleep disorder.
So, the Salk scientists joined forces with a Chinese team led by Ying Xu of Nanjing University to test these mutations in mice. They bred mice without mouse period genes and added human PER1 or PER2 with a mutation. The mice with mutated PER2 had sleep defects but the mice with a PER1 mutation, had no issues with their sleep-wake cycles but surely enough did have problems with their eating schedule.
The mice with the PER1 defect ate earlier than other mice—causing them to wake up and snack before their sleep cycle was over—ate more food throughout their normal waking period, had lower protein levels during the sleeping period, higher levels during the waking period, and a faster degradation of protein whenever it was produced by cells.
“Panda and his colleagues hypothesize that normally, PER1 and PER2 are kept synchronized since they have identical phosphorylation sites—they are turned on and off at the same times, keeping sleep and eating cycles aligned. But a mutation in one of the genes could break this link, and cause off-cycle eating or sleeping.”
The mice were given high fat diets and standard diets and either were fed around the clock or restricted to eating during an eight hour time period. The mice on a high-fat diet who ate just as much as the round-the-clock eaters didn’t gain weight or suffer from any metabolism issues. In fact, the mice who ate only during an eight hour time period, had better metabolisms, less liver damage and less inflammation to boot.
"For a long time, people discounted night eating syndrome as not real," says Panda. "These results in mice suggest that it could actually be a genetic basis for the syndrome."
The weight gain caused by PER1 is entirely caused by meal mistiming, not other metabolic defects, they hope to study exactly how PER1 controls appetite and eating behavior—whether its molecular actions work through the liver, fat cells, brain or other organs.
One more win for genetics and future Epigenetics.
As Stephen Hawking says:
“We are now entering a new phase, of what might be called, self designed evolution, in which we will be able to change and improve our DNA. Once we have read the book of life, we will start writing in corrections. At first, these changes will be confined to the repair of genetic defects, like cystic fibrosis, and muscular dystrophy. These are controlled by single genes, and so are fairly easy to identify, and correct. Other qualities, such as intelligence, are probably controlled by a large number of genes. It will be much more difficult to find them, and work out the relations between them. Nevertheless, I am sure that during the next century, people will discover how to modify both intelligence, and instincts like aggression.” | <urn:uuid:1a6944e5-f0ad-4797-a93e-5e3d3027f928> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.examiner.com/article/binge-eating-the-middle-of-the-night-it-may-be-genetic-new-study-says?cid=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00167-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967414 | 1,059 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Northwest: Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, & Washington
The Northwest region comprises five states: Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. Nearly half (49 percent) of the region's students are in one state: Washington. Oregon has a quarter (26 percent), Idaho has an eighth (13 percent), and the remaining eighth is nearly evenly divided between Montana (7 percent) and Alaska (6 percent). While about a sixth of the region's students attend rural schools, almost half are concentrated in the five largest metropolitan areas: Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, Anchorage, Spokane, and Boise City-Nampa. Students of color went from being fewer than 1 in 5 public elementary and secondary school students in the region in 1992–93 (17 percent) to more than 1 in 3 in 2013–14 (36 percent). Today, about 1 in 5 students is Hispanic, a group that's growing faster than other subgroups. The Native American enrollment rate is more than three times the national average and is particularly high in Alaska (24 percent) and Montana (11 percent).
REL Northwest is working with the following research alliances:
- Alaska State Policy Research Alliance (ASPRA): Policymakers and researchers are working together to use research evidence to inform key education policy decisions, particularly around preparing students for postsecondary success.
- Idaho System of Recognition, Accountability, and Support Research Alliance (Idaho SRAS): State education agency staff, technical assistance providers, and stakeholders from local education agencies, are working to build its members' capacity to design and implement evaluations of school improvement services and to improve the use of data and research to support low-performing schools.
- Montana Data Use Alliance (MDUA): Representatives from Montana school districts and the Office of Public Instruction are seeking to strengthen their use of student achievement data and research evidence to evaluate and improve dropout prevention efforts and high school graduation rates.
- Northwest Tribal Educators Alliance (NW TEA): Comprising members of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians (ATNI), this alliance is dedicated to using data and evidence to promote Native student success.
- Oregon College and Career Readiness Research Alliance (OR CCR): State and local education agencies are working with 2- and 4-year postsecondary institutions to improve alignment between the secondary and postsecondary education system and to increase Oregon students' college and career readiness through research, policy, and practice.
- Oregon Leadership Network (OLN): School districts and other key stakeholders in Oregon are working to improve equitable outcomes for all students in the state.
- Road Map Project Partnership (Road Map): Part of a larger cradle-to-college initiative involving seven districts in Washington's South Seattle and South King County, Road Map is helping identify indicators of English learner students' academic success and language development, and using evidence to better support student success in the region.
- Washington Educational Service District Network (WA ESD): Representatives from Washington's nine ESDs and state data analysts and policymakers are using state and local data to support a more effective, coordinated, and consistent statewide ESD network.
Education Northwest, through REL Northwest and thousands of other projects, has worked for five decades with educators, policymakers, parents, students, and community leaders on comprehensive, research-based solutions to the challenges they face. The nonprofit organization's wide-ranging projects are making an impact in areas such as school improvement, community building, literacy, equity, and research. Although Education Northwest's services and publications have national reach, we primarily work in the five Northwest states of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington.
101 SW Main St., Suite 500
Portland, Oregon 97204
Phone: (800) 547-6339, ext. 454
- Concord Evaluation Group
- FHI 360
- Oregon State University
- Policy Studies Associates, Inc.
- SRI International
- Teachers College, Columbia University
- West Wind Education Policy | <urn:uuid:600507b4-3c97-4679-be24-b2eef5b194af> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/regions/northwest/index.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403508.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00195-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92028 | 817 | 2.59375 | 3 |
1. Can students use manipulatives on probes?
No. There is no need for the student to use anything other than a pencil and scratch paper.
2. Can students use a calculator for Grade 2-8 probes? We were told no due to norming.
No. Using a calculator or other aid violates the standardized administration, as well as defeats the purpose of the progress monitoring system, which is to gauge student improvement though instruction, and when indicated, intervention. The student’s ability to perform the mathematics tasks unaided in the time provided is what is being assessed and monitored. Fluent math computation skills are an underlying—and often prerequisite—component of Math Applications skill.
3. If you progress monitor on grade level, rather than where student is performing, you will not get the normative growth patterns—not a good idea. Also, AIMSweb doesn’t do this—they monitor based on students’ levels of performance.
AIMSweb® is not prescriptive regarding what grade-level material is used to progress monitor a student; however, it suggests that goal-setting be an ambitious, yet feasible, target for end of year performance (or a user-defined alternate time frame). For a student with a mild-to-moderate discrepancy between expected performance and actual performance (as determined by Survey Level Assessment), a grade-level goal may be acceptable. For a student with a significant discrepancy between actual and expected performance, initially setting a goal at a lower grade level may be both appropriate and necessary. In many cases, the goal set should not be the same as the success level of that student (as determined by Survey Level Assessment); to do so may result in continuing to measure that student’s performance on a level/passages for which he/she has consistently been successfully performing. See our Progress Monitoring Training Module and content for details.
4. Grade 2, Probe 14, Question #23—The answer key says “3”. Is “3.00” an acceptable answer being that there is a dollar sign before the blank?
In this situation the answer is considered correct, as it indicates the basic understanding of the task; however, had the answer presented been 3:00, the answer would be considered incorrect. Page 10 of the M–CAP Admin/Scoring Manual, states:
For more information, see Appendix C of the manual, which presents many examples of both correct and incorrect alternate answer formats.
5. How do we determine at what level to start a student on the AIMS probes?
For Benchmarking purposes, probes are always to be given at the student’s official grade level, regardless of the student’s skill level. This is necessary for the multitude of data analysis in AIMSweb® that may later be conducted by your site in addition to identifying students “at risk” for academic failure, such as for the purpose program evaluation.
For Strategic Monitoring, expected grade-level probes are used; that is, the grade at which you believe a student is functioning.
For Progress Monitor, either on-grade or off-grade level probes are used, with the exception of Written Expression (which is grade-level independent), depending on the goal set for the student. Students are always measured on their goal-level material at whatever grade level the goal is to be set.
6. If student’s IEP says time and a half for testing accommodations, do the students get that—normal 8 min; time and a half 12 min?
AIMSweb M–CAP was not normed with special accommodations; that is, children with IEPs who participated in standardization were given the same time-limit as students without IEPs. However, in the section of chapter 2 of the manual entitled Testing Students with Special Accommodations (p. 6) it states:
When M–CAP probes are used for frequent progress monitoring, however, the testing process is more amenable to test accommodations because the student’s scores are compared to their own scores (i.e., are individually referenced instead of norm-referenced) over time. For a student with some motor impairment, increasing test time for progress monitoring purposes (e.g., 10 minuets to 12 minutes) may be acceptable providing this increase is kept standard throughout the progress monitoring process (emphasis added). It should be noted that any comparison of these scores to normative scores and interpretation would be inappropriate.
See page 6 of the manual for additional information.
It is important to note that CBM is different than most other tests given to students, where their performance translates to a score that becomes part of the student’s grade. Like the medical profession uses a thermometer as indicator of patient health, CBM tools “take the temperature” of a student’s general abilities across a variety of domains (reading, math, spelling, etc.). Just like leaving a thermometer in longer than the required time does not give you better information, generally speaking, increasing the length of time for probe completion will not either.
CBM as a general outcome measure and indicator needs to simply be given long enough to obtain the data needed to determine if growth is occurring (as in the case of Progress Monitor). Using R–CBM as an example, extensive (decades) of research has been done to validate that three 1-minute probes for Benchmarking (using median score) is the “Sweet spot” where the measure becomes reliable/valid as an indicator/GOM, yet is not given for so long that it wastes instructional time. If progress monitoring is done with intervals anywhere from daily to every-other-week, adding extra time will only provide a multiplication of that score x number of added minutes. That does not equal “better performance.” It does not otherwise “improve” a student’s skill or enhance their ability to perform better on the measure.
7. Is there a recommendation when you give a Benchmark Probe at what level you move a student to the next level, i.e. if they have 70% accuracy would they go to the next level?
For benchmark, the probes are always given at the student’s expected grade level (i.e., “Official” grade level.) No changes are ever made to this practice as the resulting data would thus be confounded. Students who are performing well in their grade level do not need to be monitored at the next grade level.
8. What if the word answer is spelled wrong?
If the answer is correct, but misspelled, it is correct. You may refer to page 10 and Appendix C of the Manual for more information regarding scoring decisions.
9. What if the students gave another answer such as “bigger” instead of “larger” like the question asked?
Use your professional judgment when assessing the correctness of different word choices. As long as the word give logically makes sense and is conceptually correct, it would likely be considered correct. The example give above would be correct if the question asked if the required a certain type of comparative (is X smaller or larger than Y). However, had the answer given been “gigantic” or “biggest” it indicates the student may not have grasped the intent of the task. Again, refer to page 10 and Appendix C of the manual for further guidance.
10. Can we give the math probe one page at a time if we suspect the kids will shut down before they even start if they see a 3-page probe (8th grade math AIMS)?
No, doing so alters the standardized administration directions and invalidates the standardized data.
This measure is designed to not have a “ceiling,” meaning that there are more problems on the test than we anticipate even the most expedient of students to complete. Letting your students know that the test is designed to have more on it than what you expect them to complete in 8 (or 10) minutes may be helpful. This measure was field tested and piloted extensively, as well as vetted through a variety of working school professionals in the field (i.e., teachers, administrators, math specialists, etc.). Anything that was found to be significantly problematic during our field testing and piloting was addressed so that the final measures released were sound. Data indicate that a 3-4 page presentation did not pose a problem for students, nor did it impact performance.
11. For those with a reading disability, can we read math probes to students?
No, it is not appropriate to read the questions to students if you want to use the normative data. Remember, M–CAP may not be appropriate for all students. Chapter 2, page 6, of the Manual addresses issues related to special circumstances and guidance is given for progress monitoring students who may need special accommodations.
The role of reading is important in many math tests. That some students may have problems with the reading is not irrelevant, but reading ability is part of applications and problem solving and is often found on math applications problems required on many state and other summative, high-stakes tests. When a student performs poorly on the M–CAP due to reading issues, intervention that involves reading as well as math skills should be considered. | <urn:uuid:5b15a36a-04c6-46f5-afaa-5f457258ad03> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pearsonassessmentsupport.com/support/index.php?View=entry&EntryID=3917 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398209.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00030-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952862 | 1,925 | 2.625 | 3 |
JAMES O'FALLON HOME
Two miles south of Imperial on "El Camino Real" is Barnhart, Missouri. Many early settlers with names such as Moss, Stites, and Harris lived in this locale, but the town was not named until after the Frisco Railroad was completed in the early 1900's. It is said that because Mrs. C. L. Barnhart donated some land for the Frisco Railroad Depot, the town was named for the Barnhart family.
However, the land surrounding Barnhart had originally belonged to the O'Fallons. In 1834 Major Benjamin O'Fallon, nephew of Governor William Clark, settled here with his family. Major O'Fallon, who had lived with the Indians for many years, was later appointed Indian agent for the entire Northwest Region, a post he held for about thirty years. "O'Fallon's Bluff" on the Platte River was named for him.
Major B. O'Fallon died in 1842 leaving two sons, Colonel John and James O'Fallon. While James did not leave much history except that he was a farmer and stock raiser, his brother, John, made history as the largest taxpayer of Jefferson County, owning 20,000 acres in 1875, 3,000 at "Indian Retreat" near Sulphur Springs where he made his home.
The "James O'Fallon Home" built in 1860 still stands on Marriott Lane. The house is a two-story, thirteen room brick structure with numerous gables and four dormer windows. It was purchased in 1884 by Joseph G. Marriott, and after that date was known as the Marriott Homestead. Mr. Marriott owned 632 acres of land on this site and as a cattle raiser is remembered for introducing the first Holstein cattle in Jefferson County.
from Historic Sites of Jefferson County, Missouri (Eschbach, Walter L.) | <urn:uuid:189a2b61-ec86-42ed-a86d-5b003cee4117> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.jeffersoncountyonline.org/history/barnhart_ofallon.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394937.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00135-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984492 | 394 | 2.65625 | 3 |
August 17, 2012
Wind Shear Affecting Tropical Storm Gordon Seen By NASA
NASA's Terra satellite passed over Tropical Storm Gordon as it continues to spin up in the North central Atlantic Ocean, and revealed the storm has become less symmetric, indicating it is being battered by wind shear.
When Terra passed over Gordon on August 16, 2012 at 10:25 a.m. EDT (1425 UTC) the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument captured a visible image of the storm. The image showed that the bulk of Gordon's clouds were pushed to the north and northeast as a result of southwesterly wind shear. The MODIS image showed what appeared to be a higher, rounded area of thunderstorms surrounding the center, where the most powerful storms were located. Outer bands of thunderstorms wrapping from the north to the east also contained higher, strong thunderstorms. The wind shear continued on August 17 and Gordon's clouds became less symmetric.On Friday, August 17, at 5 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC) Gordon's maximum sustained winds were near 65 mph (100 kmh) with higher gusts. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) noted that Gordon could still become a hurricane briefly over the weekend of August 18-19. Gordon is a small storm with tropical storm-force winds extending 60 miles (95 km) from the center, and mostly to the north-northeast.
Gordon was centered about 1,195 miles (1925 km) west of the Azores near latitude 34.6 north and longitude 48.1 west. Gordon is moving toward the east near 18 mph (30 kmh) and it is expected to continue in that general direction. A large trough (elongated area) of low pressure over the northeastern Atlantic Ocean will steer Gordon a little to the south and east for the next couple of days.
Although Gordon is expected to move over somewhat cooler waters, computer models used by the National Hurricane Center still indicate that Gordon may become a hurricane, if just for a short time over the next couple of days and then transition into an extra-tropical storm before reaching the Azores. The NHC noted that Gordon should be approaching the Azores late Sunday, August 19.
Meanwhile, in the far eastern Atlantic, the low pressure area dubbed System 94L has now developed. It is located near 11.3 North latitude and 17.9 West longitude, just west of the African coast. System 94L is producing an area of disorganized showers and thunderstorms. The NHC gives System 94L a 10 percent chance of developing into a tropical depression over the weekend.
On The Net: | <urn:uuid:8b7ad111-ff30-46b7-a020-f0a7e189dd90> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/1112677593/tropical-storm-gordon-nasa-081712/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00016-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951163 | 547 | 3.171875 | 3 |
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