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A RELIABLE and suitable irrigation water supply can result in vast improvements in agricultural production and assure the economic vitality of the region.
Many civilisations have been dependent on irrigation agriculture to provide the basis of their society and enhance the security of their people.
Some have estimated that as little as 15-20 percent of the worldwide total cultivated area is irrigated.
Judging from irrigated and non-irrigated yields in some areas, this relatively small fraction of agriculture may be contributing as much as 30-40 percent of gross agricultural output.
Effective agronomic practices are essential components of irrigated systems.
Management of the soil fertility, cropping selection and rotation, and pest control may make as much incremental difference in yield as the irrigation water itself. Irrigation implies drainage, soil reclamation, and erosion control.
When any of these factors are ignored through either a lack of understanding or planning, agricultural productivity will decline. History is absolutely certain on this point.
Irrigation agriculture faces a number of difficult problems in the future. One of the major concerns is the generally poor efficiency with, which water resources have been used for irrigation.
A relatively safe estimate is that 40 percent or more of the water diverted for irrigation is wasted at the farm level through either deep percolation or surface runoff.
These losses may not be lost when one views water use in the regional context, since return flows become part of the usable resource elsewhere.
However, these losses often represent foregone opportunities for water because they delay the arrival of water at downstream diversions and because they almost universally produce poorer quality water.
One of the more evident problems in the future is the growth of alternative demands for water such as urban and industrial needs.
These uses place a higher value on water resources and therefore tend to focus attention on wasteful practices.
Irrigation science in the future will undoubtedly face the problem of maximising efficiency.
Irrigation in arid areas of the world provides two essential agricultural requirements:
(1) a moisture supply for plant growth which also transports essential nutrients; and
(2) a flow of water to leach or dilute salts in the soil.
Irrigation also benefits croplands through cooling the soil and the atmosphere to create a more favourable environment for plant growth.
The method, frequency and duration of irrigations have significant effects on crop yield and farm productivity. For example, annual crops may not germinate when the surface is inundated causing a crust to form over the seed bed.
After emergence, inadequate soil moisture can often reduce yields, particularly if the stress occurs during critical periods.
Even though the most important objective of irrigation is to maintain the soil moisture reservoir, how this is accomplished is an important consideration.
The technology of irrigation is more complex than many appreciate. It is important that the scope of irrigation science not be limited to diversion and conveyance systems, nor solely to the irrigated field, nor only to the drainage pathways.
Irrigation is a system extending across many technical and non-technical disciplines. It only works efficiently and continually when all the components are integrated smoothly.
Questions that are common to all irrigation systems are when to irrigate, how much to apply, and can the efficiency be improved.
A large number of considerations must be taken into account in the selection of an irrigation system. These will vary from location to location, crop to crop, year to year, and farmer to farmer.
In general these considerations will include the compatibility of the system with other farm operations, economic feasibility, topographic and soil properties, crop characteristics, and social constraints.
There are also external influences that affect the choice of an irrigation system. Conditions outside the sphere of agriculture affect and even dictate the type of system selected.
For example, national policies regarding foreign exchange, strengthening specific sectors of the local economy, or sufficiency in particular industries may lead to specific irrigation systems being utilised.
Key components in the manufacture or importation of system elements may not be available or cannot be efficiently serviced.
The designer, evaluator, or manager of irrigation systems should be aware of the broader setting in which irrigated agriculture functions.
Ignorance has led to many more failures or inadequacies than has poor judgement or poor training.
The writer is Eng. Tapuwa Justice Mashangwa, a young entrepreneur based in Bulawayo Founder and CEO of Emerald Agribusiness Consultancy. He can be contacted on +263739096418 and email: firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:e3ac4d0e-26de-4666-b3a3-911bea0daa54> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.chronicle.co.zw/agriculture-column-robust-irrigation-schemes-the-answer/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00187-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934437 | 936 | 4.0625 | 4 |
DON QUIXOTE: CERVANTES
Perhaps not the most obvious influence on Orwell’s work, it is relevant as Orwell questions (in his essay “The Art of Donald Mc Gill”) “If you look into your own mind, which are you, Don Quixote or Sancho Panza? Almost certainly you are both. One part of you is the hero or saint, the other is a little fat man, the voice of the belly against the soul.” The mentality of the proles in 1984 resembles Sancho Panza following the lifestyle of women, wine and song and emitting a charm and energy unique to their class. Yet there is also a tragedy to their collective character that for all their Dionysian hedonism they are also being unwittingly manipulated and oppressed. The greatest injustice is the fact that they are taught there is no injustice towards them.
PARADISE LOST: MILTON
One of the pillars of Western literature, Milton’s epic poem inspired Orwell both morally and aesthetically. This classic work tells the story of Satan’s Fall, his rebellion against God and his resulting banishment. It is the beauty of the poetry that influenced Orwell as he acknowledged when he stated that “all at once” it had enabled him to discover “the joy of mere words”.
GULLIVER’S TRAVELS: SWIFT
As a social critic of scathing wit and a campaigner for social justice it seems Swift would be a forerunner to Orwell. Indeed the cynicism and simplicity of “Gulliver’s Travels” and “A Modest Proposal” sit comfortably alongside “Animal Farm” for example. Yet characteristically Orwell attacked yet another of his idols. In “Politics vs Literature” he ridicules the libertarian Utopia of the Houyhnhnms; “In a society where there is no law the only arbiter of behaviour is public opinion. But public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity, is less tolerant than any system of law.” Whilst it is clear that Orwell inherited much of his satirical excellence and his straight- forward unadorned prose from Swift he seeks fervently to cut his predecessor down to size. Orwell claims that Swift has a distaste in humanity which culminates in his inability to “see anything in human life except dirt, folly and wickedness” whilst it is Orwell’s faith in the lowest denominator in society that spurs on his greatest works.
Unlike Swift, Dickens is a writer whom Orwell saw (or admitted to seeing) as a guiding light. As Woodcock asserts “Dickens gave expression to virtues of decency and fairness and peacefulness which Orwell saw in himself”. Orwell praises Dickens for rejecting “vulgar nationalism ”a trait which Orwell found hard to shake off particularly concerning British colonies. Orwell admits that Dickens extreme caricatures often lapse into self -parody and his work can be dense with imagery yet he defends him as an advocate of essential social change. He rejects any claims that Dicken’s work is trite or “unspeakably bourgeois” as Lenin accused, instead he counted him as an “undeniably good” writer.
NEWS FROM NOWHERE: WILLIAM MORRIS
A libertarian Utopian writer whose future paradise lied in a reversion to the middle-age “non state” with the only vestige of modernity being the sanitary system. Much of 1984 seems an indictment of Morris’ idealism though Orwell retains some affection towards the quaint English conservative leanings of the work.
Orwell greatly admired Miller, as revealed in “Inside the whale”, for creating life and meaning of the deepest profoundity from the most everyday objects and scenarios (the true socialist realism). Furthermore his attraction was very much concerned with the fact that Miller’s work despite being concerned with failure and frustration has a fundamentally positive outlook upon life. He did voice objections about Miller’s indecency and “preoccupation with the dirty hanker-chief side of the world” but recognizes to “accept civilization as it is means accepting decay”. To Orwell, Miller embodies the real observations of the proletariat beyond party doctrine and repression.
Tolstoy, the pacifist quasi-anarchist, would appear to be an obvious ideological ally to Orwell but yet again Orwell acknowledges his debt and then attacks his idol simultaneously. He recognizes as the futurist manifesto states “all critics are useless and dangerous” concerning Tolstoy’s attacks on Shakespeare’s King Lear “like all the guns of a battleship roaring”. Orwell observes that Shakespeare years later remains unaffected whilst Tolstoy would have been forgotten had he not written “War and Peace”. Thus despite his patriotic defence of Shakespeare Tolstoy’s influence casts a shadow over Orwell who at many times in his writing and life adopted Tolstoy’s non violent civil disobedience ethic (very close to anarchism which Orwell had sympathies for since Spain) and skepticism of war.
Orwell was aware of Joyce’s work particularly “Dubliners” and was attracted to not just the “socialistic” opposition to Church and Empire alike but his ability to give life and meaning to the most everyday. Joyce’s critiques of the middle classes are often a lot sharper than Orwell’s initial clumsy efforts but both of the writers are able to infuse the most meticulous realism with pathos and satire. Their differences lie in Joyce’s desire to experiment with the structure of literature in Ulysees and Finnegann’s Wake as opposed to Orwell’s omnipotent journalism which keeps his feet firmly on the ground.
P G WOODHOUSE
Orwell produced an essay entitled “In defence of Woodhouse”, protesting against his treatment for being a pawn to Hitler’s propaganda machine. Orwell defended him as a naïve man who had blundered into disaster as opposed to a collaborationist with previous Fascist sympathies. Woodhouse, who made several pro Nazi radio broadcasts whilst captive in Germany, had been guilty of “nothing other than stupidity”. Orwell was less forgiving when analyzing the writer’s work noting the snobbery, the anachronisms before finally concluding that he is a “good bad writer” in that he evoked all the good and bad aspects of conservatism.
With his tendency to at once attack colonial injustice and romanticize about the Raj, Orwell allies himself with Kipling. Though Kipling is an arch-conservative and Orwell the libertarian, Orwell shows his empathy with the writer admiring Empire builders and warning radicals “not to mock the uniforms that guard you when you sleep”. He also quite naively holds the similar view to Kipling that the Empire is a means of “spreading civilization” rather than making money (though admittedly he does not come anywhere near the ideas of racial superiority that Kipling housed).
Though influence is doubtful Orwell’s obsession with the vitality of life and nature culminating in sex (as witnessed in the countryside scenes of 1984) are very similar to Lawrence’s works (though lacking the more explicit accounts).
W B YEATS
Orwell was deeply skeptical of Yeats quasi-Fascist leanings and believed that his desires to return to hierarchical feudal times were not just ridiculous but dangerous. He warned Yeats, prophetically, that “he fails to see that the new authoritarian civilization will not be aristocratic. It will not be populated with noblemen but by anonymous gangsters, shiny-bottomed bureaucrats and murdering gangsters”.
These two writers share a great deal, both relate politics to the everyday (Silone operating in the Italian countryside) and most importantly both refuse the shackles of any party or doctrine and assert their conscience as individuals. They also share concerns about the decay and manipulation of language: Silone noting “to speak and deceive have become almost synonymous”.
It is doubtful that Orwell ever read Camus, though Camus notes in his journals that he is a reader of not just 1984 but Burmese Days and Down and Out. There is a striking parallel nature to both the writer’s lives and works. Both actively fought against Fascism, Orwell in Spain and Camus in the French Resistance, both suffered from Tuberculosis and both died aged 47 in the first January of a decade. Most importantly the two stand as the most vocal humanists of our age, attacking totalitarianism in all forms and for it suffering isolation and derision from the intelligentsia. Camus’ “The Rebel” is a remarkable political essay which seems to encapsulate a lot of Orwell’s views and positions. The only difference tends to be that Camus writes with an abstract philosophical slant whilst Orwell is always journalistic.
Orwell inherited his belief that radical movements paradoxically end in slave societies though he rejected his Christian leanings.
Zamyatin’s “WE” was possibly the deepest influence on 1984 and the works share many similarities including the isolation of individuals from nature and natural behaviour, the turning of man into machine, the production of synthetic happiness instead of real impulses, the restriction of sex, the lack of privacy (all walls are made of glass), the composing of music and literature by machines, the use of science for control and torture and each novel ends with the protagonist being mentally and spiritually crushed by the state. | <urn:uuid:9ac36e4e-f690-42fc-8313-4243c44af34f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/site/$country=us$/opinion/essays/anderson2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397695.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00066-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961756 | 1,985 | 3.03125 | 3 |
High-performance supercomputers provide significantly increased memory and computing power, while allowing for expanded applications that can advance research and development in areas such as astronomy, medicine, and engineering. However, these systems use a tremendous amount of energy and produce a lot of heat, which requires the use of additional high-power cooling systems. As the benefits these supercomputers provide become more essential, methods are being developed to both reduce energy use and operate these systems more efficiently.
Currently a research team at RIT, led by research scientist Dr. Lizhe Wang, has several efforts underway designed to reduce energy use in supercomputers and create more efficient procedures for the operation of these systems.
"Supercomputers represent the next step in advancing computing application and development," notes Wang, assistant director of the Service Oriented Cyberinfrastructure Lab in the B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences. "However, the energy use associated with these systems, and the impact this has on the environment and system cost, is currently an impediment to expanding supercomputer use."
"At RIT, we are attempting to develop processes that can assist in reducing run times, better schedule jobs, and reduce the need for cooling systems that add to energy use," adds Wang.
For example, the team is building a Green Web 2.0 portal for use by supercomputing centers. The portal will allow researchers from all over the world to access grid resources in the most energy-efficient mode possible. The portal will also allow computer centers to better schedule use of its supercomputers and more efficiently operate the entire system.
"One of the main problems with supercomputing centers is the large number of users and difficulty in efficiently and productively scheduling the literally thousands of jobs the system is required to run," Wang says. "By creating a virtual portal and manager, more people can use the system more efficiently."
The work conducted is partially funded through the National Science Foundation. | <urn:uuid:b617a8c4-ea43-4b7f-b33e-db278e621d8d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.rit.edu/research/highlight/november-2009/reducing-energy-use-supercomputers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396100.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00000-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951329 | 398 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Indian classical music is the art music of the Indian subcontinent. The origins of
Indian classical music can be found in the Vedas, which are the oldest scriptures
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Indian classical music is one of the oldest art forms of the world. The origins can
be found in the Vedas, which are the oldest scriptures in the Hindu tradition, ...
Ancient Indians were deeply impressed by the spiritual power of music, and it is
out of this that Indian classical music was born. So, for those who take it ...
Indian classical music is based on the ragas ("colors"), which are scales and
melodies that provide the foundation for a performance. Unlike western classical
Find Indian Classical Albums, Artists and Songs, and Editorial Picked Indian
Classical Music on AllMusic.
Mar 30, 2016 ... Pages for an Overview of Indian Classical Music. Fundamentals of Rag -
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to start. There are total 19 pages on the basic concepts of ICM. All these ... | <urn:uuid:1f79bd60-7392-46fb-9259-a9e0bc95fa26> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ask.com/web?qsrc=6&o=102140&oo=102140&l=dir&gc=1&qo=popularsearches&ad=dirN&q=Indian+Classical+Music | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403508.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00117-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.871093 | 398 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Zhou Dynasty and Warring States
- Grades: 3–5, 6–8, 9–12
Sometime around 1027 the Shang was conquered by the Zhou (Chou), a people living to the west in the region of modern Xi'an (Sian). The early or Western Zhou period (c.1027–771 ) does not represent a sharp break. The Shang supreme deity, Shangdi, was still recognized as a powerful god, but now more emphasis was placed on Shangdi's abode, tian (ti'en, or "heaven"). An early Zhou statesman explained the Zhou conquest by saying that the Mandate of Heaven (Tianming, or T'ien-ming) had been transferred from the wicked Shang to the virtuous Zhou, thus articulating the Chinese belief that the right to govern depended on a dynasty's moral qualities and heaven's continued favor.
Much like his Shang predecessors, the Zhou king, or "son of heaven," parceled out territories among family members and favored subordinates. The emphasis was on personal loyalties, the military obligations owed lords by vassals, and a chivalric code of conduct in battle was similar to that of later European feudalism. This code also had a parallel in civilian life in the form of complex rules of social etiquette and personal deportment called li. Those who practiced the li were considered civilized; those who did not, such as the peoples beyond the Zhou domains, were considered barbarians.
The military pressure of one of these barbarian peoples in concert with a rebellious Zhou vassal forced the Zhou to move the capital eastward to Luoyang (Lo-yang; modern Henan province) in 771 , thus beginning the period of Eastern Zhou (770–256 ). From this time the Zhou kings exercised far less political and military power over their semiautonomous vassals. Beginning in the 5th century , warfare among the states became endemic, serving to increase centralization and administrative efficiency within individual states.
This Period of the Warring States (403–221 ) also propelled new elements to positions of authority, as talent, not birth, increasingly became the criterion for employment. During this period of great upheaval, personal feudal relationships became outmoded, and a system of contractual relationships began to emerge. Bureaucrats, the forerunners of the Chinese scholar-official class, were given salaries, and peasants were expected to pay taxes to the government on their landholdings. The introduction of the ox-drawn, iron-tipped plow and the development of irrigation improved agricultural productivity and spurred population growth. A steady improvement in communications led to increased trade, and a money economy began to develop. Although the late Zhou was a period of widespread physical destruction, it was also a time of enormous intellectual ferment, producing China's oldest surviving literature, the Classics, and giving rise to China's golden age of philosophy, the most important schools of which were Confucianism, Daoism (Taoism), and Legalism.
Copyright © 2006 Grolier Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. | <urn:uuid:284c3661-c790-4f38-8c4d-d63d4fe0f72e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/zhou-dynasty-and-warring-states | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00189-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968515 | 633 | 4.3125 | 4 |
Archaeological Sites of the Ancient Shu State: Site at Jinsha and Joint Tombs of Boat- shaped Coffins in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province; Site of Sanxingdui in Guanghan City, Sichuan Province 29C.BC-5C.BC
National Commission of the People's Republic of China for UNESCO
Guanghan City and Chengdu City, Sichuan Province
Le Secrétariat de l’UNESCO et le Centre du patrimoine mondial ne garantissent pas l’exactitude et la fiabilité des avis, opinions, déclarations et autres informations ou documentations fournis au Secrétariat de l’UNESCO et au Centre du patrimoine mondial par les Etats Parties à la Convention concernant la protection du patrimoine mondial, culturel et naturel.
La publication de tels avis, opinions, déclarations, informations ou documentations sur le site internet et/ou dans les documents de travail du Centre du patrimoine mondial n’implique nullement l’expression d’une quelconque opinion de la part du Secrétariat de l’UNESCO ou du Centre du patrimoine mondial concernant le statut juridique de tout pays, territoire, ville ou région, ou de leurs autorités, ou le tracé de leurs frontières.
Les noms des biens figurent dans la langue dans laquelle les Etats parties les ont soumis.
Sanxingdui Site: N 30°59′38″, E 104°11′58″
Jinsha Site: N 30°41′01″, E 104°00′41″
Joint Tombs of Boat-shaped Coffins: N 30°40′00″, E 104°03′19″
According to legends and historical records, there was once an ancient state called “Shu” located in the enclosed Sichuan Basin in Southwest China. In 316 B.C., the ancient Shu State was conquered by the Qin State and the ancient Shu culture had been buried under the mainstream Central Plain (Zhongyuan) culture, only leaving a few reign titles mentioned in the later literatures and tales. Thus, the reconstruction of the ancient Shu history and culture is heavily relied on archaeological materials and references. Thanks to the important archaeological findings in the sites of ancient Shu, a unique and fascinating civilization, which was entirely different from the Bronze Civilization of the Yellow River Valley, was gradually revealed. The Archaeological Sites of the Ancient Shu State is an outstanding representative of the Bronze Age Civilization of China, East Asia and even the world. The nominated Archaeological Sites of the Ancient Shu State consists of Sanxingdui Site, Jinsha Site, and the Great Tomb in the Shangye (commerce) Street, and their natural environment in a total heritage area of 611.3 hectares.
1. Sanxingdui Site
The Sanxingdui Site is located in the west suburb of Guanghan city, in Sichuan Province. With the ancient city as the core, the site covers an area of 600 hectares. This is a large city site existed for a very long time. It had become the cultural center of Bronze Civilization in Sichuan Basin since around 1800 B.C. The city was enclosed by high earthen city walls in an area of 360 hectares with clear function zoning: taking the east-west direction river across the city as the central line, in the north large palaces were built on the earthen terrace, in the south was the religious area symbolized by sacred temples, while in the northwestern suburb were the tombs. Great changes took place in around 1200 B.C.: temples were buried down and vessels in the temples were damaged and buried, which could be proven by more than 6,000 pieces of valuable cultural relics unearthed from the two sacrificial pits.
2. Jinsha Site
Located in the west of Chengdu city, the site covers 11 hectares centering the religious and sacrificial area. The site emerged after Sanxingdui in 1200 B.C. and was abandoned in around 650 B.C. The layout of function zoning is similar to that of Sanxingdui ancient city: a west-east river cuts the site into the south and north parts. The palaces were located in the north part and the religious and sacrificial area were in the south. In the west of these two parts, there were populace’s residential areas and the tombs. The religious and sacrificial area was about 1 hectare where a tall wooden sacrificial building has been revealed and over 6000 valuable cultural relics have been unearthed from more than 60 remains of ritual objects. The excavated cultural relics are surprisingly similar to those from Sanxingdui Site in terms of category and style. A large amount of sacrificial objects are buried under the religious and sacrificial area and needs further protection.
3. Joint Tombs of Boat-shaped Coffins
Located in the central part of Chengdu city, the nominated area is about 0.3 hectare centering the tomb. This is a large tomb with 17 coffins of different sizes dated back to 400 B.C. The tomb pit is in rectangular shape measured 30.5 meters long, 20.3 meters wide and 2.5 meters deep. The bottom of the pit is paved by wood slabs bearing a large boat-shaped coffin of the occupant and smaller coffins in other shapes. All coffins are made of single trunks of trees. The largest boat-shaped coffin is 18.8 meters long and 1.5 meters wide and contains a large number of valuable cultural relics. Above the tomb there are magnificent architectures measured 38.5 meters long and 30 meters wide and consisting the front and rear parts. The rear chamber covers the tomb symbolizing the residence of the dead; the front chamber stuck out of the tomb representing the work place of the tomb owner and the ancestral temple for later generations. It is the earliest physical evidence for Chinese mausoleum system known as “temple in the front and residence in the rear”. Around the tomb, several similar large graves are found underground. According to study on unearthed objects, this is a tomb of the royal family of the ancient Shu State. After Shu was conquered by Qin State, the tomb, just like Sanxingdui Site and Jinsha Site, was long forgotten till they were discovered today.
Justification de la Valeur Universelle Exceptionelle
The site of ancient Shu is an outstanding representative of the Bronze Civilization of the Yangtze River Valley of China. It was the result of the interaction and integration of multiple cultures, and possesses a remarkable significance in the civilization and history of East Asia and the world.
Ancient Shu people were adapted to and made use of the special natural and geographical environment of Chengdu Plain, on the basis of indigenous culture, integrated and recreated outcomes of civilizations from the Yellow River Valley, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and other parts of China to form a distinctive and highly developed Bronze Civilization and left us with physical evidence for the vanished history, tradition and civilization of ancient Shu State. The discovery unveils the mysterious and distinctive ancient Shu State which was different from the civilization in the Yellow River Valley and had a complete development timeline. The Sanxingdui Site, Jinsha Site and Joint Tombs of Boat-shaped Coffins are the representatives of ancient Shu’s historical evolution. The urban planning and the unearthed relics of the ancient Shu State explain the primitive view on the universe and religion which were one of the sources of Chinese urban planning philosophy of “observing heaven and earth”, of the early diverse ideology and culture, and of the following Taoism.
Criterion (i): The Archaeological Sites of the Ancient Shu State is the quintessence of ideology, culture and arts of ancient Shu State in the Bronze Age. The city layout reflects the unique urban planning concept, spatial sense and social structure of ancient Shu State. The religious buildings and unearthed cultural relics explain the view on the universe of ancient Shu people, how they pursue supernatural power and their plastic arts. All these are masterpieces of ideology and arts of the Bronze Age demonstrating the contributions and creation of ancient Shu people in philosophy and world view.
Criterion (ii): The Archaeological Sites of the Ancient Shu State is a typical representative of the Bronze Civilization of the Yangtze River Valley during 1900 B.C.-400 B.C. The civilization is a unique and highly developed Bronze Civilization in a unique geographic area of Sichuan Basin as a result of integration and recreation of civilizations of the Yellow River Valley, lower and middle reaches of Yangtze River and other adjacent areas on the basis of indigenous culture of ancient Shu people. The unique characteristics had been long maintained till the conquest by Qin State and had certain influences on the civilizations of China and East Asia.
Criterion (iii): The Shu State Before the Qin Dynasty (221B.C---206B.C.) was an ancient state seen in historical literatures and tales. It created its unique history and tradition in the lengthy process of development which gradually faded away with subjugation of the Shu State by the Qin State. Sanxingdui Site and Jinsha Site and Joint Tombs of Boat-shaped Coffins introduce the resplendence of the Bronze Civilization of ancient Shu State and provide physical evidences for the history, tradition and civilization of the vanished ancient Shu State.
Criterion (v): The Archaeological Sites of the Ancient Shu State is an outstanding example of adaptation to and utilization of Chengdu Plain in the west part of Sichuan Basin by people of the ancient Shu State. Land development, flood control, water conservancy and city site selection show intelligence and talent of the ancient Shu people and represent the different development stages of ancient Shu Civilization. Due to use of traditional East Asian building materials such as earth and woods which are vulnerable to the impact of natural force and human activities, in the process of modernization and urbanization, the sites are increasingly endangered and joint efforts are required to resist the threat.
Déclarations d’authenticité et/ou d’intégrité
Archaeological excavations and studies by experts from various fields both domestic and abroad have proven that the age and value of the Site are true and credible and generally acknowledged in the world. Archaeological survey, investigation and excavation show that there are still plentiful cultural remains under the nominated area. The underground remains, the city walls of Sanxingdui Site and the foundations of some important architecture above the ground are well preserved with little artificial intervention. The historical remains preserve the significant features of ancient Shu Civilization during 1900 BC-400 BC such as city layout and structure, palace areas, primitive religious and sacrificial areas and funeral custom of the royal family. Archaeological study was conducted by personnel of various professions organized by professional archaeological and scientific research institutions, strictly following the Regulations on Field Archaeology of the People’s Republic of China and applying multiple testing instruments to reveal the historical facts as could as possible. Measures such as underground sealing up and protective exhibition were taken in revealed important remains for maximum protection of the authenticity. Movable cultural relics unearthed were protected by applying both traditional and modern technologies to ensure the authenticity of materials and techniques pursuant to the identifiable and re-treatable principle. Museums of Sanxingdui Site and Jinsha Site are simple contemporary buildings located at the buffer zone where there are not cultural remains in order to be distinguished from the property and avoid impact on the authenticity. Joint Tombs of Boat-shaped Coffins has been backfilled. To sum up, the Archaeological Sites of the Ancient Shu State has a very high degree of authenticity.
In the nominated area, important characteristics such as the city layout and structure, palace areas, primitive religious and sacrificial areas and funeral custom of the royal family as well as important remains and objects showing the value are well preserved, and the principal parts of the property have good condition of integrity. The rivers based on which Sanxingdui Site and Jinsha Site were built kept their naturally winding status, and the function zoning split by rivers remain unchanged; the multiple coffins and ground architectures of the Grand Tomb in the Shangye Street are intact. Integrity of the principal parts of the three nominated sites is well preserved. The nominated heritage area and buffer zone of Sanxingdui Site remain the traditional village landscape; the nominated heritage area of Jinsha Site, though has become part of the city, is the green space and an archaeological park now, and buildings in its buffer zone are typical residential houses of west Sichuan Province; the nominated heritage area of Joint Tombs of Boat- shaped Coffins is covered by greenery despite its location in city center, and the height of buildings and depth of foundations in the buffer zone do not threaten the property. To sum up, the Archaeological Sites of the Ancient Shu State has a high degree of integrity.
Comparaison avec d’autres biens similaires
Among the sites on the World Heritage List or Tentative List, and similar to the Archaeological Sites of the Ancient Shu State, we chose representative Bronze Civilizations—Yin XuRuins at the Yellow River Valley in East Asia and Nineveh Site in Iraq of West Asia for comparison.
The conclusion is: the Archaeological Sites of the Ancient Shu State is the only one so far in the world that has both unique cultural features and cultural elements of the Bronze Civilization of the Yellow River Valley, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and possibly the Mesopotamian Civilization in West Asia. None of the sites inscribed on the World Heritage List can evidently represent the interchange and convergence of Bronze Civilizations from East Asia and West Asia. The Archaeological Sites of the Ancient Shu State is an example of integration of multiple civilizations with native civilization and a unique civilization system of ancient Chinese civilization. The Archaeological Sites of the Ancient Shu State is an outstanding representative of the Bronze Civilization of the Yangtze River Valley in East Asia. As an important part of River Civilizations in the world, it reached a high level and played a significant role in the evolution of ancient civilizations and rivals other ancient human civilizations of the world. | <urn:uuid:48f452cd-de22-4da4-a608-a13de73b7285> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://whc.unesco.org/fr/listesindicatives/5816/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00115-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921578 | 3,010 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Learn more about the detailed process of creating the costumes for the film.
Clemente was an exceptional baseball player whose career sheds light on larger issues of immigration, civil rights and cultural change.
The young CBS reporter changed his pacifist ideals after reporting on the rise of fascism in Europe during World War II.
Bascom Lamar Lunsford and his campaign to preserve mountain music and dance.
Dwight D. Eisenhower was one of America's least understood presidents. Part of the award-winning Presidents collection.
Harry Truman was responsible for finding America's place at the start of the Cold War. Part of the award-winning Presidents collection.
The Chiricahua Apache medicine man and warrior who refused to accept white man's 'civilization.' Part of The Wild West collection.
Robert Noyce's invention of the microchip launched the world into the Information Age.
The story of a farm boy who rose from obscurity to become the most influential American innovator of the 20th century. | <urn:uuid:17704753-6d27-4baf-847f-43e529851f59> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/bonus-video/dolley-costume-designer/?flavour=mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00044-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94156 | 206 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, Senior Fellow for Women and Foreign Policy
The first-ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), a strategic and planning blueprint for the U.S. State Department, as well as other development strategies reflect mounting evidence that empowering women is vital to international development. Many initiatives in the QDDR and similar strategies are built on the idea that empowering women allows them to make decisions that improve the well-being of their families and communities, drive social progress, and stabilize societies. For example, a 2010 study in the Lancet estimated that 4.2 million children's lives were saved between 1970 and 2009 due to increased education rates among women of reproductive age.
There is a strong economic case for investing in women. Encouraging female workforce participation and entrepreneurship helps lift women and their families out of poverty, generates innovation, and grows economies. In its World Development Report on Gender Equality and Development (2012), the World Bank reviews how "under-investing in women puts a brake on poverty reduction and limits economic and social development." The report highlights that women comprise more than 40 percent of the global workforce and estimates that empowering women can increase labor productivity up to 25 percent in some countries. The APEC Women and Economy Forum, World Economic Forum, and other global conventions also make an economic argument for investing in women.
U.S. foreign policy that focuses on girls' education, maternal and child health, female workforce and political participation, and other women's empowerment programs will accelerate progress towards international development goals. As Secretary of State John Kerry wrote on International Women's Day 2013: "No country can get ahead if it leaves half of its people behind. This is why the United States believes gender equality is critical to our shared goals of prosperity, stability, and peace, and why investing in women and girls worldwide is critical to advancing U.S. foreign policy." | <urn:uuid:fc913e3b-9754-4440-b634-5bcf10c5e6de> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cfr.org/women/why-should-us-foreign-policy-include-focus-women-international-development/p31128 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399522.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00162-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943184 | 387 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Since 1996, however, the beginning of February has also marked a new holiday and initiative called National Groundhog Job Shadow Day. Groundhog Job Shadow Day is a joint effort of America’s Promise – Alliance for Youth, Junior Achievement, and the U.S. Department of Labor in which students of participating schools are paired with a mentor from participating organizations, who they will “shadow” throughout the day, to experience how the skills they learn in the classroom can be applied in the real world. National Groundhog Job Shadow Day, celebrated the first week of February, is currently most commonly practiced in middle and high school settings, but grows as a national initiative each year.
Job shadowing can be important…
- in your own personal career development. By overseeing someone in a particular profession, you can get a sense of what working in a position like theirs would entail and if it’s an area you could see yourself pursuing a career in. Some job shadows may even result in future internships or jobs.
- on your resume. All job shadows may be unique in some way. Some may include hands-on experience, while others might include observing research in a lab. Either way, job shadowing can show experience on your resume, in addition to skills like communication, time-management, and professionalism.
So, while there is a chance that the groundhog may not see his shadow this year, know that more than 100,000 businesses will have shadows: those of more than one million students participating in National Groundhog Job Shadow Day, which you can become a part of by considering a job shadowing experience. For more information about job shadowing, check out the Career Services website.
Posted by Erica Evans, Career Services Assistant | <urn:uuid:6f03a4ba-4a5e-4830-a181-7f8186f8a0fe> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/careerservices/2013/02/01/groundhog-shadow-or-job-shadow/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399425.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00029-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954745 | 355 | 3.0625 | 3 |
The role of drugs on the popular culture of
diethylamide, better known as LSD helped make the sixties what it was.
The people who were questioning the system needed to find a new light to
look upon things. Their solution was to explore psychedelics. The most common
was LSD, a chemical discovered in 1943 by Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann.
LSD let people look at things with the different angle their
psychidelic trance allowed them.
LSD was originally available in tablet form, but once it was declared
illegal, it was mainly used in one of the following ways:
reacted solid allowed to crystallize: window pane acid (4-way)
liquid acid (via oral, in the eyeball, or mucous membrane entry)
liquid acid put on blotter paper. (such as the famous Beavis and
Butt-head acid shown). Blotter paper acid generally has 100 small dosage
squares (individually called "dots") which are pre-cut or are peforated as
in the Beavis and Butt-head acid.
mixture with other drugs (such as
dropping some onto marijuana before smoking)
LSD pictures: Beavis and Butt-head blotter acid; the
stuctural diagram of LSD-25.
Marijuana, a drug with many nicknames, has been used by humans for
thousands of years. It can be consumed in countless methods.
Some of the more popular methods:
smoking buds in pipes, joints, bongs, chillums, spliffs, etc.
making tea from leaves and buds
blending leaves and buds in with cooked foods (such as brownies!)
smoking of concentrated resin (hashish)
During the sixties, as people were trying to find new ways to explore
pleasure and ways of bringing it about, marijuana became an obvious
choice. Despite the fact that it was illegal, many people were willing to try
this amazing substance.
Marijuana is a weed, hence the nickname "weed", and as such, is
currently native to all continents on the planet but Antarctica; and who
knows, a researcher down there might be doing a few "hydroponic"
Although marijuana is not a mind altering drug like a psychedelic, it was
also eagerly sought out for a good "buzz".
Marijuana has been very popular in recent history, and every since the 1960s,
has been a common part of our society as a whole.
Marijuana images: vegetative growth leaf, dried bud, structural diagram of the
active ingredient (THC).
thousands of years, less developed cultures have been experimenting with
psychedelic mushrooms. The people felt that by tripping, they could have
better contact with their deities. Most of the more common psychedelic
mushrooms in use in the current era belong to the genus Psilocybe, with
the most popular individual species probably being Psilocybe Cubensis.
Psilocybes contain the active ingredient psilocybin, which produces a
hallucinogenic response when ingested. Some of the more common methods of
eating of mushrooms (either raw or dried)
soaking mushrooms in honey - honey turns a bluish color, and is dosed
making mushroom tea
'shrooms on pizza
mushrooms cut into small
pieces and cooked with other food
During the sixties, many people experimented
with mushrooms in addition to other, stronger psychedelics to help them
get a new perspective on their world. But this was not the first time
people had experimented with psychedelics to a large degree.
Archaeological evidence has proven that psychedelic mushrooms
were used at least 5500 years ago in Algeria, and it is well known
that most of the major new world cultures experimented in some way. In
fact, some psychedelics are still used in American Indian religious
The famous Aztec statue of Xochipilli shows him to be in a psychedelic
state. It cannot be stated as a matter of fact what he is supposed to be
tripping on, but it is most likely mushrooms or a cactus psychedelic like
mescaline or peyote. | <urn:uuid:fa8c3714-29d0-466f-8e92-646221244c26> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/tbacig/cst3010/drugs.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00081-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957989 | 877 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Issue: October 2005
Pumpkins Flavor October Festivities
Gardeners can liven up Halloween festivities with 300-pound jack-o‚-lanterns and French-fried pumpkin blossoms.
Like other types of squash, pumpkins are native to the Western Hemisphere and they come in many different shapes and sizes.
Dill's Atlantic Giant‚ produces fruits up to 200 to 300 pounds. In contrast, decorative Munchkins‚ grow only 3 to 4 inches wide. Wee-B-Little is about the size of a baseball, with smooth bright orange skin that can be painted.
For an extra large jack-o‚-lantern, try the 40-pound Howden Biggie‚ an upright, uniform, globe-shaped pumpkin with dark orange thick flesh. The white skin of Lumina is truly spooky. These 10-15 pound globe-shaped beauties have orange flesh, which makes an interesting contrast when carved.
Kakai is a specialty pumpkin that weighs 5 to 8 pounds and has black stripes. Hollow the fruit out for carving and save the hull-less seed to roast as a healthy snack. The gloomy slate-gray skin of Jarrahdale makes for scary jack-o'-lanterns. Its medium-sweet orange flesh makes a tasty pie.
Harvest pumpkins before frost, or after one or two light frosts. A hard freeze can damage the skin. Remove fruit from the vine with loppers, leaving a one- to two-inch stem to serve as a handle for the jack-o'-lantern lid. To keep pumpkins fresher longer, do not break off the stem or damage the fruit. To toughen skin, allow pumpkins to cure for a few days in a protected location.
Most pumpkins are a good source of vitamin A. Male pumpkin blossoms can be dipped in egg batter and fried or sautéed in butter.
With pumpkins, male and female flowers occur on the same plant. As there are generally more male flowers than female, limited harvesting of the male ones will not affect pollination.
To make uniform jack-o'-lantern faces, try folding in half a piece of paper the same size as pumpkins. Cut out one eye, half a nose and half a mouth along the folded edge of the paper. Unfold the paper to check the design. If satisfied, place the pattern over the pumpkin and trace out the eyes, nose and mouth using a felt-tipped pen. Cut out the lid, scoop out seed and then cut out the face with a sharp knife or hack saw blade. Cut the lid at an angle so it doesn't fall inside the hollowed-out fruit.back to top
For more gardening information, visit New Mexico State University's Cooperative Extension Service publications world wide web site at http://www.cahe.nmsu.edu/pubs/_h.
George W. Dickerson, Ph.D., is is a horticulturist with New Mexico State University's Cooperative Extension Service. New Mexico State University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and educator. | <urn:uuid:17502de8-660b-4c72-8b9f-76547e88cd84> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://aces.nmsu.edu/ces/yard/melon_patch/2005/oct05.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00057-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900426 | 646 | 2.921875 | 3 |
The thick brown plume of ash, steam and volcanic gas rising from Anak Krakatau in this true-color image is a common sight at the volcano. Responsible for one of the largest and most destructive eruptions in Indonesia’s history, Krakatau still erupts frequently. For this reason, the volcano is one of 100 that NASA automatically monitors with the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite, as detailed in the Earth Observatory’s new feature article, Earth Observing-1: Ten years of Innovation.
Throughout the summer and fall of 2010, Krakatau erupted hundreds of times a day, but by November 17, when the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite took this image, activity at the volcano had started to slow. The image was taken as part of Volcano SensorWeb, a program that automatically schedules the ALI and Hyperion sensors on EO-1 to image volcanoes when other satellites detect signs of activity. ALI provides a detailed, photo-like view, useful for tracking ash, while Hyperion records the temperature and position of lava flows.
SensorWeb was not a part of EO-1’s original mission. The Earth Observatory’s feature article explains:
“EO-1 has two separate computer processors with 256 megabytes of extra memory each,” says mission manager Dan Mandl. That may seem paltry compared to a modern desktop computer, but it was enough to reshape a spacecraft’s mission. “It meant we had excess capacity to try new things.”
The first new software loaded onto EO-1 was the Autonomous Science Experiment, an onboard intelligent scheduling tool that allows the satellite to decide for itself which images Hyperion and ALI should take. Because the satellite can think for itself, the system can accept a target request as late as five hours before the satellite flies over the target, compared to 2-3 days required for most other sensors. The on-board scheduler prioritizes requests based on what they are for (ranked by theme) and the weather.
“It’s a customer-driven method of running a mission,” says Mandl. Anyone from an archeologist to a disaster response agency can request images....
To read more about EO-1’s primary mission, and its other achievements during the past decade, see Earth Observing-1: Ten years of Innovation.
- Global Volcanism Program. (2010, November 2). Krakatau. Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Accessed November 22, 2010.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen & Robert Simmon, using EO-1 ALI data from the NASA EO-1 team. Caption by Holli Riebeek.
- EO-1 - ALI | <urn:uuid:e4499067-ea2f-4090-95fd-0230e2132626> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=47143 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398516.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00098-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906611 | 604 | 3.125 | 3 |
Guest Author - Barbara Swiech
Most probably every nation has a part of history that one can be ashamed of. Although the historians may assess some events in different ways, as a result of the past relations, there are people involved whose life has been destroyed and badly influenced by hatred within their homeland. The Vistula action was carried out after the II World War and included deportation of Ukrainian (also Lemko and Boyko) population from newly created border’s of post-war Poland. Although the end of WW II gave Poland independence, its multicultural population would still fight over the ownership of parts of the country. Both, the Poles and Ukrainians, started to defend the territories in which they had lived for years.
The main pretext of the operation was the need to suppress the Ukrainian Insurgent Army that was active in southeastern Poland, murdering Polish civilians. Direct event, that started the operation, was the murder of General Karol Swierczewski in an ambush. However, the plans to start the action of resettling Ukrainian citizens (as well as mixed Ukrainian-Polish families) go back at least to early 1947 (before the death of Switalski). As the Vistula Operation was carried out in parts of Poland where Ukrainian Nationalist have not been active before, and was aimed at civilians, it is described as ethnic cleansing.
The first stage of the action included making the list of citizens, of Ukrainian origin, that would be subject to resettling. The population tried to save themselves from deportation by achieving false documents, such as Roman-Catholic christening certificates, as population of Greek Catholic church or Orthodox confession was automatically seen as Russian. The resettling embraced about 150 thousand population of Ukrainians, Lemkos and Boykos – still remaining within the borders of Poland after repatriation of Ukrainians from Poland to Soviet Ukraine that took place between 1944 and 1946. The events around the deportation were very often violent. The resettled people had not been left much time to take their belongings, very often only couple of hours, and they were limited only to the most needed ones. The conditions of transport were very bad, as the deportees were brutally forced to enter crowded boxcars with irregular supplies of food, what caused death of some of them while transport. Some of members of intelligentsia and clergy were placed in labour camp in Jaworzno.
As during 1944-46, based on agreement between Poland and the Soviet Ukraine, an exchange of citizens took place, part of Ukrainian population of Poland has already left the lands of post-war Poland (while the Poles living within the new borders of the Soviet Ukraine would arrive to the territories Republic Poland). During the Vistula Operation the remaining minorities of Ukrainians (Lemkos, Boykos and of Rusyn origin) living in southeastern part of the country, would be relocated to western and northern lands where they would not constitute more than 10% of population of a given area. Polish government managed to depopulate some of terrains that were the place of activity of Ukrainian Nationalists, depriving them from human and other resources. However, the operation was a real tragedy to indigenous population of the affected terrains. Some of Lemkos managed to return to their homes 10 years after the action of resettling had taken place. Although the Vistula Operation was planned to be followed by settling the ethnic Poles in southeastern terrains of the country, the number of Polish citizens who were relocated there was much smaller than perceived before the action. After over 60 years from the operation, when visiting southeastern Poland, one can still feel the difference in number of people living there in comparison with other parts of the country. | <urn:uuid:c8d18ccd-c185-4a44-b3bd-cc445b989b01> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art67868.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394414.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00093-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984135 | 746 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Two years ago a mud volcano began erupting near Sidoarjo in East Java. As of August 2008, it was still spewing some 130,000 cubic yards a day into what is now a steaming lake of hot mud, 60 feet deep and nearly three square miles in area. Twelve villages have been affected, and at least 36,000 people have been displaced.
Some say the cause was an earthquake that occurred two days earlier and 155 miles away. Others, including Mark Tingay, a research fellow at Curtin University of Technology in Perth and the lead author of a study published in Geology [subscription required] in August, are fairly certain that the eruption was the result of an underground blowout in a natural gas well being dug nearby. They argue that the blowout fractured overlying rock and allowed fluid to escape to the surface. And that happened, they say, because of poor management of the well casing that is supposed to prevent such events.
“We tested each mechanism,” Tingay says, “and we show that the order of magnitude of the earthquake was too small to cause it. We can’t prove the cause was the drilling, but it most probably was.”
Reuters reported in August that the Indonesian government has ordered the company doing the well work to contribute $415 million toward compensation. When 74 scientists voted on the cause of the volcano at a meeting of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists in October, 42 said drilling was the trigger, 16 thought the evidence inconclusive, and 13 favored both drilling and earthquake. Only 3 voted for the earthquake. | <urn:uuid:8fa83a0a-4b79-4da0-94c0-16bbf7f4c8e6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jan/067 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396100.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00049-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977456 | 330 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Bats versus wind turbines
Wind turbines are responsible for the death of numerous bats. In a recent study, scientists determined the origin of these animals: they do not only come from local areas but many had been already on a long migratory journey. Germany therefore bears responsibility not only for the protection of native bat populations, but also for the populations from other countries.
Wind turbines are an important component of renewable energy policies. The technology is well advanced and wind is available in abundance, particularly in northern Germany. Although the problem of transporting the electricity to the power demanding southern parts of Germany is often discussed and the aesthetics of turbines commented upon, there is another problem: the rotor blades are a deadly danger for many birds and bats. Approximately 300,000 bats are estimated to be at risk of getting killed by German wind turbines every year, unless this risk is reduced by turning off the systems at night during the main activity hours of bats.
In a recent study, published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE, a research team led by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) identified the origin of greater noctules – a migrating bat species that is often in collisions with wind turbines in the eastern states of Germany. More than one quarter of studied bats were not local but were on their way to their wintering grounds in Germany or southwestern Europe. They had started their flights in the northeastern range of the species in the Baltic States, Russia, Belarus or Poland.
A surprisingly large proportion of females and young animals were amongst those killed. This is especially critical for wildlife populations, because with each female their potential offspring is also missing. Bat scientist Christian Voigt from the IZW in Berlin emphasizes: “The study shows that Germany bears responsibility not only for the protection of local bats, but also for the migrating bats from other countries owing to its central location as a transit area.” Germany lies exactly on the migration route of bats, which move to warmer regions – such as southern Germany, Switzerland or southern France – during autumn after they left their breeding areas in northeastern Europe, where females give birth to their young every spring. Additional losses of bats at German wind turbines are particularly dramatic for these populations since unfavorable climatic conditions in their northern breeding range prevent them from successfully reproducing each year. If many of these bats die at German wind turbines, source populations in Northeastern Europe may get significantly weakened.
The method by which the researchers determined the origin of bats comes from forensic science. When a cadaver of unknown origin appears, forensic experts examine the ratio of heavy to light hydrogen in the keratin of hair – a “geographic fingerprint”. This ratio varies in the precipitation water in relation to continental gradients of ambient temperature, i.e. precipitation in northern areas are less enriched in deuterium than that of southern areas. Humans and animals assimilate this water directly or through their food and deposit the isotopes in their body tissue. Since keratin is biologically inactive, the isotopic ratio remains constant over several months. As a geographical fingerprint it indicates the origin of a human or an animal. The method is so useful because the scientists can determine the origin of each bat without having to ring them, as is usually the case in conventional migration studies. That would truly require an immense effort.
Unfortunately, wind turbines even attract bats. During the mating season in autumn, bats swarm at conspicuous landscape features such as exposed rocks, church towers or even wind turbines, and in the latter case they may then collide with the blades. Christian Voigt is surprised that only few far-reaching measures have been taken that stop wind turbines to turn into deadly traps: “Bats are protected under both national law and EU law, and migratory species are protected by a UN convention signed by Germany. Anyone who kills a bat on purpose can be prosecuted for a criminal offence.” There is little emphasis on making operators of wind turbines accountable for these bat accidents because increasing the share of renewable energy is a political priority. “The protection of climate and species are played off against each other – but for a comprehensive approach to environmental conservation they should really go hand in hand.”
Wind turbines and bats could actually get along well with each other: bats do not like strong wind. They are only active at wind speeds of up to six to eight meters per second. At this speed, wind turbines only just start to produce energy in an economic manner. If the turbines run only in strong wind, collisions could be avoided – as could be those between the protectors of species and climate.
Lehnert LS, Kramer-Schadt S, Schönborn S, Lindecke O, Niermann I, Voigt CC (2014): Wind farm facilities in Germany kill noctule bats from near and far. PLOS ONE 9, e103106. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0103106.
Dr Christian C. Voigt
Tel.: +49 30 5168-517
Steven Seet (press officer)
Tel.: +49 30 5168-125
The Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) investigates the vitality and adaptability of wildlife populations in mammalian and avian species of outstanding ecological interest that face anthropogenic challenges. It studies the adaptive value of traits in the life cycle of wildlife, wildlife diseases and clarifies the biological basis and development of methods for the protection of threatened species. Such knowledge is a precondition for a scientifically based approach to conservation and for the development of concepts for the ecologically sustainable use of natural resources. The IZW belongs to theForschungsverbund Berlin e.V. (www.fv-berlin.de)
The Leibniz Association is made up of 89 independent research and scientific institutes, as well as two associated members. Their public and research functions are of national importance and comprise a major component of Germany’s publicly-funded research potential. Leibniz Institutes maintain more than 2,300 contracted cooperations with international partners in academia and industry, and some 2,200 foreign scientists contribute to Leibniz Institutes’ output on a temporary basis each year. Formal cooperative partnerships have been or are currently being developed with scientific institutions in France, Japan, Korea, Canada, Poland, Taiwan, and India. Third-party funds of about € 330 million per year indicate high competitiveness and excellence. Leibniz Institutes currently coordinate 75 projects funded by the European Union. They were also awarded grants by the European Union (with a value of € 42 million) and the German Research Foundation (DFG, € 55 million) in 2010, while € 51 million are a result of cooperations with industry partners. Leibniz Institutes contribute to clusters of excellence in fields such as mathematics, optical technologies, materials research, bio-medical research, environmental research, bio- and nanotechnology, as well as biodiversity, economic policy, and educational research. Altogether, ca. 17,200 people are employed at Leibniz Institutes, among them 8,200 researchers, including 3,300 junior scientists. | <urn:uuid:6a03d590-2408-481d-8f0a-3442dd9dbf2d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.izw-berlin.de/pr/bats-versus-wind-turbines.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402699.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00182-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946161 | 1,466 | 3.328125 | 3 |
- But Y'ffre took the Ooze and ordered it. First, she told of the Green, the forest and all the plant life in it. She gave the Green the power to shape itself as it willed, for it was her first tale. The Elves were Y'ffre's second tale. As Y'ffre spun the story, the Elves took the form they have today. Y'ffre gave them the power to tell stories, but warned them against trying to shape themselves or the Green. Shifting and the destruction of the forest were forbidden. Instead, Y'ffre commended the Wood Elves to the Green, so that they might ask the Green to provide them with shelter and a safe passage, and as long as they respected the Green, it would obey. — The Ooze: A Fable
The Green Pact, also known as the Treaty of Frond and Leaf, is a strict code upheld by many of the Bosmer of Valenwood. It is said to have guided their existence since the beginning of the "great story". Its rules are clear. Do not harm the forests of Valenwood. Do not eat anything made from plant life. Eat only meat. When enemies are conquered, their meat must be eaten, not left to rot. Do not kill wastefully. Do not take on the shape of beasts.
Green Pact Bosmer are said to attack any who would harm the forest in which they live, which they call the Green. However, they usually don't mind other races cutting trees down (most notably in the case of Vinedusk Rangers and Wood Orcs in their respective territories), and are known to buy wood from them. The cannibalistic "Meat Mandate" of the Pact sets them apart religiously from other cultures. The requirement to eat fallen enemies before three days pass is perhaps the most shocking part of the Pact to outsiders. Though many Bosmer still try to respect the Green Pact, the practice of eating dead enemies diminished by the Second Era, and is typically only practiced in the most remote villages. The family members of the warrior who slaughtered the enemy may help him with his meal. Bosmer who honor this facet of the Green Pact typically attempt to prepare themselves before large battles by fasting.
The Bosmer allegedly made the Green Pact with Y'ffre in return for Y'ffre's patronage and protection. As a result, they use bone, animal, and insect products widely; imported wood is used when necessary. Rather than drinking conventional liquor made from grain or fruit, the Bosmer consume jagga (fermented pig's milk) and rotmeth. Rotmeth is made from fermented meat seasoned with thunderbug organs, takes years to brew, and is considered a precious ritual beverage that symbolizes "the muscle of the boar, the power of the forest, the strength of the Bosmer people". No wedding can take place without it. Y'ffre is believed to have first blessed them with their form, thus their appearance is sacred, so although Bosmer may take the shape of beasts, the Pact normally bans this practice. However, the Wild Hunt is considered a result of the Green Pact: in return for their patronage to Y'ffre, the Bosmer may perform a ritual in dire times that transforms the participants into a horde of wild, shape-shifting beasts, which go on to lay waste to the enemies of the Bosmer.
The Green Pact made the felling of Valenwood trees by anyone, foreign or native, a crime against the Bosmeri religion. There are almost no cities or towns built by the Bosmer themselves. Rather, the Bosmer's relationship with the Pact grants them magical forest-shaping abilities to grow their settlements. The exact process is unclear, but reports claim that its often a highly ritualized affair which consists of slow, rhythmic chanting for several days. Much like the Meat Mandate, fasting is possibly involved prior to and during the process. Bosmer also believe Y'ffre has blessed them with the limited ability to ask the Green to shape itself to their needs to help them live within the restrictions of the Pact.
The tenets of the Pact have led to many tensions with allies and others who have disrespected their beliefs. More than once, the Bosmer have gone to war to protect the Green. While many "civilized" Bosmer don't adhere as closely to the Green Pact as their tribal brethren, they nevertheless often seem to be staunch advocates for respecting its tenets. Green Pact Bosmer are fanatical in their devotion to the Pact. They have been known to let loved ones die of illness even as the alchemical ingredients which could save them grow nearby. Nevertheless, these forest-dwellers are not savages: they have been described as a highly intelligent, curious, and rational people with rich cultural traditions vested in the forest and in their spiritual leaders, the Spinners of Y'ffre. The Spinners are charged with enforcing the Green Pact, and are said to hold the real power in Valenwood. Accounts suggest they have great influence on the people, and that their sermons touch upon more than just spiritual matters. Every springtime, Green Pact Bosmer gather at the Den of the Eldest for a festival in which they drink, tell stories, and pay homage to the Eldest, an ancient strangler.
The Green Pact Bosmer are known as fierce warriors, but are also known for the hospitality they exhibit to outsiders who respect their ways. Their stories speak of the Ooze, a purgatorial state reserved for Bosmer who violate the Pact (who are called Apostates), as well as the harsh punishments the Green unleashes on those who would harm it.
- Due to their diet, Green Pact Bosmer are supposedly prone to flatulence, which they refer to as "feeding the fire". Some Bosmer, however, assert that these claims are inaccurate and offensive.
- Once every generation, Bosmer celebrate the Handfasting, the wedding of the Silvenar and the Green Lady which is viewed as a renewal of their divine pact.
- A sect of Bosmer known to the others as the "Oathbreakers" refused to agree to the Green Pact in ancient times. They were subdued and buried in Ouze.
- The Green Pact and the Dominion — A discussion of how the Green Pact affects the Dominion
- Green Pact Bosmer: Observations by Dinycthus Precis — A study into the Bosmer adherents of the Green Pact
- Oathbreakers' Rest — Notes on the Bosmer who disagree with the Green Pact
- Pact Magic Examined — Notes regarding the Bosmer's relationship with Valenwood under the Green Pact
- The Ooze: A Fable — A children's tale from Valenwood
- Valenwood: A Study by Archivist Endaranande — A study of Valenwood
- Visions of the Green Pact Bosmer by Morvas Andrys — Insights into the worldview of followers of the Green Pact
- Why We Farm — The final words of an imprisoned Bosmer who broke the Green Pact
- Wood Elf Etiquette: An Imperial Perspective by Kerandas Calvus, in the year 2723 — A long discredited late First Era text on manners in Valenwood
- Arboreal Architecture — Cirantille
- Pocket Guide to the Empire, 1st Edition: Aldmeri Dominion — Imperial Geographical Society, 2E 864
- The Green Pact and the Dominion
- Green Pact Bosmer: Observations — Dinycthus Precis
- Why We Farm
- Loading screen from Roots of Silvenar in ESO
- Events of ESO
- War Customs of the Tribal Bosmer — Mistral Aurelian Teriscor
- Pocket Guide to the Empire, 3rd Edition: The Wilds Remain: Valenwood — Imperial Geographical Society, 3E 432
- The Improved Emperor's Guide to Tamriel: Valenwood — Flaccus Terentius, 2E 581
- Galithor's dialogue in ESO
- Valenwood: A Study — Archivist Endaranande
- Mixed Unit Tactics — Codus Callonus
- Woodhearth: A Pocket Guide
- Pact Magic Examined (Excerpt)
- Marbruk Builder's Log
- Gathiel's Diary — Gathiel
- The Wood Elves of Valenwood
- From the journal of Munamur — Munamor
- The Eldest: A Pilgrim's Tale
- The Ooze: A Fable
- Wood Elf Etiquette: An Imperial Perspective — Kerandas Calvus, in the year 2723
- Note about "Wood Elf Etiquette" — Iirond
- Diplomacy during the Handfasting
- An Unusual Alliance — Aicantar of Shimmerene, Sapiarch of Indoctrination
- Oathbreakers of Ouze
Note: the following references are not found in game. They are included to provide a rounder background to this article, but may not reflect established lore. | <urn:uuid:5e8bb471-fe00-4dc9-aecd-4a00aa3f1671> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Green_Pact | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00059-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955769 | 1,877 | 2.703125 | 3 |
As satellite technology has improved over the last half-century, our view of Earth has gotten more and more breathtaking. Earth observation satellites like the SPOT satellites (operated by the French), the European Space Agency's Envisat, and NASA's Landsat have greatly expanded our knowledge of the environment and the effects of human development.
Many satellite images, like the ones featured here, are made especially beautiful (and useful) through "false-color," which uses data from outside the spectrum of light that we can see to produce images in viewable colors that accentuate certain features of the landscape. Infrared, near-infrared, ultraviolet, and other such data illuminate important phenomena like weather patterns, plant life, and pollution.
Environmentalist and aerial photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand has collected 150 incredible images from these and other satellites in a new book, Earth From Space. The images in the book are paired with information and essays of environmental themes, such as pollution, desertification, urban sprawl, agriculture, and disasters.
Arthus-Bertrand shared a selection of the images with us here, but you can check out the rest in the book.
The Lena River in Russia is the eastern most of the three great Siberian rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean (the other two are the Ob and the Yenisei). For seven months of the year, the delta is frozen tundra. The other part of the year, it turns into a lush wetland. The colors in this photo have been altered to accentuate certain elements: plant life is green, sand is pink, water is blue.
This is what the Mississippi Delta in Louisiana looked like two months after the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill. Red indicates plant cover, shades of white and blue represent the water, and bright white represents the oil slicks. As can be seen in the image, the oil slicks penetrated the delta marshlands, which are rich in unique plant and animal life.
The Betsiboka River in Madagascar empties into Bombetoka Bay. The river carries large amounts of sediment which form islands and sandbars. The islands are primarily covered by mangrove trees, seen here in red. The surrounding areas are cassava and rice plantations planted on cleared forests.
The Senegal River is a 1,110 miles long river that forms the border for Senegal and Mauritania. Because the river historically reached into the Ghana Empire and The Mali Empire, it has been known as the River of Gold.
Surprisingly for some, Antarctica is actually the largest desert on Earth, covering 5 million square miles. While it is covered in ice, it actually doesn't get much snow yearly. The Lützow-Holm Bay (shown here), a massive bay in Antarctica, is 120 miles wide. It was discovered in 1931.
Stretching for 550 miles, the Ebro River is the most powerful in Spain. Due to rich soil and an intricate system of irrigation channels (seen as the patchwork of lines below), the Ebro River Delta produces Spain's famous Bomba rice, as well as citrus fruits and vegetables.© CNES 2008 – DISTRIBUTION ASTRIUM SERVICES/SPOT IMAGE
The Aleutian Islands are a volcanic archipelago that lies south of the Bering Strait, the closest point between North America and Asia. The swirls on the photo are low altitude marine clouds that follow the "Kármán vortex street," a repeating pattern of swirling vortices, caused by wind flowing around the islands.
Gotland Island, Sweden's largest island, is located in the Baltic Sea. Agriculture and food processing are the main industries on the island. The green swirls in the water are from microscopic phytoplankton, which are prevalent in the area because deep currents swelling up bring nutrients to the surface. | <urn:uuid:b502a83c-bd99-4617-ac12-8f413270915d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.businessinsider.com/8-jaw-dropping-photos-of-earth-from-space-2014-8 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398209.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00029-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939928 | 789 | 3.53125 | 4 |
Date of this Version
To our knowledge, geographical information system (GIS)-based site-specific nitrogen management (SSNM) techniques have not been used to assess agricultural energy costs and efficiency. This chapter uses SSNM case studies for corn (Zea mays L.) grown in Missouri and cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) grown in Texas. In five case studies, the impact of SSNM will be compared with blanket N fertilizer recommendations. The five case studies are investigating (I) the impact N on energy produced in cotton production, (2) the impact of variable-rate N for cotton production based on soil nitrate and crop reflectance, (3) the feasibility of variable-rate N based on corn crop reflectance, (4) the use of corn management zones and crop reflectance for improving N recommendations and energy efficiency, and (5) the ability of using aerial photographs to improve N recommendations in corn. | <urn:uuid:a3d8af37-fcfb-49c6-a210-1c64626cd834> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/usdaarsfacpub/677/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00147-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.850703 | 191 | 3.25 | 3 |
bitstring is a pure Python module designed to help make the creation and analysis of binary data as simple and natural as possible. BitStrings can be constructed from integers (big and little endian), hex, octal, binary, strings or files. They can be sliced, joined, reversed, inserted into, overwritten, etc. with simple functions or slice notation. They can also be read from, searched and replaced, and navigated in, similar to a file or stream.
released on 19 January 2010
|License||Verified by||Verified on||Notes|
|Expat||Kelly Hopkins||26 January 2010|
Leaders and contributors
Resources and communication
This entry (in part or in whole) was last reviewed on 26 January 2010. | <urn:uuid:55601040-962f-4780-bab1-3e73bd09a0e2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://directory.fsf.org/wiki?title=Bitstring&oldid=4137 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396459.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00034-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.858933 | 157 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Hi So I have to prove the following:
If with and and n is an even positive integer, then prove that p has at least two distinct roots.
So my proof looks a little like this so far:
p is continuous on .
Hence such that:
At this point Im stuck. I found, via graphing example polynomials, that the negative values cause the polynomial to have two distinct roots, but how to state this mathematically to finish the proof?
Any suggestions would be appreciated thanks.
In your conditions the result is not true, just consider
If n is odd or n even and , , .Thus there exists such that
, and .
Now you only need Bolzano.
the hypothesis states that n is even,
p(x) = x^3 - 1 does not satisfy the hypothesis
You are right!!!
I was translating odd an even to spanish strangely!
OK, if n is even, then with your hypothesis thus the rest of the argument given in my post works!
Use the intermediate value property: If f(x) is a continous function on [a,b], then it takes on all values between f(a) and f(b).
Originally Posted by dannyboycurtis
f(0)< 0 while, for some large x, f(x)> 0.
f(0)< 0 while for some larger negative x, f(x)> 0.
how could I show that if n was odd, p would NOT have an odd number of distinct roots?
You wouldn't. It is not true. For example, has odd degree and an odd number of distinct roots.
If you mean "if n is odd, p may not have an odd number of distinct roots", use the counter example .
sorry I miswrote that question,
how would I prove that if n was odd, that p would not have 2 distinct roots?
Again, you don't prove it. It's not true. For example, has roots x= 0, x= 1, x= -1, three distinct roots, so it would certainly also be correct to say it has 2 distinct roots.
If you mean "does not have exactly two distinct roots" it is still not true. has exactly x= 0 and x= 1 as distinct roots.
What is true is that a polynomial, of odd degree, with real coefficients cannot have exactly two (or any even number) real roots (distinct or not). But that is not anything like what you have been saying. | <urn:uuid:7da17f88-4983-4b21-b300-6f0bc3d17605> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mathhelpforum.com/differential-geometry/111436-polynomial-question-print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403508.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00043-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96357 | 540 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Claude Steele's Whistling Vivaldi is an excellent new work of social science for the lay-reader about how stereotypes impact the performance and even the long-term health of stereotyped group via a phenomenon called stereotype threat. There is an ever-growing mountain of experimental evidence for the existence of such a phenomenon, which Steele contends has less to do with a stereotyped person internalizing their society's racism as part of their personality, although that is one influence, and more to do with the way these social realities are ubiquitous, resulting in the stereotyped party receiving continual cues about the poor expectations of his performance from his environment. Steele presents research that debunks the myth that the simple solution to this problem is always to work harder. In fact, having a lot at stake and working at the most challenging level are two important contributors to the threat effect.
Steel tracks the evidence collected to-date about the mechanism of stereotype threat at three levels - society, identity, and brain (though he offers the least support for the last, sadly, as there are some very good studies out there). Although Steele's history explores newsworthy domains such as as stereotypes about women being poorer at math than men, and about those with dark skin being less academically strong than those with light, but he makes the point repeatedly that identity threat can and does effect most everyone, offering good examples. He chooses not only the obvious settings of the classroom and the running track to make his point, but some unlikely ones as well - such as the Supreme Court. Steele's writing is attractively free of self-serving hyperbole, his anecdotes illustrate his points clearly, he doesn't oversell them, and the book is both compact and fast-moving. | <urn:uuid:858963ae-8c3e-4997-9aab-4aa342e696d0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://bookeywookey.blogspot.com/2011/04/being-stereotyped-doesnt-just-feel-bad.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402699.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00163-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974279 | 348 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Apple's Patent Background
A heat sink is a term for a component or assembly that transfers heat generated within a solid material to a fluid medium, such as air or a liquid. Examples of heat sinks are the heat exchangers used in refrigeration and air conditioning systems and the radiator (also a heat exchanger) in a car. Heat sinks also help to cool electronic and optoelectronic devices, such as higher-power lasers and light emitting diodes (LEDs).
A heat sink is physically designed to increase the surface area in contact with the cooling fluid surrounding it, such as the air. Approach air velocity, choice of material, fin (or other protrusion) design and surface treatment are some of the design factors which influence the thermal resistance, i.e. thermal performance, of a heat sink. One engineering application of heat sinks is in the thermal management of electronics, often computer central processing unit (CPU) or graphics processors. For these, heat sink attachment methods and thermal interface materials also influence the eventual junction or die temperature of the processor(s).
Apple notes that aluminum alloys are not recommended for machining because it's too soft. Copper could also be used since it has around twice the conductivity of aluminum, but is three times as heavy as aluminum and around four to six times more expensive than aluminum.
However, none of the conventional heat sink materials have a superplastic forming characteristic that would allow them to be thermoformed by processes such as stamping to create extremely high heat transfer surface area at a micro- and nano- level.
Apple Invents Heat Sink made of Liquid Metal
Apple's patent relates to a heat sink having nano- and/or micro-replication directly embossed in a bulk solidifying amorphous alloy comprising a metal alloy, wherein the heat sink is configured to transfer heat out of the heat sink by natural convection by air or forced convection by air, or by fluid phase change of a fluid and/or liquid cooling by a liquid.
Apple's patent Figure 6 shows pin-, straight- and flared fin heat sink types that could be made of liquid metal.
One of the inventors found in Apple's October 2014 Korean patent filing was Christopher Prest. Apple's patent application was discovered in the European Patent Office's database this morning.
A second Apple patent application filed in South Korea during the same time frame covered a "self-optimizing chemical strengthening bath for glass (KR20140093284) that Patently Apple covered in June 2013. Apple's last US liquid metal patent application and one that we didn't cover was filed on October 16 under the title "Optimized Multi-Stage Inductive Melting of Amorphous Alloys." It was a continuation patent.
Apple doesn't allow us to know what specific devices that the heat sinks designed with liquid metal are being designed for. Most of Apple's liquid metal patent applications are frustratingly vague by listing the same group of devices that their invention could relate to. The standard verbiage is as follows: An electronic device can refer to any electronic device known in the art. For example, it can be a telephone, such as a cell phone, and a land-line phone, or any communication device, such as a smart phone, including, for example an iPhone, an electronic email sending/receiving device. It can be a part of a display, such as a digital display, a TV monitor, an electronic-book reader, a portable web-browser (e.g., iPad.), and a computer monitor.
While Apple's venture into researching the use of liquid metal in products has always sounded promising, so did Apple's partnership with GT Advanced Technologies for sapphire and we all know how that turned out. Apple had extended their agreement until February 2015 with Liquidmetal Technologies Inc in May. February 2015 is around the time Apple Watch may be ready. Does that mean that Apple uses Liquid Metal in their upcoming Apple Watch? So far Apple's literature and marketing verbiage has yet to reveal such a development. Is this another failed materials project? There must have been a reason for the license extension, so it'll be interesting to see what transpires in Q1 2015 on this front.
Patently Apple presents a detailed summary of patent applications with associated graphics for journalistic news purposes as each such patent application is revealed by the U.S. Patent & Trade Office. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any patent application should be read in its entirety for full and accurate details. About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Comments are reviewed daily from 4am to 8pm MST and sporadically over the weekend. | <urn:uuid:7a796b2d-ac00-4c32-ae7b-e5e678552ceb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2014/10/apple-filed-a-liquid-metal-patent-in-korea-for-a-new-heat-sink.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399522.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00119-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951358 | 965 | 3.65625 | 4 |
ASCO Annual Meeting
June 1, 2013
Results from a new study show that the drug selumetinib keeps metastatic (cancer that has spread) melanoma of the eye from worsening and lengthens patients’ lives. Melanoma of the eye (also called uveal melanoma) is a rare cancer. Most patients with uveal melanoma are diagnosed when the cancer is located in the eye. But, the cancer eventually spreads outside of the eye to other parts of the body in about half of patients, and these patients usually live about nine to 12 months after diagnosis, so a drug that can lengthen patients’ lives is a major breakthrough.
The current standard treatment is the drug temozolomide (Temodar), but its benefit is limited and new treatments have been needed. Selumetinib is a type of targeted therapy, a treatment that targets the cancer’s specific genes, proteins, or the tissue environment that contributes to cancer growth and survival. In particular, selumetinib targets mutated (changed) Gnaq and Gna11 genes, which help the cancer grow. These gene mutations are found in 85% of patients with melanoma of the eye.
The 98 patients with metastatic melanoma of the eye participating in this study received either selumetinib or temozolomide (48 patients received selumetinib and 50 received temozolomide). During the study, patients who had their disease worsen while receiving temozolomide were able to switch to selumetinib. Researchers found that the tumors in 50% of patients shrank, with 15% of the patients who received selumetinib experiencing considerable tumor shrinkage, compared with none of the patients who received temozolomide.
In addition, it took almost four months for the disease to worsen for patients who took selumetinib, compared with almost two months for those who took temozolomide.
What this means for patients
“This study proves that inhibiting Gnaq and Gna11 mutations is effective, more than doubling the length of time it takes for the disease to worsen,” said lead author Richard D. Carvajal, MD , a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. “We’re hopeful a drug like selumetinib will be commercially available in the near future; in the meantime, we must continue to steer patients towards clinical trials.” If you are interested in participating in a clinical trial, talk with your doctor for more information.
Dr. Carvajal was a recipient of a Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO Young Investigator Award in 2008 and a Career Development Award in 2010, which partially funded this study.
Questions to Ask Your Doctor
- What type of eye cancer do I have?
- What is the stage? What does this mean?
- What is my prognosis (chance of recovery)?
- What are my treatment options?
- What clinical trials are open to me?
For More Information
Clinical Trials | <urn:uuid:149619d7-0cf9-4a7d-bcba-20f7c1d3f101> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cancer.net/print/29521 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397797.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00071-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950637 | 656 | 2.90625 | 3 |
You have a high quality accurate-mass MS/MS spectrum of an unknown compound. If you have very little background information, is there a systematic approach that can be used to help identify that compound?
Mass spectra, unlike NMR and IR spectra, have no frame of reference. Each fragment mass has to be interpreted in the context of other masses. If accurate mass fragmentation data is available in your laboratory, our patented pattern recognition software allows you to visualize your unknown molecule as being composed of underlying small "subfragments" that show how fragment ions are related to each other. The pattern recognition software, now available as a simple Excel® Add-In, uses the power of mathematics to rapidly transform accurate-mass fragmentation data into a structure-orientated graphical format (Example).
A new high resolution isotope calculator worksheet, included in the Excel Add-In, tabulates the expected masses of all combinations of first and second isotopes. The isotopic patterns are then plotted in color in a normal distribution based on the selected resolution setting. To view a plot, select an isotope worksheet in the above example.
By building upon the graphical and computational capabilities of Excel, the Add-In can be offered at a very reasonable price. The Add-In also includes some very useful mass spectral functions for Excel that fill down and across like any other Excel function. This Excel Add-In is so simple to learn that the user manual is a single Excel worksheet available in six languages.
For a quick overview on how the Excel Add-In works, please view our 3 minute MathSpec YouTube Video. | <urn:uuid:538deafe-b418-41b8-8b76-ff30ba7b0fe6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mathspec.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00197-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901244 | 328 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Click a Button
Enter your name. Select your grade level. How many facts do you know? How many facts do you want to do?
The Game is constantly calculating which facts you do and do not have memorized, as it determines your memorized speed.\nClick Resume to continue.
Our emphasis is on facts correct, not on time spent or facts attempted.
Try missing one on purpose, just to see what happens.
You will never see a wrong answer, only the correct answer, but in red if you missed it. If you miss a fact twice in a row, it becomes the focus fact, to help you learn it. Click Resume to continue.
Estimating your memorized speed as faster than X seconds. If you get it right, but slower than that, it will not be counted as memorized.
Click here to see your results now, or continue to play until you beat the game or have done the number of facts you clicked on.
Assign a specific number of correct facts to do, instead of assigning an amount of time, which may be wasted.
The date, time, and student's name are right on the printable report.
The two lowest facts that were wrong or too slow are listed, if applicable.
To prove they did the work and help you with tracking, students can print off this ink/toner friendly page.
Don't want to do paperwork? Use our automatic tracking & monitoring!
This is the Teacher home screen, with which you can monitor, edit, and track students.
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See at a glance who has not done their facts in class yet today or who did not practice their facts after class yesterday.
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If you decide to continue after the free trial, the cost is only $1/student ($5minimum), for a whole year! If not, the free version without accounts and tracking will still be available.
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updated: December 17, 2013 | <urn:uuid:04025e65-557c-4afe-9499-488ae62e6f1d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mathfactspro.com/mathfluencygame.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00197-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940584 | 628 | 2.6875 | 3 |
The Battle of Naseby, fought in 1645, sealed victory for Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army and Parliament, who would go on to wipe out the Royalist forces of King Charles I shortly after. It brought the British Civil War to a close and marked the first ascendance of professional, trained military forces.
The experiential exercise is not new for Tubb's classes. In his other British History courses, including one on the Crusades, he has students preform re-enactments on an almost daily basis.
"I'm usually not extremely interested in battles, but it is important to understand why they were won or lost," Tubb said. "I try different ways for them to understand and get involved with history. (A re-enactment) has to be historically accurate, but the students like to have some control and I am happy to give it to them."
After reading about and discussing the battle, students chose roles and Tubb diagramed the traditional format. Infantry forces would face one another in the middle of the field and lock in a kind of scrum while cavalry do battle on either flank in an attempt to attack the opposing infantry from behind.
In order to evaluate how well the class understands the 17th Century history they are reenacting, Tubb brings a decidedly 20th Century creature into the mix, assigning one of the students to play the role of a television reporter. The microphone wielding character conducted pre and post-battle interviews with everyone involved, which added a Monty Python sensibility to the re-enactment.
Although Tubb allows for some campiness — Cromwell likely didn't kneel a la Tim Tebow in celebration of his victory — the students are required to know what they are portraying. Roll playing and revelry notwithstanding, Tubb said the ability of the faux combatants to explain their roles and what is going on on the imagined battlefield around them is transferable to the classroom.
During CentreTerm, the small class size allows him to gauge whether real learning is taking place.
"Out in the field you can see how people would have actually been lined up," said student Sam Norris of Pittsburgh. "You can see how things would work geographically instead of just on paper.”
The Battle of Naseby lends its self uniquely to lively dramatization.
Not only were Cromwell's highly trained cavalry forces thwarted for a time by rabbit warrens (cue the stuffed bunny rabbits for the re-enactment), but part of the Royalist cavalry was fought off by the Parliamentarian's cooks before they could reach the back of the infantry line.
CentreTerm has become well known for its tantalizing course listings
This year students could choose from offerings that included options like The Ides of March: A Crime Scene Investigation taught by Classics Professor Jane Wilson Joyce; and Into the Great Abyss: Cave Ecology taught by Professor Matthew Klooster, which takes students to Carter Caves and Mammoth Cave.
While some classes require a heavy dose of imagination, others actually transport students to the places they are studying around the globe.
Drama Professor Matthew Hallock and Math Professor Alex McAllister have taken their class to Greece where they are teamed up to teach a course on Drama and Mathematics in Ancient Greece, while Chemistry Professors Conrad Shiba and Joe Workman went to New Zealand to study the physical science of volcanoes. | <urn:uuid:9d7db3ef-ddea-4d7a-87d2-bfb37bf686a5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://articles.centralkynews.com/2012-01-21/amnews/30651923_1_enactment-centreterm-students | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00110-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969348 | 698 | 3 | 3 |
Tips for finding & citing literature
Finding Citations at ESF/SU:
The first three search tools are interdisciplinary SUMMIT databases. Go to the databases main menu under “research tools” at http://libwww.syr.edu/ to find the databases alphabetized by name.
Academic OneFile (limit to articles with full text AND refereed publications)
ProQuest (limit to full text AND scholarly journals including peer-reviewed)
Wilson Full Text (limit to full text AND peer-reviewed)
Another SUMMIT database, Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory, allows the user to enter a journal title to get a link to detailed information on that publication, including whether it is refereed. The advanced search in Ulrich’s also allows searching by subject or keyword, with an optional limit for “refereed,” to display lists of publications.
Other good sources available free on the Internet:
Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/) is a search engine for scholarly publications from peer-reviewed journals, professional societies, books, theses, and other sources.
Highwire Press (http://highwire.stanford.edu/) offers free articles in biological, physical and social sciences and medicine. The site includes a search engine. Highwire has also put together a webliography of links to other large archives of scientific resources (highwire.stanford.edu/lists/largest.dtl).
Public Library of Science (www.plos.org/ or available through our library catalog—search “PLOS” as a keyword), is a nonprofit scientific/medical organization making articles available free.
BioMed Central (www.biomedcentral.com/) publishes a number of journals that are available as open access, including Environmental Health and the Journal of Biology. Others are available free to registered users.
OAIster --pronounced “oyster”— (http://www.oaister.org/) indexes over three million digitized resources worldwide and can be limited to text, images, audio, or video files.
The Directory of Open Access Journals (www.doaj.org/) includes articles from more than 700 titles from around the world. Syracuse University is adding these to the e-journal list linked from the SUMMIT database home page, so you can search for specific titles or browse topics. Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics, Fishery Bulletin, Journal of Construction Education, and Biopolicy Journal are just a few of the titles included.
Scitopia (http://www.scitopia.org/scitopia/) is a federated (“one-stop shopping”) search portal for publications of a number of professional societies in the areas of science and technology. Over three million documents, including patents and government publications, can be found here.
Not “open access” (available free to anyone), but available through the SUMMIT system : Knovel: Answers for Science and Engineering. This database includes over 500 books online, with more added each month (for some titles, not every chapter may be available electronically). Book 24x7 ITPRO Collection, CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, and Gale Virtual Reference Library are other sources of reliable information available within the SUMMIT database collection.
Finding an article once you have a citation:
also: writing_tips.htm#Advice on Literature Reviews
On inaccuracy in citations:
Todd, Peter A. Darren C. J. Yeo, Daiqin Li and Richard J. Ladle. P. A. Todd. 2007. Citing Practices in Ecology: Can we believe our own words? Oikos 116: 1599-1601 PDF
And other aspects of scientific integrity:
Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy, National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. 1995. On Being A Scientist: Responsible Conduct In Research. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C. HTML PDF (purchase download copy)
Help with statistics:http://eeb.bio.utk.edu/weltzin/GenEcol03/Stats/stats.htm
also: Calculating Detectable Differences
Help withposter presentations:
Beth A. Fischer, B.A. & M.J. Zigmond. 1999. Attending Professional Meetings Successfully. University of Pittsburgh. PDF.
SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.
All Rights Reserved.
Last updated 03/28/11 § email@example.com | <urn:uuid:ad8c5346-9f70-4162-bb7f-9d86f0ebe675> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.esf.edu/for/yanai/research_class/links.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00151-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.827329 | 954 | 2.53125 | 3 |
The Russian Quest for Warm Water Ports
By opening the Syrian-Mediterranean front in 2015, Russia bypassed the whole military network that NATO and the United States had placed along the Russian Federation’s Western land borders.
For nearly two hundred years the policy of obtaining, maintaining, and increasing a seaboard has been consistently followed. If that policy was inaugurated by Peter the Great, it was nevertheless absolutely due to the operation of irresistible natural forces. A great nation must seek a seaboard corresponding in extent to its needs, and Russia could no more be restrained in her seaward expansion than could the United States in overflowing the Rocky Mountains in their march to the Pacific. The policy thus forced upon Russia by the conditions of her being has involved many wars and great sacrifices. The methods adopted have been various, and, in common with those which have commended themselves to all nations, have not been wholly blameless; but only the curious inability of the British people to realise the necessities of others can blind us to the fact that Russian expansion was as inevitable as our own. To the fifty millions of Great and Greater Britain free access to the sea is the breath of national life; by the eighty millions of Russia the same vital need is instinctively felt.
A glance at the map serves to show that, after nearly two centuries of effort, the conditions of Russia, from the maritime point of view, remain exceptionally disadvantageous. The British Empire had free access to all the oceans and seas of the world. France faced the Atlantic and held fourteen hundred miles of the shores of the Mediterranean. Spain is admirably placed for the exercise of sea-power. Germany, by means of the North Sea Canal, held an outlet to blue water in her own hands. The United States front two oceans. Japan is almost as favorably situated as the British Islands.
Russia, on the other hand, by a freak of circumstance, unfortunate for herself and other nations, had her sea-communications in Europe land-locked and partially ice-locked, and the effect of these great geographical disadvantages was manifested in the Crimean War. In the Far East, Kamtschatka, annexed in 1697, has its spring, summer, and autumn compressed into four months. Vladivostock, which became a Russian port in 1860, is ice-locked for about four months,* and is situated in the almost inland Sea of Japan. Even Port Arthur, the latest acquisition, does not provide such unimpeded access to the ocean as is given by Brest, Cadiz, New York, or San Francisco, and has the additional drawback of being fully four thousand four hundred miles by the shortest railway route from the Russian capital.
Although Russia is the predominant resident power on the Eurasian Continent, geography has been very "cruel" to her in the sense that it has left her virtually landlocked. In the north, her access to the world is frozen in winter. In the west. Europe blocks her entry into the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. In the south, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan deny her a passage to the Arabian Sea. Lastly, in the east, China and Korea separate her from the South China Sea, while Vladivostok, her sole warm water port, is "neutralized" by South Korean and Japanese domination of the strait of Tsushima. Her problems were uncomfortably accentuated by the fact that her principal adversaries were the world's dominant sea power, first Great Britain, then the United States. Russian strategists have, over the last two hundred years, sought to remedy this through a steady, but relentless drive to the seas. In this respect they seem to have drawn upon the advice and thinking of two of their great strategists, Peter the Great and Prince Gorchakov.
A "warm water port" is a port where the water does not freeze in winter. Because they are available year-round, warm water ports can be of great geopolitical or economic interest, with the ports of Saint Petersburg and Valdez being notable examples. Russia needed a warm water port to have a well rounded economy like China or America. As the Russian empire expanded to the East, it would also push down into Central Asia towards the sea, in a search for warm water ports.
Russia's Czar Ivan III (1462-1505) had warred to unify Russia and to break free of the Mongol yoke. Ivan IV (1533-84) had conquered the Mongols and warred unsuccessfully to acquire a warm water port. In the 17th century, Russia expanded westward at the expense of Poland, acquiring the Ukraine in the process, and then expanded to the Pacific and to the frontiers of China. Following upon all this, Peter's foreign policy may be reduced to three simple goals: (1) reaching the Baltic Sea; (2) reaching the Black Sea; and (3) expanding southward at the expense of Iran. Ultimately, only the first of these thrusts was successful, though it took the 21-year Swedish or Northern War to complete it.
Fifty-one years prior to the birth of the United States Peter the Great died, leaving behind his celebrated will in which he advised his subjects to " ... approach as near as possible to Constantinople and India. Whoever governs there will be the true sovereign of the world. Consequently, excite continual wars, not only in Turkey, but in Persia And, in the decadence of Persia, Penetrate as far as the Persian Gulf advance as far as India." (In today's world, "India" ought to be read as "Pakistan").
St. Petersburg is inexorably linked with the personality of its founder, Tsar Peter I. Peter inherited a Russia that was too backward for his taste. Trade was relatively undeveloped due to the lack of access to a warm-water port (the Baltic belonged to the Swedes and the Black Sea was in Turkish hands) and the populace, even the aristocracy, was for the most part uneducated. Novorossiysk, Russia's largest warm water port on the Black Sea, was home to USSR President Brezhnev's favorite winery, Myskhako. Petropavlovsk Kamchatsky is the last warm water port along the Northern Sea Route from Southeast Asia to Europe. Kaliningrad, a Russian region strategically located "within" Europe, has the No.1 rating for social-economic development in the North-West federal region. Kaliningrad's economy has grown rapidly due to the fishing industry, oil and gas exports, and heavy industry, and has Russia's only warm water port on the Baltic coast.
Every nation desired above all things access to that highroad to everywhere, which the oldest of poets called thirty centuries ago the Wide-Wayed Sea. Russia was the only great State that found this access through her northern ports closed during the winter by ice, and through her southern ports on the Black Sea liable to be at any time closed by the Power which held the shores of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles. She had long sought a warm water harbor on the Atlantic, and thought of buying one from Norway. She had got a sort of haven on the Arctic coast west of the mouth of the White Sea, but eastwards thence along the Siberian and Kamchatkan coasts there was none nearer than Vladivostock on the Sea of Japan, unsurpassed as a naval station, for the long channel of approach is eminently defensible and capable of being kept open throughout winter by an ice breaker.
It had been the adverse fate of Russia on reaching the shores of a sea to discover that it was not an open sea. Each time Russia prepared to set foot on a seaboard, and her soldiers weary but victorious were ready like the Greeks of the Anabasis to utter the joyous cry, "The sea at last!" they met with disappointment. It was not access to a free, open sea that they had conquered for their country, but merely a salt lake controlled by some other Power. The Baltic, to the shores of which Russia came after a struggle of over two centuries against the Poles and Swedes, was closed by the ice of the Finnish Bay and by the Danish Straits. The exit from the Black Sea was found to be a trap door that might any moment be opened or closed against Russia by the Turkish janitor acting in his own interest or, more serious still, in the interests of those who might bribe or intimidate him against Russia. The bleakness of the Siberian coasts and the ardent aspirations of the Japanese neighbor deprived Russia of an egress to the warm waters of the Pacific. But it was the Black Sea that caused Russia many a dark day of her history, turning even her victories into defeat. The Black Sea was even less hospitable to the Russians than to the Greeks, who gave it the euphemistic name of the Hospitable Sea.
The Tsars of Russia had always their eyes on the warm water ports in the south to control the world economy. The Soviets, having naval supremacy in Indian Ocean, had since long enough of naval ships facilities and number of ships in these water. Warm water ports were made available by Ethiopia and South Yemen in the west and Kam Rahn Bay in the east to cherish their long term desired to capture the warm waters with ease. Latest technology, long range nuclear missiles had also reduced the dependance on large distance bases. This historical compulsion of the Russians was, however no longer valid.
|Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list| | <urn:uuid:ac989472-b708-49b7-8ba2-69b02e360927> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/warm-water-port.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00137-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97441 | 1,948 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA)
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) would prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. There is currently no federal law protecting individuals from job discrimination based on actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. This means that at any time, someone can be discriminated against, fired or not hired simply because he/she is or is perceived to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.
ENDA is modeled on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, religion, gender, national origin, and color. ENDA works within the boundaries of the Civil Rights Act to protect a group of people who have been historically and are currently discriminated against.
Currently, several states offer protection based on sexual orientation and gender identity. ENDA would ensure this type of protection across the entire country to all citizens of the United States.
- Employment Non-Discrimination Act - Human Rights Campaign
- Employment Non-Discrimination Act - ACLU
- ENDA Timeline - Human Rights Campaign
- The State of the Workplace - Human Rights Campaign Foundation - 2/12/2009 - This annual report is a national source of information on laws and policies surrounding sexual orientation and gender identity in the workplace.
- Working in the Shadows: Ending Employment Discrimination for LGBT Americans - ACLU - 9/17/07 - This ACLU-issued report urges Congress to pass ENDA, and uses the stories of workers from across the country who have experienced workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity to make the case for passage of the bill.
Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2007
- ENDA Fact Sheet
- ENDA Talking Points
- ENDA's Religious Exemption Fact Sheet
- House Vote: Employment Non-Discrimination Act - Leadership Conference Voting Record 2008
- Successes and Setbacks on ENDA - Civil Rights Monitor Winter 2007
- House Passes ENDA - Feature Story - 11/8/07
- The Leadership Conference Applauds Passage of Civil Rights Bill - 11/8/07
- ENDA Coalition Sign-on Letter - Advocacy Letter - 11/06/07
- Opposition to the Strategy and Process for Consideration of ENDA - Advocacy Letter - 10/01/07
- Emotional Testimonies Frame Hearing on Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) - Feature Story - 9/14/07
Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2001
- Employment Non-Discrimination Act Moves Forward in Senate - Civil Rights Monitor Fall/Winter 2002
- Broad Bipartisan Support for the Reintroduction of ENDA - Civil Rights Monitor Spring 2002
- Employment Non-Discrimination Act Moves Forward in Senate - Feature Story - 4/25/02
- Business, Civil Rights Leaders Voice Support for ENDA - Feature Story - 3/4/02
- The Leadership Conference Urges Senate To Pass Employment Non-Discrimination Act - Press Release - 2/27/02
- The Religious Exemption to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act - Fact Sheet - 8/1/01
- Prohibiting Employment Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation: Why A Federal Law is Needed - 8/1/01
- Broad Support for Reintroduction of ENDA - Feature Story - 7/31/01
- The Leadership Conference letter to the House Regarding ENDA - Advocacy Letter - 7/17/01
- Burden of Proof Under the Employment Non-Discrimination Act - Fact Sheet - 7/1/01
- Support Growing for Employment Non-Discrimination Act - Feature Story - 6/29/01
ENDA in the 1990s
ENDA was first introduced in the 103rd Congress on June 23, 1994. Six days later on July 29, the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee held the first congressional hearing ever to consider civil rights protections against sexual orientation. It has been reintroduced to the 104th, 105th and 106th Congresses and has been gaining bipartisan support every time.
- Employment Non-Discrimination Act Of 1999 Introduced In The 106th Congress - Civil Rights Monitor Fall 1999
- Employment Non-Discrimination Act - Civil Rights Monitor Winter 1997 | <urn:uuid:bc84174f-7623-442e-b49b-21d39587e68f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://civilrights.org/lgbt/enda/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397795.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00109-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.882065 | 866 | 3.109375 | 3 |
MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staph aureus) is the name of a feared, antibiotic resistant, species of bacteria that can cause serious infections, especially in hospitals or in those whose immune systems have been compromised. But MRSA is now turning up in the ears of otherwise healthy children in otherwise healthy communities, according to a study in the October 2005 Archives of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery. Ear drainage is common after ear tubes are placed in children. The authors of this study obtained cultures of this discharge, and found that MRSA is now commonly present. The good news is that, when it is isolated to the ear, the MRSA is usually easy to treat with topical antibiotic ear drops. But far more important than treating the MRSA is preventing this infection, which can be quite serious if it spreads.
The authors suggest that minimizing oral antibiotic use for ear infections to situations where the antibiotics are important can help prevent MRSA. The kids whose ear drainage had MRSA in the study averaged having had twice as many courses of oral antibiotics, lasting twice as long, as did their counterparts whose ear drainage featured much more benign bacteria. The AAP 2004 guidelines for treating ear infections offer clear instructions on which children need oral antibiotics for their ear infections, and which children (most children) will do better without them. | <urn:uuid:276a5239-3952-4f1d-b0c5-99734c4fec4c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.drgreene.com/mrsa-ear-infections/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00152-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958983 | 271 | 3.875 | 4 |
June 23, 2010
Striped Mice — The Neighbors From Hell
Fighting, paternity tests and infidelity. No, not a daytime talk show, but the results of new research examining why the fur will fly if a four-striped grass mouse (Rhabdomys pumilio) wanders into his neighbour's territory. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access journal Frontiers in Zoology investigated aggression in the mammalian species, finding that breeding males are much more concerned with repelling their neighbours than with defending their partners from complete strangers.
Carsten Schradin from the University of Zurich, Switzerland, worked with a team of researchers to stage encounters between wild mice in a specially created 'neutral' arena. He said, "We found that breeding males tested during the breeding season showed significantly more aggression towards their neighbours than towards strange breeding males not neighbouring them. Breeding males were significantly more aggressive than non-breeders".This 'Nasty Neighbour' phenomenon has been seen in other animals and contrasts with the 'Dear Enemy' behavior in which the breeding male will preferably attack strangers. Both are ways of limiting the cost of territorial behavior. In this field study, the researchers were able to test the paternity of offspring conceived during the study period and found that neighbouring males were more likely than the wandering strangers to sire pups with another mouse's 'harem'. According to Schradin, this may explain the animal's preference for neighbourly aggression, "We've found that the neighbours of breeding males pose a recognisable threat to the breeding male's confidence of paternity, and suggest that this explains the occurrence of the nasty neighbour phenomenon in striped mice".
On the Net: | <urn:uuid:a5aaf921-541d-41f6-9da6-4dce8f2179de> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1883691/striped_mice__the_neighbors_from_hell/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00084-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958405 | 346 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Electrical Safety: Steps for Developing Safe Habits
Approach household electricity with caution and respect. Professional electricians routinely take steps to protect themselves against shocks. You need to be just as cautious while doing electrical work.Projects in Safety
The effect of a shock varies according to how much power is present, your physical condition, and how insulated you are. Of these three variables, you have immediate control over insulation. When working with electricity wear rubber-sole shoes, remove jewelry, and keep dry.
If the floor of your work area is damp, put down dry boards or a rubber mat to stand on. Use tools with insulated handles. If you are wearing dry clothes and rubber-sole shoes, receiving a 120-volt shock will grab your attention but probably not harm you. However, if you have a heart condition or are particularly sensitive to shock, the effects could be serious.
If you don't take precautions, you increase your chances of injury from shock. If you are working on a 240-volt circuit, the potential danger is much greater than when working with 120 volts.
Maintain respect for electrical power. Even if you have survived one shock, the next one could be a different story.
Shut off the power
Before starting any electrical project, always shut off power to the circuit. Then test to make sure no power is present in the electrical box or wires.
You may be tempted to skip this step and save a trip to the service panel. Or you may think you can change a receptacle or light fixture without touching any wires. Don't take that risk. It takes only a few moments to protect yourself against shock. | <urn:uuid:b95cbd82-bd66-4c0e-8531-56a7415bff38> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.diyadvice.com/diy/electrical/safety/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399425.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00019-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936656 | 337 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Camera Parts: Film Spool
On a film camera, the camera parts film spool is not actually attached to the camera. The film spool sits inside the film cassette, the metal casing containing a roll of film. A metal or plastic rod from the rewind knob inserts through the bottom and attaches to the spool.
Problems with Film Spools
Since film spools are usually new, coming attached to a roll of film, they rarely have problems. More commonly, the rod from the rewind knob will break, making it impossible to rewind film back into its cassette. If the problem is actually with the spool, contact the manufacturer.
Other Film Spools
Different formats of film use spools specifically designed for that type of film. For example, many movie cameras use 35mm film, same as on a typical camera. However, the film is spooled onto a huge roll, not just a 36 exposure roll. There are also film formats larger than 35mm, referred to as medium or large format. These have different spools, or no spools at all, and may also have unique loading and handling procedures. | <urn:uuid:942bb5a2-26eb-4ee1-90fb-fac6c1db6665> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.steves-digicams.com/knowledge-center/how-tos/digital-camera-operation/camera-parts-film-spool.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00110-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925426 | 234 | 2.8125 | 3 |
CES Spotlight Blog
Heating Oil Is Becoming a Bit Cleaner
Number 2 heating oil will soon be a bit cleaner. States in the northeast are reducing the amount of sulfur that can be contained in the fuel. Sulfur dioxide is one of six “criteria pollutants”, along with ozone, lead, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate mater that are subject to national standards established by the EPA. Sulfur dioxide, created by the combustion of fossil fuels like heating oil, is a major precursor of acid rain and fine particulate soot. Sulfur released from fuel combustion causes significant environmental and health impacts.
It is rapidly loosing market share to natural gas, but heating oil is still an important fuel in the northeast US, used mostly for space heating during the winter. Natural gas, electricity and propane dominate other parts of the US as show in the below map from the EIA.
In July 2012, New York will be the first state to require that all heating oil used in the state contain less than 15 parts per million sulfur. This is the same requirement as on-road ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) and is a significant decrease from the current limit of 2,000 parts per million or higher. Other states, including Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Vermont, will soon follow suit in stages between 2014 and 2018 as shown below.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Notes: New York and New Jersey regulations take effect in July of the year shown, and regulations in Maine take effect in January. The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection issued a commitment in their State Implementation Plan. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection proposed a one-year extension of the deadline for meeting Phase I limits of 500 ppm sulfur. Adopting this proposal would make Phase I limits effective July 2015. Under this proposal the 2016 Phase 2 deadline requiring ULSD would remain intact.
Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island are also looking at reducing sulfur limits. In response to actions by the northeastern states, the DOE transitioned the 1,000,000 barrel Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve to 15 ppm ULSD in November of 2011. The Reserve, split between Groton Connecticut and Revere Massachusetts, is designed to protect New England from possible supply disruptions.
Lower sulfur limits on heating oil will provide significant health and environmental benefits. The transition to 15 ppm promises to be a bit confusing as each state implements the requirements on a different time line and refiners and storage facilities move to the new product. | <urn:uuid:37a1bf41-ea21-4fc5-9a1d-2e4c0cd3afa5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.competitive-energy.com/blog/oil/heating-oil-is-becoming-a-bit-cleaner | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402699.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00038-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936044 | 521 | 2.8125 | 3 |
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A collection of Minnesota newspapers and the New York Times. The oldest issues date back to 1849. | <urn:uuid:5445c90c-b028-4603-bf25-e569ef2ed193> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sppl.org/print/node/3392 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00082-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.780192 | 513 | 2.765625 | 3 |
HOUSTON, TX (Oct. 6, 2011) – Texas Southern University professor and noted historian Dr. Cary Wintz will lead a discussion of two historic films that helped to shape racism in American and German cultures in a free public lecture this fall at Holocaust Museum Houston.
Dr. Cary Wintz
The Museum will present “Race and Film: Clips from Birth of a Nation and Jud Süss,” beginning at 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 23, 2011, in the Museum’s Albert and Ethel Herzstein Theater in the Morgan Family Center, 5401 Caroline St., in Houston’s Museum District. Admission is free, but seating is limited, and advance registration is requested. Visit www.hmh.org/RegisterEvent.aspx to RSVP online. For more information, call 713-942-8000, ext. 104 or e-mail email@example.com.
Custom and law are closely linked systems that affect how people act toward each other. In the post-Civil War United States and in Nazi Germany, the freedoms and rights of some groups of people were limited. African-Americans were the primary target under the U.S. system of Jim Crow Laws. Jewish people were the primary target under the Nuremberg Laws of Nazi Germany.
“Birth of a Nation,” directed by D.W. Griffith, was released in 1915. It is one of the most famous and controversial movies ever made in the United States. At the time, it was viewed as a technical marvel; crowds flocked to see it throughout the United States. Today, however, the film is most remembered for its racist portrayal of the period in American history after the Civil War known as Reconstruction.
“Jud Süss” is a 1940 film, produced by Terra Filmkunst, on behalf of the Nazi regime. It was conceived as an antisemitic propaganda film. The movie played on basic Nazi stereotypes of Jews having hooked noses and being materialistic, immoral, cunning, untrustworthy and physically unattractive.
These films were used to support the legal structures existing in both Nazi Germany and the United States. By using popular culture to continue the customs that existed in the societies, each country’s dominant group was able sustain the power structures that offered privilege to some and were detrimental to the “other” group.
Wintz is widely known as an academic historian and author who specializes in African-American History, especially the Harlem Renaissance, and racial and political ideology in the early 20th century. His most recent book, which was published in December 2006, is “Harlem Speaks: A Living History of the Harlem Renaissance.” He is the author or editor of more than a dozen other books.
Wintz received his bachelor’s degree in history from Rice University in 1965. He then went to Kansas for his graduate work, receiving a master’s in history and a doctorate in history from Kansas State University, where he studied under historian and biographer Stephen Ambrose. Wintz returned to Houston in 1971 to accept a position on the faculty of Texas Southern University. He currently is a professor in the Department of History, Geography and Economics.
Wintz is a member of the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, the Southern Historical Association and several other professional organizations. He is a member of Phi Alpha Theta Honorary Society, and received the Texas Southern University Distinguished Service Award (1988), the Advanced Placement Special Recognition Award (1993), and the Texas Southern University Research Scholar of the Year Award (1996).
He is currently working on a book with Bruce Glasrud which examines the African American pursuit of the White House, and a historical dictionary of the Harlem Renaissance. Wintz has presented more than 50 papers at professional meetings and has delivered numerous speeches and public addresses throughout the United States and abroad, and he has been interviewed frequently in the press, on radio, and on television.
The lecture is presented in conjunction with the Museum’s current exhibit “The Impact of Racist Ideologies: Jim Crow and the Nuremberg Laws,” which explores the effects of the Nuremberg Laws and the Jim Crow laws, using examples from Houston’s own segregationist past. The exhibit runs through July 22, 2012 in Holocaust Museum Houston’s Central Gallery. Admission is free.
This program is cosponsored by The Health Museum, and presented with special thanks to United Airlines, official airline of Holocaust Museum Houston.
Holocaust Museum Houston is dedicated to educating people about the Holocaust, remembering the 6 million Jews and other innocent victims and honoring the survivors' legacy. Using the lessons of the Holocaust and other genocides, the Museum teaches the dangers of hatred, prejudice and apathy.
For more information about the Museum, call 713-942-8000 or visit www.hmh.org. | <urn:uuid:c655fab9-b4a5-4376-806b-0b5f1e5e2983> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://hmh.org/ViewPressRelease.aspx?ID=383 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00091-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962767 | 1,022 | 2.984375 | 3 |
Analysis: What's Up With the Title?
This poem usually gets referred to by its first line: "The Splendour Falls on Castle Walls," or just as "The Splendour Falls." The first line of the poem is kind of weird, though. As we point out in the "Detailed Summary," the word "splendour" is being used in an unusual way. It usually means brilliant or gorgeous appearance, but it can also mean brilliant or very bright light. Having the first word of the poem (okay, the second word after "The") be a familiar word used in an unfamiliar way can feel a little unsettling.
So why might Tennyson have wanted to make the reader feel unsettled or out of place right from the beginning? As we read on, we learn that the valley is somehow magical—it's connected to "Elfland." It could be that the unsettling title is meant to put us on our toes for some ethereal, Elvish magic. The valley also inspires the speaker to think about some deep, philosophical questions (what remnants of our life survive after us? in what ways do the memories of deceased loved ones persist?), so maybe the unusual title is supposed to get our mental wheels turning, too.
Finally, this line gives us the image of something intangible—sunlight—coming up against (falling on) something that is very solid: a castle wall. In a way, this really sums up the poem's central question: how does something like an abstract, intangible memory (or echo) persist in our physical world? The echoes of the poem, like the sunlight, are subject to dying out and disappearing, and their passage out of our physical reality seems to be something that the speaker is very interested in tracing. | <urn:uuid:1a5e53b5-9c8c-4cbc-86e5-61a69d4625a1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.shmoop.com/splendour-falls-tennyson/title.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00098-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964536 | 360 | 2.78125 | 3 |
One meaning of the word rhotacism is the phonological process which changes a consonant into a r-sound in certain environments. The consonant affected is usually alveolar and most frequently s or z. The particular realisation of r depends, I suppose, on which language is involved
What got me thinking of this process is my recent efforts to learn some Cornish. The Middle Cornish for “I am” is yth esof vy (ɪθ ˈezə vɪ is the pronunciation I have heard for this). A variation is yth esoma (ɪθ ˈezəmə, I assume, though I have never heard it). In Late Cornish the phrase is th’eroma or th’erof vy. This is a good example of rhotacism.
Then it struck me that in certain parts of the English-speaking world there is a process of reverse rhotacism, whereby r → z. Barry sometimes gets called Baz or Bazza, doesn’t he? And Jeremy, if he is unlucky, may be called Jez or Jezza. I tried to think of more examples, but all I could come up with was soz, which I have occasionally heard for the word sorry. Does Gary ever get called Gaz or Gazza?
It also occurred to me that rhotacism does not appear in SID. I must do something about that, and about lambdacism, but that is a matter for another post.
As you can see from the map, the village of Mousehole is due south of Penzance and is about 2.5 miles (4km) away. The name is pronounced ˈmaʊzl and is thought to be a reference to a cavern in the cliffs nearby. The original Cornish name is Porthenys (pronounced pərˈθenɪs), which means “island cove”.
I’m pretty sure I’ve written about Mousehole here before , but what has prompted me this time is the discovery of an interesting short film about the place. It was made by The British Council and was released in 1943. The film is part of a large collection of films made by The British Council and can be viewed for free here. The village is not actually named in the film, but there is absolutely no doubt that it is Mousehole.
The British Council website looks very interesting, but I haven’t had time to investigate it thoroughly yet. Apart from the historical interest of what life was like in the 1940s in England, there is the added bonus that some of the narration for the films is in beautiful antique RP.
Map credit: Google Maps.
The complete PTLC 2015 proceedings are now available as an ebook pdf.
The proceedings of the Phonetics Teaching and Learning Conference held at UCL 5-7 August this year are now available online here. The ebook version will appear in the near future.
The proceedings for previous meetings from 2005-2013 are also availabe. There are plans to republish the proceedings of the conferences held in 1999 and 2001.
Many thanks are due to Michael Ashby.
Petr Rösel’s latest post deals with variations in the pronunciation of the word length. He points out quite rightly that it can be pronounced leŋθ, leŋkθ , lenθ or lentθ. The same sort of variation also applies to the word strength.
I have always thought it a shame not to pronounce strength with a three-term final cluster – ŋkθ or ntθ, because this means that the plural of the word is a maximal monosyllable for GB English. By this I mean that it is not possible to have more consonants than seven in a syllable, three at the beginning and four at the end. This is what we have in streŋkθs or strentθs and as far as I know this is the only English word like this. | <urn:uuid:ab9e95d3-d1f3-47c8-a6d7-83a43ea0d97f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blogjam.name/?cat=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00124-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966997 | 855 | 2.984375 | 3 |
This is the fifteenth discussion in a “book club” series on Born to Buy by Juliet Schor, which focuses on consumerism issues and young children. You can jump back to the first discussion if you’d like. This discussion covers the final portion of the eighth chapter, “How Consumer Culture Undermines Children’s Well Being,” starting at the subheading “Statistical Results: Consumer Involvement Undermines Children’s Well-Being” on page 167 and continuing until the end of the chapter on page 176.
Three days ago, we talked about how kids absorb a reasonable level of media and also generally have a good relationship with their parents. However, in both cases, there were children far out on the long tail – some kids absorbed a huge amount of television, for example, and some kids had a poor relationship with their parents.
What was unclear is whether these two sets were related, a question answered by Schor in the final part of the chapter.
A Strong Correlation Between Media Exposure and Well Being
Right off the bat, Schor confirms it on page 167 (my own emphasis added):
The [statistical] estimates provide strong support for our hypotheses. High consumer involvement is a significant cause of depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and psychosomatic complaints. Psychologically healthy children will be made worse off if they become more enmeshed in the culture of getting and spending. Children with emotional problems will be helped if they disengage from the worlds that corporations are constructing for them. The effects operate in both directions and are symmetric.
Here it is in a nutshell, folks: there is a direct relationship between the time your kids spend watching television and playing video games and their emotional, psychological, social, and physical health. The more time they spend with media sources, the worse off they’ll be.
Obviously, this doesn’t apply to every child, but the correlation is very statistically significant. Schor spends a big part of this section focusing on the statistical evidence for this and it’s strong – p-values approaching .5 in some cases, for all of you statistical junkies. That’s a strong correlation.
A Strong Correlation Between Parental Involvement and Attitude and Well Being
Similarly, there’s a very strong correlation between parental involvement and the well-being of the child. From page 171:
The descriptive data show that the Boston children articulate extremely positive attitudes toward their primary parents. These attitudes may form a protective shield against the negative portrayals of parents in consumer culture and insulate these children from the kinds of conflicts found among the suburban kids. By contrast, although Doxley children are also positive about their parents, they are less so. They report more fighting with their parents about issues of access to consumer culture.
As an aside, throughout this chapter it was made rather clear that the Boston parents were more involved in the day-to-day life of their children than the Doxley parents. The Doxley parents seemed to be more focused on involving the kids in a mountain of extracurriculars, carting them off to soccer practice all the time, for example. That time lost to the extracurriculars was replacing time with the family, as the Doxley kids only had slightly less media use time than the Boston kids.
The statistics given by Schor are again quite strong, exhibiting a very strong relationship between parental involvement and attitude and children’s well being. There was almost a direct correlation here – the kids that spent more time with their parents did better, especially if their parents were genuinely involved and interested in their children.
What Parents Can Learn
The take-away message from this entire study can be summed up in one sentence: instead of letting your kid watch television or read magazines by themselves, take them out in the yard and play catch with them or play a board game with them or take them for a walk in the woods. That’s what being a parent is really about, and in this chapter, Schor statistically demonstrates that doing this will benefit your child. Not only that, I’ve found over and over again that quality time with your children can benefit you personally as well – it’s a win-win.
Just spend good quality time with your kids, do it regularly, and make that time come out of the time you’d spend watching television. You’ll all benefit from it.
The next discussion, coming in two days, will cover the entire ninth chapter, “Empowered or Seduced?”, starting on page 177. | <urn:uuid:7fa822ac-de93-43f0-8c49-f96e388b8265> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.thesimpledollar.com/born-to-buy-consumer-involvement-as-an-undermining-force/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398869.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00145-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965664 | 968 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Ohio is Moving to New Education Standards
This is what it means for our school.
What parent doesn’t want his or her child to enter adult life prepared to take on the world? That’s why you have your child in a school you trust.
But the world our children will live in will be much different than the one we have known. That is why Ohio is updating the curriculum standards that outline the knowledge and skills students need to have in key subjects in every grade.
Ohio and 46 other states have volunteered to adopt “Common Core State Standards” in math and English languages arts. Ohio also has written its own new standards in science and social studies.
What are education standards? Theyhelp teachers ensure that their students have the skills and knowledge they need to be successful by providing clear goals for student learning.Standards do not tell teachershowto teach, but they do help educators identify the knowledge and skills their students should have so teachers can build the best lessons and environments for their classrooms.
Teachers in the Nordonia Hills City Schools have been analyzing the standards so we can put them into action by the fall of 2013. What does this mean for your student?
Your child will be studying fewer topics within each subject, but drilling deeper into each to gain more understanding.
Your child will be carrying well-understood key concepts from grade to grade to broaden and build on his or her knowledge.
Your child will learn to relate key ideas from math, science, language arts and social studies to real-life situations.
Your child’s teacher will be using more in-depth teaching methods and getting frequent measurements of how your child is doing.
I encourage you as a parent to visit the National Parent Teacher Association website at http://www.pta.org/4446.htm for more information and guides on how to support your child’s learning under the Common Core State Standards. I also invite you to watch a brief video from the Ohio Department of Education that explains more about why the state is updating its standards. You can see Higher Expectations for a Brighter Future: Ohio’s New Learning Standards at www.youtube.com/ohioeddept.
Standards are a first step – a key building block – in helping us to continue providing our young people with a high-quality education that will prepare them for success in college and work. Most importantly, the hard work of our dedicated teaching staff and the continued support of parents will ensure that our children enjoy the bright future we all want for them. | <urn:uuid:e8158140-2df4-4657-9360-0884a7e3f5c9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nordoniaschools.org/protected/ArticleView.aspx?iid=6GYU03B&dasi=3YBI | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00195-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953786 | 525 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Follow these 4 guides to better time management.
- Analyze the demands on your time.
- Chart your work time, school time, study time, and family/social time.
- Don't forget to schedule time for the laundry, watching your favorite TV show, and brushing your teeth. It all adds up.
- Determine the minimum number of hours you should study.
- Study 2 hours per week for every credit hour.
- If you’re enrolled in 6 credit hours, study a minimum of 12 hours per week.
- Plot your study time and other time obligations on a weekly schedule.
- Study in blocks of 50 minutes or less.
- Decide what you’ll study during each period.
- Use daily "To Do" lists. | <urn:uuid:23af382a-0994-4543-8665-37de78ff4dce> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ivcc.edu/dl.aspx?id=2298 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398216.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00200-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.856233 | 163 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Journal of the South African Veterinary Association
versión On-line ISSN 2224-9435
Heartwater is a serious limiting factor for sheep and goat production in the major endemic area of sub-Saharan Africa and therefore most knowledge, research and control methods originate from this region. Whilst the usual or common clinical presentations can be used to make a presumptive diagnosis of heartwater with a good measure of confidence, this is not always the case, and animals suffering from heartwater may be misdiagnosed because their cases do not conform to the expected syndrome, signs and lesions. One aberrant form found occasionally in the Channel Island breeds of cattle and some goats is an afebrile heartwater-like syndrome. The most constant and characteristic features of this heartwater-like syndrome comprise normal temperature, clinical signs associated with generalised oedema, and nervous signs, especially hypersensitivity. The presumption that the disease under investigation is the afebrile heartwater-like syndrome entails a tentative diagnosis based on history and clinical signs and the response to presumed appropriate treatment (metadiagnosis). The afebrile heartwater-like syndrome presents similarly to peracute heartwater but without the febrile reaction. Peracute cases of heartwater have a high mortality rate, enabling confirmation of the disease on post-mortem examination. Recognition of the afebrile heartwater-like syndrome is important to prevent deaths and identify the need for appropriate control measures. | <urn:uuid:6088c554-ab9b-4f4d-a4d9-f23ec9aaf4b3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S1019-91282013000100036&lng=es&nrm=iso&tlng=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397749.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00182-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.867095 | 298 | 3.140625 | 3 |
Report Finds Cognitive Gap Between Latino and White Toddlers Starts Early
A significant percentage of Mexican-American children who matched their white counterparts in cognitive growth at 9 months of age had fallen behind by the time the children reached 2 years old, says a recent study from the University of California, Berkeley. The study was published in the May issue of the Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences. Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy, was the lead author.
The young children evaluated in this report are part of a longitudinal study of children born in 2001. About 950 Mexican-American children and 3,600 children of native-born white mothers were included.
To gauge cognitive development at 2 years, the children were tested on measures that included memory, vocabulary and rudimentary problem solving. The toddlers were then divided into three groups: those that showed poor growth, those with mediocre growth, and those demonstrating strong growth.
About 25 percent of white 2-year-olds were in the poor-growth category, 25 percent were in the mediocre-growth category, and 50 percent demonstrated strong growth.
In comparison, about 53 percent of Mexican-American toddlers were in the poor-growth group, 25 percent were in the mediocre category, and 22 percent demonstrated strong growth.
These findings exist even though other research has found that based on other measures, such as social and emotional growth and physical health, young Mexican-American children are quite similar to white children.
"These youngsters grow up in warm and supportive families and that yields emotional and social agility," Fuller said in an interview. "But all that caring and support isn't necessarily infused with rich language and asking kids questions and asking kids to articulate words and their own feelings."
Mexican-American children who demonstrated strong cognitive growth in the study were more likely to have had mothers who had completed some college, worked outside the home, and read to their children daily, the study found.
- N.J. District's Preschool Program Draws Latinos
- Study Finds Fewer Latinos Enrolling in Preschool
- How the Feds Can Support Learning for Latino Youngsters
Follow @earlyyearsew for the latest news on policies, practices, and trends in early childhood education. | <urn:uuid:141541f3-50b4-41cd-a2bc-92b94a3872ad> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/early_years/2015/04/report_finds_cognitive_gap_between_latino_and_white_toddlers_starts_early.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00054-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977445 | 452 | 3.234375 | 3 |
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It might surprise you to learn that hydroelectric power is not renewable energy. Well, it's not considered renewable in Oregon, anyway. Despite the fact that the engine of electricity production literally falls from the sky - at a higher than average rate for the United States. Due to bureaucratic nonsense, hydroelecric power cannot be applied to the state's mandate to produce 25% of its power from renewable resources. Luckily, a plucky group of citizens has picked up on this anomaly and is attempting to correct the problem.
Background: in 2007, Oregon's legislature passed a measure that mandates large utilities provide electricity from 'renewable' sources. From Pacific Power's website:
Requirements for renewable energy
To promote the development of new renewable resources and decrease reliance on fossil fuels for electricity generation, Oregon passed a law in 2007 that created a renewable portfolio standard (RPS).
The law established that Pacific Power and other large utilities in Oregon would increase development and use of renewable energy sources. The RPS requires large utilities to have electricity from qualifying sources of at least 5 percent by 2011, 15 percent by 2015, 20 percent by 2020 and 25 percent by 2025.
What's funny about this 2007 law, other than its massively false premises about the renewable resource industry capacity and the supposed evils of fossil fuels, is that hydroelectric power doesn't count toward the RPS if generated by dams built prior to 1995. Evidently, despite the fact that hydroelectricity has been providing low cost, renewable, and - dare I say it - green energy for the entire Pacific Northwest electric grid for around 8 decades or so, it's just not green enough. Or new enough. Or something.
Enter this crazy band of citizens who think that hydroelectric power is renewable. The Oregonian reports,
The initiative seeks to alter renewable portfolio standards approved in 2007 that require large utilities obtain 15 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2015, and 25 percent by 2025. The law prohibits large utilities from counting hydroelectric power generated by dams built before 1995 towards the standard.
Portland lobbyist Paul Cosgrove and Salem resident Tom Hammer, the initiative sponsors, want to count all hydroelectric power toward the green energy mandate. "Most people agree that hydro power is renewable because in the every day meaning of that term, it is renewable," Cosgrove said.
Critics of this form of sustainable green energy were quick to respond, saying that the RPS rules were "aimed at developing newer sources of renewable energy, such as wind and solar", and that the standards weren't written "to count hydroelectric power generated by dams built decades ago."
In other words, despite being literally decades ahead of its time, hydro doesn't count because it's already solved the problem before it even existed, which then leaves environmental activists with precious little to do.
Fear not, young idealist! We can reinvent the problem AND the solution! So says Jeff Bissonnette, of the Citizen's Utility Board of Oregon:
"Hydro is renewable, but we can't pat ourselves on the back for the things we did back in the '30s," Bissonnette said. "That's meeting current load. We're trying to figure out how to meet load growth going forward."
Of course, hydroelectric produces so much excess power that wind farms are frequently forced to shut down. But since that completely blows a hole in the RPS, it can't be allowed to continue.
But hey, we can always try to bring some common sense to the legislature. As is frequently the case, in this instance it comes in the form of a perfectly logical citizen's initiative. Let's hope the voters approve logic over the sustained war on affordable energy that allows us the best standard of living ever known to humanity. | <urn:uuid:3457fd45-eea0-4fd8-9b85-f0cb2d2aafe4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.freedomworks.org/content/making-hydroelectric-power-renewable-again | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402699.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00119-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957866 | 800 | 2.59375 | 3 |
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Posted by Gene Cao on July 27, 2014
China faces a growing air pollution problem — one of the consequences of its significant economic growth over the past two decades. Surrounded by a large number of coal-burning factories in Hebei province, Beijing faces ever-worsening smog. To tackle this problem, city government has implemented new policies and laws, such as the Beijing Air Pollution Control Regulations, that provide guidance to technology vendors developing smog control solutions.
Optimized Energy Management Is The Key To Reducing Air Pollution
Beijing’s government is focusing on air quality monitoring and has invited tech vendors like Baidu, IZP Technologies, and Yonyou to develop solutions. The city wants to show the source of pollutants and how they will disperse across Beijing a couple of days in advance — but that doesn’t do anything to reduce the smog itself. Rather, the key to reducing air pollution is changing how China consumes energy. For example, the government could use big data analytics to:
- Optimize factories’ energy consumption. Asset-intensive industries like steel, cement, and chemicals face challenges in analyzing the vast amounts of data generated by energy-monitoring sensors and devices. Tech vendors like Cisco and IBM could leverage their Internet of Things data analysis technology to help customers turn this data into actionable insights. For example, one steel factory in Hebei province is considering technology that identifies when an oxygen furnace is wasting energy because the temperature of the output smoke is too high.
- Predict the amount of available renewable energy. The two largest suppliers of electrical power, State Grid and China Southern Grid, are prioritizing the development of alternative energy sources, especially renewables like wind and solar. But it’s difficult for them to predict how much renewable energy they will generate — predictions that are based on real-time analysis of data like cloud movements, wind speed, wind direction, and temperature. But it can be done: the State Grid Jibei Electricity Power Company in Hebei province used IBM’s Hybrid Renewable Energy Forecasting solution to integrate 10% more energy from renewable sources and reduce coal consumption by about 4,000 tons per month.
The Beijing city government plans to invest more than US$30 billion in air quality control in the next five years and has promised to reduce particulate matter to less than 60 mg/m3 by 2017, which represents a 33% reduction from average 2013 levels. Monitoring could be the first step, but smog reduction must focus on optimizing both energy generation and consumption. If Beijing succeeds, it could be appealing to other cities struggling with air pollution.
If you have questions about how the various levels of government in China use big data analytics to reduce pollution, please contact us.
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- Tina Moffett (17) | <urn:uuid:d3ff22a5-d3c1-4853-93c7-06d7443192d7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blogs.forrester.com/gene_cao/14-07-27-big_data_analytics_can_help_beijing_cut_through_the_smog | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00128-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.899729 | 802 | 2.84375 | 3 |
An RFC (or Remote Function Call) is a Function Module with the attribute…Remote-enabled module…checked. This allows another system to “call” this function.
In the SAP System, the ability to call remote functions is provided by the Remote Function Call (RFC) interface. This interface allows for remote calls between two SAP Systems or between an SAP System and a non-SAP system.
RFC programs for non-SAP Systems can function as either the caller or the called program in an RFC communication.
There are two kinds of RFC programs: RFC client and RFC server programs:
The RFC client is the instance that calls up the RFC to execute the function which is provided by an RFC server. In the following, the functions that can be executed remotely will be called RFC functions, and the functions provided by the RFC API will be called RFC calls.
You have two options for implementing external RFC programs:
1) Use programs generated by the RFC Interface Generator (see The RFC Generator.
These are stub programs you can install on your workstation or PC to call up SAP function modules. The RFC Interface Generator in the SAP System lets you generate the stubs and download them to your machine.
RFC stubs are written in C, and are stored either in libraries (in R/3-based UNIX systems) or in DLL’s (“dynamic-link libraries” in Windows systems). With dynamic-link libraries, you can call the stubs from any programming language whose compiler offers DLL options.
With the RFC Interface Generator you can also create example programs that show how to call an RFC stub. These programs can serve as a basis for programming your own application.
2) Write your own RFC partner program
You can write an RFC partner that makes (or receives) the remote call directly. This program can call up any SAP function module or be called by any ABAP program. You must write the program in C.
Both methods above use the RFC API.
What is the RFC API?
The SAP System provides the RFC API (Remote Function Call Application Programming Interface) that you install on non-SAP systems to help you implement RFC partner programs. The RFC API is a set of C-language routines that perform certain communications tasks for you.
The RFC API supports several external systems, such as OS/2, Windows, WindowsNT and Windows95, and all R/3-based UNIX platforms and makes it possible to use the RFC functionality between an SAP System and a C program on the above platforms. It is of no significance whether the remote function is provided in an SAP System or in a C program.
For each supported platform, there is an RFC SDK including the RFC library specific for each of these platforms, SAP RFC header files and some sample RFC programs.
The RFC API is always required
Both methods for implementing RFC programs use the RFC API:
RFC programs generated by the RFC Interface Generator use API routines to call an SAP function module. In addition, the application you write (that calls the RFC stub program) must also use API routines to establish a connection with the SAP System, prepare table parameter structures, and so on.
User-created programs (if you write your own) must likewise use API routines. Your program must perform all the same communication tasks as an automatically-generated stub and its caller.
Hope this helps. | <urn:uuid:709c0e69-5918-46c2-90e6-39b47d47d9f4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/itanswers/whats-an-rfc/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00199-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.897894 | 699 | 2.90625 | 3 |
The fact that you put the word "the" in front of Influenza epidemic
leads me to believe you are asking about the Spanish Flu epidemic
which was the only 'big' one of the era.
The years of the pandemic were 1918-1919 which was largely after the
war was over (at least after Oct. 1918). So it would seem that it
would not have effected the combatants all that much.
However, that is not the case. The flu did have an impact during the
war years and of course the war years impacted the way the flu was
Wherever the origin of the flu was located, it was called the Spanish
flu because Spain was the first country that suffered serious attacks
of it. The illness then began to be noticed at military
installations in the United States. Fort Riley, Kansas was the first
in the spring of 1918. By October 1918, some U.S. Army camps were
reporting a death every hour.
This was perhaps the greatest influence of the flu as far as US
participation in the war. When the United States declared war on
Germany in April, 1917, the regular army medical service was not
organized and was inadequate for the task of servicing the new forces.
Much of the medical care was under contract surgeons who retained
civilian status. They had no official rank nor were they subject to
military discipline. The army had to turn to hospitals throughout the
country to organize the units to provide medical service and medical
In other words, two things happened. American troops were sent into
regions where flu outbreaks were already underway and the medical
sector associated with the military was unprepared to deal with it.
The bridge for the flu was built across the Atlantic. Though as you
will learn later, some think the flu went the other direction from the
US to Europe.
"...A first wave of influenza appeared early in the spring of 1918 in
Kansas and in military camps throughout the US. Few noticed the
epidemic in the midst of the war. Wilson had just given his 14 point
address. There was virtually no response or acknowledgement to the
epidemics in March and April in the military camps. It was unfortunate
that no steps were taken to prepare for the usual recrudescence of the
virulent influenza strain in the winter. The lack of action was later
criticized when the epidemic could not be ignored in the winter of
Quote from "Life at Camp Funston" - Reflections of Army Sergeant
Charles L. Johnston
http://www2.okstate.edu/ww1hist/ - website of Oklahoma State
Just when everyone thought the war was over, the influenza epidemic
stuck home in the US.
As for the military in europe: In June of 1918 - "Captain Ivor
Williams wrote that 600 out of 750 men in his camp in France had
contracted the flu. Although the decline in wartime health due to
rationing can be partly blamed for the immense impact of the flu,
countries such as Sweden that were not involved in the war, also
experienced high mortality from the virus."
http://www.awm.gov.au/1918/victory/influenza.htm - From website
"Australians in France"
The movements of armies across Europe and Asia also became the means
by which the flu was spread. while cases were showing up at various
places in Europe, it was in France that the bug changed its character
and became deadly. This was first noticed among African soldiers who
had been recruited into the French military. Many now claim the bug
started in Tibet. Others claimed that the disease started in the
Middle Eastern battlefields, whereas others blamed it on China and
India. A recent study argued that the disease was brought to the
Western Front by a group of USA soldiers from Kansas.
Regardless of where it originated, after the first mild wave of cases
were reported, the second-wave of the epidemic spread quickly. In one
sector of the Western Front over 70,000 American troops were
hospitalized and nearly one third of these men failed to recover. By
the end of the summer the virus had reached the German Army. The virus
created serious problems for the German military leadership as they
found it impossible to replace their sick and dying soldiers.
One major question is still unanswered to the satisfaction of some; Is
it proper to consider the Influenza pandemic as part of the overall
death count for the war, given the important part the war played in
For most historians, the Spanish flu is not included with information
about the war itself but as part of the aftermath of the war when the
disease spread through both neutral and warring countries.
Perhaps its greatest effect on the First World War had to do with the
ending of that war. There is even a chance that the Second World War
could have been avoided if it had not been for the flu.
President Woodrow Wilson contracted a case of the flu while he was in
Paris working out the details of the Treaty of Versailles. It is
believed that if Wilson had not been so ill, and bad tempered because
of it, the Treaty conditions would not have been so harsh and the
Second World War may never had taken place. Much of Hitler's rise to
power was based on the German hatred of the excessive penalties of
search - google
Terms - spanish flu, spanish flu world war 1
The above answer was assembled from information provided by:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/influenza/ - "The American Experience |
http://www.smhs.org/remmell/ch31.htm - "Chapter 31 Outline - World War
I" - history class outline
http://www.awm.gov.au/1918/victory/influenza.htm - "1918 - Influenza"
- from website "Australians in France"
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/treaty_of_versailles.htm - "the
treaty of Versailles" - website of learningsite.co.uk
http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/LostPoets/Chronology.html - "chronology"
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWinfluenzia.htm - "Influenzia
in the First World War" - From Spartacus Educational
If I may clarify anything, just ask
Request for Answer Clarification by
15 Sep 2003 09:42 PDT
Did the US (or other countries) make any official statements or
anything? Would the war have been different if the flu did not occur?
Clarification of Answer by
15 Sep 2003 11:18 PDT
Just running down the clarification flag for now. Will be back this
evening with the clarification after I have done some additional
Clarification of Answer by
15 Sep 2003 19:55 PDT
By the time the epidemic had passed in mid-November, the Spanish Flu
had killed over 600,000 Americans. It was the worst human disaster in
US history. Worldwide, influenza was responsible for the deaths of at
least 25 million people in 1918-19, with some estimates being as high
as 37 million, making the carnage of World War I pale in comparison.
We must presume that the flu was spoken of in the highest circles on
both sides. But as far as I can find, no "official" statements were
ever forthcoming from either side mentioning the flu pandemic as a
reason for either surrender or pushing for a harder effort. Whatever
these discussions were, they seem to have remained among those
As for what the war would have been like if there had been no
pandemic, that is asking a researcher to write an alternative history.
We have researchers who are expert at it, get paid well for it, and
But, it is fiction. To answer what the war would have been like
without the flu, would involve estimating the differences in troop
strength, armamants, personal attitudes and moral, whether the
pandemic effected any research projects due to illness among the
researchers, supply delivery changes, etc, etc. And even after all of
that, it would still be fiction.
The answer to your question: "Would the war have been different if the
flu did not occur? - - is yes, of course it would have been
We just can't tell you what the difference would be. Even if we knew
each and every "probability," each and every fact and figure, the
human and natural variable is so great in its effects on history, we
could not answer such a question about an unknown, and only
"potential" history without making something up. It would be fiction.
I'm sure you would not want educated guesses passed off as factual
statements of truth by a researcher.
Request for Answer Clarification by
16 Sep 2003 06:59 PDT
Ok, one more thing. Could you elaborate on your point "There is even
a chance that the Second World War could have been avoided if it had
not been for the flu."
Clarification of Answer by
16 Sep 2003 13:25 PDT
Perhaps if President Wilson had not been feeling so poorly, he could
or would have fought a little harder for his points. While the fact
that he had the flu during the negotiations is widely known, and what
the emotional state of a person suffering a fever as well as other
associated discomforts, and in the days before immunizations and the
clear knowledge flu could be deadly, could effect all other aspects of
life during the time of illness is also widely known, little is known
of just how the bout with the flu effected willingness or ability to
However, the question is still kicked around and enough is known about
probability, that speculating about the flu, Wilson and Versailles,
does not come under the heading of alternative history where a changed
event creates the fiction of an alternate future. This instead comes
under the heading of "speculative history" where real events leading
to 'actual history' are approached in an alternate but highly detailed
It is much on the order of "Chaos Theory" in that the flutter of a
butterfly wing in Central America can lead through a series of related
and cascading events to a storm ravaging the coast of East Asia.
In this case, the butterfly wing is the flu, and a small, or series of
small errors, such as perhaps cutting a session short because he was
not feeling well, or continuing with a session when fever had him not
thinking clearly, etc, etc, are all things historians need to look at.
The very minuteness and percieved triviality of such studies keeps
them out of the mainstream of published history, much as the concepts
of the physics of "Chaos theory" are specialized enough that the
majority have yet to hear about them.
Wilson went to Versailles as an idealist. He hopped to shape the
peace and drive some sense into the Europeans. Wilson's 14 points was
to be the foundation for the peace. He wanted a just and lasting
peace founded on equality and democracy. He did not want
double-dealing or punitive damages. The Europeans regarded these as
"too idealistic." However, they could not be rejected out of hand as
the Europeans still needed the US to defeat Germany. They could also
not embrace the 14 points wholeheartedly since public opinion in both
countries was running so high.
Wilson was an intelligent man and it was not easy to get around him.
Could the changes in attitude brought about by the flu be one of the
reasons he was so famously bamboozled by Lloyd-George and Clemenceau?
Wilson's main goal was to prevent the pre-war situation from ever
arising again. He wanted secret diplomacy and alliances to be a thing
of the past. Ultimately the Germans hoped that the peace would be
based on the 14 points, as they seemed fairer than anything else the
other powers were suggesting. Such plans included the establishing
of a League of Nations in order to keep the peace.
When all was said and done, Wilson had been bamboozled and the final
draft of the treaty was a far cry from what he had envisioned.
From the moment that the terms of the Treaty were announced it was a
hugely controversial document. It pleased no-one. Some felt it too
harsh. Many condemned the terms as unworkable and unrealistic. The
issues of reparations and were thought to be unworkable.
1 - No German representative was allowed into the negotiations and
they did not see the terms before they had to sign them. It was
therefore a diktat Treaty
2 - The reparations figure was believed to be far too high
3 - The War Guilt clause was seen as unfair: most realized that many
nations were to blame for the War.
4 - The principle of self-determination had been adopted for everyone
but German minorities living in the new countries, this was extremely
5 - The Germans had too much territory taken away form them.
6 - Why should they have to disarm when no-one else would.
7 - How could you call it a League of Nations when only the victors
were allowed to join. It seemed a punitive organization set up purely
to enforce the terms of Versailles. Even then the League had very
little power and would always rely on economic and moral weight to
8 - A host of small vulnerable states had been created which would
undoubtedly spell trouble in the future when minorities might want to
reunite with their motherland. Particularly those German minorities in
the Sudetenland and Polish Corridor.
9 - There were too many untidy ends, reparations were not sorted,
freedom of the seas was not sorted and many territorial claims would
all hang over to make the Treaty seem like a real compromise peace.
The enormous difficulties faced by the peacemakers and the unrealistic
expectations raised by Wilson made disappointment inevitable.
It was largely the outcome of this treaty which led to the series of
events within Germany which led to the Second World War.
While there is no absolute proof, there will always be the question as
to how much Wilson's temperment was changed by the flu and whether
that change in temper (or more correctly, to what degree) it effected
the negotiations of Versailles.
As I say, we are no longer in the realm of speculative fiction, but | <urn:uuid:24f88d79-6b68-43cf-a9bd-a43e2f189daf> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/254857.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397797.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00185-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973209 | 3,109 | 3.609375 | 4 |
Why study natural resources at Missouri State?
- Caring for our environment, soil, water, forests and landscapes comes naturally. Good stewardship comes from experience and well-applied knowledge.
- You apply your education through labs at Darr Agriculture Center and Journagan Ranch and internships, allowing you to dig in and get your hands dirty.
- You can participate in various research projects conducted by our experienced faculty members at both the Springfield and Mountain Grove campuses.
- Our program offers you the flexibility to fulfill the natural resources requirements while taking additional courses that increase your job marketability by specializing in other agriculture areas, including animal and plant sciences.
Understanding soils and crops
The natural resources program at Missouri State focuses on training students in sound management practices. You will also learn the principles of soil development and the classification and management practices needed to conserve the soil and protect water resources and the environment against pollution. | <urn:uuid:b691cff6-0440-4091-9a9b-ef95432e7212> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ag.missouristate.edu/NaturalResources/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399522.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00015-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932113 | 185 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Those of us who keep the smaller varieties of insect-eating reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates (dwarf leaf chameleons, bark scorpions), or who raise the young of others (many newly-transformed frogs and baby lizards), are faced with great challenges when it comes to providing a balanced diet. Many of these animals consume dozens if not hundreds of different types of invertebrates in the wild. Yet in captivity they must get by on very limited number of commercially bred insects – pinhead crickets, fruit flies and springtails. Although vitamin/mineral supplements help, the situation is far from ideal, especially where little-studied species are concerned.
The problem is particularly acute because nutritional deficiencies suffered early in life are difficult or impossible to reverse later on…reptiles and amphibians that remain small never outgrow this dilemma. Those of you with an interest in invertebrates may face similar concerns when you breed mantids and certain spiders and scorpions.
An Ideal Food Source for Smaller Pets
A very simple (and free!) solution to this problem lies as close as the nearest pile of decaying leaves – leaf litter invertebrates. A vast army of tiny decomposers and scavengers – ants, slugs, millipedes, sow bugs, beetles, mites, springtails, bristletails and termites – inhabit accumulated leaves in city gardens and pristine forests alike.
Even excluding earthworms, the weight of the invertebrates in a single acre of New England forest leaf litter can top 3 tons – greatly exceeding that of all resident mammals and other vertebrates! So how do we get at them? More on that next week.
Other Sources of Tiny Insects
The Zoo Med Bug Napper, a very effective insect trap that I rely upon throughout the warmer months, will attract tiny gnats, moths, beetles and flies along with larger insects. These too make fine foods for your smaller pets.
For information on a simple method of gathering termites, please see my article Building a Termite Trap.
Next time I’ll explain how to harvest and use this bonanza of free food, and my unexpected find when visiting reptile collections overseas. | <urn:uuid:0415206f-4015-49b9-ab31-93efc55f2ef6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blogs.thatpetplace.com/thatreptileblog/2009/04/06/leaf-litter-invertebrates-as-food-for-small-insectivorous-amphibians-and-reptiles/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394605.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00015-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908599 | 453 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Attitude and Heading Sensors from CH Robotics can provide orientation information using both Euler Angles and Quaternions. Compared to quaternions, Euler Angles are simple and intuitive and they lend themselves well to simple analysis and control. On the other hand, Euler Angles are limited by a phenomenon called "gimbal lock," which prevents them from measuring orientation when the pitch angle approaches +/- 90 degrees.
Quaternions provide an alternative measurement technique that does not suffer from gimbal lock. Quaternions are less intuitive than Euler Angles and the math can be a little more complicated. This application note covers the basic mathematical concepts needed to understand and use the quaternion outputs of CH Robotics orientation sensors.
2. Quaternion Basics
A quaternion is a four-element vector that can be used to encode any rotation in a 3D coordinate system. Technically, a quaternion is composed of one real element and three complex elements, and it can be used for much more than rotations. In this application note we'll be ignoring the theoretical details about quaternions and providing only the information that is needed to use them for representing the attitude of an orientation sensor.
The attitude quaternion estimated by CH Robotics orientation sensors encodes rotation from the "inertial frame" to the sensor "body frame." The inertial frame is an Earth-fixed coordinate frame defined so that the x-axis points north, the y-axis points east, and the z-axis points down as shown in Figure 1. The sensor body-frame is a coordinate frame that remains aligned with the sensor at all times. Unlike Euler Angle estimation, only the body frame and the inertial frame are needed when quaternions are used for estimation (Understanding Euler Angles provides more details about using Euler Angles for attitude estimation).
Let the vector be defined as the unit-vector quaternion encoding rotation from the inertial frame to the body frame of the sensor:
where is the vector transpose operator. The elements b, c, and d are the "vector part" of the quaternion, and can be thought of as a vector about which rotation should be performed. The element a is the "scalar part" that specifies the amount of rotation that should be performed about the vector part. Specifically, if is the angle of rotation and the vector is a unit vector representing the axis of rotation, then the quaternion elements are defined as
In practice, this definition needn't be used explicitly, but it is included here because it provides an intuitive description of what the quaternion represents. CH Robotics sensors output the quaternion when quaternions are used for attitude estimation.
3. Rotating Vectors Using Quaternions
The attitude quaternion can be used to rotate an arbitrary 3-element vector from the inertial frame to the body frame using the operation
That is, a vector can rotated by treating it like a quaternion with zero real-part and multiplying it by the attitude quaternion and its inverse. The inverse of a quaternion is equivalent to its conjugate, which means that all the vector elements (the last three elements in the vector) are negated. The rotation also uses quaternion multiplication, which has its own definition.
Define quaternions and . Then the quaternion product is given by
To rotate a vector from the body frame to the inertial frame, two quaternion multiplies as defined above are required. Alternatively, the attitude quaternion can be used to construct a 3x3 rotation matrix to perform the rotation in a single matrix multiply operation. The rotation matrix from the inertial frame to the body frame using quaternion elements is defined as
Then the rotation from the inertial frame to the body frame can be performed using the matrix multiplication
Regardless of whether quaternion multiplication or matrix multiplication is used to perform the rotation, the rotation can be reversed by simply inverting the attitude quaternion before performing the rotation. By negating the vector part of the quaternion vector, the operation is reversed.
4. Converting Quaternions to Euler Angles
CH Robotics sensors automatically convert the quaternion attitude estimate to Euler Angles even when in quaternion estimation mode. This means that the convenience of Euler Angle estimation is made available even when more robust quaternion estimation is being used.
If the user doesn't want to have the sensor transmit both Euler Angle and Quaternion data (for example, to reduce communication bandwidth requirements), then the quaternion data can be converted to Euler Angles on the receiving end.
The exact equations for converting from quaternions to Euler Angles depends on the order of rotations. CH Robotics sensors move from the inertial frame to the body frame using first yaw, then pitch, and finally roll. This results in the following conversion equations:
See the chapter on Understanding Euler Angles for more details about the meaning and application of Euler Angles. When converting from quaternions to Euler Angles, the atan2 function should be used instead of atan so that the output range is correct. Note that when converting from quaternions to Euler Angles, the gimbal lock problem still manifests itself. The difference is that since the estimator is not using Euler Angles, it will continue running without problems even though the Euler Angle output is temporarily unavailable. When the estimator runs on Euler Angles instead of quaternions, gimbal lock can cause the filter to fail entirely if special precautions aren't taken. | <urn:uuid:c69e248f-bbb8-4588-853e-b9dfd7b2697d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.chrobotics.com/library/understanding-quaternions | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395548.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00150-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.873933 | 1,171 | 3.609375 | 4 |
Archive - New Contact Information
Tuesday, October 7, 2003, 12:00 p.m. EDT
NIEHS-Funded Researchers Find Low-Level Ozone Increases Respiratory Risk of Asthmatic Children
New evidence gathered in a study funded by the (http://www.niehs.nih.gov) suggests that asthmatic children who use maintenance medication are particularly vulnerable to the effects of ground-level ozone, even at levels well below the federal standard set by the Environmental Protection Agency (http://www.epa.gov) .
Their research results were published Oct. 8 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study was conducted at the Yale University School of Medicine (http://info.med.yale.edu/ysm/) . NIEHS is one of the federal National Institutes of Health.
"Although the 1-hour average ozone levels in our study were well below the federal standard, statistical analysis revealed that for every 50 parts per billion increase in ozone, the likelihood of asthma symptoms the following day increased by more than 35 percent among asthmatic children on maintenance medication," said Brian Leaderer, Ph.D. (http://publichealth.yale.edu/faculty/leaderer.html) , the Susan Dwight Bliss Professor of Epidemiology at Yale University and principal investigator for the study.
Asthma, an inflammatory disorder of the airways that is characterized by periodic attacks of wheezing, shortness of breath and coughing, can be triggered by inhaled allergens such as pet dander, dust mites, molds or pollens. But researchers have also shown that air pollutants such as ground-level ozone, an active form of oxygen that is the prime ingredient of urban smog, and fine particulate matter, which includes dust, dirt, smoke and soot from a variety of natural and man-made sources, can significantly aggravate asthma symptoms.
Repeated exposures to ozone and fine particles at or above the federal standards can irritate or damage sensitive tissue in the airways and lungs, making breathing even more difficult for asthmatics and causing more attacks, increased use of medication, and more visits to hospital emergency clinics. Children are particularly vulnerable to these exposures because their respiratory systems are still developing, and they tend to spend more time in outdoor activities than do adults.
Earlier studies of children with asthma living in highly polluted regions, such as Mexico City and Los Angeles, all concluded that exposure to ozone and fine particles in excess of 120 parts per billion (ppb) and 65 micrograms per cubic meter (g/m3), respectively, greatly increased the risk for respiratory symptoms. "We wanted to design a study that examined the effects of air pollution on a particularly vulnerable population - children with active asthma - in regions where pollution levels were somewhat lower than those in major metropolitan areas," said Leaderer.
Study participants included 271 asthmatic children living in Connecticut and the Springfield area of Massachusetts during the spring and summer of 2001. The investigators conducted monthly interviews with the mothers to obtain information on each child's daily wheezing, coughing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and asthma medication use. Daily measurements of ground-level ozone and fine particulate matter were provided by the Departments of Environmental Protection of Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Although mean 1-hr average ozone concentrations measured only 59 ppb, variations in daily levels had a profound effect on the respiratory symptoms of those who used maintenance medication. A 50 ppb increase in 1-hr ozone was associated with a 35 percent increase in wheezing, and a 47 percent increase in chest tightness. The highest ozone levels were associated with increased shortness of breath and rescue medication use.
However, the investigators did not find a significant relationship between the children's exposure to fine particulate matter and daily respiratory symptoms or rescue medication use. Furthermore, no exposure-dependent outcomes were observed for either pollutant category among children who did not use maintenance medication.
"Our results suggest that ground-level ozone is strongly associated with adverse health effects in children with asthma, even at levels below the current federal standards," said Leaderer.
Other co-investigators from Yale University include Janneane Gent, Ph.D., Elizabeth Triche, Ph.D., Theodore Holford, Ph.D., Kathleen Belanger, Ph.D., and Michael Bracken, Ph.D., along with William Beckett, M.D., at the University of Rochester.
Reporters may contact Dr. Brian Leaderer directly at: (203) 785-2880.
NIH Funds Eight Centers for Population Health and Health Disparities | <urn:uuid:a829aa1d-b9a9-4d45-9ec2-a27363864356> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/newsroom/releases/2003/october07/index.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398869.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00101-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941775 | 953 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Global and Regional Situation Summary
WHO’s goal in medicines is to help save lives and improve health by ensuring the quality, efficacy, safety and rational use of medicines, including traditional medicines. Our vision is that people everywhere have access to the essential medicines they need; that the medicines are safe, effective, and of good quality; and prescribed and used rationally.
Over the past 25 years, WHO has strongly advocated the essential medicines concept as part of national medicines policies. Despite this, regular access to medicines is denied to over one third of the world’s population, particularly in developing countries. Serious problems of access to essential medicines are still frequently encountered in countries and areas in the Western Pacific Region, despite the existence of national medicines policies, national essential medicines lists and standard treatment guidelines. A focused strategy for improving access to essential medicines in the Western Pacific Region is badly needed. The overall objective of the regional strategy is to provide operational and practical guidance to Member States and WHO on improving access to affordable essential medicines of acceptable quality, which are appropriately used by those who need them. | <urn:uuid:a78861a5-6ba7-4d40-a915-823aa2888624> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wpro.who.int/southpacific/programmes/health_sector/pharmaceuticals/page/en/index3.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397749.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00164-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950346 | 218 | 3.203125 | 3 |
The project for human colonization of the Red Planet is called the Hundred Year Starship, and the space agency has already received $1.6 million in seed funding to begin research into it, Britain's Daily Mail reports.
The source of the $1.6 million has not been revealed. NASA itself is chipping in $100,000 to fund the Ames Research Center team's initial work, which is being co-sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
NASA Ames Research Center Director Pete Worden publicly disclosed the project's existence in a talk that was part of an event called "Long Conversation," a six-hour roundtable idea exchange that took place Oct. 16 at San Francisco's Contemporary Jewish Museum.
"The human space program is now really aimed at settling other worlds. Twenty years ago you had to whisper that in dark bars and get fired," Worden said. He also added that NASA hopes to "inveigle some billionaires into setting up a Hundred Year Starship fund."
Among those billionaires Worden is inveigling is Google co-founder Larry Page. The two talked recently about the mission's price tag, which Worden estimated at around $10 billion. According to Worden, "His response was, 'Can you get it down to $1 billion or $2 billion?' So now we're starting to get a little argument over price."
Environmental, political and ethical hurdles still stand in way of Mars mission
Depending on Mars' position in its orbit around the sun, the distance between it and Earth varies from 34 million to 250 million miles. NASA's last unmanned Mars mission, the Phoenix lander mission of 2007, took nine months to reach the planet; scientists say that nuclear-powered rockets could make the trip in four months.
Recent research has shown that a one-way mission to Mars is technologically feasible and would cost less than a round-trip voyage. The astronauts who would volunteer to be left on the planet would receive supplies from Earth periodically but would be expected to become self-sufficient as soon as they could.
Of all the other planets in the solar system, only Mars is believed to have sufficient quantities of water to sustain life. But even with the water, doing so would still be difficult. The planet is forbiddingly cold, with temperatures well below freezing in places, and its atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide, which would mean oxygen supplies would have to be furnished.
Worden suggested in his talk that things like synthetic biology and alterations to the human genome could be explored ahead of the mission as ways to make the project humanly feasible. He also said he believed that the first stop for the manned mission should be one of Mars' moons, where scientists could conduct telerobotic explorations of possible landing sites. Worden said that NASA could put people on Mars' moons by 2030.
A project of this scope and ambition, however, would also likely require political cooperation and some changes in the way people think. Writing in the Journal of Cosmology, scientists Dirk Schulze-Makuch and Paul Davies argue that putting humans on Mars "would require not only major international cooperation, but a return to the exploration spirit and risk-taking ethos of the great period of Earth exploration, from Columbus to Amundsen, but which has nowadays been replaced with a culture of safety and political correctness."
Advocates would certainly have to address the ethical concerns of those who would claim that the mission is simply abandoning the astronauts to their fate, or worse still, sacrificing them. By the time Columbus began his voyage, enough was known about the Earth to have made rescue in case something went wrong possible, and our understanding of long distance space flight is not at that point yet. Still, Columbus set sail knowing that his voyage of exploration could cost the lives of himself and his crew. What he found on his voyage to the Americas enriched Western civilization, and a human mission to Mars as the first step towards permanent colonization could yield similar bounty. | <urn:uuid:037cf4e7-636c-4c99-8927-29b049f19d0c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.huliq.com/8738/nasa-contemplates-manned-mission-mars-one-way | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00013-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972822 | 812 | 3.1875 | 3 |
64-bit systems started to be slowly rolled out in personal computers back in 2003, but it’s only recently that they’ve become a serious alternative for the average user. A 64-bit architecture implies more processing power and faster rendering times, but also requires a bit of adaptation – which includes updating your software with new versions adapted to the new system. But how do you know if your computer is a 32 or a 64-bit system? There’s an easy way to find out:
If you’re using Windows XP
Right click the My Computer icon on your desktop and select Properties. If your system is 32-bit, you’ll see something in the lines of “Windows XP Professional Version [year]” under System. If your system is 64-bit, you’ll see something like this image:
If you’re using Windows Vista
Same as before: right click the My Computer icon and go to Properties. Alternatively, you can also go to the Control Panel and select System there. In any case, you’ll end up with a system summary like this one, where you’ll see which system type you have:
If you’re using Windows 7
This is almost the same as Windows Vista. Click the My Computer icon, select Properties and you’ll get a very similar window to the one before, with all the relevant information about your system – including the 32 or 64-bit detail. | <urn:uuid:f1530442-b03d-4a04-9e17-d04854acd61e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://features.en.softonic.com/is-my-system-32-or-64-bit | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00108-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.898211 | 306 | 2.84375 | 3 |
The state of biology today:
Our main problem is turning these DNA data into useful information. Finding genes and other functional genomic element, characterizing them, understanding their function and their impact on Life – all these are challenges that will remain with us for a long time, and which have revolutionized biology into the information science it is today.
Before all that, science is a collaborative endeavor. To collaborate, scientists need to exchange data, including sequence data. But when the the flood of data is very hard to channel into the narrow Internet tubes.
We need to compress these data. There are generic compression software – zip, gzip and bzip2 come to mind. However, could we do better with a solution tailored to DNA? After all, we are talking about a string taken from a four-letter alphabet, with many repeats made.
So the Pistoia Alliance announced a $15,000 prize for “putting forward a prize fund of US$15,000 to the best novel open-source NGS compression algorithm submitted before the closing date of 15 March 2012.” The paper describing the competition recently came out in GigaScience. (Which is why I am hearing about this only now).
The nice thing about Sequence Squeeze is that the scoreboard was dynamic and gave immediate feedback to how well a compression algorithm was doing. The criteria for performance were a combination of time, CPU usage, memory usage, compression ratio, and decompression quality. To wit:
Each judging instance contained a simple script which controlled the judging process. It operated as follows:
1. Download the entry
2. Set up a the contest data (a random extract from the 1000 Genomes Project)
3. Secure the firewall
4. Run the entry in compression mode
5. Measure CPU and memory usage
6. Assess the compression ratio
7. Run the entry in decompression mode
8. Check that the total combined output files contain exactly the same information (header, sequence, and quality lines) as the input files
9. Update the results database
10. Email the results
The winner of the first (and, as far as I can tell, the only) round of Sequence Squeeze was James Bonfield from the Sanger Institute. You can read more about Sequence Squeeze in the Pistoia Alliance’s blog and in the paper.
Holland RC, & Lynch N (2013). Sequence squeeze: an open contest for sequence compression. GigaScience, 2 (1) PMID: 23596984 | <urn:uuid:c28666cb-5e45-443b-ac50-7ef2b1076141> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://bytesizebio.net/2013/07/25/squeezing-dna/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00051-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928423 | 526 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Translation of satire in Spanish:
- 1 countable (composition)a satire (
onsomething)una sátira ( deor aalgo)Example sentences
- The film is an incisive satire on religion and British society, with the Church of England hierarchy particularly coming in for a skewering.
- Although set in the future, Owen's play is a satire on our preoccupation with surfaces.
- The play is to be perceived as a satire on big business, which these piddling rogues try to emulate and, in their puny way, supposedly mirror.
- 2 uncountable (genre, mode) with a note of satire in her voicecon un retintín de burla
con un tonillo satíricoExample sentences
- Some pointed out the film's emotional power, others its use of irony and satire to criticize fascism.
- Tan's mild political satire maintains a wry humour that complements the general comic tone.
- Through humour, satire, and a range of experiments with language, the collection offers an oblique commentary on Caribbean society.
- He was a pioneer in various genres including satire, literary criticism, and drama.
- In English literature, satire may be held to have begun with Chaucer, who was followed by many 15th-cent. writers, including Dunbar.
- Like both satire and the sentimental, the uncanny as a literary category has been the subject of significant theoretical work.
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:880b3a18-a820-49e1-83ca-2882998f9fd9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/translate/english-spanish/satire | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00109-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942202 | 332 | 2.71875 | 3 |
- Prepping Basics
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Preparation in today’s day and age is a must. To assume that a natural disaster, a home invader, or a financial collapse won’t affect your family is a tad naïve. Preparation is about attempting to foresee the potential disasters, creating a stockpile of goods, learning the necessary skills, and creating a contingency plan to deal with the situation. As a parent, the task of disaster preparation is even harder. You not only have to prepare yourself, you have to teach your children what to do in case of a disaster.
Before we get started on the nitty-gritty details, I feel I must caution that parent to keep in mind that the information about potential disasters and tactics to deal with them must be imparted gently and with care. If your tactics are scaring or causing paranoia to the point where your kids can’t function normally, you might want to take a step back and rethink your tactics.
One of the most vital tactics to teach disaster preparation is to be prepared. Be the man or woman that you want your children to be. Children learn a lot of their beliefs, values, and behavior from observing their parental figures. If they see you doing safety drills, stockpiling food, talking about safety with the family, they will be more likely to internalize the values and behaviors that you are exhibiting before they fully realize why. And gradually as the years pass, they will grasp the importance of living their life in a prepared manner.
You may be of the opinion that your child isn’t old enough to know about the dangers of the world. That is a valid parenting choice, but you should not leave them completely defenseless and unprepared. You can tell them what to do in case of an emergency without spelling out the potential disasters that might affect the family.
You tell your kids not to get into cars with strangers, but leave out all the potential reasons why someone would kidnap a child. Why? Because you won’t always be there. Preparation for natural disasters, financial hardships, and home invasions are much like that. You won’t always be there when a hurricane approaches or when an intruder invades your home.
And if you are there, you might need to focus on other tasks. You might have a limited amount of time to board up the windows or collect the back packs of supplies. Having a child wander off to play at an inopportune time could be potentially disastrous. Even children must do their part to ensure the safety of their family. Give them the knowledge to do so.
The goal of a contingency plan is to have the family complete the actions required in a safe and time efficient manner. It may seem juvenile, but drills are paramount. Completing the safety drill over and over again will make grabbing supplies, making home preparations, and getting out of the house second nature. Before the drill the knowledge was intellectual. Intellectual knowledge of what they should do in a natural disaster is faulty. The memory might fail them and fear might make them forget. After the drills, their bodies will know what must be done as if on autopilot. You should do the drills at least once every two weeks until the family can do them effortlessly. After the family has them down, you can do the drills once a month.
Children, especially children that do not understand the importance of preparing for disasters, can be uncooperative. There are so many more appealing activities that they could be doing in their free time. As much as you can, you should strive to get the children to enthusiastically engage in the drills and skills.
Being prepared is more than an activity. It is a lifestyle choice that has the capability of assuring a long life for you and your family. Through parents, children can learn the importance of preparing for disasters. You can teach your kids in a variety of ways. The end result should always be the same: a child with the tools to survive with and without the parent’s guidance.
Naomi Broderick is a professional writer who’s secure in her abilities and even more confident in her parenting. When she’s not juggling her three children in the front yard and planning out her next safety drill, she writes for ProtectYourHome.com, a leader in home security.
Source: The Prepared Ninja | <urn:uuid:6771da5d-abf5-4ef0-8c24-09073c359bc2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.theprepperjournal.com/2013/10/01/teaching-your-kids-to-be-prepared/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00029-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95716 | 904 | 2.640625 | 3 |
New Aerosol Study Refutes Global Warming Theory
Particles of soot and other light-absorbing aerosols have a warming rather than cooling effect on temperatures, researchers have learned. It is a surprising revelation that promises to lower even further estimates of the effect of greenhouse gases on global temperatures.
Computers running global warming climate models have been told to assume aerosols in the atmosphere inhibit the warming properties of greenhouse gases. Based on this assumption, the models predict accelerated warming in the future when such aerosol pollutants are likely to be less prevalent in the atmosphere.
"Scientists are convinced these plumes contain so many cooling sulfate particles that they may be masking half of the effect of global warming," noted the July 20 Wall Street Journal.
Assumption Was Wrong
However, a team of researchers from NASA and the University of California at San Diego reported in the August 2 issue of the British science journal Nature that they sent instruments into "brown clouds" of aerosols over Asia to measure their effect on temperature. To their surprise, the researchers discovered the common assumption that aerosols lower temperatures was wrong.
Instead, aerosols were found to substantially amplify the Earth's greenhouse effect.
"We found that atmospheric brown clouds enhanced lower atmospheric solar heating by about 50 percent," explained the researchers.
"[The pollution] contributes as much as the recent increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gases to regional lower atmospheric warming trends," the researchers added.
Himalayan Melting Explained
The amount of warming due to aerosols was so significant, the researchers reported, that aerosols alone could explain--in and of themselves and completely independent of greenhouse gases--the observed glacier retreat in the Eastern Himalayan Mountains.
"Putting aside the fact that the Himalayan glaciers have been retreating since 1780--some 70 years before the onset of the current post-Little Ice Age warming trend and 100 years before the onset of significant global industrialization--the new data are remarkable," said Steven Milloy, publisher of Junkscience.com.
Fudge Factor Debunked
Milloy noted the new discovery further calls into question unreliable global warming models that have failed to explain why manmade carbon dioxide emissions steadily increased from about 1940 to 1975 even as global temperatures cooled.
Said Milloy, "Global warming alarmists, such as the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, attempt to counter this observation by claiming that aerosol particles in the atmosphere--like soot and sulfates from fossil fuel combustion, and dust from volcanic eruptions--can mask the warming effect of greenhouse gases and cool the planet by reflecting solar radiation back into space. Earth has not warmed as predicted, they argue, because aerosol pollution is cooling the planet in a way that temporarily mitigates greenhouse gas warming.
"The new aerosol study doesn't show that climate alarmists may be just a little off course--it shows that they may be 180 degrees off," Milloy added. "The aerosol study opens up the possibility for an entirely new hypothesis for global warming, with aerosols as the culprit. Yet up to now, the 'consensus' crowd has portrayed aerosols in the opposite light, as cooling agents."
James M. Taylor (firstname.lastname@example.org) is managing editor of Environment & Climate News and a senior fellow at The Heartland Institute. | <urn:uuid:67afbc8b-76f2-408f-adc2-22a79bce7037> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/new-aerosol-study-refutes-global-warming-theory | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394937.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00074-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92399 | 679 | 3.765625 | 4 |
Looking for weather data?
Cross-posted from http://ccafs.cgiar.org/blog/looking-weather-data
Being an agricultural researcher –particularly if you have ever investigated the abiotic controls on plant growth – it’s very likely that you have come across the problem of finding appropriate weather data. This is particularly true when (a) you don’t work in an institution that has its own weather station(s); (b) you’re not well connected enough to get data from close colleagues for free; (c) you don’t have enough budget to purchase the data you need from other institutions; or (d) a combination of all the above occurs. For instance, for international organisations options “a” and “c” are unfeasible because of the (potentially) large number of different datasets they might require for a given (broad) analysis, whereas for a young researcher just starting in the world of agro-climatological research and with few contacts “b” is definitely not an option. So, cases vary, but what if you are young and work in an International Organisation?
The available data:
We have realised that agricultural researchers prefer to use weather station data for their studies, as shown in Figure 1 below, and the reason for this is simple: we look for detailed and accurate data.
Nevertheless, measurements of weather for a given site are often unavailable because (1) there is no weather station; (2) weather stations are not well maintained so data are either only available for a short period or contain gaps, (3) collected data are not properly stored; (4) data do not pass basic quality checks; and/or (5) access to data is restricted by holding institutions. This all further constrains agricultural impact assessment, highlighting the importance of making data public.
In the last 10 years, however, various attempts to develop useful datasets have been done by different institutions, usually based on either a combination of weather station data, satellite data, and numerical weather prediction models in addition to interpolation methods, or on the sole application of climate models. The usage of these datasets for agricultural modelling purposes is rather limited for one or more of the following reasons:
- their time step is long (monthly in the best case);
- their temporal coverage is limited to an average of several years (see for example CRU, WorldClim);
- their spatial resolution is too coarse;
- their geographic coverage is not wide enough;
- only certain variables (i.e. temperatures, rainfall) are reported whereas other agriculturally relevant measures (e.g. potential and/or reference evapotranspiration, relative humidity, solar radiation) are rarely reported or reported at coarse spatial and/or temporal scales.
Apart from the constraints related to access and weather station locations, probably the most important issue regarding weather data is quality, which also greatly affects the performance of impact models.
So, if you’re looking for good quality, well-distributed, abundant, and freely accessible weather data, there’s no option for you. But if you’re a bit more flexible, here are your options (I will focus on rainfall, as this is the least predictable variable):
- Use GSOD (Global Summary of the Day), a daily dataset of about 9,000 weather stations worldwide. Initially this seems to be a good option, but if you look at the data, you will find some issues:
- From the potential number of stations (~9,000), to date in tropical areas, very few seem to be still reporting to NCDC (the GSOD database holder).
- It seems that in the early years (<1950) rainfall was reported by ASR33 teletype, which produced odd rainfall peaks (P. Jones, pers. comm.). Careful attention needs to be paid to these peaks, as they seem to be artificial, and need to be removed.
- As GSOD data were reported from civil aviation installations, they often misreport values of zero rain (P. Jones, pers. comm.). With this, one cannot really tell if it rained or not, hence useful information is blurred by errors.
- Use GHCN-Daily or GHCN-Monthly (Global Historical Climatology Network). GHCN is a very robust weather station dataset that was used as the basis for many studies, including the CRU datasets, WorldClim, and the famous hockey-stick warming trend analysis, that proved the anthropogenic causes of climate change.
- If it turns out that your location is not in GSOD and GHCN, what you can do is to interpolate (daily or monthly data) using different techniques (amongst which Thin Plate Splines seem to be the best method). Authors have done so in the recent literature for analysing maize yield variation in Africa, and wheat senescence in India. However, as time passes the number of weather stations has been decreasing in the global and other systems (i.e. maintenance of weather stations is expensive) –Figure 2, and this considerably affects the quality of weather stations. Our own analyses have shown considerably low interpolation technique skill when the number of weather stations is limited, and (at least for Africa) the availability of weather stations at daily time scales is highly limited.
- If you have an incomplete weather series, you could attempt to reconstruct the whole weather series using a weather generator. Weather generators are tools designed to model the “stochasticity” of rainfall (algorithms used are named Markov chains). However, beware of:
- In order to model tropical rainfall a 3rd order Markov chain is needed. All existing algorithms that can be used for fitting an individual station are based on 1st order chains, and the only algorithm based on third order chains cannot be fitted to individual weather stations.
- If you are generating weather data for more than one point you need to take into account the spatial correlation of rainfall events.
- There is a relationship between rainfall and other variables (i.e. temperatures and solar radiation), hence if additional fields are being generated, these need to be generated in a sensible way.
- If you have no data whatsoever and do not have access or the possibility to process GSOD or GHCN datasets, you could use MarkSim using only the location of your site(s). However, MarkSim fitting has been done using only 9,162 weather stations. Analysis has shown that even ~50,000 might not be enough at the global level.
- If you don’t care much about spatial resolution (but do about temporal) and require data from years >1995, you could use NASA-POWER or GPCP, but these are restricted to 1 degree spatial resolution. You could also use TRMM for years > 1998, at a higher spatial resolution (~28 km), but TRMM tends to overestimate actual rainfall (although the spatial distribution of rainfall is fairly good).
- General Circulation Models (GCMs) are currently the best way to model the complex processes that occur at the earth system’s level. However, as GCMs are highly complex, they are computationally expensive, so they have only been used for predictions at coarse spatial scales, which cause lack of skill and uncertainties. These errors and uncertainties are much stronger at high temporal scales, making GCM data of limited practical use for crop modelling.
- Regional Circulation Models (RCMs) are the best way of downscaling GCMs, but the skill of these predictions is highly dependent on the driving GCM and on the skill of the RCM. Some of our unpublished studies indicate that ETA data are useful for crop modelling purposes (i.e. at least in potato and bean –the crops we tested).
Therefore, crop modellers are challenged to gather and verify the usefulness of the available weather data for their studies, understand the broad concepts of climate modelling uncertainties and detect the sensitivities of crop models to errors in weather data, whilst also having a basic understanding of earth processes in order to identify major flaws in climate models and decide the best ways to couple them with crop models for climate change studies.
Ramirez-Villegas, J. and Challinor, A., 2012. Assessing relevant climate data for agricultural applications. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 161: 26-45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2012.03.015 | <urn:uuid:950a53bf-91e7-41e0-a9c6-cbf71c1e8787> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://dapa.ciat.cgiar.org/looking-for-weather-data/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00051-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929565 | 1,761 | 2.78125 | 3 |
The Theme of Reactions in Stoichiometry
Combustion reactions are an important class of chemical reactions. These reactions are vital to our everyday lives. How often do you drive around in a gas-fueled car? Or cooked a grilled cheese on a gas stove? How does your family stay warm in the winter? Perhaps a gas furnace does the trick? The combustion of fuels (wood, fossil fuels, peat, etc.) have heated and lit our homes and cooked our food for thousands of years. Our lives would be completely different if combustion reactions did not exist. Can you guess another added bonus of these gassy reactions? They provide tons of stoichiometry and balancing equations practice. Score.
A combustion reaction takes place when fuel and oxygen react, producing heat or heat and light. The most recognizable form of a combustion reaction is a flame such as a burning candle or a nice toasty campfire. Who brought the s'mores?
Combustion usually occurs when a hydrocarbon (meaning a compound composed of carbon and hydrogen) reacts with oxygen to produce carbon dioxide and water. These reactions are also highly exothermic which means they release energy often in the form of heat. That's why combustion is a great way to heat a house or run a car engine.
hydrocarbon + oxygen → carbon dioxide + water
CH4 + O2 → CO2 + H2O
But wait—the combustion reaction is not balanced. We have more oxygen atoms and fewer hydrogen atoms on the right hand side of the equation. How could we commit such a stoichiometric crime? Let's solve our conundrum by using the atom inventory technique.
It looks like we need one additional water molecule on the right hand side to even out our hydrogens before and after.
CH4 + O2 → CO2 + 2H2O
To balance the last element (oxygen) we just need one additional O2 molecule on the left hand side.
CH4 + 2O2 → CO2 + 2H2O
That wasn't so hard, was it? Try balancing these two additional combustion equations on your own:
C10H8 + O2→ CO2 + H2O
C2H6 + O2 → CO2 + H2O
C10H8 + 12O2→ 10CO2 + 4H2O
2C2H6 + 7O2 → 4CO2 + 6H2O | <urn:uuid:8430d079-e08d-4a4e-b0e9-ce6603527bc1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.shmoop.com/stoichiometry/reactions.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00031-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902047 | 503 | 3.9375 | 4 |
Lesson Plans Overview
Manifest Destiny and the Power of Perspective
Manifest Destiny represented the forward-looking outlook of a young expanding nation, the United States. After exploring this topic through readings and video clips, students will write essays on Manifest Destiny from the perspective of the Mexicans and Indians.
Manifest Destiny and the Commercial Conquest of the United States
The American march to fulfill Manifest Destiny in western North America was not achieved by the military alone, but also by businessmen. In this activity, students will learn about the commercial conquest of America via readings and video clips. Then the students will create their own "commercial conquest.”
Manifest Destiny and the U.S.-Mexican War: Then and Now
In this activity, students will explore different American opinions about the U.S.-Mexican War (and by extension, Manifest Destiny) from both the 19th century and today. Students will then apply their knowledge by having a debate on the topic.
The Beginning of the War – Two Views on Texas
Students will research the two nations' very different viewpoints with regard to Texas and will form two teams, one representing the U.S. and one representing Mexico, to conduct a debate on the subject.
The Penny Press, Walt Whitman and the War
The U.S.-Mexican War was the first war to be covered by mass circulation newspapers. The coverage of the war excited Americans about the conflict that was taking place so far away from them. In this activity, students will learn about the Penny Press and then apply their knowledge by writing a "Penny Press"-style article about an event from the U.S.-Mexican War.
Is the Media Part of the Story?
Newspaper stories not only reported news about the war; they also had an influence on the events of the war (as they would again in other wars in the future). In this activity, students will learn about how the media influenced the events leading up to the war. Then students will research other historical examples in which the media has been thought to have had an impact on the course of a war.
Soldiers Find a Voice
Newspapers and other media also gave ordinary soldiers something that they had not had before: the chance to speak as individuals directly to the public. In this activity, students will look at how soldiers have found their voices through the media, then and now. After doing some research, students will present oral reports in which they will read passages from their favorite soldiers' blogs and explain why they are meaningful to them.
Songs of War
Popular culture often romanticizes war. In this activity, students will learn about some romanticized songs that were written about the very unromantic battles of the U.S.-Mexican War.
A Legacy of the War – The Gold Rush and the Foreign Miners’ Tax
The U.S.-Mexican War had a profound impact on both nations that fought it. One of the many positive results of the war for the United States was the acquisition of California. The discovery of gold in California in 1848 led to the Gold Rush, bringing great wealth to many Americans and promoting the spread of the population across North America. However, this new wealth was not shared with the Californios, the people of Mexican descent who were now naturalized American citizens. Focusing on the Foreign Miners' Tax, students will learn how the Californios were kept out of the gold rush.
Creating a War Memorial
Students will explore the ongoing historical significance of the memorial to "Los Niños Héroes" and then come up with their own ideas for an American national war memorial for the U.S.-Mexican War. | <urn:uuid:f6e0b5c0-48ba-4b67-b6a1-07481db35db9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/educators/lesson_plans.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392069.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00025-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966601 | 755 | 4.28125 | 4 |
VOGRIPA is an international partnership of several institutions and is being led and co-ordinated from the Department of Earth Sciences at University of Bristol, United Kingdom. The Smithsonian Institution is a major partner and there is collaboration with the Geological Survey of Japan and the British Geological Survey. A major research grant from the European Research Council was awarded to Bristol University to provide resources from January 2009 for 5 years to enable VOGRIPA to increase its activity and ambitions, and is also supported by generous funds from Munich Re.
VOGRIPA has an official partnership with the State University of New York at Buffalo who, along with staff from the British Geological Survey, are working on the first hazards database in relation to dome-forming eruptions. The University of South Florida is also involved, particularly focussing on Japanese eruptions, and through statistical expertise in analysis of magnitude-frequency and the influence of under-recording. VOGRIPA also has access to a database on volcanic landslides (debris avalanches) put together by Ms Anja Dufresne (University of Canterbury, New Zealand), which includes morphological data on the associated sector collapse structures.
There is an advisory committee set up to discuss the developments of VOGRIPA, the members of which are: Chris Newhall (Earth Observatory of Singapore), Anselm Smolka (Munich Re), Shinji Takarada (Geological Survey of Japan) and Lee Siebert (Smithsonian Institution). | <urn:uuid:ec2694bf-b990-4fbe-9064-be319989cae2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bgs.ac.uk/vogripa/view/controller.cfc?method=partners | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00020-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940774 | 301 | 2.640625 | 3 |
LTU MSC students develop an iPad interactive video game for the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History
Journey for Freedom is an educational interactive video game for kids that are based on the historical facts of
the Underground Railroad. The intention of Journey for Freedom is to allow children become familiar with the history of the Underground Railroad in an amusing and interactive fashion that will provide an effective learning environment. Instead of making them just read the story, options are given for
the kids in the story
so that they make decisions along the way to achieving freedom. The iPad app is developed for Charles H. Wright Museum of African and American History in Detroit, MI, which is the largest institution in The World dedicated to the African American experience, and offers a comprehensive experience of learning the history of African Americans. Journey for Freedom iPad application will be played by hundreds of kids every month in the discovery room of the Museum. A web-based
version of the game that runs on PC is available here.
The students who developed the app are Rajasree Himabindu Neela, Hadi Al Gareshah, Prathibha Billapati, Sandhya Kommineni. Tyler Trombley, an English student, assisted with writing the game story. | <urn:uuid:e27d6251-28a8-4fe6-9ace-338c418e70c6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mathcompsci.ltu.edu/index.php/2012/07/23/ltu-msc-students-develop-an-ipad-interactive-video-game-for-the-charles-h-wright-museum-of-african-american-history/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403508.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92249 | 255 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Note: On March 18, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. first addressed the striking Memphis sanitation workers and their supporters. With no text beyond a few words sketched on paper, King pinpointed the issue in Memphis that affected workers everywhere, particularly those in the service economy and in municipal jobs. In a few words, King added union rights for the working poor to his campaign on behalf of the unemployed in both the cities and the newly mechanized cotton country. Memphis thus became the first real front of struggle in the Poor People’s Campaign. In the piece below, which originally appeared in “All Labor Has Dignity”, a collection of King's speeches on labor, Michael K. Honey places King's final speech on April 3, 1968, delivered the day before his assassination, in the wider historical context of economic justice, revealing King's commitment—tragically cut short—to aid the struggles of the working poor everywhere.
“Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness.”
—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
After Dr. King’s stunning March 18 speech, strike supporters made hurried efforts to bring him back to lead the united labor-community general strike that he had called for. Instead, supernatural forces shut the city down, in the form of a bizarre snowstorm in the South in the middle of spring. Reverend Lawson joked at the time that Mother Nature had fulfilled King’s demand for a general strike. When King finally did return to lead a mass protest march through downtown Memphis on March 28, angry youths, probably egged on by police agents, disrupted it, smashing windows and providing police with an excuse to go on a rampage. Mayhem and murder ensued. Some seven hundred people went to the hospital, and police killed an unarmed sixteen-year-old named Larry Payne. The national news media and reactionary congresspeople, baited by secret memos from the FBI spinning the events in Memphis, condemned King for “running” from the march (he had pulled out when it turned violent). Memphis had now put King’s Poor People’s Campaign trek to D.C. in jeopardy. King vowed to return to Memphis in his quest to lead a nonviolent march, despite opposition from his staff and a number of warnings that he would be killed if he did. He warned his parents and his wife that someone had put a price on his head. As he left Atlanta for Memphis, airline officials delayed his flight for an hour as they searched for a bomb after someone phoned in a death threat against him. On the evening of April 3, King gave one of his most dramatic and prophetic speeches. In the middle of a violent thunderstorm, with tornadoes and lightning touching down in the surrounding area, King arrived at Bishop Charles Mason Temple without a script, with a sore throat, and slightly ill. Violent weather prevented many people from coming, but nearly all thirteen hundred of Local 1733’s members came, as did some of their strongest strike supporters. To this humble gathering, King poured out his last testament. He looked back through all of human history to this particular moment in time and called on people to appreciate their opportunity to once again change history. King placed the Memphis movement into the context of the long struggle for human freedom, as he had done in his first speech in support of the Montgomery Bus Boycott that had begun in December 1955. And he reviewed his years in the freedom movement since that time with gusto and appreciation.
In the Poor People’s Campaign, King challenged a system that created beggars. In Memphis, King invoked Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan and asked people to put their own lives at risk to help others: “The question is not, ‘If I don’t help the sanitation workers, what will happen to me?’ The question is, ‘If I don’t help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?’” For years, King had called on middle-class people, especially ministers, to join the struggle of the poor, and now he infused that message into his support for the Memphis sanitation strikers. He pressed his point home: “We’ve got to see it through. And when we have our march, you need to be there. Be concerned about your brother.” His message was the union message: “You may not be on strike. But either we go up together, or we go down together.”
With the history of the movement for a better world as his guide, King’s rhetorical fervor lifted his audience higher and higher, seemingly beyond the bounds of the church in Memphis to the world stage. He finally finished with a promise that “I may not get there with you, but we as a people will get to the promised land” and collapsed into the arms of his supporters. Only those who experienced that remarkable, prophetic speech could really know how that moment in time felt. “There was an overcoming mood, an overcoming spirit in that place,” said strike supporter Reverend James Smith. “King was like Moses,” striker James Robinson told me. “A lot of that stuff he was talkin’ about . . . was gonna come to pass.”
In his last speech, King demonstrated a spiritual kinship and connection with the working poor that few could match. Memphis striker Clinton Burrows remembered, “It was just like Jesus would be coming into my life. . . . I was full of joy and determination. Wherever King was, I wanted to be there.” At a time of great anxiety, King’s speech calmed him. “He got up and spoke about the plans to kill him if he came to Memphis. He made it very clear that he didn’t fear any man. That is a good spirit, to not fear any man. If you believe in right, stick with it.”
The next day an assassin’s bullet felled one of the most remarkable mass movement leaders in history.
King made this speech not to the hundreds of thousands who gathered to hear him say “I have a dream” at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, but to several thousand people supporting a tumultuous, difficult strike by sanitation workers in Memphis. Those who were there remember King at his most prophetic, a man trying to carve out a stone of hope from the desperate year of 1968, when it seemed a mountain of despair blocked movements for change.
Michael K. Honey is the editor of “All Labor Has Dignity”. A former Southern civil rights and civil liberties organizer, he is professor of labor ethnic and gender studies and American history, and the Haley Professor of Humanities, at the University of Washington-Tacoma. The author of five books on labor and civil rights history, including Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign, he lives in Tacoma. | <urn:uuid:94a9ea1a-c5e4-4dff-ae1f-130ba9a6a17a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.beaconbroadside.com/broadside/2014/04/to-the-mountaintop-dr-kings-last-speech.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398869.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00191-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974018 | 1,438 | 3.171875 | 3 |
- Author: Penny Leff
It might be pouring rain today, but soon enough California will be dry again. As demand for water for a growing urban population and for environmental restoration increases, farmers throughout the state are working to grow crops using as little water as possible, and UC is working with them.
"Water supplies are being constrained. Farmers are facing reduced access to water," said Shermain Hardesty, a UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Davis.
The research involves using some elaborate formulas for determining how much water is needed. UCCE advisor Richard Molinar, working with small farms in Fresno County, is irrigating small plots of strawberries with different amounts of water, some at 125 percent of the normal rate, some at 100 percent, and others at 75 percent and 50 percent of normal. In San Diego County, UCCE advisor Ramiro Lobo is doing similar research on strawberries and blueberries; UCCE advisor Manuel Jimenez is working with blackberries and blueberries in Tulare County; UCCE advisor Aziz Baameur is planting strawberries and blackberries in Santa Clara County, and UCCE advisor Mark Gaskell is studying blackberries in Santa Barbara County.
Once the berries are grown, they need to be tested - and testing means tasting in this project. The research team is holding tasting sessions to let the public judge which berries they prefer. If you've ever tasted a dry-farmed tomato, you might guess the answer. The first tasting session was held at the Davis Farmers' Market in June, with seven more coming soon at farmers' markets and grocery stores around the state.
Taste is a great quality to measure, but only one aspect of the study. Berries are already known for having a high nutrient content, but growing them with less water might give them even higher nutritional value. The team expects to find nutrition density to be highest at the lowest irrigation levels. To test this concept, UCCE specialists Elizabeth Mitcham and Marita Cantwell, experts in postharvest science affiliated with the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, are doing nutritional quality analysis of the berries as they are picked.
"Over-irrigation is cheap insurance, especially for such high value crops," he said.
He explained that more water tends to grow bigger berries. Since the harvest is not mechanized for berry crops, it takes as much effort to pick a small berry as a large berry, making more efficient use of the pickers' time and filling the basket more quickly if the berries are bigger.
Such a trade-off for the farmers! The public may decide that they prefer smaller berries with more taste, and the scientists may decide that smaller berries are more nutritious, but will it be profitable to grow better berries? It may depend on how much smaller, and on how much less water for how much better nutrition and taste. It may depend on the water rates, says Hardesty. She will be taking all of these variables into account to determine the potential impact on profitability of lower irrigation rates on berries.
The team, which also includes UCCE advisors Michael Cahn in Monterey County and David Shaw in San Diego, will report the results of their study to California farmers in the final year of the project. This project is funded by a California Department of Food and Agriculture Specialty Crop Block Grant. | <urn:uuid:35fdef7c-ffcc-401a-bacc-0e86b398f5c9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=8810&FI=NO | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397565.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00018-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958552 | 695 | 3.109375 | 3 |
From Raj Nallari and Breda Griffith's lecture notes.
In this and future postings we will cover the problems caused by debt burdens that are unsustainably high. These include lower investment and growth, lower social spending, and negative social outcomes. Starting in the late 1980s, the international community recognized that low-income debt burdens would remain unsustainably high without deep debt relief. Thus began a host of debt relief initiatives, starting with Toronto terms debt relief (which provided debt relief of up to a third) and finishing most recently with the comprehensive Multilateral Debt Reduction Initiative (MDRI), which provided for the full cancellation of official debt to qualified low income countries.
External Indebtedness Measures
Conventional measures of a country’s debt burden include
- ratio of external debt to output (GDP); or to exports of goods and services, sometimes including workers remittances and other current account receipts. These measures point to a country’s ability to pay, particularly in terms of foreign exchange availability;
in an elaboration of the simple export ratio, sometimes the discounted present value of future debt service obligations is compared with the discounted present value of future export receipts. The discounted present value calculations take into account all future debt service obligations until full repayment of the debt and divides them by the appropriate discount factors. (This methodology takes into account loan concessionality).
ratio of scheduled debt service (interest payments and amortization) to government revenues. This measure provides an indication of the fiscal impact of external debt and the country’s capacity to repay;
External indebtedness is likely to affect poverty indirectly through its impact on economic growth and directly by reducing government resources that are available for poverty related spending.
Debt and Growth
Source: Pattilio, Poirson and Ricci, 2002.
Next week: External Indebtedness, Growth and Poverty
- Fridays Academy | <urn:uuid:c9440bd3-4509-4d62-ac3d-0fa8fc6a9d9b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blogs.worldbank.org/growth/print/fridays-academy-external-debt-and-poverty | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00156-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925949 | 389 | 3.140625 | 3 |
January 9, 2007
Multicultural Special Education: Effective Intervention for Today’s Schools
By Obiakor, Festus E
In this era of accountability, schools are challenged to leave no child behind, which includes making schools more responsive to students' needs. For many multicultural learners, the noble ideal of leaving no child behind has not yielded the desired dividends in general and special education. The processes of identification, assessment, categorization, placement, and instruction have tended to downplay their cultural and linguistic differences. This article focuses on multicultural special education as an effective intervention for today's schools.Richardo was a 9-year-old Hispanic American student who had lived in the United States for 5 years. He attended a "good" school where the focus was on achieving higher test scores. Although his family spoke primarily Spanish in the home, Richardo spoke English moderately well. Peers frequently ridiculed his English-they felt he was not "smart" because of his slight accent-and he had difficulty relating to them. Classmates consistently used negative words to describe Richardo. Richardo's parents had tried working with the classroom teacher; however, she appeared to not understand their concerns regarding their son. Indeed, on one occasion, the teacher noted that "Richardo is trouble and does not get along with his peers. " Eventually, Richardo was referred by this teacher for standardized testing for behavior disorders. The night before the assessment, Richardo's dog was hit by a car and killed. He was sad and in poor spirits; yet he was assessed as scheduled even though his parents notified the school. The school psychologist, who spoke no Spanish, was late for administering Richardo the tests because of car problems on the way to school. The tests were administered in her small office, a place unfamiliar to Richardo. Finally, the test scores were compared to Anglo norms.
Richardo was labeled as having behavior disorder and placed in a special education program. Variables such as cultural differences, academic background, ability to speak and understand English, negative peer behavior, the general education teacher's lack of understanding, Richardo's emotional reaction to losing his pet, and the examiner's demeanor were not considered in the identification and assessment of behavior disorders for this student.
Multicultural learners like Richardo are increasingly common in today's public schools. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (2001) and the U.S. Department of Education (2001), there appears to be some disproportion in the general public school enrollments and special education placements for minority groups. For instance, though Anglo Americans represent about 67% of general public school enrollments, they represent about 43% of special education placements. On the other hand, although African Americans represent about 17% of general public school enrollments, they represent about 20% of special education placements. From 2000 through 2001, there was a national student population of 67% Anglo American, 17% African American, 16% Hispanic, 4% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 1% American Indian/Alaska Native. However, special education placement of these groups was disproportionate in terms of the racial/ethnic composition of students: 43% Anglo American, 20% African American, 14% Hispanic, 2% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 1% American Indian/ Alaska Native (U.S. Department of Education, 2001). Even with this increase in student diversity, "the cultural gap between the current school age population and the teaching pool is widely recognized" (Kozleski, Sobel, & Taylor, 2003, p. 75). In other words, the changing student demography in general and in special education programs has not truly reflected changes in the teaching force. It is no surprise that there is sometimes a disconnect between what multicultural learners bring to the classroom and what their Anglo American peers and teachers bring to the classroom.
Richardo's case demonstrates the traditional teachinglearning situations in which some multicultural learners find themselves. To a large measure, it reveals unintended consequences associated with the current selection process for special education, which sometimes leads to misidentification, misassessment, miscategorization, misplacement, and misinstruction or misintervention (Grossman, 2002; Obiakor, 2001, 2003). While the overall goal in the classroom was to assist Richardo, the unintended consequence was ultimate exclusion from the general education environment.
Richardo's negative experience might stem from one "bad" teacher; however, many students from different racial, cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds find themselves in school programs that appear to downplay strengths while highlighting supposed weaknesses (Banks, 2002; Guinier, 2002; Henze, Katz, Norte, Sather, & Walker, 2002; Obiakor & Ford, 2002). To effectively discuss Richardo's case and present multicultural special education as an effective intervention for today's schools, it is important to start by analyzing his classroom/school experiences within the context of the selection process for special education (i.e., identification, assessment, categorization, placement, and instruction).
Is it possible that Richardo's classroom situation warranted his teacher's attention? Maybe he deserved attention that would have maximized his potential in the classroom. He had a linguistic difference, not a linguistic deficiency, as his classmates or teacher assumed. Clearly, identifying Richardo as a problem student set the stage for further legally mandated activities not routinely addressed in general education classrooms. Once a student has been identified as having an educational problem, the laws (e.g., Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1990, and the IDEA Amendments of 1997) mandate that teachers employ several interventions before the testing phase. It appears that Richardo's teacher did not empower his parents or engage them in any form of due-process collaboration needed to ensure a successful learning experience for him. Before Richardo was recommended for assessment, multiple sources of information (e.g., classroom observations of how Richardo interacted with his classmates or how he performed in classroom activities) should have been examined.
Grossman (2002) and Sbarra and Pianta (2001) agreed that teachers judge ethnic minority and low-income students' behaviors as more deviant than those of wealthier Anglo American children. They also noted that these perceptions are due to cultural biases of teachers. Parents generally trust and rely on general and special educators to detect various disabilities; however, some teachers play on the subjective nature of the current system and abuse the initial referral process by selectively excluding those who they deem as different (Skrtic, 2003; Utley & Obiakor, 2001). Another question is whether it is possible that Richardo's parents concerns were ignored by the teacher because of their cultural and linguistic differences. All parents must be empowered and viewed as equal partners if their children are to be helped (Fletcher & Bos, 1999).
The key terms in education today are accountability and evidence- based practices (see the National Research Council's 2002 report and the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001). Assessment is not only a part of accountability, it is also an integral part of the teaching- learning process. However, tools historically used to assess culturally and linguistically diverse learners have been fraught with problems of reliability and validity (Guinier, 2002; Karp, 2002; Karr & Schwenn, 1999; Obiakor, 1999; Skrtic, 2003). In Richardo's case, the reasons for referral are unclear. Was he referred for assessment because he could not get along with his peers? Or was he referred because the teacher wanted to exclude him from the general education classroom? One thing is clear-many variables are intertwined in Richardo's assessment situation.
Grossman (2002) and Karr and Schwenn (1999) suggested that a more comprehensive, holistic model of assessment must be used to avoid miscategorizing students. Multiple voices and multiple perspectives from Richardo's school and home environments would have been beneficial to him. Specifically, to help Richardo to maximize his potential, his assessment should have been (a) instructionally related, (b) operational and functional, (c) authentic and realistic, (d) multidimensional and nondiscriminatory, (e) nonjudgmental and meaningful, (f) responsive to interand intraindividual differences, (g) consultative and collaborative, and (h) germane to culture, race, environment, and language (Langdon, 2002; Obiakor, 2001, 2003). Assessment must be measurable, devoid of emotion, and used to make goal-directed decisions in school programs.
Was it appropriate to categorize Richardo as having behavior disorders because he could not get along with classmates who made fun of his linguistic difference? His classroom problem presents the traditional ambiguity regarding criteria for categorical labeling in general and special education. Often, biased general and special educators pre\dict doom for some multicultural learners who fail to conform to their unidimensional standards (Grossman, 2002; Guinier, 2002; Rothenberg, 2002; Weiss, 2002; Wise, 2002). For example, in his classic work, Hobbs (1975) noted that words and labels are necessary to classify students, but that they make victims of students. As he pointed out:
Categories and labels are powerful instruments for social regulation and control, and they are often employed for obscure, covert, or hurtful purposes: to degrade people, to deny their access to opportunity, to exclude "undesirables" whose presence in some way offends, disturbs familiar custom, or demands extraordinary effort, (p. 11)
Invariably, categories and labels negatively force students to make inaccurate assumptions about their abilities (see Obiakor, 1999). In addition, they force students to internalize this self- fulfilling prophecy (i.e., individuals act according to their assigned labels). Hobbs' (1975) views were later reiterated by Ysseldyke, Algozzine, and Thurlow (2000) when they wrote:
Despite a presumed need for them, labels are an unfortunate by- product of a system that attaches money to acts, thus resulting in classifications and categories. Labels are often irrelevant to the instructional needs of students. Furthermore, labels become real attributes that prevent meaningful understanding of actual individual learning needs. By causing some to believe that students labeled as having mental retardation cannot perform certain tasks, the act of classifying condemns these students to a life of lesser expectations and performance. Labels require official sanction. Resources diverted to the process of identifying and classifying students are extensive. Time and money spent on labeling are time and money not spent on teaching. Time spent being labeled is time not spent on being taught or learning, (p. 11)
In some cases, placements assist general and special education professionals in designing appropriate programs for persons with special needs. In Richardo's case, was his special education placement geared toward helping him to maximize his potential? Or was it geared toward excluding him from the general education classroom? Clearly, he was tracked for exclusion. Because of problems associated with Richardo's identification, assessment, and categorization, it is unclear whether his exclusion from the general education classroom will be helpful to him. As Ysseldyke et al. (2000) noted, "Placement issues have a broader base than just those individuals with disabilities. The jump from special education segregation to teaching (in grouping) students by their implied level is not a huge leap, and the effects of tracking have been noted repeatedly" (p. 135).
An appropriate placement for Richardo must be based on his needs and not on racial and cultural identities. Invariably, where a student like Richardo is placed depicts how much value is placed on him. Critical to education today are issues of overrepresentation of culturally diverse learners in special education programs (e.g., programs for students with emotional/behavioral disorders) and underrepresentation of these students in programs for students with gifts and talents (Artiles, 1998; Cartledge, Tillman, & Talbert- Johnson, 2001; Coutinho, Oswald, & Forness, 2002; Ford, 1998; Obiakor et al, 2002, 2004; Skiba, Simmons, Ritter, Kohler, & Wu, 2003). Following are important placement principles for general and special education professionals:
* Race and culture matter in the placement of students.
* Placements must be based on students' need and not on racial and cultural identities.
* Language difference should never be misconstrued as a lack of intelligence.
* Empathy is an important ingredient of "good" placement.
* Good placements are usually least restrictive environments.
* Differences are not deficits.
* Students are best served when their due-process rights are respected.
* Appropriate inclusion reduces biased exclusion of students in classroom activities.
* Prejudicial placements have devastating effects on students.
* The unique differences brought by students into classrooms must be valued.
Did Richardo's classroom teacher help him to maximize his potential? In what kind of classroom did Richardo find himself? It is important that teachers create instructional environments that promote academic productivity and appropriate social behaviors for an increasingly diverse student population. Richardo could have been helped by a broad range of strategies useful in designing, implementing, and evaluating instruction. He needed opportunities to attain new skills and activities. Instructional strategies for Richardo should have included
* taking in a holistic view of his instruction (i.e., valuing the kind of instruction that uses multiple variables);
* having equity as a big picture in his classroom (i.e., incorporating human respect in classroom activities);
* monitoring of his success (i.e., finding out if learning is occurring);
* engaging him and his classmates in small-group discussion and cooperative learning (i.e., enhancing collaboration and consultation in classroom activities);
* sequencing and organizing his instruction (i.e., trying to manipulate learning environments);
* engaging him in higher-level thinking (i.e., practicing critical thinking);
* having adequate goals, standards, and outcomes for his instruction (i.e., making sure instruction responds to individual needs);
* understanding his classroom and school milieu (i.e., moving beyond acceptance to acclimatization in classroom and school activities);
* managing his classroom environment (i.e., making sure classrooms are not disruptive); and
* providing him with positive school outcomes (i.e., making sure school is rewarding; see De La Paz, 1999; Obiakor, Utley, & Rotatori, 2003; Orlich, Harder, Callahan, & Gibson, 2001).
Appropriate instruction is not totally divorced from the identification, assessment, categorization, and placement of students. For Richardo, interaction with his peers in the classroom led to some negative learning-teaching processes. For instruction to be appropriate for students like Richardo, general and special education teachers must
* know each student;
* learn the facts about each student when in doubt;
* challenge the thinking of each student;
* use resources and staff to assist each student;
* build each student's self-concepts;
* teach each student using different techniques, as appropriate;
* make the right choices based upon "new" knowledge about each student; and
* continue to learn how to help each student to grow.
It is important that general and special education teachers (a) educate themselves about things they do not know; (b) use creative ideas to develop classroom interactions; (c) create an atmosphere that welcomes parents, students, and staff; (d) be knowledgeable about different teaching modes; and (e) put individual students in a positive learning environment.
Making Multicultural Special Education Functional
Imagine how boring this life would be if everybody had one skin color, if everybody belonged to one race, one gender, one religion, one language, one culture, and one nation. In fact, imagine how boring it would be if everyone ate the same food, drove the same cars, wore the same clothes, built the same houses, danced to the same music, had the same kings and queens, and lived in the same homes. Differences and divisions have always existed among human beings; however, how these differences and divisions are valued and incorporated in inclusive school programs presents challenges (Arthur, 2000; Banks, 2002; Boykin, 2000; Guinier, 2002; Karp, 2002; Rothenberg, 2002; Weiss, 2002; Wise, 2002).
Using Richardo's case as an example, there is a strong relationship between students' languages or cultures and how they are dealt with in general and special education. How are multicultural differences addressed in general and special education? How do culture and language relate to multicultural special education? To adequately answer questions, one must understand multicultural education, how language valuing or devaluing affects special education, and how all these variables are tied to multicultural special education.
Understanding Multicultural Education
Multicultural education is not just a study of exotic groups; it is a force worthy of complementing major theoretical frameworks like humanistic education, behavioristic education, and cognitive education approaches (Smith, Richards, MacGranley, & Obiakor, 2004). It is no wonder that multicultural education is infused into existing educational, psychological, counseling, and sociological programs. Earlier in his classic work, Dewey (1958) acknowledged that "education must have the tendency, if it is education, to form attitudes" (p. 56). His views have been corroborated by many scholars and educators (see Banks, 2002; Guinier, 2002; Karp, 2002; Obiakor, 2003; Rothenberg, 2002; Sparks, 1999; Utley & Obiakor, 2001; Weiss, 2002; Wise, 2002), who have noted the need for the nation's citizens to develop cultural, linguistic, and ethnic valuing to revamp school and societal thinking. Multicultural education taps into the human resources of all Americans and ascertains that educational and vocational options and opportunities are provided for all.
Clearly, multicultural education has an equalizing effect on traditional general and special education because it aims at maximizing the potential of all learners, in spite of cultural and linguistic differences, national origins, and socioeconomic backgrounds (Brantlinger & RoyCampbell, 2001; Gollnick & Chinn, 2002; Smith et al., 2004). Whether students are in general or special education programs, multicultural education inspires teachers and service providers to
* value students' cultures, languages, national origins, and socioeconom\ic backgrounds by welcoming them in school programs;
* stimulate students intellectually by providing them with more novel ideas;
* assist students in maximizing their potential by understanding their strengths and weaknesses;
* create nurturing environments for students by empowering them;
* collaborate and consult with students' parents by regarding them as equal partners; and
* provide support mechanisms for students' growth and development by playing many roles in their lives.
Language Valuing/Devaluing and Special Education
Language is an integral part of classroom instruction, just as it is an integral part of culture. For many multicultural learners (e.g., Hispanic Americans as in Richardo's case), "language is a complex and unique characteristic of their culture. Hispanic Americans exhibit variants in terms of native language use, bilingualism, or English language proficiency" (Delgado & Rogers- Adkinson, 1999, p. 57). Clearly, general and special educators must understand their students' linguistic skills to evaluate the type or extent of educational provisions needed. Going back to Richardo, he was proficient in the Spanish language and was learning to be proficient in the English language, the language of instruction. He was a bilingual student or second-language learner who functioned in a monolingual and monocultural classroom environment. According to Delgado and Rogers-Adldnson, "Many Hispanic-American students come to school with different experiences than the majority of children. Several factors that may influence the child's performance in the classroom must be considered before formal assessment is initiated" (p. 62).
In many urban, suburban, or rural schools, students come to school with many different cultural languages that conflict with the official standard English used in classroom instructions. Some African American children speak Ebonics as they interact in classrooms (Smitherman, 2001; Williams, 1975). While this language is a nonstandard English, many experienced teachers have been able to utilize it in classroom instruction without diluting their focus on mastering the official standard English (Craig & Washington, 2000). For instance, rap music and hip hop music have a strong poetic or Ebonic influence that psychologically engages urban, suburban, or rural youth in today's changing society. Consequently, labeling students who use Ebonics as having linguistic deficiency can lead to academic disengagement and behavior problems. When these behavior problems are inappropriately addressed, students may drop out of school and begin engaging in antisocial behaviors and criminal activities (e.g., drug dealing) that may eventually land them in jail. Put another way, language and cultural valuing enhances academic engagement and student retention and graduation and makes possible a productive life.
Similarly, many students in urban schools come from immigrant Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Hmong fami lies that speak a language at home that is different from the language spoken at school (Chang, Lai, & Shimizu, 1999). As a result, Asian and Pacific American students experience missed learning opportunities, especially when school practices are not properly organized to meet their needs. Chang et al. addressed the "model student" myth (i.e., the assumption that all Asian and Pacific American students are brilliant and gifted) as a critical problem in general and special education. They argued that instead of making unwarranted assumptions about these students, teachers and service providers must (a) take advantage of students' prior knowledge, (b) identify students' multiple abilities, (c) use multifaceted teaching techniques, and (d) utilize parents/guardians as learning resources.
In addition, there are foreign-born African Americans who have immigrated willingly to the United States from African and Caribbean nations (e.g., Nigeria, Jamaica, Haiti). Many of these immigrants speak different languages (e.g., Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba, Patua) at home and speak English outside their homes. However, they may speak English with noticeable accents (Arthur, 2000; Obiakor & Grant, 2002). In many cases, children of these immigrants encounter prejudice in school programs because of their linguistic differences, cultural backgrounds, and national origins (e.g., Lau v. Nichols, 1973). Interestingly, many of these children excel academically despite their differences.
Multicultural Special Education: The Reality of Change in Schools
Multicultural special education represents a realistic view of change needed as an integral part of general education (Utley & Obiakor, 2001; Winzer & Mazurek, 1998). It guarantees respect for multicultural education, general education, special education, and bilingual education. In addition, it highlights the positive relationship between important educational and societal variables in the teaching-learning process. In the words of Winzer and Mazurek:
Special education can no longer be concerned solely with the nature of a disabling condition and appropriate intervention strategies tailored for a particular disability. With the composition of the school-aged population shifting to encompass more students from culturally diverse backgrounds, bilingual homes, and economically disadvantaged families, the need for special services in the schools increases, and special educators must consider a broader range of characteristics that specifically include (but are certainly not restricted to) cultural and linguistic difference. Today and in the future, schools must develop programs, teaching methods, and resources to teach a diverse body and improve special education service delivery for exceptional learners from a wide variety of cultural and linguistic backgrounds, (p. 1)
An analysis of Winzer and Mazurek's statement reveals why general and special educators and multicultural and bilingual educators share a similar mission of helping culturally and linguistically diverse learners to optimize their potential. In other words, multicultural special education encompasses educational programming that helps all learners who are at risk for misidentification, misassessment, miscategorization, misplacement, and misinstruction because of their racial, cultural, and linguistic differences.
Looking at Richardo's case, there is every indication that his teacher, even with the best intention, lacked the knowledge needed to work with multicultural learners. With proper education and preparation, the teacher would have
* made sure that all students, including Richardo, are treated equitably without losing the intended quality;
* respected Richardo's linguistic difference while motivating him to learn the second language;
* recognized that linguistic difference does not mean linguistic deficit;
* infused social justice and mutual respect for all students in her class;
* focused on well-planned cooperative learning between Richardo and his classmates;
* empowered Richardo's parents to participate as equal partners in class;
* desisted from referring Richardo for special education assessment (in the end, Richardo's negative experiences would have been avoided);
* utilized a bilingual educator or a translator in Richardo's instructions (all students would have benefited from the presence of a bilingual personnel);
* utilized not just Richardo's parents but also other members of the Hispanic community in her interactions with Richardo; and
* learned how behavior disorder does not occur in isolation (e.g., Richardo's interaction with his classmates led to his referral, which ultimately led to his assessment, categorization, and placement in special education).
Based on the aforementioned ideas accumulated from Richardo's classroom experiences, it is reasonable to conclude that
* Special education works when it is connected to a free and appropriate public education for all learners, including those from multicultural backgrounds. Legally, all learners must receive a free education appropriate to their needs.
* Special education works when multicultural learners are not misidentified. Legally, all learners must be identified and referred without prejudice.
* Special education works when multicultural learners are not assessed discriminately. Legally, assessments must be nondiscriminatory to all learners.
* Special education works when multicultural learners are afforded procedural safeguards, including due process. Legally, the civil rights of all learners must be protected.
* Special education works when parents of multicultural learners are empowered and treated as equal partners. Legally, the parents and guardians of all learners must be contacted by the school during the special education process.
* Special education works when confidentiality of information is maintained for multicultural learners. Legally, information about all learners must be kept confidential and not openly discussed in places such as faculty lounges.
* Special education works when multicultural learners are educated in least restrictive environments. Legally, indiscriminate inclusion or exclusion of all learners must be avoided.
* Special education works when Individualized Education Programs are based on (a) multicultural learners' needs, (b) the collaboration and consultation of team members, and (c) culturally responsive strategies. Legally, a team of professionals and the parents must work together to address programmatic needs of all learners.
* Special education works when accountability does not discriminate against multicultural learners. Legally, schools must be accountable for the education of all learners.
* Special education works when it is not connected to illusory conclusions and prejudicial expectations that demean multicultural learners. Legally, acceptable categories must be used with all learners.
This article espouses the importance of multicultural special e\ducation in today's changing schools. Students like Richardo deserve an educational environment that gives them the opportunity to grow. In addition, they deserve general and special education teachers who understand the relationship between language, culture, and learning. The issue is not whether Richardo's teacher was good or bad; the issue is whether she was prepared for the complexities of today's multicultural classrooms. Special education is necessary to maximize the potential of learners with exceptionalities. While there are legal obligations involved in working with these learners, the focus must be on doing what is right for them. Special education must be valued as an important educational phenomenon that works when general and special educators nurture different human intelligences, challenge their own perspectives, and incorporate multicultural voices as they resolve traditional problems confronting students like Richardo in their respective programs.
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Guinier, L. (2002, Summer). Race, testing and the miner's canary. Rethinking Schools, 16, 13, 23.
Henze, R., Katz, A., Norte, E., Sather, S. E., & Walker, E. (2002). Leading for diversity: How school leaders promote positive interethnic relations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
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Obiakor, F. E. (2003). The eight-step approach to multicultural learning and teaching (2nd ed.). Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Festus E. Obiakor, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Exceptional Education at the University of WisconsinMilwaukee. He is a teacher-scholar and consultant who has authored or co-authored more tha\n 100 publications. He currently serves on the editorial boards of many refereed journals, including Multiple Voices and Teacher Education and Special Education, where he serves as co- editor and associate editor, respectively. Address: Festus E. Obiakor, Department of Exceptional Education, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53201; e-mail: [email protected]
Copyright PRO-ED Journals Jan 2007
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- Word Combinations (noun), Homophone Note, Word Explorer
|part of speech:
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||an area, either open or enclosed, reserved for pedestrian traffic and containing shops, restaurants, and the like; shopping center.
||a strip of usu. grassy land that separates roads or highways; median.
||(cap.) The National Mall.
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What’s wrong with this picture?
Photo © Madagasikara Voakajy
It’s a boy in Madagascar. His face is blurred to preserve anonymity, and he’s carrying a freshly killed indri lemur, a source of bushmeat.
The problem—and it’s a big one—is that indris, like many other lemurs, are endangered, and hunting them is illegal. Someone caught killing a lemur can face up to two years in prison and fines up to about $10,000 US dollars.
Moreover, hunting and eating indris have been long considered “taboo” or off-limits for many locals. According to the legend behind the taboo, a man looking for honey in the forest fell from a tree during his search, but was caught by an indri before splatting onto the ground.
So why is this boy so nonchalantly sporting his illegal, endangered, and taboo kill?
This indri is alive and about.
Photo from Wikimedia Commons
A study published today in PLoS ONE shows that despite conservation laws and taboo customs, there is a lot of illegal bushmeat hunting in Madagascar.
In one surveyed village, at least 96 indris were brought in over a period of 21 months—an average of four to five slaughtered lemurs a month. “That’s an awful lot of indris for a very, very small village,” said Julia Jones, a conservation scientist from Bangor University and one of the paper authors. “Some of these villages have twenty households, forty households. That’s extremely worrying.”
Overhunting has already caused extinctions in Madagascar, and continued illegal hunting threatens to do more damage.
Enforcement against the hunting of protected species is not strict enough, and many Malagasy (people from Madagascar) are not fully aware of the law or of the need for conserving threatened species. “Many rural people in Madagascar have no idea that indris aren’t common in New York City,” said Jones.
In addition, taboos that have long helped protect species like the indri are fading away.
In Madagascar, taboos originate from a resemblance to humans, as with sifaka lemurs, or from some ancestral connection, as with indri lemurs. Taboos also vary from location to location. For example, the fossa (a cat-like mammal found only in Madagascar) are considered taboo in some circles of eastern Madagascar, whereas the fossa are heavily hunted in areas of northeastern Madagascar, according to Jones.
The PLoS ONE study suggests that taboos are eroding partly from an increase in illegal gold mining. “It seems that when you’ve got these gold miners moving in, you’ve got some people willing to break the taboos,” said Jones. It only takes a few people to do a lot of damage to a threatened species, she said. Not only that, but the immigrant miners also bring in an increased demand for meat with their extra cash from gold mining.
Bushmeat isn’t even the most preferred meat in Madagascar, as domesticated meat often beats it in taste surveys. However, domesticated meats are more expensive, and many poorer households rely primarily or exclusively on bushmeat as their meat source, often turning to illegal and unsustainable hunting to acquire it.
Raising more domesticated animals may seem like a solution to decrease illegal bushmeat hunting, which is what researchers like Jones are angling for—chicken in particular.
However, while chicken ranks high in taste surveys in Madagascar, poultry husbandry in developing countries like Madagascar are often plagued by diseases that wipe out flocks of chicken.
Harvard researcher Chris Golden and a team of San Francisco Zoo veterinarians are traveling to Madagascar this month to investigate the cause of chicken deaths in a northeast area of the country. (More on their work here.) They suspect the disease is caused by Newcastle disease, a bird disease that causes decreased egg production and death. Newcastle has no cure, but its vaccine is cheap and easy to administer—a penny a dose and an eyedropper to administer, according to Golden.
Once the disease problem is fixed, chickens might make a real difference in increasing availability of domesticated meat and reducing the amount of illegal bushmeat hunting.
“The beauty of chickens is that they’re pretty self-sufficient,” said Graham Crawford, one of the veterinarians involved in the project. “If you can prevent them from getting diseases, they kind of feed themselves. I think that they’re a really efficient food source for these rural economies.”
This kind of initiative is very exciting to Jones, who called it “fantastic.”
Meanwhile, Jones and the Madagasikara Voakajy, a conservation organization in Madagascar, are working to spread bushmeat conservation awareness among the Malagasy. One outreach effort involves a poster campaign depicting unsightly lemur carcasses, the words “’Lemurs are our national heritage, not meat!’” and a reminder of the hefty fine associated with killing lemurs.
Think twice before you go bushmeat hunting, the sign is telling the Malagasy.
With that, I leave with you a picture of a baby indri.
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A European freshwater snail which has a flat spiral shell.
- Family Planorbidae: several genera.
- Among the natural wonders that should be protected are stag beetles, and ramshorn snails; habitats including salt meadows and oak woods; and rare plants such as the lady's slipper orchid.
- Colombian ramshorn snails lay their eggs in a blob often larger than the snail that produced it.
- A generation ago, the European Red Ramshorn Snail was a common sight in freshwater aquariums.
For editors and proofreaders
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Using the Self-Assessment Instrument
Introduction - Before you begin
The NASDDDS Emergency Response Preparedness Self-Assessment Instrument is designed to assist
state officials evaluate the extent to which their agency's current plans and activities
fully and appropriately address the needs of individuals with intellectual and developmental
disabilities during periods of emergency (see About This Project).
The Self-Assessment is based on an extensive review of emergency planning and disaster response
plans and materials from state developmental disabilities across the country. This analysis
revealed considerable variation in the approaches state agencies used to react to emergency
situations. Emergency planning activities differed with respect to: (a) the organization of
the key management functions, (b) the operational levels being addressed;
and the specific content areas covered.
Organization. The structure and functioning of state developmental disabilities agencies
differs, sometimes significantly, from one state to the next. This interstate variability is
reproduced in the design of each state's emergency response plan.
Some states, for example, organize emergency response planning according to the management
activities of preparing,
responding and recovering. State policies, rules, procedures, and requirements
are arranged within these three broad action categories.
Preparing: Activities and processes developed and implemented to prepare for an emergency
situation, such as an earthquake, flood, hurricane, tornado, or pandemic.
Activities and processes developed and implemented in response to an emergency situation.
Activities and process developed and implemented during recovery from an emergency situation.
Other States base their emergency response plan design on the locus of action; that is,
the operational level at which
preparation, response and recovery is expected to take place. Such plans might be organized
to respond at the individual, service provider, local authority, state authority and federal
Activities and processes that address the responsibilities and roles of the individuals with disabilities
with regard to emergency preparedness.
Agencies and organizations that provide support staff to individuals with disabilities including day
habilitation programs, group homes, supported employment, supported living services, parent centers,
contractors for housing and employment, etc.
local entities responsible for emergency preparation, response and recovery including municipalities,
police, fire, emergency medical technicians, local emergency planning authorities, etc.
County/Regional DD Authorities:
County and regional developmental disability authorities and county case workers providing programs and
services to individuals with disabilities.
State agencies that provide programs and services to individuals with disabilities including the State
Developmental Disabilities Director, Department of Human Services, Department of Social Security,
Department of Economic Security, etc.
National Emergency Preparedness Agencies:
National agencies that provide services during an emergency situation and during recovery from an
emergency including the Department of Homeland Security, National Guard, National Organization on
Disability, Red Cross, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Centers for Medicaid, Department of
Health and Human Services, Social Security, etc.
Still other states organize emergency response activities by
content area focusing on, for
example, evacuation, communication and collaboration, transportation, sheltering, etc..
Collaboration with State Emergency Officials:
Emergency preparedness activities and processes that require collaboration with state emergency officials.
Emergency preparedness activities and processes that include individuals with disabilities in preparation
and planning activities, and that address the specific needs of individuals with disabilities during an
Communication and Coordination:
Emergency preparedness activities and processes that address issues of communication and coordination
during an emergency, including accessible emergency broadcasts and warnings, appropriate signage at
shelter locations, alternate communication strategies for those who are deaf or hard of hearing, etc..
Emergency preparedness activities and processes that address the roles and responsibilities of employees
within the developmental disabilities field during an emergency, including personal care attendants,
direct support professionals, case managers, etc.
Emergency preparedness activities and processes that address the need for power generation alternatives
during an emergency, including back-up power supplies, continuation or shut down of power supplies within
residential facilities, etc.
Emergency preparedness activities and processes that address the need for primary and secondary accessible
transportation and alternative evacuation options for individuals with mobility conditions during an
emergency situation, such as accessible buses and vans, use of personal adaptive transportation, etc.
Identification and Tracking:
Emergency preparedness activities and processes that address the need to identify individuals with
disabilities and to track their location during an emergency situation, including their evacuation and
relocation site, visual identification such as ID badges, etc.
Emergency preparedness activities and processes that address the specific needs of individuals with
disabilities related to evacuation during an emergency situation, such as schematic drawings of individual
households or residential facilities, development of emergency medical supply kits, etc.
Emergency preparedness activities and processes that address the specialized support needs of individuals
with disabilities during an emergency situation, including development of personal emergency fact sheets,
use of community based organizations familiar with disability needs and accommodations to work as first
Emergency preparedness activities and processes that address the specific needs of individuals with
disabilities related to sheltering during an emergency situation, including designation of accessible
shelter locations, keeping individuals with disabilities and their families together during relocation to
a shelter, designated areas within shelters for those with service animals, etc.
User-Defined Format. The web-based, user-defined format of the NASDDDS
Self-Assessment Instrument can be easily reconfigured to meet the distinctive needs of each
of the 51 state developmental disabilities agencies. This unique, built-in flexibility
enables users to easily apply the self-assessment tool to virtually any of the wide variety
of organizational formats used by state and local agencies, provider organization and others.
Built-in Redundancy. A key concept in effective emergency preparedness is the existence
of planned redundancy in preparation, response and recovery. The Self-Assessment Instrument
reflects this concept in its design and application and will be apparent as a user moves
through the various questions and categories.
For example, questions that assess the extent to which a state's emergency plan addresses
the need to prepare systems of transportation in advance of disasters will appear in slightly
different form as specific issues are addressed
across each of the six operational levels, individual, service provider,
local/municipal authority, etc.
This redundancy is included to ensure that users are presented with the full scope of issues
that need to be addressed when preparing a system-wide capacity to meet the transportation
needs of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities during periods of
disaster or natural emergency.
Using the Tool
The Assessment Tool is designed to be easy to use and to navigate from one section to the next.
Hyperlinks to Frequently Asked Questions,
Glossary of Terms and question-specific Resources
provide users with easily accessible information
as they complete the self-assessment.
Choose the Organizational Format.
Completing the Evaluation Instrument
To begin, go to the Assessment Menu.
First, select the organizational format for the assessment that best approximates that used by your state's emergency response planning documents.
Next, select the operational levels, management activities and content areas that you would like to assess. Choose as many as you like, just be sure that one box is checked under each area.
Click on the Show Assessment button and your individualized assessment will be generated based on your preferences.
The organizational format that you have chosen will be summarized at the top of each assessment page, as
in the example below.
Complete each evaluation statement noting the extent to which each topic is:
"addressed but needs improvement," "adequately addressed," or "don't know."
A section is provided following each question to enter notes or comments about this question for
future reference. You will be able to go back to these comments later on. Also, you can "flag" the
question for future reference.
Resources. A detailed listing of additional resource materials specifically addressing each
question can be accessed by clicking on, "View Supporting Resources for this Evaluation Statement."
Not My Job? The emergency preparedness and response responsibilities of state DD agencies
differ from one state to the next. Users can expect to find questions regarding some issues or
activities over which their agency or organization has no responsibility. Users can document the
status of their agency with respect to such issues in two ways:
Saving Responses. A "Save My Responses" button is located at the bottom of each screen.
Be sure to click on this button to save your responses before moving to the next page or
exiting the program.
Adequately Addressed. Users can check this button to indicate that the topic is addressed and should note in the space provided that the responsibility for response is held by another organization. This approach lets users know that the issues is being addressed by the state through another department or entity.
Not Addressed. Users can check this button to indicate that the topic is not addressed by the state developmental disabilities agency, and should note in the space provided that the responsibility for response is held by another organization. This approach focuses in on the content of the state DD agency's emergency response plan.
Reports. The Self-assessment Tool can print out a variety of reports summarizing the responses
that have been entered. Click on the Reports Menu at the top of the page to access the reports functions
(only visible when logged in). Visit the FAQ section for a further description of this
Assign a Section to Another User. The Self-Assessment format recognizes that state administrators
may assign other staff to complete one or more sections of the instrument. Each state has a primary
login/account assigned to the State Developmental Disabilities Director. Using this account, the DD
Director or "State Administrator" can create new login accounts and assign access permissions
to portions of the assessment instrument to be completed by appropriate organizations and/or
individuals. These are called sub-accounts.
New sub-accounts created with "State Administrator" access level have the ability to create
additional sub-accounts. After sub-accounts have been created, State Administrators can change existing
access permissions using the "Edit permissions for existing sub-accounts for MN" link in the
User Settings menu. The process for creating sub accounts is found in the FAQ section under,
How do I create a sub-account?
Questions and Comments
Please let us know if you have any questions or comments about the instrument.
You can find contact information on the Contact us page.
We would like to hear from you. | <urn:uuid:25bd6685-de6f-4de8-b065-66472a882d0c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://rtc.umn.edu/erp/main/using.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00105-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926796 | 2,213 | 2.828125 | 3 |
The Internet is a worldwide system of interconnected networks; it is the transport vehicle for the information stored in files or documents on another computer; it can be compared to an international communications utility servicing computers, and the Internet itself does not contain information (
There are currently three major divisions of the Internet--commercial, governmental, and educational—which appear in a full network host name as com, gov, and edu (KU, 2002). On the other hand, the World Wide Web (WWW) incorporates all of the Internet services above and much more (UC Berkeley Library, 2002). One can retrieve documents, view images, animation, and video, listen to sound files, speak and hear voice, and view programs that run on practically any software in the world, providing that the computer has the hardware and software to do these things (UC Berkeley Library, 2002).
Furthermore, the Internet is held together by bi- or multilateral commercial contracts (for example peering agreements) and by technical specifications or protocols that describe how to exchange data over the network. These protocols are formed by discussion within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and its working groups, which are open to public participation and review. These committees produce documents that are known as Request for Comments documents (RFCs). Some RFCs are raised to the status of Internet Standard by the Internet ArchitEBture Board (IAB). (www.encyclopedia.com)
Additionally, some of the most used protocols in the Internet protocol suite are IP, TCP, UDP, DNS, PPP, SLIP, ICMP, POP3, IMAP, SMTP, HTTP, HTTPS, SSH, Telnet, FTP, LDAP, and SSL. Some of the popular services on the Internet that make use of these protocols are e-mail, Usenet newsgroups, file sharing, the World Wide Web, Gopher, session access, WAIS, finger, IRC, MUDs, and MUSHs. Of these, e-mail and the World Wide Web are clearly the most used, and many other services are built upon them, such as mailing lists and web logs. The internet makes it possible to provide real-time services such as web radio and webcasts that can be accessed from anywhere in the world. (www.encyclopedia.com)
Basically, Donthu, N. & Garcia, A. (1999) stated that other popular services of the Internet were not created this way, but were originally based on proprietary systems. These include IRC, ICQ, AIM, CDDB, and Gnutella. Moreover, there have been many analyses of the Internet and its structure. For example, it has been determined that the Internet IP routing structure and hypertext links of the World Wide Web are examples of scale-free networks.
E-business is the generic term given to the process of conducting business electronically. In particular, it is the use of computers to facilitate communication between buyers and sellers; to reduce business overheads and to increase operational efficiency. Since the introduction of the World Wide Web, the term e-business has become synonymous with Web sites that provide their guests with facilities to order goods or services online. (www.encyclopedia.com)
In the early days, such facilities were provided via a simple e-mail link or online form that potential customers could use to place an order; but it soon became apparent that this particular method of conducting business was both costly and inefficient. As a result, staffs were forced to devote significant time to pricing orders; confirming them with customers and ensuring that the Web site's catalogue pages did not advertise lines that had sold out.
From www.encyclopedia.com, the history of e-business history is directed on how Information Technology was integrated to business processes. Furthermore, some authors tried to track back the history of e-business to the invention of the telephone at the end of last century. Basically, EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) is widely viewed as the beginning of ECommerce if we consider ECommerce as the networking of business communities and digitalization of business information.
On the other hand, the connotation of the term "electronic commerce" has changed over time. Originally, "electronic commerce" doomed the facilitation of commercial transactions by electronic means, frequently by technology similar to Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) to propel commercial documents like purchase orders or invoices electronically.
Currently, electronic commerce includes activities more precisely termed as "Web commerce". Web commerce refers to the buy of goods and services over the World Wide Web by means of secure servers (note HTTPS, a special server protocol which encrypts confidential ordering data for customer protection) with e-shopping carts and with electronic pay services, like credit card pay authorizations.
The Strengths of E-business Amazon.com
Probably the general public is familiar with e-business (EB), but there tends to be an underestimation of its potential. The common idea about e-business is that it is only limited to buying stuffs at the internet. In fact, the term is considered to be synonymous with eBay or Amazon.com. Those were examples of e-business at work, but theres more to it than simple barter, buy, and sell on the web. E-business, as defined in e-business faq sheet, is the interchange of business related information through the use of Electronic Data Interchange (instead of paper documentation) and some other relevant technologies, which includes electronic mail, electronic fund transfer (EFT), electronic faxing, online database management, etc.
The following are the strengths of e-business Amazon.com (Reynolds:2002):
· reduce business cycle time – Before marketing or selling the product, the first consideration is producing the goods. It can't be denied that personnel responsible for locating the right product and the right supplier that's best suited for the requirements of the company, takes a long time to accomplish this task. E-business supports easy procurement queries based on search criteria. When an e-catalog system is employed by the company, this would mean a probable volume of orders, but can it all be handled all at once? E-business supports easy handling of large number of orders through automated customer info/orders retrieval into online database. E-business supports a lot of EDI functions that transform the business processes into paperless operation, which speeds up business process without sacrificing accuracy, reliability and efficiency.
· Enhance customer service – Through a B2C e-business, which deals with business to customer connection unlike B2B (to be discussed later), the company will be able to serve customers efficiently and simultaneously. There is a term called "disintermediation", which means that the selling skipped the usual channels, and the product or service was retailed directly to the customer instead of going through a middleman. By browsing a specially designed e-business site, a customer will find inquiring about products, ordering, and payment transactions are so much easier, faster, and more convenient since they could do it without even leaving their offices/homes.
· Facilitate customization of products and services – as business to consumer relationship would be more enriched thanks to EB, the company, by using customer suggestions posted on the site or specifications indicated on the online order form, will have more idea and time to work out a product/service modification to fit the demands of the customer and the market.
· Improve empowerment of employees and support team working – a company applying EB can expect that the connectivity between business locations using the EB infrastructures enables the remote sites to be able to function and handle situations even in the absence of a management team. What's required is just a constant instruction-result report exchange. This can also be applied at department levels, such that a push of button connects departments, giving authorized user access to data or processes needed from the other departments. This promotes employee confidence and improves workers relationship with each other.
· Improve Company finances – The company would see cost reduction because of the lower transaction cost (to be explained in details in the EB models below), lower communication cost since e-business feature seamless interchange of data more advanced than phone calls and lower operation overhead due to the reduced cycle time. The company would gain improved revenue due to a larger market and accelerated cash flow.
The Weaknesses of E-business Amazon.com
With the increase in usage of the Internet, certain concerns about security arise. Privacy violations, pornography, transaction security breaches, unsolicited e-mail (Kopowski, 1995) and other questionable or illegal activities being conducted on-line have become hotly debated issues. Some see regulation as the only answer to protection from unwelcome intrusion; but due to the universal nature of the Internet, regulation will be extremely difficult, if not impossible (Peeples, 2002).
According to a survey conducted by Udo (2001), security concerns are a major reason that users give for not shopping online. Many consumer organisations and government agencies provide tips on how to transact safely on the Internet by providing key information such as its return policy and privacy practices (Udo, 2001). In theory, consumers could choose not to patronize sites that fail to provide key information, but in practice, consumers do not search for this information, if at all, until after they have spent considerable time investigating a site's product offerings (Udo, 2001).
The purpose of Udo's (2001) study was to investigate the privacy and security concerns of online IT users in order to establish a consensus among them. The survey data used in this study came from 158 participants. As indicated by the study findings, the majority of the online IT users today have serious concerns about their privacy and security while shopping on the Internet. They are also concerned about the safety and confidentiality of their e-mails. IT users do not only lose confidence in the technology but they also have very little hope that the government is capable of significantly reducing their concerns in the near future.
The majority of the online IT users who participated in Udo's (2001) study believed that the advancements in such technology as encryption and other security features are not sufficient to reduce their privacy and security concerns. Based on the responses of those who took part in the study, an overwhelming majority of employees prefer the organization to have policies for e-mail and Internet use and to also notify the employees of the policies.
Consumer privacy issues are not new (Rubin, 1995). Consumers have worried for years about how personal data are used by the government and, more recently, by businesses (Rubin, 1995). The consumer privacy issue is taking on greater magnitude, as the number of people accessing the Internet's information resources grows exponentially and the public becomes more technologically savvy (Rubin, 1995). According to a 1999 report from the USA Federal Trade Commission (1999), information is gathered on the Internet both directly and indirectly. When a user enters a chat room discussion, leaves a message on a bulletin board, registers with a commercial site, enters a contest, or orders a product, he/she directly and knowingly sends information into cyberspace, The report further states that data can be gathered indirectly, without the user's knowledge (Udo, 2001).
Individuals are now using e-mail as a major means of transacting businesses (Reynolds, J., 2000)). Like other technological developments, e-mail has both advantages and disadvantages, along with controversy (Reynolds, J. 2000). Despite new developments in encryption and despite new legislation, e-mail privacy has proved to be of major concern to the users (Udo, 2001).
Although much of the publicity about Internet security has focused on the potential risks to consumers who use credit cards to make purchases electronically, payment fraud is also a major threat to Internet-based merchants (Murphy, 1998). Security threats not only consist of break-ins and technology disturbance, but also stalking, impersonation, and identity theft are serious issues that everyone should be concerned about (Janal, 1998). According to Udo (2001), computer hacking is another serious problem; it can be either a benign or a malicious activity. Moreover, fraudulent or non-creditworthy orders account for as much as one-sixth of all attempted purchases on the Internet (Udo, 2001).
The computer's ability to gather and sort vast amounts of data and the Internet' s ability to distribute it globally has magnified the concern of privacy and anonymity on the Web (Lynch, J. 2000). Once an individual has ventured into cyberspace, it is hard to remain anonymous (Udo, 2001). According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (1999), maintaining privacy is partly the responsibility of the user. EFF (1999) also provides ways to protect the user's privacy online: do not reveal personal information inadvertently; turn on cookie notices in the Web browser; keep a ``clean'' e-mail address; do not reveal personal details to strangers or just-met ``friends''; realize one may be monitored at work, avoid sending highly personal e-mail to mailing lists, and keep sensitive files on the home computer; do not reply to spammers, for anything; be conscious of Web security; be conscious of home computer security; examine privacy policies and seals; remember that you decide what information about yourself to reveal, when, why, and to whom; and use encryption.
According to Peeples (2002), transaction security has kept many customers from purchasing products on the Internet. Much resistance has come from privacy issues such as giving credit card number and personal information. There are continual reminders of how unsafe these practices can be, even though secure software programs have been developed and continue to become more protective.
Reducing the cost of information gathering represents perhaps the most obvious and immediate benefit of the Internet (Larsson and Lundberg, 1988). However, we argue below that transactional integrity in online markets is undermined by difficulties in evaluating information gathered online--difficulties that are inherent to online markets, originating as they do in fundamental information asymmetries exacerbated by low entry and exit costs.
Information problems impede the efficient execution of many transactions in the Economy because information is often asymmetrically distributed between buyer and seller. Information asymmetry is heightened further in e-business markets, encompassing not only the "usual" problem of private information regarding product attributes (Akerlof, 1970) but also potential uncertainty about the very identity of one's trading partner. Fundamentally, all one needs to enter e-business is a website. This lowering of entry barriers is often touted as one of the great promises of e-business; ease of entry and exit reduces market power and can bring lower prices. But minimal barriers to entry are not an unequivocal plus. When firms can effectively change identity at a moment's notice, traditional forms of fraud become easier and entirely new dimensions of fraud appear.
One novel type of Internet fraud involves "page-jacking"--misdirecting web surfers to false copies of legitimate businesses and tricking them into revealing passwords and personal identification numbers, or diverting them from seemingly benign sites to online pornography sites from which they cannot escape (Biersdorfer, 1999). In a twist on the old international pay-per-call scam, America Online subscribers recently received an e-mail apparently confirming an order for unspecified goods, and notifying them that their credit card would be billed for the amount due (over $300). Since no return e-mail was given, thousands of subscribers called the customer service phone number listed--which was actually a number in Dominica, West Indies, connected to an X-rated recording-and were charged $3 or more for the call (Washington Post, 1999),
Even for legitimate businesses, Web technology makes it simple to change the name and appearance of the company, in order to shake off a bad reputation or escape the consequences of unethical behavior. Thus "entry" and "exit" take on quite different meanings than in traditional product markets; a disreputable company may exit the business and reenter with a different identity at very low cost, with no perceptible break in activity. This magnifies information asymmetries. Information is easier to gather, but its quality and reliability suffer.
The global reach of e-business is also double-edged in its impact on consumers. While e-business can bring far-flung and highly competitive suppliers to the buyer's doorstep, this may be at the cost of uncertain recourse in the event of a dispute. Tracking down a delinquent trading partner and pursuing litigation in a different state or a foreign country may be prohibitively costly, particularly if the value of the transaction is relatively low.
In conclusion, the Internet Economy created the illusion that money came from wonderful qualities: imagination, hard work, creativity, etc. The Economy now gives a rather different impression: money comes from luck. People who were lucky enough to get in and out early got rich; everyone else got hammered. If getting rich is largely a matter of luck, it's no longer so easy to admire for its own sake.
Search your topic below. We have more than 2,000 FREE SAMPLES of Research Proposals in this free library. | <urn:uuid:a2a2d11f-128c-451a-abb2-6a32fa09ffbf> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://sampleresearchproposals.blogspot.com/2009/02/strengths-and-weaknesses-of-e-business.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403508.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00158-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945011 | 3,528 | 3.5 | 4 |
Today voice and data already share the high-bandwidth pipes into an enterprise, through frame relay protocols, voice over IP, firewalls for communications systems and automated call center systems. As data and voice networks continue to converge, there will be an increasing requirement to integrate the operation of heterogeneous systems.
However, Internet-centric communications convergence will only happen when the embedded networking and telecommunications infrastructure is tightly integrated with data center servers. Computers, networking devices and telephony equipment will need to seamlessly communicate, exchange information and provide a means of sharing resources between the platforms when required.
Data center servers and software are highly flexible, performing many different functions simultaneously with moderate reliability, whereas data and telecommunications devices are highly specific, optimizing a defined single set of specialized functions with very high reliability. With a clearly defined set of functions, the specialized communications equipment runs dedicated software that optimizes the performance of a limited number of tasks, providing high reliability and the capability for fault recovery.
Integration of these two types of computing is a complex software task, because the contradictory goals of each category of equipment must be reconciled. Applications such as call centers, monitoring and control of network and telecommunications devices, tracking and allocating bandwidth, and optimizing the use of alternative data and storage channels all require communications at a low level.
In order that the full potential of voice and data convergence is realized, engineers must enable reliable inter-process communication between the computer servers, routers and switches that make up the communications infrastructure. Achieving this communication between processes that are running on different processors, with different operating systems and perhaps even different programming languages is a difficult challenge.
Most systems today use software techniques such as TCP sockets or Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) to enable communications between embedded devices and servers, whereas communications within embedded communications devices use direct asynchronous message passing. Although either enterprise approach solves some of the problems both have issues and limitations that can result in a sub-optimal final system. TCP sockets use a software library that enables connections between an application and a network protocol. With a sockets library, a program can send and receive TCP/IP messages by opening a network socket and reading and writing data to and from the socket. This approach enables the programmer to concentrate on data transfers and lets the operating system transport messages across the network correctly.
However, enterprise application-level integration using sockets tends to be highly complex to code, requiring specialized programming skills, and must be implemented separately for every application using the system. But there can be subtle nuances in the sockets semantics and in the configuration of network connections that make it less portable between different platforms.
Also, using the low-level socket Application Programming Interfaces (API) to connect at the network protocol level requires detailed knowledge of the underlying network, including network addresses and packet structure. For these reasons, a direct message passing operating system with a simple API layered above the sockets API for application integration, and with a transparent abstraction of the underlying network is important to overcome these obstacles.
CORBA is an architecture that enables pieces of programs to communicate with one another regardless of what programming language they were written in or what operating system they're running on. The CORBA specification defines the Interface Definition Language (IDL) and the API that enable client/server object interaction within a specific implementation of an Object Request Broker (ORB).
It is a highly complex set of technologies. The API is complex and can be difficult to use correctly, and an ORB is required to broker objects between software components. Overall, the TCP/IP and CORBA alternatives lack the tight integration of operating system components, can be technically difficult to implement, and do not inherently provide fault tolerance to individual software components. The result is a complex mixture of software technologies that may not provide the required level of performance and reliability.
With the drawbacks inherent in the use of both TCP sockets and CORBA, future communications systems will demand a simpler, more scalable and more reliable approach. The ideal solution would be to implement a message passing architecture that operates for designs incorporating multiple operating systems in a heterogeneous execution environment typical of today's mixed-traffic networks. This can be done by providing an embedded library that can be linked to application code on the enterprise machine. This library provides a wrapper through which a client application running on an application or Web server communicates transparently with other nodes in a distributed system, bringing the power of direct asynchronous message passing traditionally only found in some real-time embedded operating systems to the enterprise.
The wrapper code interfaces with a daemon running on the enterprise server, to provide a gateway between the enterprise server and the embedded device
This gateway approach can also increase the reliability of communications systems by enabling fault-tolerance capabilities for processes running on the enterprise server. If a process crashes and communications cannot continue, most solutions today simply force the sender of a message to wait for an acknowledgement, and if it is not received, the sender is left to trigger some sort of fault analysis and recovery after a failure. In cases where time might be critical, this approach is unlikely to deliver the required performance. In addition, this approach to fault tolerance typically has to be built into the design at an added cost.
If the operating system on the embedded devices offers built-in communications supervision to all processes, a gateway like this naturally extends this capability to the enterprise system.
The approach taken by this type of message-based Gateway, addresses the limitations of existing technologies by providing a transparent mechanism for communication among processes across operating systems. The implementation is independent of network addressing schemes or application programming interfaces on client operating systems, and enables developers to build complex systems at a higher conceptual level, improving reliability and time to market.
In effect, it enables heterogeneous distributed systems to have the same level of efficiency, reliability, and high availability as the real-time embedded operating system itself. Native applications use the simple Gateway Client Library to communicate directly, process to process, with a simple operating system process.
From the standpoint of the distributed system, this message based gateway enables the client process to behave as if it was an embedded operating system process: the "foreign processes" effectively become phantom OSE processes. The gateway client provides an API that consists of Meta calls, normal OSE-type system calls and non-blocking receive mechanism (wait for host events and OSE signals). The Meta calls allow the client to perform operations such as finding and connecting to Gateway servers. The system calls manage the communications between the enterprise workstation and the server, and the need for the processes on the workstation to wait for both OSE signals as well as native OS events is fulfilled by the non-blocking receive mechanism.
The supervisor can monitor all desired processes, including phantom processes on foreign nodes and is entirely managed by the RTOS running on the nodes. If any supervised process goes away, notification is sent and recovery can happen immediately, before someone tries to use the disabled process and fails. Catching problems when they occur, at the point of failure and before they precipitate across the system is a fundamental precept of fault tolerant operation. | <urn:uuid:930dfca3-6bec-4f86-8abd-88468492fb36> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1201632 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396147.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00056-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917568 | 1,434 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Over 100 new coal plants are now on the drawing board, marking a pronounced shift back to coal after years of electrical power plant construction focused on natural gas as the fuel of choice. Coal is relatively inexpensive and abundant, but without deployment of new technologies it is a relatively outsized source of C02, mercury and other emissions. Will Congress fund the research that will help get "clean coal" to the market? Will energy companies build these new plants with IGCC and other technologies that are expensive but can radically reduce emissions? National Mining Association President Jack Gerard joins OnPoint to discuss these issues just as the Senate Energy Committee is set to tackle these thorny questions at a conference March 10.
Brian Stempeck: Hello and welcome to OnPoint. I'm Brian Stempeck. We're joined today by Jack Gerard, president of the National Mining Association and also Darren Samuelsohn, senior reporter with Greenwire and Environment & Energy Daily. We're here today to talk about coal. Mr. Gerard thanks a lot for joining us.
Jack Gerard: Thank you, it's good to be here today.
Brian Stempeck: First question we have for you is Clear Skies got delayed last week, again, supposedly it's going to be Wednesday. Is that going to happen? Does this bill still have legs in Congress?
Jack Gerard: Well, we certainly hope it happens. We believe it does have legs. I guess the real question now is to find a balance. We're quite confident they can produce a result. We're pleased that we believe there's some serious negotiation going on between the Republicans and Democrats, trying to sort out some of the differences in opinions, some different views on what the bill should look like. We're hopeful it will be enacted. We think it's a critical piece of legislation, both for the environment and for energy production in the United States. So we hope they will come to some resolution to find a fair middle ground and to move the legislation.
Brian Stempeck: Where do you see the areas of compromise being? There's talks going on between both sides. Senator Voinovich is making a really strong effort to try and bridge the gap here. Where could we see a potential compromise to move this thing forward?
Jack Gerard: Well, I think there's lots of parts in play at this time. It's difficult to know any given point or any given piece that will be the compromise area. I think right now there's a lot of talk, obviously, surrounding CO2 for example, but I think we're pleased to note that people recognize that mandatory caps and controls probably aren't the way to go. They're stepping back from that and begin to focus more on technology and the development of technologies to begin to deal with a variety of emissions down the road and further improvement. So I think there's a number of areas where we might find a middle ground or compromise. I think it's too early to predict which one might tip it over the top and move forward it, but there are a number of issues in play.
Darren Samuelsohn: Right now, on the issue of CO2, in terms of a compromise, so far Senator Inhofe and Senator Voinovich have put forward about, I think, it's $650 billion in incentives for integrating gasification combined cycle power plants. That hasn't been enough though to swing a vote from Baucus, Obama, Carper, Chafee, the four people who are most focused on right now. So clearly there's going to have to be a little bit more, maybe a lot more. You're saying that you think the bill will pass, but where's the movement on that?
Jack Gerard: Well, there's a combination of things I think involved here Darren. First of all, when you look at the R&D money as it relates to IGCC or a variety of other technologies the thing we believe is a very positive move is the recognition now that coal is truly the fuel of the future. That coal is here to stay. It's going to have to play a critical role in our development of energy sources for now as far as we can see. So we're now focused on the real heart of that matter, which is technology. How do we find cleaner burning technology? How do we develop the resources to get us to what we as industry are committed to, which is a zero emissions power plant. Once we get to that point, we have made significant progress. We can control the emissions and yet continue to provide the low cost, affordable, reliable energy. But as it relates to where that compromise might be, there have been a number of proposals out there, but my sense is a number of different members have different issues that they want to be focused on.
Darren Samuelsohn: Probably, you say there's a recognition that coal will be the energy of the future. There's also maybe a recognition from the right, from your industry, that climate change requirements are going to be in place at some point in the future?
Jack Gerard: Well, I'm not sure that it's a recognition that climate change requirements will be in place. I think it's a recognition that this is a serious debate and we want to be part of that debate.
Darren Samuelsohn: OK.
Jack Gerard: So when we look at the climate issue, we clearly believe that mandatory caps are not the right approach and without getting into the science, I mean, we can all put up our various scientists and our experts on one side of this or the other side of this. We believe, more fundamentally, when you look at coal as our single largest form of energy in the United States, currently providing over 52 percent of the electricity to all consumers and our largest reserve of future energy, that technology is the answer to all those concerns. Whether you're talking about CO2 or you're talking about NOX or SO2 or mercury, we've got to focus on the technology. Our industry, along with the utilities sector, the rail industry and others who transport our product are focused on trying to develop that zero emissions power plant. When we get to that point we can use coal in a very responsible way, much as we've demonstrated over the past --
Brian Stempeck: Does that mean that you support a bill like what Senator Hegel is talking about? He has proposed three measures, one of which would provide more tax incentives, research and development credits for more clean coal. Also we talked about, potentially, kind of a long shot as a compromise in Clear Skies as a way to deal with carbon. Senator Hegel, on his part, has said he wants to set hearings on the bill for the coming year. Is that something that NMA would support?
Jack Gerard: We're still looking closely at the details of the Hegel proposal, but I think conceptually, again, the important thing is he's focused on technology. He said how do we get to that next-generation power plant? How do we get to a point to where we can take this vast resource of coal in the United States and burn it more cleanly? He's focused on technology development. He's also focused on a critical factor we don't hear a lot about and that is how do we export this technology around the world? When we look at what's going on in China and what's likely to occur in India and places like that, in the future they're going to be huge coal consumers and if we're serious about global issues we've got to address this in a global fashion. Clearly not the approach that Kyoto took and therefore Kyoto ought to be laid aside and let's look at a responsible approach to deal with this. To me it all comes right back to the fundamental question of technology development.
Darren Samuelsohn: Can I pull you back to something on Clear Skies?
Jack Gerard: Surely.
Darren Samuelsohn: With respect to mercury. If Clear Skies doesn't move, even if Clear Skies is moving, March 15 the EPA has to put out a regulation for mercury controlling from power plants. There's going to be winners and losers in this rule. Could you kind of give us a sense of who are the winners and who are the losers and what's at stake for the subbituminous, the bituminous and, I guess, the lignite producers around the country?
Jack Gerard: Well, there's lots of different opinions on who losers and winners might be, but I think stepping back and looking at it more broadly, clearly the best approach to regulation, particularly of mercury, is a legislative approach. That's why we're actively pushing and supporting Clear Skies. What will happen in the rulemaking, though there is an agreement to move ahead with that in the middle of this month, is you'll have litigation over that because some people perceive themselves as losers and others perceive themselves as winners. At some point that will be enjoined. It will go right back to the court system, and we'll spend years figuring out what the rule means and what it requires of us. That's why we think we should step back and as a matter of policy develop a legislative approach like a multi-emissions bill, Clear Skies, whatever you want to call it and put into law what the standards are. Give the industry certainty. Let us know what the rules of the game are and we'll meet those standards, as long as they're based on technology standards to where we know what is we're required to do to operate without being tied up in the court system for the next two decades.
Darren Samuelsohn: Even if there's a trading program like Clear Skies and there's a cap of 34 tons for mercury emissions, does that benefit Western coal versus Midwestern coal?
Jack Gerard: Well again, some people have s difference of opinions on that and how you might handle the allowances or the allocation systems under it, but I think overall it clearly benefits the public broadly. That is it will continue to control emissions, but we need to focus on the technology development. It's too early to predict how the final rule might come out anyway. There's been a lot of comments on, there've been a number of different groups who commented, saying, "Well, some things ought to be adjusted." I don't know what that final rule looks like and until we see that it's difficult to predict who winners and losers might be.
Brian Stempeck: Let's turn to the energy bill for a minute. There's a coal summit coming up on Wednesday, similar to a natural gas summit that the Senate Energy Committee had a few weeks ago. What are you expecting to get out of this summit? Isn't this information, basically, kind of old hat by now after, you know, years of energy bill debate?
Jack Gerard: No, I don't think so. I think the coal summit is a very positive step and a recognition on the part, particularly, of the Senate Energy Committee leadership. Chairman Domenici, as well as ranking member Bingaman and others, are talking now about our single largest fuel source coal, which is critically important to be entire energy debate. When we have a natural gas discussion we have to talk about coal. Why? Because some of the natural gas prices have been pushed up to record highs because we can be, we should be using more coal, if you will, to help bring those prices down. Coal will not only be the fuel of the future, but it can help us relieve the pressure on natural gas prices and other things in our economy. If we want low cost, affordable, reliable energy we need to consider coal. So this energy summit and getting together to talk about coal is critically important. The chairman wants to talk about the consumption side, production side, the impacts to the environment, technology development, transportation, it's a good full afternoon of the various issues we need to look at in developing an energy policy.
Darren Samuelsohn: One of the big pieces to the energy bill is the tax title and right now it's at, I think, $6.7 billion is the limit the Senator Domenici has said will be going forward this year. That's way lower than what was in play last year.
Jack Gerard: Right.
Darren Samuelsohn: Can you live with the number that's there, $6.7 billion, in terms of incentives for coal?
Jack Gerard: Well, we'd always like more and obviously we believe the more the better in terms of advancing technology development. We would prefer a bill much closer to last year's obviously. We recognize these are tight times. The war in Iraq and a variety of other things that are going on as it relates to federal government expenditures. We recognize that number will come down. We are hopeful that people will recognize the need to find some incentive to commercialize these new clean coal technologies. That's really the component we're looking at in the tax portion. What does it take to take this high-risk technology and incentivize companies to invest billions of dollars and move it to the marketplace? It has a huge public health benefit. It has a huge benefit to consumers who rely on electricity. So we're hopeful that Congress will recognize the role those tax incentives will play and provide ample.
Brian Stempeck: How much money is in the tax package for coal? Of that $6.7 billion, roughly, how much are we talking about going towards clean coal?
Jack Gerard: Well, it's difficult to say now, because that number, 6.7, has come down dramatically from where we were last year, probably half or less from where our earlier discussion was. Early on we were talking around the $2 billion range or a little over in the tax incentive side and then a variety of other programs as it relates to the research and development. But we believe we need in the two, two-plus billion dollar range to make a serious run at truly incentivizing and commercializing some of these technologies. So we hope the numbers move up, not down.
Brian Stempeck: Another clean coal funding issue is FutureGen, which is the White House's proposed zero emissions plan.
Jack Gerard: Yes.
Brian Stempeck: It's about a $1 billion plan, money spread over the next 10 years or so. Last year the White House asked for about $240 million. Congress said, and they wanted to fund the program in the later years, going out to about 2010, and what Congress appropriators said, we're not going to do that. They pretty much rejected the White House request and it looks like we're seeing the same thing play out this year. Is there anything new on the FutureGen debate? I mean, are appropriators going to pay for this project?
Jack Gerard: Well, there's a number of things. FutureGen is a research and development platform. As you mentioned, it's a billion dollar program that's designed to get us to that next technology and to move us to the hydrogen economy based on coal-fired power. When you look at that billion dollar proposal only $650 million of that actually comes from the federal government.
Brian Stempeck: Right.
Jack Gerard: The industry is putting in $250 million of that. The history has been, since the clean coal program started, that industry has matched the government dollar almost two to one. There's been over $5 billion expended in this area and two out of every three dollars has come from the private sector. Likewise with FutureGen, the private dollars will help flow to offset that. There'll be some foreign contribution, because, again, this technology is designed to be global. The president has proposed this again in his budget. He's attempted to fund it under these tight budgetary times. What the Hill provided last year was what was needed in terms of the continuum of funding to keep the project going.
Brian Stempeck: But it was only $18 million, it was much smaller than what the White House asked for, and they denied their request to appropriate more money in later years.
Jack Gerard: But that's all that's required under the current plan in terms of what's needed in any fiscal year to fund this project.
Brian Stempeck: Right.
Jack Gerard: And my expectation is this year that they will again fund another 18 or so that they need to keep the project on track and then, obviously, they would like to see more commitment in the out years so as the industry comes to the table with their significant contribution they'll have some assurance those other dollars will be there.
Brian Stempeck: Has the industry comes in the table? I know there was some rumors going around a few weeks ago that industry and DOE were ready to sign a partnership saying, yes we will provide this $250 million for FutureGen. Has that happened yet or when is that going to happen?
Jack Gerard: Well, they're working on it right now. Even as we speak they're in dialogue and conversation working out the details. There are number of issues here beyond just the funding obviously. You're looking at sequestration issues and a variety of new cutting-edge developments and technologies. It's going to take a while to hammer out an agreement, but they're actively pursuing that agreement now. We expect in the next few months that they will come out with some signed document and industry is serious about this. This is real money. We're putting it on the table because we believe this is the responsible thing to do and it's truly the future for our country.
Darren Samuelsohn: In the meantime, between now and FutureGen, which is still quite a ways off, we still have, I think, it's a hundred power plants have been proposed, new power plants around the country.
Jack Gerard: A hundred and eighteen.
Darren Samuelsohn: A hundred and eighteen it's up to now. As we know, I think only a handful of those are actually the IGCC plants, which are the steppingstone for carbon sequestration. How do you encourage more IGCC plants to get put into that mix, you know, of the hundred or so, if they get built, how many will actually be IGCC and how do you encourage more?
Jack Gerard: Well, this really gets back to the tax question. The reason I say that, right now, and people have differing views of this, but most people will tell you somewhere from 10 to 20 percent differential in cost from an IGCC plant to a traditional pulverized coal plant. Really what we're trying to do with this technology development, with the tax incentives and others, is to begin to build some of these, to get them commercialized, to get them into the marketplace because that, once that happens, like with any other industry, you begin to drive the costs down. Once you do that then a lot of your rate base or your public utility commissions and others who have to look at these costs will say, well, these are comparable prices, so when we were looking at protecting the consumer, yes we can go with this latest greatest technology that gives us great environmental improvement, but it does it in a cost effective way or we're not gouging the consumer. So that's really why we're looking at things like tax incentives, to find that very slight differential that will incentivize someone to take that risk and we're talking billion dollar decisions. Once we do that we believe it'll come into the marketplace and you'll see more of the latest greatest technologies.
Darren Samuelsohn: What's your proportional, I guess, how many of those 100 do you think could possibly be IGCC when it's all said and done?
Jack Gerard: I mean that really varies, when you look around the country it's really remarkable what's happened to coal-fired power just over the last one or two years. It's often said that we had more proposals for coal-fired power plants in the last year than we've had in the previous decade and that's true. The balance was tipped to gas in the '90s. There was a clear preference through regulation, through government support, for gas-fired power and what that has done is put us in the current, I believe, gas crisis that we're in. We've driven the price of natural gas up. We're using it for base-load electricity generation when it can be used for other things. We need to think and go back to coal and say coal is the preferred choice for base-load power. We'll help bring that natural gas price down as we continue to build more coal-fired power plants.
Darren Samuelsohn: If I can just stick on this for one more second.
Jack Gerard: Sure.
Darren Samuelsohn: In terms of these new power plants, the environmental groups will say that if the country builds a hundred new power plants and a significant amount of them are not IGCC, coupled with new coal in China and India, pretty much, in terms of the climate change carbon debate, that we're sunk and climate change will be irreversible at that point. I mean, do you have a response to that prognosis?
Jack Gerard: Yeah. I don't think they're right. I think they're just factually incorrect and what I mean by that is, and we're pleased because some of our sharpest critics, some who come from the environmental community, are some of the greatest advocates for some of the new clean coal technologies. They too recognize that the American public needs coal as the base-load power in this country. They're now starting to say, you know, maybe we can burn this cleanly. Our history shows, over the last two decades, in terms of real emissions, we've come down roughly 40 percent. While at the same time, our economy is growing gangbusters. The amount of electricity in this country has grown and likewise, the amount of coal produced and consumed in this country has grown dramatically. So what we're seeing is as emissions are coming down we're using more and more coal. Our strategy is to stay on that glide path, to get to zero emissions where we can take coal, which is our most wide form of energy in this country. Our reserve in this country is equal to entire world oil reserve on a Btu [British thermal unit] basis. It should be the fuel of choice and is truly the fuel of the future.
Brian Stempeck: All right. Well, we're out of time. Jack thanks for joining us today. I'd like to thank both of our guests, Darren Samuelsohn, senior reporter with Greenwire and Jack Gerard, president of the National Mining Association. I'm Brian Stempeck. This is OnPoint. Thanks for watching.
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Water is one of our most valuable natural resources. Besides being vital for our bodies to function, water promotes life in other ways: Without water, we couldn't keep livestock, grow crops, wash food, or regulate the earth's climate. In fact, life would cease to exist at all. Hydrology, the study of water, seeks to better understand our planet's water system s , and hydrologists aim to solve today's water problems. The following provides information about water on Earth and human involvement in water use. Get the answers to important questions: What is hydrology? What is a hydrologist? And how is water used in modern society?
Water and How It's Used Today
In 2000, an estimated 408 billion gallons of water per day were used in the United States. This figure has stayed fairly steady for decades, with the two largest uses of water being irrigation and thermoelectric power. Fresh ground water withdrawals rose 14 percent from 1985 to 2000, data show, though surface water use varied much less. Water is used for nearly everything, and you may not even know it. For instance, more than 400 gallons of water are needed to grow the cotton necessary for a single pair of jeans, while more than 32,000 gallons of water are required to create finished steel for a vehicle.
The Water Cycle
What is hydrology? Hydrology is the scientific study of the properties, distribution, and circulation of water on the earth's surface. The water cycle is an ongoing process in which water is first purified through evaporation and transferred from the oceans into the air and atmosphere, then falls as precipitation back to the oceans and land. Water can be transported through various pathways, such as rain, snow, and even polar ice caps. A hydrologist studies this transportation process to define the quality and quantity of water as it makes its way through the hydrologic cycle.
Studies and Field Work
The job of a hydrologist is to apply mathematical principles and scientific knowledge to solve society's water-based problems, including those of availability, quality and quantity. Topics of concern may include controlling river flooding, finding sources of water for towns and cities, and soil erosion. In the field, hydrologists may gather data, test water quality, manage field crews, or work with equipment. Hydrologists often use computers for analyzing, summarizing, and organizing data and to perform important studies, such as analyzing the effects on water and soil caused by underground oil storage tank leakage. The job of a hydrologist greatly varies in complexity and can include duties near home or abroad.
Collecting Surface and Ground Water
Nearby rivers, lakes, and reservoirs are often needed by cities to meet their water demands. To ensure that the surface water meets availability requirements, hydrologists record rainfall, river flows, and snowpack depths. Hydrologists work with public health officials in the monitoring of water supplies to ensure that health standards are met. If pollution is discovered, hydrologists work alongside environmental engineers to find a solution. Ground water must also be collected and tested after being pumped from beneath the earth's surface. Ground water is cheaper, convenient, and less vulnerable to pollution than surface water. While it has its share of benefits, ground water is also susceptible to pollution and can be difficult to decontaminate. Pollution of ground water is most often caused by the improper disposal of various wastes on land, such as household chemicals, sewer sludge, and landfill garbage.
Options for Careers
Students who decide to get a job in hydrology should possess skills including a strong understanding of mathematics, geology, statistics, chemistry, computer science, and biology. A hydrologist should also have a background in subjects such as economics, government policy, and environmental law. Hydrologists should have good public relations skills and have the ability to work well with others as part of a team. They should also have excellent communication, writing, and speech-giving skills, as these skills are essential for professionals in this field and many others. Overall, hydrology remains a challenging and highly interesting career choice that is invaluable to the earth and all those who inhabit it.
Written By: Lynn Taylor | <urn:uuid:9ec74dfd-4478-46eb-a559-3f85aedd2a40> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.berkeyfilters.com/articles/an-educational-guide-to-hydrology---the-study-of-water/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394987.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00134-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968845 | 854 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Archaeologist and historian of ancient art, born at Stendal near Magdeburg, in 1717; assassinated at Triest, in 1768.
After a wandering life devoted, in spite of scanty means, to the eager acquisition of knowledge, especially of Classical learning, he settled in Saxony in 1748. Here, close to Dresden with its art treasures, he obtained a position in the library of a count and had opportunities to visit the libraries and art collections of the capital.
He derived much benefit from his acquaintance with the painter Friedrich Oeser, by whom he was led to give his attention to the critical judgment of works of art and who stimulated him to write the work "Gedanken über die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in der Malerei und Bildhauerkunst" (1755). In this book, written with extravagant enthusiasm for antiquity, the expression, "Noble simplicity and calm greatness of Greek statues ", occurs for the first time. Winckelmann was also a friend of the painter Dietrich and the archaeologist Heyne.
In 1754, after Winckelmann had become a Catholic, the king, to whom he had dedicated the work just mentioned, took more interest in him and granted a pension which enabled Winckelmann towards the end of 1755 to undertake his long-desired trip to Rome. By a careful study of the collections of painting at Rome, the libraries, the remains of ancient architecture, and especially the collections of antiquities at the Capitol, the Vatican, and the villas of the Borghesi, Medici, Ludovisi, etc. Winckelmann became the greatest authority in archaeology, a position which he maintained for many years. The painter Mengs did much to encourage his Classical taste, and Cardinal Albani, whose counsellor in learned matters Winckelmann became, proved himself a munificent patron. Winckelmann supervised the buildings erected by the cardinal, enriched his collections, and made known their value. He spent considerable time in Florence, cataloguing the collection of engraved gems belonging to Baron von Stosch. Of more importance were his journeys of investigation to Southern Italy, during which he studied the antiquities of Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Paestum. He was not able to make his much-desired visit to Sicily and Greece, yet this did not prove very detrimental to his life-work and his reputation. Although his history of art is based almost entirely upon the study of Roman works of art or Roman copies of Greek originals, yet with prophetic glance he had grasped the genuine spirit of antiquity.
As the first literary guide to ancient art, Winckelmann won such fame that several succeeding generations were satisfied to accept his deductions and criticisms without paying much attention to newer discoveries. As a matter of fact, the "Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums" (Dresden, 1764; with notes upon it, Dresden, 1867) compels admiration not only for the industry of the author, who completed the great work while producing other books on various subjects, but, above all, for the spirit in which he grasped and presented, in general correctly, the conception of art of classic times. Occasionally, however, his views are one-sided and extreme. In 1766 a French translation of his history of ancient art was printed at Paris and Amsterdam. In the first part of the work he takes up æsthetic questions and treats of the origin and form of art, and of the different types under which it appeared in various nations. According to him the first and most important point in works of art is the idea embodied, whether original or partly borrowed; the second is beauty, that is, the variety in the simplicity; the third, technic. In the second part of the history, Greek art alone is discussed and it is brought down to the time of the Emperor Severus and Constantinople. Winckelmann's "Monumenti antichi inediti" (2 vols., with 216 plates, Rome, 1767) is a masterpiece of interpretation and explanation. The great archaeologist died a devout and sincere Catholic (Historisch-politische Blätter, 1858, 299 sqq.)
The Catholic Encyclopedia is the most comprehensive resource on Catholic teaching, history, and information ever gathered in all of human history. This easy-to-search online version was originally printed between 1907 and 1912 in fifteen hard copy volumes.
Designed to present its readers with the full body of Catholic teaching, the Encyclopedia contains not only precise statements of what the Church has defined, but also an impartial record of different views of acknowledged authority on all disputed questions, national, political or factional. In the determination of the truth the most recent and acknowledged scientific methods are employed, and the results of the latest research in theology, philosophy, history, apologetics, archaeology, and other sciences are given careful consideration.
No one who is interested in human history, past and present, can ignore the Catholic Church, either as an institution which has been the central figure in the civilized world for nearly two thousand years, decisively affecting its destinies, religious, literary, scientific, social and political, or as an existing power whose influence and activity extend to every part of the globe. In the past century the Church has grown both extensively and intensively among English-speaking peoples. Their living interests demand that they should have the means of informing themselves about this vast institution, which, whether they are Catholics or not, affects their fortunes and their destiny.
Copyright © Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company New York, NY. Volume 1: 1907; Volume 2: 1907; Volume 3: 1908; Volume 4: 1908; Volume 5: 1909; Volume 6: 1909; Volume 7: 1910; Volume 8: 1910; Volume 9: 1910; Volume 10: 1911; Volume 11: - 1911; Volume 12: - 1911; Volume 13: - 1912; Volume 14: 1912; Volume 15: 1912
Catholic Online Catholic Encyclopedia Digital version Compiled and Copyright © Catholic Online | <urn:uuid:15cfaf99-677b-4998-a16e-354e8d781b8c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=12395 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397565.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00059-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96292 | 1,253 | 2.75 | 3 |
Grapes Of Wrath: Jim Casey As A Christ Figure Essay, Research Paper
In the novel, The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck brings to the reader a variety of diverse and greatly significant characters. However, the majority of each characters? individuality happens to lie within what they symbolize in the microcosm of the Joad family and their acquaintances, which itself stands for the entire migrant population of the Great Depression era. One such character is that of Jim Casey, a former preacher and long-time friend of the Joads. In this story, Casey represents a latter-day Christ figure who longs to bring religious stability to the burgeon of migrant families facing West.
Steinbeck manages to give Jim Casey the exact initials as the historical savior (J.C.), which allows the reader to latch onto this connection from the beginning. Yet, Casey?s relation to Christ goes beyond such mere coincidences, and plays out rather in their similar plans of action. One of the many similarities between Casey and Christ is that Casey had also drifted out to the forests in order to ?soul-search? and discover the answers to sometimes hidden questions. In this particular situation, Casey himself states the comparison of Christ?s and his actions while giving a grace at the Joad?s breakfast table, ?…I been in the hills, thinkin?, almost you might say like Jesus went into the wilderness to think His way out of a mess of troubles? (Steinbeck ch.8). Casey further goes on during his rather rambling grace, ?I got tired like Him…I got mixed up like Him…I went into the wilderness like Him, without no campin? stuff? (Steinbeck ch.8). With Casey?s character openly admitting, without seeming conceited, that he and Jesus Christ are in some way similar, it continues to bluntly let the reader come to realize that Casey was indeed meant to be the Christ figure of this book.
Yet another similarity between Jim Casey and Jesus Christ can be seen when Casey decides to venture off and join a union group in order to prevent strike wages from falling even farther. This represents the event of Jesus Christ and his faithful disciples, traveling with him in an effort to spread their beliefs throughout the people as a whole. In addition, there were many people who wanted to follow Christ and his quest, yet they declined due to fear of persecution, just as the migrant workers feared an upset of government retaliation against trouble-makers or ?reds?.
However, the greatest significance regarding Jim Casey as a Christ figure occurs when the security officers discover Casey and his ?followers?, initiating a struggle and eventually stealing his life with the aid of an ax handle. These events are parallel to Christ?s crucifixion in order to preserve the heart of his cause of religious reform. Also, after Casey had passed, the strike could no longer hold and wages plummet deeper, just as the upper class citizens began to regain the advantage over the oppressed Christian members of society.
Aside from these occurrences in common, there lie a great deal of others. Steinbeck clearly presents Jim Casey as a definite Depression-era representation of Christ in the first portion of the story, while further evidence is present throughout the entire novel. The author uses the character of Jim Casey as a vessel to portray the importance of religion in peoples? lives in such times of hardship, when a family?s unity and faith in God were the only things that kept them going. | <urn:uuid:b0edfbd0-2323-4689-84a1-fa09235c3bcc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://en.coolreferat.com/Grapes_Of_Wrath_Jim_Casey_As_A | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398216.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00145-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971448 | 712 | 2.75 | 3 |
The Refrigeration Service Engineers Society (RSES) Journal published an article on using ultraviolet light in HVAC systems as an alternative to coil cleaning. Although the use of this technology is relatively new, it offers multiple benefits of germicidal UVC technology and energy conservation.
"UVC's growing popularity has been fueled by the trend toward green/sustainable building practices and offers diverse operational advantages:
- Improved air quality by preventing the spread of infectious disease
- Energy savings
- Maintenance savings
- Equipment service life
UVC improves air quality by preventing the spread of infectious diseases, and also by reducing the allergy and asthma symptoms commonly triggered by biofilm, a matrix of bacteria, mold, debris and other organisms that are widely prevalent in air handlers. Additionally, UVC creates safer, more comfortable indoor environments and has been linked to improved productivity in office buildings, reduced absenteeism in schools, and reduced likelihood of occupant complaints."Read the entire article by Robert Scheir, PH.D.pdf (940.8K) | <urn:uuid:d445ffd2-8d16-4d7a-a951-d3381f21ca39> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dgservicecompany.com/dg_service_company/2010/09/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398075.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00038-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942163 | 209 | 2.796875 | 3 |
|5361401||Channel hopping radio communication system and method||1994-11-01||Pirillo||455/62|
|5115433||Method and system for routing packets in a packet communication network||1992-05-19||Baran et al.|
|5079768||Method for frequency sharing in frequency hopping communications network||1992-01-07||Flammer|
|5007052||Method for routing packets by squelched flooding||1991-04-09||Flammer|
|4554668||Frequency-hopping radio communications system||1985-11-19||Deman et al.||375/202|
a) assigning to each node a unique seed value that can be used by a pseudo-random number generator to generate a list of channels in pseudo-random order;
b) determining a channel punchout mask for each node, said channel mask indicating in said first order those channels on which that node experiences interference;
c) at said first node, applying said first node's channel mask to a first ordered channel list to eliminate channels on which said first node experiences interference thereby deriving a masked channel list for said first node;
d) at said first node, determining a channel-hopping band plan for receiving transmissions to said first node by ordering the channels in said first node's channel list according to a sequence generated by a pseudo-random number generator seeded with said first node's seed value;
e) transmitting from said first node to said second node an acquisition packet, said acquisition packet including said first node's seed value and said first node's channel mask;
f) at said second node, applying said transmitted channel mask from said first node to said first ordered channel list to eliminate channels on which said first node experiences interference to obtain a masked channel list for said first node at said second node;
g) at said second node, determining a channel-hopping band plan for transmissions to said first node by ordering the channels in said first node's channel list according to a sequence generated by a pseudo-random number generator seeded with said first node's transmitted seed value; and
h) thereafter transmitting data to said first node from said second node according to said first node's channel-hopping band plan.
i) storing at each node data from which to determine the masked channel hopping band plan of other nodes in the network to facilitate future data transfers.
a) assigning to that node a unique seed value;
b) determining a channel punchout mask, said mask indicating those channels on which the node experiences interference or is otherwise unable to receive data;
c) applying said mask to a list of network channels to eliminate undesirable channels and therefore to obtain a list of available node channels;
d) randomizing said list of available node channels by using a deterministic pseudorandom number generator seeded with said seed value thereby obtaining a unique channel-hopping band plan; and
e) communicating said unique channel-hopping band plan to other nodes in the network by transmitting data from which said other nodes may derive said unique channel-hopping band plan.
a shared medium with a plurality of channels; and
a plurality of intelligent channel-agile nodes wherein each node has the ability of either transmitting on a plurality of channels of said shared medium or receiving on a plurality of channels of said shared medium or both transmitting and receiving on a plurality of channels of said shared medium;
wherein each of said nodes capable of receiving is assigned a seed value and determines a frequency punchout mask for itself from which any node is capable of deriving a unique channel hopping band plan for that node and wherein said band plan is comprised of a random ordering of those network channels on which the node can receive data and wherein the band plans of different nodes in the same communications network are allowed to contain a different number of channels.
The invention relates generally to the field of data communication. More particularly, this invention relates to a technique for establishing a channel band plan for a node in a communication network that utilizes multi-channel hopping. This invention has particular application to packet communication radio mesh networks using frequency hopping.
Packet communication networks provide for the transfer of data packets between various remote locations herein referred to as nodes. Nodes are equipped with transmitters and receivers that can transmit data over a medium, which may be radio waves, fiber optic cable, wire, etc. In order to accomplish successful data transfer, each node must operate in accordance with a protocol determining when it may transfer on the medium, for how long, and, in a multiple channel network, on what channel. Additional protocol tasks include error checking and error correction. Various network protocols and network topologies are discussed in earlier related patents in this field owned by the assignees of the present invention, including U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,115,433; 5,007,052; and other patents mentioned below.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,079,768 (Flammer et. al) issued to one of the inventors of the present invention, describes a peer-to-peer frequency-hopping radio-based communication network in which every receiver node is assigned a different starting point or home slot in a frequency hopping pattern. The frequency-hopping pattern is a randomized ordered list of all the channels available to nodes in the network. The channel order is shared by all the nodes in the network, but contention is reduced by having each node start its channel hopping at a different channel in the list. Transmitters wishing to transmit to a receiver node must switch to that receiver's current frequency in the hopping pattern to transmit a poll packet. The transmitter first listens at the assigned frequency of the receiver to determine if there is any traffic at that frequency. If there is traffic at that frequency, the transmitter waits an interval and the transmitter and receiver both hop to the next frequency in the pattern and the transmitter listens again. Once a frequency is found with no traffic, the transmitter sends a poll packet, and when that poll packet is acknowledged, the transmitter sends a data packet before the hop to the next frequency. In a particular embodiment of this network, frequency hopping occurs once every second.
As discussed the '768 patent, communication on certain frequencies may be restricted in duration in accordance with frequency allocation and bandwidth utilization rules and requirements. Such restrictions may be imposed by a licensing authority, such as the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC). For example, in the 902-928 MHz frequency band, the FCC has proposed a rule that continuous transmission by a single transmitter of no more than 1 watt rf output power on any one channel be of no more than 400 ms duration each 30 seconds, and that at least some if not all other channels be selected prior to retransmission on the same frequency (FCC Rules, Part 15.247). Communication between any given pair of transceivers on a single frequency is thus restricted to packets of information which can be communicated in less than 400 ms, and means must be provided to accommodate communication on other frequencies.
Related co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/193,338, claims improvements to the frequency-hopping communication network of Flammer. According to the invention disclosed in that application, when a target node returns an acknowledgement, the target node reserves access to itself for the polling station at a preselected time for a preselected duration on a specified frequency channel that is different from its assigned channel according the band plan. The source node then transmits its data packet on the target node's data receive channel and waits for an acknowledgement on the same receive channel. The source node and the target node exchange information on the same channel throughout the interchange, even though the assigned receive channel of the target node according to the frequency-hopping band plan may have changed in the meantime. With this improvement, collisions between the data packet and other acquisition packets directed to that target node are avoided because all other nodes will direct poll packets to the target at the frequency according to the target's band plan, while the target remains at the data exchange frequency.
Performance of the network described in the '768 patent is limited in two respects. One is due to collisions that may arise when two nodes happen to start out at the same home slot. With the identical frequency-hopping pattern shared by all nodes in the network, two nodes that start out at the same home slot frequency will always hop together and remain on the same frequency. In a specific embodiment of the network described in the '768 patent, there were just 205 channels available. In a mesh network with a large number of nodes, having two nodes share the same starting frequency is a not unlikely occurrence. According to the network protocol, when a collision occurred, the transmitting nodes wait and retransmit at a subsequent frequency hop. If two nodes where hopping on the same band plan, and one node was very busy, an appreciable number of data packets would be lost and would need to be repeatedly transmitted due to repeated collisions.
A second factor limiting performance in the Flammer network is that the fixed frequency hopping sequence did not allow transmitters to skip channels on which the receivers could not receive data. This problem is particularly acute when nodes are located in possibly disparate locations throughout a geographic area. Since these nodes operate in the radio frequency spectrum, they are dependent upon it for the propagation of the data carrying signals between the nodes. At each particular location, the frequency spectra can have a unique level and pattern of spectral occupancy. Optimum network performance would dictate that those channels that cannot support robust communication at the time not be "bothered with"; unusable frequencies should be seemlessly eliminated, newly useable frequencies should be seemlessly integrated into the frequencies carrying data traffic. However, in the network disclosed in the '768 patent, all nodes were required to hop through all the available channels in the network, even if a particular node could not receive data on that channel.
What is needed is a network with a low-cost, reliable mechanism for establishing a unique channel hopping band plan for each node and that allows individualized seamless elimination of inoperable channels from a particular node's band plan.
In accordance with the invention, a frequency-hopping packet communication network establishes a unique frequency hopping band plan for every receiver in the network. A transmitter establishes synchronization with a target node by receiving from that target a seed value useable by a pseudo-random number generator to determine a frequency-hopping band plan for that target node. In a specific embodiment, the transmitter also receives a "punchout" mask from the target indicating channels to be deleted from the target's band plan. Each node establishes a link table of receiver frequency hopping band plans of each other node in the network within its communication range and uses that table for subsequent transmissions. It is the responsibility of the transmitting node to follow the pre-established frequency-hopping pattern for an immediate target receiver based on information the node has previously acquired in its link table. The frequency-hopping band plan, involving the number of channels and the pseudo-random pattern of frequency change and nominal timing of changes, is universally known to each node in the network. The details and operation of the invention will be better understood by reference to the following description of specific embodiments in connection with the accompanying drawings.
FIG. 1 is a flowchart illustrating how a table entry at a transmitter node is established when that transmitter receives a acquisition packet from a node.
FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating the generation of a randomized channel-hopping band plan according to the invention.
FIG. 1 depicts a flow chart illustrating one step in the establishment of a network connection according to the invention. In one specific embodiment of a network built according to the invention, a node on power up initially has no information about other nodes in the network. The node, when initialized on power-up, knows what channels are available for data transmission on the network, knows the network timing protocol, and has a pseudo-random number generator that it can use to establish its own and other nodes' channel hopping band plans. When initialized, the node is provided with a local frequency punchout mask indicating channels on which it cannot receive or transmit data.
Once a node is turned on, in order to become operational in the network it must acquire network links by transmitting acquisition/synchronization packets on various network channels to any nodes that can hear the transmission. FIG. 1 is a flow chart illustrating the steps a responding target node takes in establishing a network link when it receives an acquisition/synchronization packet. A network connection is established when a target node receives an acquisition/synchronization packet from a source node (Step S1). The acquisition/synchronization packet contains information about the node, including a seed value for randomly ordering a channel list and a frequency punch out mask for eliminating channels from the channel list. The responding target node then constructs a subset of the network channel list by eliminating from the list those frequencies in the punchout mask on which the source node cannot transmit or receive data (Step S2). The responding node then uses the seed value from the source node in the acquisition/synchronization packet as a seed value in a pseudo-random number generator and generates a channel hopping band plan for the source node by ordering the channels according to the sequence from the pseudo-random number generator (Step S3). Once the target node has determined the frequency hopping band plan for the source node, it stores that information in its link list (Step S4). The responding node then switches to the source nodes channel according to the band plan and transmits an acknowledgement/acquisition/synchronization packet acknowledging to the source node that it has established a link and giving the source node its own seed value and punchout list so that the source node can determine the target node's band plan (Step S5).
In a specific embodiment, a network according to the invention operates between the frequencies 902-928 Mhz with 162 channels that are 160 Khz wide. Nodes in the network transmit in their acquisition/synchronization packet a seed value that is one byte long, is derived from their node address, and is co-prime with the number of available channels. Nodes also transmit a punchout mask that is 21 bytes (168 bits) long. FIG. 2 illustrates the generation of a particular node's randomized frequency hopping band plan from a network channel list and a punchout mask according to the invention using, as an example, a network channel list 10 of eight 160 Khz channels ranging from 902 to 903.28 Mhz and, as an example, a punchout frequency mask 20 of eight bits. Network channel list 10 is a list in natural order of all the channels frequencies (in this example eight) available to nodes in the network. Frequency mask 20 is a mask received from an acquiring node indicating channels that are to be eliminated from the channel list, with a zero indicating channels to be eliminated and a one indicating channels used by the source node. A target node logically ANDS together channel list 10 with mask 20 to generate channel list 30 and then collapses the channel list by deleting unused channels to generate channel list 40, which lists the channels used by the target node in natural order. The target node then randomizes these remaining channels using a pseudo-random number generator seeded with the seed value of the source node to generate list 50, which is the channel hopping band plan for the source node.
A pseudo-random number generator is a well known apparatus for generating a "pseudo-random" sequence of numbers. The random number generator is referred as "pseudo" because the method used to generate the sequence is actually deterministic. It typically depends on a seed value used to begin the pseudo-random number generator and whenever an identical seed value is used, the random number generator will produce an identical pseudo-random sequence. In a network according to the invention, each node in the network includes a pseudo-random number generator of identical operation. The generators are designed to accept a seed value and a range value and generate a pseudo-random non-repeating sequence of integers in the given range. According to the invention, each node, therefore, can reproduce an arbitrary length pseudo-random non-repeating integer sequence given the seed value for that sequence and the desired range.
In the example illustrated in FIG. 2, the pseudo-random number generator is provided the seed value from the source node and is provided a range equal to the number of channels remaining in channel list 40 after punchout; in this example, five. The generator then generates the pseudo-random sequence 1, 5, 2, 4, 3 and this is used to construct table 50, with the first useable channel having the first position in the table, the fifth useable channel having the second position in the table, and so on.
The source node itself uses the process illustrated in FIG. 2 to construct its own channel hopping band plan from its seed value and punchout mask.
Once the nodes in a network built according to the invention have acquired link information about neighboring nodes with which they can communicate, the nodes may communicate packets according to any number of frequency-hopping network protocols, including those disclosed in the Baran patent and the patent application Ser. No. 08/193,338, discussed above. As discussed in those patents, during network operation, transmitters are responsible for following their targets frequency-hopping band plans with the difference that each node in a network according to the invention, will have a different randomized frequency-hopping band plan of a length that will varying for each node based on the number of channels that are punched out by that node's punchout mask. In a further embodiment of the invention, a source node uses its own punchout mask when transmitting to avoid transmitting on channels on which it cannot effectively transmit. If a target node is at such a channel, the source node simply waits until the next channel hop before transmitting to that target node.
The invention has now been explained with reference to specific embodiments. Other embodiments will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. It is therefore not intended that this invention be limited except as indicated by the appended claims. | <urn:uuid:c1d5fca9-6952-4881-b1e6-de557d9cfdfc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5515369.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00157-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924182 | 3,725 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Triangular Number Identities
Library Home || Primary || Math Fundamentals || Pre-Algebra ||
Algebra || Geometry || Discrete Math || Trig/Calc
|Algebra, difficulty level 3. Prove two famous theorems of ancient number theory: the sum of any two consecutive triangular numbers is a square number, and the product of 8 and any triangular number, increased by 1, is a square number.|
|Please Note: Use of the following materials requires membership. Please see the Problem of the Week membership page for more information.|
© 1994-2012 Drexel University. All rights reserved.
The Math Forum is a research and educational enterprise of the Drexel University School of Education. | <urn:uuid:03bd1544-1646-4f4d-b2ea-af8f0f58c998> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mathforum.org/library/problems/view/15711.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00134-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.818995 | 152 | 3.53125 | 4 |
January 17, 2011
Japanese Researcher Looking To Resurrect Mammoth
The extinct woolly mammoth could be brought back to life once again, if scientists at Japan's Kyoto University are successful in their attempts to clone the massive mammal using a tissue sample recovered from a mammoth carcass last summer.
Akira Iritani, the head of the project and a professor emeritus at the university, told the daily Yomiuri Shimbun that "preparations"¦ have been made" to use cloning technology to produce a new mammoth from a tissue sample that had been preserved at a research lab in Russia.Iritani and colleagues will reportedly insert cells from the mammoth into the egg cell of an elephant, which has had the nucleus removed. The resulting embryo will then be placed into an elephant's uterus--the closest surviving relative to the extinct creature. If successful, that animal will give birth to a baby mammoth, resulting in the revival of a species that died out some 5,000 years ago.
According to United Press International (UPI), "Iritani said he estimates that another two years will be needed before nuclei can be obtained and the elephant impregnated, followed by the approximately 600-day gestation period."
The Kyoto University researcher told UPI that the chance of producing a successful clone currently stood at about 30%, but as Iritani told AFP, even success would come with some issues and concerns.
"If a cloned embryo can be created, we need to discuss, before transplanting it into the womb, how to breed (the mammoth) and whether to display it to the public," Iritani told the French news agency. "After the mammoth is born, we will examine its ecology and genes to study why the species became extinct and other factors."
Joining Iritani on the project, according to AFP, will be a mammoth researcher from Russia and a pair of elephant experts from the United States. Those individuals were not named.
On the Net: | <urn:uuid:4883d70f-7fd7-4860-9ad1-3e9bda8860b8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1980093/japanese_researcher_looking_to_resurrect_mammoth/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408828.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00102-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956833 | 409 | 3.09375 | 3 |
We Know Our World from the Inside Out
by Juanita Ruth One
Consider two people out for a walk along the shores of the Chesapeake through a light rain on a wintry day.
One person walks briskly, moving comfortably over the soft ground, breathing deeply of the fresh air, listening to the song of the splattering rain, marveling at the beauty of prismatic raindrops on every leaf. This person feels relaxed, present and connected to the environment.
The other person trudges along, trying to avoid the mud. Resenting the rain, this hiker tucks a stiff neck into tense shoulders in an effort to avoid everything about this cold, wet misery. This person feels disconnected and is thinking only of getting through this to some future dry, warm goal in the distance.
What is the reality here? Both people are moving through the same physical space at the same apparent time. Yet their experiences, their individual realities, are quite opposite - each created by their own perceptions. Their perceptions were created by their choice of thought. One chose to be open to and embrace the experience. The other chose to resist it.
Bringing our perceptions into conscious awareness can be very beneficial, for the world we experience is the one we choose to create through our own thoughts.
The Chesapeake Bay community consists of many people, each choosing our own perception. Due to a very human tendency to see things only through our own point of view, we may not appreciate the diversity that creates the fascinating entity we label Chesapeake Bay.
Some of us view the Bay simply as a geographic feature: one of the world's largest estuaries. Others see it as a repository of history where the seeds of our nation were planted and nourished. Yet others recognize it as an area in which a more ancient history was devalued, ignored and abused.
Even those of us who view the Bay primarily through maritime eyes have different points of view. There are commercial mariners, competitive mariners and recreational mariners. Each has its own perception of how to relate to the Bay.
Because people are the lifeblood that flows through the dirt roads or paved arteries of any place, we - who call the shores and waters of the Chesapeake our home - are the energies that nurture or stifle the life of our environment. Our visions, our ideas and ideals, combined with our actions and commitments (or lack thereof) cast us into the role of co-creators of life on and around the Chesapeake. As we begin another year, may we become more conscious of how our individual perceptions - our thoughts and attitudes - contribute to the creative process.
-Juanita Ruth One is both licensed Chesapeake captain and holistic healer.
| Back to Archives |
Volume VI Number 2
January 15-21, 1998
New Bay Times
| Homepage | | <urn:uuid:55d6553e-9105-4dfa-96d0-3da5a12f4e76> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://bayweekly.com/old-site/year98/reflect6_2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00012-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949426 | 583 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Details/Information for Canadian Forces (CF) Operation MATCH
CF Overseas Operations have most often operated within the construct of an international mandate. As such, the International Information is presented first in order to provide the context of the Canadian Operation (displayed second). Eventually, all rotations associated with the particular Canadian operation will also be displayed.
International Operation Name: Misión de Observadores de las Naciones Unidas en El Salvador
International Mission Name: United Nations Observer Mission in El Salvador (ONUSAL)
Mandating Organization: United Nations
Region Name: Central America
Location: El Salvador
Mission Date: 5/20/1991 - 4/30/1995
ONUSAL, a Spanish-only speaking mission, was established on 20 May 1991 by Security Council Resolution 693. Its mandate was to verify the implementation of all agreements between the Government of El Salvador and the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional aimed at ending a decade-long civil war. The agreements involved a cease-fire and related measures, reform and reduction of the armed forces, creation of a new police force, reform of the judicial and electoral systems, observance of human rights, and land tenure reform as well as other economic and social issues. After the armed conflict had been formally brought to an end in December 1992, ONUSAL verified elections, which were carried out successfully in March and April 1994.
ONUSAL tasks as set out in Resolution 693 included actively monitoring the human rights situation in El Salvador and investigating and reporting on specific cases of alleged human rights violations.
On 14 January 1992, the Security Council enlarged the mandate of ONUSAL with Resolution 729. The mandate now included the verification and monitoring of the implementation of “all the agreements once these are signed” at Mexico City between the Government of El Salvador and FMLN. In particular this included the Agreement on the Cessation of the Armed Conflict and the Agreement on the Establishment of a National Civil Police.
By Resolution 832 of 27 May 1993, the Security Council decided to enlarge ONUSAL's mandate to include observation of the electoral process, and requested the Secretary-General to take the necessary measures to this effect.
Of the Central American nations wracked by civil war in the 1980s, perhaps none suffered as much as El Salvador, where more than 80,000 people were killed between 1979 and 1991.
While there had been some guerrilla activity in El Salvador in the 1960s and 1970s, the level and intensity of violence escalated and broadened following a 1979 coup d’etat which promised widespread reform but could not deliver quickly enough to satisfy all parties. Given continuing human rights abuses, dissatisfaction with the government mounted, and in January 1980 a number of opposition groups formed a common front under the name Coordinadora Revolucionaria de las Masas (CRM – Revolutionary Coordinator of the Masses). Two other groups joined the CRM in October 1980 to form the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN – Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front), a coordinating body for five guerrilla groups. The FMLN launched an offensive against the regime in the cities of El Salvador in January 1981. This was defeated, forcing the FMLN to take their fight to the rural areas and operate from neighbouring countries.
With violence extending throughout most of Central America, the Contadora peace initiative was launched, but eventually failed. However, ideas and proposals advanced during the Contadora process became part of the Esquipulas II peace agreement, signed in August 1987 in which, among other things, the Central American nations agreed to respect each other’s sovereignty and to reduce their own, internal, human rights abuses. In part as a result of Esquipulas II, and in part because the civil war was becoming drawn out, the Salvadoran government and the FMLN began negotiations in September1989. That the two sides were talking did not bring an end to the violence – 2,000 people were killed in November alone – but the work of ONUCA, the overarching UN presence in Central America, was having an effect on the guerrillas’ use of neighbouring countries and that had a helpful effect on the El Salvador situation.
In July 1990, the government and FMLN finally signed an Agreement on Human Rights and requested UN assistance. Although it took some time, the Security Council created the Misión de Observadores de las Naciones Unidas en El Salvador (ONUSAL- United Nations Observer Mission in El Salvador) on 20 May 1991 through Resolution 693. The mandate was to verify that both parties were complying with the Agreement on Human Rights and to investigate any allegation of breaches. Fifteen military observers, including one from Canada, deployed in early July to serve as liaison between the two sides and with ONUCA.
The apparent stability and the desire of both sides to end the conflict produced the Act of New York on 31 December 1991, after two weeks of negotiations at UN headquarters. It incorporated all previous agreements and also indicated that the final Peace Agreement would be signed in Mexico City on 16 January 1992. The Security Council supported the enlargement of ONUSAL’s mandate, unanimously voting for Resolution 927 on 14 January. ONUSAL now had three divisions: a Human Rights Division, a Police Division and a Military Division.
The Human Rights Division had already been initiated under Resolution 693 to monitor human rights. The Police Division was created to overhaul the civilian police in El Salvador and creating and training the new National Civil Police.
The Military Division was responsible for verifying that all fighting had ceased, that Salvadoran armed forces returned to their barracks, and that FMLN forces assembled in UN-created “designated locations”. The FMLN forces were required to remain in these designated locations, while Salvadoran military forces were excluded from them. FMLN forces could only leave these areas with an ONUSAL pass and an ONUSAL escort. Once in the designated locations, the FMLN troops would be counted, demobilized and reintegrated into society. ONUSAL would then destroy all weapons, while the FMLN had to declare and destroy all weapons in arms caches. ONUSAL observers also had to verify that the government had eliminated its death squads. The Military Division also helped coordinate and control the clearing of 425 mine fields.
The greater part of the 372 UNMOs for the Military Division arrived in January 1992, including personnel who had transferred from ONUCA to ONUSAL when ONUCA terminated. After the assembly of FMLN forces and the return of government forces to their barracks had been completed in February and March, the number of UNMOs was reduced to 224. The timetable for demobilization was retarded, however, by political developments, most particularly over the issue of land distribution. By 15 December 1992, after assistance from the UN to resolve outstanding issues, the conflict between the Salvadoran government and the FMLN was formally declared to have terminated. This allowed ONUSAL headquarters to further reduce the Military Division.
The Military Division nevertheless remained busy. Mine clearance was a consistent and continuing task, while there were also FMLN arms caches to investigate, especially after one exploded in Managua, Nicaragua, on 23 May. The peace process was not derailed by this incident and a date was set for the first elections involving the FMLN. ONUSAL’s mandate was accordingly expanded. Although there were some irregularities in the 20 March 1994 elections, they were not significant enough to nullify the results. Further Presidential run-offs were held on 24 April.
With elections complete and the FMLN and paramilitary forces demobilized, ONUSAL began reducing its strength. The mandate was extended one last time to 30 April 1995 in order to allow ONUSAL to assist in institution-building, such as supporting the parliament, the national police and the Supreme Court. Although there remained problems within El Salvador when the ONUSAL mandate lapsed, ONUSAL was successful in ending the civil war.
Canadian Forces (CF) Information (MATCH)
Date: 7/1/1991 - 8/31/1994
CF Mission/Operation Notes:
Canadian participation in ONUSAL was named Operation MATCH. The first Canadian Forces officer arrived in July 1991, at the very start of the mission. Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Morris joined the Human Rights division as the military liaison officer. He went on to serve as ONUSAL Deputy Chief Military Advisor, Chief of Operations at a regional headquarters, but more significantly, was called upon to provide technical assistance during the final negotiations between the FMLN and the government of El Salvador in December 1991. He would play an important role in the New York Agreements.
CF participation increased on 17 January 1992 when the remaining twenty-three Canadian members of ONUCA were transferred to ONUSAL. At the request of the UN, Canada provided an additional thirty officers to ONUSAL within a week, giving it the second largest number of UNMOs within the mission. They served mainly in El Salvador on cease-fire verification duties, and when this work was completed, fourteen of the ex-ONUCA officers returned to Canada in early March. The thirty augmentees followed later in the month. That left the Canadian contingent with eleven UNMOs, reduced to ten when LCol Morris retired in July.
The next rotation of Canadian UNMOs came in August 1992 and comprised nine officers, two of whom had been augmentees in January. Eight of the former ONUCA UNMOs also left at that time, reducing Canada’s overall ONUCA contingent to eight. (Its commander would now be the Canadian Forces Attaché in Mexico City.) Two UNMOs were subsequently assigned to UNPROFOR, in the former Yugoslavia, on a temporary basis for eight weeks beginning 27 October, reflected the broad scope of Canada’s peacekeeping efforts in these years. With further reductions in ONUSAL coming in January 1993, the services of six Canadian UNMOs were no longer required, and six volunteered to transfer to the United Nations Mission in Mozambique (ONUMOZ). When two UNMOs were repatriated to Canada and another transferred to the United Nations Operation in Somalia II (UNOSOM II), the Canadian contingent fell to two.
The final Canadian ONUSAL rotation occurred in August 1993, when two officers who had previously served with ONUCA arrived. They remained for their one-year tour, and when they departed in August 1994 Canadian participation in ONUSAL came to an end.
During their participation in ONUSAL, Canadian officers held a large number of key appointments, including Chief of Staff, two chiefs of operations at regional headquarters and one at a verification centre, commanders of GOM, and two Deputy Operations Officer at ONUSAL headquarters. The main task of the UNMOs, of course, was observation – the straightforward task of recording whether or not the two parties were complying with the accords. However, observation was supplemented by more difficult tasks such as meeting with local and factional leaders, setting up demobilization centres, patrol and escort duties and personnel documentation. They thus found themselves to be diplomats one day, policemen the next while maintaining a presence that would bring stability to an area or assisting in delivering aid. | <urn:uuid:16646c3e-2016-4cdf-b520-03ce8396d3cb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/dhh-dhp/od-bdo/di-ri-eng.asp?IntlOpId=135&CdnOpId=160 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396872.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00173-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970115 | 2,334 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Glischrocaryon flavescens – Pale Yellow Pop-flower
These colourful plants (also known as Golden Pennants) are very common in the south of Western Australia particularly after fire or when soil has been disturbed, therefore are often seen growing along roadsides especially gravel ones. There are a total of 5 Glischrocaryon species (genus endemic to Australia) of which 4 reside in WA, the fifth along with some of the others are variously spread across SA, Victoria and NSW, although rarely in the latter.
The Pale Yellow Pop-flower mostly grows south of a line between Kalbarri and the Nullarbor, with outlying records from the Wiluna and Kalgoorlie districts. It also extends into SA as far east as the Adelaide Hills.
Glischrocaryon flavescens is the easiest species to identify as it is the most robust, growing to over a metre (4’) in height with thick stems in excess of 3 mm diameter. The pale yellow/cream flowers and fruits are another give-away, although these can be bright yellow when growing on quality clay/gravel soils. Generally, this and other species will tolerate a variety of habitats, but the Pale Yellow Pop-flower has a greater preference for well-drained loams over limestone, broken rock or gravel, especially on mounds, gentle slopes and hillsides.
The fruits expand during maturity, becoming dry, light and paper-thin that pop when squeezed. These fruits are as ornamental as the flowers, even looking like them from a distance thereby providing attractive displays for long periods, which depending on local weather conditions can be from August to February.
Glischrocaryon belongs to the Haloragaceae family. | <urn:uuid:c3431524-2e72-4451-b948-fe9406f4432a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://esperancewildflowers.blogspot.com/2012/10/glischrocaryon-flavescens-pale-yellow.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00036-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951647 | 356 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Kefallinía (kĕfälēnēˈä) [key] or Cephalonia sĕfəlōˈnyə, island (1991 pop. 29,392), c.300 sq mi (780 sq km), W Greece, the largest of the Ionian Islands. It has an irregular coastline and is largely mountainous, rising to c.5,340 ft (1,630 m) at Mt. Ainos, which in ancient times was crowned by a temple to Zeus. Argostolion, a port, is the island's main town and ships local products such as fruit and wine. Sheep raising and fishing are important occupations on the island. Kefallinía was an ally of Athens in the Peloponnesian War and later was a member of the Aetolian League. The island was taken by Rome in 189 B.C. After the division of the Roman Empire (A.D. 395), it was held by the Byzantine Empire until its occupation (1126) by Venice. It subsequently was ruled by several Italian families, was seized by the Ottoman Turks (1479), and was ceded (1499) to Venice, which held it until the Treaty of Campo Formio (1797). Its subsequent history is that of the Ionian Islands. In 1953 the island was devastated by earthquakes of such force that Mt. Ainos was split. | <urn:uuid:8321a0ba-b61d-43f6-a50b-5fab7b13ec6f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/world/kefallinia.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00013-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983003 | 295 | 2.890625 | 3 |
On December 29, 1890, about 500 U.S. Seventh Cavalry troopers gunned down more than 200 Lakota Indians — including men, women and children — at Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
The Army initially called it “The Battle of Wounded Knee.”
In truth, it wasn’t a battle.
Today, it’s generally called what it really was — the Wounded Knee Massacre.
The famous quote that’s now associated with this tragic event is “Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.”
But those words were not originally written with the infamous massacre in mind.
As he explained in the first verse:“I have fallen in love with American names,
The sharp names that never get fat,
The snakeskin-titles of mining-claims,
The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat,
Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat.”
Books of quotations often include this first verse from “American Names” and the final verse, which contains the famous line about Wounded Knee.
They usually omit the fourth verse, which blithely drops the N-word:
“I will fall in love with a Salem tree
And a rawhide quirt from Santa Cruz,
I will get me a bottle of Boston sea
And a blue-gum nigger to sing me blues.
I am tired of loving a foreign muse.”
Benét’s seemingly nostalgic use of the old racial slur “blue-gum nigger” and other lines in the poem indicate that he was enamored with the romantic sound of many American place names and was oblivious to (or didn't care about) any potential negative connotations they might have.
The poem’s mention of Wounded Knee is simply as one of those good old American place names, which Benét deems superior to “foreign” names.
In the last verse he suggests that the spirits of American soldiers killed in Europe during the First World War could not find peace in their burial grounds over there.
Speaking in the voice of a dead American soldier, Benét ended the poem with these lines:“I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse.
I shall not lie easy at Winchelsea.
You may bury my body in Sussex grass,
You may bury my tongue at Champmedy.
I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass.
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.”
It was long after the publication of “American Names” that its final line became associated with the Wounded Knee massacre.
That literary connection was made in 1970, when American historian and novelist Dee Brown used Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee as the title of a groundbreaking book that tells the history of the American West from the Indians’ perspective.
Since the publication of Brown’s book, the phrase “Bury my heart at Wounded Knee” has been inextricably linked to the massacre that took place at Wounded Knee on December 29, 1890.
It has also been used to poetically encapsulate a broader sense of loss, sadness and outrage over the historic mistreatment Indians in North America.
Perhaps the most poignant use was by the great Canadian Cree singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie.
In 1990, she wrote a song titled “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” which comments on the continuing abuse of Indians and Indian rights by governments and big corporations.
The chorus goes:
“Bury my heart at Wounded Knee
Deep in the earth
Cover me with pretty lies
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.”
I understand that Stephen Vincent Benét is considered to be a great poet and that many people like “American Names.”
Personally, I prefer Dee Brown’s book and Buffy Sainte-Marie’s song. If you read his book and listen to her song, you may understand why some people view Benét’s gushingly patriotic poem as “pretty lies.”
* * * * * * * * * *
Comments? Corrections? Post them on the Famous Quotations Facebook page.
Further reading, viewing and listening… | <urn:uuid:45f5e8f6-d811-423c-8940-34c696b505b8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.thisdayinquotes.com/2010/12/bury-my-heart-at-wounded-knee.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396872.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00096-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949778 | 927 | 2.8125 | 3 |
A growing body of research shows the benefits of exercise for people living with Parkinson’s disease. According to researcher and associate professor of physical therapy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Matthew P. Ford, PT, PhD, music may play an important role in helping people living with Parkinson’s to get moving and stay moving.
Dr. Ford has found music or auditory rhythms (like beats on a metronome) can improve motor efficiency, actually smoothing out gait and allowing people with Parkinson’s to better coordinate movement. By enabling faster and smoother movements, music is a crucial component in developing a regular (and realistic) exercise regimen.
Dr. Ford is one of the primary researchers conducting a study partially funded by the Davis Phinney Foundation about the long-term effects of exercise on cognitive and motor symptoms. He will discuss music, movement and Parkinson’s in depth at The Victory Summit symposium in Richmond, Virginia on Saturday, May 19, 2012. This event is free, and all members of the Parkinson’s community are welcome. | <urn:uuid:8850dc7c-cda3-4a22-b69e-7915757f4949> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.davisphinneyfoundation.org/dpf-blog/music-movement-parkinsons-disease/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398216.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00186-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9331 | 219 | 3 | 3 |
Equal attention to Learning Supports is essential so that:
- Every student will demonstrate academic achievement and be prepared for success after high school;
- Every student will be supported by highly prepared and effective teachers and school leaders; and
- Every school will offer a safe and healthy learning environment for all students.
Dropping out of school is often the result of progressive cognitive, emotional, and behavioral disengagement. Dropout Prevention efforts should promote the various types of engagement and have structures and practices in place to identify students most at risk of dropping out and re-engage those students as soon as possible.
- Personalized learning environments and instructional process;
- Rigorous and relevant instruction;
- Utilization of a data system that accurately reflects the number of students who drop out and identifies individual students at risk of dropping out;
- Targeted interventions that | <urn:uuid:cad9a79c-faba-4777-aefb-3a0eeb476e54> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://isbe.state.il.us/learningsupports/html/dropout-prev.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00188-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951493 | 175 | 3.75 | 4 |
Ypres, on April 22, 1915. This was the first battle in which chemical gas was used in war, and the Germans sent yellow clouds of chlorine gas. French troops abandoned their position, and Canadian troops had to stretch their lines thing to fill in this gap and hold off the German offensive. It was a battle that over four days resulted in 6,037 Canadian casualties. - Canada and World War I Looks like I was wrong it was the Canadians - of all people - who had too save the French surrender monkies in WWI. Claiming the French fought hard is like saying Adam Jones tries hard to stay out of trouble. While it might be true, it is definatly true that their attempts were/are without any meaningful success. Why would the French want another WWI? The only reason they "won" is because other Nations decided to defend them from Germanic domination. The primary reason the French lasted even 5 weeks in WWII was because the Germans had difficulty overcomming the astonishingly bad service. Blitzkriegers don't march thru Paris on Panzers alone. It takes quality time in a French brothel to get a German army over the hump. The French understand this all too well and their strategy of "run away" held the Axis off for apparently a whopping 5 weeks. So we agree that the Brits won the air war over Brittain. And yes if Hitler was not an insane meglomaniac all of Europe would be united under German rule with one currency .... wait. | <urn:uuid:08085512-2814-46bc-823c-073670dc12e0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://gotitans.com/threads/best-buy-admits-it-has-been-ripping-off-customers.26572/page-3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00156-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981186 | 308 | 3 | 3 |
Briggs, R. S. (2006) 'The theological function of repetition in the Old Testament Canon.', Horizons in biblical theology., 28 (2). pp. 95-112.
It is notable feature of the Old Testament that several accounts or passages occur more than once, often in similar but not identical fashion. Such repetitions have o en been a key feature leading to source-critical analyses of Old Testament texts, but several different types of examples of repetition are discussed in order to demonstrate that there is a bigger question to hand: why should the Old Testament canon be so marked by repetitions of material large and small? It is suggested that such repetition is not an unforeseen by-product of the editing and collation process, nor is it simply an editorial desire to include all tried and tested texts regardless of overlap. Rather repetition serves a theological function, which comes into focus when we consider Old Testament texts as a form of testimony. In the light of Deuteronomy 19:15 and questions of trustworthy testimony, it is suggested that textual repetition in the Old Testament serves to foreground a claim to the nature of these texts as reliable witness to the God of Israel. Some hermeneutical implications are explored briefly.
|Keywords:||Repetition, Sources, Canon, Testimony, Witness, Deut 19:15.|
|Full text:||Full text not available from this repository.|
|Publisher Web site:||http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/187122006X152726|
|Record Created:||07 Mar 2008|
|Last Modified:||08 Apr 2009 16:29|
|Social bookmarking:||Export: EndNote, Zotero | BibTex|
|Usage statistics||Look up in GoogleScholar | Find in a UK Library| | <urn:uuid:2b45c81f-a9f1-43c2-abe1-048e84bb708a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://dro.dur.ac.uk/2665/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408828.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00076-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.881093 | 373 | 2.796875 | 3 |
such as "Introduction", "Conclusion"..etc
A combination of bioengineering and medical research at the University
of California, San Diego has led to a new discovery that could pave the
way for more effective treatments for liver disease.
In this work, the researchers have utilized an array system that can
identify the biological components that can lead to or alleviate liver
disease. The technology works by controlling the range of environments
surrounding star-shaped liver cells called hepatic stellate cells
(HSCs). HSCs are the major cell type involved in liver fibrosis, which
is the formation of scar tissue in response to liver damage. The
activated stellate cell is responsible for secreting collagen that
produces a fibrous scar, which can lead to cirrhosis.
Current approaches to identify the factors affecting HSC biology
typically focus on each factor individually, ignoring the complex
cross-talk between the many components acting on the cells. The
high-throughput cellular array technology developed by UCSD researchers
systematically assesses and probes the complex relationships between
hepatic stellate cells and components of their microenvironment. By
doing this, they found that certain proteins are critical in regulating
HSC activation and that the proteins influence one another's actions on
the cells. The findings were published in the September 2009 issue of Integrative Biology.
"We can spot hundreds of combinations of proteins in the matrix
surrounding the cell such as different kinds of collagen – you can spot
them individually and in combination, so you can get hundreds of
combinations with several proteins," said Shu Chien, co-author of the
paper and bioengineering professor and director of the Institute of
Engineering Medicine at UCSD. "We used a spotting pin that's normally
used for microarray DNA spotting. But we spot proteins instead of DNA
"In one step we can look at the physical and chemical
micro-environment of the cells," Chien added. "Now we can look at the
optimum condition that is best for the cells to proliferate and
The high-throughput cellular array technology used in this research
was developed by Chien and his lab colleagues a few years ago mainly
for stem cell research, but it has not been applied to this type of
research before involving hepatic stellate cells.
"Our lab is interested in the cells that are responsible for laying
down the fibrous scar in all types of chronic liver disease," said Dr.
David Brenner, the dean of the UCSD School of Medicine and co-author of
the paper. "In the course of 20 years, people have tried three or four
matrixes to try to optimize their growth. Shu Chien mentioned this
extracellular matrix array that his lab was using for stem cells, and I
thought it would be an incredible opportunity to understand the effects
of different matrixes in primary cell cultures.
"By looking at the array you get hundreds of different combinations
of proteins and you can look at hundreds of cells at once," Brenner
added. "This will give us new insights for the treatment for liver
fibrosis, and it will give us the platform to test new treatments. This
also allows us to do the critical experiments that will assess the
ability of different drugs to work. There are really no effective
therapies for liver fibrosis—there is only transplantation. Any less
invasive therapy would be desirable. This is a big advance."
Chien said such medical advances are the result of the growing
synergism between engineering and medicine. This study involves the
dissertation work of David Brafman, who received his Ph.D. in
bioengineering from UCSD under the joint advisorship of Chien and
professor Karl Willert of the Department of Cellular and Molecular
Medicine. Chien said the next step for this collaborative effort will
be to develop a platform that allows scientists and researchers to
differentiate cells into the kind they want. It's this type of work,
Chien said, that gives the field of regenerative medicine a boost.
Enter the code exactly as it appears. All letters are case insensitive. | <urn:uuid:fe125c75-d927-4233-9d91-b139cb205e26> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.biology-online.org/kb/revision.php?p_id=14466&a_id=5887 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00028-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945737 | 885 | 3.296875 | 3 |
Mish Moved to MishTalk.Com Click to Visit.
Inquiring minds are investigating a 44 page PDF by the Center for College Affordability on why financial aid is ineffective. Please consider Financial Aid in Theory and Practice.
Executive SummaryAmazingly, the article outlines all of those problems and yet ends up with ridiculous solutions such as tailoring a program of grants based on need in conjunction with some sort of preconceived notion as to what an education should cost.
Financial aid programs are supposed to improve access and affordability in higher education. The effectiveness of these programs is increasingly being questioned as college attainment figures stagnate and the financial burden on students and families continues to climb year after year. This report identifies the main culprit for this unsatisfactory state of affairs as a misunderstanding of the effect of financial aid on schools.
Currently, financial aid programs take costs per student as a given, and attempt to offset some of those costs. However, costs are not given. In fact, it is widely acknowledged that colleges and universities are engaged in an academic arms race. Thus, when financial aid programs make more money available to schools, this money is spent and results in higher costs per student. The end result is more costly higher education, generally accompanied by higher tuition, which has negative implications for access and affordability.
Figure 5: Financial Aid, Enrollment, Spending and Tuition, 1986-2007
The original theory of financial aid would predict that the increases in federal aid and state appropriations over the last twenty years should primarily affect enrollments and affordability. Figure 5 shows the trends over time for a number of variables (inflation adjusted where appropriate), each of which is indexed using 1986 as the base year. Since 1986, federal aid has nearly tripled, while state
appropriations (total, not per student) have increased by slightly more than 40 percent. But enrollments at both two and four year schools have only increased by about 40 percent. If one looks at graduates, rather than enrollments, the figures are even worse. Moreover, the financial burden on students, as measured by the level of tuition and required fees, has almost doubled, as has spending per student.
Unintended Consequences: Ravenous Cookie Monsters Engaged in an Arms Race
Fundamentally, there are unintended consequences of the current financial aid system because from the perspective of competing schools, it does not make sense to take their costs, subtract the state subsidy per student, and charge the remainder in tuition (some of the money for which comes from grants and loans to students). Schools have an incentive to spend as much as possible, because spending is useful in building a better school (or at least what appears to be a better school).
The ravenous need of schools for money was originally described as “Bowen’s Rule - All universities, and in particular major institutions with or seeking elite status, will use any and all funds they receive for the pursuit of perceived excellence and improvement.”17 Bowen’s Rule has been confirmed by others such as Charles Clotfelter, who, as Rupert Wilkinson noted, showed that colleges “increased their prices and general spending because they could get away with it – not to make money in itself but to buy the best of nearly everything.” (Emphasis original)18
While spending money in the pursuit of excellence by universities sounds great—who doesn’t like excellence—there is the downside that whatever they spend has to come from somewhere. Indeed, the expenditure of additional resources is the same thing as raising the cost per student. Thus, if the financial aid system allows for schools to acquire additional resources, it will have the effect of raising costs per student.
Thus, the original theory is in need of revision. Instead of taking costs per student as given, the revised theory notes that financial aid can be expected, under certain circumstances, to lead to an increase in costs per student. Specifically, whenever aid is made available to students who are already paying existing costs, it will increase their ability to pay, which is noted by colleges who in turn increase the price they charge these students. The revenue is spent to improve the school, with the consequence that costs per student increase. This increase in costs is typically accompanied by an increase in tuition, which has negative consequences for affordability and access.
Before moving on, I should point out that I am not the first to put forward a critique of the financial aid system. In fact, quite a few people precede me:
- “If anything, increases in financial aid in recent years have enabled colleges and universities blithely to raise their tuitions, confident that Federal loan subsidies would help cushion the increase.”28
- “One result of the federal government’s student financial aid programs is higher tuition costs at our nation’s colleges and universities.”29
- “Ironically, federal programs in totality give incentive for institutions to increase tuition and to set high sticker prices.”30
- “Each institution faces the choice of maintaining tuition at the lowest possible level or of raising tuitions to ‘harvest’ the federal student aid as an indirect institutional subsidy.”31
The first statement is all the more remarkable because it was coming from the Secretary of Education at the time, and later came to be known as the Bennett Hypothesis. It is perhaps the most widely known critique of the financial aid system. The argument is that financial aid would increase the ability of students to pay, but that schools would see this and either (1) raise tuition; or (2) cut back
on their own aid.
How Schools Spend Money
- The University of Illinois spent $6 million on the Irwin Academic Services Center which “helps only about 550 of the school's 37,000 students” because it is restricted to athletes. But, “at least four other schools have multimillion-dollar tutoring centers just for their athletes” including the $12 million facility at the University of Michigan.54
- Princeton built a $136 million, 500-bed dorm ($272,000 per bed, much more than the median home costs).55 MIT’s Simmons Hall cost $194,000 per bed.56
- “Framingham State College will spend more than $191,000 building a two-car garage and
- stone patio for its state-owned president's house …even as the college's budget faces a potential $2 million cut”57
- The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey “spent more than $80,000 in 2005 to shuttle the head of a volunteer advisory board from her home in Pennsylvania’s Poconos to the school’s Newark campus.”58
- Ohio State University spent $140 million60 “to build what its peers enviously refer to as the Taj Mahal, a 657,000-square-foot complex featuring kayaks and canoes, indoor batting cages and ropes courses, massages and a climbing wall big enough for 50 students to scale simultaneously”61
- The University of California gave 16 employees severance checks, and then rehired them. In the most egregious example, one person “left her old job on April 30 and began her new one on May 1.” She was given the same salary, but managed to collect a $100,202 severance payment anyway. And prior to this she was given “a $44,000 relocation allowance and a low interest $832,500 home loan, for which she was not otherwise entitled.”62
- In 2006-2007, 293 employees at private schools made more than $500,000. “[T]he highest paid college employee in the country was Pete Carroll, head football coach at the University of Southern California, with $4.4-million in total compensation (pay plus benefits).”63
Returning to the executive summary, the author, Andrew Gillen states "The only large program that does not contribute to the arms race is the means-tested Pell grant program."
Email Regarding Pell Grants
In response to University of California Campus Erupts In Riots; Student Loan Scam Drives Up Cost Of Education; Expect More Riots I received several emails regarding Pell Grants.
Hey Mish"Art" writes:
I live in Phoenix and have many friends working for the University of Phoenix. there. The big joke there is the Pell Grant. Most first time students call to get it but never finish one day of class. Because it's a grant, they keep the cash and never pay it back.
Thank you once again for exposing the corrupt government policies involving student loans. I also largely worked my way through undergraduate and three graduate programs. When I was in my doctoral program we were able to borrow tuition-level amounts from Pell grants. Those proved quite difficult to repay actually. Just after I finished these programs the loan mavens raised the available amounts, made the loans immune to bankruptcy, and people began borrowing tuition and lifestyle support monies.Pell Grant Money Goes To For-Profit Colleges
The part that you may not be aware of is that financial vampirism has now come full circle with many Universities FORBIDDING graduate students to have any part time employment. They now MUST borrow a full ride. At our hospital we have medical and other advanced students in trainee status. The medical students tell me that they will graduate with over $300,000 in student loans and the Psychology students (depending on their schools) as much as $200,000+ in student loan debt. This means that these professionals must find the most lucrative practice subspecialties to enter or they will never be able to repay these mountains of debt. Many will fail.
The social stupidity of all this is unbelievable. We have a generation of financially crippled professionals coming on. We need these people in the areas of their training, particularly general practices, clinics etc. and yet many will not be functional because they will be fleeing from debt collectors or competing for scarce positions. Many will simply become disillusioned and quit. They will not be able to afford the amenities of life, having families etc. if they play by the rules. On the government-public policy side we have malinvested gigantic quantities of money and degraded the resource, health professionals, that we were attempting to improve.
Let's wrap this up with For-profit colleges haul in gov’t aid.
Students aren’t the only ones benefiting from the billions of new dollars Washington is spending on college aid for the poor.A Real Solution
An Associated Press analysis shows surging proportions of both low-income students and the recently boosted government money that follows them are ending up at for-profit schools, from local career colleges to giant publicly traded chains such as the University of Phoenix, Kaplan and Devry.
Last year, the five institutions that received the most federal Pell Grant dollars were all for-profit colleges, collecting more than $1 billion among them. That was two and a half times what those schools hauled in just two years prior, the AP found, analyzing Department of Education data on disbursements from the Pell program, Washington’s main form of college aid to the poor.
This year, the trend is accelerating: In the first quarter after the maximum Pell Grant was increased last July 1, Washington paid out 45 percent more through the program than during the same period a year ago, the AP found. But the amount of dollars heading to for-profit, or “proprietary,” schools is up even more — about 67 percent.
For-profits are also grabbing a growing share of loans subsidized by the government to help low-income students. They collected about $7 billion in subsidized Stafford loans in 2008-2009, up from $4.7 billion two years before. Taxpayers subsidize the interest rate and take the hit when students default. Nearly one-quarter of students at for-profit schools default within four years, more than double the rate of other schools.
Overall, the sector enrolled about 2.7 million students in 2007-2008, the latest year with complete federal data available. That was only about 10 percent of total enrollment in higher education, but it’s about 2 million more than a decade before.
The numbers are even more striking for low-income students: The number of Pell recipients enrolled in for-profit schools is 50 percent higher than two years ago.
Notice the opening gambit in the previous article: "Students aren’t the only ones benefiting from the billions of new dollars Washington is spending on college aid for the poor."
The reality is students are not benefiting at all, and taxpayers are taken to the cleaners by non-students who take the grant money and run.
The whole scheme of Pell Grants, and government supplied financial aid in general is fallacious.
The best solution is to stop all financial aid for college at both the state and federal level. In addition, it's time for schools to look at administrative costs, teacher salaries, pensions and the even the idea that everyone is suited for college.
Once that is done, costs will come down and more people will be able to afford higher education.
Of course, colleges are free to provide grants based on individual need, academic achievement, and school contributions. Indeed, that is the way it should work. Moreover, if forced by the free market to allocate money wisely, schools will have no choice but to do so. In turn that will keep costs as low as possible rather than as high as government funding allows.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List | <urn:uuid:6d9c9ff4-1364-430d-a5e6-88ef0631fe6a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/03/debt-for-diploma-schemes-and-cookie.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00058-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965338 | 2,816 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Australia's first AIDS death
Melbourne VIC, Sydney NSW
The HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s transformed the social and political landscape in unexpected ways. In the words of documentary film maker Victoria Midwinter Pitt, 'the lepers took over the AIDS colony'. By enrolling and resourcing those communities most exposed to infection to devise and implement prevention strategies, Australian health authorities achieved one of the fastest and most successful responses to the AIDS virus in the world. This pragmatic approach also raised the profile of certain groups within Australian society which had been relegated to the margins: gay men, IV drug users and sex workers. In particular it brought gay activists into mainstream political structures for the first time. But none of this eases the tragic death toll which cut a swathe through an entire generation before the life-saving advent of anti-retroviral therapies in the mid-1990s. AIDS transformed the intimate lives of everyone who practised casual sex and gave us a slogan to live or die by: if it's not on, it's not on.
Between 1983 and 1985, HIV spread rapidly among some 4,500 Australians, mostly gay men in the inner suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne. Medical authorities were grappling to understand and contain the disease. Four Corners visited the epicentre of the crisis in Sydney's Darlinghurst in March 1985 where reporter George Pugh held frank and poignant interviews with doctors, people at risk and those already infected.
Thanks to everyone who contributed a photo of the day that touched their lives to our photo competition. The competition is now closed. See all entries here.
Pick which day means the most to you. See what others voted for.
How does this day rank?
0 Votes for this day | <urn:uuid:27b24cd3-727c-413c-953e-40e6ce253bc8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.abc.net.au/archives/80days/stories/2012/01/19/3411655.htm?WT.mc_id=Corp_Innovation-80Days%7CDay58_GPP%7Cabc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393518.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00063-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935854 | 352 | 2.96875 | 3 |
3D Printed Vertebra
Trending News: Scientists Implant 3D Printed Vertebra
Why Is This Important?The latest example of how 3D printing will eventually live up to the hype.
3D printing continues to prove useful to doctors: The latest innovation is a custom-made vertebra implanted in a 12 year-old patient at Peking University. The technology allows implants to be tailored specifically for an individual's size, shape and bone structure, making them much safer and effective in the long term.
Long Story Short
Long Story3D printing technology has struggled to break out beyond its gimmicky niche, but it's beginning to be applied in genuinely useful ways in a select number of hospitals across the world. Peking University's Third Hospital has been running trials of 3D-printed implants, and has announced that the world's first 3D-printed vertebra has been successfully fixed inside the body of a 12 year-old patient. The bespoke titanium implants were crafted to replace damaged and cancerous sections of the boy's original spine.
What makes the technology so promising is that each implant can be custom-made to suit the patient in question, rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all approach that can lead to complications further down the line. The orthopedic cement and screws traditionally used in such operations aren't required — the doctors included tiny pores in the implant that will allow the boy's bones to 'grow' into them.
"We started clinical trials on 3D produced implants late last year, and now we have used dozens of such implants in more than 50 patients," said Liu Zhongjun, one of the department's directors. "All the patients recover very well. Nobody seems to have any undesirable side effects or adverse reaction."
"Although the probability is very low, it is possible that under long-term pressure from inside the body, traditional implants might plug into bones gradually, or become detached from bones," he added. "But there will be no such problems for 3D printed implants."
The 3D printing process, also known as additive manufacturing, creates objects one thin layer at a time. Up until now, this has largely been confined to small plastic items, but as the number of materials and the scope of the technology widens, more uses are being found. Rations for army soldiers, replacement parts for equipment and even emergency shelters for disaster zones are all now within the reach of 3D printing.
Own The ConversationAsk The Big Question: With 3D-printed implants now a reality, how long before doctors and scientists can produce a 3D-printed organ?
Disrupt Your Feed: 3D printed implants is the first step towards a future where humans will be indistinguishable from machines.
Drop This Fact: Amazon is already offering custom 3D printed objects on their website.
Have a question? Get it answered by AskMen's guyQ. | <urn:uuid:e65dee56-7d3c-4547-b230-e879b154e736> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.askmen.com/news/tech/3d-printed-vertebra.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00163-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943678 | 594 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Phase State Diagrams
Library Home || Full Table of Contents || Suggest a Link || Library Help
|Phase diagrams reveal much information about physical phenomena. Brochmann illustrates with a variety of graphs created by computer programs. Phase state diagrams of unstable orbits reveal 'strange attractors', useful in a variety of fields including cardiology and meteorology. The attractors found in phase state diagrams of human heart beats are an indication of the heart's state of health. In meteorology, phase state diagrams of such data as temperature and wind velocity can reveal the reliability of the predictions made.|
|Math Topics:||Graphing of Data, Medicine/Health, Computer Science, Meteorology|
© 1994- The Math Forum at NCTM. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:a3ee36e4-e0d2-4b63-bf07-2339a99c212d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mathforum.org/library/view/8393.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398869.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00115-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.757196 | 156 | 2.84375 | 3 |
We need to play it safe with our young athletes
In professional sports, the spotlight is focusing on concussions more and more these days, especially in football. Contact sports create a lot of potential for head injury, and whether or not the injuries are immediately life-threatening, they should be taken much more seriously. While professional athletes have access to the best diagnosis and monitoring of head trauma, most youth athletes do not.
Few regulations are in place to ensure that helmets are properly worn during games. Too many people have suffered the detriments of concussions, simply because preventive measures weren’t effectively utilized. An emphasis needs to be placed on how to properly fit and wear helmets, not only by athletes, but by parents and coaches as well. Additionally, coaches should be knowledgeable of the warning signs of concussions, even if minor.
While concussions are talked about rather often, seldom does one hear about Second-Impact Syndrome. Even if an initial concussion does not seem a valid reason for an athlete to sit out the rest of the game, the possible effects of a second could be completely debilitating. Coaches need to make it more of a point to play it safe with their athletes to prevent life-altering damage from occurring. With the basic knowledge needed to spot a minor concussion, coaches can help protect our youth and promise them longer sports careers. | <urn:uuid:8ba2fc95-b279-4449-b45b-3079add8f53d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.buffalonews.com/20130503/Letter_We_need_to_play_it_safe_with_our_young_athletes.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395548.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00139-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967609 | 275 | 2.953125 | 3 |
FREDERICK, Md. (AP) — A new study authored by Army scientists at Fort Detrick reports that a treatment grown in tobacco plants cured three of seven monkeys that developed symptoms from the deadly Ebola virus.
The Frederick News-Post reports (http://bit.ly/17NdrFs ) the treatment, called MB-003, had previously been shown to be highly effective in monkeys given the treatment within one or two hours of exposure — 100 percent effective within one hour and 67 percent effective within two hours.
In the study published Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine, researchers waited until the monkeys developed symptoms before administering the treatment.
“In a real outbreak, folks don’t know if they’re infected and we would have to wait for them to show up in a clinic to see if they were infected,” said Dr. Gene Olinger, a virologist with the Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) who helped lead the study.
Researchers say the 43 percent cure rate on symptomatic monkeys shows promise.
MB-003 is made through an effort with San Diego-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical and manufactured using tobacco plants grown under artificial light in Kentucky.
No vaccines or treatments are approved for Ebola virus in humans, which is highly contagious and deadly. The virus is a source of fear in Africa, where outbreaks since 2000 have killed hundreds.
Information from: The Frederick (Md.) News-Post, http://www.fredericknewspost.com | <urn:uuid:bcf511eb-a489-41fb-ae95-4e77a10cd017> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ksn.com/2013/08/22/study-ebola-treatment-shows-promise/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00014-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939927 | 319 | 2.828125 | 3 |
|Name: _________________________||Period: ___________________|
This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. What causes greater enmity between Michael and Henchard?
(a) Donald pushes Henchard in public.
(b) Lucetta tells Donald the truth about her affair.
(c) Donald is forced to dismiss Henchard as a journeyman.
(d) Henchard pushes Donald in public.
2. What does Henchard warn Lucetta?
(a) Henchard challenges Farfrae to a fight.
(b) That if she is not nice, he tells Donald the truth.
(c) That over time, Henchard expects partnership or the truth of the affair is revealed.
(d) Though Henchard may not say a word, Farfrae hears the truth somewhere.
3. On the day of the skimmity ride, who knows where Donald goes to?
(a) Lucetta and Elizabeth.
(b) Henchard and Whittle.
(c) Whittle and Elizabeth.
(d) Lucetta and Henchard.
4. What makes Henchard change his mind about his fight even before it begins?
(a) Donald sings a reminiscent song.
(b) Henchard knows he is much too strong for Donald.
(c) Donald remembers Farfrae gives him a job.
(d) Michael sees Lucetta sitting innocently in the carriage.
5. How does Newson show he is a good father?
(a) Newson keeps a lock of Elizabeth's hair at all times to remember her.
(b) He finds Elizabeth to help financially support her.
(c) He buys Elizabeth a store to help her make an income.
(d) He brings Elizabeth many gifts on his return.
Short Answer Questions
1. What unexpected thing does Michael do at the parade?
2. What does Henchard's will request?
3. Michael is paranoid that Donald ___________.
4. What becomes of Newson?
5. Newson confesses he fakes his death. Why does Newson fake it?
Short Essay Questions
1. Whittle is not a main character, and yet plays a significant role at the end of Michael's life. Why does Hardy choose Whittle to care for Henchard? What does Whittle represent?
2. Of all the places that Lucetta chooses to meet Michael, why at the Ring? Hardy sets it there in the novel, but Lucetta is unaware that Susan and Michael meet there before. What is the importance of the Ring in this chapter?
3. When Henchard goes bankrupt and feels shame, he turns to Jopp. Despite his harsh behavior towards Jopp, why does Henchard turn to him?
4. Henchard worries that Newson returns and unfolds the truth to Elizabeth. Yet, when Elizabeth goes to Michael for advice and meeting an anonymous person, Henchard tells her to go. Henchard is aware this person is Newson, so why does Henchard not tell her it is dangerous or give some excuse? Why does he lead her to the truth despite knowing he loses her?
5. In chapter 42, Michael disagrees about some of Elizabeth's decisions. How does Michael show that he is actively changing for the better?
6. After a visit to Ten Hatches Hole, Michael goes back to see Elizabeth. Henchard refers to himself as unlearned and ignorant. How does this show how Michael thinks differently of Elizabeth, even though he speaks about himself?
7. In Lucetta's illness and death, how does Lucetta manage to manipulate the people around her? How does her reaction to the effigy, intentional or not, play her "practicable weapon"?
8. Michael sees his effigy in the river and begins to lose any composure he has left. What is Michael thinking when he realizes what the image is?
9. Henchard reads Lucetta's letters aloud to Farfrae. Although the author is unknown to Farfrae, what do the letters say about the woman who writes them?
10. After Henchard's bankruptcy, Henchard becomes an associate of the lower class. He now works beside them, dresses in shabby clothing, and lives in the same vicinity. But how is Henchard different from the lower class? What large difference do he and Jopp have despite their similar circumstances?
This section contains 1,629 words
(approx. 6 pages at 300 words per page) | <urn:uuid:3daab058-d50a-4443-a466-c5d565a58b20> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bookrags.com/lessonplan/mayorcasterbridge/test4.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00133-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939588 | 961 | 2.875 | 3 |
Located in the Black Hills of South Dakota, Mount Rushmore towers over the many visitors to its historic base. But underneath these 60-foot high faces, deep within the bowels of the Black Hills, are some of the oldest caves in the United States.
“These caves display more boxwork than any other in the world. They also form some of the largest concentrations of passageways in the world,” according to the official South Dakota tourism website. All of the caves in the Black Hills are limestone caves. International students can see a variety of rare formations from dogtooth spar crystals to stalactites.
Eight Black Hill Caves are open to the public and two are part of the National Park Service, Wind Cave National Park and Jewel Cave National Monument.
Wind Cave stretches over 100 miles long and was the first cave to be designated as a National Park. It contains the world’s largest concentration of boxwork. Above ground is a wildlife sanctuary of 28,295 acres for antelope, bison, elk, and prairie dogs, among other animals.
Jewel Cave National Monument is the second-longest cave in the world at over 150 miles discovered. Admission is free unless you want a guided tour.
If you decide to study in South Dakota, you will have the chance to spend the day exploring these caves. Jewel National Cave Monument is in Custer which is about an hour from Rapid City. Rapid City is home to several colleges and universities including National American University and The School of Mines and Technology. Black Hills State University is about an hour away in Spearfish.
Just six miles from Mount Rushmore is the Rushmore Cave. At Rushmore Cave international students in South Dakota can take scenic cave tours, go spelunking or soar 700 feet down the mountainside on the new Soaring Eagle Zipline. At the end of a cave tour is the Big Room, famous around the area as one of the largest decorated cavern rooms with stalactites dangling from its ceilings and walls.
There is plenty of exploration for an international student planning to study in South Dakota! | <urn:uuid:e5a4bf6b-374b-4691-8d81-192500c2fc1f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blog.internationalstudent.com/2012/06/study-in-south-dakota/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00152-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925951 | 432 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Researching Mental Records
by Ruby Coleman
Genealogical research often requires different and unique methods of research, one of which can be exploring records of mental cases. No lineage is without some ancestors or relatives with unusual behavior, mild or severe. The first clues to this often come from stories told through generations, usually mentioning mental instability or hospitalization.
More clues can be found in reading census records which apply labels, such as "insane" or "idiot," beside the name of a specific individual. Mortality records for 1850-1880 may contain clues that a person died of insanity. While brief in that they pertain only to deaths that occurred within one census year prior to the date of the actual census, they should always been checked.
The Defective, Dependent and Delinquent Classes (DDD) census was prepared in 1880. It is a separate enumeration and not within the actual 1880 United States census. The enumerator was supposed to list insane
inhabitants, idiots, deaf-mutes, blind, paupers and indigent inhabitants, homeless children and inhabitants of prisons on this special enumeration.
If an ancestor or relative died within a mental institution and after death records were being kept in the county or on a state basis, be sure to check for a death certificate. The informant most likely would be someone at the institution. However, these records may contain interesting clues. Some mental institutions had their own cemeteries on nearby property. Always look for cemetery listings in the county to see if there is a cemetery that is identified as belonging to the mental institution or where indigents in the institution were buried. The body may have been claimed by next-of-kin with burial in a family or home town cemetery.
Normally there was some type of court record which names the person considered to be insane, along with an inquest into their condition and disposition papers as t
o where they would be sent. These will usually contain names of family members, in particular a spouse or parent, along with
the name of an attending physician and details of condition. A guardian may have been appointed for minor children, or to tend to the insane person's affairs.
These records can be found in the probate matters in some courthouse jurisdictions. Check the probate index as well as a special indexing to guardianships. If the person was insane but being cared for by relatives or friends, you may find information on them in court minute books. Perhaps the relative or friend was being paid monthly or quarterly for their upkeep.
If you are certain that the individual was placed in a mental hospital, begin looking for the institution that was in existence in the given area (state) at the correct period of time. Some states had more than one mental hospital. Search engines on Internet can be helpful. Also check the state government web pages or phone books for state mental health departments. If none of these work, contact the state library or archives to learn more about which hospitals were in existence at a
Mental hospitals which are still in existence may have records archived on site, or they may have been destroyed or removed to another location. Communicate to learn which records are available and their policies for mail requests or onsite research. The older the records, the less chance they may still be in existence. If the mental hospital no longer exists, inquire at the local historical society or state archives/library as to where their records may be located.
Not all mental hospitals will release records to relatives, particularly those removed a few generations. Even if the person of inquiry has been deceased for many years, they often consider the records closed permanently. When contacting these institutions, be sure to make your request specific and clear as to your purpose and state your relationship to the patient.
If you are fortunate to obtain records from a mental hospital, they should contain the patient's name and medical diagnosis, date admitted, place of
birth, information on next-of-kin, date of death and cause of death, and place of burial. Many patients stayed in the mental hospitals for many years or until death. Be sure to ask if there is correspondence in their file from relatives.
People were admitted to mental hospitals for illnesses that today would merely require medicine and understanding. Many women were admitted in their menopausal years as their conditions were not understood by spouse and family members. Manic-depression, which is today called biopolar affective disorder, was another cause for admittance. In my own family there was a case of epilepsy which was cause in the early 1900s for admittance to the mental institution. An interesting article on mental illness history can be found on Internet at http://cscwww.cats.ohiou.edu/~ridges/history.html.
While it is time consuming to research these type of records, it is also worthwhile to learn more about the ancestor or re
lative and their health problems. Many family connections can also be discovered if you are fortunate to locate mental records.
<< Tracing Lines | <urn:uuid:14971954-5a0d-4fdc-81ae-ce32ac85f2ab> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.genealogytoday.com/columns/ruby/050221.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00164-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971437 | 1,027 | 2.890625 | 3 |
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